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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Roman World, by John Lord
+#3 in our series by John Lord
+
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+Title: The Old Roman World
+
+Author: John Lord
+
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6839]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 31, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD ROMAN WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert Nield, Tom Allen, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo,
+Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+THE OLD ROMAN WORLD
+
+THE GRANDEUR AND FAILURE OF ITS CIVILIZATION
+
+BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE CONQUESTS OF THE ROMANS.
+
+Early History of Rome--Wars under the Kings--Their Results--Gradual
+Subjection of Italy--Great Heroes of the Republic--Their Virtues and
+Victories--Military Aggrandizement--The Carthaginian, Macedonian, and
+Asiatic Wars--Their Consequences--Civil Wars of Marius and Sulla, of
+Pompey and Caesar--The Conquests of the Barbarians--Extension of Roman
+Dominion in the East--Conquests of the Emperors--The Military Forces of
+the Empire--Military Science--The Roman Legion--The Military Genius of
+the Romans
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE MATERIAL GRANDEUR AND GLORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+The vast Extent of the Empire--Boundaries--Rivers and Mountains--The
+Mediterranean and its Islands--The Provinces--Principal Cities--Great
+Architectural Monuments--Roads--Commerce--Agriculture--Manufactures--
+Wealth--Population--Unity of the Empire
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE WONDERS OF ANCIENT ROME.
+
+Original Settlement--The Seven Hills--Progress of the City--Principal
+Architectural Monuments--A Description of the Temples, Bridges,
+Aqueducts, Forums, Basilicas, Palaces, Amphitheatres, Theatres,
+Circuses, Columns, Arches, Baths, Obelisks, Tombs--Miscellaneous
+Antiquities--Streets--Gardens--Private Houses--Populous Quarters--
+Famous Statues and Pictures--General Magnificence--Population
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ART IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+The great Wonders of Ancient Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting--
+Famous Artists of Antiquity--How far the Romans copied the Greeks--How
+far they extended Art--Its Principles--Its Perfection--Causes of its
+Decline--Permanence of its grand Creations
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION.
+
+The Original Citizens--Comitia Calata--Comitia Curiata--Comitia
+Centuriata--Comitia Tributa--The Plebs--Great Patrician Families--The
+Aristocratic Structure of ancient Roman Society--The Dignity and Power
+of the Senate--The Knights--The Growth of the Democracy--Contests
+between Patricians and Plebeians--Rise of Tribunes--Popular Leaders--
+Their Laws--The Great Officers of State--Provincial Governors--
+Usurpations of fortunate Generals--The Revolution under Julius Caesar and
+Augustus--Imperial Despotism--Preservation of the Forms of the
+Republic, and utter Prostration of its Spirit
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+Genius of the Romans for Government and Laws--Development of
+Jurisprudence--Legislative Sources--Judicial Power--Courts of Law--The
+Profession of Law--Great Lawyers and Jurists--Ancient Codes--Imperial
+Codes--The Law of Persons--Rights of Citizens, of Foreigners, of Slaves--
+Laws of Marriage, of Divorce, of Adoption--Paternal Power--
+Guardianship--Laws relating to Real Rights--Law of Obligations--Laws of
+Succession--Testaments and Legacies--Actions and Procedure in Civil
+Suits--Criminal Law
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+The Grecian Models--How far they contributed to Roman Creations--The
+Development of the Latin Language--The Orators, Poets, Dramatists,
+Satirists, Historians, and their chief Works--How far Literature was
+cultivated--Schools--Libraries--Literary Legacies of the Romans
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
+
+Its gradual Development from Thales to Aristotle--How far the Romans
+adopted the Greek Philosophy--What Additions they made to it--How far it
+modified Roman Thought and Life--Influence of Philosophy on
+Christianity--Influence on modern Civilization
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE ROMANS.
+
+The Mathematical Genius of the Old Astronomers--Their Labors and
+Discoveries--Extent of Astronomical Knowledge--The Alexandrian School--
+The Science of Geometry and how far carried--Great Names--Medicine--
+Geography--Other Physical Sciences and their limited Triumphs
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+INTERNAL CONDITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+The Vices and Miseries of Roman Society--Social Inequalities--
+Disproportionate Fortunes--The Wealth and Corruption of Nobles--
+Degradation of the People--Vast Extent of Slavery--The Condition of
+Women--Demoralizing Games and Spectacles--Excessive Luxury and squalid
+Misery--Money-making--Imperial Misrule--Universal Egotism and
+Insensibility to grand Sentiments--Hopelessness of Reform--Preparation
+for Ruin
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
+
+False Security of the Roman People--Their stupendous Delusions--The
+Invasion of Barbarians--Their Characteristics--Their alternate Victory
+and Defeat--Desolation of the Provinces--The Degeneracy of the Legions--
+General Imbecility and Cowardice--Great public Misfortunes--General
+Union of the Germanic Nations--Their Leaders--Noble but vain Efforts of
+a Succession of warlike Emperors--The rising Tide of Barbarians--Their
+irresistible Advance--The Siege and Sack of Rome--The Fall of Cities--
+Miseries of all Classes--Universal Despair and Ruin--The Greatness of
+the Catastrophe--Reflections on the Fall of Rome
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE REASONS WHY THE CONSERVATIVE INFLUENCES OF PAGAN CIVILIZATION DID
+NOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE ROMAN WORLD.
+
+Necessary Corruption of all Institutions under Paganism--Glory succeeded
+by Shame--The Army a worn-out Mechanism--The low Aims of Government--
+Difficulties of the Emperors--Laws perverted or unenforced--The
+Degeneracy of Art--The Frivolity of Literature--The imperfect Triumph
+of Philosophy--Nothing Conservative in human Creations--Necessity of
+Aid from foreign and Divine Sources
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+WHY CHRISTIANITY DID NOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+The Victories of Christianity came too late--Small Number of Converts
+when Christianity was a renovating Power--Their comparative Unimportance
+in a political and social View for three Centuries--The Church
+constructs a Polity for Itself rather than seeks to change established
+Institutions--Rapid Corruption of Christianity when established, and
+Adoption of Pagan Ideas and Influences--No Renovation of worn-out Races--
+No Material on which Christianity could work--Not the Mission of the
+Church to save Empires, but the Race--A diseased Body must die
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE LEGACY OF THE EARLY CHURCH TO FUTURE GENERATIONS.
+
+The great Ideas which the Fathers propounded--The Principle of Self-
+sacrifice, seen especially in early Martyrdoms--The Idea of Benevolence
+in connection with public and private Charities--Importance of public
+Preaching--Pulpit Oratory--The Elaboration of Christian Doctrine--Its
+Connection with Philosophy--Church Psalmody--The Principle of Christian
+Equality--Its Effects on Slavery and the Elevation of the People--The
+Social Equality of the Sexes--Superiority in the condition of the modern
+over the ancient Woman--The Idea of Popular Education--The Unity of the
+Church
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I propose to describe the Greatness and the Misery of the old Roman
+world; nor is there any thing in history more suggestive and
+instructive.
+
+A little city, founded by robbers on the banks of the Tiber, rises
+gradually into importance, although the great cities of the East are
+scarcely conscious of its existence. Its early struggles simply arrest
+the attention, and excite the jealousy, of the neighboring nations. The
+citizens of this little state are warriors, and, either for defense or
+glory, they subdue one after another the cities of Latium and Etruria,
+then the whole of Italy, and finally the old monarchies and empires of
+the world. In two hundred and fifty years the citizens have become
+nobles, and a great aristocracy is founded, which lasts eight hundred
+years. Their aggressive policy and unbounded ambition involve the whole
+world in war, which does not cease until all the nations known to the
+Greeks acknowledge their sway. Everywhere Roman laws, language, and
+institutions spread. A vast empire arises, larger than the Assyrian and
+the Macedonian combined,--a universal empire,--a great wonder and
+mystery, having all the grandeur of a providential event. It becomes too
+great to be governed by an oligarchy of nobles. Civil wars create an
+imperator, who, uniting in himself all the great offices of state, and
+sustained by the conquering legions, rules from East to West and from
+North to South, with absolute and undivided sovereignty. The Caesars
+reach the summit of human greatness and power, and the city of Romulus
+becomes the haughty mistress of the world. The emperor is worshiped as a
+deity, and the proud metropolis calls herself eternal. An empire is
+established by force of arms and by a uniform policy, such as this world
+has not seen before or since.
+
+Early Roman history is chiefly the detail of successful wars, aggressive
+and uncompromising, in which we see a fierce and selfish patriotism, an
+indomitable will, a hard unpitying temper, great practical sagacity,
+patience, and perseverance, superiority to adverse fortune, faith in
+national destinies, heroic sentiments, and grand ambition. We see a
+nation of citizen soldiers, an iron race of conquerors, bent on
+conquest, on glory, on self-exaltation, attaching but little value to
+the individual man, but exalting the integrity and unity of the state.
+We see no fitful policy, no abandonment to the enjoyment of the fruits
+of victory, no rest, no repose, no love of art or literature, but an
+unbounded passion for domination. The Romans toiled, and suffered, and
+died,--never wearied, never discouraged, never satisfied, until their
+mission was accomplished and the world lay bleeding and prostrate at
+their feet.
+
+In the latter days of the Republic, the Roman citizen, originally
+contented with a few acres in the plains and valleys through which the
+Tiber flowed, becomes a great landed proprietor, owning extensive
+estates in the conquered territories, an aristocrat, a knight, a
+senator, a noble, while his dependents disdained to labor and were fed
+at the public expense. The state could afford to give them corn, oil,
+and wine, for it was the owner of Egypt, of Greece, of Asia Minor, of
+Syria, of Spain, of Gaul, of Africa,--a belt of territory around the
+Mediterranean Sea one thousand miles in breadth, embracing the whole
+temperate zone, from the Atlantic Ocean to the wilds of Scythia. The
+Romans revel in the spoils of the nations they have conquered, adorn
+their capital with the wonders of Grecian art, and abandon themselves to
+pleasure and money-making. The Roman grandees divide among themselves
+the lands and riches of the world, and this dwelling-place of princes
+looms up the proud centre of mundane glory and power.
+
+In the great success of the Romans, we notice not only their own heroic
+qualities, but the hopeless degeneracy of the older nations and the
+reckless turbulence of the western barbarians, both of whom needed
+masters.
+
+The conquered world must be governed. The Romans had a genius for
+administration as well as for war. While war was reduced to a science,
+government became an art. Seven hundred years of war and administration
+gave experience and skill, and the wisdom thus learned became a legacy
+to future civilizations.
+
+It was well, both for enervated orientals and wild barbarians, to be
+ruled by such iron masters. The nations at last enjoyed peace and
+prosperity, and Christianity was born and spread. A new power silently
+arose, which was destined to change government, and science, and all the
+relations of social life, and lay a foundation for a new and more
+glorious structure of society than what Paganism could possibly create.
+We see the hand of Providence in all these mighty changes, and it is
+equally august in overruling the glories and the shame of a vast empire
+for the ultimate good of the human race.
+
+If we more minutely examine the history of either Republican or Imperial
+Rome, we read lessons of great significance. In the Republic we see a
+constant war of classes and interests,--plebeians arrayed against
+patricians; the poor opposed to the rich; the struggle between capital
+and labor, between an aristocracy and democracy. Although the favored
+classes on the whole retained ascendancy, yet the people constantly
+gained privileges, and at last were enabled, by throwing their influence
+into the hands of demagogues, to overturn the constitution. Julius
+Caesar, the greatest name in ancient history, himself a patrician, by
+courting the people triumphed over the aristocratical oligarchy and
+introduced a new regime. His dictatorship was the consummation of the
+victories of the people over nobles as signally as the submission of all
+classes to fortunate and unscrupulous generals. We err, however, in
+supposing that the Republic was ever a democracy, as we understand the
+term, or as it was understood in Athens. Power was always in the hands
+of senators, nobles, and rich men, as it still is in England, and was in
+Venice. Popular liberty was a name, and democratic institutions were
+feeble and shackled. The citizen-noble was free, not the proletarian.
+The latter had the redress of laws, but only such as the former gave.
+How exclusive must have been an aristocracy when the Claudian family
+boasted that, for five hundred years, it had never received any one into
+it by adoption, and when the Emperor Nero was the first who received its
+privileges! It is with the senatorial families, who contrived to retain
+all the great offices of the state, that everything interesting in the
+history of Republican Rome is identified,--whether political quarrels,
+or private feuds, or legislation, or the control of armies, or the
+improvements of the city, or the government of provinces. It was they,
+as senators, governors, consuls, generals, quaestors, who gave the people
+baths, theatres, and temples. They headed factions as well as armies.
+They were the state.
+
+The main object to which the reigning classes gave their attention was
+war,--the extension of the empire. "_Ubi castra, ibi respublica_."
+Republican Rome was a camp, controlled by aristocratic generals.
+Dominion and conquest were their great ideas, their aim, their ambition.
+To these were sacrificed pleasure, gain, ease, luxury, learning, and
+art. And when they had conquered they sought to rule, and they knew how
+to rule. Aside from conquest and government there is nothing peculiarly
+impressive in Roman history, except the struggles of political leaders
+and the war of classes.
+
+But in these there is wonderful fascination. The mythic period under
+kings; the contests with Latins, Etruscans, Volscians, Samnites, and
+Gauls; the legends of Porsenna, of Cincinnatus, of Coriolanus, of
+Virginia; the heroism of Camillus, of Fabius, of Decius, of Scipio; the
+great struggle with Pyrrhus and Hannibal; the wars with Carthage,
+Macedonia, and Asia Minor; the rivalries between patrician and plebeian
+families; the rise of tribunes; the Maenian, Hortensian, and Agrarian
+laws; the noble efforts of the Gracchi; the censorship of Cato; the
+civil wars of Marius and Sulla, and their exploits, followed by the
+still greater conquests of Pompey and Julius; these, and other feats of
+heroism and strength, are full of interest which can never be exhausted.
+We ponder on them in youth; we return to them in old age.
+
+And yet the real grandeur of Rome is associated with the emperors. With
+their accession there is a change in the policy of the state from war to
+peace. There is a greater desire to preserve than extend the limits of
+the empire. The passion for war is succeeded by a passion for government
+and laws. Labor and toil give place to leisure and enjoyment. Great
+works of art appear, and these become historical,--the Pantheon, the
+Forum Augusti, the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Column of Trajan, the Baths
+of Caracalla, the Aqua Claudia, the golden house of Nero, the Mausoleum
+of Hadrian, the Temple of Venus and Rome, the Arch of Septimus Severus.
+The city is changed from brick to marble, and palaces and theatres and
+temples become colossal. Painting and sculpture ornament every part of
+the city. There are more marble busts than living men. Life becomes more
+complicated and factitious. Enormous fortunes are accumulated. A liberal
+patronage is extended to artists. Literature declines, but great
+masterpieces of genius are still produced. Medicine, law, and science
+flourish. A beautiful suburban life is seen on all the hills, while
+gardens and villas are the object of perpetual panegyric. From all
+corners of the earth strangers flock to see the wonders of the mighty
+metropolis, more crowded than London, more magnificent than Paris, more
+luxurious than New York. Fetes, shows, processions, gladiatorial
+combats, chariot races, form the amusement of the vast populace. A
+majestic centralized power controls all kingdoms, and races, and
+peoples. The highest state of prosperity is reached that the ancient
+world knew, and all bow down to Caesar and behold in him the
+representative of divine providence, from whose will there is no appeal,
+and from whose arm it is impossible to fly.
+
+But _mene, mene, tekel, upharsin_, is written on the walls of the
+banqueting chambers of the palace of the Caesars. The dream of
+omnipotence is disturbed by the invasion of, Germanic barbarians. They
+press toward the old seats of power and riches to improve their
+condition. They are warlike, fierce, implacable. They fear not death,
+and are urged onward by the lust of rapine and military zeal. The old
+legions, which penetrated the Macedonian phalanx and withstood the
+Gauls, cannot resist the shock of their undisciplined armies; for
+martial glory has fled, and the people prefer their pleasures to the
+empire. Great emperors are raised up, but they are unequal to the task
+of preserving the crumbling empire. The people, enervated and
+egotistical, are scattered like sheep or are made slaves. The proud
+capitals of the world fall before the ruthless invaders. Desolation is
+everywhere. The barbarians trample beneath their heavy feet the proud
+trophies of ancient art and power. The glimmering life-sparks of the old
+civilization disappear. The world is abandoned to fear, misery, and
+despair, and there is no help, for retributive justice marches on with
+impressive solemnity. Imperial despotism, disproportionate fortunes,
+unequal divisions of society, the degradation of woman, slavery,
+Epicurean pleasures, practical atheism, bring forth their wretched
+fruits. The vices and miseries of society cannot be arrested. Glory is
+succeeded by shame; all strength is in mechanism, and that wears out;
+vitality passes away; the empire is weak from internal decay, and falls
+easily into the hands of the new races. "Violence was only a secondary
+cause of the ruin; the vices of self-interest were the primary causes. A
+world, as fair and glorious as our own, crumbles away." Our admiration
+is changed to sadness and awe. The majesty of man is rebuked by the
+majesty of God.
+
+Such a history is suggestive. Why was such an empire permitted to rise
+over the bleeding surface of the world, and what was its influence on
+the general destiny of the race? How far has its civilization perished,
+and how far has it entered into new combinations? Was its strength
+material, or moral, or intellectual? How far did literature, art,
+science, laws, philosophy, prove conservative forces? Why did
+Christianity fail to arrest so total an eclipse of the glory of man? Why
+did a magnificent civilization prove so feeble a barrier against
+corruption and decay? Why was the world to be involved in such universal
+gloom and wretchedness as followed the great catastrophe? Could nothing
+arrest the stupendous downfall?
+
+And when we pass from the great facts of Roman history to the questions
+which it suggests to a contemplative mind in reference to the state of
+society among ourselves, on which history ought to shed light, what
+enigmas remain to be solved. Does moral worth necessarily keep pace with
+aesthetic culture, or intellectual triumphs, or material strength? Do the
+boasted triumphs of civilization create those holy certitudes on which
+happiness is based? Can vitality in states be preserved by mechanical
+inventions? Does society expand from inherent laws of development, or
+from influences altogether foreign to man? Is it the settled destiny of
+nations to rise to a certain height in wisdom and power, and then pass
+away in ignominy and gloom? Is there permanence in any human
+institutions? Will society move round in perpetual circles, incapable of
+progression and incapable of rest, or will it indefinitely improve? May
+there not be the highest triumphs of art, literature, and science, where
+the mainsprings of society are sensuality and egotism? Is the tendency
+of society to democratic, or aristocratic, or despotic governments? Does
+Christianity, in this dispensation, merely furnish witnesses of truth,
+or will it achieve successive conquests over human degeneracy till the
+race is emancipated and saved? Can it arrest the downward tendency of
+society, when it is undermined by vices which blunt the conscience of
+mankind, and which are sustained by all that is proud in rank, brilliant
+in fashion, and powerful in wealth?
+
+These are inquiries on which Roman history sheds light. If history is a
+guide or oracle, they are full of impressive significance. Can we afford
+to reject all the examples of the past in our sanguine hopes for the
+future? Human nature is the same in any age, and human experiences point
+to some great elemental truths, which the Bible confirms. _We_ may
+be unmoved by them, but they remain in solemn dignity for all
+generations; "and foremost of them," as Charles Kingsley has so well
+said, "stands a law which man has been trying in all ages, as now, to
+deny, or at least to ignore, and that is,--that as the fruit of
+righteousness is wealth and peace, strength and honor, the fruit of
+unrighteousness is poverty and anarchy, weakness and shame; for not upon
+_mind_, but upon _morals_, is human welfare founded. Science
+is indeed great; but she is not the greatest. She is an instrument, and
+not a power. But her lawful mistress, the only one under whom she can
+truly grow, and prosper, and prove her divine descent, is Virtue, the
+likeness of Almighty God,--an ancient doctrine, yet one ever young, and
+which no discoveries in science will ever abrogate."
+
+Hence the great aim of history should be a dispassionate inquiry into
+the genius of past civilizations, especially in a moral point of view.
+Wherein were they weak or strong, vital or mechanical, permanent or
+transient? We wish to know that we may compare them with our own, and
+learn lessons of wisdom. The rise and fall of the Roman Empire is
+especially rich in the facts which bear on our own development. Nor can
+modern history be comprehended without a survey of the civilization
+which has entered into our own, and forms the basis of many of our own
+institutions. Rome perished, but not wholly her civilization. So far as
+it was founded on the immutable principles of justice, or beauty, or
+love, it will never die, but will remain a precious legacy to all
+generations. So far as it was founded on pride, injustice, and
+selfishness, it ignobly disappeared. _Men_ die, and their trophies
+of pride are buried in the dust, but their truths live. All truth is
+indestructible, and survives both names and marbles.
+
+Roman history, so grand and so mournful, on the whole suggests cheering
+views for humanity, since out of the ruins, amid the storms, aloft above
+the conflagration, there came certain indestructible forces, which, when
+united with Christianity, developed a new and more glorious condition of
+humanity. Creation succeeded destruction. All that was valuable in art,
+in science, in literature, in philosophy, in laws, has been preserved.
+The useless alone has perished with the worn-out races themselves. The
+light which scholars, and artists, and poets, and philosophers, and
+lawgivers kindled, illuminated the path of the future guides of mankind.
+And especially the great ideas which the persecuted Christians unfolded,
+projected themselves into the shadows of mediaeval Europe, and gave a
+new direction to human thought and life. New sentiments arose, more
+poetic and majestic than ever existed in the ancient world, giving
+radiance to homes, peace to families, elevation to woman, liberty to the
+slave, compassion for the miserable, self-respect, to the man of toil,
+exultation to the martyr, patience to the poor, and glorious hopes to
+all; so that in rudeness, in poverty, in discomfort, in slavery, in
+isolation, in obloquy, peace and happiness were born, and a new race,
+with noble elements of character, arose in the majesty of renovated
+strength to achieve still grander victories, and confer higher blessings
+on mankind.
+
+Thus the Roman Empire, whose fall was so inglorious, and whose
+chastisement was so severe, was made by Providence to favor the ultimate
+progress of society, since its civilization entered into new
+combinations, and still remains one of the proudest monuments of human
+genius.
+
+It is this civilization, in its varied aspects, both good and evil,
+lofty and degraded, which in the following chapters I seek to show. This
+is the real point of interest in Roman history. Let us see what the
+Romans really accomplished--the results of their great enterprises; the
+systems they matured with so much thought; the institutions they
+bequeathed to our times; yea, even those vices and follies which they
+originally despised, and which, if allowed to become dominant,
+_must_, according to all those laws of which we have cognizance,
+ultimately overwhelm _any_ land in misery, shame, and ruin.
+
+In presenting this civilization, I aim to generalize the most important
+facts, leaving the reader to examine at his leisure recondite
+authorities, in which, too often, the argument is obscured by minute
+details, and art is buried in learning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE CONQUESTS OF THE ROMANS.
+
+
+One of the features of Roman greatness, which preeminently arrests
+attention, is military genius and strength. The Romans surpassed all the
+nations of antiquity in the brilliancy and solidity of their conquests.
+They conquered the world, and held it in subjection. For many centuries
+they stamped their iron heel on the necks of prostrate and suppliant
+kings, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Caspian Sea. Nothing could impede,
+except for a time, their irresistible progress from conquering to
+conquer. They were warriors from the earliest period of their history,
+and all their energies were concentrated upon conquest. Their aggressive
+policy never changed so long as there was a field for its development.
+They commenced as a band of robbers; they ended by becoming masters of
+all the countries and kingdoms which tempted their cupidity or aroused
+their ambition. Their empire was universal,--the only universal empire
+which ever existed on this earth,--and it was won with the sword. It
+was not a rapid conquest, but it was systematic and irresistible,
+evincing great genius, perseverance, and fortitude.
+
+[Sidenote: The Romans fight from a fixed purpose.]
+
+The successive and fortunate conquests of the Romans were the
+admiration, the envy, and the fear of all nations--so marvelous and
+successful that they have the majesty of a providential event. They
+cannot be called a mystery, since we see the persistent adaptation of
+means to an end. But no other nation ever evinced this uniform military
+policy, except for a limited period, or under the stimulus of a
+temporary enthusiasm, such as characterized the Saracens and the
+Germanic barbarians. The Romans fought when there was no apparent need
+of fighting, when their empire already embraced most of the countries
+known to the ancients. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, and
+the Greeks made magnificent conquests, but their empire was partial and
+limited, and soon passed away. The Greeks evinced great military genius,
+and the enterprises of Alexander have been regarded as a wonder. But the
+Greeks did not fight, as the Romans did, from a fixed purpose to bring
+all nations under their sway, and they yielded, in turn, to the Romans.
+The Romans were never subdued, but all nations were subdued by them--
+even superior races. They erected a universal monarchy, which fell to
+pieces by its own weight, when the vices of self-interest had
+accomplished their work. They became the prey of barbarians in a very
+different sense from that which reduced the ancient empires. They did
+not yield to any powerful, warlike neighbor, as the Persians yielded to
+the Greeks, but to successive waves of unknown warriors who came in
+quest of settlement, and then only when all Roman vigor had fled, and
+the whole policy of the empire was changed--when it was the aim of
+emperors to conserve old conquests, not make new ones.
+
+[Sidenote: War was a passion with the Romans.]
+
+With the Romans, for a thousand years, war was a passion; and, while it
+lasted, it consumed all other passions. It animated statesmen, rulers,
+generals, and citizens alike, ever burning, never at rest,--a passion
+unscrupulous, resistless, all-pervading, all-absorbing, all-conquering.
+Success in war gave consideration, dignity, honor beyond all other
+successes. It always has called out popular admiration, and its glory
+has ever been highly prized, and it always will be so, but it has not
+monopolized all offices and dignities as among the Romans. The Greeks
+thought of art, of literature, and of philosophy as well as of war, and
+gave their crowns of glory for civic and artistic excellence as well as
+for military success. The Greeks fought to preserve or extend their
+civilization; the Romans, in order to rule. They had very little respect
+for any thing beyond military genius. The successful warrior alone was
+the founder of a great family. The Roman aristocracy, so proud, so rich,
+so powerful, was based on the glory of battle-fields. Every citizen was
+trained to arms, and senators and statesmen commanded armies. The whole
+fabric of the State was built up on war, and for many centuries it was
+the leading occupation of the people. How insignificant was a poet, or a
+painter, or a philosopher by the side of a warrior! Rome was a city of
+generals, and they preoccupied the public mind.
+
+[Sidenote: Value placed by the Romans on military art.]
+
+To a Roman, military art was the highest of all. It was constantly being
+improved, until it reached absolute perfection, with the old weapons and
+implements of war. To its perfection the whole genius of the people was
+consecrated; it was to them what the fine arts were to the Greeks, what
+priestly domination was to the Middle Ages, and what material inventions
+to abridge human labor are to us. The Romans despised literature, art,
+philosophy, commerce, agriculture, and even luxury, when they were
+making their grand conquests; they only respected their fortunate
+generals. Hence there was no great encouragement to genius or ambition
+in any other field; but in this field, the horizon perpetually expanded.
+Every new conquest prepared the way for successive conquests; ambition
+here was untrammeled, energy was unbounded, visions of glory were most
+dazzling, warlike schemes were most fertile, until the whole world lay
+bleeding and prostrate.
+
+[Sidenote: Lawfulness of war.]
+
+Military genius, however, does not present man in the highest state of
+wisdom or beauty. It is very attractive, but "there is a greater than
+the warrior's excellence," at least to a contemplative or religious eye.
+When men save nations, in fearful crises, by their military genius, as
+Napoleon did France when surrounded with hostile armies, or Gustavus
+Adolphus did Germany when it was struggling for religious rights, then
+they render the greatest possible services, and receive no unmerited
+honors. The heart of the world cherishes the fame of Miltiades, of
+Charlemagne, of Henry IV., of Washington; for they were identified with
+great causes. War is one of the occasional necessities of our world. No
+nation can live, or is worthy to live, without military virtues. They
+rescue nations on the verge of ruin, and establish great rights, without
+which life is nothing. War, however much to be lamented as an evil, is
+the last appeal and resource of nations, and settles what cannot be
+settled without it; and it will probably continue so long as there are
+blindness, ambition, and avarice among men. Nor, under certain
+circumstances, of which nations can only be the proper judges, is it
+inconsistent with the law of love. Hence, as it is a great necessity, it
+will ever be valued as a great science. Civilization accepts it and
+claims it. It calls into exercise great qualities, and these intoxicate
+the people, who bow down to them as godlike.
+
+[Sidenote: Those who are most successful in war.]
+
+Still, military genius, however lauded and honored, is too often allied
+with ambition and selfishness to secure the highest favor of
+philosophers or Christians. It does not reveal the soul in its loftiest
+aspirations. Men of a coarser type are often most successful,--men
+insensible to pity and to reproach, whose greatest merit is in will,
+nerve, energy, and power of making rapid combinations. We revere the
+intellect of the Greeks more than that of the Romans, though they were
+inferior to the latter in military success. We have more respect for
+those qualities which add to the domain of truth than those which secure
+power. A wise man elevates the Bacons, the Newtons, and the Shakespeares
+above all the Marlboroughs and Wellingtons. Plato is surrounded with a
+brighter halo than Themistocles, and Cicero than Marius.
+
+[Sidenote: The general evils of war.]
+
+War as a trade is unscrupulous, hard, rapacious, destructive. It foments
+all the evil passions; it is allied with all the vices; it is
+antagonistic to human welfare. It glories merely in strength; it
+worships only success. It raises wicked men to power; it prostrates and
+hides the good. It extinguishes what is most lovely, and spurns what is
+most exalted. It makes a pandemonium of earth, and drags to its
+triumphal car the venerated relics of ages. It is an awful crime, making
+slaves of the helpless, and spreading consternation, misery, and death
+wherever it goes--marking its progress with a trail of blood, and
+filling the earth with imprecations and curses. It is the greatest
+scourge which God uses to chastise enervated nations, and cannot be
+contemplated with; any satisfaction except as the wrath, which is made
+to praise the Sovereign Ruler who employs what means He chooses to
+punish or exalt.
+
+[Sidenote: Spirit of the Romans in their wars.]
+
+Now the Romans, in a general sense, pursued war as a trade, to gratify a
+thirst for power, to raise themselves on the ruins of ancient
+monarchies, to enrich themselves with the spoils of the world, and to
+govern it for selfish purposes. There were many Roman wars which were
+exceptions, when an exalted patriotism was the animating principle; but
+aggressive war was the policy and shame of Rome. Her citizens did not
+generally fight to preserve liberties or rights or national existence,
+but for self-aggrandizement. Incessant campaigns for a thousand years
+brought out military science, courage, energy, and a grasping and
+selfish patriotism. They gave power, skill to rule, executive talents;
+and these qualities, eminently adapted to worldly greatness, made the
+Romans universal masters, even if they do not make them interesting.
+They developed great strength, resource, will, and even made them wise
+in administration, possibly great civilizers, since centralized power is
+better than anarchies; yet these traits do not make us love them, or
+revere them. Providence doubtless ordered the universal monarchy, which
+only universal war could establish, for the good of the world at that
+time, for the advancement of civilization itself. Universal dominion
+must be succeeded by universal peace, and in such a peace the higher
+qualities and virtues and talents can only be manifested, so that the
+Roman rule was not a calamity, but a very desirable despotism. Yet
+despotism it was,--cold, remorseless, self-seeking. War made the Romans
+practical, calculating, overbearing, proud, scornful, imperious.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the Romans in war.]
+
+But war made them a great people, and made them eminent in certain great
+qualities. Their success in war is tantamount to saying that in one
+great field of genius, which civilization honors, they not merely
+distinguished themselves, and gained a proud fame which will never die
+out of the memory of man, but that they have had no equals in any age.
+War enabled them to build up a vast empire, which empire gave a great
+impulse to ancient civilization.
+
+[Sidenote: Providence seen in the ascendency of great nations.]
+
+There is something very singular and mysterious in the results of wars
+which are caused and carried on by unprincipled and unscrupulous men.
+They are made to end in substantial benefits to the human race. The
+wrath of man, in other words, is made to praise God, showing that He is
+the Sovereign ruler on this earth, and uses what instruments He pleases
+to carry out his great and benevolent designs. However atrocious the
+causes of wars, and execrable the spirit in which they are carried out,
+they are ever made to subserve the benefit of future ages, and the great
+cause of civilization in its vast connections. Men may be guilty, and
+may be punished for their wickedness, and execrated through all time by
+enlightened nations; still they are but tools of the higher power. I do
+not say that God is the author of wars any more than He is of sin; but
+wars are yet sent as a punishment to those whom they directly and
+immediately affect, while they unbind the cords of slavery, and relax
+the hold of tyrants. They are like storms in the natural world: they
+create a healthier moral life, after the disasters are past. Those
+ambitious men, who seek to add province to province and kingdom to
+kingdom, and for whom no maledictions are too severe, since they shed
+innocent blood, rarely succeed unless they quarrel with doomed nations
+incapable of renovation. Thus Babylon fell before Cyrus when her day had
+come, and she could do no more for civilization. Thus Persia, in her
+turn, yielded to the Grecian heroes when she became enervated with the
+luxuries of the conquered kingdoms. Thus Greece again succumbed to Rome
+when she had degenerated into a land where every vice was rampant. The
+passions which inflamed Cyrus, and Alexander, and Pompey were alike
+imperious, and their policy was alike unscrupulous. They simply were
+bent on conquest, and on establishing powerful empires, which conquests
+doubtless resulted in the improvement of the condition of mankind. There
+is also something hard and forbidding in the policy of successful
+statesmen. We are shocked at their injustice, cruelty, and
+rapaciousness; but they are often used by Providence to raise nations to
+preeminence, when their ascendency is, on the whole, a benefit to the
+world. There is nothing amiable or benign in the characters of such men
+as Oxenstiern, Richelieu, or Bismarck, but who can doubt the wisdom of
+their administration? It is seldom that any nation is allowed to have a
+great ascendency over other nations unless the general influence of the
+dominant State is favorable to civilization; and when this influence is
+perverted the ascendency passes away. This is remarkably seen in the
+history of the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman Empires, and still more
+forcibly in the empire of the popes in the Middle Ages, and of the vast
+influence of France and England during the last hundred years. This is
+both a mystery and a fact. It is mysterious that bad men should be
+allowed to succeed so often, but it is one of the sternest facts of
+life, only to be explained on the principle that they are instruments in
+the hands of the Great Moral Governor whose designs we are not able to
+fathom, yet the wisdom of which is subsequently, though imperfectly,
+made known. It was wicked in the sons of Jacob to sell Joseph to the
+Ishmaelites; their craft and lies were successful: they deceived their
+father and accomplished their purposes; yet his bondage was the means of
+their preservation from the evils of famine. The rise and fall of
+empires are to be explained on the same principles as the rise and fall
+of families. A coarse, unscrupulous but enterprising man gets rich, but
+his wealth is made to subserve interests far greater than that of his
+children. Hospitals, colleges, and libraries are endowed as monasteries
+were in the Middle Ages. If vice, selfishness, and pride were not
+overruled, what would become of our world? The whole history of
+civilization is the good which is made to spring out of evil. Men are
+nothing in comparison with Omnipotence. What are human plans? Yet
+enterprise and virtue and talent are rewarded. In the affairs of life we
+see that goodness does not lose its recompense, and that vice is
+punished; but beyond, what more impressively do we behold than this,
+that the instruments of punishment are often the wicked themselves.
+
+[Sidenote: The results of the crusades.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their immediate consequences are disastrous; their ultimate,
+beneficial.]
+
+Among the worst wars in history--uncalled for, unscrupulous, fanatical--
+were the Crusades. And when were wars more unfortunate, more
+unsuccessful? Five millions of Crusaders perished miserably in those mad
+expeditions stimulated by hatred of Mohammedanism. No trophies consoled
+Europe for its enormous losses, extended over two hundred years. But
+those wars developed the resources of Europe; they broke the power of
+feudal barons; they promoted commerce and the arts of life; they led to
+greater liberality of mind; they opened the horizon of knowledge; they
+introduced learned men into rising universities; they centralized the
+power of kings; they weakened the temporal jurisdiction of the popes;
+they improved architecture, sculpture, and painting; they built free
+cities; they gave a new stimulus to all the energies of the European
+nations. Their benefits to civilization were not the legitimate result
+of destructive passions. The natural penalty of folly and crime was paid
+in hardship, sorrow, disease, captivity, disappointment, poverty, and
+death. But out of the ashes a new creation arose, not what any of the
+leaders of those movements ever contemplated--infinitely removed from
+the thoughts of Bernard, Urban, Philip, and Richard, great men as they
+were, far-sighted statesmen, who expected other results. The hand which
+guided that warfare between Europe and Asia was the hand that led the
+Israelites out of Egypt across the Red Sea. Moreover, _quem deus vult
+perdere prius dementat_. What uprising more foolish, insane,
+disastrous, than the great Southern rebellion! Its result was never
+dreamed of for a moment by those Southern leaders. They hoped to see the
+establishment of a great empire based on slavery; they saw the utter
+destruction of slavery itself. The course by which they anticipated
+dominion and riches ended in their temporal ruin. They were made the
+destroyers of their own pet system, when it could not have been
+destroyed in any other way. It was only by a great war that the fetters
+of the slave could be removed, and God sent war so soon as it pleased
+Him to bring the wicked bondage to an end. If any thing shows the hand
+of God it is the wars of the nations. They are sent like the famine and
+the pestilence. All human wisdom and power sink into insignificance when
+they are put forth to stop these scourges of the Almighty. It is against
+all reason that they ever come; yet they do come, and then crimes are
+avenged; evil punishes evil, and succeeding generations are made to see
+that the progress of the race is through sorrow and suffering. No great
+empire is built up but with the will of God. No empire falls without
+deserving the chastisement and the ruin. But God has promised to save
+and to redeem, and the world moves on in accordance with natural laws,
+and each successive century witnesses somehow or other a great advance
+in the general condition of mankind. It is not the great rulers who plan
+this improvement. It comes from Heaven. It comes in spite of human
+degeneracy, which, if left to itself, would doubtless soon produce a
+state of society like that which is attributed to the nations "before
+the flood came and destroyed them all."
+
+[Sidenote: Wars over-ruled for the good of nations.]
+
+With this view of war--always aggressive with one party, always a
+calamity to both; the greatest calamity known to the nations,
+exhausting, bloody, cruel, sweeping every thing before it; a moral
+conflagration, bringing every kind of suffering and sorrow in its train,
+yet made to result as a retribution to worn-out and degenerate races,
+and a means of vast development of resources among those peoples which
+have life and energy,--we see the providence of God in the Roman
+Conquests. The gradual growth of Rome as a warlike state is a most
+impressive example of the agency of a great Moral Governor in breaking
+up states that deserved to perish, and in building up a power such as
+the world needed in order to facilitate both a magnificent civilization
+and the peaceful spread of a new religion. The Greeks created art and
+literature; the Romans, laws and government, by which society everywhere
+was made more secure and tranquil, until the good which arose from the
+evil was itself perverted.
+
+[Sidenote: Growth of Rome under the kings.]
+
+Under the kingly rule Rome becomes the most important and powerful of
+the cities of Latium, and a foundation is laid of social, religious, and
+political institutions which are destined to achieve a magnificent
+triumph. The kings of Rome are all great men--wise and statesmanlike,
+patrons of civilization among a rude and primitive people. No state for
+more than two hundred years was ever ruled by more enlightened princes,
+ambitious indeed, sometimes unscrupulous, but fortunate and successful.
+The benefits derived from the conquests and ascendency of the city of
+Romulus were seen in the union of several petty states, and the fusion
+of their customs and manners. Before the foundation of the city, Italy
+was of no account with the older empires. In less than two hundred and
+fifty years a great Italian power grows up on the banks of the Tiber,
+imbued to some extent with the civilization of Greece, which it receives
+through Etruria and the Tarquins.
+
+[Sidenote: Effect of the expulsion of the Tarquins.]
+
+But the growth of Rome under the kings was too rapid for its moral
+health. A series of disasters produced by the expulsion of the Tarquins,
+during which the Roman state dwindles into a small territory on the left
+bank of the Tiber, develops strength and martial virtue. It takes Rome
+one hundred and fifty years to recover what it had lost. Moreover its
+great prosperity has provoked envy, and all the small neighboring
+nations are leagued against it. These must be subdued, or Italy will
+remain divided and subdivided, with no central power.
+
+The heroic period of Roman history begins really with the expulsion of
+the kings; also the growth of aristocratical power. It is not under
+kings nor democratic influences and institutions that Rome reaches
+preeminence, but under an aristocracy. All that is most glorious in
+Roman annals took place under the rule of the Patricians.
+
+[Sidenote: Rome struggles for existence for 150 years.]
+
+[Sidenote: Beautiful legends of the heroic period.]
+
+[Sidenote: They indicate the existence of great virtues.]
+
+[Sidenote: Petty wars with neighboring states develop patriotism.]
+
+During the one hundred and fifty years--when the future mistress of the
+world struggled for its existence with the cities and inhabitants of
+Latium, Samnium, and Etruria, whose united territories scarcely extended
+fifty miles from Rome, were developed the virtues of a martial
+aristocracy. Our minds kindle with the contemplation of their courage,
+fortitude, patience, hope, perseverance, energy, self-devotion,
+patriotism, and religious faith. They deserved success. The long and
+bitter struggle of one hundred and fifty years had more of the nature of
+self-preservation than military ambition. The history of those petty
+wars is interesting, because it is romantic. Beautiful legends of early
+patriotism and heroism have been reproduced in all the histories from
+Livy to our times, like those of the knights of King Arthur and the
+paladins of Charlemagne in the popular literature of Europe. Poets have
+made them the themes of their inspiration. Painters have chosen them as
+favorite subjects of art. We love to ponder on the bitter exile of
+Coriolanus, his treasonable revenge, and the noble patriotism of his
+weeping and indignant mother, who saved her country but lost her son; on
+Cincinnatus, taken from the plow and sent as general and dictator
+against the Acquians; on the Fabian gens, defending Rome a whole year
+from the attacks of the Veientines until they were all cut off, like the
+Spartan band at Thermopylae; on Siccius Dentatus, the veteran captain of
+one hundred and twenty battles, who was only slain by rolling a stone
+from a high rock upon his head; on Cossos, slaying the king of Veii with
+his own hand; on the siege of Veii, itself, a city as large as Rome,
+lasting ten years, and only finally taken by draining the Alban lake; on
+the pride and avarice of the banished Camillus, and his subsequent
+rescue of Rome from the Gauls; on the sacred geese of the capitol, and
+Manlius who slew its assailants; on the siege of the capitol for seven
+months by these Celtic invaders, and the burning and sack of the city,
+and its deliverance by the great Camillus. These legends are not
+legitimate history, but they show the self-devotion and bravery, the
+simplicity and virtue of those primitive ages, when luxury was unknown
+and crime was severely punished. It was in those days of danger and
+hardship that the foundation of the future military strength of the
+empire was laid. We do not read of military science, of war as an art or
+trade, or even of great military ambition, for the sphere of military
+operations was narrow and obscure, but of preparation for victories,
+under men of genius, in the time to come. That part of Roman history
+bears the same relation to the age of Marius and Sulla, that the
+conquests of the Puritans over the Indians, and the difficulties with
+which they contended, do to the gigantic warfare of the North and South
+in the late rebellion. The Puritans laid the foundation of the military
+virtues of the Americans, in their colonial state, as the Patricians of
+Rome did for one hundred and fifty years after the expulsion of the
+kings. Those petty wars with Volscians and Acquians brought out the
+Roman character, and are the germ of subsequent greatness. They took
+place in the infancy of the republic, under the rule of Patricians, who
+were not then great nobles, but brave and poor citizens, animated with
+patriotic zeal and characterized, like the Puritans, for stern and lofty
+virtues and religious faith,--superstitious and unenlightened, yet
+elevated and grand,--qualities on which the strength of man is based. It
+is not puerile to dwell with delight on the legends of that heroic age,
+for the philosopher sees in those little struggles the germs of imperial
+power. They were small and insignificant, like the battles of the
+American Revolution, when measured with the marshaling of vast armies on
+the plains of Pharsalia or Waterloo, but they were great in their
+inherent heroism, and in their future results. Who shall say which is
+greater to the eye of the Infinite--the battle of Leipsic, or the fight
+on Bunker Hill? It is the cause, the principles involved, the spirit of
+a contest, which give dignity and importance to the battle-field. Hence
+all nations and ages have felt great interest in the early struggles of
+Rome. They are full of poetry and philosophical importance. The Roman
+historians themselves dwelt upon them with peculiar enthusiasm; and the
+record of them lives in the school-books of all generations, and has not
+been deemed unworthy of the critical genius of Niebuhr, of Arnold, or of
+Mommsen.
+
+[Sidenote: The complete independence of Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Gaulish Invasion.]
+
+The result of this protracted warfare with petty cities and states for
+one hundred and fifty years was the complete independence of the City of
+the Seven Hills, the regaining of the conquests lost by the expulsion of
+Tarquin, the conquest of Latium, the dissolution of the Latin League,
+the possession of the Pontine district, and the extension of Roman power
+to the valleys of the Apennines. The war with the Gauls was not a
+systematic contest. It was a raid of these Celts across the Apennines,
+and the temporary humiliation of the Roman capital. The Gauls burned and
+sacked the city, but soon retreated, and Rome was never again invaded by
+a foreign foe until the hordes of Alaric appeared. The disaster was soon
+recovered, and the Romans made more united by the lesson.
+
+With the retreat of the Gauls, B.C. 350, and the recovery of Latium,
+B.C. 341 and four hundred and sixteen years from the foundation of the
+city, the aggressive period of Roman warfare begins. By this time the
+Plebeians made their power felt, and had obtained one of the two
+consulships; but for a long time after, the Patricians, though shorn of
+undivided sovereignty, still monopolized most of the great offices of
+state--indeed were the controlling power, socially and politically. At
+no period was Rome a democratic state; never had Plebeians the
+ascendency. But now the plebeian influence begins to modify the old
+constitution. All classes, after incessant warfare for a century and a
+half, and exposed to innumerable feuds, united in enterprises of
+conquest. Rome begins to appear on the stage of political history.
+
+[Sidenote: War with the Samnites.]
+
+[Sidenote: Decisive battle of Sentinum.]
+
+The aggressive nature of Roman warfare commenced with Samnium. The
+Samnites were a warlike and pastoral people who inhabited the rugged
+mountain district between the valleys of the Vulturnus and the Calor,
+but they were nevertheless barbarians, and the contest between them and
+the Romans was for the sovereignty of Italy. I need not mention the
+alleged causes, or the details of a sanguinary war. The alleged causes
+were not the true ones, and the details are complicated and obscure. We
+deal with results. The war began B.C. 326, and lasted, with short
+intervals of peace, thirty-six years. The Roman heroes were M. Valerius
+Corvus, L. Papirius Cursor, Q. Fabius Maximus, and P. Decius the
+younger. All of these were great generals, and were consuls or
+dictators. As in all great contests, lasting a whole generation, there
+was alternate victory and defeat, disgraced by treachery and bad faith.
+The Romans fought, assisted by Latins, Campanians, and Apulians. The
+Samnites defended themselves in their mountain fastnesses with
+inflexible obstinacy, and obtained no assistance from allies until
+nearly worn out, when Umbrians, Etrurians, and Senonian Gauls came to
+the rescue. About sixty thousand men fought on each side. The battle of
+Sentinum determined the fate of Samnium and Italy, gained by Fabius and
+Decius, and the Samnites laid down their arms and yielded to their
+rivals. Their brave general, Pontius, was beheaded in the prison under
+the capitol,--an act of inhumanity which sullied the laurels of Fabius.
+The Roman power is now established over central and lower Italy, and
+with the exception of a few Greek cities on the coast, Latium, Campania,
+Apulia, and Samnium are added to the territories of the republic.
+
+[Sidenote: Works of Appius Claudius.]
+
+In the mean time the political inequality between Patricians and
+Plebeians had been removed, and a plebeian nobility had grown up,
+created by success in war and domestic factions. The great man in civil
+history, during this war, was Appius Claudius the Censor, a proud and
+inflexible Patrician. His, great works were the Appian road and
+aqueduct. The road led to Capua through the Pontine marshes one hundred
+and twenty miles, and was paved with blocks of basalt; the aqueduct
+passed under ground, and was the first of those vast works which
+supplied the city with water.
+
+About ten years elapsed between the conquest of the Samnites and the
+landing of Pyrrhus in Italy, B.C. 280, during which the Romans were
+brought in contact with Magna Grecia and Syracuse.
+
+[Sidenote: Tarentum invokes the aid of Phyrrus.]
+
+The chief of the Greek-Italian cities was Tarentum, a very ancient
+Lacedaemonian colony. It was admirably situated for commerce on the gulf
+which bears its name, was very rich, and abounded in fearless sailors.
+But like most commercial cities, it intrusted its defense to
+mercenaries. It viewed with alarm the growing power of Rome, and unable
+to meet her face to face, called in the aid of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus,
+the greatest general of the age, which was followed by a general rising
+of the Italian states, to shake off the Roman yoke.
+
+[Sidenote: Expedition of Pyrrhus into Italy.]
+
+[Sidenote: He is defeated at the battle of Beneventum.]
+
+Pyrrhus was a soldier of fortune, and practiced war as an art, and
+delighted in it like Alexander or Charles XII. He readily responded to
+the overture of the Tarentine Ambassador, and sent over a general with
+three thousand men to secure a footing, and soon followed with twenty
+thousand foot, five thousand horse, and a number of elephants. Among his
+troops were five thousand Macedonian soldiers, a phalanx such as the
+Romans had never encountered. The Macedonians fought in masses; the
+Romans in lines. The first encounter was disastrous to the Romans, whose
+cavalry was frightened by the elephants. But Pyrrhus, contented with
+victory, did not pursue his advantages, and advanced with easy marches
+towards Rome with seventy thousand men. The battle of Heraclea, however,
+had greatly weakened his forces; his allies proved treacherous; and he
+was glad to offer terms of peace, which were promptly rejected by the
+Senate. After spending nearly three years in Italy he retired to
+Syracuse, but again tried his fortune against the Romans, and was
+signally routed at the battle of Beneventum by Curius Dentatus. He
+hastily left Italy to her fate, and the fall of Tarentum speedily
+followed, which made the Romans masters of the whole peninsula. The
+Macedonian phalanx, which had conquered Asia, yielded to the Roman
+legion, and a new lesson was learned in the art of war.
+
+[Sidenote: Results of the Fall of Tarentum.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Romans complete masters of Italy.]
+
+The Romans, by the fall of Tarentum, were now the undisputed masters of
+Italy, and had made the first great step towards the conquest of the
+world. The city of Romulus was now four hundred and eighty years old,
+and the national domain extended from the Ciminian wood in Etruria to
+the middle of the Campania. It was called the Ager Romanus, in which was
+a population of two hundred and ninety-three thousand men capable of
+bearing arms; and the citizens of the various conquered cities, who had
+served certain magistracies in them, were enrolled among Roman citizens,
+with all the rights to which the citizens of the capital were entitled,--
+absolute authority over wife, children, and slaves, security from
+capital punishment except by a vote of the people, or under military
+authority in the camp, access to all the honors and employments of the
+state, the right of suffrage, and the possession of Quirinal property.
+They felt themselves to be allies of Rome, and henceforward lent
+efficient aid in war. To all practical intents, they were Romans as
+completely as the inhabitants of Marseilles are French. Tarentum,
+Neapolis, Tibur, Praeneste, and other large cities, enjoyed peculiar
+privileges; but armed garrisons were maintained in them, under the form
+of colonies. The administration of them was organized after the model of
+Rome. Military roads were constructed between all places of importance.
+
+[Sidenote: The virtues of eminent Patricians.]
+
+The same sterling virtues which characterized the absolute rule of the
+Patricians still continued, and patriotism partook of the nature of
+religious sentiment. Three Decii surrendered their lives for the Roman
+army, and Manlius immolated his son to the genius of discipline; Runnus
+is degraded from the Senate for possessing ten pounds of silver plate,
+although twice consul and once dictator; Regulus, twice consul,
+possessed no more than one little field in the barren district of
+Papinice. Curius like Fabricius prepared his simple meal with his own
+hand, and refused the gold of the Samnites, as Fabricius refused that of
+Pyrrhus. The new masters of Italy deserved their empire. There was union
+because there was now political equality. The "new men, like Fabricius
+and Curius Dentatus, were not less numerous in the Senate than the old
+Curial families. The aristocracy of blood was blended with the
+aristocracy of merit. The consulship gave unity of command, the Senate
+wisdom and the proper strength, preserving a happy equilibrium of
+forces,--the combination of royalty, aristocracy, and democracy, which,
+with military virtues and austere manners, made an irresistible force."
+[Footnote: Durny, _Hist. des Romains_] This period, the fifth
+century of the existence of the Roman state, was its heroic age.
+
+[Sidenote: Rome prepares for aggressive and unjust war.]
+
+But now military aggrandizement became the master-passion of the people,
+and the uniform policy of the government. Military virtues still
+remained, but the morals of state began to decline. Aggressive wars, for
+conquest and power, henceforth, mark the progress of the Romans; and not
+merely aggressive wars, but unjust and foreign wars. The step of the
+Roman is now proud and defiant. Visions of unlimited conquest rise up
+before his eye. He is cold, practical, imperious. The eagles of the
+legions are the real objects of pride and reverence. Mars is the
+presiding deity. Success is the only road to honor.
+
+[Sidenote: Rivalry between Carthage and Rome.]
+
+While Rome was completing the reduction of Italy, Carthage, a Tyrian
+colony on the opposite coast of Africa, was extending her conquests in
+the Islands of the Mediterranean. The Greek colonies of Sicily had
+fallen under her sway. She was a rival whose power was formidable,
+enriched by the commerce of the world, and proud in the number of her
+allies. The city contained seven hundred thousand inhabitants, and the
+walls measured twenty miles in circumference.
+
+[Sidenote: Shall Rome or Carthage have the preeminence.]
+
+[Sidenote: Carthage falls after a long and memorable struggle.]
+
+[Sidenote: Territories acquired by the fall of Carthage.]
+
+Between such ambitious and unscrupulous rivals, peace could not long be
+maintained. To the eye of the philosopher the ascendency of Carthage or
+of Rome over the countries which border on the Mediterranean was clearly
+seen. Which were better? Shall the world be governed by a martial, law-
+making, law-loving, heroic commonwealth, not yet seduced and corrupted
+by luxury and wealth, or by a commercial, luxurious, selfish nation of
+merchants, whose only desire is self-indulgence and folly. Providence
+sides with Rome--although Rome cannot be commended, and is ruled by
+ambitious and unscrupulous chieftains whose delight is power. If there
+is to be one great empire more, before Christianity is proclaimed, which
+shall absorb all other empires, now degenerate and corrupt, let that be
+given to a people who know how to civilize after they have conquered.
+Let the sword rather than gold rule the world--enlightened statesmen
+rather than self-indulgent merchants. So Carthage falls, after three
+memorable struggles, extending over more than a century, during which
+she produced the greatest general of antiquity, next to Caesar and
+Alexander. But not even Hannibal could restore the fortunes of his
+country, after having inflicted a bitter humiliation on his enemies.
+That city of merchants, like Tyre and Sidon, must drink of the cup of
+divine chastisement. Another type of civilization than that furnished by
+a "mistress of the sea," was needed for Europe, and another rule for
+Asia and Africa. The Carthaginians taught the Romans, in their contest,
+how to build ships of war and fight naval battles. As many as three
+hundred thousand men were engaged in that memorable sea-fight of Ecnomus
+which opened to Regulus the way to Africa. Three times did the Romans
+lose their fleets by tempests, and yet they persevered in building new
+ones. The fortitude of the Romans, in view of the brilliant successes of
+Hannibal, can never be sufficiently admired. The defeat at Cannae was a
+catastrophe, but the troops of Fabius, to whom was left the defense of
+the city, were not discouraged, and with Scipio--religious, self-reliant,
+and lofty--the tide of victory turned. By the first Punic war, which
+lasted twenty-two years, Rome gained Sicily; by the second, which opened
+twenty-three years after the first, and lasted seventeen years, she
+gained Sardinia, a foothold in Spain and Gaul, and a preponderance
+throughout the western regions of Europe and Africa; by the third, which
+occurred fifty years after the second, and continued but four years, she
+gained all the provinces of Africa ruled by Carthage, and a great part
+of Spain. Nothing was allowed to remain of the African capital. The
+departing troops left behind complete desolation. The captives were sold
+as slaves, or put to death, and enough of spoil rewarded the victors to
+adorn a triumph only surpassed by that of Paulus on his return from the
+conquest of Greece.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of the Macedonian empire.]
+
+[Sidenote: Principles and passions which led to the conquest of Greece.]
+
+In the mean time, in the interval between the second and third Punic
+wars, occurred the Macedonian wars, which prepared the way for conquests
+in the East. The great Macedonian empire was split up into several
+monarchies among the generals of Alexander and their successors. The
+Ptolemies reigned in Egypt; the successors of Seleucus in Babylonia;
+those of Antigonus in Syria and Asia Minor; those of Lysimachus in
+Thrace; and of Cassander in Macedonia. It was the mission of Rome to
+subdue these monarchies, or rather her good fortune, for she was
+destined to conquer the world. The principles which animated these wars
+cannot be defended on high moral grounds, any more than the conquest of
+India by England, or of Algeria by France. They were based entirely upon
+ambition--upon the passion for political aggrandizement. I confess I
+have no sympathy with them. Roman liberties were not jeopardized, nor
+were these monarchies dangerous rivals like Carthage. The subjugation of
+Italy was in accordance with what we now call the Monroe doctrine--to
+obtain the ascendency on her own soil; and even the conquest or of
+Sicily was no worse than the conquest of Ireland, or what would be the
+future absorption of Cuba and Jamaica within the limits of the United
+States. The Emperor Napoleon would probably justify both the humiliation
+of Carthage and the conquest of Greece and Asia and Egypt, and others
+would echo his voice in defense of aggressive domination, on some plea
+of pretended schemes of colonization, and the progress of civilization.
+But I do not believe in overturning the immutable laws of moral
+obligation for any questionable policy of expediency. I look upon the
+great civil wars of the Romans, which followed these conquests, in which
+so much blood was shed, and in which Marius and Sulla and Caesar and
+Pompey exhausted the resources of the state, and made an imperial
+_regime_ necessary, only as the visitation of God in rebuke of such
+wicked ambition.
+
+[Sidenote: Greece reaps the penalty of the unscrupulous wars of
+Alexander.]
+
+[Sidenote: Degeneracy of the Greeks.]
+
+[Sidenote: Spoils of Greece fall into the hands of the Romans.]
+
+[Sidenote: The triumph of Paulus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Grecian provinces added to the empire.]
+
+The conquest over the Macedonians, however, by the Romans, was not an
+unmixed calamity, and was a righteous judgment on the Greeks. Nothing
+could be more unscrupulous than the career of Alexander and his
+generals. Again, the principle which had animated the Oriental kings
+before him was indefensible. We could go back still further, and show
+from the whole history of Asiatic conquests that their object was to
+aggrandize ambitious conquerors. The Persians, at first, were a brave
+and religious people, hardy and severe, and their conquest of older
+monarchies resulted in a certain good. But they became corrupt by
+prosperity and power, and fell a prey to the Greeks. The Greeks, at that
+period, were the noblest race of the ancient world--immortal for genius
+and art. But power dazzled them, and little remained of that glorious
+spirit which was seen at Thermopylae and Marathon. The Greek ascendency
+in Asia and Egypt was followed by the same luxury and extravagance and
+effeminacy that resulted from the rule of Persia. The Greeks had done
+great things, and contributed to the march of civilization, but they had
+done their work, and their turn of humiliation must come. Their vast
+empire fell into the hands of the Romans, and the change was beneficial
+to humanity. They who had abused their trust were punished, and those
+were exalted above them who were as yet uncorrupted by those vices which
+are most fatal to nations. The great fruit of these wars were the
+treasures of Greece, especially precious marbles, and other works of
+art. The victory at Pydna, B.C. 168, which gave the final superiority to
+the Roman legion over the Macedonian phalanx, was followed by the
+triumph of Paulus himself--the grandest display ever seen at Rome. First
+passed the spoils of Greece--statues and pictures--in two hundred and
+fifty wagons; then the arms and accoutrements of the Macedonian
+soldiers; then three thousand men, each carrying a vase of silver coin;
+then victims for sacrifice, with youths and maidens with garlands; then
+men bearing vases of gold and precious stones; then the royal chariot of
+the conquered king laden with armor and trophies; then his wife and
+children, and the fallen monarch on foot; then the triumphal car of the
+victorious general, preceded by men bearing four hundred crowns of gold--
+the gift of the Grecian cities--and followed by his two sons on
+horseback, and the whole army in order. The sack of Corinth by Mummius
+was the finale of Grecian humiliation, soon followed by the total
+subjection of Macedonia, Greece, and Illyria, forming three provinces.
+Nine provinces now composed the territories of Rome, while the kings of
+Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt were vassals rather than allies, B.C. 133.
+
+[Sidenote: Change of manners and morals at Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reforms of Cato the Censor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Great degeneracy produced by the Grecian wars.]
+
+The manners and habits of the imperial capital had undergone a gradual
+change since the close of the second Punic War. During these fifty
+years, the sack of so many Grecian cities, the fall of Carthage, and the
+prestige of so many victories, had filled Rome with pride and luxury. In
+vain did M. Portius Cato, the most remarkable man who adorned this
+degenerate age, lift up his voice against increasing corruption. In vain
+were his stringent measures as censor. In vain did he strike senators
+from the list, and make an onslaught on the abuses of his day. In vain
+were his eloquence, his simple manners, his rustic garb, and his
+patriotic warnings. That hard, narrow, self-sufficient, arbitrary,
+worldly-wise old statesman, whose many virtues redeemed his defects, and
+whose splendid abilities were the glory of his countrymen, could not
+restore the simplicities of former times. An age of "progress" had set
+in, of Grecian arts and culture, of material wealth, of sumptuous
+banquets, of splendid palaces, of rich temples, of theatrical shows, of
+circus games, of female gallantries, of effeminated manners--all the
+usual accompaniments of civilization, when it is most proud of its
+triumphs; and there was no resisting its march--to the eye of many a
+great improvement; to the eye of honest old Cato, the _descensus
+averi_. Wealth had become a great power; senatorial families grew
+immensely rich; the divisions of society widened; slavery was enormously
+increased, while the rural population lost independence and influence.
+
+Then took place the memorable struggles of Rome, not merely with foreign
+enemies, but against herself. Factions and parties convulsed the city;
+civil war wasted the national resources.
+
+[Sidenote: Wars with the Cimbri and Teutones.]
+
+[Sidenote: Success of Marius, who rolls back the tide of northern
+emigration.]
+
+It was in that period of civic strife, when factions and parties
+struggled for ascendency--when the Gracchi were both reformers and
+demagogues, patriots and disorganizes, heroes and martyrs--when
+fortunate generals aimed at supreme power, and sought to overturn the
+liberties of their country, that Rome was seriously threatened by the
+barbarians. Both Celts and Teutones, from Gaul and Germany, formed a
+general union for the invasion of Italy. They had successively defeated
+five consular armies, in which one hundred and twenty thousand men were
+slain. They rolled on like a devastating storm--some three hundred
+thousand warriors from unconquered countries beyond the Alps. They were
+met by Marius the hero of the African war, who had added Numidia, to the
+empire--now old, fierce, and cruel, a plebeian who had arisen by force
+of military genius--and the Gaulish hordes were annihilated on the Rhone
+and the Po. The Romans at first viewed those half-naked warriors--so
+full of strength and courage, so confident of victory, so reckless of
+life, so impetuous and savage--with terror and awe. But their time had
+not yet come. Numbers were of no avail against science, when science was
+itself directed by genius and sustained by enthusiasm. The result of the
+decisive battles of Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae was to roll back the tide
+of northern immigration for three hundred years, and to prepare the way
+for the conquests of Caesar in Gaul.
+
+[Sidenote: The Social War.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rise of Sulla.]
+
+Then followed that great insurrection of the old states of Italy against
+their imperious mistress--their last struggle for independence, called
+the Social War, in which three hundred thousand of the young men of
+Italy fell, and in which Sulla so much distinguished himself as to be
+regarded as the rival of Marius, who had ruled Rome since the slaughter
+of the Cimbrians and Teutones. Sulla, who had served under Marius in
+Africa, dissolute like Antony, but cultivated like Caesar--a man full of
+ambition and genius, and belonging to one of the oldest and proudest
+patrician families, the Cornelian gens--was no mean rival of the old
+tyrant and demagogue, and he was sent against Mithridates, the most
+powerful of all the Oriental kings.
+
+This Asiatic potentate had encouraged the insurgents in Italy, and was
+also at war with the Romans. Marius viewed with envy and hatred the
+preference shown to Sulla in the conduct of the Mithridatic War, and
+succeeded, by his intrigues and influence with the people, in causing
+Sulla to be superseded, and himself to be appointed in his place.
+
+[Sidenote: Civil wars between Marius and Sulla.]
+
+Hence that dreadful civil contest between these two generals, in which
+Rome was alternately at the mercy of both, and in which the most
+horrible butcheries took place that had ever befallen the city--a reign
+of terror, a burst of savage passion, especially on the part of Marius,
+who had lately abandoned himself to wine and riotous living. He died
+B.C. 86, victor in the contest, in his seventh consulate, worn out by
+labor and dissolute habits, nearly seventy years of age.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Marius.]
+
+His opportune death relieved Rome of a tyrannical rule, and opened the
+way for the splendid achievements of Sulla in the East. A great warrior
+had arisen in a quarter least expected. In the mountainous region along
+the north side of the Euxine, the kingdom of Pontus had grown from a
+principality to a kingdom, and Mithridates, ruling over Cappadocia,
+Papalagonia, and Phrygia, aspired for the sovereignty of the East. He
+was an accomplished and enlightened prince, and could speak twenty-five-
+languages, hardy, adventurous, and bold, like an ancient Persian. By
+conquests and alliances he had made himself the most powerful sovereign
+in Asia.
+
+[Sidenote: Mithridates.]
+
+Availing himself of the disturbance growing out of the Social War, he
+fomented a rebellion of the provinces of Asia Minor, seized Bithynia,
+and encouraged Athens to shake off the Roman yoke. Most of the Greek
+communities joined the Athenian insurrection, and Asia rallied around
+the man who hoped to cope successfully with Rome herself.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquests of Sulla in Greece.]
+
+At this juncture, Sulla was sent into Greece with fifty thousand men.
+Athens fell before his conquering legions, B.C. 88, and the lieutenants
+of Mithridates retreated before the Romans with one hundred thousand
+foot and ten thousand horse, and one hundred armed chariots. On the
+plains of Chaeronea, where Grecian liberties had been overthrown by
+Philip of Macedon, two hundred and fifty years before, a desperate
+conflict took place, and the Pontic army was signally defeated. Shortly
+after, Sulla gained another great victory over the generals of the King
+of Pontus, and compelled him to accept peace, the terms of which he
+himself dictated, after exacting heavy contributions from the cities of
+Greece and Asia Minor.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Sulla.]
+
+The civil war between Sulla and the chiefs of the popular faction that
+had been created by Marius, which ended in his complete ascendency in
+Italy, stopped for a while the Roman conquests in the East. Sulla,
+having undone the popular measures of the last half century, and reigned
+supreme over all factions as dictator, died B.C. 78, after a most
+successful career, and left his mantle to the most enterprising of his
+lieutenants, Cnaeus Pompey, who was destined to complete the Mithridatic
+war.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Sulla.]
+
+If Sulla had not been so inordinately fond of pleasure and luxurious
+self-indulgence, he might have seized the sceptre of universal dominion,
+and have made himself undisputed master of the empire. He was a man of
+extraordinary genius, fond of literature, and a great diplomatist. But
+he was not preeminently ambitious like Caesar, and was diverted by the
+fascinations of elegant leisure; nor was he naturally cruel, though his
+passions, when aroused, were fierce and vindictive. He lived in an age
+of exceeding corruption, when it was evident to contemplative minds that
+Roman liberties could not be much longer preserved. He had, for a time,
+restored the ascendency of the senatorial families, but faction was at
+work among the unprincipled chiefs of the republic.
+
+[Sidenote: Lucullus marches against Mithridates.]
+
+On the death of the great dictator, Mithridates broke the peace he had
+concluded, and marched into Bithynia, which had been left by will to the
+Roman people by Nicomedes, with the hope of its reconquest. He had an
+army of one hundred and twenty thousand foot and fifteen thousand horse.
+Lucullus, with thirty thousand foot and one thousand horse, advanced
+against him, and the vast forces of Mithridates were defeated, and the
+king was driven into Armenia, and sought the aid of Tigranes, his son-
+in-law, king of that powerful country. He, too, was subdued by the Roman
+legions, and all the nations from the Halys to the Euphrates
+acknowledged the dominion of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: Rising greatness of Pompey.]
+
+Still, Mithridates was not subdued, and Pompey, who had annihilated the
+Mediterranean pirates, was the only person fit to finish the Mithridatic
+war. His successes had been more brilliant than even those of Sulla, or
+Lucullus, or Metellus. He was made Dictator of the East, with greater
+powers than had ever before been intrusted to a Roman general. He had
+success equal to his fame; drove Mithridates across the Caucasus;
+reduced Pontus, and took possession of Syria, which had been subject to
+Tigranes. The defeated King of Pontus, who had sought to unite all the
+barbarous tribes of Eastern Europe against Rome, destroyed himself.
+Pompey, after seven years' continued successes, returned to Italy to
+claim his triumph, having subdued the East, and added the old monarchy
+of the Seleucidae to the dominion of Rome, B.C. 61.
+
+[Sidenote: The early career of Julius Caesar.]
+
+[Sidenote: His victories in Spain.]
+
+[Sidenote: Caesar sent into Gaul.]
+
+But while Pompey was pursuing his victories over the effeminate people
+of Asia, a still more brilliant career in the West marked the rising
+fortunes of Julius Caesar. I need not dwell on the steps by which he
+arose to become the formidable rival of the conqueror of the East. He
+bears the most august name of antiquity. A patrician by birth, a
+demagogue in his principles, popular in his manners, unscrupulous in his
+means, he successively passed through the various great offices of
+state, which he discharged with prodigious talent. As leader of the old
+popular party of Marius, he sought the humiliation of the Senate, while
+his ambition led him to favor every enterprise which promised to advance
+his own interests. Leaving the province of Spain, after his praetorship,
+before Pompey's return to Italy, his great career of conquest commenced.
+He first availed himself of some disturbances in Lusitania to declare
+war against its gallant people, overran their country, and then turned
+his arms against the Gallicians. In two years he had obtained spoils
+more than sufficient to pay his enormous debts, the result of his
+prodigality, by which, however, he won the hearts of the thoughtless
+citizens, and paved the way for honor. Conqueror of Spain, and idol of
+the people, he returned to Rome, B.C. 60, when Pompey was quarreling
+with the Senate, formed an alliance with him and Crassus, and by their
+aid was elected consul. His measures in that high office all tended to
+secure his popularity with the people, and supported by Pompey and
+Crassus, he triumphed over the Senate. He then secured the government of
+Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, with two legions, for the extraordinary
+term of five years. The Senate added the province of Transalpine Gaul,
+then threatened by the Allobrogians, Suevi, Helvetians, and other
+barbaric tribes, with the intention of confining him to a dangerous and
+uncertain field of warfare.
+
+[Sidenote: His great military genius.]
+
+[Sidenote: His difficulties in the conquest of Gaul.]
+
+[Sidenote: Results of the Gaulish wars.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gaul becomes Latinized.]
+
+That field, however, established his military fame, and paved the way
+for his subsequent usurpations. The conquests of Caesar in Western Europe
+are unique in the history of war, and furnish no parallel. Other
+conquests may have been equally brilliant and more imposing, but none
+were ever more difficult and arduous, requiring greater perseverance,
+energy, promptness, and fertility of resources. The splendid successes
+of Lucullus and Pompey in Asia resembled those of Alexander. We see
+military discipline and bravery triumphing over the force of multitudes,
+and a few thousand men routing vast armies of enervated or undisciplined
+mercenaries. Such were the conquests of the English in India. They make
+a great impression, but the fortunes of an empire are decided by a
+single battle. It was not so with the conflicts of Caesar in Gaul. He had
+to fight with successive waves of barbarians, inured to danger,
+adventurous and hardy, holding life in little estimation, willing to die
+in battle, intrepid in soul, and bent on ultimate victory. He had to
+fight in hostile territories, unacquainted with the face of the country,
+at a great distance from the base of his supplies, exposed to perpetual
+perils, and surrounded with unknown difficulties. And these were
+appreciated by his warlike countrymen, who gave him the credit he
+deserved. The ten years he spent in Gaul were the years of his truest
+glory, and the most momentous in their consequences on the future
+civilization of the world, since it was not worn-out monarchies he added
+to the empire, but a new territory, inhabited by brave and simple races,
+who were to learn the arts and laws and literature of Rome, and supply
+the government with powerful aid in the decline of its strength. It was
+the conquered barbarians who, henceforth, were to furnish Rome with
+soldiers, and even scholars and statesmen and generals. Among them the
+old civilization was to take root, among them new states were to arise
+on which the Romans could impress their own remarkable characteristics.
+It was the western provinces of the empire that alone were vital with
+energy and strength, and which were destined to perpetuate the spirit of
+Roman institutions. The eastern provinces never lost the impress of the
+Greek mind and manners. They remained Greek even when subdued by the
+imperial legions. Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, were filled with Grecian
+cities, and Asiatic customs were modified by Grecian civilization. The
+West was purely Roman, and the Latin language, laws, and arts were
+continued, in a modified form, through the whole period of the Middle
+Ages. Even Christianity had a different influence in the West from what
+it had in the East. In other words, the West was completely Latinized,
+while the East remained Grecian. Though the East was governed by Roman
+proconsuls, they could not change the Graeco-Asiatic character of its
+institutions and manners; but the barbarians were willing to learn new
+lessons from their Roman masters.
+
+[Sidenote: Greatness of Caesar.]
+
+It would require a volume to describe the various campaigns of Caesar in
+Gaul, in which a million of people were destroyed. But I only aim to
+show results. Most people are familiar with the marvelous generalship
+and enterprises of the Roman conqueror--the conquest and reconquest of
+the brave barbarians, most of whom were Celts; the uprising of Germanic
+tribes as well, and their fearful slaughter near Coblentz; the bloody
+battles, the fearful massacres, the unscrupulous cruelties which he
+directed; the formidable insurrection organized by Vercingetorix; the
+spirit he infused into his army; the incessant hardships of the
+soldiers, crossing rivers, mountains, and valleys, marching with their
+heavy burdens--fighting amid every disadvantage, until all the
+countries north of the Alps and west of the Rhine acknowledged his sway--
+all these things are narrated by Caesar himself with matchless force and
+simplicity of language.
+
+[Sidenote: Rivalry between Caesar and Pompey.]
+
+Caesar now probably aspired to the sovereignty of the empire, as Napoleon
+did after the conquest of Italy. But he had a great rival in Pompey, who
+had remained chiefly at Rome, during his Gaulish campaigns, virtually
+dictator, certainly the strongest citizen. And Pompey had also his
+ambitious schemes. One was the conqueror of the East; the other of the
+West. One leaned to the aristocratic party, the other to the popular.
+Pompey was proud, pompous, and self-sufficient. Caesar was politic,
+patient, and intriguing. Both had an inordinate ambition, and both were
+unscrupulous. Pompey had more prestige, Caesar more genius. Pompey was a
+greater tactician, Caesar a greater strategist. The Senate rallied around
+the former, the people around the latter. Cicero distrusted both, and
+flattered each by turns, but inclined to the side of Pompey, as
+belonging to the aristocratic party.
+
+[Sidenote: Battle of Pharsalia.]
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Pompey.]
+
+Between such ambitious rivals coalition for any length of time could not
+continue. Dissensions arose between them, and then war. The contest was
+decided at Pharsalia. On the 6th of June, B.C. 48, "Greek met Greek,"
+yet with forces by no means great on either side. Pompey had only forty
+thousand, and Caesar less, but they were veterans, and the victory was
+complete. Pompey fled to Egypt, without evincing his former greatness,
+paralyzed, broken, and without hope. There he miserably died, by the
+assassin's dagger, at the age of sixty, and the way was now prepared for
+the absolute rule of Caesar.
+
+[Sidenote: Dictatorship of Caesar.]
+
+But the party of Pompey rallied, connected with which were some of the
+noblest names of Rome. The battle of Thapsus proved as disastrous to
+Cato as Pharsalia did to Pompey. Caesar was uniformly victorious, not
+merely over the party which had sustained Pompey, but in Asia, Africa,
+and Spain, which were in revolt. His presence was everywhere required,
+and wherever he appeared his presence was enough. He was now dictator
+for ten years. He had overturned the constitution of his country. He was
+virtually the supreme ruler of the world. In the brief period which
+passed from his last triumphs to his death, he was occupied in
+legislative labors, in settling military colonies, in restoring the
+wasted population of Italy, in improving the city, in reforming the
+calendar, and other internal improvements, evincing an enlarged and
+liberal mind.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Caesar. His character.]
+
+But the nobles hated him, and had cause, in spite of his abilities, his
+affability, magnanimity, and forbearance. He had usurped unlimited
+authority, and was too strong to be removed except by assassination. I
+need not dwell on the conspiracy under the leadership of Brutus, and his
+tragic end in the senate-house, where he fell, pierced by twenty-two
+wounds, at the base of Pompey's statue, the greatest man in Roman
+history--great as an orator, a writer, a general, and a statesman; a man
+without vanity, devoted to business, unseduced by pleasure, unscrupulous
+of means to effect an end; profligate, but not more so than his times;
+ambitious of power, but to rule, when power was once secured, for the
+benefit of his country, like many other despots immortal on a bloody
+catalogue. After his passage of the Rubicon his career can only be
+compared with that of Napoleon.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of his later wars.]
+
+But Roman territories were not much enlarged by Caesar after the conquest
+of Celtic Europe. His later wars were either against rivals or to settle
+distracted provinces. Nor were they increased in the civil wars which
+succeeded his death, between the various aspirants for the imperial
+power and those who made one more stand for the old constitution. At the
+fatal battle of Philippi, when the hopes of Roman patriots vanished
+forever, double the number of soldiers were engaged on both sides than
+at Pharsalia, but fortune had left the senatorial party, of which Brutus
+was the avenger and the victim.
+
+[Sidenote: Civil wars after the death of Caesar.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ascendency of Octavian.]
+
+Civil war was carried on most vigorously after the death of Julius. But
+it was now plainly a matter between rival generals and statesmen for
+supreme command. The chief contest was between Octavian and Antony, the
+former young, artful, self-controlled, and with transcendent abilities
+as a statesman; the latter bold, impetuous, luxurious, and the ablest of
+all Caesar's lieutenants as a general. Had he not yielded to the
+fascinations of Cleopatra, he would probably have been the master of the
+world. But the sea-fight of Actium, one of the great decisive battles of
+history, gave the empire of the world to Octavian B.C. 31, and two years
+after the victor celebrated three magnificent triumphs, after the
+example of his uncle, for Dalmatia, Actium, and Egypt. The kingdom of
+the Ptolemies passed under the rule of Caesar. The Temple of Janus was
+shut, for the first time for more than two hundred years; and the
+imperial power was peaceably established over the civilized world.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity for the empire.]
+
+The friends of liberty may justly mourn over the fall of republican
+Rome, and the centralization of all power in the hands of Augustus. But
+it was a calamity which could not be averted, and was a revolution which
+was in accordance with the necessities of the times. Fifty years' civil
+war taught the Romans the hopelessness of the struggle to maintain their
+old institutions so long as the people were corrupt, and fortunate
+generals would sacrifice the public welfare to their ambition. Order was
+better than anarchy, even though a despot reigned supreme. When men are
+worse than governments, they must submit to the despotism of tyrants. It
+is idle to dream of liberty with a substratum of folly and vice. The
+strongest man will rule, but whether he rule wisely or unwisely, there
+is no remedy. Providence gave the world to the Romans, after continual
+and protracted wars for seven hundred years; and when the people who had
+conquered the world by their energy, prudence, and perseverance, were no
+longer capable of governing themselves, then the state fell into the
+possession of a single man.
+
+[Sidenote: Change in the imperial policy.]
+
+Under the emperors, the whole policy of the government was changed. They
+no longer thought of further aggrandizement, but of retaining the
+conquests which were already made. And if they occasionally embarked in
+new wars, those wars were of necessity rather than of ambition, were
+defensive rather than aggressive. New provinces were from time to time
+added, but in consequence of wars which were waged in defense of the
+empire. The conquest of Britain and Judea was completed, and various
+conflicts took place with the Germanic nations, who, in the reign of
+Antoninus, formed a general union for the invasion of the Roman world.
+These barbarians were the future aggressors on the peace of the empire,
+until it fell into their hands. The empire of Augustus may be said to
+have reached the utmost limits it ever permanently retained, extending
+from the Rhine and the Danube to the Euphrates and Mount Atlas,
+embracing a population variously estimated from one hundred to one
+hundred and thirty millions.
+
+[Sidenote: Perfection of military art.]
+
+When Augustus became the sovereign ruler of this vast empire, military
+art had reached the highest perfection it ever attained among any of the
+nations of antiquity. It required centuries to perfect this science, if
+science it may be called, and the Romans doubtless borrowed from the
+people whom they subdued. They learned to resist the impetuous assaults
+of semi-barbarous warriors, the elephants of the East, and the phalanx
+of the Greeks. Military discipline was carried to the severest extent by
+Marius, Pompey, and Caesar.
+
+[Sidenote: The spirit of the Roman soldier.]
+
+The Roman soldier was trained to march twenty miles a day, under a
+burden of eighty pounds; yea, to swim rivers, to climb mountains, to
+penetrate forests, and to encounter every kind of danger. He was taught
+that his destiny was to die in battle. He expected death. He was ready
+to die. Death was his duty, and his glory. He enlisted in the armies
+with little hope of revisiting his home. He crossed seas and deserts and
+forests with the idea of spending his life in the service of his
+country. His pay was only a denarius daily, equal to about sixteen cents
+of our money. Marriage was discouraged or forbidden. He belonged to the
+state, and the state was exacting and hard. He was reduced to abject
+obedience, yet he held in his hand the destinies of the empire. And
+however insignificant was the legionary as a man, he gained importance
+from the great body with which he was identified. He was the servant and
+the master of the state. He had an intense _esprit de corps_. He
+was bound up in the glory of his legion. Both religion and honor bound
+him to his standards. The golden eagle which glittered in his front was
+the object of his fondest devotion. Nor was it possible to escape the
+penalty of cowardice or treachery, or disobedience. He could be
+chastised with blows by his centurion; his general could doom him to
+death. Never was the severity of military discipline relaxed. Military
+exercises were incessant, in winter as in summer. In the midst of peace
+the Roman troops were familiarized with the practice of war.
+
+[Sidenote: Military genius of the Romans.]
+
+[Sidenote: The perfection of military art.]
+
+It was the spirit which animated the Roman legions, and the discipline
+to which they were inured, which gave them their irresistible strength.
+When we remember that they had not our fire-arms, we are surprised at
+their efficiency, especially in taking strongly fortified cities.
+Jerusalem was defended by a triple wall, and the most elaborate
+fortifications, and twenty-four thousand soldiers, beside the aid
+received from the citizens; and yet it fell in little more than four
+months before an army of eighty thousand under Titus. How great the
+science to reduce a place of such strength, in so short a time, without
+the aid of other artillery than the ancient catapult and battering-ram!
+Whether the military science of the Romans was superior or inferior to
+our own, no one can question that it was carried to utmost perfection
+before the invention of gunpowder. We are only superior in the
+application of this great invention, especially in artillery. There can
+be no doubt that a Roman army was superior to a feudal army in the
+brightest days of chivalry. The world has produced no generals superior
+to Caesar, Pompey, Sulla, and Marius. No armies ever won greater
+victories over superior numbers than the Roman, and no armies of their
+size, ever retained in submission so great an empire, and for so long a
+time. At no period in the history of the empire were the armies so large
+as those sustained by France in time of peace. Two hundred thousand
+legionaries, and as many more auxiliaries, controlled diverse nations
+and powerful monarchies. The single province of Syria once boasted of a
+military force equal in the number of soldiers to that wielded by
+Tiberius. Twenty-five legions made the conquest of the world, and
+retained that conquest for five hundred years. The self-sustained energy
+of Caesar in Gaul puts to the blush the efforts of all modern generals,
+except Frederic II., Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Grant, Sherman,
+and a few other great geniuses which a warlike age developed; nor is
+there a better text-book on the art of war than that furnished by Caesar
+himself in his Commentaries. And the great victories of the Romans over
+barbarians, over Gauls, over Carthaginians, over Greeks, over Syrians,
+over Persians, were not the result of a short-lived enthusiasm, like
+those of Attila and Tamerlane, but extended over a thousand years. The
+Romans were essentially military in all their tastes and habits.
+Luxurious senators and nobles showed the greatest courage and skill in
+the most difficult campaigns. Antony, Caesar, Pompey, and Lucullus were,
+at home, enervated and luxurious, but, at the head of the legions, were
+capable of any privation and fatigue. The Roman legion was a most
+perfect organization, a great mechanical force, and could sustain
+furious attacks after vigor, patriotism, and public spirit had fled. For
+three hundred years a vast empire was sustained by mechanism alone.
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman Legion.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its composition.]
+
+[Sidenote: The infantry the strength of the legion.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its armor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its weapons.]
+
+[Sidenote: The cavalry.]
+
+[Sidenote: Term of military service.]
+
+The legion is coeval with the foundation of Rome, but the number of the
+troops of which it was composed varied at different periods. It rarely
+exceeded six thousand men. Gibbon estimates the number at six thousand
+eight hundred and twenty-six men. For many centuries it was composed
+exclusively of Roman citizens. Up to the year B.C. 107, no one was
+permitted to serve among the regular troops except those who were
+regarded as possessing a strong personal interest in the stability of
+the republic. Marius admitted all orders of citizens; and after the
+close of the Social War, B.C. 87, the whole free population of Italy was
+allowed to serve in the regular army. Claudius incorporated with the
+legion the vanquished Goths, and after him the barbarians filled up the
+ranks, on account of the degeneracy of the times. But during the period
+when the Romans were conquering the world every citizen was trained to
+arms, and was liable to be called upon to serve in the armies. In the
+early age of the republic, the legion was disbanded as soon as the
+special service was performed, and was in all essential respects a
+militia. For three centuries, we have no record of a Roman army
+wintering in the field; but when Southern Italy became the seat of war,
+and especially when Rome was menaced by foreign enemies, and still more
+when a protracted foreign service became inevitable, the same soldiers
+remained in activity for several years. Gradually the distinction
+between the soldier and the civilian was entirely obliterated. The
+distant wars of the republic, like the prolonged operations of Caesar in
+Gaul, and the civil contests, made a standing army a necessity. During
+the civil wars between Caesar and Pompey, the legions were forty in
+number; under Augustus but twenty-five. Alexander Severus increased them
+to thirty-two. This was the standing force of the empire, from one
+hundred and fifty to two hundred and forty thousand men, and this was
+stationed in the various provinces. The main dependence of the legion
+was on the infantry, which wore heavy armor consisting of helmet,
+breastplate, greaves on the legs, and buckler on the left arm four feet
+in length and two and a half in width. The helmet was originally made of
+leather or skin, strengthened and adorned by bronze or gold, and
+surmounted by a crest which was often of horse-hair, and so made as to
+give an imposing look The crest not only served for ornament but to
+distinguish the different centurions. The breastplate or cuirass was
+generally made of metal, and sometimes was highly ornamented. Chain-mail
+was also used. The greaves were of bronze or brass, with a lining of
+leather or felt, and reached above the knees. The shield, worn by the
+heavy-armed infantry, was not round, like that of the Greeks, but oval
+or oblong, adapted to the shape of the body, and was made of wood or
+wicker-work. The weapons were a light spear, a pilum or javelin six feet
+long, terminated by a steel point, and a sword with a double edge,
+adapted to striking or pushing. The legion was drawn up eight deep, and
+three feet intervened between rank and file, which disposition gave
+great activity, and made it superior to the Macedonian phalanx, the
+strength of which depended on sixteen ranks of long pikes wedged
+together. The cavalry attached to each legion were three hundred men,
+and they originally were selected from the leading men in the state.
+They were mounted at the expense of the state, and formed a distinct
+order. The cavalry was divided into ten squadrons; and to each legion
+was attached a train of ten military engines of the largest size, and
+fifty-five of the smaller,--all of which discharged stones and darts
+with great effect. This train corresponded with our artillery. Besides
+the armor and weapons of the legionaries they usually carried on their
+marches provisions for two weeks, and three or four stakes used in
+forming the palisade of the camp, beside various tools,--altogether a
+burden of sixty or eighty pounds per man. The general period of service
+for the infantry was twenty years, after which the soldier received a
+discharge together with a bounty in money or land.
+
+[Sidenote: Organization of the legion.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Hastati.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Principes and Velites.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Triarii.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Pilarii.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Equites.]
+
+The Roman legion, whether it was composed of four thousand men, as in
+the early ages of the republic or six thousand, as in the time of
+Augustus, of was divided into ten cohorts, and each cohort was composed
+of Hastati, Principes, Triarii, and Velites. The soldiers of the first
+line, called Hastati, consisted of youths in the bloom of manhood, and
+were distributed into fifteen companies or maniples. Each company
+contained sixty privates, two centurions, and a standard-bearer. Two
+thirds were heavily armed, and bore the long shield, the remainder
+carried only a spear and light javelins. The second line, the Principes,
+was composed of men in the full vigor of life, divided also into fifteen
+companies, all heavily armed, and distinguished by the splendor of their
+equipments. The third body, the Triarii, was also composed of tried
+veterans, in fifteen companies, the least trustworthy of which were
+placed in the rear. These formed three lines. The Velites were light-
+armed troops, employed on outpost duty, and mingled with the horsemen.
+The Hastati were so called because they were armed with the hasta; the
+Principes, for being placed so near to the front; the Triarii, from
+having been arrayed behind the first two lines as a body of reserve,
+armed with the pilum, thicker and stronger than the Grecian lance,--four
+and a half feet long, of wood, with a barbed head of iron,--so that the
+whole length of the weapon was six feet nine inches. It was used either
+to throw or thrust with, and when it pierced the enemy's shield,
+[Footnote: Liv. viii. 8.] the iron head was bent, and the spear, owing
+to the twist in the iron, still held to the shield. [Footnote: Plut.
+Mar. 25.] Each soldier carried two of these weapons. [Footnote: Polyb.
+vi. 23.] The Principes were in the front ranks of the phalanx, clad in
+complete defensive armor,--men in the vigor of strength. The Pilarii
+were in the rear, who threw the heavy pilum over the heads of their
+comrades, in order to break the enemy's line. In the time of the empire,
+when the legion was modified, the infantry wore cuirasses and helmets,
+and two swords; namely, a long one and a dagger. The select infantry
+carried a long spear and a shield, the rest a pilum. Each man carried a
+saw, a basket, a mattock, a hatchet, a leather strap, a hook, a chain,
+and provisions for three days. The Equites wore helmets and cuirasses,
+like the infantry, with a broad sword at the right side, and in their
+hand a long pole. A buckler swung at the horse's flank. They were also
+furnished with a quiver containing three or four javelins.
+
+[Sidenote: The artillery.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Testudo.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Helepolis.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Turris.]
+
+[Sidenote: Scailing-ladders.]
+
+The artillery were used both for hurling missiles in battle, and for the
+attack of fortresses. The _tormentum_, which was an elastic
+instrument, discharged stones and darts, and was continued until the
+discovery of gunpowder. In besieging a city, the ram was employed for
+destroying the lower part of a wall, and the balista, which discharged
+stones, was used to overthrow the battlements. The balista would project
+a stone weighing from fifty to three hundred pounds. The _aries_,
+or battering-ram, consisted of a large beam made of the trunk of a tree,
+frequently one hundred feet in length, to one end of which was fastened
+a mace of iron or bronze, which resembled in form the head of a ram, and
+was often suspended by ropes from a beam fixed transversely over it, so
+that the soldiers were relieved from supporting its weight, and were
+able to give it a rapid and forcible motion backward and forward. And
+when this machine was further aided by placing a frame in which it was
+suspended upon wheels, and constructing over it a roof, so as to form a
+_testudo_, which protected the besieging party from the assaults of
+the besieged, there was no tower so strong, no wall so thick, as to
+resist a long-continued attack. Its great length enabled the soldiers to
+work across the ditch, and as many as one hundred men were often
+employed upon it. The Romans learned from the Greeks the art of building
+this formidable engine, which was used with great effect by Alexander,
+but with still greater by Vespasian in the siege of Jerusalem. It was
+first used by the Romans in the siege of Syracuse. The _vinea_ was
+a sort of roof under which the soldiers protected themselves when they
+undermined walls. The _helepolis_, also used in the attack of
+cities, was a square tower furnished with all the means of assault. This
+also was a Greek invention, and that used by Demetrius at the siege of
+Rhodes, B.C. 306, was one hundred and thirty-five feet high and sixty-
+eight wide, divided into nine stories. Towers of this description were
+used at the siege of Jerusalem, [Footnote: Josephus _B. J._, ii. 19.]
+and were manned by two hundred men employed upon the catapults and rams.
+The _turris_, a tower of the same class, was used both by Greeks and
+Romans, and even by Asiatics. Mithridates used one at the siege of
+Cyzicus one hundred and fifty feet in height. This most formidable
+engine was generally made of beams of wood covered on three sides with
+iron and sometimes with raw hides. They were higher than the walls and
+all the other fortifications of a besieged place, divided into stories
+pierced with windows. In and upon them were stationed archers and
+slingers, and in the lower story was a battering-ram. They also carried
+scaling-ladders, so that when the wall was cleared, these were placed
+against the walls. They were placed upon wheels, and brought as near the
+walls as possible. It was impossible to resist these powerful engines,
+unless they were burned, or the ground undermined upon which they stood,
+except by overturning them with stones or iron-shod beams hung from a
+mast on the wall, or by increasing the height of the wall, or the
+erection of temporary towers on the wall beside them.
+
+[Sidenote: The advantages of defenders.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ordinary way of capture.]
+
+[Sidenote: Strength and advantage of fortresses.]
+
+Thus there was no ancient fortification capable of withstanding a long
+siege when the besieged city was, short of defenders or provisions. With
+equal forces an attack was generally a failure, for the defenders had
+always a great advantage. But when the number of defenders was reduced,
+or when famine pressed, the skill and courage of the assailants would
+ultimately triumph. Some ancient cities made a most obstinate
+resistance, like Tarentum; Carthage, which stood a siege of four years;
+Numantia in Spain, and Jerusalem. When cities were of immense size,
+population, and resources, like Rome when besieged by Alaric, it was
+easier to take them by cutting off all ingress and egress, so as to
+produce famine. Tyre was only taken by Alexander by cutting off the
+harbor. Babylon could not have been taken by Cyrus by assault, since the
+walls were three hundred and thirty-seven feet high, according to
+Herodotus, and the ditch too wide for the use of battering-rams. He
+resorted to an expedient of which the blinded inhabitants of that doomed
+city never dreamed, which rendered their impregnable fortifications
+useless. Nor would the Romans have probably prevailed against Jerusalem
+had not famine decimated and weakened the people. Fortified cities,
+though scarcely ever impregnable, were yet more in use in ancient than
+modern times, and greatly delayed the operations of advancing armies.
+And it was probably the fortified camp of the Romans, which protected an
+army against surprises and other misfortunes, which gave such efficacy
+to the legions.
+
+[Sidenote: The Tribunes.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Centurions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gradation of ranks.]
+
+The chief officers of the legion were the tribunes, and originally there
+was one in each legion from the three tribes--the Ramnes, Luceres, and
+Tities. In the time of Polybius the number in each legion was six. Their
+authority extended equally over the whole legion; but, to prevent
+confusion, it was the custom for these military tribunes to divide
+themselves into three sections of two, and each pair undertook the
+routine duties for two months out of six. They nominated the centurions,
+and assigned to each the company to which he belonged. These tribunes,
+at first, were chosen by the commander-in-chief,--by the kings and
+consuls; but during the palmy days of the republic, when the patrician
+power was preeminent, they were elected by the people, that is, the
+citizens. Later they were named half by the Senate and half by the
+consuls. No one was eligible to this great office who had not served ten
+years in the infantry or five in the cavalry. They were distinguished by
+their dress from the common soldier. Next in rank to the tribunes, who
+corresponded to the rank of brigadiers and colonels in our times, were
+the centurions, of whom there were sixty in each legion,--men who were
+more remarkable for calmness and sagacity than for courage and daring
+valor; men who would keep their posts at all hazards. It was their duty
+to drill the soldiers, to inspect arms, clothing, and food, to visit the
+sentinels, and regulate the conduct of the men. They had the power of
+inflicting corporal punishment. They were chosen for merit solely, until
+the later ages of the empire, when their posts were bought, as in the
+English army. These centurions were of unequal rank,--those of the
+Triarii before those of the Principes, and those of the Principes before
+those of the Hastati. The first centurion of the first maniple of the
+Triarii stood next in rank to the tribunes, and had a seat in the
+military councils, and his office was very lucrative. To his charge was
+intrusted the eagle of the legion. [Footnote: Liv. xxv. 5; Caes.
+_B.C._, vi. 6.] As the centurion could rise from the ranks, and
+rose by regular gradation through the different maniples of the Hastati,
+Principes, and Triarii, there was great inducement held out to the
+soldiers. In the Roman legion it would seem that there was a regular
+gradation of rank although there were but few distinct offices. But the
+gradation was not determined by length of service, but for merit alone,
+of which the tribunes were the sole judges. Hence the tribune of a Roman
+legion had more power than that of a modern colonel. As the tribunes
+named the centurions, so the centurions appointed their lieutenants, who
+were called sub-centurions.
+
+[Sidenote: Change in the organization of the legions.]
+
+There was a change in the constitution and disposition of the legion
+after the time of Marius, until the fall of the republic. The legions
+were thrown open to men of all grades; they were all armed and equipped
+alike; the lines were reduced to two, with a space between each cohort,
+of which there were five in each line; the young soldiers were placed in
+the rear, and not the van; the distinction between Hastati, Principes,
+and Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by
+the foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion,
+and became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from
+the rest of the state. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had
+not completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a
+man could pass through all the great dignities of the state with a very
+limited experience of military life. Cicero himself served but one
+campaign.
+
+[Sidenote: Changes under the emperors.]
+
+[Sidenote: Pay of soldiers.]
+
+Under the emperors, there were still other changes. The regular army
+consisted of legions and supplementa,--the latter being subdivided into
+the imperial guards and the auxiliary troops. The auxiliaries (Socii)
+consisted of troops from the states in alliance with Rome, or those
+compelled to furnish subsidies. The infantry of the allies was generally
+more numerous than that of the Romans, while the cavalry was three times
+as numerous. All the auxiliaries were paid by the state; the infantry
+received the same pay as the Roman infantry, but the cavalry only two
+thirds of what was paid to the Roman cavalry. The common foot-soldier
+received in the time of Polybius three and a half asses a day, equal to
+about six farthings sterling money; the horseman three times as much.
+The Praetorian cohorts received twice as much as the legionaries. Julius
+Caesar allowed about six asses a day as the pay of the legionary, and
+under Augustus the daily pay was raised to ten asses--little more than
+four pence per day. Domitian raised the stipend still higher. The
+soldier, however, was fed and clothed by the government.
+
+[Sidenote: The Praetorian cohort.]
+
+The Praetorian cohort was a select body of troops instituted by Augustus
+to protect his person, and consisted of ten cohorts, each of one
+thousand men, chosen from Italy. This number was increased by Vitellius
+to sixteen thousand, and they were assembled by Tiberius in a permanent
+camp, which was strongly fortified. They had peculiar privileges, and
+when they had served sixteen years, received twenty thousand sesterces,
+or more than one hundred pounds sterling. Each Praetorian had the rank of
+a centurion in the regular army. Like the body-guard of Louis XIV., they
+were all gentlemen, and formed gradually a great power, like the
+janissaries at Constantinople, and frequently disposed of the purple
+itself. It would thus appear that the centurion only received twice the
+pay of the ordinary legionary. There was not therefore so much
+difference in rank between a private and a captain as in our day. There
+were no aristocratic distinctions in the ancient world so marked as in
+the modern.
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman camp.]
+
+[Sidenote: The guardianship of the camp.]
+
+[Sidenote: The breaking up of the camp.]
+
+Our notice of the Roman legion would be incomplete without allusion to
+the camp in which the soldier virtually lived. A Roman army never halted
+for a single night without forming a regular intrenchment capable of
+holding all the fighting men, the beasts of burden, and the baggage.
+When the army could not retire, during the winter months, into some
+city, it was compelled to live in the camp. It was arranged and
+fortified according to a uniform plan, so that every company and
+individual had a place assigned. We cannot tell when this practice of
+intrenchment began; it was matured gradually, like all other things
+pertaining to the art of war. The system was probably brought to
+perfection during the wars with Hannibal. Skill in the choice of ground,
+giving facilities for attack and defense, and for procuring water and
+other necessities, was of great account with the generals. An area of
+about five thousand square feet was allowed for a company of infantry,
+and ten thousand feet for a troop of thirty dragoons. The form of a camp
+was an exact square, the length of each side being two thousand and
+seventeen feet. There was a space between the ramparts and the tents of
+two hundred feet to facilitate the marching in and out of soldiers, and
+to guard the cattle and booty. The principal street was one hundred feet
+wide, and was called Principia. The defenses of the camp consisted of a
+ditch, the earth from which was thrown inwards, and strong palisades of
+wooden stakes upon the top of the earthwork so formed. The ditch was
+sometimes fifteen feet deep, and the vallum or rampart ten feet in
+height. When the army encamped for the first time the tribunes
+administered an oath to each individual, including slaves, to the effect
+that they would steal nothing out of the camp. Every morning at
+daybreak, the centurions and the equites presented themselves before the
+tents of the tribunes, and the tribunes in like manner presented
+themselves to the praetorian, to learn the orders of the consuls, which
+through the centurions were communicated to the soldiers. Four companies
+took charge of the principal street, to see that it was properly cleaned
+and watered. One company took charge of the tent of the tribune, a
+strong guard attended to the horses, and another of fifty men stood
+beside the tent of the general that he might be protected from open
+danger and secret treachery. The velites mounted guard the whole night
+and day along the whole extent of the vallum, and each gate was guarded
+by ten men. The equites were intrusted with the duty of acting as
+sentinels during the night, and most ingenious measures were adopted to
+secure their watchfulness and fidelity. The watchword for the night was
+given by the commander-in-chief. "On the first signal being given by the
+trumpet, the tents were all struck and the baggage packed. At the second
+signal, the baggage was placed upon the beasts of burden; and at the
+third the whole army began to move. Then the herald, standing at the
+right hand of the general, demands thrice if they are ready for war, to
+which they all respond with loud and repeated cheers that they are
+ready, and for the most part, being filled with martial ardor,
+anticipate the question, 'and raise their right hands on high with a
+shout.'" [Footnote: Smith, _Dict. of Ant._, art. _Castra_.]
+
+[Sidenote: Line of March.]
+
+Josephus gives an account of the line of march in which the army of
+Vespasian entered Galilee. "1. The light-armed auxiliaries and bowmen,
+advancing to reconnoiter. 2. A detachment of Roman heavy-armed troops,
+horse and foot. 3. Ten men out of every century or company, carrying
+their own equipments and the measures of the camp. 4. The baggage of
+Vespasian and his legati guarded by a strong body of horse. 5. Vespasian
+himself, attended by his horse-guard and a body of spearmen. 6. The
+peculiar cavalry of the legion. 7. The artillery dragged by mules. 8.
+The legati, tribunes, and praefects of cohorts, guarded by a body of
+picked soldiers. 9. The standards, surrounding the eagle. 10. The
+trumpeters. 11. The main body of the infantry, six abreast, accompanied
+by a centurion, whose duty it was to see that the men kept their ranks.
+12. The whole body of slaves attached to each legion, driving the mules
+and beasts of burden loaded with the baggage. 13. Behind all the legions
+followed the mercenaries. 14. The rear was brought up by a strong body
+of cavalry and infantry." [Footnote: Josephus, _B. J._, iii.
+6, Section 2.]
+
+[Sidenote: Excitements of military life.]
+
+[Sidenote: Smallness of the Roman armies.]
+
+[Sidenote: How battles were decided.]
+
+From what has come down to us of Roman military life, it appears to have
+been full of excitement, toil, danger, and hardship. The pecuniary
+rewards of the soldier were small. He was paid in glory. No profession
+brought so much honor as the military. And from the undivided attention
+of a great people to this profession, it was carried to all the
+perfection which could be attained until the great invention of
+gunpowder changed the art of war. It was not the number of men employed
+in the armies which particularly arrests attention, but the spirit and
+genius which animated them. The Romans loved war, but so reduced it to a
+science that it required comparatively small armies to conquer the
+world. Sulla defeated Mithridates with only thirty thousand men, while
+his adversary marshaled against him over one hundred thousand; and Caesar
+had only ten legions to effect the conquest of Gaul, and none of these
+were of Italian origin. At the great decisive battle of Pharsalia, when
+most of the available forces of the empire were employed, on one side or
+the other, Pompey commanded a legionary army of forty-five thousand men;
+and the cavalry amounted to seven thousand more, but among them were
+included the flower of the Roman nobility. The auxiliary force has not
+been computed, although it was probably numerous. Caesar had under him
+only twenty-two thousand of legionaries and one thousand cavalry. But
+every man in both armies was prepared to conquer or die. The forces were
+posted on the open plain, and the battle was really a hand-to-hand
+encounter, in which the soldiers, after hurling their lances, fought
+with their swords chiefly. And when the cavalry of Pompey rushed upon
+the legionaries of Caesar, no blows were wasted on the mailed panoply of
+the mounted Romans, but were aimed at the face alone, as that alone was
+unprotected. The battle was decided by the coolness, bravery, and
+discipline of veterans, inspired by the genius of the greatest general
+of antiquity. Less than one hundred thousand men, in all probability,
+were engaged in one of the most memorable conflicts which the world has
+seen.
+
+[Sidenote: Gradual organization of military power.]
+
+[Sidenote: Magnanimity of the early generals.]
+
+Thus it was, by unparalleled heroism in war, and a uniform policy in
+government, that Rome became the mistress of the world. The Roman
+conquests have never been surpassed, for they were retained until the
+empire fell. I wish that I could have dwelt on these conquests more in
+detail, and presented more fully the brilliant achievements of
+individuals. It took nearly two hundred years, after the expulsion of
+the kings, to regain supremacy over the neighboring people, and another
+century to conquer Italy. The Romans did not contend with regular armies
+until they were brought in conflict with the king of Epirus and the
+phalanx of the Greeks, "which improved their military tactics, and
+introduced between the combatants those mutual regards of civilized
+nations which teach men to honor their adversaries, to spare the
+vanquished, and to lay aside wrath when the struggle is ended." In the
+fifth century of her existence, the republic appears in peculiar
+splendor. Military chieftains do not transcend their trusts; the
+aristocracy are equally distinguished for exploits and virtues; the
+magistrates maintain simplicity of manners and protect the rights of the
+citizens; the citizens are self-sacrificing and ever ready to obey the
+call to arms, laying aside great commands and retiring poor to private
+stations. Marcus Valerius Corvus, after filling twenty-one curule
+offices, returns to agricultural life; Marcus Curius Dentatus retains no
+part of the rich spoils or the Sabines; Fabricius rejects the gold of
+the Samnites and the presents of Pyrrhus. The most trustworthy are
+elevated to places of dignity and power. Senators mingle in the ranks of
+the legions, and eighty of them die on the field of Cannae. Discipline is
+enforced to cruelty, and Manlius Torquatus punishes with death a
+disobedient son. Soldiers who desert the field are decimated or branded
+with dishonor. Faith is kept even with enemies, and Regulus returns a
+voluntary prisoner to his deadly enemies.
+
+[Sidenote: Results of different wars.]
+
+After the consolidation of Roman power in Italy, it took one hundred and
+fifty years more only to complete the conquest of the world--of Northern
+Africa, Spain, Gaul, Illyria, Epirus, Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor,
+Pontus, Syria, Egypt, Bithynia, Cappadocia, Pergamus, and the islands of
+the Mediterranean. The conquest of Carthage left Rome without a rival in
+the Mediterranean, and promoted intercourse with the Greeks. The
+Illyrian wars opened to the Romans the road to Greece and Asia, and
+destroyed the pirates of the Adriatic. The invasion of Cisalpine Gaul,
+now that part of Italy which is north of the Apennines, protected Italy
+from the invasion of barbarians. The Macedonian War against Philip put
+Greece under the protection of Rome, and that against Antiochus laid
+Syria at her mercy; and when these kingdoms were reduced to provinces,
+the way was opened to further conquests in the East, and the
+Mediterranean became a Roman lake.
+
+[Sidenote: Effect of Roman conquests on society.]
+
+[Sidenote: Degeneracy of morals undermines military power.]
+
+But these conquests introduce luxury, wealth, pride, and avarice, with
+arts, refinements, and literature. These degrade while they elevate.
+Civilization becomes the alternate triumph of good and evil influences,
+and a doubtful boon. Successful war creates great generals, and founds
+great families, increases slavery, and promotes inequalities. Demagogues
+arise who seduce and deceive the people, and they enroll themselves
+under the standards of their idols. Rome is governed by an oligarchy of
+military chieftains, and has become more aristocratic and more
+democratic at the same time. The people gain rights, only to yield to
+the supremacy of demagogues. The Senate is humbled, but remains the
+ascendant power, for generals compose it, and those who have held great
+offices. Meanwhile the great generals struggle for supremacy. Civil wars
+follow in the train of foreign conquests. Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Julius,
+Antony, Augustus, sacrifice the state to their ambition. Good men
+lament, and protest, and hide themselves. Cato, Cicero, Brutus, speak in
+vain. Degenerate morals keep pace with civil contests. Rome revels in
+the spoils of all kingdoms and countries, is intoxicated with power,
+becomes cruel and tyrannical, and, after yielding up the lives of
+citizens to fortunate generals, yields at last her liberties, and
+imperial despotism begins its reign,--hard, immovable, resolute,--under
+which genius is crushed, and life becomes epicurean, but under which
+property and order are preserved. The regime is bad; but it is a change
+for the better. War has produced its fruits. It has added empire, but
+undermined prosperity; it has created a great military monarchy, but
+destroyed liberty; it has brought wealth, but introduced inequalities;
+it has filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of self-interest.
+The machinery is perfect, but life has fled. It is henceforth the labor
+of emperors to keep together their vast possessions with this machinery,
+which at last wears out, since there is neither genius to repair it nor
+patriotism to work it. It lasts three hundred years, but is broken to
+pieces by the Goths and Vandals.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+The highest authority in relation to the construction of an army is
+Polybius, who was contemporary with Scipio, at a period when Roman
+discipline was most perfect. A fragment from his sixth book gives
+considerable information. A chapter of Livy--the eighth--is also very
+much prized. Salmasius and Lepsius have also written learned treatises.
+Smith's Dictionary, which is full of details in every thing pertaining
+to the weapons, the armor, the military engines, the rewards and
+punishments of the soldiers, refers to Folard's _Commentaire_, to
+_Memoires Militaires sur les Grecs et les Remains_, by Guischard,
+and to the _Histoire des Campagnes d'Hannibal en Italie_, by
+Vaudencourt. Tacitus, Sallust, Livy, Dion Cassius, Pliny, and Caesar
+reveal incidentally much that we wish to know. Gibbon gives some
+important facts in his first chapter. The subject of ancient machines is
+treated by Folard's Commentary attached to his translation of Polybius.
+Caesar's Commentaries give us, after all, the liveliest idea of the
+military habits and tactics of the Romans. Josephus describes with great
+vividness the siege of Jerusalem. The article on _Exercitus_, by
+Prof. Ramsay, in Smith's Dictionary, is the fullest I have read
+pertaining to the structure of a Roman army.
+
+For the narrative of wars, the reader is referred to ordinary Roman
+histories--to Livy and Caesar especially; to Niebuhr, Mommsen, Arnold,
+and Liddell. See also Durny, _Hist. des Romains;_ Michelet,
+_Hist. de Rom._ Napoleon's History of Caesar should be read,
+admirable in style, and interesting in matter, although a sophistical
+defense of usurpation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE MATERIAL GRANDEUR AND GLORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+To the eye of an ancient traveler there must have been something very
+grand and impressive in the external aspects of wealth and power which
+the Roman Empire, in the period of its greatest glory, presented in
+every city and province. It will therefore be my aim in this chapter to
+present those objects of pride and strength which appealed to the senses
+of an ordinary observer, and such as would first arrest his attention
+were he to describe the wonders he beheld to those who were imperfectly
+acquainted with them.
+
+[Sidenote: Culmination of Roman greatness.]
+
+It is generally admitted that Roman greatness culminated during the
+reigns of the Antonines, about the middle of the second century of the
+Christian era. At that period we perceive the highest triumphs of
+material civilization and the proudest spirit of panegyric and self-
+confidence. To the eye of contemporaries it seemed that Rome was
+destined to be the mistress of the world forever.
+
+[Sidenote: Extent of the empire.]
+
+[Sidenote: Square miles.]
+
+[Sidenote: Seas and rivers.]
+
+[Sidenote: Boundaries.]
+
+[Sidenote: Scandinavia.]
+
+[Sidenote: Sarmatia.]
+
+[Sidenote: Mountains.]
+
+We naturally glance, in the first place, to the extent of that vast
+empire which has had no parallel in ancient or modern times, and which
+was erected on the ruins of all the powerful states of antiquity. It was
+a most wonderful centralization of power, spreading its arms of hopeless
+despotism from the Pillars of Hercules to the Caspian Sea; from the
+Rhine and the Danube to the Euphrates and Tigris; from the forests of
+Sarmatia to the deserts of Africa. The empire extended three thousand
+miles from east to west, and two thousand from north to south. It
+stretched over thirty-five degrees of latitude, and sixty-five of
+longitude, and embraced within its limits nearly all the seas, lakes,
+and gulfs which commerce explored. It contained 1,600,000 square miles,
+for the most part cultivated, and populated by peoples in various stages
+of civilization, some of whom were famous for arts and wealth, and could
+boast of heroes and cities,--of a past history brilliant and impressive.
+In nearly the centre of this great empire was Mediterranean Sea, which
+was only, as it were, an inland lake, upon whose shores the great cities
+of antiquity had flourished, and towards which the tide of Assyrian and
+Persian conquests had rolled and then retreated forever. The great
+rivers--the Nile, the Po, and the Danube--flowed into this basin and its
+connecting seas, wafting the produce of distant provinces to the great
+central city on the Tiber. The boundaries of the empire were great
+oceans, deserts, and mountains, beyond which it was difficult to extend
+or to retain conquests. On the west was the Atlantic Ocean, unknown and
+unexplored--that mysterious expanse of waters which filled navigators
+with awe and dread, and which was not destined to be crossed until the
+stars should cease to be the only guide. On the northwest was the
+undefined region of Scandinavia, into which the Roman arms never
+penetrated, peopled by those barbarians who were to be the future
+conquerors of Rome, and the creators of a new and more glorious
+civilization,--those Germanic tribes which, under different names, had
+substantially the same manners, customs, and language,--a race more
+unconquerable and heroic than the Romans themselves, the future lords of
+mediaeval Europe, the ancestors of the English, the French, the
+Spaniards, and the Germans. On the northwest were the Sarmatians and
+Scythians--Sclavonic tribes, able to conquer, but not to reconstruct;
+savages repulsive and hideous even to the Goths themselves. On the east
+lay the Parthian empire, separated from Roman territories by the
+Euphrates, the Tigris, and the Armenian mountains. The Caucasian range
+between the Euxine and the Caspian seas presented an insuperable
+barrier, as did the deserts of Arabia to the Roman legions. The Atlas,
+the African desert, and the cataracts of the Nile formed the southern
+boundaries. The vulnerable part of the empire lay between the Danube and
+Rhine, from which issued, in successive waves, the Germanic foes of
+Rome. To protect the empire against their incursions, the Emperor Probus
+constructed a wall, which, however, proved but a feeble defense.
+
+[Sidenote: Provinces.]
+
+[Sidenote: Results of successive conquests.]
+
+[Sidenote: Vastness of the political power.]
+
+[Sidenote: Empire universal.]
+
+This immense empire was divided into thirty-six provinces, exclusive of
+Italy, each of which was governed by a proconsul. The most important of
+these were Spain, Gaul, Sicily, Achaia, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.
+Gaul was more extensive than modern France. Achaia included Greece and
+the Ionian Islands. The empire embraced the modern states of England,
+France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Bavaria, Austria, Styria,
+the Tyrol, Hungary, Egypt, Morocco, Algiers, and the empire of Turkey
+both in Europe and Asia. It took the Romans nearly five hundred years to
+subdue the various states of Italy, the complete subjugation of which
+took place with the fall of Tarentum, a Grecian city, which introduced
+Grecian arts and literature. Sicily, the granary of Rome, was the next
+conquest, the fruit of the first Punic War. The second Punic War added
+to the empire Sardinia, Corsica, and the two Spanish provinces of Baetica
+and Tarraconensis--about two thirds of the peninsula--fertile in the
+productions of the earth, and enriched by mines of silver and gold, and
+peopled by Iberians and Celts. The rich province of Illyricum was added
+to the empire about one hundred and eighty years before Christ. Before
+the battle of Actium, the empire extended over Achaia, Asia Minor,
+Macedonia, Narbonensic Gaul, Cyrenaica, Crete, Cilicia, Cyprus,
+Bithynia, Syria, Aquitania, Belgic and Celtic Gaul. Augustus added
+Egypt, Lusitania, Numidia, Galatia, the Maritime Alps, Noricum,
+Vindelicia, Rhaetia, Pannonia, and Mosia. Tiberius increased the empire
+by the addition of Cappadocia. Claudius incorporated the two
+Mauritanias, Lycia, Judaea, Thrace, and Britain. Nero added Pontus. These
+various and extensive countries had every variety of climate and
+productions, and boasted of celebrated cities. They composed most of the
+provinces known to the ancients west of the Euphrates, and together
+formed an empire in comparison with which the Assyrian and Egyptian
+monarchies, and even the Grecian conquests, were vastly inferior. The
+Saracenic conquests in the Middle Ages were not to be compared with
+these, and the great empires of Charlemagne and Napoleon could be
+included in less than half the limits. What a proud position it was to
+be a Roman emperor, whose will was the law over the whole civilized
+world! Well may the Roman empire be called universal, since it
+controlled all the nations of the earth known to the Greeks. It was the
+vastest centralization of power which this world has seen, or probably
+will ever see, extending nearly over the whole of Europe, and the finest
+parts of Asia and Africa. We are amazed that a single city of Italy
+could thus occupy with her armies and reign supremely over so many
+diverse countries and nations, speaking different languages, and having
+different religions and customs. And when we contemplate this great
+fact, we cannot but feel that it was a providential event, designed for
+some grand benefit to the human race. That benefit was the preparation
+for the reception of a new and universal religion. No system of "balance
+of power," no political or military combinations, no hostilities could
+prevent the absorption of the civilized world in the empire of the
+Caesars.
+
+[Sidenote: The Mediterranean the centre of the empire.]
+
+If we more particularly examine this great empire, we observe that it
+was substantially composed of the various countries and kingdoms which
+bordered on the Mediterranean, and those other seas with which it was
+connected. Roman power was scarcely felt on the shores of the Baltic, or
+the eastern coasts of the Euxine, or on the Arabian and Persian gulfs.
+The central part of the empire was Italy, the province which was first
+conquered, and most densely populated. It was the richest in art, in
+cities, in commerce, and in agriculture.
+
+[Sidenote: Italy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Natural productions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Population.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cities.]
+
+[Sidenote: Italian Cities.]
+
+[Sidenote: Memorable cities.]
+
+Italy itself was no inconsiderable state--a beautiful peninsula,
+extending six hundred and sixty geographical miles from the foot of the
+Alps to the promontory of Leucopetra. Its greatest breadth is about one
+hundred and thirty miles. It was always renowned for beauty and
+fertility. Its climate on the south was that of Greece, and on the north
+that of the south of France. The lofty range of the Apennines extended
+through its entire length, while the waters of the Mediterranean and the
+Adriatic tempered and varied its climate. Its natural advantages were
+unequaled, with a soil favorable to agriculture, to the culture of
+fruits, and the rearing of flocks. Its magnificent forests furnished
+timber for ships; its rich pastures fed innumerable sheep, goats,
+cattle, and horses; its olive groves were nowhere surpassed; its
+mountains contained nearly every kind of metals; its coasts furnished a
+great variety of fish; while its mineral springs supplied luxurious
+baths. There were no extremes of heat and cold; the sky was clear and
+serene; the face of the country was a garden. It was a paradise to the
+eye of Virgil and Varro, the most favored of all the countries of
+antiquity in those productions which sustain the life of man or beast.
+The plains of Lombardy furnished maize and rice; oranges grew to great
+perfection on the Ligurian coast; aloes and cactuses clothed the rocks
+of the southern provinces; while the olive and the grape abounded in
+every section. The mineral wealth of Italy was extolled by the ancient
+writers, and the fisheries were as remarkable as agricultural products.
+The population numbered over four millions who were free, and could
+furnish seven hundred thousand foot and seventy thousand horse for the
+armies of the republic, if they were all called into requisition. The
+whole country was dotted with beautiful villas and farms, as well as
+villages and cities. It contained twelve hundred cities or large towns
+which had municipal privileges. Mediolanum, now Milan, the chief city in
+Cisalpine Gaul, in the time of Ambrose, was adorned with palaces and
+temples and baths. It was so populous that it lost it is said at one
+time three hundred thousand male citizens in the inroads of the Goths.
+It was surrounded with a double range of walls, and the houses were
+elegantly built. It was also celebrated as the seat of learning and
+culture. Verona had an amphitheatre of marble, whose remains are among
+the most striking monuments of antiquity, capable of seating twenty-two
+thousand people. Ravenna, near the mouth of the Padus (Po), built on
+piles, was a great naval depot, and had an artificial harbor capable of
+containing two hundred and fifty ships of war, and was the seat of
+government after the fall of the empire. Padua counted among its
+inhabitants five hundred Roman knights, and was able to send twenty
+thousand men into the field. Aquileia was a great emporium of the trade
+in wine, oil, and salted provisions. Pola had a magnificent
+amphitheatre. Luna, now Spezzia, was famous for white marbles, and for
+cheeses which often weighed a thousand pounds. Arutium, now Avezzo, an
+Etrurian city, was celebrated for its potteries, many beautiful
+specimens of which now ornament the galleries of Florence. Cortona had
+walls of massive thickness, which can be traced to the Pelasgians.
+Clusium, the capital of Porsenna, had a splendid mausoleum. Volsinii
+boasted of two thousand statues. Veii had been the rival of Rome. In
+Umbria, we may mention Sarsina, the birthplace of Plautus; Mevania, the
+birthplace of Propertius; and Sentinum, famous for the self-devotion of
+Decius. In Picenum were Ancona, celebrated for its purple dye; and
+Picenum, surrounded by walls and inaccessible heights, memorable for a
+siege against Pompey. Of the Sabine cities were Antemnae, more ancient
+than Rome; Nomentum, famous for wine; Regillum, the birthplace of Appius
+Claudius, the founder of the great Claudian family; Reate, famous for
+asses, which sometimes brought the enormous price of 60,000 sesterces,
+about $2320; Cutiliae, celebrated for its mineral waters; and Alba, in
+which captives of rank were secluded. In Latium were Ostia, the seaport
+of Rome; Laurentum, the capital of Latinus; Lavinium, fabled to have
+been founded by Aeneas; Lanuvium, the birthplace of Roscius and the
+Antonines; Alba Longa, founded four hundred years before Rome; Tusculum,
+where Cicero had his villa; Tibur, whose temple was famous through
+Italy; Praeneste, now Palestrio, remarkable for its citadel and its
+temple of Fortune; Antium, to which Coriolanus retired after his
+banishment, a favorite residence of Augustus, and the birthplace of
+Nero, celebrated also for a magnificent temple, amid whose ruins was
+found the Apollo Belvidere; Forum Appii, mentioned by St. Paul, from
+which travelers on the Appian Way embarked on a canal; Arpinum, the
+birthplace of Cicero; Aquium, where Juvenal and Thomas Aquinas were
+born, famous for a purple dye; Formiae, a favorite residence of Cicero.
+In Campania were Cumae, the abode of the Sibyl; Misenum, a great naval
+station; Baiae, celebrated for its spas and villas; Puteoli, famous for
+sulphur springs; Neapolis, the abode of literary idlers; Herculaneum and
+Pompeii, destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius; Capua, the capital of
+Campania, and inferior to Rome alone; and Salernum, a great military
+stronghold. In Samnium were Bovianum, a very opulent city; Beneventum,
+and Sepinum. In Apulia were Sarinum; Venusia, the birthplace of Horace;
+Cannae, memorable for the great victory of Hannibal; Brundusium, a city
+of great antiquity on the Adriatic, and one of the great naval stations
+of the Romans; and Tarentum, the rival of Brundusium, a great military
+stronghold. In Lucania were Metapontum, at one time the residence of
+Pythagoras; Heraclea, the seat of a general council; Sybaris, which once
+was the mistress of twenty-five dependent cities, fifty stadia in
+circumference, and capable of sending an army of three hundred
+thousand [Footnote: Anthon, _Geog_. _Diet_.] men into the field,
+--a city so prosperous and luxurious that the very name of
+Sybarite was synonymous with voluptuousness.
+
+[Sidenote: Pompeii.]
+
+Such were among the principal cities of Italy. More than two hundred and
+fifty towns or cities are historical, and were famous for the residence
+of great men, or for wines, wool, dyes, and various articles of luxury.
+The ruins of Pompeii prove it to have been a city of great luxury and
+elegance. The excavations, which have brought to light the wonders of
+this buried city, attest a very high material civilization; yet it was
+only a second-rate provincial town, of which not much is commemorated in
+history. It was simply a resort for Roman nobles who had villas in its
+neighborhood. It was surrounded with a wall, and was built with great
+regularity. Its streets were paved, and it had its forum, its
+amphitheatre, its theatre, its temples, its basilicas, its baths, its
+arches, and its monuments. The basilica was two hundred and twenty feet
+in length by eighty feet in width, the roof of which was supported by
+twenty-eight Ionic columns. The temple of Venus was profusely ornamented
+with paintings. One of the theatres was built of marble, and was capable
+of seating five thousand spectators, and the amphitheatre would seat ten
+thousand.
+
+[Sidenote: Sicily and Sardinia.]
+
+[Sidenote: Richness of Sicily.]
+
+[Sidenote: Syracuse.]
+
+But Italy, so grand in cities, so varied in architectural wonders, so
+fertile in soil, so salubrious in climate, so rich in minerals, so
+prolific in fruits and vegetables and canals, was only a small part of
+the empire of the Caesars. The Punic wars, undertaken soon after the
+expulsion of Pyrrhus, resulted in the acquisition of Sicily, Sardinia,
+and Africa, from which the Romans were supplied with inexhaustible
+quantities of grain, and in the creation of a great naval power. Sicily,
+the largest island of the Mediterranean, was not inferior to Italy in
+any kind of produce. It was, it was supposed, the native country of
+wheat. Its honey, its saffron, its sheep, its horses, were all equally
+celebrated. The island, intersected by numerous streamy and beautiful
+valleys, was admirably adapted for the growth of the vine and olive. Its
+colonies, founded by Phoenicians and Greeks, cultivated all the arts of
+civilization. Long before the Roman conquest, its cities were famous for
+learning and art. Syracuse, a Corinthian colony, as old as Rome, had a
+fortress a mile in length and half a mile in breadth; a temple of Diana
+whose doors were celebrated throughout the Grecian world, and a theatre
+which could accommodate twenty-four thousand people. No city in Greece,
+except Athens, can produce structures which vie with those of which the
+remains are still visible at Agrigentum, Selinus, and Segesta.
+
+[Sidenote: Carthage.]
+
+Africa was one of the great provinces of the empire. It virtually
+embraced the Carthaginian empire, and was settled chiefly by the
+Phoenicians. Its capital, Carthage, so long the rival of Rome, was
+probably the greatest maritime mart of antiquity, next to Alexandria.
+Though it had been completely destroyed, yet it became under the
+emperors no inconsiderable city, and was the capital of a belt of
+territory extending one hundred and sixty miles, from the Pillars of
+Hercules to the bottom of the great Syrtis, unrivaled for fertility. Its
+population once numbered seven hundred thousand inhabitants, and ruled
+over three hundred dependent cities, and could boast of a navy carrying
+one hundred and fifty thousand men.
+
+[Sidenote: The richness of Greece.]
+
+Greece, included under the province called Achaia, was the next great
+conquest of the Romans, the fruit of the Macedonian wars. Though small
+in territory, it was the richest of all the Roman acquisitions in its
+results on civilization. The great peninsula to which Hellas belonged
+extended from the Euxine to the Adriatic; but Hellas proper was not more
+than two hundred and fifty miles in length and one hundred and eighty in
+breadth. Attica contained but seven hundred and twenty square miles, yet
+how great in associations, deeds, and heroes! When added to the empire,
+it was rich in every element of civilization, in cities, in arts, in
+literature, in commerce, in manufactures, in domestic animals, in
+fruits, in cereals. It was a mountainous country, but had an extensive
+sea-coast, and a flourishing trade with all the countries of the world.
+Almost all the Grecian states had easy access to the sea, and each of
+the great cities were isolated from the rest by lofty mountains
+difficult to surmount. But the Roman arms and the Roman laws penetrated
+to the most inaccessible retreats.
+
+[Sidenote: Her monuments and arts and schools.]
+
+In her political degradation, Greece still was the most interesting
+country on the globe. Every city had a history; every monument betokened
+a triumph of human genius. On her classic soil the great miracles of
+civilization had been wrought--the immortal teacher of all the nations
+in art, in literature, in philosophy, in war itself. Every cultivated
+Roman traveled in Greece; every great noble sent his sons to be educated
+in her schools; every great general sent to the banks of the Tiber some
+memento of her former greatness, some wonder of artistic skill. The
+wonders of Rome herself were but spoliations of this glorious land.
+
+[Sidenote: The glory of Athens.]
+
+[Sidenote: Temples.]
+
+First in interest and glory was Athens, which was never more splendid
+than in the time of the Antonines. The great works of the age of
+Pericles still retained their original beauty and freshness; and the
+city of Minerva still remained the centre of all that was elegant or
+learned of the ancient civilization, and was held everywhere in the
+profoundest veneration. There still flourished the various schools of
+philosophy, to which young men from all parts of the empire resorted to
+be educated--the Oxford and the Edinburgh, the Berlin and Paris of the
+ancient world. In spite of successive conquests, there still towered
+upon the Acropolis the temple of Minerva, that famous Parthenon whose
+architectural wonders have never been even equaled, built of Pentelic
+marble, and adorned with the finest sculptures of Pheidias--a Doric
+temple, whose severe simplicity and matchless beauty have been the
+wonder of all ages--often imitated, never equaled, majestic even in its
+ruins. Side by side, on that lofty fortification in the centre of the
+city, on its western slope, was the Propylaea, one of the masterpieces of
+ancient art, also of Pentelic marble, costing 2000 talents, or
+$23,000,000[Footnote: Smith, Geog. Diet.] when gold was worth more than
+twenty times what it is now. Then there was the Erechtheum, the temple
+of Athena Polias, the most revered of all the sanctuaries of Athens,
+with its three Ionic porticos, and its frieze of black marble, with its
+olive statue of the goddess, and its sacred inclosures. The great temple
+of Zeus Olympius, commenced by Peisistratus and completed by Hadrian,
+the largest ever dedicated to the deity among the Greeks, was four
+stadia in circumference. It was surrounded by a peristyle which had ten
+columns in front and twenty on its sides. The peristyle being double on
+the sides, and having a triple range at either end, besides three
+columns between the antae at each end of the cella, consisted altogether
+of one hundred and twenty columns. These were sixty feet high and six
+and a half feet in diameter, the largest which now remain of ancient
+architecture in marble, or which still exist in Europe. This vast temple
+was three hundred and fifty-four feet in length and one hundred and
+seventy-one in breadth, and was full of statues. The ruins of this
+temple, of which sixteen columns are still standing, are among the most
+imposing in the world, and indicate a grandeur and majesty in the city
+of which we can scarcely conceive. The theatre of Bacchus, the most
+beautiful in the ancient world, would seat thirty thousand spectators. I
+need not mention the various architectural monuments of this classic
+city, each of which was a study--the Temple of Theseus, the Agora, the
+Odeum, the Areopagus, the Gymnasium of Hadrian, the Lyceum, and other
+buildings of singular beauty, built mostly of marble, and adorned with
+paintings and statues. What work of genius in the whole world more
+interesting than the ivory and gold statue of Athena in the Parthenon,
+the masterpiece of Pheidias, forty feet high, the gold of which weighed
+forty talents,--a model for all succeeding sculptors, and to see which
+travelers came from all parts of Greece? Athens, a city of five hundred
+thousand inhabitants, was filled with wonders of art, which time has not
+yet fully destroyed.
+
+[Sidenote: Corinth.]
+
+[Sidenote: The wonders of Corinth.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its luxury.]
+
+Corinth was another grand centre of Grecian civilization, richer and
+more luxurious than Athens. When taken by the Romans she possessed the
+most valuable pictures in Greece. Among them was one of Dionysus by
+Aristides for which Attalus offered 600,000 sesterces. Rich commercial
+cities have ever been patrons of the fine arts. These they can
+appreciate better than poetry or philosophy. The Corinthians invented
+the most elaborate style of architecture known to antiquity, and which
+was generally adopted at Rome. They were also patrons of statuary,
+especially of works in bronze, for which the city was celebrated. The
+Corinthian, vessels of terra cotta were the finest in Greece. All
+articles of elegant luxury were manufactured here, especially elaborate
+tables, chests, and sideboards. If there had been a great exhibition in
+Rome, the works of the Corinthians would have been the most admired, and
+would have suited the taste of the luxurious senators, among whom
+literature and the higher developments of art were unappreciated. There
+was no literature in Corinth after Periander, and among the illustrious
+writers of Greece not a single Corinthian appeared. Nor did it ever
+produce an orator. What could be expected of a city whose patron goddess
+was Aphrodite! But Lais was honored in the city, and rich merchants
+frequented her house. The city was most famous for courtesans, and
+female slaves, and extravagant luxury. It was like Antioch and Tyre and
+Carthage. Corinth was probably the richest city in Greece, and one of
+the largest. It had, it is said, four hundred and sixty thousand slaves.
+Its streets, three miles in length, were adorned with costly edifices.
+Its fortress was one thousand eight hundred and eighty-six feet above
+the sea and very strong.
+
+[Sidenote: Sparta.]
+
+Sparta, of historic fame, was not magnificent except in public
+buildings. It had a famous portico, the columns of which, of white
+marble, represented the illustrious persons among the vanquished Medes.
+
+[Sidenote: Olympia.]
+
+Olympia, the holy city, was celebrated for its temple and its
+consecrated garden, where stood some of the great masterpieces of
+ancient, art, among them the famous statue of Jupiter, the work of
+Pheidias,--an impersonation of majesty and power,--a work which
+furnished models from which Michael Angelo drew his inspiration.
+
+[Sidenote: Delphi.]
+
+Delphi, another consecrated city, was enriched with the contributions of
+all Greece, and was the seat of the Dorian religion. So rich were the
+shrines of its oracle that Nero carried away from it five hundred
+statues of bronze at one time.
+
+[Sidenote: Greece enriches Rome.]
+
+Such was Greece, every city of which was famous for art, or literature,
+or commerce, or manufacture, or for deeds which live in history. It had
+established a great empire in the East, but fell, like all other
+conquering nations, from the luxury which conquest engendered. It was no
+longer able to protect itself. Its phalanx, which resisted the shock of
+the Persian hosts, yielded to the all-conquering legion. When Aemilius
+Paulus marched up the Via Sacra with the spoils of the Macedonian
+kingdom in his grand and brilliant triumph, he was preceded by two
+hundred and fifty wagons containing pictures and statues, and three
+thousand men, each carrying a vase of silver coin, and four hundred more
+bearing crowns of gold. Yet this was but the commencement of the plunder
+of Greece.
+
+[Sidenote: Islands colonized by Greeks.]
+
+And not merely Greece herself, but the islands which she had colonized
+formed no slight addition to the glories of the empire. Rhodes was the
+seat of a famous school for sculpture and painting, from which issued
+the Laocoon and the Farnese Bull. It contained three thousand statues
+and one hundred and six colossi, among them the famous statue of the
+sun, one hundred and five feet high, one of the seven wonders of the
+world, containing 3000 talents--more than 3,000,000 dollars. Its school
+of rhetoric was so celebrated that Cicero resorted to it to perfect
+himself in oratory.
+
+[Sidenote: Asia Minor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its extent.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cities.]
+
+[Sidenote: Antioch.]
+
+If we pass from Greece to Asia Minor and Syria, with their dependent
+provinces, all of which were added to the empire by the victories of
+Sulla and Pompey, we are still more impressed with the extent of the
+Roman rule. Asia Minor, a vast peninsula between the Mediterranean,
+Aegean, and Euxine seas, included several of the old monarchies of the
+world. It extended from Ilium on the west to the banks of the Euphrates,
+from the northern parts of Bithynia and Pontus to Syria and Cilicia,
+nine hundred miles from east to west, and nearly three hundred from
+north to south. It was the scene of some of the grandest conquests of
+the oriental world, Babylonian, Persian, and Grecian. Syria embraced all
+countries from the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean to the Arabian
+deserts. No conquests of the Romans were attended with more eclat than
+the subjection of these wealthy and populous sections of the oriental
+world; and they introduced a boundless wealth and luxury into Italy. But
+in spite of the sack of cities and the devastations of armies, the old
+monarchy of the Seleucidae remained rich and grand. Both Syria and Asia
+Minor could boast of large and flourishing cities, as well as every kind
+of luxury and art. Antioch was the third city in the empire, the capital
+of the Greek kings of Syria, and like Alexandria a monument of the
+Macedonian age. It was built on a regular and magnificent plan, and
+abounded in temples and monuments. Its most striking feature was a
+street four miles in length, perfectly level, with double colonnades
+through its whole length, built by Antiochus Epiphanes. In magnitude the
+city was not much inferior to Paris at the present day, and covered more
+land than Rome. It had its baths, its theatres and amphitheatres, its
+fora, its museums, its aqueducts, its temples, and its palaces. It was
+the most luxurious of all the cities of the East, and had a population
+of three hundred thousand who were free. In the latter clays of the
+empire it was famous as the scene of the labors of Chrysostom.
+
+[Sidenote: Ephesus.]
+
+Ephesus, one of the twelve of the Ionian cities in Asia, was the glory
+of Lydia,--a sacred city of which the temple of Diana was the greatest
+ornament. This famous temple was four times as large as the Parthenon,
+and covered as much ground as Cologne Cathedral, and was two hundred and
+twenty years in building. It had one hundred and twenty-eight columns
+sixty feet high, of which thirty-six were carved, each contributed by a
+king--the largest of all the Grecian temples, and probably the most
+splendid. It was a city of great trade and wealth. Its theatre was the
+largest in the world, six hundred and sixty feet in diameter, [Footnote:
+Muller, _Anc. Art._] and capable of holding sixty thousand
+spectators. Ephesus gave birth to Apelles the painter, and was the
+metropolis of five hundred cities.
+
+[Sidenote: Jerusalem.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Temple.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Acropolis.]
+
+Jerusalem, so dear to Christians as the most sacred spot on earth,
+inclosed by lofty walls and towers, not so beautiful or populous as in
+the days of Solomon and David, was, before its destruction by Titus, one
+of the finest cities of the East. Its royal palace, surrounded by a wall
+thirty cubits high, with decorated towers at equal intervals, contained
+enormous banqueting halls and chambers most profusely ornamented; and
+this palace, magnificent beyond description, was connected with porticos
+and gardens filled with statues and reservoirs of water. It occupied a
+larger space than the present fortress, from the western edge of Mount
+Zion to the present garden of the Armenian Convent. The Temple, so
+famous, was small compared with the great wonders of Grecian
+architecture, being only about one hundred and fifty feet by seventy;
+but its front was covered with plates of gold, and some of the stones of
+which it was composed were more than sixty feet in length and nine in
+width. Its magnificence consisted in its decorations and the vast
+quantity of gold and precious woods used in its varied ornaments, and
+vessels of gold, so as to make it one of the most costly edifices ever
+erected to the worship of God. The Acropolis, which was the fortress of
+the Temple, combined the strength of a castle with the magnificence of a
+palace, and was like a city in extent, towering seventy cubits above the
+elevated rock upon which it was built. So strongly fortified was
+Jerusalem, even in its latter days, that it took Titus five months, with
+an army of one hundred thousand men, to subdue it; one of the most
+memorable sieges on record. It probably would have held out against the
+whole power of Rome, had not famine done more than battering rams.
+
+[Sidenote: Damascus and other cities.]
+
+Many other interesting cities might be mentioned both in Syria and Asia
+Minor, which were centres of trade, or seats of philosophy, or homes of
+art. Tarsus in Cilicia was a great mercantile city, to which strangers
+from all parts resorted. Damascus, the oldest city in the world, and the
+old capital of Syria, was both beautiful and rich. Laodicea was famous
+for tapestries, Hierapolis for its iron wares, Cybara for its dyes,
+Sardis for its wines, Smyrna for its beautiful monuments, Delos for its
+slave-trade, Gyrene for its horses, Paphos for its temple of Venus, in
+which were a hundred altars. Seleucia, on the Tigris, had a population
+of four hundred thousand. Caesarea, founded by Herod the Great, and the
+principal seat of government to the Roman prefects, had a harbor equal
+in size to the renowned Piraeus, and was secured against the southwest
+winds by a mole of such massive construction that the blocks of stone,
+sunk under the water, were fifty feet in length and eighteen in width,
+and nine in thickness. [Footnote: Josephus, _Ant_., xv.] The city
+itself was constructed of polished stone, with an agora, a theatre, a
+circus, a praetorium, and a temple to Caesar. Tyre, which had resisted for
+seven months the armies of Alexander, remained to the fall of the empire
+a great emporium of trade. It monopolized the manufacture of imperial
+purple. Sidon was equally celebrated for its glass and embroidered
+robes. The Sidonians cast glass mirrors, and imitated precious stones.
+But the glory of both Tyre and Sidon was in ships, which visited all the
+coasts of the Mediterranean, and even penetrated to Britain and India.
+
+[Sidenote: Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its ancient grandeur.]
+
+[Sidenote: Glories of Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thebes.]
+
+But greater than Tyre, or Antioch, or any eastern city, was Alexandria,
+the capital of Egypt, which was one of the last provinces added to the
+empire. Egypt alone was a mighty monarchy--the oldest which history
+commemorates, august in records and memories. What pride, what pomp,
+what glory are associated with the land of the Pharaohs, with its mighty
+river reaching to the centre of a great continent, flowing thousands of
+miles to the sea, irrigating and enriching the most fertile valley of
+the world! What noble and populous cities arose upon its banks three
+thousand years before Roman power was felt! What enduring monuments
+remain of a its ancient very ancient yet extinct civilization! What
+successive races of conquerors have triumphed in the granite palaces of
+Thebes and Memphis! Old, sacred, rich, populous, and learned, Egypt
+becomes a province of the Roman empire. The sceptre of three hundred
+kings passes from Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, to Augustus
+Caesar, the conqueror at Actium; and six millions of different races,
+once the most civilized on the earth, are amalgamated with the other
+races and peoples which compose the universal monarchy. At one time the
+military force of Egypt is said to have amounted to seven hundred
+thousand men, in the period of its greatest prosperity. The annual
+revenues of this state under the Ptolemies amounted to about 17,000,000
+dollars in gold and silver, beside the produce of the earth. A single
+feast cost Philadelphus more than half a million of pounds sterling, and
+he had accumulated treasures to the amount of 740,000 talents, or about
+860,000,000 dollars. [Footnote: Napoleon, _Life of Caesar_.] What
+European monarch ever possessed such a sum? The kings of Egypt were
+richer in the gold and silver they could command than Louis XIV., in the
+proudest hour of his life. What monarchs ever reigned with more absolute
+power than the kings of this ancient seat of learning and art! The
+foundation of Thebes goes back to the mythical period of Egyptian
+history, and it covered as much ground as Rome or Paris, equally the
+centre of religion, of trade, of manufactures, and of government,--the
+sacerdotal capital of all who worshiped Ammon from Pelusium to Axume,
+from the Red Sea to the Oases of Libya. The palaces of Thebes, though
+ruins two thousand years ago as they are ruins now, were the largest and
+probably the most magnificent ever erected by the hand of man. What must
+be thought of a palace whose central hall was eighty feet in height,
+three hundred and twenty-five feet in length, and one hundred and
+seventy-nine in breadth; the roof of which was supported by one hundred
+and thirty-four columns, eleven feet in diameter and seventy-six feet in
+height, with their pedestals; and where the cornices of the finest
+marble were inlaid with ivory moldings or sheathed with beaten gold! But
+I do not now refer to the glories of Egypt under Sesostris or Rameses,
+but to what they were when Alexandria was the capital of the country,--
+what it was under the Roman domination.
+
+[Sidenote: Extent and population of Alexandria.]
+
+[Sidenote: Library.]
+
+[Sidenote: Public buildings.]
+
+[Sidenote: Commerce.]
+
+The ground-plan of this great city was traced by Alexander himself, but
+it was not completed until the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. It
+continued to receive embellishments from nearly every monarch of the
+Lagian line. Its circumference was about fifteen miles; the streets were
+regular, and crossed one another at right angles, and were wide enough
+to admit both carriages and foot passengers. The harbor was large enough
+to admit the largest fleet ever constructed; its walls and gates were
+constructed with all the skill and strength known to antiquity; its
+population numbered six hundred thousand, and all nations were
+represented in its crowded streets. The wealth of the city may be
+inferred from the fact that in one year 6250 talents, or more than
+6,000,000 dollars, were paid to the public treasury for port dues. The
+library was the largest in the world, and numbered over seven hundred
+thousand volumes, and this was connected with a museum, a menagerie, a
+botanical garden, and various halls for lectures, altogether forming the
+most famous university in the empire. The inhabitants were chiefly
+Greek, and had all their cultivated tastes and mercantile thrift. In a
+commercial point of view it was the most important in the empire, and
+its ships whitened every sea. Alexandria was of remarkable beauty, and
+was called by Ammianus _Vertex omnium civitatum_. Its dry
+atmosphere preserved for centuries the sharp outlines and gay colors of
+its buildings, some of which were remarkably imposing. The Mausoleum of
+the Ptolemies, the High Court of justice, the Stadium, the Gymnasium,
+the Palaestra, the Amphitheatre, and the Temple of the Caesars, all called
+out the admiration of travelers. The Emporium far surpassed the quays of
+the Tiber. But the most imposing structure was the Exchange, to which,
+for eight hundred years, all the nations sent their representatives. It
+was commerce which made Alexandria so rich and beautiful, for which it
+was more distinguished than both Tyre and Carthage. Unlike most
+commercial cities, it was intellectual, and its schools of poetry,
+mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and theology were more renowned than
+even those of Athens during the third and fourth centuries. For wealth,
+population, intelligence, and art, it was the second city of the world.
+It would be a great capital in these times.
+
+[Sidenote: Power of the empire seated in the western provinces.]
+
+Such were Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, and Africa, all of which had
+been great empires, but all of which were incorporated with the Roman in
+less than two hundred years after Italy succumbed to the fortunate city
+on the Tiber. But these old and venerated monarchies, with their
+dependent states and provinces, though imposing and majestic, did not
+compose the vital part of the empire of the Caesars. It was those new
+provinces which were rescued from the barbarians, chiefly Celts, where
+the life of the empire centred. It was Spain, Gaul, Britain, and
+Illyricum, countries which now compose the most powerful European
+monarchies, which the more truly show the strength of the Roman world.
+And these countries were added last, and were not fully incorporated
+with the empire until imperial power had culminated in the Antonines.
+From a comparative wilderness, Spain and Gaul especially became populous
+and flourishing states, dotted with cities, and instructed in all the
+departments of Roman art and science. From these provinces the armies
+were recruited, the schools were filled, and even the great generals and
+emperors were furnished. These provinces embraced nearly the whole of
+modern Europe.
+
+[Sidenote: Spain.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its provinces.]
+
+[Sidenote: Productions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its towns and cities.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its commercial centres.]
+
+Spain had been added to the empire after the destruction of Carthage,
+but only after a bitter and protracted warfare. It was completed by the
+reduction of Numantia, a city of the Celtiberians in the valley of the
+Douro, and its siege is more famous than that of Carthage, having defied
+for a long time the whole power of the empire, as Tyre did Alexander,
+and Jerusalem the armies of Titus. It yielded to the genius of Scipio,
+the conqueror of Africa, as La Rochelle, in later times, fell before
+Richelieu, but not until famine had done its work. The civilization of
+Spain was rapid after the fall of Numantia, and in the time of the
+Antonines was one of the richest and most prized of the Roman provinces.
+It embraced the whole peninsula, from the Pillars of Hercules to the
+Pyrenees; and the warlike nations who composed it became completely
+Latinized. It was divided into three provinces--Boetica, Lusitania, and
+Tarraconensis--all governed by praetors, the last of whom had consular
+power, and resided in Carthago Nova, on the Mediterranean. Under
+Constantine, Spain, with its islands, was divided into seven provinces,
+and stood out from the rest of the empire like a round bastion tower
+from the walls of an old fortified town. This magnificent possession,
+extending four hundred and sixty miles from north to south, and five
+hundred and seventy from east to west, including, with the Balearic
+Isles, 171,300 square miles, with a rich and fertile soil and
+inexhaustible mineral resources, was worth more to the Romans than all
+the conquests of Pompey and Sulla, since it furnished men for the
+armies, and materials for a new civilization. It furnished corn, oil,
+wine, fruits, pasturage, metals of all kinds, and precious stones.
+Boetica was famed for its harvests, Lusitania for its flocks,
+Tarraconensis for its timber, and the fields around Carthago Nova for
+materials of which cordage was made. But the great value of the
+peninsula to the eyes of the Romans was in its rich mines of gold,
+silver, and other metals. The bulk of the population was Iberian. The
+Celtic element was the next most prominent. There were six hundred and
+ninety-three towns and cities in which justice was administered. New
+Carthage, on the Mediterranean, had a magnificent harbor, was strongly
+fortified, and was twenty stadia in circumference, was a great emporium
+of trade, and was in the near vicinity of the richest silver mines of
+Spain, which employed forty thousand men. Gades (New Cadiz), a
+Phoenician colony, on the Atlantic Ocean, was another commercial centre,
+and numbered five hundred Equites among the population, and was
+immensely rich. Corduba, on the Boetis (Guadalquivir), the capital of
+Boetica, was a populous city before the Roman conquest, and was second
+only to Gades as a commercial mart. It was the birthplace of Seneca and
+Lucan.
+
+[Sidenote: Richness of Gaul.]
+
+[Sidenote: Population and cities.]
+
+[Sidenote: Splendor of Gaulish cities.]
+
+Gaul, which was the first of Caesar's most brilliant conquests, and which
+took him ten years to accomplish, was a still more extensive province.
+It was inhabited chiefly by Celtic tribes, who, uniting with Germanic
+nations, made a most obstinate defense. When incorporated with the
+empire, Gaul became rapidly civilized. It was a splendid country,
+extending from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, with a sea-coast of more than
+six hundred miles, and separated from Italy by the Alps, having 200,000
+square miles. Great rivers, as in Spain, favored an extensive commerce
+with the interior, and on their banks were populous and beautiful
+cities. Its large coast on both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic gave
+it a communication with all the world. It produced corn, oil, and wine,
+those great staples, in great abundance. It had a beautiful climate, and
+a healthy and hardy population, warlike, courageous, and generous. Gaul
+was a populous country even in Caesar's time, and possessed twelve
+hundred towns and cities, some of which were of great importance.
+Burdigala, now Bordeaux, the chief city of Aquitania, on the Garonne,
+was famous for its schools of rhetoric and grammar. Massolia
+(Marseilles), before the Punic wars was a strong fortified city, and was
+largely engaged in commerce. Vienne, a city of the Allobroges, was
+inclosed with lofty walls, and had an amphitheatre whose long diameter
+was five hundred feet, and the aqueducts supplied the city with water.
+Lugdunum (Lyons) on the Rhone, was a place of great trade, and was
+filled with temples, theatres, palaces, and aqueducts. Nemausus (NOEmes)
+had subject to it twenty-four villages, and from the monuments which
+remain, must have been a city of considerable importance. Its
+amphitheatre would seat seventeen thousand people; and its aqueduct
+constructed of three successive tiers of arches, one hundred and fifty-
+five feet high, eight hundred and seventy feet long, and fifty feet
+wide, is still one of the finest monuments of antiquity, built of stone
+without cement. It is still solid and strong, and gives us a vivid
+conception of the magnificence of Roman masonry. Narbo (Narbonne) was
+another commercial centre, adorned with public buildings which called
+forth the admiration of ancient travelers. The modern cities of Treves,
+Boulogne, Rheims, Chalons, Cologne, Metz, Dijon, Sens, Orleans,
+Poictiers, Clermont, Rouen, Paris, Basil, Geneva, were all considerable
+places under the Roman rule, and some were of great antiquity.
+
+[Sidenote: Illyricum.]
+
+Illyricum is not famous in Roman history, but was a very considerable
+province, equal to the whole Austrian empire in our times, and was as
+completely reclaimed from barbarism as Gaul or Spain. Both Jerome and
+Diocletian were born in a little Dalmatian town.
+
+[Sidenote: Cultivated face of nature.]
+
+[Sidenote: Agricultural wealth.]
+
+Nothing could surpass the countries which bordered on the Mediterranean
+in all those things which give material prosperity. They were salubrious
+in climate, fertile in soil, cultivated like a garden, abounding in
+nearly all the fruits, vegetables, and grains now known to civilization.
+The beautiful face of nature was the subject of universal panegyric to
+the fall of the empire. There were no destructive wars. All the various
+provinces were controlled by the central power which emanated from Rome.
+There was scope for commerce, and all kinds of manufacturing skill.
+Italy, Sicily, and Egypt were especially fertile. The latter country
+furnished corn in countless quantities for the Roman market. Italy could
+boast of fifty kinds of wine, and was covered with luxurious villas in
+which were fish-ponds, preserves for game, wide olive groves and
+vineyards, to say nothing of the farms which produced milk, cheese,
+honey, and poultry. Syria was so prosperous that its inhabitants divided
+their time between the field, the banquet, and the gymnasium, and
+indulged in continual festivals. It was so rich that Antiochus III. was
+able to furnish at one time a tribute of 15,000 talents, beside 540,000
+measures of wheat. The luxury of Nineveh and Babylon was revived in the
+Phoenician cities.
+
+[Sidenote: Natural productions of the various provinces.]
+
+Spain produced horses, mules, wool, oil, figs, wine, corn, honey, beer,
+flax, linen, beside mines of copper, silver, gold, quicksilver, tin,
+lead, and steel. Gaul was so cultivated that there was little waste
+land, and produced the same fruits and vegetables as at the present
+day. Its hams and sausages were much prized. Sicily was famous for
+wheat, Sardinia for wool, Epirus for horses, Macedonia for goats,
+Thessaly for oil, Boeotia for flax, Scythia for furs, and Greece for
+honey. Almost all the flowers, herbs, and fruits that grow in European
+gardens were known to the Romans--the apricot, the peach, the
+pomegranate, the citron, the orange, the quince, the apple, the pear,
+the plum, the cherry, the fig, the date, the olive. Martial speaks of
+pepper, beans, pulp, lentils, barley, beets, lettuce, radishes, cabbage
+sprouts, leeks, turnips, asparagus, mushrooms, truffles, as well as all
+sorts of game and birds. [Footnote: Martial, B. 13.] In no age of the
+world was agriculture more honored than before the fall of the empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Roads.]
+
+And all these provinces were connected with each other and with the
+capital by magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large
+blocks of stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes,
+but were used by travelers, and on them posts were regularly
+established. They crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains.
+In Italy, especially, they were great works of art, and connected all
+the provinces. Among the great roads which conveyed to Rome as a centre
+were the Clodian and Cassian roads which passed through Etruria; the
+Amerina and Flavinia through Umbria; the Via Valeria, which had its
+terminus at Alternum on the Adriatic; the Via Latina, which, passing
+through Latium and Campania, extended to the southern extremity of
+Italy; the Via Appia also passed through Latium, Campania, Lucania,
+Iapygia to Brundusium, on the Adriatic. Again, from the central terminus
+at Milan, several lines passed through the gorges of the Alps, and
+connected Italy with Lyons and Mayence on the one side, and with the
+Tyrol and Danubian provinces on the other. Spain and southern Gaul were
+connected by a grand road from Cadiz to Narbonne and Arles. Lyons was
+another centre from which branched out military roads to Saintes,
+Marseilles, Boulogne, and Mayence. In fact, the Roman legion could
+traverse every province in the empire over these grandly built public
+roads, as great and important in the second century as railroads are at
+the present time. There was an uninterrupted communication from the Wall
+of Antonius through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons,
+Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus, Antioch,
+Tyre, Jerusalem--a distance of 3740 miles. And these roads were divided
+by milestones, and houses for travelers erected every five or six miles.
+
+[Sidenote: Commerce.]
+
+[Sidenote: Objects of ancient commerce.]
+
+Commerce under the emperors was not what it now is, but still was very
+considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The most
+remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome. Every year
+a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea for
+the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the rivers
+which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient navigator.
+Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern times
+before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as
+sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over
+in twenty-four hours. This was the average speed, or about seven knots.
+From the mouth of the Tiber, vessels could usually reach Africa in two
+days, Massilia in three, Tarraco in four, and the Pillars of Hercules in
+seven. From Puteoli the passage to Alexandria had been effected, with
+moderate winds, in nine days. But these facts apply only to the summer,
+and to objects of favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the
+inclement seasons. But in summer the great inland sea was white with
+sails. Great fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa,
+Sicily, and Egypt. This was the most important trade. But a considerable
+commerce was carried on in ivory, tortoise-shell, cotton and silk
+fabrics, pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, oil.
+Greek and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great
+demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the
+Grecian cities; of wild animals for the amphitheatre; of marble, of the
+spoils of eastern cities, of military engines, and stores, and horses,
+required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably
+belonged, chiefly, to great maritime cities like Alexandria, Corinth,
+Carthage, Rhodes, Cyrene, Massalia, Neapolis, Tarentum, and Syracuse.
+These great cities with their dependencies, required even more vessels
+for communication with each other than for Rome herself--the great
+central object of enterprise and cupidity.
+
+[Sidenote: The metropolis of the empire.]
+
+[Sidenote: The centre and the pride of the world.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its varied objects of interest.]
+
+In this survey of the provinces and cities which composed the empire of
+the Caesars, I have not yet spoken of the great central city--the City of
+the Seven Hills, to which all the world was tributary. Rome was so
+grand, so vast, so important in every sense, political and social; she
+was such a concentration of riches and wonders, that it demands a
+separate and fuller notice than what I have been able to give of those
+proud capitals which finally yielded to her majestic domination. All
+other cities not merely yielded precedence, but contributed to her
+greatness. Whatever was costly, or rare, or beautiful in Greece, or
+Asia, or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens
+were provincial governors. All the great roads, from the Atlantic to the
+Tigris, converged to Rome. All the ships of Alexandria and Carthage and
+Tarentum, and other commercial capitals, were employed in furnishing her
+with luxuries or necessities. Never was there so proud a city as this
+"Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, St.
+Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of fashion and power; but they are
+rivals, and excel only in some great department of human enterprise and
+genius, as in letters, or fashions, or commerce, or manufactures--
+centres of influence and power in the countries of which they are
+capitals, yet they do not monopolize the wealth and energies of the
+world. London may contain more people than ancient Rome, and may possess
+more commercial wealth; but London represents only the British monarchy,
+not a universal empire. Rome, however, monopolized everything, and
+controlled all nations and peoples. She could shut up the schools of
+Athens, or disperse the ships of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of
+Antioch. What Lyons or Bordeaux is to Paris, Corinth or Babylon was to
+Rome--secondary cities, dependent cities. Paul condemned at Jerusalem,
+stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome protects him. The philosophers
+of Greece are the tutors of Roman nobility. The kings of the East resort
+to the palaces of Mount Palatine for favors or safety. The governors of
+Syria and Egypt, reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, return to
+Rome to squander the riches they have accumulated. Senators and nobles
+take their turn as sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the
+world. The halls in which Darius, and Alexander, and Pericles, and
+Croesus, and Solomon, and Cleopatra have feasted, if unspared by the
+conflagrations of war, witness the banquets of Roman proconsuls. Babylon
+and Thebes and Athens were only what Delhi and Calcutta are to the
+English of our day--cities to be ruled by the delegates of the Roman
+Senate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud governors who reigned on
+the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the Rhine, of the Nile, of the
+Tigris. After they had enriched themselves with the spoils of the
+ancient monarchies they returned to their estates in Italy, or to their
+palaces on the Aventine, for the earth had but _one_ capital--one
+great centre of attraction. To an Egyptian even, Alexandria was only
+provincial. He must travel to the banks of the Tiber to see something
+greater than his own capital. It was the seat of government for one
+hundred and twenty millions of people. It was the arbiter of taste and
+fashion. It was the home of generals and senators and statesmen, of
+artists and scholars and merchants, who were renowned throughout the
+empire. It was enriched by the contributions of conquered nations for
+eight hundred years. It contained more marble statues than living
+inhabitants. Every spot was consecrated by associations; every temple
+had a history; every palace had been the scene of festivities which made
+it famous; every monument pointed to the deeds of the illustrious dead,
+and swelled the pride of the most powerful families which aristocratic
+ages had created.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+For the ancient authorities, see Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus
+Siculus, Titus Livius, Pausanias, and Herodotus. There is an able
+chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Napoleon's _History of
+Caesar_. Smith, _Dictionary of Ancient Geography_, is exhaustive.
+See, also, Muller, article on _Atticus_, in Ersch, and Gruber's
+_Encyclopedia_, translated by Lockhart; Stuart and Revett,
+_Antiquities of Atticus_; Dodwell, _Tour through Greece_; Wilkinson,
+_Hand-book for Travelers in Egypt_; Becker, _Hand-book of Rome_.
+Anthon has compiled a useful work on ancient geography, but the most
+accessible and valuable book on the material aspects of the old
+Roman world is the great dictionary of Smith, from which this chapter is
+chiefly compiled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE WONDERS OF ANCIENT ROME.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Early inhabitants of Italy.]
+
+The great capital of the ancient world had a very humble beginning, and
+that is involved in myth and mystery. Even the Latin stock, inhabiting
+the country from the Tiber to the Volscian mountains, which furnished
+the first inhabitants of the city, cannot be clearly traced, since we
+have no traditions of the first migration of the human race into Italy.
+It is supposed by Mommsen that the peoples which inhabited Latium belong
+to the Indo-Germanic family. Among these were probably the independent
+cantons of the Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, which united to form a
+single commonwealth, and occupied the hills which arose about fourteen
+miles from the mouth of the Tiber. Around these hills was a rural
+population which tilled the fields. From these settlements a fortified
+fort arose on the Palatine Hill, fitted to be a place of trade from its
+situation on the Tiber, and also a fortress to protect the urban
+villages. Though unhealthy in its site, it was admirably adapted for
+these purposes, and thus early became an important place.
+
+[Sidenote: Foundation of Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: Settlement under Romulus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Extent of the city at the death of Romulus.]
+
+The legends attribute a different foundation of the "Eternal City." But
+these also assign the Palatine as the nucleus of ancient Rome. It was on
+this hill that Romulus and Remus grew up to manhood, and it was this
+hill which Romulus selected as the site of the city he was so desirous
+to build. But modern critics suppose that he did not occupy the whole
+hill, but only the western part of it. Varro, whose authority is
+generally received, assigns the year 753 before Christ as the date for
+the foundation of the city. The first memorable incident in the history
+of this little city of robbers was the care of Romulus to increase its
+population by opening an asylum for fugitive slaves on the Capitoline
+Hill. But this supplied only males who had no wives. And when the
+proposal of the founder to solicit intermarriage with the neighboring
+nations was rejected, he resorted to stratagem and force. He invites the
+Sabines and the people of other Latin towns to witness games. A crowd of
+men and women are assembled, and while all are intent on the games, the
+unmarried women are seized by the Roman youth. Then ensues, of course, a
+war with the Sabines, the result of which is that the Sabines are united
+with the Romans and settle on the Quirinal. The Saturnian Hill is left
+in possession of the Sabines, while Romulus assumes the Sabine name of
+Quirinus, from which we infer that the Sabines had the best of the
+conflict. Callius, who, it is said, assisted Romulus, receives as a
+compensation the hill known as the Caelian. At the death of Romulus, who
+reigned thirty-seven years, Rome comprised the Palatine, the Quirinal,
+the Caelian, and the Capitoline hills. [Footnote: M. Ampere, _Hist.
+Rom._, tom. i. ch. xii.] The Sabines thus occupy two of the seven
+hills, and furnish not only people for the infant city, but laws,
+customs, and manners, especially religious observances.
+
+[Sidenote: The public works of Numa.]
+
+The reign of Numa was devoted to the consolidation of the power which
+Romulus had acquired, to the civilization of his subjects, and the
+improvement of the city. He fixed his residence between the Roman and
+the Sabine city, and erected adjoining to the Regia a temple to Vesta,
+which was probably only an _oedes sacra_. It was probably along with
+these buildings that the Sacra Via came into existence. The Regia became
+in after times the residence of the Pontifex Maximus. Numa established
+on the Palatine the Curia Saliorum, and built on the Quirinal a temple
+of Romulus, afterwards rebuilt by Augustus. He also erected on the
+Quirinal a citadel connected with a temple of Jupiter, with cells of
+Juno and Minerva. He converted the gate which formed the entrance of the
+Sabine city into a temple of Janus, and laid the foundation upon the
+Capitoline of a large temple to Fides Publica, the public faith.
+
+[Sidenote: The reign of Tullus Hostilius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Improvement of the city made by Tullus.]
+
+Under the reign of Tullus Hostilius was the capture of Alba Longa, the
+old capital of Latium, where Numa had reigned, and the transfer of its
+inhabitants to Rome, which thus became the chief city of the Latin
+league. They were located on the Caelian, which also became the residence
+of the king. He built the Curia Hostilia, a senate chamber, to
+accommodate the noble Alban families, in which the Roman Senate
+assembled, at the northwest corner of the Forum, to the latest times of
+the republic. It was a templum, but not dedicated for divine services,
+adjoining the eastern side of the Vulcanal. Out of the spoils of Alba
+Longa, Tullus improved the Comitium, a space at the northwest end of the
+Forum, fronting the Curia, the common meeting place of the Romans and
+Sabines. On the Quirinal Hill he erected a Curia Saliorum in imitation
+of that of Numa on the Palatine, devoted to the worship of Quirinus.
+
+[Sidenote: Growth of Rome during the reign of Ancus Martius.]
+
+Ancus Martius, a grandson of Numa, succeeded Tullus after a reign of
+thirty-two years. Under him the city was greatly augmented by the
+inhabitants of various Latin cities which he subdued. These settled on
+the Aventine, and in the valley which separated it from the Palatine,
+supposed by Niebuhr to be the origin of the Roman Plebs, though it is
+maintained by Lewis that the Plebeian order was coaeval with the
+foundation of the city. Ancus fortified Mons Janiculus, the hill on the
+western bank of the Tiber, for the protection of the city. He connected
+it with Rome by the Pons Sublicius, the earliest of the Roman bridges,
+built on piles. The Janiculum was not much occupied by residences until
+the time of Augustus. Ancus founded Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber,
+which became the port of Rome. It was this king who built the famous
+Mamertine Prison, near the Forum, below the northern height of the
+Capitoline.
+
+[Sidenote: Tarquinius Priscus.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Cloaca Maxima.]
+
+[Sidenote: Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter.]
+
+A new dynasty succeeded this king, who reigned twenty-four years; that
+of the Tarquins, an Etrurian family of Greek extraction, which came from
+Corinth, the cradle of Grecian art, celebrated as the birth-place of
+painting and for its works of pottery and bronze. Tarquinius Priscus
+constructed the Cloaca Maxima, that vast sewer which drained the Forum
+and Velabrum, and which is regarded by Niebuhr as one of the most
+stupendous monuments of antiquity. It was composed of three semicircular
+arches inclosing one another, the innermost of which had a diameter of
+twelve feet, large enough to be traversed by a Roman hay-cart.
+[Footnote: Arnold, _Hist. of Rom._, vol. i. p. 52.] It was built
+without cement, and still remains a magnificent specimen of the
+perfection of the old Tuscan masonry. Along the southern side of the
+Forum this enlightened monarch constructed a row of shops occupied by
+butchers and other tradesmen. At the head of the Forum and under the
+Capitoline he founded the Temple of Saturn, the ruins of which attest
+considerable splendor. But his greatest work was the foundation of the
+Capitoline Temple of Jupiter, completed by Tarquinius Superbus, the
+consecrated citadel in which was deposited whatever was most valued by
+the Romans.
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Servius Tullius.]
+
+During the reign of Servius Tullius, who succeeded Tarquin B.C. 578, the
+various elements of the population were amalgamated, and the seven
+hills, namely, the Palatine, the Capitoline, the Quirinal, the Caelian,
+the Viminal, the Esquiline, and the Aventine, were covered with houses,
+and inclosed by a wall about six miles in circuit. A temple of Diana was
+erected on the Aventine, besides two temples to Fortune, one to Juno,
+and one to Luna. Servius also dedicated the Campus Martius, and enlarged
+the Mamertine Prison by adding a subterranean dungeon of impenetrable
+strength.
+
+[Sidenote: Tarquinius Superbus.]
+
+On the assassination of Servius Tullius, B.C. 535, his son-in-law,
+Tarquinius Superbus, usurped the power, and did much for the adornment
+of the city. The Capitoline Temple was completed on an artificial
+platform, having a triple row of columns in front, and a double row at
+the sides. It was two hundred feet wide, having three cells adjoining
+one another, the centre appropriated to Jupiter, with Juno and Minerva
+on either hand. The temple had a single roof, and lasted nearly five
+hundred years before it was burned down, and rebuilt with greater
+splendor.
+
+[Sidenote: Rome under the early consuls.]
+
+[Sidenote: Roman roads.]
+
+Such were the chief improvements of the city during the kingly rule.
+Under the consuls the growth was constant, but was not marked by grand
+edifices. Portunus, the conqueror of the Tarquins at Lake Regillus,
+erected a temple to Ceres, Liber, and Libera, at the western extremity
+of the Circus Maximus. Camillus founded a celebrated temple to Juno on
+the Aventine. But these, and a few other temples, were destroyed when
+the Gauls held possession of the city. The city was rebuilt hastily and
+without much regard to regularity. There was nothing memorable in its
+architectural monuments till the time of Appius Claudius, who
+constructed the Via Appia, the first Roman aqueduct. In fact the
+constant wars of the Romans prevented much improvement in the city till
+the fall of Tarentum, although the ambassadors of Pyrrhus were struck
+with its grandeur. M. Curius Dentatus commenced the aqueduct called Anio
+Vetus B.C. 278, the greater part of which was under ground. Its total
+length was forty-three miles. Q. Flaminius, B.C. 220, between the first
+and second Punic wars, constructed the great highway, called after him
+the Via Flaminia--the great northern road of Italy, as the Via Appia was
+the southern. These roads were very elaborately built. In constructing
+them, the earth was excavated till a solid foundation was obtained; over
+this a layer of loose stones was laid, then another layer nine inches
+thick of rubble-work of broken stones cemented with lime, then another
+layer of broken pottery cemented in like manner, over which was a
+pavement of large polygonal blocks of hard stone nicely fitted together.
+Roads thus constructed were exceedingly durable, so that portions of
+them, constructed two thousand years ago, are still in a high state of
+preservation.
+
+[Sidenote: Ancient basilicas.]
+
+[Sidenote: Temple of Hercules.]
+
+[Sidenote: Asiatic luxuries.] The improvements of Rome were rapid after
+the conquest of Greece, although destructive fires frequently laid large
+parts of the city in ruins. The deities of the conquered nations were
+introduced into the Roman worship, and temples erected to them. In the
+beginning of the second century before Christ we notice the erection of
+basilicas, used as courts of law and a sort of exchange, the first of
+which was built by M. Portius Cato, B.C. 184, on the north side of the
+Forum. It was of an oblong form, open to the air, surrounded with
+columns, at one end of which was the tribunal of the judge. The Basilica
+Portia was soon followed by the Basilica Fulvia behind the Argentariae
+Novae, which had replaced the butchers' shops. Fulvius Nobilia further
+adorned the city with a temple of Hercules on the Campus Martius, and
+brought from Ambrasia, once the residence of Pyrrhus, two hundred and
+thirty marble and two hundred and eighty-five bronze statues, beside
+pictures. L. Aemilius Paulus founded an emporium on the banks of the
+Tiber as a place of landing and sale for goods transported by sea, and
+built a bridge over the Tiber. Sempronius Gracchus, the father of the
+two demagogue patriots, erected a third Basilica B.C. 169, on the south
+side of the Forum on the site of the house of Scipio Africanus. The
+triumph of Aemilius Paulus introduced into the city pictures and statues
+enough to load two hundred and fifty chariots, and a vast quantity of
+gold and silver. Cornelius Octavius, B.C. 167, built a grand palace on
+the Palatine, one of the first examples of elegant domestic
+architecture, and erected a magnificent double portico with capitals of
+Corinthian bronze. With the growing taste for architectural display,
+various Asiatic luxuries were introduced--bronze beds, massive
+sideboards, tables of costly woods, cooks, pantomimists, female dancers,
+and luxurious banquets. Metellus erected the first marble temple seen in
+Rome, before which he placed the twenty-five bronze statues which
+Lysippus had executed for Alexander the Great.
+
+[Sidenote: Sack of Corinth.]
+
+[Sidenote: Adornment of the Forum.]
+
+The same year that witnessed the triumph of Metellus, B.C. 146, also saw
+the fall of Carthage and the sack of Corinth by Mummius, so that many of
+the choicest specimens of Grecian art were brought to the banks of the
+Tiber. Among these was the celebrated picture of Bacchus by Aristides,
+which was placed in the Temple of Bacchus, Ceres, and Proserpine. The
+Forum now contained many gems of Grecian art, among which were the
+statues of Alcibiades and Pythagoras which stood near the comitium, the
+Three Sibyls placed before the rostra, and a picture by Serapion, which
+covered the balconies of the tabernae on the south side of the Forum.
+
+[Sidenote: Aqua Marcia.]
+
+In the year 144 B.C., Q. Marcius Rex constructed the Aqua Marcia, one of
+the noblest of the Roman monuments, sixty-two miles in length, seven of
+which were on arches, sufficiently lofty to supply the Capitoline with
+pure and cold water. Seventeen years after, the Aqua Tepula was added to
+the aqueducts of Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: Triumphal Arches.]
+
+The first triumphal arch erected to commemorate victories was in the
+year B.C. 196, by L. Sertinius. Scipio Africanus erected another on the
+Capitoline, and Q. Fabius, B.C. 121, raised another in honor of his
+victories over the Allobroges. This spanned the Via Sacra where it
+entered the Forum, and at that time was a conspicuous monument, though
+vastly inferior to the arches of the imperial regime.
+
+[Sidenote: Temple of Concord.]
+
+[Sidenote: Basilica Opimia.]
+
+When tranquillity was restored to Rome after the riots connected with
+the murder of the Gracchi, the Senate ordered a Temple of Concord to be
+built, B.C. 121, in commemoration of the event. This temple was on the
+elevated part of the Vulcanal, and was of considerable magnitude. It was
+used for the occasional meetings of the Senate, and contained many
+valuable works of art. Adjoining this temple, Opimius, the consul,
+erected the Basilica Opimia, which was used by the silversmiths, who
+were the bankers and pawnbrokers of Rome. The whole quarter on the north
+side of the Forum, where this basilica stood, was the Roman exchange--
+the focus for all monetary transactions.
+
+[Sidenote: Private palaces.]
+
+[Sidenote: Houses of the nobles.]
+
+The increasing wealth and luxury of Rome, especially caused by the
+conquest of Asia, led to the erection on the Palatine of those
+magnificent private residences, which became one of the most striking
+features the capital. The first of these historical houses was built by
+M. Livius Drusus, and overlooked the city. It afterwards passed into the
+hands of Crassus, Cicero, and Censorinus. Pompey had a house on the
+Palatine, but afterwards transferred his residence to the Casinae,
+another aristocratic quarter. M. Aemilius Lepidus also lived in a
+magnificent palace; the house of Crassus was still more splendid,
+adorned with columns of marble from Mount Hymettus. The house of
+Catullus excelled even that of Crassus. This again was excelled by that
+of Aquillius on the Viminal, which for some time was the most splendid
+in Rome, until Lucullus occupied nearly the whole of the Pincian Hill
+with his gardens and galleries of art, which contained some of the
+_chefs d'oeuvre_ of antiquity. The gardens of Servilius, which lay
+on the declivity of the Houses of Aventine, were adorned with Greek
+statues, exceeded in beauty by those of Sallust between the Pincian and
+the Quirinal hills, built with the spoils of Numidia, and ultimately the
+property of the emperors. The house of Clodius on the Palatine, near to
+that of Cicero, was one of the finest in Rome, occupied before him by
+Scaurus, who gave for it nearly fifteen million sesterces, about
+$650,000. It was adorned with Greek paintings and sculptures. The house
+of Cicero, which he bought of Crassus, cost him $150,000. Its atrium was
+adorned with Greek marble columns thirty-eight feet high. Hortensius
+lived in a house on the Palatine, afterwards occupied by Augustus. The
+residence of his friend Atticus, on the Quirinal, was more modest, whose
+chief ornament was a grove. Pompey surrounded his house with gardens and
+porticos.
+
+[Sidenote: Destruction and rebuilding of the Capitol.]
+
+The year 83 B.C. was marked by the destruction by fire of the old
+Capitoline Temple, which had withstood the ravages of the Gauls. Sulla
+aspired to rebuild it, and caused to be transported to Rome for that
+purpose the column of the Olympian Zeus at Athens. It was completed by
+Caesar, and its roof was gilded at an expense of $15,000,000. The
+pediment was adorned with statuary, and near it was a colossal statue of
+Jupiter.
+
+[Sidenote: Theatre of Pompey.]
+
+In the early ages of the republic there were no theatres at Rome,
+theatrical representations being regarded as demoralizing. The regular
+drama was the last development even of Grecian genius. The Roman
+aristocracy set their faces against dramatic entertainments till after
+the conquest of Greece. These plays were introduced and performed on
+temporary stages in the open air, or in wooden buildings. There was no
+grand theatre till Pompey erected one of stone, B.C. 55, in the Campus
+Martius, which was capable of holding eighty thousand spectators, and it
+had between its numerous pillars three thousand bronze statues.
+[Footnote: _Plin. H. N._, xxxvi. 24.] He also erected, behind his
+theatre, a grand portico of one hundred pillars, which became one of the
+most fashionable lounging-places of Rome, and which was adorned with
+statues and images. Pompey also built various temples.
+
+[Sidenote: Forum Julian.]
+
+[Sidenote: Basilica Julia.]
+
+His great rival however surpassed him in labors to ornament the capital.
+Caesar enlarged the Forum, or rather added a new one, the ground of which
+cost $2,500,000. It was called the Forum Julian, and was three hundred
+and forty feet long by two hundred wide, containing a temple of Venus.
+He did not live, however, to carry out his magnificent plans. He
+contemplated building an edifice, for the assembly of the Comitia
+Tributa, of marble, with a portico inclosing a space of a mile square,
+and also the erection of a temple to Mars of unparalleled size and
+magnificence. He commenced the Basilica Julia and the Curia Julia--vast
+buildings, which were completed under the emperors.
+
+[Sidenote: Rome under the Emperors.]
+
+Such were the principal edifices of Rome until the imperial sway.
+Augustus boasted that he found the city of brick and left it of marble.
+It was not until the emperors embellished the city with amphitheatres,
+theatres, baths, and vast architectural monuments that it was really
+worthy to be regarded as the metropolis of the world. The great
+improvements of Rome in the republican period were of a private nature,
+such as the palaces of senatorial families. There were no temples equal
+to those in the Grecian cities either for size, ornament, or beauty.
+Indeed, Rome was never famous for temples, but for edifices of material
+utility rather than for the worship of the gods; yet the Romans, under
+the rule of the aristocracy, were more religious than the Corinthians or
+Athenians.
+
+[Sidenote: Works of Augustus.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Subura.]
+
+[Sidenote: Forum Romanum.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its magnificence.]
+
+[Sidenote: Surrounding buildings.]
+
+[Sidenote: Temple of Castor and Pollux.]
+
+[Sidenote: Basilica Julia.]
+
+[Sidenote: Arch of Septimius Severus, and columns of Trajan.]
+
+[Sidenote: Forum Julium.]
+
+[Sidenote: Forum Augusti.]
+
+[Sidenote: Forum of Trajan.]
+
+[Sidenote: Basilica Ulpia.]
+
+On the destruction of the senatorial or constitutional party that had
+ruled since the expulsion of the kings, and probably before, and the
+peaceful accession of Augustus, B.C. 31, a great impulse was given to
+the embellishments of the city. His long reign, his severe taste, and
+his immense resources,--undisputed master of one hundred and fifty
+millions of subjects,--enabled him to carry out the designs of Julius,
+and to restore an immense number of monuments falling to decay. But Rome
+was even then deficient in those things which most attract attention in
+our modern capitals--the streets and squares. The longest street of Rome
+was scarcely three fourths of a mile in length; but the houses upon it
+were of great altitude. Moreover the streets were narrow and dark--
+scarcely more than fifteen feet in width. But they were not encumbered
+with carriages. Private equipages, which form one of the most imposing
+features of a modern city, were unknown. There was nothing attractive in
+a Roman street, dark, narrow, and dirty, with but few vehicles, and with
+dingy shops, like those of Paris in the Middle Ages. The sun scarcely
+ever penetrated to them. They were damp and cold. The greater part of
+the city belonged to wealthy and selfish capitalists, like Crassus, who
+thought more of their gains than the health or beauty of the city. The
+Subura, the Sub Velia, and the Velabrum, built in the valleys, were
+choked up with tall houses, frequently more, and seldom less, than
+seventy feet in height. The hills alone were covered with aristocratic
+residences, temples, and public monuments. The only open space, where
+the poor people could get fresh air and extensive prospect, was Circus
+Maximus and the Forum Romanum. The former was three fourths of a mile in
+length and one eighth in breadth, surrounded with a double row of
+benches, the lower of stone and the upper of wood, and would seat two
+hundred and eighty-five thousand spectators. The Forum was the centre of
+architectural splendor, as well as of life and business. Its original
+site extended from the eastern part of the Capitoline to the spot where
+the Velia begins to ascend, and was bounded on the south by the Via
+Sacra, which extended to the arx or citadel. It was that consecrated
+street by which the augurs descended when they inaugurated the great
+festivals of the republic, and in which lived the Pontifex Maximus.
+Although the Forum Romanum was only seven hundred feet by four hundred
+and seventy, yet it was surrounded by and connected with basilicas,
+halls, porticoes, temples, and shops. It was a place of great public
+resort for all classes of people--a scene of life and splendor rarely if
+ever equaled, and having some resemblance to the crowded square of
+Venice on which St. Mark's stands. Originally it was a marketplace, busy
+and lively, a great resort where might be seen "good men walking quietly
+by themselves," [Footnote: _Plautus Cuve_, iv. 1. ] "flash men
+strutting about without a denarius in their purses," "gourmands clubbing
+for a dinner," "scandal-mongers living in glass houses," "perjured
+witnesses, liars, braggarts, rich and erring husbands, worn-out
+harlots," and all the various classes which now appear in the crowded
+places of London or Paris. In this open space the people were assembled
+on great public occasions, and here they were addressed by orators and
+tribunes. Immediately surrounding the Forum Romanum, or in close
+proximity to it, were the most important public buildings of the city in
+which business was transacted--the courts of law, the administrative
+bureaus, the senate chamber and the principal temples, as well as
+monuments and shops. On the north side was the Comitium, an open space
+for holding the Comitia Curiata and heavy lawsuits, and making speeches
+to the assembled people. During the kingly government the temples of
+Janus and Vesta and Saturn were erected, also the Curia Hostilia, a
+senate-house, the Senaculum, the Mamertine Prison, and the Tabernae or
+porticoes and shops inclosing the Forum. During the republic the temple
+of Castor and Pollux, which served for the assembly of the Senate and
+judicial business, was erected, not of the largest size, but very rich
+and beautiful. The Basilica Portia, where the tribunes of the people
+held their assemblies, was founded by Cato the Censor, and this was
+followed by the Basilica Fulvia, with columns of Phrygian marble,
+admired by Pliny for its magnificence, the Basilica Sempronia, the
+Temple of Concord, and the Triumphal Arch of Fabius, to commemorate his
+victories over the Allobroges. Under the empire, the magnificent
+Basilica Julia was erected for the sittings of the law courts, and its
+immense size may be inferred from the fact that one hundred and eighty
+judges, divided into four courts, with four separate tribunals, with
+seats for advocates and spectators, were accustomed to assemble.
+Tiberius erected a triumphal arch near the Temple of Saturn. Domitian
+built the Temple of Vespasian and Titus, and erected to himself a
+colossal equestrian statue. Near it rose the temples of Divus-Julius and
+of Antoninus and Faustina. Beside these were the Triumphal Arch of
+Septimius Severus, still standing; the Columns of Phocas and Trajan, the
+latter of which is the finest monument of its kind in the world, one
+hundred and twenty-seven feet high, with a spiral band of admirable
+reliefs containing two thousand five hundred human figures. Beside
+these, new fora of immense size were constructed by various emperors,
+not for political business so much as courts of justice. The Forum
+Julium, which connected with the old Forum Romanum, was virtually a
+temple of great magnificence. In front of it was the celebrated bronze
+horse of Lysippus, and the temple was enriched with precious offerings
+and adorned with pictures from the best Greek artists. It was devoted to
+legal business. The Forum Augusti was still larger, and also inclosed a
+temple, in which the Senate assembled to consult about wars and
+triumphs, and was surrounded with porticoes in which the statues of the
+most eminent Roman generals were placed, while on each side were the
+triumphal arches of Germanicus and Drusus. More extensive and
+magnificent than either of the old fora was the one which Trajan
+erected, in the centre of which was the celebrated column of the
+emperor, so universally admired, while the sides were ornamented with a
+double colonnade of gray Egyptian marble, the columns of which were
+fifty-five feet in height. This was one of the most gigantic structures
+in Rome, covering more ground than the Flavian Amphitheatre, and built
+by the celebrated Apollodorus of Damascus. It filled the whole space
+between the Capitoline and Quirinal. The Basilica Ulpia was only one
+division of this vast edifice, divided internally by four rows of
+columns of gray granite, and paved with slabs of marble.
+
+[Sidenote: Beauty of the Roman Forum.]
+
+Nothing in Rome, or perhaps any modern city, exceeded the glory and
+beauty of the Forum, with the adjoining basilica, and other public
+buildings, filled with statues and pictures, and crowded with people.
+The more aristocratic loungers sought the retired promenade afforded by
+the porticoes near the Circus Flaminius, where the noise and clamor of
+the crowded streets, the cries of venders, the sports of boys, and the
+curses of wagoners, could not reach them. The Forum was the peculiar
+glory of the republican period, where the Gracchi enlightened the people
+on their political rights, where Cato calmed the passions of the mob,
+where Cicero and Hortensius delivered their magnificent harangues.
+
+[Sidenote: Works of Augustus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Temple of Apollo.]
+
+[Sidenote: Theatre of Marcellus.]
+
+The glory of the Augustan age was more seen in the magnificent buildings
+which arose upon the hills, although he gave attention to the completion
+of many works of utility or beauty in other parts of the city. He
+restored the Capitoline temple and the theatre of Pompey; repaired
+aqueducts; finished the Forum and Basilica Julia; and entirely built the
+Curia Julia. He founded, on the Palatine, the Imperial Palace,
+afterwards enlarged by his successors until it entirely covered the
+original city of Romulus. Among the most beautiful of his works was the
+Temple of Apollo, the columns of which were of African marble, between
+which were the statues of the fifty Danaids. In the temple was a
+magnificent statue of Apollo, and around the altar were the images of
+four oxen--the work of Miron, so beautifully sculptured that they seemed
+alive. The temple was of the finest marble; its gates were of ivory,
+finely sculptured. Attached to this temple was a library, where the
+poets, orators, and philosophers assembled, and recited their
+productions. The Forum Augusti was another of the noblest monuments of
+this emperor, in order to provide accommodation for the crowds which
+overflowed the Forum Romanum. He also built the theatre of Marcellus,
+capable of holding twenty thousand spectators.
+
+[Sidenote: Pantheon.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thermae Agrippae.]
+
+[Sidenote: Campus Martius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Works of the Nobles.]
+
+Nor was Augustus alone the patron of the arts. His son-in-law, and prime
+minister, Agrippa, adorned the city with many noble structures, of which
+the Pantheon remains to attest his munificence. This temple, the best
+preserved of all the monuments of ancient splendor, stood in the centre
+of the Campus Martius, and contained only the images of the deities
+immediately connected with the Julian race and the early history of
+Rome. Agrippa was the first to establish those famous baths, which
+became the most splendid monuments of imperial munificence. The Thermae
+Agrippae stood at the back of the Pantheon. It was fed by the Aqua Virgo,
+an aqueduct which Agrippa purposely constructed to furnish water for his
+baths. Many other architectural monuments marked the public spirit of
+this enlightened and liberal minister, especially in the quarter of the
+Circus Flaminius and the Campus Martius. This quarter was like a
+separate town, more magnificent than any part of the ancient city. It
+was adorned with temples, porticoes, and theatres, and other buildings
+devoted to amusement and recreation. It had not many private houses, but
+these were of remarkable splendor. Other courtiers of Augustus followed
+his example for the embellishment of the city. Statilius Taurus built
+the first permanent amphitheatre of stone in the Campus Martius. L.
+Cornelius Balbur built at his own expense a stone theatre. L. Marcius
+Philippus rebuilt the temple of Hercules Musarum, and surrounded it with
+a portico. L. Cornificius built a temple of Diana. Asininius Pollio an
+Atrium Libertatis; and Munatius Plaucus a temple of Saturn. Maecenas, who
+lived upon the Esquiline, converted the Campus Esquilinus, near the
+Subura, a pauper burial-ground offensive to both sight and health, into
+beautiful gardens, called the Horti Maecenatis.
+
+  Nunc licet esquiliis habitare salubribus atque,
+  Aggere in Aprico Spatiari, quo modo tristes.
+  Albis informem spectabant ossibtis agrum.
+
+[Footnote: Horace _Sat._ i. 8.]
+
+Near these gardens Virgil lived, also Propertius, and probably Horace.
+The Esquiline, once a plebeian quarter, seems to have been selected by
+the literary men, who sought the favor of Maecenas, for their abode. Ovid
+lived near the capitol, at the southern extremity of the Quirinal.
+
+[Sidenote: Mausoleum of Augustus.]
+
+Among the other buildings which Augustus erected, should not be omitted
+the magnificent Mausoleum, or the tomb of the imperial family at the
+northern part of the Campus Martius, near which lay the remains of Sulla
+and of Caesar, and which remained the burial-place of his family down to
+the time of Hadrian. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to
+chapter end.] He also brought from Egypt the obelisk which now stands on
+Mount Citorio, and which was placed in that receptacle for
+monuments--the Campus Martius.
+
+[Sidenote: Imperial palace.]
+
+Tiberius did but little for the improvement of his capital beyond
+erecting a triumphal arch, in commemoration of the exploits of
+Germanicus, on the Via Sacra, and establishing the Praetorian Camp near
+the Servian Agger. Caligula extended the imperial palace, and began the
+Circus Neronis in the gardens of Agrippa, near where St. Peter's now
+stands.
+
+[Sidenote: Claudian aqueduct.]
+
+Claudius constructed the two noble aqueducts, the Aqua Claudia and Arno
+Novis,--the longest of all these magnificent Roman monuments,--the
+latter of which was fifty-nine miles in length, and some of its arches
+were one hundred and nine feet in height.
+
+Nero still further extended the precincts of the imperial palace, and
+included the Esquiline. The great fire which occurred in his reign, A.D.
+65, and which lasted six days and seven nights, destroyed some of the
+most ancient of the Roman structures surrounding the Palatine, and very
+much damaged the Forum, to say nothing of the statues and treasures
+which perished. But the city soon arose from her ashes more beautiful
+than before. The streets were laid out on a more regular plan and made
+wider, the houses were built lower, and brick was substituted for wood.
+
+[Sidenote: The Imperial Palace.]
+
+The great work of Nero was the construction of the Imperial Palace on
+the site of the buildings which had been destroyed by the fire. He gave
+it the name of Aurea Domus, and, if we may credit Suetonius, [Footnote:
+Suet. _Ner_., 31.] its richness and splendor surpassed any other
+similar edifice in ancient times. It fronted the Forum and Capitol, and
+in its vestibule stood a colossal statue of the emperor, one hundred and
+twenty feet high. The palace was surrounded by three porticoes, each one
+thousand feet in length. The back front of the palace looked upon the
+artificial lake, afterwards occupied by the Flavian Amphitheatre. Within
+the area were gardens and vineyards. It was entirely overlaid with gold,
+and adorned with jewels and mother-of-pearl. The supper rooms were
+vaulted, and the compartments of the ceiling, inlaid with ivory, were
+made to revolve and scatter flowers upon the banqueters below. The chief
+banqueting-room was circular, and perpetually revolved in imitation of
+the motion of the celestial bodies. There are scarcely no remains of
+this extensive palace, which engrossed so large a part of the city, and
+which covered the site of so many famous temples and palaces, and which
+exhausted even the imperial revenues, great as they were, even as
+Versailles taxed the magnificent resources of Louis XIV., and St.
+Peter's obliged the Popes to appeal to the contributions of Christendom.
+
+[Sidenote: Temple of Peace.]
+
+The next great edifice which added to the architectural wonders of the
+city, was the temple built by Vespasian after the destruction of
+Jerusalem, which he called the Temple of Peace. It was adorned with the
+richest sculptures and paintings of Greece, taken from Nero's palace,
+which Vespasian demolished as a monument of insane extravagance. In this
+temple were deposited also the Jewish spoils, except the laws and veil
+of the temple.
+
+[Sidenote: Falvian Amphitheatre.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Colosseum.]
+
+But the great work of this emperor, and the greatest architectural
+wonder of the world, was the amphitheatre, which he built on the ground
+covered by Nero's lake, in the middle of the city, between the Velia and
+the Esquiline. For magnitude it can only be compared with the pyramids
+of Egypt, and its remains are the most striking monument we have of the
+material greatness of the Romans. Though not the first of the
+amphitheatres which were erected, its enormous size rendered the
+erection of subsequent ones unnecessary. It was here that emperors,
+senators, generals, knights, and people, met together to witness the
+most exciting and sanguinary amusements ever seen in the world. It was
+built in the middle of the city, with a perfect recklessness of expense,
+and could accommodate eighty-seven thousand spectators, round an arena
+large enough for the combats of several hundred animals at a time. It
+was a building of an elliptical form, founded on eighty arches, and
+rising to the height of one hundred and forty feet, with four successive
+orders of architecture, six hundred and twenty feet by five hundred and
+thirteen, inclosing six acres. It was built of travertine, faced with
+marble, and decorated with statues. The eighty arches of the lower story
+formed entrances for the spectators. The seats were of marble covered
+with cushions. The spectators were protected from the sun and rain by
+ample canopies, while the air was refreshed by scented fountains. The
+nets designed as a protection from the wild beasts were made of golden
+wire. The porticoes were gilded; the circle which divided the several
+ranks of spectators was studded with a precious mosaic of beautiful
+stones. The arena was strewed with the finest sand, and assumed, at
+different times, the most different forms. Subterranean pipes conveyed
+water into the arena. The furniture of the amphitheatre consisted of
+gold, silver, and amber. The passages of ingress and egress were so
+numerous that the spectators could go in and out without confusion. Only
+a third part of this wonderful structure remains, and whole palaces have
+been built of its spoils. [Footnote: Dyer, _Hist. of the City of
+Rome_, p. 245. Gibbon, chap. 12. Montaigne, _Essays_, in. 6.
+Lipsius, _de Amphitheatro_.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rebuilding of the Capitol.]
+
+[Sidenote: Arch of Titus.]
+
+Another great fire which took place A.D. 80,--the same in which Titus
+dedicated the Colosseum,--and which raged three days and nights,
+destroyed the region of the Circus Flaminius, including some of the
+finest temples of the city, and especially on the Capitoline, and
+created the necessity for new improvements. These were made by Domitian,
+who rebuilt the Capitol itself with greater splendor on its old site,
+and erected several new edifices. Martial speaks with peculiar
+admiration of the Temple of the Gens Flavia. [Footnote: Martial,
+_L_., ix. Ep. 4, 35. ] He also erected that beautiful arch to his
+brother Titus which still remains one of the finest monuments of the
+imperial city. The Odeum, a roofed theatre, was erected by him, capable
+of holding twelve thousand people. He also made many additions to his
+palace on the Palatine--so lofty, that Martial, his flatterer,
+described it as towering above the clouds, and Statius compared the
+ceiling to the cope of heaven.
+
+[Sidenote: Forum Trajanum.]
+
+[Sidenote: Basilica Ulpia.]
+
+No great improvements were made in the city until Trajan commenced his
+beneficent and splendid reign. His greatest work was the Forum which
+bears his name, to which allusion has been made, eleven hundred feet
+long, in the centre of which was that beautiful pillar, one hundred and
+twenty-eight feet high, which is still standing. The Forum, the Basilica
+Ulpia, and the temple dedicated by Hadrian to Trajan, were all parts of
+this magnificent structure, one of the most imposing ever built, filled
+with colossal statues and surrounded with colonnades.
+
+[Sidenote: Temple of Venus and Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: Mausoleum of Hadrian.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hadrians Villa.]
+
+None of the Roman emperors had so great a passion for building as
+Hadrian, who succeeded Trajan A.D. 117. He erected a vast number of
+edifices, and in his reign Rome attained its greatest height of
+architectural splendor. The most remarkable among the edifices which he
+built was the Temple of Venus and Rome, facing on one side the
+Colosseum, and the other the Forum, on the site of the Atrium, or the
+golden house of Nero. This seems to have been one of the largest of the
+Roman temples, erected on an artificial terrace five hundred feet long
+and three hundred broad. It was surrounded with a portico four hundred
+feet by two hundred, and another portico of four hundred columns
+inclosed the terrace on which the temple was built, the columns of which
+were forty feet in height. The roof was covered with bronze tiles.
+Ammianus Marcellinus classes this magnificent temple with the Capitoline
+Temple, the Flavian Amphitheatre, and the Pantheon. The next greatest
+work of Hadrian was the Mausoleum, which is now converted into the
+Castle of St. Angelo, built on a platform of which each side was two
+hundred and fifty-three feet in length. From the magnificent colonnade
+which supported the platform on which it was built, and the successive
+stories supported by arches and pillars, between which were celebrated
+statues, this circular edifice, one hundred and eighty-eight feet in
+diameter, must have been one of the most imposing edifices in the city.
+After eighteen centuries, it still remains a monument of architectural
+strength, and it served for one of the strongest fortresses in Italy
+during the Middle Ages. I pass by, without notice, the villa this
+emperor erected at Tivoli, the ruins of which are among the most
+interesting which remain of that great age.
+
+[Sidenote: Column of Marcus Aurelius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Arch of Septimius Severus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Baths of Caracalla.]
+
+Under Hadrian Rome attained its greatest splendor, and after him, there
+was a progressive decline in the arts, since the public taste was
+corrupted. Still successive emperors continued to adorn the city. Marcus
+Aurelius, the wisest and best of all the emperors, erected a column
+similar to that of Trajan, to represent his wars with the Germanic
+tribes, and this still remains; he also built a triumphal arch.
+Septimius Severus erected the most beautiful of the triumphal arches, of
+which the Arc de Triumph in Paris is an imitation; and Caracalla built
+one of the greatest of the Roman baths, which, with the porticoes which
+surrounded it, formed a square of eleven hundred feet on each side--so
+enormous were these structures of luxury and utility, designed not only
+for the people as a sanitary measure, but for places of gymnastic
+exercises, popular lectures, and the disputations of philosophers. The
+Pantheon was merely an entrance to the baths of Agrippa. The baths of
+Trajan covered an area nearly as great. But those of Caracalla surpassed
+them all in magnificence. Nothing was more striking to a traveler than
+the painted corridors, the arched ceilings, the variegated columns, the
+elaborate mosaic pavements, the immortal statues, and the exquisite
+paintings which ornamented these places of luxury and pleasure. From
+amid their ruins have been dug out the most priceless of the statues
+which ornament the museums of Italy--the Farnese Hercules, the colossal
+Florae, the Torso Farnese, the Torso Belvidere, the Atreus and Thyestes,
+the Laocoon, beside granite and basaltic vases beautifully polished,
+cameos, bronzes, medals, and other valuable relics of ancient art. To
+supply these baths new aqueducts were built, and the treasures of the
+empire expended. Those subsequently erected by Diocletian contained
+three thousand two hundred marble seats, and the main hall now forms one
+of the most splendid of the Roman churches.
+
+[Sidenote: Temples and Palaces.]
+
+[Sidenote: General aspect of the city.]
+
+[Sidenote: What a traveler would see in a walk.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Via Sacra.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Velabrum.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Fora.]
+
+[Sidenote: View from the summit of the Capitoline Hill.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gardens of Lucullus.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Subura.]
+
+[Sidenote: Circus Maximus.]
+
+[Sidenote: View of Rome from the Capitol.]
+
+Such is a brief view of the progress of those architectural wonders
+which made Rome the most magnificent city of antiquity, and perhaps the
+grandest, in its public monuments, of any city in ancient or modern
+times. What a concentration of works of art on the hills, and around the
+Forum, and in the Campus Martins, and other celebrated quarters! There
+were temples rivaling those of Athens and Ephesus; baths covering more
+ground than the Pyramids, surrounded with Corinthian columns and filled
+with the choicest treasures, ransacked from the cities of Greece and
+Asia; palaces in comparison with which the Tuileries and Versailles are
+small; theatres which seated more people than any present public
+buildings in Europe; amphitheatres more extensive and costly than
+Cologne, Milan, and York Minster cathedrals combined, and seating eight
+times as many people as could be crowded into St. Peter's Church;
+circuses where, it is said, three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+spectators could witness the games and chariot-races at a time; bridges,
+still standing, which have furnished models for the most beautiful at
+Paris and London; aqueducts carried over arches one hundred feet in
+height, through which flowed the surplus water of distant lakes; drains
+of solid masonry in which large boats could float; pillars more than one
+hundred feet in height, coated with precious marbles or plates of brass,
+and covered with bass-reliefs; obelisks brought from Egypt; fora and
+basilicae connected together, and extending more than three thousand
+feet, in length, every part of which was filled with "animated busts" of
+conquerors, kings, and statesmen, poets, publicists, and philosophers;
+mausoleums greater and more splendid than that Artemisia erected to the
+memory of her husband; triumphal arches under which marched in stately
+procession the victorious armies of the Eternal City, preceded by the
+spoils and trophies of conquered empires,--such was the proud capital--
+a city of palaces, a residence or nobles who were virtually kings,
+enriched with the accumulated treasures of ancient civilization. Great
+were the capitals of Greece and Asia, but how preeminent was Rome, since
+all were subordinate to her. How bewildering and bewitching to a
+traveler must have been the varied wonders of the city! Go where he
+would, his eye rested on something which was both a study and a marvel.
+Let him drive or walk about the suburbs, there were villas, tombs,
+aqueducts looking like railroads on arches, sculptured monuments, and
+gardens of surpassing beauty and luxury. Let him approach the walls--
+they were great fortifications extending twenty-one miles in circuit,
+according to the measurement of Ammon as adopted by Gibbon, and forty-
+five miles according to other authorities. Let him enter any of the
+various gates which opened into the city from the roads which radiated
+to all parts of Italy--they were of monumental brass covered with bass-
+reliefs, on which the victories of generals for a thousand years were
+commemorated. Let him pass up the Via Appia, or the Via Flaminia, or the
+Via Cabra--they were lined with temples and shops and palaces. Let him
+pass through any of the crowded thoroughfares, he saw houses towering
+scarcely ever less than seventy feet--as tall as those of Edinburgh in
+its oldest sections. Let him pass through the varied quarters of the
+city, or wards as we should now call them, he finds some fourteen
+regions, as constituted by Augustus, all marked by architectural
+monuments, and containing, according to Lipsius, a population larger
+than London or Paris, guarded and watched by a police of ten thousand
+armed men. Most of the houses in which this vast population lived,
+according to Strabo, possessed pipes which gave a never-failing supply
+of water from the rivers which flowed into the city through the
+aqueducts and out again through the sewers into the Tiber. Let him walk
+up the Via Sacra--that short street, scarcely half a mile in length--and
+he passes the Flavian Amphitheatre, the Temple of Venus, and Rome, the
+Arch of Titus, the temples of Peace, of Vesta, and of Castor, the Forum
+Romanum, the Basilica Julia, the Arch of Severus, and the Temple of
+Saturn, and stands before the majestic ascent to the Capitoline Jupiter,
+with its magnificent portico and ornamented pediment, surpassing the
+facade of any modern church. On his left, as he emerges from beneath the
+sculptured Arch of Titus, is the Palatine Mount, nearly covered by the
+palace of the Caesars, the magnificent residences of the higher nobility,
+and various temples, of which that of Apollo was the most magnificent,
+built by Augustus of solid white marble from Luna. Here were the palaces
+of Vaccus, of Flaccus, of Cicero, of Catiline, of Scaurus, of Antonius,
+of Clodius, of Agrippa, and of Hortensius. Still on his left, in the
+valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline, though he cannot see it,
+concealed from view by the great temples of Vesta and of Castor, and the
+still greater edifice known as the Basilica Julia, is the quarter called
+the Velabrum, extending to the river, where the Pons Aemilius crosses it--
+a low quarter of narrow streets and tall houses where the rabble lived
+and died. On his right, concealed from view by the Aedes Divi Julii and
+the Forum Romanum, is that magnificent series of edifices extending from
+the Temple of Peace to the Temple of Trajan, including the Basilica
+Pauli, the Forum Julii, the Forum Augusti, the Forum Trajani, the
+Basilica Ulpia, more than three thousand feet in length and six hundred
+in breadth, almost entirely surrounded by porticoes and colonnades, and
+filled with statues and pictures--on the whole the grandest series of
+public buildings clustered together probably ever erected, especially if
+we take in the Forum Romanum and the various temples and basilicas which
+connected the whole together--a forest of marble pillars and statues. He
+ascends the steps which lead from the Temple of Concord to the Temple of
+Juno Moneta upon the Arx or Tarpeian Rock, on the southwestern summit of
+the hill, itself one of the most beautiful temples in Rome, erected by
+Camillus on the spot where the house of M. Manlius Capitolinus had
+stood. Here is established the Roman mint. Near this is the temple
+erected by Augustus to Jupiter Tonans and that built by Domitian to
+Jupiter Gustos. But all the sacred edifices which crown the Capitoline
+are subordinate to the Templum Jovis Capitolini, standing on a platform
+of eight thousand square feet, and built of the richest materials. The
+portico which faces the Via Sacra consists of three rows of Doric
+columns, the pediment is profusely ornamented with the choicest
+sculptures, the apex of the roof is surmounted by the bronze horses of
+Lysippus, and the roof itself is covered with gilded tiles. The temple
+has three separate cells, though covered with one roof; in front of each
+stand colossal statues of the three deities to whom it is consecrated.
+Here are preserved what was most sacred in the eyes of Romans, and it is
+itself the richest of all the temples of the city. What a beautiful
+panorama is presented to the view from the summit of this consecrated
+hill, only mounted by a steep ascent of one hundred steps. To the south
+is the Via Sacra extending to the Colosseum, and beyond it is the Appia
+Via, lined with monuments as far as the eye can reach. Little beyond the
+fora to the east is the Carinae, a fashionable quarter of beautiful shops
+and houses, and still further off are the Baths of Titus, extending from
+the Carinae to the Esquiline Mount. This hill, once a burial-ground, is
+now covered with the house and gardens of Maecenas, and of the poets whom
+he patronized. It is not rich in temples, but its gardens and groves are
+beautiful. To the northeast are the Viminal and Quirinal hills, after
+the Palatine the most ancient part of the city--the seat of the Sabine
+population. Abounding in fanes and temples, the most splendid of which
+is the Temple of Quirinus, erected originally to Romulus by Numa, but
+rebuilt by Augustus, with a double row of columns on each of its sides,
+seventy-six in number. Near by was the house of Atticus, and the gardens
+of Sallust in the valley between the Quirinal and Pincian, afterwards
+the property of the emperor. Far back on the Quirinal, near the wall of
+Servius, were the Baths of Diocletian, and still further to the east the
+Pretorian Camp established by Tiberius, and included within the wall of
+Aurelian. To the northeast the eye lights on the Pincian Hill covered by
+the gardens of Lucullus, to possess which Messalina caused the death of
+Valerius Asiaticus, into whose possession they had fallen. In the valley
+which lay between the fora and the Quirinal was the celebrated Subura,--
+the quarter of shops, markets, and artificers,--a busy, noisy, vulgar
+section, not beautiful, but full of life and enterprise and wickedness.
+The eye now turns to the north, and the whole length of the Via Flaminia
+is exposed to view, extending from the Capitoline to the Flaminian gate,
+perfectly straight, the finest street in Rome, and parallel to the
+modern Corso. It is the great highway to the north of Italy. Monuments
+and temples and palaces line this celebrated street. It is spanned by
+the triumphal arches of Claudius and Marcus Aurelius. To the west of it
+is the Campus Martius, with its innumerable objects of interest,--the
+Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon, the Thermae Alexandrinae, the Column of
+Marcus Aurelius, and the Mausoleum of Augustus. Beneath the Capitoline
+on the west, toward the river, is the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of
+Octavius, the Theatre of Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty
+thousand spectators were accommodated. Stretching beyond the Thermae
+Alexandrinae, near the Pantheon, is the magnificent bridge which crosses
+the Tiber, built by Hadrian when he founded his Mausoleum, to which it
+leads, still standing under the name of the Ponte S. Angelo. The eye
+takes in eight or nine bridges over the Tiber, some of wood, but
+generally of stone, of beautiful masonry, and crowned with statues. At
+the foot of the Capitoline, toward the southwest, are the Portico of
+Octavius and the Theatre of Marcellus, near the Pons Cestius. Still
+further southwest, between the Capitoline and the Aventine, in a low
+valley, are the Velabrum and the Forum Boarium, once a marsh, but now
+rich in temples and monuments, among which are those of Hercules Fortuna
+and Mater Matuta. There are no less than four temples consecrated to
+Hercules in the Forum Boarium, one of the most celebrated places in
+Rome, devoted to trade and commerce. Beyond still, in the valley between
+the Palatine and the Aventine, is the great Circus Maximus, founded by
+the early Tarquin. It is the largest open space inclosed by walls and
+porticoes in the city. It seats three hundred and eighty-five thousand
+people. How vast a city, which can spare nearly four hundred thousand of
+its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond is the Aventine itself.
+This also is rich in legendary monuments and in the palaces of the
+great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt Trajan, before
+he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula, the friend of St.
+Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus Maximus,
+west of the Appian Way, are the great baths of Caracalla, the ruins of
+which, next to those of the Colosseum, made on my mind the strongest
+impression of any thing that pertains to antiquity, though these were
+not so large as those of Diocletian. The view south takes in the Caelian
+Hill, the ancient residence of Tullus Hostilius. The beautiful Temple of
+Divus Claudius, the Arch of Dolabella, the Macellum Magnum,--a market
+founded by Nero,--the Castra Peregrina, the Temple of Isis, the Campus
+Martialis, are among the most conspicuous objects of interest. This hill
+is the residence of many distinguished Romans. It is covered with
+palaces. Among them is the house of Claudius Centumalus--so high, that
+the augurs command him to lower it. It towers ten or twelve stories into
+the air. Scarcely inferior in size is the house of Mamura, whose
+splendor is described by Pliny. Here also is the house of Annius Verus,
+the father of Marcus Aurelius, surrounded with gardens. But grander than
+any of these palaces is that of Plautius Lateranus, the _egregioe
+Lateranorum oedes_, which became imperial property in the time of
+Nero, and on whose site stands the basilica of St. John Lateran,--the
+gift of Constantine to the bishop of Rome,--one of the most ancient of
+the Christian churches, in which, for fifteen hundred years, daily
+services have been performed.
+
+[Sidenote: Population.]
+
+[Sidenote: Number of houses.]
+
+Such are the objects of interest and grandeur which strike the eye as it
+is turned toward the various quarters of the city. But these are only
+the more important. The seven hills, appearing considerably higher than
+at the present day, as the valleys are raised fifteen or twenty feet
+above their ancient level, are covered with temples, palaces, and
+gardens; the valleys are densely crowded with shops, houses, baths, and
+theatres. The houses rise frequently to the tenth platform or story. The
+suburban population, beyond the walls, is probably greater than that
+within. The city, virtually, contains between three and four millions or
+people. Lipsius estimates four millions as the population, including
+slaves, women, children, and strangers. Though this estimate is regarded
+as too large by Merivale and others, yet how enormous must have been the
+number of the people when there were nine thousand and twenty-five
+baths, and when those of Diocletian could accommodate three thousand two
+hundred people at a time. The wooden theatre of Scaurus contained eighty
+thousand seats; that of Marcellus would seat twenty thousand; the
+Colosseum would seat eighty-seven thousand, and give standing space for
+twenty-two thousand more. The Circus Maximus would hold three hundred
+and eighty-five thousand spectators. If only one person out of four of
+the free population witnessed the games and spectacles at a time, we
+thus must have four millions of people altogether in the city. The
+Aurelian walls are now only thirteen miles in circumference, but Lipsius
+estimates the circumference at forty-five miles, and Vopiscus nearly
+fifty. The diameter of the city must have been eleven miles, since
+Strabo tells us that the actual limit of Rome was at a place between the
+fifth and sixth milestone from the column of Trajan in the Forum--the
+central and most conspicuous object in the city except the
+capitol. [Footnote: Strabo, lib. v. ch. 3.] Even in the sixth century,
+after Rome had been sacked and plundered by Goths and Vandals, Zacharia,
+a traveler, asserts that there were three hundred and eighty-four
+spacious streets, eighty golden statues of the gods; sixty-six large
+ivory statues of the gods; forty-six thousand six hundred and three
+houses; seventeen thousand and ninety-seven palaces; thirteen thousand
+and fifty-two fountains; three thousand seven hundred and eighty-five
+bronze statues of emperors and generals; twenty-two great horses in
+bronze; two colossi; two spiral columns; thirty-one theatres; eleven
+amphitheatres; nine thousand and twenty-six baths; two thousand three
+hundred shops of perfumers; two thousand and ninety-one
+prisons. [Footnote: St. Ampere, _Hist. Romaine a Rome_.] This seems
+to be incredible. "But," says Story, "Augustus divided the city into
+eighteen regions: each region contained twenty-two vici; each vicus
+contained about two hundred and thirty dwelling-houses, so that there
+must have been seventy-five thousand houses; of these houses, seventeen
+thousand were palaces, or domus. If each contained two hundred persons,
+(and four hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace,) reckoning
+family, freedmen, and slaves, we have three millions four hundred
+thousand people, and supposing the remaining fifty-eight thousand houses
+to have contained twenty-five persons each, we have in them one million
+four hundred and fifty thousand, which would give an entire population
+of four millions eight hundred and fifty thousand." If Mr. Merivale's
+estimate of seven hundred thousand is correct, then the Colosseum would
+hold nearly one in six of the whole population, which is incredible.
+Indeed, it is probable that even four millions was under than above the
+true estimate, which would make Rome the most populous city ever seen
+upon our globe. Nor is it extravagant to suppose this. The city
+numbered, according to the census, eighty thousand people in the year
+197; and in 683 it had risen to four hundred and fifty thousand. Is it
+strange it should have numbered four millions in the time of Augustus,
+or even six millions in the time of Arelian, when we bear in mind that
+it was the political and social centre of a vast empire, and that empire
+the world? If London contains three millions at the present day, and
+Paris two millions, why should not a capital which had no rival, and
+which controlled at least one hundred and twenty millions of people? So
+that Pliny was not probably wrong when he said, "_Si quis altitudinem
+tectorum addat, dignam profecto oestimationem concipiat, fateatur qui
+nullius urbis magnitudinem potuisse ei comparare._" "If any one
+considers the height of the roofs, so as to form a just estimate, he
+will confess that no city could be compared with it for magnitude."
+
+[Sidenote: The monuments which survive.]
+
+[Sidenote: Games of Titus.]
+
+Modern writers, taking London and Paris for their measure of material
+civilization, seem unwilling to admit that Rome could have reached such
+a pitch of glory and wealth and power. To him who stands within the
+narrow limits of the Forum, as it now appears, it seems incredible that
+it could have been the centre of a much larger city than Europe can now
+boast of. Grave historians are loth to compromise their dignity and
+character for truth, by admitting statements which seem, to men of
+limited views, to be fabulous, and which transcend modern experience.
+But we should remember that most of the monuments of ancient Rome have
+entirely disappeared. Nothing remains of the Palace of the Caesars, which
+nearly covered the Palatine Hill; little of the fora which, connected
+together, covered a space twice as large as that inclosed by the palaces
+of the Louvre and Tuileries with all their galleries and courts; almost
+nothing of the glories of the Capitoline Hill; and little comparatively
+of those Thermae which were a mile in circuit. But what does remain
+attests an unparalleled grandeur--the broken pillars of the Forum; the
+lofty columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius; the Pantheon, lifting its
+spacious dome two hundred feet into the air; the mere vestibule of the
+Baths of Agrippa; the triumphal arches of Titus and Trajan and
+Constantine; the bridges which span the Tiber; the aqueducts which cross
+the Campagna; the Cloaca Maxima, which drained the marshes and lakes of
+the infant city; but above all, the Colosseum. What glory and shame are
+associated with that single edifice! That alone, if nothing else
+remained of Pagan antiquity, would indicate a grandeur and a folly such
+as cannot now be seen on earth. It reveals a wonderful skill in masonry,
+and great architectural strength; it shows the wealth and resources of
+rulers who must have had the treasures of the world at their command; it
+indicates an enormous population, since it would seat all the male
+adults of the city of New York; it shows the restless passions of the
+people for excitement, and the necessity on the part of government of
+yielding to this taste. What leisure and indolence marked a city which
+could afford to give up so much time to the demoralizing sports! What
+facilities for transportation were afforded, when so many wild beasts
+could be brought to the capital from the central parts of Africa without
+calling out unusual comment! How imperious a populace that compels the
+government to provide such expensive pleasures! The games of Titus, on
+its dedication, last one hundred days, and five thousand wild beasts are
+slaughtered in the arena. The number of the gladiators who fought
+surpasses belief. At the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, ten
+thousand gladiators were exhibited, and the emperor himself presides
+under a gilded canopy, surrounded by thousands of his lords. Underneath
+the arena, strewed with yellow sand and sawdust, is a solid pavement so
+closely cemented that it can be turned into an artificial lake on which
+naval battles are fought. But it is the conflict of gladiators which
+most deeply stimulates the passions of the people. The benches are
+crowded with eager spectators, and the voices of one hundred thousand
+are raised in triumph or rage as the miserable victims sink exhausted in
+the bloody sport.
+
+[Sidenote: Roman triumphs.]
+
+But it is not the gladiatorial sports of the amphitheatre which most
+strikingly attest the greatness and splendor of the city; nor the
+palaces, in which as many as four hundred slaves are sometimes
+maintained as domestic servants, twelve hundred in number according to
+the lowest estimate, but probably five times as numerous, since every
+senator, every knight, and every rich man was proud to possess a
+residence which would attract attention; nor the temples, which numbered
+four hundred and twenty-four, most of which were of marble, filled with
+statues, the contributions of ages, and surrounded with groves; nor the
+fora and basilicae, with their porticoes, statues, and pictures, covering
+more space than any cluster of public buildings in Europe, a mile and a
+half in circuit; nor the baths, nearly as large, still more completely
+filled with works of art; nor the Circus Maximus, where more people
+witnessed the chariot races at a time than are nightly assembled in all
+the places of public amusement in Paris, London, and New York combined--
+more than could be seated in all the cathedrals of England and France;
+it is not these which most impressively make us feel that Rome was the
+mistress of the world and the centre of all civilization. The triumphal
+processions of the conquering generals were still more exciting to
+behold, for these appeal more directly to the imagination, and excite
+those passions which urged the Romans to a career of conquest from
+generation to generation. No military review of modern times equaled
+those gorgeous triumphs, even as no scenic performance compares with the
+gladiatorial shows. The. sun has never shone upon any human assemblage
+so magnificent and so grand, so imposing and yet so guilty. And we
+recall the picture of it with solemn awe as it moves along the Via Sacra
+and ascends the Capitoline Hill, or passes through the theatres of
+Pompey and Marcellus, that all the people might witness the brilliant
+spectacle. Not only were displayed the spoils of conquered kingdoms, and
+the triumphal cars of generals, but the whole military strength of the
+capital. An army of one hundred thousand men, flushed with victory,
+follows the gorgeous procession of nobles and princes. The triumph of
+Aurelian, on his return from the East, gives us some idea of the
+grandeur of that ovation to conquerors. "The pomp was opened by twenty
+elephants, four royal tigers, and two hundred of the most curious
+animals from every climate, north, south, east, and west. These were
+followed by one thousand six hundred gladiators, devoted to the cruel
+amusement of the amphitheatre. Then were displayed the arms and ensigns
+of conquered nations, the plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen. Then
+ambassadors from all parts of the earth--all remarkable in their rich
+dresses, with their crowns and offerings. Then the captives taken in the
+various wars, Goths, Vandals, Samaritans, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls,
+Syrians, and Egyptians, each marked by their national costume. Then the
+Queen of the East, the beautiful Zenobia, confined by fetters of gold,
+and fainting under the weight of jewels, preceding the beautiful chariot
+in which she had hoped to enter the gates of Rome. Then the chariot of
+the Persian king. Then the triumphal car of Aurelian himself, drawn by
+elephants. Finally the most illustrious of the Senate, the people, and
+the army closed the solemn procession, amid the acclamations of the
+people, and the sound of musical instruments. It took from dawn of day
+until the ninth hour for the procession to pass to the capital, and the
+festival was protracted by theatrical representations, the games of the
+circus, the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators, and naval
+engagements. Liberal donations were presented to the army, and a portion
+of the spoils dedicated to the gods. All the temples glittered with the
+offerings of ostentatious piety, and the Temple of the Sun received
+fifteen thousand pounds of gold. The soldiers and the citizens were then
+surfeited with meat and wine. The disbanded soldiery thronged the
+amphitheatre, and yelled their fiendish applause at the infernal games,--
+the gorged robbers of the world, drunk in a festival of hell,"
+[Footnote: Henry Giles.]--a representation of war as terrible as war
+itself, compensating to the Roman people the massacres which they could
+not see.
+
+If any thing more were wanted to give us an idea of Roman magnificence,
+we would turn our eyes from public monuments, demoralizing games, and
+grand processions; we would forget the statues in brass and marble,
+which outnumbered the living inhabitants, so numerous that one hundred
+thousand have been recovered and still embellish Italy, and would
+descend into the lower sphere of material life--to those things which
+attest luxury and taste--to ornaments, dresses, sumptuous living, and
+rich furniture. The art of working metals and cutting precious stones
+surpassed any thing known at the present day. In the decoration of
+houses, in social entertainments, in cookery, the Romans were
+remarkable. The mosaics, signet rings, cameos, bracelets, bronzes,
+chains, vases, couches, banqueting tables, lamps, chariots, colored
+glass, gildings, mirrors, mattresses, cosmetics, perfumes, hair dyes,
+silk robes, potteries, all attest great elegance and beauty. The tables
+of thuga root and Delian bronze were as expensive as the sideboards of
+Spanish walnut, so much admired in the great exhibition at London. Wood
+and ivory were carved as exquisitely as in Japan and China. Mirrors were
+made of polished silver. Glass-cutters could imitate the colors of
+precious stones so well, that the Portland vase, from the tomb of
+Alexander Severus, was long considered as a genuine sardonix. Brass
+could be hardened so as to cut stone. The palace of Nero glittered with
+gold and jewels. Perfumes and flowers were showered from ivory ceilings.
+The halls of Heliogabulus were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with
+jewels. His beds were silver, and his tables of gold. Tiberius gave a
+million of sesterces for a picture for his bed-room. A banquet dish of
+Drusillus weighed five hundred pounds of silver. The cups of Drusus were
+of gold. Tunics were embroidered with the figures of various animals.
+Sandals were garnished with precious stones. Paulina wore jewels, when
+she paid visits, valued at $800,000. Drinking-cups were engraved with
+scenes from the poets. Libraries were adorned with busts, and presses of
+rare woods. Sofas were inlaid with tortoise-shell, and covered with
+gorgeous purple. The Roman grandees rode in gilded chariots, bathed in
+marble baths, dined from golden plate, drank from crystal cups, slept on
+beds of down, reclined on luxurious couches, wore embroidered robes, and
+were adorned with precious stones. They ransacked the earth and the seas
+for rare dishes for their banquets, and ornamented their houses with
+carpets from Babylon, onyx cups from Bythinia, marbles from Numidia,
+bronzes from Corinth, statues from Athens--whatever, in short, was
+precious or rare or curious in the most distant countries. The luxuries
+of the bath almost exceed belief, and on the walls were magnificent
+frescoes and paintings, exhibiting an inexhaustible productiveness in
+landscape and mythological scenes, executed in lively colors. From the
+praises of Cicero, Seneca, and Pliny, and other great critics, we have a
+right to infer that painting was as much prized as statuary, and equaled
+it in artistic excellence, although so little remains of antiquity from
+which we can form an enlightened judgment. We certainly infer from
+designs on vases great skill in drawing, and from the excavations of
+Pompeii, the most beautiful colors. The walls of the great hall of the
+baths of Titus represent flowers, birds, and animals, drawn with
+wonderful accuracy. In the long corridor of these baths the ceiling is
+painted with colors which are still fresh, and Raphael is said to have
+studied the frescoes with admiration, even as Michael Angelo found in
+the Pantheon a model for the dome of St. Peter's, and in the statues
+which were dug up from the ruins of the baths, studies for his own
+immortal masterpieces.
+
+Thus every thing which gilds the material wonders of our day with glory
+and splendor, also marked the old capitol of the world. That which is
+most prized by us, distinguished to an eminent degree the Roman
+grandees. In an architectural point of view no modern city approaches
+Rome. It contained more statues than all the Museums of Europe. It had
+every thing which we have except machinery. It surpassed every modern
+capitol in population. It was richer than any modern city, since the
+people were not obliged to toil for their daily bread. The poor were fed
+by the government, and had time and leisure for the luxuries of the bath
+and the excitements of the amphitheatre. The citizen nobles owned whole
+provinces. Even Paula could call a whole city her own. Rich senators, in
+some cases, were the proprietors of twenty thousand slaves. Their
+incomes were known to be 1000 pounds sterling a day, when gold and
+silver were worth four times as much as at the present day. Rome was
+made up of these citizen kings and their dependants, for most of the
+senators had been, at some time, governors of provinces, which they
+rifled and robbed. In Rome were accumulated the choicest treasures of
+the world. Her hills were covered with the palaces of the proudest
+nobles that ever walked the earth, Rome was the centre, and the glory,
+and the pride of all the nations of antiquity. It seemed impossible that
+such a city could ever be taken by enemies, or fall into decay.
+"_Quando cadet Roma cadet et mundus_," said the admiring Saxons
+three hundred years after the injuries inflicted by Goths and Vandals.
+Nor has Rome died. Never has she entirely passed into the hands of her
+enemies. A hundred times on the verge of annihilation, she was never
+annihilated. She never accepted the stranger's yoke--she never was
+permanently subjected to the barbarian. She continued to be Roman after
+the imperial presence had departed. She was Roman when fires, and
+inundations, and pestilence, and famine, and barbaric soldiers desolated
+the city. She was Roman when the Pope held Christendom in a base
+subserviency. She was Roman when Rienzi attempted to revive the virtues
+of the heroic ages, and when Michael Angelo restored the wonders of
+Apollodorus. And Roman that city will remain, whether as the home of
+princes, or the future capitol of the kings of Italy, or the resort of
+travelers, or the school of artists, or the seat of a spiritual
+despotism which gains strength as political and temporal power passes
+away before the ideas of the new races and the new civilization.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+The most valuable book of reference for this chapter is the late work of
+Dr. Dyer, author of the article "Roma" in Smith's Dictionary. In fact
+this chapter is a mere compilation of that elaborate work, ("History of
+the City of Rome,") which may be said to be exhaustive. Mabillon and
+Montfaucon--two French Benedictines--rendered great service in the
+seventeenth century to Roman topography. Edward Burton and Richard
+Burgess wrote descriptions of Roman antiquities, now superseded by the
+writings of those great German scholars, who made a new epoch of Roman
+topography--Niebuhr, Bunsen, Platner, Gerhard, and Rostell, who,
+however, have succeeded in throwing doubt on many things supposed to be
+established. One of the most learned treatises on ancient Rome is the
+celebrated _Handbuch_ of Becker. Stephano Piale and Luigi Canina
+are the most approved of the modern Italian antiquarians.
+
+[Relocated Footnote:
+
+[Sidenote: Mausoleum of Augustus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Those who were buried in it.]
+
+"This enduring structure, which survived the conflagrations, the wars,
+and the anarchies of fifteen hundred years, consisted of a large tumulus
+of earth, raised on a lofty basement of white marble, and covered on the
+summit with evergreens in the manner of a hanging garden. On the summit
+was a bronze statue of Augustus himself, and beneath the tumulus was a
+large central hall, round which ran a range of fourteen sepulchral
+chambers, opening into this common vestibule. At the entrance were two
+Egyptian obelisks, fifty feet in height, and all around was an extensive
+grove divided into walks and terraces. The young Marcellus, whose fate
+was bewailed by Virgil, was its first occupant. Here was placed Octavia,
+the neglected wife of Antony, and Agrippa, the builder of the Parthenon,
+and Livia, the beloved wife of Augustus, and beside them the first
+imperator himself. Here were the poisoned ashes of the noble Germanicus,
+borne from Syria; here the young Drusus, the pride of the Ciaudian
+family, and at his side the second Drusus, the son of Tiberius. Here
+reposed the dust of Agrippina, after years of exile, by the side of her
+husband, Germanicus; here Nero and his mother, Agrippina, and his
+victim, Britannicus; here Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and all the
+other Caesars to Nerva. Then the marble door was closed, for the
+sepulchral cells were full."--Story's _Roba di Roma_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ART IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+In my enumeration of the external glories of the Roman world, I only
+attempted to glance at those wonders which were calculated to strike a
+traveler with admiration. Among these were the great developments of
+Art, displayed in architecture, in statuary, and in painting. But I only
+enumerated the more remarkable objects of attraction; I did not attempt
+to show the genius displayed in them. But ancient art, as a proud
+creation of the genius of man, demands additional notice. We wish to
+know to what heights the Romans soared in that great realm of beauty and
+grace and majesty.
+
+[Sidenote: Origins and principles of art.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fascinations of art.]
+
+[Sidenote: Development of art.]
+
+[Sidenote: Glory of art.]
+
+The aesthetic glories of art are among the grandest triumphs of
+civilization, and attest as well as demand no ordinary force of genius.
+Art claims to be creative, and to be based on eternal principles of
+beauty, and artists in all ages have claimed a proud niche in the temple
+of fame. They rank with poets and musicians, and even philosophers and
+historians, in the world's regard. They are favored sons of inspiration,
+urged to their work by ideal conceptions of the beautiful and the true.
+Their productions are material, but the spirit which led to their
+creation is of the soul and mind. Imagination is tasked to the uttermost
+to portray sentiments and passions. The bust is "animated," and the
+temple, though built of marble, and by man, is called "religious." Art
+appeals to every cultivated mind, and excites poetic feelings. It is
+impressive even to every order, class, and condition of men, not,
+perhaps, in its severest forms, since the taste must be cultivated to
+appreciate its higher beauties, but to a certain extent. The pyramids
+and the granite image temples of Egypt must have filled even the rude
+people with a certain awe and wonder, even as the majestic cathedrals of
+mediaeval Europe, with their imposing pomps, stimulated the poetic
+conceptions of the Gothic nations. Art is popular. The rude savage
+admires a gaudy picture even as the cultivated Leo X. or Cardinal
+Mazarini bent in admiration before the great creations of Raphael or
+Domenichino. Art appeals to the senses as well as to the intellect and
+the heart, and is capable of inspiring the passions as well as the
+loftiest emotions and sentiments. The Grecian mind was trained to the
+contemplation of aesthetic beauty in temples, in statues, and in
+pictures; and the great artist was rewarded with honors and material
+gains. The love of art is easier kindled than the love of literary
+excellence, and is more generally diffused. It is coeval with songs and
+epic poetry. Before Socrates or Plato speculated on the great certitudes
+of philosophy, temples and statues were the pride and boast of their
+countrymen. And as the taste for art precedes the taste for letters, so
+it survives, when the literature has lost its life and freshness. The
+luxurious citizens of Rome ornamented their baths and palaces with
+exquisite pictures and statues long after genius ceased to soar to the
+heights of philosophy and poetry. The proudest triumphs of genius are in
+a realm which art can never approach, yet the wonders of art are still
+among the great triumphs of civilization. Zeuxis or Praxiteles may not
+have equaled Homer or Plato in profundity of genius, but it was only a
+great age which could have produced a Zeuxis or Praxiteles. I cannot
+place Raphael on so exalted a pinnacle as Luther, or Bacon, or Newton,
+and yet his fame will last as long as civilization shall exist. The
+creations of the chisel will ever be held in reverence by mankind, and
+probably in proportion as wealth, elegance, and material prosperity
+shall flourish. In an important sense, Corinth was as wonderful as
+Athens, although to Athens will be assigned the highest place in the
+ancient world. It was art rather than literature or philosophy which was
+the glory of Rome in the period of her decline. As great capitals become
+centres of luxury and display, artists will be rewarded and honored. The
+pride of a commercial metropolis is in those material wonders which
+appeal to the senses, and which wealth can purchase. A rich merchant can
+give employment to the architect, when he would be disinclined to reward
+the critic or the historian. Even where liberty and lofty aspirations
+for truth and moral excellence have left a state, the arts suffer but
+little decline. The grandest monuments of Rome date to the imperial
+regime, not to the republican sway. When the voice of a Cicero was mute,
+the Flavian amphitheatre arose in its sublime proportions. Imperial
+despotism is favorable to the adornment of Paris and St. Petersburg,
+even as wealth and luxury will beautify New York. When the early lights
+of the Church were unheeded in the old capitals of the world, new
+temples and palaces were the glory of the state. Art was the first to be
+revived of the trophies of the old civilization, and it will be the last
+to be relinquished, by those whom civilization has enriched. Art excites
+no dangerous passions or sentiments in a decaying monarchy, and it is a
+fresh and perpetual pleasure, not merely to the people, but to the
+arbiters of taste and fashion. The Popes rewarded artists when they
+crushed reformers, and persecuted inquiring genius. The developments of
+art appeal to material life and interests rather than to the spiritual
+and eternal. St. Paul scarcely alludes to the material wonders of the
+cities he visited, even as Luther was insensible to the ornaments of
+Italy in his absorbing desire for the spiritual and moral welfare of
+society. Art is purely the creation of man. It receives no inspiration
+from Heaven; and yet the principles on which it is based are eternal and
+unchangeable, and when it is made to be the handmaid of virtue, it is
+capable of exciting the loftiest sentiments. So pure, so exalted, and so
+wrapt are the feelings which arise from the contemplation of a great
+picture or statue, that we sometimes ascribe a religious force to the
+art itself, while all that is divine springs from the conception of the
+artist, and all that is divine in his conception arises from sentiments
+independent of his art, as he is stimulated by emotions of religion, or
+patriotism, or public virtue, and which he could never have embodied had
+he not been a good man, rather than a great artist, or, at least,
+affected by sentiments which he learned from other sources. There can be
+no doubt that, through the vehicle of art, the grandest and noblest
+sentiments may be expressed. Hence artists may be great benefactors; yet
+sometimes their works are demoralizing, as they appeal to perverted
+taste and passions. This was especially true in the later days of Rome,
+when artists sought to please their corrupt but wealthy patrons. The
+great artists of Greece, however, had in view a lofty ideal of beauty
+and grace which they sought to realize without reference to profit, or
+worldly advantage, or utilitarian necessities. Art, when true and
+exalted, as it sometimes is, and always should be, has its end in
+itself. Like virtue, it is its own reward. Michael Angelo worked,
+preoccupied and wrapt, without the stimulus of even praise, even as
+Dante lived in the visions to which his imagination gave form and
+reality. Art is therefore self-sustained, unselfish, lofty. It is the
+soul going forth triumphant over external circumstances, jubilant and
+melodious even in poverty and neglect, rising above the evils of life in
+its absorbing contemplation of ideal loveliness. The fortunate accidents
+of earth are nothing to the true artist, striving to reach his ideal of
+excellence,--no more than carpets and chairs are to a great woman pining
+for sympathy or love. And it is only when there is this soul-longing to
+reach the excellence it has conceived for itself alone that great works
+have been produced. The sweetest strains of music sometimes come from
+women where no one listens to their melodies. Nor does a great artist
+seek or need commiseration, if ever so unfortunate in worldly
+circumstances. He may be sad and sorrowful, but only in the profound
+seriousness of superior knowledge, in that isolation to which all genius
+is doomed.
+
+[Sidenote: Great artists labor from inspiration.]
+
+We have reason to believe that the great artists of antiquity lived, as
+did the Ionic philosophers, in their own glorious realms of thought and
+feeling, which the world could neither understand nor share. Their ideas
+of grace and beauty were realized to the highest degree ever known on
+earth. They were expressed in their temples, their statues, and their
+pictures. They did not live for utilities. When art became a utility, it
+degenerated. It became more pretentious, artificial, complicated,
+elaborate, ornamental even, but it lacked genius, the simplicity of
+power, the glory of originality. The horses of the sun cannot be made to
+go round in a mill. The spiritual must keep within its own seclusion, in
+its inner temple of mystery and meditation.
+
+[Sidenote: Grecian art consecrated to Paganism.]
+
+[Sidenote: Greatness and beauty of Grecian art.]
+
+[Sidenote: Grecian admiration of art.]
+
+Grecian art was consecrated to Paganism, and could not therefore soar
+beyond what Paganism revealed. It did not typify those exalted
+sentiments which even a Gothic cathedral portrayed--sacrifice; the man
+on the cross; the man in the tomb; the man ascending to heaven. Nor did
+it paint, like Raphael, etherial beauty, such as was expressed in the
+mother of our Lord, her whom all generations shall bless, _regina
+angelorum, mater divinae gratiae_. But whatever has been reached by the
+unaided powers of man, it reproduced and consecrated, and it realized
+the highest conceptions of beauty and grace that have ever been
+represented. All that the mind and the soul could, by their inherent
+force, reach, it has attained. Modern civilization has no prouder
+triumphs than those achieved by the artists of Pagan antiquity in those
+things which pertain to beauty and grace. Grecian artists have been the
+schoolmasters of all nations and all ages in architecture, sculpture,
+and painting. How far they themselves were original we cannot decide,
+although they were probably somewhat indebted to the Assyrians and
+Egyptians. But they struck out so new a style, and so different from the
+older monuments of Asia and Egypt, that we consider them the great
+creators of art. But whether original or not, they have never been
+surpassed. In some respects their immortal productions remain objects of
+hopeless imitation. In the realization of ideas of beauty which are
+eternal, like those on which Plato built his system of philosophy, they
+reached absolute perfection. And hence we infer that art can flourish
+under Pagan as well as Christian influences. We can go no higher than
+those ancient Pagans in one of the proudest fields of civilization; for
+art has as sincere and warm admirers as it had in Grecian and Roman
+times, but the limit of excellence has been reached. It is the mission
+of our age to apply creative genius to enterprises and works which have
+not been tried, if any thing new is to be found under the sun. Nor was
+it the number and extent of the works of art among the Greeks and
+Romans, nor their perfection, which made art so distinguishing an
+element of the old civilization. It was the spirit of the age, the
+absorption of the public mind, the great prominence which art had in the
+eyes of the people. Art was to the Greeks what tournaments and churches
+were to the men of the Middle Ages, what the Reformation was to Germany
+and England in the sixteenth century, what theories of political rights
+were to the era of the French Revolution, what mechanical inventions to
+abridge human labor are to us. The creation of a great statue was an
+era, an object of popular interest--the subject of universal comment. It
+kindled popular inspirations. It was the great form of progress in which
+that age rejoiced. Public benefactors erected temples, and lavished upon
+them the superfluous wealth of the State. And public benefactors, in
+turn, had statues erected to their memory by their grateful admirers.
+The genius of the age expressed itself in marble histories. And these
+histories stand in the mystery of absolute perfection--the glory and the
+characteristic of a great and peculiar people.
+
+[Sidenote: Principles of art.]
+
+[Sidenote: Devotion of the Greeks for Art.]
+
+Much has been written on those principles upon which art is founded, and
+great ingenuity displayed. But treatises on taste, on beauty, on grace,
+and other perceptions of intellectual pleasure, are not very
+satisfactory, and must be necessarily indefinite. In what does beauty
+consist? Do we arrive at any clearer conceptions of it by definitions?
+Whether beauty, the chief glory of the fine arts, consists in certain
+arrangements and proportions of the parts to a whole, or in the fitness
+of means to an end, or is dependent on associations which excite
+pleasure, or is a revelation of truth, or is an appeal to sensibilities,
+or is an imitation of Nature, or the realization of ideal excellence, it
+is difficult to settle and almost useless to inquire. "Metaphysics,
+mathematics, music, and philosophy have been called in to analyze,
+define, demonstrate, and generalize." [Footnote: Cleghorn, _Ancient
+and Modern Art_, vol. i. p. 67.] Great writers have written ingenious
+treatises, like Burke, Alison, and Stewart. Beauty, according to Plato,
+is the contemplation of mind; Leibnitz maintained it consists in
+perfection; Diderot referred beauty to the idea of relation; Blondel
+asserted it was harmonic proportions; Peter Leigh speaks of it as the
+music of the eye. Yet everybody understands what beauty is, and that it
+is derived from Nature, agreeable to the purest models which Nature
+presents. Such was the ideal of Phidias. Such was it to the minds of the
+Greeks, who united every advantage, physical and mental, for the
+perfection of art. Nor could art have been so wonderfully developed had
+it not been for the influence which the great poets, orators,
+dramatists, historians, and philosophers exercised on the inspiration of
+the artists. Phidias, being asked how he conceived the idea of his
+Olympian Jupiter, answered by repeating a passage of Homer. We can
+scarcely conceive of the enthusiasm which the Greeks exhibited in the
+cultivation of art. Hence it has obtained an ascendency over that of all
+other nations. Roman art was the continuation of the Grecian. The Romans
+appreciated and rewarded Grecian artists. They adopted their
+architecture, their sculpture, and their paintings; and, though art
+never attained the estimation and dignity in Rome that it did in Greece,
+it still can boast of a great development. But, inasmuch as all the
+great models were Grecian, and appropriated and copied by the Romans,--
+inasmuch as the great wonders of the "Eternal City" were made by
+Greeks,--we cannot treat of Roman art in distinction from Grecian. And
+as I wish to show simply the triumph of Pagan genius in the realm of
+art, and most of the immortal creations of the great artists were
+transported to Rome, and adorned Rome, it is within my province to go
+where they were originally found.
+
+  "Tu, regere imperio populos, Romane, memento!
+  Hae tibi erunt artes."
+
+[Sidenote: Art first impressive in achitecture.]
+
+The first development of art was in architecture, not merely among the
+Greeks, but among the older nations. Although it refers, in a certain
+sense, to all buildings, yet it is ordinarily restricted to those
+edifices in which we recognize the principle of beauty, such as
+symmetrical arrangement, and attractive ornaments, like pillars,
+cornices, and sculptured leaves.
+
+The earliest buildings were houses to protect men from the inclemencies
+of the weather, and built without much regard to beauty; but it is in
+temples for the worship of God, that architecture lays claim to dignity.
+It was the result of devotional feelings; nor is there a single instance
+of supreme excellence in art being reached, which was not sacred, and
+connected with reverential tendencies. In the erection and decoration of
+sacred buildings there was a profound sentiment that they were to be the
+sanctuaries of God, and genius was stimulated by pious emotions. In
+India, in Egypt, in Greece, in Italy, the various temples all originated
+in blended superstition and devotion. Nor did the edifice, erected for
+religious worship, reach its culminating height of beauty and grandeur
+until that earnest and profoundly religious epoch which felt as injuries
+the insults offered to the tomb which covered the remains of the Saviour
+of the world. Then arose those hoary and Gothic vaults of Cologne and
+Westminster, the only modern structures which would probably have called
+out the admiration of an ancient Greek.
+
+[Sidenote: Egyptian architecture.]
+
+[Sidenote: Monuments of Egypt.]
+
+[Sidenote: Temple of Carnack.]
+
+[Sidenote: Features of Egyptian art.]
+
+But architecture is conventional, and demands a knowledge of its system
+and a mind informed as to the principles on which it depends for beauty.
+Hence, in the oldest temples of India and Egypt, there was probably
+vastness, without elegance or even embellishment. But no nation ever
+left structures that, in extent and grandeur, can compare with those of
+ancient Egypt; and these were chiefly temples. Nothing remains of the
+ancient monuments of Thebes but the ruins of edifices consecrated to the
+deity--neither bridges, nor quays, nor baths, nor theatres. It was when
+the Israelites were oppressed by Pharaoh that the great city of
+Heliopolis, which the Greeks called Thebes, arose, with its hundred
+gates, and stately public buildings, and magnificent temples. The ruins
+of these attest grandeur and vastness. They were built of stone, in huge
+blocks, and we are still at a loss to comprehend how such heavy stones
+could have been transported and erected. All the monuments of the
+Pharaohs are wonders of science and art, especially such as appear in
+the ruins of Carnack--a temple formerly designated as that of Jupiter
+Ammon. It was in the time of Sesostris, or Rameses the Great, the first
+of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, that architecture in Egypt
+reached its greatest development. Then we find the rectangular cut
+blocks of stone in parallel courses, and the heavy piers, and the
+cylindrical column, with its bell-shaped capital, and the bold and
+massive rectangular architraves extending from pier to pier and column
+to column, surmounted by a deep covered coping or cornice. But the
+imposing architecture of Egypt was chiefly owing to the vast proportions
+of the public buildings. It was not produced by beauty of proportion, or
+graceful embellishments. It was designed to awe the people, and kindle
+sentiments of wonder and astonishment. So far as this end was
+contemplated, it was nobly reached. Even to this day the traveller
+stands in admiring amazement before those monuments which were old three
+thousand years ago. No structures have been so enduring as the Pyramids.
+No ruins are more extensive and majestic than those of Thebes. The
+temple of Carnack and the palace of Rameses the Great, were probably the
+most imposing ever built by man. This temple was built of blocks of
+stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousand feet long and
+three hundred wide, with pillars sixty feet in height. But this and
+other structures did not possess that unity of design, which marked the
+Grecian temples. Alleys of colossal sphinxes form the approach. At
+Carnack the alley was six thousand feet long, and before the main body
+of the edifice stand two obelisks commemorative of the dedication. The
+principal structures do not follow the straight line, but begin with
+pyramidical towers which flank the gateways. Then follows, usually, a
+court surrounded with colonnades, subordinate temples, and houses for
+the priests. A second pylon, or pyramidical tower, now leads to the
+interior and most considerable part of the temple, a portico inclosed
+with walls, which only receives light through the entablature or
+openings in the roof. Adjoining to this is the cella of the temple,
+without columns, inclosed by several walls, often divided into various
+small chambers, with monolith receptacles for idols or mummies or
+animals. The columns stand within the walls. The Egyptians had no
+perpetual temples. The colonnade is not, as among the Greeks, an
+expansion of the temple; it is merely the wall with apertures. The
+walls, composed of square blocks, are perpendicular only on the inside,
+and beveled externally, so that the thickness at the bottom sometimes
+amounts to twenty-four feet, and thus the whole building assumes a
+pyramidical form, the fundamental principle of Egyptian architecture.
+The columns are more slender than the early Doric, are placed close
+together, and have bases of circular plinths; the shaft diminishes, and
+is ornamented with perpendicular or oblique furrows, but not fluted like
+Grecian columns. The capitals are of the bell form, ornamented with all
+kinds of foliage, and have a narrow but high abacus, or bulge out below,
+and are contracted above, with low, but projecting abacus. They abound
+with sculptured decorations, borrowed from the vegetation of the
+country. The highest of the columns of the temple of Luxor is five and a
+quarter times the greatest diameter. [Footnote: Muller.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Pyramids.]
+
+But no monuments have ever excited so much curiosity and wonder as the
+Pyramids, not in consequence of any particular beauty or ingenuity, as
+from their immense size and unknown age. None but sacerdotal monarchs
+would ever have erected them--none but a fanatical people would ever
+have toiled upon them. They do not indicate civilization, but despotism.
+We do not know for what purpose they were raised, except as sepulchres
+for kings. They do not even indicate as high a culture as the temples of
+Thebes, although they were built at a considerable period subsequently,
+even several generations after Sesostris reigned in splendor. The
+pyramid of Cheops, at Memphis, covers a square whose side is seven
+hundred and sixty-eight feet, and rises into the air four hundred and
+fifty-two, and is a solid mass of stone, which has suffered less from
+time than the mountains near it. And it is probable that it stands over
+an immense substructure, in which may yet be found the lore of ancient
+Egypt, and which may even prove to be the famous labyrinth of which
+Herodotus speaks, built by the twelve kings of Egypt. According to this
+author, one hundred thousand men worked on this monument for forty
+years. What a waste of labor!
+
+The palaces of the kings are mere imitations of the temples, and the
+only difference of architecture is this, that the rooms are larger and
+in greater numbers. Some think that the labyrinth was a collective
+palace of many rulers.
+
+Such was the massive grandeur of Egyptian antiquities: at the best
+curiosities, but of slight avail for moral or aesthetic culture, they yet
+indicate a considerable civilization at a very remote period--proving
+not merely by architectural monuments, but by their system of writing,
+an original and intellectual people. [Footnote: Muller, _Ancient
+Art_; Wilkinson, _Topog. of Thebes_; Champollion, _Lettres Ecrites
+d'Egypt_; _Journal des Sav._ 1836; _Encyclopedia Britannica_;
+Strabo.]
+
+[Sidenote: Babylonian architecture.]
+
+Of Babylonian architecture we know but little, beyond what the
+Scriptures and ancient authors allude to in scattered notices. But,
+though nothing survives of ancient magnificence, we feel that a city
+whose walls, according to Herodotus, were eighty-seven feet in
+thickness, three hundred and thirty-seven in height, and sixty miles in
+circumference, and in which were one hundred gates of brass, must have
+had considerable architectural splendor. The Tower of Belus, the Palace
+of Nebuchadnezzar, and the Obelisk of Semiramis, were probably wonderful
+structures, certainly in size, which is one of the conditions of
+architectural effect.
+
+[Sidenote: Tyrian monuments.]
+
+The Tyrians must have carried architecture to considerable perfection,
+since the Temple of Solomon, one of the most magnificent in the ancient
+world, was probably built by Phoenician artists. It was not remarkable
+for size; it was, indeed, very small; but it had great splendor of
+decoration. It was of quadrangular outline, erected upon a solid
+platform of stone, and having a striking resemblance to the oldest Greek
+temples, like those of aegina and Paestum. The portico of the temple, in
+the time of Herod, was one hundred and eighty feet high, and the temple
+itself was entered by nine gates thickly coated with silver and gold.
+The inner sanctuary was covered on all sides with plates of gold, and
+was dazzling to the eye. The various courts and porticoes and palaces
+with which it was surrounded, gave to it a very imposing effect.
+
+[Sidenote: Early Doric monuments.]
+
+[Sidenote: The principles of Doric architecture.]
+
+[Sidenote: The features of the Doric order.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Parthenon.]
+
+Architecture, however, as the expression of genius and high
+civilization, was perfected only by the Greeks. Egyptian monuments were
+curiosities to the Greek and Roman mind, as they are to us objects of
+awe and wonder. And as we propose to treat of the arts in their
+culminating excellence chiefly,--to show what the Pagan intellect of man
+could accomplish, unaided by light from heaven, we turn to the great
+teacher of the last two thousand years. It was among the ancient
+Dorians, who descended from the mountains of Northern Greece eighty
+years after the fall of Troy, that art first appeared. The Pelasgi,
+supposed to be Phoenicians, erected cyclopean structures fifteen hundred
+years before Christ, as seen in the giant walls of the Acropolis,
+[Footnote: _Dodwell's Classical Tour_, Muller.] constructed of huge
+blocks of hewn stone, and the palaces of the princes of heroic times,
+[Footnote: Homer's description of the palace of Odysseus.] like the
+Mycenaean treasury, the lintel of the doorway of which is one stone
+twenty-seven feet long and sixteen broad. [Footnote: Mure, _Tour in
+Greece_.] But these edifices, which aimed at splendor and richness
+merely, were deficient in that simplicity and harmony which have given
+immortality to the temples of the Dorians. In this style of architecture
+every thing was suitable to its object, and was grand and noble. The
+great thickness of the columns, the beautiful entablature, the ample
+proportion of the capital; the great horizontal lines of the architrave
+and cornice, predominating over the vertical lines of the columns; the
+severity of geometrical forms, produced for the most part by straight
+lines, gave an imposing simplicity to the Doric temple. How far the
+Greek architects were indebted to the Egyptian we cannot tell, for
+though columns are found amid the ruins of the Egyptian temples, they
+are of different shape from any made by the Greeks. In the structures of
+Thebes we find both the tumescent and the cylindrical columns, from
+which amalgamation might have been produced the Doric column. The Greeks
+seized on beauty wherever they found it, and improved upon it. The Doric
+column was not, probably, an entirely new creation, but shaped after the
+models furnished by the most original of all the ancient nations, even
+the Egyptians. The Doric style was used exclusively until after the
+Macedonian conquest, and was chiefly applied to temples. The Doric
+temples are uniform in plan. The columns were fluted, and were generally
+about six diameters in height. They diminished gradually from the base,
+with a slight convexed swelling downward. They were superimposed by
+capitals proportionate, and coming within their height. The entablature
+which the column supported is also of so many diameters in height. So
+regular and perfect was the plan of the temple, that, "if the dimensions
+of a single column, and the proportion the entablature should bear to
+it, were given to two individuals acquainted with the style, with
+directions to compose a temple, they would produce designs exactly
+similar in size, arrangement, and general proportions." Then the Doric
+order possessed a peculiar harmony, but taste and skill were
+nevertheless necessary in order to determine the number of diameters a
+column should have, and, accordingly, the height of the entablature. The
+Doric was the favorite order of European Greece for one thousand years,
+and also of her colonies in Sicily and Magna Graecia. The massive temples
+of Paestum, the colossal magnificence of the Sicilian ruins, and the more
+elegant proportions of the Athenian structures, like the Parthenon and
+Temple of Theseus, show the perfection of the Doric architecture.
+Although the general style of all the Doric temples is so uniform, yet
+hardly two temples were alike. The earlier Doric was more massive; the
+latter were more elegant, and were rich in sculptured decorations.
+Nothing could surpass the beauty of a Doric temple in the time of
+Pericles. The stylobate or pedestal, from two thirds to a whole diameter
+of a column in height, was built in three equal courses, which gradually
+receded from the one below, and formed steps, as it were, of a grand
+platform on which the pillars rested. The column was from four to six
+diameters in height, with twenty flutes, with a capital of half a
+diameter supporting the entablature. This again, two diameters in
+height, was divided into architrave, frieze, and cornice. But the great
+beauty of the temple was the portico in front, a forest of columns,
+supporting the pediment, about a diameter and a half to the apex, making
+an angle at the base of about 14 degrees. From the pediment projects the
+cornice, while, at the apex and at the base of it, are sculptured
+ornaments, generally, the figures of men or animals. The whole outline
+of columns supporting the entablature is graceful, while the variety of
+light and shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings and capitals
+produce a grand effect. The Parthenon, the most beautiful specimen of
+the Doric, has never been equaled, and it still stands august in its
+ruins--the glory of the old Acropolis, and the pride of Athens. It was
+built of Pentelic marble, and rested on a basement of limestone. It was
+two hundred and twenty-seven feet in length, and one hundred and one in
+breadth, and sixty-five in height, surrounded with forty-eight fluted
+columns, six feet and two inches at the base, and thirty-four feet in
+height, while within the peristyle, at either end, was an interior range
+of columns, standing before the end of the cella. The frieze and the
+pediment were elaborately ornamented with reliefs and statues, while the
+cella, within and without, was adorned with the choicest sculptures of
+Phidias. The grandest was the colossal statue of Minerva, in the eastern
+apartment of the cella, forty feet in height, composed of gold and
+ivory; while the inner walls were decorated with paintings, and the
+temple itself was a repository of countless treasure. But the Parthenon,
+so regular, with its vertical and horizontal lines, was curved in every
+line, with the exception of the gable,--pillars, architrave,
+entablature, frieze, and cornice, together with the basement--all arched
+upwards, though so slightly as not to be perceptible, and these curved
+lines gave to it a peculiar grace which cannot be imitated, as well as
+solidity.
+
+[Sidenote: The Acropolis.]
+
+Nearly coeval with the Doric was the Ionic order, invented by the
+Asiatic Greeks, still more graceful, though not so imposing. The
+Acropolis is a perfect example of this order. The column is nine
+diameters in height, with a base, while the capital is more ornamented.
+The shaft is fluted with twenty-four flutes and alternate fillets, and
+the fillet is about a quarter the width of the flute. The pediment is
+flatter than of the Doric order, and more elaborate. The great
+distinction of the Ionic column is a base, and a capital formed with
+volutes, with a more slender shaft. Vitruvius, the greatest authority
+among the ancients in architecture, says that, "the Greeks, in inventing
+these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one the naked simplicity and
+dignity of a man, and in the other, the delicacy and ornaments of a
+woman; the base of the Ionic was the imitation of sandals, and the
+volutes of ringlets."
+
+[Sidenote: Temple of Minerva.]
+
+The Corinthian order exhibits a still greater refinement and elegance
+than the other two, and was introduced toward the end of the
+Peloponnesian war. Its peculiarity is columns with foliated capitals,
+and still greater height, about ten diameters, with a more ornamented
+entablature. Of this order, the most famous temple in Greece was that of
+Minerva at Tegea, built by Scopas of Paros, but destroyed by fire four
+hundred years before Christ.
+
+Nothing more distinguished Greek architecture than the variety, the
+grace, and the beauty of the mouldings, generally in eccentric curves.
+The general outline of the moulding is a gracefully flowing cyma, or
+wave, concave at one end, and convex at the other, like an Italic
+_f_, the concavity and convexity being exactly in the same curve,
+according to the line of beauty which Hogarth describes.
+
+[Sidenote: Architecture among the Greeks seen in greatest perfection in
+temples.]
+
+The most beautiful application of Grecian architecture was in the
+temples, which were very numerous, and of extraordinary grandeur, long
+before the Persian war. Their entrance was always to the west or the
+east. They were built either in an oblong or round form, and were mostly
+adorned with columns. Those of an oblong form had columns either in the
+front alone, in the fore and back fronts, or on all the four sides. They
+generally had porticoes attached to them. They had no windows, receiving
+their light from the door or from above. The friezes were adorned with
+various sculptures, as were sometimes the pediments, and no expense was
+spared upon them. The most important part of the temple was the cella,
+where the statue of the deity was kept, and was generally surrounded
+with a balustrade. Beside the cella was the vestibule, and a chamber in
+the rear or back front in which the treasures of the temple were kept.
+Names were applied to the temples, as well as the porticoes, according
+to the number of columns in the portico at either end of the temple,
+such as the tetrastyle with four columns in front, or hexastyle when
+there were six. There were never more than ten columns in front. The
+Parthenon had eight, but six was the usual number. It was the rule to
+have twice as many columns along the sides as in front, and one more.
+Some of the temples had double rows of columns on all sides, like that
+of Diana at Ephesus, and of Quirinus at Rome. The distance between the
+columns varied from a diameter and half of a column to four diameters.
+About five eighths of a Doric temple were occupied by the cella, and
+three eighths by the portico.
+
+[Sidenote: Simplicity of Grecian temples.]
+
+That which gives so much simplicity and harmony in the Greek temples,
+which are the great elements of beauty in architecture, is the simple
+outline, in parallelogrammic and pyramidal forms, in which the lines are
+straight and uninterrupted through their entire length. This simplicity
+and harmony are more apparent in the Doric than in any of the other
+orders, and pertain to all the temples of which we have knowledge. Nor
+can any improvement be made upon them, or any alteration which does not
+conflict with established principles. The Ionic and Corinthian, or the
+Voluted and Foliated orders, do not possess that harmony which pervades
+the Doric, but the more beautiful compositions are so consummate that
+they will ever be taken as models of study.
+
+[Sidenote: Matchless proportions of the Grecian temples.]
+
+It is not the magnitude of the Grecian temples and other works of art
+which most impresses us. It is not for this that they are important
+models. It is not for this that they are copied and reproduced in all
+the modern nations of Europe. They were generally small compared with
+the temples of Egypt, or the vast dimensions of Roman amphitheatres.
+Only three or four would compare in size with a Gothic cathedral, like
+the Parthenon, the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, and the Temple of Diana at
+Ephesus. Even the Pantheon at Rome is small, compared with the later
+monuments of the Caesars. The traveler is always disappointed in
+contemplating their remains, so far as size is concerned. But it is
+their matchless proportions, their severe symmetry, the grandeur of
+effect, the undying beauty, the graceful form which impress us, and make
+us feel that they are perfect. By the side of the Colosseum they are
+insignificant in magnitude. They do not cover acres like the baths of
+Caracalla. Yet who has copied the Flavian amphitheatre? Who erects an
+edifice after the style of the Thermae? But all artists copy the
+Parthenon. That, and not the colossal monuments of the Caesars, reappears
+in the capitals of Europe, and stimulates the genius of a Michael Angelo
+or a Christopher Wren.
+
+The flourishing period of Greek architecture was during the period from
+Pericles to Alexander--one hundred and thirteen years. The Macedonian
+conquest introduced more magnificence and less simplicity. The Roman
+conquest accelerated the decline in severe taste, when different orders
+were used indiscriminately.
+
+[Sidenote: Beginning of Roman art.]
+
+[Sidenote: Romans copied the Greeks.]
+
+In this state the art passed into the hands of the masters of the world,
+and they inaugurated a new era in architecture. The art was still
+essentially Greek, although the Romans derived their first knowledge
+from the Etruscans. The Cloaca Maxima was built during the reign of the
+second Tarquin--the grandest monument of the reign of the kings. It is
+not probable that temples and other public buildings were either
+beautiful or magnificent until the conquest of Greece, when Grecian
+architects were employed. The Romans adopted the Corinthian style, which
+they made even more ornamental, and by the successful combination of the
+Etruscan arch with the Grecian column, laid the foundation of a new and
+original style, susceptible of great variety and magnificence. They
+entered into architecture with the enthusiasm of their teachers, but, in
+their passion for novelty, lost sight of the simplicity which is the
+great fascination of a Doric Temple. "And they deemed that lightness and
+grace were to be attained not so much by proportion between the vertical
+and the horizontal, as by the comparative slenderness of the former.
+Hence we see a poverty in Roman architecture in the midst of profuse
+ornament. The great error was a constant aim to lessen the diameter,
+while they increased the elevation, of the columns. Hence the massive
+simplicity and severe grandeur of the ancient Doric disappear in the
+Roman, the characteristics of the order being frittered down into a
+multiplicity of minute details." [Footnote: Memes, _Sculpture and
+Architecture._] And when they used the Doric at all, they used the
+base, which was never done at Athens. They also altered the Doric
+capital, which cannot be improved. Again, most of the Grecian Doric
+temples were peripteral, that is, were surrounded with pillars on all
+the sides. But the Romans did not build with porticoes even on each
+front, but only on one, which had a greater projection than the Grecian.
+They generally are projected three columns. Many of the Roman temples
+are circular, like the Pantheon, which has a portico of eight columns
+projected to the depth of three. Nor did the Romans construct hypaethral
+temples, or uncovered, with internal columns, like the Greeks. The
+Pantheon is an exception, since the dome has an open eye; and one great
+ornament of this beautiful structure is in the arrangement of internal
+columns placed in the front of niches, composed with antae, or pier-
+formed ends of walls, to carry an entablature round under an attic on
+which the cupola rests. They also adopted coupled columns, broken and
+recessed entablatures, and pedestals, which are considered blemishes.
+They again paid more attention to the interior than to the exterior
+decoration of their palaces and baths, as we may infer from the ruins of
+Adrian's villa at Tivoli, and the excavations of Pompeii.
+
+The Roman Corinthian, like the Greek orders, consisted of three parts,
+stylobate, column, and entablature, but the stylobate was much loftier,
+and was not graduated, except in the access before a portico. The column
+varied from nine and a half to ten diameters, and was always fluted with
+twenty-four flutes and fillets. The height of the capital is a diameter
+and one eighth; the entablature varies from one diameter and seven
+eighths to two diameters and a half. The portico of the Pantheon is one
+of the best specimens of the Corinthian order. The entablature of the
+temple of Jupiter Stator, like that of the Pantheon, is two diameters
+and one half. The pediments are steeper than those made by the Greeks,
+varying in inclination from eighteen to twenty-five degrees. The
+mouldings used in Roman architectural works are the same as the Grecian
+in general form, although they differ from them in contour. They are
+less delicate and graceful, but were used in great profusion. Roman
+architecture is overdone with ornament, every moulding carved, and every
+straight surface sculptured with foliage or historical subjects in
+relief. The ornaments of the frieze consist of foliage and animals, with
+a variety of other things. The great exuberance of ornament is
+considered a defect, although when applied to some structures it is
+exceedingly beautiful. In the time of the first Caesars architecture had
+a character of grandeur and magnificence. Columns and arches appeared in
+all the leading public buildings, columns generally forming the
+external, and arches the internal construction. Fabric after fabric
+arose on the ruins of others. The Flavii supplanted the edifices of
+Nero, which ministered to debauchery, by structures of public utility.
+
+[Sidenote: Changes made by the Romans.]
+
+[Sidenote: Invention of the arch.]
+
+[Sidenote: Uses of the arch.]
+
+The Romans invented no new principle in architecture, except the arch,
+which was not known to the Greeks, and carried out by them to greater
+perfection than by the Romans; but this, for simplicity, harmony, and
+beauty, has never been surpassed in any age, or by any nation. The
+Romans were a practical and utilitarian people, and needed for their
+various structures greater economy of material than large blocks of
+stone, especially for such as were carried to great altitudes. The arch
+supplied this want, and is perhaps the greatest invention ever made in
+architecture. No instance of its adoption occurs in the construction of
+Greek edifices, before Greece became a part of the Roman Empire. Its
+application dates back to the Cloaca Maxima, and may have been of
+Etrurian invention. It was not known to Egyptians, or Persians, or
+Indians, or Greeks. Some maintain that Archimedes of Sicily was the
+inventor, but to whomsoever the glory of the invention is due, it is
+certain that the Romans were the first to make a practical application
+of its wonderful qualities. It enabled them to rear vast edifices into
+the air with the humblest materials, to build bridges, aqueducts,
+sewers, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, as well as temples and
+palaces; its merits have never been lost sight of by succeeding
+generations, and it is at the foundation of the magnificent Gothic
+cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Its application extends to domes and
+cupolas, to arched floors and corridors and roofs, and to various other
+parts of buildings where economy of material and labor is desired. It
+was applied extensively to doorways and windows, and is an ornament as
+well as a utility. The most imposing forms of Roman architecture may be
+traced to a knowledge of the properties of the arch, and as brick was
+more extensively used than any other material, the arch was invaluable.
+The imperial palace on Mount Palatine, the Pantheon, except its portico
+and internal columns, the temples of Peace, of Venus and Rome, and of
+Minerva Medica, were of brick. So were the great baths of Titus,
+Caracalla, and Diocletian, the villa of Adrian, the city walls, the
+villa of Maecenas at Tivoli, and most of the palaces of the nobility;
+although, like many of the temples, they were faced with stone. The
+Colosseum was of travertine faced with marble. It was the custom to
+stucco the surface of the walls, as favorable to decorations. In
+consequence of this invention, the Romans erected a greater variety of
+fine structures than either the Greeks or Egyptians, whose public
+edifices were chiefly confined to temples. The arch entered into almost
+every structure, public or private, and superseded the use of long stone
+beams, which were necessary in the Grecian temples, as also of wooden
+timbers, in the use of which the Romans were not skilled, and which do
+not really pertain to the art of architecture. An imposing building must
+always be constructed of stone or brick. The arch also enabled the
+Romans to economize in the use of costly marbles, of which they were
+very fond, as well as of other stones. Some of the finest columns were
+made of Egyptian granite, very highly polished.
+
+The extensive application of the arch doubtless led to the deterioration
+of the Grecian architecture, since it blended columns with arcades, and
+thus impaired the harmony which so peculiarly marked the temples of
+Athens and Corinth. And as taste became vitiated with the decline of the
+Empire, monstrous combinations took place, which were a great fall from
+the simplicity of the Parthenon, and the interior of the Pantheon.
+
+[Sidenote: Magnificence of Roman architecture.]
+
+But whatever defects marked the age of Diocletian and Constantine, it
+can never be questioned that the Romans carried architecture to a
+perfection rarely attained in our times. They may not have equaled the
+severe simplicity of their teachers, the Greeks, but they surpassed them
+in the richness or their decorations, and in all buildings designed for
+utility, especially in private houses and baths and theatres.
+
+[Sidenote: The effect of columns in architecture.]
+
+The Romans do not seem to have used other than semicircular arches. The
+Gothic, or Pointed, or Christian architecture, as it has been variously
+called, was the creation of the Middle Ages, and arose nearly
+simultaneously in Europe after the first Crusade, so that it would seem
+to be of Eastern origin. But it was a graft on the old Roman arch,--in
+the shape of an ellipse rather than a circle. Aside from this invention,
+to which we are indebted for the most beautiful ecclesiastical
+structures ever erected, we owe every thing in architecture to the
+Greeks and Romans. We have found out no new principles which were not
+equally known to Vitruvius. No one man was the inventor or creator of
+the wonderful structures which ornamented the cities of the ancient
+world. We have the names of great architects, who reared various and
+faultless models, but they all worked upon the same principles. And
+these can never be subverted. So that in architecture the ancients are
+our schoolmasters, whose genius we revere the more we are acquainted
+with their works. What more beautiful than one of those grand temples
+which the heathen but cultivated Greeks erected to the worship of their
+unknown gods: the graduated and receding stylobate as a base for the
+fluted columns, rising at regular distances, in all their severe
+proportion and matchless harmony, with their richly carved capitals,
+supporting an entablature of heavy stones, most elaborately moulded and
+ornamented with the figures of plants and animals, and rising above
+this, on the ends of the temple, or over a portico several columns deep,
+the pediment, covered by chiseled cornices, with still richer ornaments
+rising from the apices and at the feet; all carved in white marble, and
+then spread over an area larger than any modern churches, making a
+forest of columns to bear aloft those ponderous beams of stone, without
+any thing tending to break the continuity of horizontal lines, by which
+the harmony and simplicity of the whole are seen. So accurately squared
+and nicely adjusted were the stones and pillars of which these temples
+were built, that there was scarcely need of even cement. Without noise
+or confusion or sound of hammers did those temples rise, since all their
+parts were cut and carved in the distant quarries, and with mathematical
+precision. And within the cella, nearly concealed by the surrounding
+columns, were the statues of the gods, and the altars on which incense
+was offered, or sacrifices made. In every part, interior and exterior,
+do we see a matchless proportion and beauty, whether in the shaft, or
+the capital, or the frieze, or the pilaster, or the pediment, or the
+cornices, or even the mouldings--everywhere grace and harmony, which
+grow upon the mind the more they are contemplated. The greatest evidence
+of the matchless creative genius displayed in those architectural
+wonders is that, after two thousand years, and with all the inventions
+of Roman and modern artists, no improvement can be made, and those
+edifices which are the admiration of our own times are deemed beautiful
+as they approximate the ancient models which will forever remain objects
+of imitation, No science can make two and two other than four. No art
+can make a Doric temple different from the Parthenon without departing
+from the settled principles of beauty and proportion which all ages have
+endorsed. Such were the Greeks and Romans in an art which is one of the
+greatest indices of material civilization, and which by them was derived
+from geometrical forms, or the imitation of Nature.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+[Sidenote: Perfection of Grecian sculpture.]
+
+The genius displayed by the ancients in sculpture, is even more
+remarkable than in architecture. It was carried to perfection, however,
+only by the Greeks. But they did not originate the art, since we read of
+sculptured images from the remotest antiquity. The earliest names of
+sculptors are furnished by the Old Testament. Assyria and Egypt are full
+of relics to show how early this art was cultivated. It was not carried
+to perfection as early, probably, as architecture; but rude images of
+gods, carved in wood, are as old as the history of idolatry. The history
+of sculpture is in fact identified with that of idols. It was from
+Phoenicia that Solomon obtained the workmen for the decoration of his
+Temple. But the Egyptians were probably the first who made considerable
+advances in the execution of statues. They are rude, simple, uniform,
+without beauty or grace, but colossal and grand. Nearly two thousand
+years before Christ, the walls of Thebes were ornamented with sculptured
+figures, even as the gates of Babylon were of sculptured bronze. The
+dimensions of Egyptian colossal figures surpass those of any other
+nation. The sitting figures of Memnon at Thebes are fifty feet in
+height, and the Sphinx is twenty-five, and these are of granite. The
+number of colossal statues was almost incredible. The sculptures found
+among the ruins of Carnac must have been made nearly four thousand years
+ago. [Footnote: Wilkinson's _Ancient Egyptians_.] They exhibit
+great simplicity of design, but without much variety of expression. They
+are generally carved from the hardest stones, and finished so nicely
+that we infer that the Egyptians were acquainted with the art of
+hardening metals to a degree not known in our times. But we see no ideal
+grandeur among any of the remains of Egyptian sculpture. However
+symmetrical or colossal, there is no expression, no trace of emotion, no
+intellectual force. Every thing is calm, impassive, imperturbable. It
+was not until sculpture came into the hands of the Greeks that any
+remarkable excellence was reached. But the progress of development was
+slow. The earliest carvings were rude wooden images of the gods, and
+more than a thousand years elapsed before the great masters were
+produced which marked the age of Pericles.
+
+It is not my object to give a history of the development of the plastic
+art, but to show the great excellence it attained in the hands of
+immortal sculptors.
+
+[Sidenote: Admiration for sculpture among the Greeks.]
+
+[Sidenote: High estimation of sculpture among the Greeks.]
+
+The Greeks had an intuitive perception of the beautiful, and to this
+great national trait we ascribe the wonderful progress which sculpture
+made. Nature was most carefully studied, and that which was most
+beautiful in Nature became the object of imitation. They ever attained
+to an ideal excellence, since they combined in a single statue what
+could not be found in a single individual, as Zeuxis is said to have
+studied the beautiful forms of seven virgins of Crotona in order to
+paint his famous picture of Venus. Great as was the beauty of Thryne, or
+Aspasia, or Lais, yet no one of them could have served for a perfect
+model. And it required a great sensibility to beauty in order to select
+and idealize what was most perfect in the human figure. Beauty was
+adored in Greece, and every means were used to perfect it, especially
+beauty of form, which is the characteristic excellence of Grecian
+statuary. The gymnasia were universally frequented, and the great prizes
+of the games, bestowed for feats of strength and agility, were regarded
+as the highest honors which men could receive--the subject of the
+poet's ode and the people's admiration. Statues of the victors
+perpetuated their fame and improved the sculptor's art. From the study
+of these statues were produced those great creations which all
+subsequent ages have admired. And from the application of the principles
+seen in these forms we owe the perpetuation of the ideas of grandeur and
+beauty such as no other people have ever discovered and scarcely
+appreciated. The sculpture of the human figure became a noble object of
+ambition, and was most munificently rewarded. Great artists arose, whose
+works adorned the temples of Greece, so long as she preserved her
+independence; and when it was lost, their priceless productions were
+scattered over Asia and Europe. The Romans especially seized what was
+most prized, whether or not they could tell what was most perfect.
+Greece lived in her marble statues more than in her government or laws.
+And when we remember the estimation in which sculpture was held, the
+great prices paid for masterpieces, the care and attention with which
+they were guarded and preserved, and the innumerable works which were
+produced, filling all the public buildings, especially consecrated
+places, and even open spaces, and the houses of the rich and great,--
+calling from all classes admiration and praise,--it is improbable that
+so great perfection will ever be reached again in those figures which
+are designed to represent beauty of form. Even the comparatively few
+statues which have survived the wars and violence of two thousand years,
+convince us that the moderns can only imitate. They can produce no
+creations which were not surpassed by Athenian artists. "No mechanical
+copying of Greek statues, however skillful the copyist, can ever secure
+for modern sculpture the same noble and effective character it possessed
+among the Greeks, for the simple reason that the imitation, close as may
+be the resemblance, is but the result of the eye and hand, while the
+original is the expression of a true and deeply felt sentiment. Art was
+not sustained by the patronage of a few who affect to have what is
+called _taste_. In Greece, the artist, having a common feeling for
+the beautiful with his countrymen, produced his works for the public,
+which were erected in places of honor and dedicated in temples of the
+gods." [Footnote: _Encyclopedia Britannica_, "Sculpture," R. W. T.]
+
+[Sidenote: Phidias and his contemporaries.]
+
+[Sidenote: The statue of Zeus by Phidias.]
+
+But it was not until the Persian wars awakened in Greece the slumbering
+consciousness of national power, and Athens became the central point of
+Grecian civilization, that sculpture, like architecture and painting,
+reached its culminating point of excellence, under Phidias and his
+contemporaries. Great artists, however, had previously made themselves
+famous, like Miron, Polycletus, and Ageladas; but the great riches which
+flowed into Athens at this time gave a peculiar stimulus to art,
+especially under the encouragement of such a ruler as Pericles, whose
+age was the golden era of Grecian history. Pheidias or Phidias was to
+sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic poetry, sublime and grand. He was
+born four hundred and eighty-four years before Christ, and was the pupil
+of Ageladas. He stands at the head of the ancient sculptors, not from
+what _we_ know of him, for his masterpieces have perished, but from
+the estimation in which he was held by the greatest critics of
+antiquity. It was to him that Pericles intrusted the adornment of the
+Parthenon, and the numerous and beautiful sculptures of the frieze and
+the pediment were the work of artists whom he directed. _His_ great
+work in that wonderful edifice was the statue of the goddess Minerva
+herself, made of gold and ivory, forty feet in height, standing
+victorious with a spear in her left hand and an image of victory in her
+right; girded with the aegis, with helmet on her head, and her shield
+resting by her side. The cost of this statue may be estimated when the
+gold alone of which it was composed was valued at forty-four talents.
+[Footnote: This sum was equal to $500,000 of our money, an immense sum
+in that age. Some critics suppose that this statue was overloaded with
+ornament, but all antiquity was unanimous in its admiration. The
+exactness and finish of detail were as remarkable as the grandeur of the
+proportions.] Another of his famous works was a colossal bronze statue
+of Athena Promachus, sixty feet in height, on the Acropolis, between the
+Propylaea and the Parthenon. But both of these yielded to the colossal
+statue of Zeus in his great temple at Olympia, represented in a sitting
+posture, forty feet high, on a pedestal of twenty. In this, his greatest
+work, the artist sought to embody the idea of majesty and repose,--of a
+supreme deity no longer engaged in war with Titans and Giants, but
+enthroned as a conqueror, ruling with a nod the subject world, and
+giving his blessing to those victories which gave glory to the Greeks.
+[Footnote: The god was seated on a throne. Ebony, gold, ivory, and
+precious stones formed, with a multitude of sculptured and painted
+figures, the wonderful composition of this throne.] So famous was this
+statue, which was regarded as the masterpiece of Grecian art, that it
+was considered a calamity to die without seeing it; and this served for
+a model for all subsequent representations of majesty and power in
+repose among the ancients. It was removed to Constantinople by
+Theodosius I., and was destroyed by fire in the year 475. Phidias
+executed various other famous works, which have perished; but even those
+that were executed under his superintendence, that have come down to our
+times, like the statues which ornamented the pediment of the Parthenon,
+are among the finest specimens of art which exist, and exhibit the most
+graceful and appropriate forms which could have been selected, uniting
+grandeur with simplicity, and beauty with accuracy of anatomical
+structure. His distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of
+the sublimest order. [Footnote: Muller, _De Phidiae Vita_.]
+
+[Sidenote: Colossal statues of ivory and gold.]
+
+Of all the wonders and mysteries of ancient art, the colossal statues of
+ivory and gold were perhaps the most remarkable, and the difficulty of
+executing them has been set forth by the ablest of modern critics, like
+Winkelmann, Heyne, and De Quincy. "The grandeur of their dimensions, the
+perfection of their workmanship, the richness of their materials; their
+majesty, beauty, and ideal truth; the splendor of the architecture and
+pictorial decoration with which they were associated, all conspired to
+impress the beholder with wonder and awe, and induce a belief of the
+actual presence of the god."
+
+[Sidenote: The school of Praxiteles.]
+
+After the Peloponnesian War, a new school of art arose in Athens, which
+appealed more to the passions. Of this school was Praxiteles, who aimed
+to please, without seeking to elevate or instruct. No one has probably
+ever surpassed him in execution. He wrought in bronze and marble, and
+was one of the artists who adorned the Mausoleum of Artemisia. Without
+attempting the sublime impersonation of the deity, in which Phidias
+excelled, he was unsurpassed in the softer graces and beauties of the
+human form, especially in female figures. His most famous work was an
+undraped statue of Venus, for his native town of Cnidus, which was so
+remarkable that people flocked from all parts of Greece to see it. He
+did not aim at ideal majesty so much as ideal gracefulness, and his
+works were imitated from the most beautiful living models, and hence
+expressed only the ideal of sensual charms. It is probable that the
+Venus de Medici of Cleomenes was a mere copy of the Aphrodite of
+Praxiteles, which was so highly extolled by the ancient authors. It was
+of Parian marble, and modeled from the celebrated Phryne. His statues of
+Dionysus also expressed the most consummate physical beauty,
+representing the god as a beautiful youth, crowned with ivy, engirt with
+a nebris, and expressing tender and dreamy emotions. Praxiteles
+sculptured several figures of Eros, or the god of love, of which that at
+Thespiae attracted visitors to the city in the time of Cicero. It was
+subsequently carried to Rome, and perished by a conflagration in the
+time of Titus. One of the most celebrated statues of this artist was an
+Apollo, many copies of which still exist. His works were very numerous,
+but chiefly from the circle of Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Eros, in which
+adoration for corporeal attractions is the most marked peculiarity, and
+for which the artist was fitted by his life with the hetaerae.
+
+[Sidenote: Scopas.]
+
+Scopas was his contemporary, and was the author of the celebrated group
+of Niobe, which is one of the chief ornaments of the gallery of
+sculpture at Florence. He flourished about three hundred and fifty years
+before Christ, and wrought chiefly in marble. He was employed in
+decorating the Mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her husband, one of
+the wonders of the world. His masterpiece is said to have been a group
+representing Achilles conducted to the island of Leuce by the divinities
+of the sea, which ornamented the shrine of Domitius in the Flaminian
+Circus. In this, tender grace, heroic grandeur, daring power, and
+luxurious fullness of life were combined with wonderful harmony.
+[Footnote: Muller, 125.] Like the other great artists of this school,
+there was the grandeur and sublimity for which Phidias was celebrated,
+but a greater refinement and luxury, and skill in the use of drapery.
+
+[Sidenote: Lysippus.]
+
+[Sidenote: The works of Lysippus.]
+
+Sculpture in Greece culminated, as an art, in Lysippus, who worked
+chiefly in bronze. He is said to have executed fifteen hundred statues,
+and was much esteemed by Alexander the Great, by whom he was extensively
+patronized. He represented men, not as they were, but as they appeared
+to be; and, if he exaggerated, he displayed great energy of action. He
+aimed to idealize merely human beauty, and his imitation of Nature was
+carried out in the minutest details. None of his works are extant; but
+as he alone was permitted to make the statue of Alexander, we infer that
+he had no equals. The Emperor Tiberius transferred one of his statues,
+that of an athlete, from the baths of Agrippa to his own chamber, which
+so incensed the people that he was obliged to restore it. His favorite
+subject was Hercules, and a colossal statue of this god was carried to
+Rome by Fabius Maximus, when he took Tarentum, and afterwards was
+transferred to Constantinople. The Farnese Hercules and the Belvidere
+Torso are probably copies of this work. He left many eminent scholars,
+among whom were Chares, who executed the famous Colossus of Rhodes,
+Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, who sculptured the group of the
+"Laocoon." The Rhodian School was the immediate offshoot from the school
+of Lysippus at Sicyon, and from this small island of Rhodes the Romans,
+when they conquered it, carried away three thousand statues. The
+Colossus was one of the wonders of the world, seventy cubits in height,
+and the Laocoon is a perfect miracle of art, in which group pathos is
+exhibited in the highest degree ever attained in sculpture. It was
+discovered in 1506 near the baths of Titus, and is one of the choicest
+remains of ancient plastic art.
+
+The great artists of antiquity did not confine themselves to the
+representation of man; but they also carved animals with exceeding
+accuracy and beauty. Nicias was famous for his dogs, Myron for his cows,
+and Lysippus for his horses. Praxiteles composed his celebrated lion
+after a living animal. "The horses of the frieze of the Elgin Marbles
+appear to live and move; to roll their eyes, to gallop, prance, and
+curvet; the veins of their faces and legs seem distended with
+circulation. The beholder is charmed with the deer-like lightness and
+elegance of their make; and although the relief is not above an inch
+from the back-ground, and they are so much smaller than nature, we can
+scarcely suffer reason to persuade us they are not alive." [Footnote:
+Flaxman, _Lectures on Sculpture_.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cameos and medals.]
+
+The Greeks also carved gems, cameos, medals, and vases, with
+unapproachable excellence. Very few specimens have come down to our
+times, but those which we possess show great beauty both in design and
+execution.
+
+[Sidenote: Sack of the Grecian cities.]
+
+Grecian statuary commenced with ideal representations of deities, and
+was carried to the greatest perfection by Phidias in his statues of
+Jupiter and Minerva. Then succeeded the school of Praxiteles, in which
+the figures of gods and goddesses were still represented, but in mortal
+forms. The school of Lysippus was famous for the statues of celebrated
+men, especially in cities where Macedonian rulers resided. Artists were
+expected henceforth to glorify kings and powerful nobles and rulers by
+portrait statues. The plastic art then degenerated. Nor were works of
+original genius produced, but rather copies or varieties from the three
+great schools to which allusion has been made. Sculpture may have
+multiplied, but not new creations; although some imitations of great
+merit were produced, like the "Hermaphrodite," the "Torso," the Farnese
+"Hercules," and the "Fighting Gladiator." When Corinth was sacked by
+Mummius, some of the finest statues of Greece were carried to Rome, and
+after the civil war between Caesar and Pompey the Greek artists emigrated
+to Italy. The fall of Syracuse introduced many works of priceless value
+into Rome; but it was from Athens, Delphi, Corinth, Elis, and other
+great centres of art, that the richest treasures were brought. Greece
+was despoiled to ornament Italy. The Romans did not create a school of
+sculpture. They borrowed wholly from the Greeks, yet made, especially in
+the time of Hadrian, many beautiful statues. They were fond of this art,
+and all eminent men had statues erected to their memory. The busts of
+emperors were found in every great city, and Rome was filled with
+statues. The monuments of the Romans were even more numerous than those
+of the Greeks, and among them some admirable portraits are found. These
+sculptures did not express that consummation of beauty and grace, of
+refinement and sentiment, which marked the Greeks; but the imitations
+were good. Art had reached its perfection under Lysippus; there was
+nothing more to learn. Genius in that department could soar no higher.
+It will never rise to loftier heights.
+
+[Sidenote: Degeneracy of art among the Romans.]
+
+It is noteworthy that the purest forms of Grecian art arose in its
+earlier stages. In a moral point of view, sculpture declined from the
+time of Phidias. It was prostituted at Rome under the emperors. The
+specimens which have often been found among the ruins of ancient baths
+make us blush for human nature. The skill of execution did not decline
+for several centuries; but the lofty ideal was lost sight of, and gross
+appeals to human passions were made by those who sought to please
+corrupt leaders of society in an effeminate age. The turgidity and
+luxuriance of art gradually passed into tameness and poverty. The
+reliefs on the Arch of Constantine are rude and clumsy compared with
+those on the Column of Marcus Aurelius.
+
+[Sidenote: Imitation of ancient art.]
+
+But I do not wish to describe the decline of art, or enumerate the names
+of the celebrated masters who exalted sculpture in the palmy days of
+Pericles, or even Alexander. I simply allude to sculpture as an art
+which reached a great perfection among the Greeks and Romans, as we have
+a right to infer from the specimens which have been preserved. How many
+more must have perished, we may infer from the criticisms of the ancient
+authors! The finest productions of our own age are in a measure
+reproductions. They cannot be called creations, like the statue of the
+Olympian Jove. Even the Moses of Michael Angelo is a Grecian god, and
+the Greek Slave a copy of an ancient Venus. The very tints which have
+been admired in some of the works of modern sculptors are borrowed from
+Praxiteles, who succeeded in giving an appearance of living flesh. The
+Museum of the Vatican alone contains several thousand specimens of
+ancient sculpture which have been found among the debris of former
+magnificence, many of which are the productions of Grecian artists
+transported to Rome. Among them are antique copies of the Cupid and the
+Faun of Praxiteles, the statue of Demosthenes, the Minerva Medica, the
+Athlete of Lysippus, the Torso Belvidere, sculptured by Apollonius, the
+Belvidere Antinous, of faultless anatomy and a study for Domenichino,
+the Laocoon, so panegyrized by Pliny, the Apollo Belvidere the work of
+Agasias of Ephesus, the Sleepy Ariadne, with numerous other statues of
+gods and goddesses, emperors, philosophers, poets, and statesmen of
+antiquity. The Dying Gladiator, which ornaments the capitol, alone is a
+magnificent proof of the perfection to which sculpture was brought
+centuries after the art had culminated at Athens. And these are only a
+few which stand out among the twenty thousand recovered statues which
+now embellish Italy, to say nothing of those which are scattered over
+Europe. We have the names of hundreds of artists who were famous in
+their day. Not merely the figures of men are chiseled, but animals and
+plants. Nature, in all her forms, was imitated; and not merely Nature,
+but the dresses of the ancients are perpetuated in marble. No modern
+sculptor has equaled, in delicacy of finish, the draperies even of those
+ancient statues, as they appear to us after the exposure and accidents
+of two thousand years. No one, after a careful study of the museums of
+Europe, can question that, of all the nations who have claimed to be
+civilized, the ancient Greek and Roman deserve a proud preeminence in an
+art which is still regarded as among the highest triumphs of human
+genius. All these matchless productions of antiquity, it should be
+remembered, are the result of native genius alone, without the aid of
+Christian ideas. Nor, with the aid of Christianity, are we sure that any
+nation will ever soar to loftier heights than did the Greeks in that
+proud realm which was consecrated to Paganism.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+We are not so certain in regard to the excellence of the ancients in the
+art of painting as we are in reference to sculpture and architecture,
+since so few specimens have been preserved. We have only the testimony
+of the ancients themselves; and as they had so severe a taste and so
+great susceptibility to beauty in all its forms, we cannot suppose that
+their notions were crude in this great art which the moderns have
+carried to so great perfection. In this art the moderns may be superior,
+especially in perspective and drawing, and light and shade. No age, we
+fancy, can surpass Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when
+the genius of Raphael, Correggio, and Domenichino blazed with such
+wonderful brilliancy.
+
+Nevertheless, we read of celebrated schools among the ancients, all of
+which recognized _form_ as the great principle and basis of the
+art, even like the moderns. The schools of Sicyon, Corinth, Athens, and
+Rhodes were indebted for their renown, like those of Bologna, Florence,
+and Rome, to their strict observance of this fundamental law.
+
+[Sidenote: Antiquity of painting.]
+
+[Sidenote: Painting among the Egyptians.]
+
+Painting, in some form, is very ancient, though not so ancient as the
+temples of the gods and the statues which were erected to their worship.
+It arose with the susceptibility to beauty of form and color, and with
+the view of conveying thoughts and emotions of the soul by imitation.
+The walls of Babylon were painted after Nature with different species of
+animals and combats. Semiramis was represented on horseback, striking a
+leopard with a dart, and her husband Ninus wounding a lion. Ezekiel
+(viii. 10) represents various idols and beasts portrayed upon the walls,
+and even princes, painted in vermilion, with girdles around their loins
+(xxiii. 14, 15). In ages almost fabulous there were some rude attempts
+in this art, which probably arose from the coloring of statues and
+reliefs. The wooden chests of Egyptian mummies are painted and written
+with religious subjects, but the colors were laid without regard to
+light and shade. The Egyptians did not seek to represent the passions
+and emotions which agitate the soul, but rather to authenticate events
+and actions; and hence their paintings, like hieroglyphics, are
+inscriptions. It was their great festivals and religious rites which
+they sought to perpetuate, not ideas of beauty or grace. Hence their
+paintings abound with dismembered animals, plants, and flowers, censers,
+entrails,--whatever was used in their religious worship. In Greece,
+also, the original painting consisted in coloring statues and reliefs of
+wood and clay. At Corinth, painting was early united with the
+fabrication of vases, on which were rudely painted figures of men and
+animals. Among the Etruscans, before Rome was founded, it is said there
+were beautiful paintings, and it is probable they were advanced in art
+before the Greeks. There were paintings in some of the old Etruscan
+cities which the Roman emperors wished to remove, so much admired were
+they even in the days of the greatest splendor. The ancient Etruscan
+vases are famous for designs which have never been exceeded in purity of
+form, but it is probable that these were copied from the Greeks.
+
+[Sidenote: Cimon of Cleona.]
+
+But whether the Greeks or the Etruscans were the first to paint, the art
+was certainly carried to the greatest perfection among the former. The
+development of it was, like all arts, very gradual. It probably
+commenced by drawing the outline of a shadow, without intermediate
+markings; the next step was the complete outline with the inner
+markings, such as are represented on the ancient vases, or like the
+designs of Flaxman. They were originally practiced on a white ground.
+Then light and shade were introduced, and then the application of colors
+in accordance with Nature. We read of a great painting by Bularchus, of
+the battle of Magnete, purchased by a king of Lydia seven hundred and
+eighteen years before Christ. And as the subject was a battle, it must
+have represented the movement of figures, although we know nothing of
+the coloring, or of the real excellence of the work, except that the
+artist was paid munificently. Cimon of Cleona is the first great name
+connected with the art in Greece, and is praised by Pliny, to whom we
+owe the history of ancient painting more than to any other author. He
+was contemporary with Dionysius in the eightieth Olympiad. He was not
+satisfied with drawing simply the outlines of his figures, such as we
+see in the oldest painted vases, but he also represented limbs, and
+folds of garments. He invented the art of foreshortening, or the various
+positions of figures, as they appear when looking upward or downward and
+sideways, and hence is the first painter of perspective. He first made
+muscular articulations, indicated the veins, and gave natural folds to
+drapery. [Footnote: Pliny, xxxv. 34.]
+
+[Sidenote: Greatness of Polygnotus and his school.]
+
+A much greater painter than he was Polygnotus of Thasos, the
+contemporary of Phidias, who came to Athens about the year 463 B.C., one
+of the greatest geniuses of any age, and one of the most magnanimous;
+and had the good fortune to live in an age of exceeding intellectual
+activity. He was employed on the public buildings of Athens, and on the
+great temple of Delphi, the hall of which he painted gratuitously. He
+also decorated the Propylaea, which was erected under the superintendence
+of Phidias. His greatness lay in statuesque painting, which he brought
+nearly to perfection by the ideal expression, the accurate drawing, and
+improved coloring. He used but few colors, and softened the rigidity of
+his predecessors by making the mouth of beauty smile. He was the first
+who painted woman with brilliant drapery and variegated head-dresses. He
+gave great expression to the face and figure, and his pictures were
+models of excellence for the beauty of the eyebrows, the blush upon the
+cheeks, and the gracefulness of the draperies. He was a great epic
+painter, as Phidias was a sculptor, and Homer a poet, since he expressed
+not passion and emotion only, but ideal character. He imitated the
+personages and the subjects of the old mythology, and treated them in an
+epic spirit. He strove, like Phidias, to express character in repose.
+His subjects were almost invariably taken from Homer and the Epic cycle.
+His pictures had nothing of that elaborate grouping, aided by the powers
+of perspective, so much admired in modern art. His figures were grouped
+in regular lines, as in the bas-reliefs upon a frieze. He painted on
+panels which were afterward let into the walls. He used the pencil,
+instead of painting in encaustic with the cestrum.
+
+Among the works of Polygnotus, as mentioned by Pliny, [Footnote: H. N.
+xxx. 9, s. 35.] are his paintings in the Temple at Delphi, in the
+Portico called Poecile at Athens, in the Propylaea of the Acropolis, in
+the Temple of Theseus, and in the Temple of the Dioscuri at Athens. He
+took his subjects from the whole range of Epic poetry, but we know
+nothing of them except from the praises of his contemporaries.
+[Footnote: Pausanias, x. 25-31.] His great merit is said to have
+consisted in accurate drawing, and in giving grace and charm to his
+female figures. He painted in a truly religious spirit, and upon
+symmetrical principles, with great grandeur and freedom, resembling
+Michael Angelo more than any other modern artist. Like the Greeks, he
+painted with wax, resins, and in water colors, to which the proper
+consistency was given with gum and glue. The use of oil was unknown. The
+artists painted upon wood, clay, plaster, stone, parchment, but not upon
+canvas, which was not used till the time of Nero. They painted upon
+tablets or panels, and not upon the walls. These panels were framed and
+encased in the walls. The style or cestrum used in drawing, and for
+spreading the wax colors, was pointed on one end and flat on the other,
+and generally made of metal. Wax was prepared by purifying and
+bleaching, and then mixed with colors. When painting was practiced in
+water colors, glue was used with the white of an egg or with gums, but
+wax and resins were also worked with water, with certain preparations.
+This latter was called encaustic, and was, according to Plutarch, the
+most durable of all methods. It was not generally adopted till the time
+of Alexander the Great. Wax was a most essential ingredient, since it
+prevented the colors from cracking. Encaustic painting was practiced
+both with the cestrum and the pencil, and the colors were also burnt in.
+Fresco was used for coloring walls, which were divided into compartments
+or panels. The Fresco composition of the stucco, and the method of
+painting, preparing the walls for painting, is described by the ancient
+writers: "They first covered the walls with a layer of ordinary plaster,
+over which, when dry, were successively added three other layers of a
+finer quality, mixed with sand. Above these were placed three layers of
+a composition of chalk and marble-dust, the upper one being laid on
+before the under one was dry, by which process the different layers were
+so bound together that the whole mass formed one beautiful and solid
+slab, resembling marble, and was capable of being detached from the wall
+and transported in a wooden frame to any distance. The colors were
+applied when the composition was still wet. The fresco wall, when
+painted, was covered with an encaustic varnish, both to heighten the
+color and preserve it from the effects of the sun or the weather. But
+this process required so much care, and was attended with so much
+expense, that it was used only in the better houses and palaces." The
+later discoveries at Pompeii show the same correctness of design in
+painting as in sculpture, and also considerable perfection in coloring.
+The great artists of Greece were both sculptors and painters, like
+Michael Angelo. Phidias and Euphranor, Zeuxis and Protogenes, Polygnotus
+and Lysippus, were both. And the ancient writers praise the paintings of
+these great artists as much as their sculpture. The Aldobrandini
+Marriage, found on the Esquiline Mount, during the pontificate of
+Clement VIII., and placed in the Vatican by Pius VII., is admired both
+for drawing and color. Polygnotus was praised by Aristotle for his
+designs and by Lucian for his color. [Footnote: _Poetica of
+Aristotle_, c. 286. _Imagines of Lucian_, c. 7.]
+
+[Sidenote: Contemporaries of Polygnotus.]
+
+Dionysius and Micon were the great contemporaries of Polygnotus, the
+former of whom was celebrated for his portraits. His pictures were
+deficient in the ideal, but were remarkable for expression and elegant
+drawing. [Footnote: Plutarch, _Timol._ 36.] Micon was particularly
+skilled in painting horses, and was the first who used for a color the
+light Attic ochre, and the black made from burnt vine twigs. He painted
+three of the walls of the Temple of Theseus, and also the walls of the
+Temple of the Dioscuri.
+
+[Sidenote: The school of Apollodorus.]
+
+With Apollodorus, of Athens, a new development was made in the art of
+painting. Through his labors, about 408 B.C., dramatic effect was added
+to the style of Polygnotus, without departing from his pictures as
+models. "The acuteness of his taste," says Fuseli, "led him to discover
+that, as all men were connected by one general form, so they were
+separated each by some predominant power, which fixed character and
+bound them to a class. Thence he drew his line of imitation and
+personified the central form of the class to which his object belonged,
+and to which the rest of its qualities administered, without being
+absorbed; agility was not suffered to destroy firmness, solidity, or
+weight; nor strength and weight agility; elegance did not degenerate to
+effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to hugeness." [Footnote: Fuseli, Lect.
+I.] His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the semblance of
+reality. He painted men and things as they really appeared. He also made
+a great advance in coloring. He invented chiaro-oscuro. Other painters
+had given attention to the proper gradation of light and shade; he
+heightened this effect by the gradation of tints, and thus obtained what
+the moderns call _tone_. He was the first who conferred due honor
+on the pencil--"primusque gloriam penicillo jure contulit." [Footnote:
+Pliny, H. N. xxxv. 11.]
+
+[Sidenote: Peculiarities of Zeuxis as a painter.]
+
+This great painter prepared the way for Zeuxis, [Footnote: Born 455
+B.C.] who belonged to his school, but who surpassed him in the power to
+give ideal form to rich effects. He began his great career four hundred
+and twenty-four years before Christ, and was most remarkable for his
+female figures. His "Helen," painted from five of the most beautiful
+women of Croton, was one of the most renowned productions of antiquity,
+to see which the painter demanded money. He gave away his pictures,
+because, with an artist's pride, he maintained that their price could
+not be estimated. There is a tradition that Zeuxis laughed himself to
+death over an old woman painted by him. He arrived at illusion of the
+senses, regarded as a high attainment in art, as in the instance
+recorded of his grapes. He belonged to the Asiatic school, whose head-
+quarters were at Ephesus, the peculiarities of which were accuracy of
+imitation, the exhibition of sensual charms, and the gratification of
+sensual tastes. He went to Athens about the time that the sculpture of
+Phidias was completed, which modified his style. His marvelous powers
+were displayed in the contrast of light and shade which he learned from
+Apollodorus. He gave ideal beauty to his figures, but it was in form
+rather than in expression. He taught the true method of grouping, by
+making each figure the perfect representation of the class to which it
+belonged. His works were deficient in those qualities which elevate the
+feelings and the character. He was the Euripides rather than the Homer
+of his art. He exactly imitated natural objects, which are incapable of
+ideal representation. His works were not so numerous as they were
+perfect in their way, in some of which, as in the Infant Hercules
+strangling the Serpent, he displayed great dramatic power. [Footnote:
+Lucian _on Zeuxis_.] Lucian highly praises his Female Centaur as
+one of the most remarkable paintings of the world, in which he showed
+great ingenuity in his contrasts. His Jupiter Enthroned is also extolled
+by Pliny, as one of his finest works. He acquired a great fortune, and
+lived ostentatiously.
+
+[Sidenote: Parrhasius of Ephesus.]
+
+Contemporaneous with him, and equal in fame, was Parrhasius, a native of
+Ephesus, whose skill lay in accuracy of drawing, and power of
+expression. He gave to painting true proportion, and attended to minute
+details of the countenance and the hair. In his gods and heroes, he did
+for painting what Phidias did in sculpture. His outlines were so perfect
+as to indicate those parts of the figure which they did not express. He
+established a rule of proportion which was followed by all succeeding
+artists. While many of his pieces were of a lofty character, some were
+demoralizing. Zeuxis yielded the palm to him, since he painted a curtain
+which deceived his rival, whereas Zeuxis painted grapes which deceived
+only birds. He was exceedingly arrogant and luxurious, and boasted of
+having reached the utmost limits of his art. He combined the magic tone
+of Apollodorus with the exquisite design of Zeuxis, and the classic
+expression of Polygnotus.
+
+[Sidenote: Contemporaries of Zeuxis.]
+
+Many were the eminent painters that adorned the fifth century before
+Christ, not only in Athens, but the Ionian cities of Asia. Timanthes of
+Sicyon was distinguished for invention, and Eupompus of the same city
+founded a school. His advice to Lysippus is memorable--"Let Nature, not
+an artist, be your model." Protogenes was celebrated for his high
+finish. His Talissus took him seven years to complete. Pamphilus was
+celebrated for composition, Antiphilus for facility, Theon of Samos for
+prolific fancy, Apelles for grace, Pausias for his chiaro-oscuro,
+Nicomachus for his bold and rapid pencil, Aristides for depth of
+expression.
+
+[Sidenote: Art culminates in Apelles.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Venus of Apelles.]
+
+The art probably culminated in Apelles, the Titian of his age, who
+united the rich coloring and sensual charms of the Ionian with the
+scientific severity of the Sicyonian school. He was contemporaneous with
+Alexander, and was alone allowed to paint the picture of the great
+conqueror. He was a native of Ephesus, studied under Pamphilus of
+Amphipolis, and when he had gained reputation he went to Sicyon and took
+lessons from Melanthius. He spent the best part of his life at the court
+of Philip and Alexander, and painted many portraits of these great men
+and of their generals. He excelled in portraits, and labored so
+assiduously to perfect himself in drawing that he never spent a day
+without practicing. [Footnote: Pliny, xxxv. 12.] He made great
+improvement in the mechanical part of his art, and also was the first
+who covered his picture with a thin varnish, both to preserve it and
+bring out the colors. He invented ivory black. His distinguishing
+excellence was grace, "that artless balance of motion and repose,
+springing from character, founded on propriety, which neither falls
+short of the demands nor overleaps the modesty of Nature." [Footnote:
+Fuseli, Lect. I.] His great contemporaries may have equaled him in
+perspective, accuracy, and finish; but he added a grace of conception
+and refinement of taste which placed him, by the general consent of
+ancient authors, at the head of all the painters of the world. His
+greatest work was his Venus Anadyomene, or Venus rising out of the sea,
+in which female grace was personified. The falling drops of water from
+her hair form a transparent silver veil over her form. It cost one
+hundred talents, [Footnote: 243 pounds x 100 = 24300 pounds x 5 =
+$121,500.] and was painted for the Temple of Aesculapius at Cos,
+and afterwards placed by Augustus in the temple which he dedicated
+to Julius Caesar. The lower part of it becoming injured, no one could
+be found to repair it. Nor was there an artist who could complete
+an unfinished picture which he left. He was a man who courted
+criticism, and who was unenvious of the fame of rivals. He was
+a great admirer and friend of Protogenes of Rhodes, who was his
+equal in finish, but who never knew, as Apelles did, when to
+cease correcting. [Footnote: Cicero, _Brut._ 18; _De Orat._
+iii. 7. Martial, xxx. 9. Ovid, _Art. Anc._ iii. 403. Pliny, xxxv.
+37.]
+
+[Sidenote: Introduction of pictures into Rome.]
+
+After Apelles, the art of painting declined, although great painters
+occasionally appeared, especially from the school of Sicyon, which was
+renowned for nearly two hundred years. The destruction of Corinth by
+Mummius, B.C. 146, gave a severe blow to Grecian art. He carried to Rome
+more works, or destroyed them, than all his predecessors combined.
+Sylla, when he spoiled Athens, inflicted a still greater injury, and,
+from that time, artists resorted to Rome and Alexandria and other
+flourishing cities for patronage and remuneration. The masterpieces of
+famous artists brought enormous prices, and Greece and Asia were
+ransacked for old pictures. The paintings which Aemilius Paulus brought
+from Greece required two hundred and fifty wagons to carry them in the
+triumphal procession. With the spoliation of Greece, the migration of
+artists commenced, and this spoliation of Greece and Asia and Sicily
+continued for two centuries; and such was the wealth of Rhodes in works
+of art that three thousand statues were found for the conquerors. Nor
+could there have been less at Athens, Olympia, or Delphi. Scaurus had
+all the public pictures of Sicyon transported to Rome. Verres plundered
+every temple and public building in Sicily.
+
+[Sidenote: High value placed by them on painting.]
+
+Thus Rome was possessed of the finest paintings of the world, without
+the slightest claim to the advancement of the art. And if the opinion of
+Sir Joshua Reynolds is correct, art could soar no higher in the realm of
+painting, as well as of statuary. Yet the Romans learned to place as
+high value on the works of Grecian genius as the English do on the
+paintings of the old masters of Italy and Flanders. And if they did not
+add to the art, they gave such encouragement that, under the emperors,
+it may be said to have been flourishing. Varro had a gallery of seven
+hundred portraits of eminent men. [Footnote: Pliny, H. N. xxx. 2.] The
+portraits as well as the statues of the great were placed in the
+temples, libraries, and public buildings. The baths especially were
+filled with paintings.
+
+[Sidenote: Subjects among the Greeks.]
+
+The great masterpieces of the Greeks were either historical or
+mythological. Paintings of gods and heroes, groups of men and women, in
+which character and passion could be delineated, were the most highly
+prized. It was in the expression given to the human figure--in beauty of
+form and countenance, in which all the emotions of the soul as well as
+the graces of the body were portrayed--that the Greek artists sought to
+reach the ideal, and to gain immortality. And they painted for people
+who naturally had taste and sensibility.
+
+[Sidenote: Landscape Painting.]
+
+Among the Romans, portrait, decorative, and scene painting engrossed the
+art, much to the regret of such critics as Pliny and Vitruvius. Nothing
+could be in more execrable taste than a colossal painting of Nero, one
+hundred and twenty feet high. From the time of Augustus, landscape
+decorations were common, and were carried out with every species of
+license. Among the Greeks we do not read of landscape painting. This has
+been reserved for our age, and is much admired, as it was at Rome in its
+latter days. Mosaic gradually superseded painting in Rome. It was first
+used for floors, but finally walls and ceilings were ornamented with it,
+like St. Peter's at Rome. Many ancient mosaics have been preserved which
+attest beauty of design of the highest character, like the Battle of
+Issus, lately discovered at Pompeii.
+
+In fact, neither statuary nor painting was advanced by the Romans. They
+had no sensibility, or conception of ideal beauty. The divine spark of
+genius animated the Greeks alone. Still the wonders of Grecian art were
+possessed by the Romans, and were made to adorn those grand
+architectural monuments for which they had a taste. Greek productions
+were not merely matters of property, they were copied and reproduced in
+all the cities of the Mediterranean; and though no artist of original
+genius arose from Augustus to Constantine, galleries of art existed
+everywhere in which the masterpieces of Polygnotus, Pausias, Aristides,
+Timanthes, Zeuxis, Parrhasius, Pamphilus, Euphranor, Protogenes,
+Apelles, Timomachus, and of other illustrious men, were objects of as
+much praise as the galleries of Dresden and Florence.
+
+[Sidenote: Probable perfection of the ancients in painting.]
+
+"The glorious art of these masters, as far as regards tone, light, and
+local color," says Muller, "is lost to us, and we know nothing of it
+except from obscure notices and later imitations; on the contrary, the
+pictures on vases give us the most exalted idea of the progress and
+achievements of the arts of design." [Footnote: Muller, Ancient Art,
+143.] It is surprising that, with four colors, the Greeks should have
+achieved such miracles of beauty and finish as are represented by the
+greatest cities of antiquity. The great wonders of the schools of
+Ephesus, Athens, and Sicyon have perished, and we cannot judge of their
+merits as we can of the statues which have fortunately been preserved.
+Whether Polygnotus was equal to Michael Angelo, Zeuxis to Raphael, and
+Apelles to Titian, we have no means of settling. But it is scarcely to
+be questioned that critics like the Greeks, whose opinions respecting
+architecture and sculpture coincide with our own, could have erred in
+their verdicts respecting those great paintings which extorted the
+admiration of the world, and were held, even in the decline of art, in
+such high value, not merely in the cities where they were painted, but
+in those to which they were transferred. What _has_ descended to
+our times, like the mural decorations of Pompeii and the designs on
+vases, go to prove the perfection which was attained in painting, as
+well as sculpture and architecture.
+
+[Sidenote: Perfection of art among the ancients.]
+
+And thus, in all those arts of which modern civilization is proudest,
+and in which the genius of man has soared to the loftiest heights, the
+ancients were not merely our equals: they were our superiors. It is
+greater to originate than to copy. In architecture, in sculpture, and in
+painting the Greeks attained absolute perfection. Any architect of our
+time, who should build an edifice in different proportions than those
+which were recognized in the great cities of antiquity, would make a
+mistake. Who can improve upon the Doric columns of the Parthenon, or the
+Corinthian capitals of the Temple of Jupiter? Indeed, it is in
+proportion as we accurately copy the faultless models of the age of
+Pericles that excellence with us is attained. When we differ from them
+we furnish grounds of just criticism. So, in sculpture, the Greek Slave
+is a reproduction of an ancient Venus, and the Moses of Michael Angelo
+is a Jupiter in repose. It is only when the artist seeks to bring out
+the purest and loftiest sentiments of the soul, and such as only
+Christianity can inspire, that he may hope to surpass the sculpture of
+antiquity in one department of the art alone--in expression, rather than
+beauty of form, on which no improvement can be made. And if we possessed
+the Venus of Apelles, as we can boast of having the sculptured Venus of
+Cleomenes, we should probably discover greater richness of coloring, as
+well as grace of figure, than in that famous Titian which is one of the
+proudest ornaments of the galleries of Florence, and one of the greatest
+marvels of Italian art.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+REFERENCES.--Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art; Muller's Remains of
+Ancient Art; A. J. Guattani, Antiq. de la Grande Grece; Mazois, Antiq.
+de Pomp.; Sir W. Gill, Pompeiana; Donaldson's Antiquities of Athens;
+Vitruvius, Stuart, Chandler, Clarke, Dodwell, Cleghorn, De Quincey.
+These are some of the innumerable authorities on Architecture among the
+ancients.
+
+In Sculpture, Pliny and Cicero are the most noted critics. There is a
+fine article in the Encyclopedia Britannica on this subject. In Smith's
+Dictionary are the lives and works of the most noted masters. Muller's
+Ancient Art alludes to the leading masterpieces. Montfaucon's Antiquite
+expliquee en Figures; Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, by the Society of
+Diettanti, London, 1809; Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by
+Taylor Combe; Millin, Introduction a l'etude des Monumens Antiques;
+Monumens Inedits d'Antiquite figuree, recuellis et publies par Raoul-
+Rochette; Gerhard's Archaol. Zeit.; David's Essai sur le Classement
+Chronol. des Sculpteurs Grecs les plus celebres.
+
+In Painting, see Caylus, Memoires de l'ac des Inscr. Levesque, sur les
+Progres successifs de la Peinture chez les Grecs; I. I. Grund, Mahlerei
+der Griechen; Meyer's Kunstgischichte; Muller, Hist, of Ancient Art;
+Article on Painting, Ency. Brit., Article "Pictura," Smith's Dict.;
+Fuseli's Lectures; Sir Joshua Reynolds' Lectures. Lanzi's History of
+Painting refers to the revival of the art. Vitruvius speaks at some
+length on ancient wall paintings. The finest specimens of ancient
+painting are found in catacombs, the baths, and the ruins of Pompeii. On
+this subject, Winckelmann is the great authority.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman creators of civilization.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Romans sought to govern.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Romans sought to govern through laws.]
+
+[Sidenote: Roman sense of justice.]
+
+It is not from a survey of the material grandeur, or the arts, or the
+military prowess of Rome that we get the highest idea of her
+civilization. These indicate strength and even genius; but the checks
+and balances which were gradually introduced into the government of the
+city and empire, by which society was kept together, and a great
+prosperity secured for centuries, also show great foresight and
+practical wisdom. A State which favored individual development while it
+promoted law and order; which secured liberty, while it made the
+government stable and respectable; which guaranteed rights to the poorer
+citizens, while it placed power in the hands of those who were most
+capable of wielding it for the general good, is well worth our
+contemplation. The idea of aggrandizement was, it must be confessed, the
+most powerful which entered into the Roman mind; but the principles of
+national unity, the welfare of citizens, the reign of law, the security
+of property, the network of trades and professions, also received
+attention there. The aspirations for liberty and national prosperity
+never left the Roman mind. The Romans were great creators of
+civilization, though in a different sense from the Greeks. What the
+principles of art were to the Greeks, those of government were to the
+Romans. If the Greeks made statues, the Romans made laws. If the former
+speculated on the beautiful, or the good, or the true, the latter
+realized the boast of Diogenes--the power to govern men. The passion for
+government was the most powerful which a Roman citizen felt, next to the
+passion for war. For five hundred years after the expulsion of the
+kings, there was the most perfect system of checks and balances in the
+government of the state known in the ancient world, and which is
+scarcely rivaled in the modern. Power was so wisely distributed that not
+even a successful general was able to gain a dangerous preeminence.
+Every citizen was a politician, and every Senator a statesman. For five
+hundred years there was neither anarchy nor military despotism. If every
+citizen knew how to fight, every citizen also knew how to govern, to
+submit. No consul dared to exceed his trust; no general, till Caesar,
+ventured to cross the Rubicon. The Roman Senate never lost its dignity--
+a supreme body which controlled all public interests. The Romans were
+sufficiently wise to bend to circumstances. Though proud, the patricians
+made concessions to plebeians whenever it was necessary. The right of
+citizenship was gradually extended throughout the Empire. Paul lived in
+a remote city of Asia Minor, but, by virtue of his citizenship, could
+appeal to a higher court than that of the governor. The Romans
+succeeded, by their wisdom, in extending their institutions over the
+countries they had conquered; and every part of the Empire was well
+governed even when military despotism had overturned the ancient
+constitution. There were, of course, cases of extortion and injustice,
+and most governors made large fortunes; yet the provinces were better
+administered, and the rule was more in accordance with justice than
+under the native princes. Throughout the vast limits of the Empire, life
+and property were safe, and the roads were free of robbers; nor were
+there riots in the cities, except on very rare occasions, in which they
+were put down with merciless severity. Yet a few hundred men were enough
+to preserve order in the largest cities, and a few thousand in the most
+extensive provinces. Even under the most tyrannical emperors, justice
+and order were enforced. The government was never better administered
+than by Tiberius, and further, was never better administered than when
+he was abandoned to pleasure in his guarded villa at Capri. There was
+the passion to govern the world, but in accordance with laws. The rule
+of the Romans was not that of brute force, even when the army was at the
+control of the Emperors. The citizens, to the last, enjoyed great social
+and political rights. They had great immunities, in reference to
+marriage, and the making of wills, and the possession of property. Their
+persons were secured from the disgrace of corporal punishment; they
+could appeal from the decision of magistrates; they were eligible to
+public offices; they were exempted from many oppressive taxes which
+still grind down the people in the most civilized states of Europe. The
+government of Octavius was the mildest despotism ever known to the
+ancient world. That Ulysses of state craft exercised the most extensive
+powers under the ancient forms, and all the early emperors disguised
+rather than paraded their powers. Contented with real power, the Roman
+was careless of its display. He had the tact to rule without seeming to
+rule; but rule he must, though not until he had first learned to obey--
+obedience to laws and domination were inseparably connected. This made
+the Roman yoke endurable, because it was not offensive or unjust. The
+Romans were masters of the world by conquest, yet ruled the world they
+had subdued by arms in accordance with laws based on the principles of
+equity. This sense of justice, in the enjoyment of unbounded domination,
+undoubtedly gave permanence to their government. The centurion was ever
+present to enforce a decree, but the decree was in accordance with
+justice. This was the idea, the recognized principle of government,
+although often abused. Paul appealed to Caesar. He might have been
+released by the governor, had he not appealed. Here was justice to Paul
+in allowing the appeal; and still greater justice in keeping him in
+bonds until acquitted by Caesar himself. [Sidenote: Degeneracy under
+emperors.]
+
+[Sidenote: Skill of the Romans for government.]
+
+[Sidenote: On what the prosperity was based.]
+
+[Sidenote: Government the great art and science of the Romans.]
+
+[Sidenote: Prosperity of the government.]
+
+It must, however, be confessed that, after the Caesars were fairly
+established on their throne, a great indifference to public affairs
+ensued. Every office was then, directly or indirectly, in the hands of
+the emperor. Cicero expressed the popular sentiment of his day when he
+said, "that was the most perfect government which was a combination of
+popular and aristocratic authority;"--but in the eighth century of the
+city, the system of checks and balances would have fallen to pieces in
+the hands of a degenerate people. A constitutional monarchy even was no
+longer possible. The vices of the oligarchy, and the fierce reactions of
+the democracy, had destroyed all the dreams of the earlier patriots. The
+mass of the people had long been passive under the sway of factions and
+political intriguers, and they resigned themselves to the despotism of
+the emperor without a struggle. But even in this degradation the power
+of government remained among the leading classes. The governors of
+provinces, taken generally from the Senate and the nobles, were skillful
+in their administration of public affairs. They were enlightened in all
+political duties. The traditional ideas of government survived for
+several generations, even as the mechanism of the army made it powerful
+after all real spirit had fled. The Roman still regarded himself as the
+favorite of the gods, destined to achieve a vast mission, even the
+reduction of the world to political unity. Augustus made every effort,
+while he reigned, in the ruin of political institutions, to revive the
+forms and traditions of other days. The patricians were favored and
+honored, and the Senate still was made to appear august, with a
+prostrate world at its feet, to which it was bound to dictate laws and
+institutions. Political unity was the grand idea of the Romans, and this
+idea has survived to our own times. It was one of the great elements of
+Roman civilization. Universal empire was based, in the better days of
+the Republic, on public morality, in the iron discipline of families, in
+a marvelously well-trained soldiery, in a military system which made the
+civil society an army almost ready for the field, in a recognition of
+public rights and duties, in a wise system of colonization, in
+conciliatory conduct to the conquered races, and in a central power as
+the dispenser of all honor and emoluments. The civil wars broke up, in a
+measure, this wise and considerate policy; still citizenship extended to
+all parts of the empire, even when it was manifest it must soon fall
+into the hands of barbarians. And as for the administration of justice,
+it was probably better conducted under the emperors than under the
+supreme rule of the Senate. Even bad emperors knew how to govern. To the
+Roman mind every thing was subordinate to the art of government. And
+every characteristic fitted the Romans to govern--energy of will,
+practical good sense, the conception of justice, an unyielding pride,
+fortitude, courage, and lust of power. And the spirit of domination was
+carried out into every thing. It was made a science, an art. Whatever
+would contribute to the ascendency of the state was remorselessly
+adopted; whatever would interfere with it was abandoned or swept away.
+Fierce and tolerant by turns, and as circumstances prompted--such was
+the Roman. With submission life was easy, and the government was mild.
+And the supreme government rarely entrusted power except to faithful,
+capable, and patriotic rulers. The wisest and best were selected for
+important offices. The governors of provinces were men of great
+experience; they were generals and senators who had passed their term of
+active service. They easily made great mistakes. They carried out the
+policy of the State. They were acquainted with laws, and the customs of
+the people whom they ruled. They were versed in the literature of their
+day. They were men of dignity and fortune. They were moderate,
+conciliatory, and firm. They were models for rulers for all subsequent
+ages. There were, of course, exceptions, but the small number of riots
+and rebellions shows the contentment of the people, for they were not
+ground down by oppressive laws and exactions, until their spirit was
+broken. How munificent were the emperors to such cities as Athens and
+Alexandria! Athens was the seat of learning and culture, to the very end
+of the empire. Arts and literature and science were fostered in all the
+cities. They were adopted as parts of the empire, not treated like
+conquered territories. After the destruction of Carthage, the Romans had
+no jealousy of cities that once were equals. Their arts were made to
+subserve Roman greatness, indeed, but they were left free to develop
+their resources. The development of resources was a vital principle of
+the Roman government. Spain, Syria, and Egypt, were never more
+prosperous than under the imperial rule. All the provinces were more
+thriving under the emperors than they had been under their ancient
+kings, until the era of barbaric invasions. If war had been the mission
+of the republic, peace was the pride of the empire. There were no wars
+of importance for three hundred years, except those of necessity. The
+end of the emperors was to govern, to preserve peace, and secure
+obedience to the laws.
+
+[Sidenote: The aristocracy the real rulers of the state.]
+
+[Sidenote: Defects of Democratic ascendency.]
+
+[Sidenote: The people unfit to govern when unenlightened.]
+
+[Sidenote: Popular element in the Roman state.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rich Plebeians had a great influence in the government.]
+
+But we must bear in mind that, whatever were the popular rights enjoyed
+in the republican era, and however vast were the powers wielded by the
+emperors after liberty had fled, yet the constitution of Roman society
+was essentially aristocratic. All the great conquests were made under
+the rule of patricians, and all the leading men under the emperors were
+nobles. The government was virtually, from first to last, in the hands
+of the aristocracy. Still there was an important popular element,
+especially in the latter days of the republic, to which revolutionary
+leaders appealed, like the Gracchi, Marius, Catiline, and Caesar. One of
+the most humiliating lessons which we learn of antiquity, we are forced
+to own, was the signal incapacity of the people to govern themselves,
+when they had obtained a greater share of power than the old
+constitution had allowed. The republic did not long survive when
+successful generals and eloquent demagogues were sustained by the
+people. Had Rome been a democracy, as some suppose, the empire never
+could have been established. We comfort ourselves, however, by the
+reflection, that when the people surrendered themselves to factions and
+demagogues and tyrants, they were both ignorant and depraved. Self-
+government has never yet succeeded, because there have never been virtue
+and intelligence among the masses. So long as we can boast of virtue and
+intelligence among the people, we need not despair with the government
+in their hands. An enlightened self-interest will suggest the wisest
+policy. We only despair of the government of the people when they are
+ignorant, brutal, and wicked. As there was no period in the ancient
+world when they were not unenlightened, we are reconciled to the fact
+that a wise and vigorous administration of public affairs was always
+conducted by kings or nobles who had intelligence and patriotism, if
+they were proud and imperious. Whatever faith we may justly cherish in
+reference to popular sovereignty, grounded on the principles of natural
+justice, and the hopes which are held out as the fruit of Christian
+ideas, still, as a fact, there is but little in the history of the Roman
+commonwealth which reflects much glory on the people, except when
+controlled and marshalled by the aristocracy. Just so far as the popular
+element prevailed, the state was hurried on to ruin. The aristocratical
+element had the ascendency when Rome was most prosperous and most
+respected. Yet, while the Roman constitution was essentially
+aristocratic for five hundred years, it had a strong popular element
+mingled with it. The patricians had the chief power, but they were not
+lords and masters in so absolute a sense as to trample on the people
+with impunity, nor were they able to deprive them of their rights, or of
+all share in the government. They were not feudal nobles, nor a Venetian
+oligarchy. And yet it were a mistake to suppose that the distinction
+between the classes implied that the aristocratic power was lodged with
+the patricians alone. The patricians were not necessarily aristocrats,
+nor the plebeians a rabble. The political distinctions passed away
+without destroying social inequalities. There were great families among
+the plebeians which really belonged to the aristocratic class, at least
+in the time of Cicero. Aristocracy may have been based on birth, as in
+England, but it was sustained by wealth, as in that country. A very rich
+man gained, ultimately, admission to the noble class, as Rothschild has
+in London. Without wealth to uphold distinctions, any aristocracy soon
+becomes contemptible. That organization of society is most aristocratic
+which confers great political and social privileges on a few men, and
+retains these privileges from generation to generation, as in France
+during the reign of Louis XV. The state of society at Rome under the
+republic, favored the monopoly of offices among powerful families. It
+was considered very remarkable for even Cicero to rise to the highest
+honors of the state with his magnificent genius, character, attainments,
+and services; but he shared the consulship with a man of very ordinary
+capacity. The great offices were all in the hands of the aristocracy,
+from the expulsion of the kings to the times of Julius Caesar. Even the
+tribunes of the people ultimately were selected from powerful families.
+
+[Sidenote: The Patricians.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman _Gens_.]
+
+The Roman people--_Romanus populus_--under the kings, the original
+citizens, were the warriors who built Rome, and conquered the
+surrounding cities and districts. They were called _patres_, which
+is synonymous with Patricians. [Footnote: Cicero, _De Repub._, ii.
+12 Liv., i. 8.] They were united among themselves by kindred and by
+political and religious ties. They supported themselves by agriculture
+although engaged continually in war. They consisted originally of three
+tribes, which gradually were united into the sovereign people. The first
+tribe was a Latin colony, and settled on the Palatine Hill; the second
+were Sabine settlers on the Quirinal; the third were Etruscans, who
+occupied the Caelian. They were distinct, at first, and were not united
+fully till the time of Tarquinius Priscus, himself an Etruscan.
+[Footnote: Dionys., ii. 62.] As there were no other Roman citizens but
+these patricians, they had no exclusive rights under the kings, and
+hence there was then no aristocracy of birth. Each of these three tribes
+of citizens consisted of ten curiae, and each curia of ten decuries, or
+gentes. The three tribes, therefore, contained three hundred gentes. A
+gens was a family, and the gentes were aggregates of kindred families.
+[Footnote: Nieb., Lect. V.] The name of a gens was generally
+characterized by the termination _eia_ or _ia_, as Julia, Cornelia,
+and it is to be presumed that each gens had a common ancestor.
+But with the growth of the city it came to pass that a gens often
+included a great number of families; we read of three hundred Fabii
+forming the gens Fabia in the year 275. These families composed,
+ultimately, the aristocracy. They were the people who filled all
+offices, and alone had the right of voting in the assemblies. As the
+gentes were subdivisions of the three ancient tribes, the _populus_
+alone had _gentes_, so that to be a patrician and to have a gens
+were synonymous. With the growth of Rome new gentes or families were
+added which did not claim descent from the ancient tribes. The powerful
+gens of the Claudia came to Rome with Atta Claudius, their head, after
+the expulsion of the kings. Tullus Hostilius incorporated the Julii,
+Servilii and other gentes with the patricians. This ruling class, the
+descendants of the conquerors, became a powerful aristocracy, and
+ultimately learned to value pride of blood. There are very few names in
+Roman history, until the time of Marius, which did not belong to this
+noble class. What proud families were the Servilii, the Claudii, the
+Julii, the Cornelii, the Fabii, the Valerii, the Sempronii, the Octavii,
+the Sergii, and others. [Footnote: Liv., i. 33. Dionys., iii. 31.]
+
+The _Equites_ were originally elected from the patricians, and were
+cavalry soldiers, and did not form a distinct class till the time of the
+Gracchi. They were composed of rich citizens, whose wealth enabled them
+to become judices. They had the privilege of wearing a gold ring, and
+had seats reserved for them, like the Senate, at the theatre and circus.
+They increased in number with the increase of wealth, and formed an
+honorable corps from which the highest officers of the army and the
+civil magistrates were chosen. Admission to this body was an
+introduction to public life, and was a test of social position. It was
+composed of rich plebeians as well as patricians, and was based wholly
+on wealth. Pliny says, "It became the third order in the state, and to
+the title of _Senatus Populusque Romanus_, there began to be added,
+_et Equestris ordo_."
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman plebs.]
+
+[Sidenote: The tribunes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gradual increase of their power.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their usurpations.]
+
+Beside this _Romanus populus_, which constituted the ruling class
+under kings, was another body, made up of conquered people. In early
+times their number was small, nor did they appear as a distinct class
+until the reign of Tullus Hostilius. After the subjection of Alba, the
+head of the Latin Confederacy, great numbers were transferred to Rome,
+and received settlements on the Caelian Hill, and were kept under
+submission to the patricians. As the Roman conquests extended, their
+numbers increased, until they formed the larger part of the population.
+They were called _plebs_, or commonalty, and had no political
+privileges whatever. They had not even the right of suffrage; but they
+were enrolled in the army, [Footnote: Liv., i. 33. Dionys., iii. 31. ]
+and made to bear the expenses of the state. At first they were not
+allowed to intermarry with the patricians. Their oppression provoked
+resistance. The struggle which ensued is one of the most memorable in
+Roman history. The haughty oligarchy were obliged gradually to concede
+rights. These rights the _plebs_ retained. First they gained a law
+which prevented patricians from taking usurious interest. They secured
+the appointment of tribunes for their protection. Soon after they had
+the right of summoning before their own _Comitia tributa_ any one
+who violated their rights. In 449 they had influence sufficient to
+establish the Connubium, by which they could intermarry with patricians.
+In 421 the plebeians were admitted to the quaestorship. Then, after a
+fierce contest, they were made decemvirs. Their next right was the
+dignity of the consulship, and led to the dictatorship. In 351 they
+secured the censorship, and in 336 the praetorship. Political
+distinctions now vanished. The possession of a share of the great
+offices created powerful families, and these were incorporated with the
+aristocracy. The great privilege of securing tribunes was the first step
+to political power, and the most important in the constitutional history
+of the state. And it was the tribunes who gradually usurped the greatest
+powers. They assumed the right, in 456, of convoking even the Senate.
+They also had the right to be present in the deliberations of the
+Senate; as their persons were inviolable, they interceded against any
+action which a magistrate might undertake during his term of office, and
+even a command issued by a praetor. They could compel the Senate to
+submit a question to a fresh consultation, and ultimately compelled the
+consuls to appoint a dictator. Their power grew to such a height that
+they acquired the right of proposing to the _Comitia tributa_, or
+the Senate, measures on nearly all the important affairs of the state,
+and finally were elected from among the Senators themselves.
+
+[Sidenote: Advancement of Plebeians.]
+
+Through the institution of tribunes, and other circumstances, especially
+the increase of wealth, the plebeians, originally so unimportant and
+insignificant that they could not obtain admission into the Senate, nor
+the high offices of state, nor the occupancy of the public lands,
+ultimately obtained all the rights of the patricians, so that gradually
+the political distinctions between patricians and plebeians vanished
+altogether, 286 B.C., and the term _populus_ was applied to them as
+well as to the patricians. [Footnote: Liv., iv. 44; v. 11,12. Cicero
+_de Repub._, ii. 37.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gradual increase of their power.]
+
+These rights were only secured by bitter and fierce contests. The
+plebeians, during their long struggle, did not seek power to gratify
+their ambition, but to protect themselves from oppression. Nor was the
+power which they obtained abused until near the close of the Republic.
+
+But while they ultimately were blended, politically, with the
+patricians, still the latter monopolized most of the great offices of
+the state until the time of Cicero, and socially, always were
+preeminent. Yet there were many noble plebeian families who were blended
+with the aristocratic class. Aristocracy survived, after the political
+distinctions between the two classes were abrogated. Rome was never a
+democracy. Great families, whether patrician or plebeian, controlled the
+State, either by their wealth or social connections. The Roman nobility
+was really composed of all the families rendered illustrious by the
+offices they had filled. And as the great officers were taken generally
+from the Senate, that body was particularly august.
+
+[Sidenote: The Senate.]
+
+[Sidenote: The prerogative of Senators.]
+
+Until the usurpation of Caesar, the Senate was the great controlling
+power of the republic. It not only had peculiar privileges and powers,
+but a monopoly of offices. It always remained powerful, in spite of the
+victories of the plebeians. The laws proclaimed equality, but for fifty-
+nine years after the plebeians had the right of appointment as military
+tribunes, only eighteen were plebeians, [Footnote: _Hist. Julius
+Caesar_, by Napoleon; chap. ii. 5.] while two hundred and forty-six
+were patricians; and while the right of admission to the Senate was
+acknowledged on principle, yet no one could enter it without having
+obtained a decree of the censor, or exercised a curule magistracy,--
+favors almost always reserved for the aristocracy. The Senate was a
+judicial and legislative body, and numbered for several centuries but
+three hundred men, selected from the patricians. At first they were
+appointed by the kings, afterwards by the consuls, and subsequently by
+the censors. But as all those who had been appointed by the
+_populus_ to the great offices had admission into this body, the
+people, that is, the patricians, virtually nominated the candidates for
+the Senate. But all magistrates were not necessarily members of the
+Senate, only those whom the censors selected from among them, and the
+curule magistrates during their office. It was from these curule
+magistrates that vacancies were filled up. The office of senator was for
+life. When the plebeians obtained the great offices, the Senate of
+course represented the whole people, as it formerly had represented the
+_populus_. But it was never a democratic assembly, for all its
+members belonged to the nobles. It required, under Augustus, 1,200,000
+sesterces to support the senatorial dignity. Only a rich man could be,
+therefore, a senator. Nor could he carry on any mercantile business. The
+Senate was ever composed of men who had rendered great public services,
+or who were distinguished for wealth and talents. It was probably the
+most dignified and the proudest body of men ever assembled. The powers
+of the Senate were enormous. It had the general superintendence of
+matters of religion and foreign relations; it commanded the levies of
+troops; it regulated duties and taxes; it gave audience to ambassadors;
+it proposed, for a long time, the candidates for office to the
+_Comitia_; it determined upon the way that war should be conducted;
+it decreed to what provinces the consuls and praetors should be sent; it
+appointed governors of provinces; it sent out embassies to foreign
+states; it carried on the negotiations with foreign ambassadors; it
+declared martial law in the appointment of dictators, and it decreed
+triumphs to fortunate generals. In short it was the supreme power in the
+state, and was the medium through which all the affairs of government
+passed. It was neither an hereditary, nor a popular body, yet
+represented the state--at first the patrician order, and finally the
+whole people, retaining to the end its aristocratic character. The
+senators wore on their tunics a broad purple stripe,--a badge of
+distinction, like a modern decoration,--and they had the exclusive
+rights of the orchestra at theatres and amphitheatres. [Footnote: See
+article in Smith's _Dict. of Ant._, by Dr. Schmitz.] Under the
+emperors, the Senate was degraded, and was made entirely subservient to
+their will, and a mouth-piece; still it survived all the changes of the
+constitution, and was always a dignified and privileged body. It
+combined, in its glory, more functions than the English Parliament; it
+was convoked by the curule magistrates, and finally by the tribunes. The
+most ancient place of assembly was the Curia Hostilia, though
+subsequently many temples were used. The majority of votes decided a
+question, and the order in which senators spoke and voted was determined
+by their rank, in the following order: president of the Senate, consuls,
+censors, praetors, aediles, tribunes, quaestors. Their decisions, called
+_Senatus Consulta_, were laws--_leges_--and were entrusted to
+the care of aediles and tribunes. [Footnote: Nieb. _Roman Hist._,
+viii. p. 264.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Senate composed of patricians and plebeians.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Senate hold the great offices of state.]
+
+Such was the Roman Senate--an assembly of nobles, whether patrician or
+plebeian. The descendants of all who had filled curule magistracies were
+_nobiles_, and had the privilege of placing in the atrium of the
+house the images and titles of their ancestors--an heraldic distinction
+in substance. And as the patricians carried back their pedigree to the
+remotest historical period, there was great pride of blood. Few
+plebeians could boast of a remote and illustrious ancestry, and every
+plebeian who obtained a curule office, was the founder of his family's
+nobility, like Cicero--a _novus homo_. This nobility contrived to
+keep possession of all the great offices, and it was difficult for a new
+man to get access to their ranks. The distinction of Patrician
+and Plebeian was secondary, after the _Gracchi_ to that of
+_Nobilitas_, yet it was rare to find a patrician gens the families
+of which had not enjoyed the highest honors many times over. Thus the
+aristocracy was composed of the families of those who had held the
+highest offices of the state; but as these offices were controlled by
+the Senate and enjoyed by the patricians chiefly, it was difficult to
+determine whether nobility was the result of patrician blood, or the
+possession of great offices. A man could scarcely be a patrician who had
+not held a great office; nor could he often hold a great office unless
+he were a patrician. The great offices were held in succession by the
+members of the Senate. The two consuls, the ten tribunes, the eight
+praetors in the time of Sulla--the twenty quaestors, together with the
+governors of provinces, and the generals who were selected from the
+Senate, or belonged to it, would necessarily compose a large part of the
+nobility, when their term of office lasted but a limited time, so that a
+senator with any ability was sure, in the course of his life, of the
+highest honors of the state.
+
+[Sidenote: But only those who had distinguished themselves.]
+
+The great executive officers, therefore, belonged to the noble class,
+not of necessity, but as a general thing. Cicero was a _novus
+homo_, and yet rose by his talents to the highest dignities. It was
+rare, however, to confer the highest offices on those who had not
+distinguished themselves in war. Military fame, after all, gave the
+greatest prestige to the Roman name. Consuls commanded armies, but they
+would not have been chosen consuls except for military, as well as
+political, talent.
+
+[Sidenote: The Consuls.]
+
+The consul was, after the abolition of the monarchy, the highest officer
+of the state. It was not till the year 366 B.C. that a plebeian obtained
+this dignity. The powers of consuls were virtually those of the old
+kings, with the exception of priestly authority. They convened the
+Senate, introduced ambassadors, called together the people, conducted
+elections, commanded the armies and never appeared in public without
+lictors. Nor were they shorn of their powers till Julius Caesar assumed
+the dictatorship. The whole internal machinery of the state was under
+their control. But their term of office lasted only a single year. Their
+election took place in the _Comitia Centuriata_.
+
+[Sidenote: The censors.]
+
+The censors were next in dignity, and like the consuls, there were two,
+and elected in the same manner under the presidency of a consul; only
+men of consular rank were chosen to this high office, and hence it was
+really higher than the consulship. The censors were chosen for a longer
+term than the consuls, and had the oversight of the public morals, the
+care of the census, and the administration of the finances. They could
+brand with ignominy the highest persons of the state, and could elect to
+the Senate, and exclude from it unworthy men. They had, with the aediles,
+the control of the public buildings and all public works. They could
+take away from a knight his horse, and punish extravagance in living, or
+the improper dissolution of the marriage rite. They were held in the
+greatest reverence, and when they died were honored with magnificent
+funerals.
+
+[Sidenote: The praetors.]
+
+Next in rank were the praetors, at first two in number, and ultimately
+sixteen. They exercised the judicial power, both in civil and criminal
+cases.
+
+[Sidenote: The aediles.]
+
+The aediles were also curule magistrates, and to them was entrusted the
+care of the public buildings, and the superintendence of public
+festivals. They were the keepers of the decrees of the Senate, and of
+the plebiscita. They superintended the distribution of water, the care
+of the streets, the drainage of the city, and the distribution of corn
+to the people. It was their business to see that no new deities were
+introduced, and they had the general superintendence of the police, and
+the inspection of baths. Their office entailed large expenses, and they
+were forced into great extravagance to gain popularity, as in the case
+of Julius Caesar and Aemilius Scaurus; but the aediles exercised extensive
+powers, which, however, were essentially diminished under the emperors.
+
+[Sidenote: The tribunes.]
+
+Allusion has already been made to the tribunes, in connection with the
+development of the plebeian power. At first they were only two, then in
+creased to five, and finally to ten. It was their business to protect
+the plebs from the oppression of nobles, but their authority was so much
+increased in the time of Julius Caesar that they could veto an ordinance
+of the Senate. [Footnote: Caesar, _De Beil Civ_., 1, 2.] They not
+only could stop a magistrate in his proceedings, but command their
+viatores to seize a consul or a censor, to imprison him, or throw him
+from the Tarpeian rock. [Footnote: Liv. ii. 56, iv. 26; Cicero, _De
+Legibus_, iii. 9.] The college of tribunes had the power of making
+edicts. After the passage of the Hortensian law, there was no power
+equal to theirs, and they could dictate even to the Senate itself. In
+the latter days of the republic, the tribunes were generally elected
+from among the senators. It was the vast influence which the people had
+obtained through the tribunes which led to the usurpation of Caesar; for
+he, as well as Marius, rose into power by courting them against the
+interests of the aristocracy.
+
+[Sidenote: The quaestors.]
+
+The last of the great magistrates whose office entitled them to a seat
+in the Senate were the quaestors, who had charge of the public money.
+Originally only two in number, they were raised by Sulla to twenty, and
+by Caesar to forty, for political influence. As the Senate had the
+supreme direction of the finances they were merely its agents or
+paymasters. The proconsul or praetor, who had the administration of a
+province, was attended with a quaestor to regulate the collection of the
+revenues. The quaestors also were the paymasters of the army.
+
+Such were the great executive officers of the state, having a seat in
+the Senate, and belonging to the noble class by their official position
+as well as by birth. No one could be consul until he had passed through
+all these offices successively, except the censorship.
+
+[Sidenote: Pontifex maximus.]
+
+There was, however, another great Roman dignitary who held his office
+for life, which was one of transcendent importance. He was at the head
+of the college of priests, which had the superintendence of all matters
+of religion. The college of pontiffs, of which, under Julius Caesar,
+there were sixteen, were not priests, but stood above all priests, and
+regulated the worship of the gods, and punished offenses against
+religion. The chief pontiff lived in a public palace in the Via Sacra,
+and might also hold other offices. It is a great proof of the talents of
+Caesar and of the estimation in which he was held, that, at the age of
+thirty-seven, he was chosen to this high dignity, against the powerful
+opposition of Catulus, prince of the Senate, and when he had only
+reached the aedileship.
+
+[Sidenote: Assemblies of the people.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Comitia Cenuriata.]
+
+In regard to the assemblies of the people, where they voted for the
+great officers of state, it must be borne in mind that they were not
+made up of the rabble, but of the populus or the patricians till nearly
+the close of the republic. Each of the thirty curia had its building for
+the discussion of political and legal questions. They had also
+collectively an assembly, called _Comitia Curiata_, where the
+people voted on the measures proposed by the magistrates. The votes were
+given by the curiae, each curia having one collective vote. The assembly
+originated nothing, but decided upon the life of Roman citizens, upon
+peace and war, and the election of magistrates. This was the primitive
+form under the kings. But Servius Tullius instituted the _Comitia
+Centuriata_, and hence divided the populus into six property classes,
+and one hundred and ninety-three centuriae. The first class was composed
+of ninety-eight centuriae, with a property qualification of one hundred
+thousand asses; the second of twenty-two centuriae with seventy-five
+thousand asses; the third of twenty, with fifty thousand asses; the
+fourth of twenty-two, with twenty-five thousand asses; the fifth of
+thirty, with eleven thousand asses; and the sixth of any one of those
+below twelve and a half minae. Yet this class was the most numerous. The
+wealthier classes voted first, and when a majority of the centuries was
+obtained the voting stopped. Hence the power was virtually in the hands
+of the rich; for, united, they made a majority before the poorer classes
+were called upon to vote. The _Comitia Centuriata_ elected the
+magistrates and made laws, and formed the highest court of appeal, but
+all its decisions had to be sanctioned by the curiae, although in course
+of time the curia was a formality. The centuries met in the Campus
+Martius, and were presided over by the consuls, who read the names of
+the candidates. In the assemblies by centuries, the vote of the first
+class prevailed over all the others; in the _comitia_ by curiae the
+patricians were supreme.
+
+[Sidenote: The Comitia Tributa.]
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of power of the comitia.]
+
+The _Comitia Tributa_ represented the thirty Roman tribes according
+to the Servian constitution, to whom was originally given the right to
+elect inferior magistrates. This was a plebian assembly, and had very
+insignificant powers, chiefly relating to the local affairs of the
+tribes. But when these tribes began to be real representatives of the
+people, with the increase of the plebeian classes, matters affecting the
+whole state were brought before them by the tribunes. This gave to the
+assembly the initiative of measures, which was sanctioned by a law of L.
+Valerius Publicola, B.C. 449. This law gave to the decrees passed by the
+tribes the power of a real _lex_, binding upon the whole people,
+provided it had the sanction of the Senate and the populus in the
+_Comitia Centuriata_. In 287 B.C. the Hortensian law made the
+plebiscita independent of the sanction of the Senate. When the plebeians
+began to be recognized as an essential element in the state, it was
+found inconvenient to have the first class, which included the equites,
+so greatly preponderant in the comitia of the centuries; and it was
+designed to blend the _Comitia Centuriata_ and _the Tributa_
+in such a manner as to make only one assembly. This took place after the
+completion of the thirty-five tribes, B.C. 241. The citizens of each
+tribe were divided into five property classes, and each tribe into ten
+centuries, making three hundred and fifty centuries. This comitia was
+far more democratic than the comitia of the centuries, and was guided by
+the tribunes. When all the Italians were incorporated with the thirty-
+five tribes, violence and bribery became the order of the day. Sulla
+took away the jurisdiction of the people, and Julius Caesar encroached
+still more on popular rights when he decided upon peace and war in
+connection-with the Senate--which great question was formerly settled by
+the comitia alone. The people retained nothing under him but the
+election of magistrates, which amounted to little, since Caesar had the
+right to appoint half the magistrates himself, with the exception of the
+consuls. After the death of Caesar, the comitia continued to be held, but
+was always controlled by the rulers, whose unlimited powers were
+ultimately complied with without resistance. Finally the comitia became
+a mere farce, and all legislation passed away forever, and was
+completely in the hands of the emperor and Senate.
+
+[Sidenote: The nobles retain the chief ascendency.]
+
+[Sidenote: The dictator.]
+
+[Sidenote: The idea of popular government.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Senate retains all real power.]
+
+Thus it would appear that the Roman constitution was essentially
+aristocratic, especially for three hundred years after the expulsion
+of kings. The _Senate_ and the _populus_ had the whole power.
+Gradually, as wealth increased, the _equites_ became an influential
+order, not less aristocratical than the patricians. The _plebs_
+were not of much consideration till the time of the Gracchi, and always
+obtained office with difficulty. It was two hundred years after the
+expulsion of kings before the plebeians could even obtain a share of the
+public lands. So long as the aristocracy preserved their virtue and
+patriotism, the state was most ably administered, and continually
+increased in wealth and power. The conquest of Italy was entirely under
+the regime of nobles, and even when wealthy plebeian families mingled
+with the ancient patricians there was still great difficulty in reaching
+preferment, without the advantages of birth. [Footnote: Mommsen,
+_Roman Hist_., i. p. 241.] In fourteen years, from 399 to 412, the
+patricians allowed only six plebeians to reach the consulship. The lives
+of the citizens were protected by the laws, but public opinion remained
+powerless at the assassination of those who incurred the hatred of the
+Senate. The comitia were free, but the Senate had at its disposal either
+the veto of the tribunes or the religious scruples of the people, for a
+consul could prevent the meeting of the assemblies, and the augurs could
+cut short their deliberations. Even the dictatorship was often a means
+of oppressing the plebs, and was a lever in the hands of the
+aristocracy, since the dictator was appointed by the consuls under the
+direction of the Senate. [Footnote: Liv., viii. 23.] He was a patrician
+as a matter of course, until the political distinctions between
+patrician and plebeian were removed, and had absolute authority for six
+months. He was not held responsible for his acts while in office,
+[Footnote: Becker, _Handbuch der Romanisch Alterthumer_, vii. p. 2;
+Nieb. _History of Rome_. vol. i. p. 563.] nor was there any appeal
+from his decisions. He was preceded by twenty-four lictors, and was
+virtually supreme. Between 390 and 416 there were eighteen dictators.
+The Senate thus remained all-powerful, in spite of the victories of the
+plebeians, and such were its patriotism and intelligence that it
+preserved its preponderance. It was during the conquest of Italy that
+aristocratic power shone in all its splendor, and the most able men were
+entrusted with public affairs. Every thing was sacrificed to patriotism,
+and discipline was enforced with cruelty. The most powerful patricians
+readily exposed their lives in battle, and a town became a people which
+ultimately embraced the world. When the plebeians had grown to be a
+power the decline of the republic commenced, and a new organization was
+necessary. Great chieftains became dictators for life, and the imperial
+sceptre was seized by an unscrupulous but enlightened general. The Roman
+_populus_ in an important sense carried out the great idea of self-
+government, but, strictly speaking, self-government, as applied to the
+people generally, never existed in the Roman Commonwealth. But the idea
+was advanced which gave birth to future republics. Nor did the fall of
+the old patrician oligarchy divest the Roman commonwealth of its
+aristocratic character, for a new aristocracy arose. When the plebeian
+families obtained the consulate and other high offices of state, they
+were put on a level with the old patrician families, and were allowed
+the privilege of placing the wax images of their illustrious ancestors
+in the family hall, and to have these images carried in the funeral
+procession. As curule magistrates, they had a seat in the Senate, and
+wore the insignia of rank--the gold finger-ring and the purple border on
+the toga. "The result of the Licinian laws," says Mommsen, "in reality,
+only amounted to what we now call the creation of a new batch of
+officers." [Footnote: Mommsen, B. III. c. xi.] As all the descendants of
+those who had enjoyed the curule magistracy were entitled to the
+privilege of these distinctions, the nobility became hereditary. And as
+the great officers of state were generally selected from this class,
+since they controlled the comitia, the nobility was not merely
+hereditary, but it was a _governing_ nobility. The nobility had the
+possession of the Senate itself. It monopolized the great offices of
+state. The stability of the Roman aristocracy is seen in the fact, that,
+from the year 388 to 581, when the consulate was held by one patrician
+and one plebeian, one hundred and forty of the consuls, out of the three
+hundred and eighty-six, belonged to sixteen great houses. The Cornelii
+furnished thirty consuls in one hundred and ninety-three years, the
+Valerii eighteen, the Claudii twelve, the Aemilii fifteen, the Fabii
+twelve, the Manlii ten, the Postumii eight, the Servilii seven, the
+Sulpicii eight, the Papirii four, to say nothing of other curule
+offices. Thus the nobility was not composed exclusively of patrician
+families, although these were the most numerous, but of old plebeian
+families also, in the same way that the English House of Lords is
+composed of families which trace their origin to Saxons as well as
+Normans, although the Normans, for several centuries, were the governing
+class. And as the House of Lords has accessions occasionally from the
+ranks of the people, in consequence of great wealth, or political
+interest, or eminent genius, or signal success in war, so the Roman
+nobility was increased, as old families died out, by the successful
+generals who gained the great offices of state. Marius arose from the
+people, but his exploits in the field of battle insured his entrance
+among the nobility in consequence of the offices he held, even as the
+Lord Chancellors of England, who have been eminent lawyers merely, are
+made herditary peers in consequence of their judicial position.
+
+[Sidenote: Roman citizens.]
+
+The Roman burgesses again were any thing but a rabble. They were
+composed of men of standing and wealth. If they did not compose the
+motive-power, they constituted a firm foundation of the state. They had
+a clear conception of the common good, and a sagacity in the election of
+rulers, and a spirit of sacrifice for the general interests. They had a
+lofty patriotism that nothing could seduce. The rabble of Rome were of
+no account until the enormous wealth of the senatorial houses raised up
+clients and parasites. And when this rabble, who were merely the
+dependents of the rich, obtained the privilege of voting, then the
+decline of liberties was rapid and fearful, since they were merely the
+tools of powerful demagogues.
+
+[Sidenote: Balance of power.]
+
+Thus among the Romans, until the prostration of their liberties, the
+powers of government were not in the hands of kings, as among the
+Orientals, nor in those of the aristocracy, exclusively, nor in those of
+the people; but in all combined, one class acting as a check against
+another class. They were shared between the Senate, the magistrates, and
+the people in their assemblies. Theoretically, the _populus_ was
+the real sovereign by whom power was delegated; but, for several
+centuries, the _populus_ meant the patricians, who alone could take
+part in the assemblies. The preponderating influence was exercised by
+the Senate. The judicial, the legislative, and the executive authority
+were as clearly defined as in our times. The magistrates were all
+elected by the Senate or the people, and sometimes proposed by the one
+and confirmed by the other. No case, involving the life of a Roman
+citizen, could be decided except by the _Comitia Centuriata_. The
+election of a magistrate, or the passing of a law, though made on the
+ground of a _senatus consultum_, yet required the sanction of the
+curiae. In legislative measures, a _senatus consultum_ was brought
+before the people by the consul, or the senator who originated the
+measure, after it had previously been exhibited in public for seventeen
+days. The inferior magistrates, whose office it was to superintend
+affairs of local interest, were elected by the _Comitia Tributa_.
+All the magistrates, however great their power, could, at the expiration
+of their office, be punished for transcending their trust. No person was
+above the authority of the laws. No one class could subvert the
+liberties and prerogatives of another. The Senate had the most power,
+but it could not ride over the Constitution. The consuls were not the
+creatures of the Senate; they were elected by the centuries, and
+presided over the Senate, as well as the assembly of the people. The
+abuse of power by a consul was prevented by his colleague, and by the
+certainty of being called to account on the expiration of his office.
+His power was also limited by the Senate, since he was dependent upon
+it. There was no absolute power exercised at Rome, except by the
+dictators, but they were appointed only in a national crisis, and then
+only for six months. Unless their power were perpetuated, not even they
+could overturn the constitution. The senators again, the most powerful
+body in the state, were not entirely independent. They could not elect
+members of their own body, nor keep them in office. The censors had the
+right of electing the senators from among the ex-magistrates and the
+equites, and of excluding such as they deemed unworthy. And as the
+Senate was thus composed wholly of men who had held the highest offices
+or had great wealth, it was a body of great experience and wisdom. Yet
+even this august assembly was obliged to submit to the introduction of
+any subject of discussion by the tribune. What a counterpoise to the
+authority of this powerful body were the tribunes! From their right of
+appearing in the Senate, and of taking part in its discussions, and from
+their being the representatives of the whole people, in whom power was
+supposed primarily to be lodged, they gradually obtained the right of
+intercession against any action which a magistrate might undertake
+during the time of his office, and without giving a reason. They could
+not only prevent a consul from convening the Senate, but could veto an
+ordinance of the Senate itself. They could even seize a consul and a
+censor and imprison him. Thus was power marvelously distributed, even
+while it remained in the hands of the higher classes. The people were
+not powerless when their assemblies could make laws and appoint
+magistrates, and when their tribunes could veto the most important
+measures. The consuls could not remain in office long enough to be
+dangerous, and the senators could be ejected from their high position
+when flagrantly unworthy. "The _nobiles_ had no legal privileges
+like a feudal aristocracy, but they were bound together by a common
+distinction derived from a legal title, and by a common interest; and
+their common interest was to endeavor to confine the election to all the
+high magistracies to the members of their own body." The term
+_nobilitas_ implied that some one of a man's ancestors had filled a
+curule magistracy, and it also implied the possession of wealth.
+Theoretically it would seem that the _nobiles_ were very numerous,
+since so many people can ordinarily boast of an illustrious ancestor;
+but practically the class was not so large as we might expect. A noble
+might be poor, but still, like Sulla, he remained noble. The distinction
+of patrician was, long before the reforms of the Gracchi, of secondary
+importance; that of _nobilitas_ remained to the close of the
+republic. The nobility kept themselves exclusive and powerful from the
+possession of the great offices of state from generation to generation;
+they prevented their own extinction by admitting into their ranks those
+who distinguished themselves to an eminent degree.
+
+[Sidenote: The reign of demagogues.]
+
+But this state of things applied only to the republic in its palmy days.
+When democratical influences favored the ascendency of demagogues,--thus
+far in the history of our world, the inevitable consequence of a greater
+extension of popular liberties than what the people are prepared for,--
+then wholesome restraints were removed, and the people were the most
+enslaved, when they thought themselves most free. There is no more
+melancholy slavery than the slavery of the passions. Ignorant self-
+indulgent people are led by their passions; they are rarely influenced
+by reason or by enlightened self-interest. Those who most skillfully and
+unscrupulously appeal to popular passions, when the people have power,
+have necessarily the ascendency in the community. The people, deceived,
+flattered, headstrong, follow them willingly. In times of war, and
+especially among a martial people, military chieftains, by inflaming the
+warlike passions, by holding out exaggerated notions of glory, by
+appealing to vanity and patriotism mingled, have ever had a most
+extraordinary influence in republics. They have also great influence in
+monarchies, when the monarch is crazed by the passion of military
+success. Monarchs, with the passions of the people, are led by men who
+flatter them even as the people are led. Hence the reign of favorites
+with kings. The ascendency of favorites, with sovereigns like Louis
+XIII., or even like Louis XIV., is maintained by the same policy as that
+which animated Marius and Caesar, or animates the popular favorites of
+our times. And this ascendency may be for the better or the worse,
+according to the character of the demagogue rulers, or royal favorites.
+When a Richelieu or a Cavour holds the reins, a country may be
+indirectly benefited by the wisdom of their public acts. When a
+Buckingham or a Catiline prevails, a nation suffers a calamity. In
+either case, the power which is conceded to be legitimate becomes a
+mockery. With Caesar, the popular power is a mere name, even, as with
+Richelieu, the kingly is a shadow. In the better days of the Roman
+republic, the executive power was kept in a healthy state by the great
+authority of the Senate, and the senatorial influence was prevented from
+undue encroachment by the watchfulness of the tribunes. And when the
+aristocratical ascendency was most marked, the aristocratical body had
+too much virtue and ability to be enslaved by ambitious and able men of
+their own number. Had the Roman Senate, in the height of its power, been
+composed of ignorant, inexperienced, selfish, unpatriotic members, then
+it would have been easy for a great intellect among them, whether
+accompanied by virtue or not, by appealing perpetually to their pride,
+to their rank, to their privileges, to their peculiar passions, to have
+led them, as Pitt led the House of Commons. The real rulers of our world
+are few, in any community, or under any form of government. They are
+always dangerous, when there is a low degree of virtue or intelligence
+among those whom they represent. Certain it is, that their power is
+nearly absolute when they are sustained by passion or prejudice. The
+representative of a fanatical constituency has no continued power,
+unless he perpetually flatters those whom, in his heart, he knows to be
+lost to the control of reason. And his influence is greater or less,
+according to the strength of the popular passions which he inflames, or
+in which, as is often the case, he shares. The honest representative of
+fanatics is himself a fanatic. Thus Cromwell had so great an ascendency
+with his party, because he felt more strongly than they in matters where
+they sympathized. But the liberties of Rome were not overturned by
+fanatical rulers, but by those who availed themselves of the passions
+which they themselves did not feel, in order to compass their selfish
+ends. And that is the greater danger in republics--that bad men rise by
+the suffrage of foolish people whom they deceive, by affecting to fall
+in with their wishes, like Napoleon and Caesar, rather than that honest
+men climb to power by the very excess of their enthusiasm, like
+Cromwell, or Peter the Hermit. Hence a Mirabeau is more dangerous than a
+Robespierre. The former would have betrayed the people he led; the
+latter would have urged them on to consistent courses, even if the way
+was lined with death. Had Mirabeau lived, and retained his power, he
+would have compromised the Revolution, of which Napoleon was the
+product, and the work would have had to be done over. But Robespierre
+pushed his principles to their utmost logical sequence, and the nation
+was satisfied with their folly, in a practical point of view. Napoleon
+arose to rebuke anarchy as well as feudal kings, and though maddened and
+intoxicated by war, so that his name is a Moloch, he never dreamed of
+restoring the unequal privileges which the Revolution swept away.
+
+[Sidenote: Greatness of the constitution.]
+
+The Roman constitution, as gradually developed by the necessities and
+crises which arose, is a wonderful monument of human wisdom. The people
+were not ground down. They had rights which they never relinquished; and
+they constantly gained new privileges, as they were prepared to
+appreciate them, or as they were in danger of subjection by the
+governing classes. They never had the ascendency, but they enjoyed
+renewed and increasing power, until they were strong enough to tempt
+aristocratic demagogues and successful generals. When Caesar condescended
+to flatter the people, they had become a power, but a power incapable of
+holding its own, or using it for the welfare of the state. Then it was
+subverted, as Napoleon rode into absolute dominion over the bridge which
+the Revolution had built. And the Roman constitution was remarkable, not
+only because it prevented a degrading subjection of the masses, even
+while it refused them the rights of government, but because it
+maintained a balance among the governing classes themselves, and
+restricted the usurpations of powerful families, as well as military
+heroes. For nearly five hundred years, not a man arose whom the Romans
+feared, or whom they could not control--whom they could not at any time
+have hurled from the Tarpeian rock had he contemplated the subversion, I
+will not say of the liberties of the people, but of the constitution
+which made the aristocracy supreme. There were ambitious and
+unscrupulous men, doubtless, among those fortunate generals whom the
+Senate snubbed, and whom the people adored. But, great as they were in
+war, and powerful from family interest and vast wealth, no one of them
+ever dared to make himself supreme until Caesar passed the Rubicon--not
+Scipio, crowned with the laurels which he had taken from the head of
+Hannibal; not Marius, fresh from his great victories over the barbaric
+hosts of northern Europe; not even Sulla, after his magnificent
+conquests in the east, and his triumph over all the parties and factions
+which democracy raised against him. Pompey may have contemplated what it
+was the fortune of Caesar to secure. But that pompous magnate could have
+succeeded only by using the watchwords and practicing the acts to which
+none but a demagogue could have stooped. Before his time, at least for
+fifty years, there were too many men in the Senate who had the spirit of
+Cato, of Cicero, and of Brutus.
+
+[Sidenote: The Revolution.]
+
+[Sidenote: Effects of imperial rule.]
+
+But, _tempora mutantur_. When the Senate was made up of men whom
+great generals selected, whether aristocratic sycophants or rich
+plebeians; when the tribunes played into the hands of the very men whom
+they were created to oppose; when the high priest of a people,
+originally religious, was chosen without regard to either moral or
+religious considerations, but purely political; when the high offices of
+the state were filled by senators who had never seen military life
+except for some brief campaign; when factions and parties set old
+customs aside; when the most aristocratic nobles sought entrance into
+plebeian ranks in order, like Mirabeau, to steal the few offices which
+the people controlled, and when the people, mad and fierce from
+demoralizing spectacles, raised mobs and subverted law, then the
+constitution, under which the Romans had advanced to the conquest of the
+world, became subverted. Under the emperors, there was no constitution.
+They controlled the Senate, the army, the tribunals of the law, the
+distant provinces, the city itself, and regulated taxes and imposed
+burdens, and appointed to high offices whomever they wished. The Senate
+lost its independence, the courts their justice, the army its spirit,
+and the people their hopes. Yet the old form remained. The Senate met as
+in the days of the Gracchi. There were consuls and praetors still. But it
+was merely equites or rich men who filled the senatorial benches--tools
+of the emperor, as were all the officers of the state. The government of
+nobles was succeeded by the government of emperors who, in their turn,
+were too often the tools of favorites, or of praetorian guards, until the
+assassin's dagger cut short their days.
+
+[Sidenote: The rule of emperors a necessity.]
+
+This is not the place to speculate on the good or evil which resulted
+from this change in the Roman government. Most historians and
+philosophers agree that the change was inevitable, and proved, on the
+whole, benignant. It was simply the question whether the Romans should
+have civil wars and anarchies and factions, which decimated the people,
+and kept society in a state of fear and insecurity, and prevented the
+triumph of law, or whether they should submit to an absolute ruler, who
+had unbounded means of doing good, and whom interest and duty alike
+prompted to secure the public welfare. The people wanted, above all
+things, safety, and the means of prosecuting their various interests.
+Under the emperors they obtained the greatest boons possible, when the
+condition of society was hollow and rotten to the core. The people were
+governed, sometimes wisely, sometimes recklessly, but there were order
+and law for three hundred years. It little mattered to the vast
+population of the empire who was supreme master, provided they were not
+oppressed. The proud _Imperator_, the title and praenomen of all the
+Roman monarchs, and which had been invented for Octavian, remained the
+fountain of law, the arbiter of all interests, the undisputed ruler of
+the world. The old offices nominally remained, but, by virtue of the
+censorship, the emperor had the power of excluding persons from the
+Senate, and of calling others into it. Thus the august body which was,
+under the republic, the counterpoise to executive authority, was
+rendered dependent on the imperial will. There was no Senate, but in
+name, when it could be controlled by the government. It became a mere
+form, or an instrument in the hands of the administration, to facilitate
+business. By obtaining the proconsular power over the whole of the Roman
+Empire, Octavian made the provincial governors his vicegerents. The
+_tribunicia potestas_ which he also enjoyed, enabled him to annul
+any decree of the Senate, and of interfering in all the acts of the
+magistrates. An appeal was open to him, as tribune, from all the courts
+of justice; he had a right to convoke the Senate, and to put any subject
+under consideration to the vote of senators. Augustus even seized the
+pontificate, which office, that of Pontifex Maximus, put into his hands
+all the ecclesiastical courts. As tribune and censor, he also controlled
+the treasury, so that all the powers of the state were concentrated in
+him alone--that of consul, tribune, censor, praetor, and high priest.
+What a power to be exercised by one man in so great an empire! The Roman
+constitution was subverted when one man usurped the offices which were
+formerly shared by many. No sovereign was ever so absolute as the Roman
+Imperator, since he combined all the judicial, the executive, and the
+legislative branches of the government; that is, he controlled them all.
+
+[Sidenote: The old forms of government preserved.]
+
+Yet the old machinery was kept up, the old forms, the old offices in
+name, otherwise even Augustus might not have been secure on his throne.
+The Comitia still elected magistrates, but only such as were proposed by
+the government. The Senate assembled as usual, but it was composed of
+rich men, merely to register the decrees of the Imperator. The consuls
+were elected as before, but they were mere shadows in authority. The
+only respectable part of the magistracy was that which interpreted the
+laws. The only final authority was the edict of the emperor, who not
+only controlled all the great offices of state, but was possessed of
+enormous and almost unlimited private property. They owned whole
+principalities. Augustus changed the whole registration of property in
+Gaul on his own responsibility, without consulting any one. [Footnote:
+Niebuhr, Lecture 105.] His power was so unlimited that soldiers took the
+oath of allegiance to him, as they once did to the _imperium populi
+Romani_. His armies, his fleets, and his officers were everywhere,
+and no one dreamed of resisting a power which absorbed everything into
+itself.
+
+[Sidenote: The imperial power unable to save the state.]
+
+It is altogether another question whether the prosperity of the state
+was greater or less after the subversion of the constitution. For three
+hundred years the state was probably kept together by the ancient
+mechanism controlled by one central will. The change from civil war and
+party faction to imperial centralized power, considering the demoralized
+condition of society, was doubtless beneficial. The emperor could rule;
+he could not, however, conserve the empire. Doubtless, in most cases, he
+ruled well, since he ruled by the of great experience and ability. It is
+peculiarly the interest of despots to have able men as ministers. They
+never select those whom they deem to be weak and corrupt; they are
+simply deceived in their estimate of ability and fidelity. For several
+generations, the provinces had experienced governors, the armies had
+able generals, the courts of law learned judges. The provinces were not
+so inexorably robbed as in the time of Cicero. The people had their
+pleasures and spectacles and baths. Property was secure, unless enormous
+fortunes tempted the cupidity of the emperors. Justice was well
+administered. Cities were rebuilt and adorned. Rome owed its greatest
+monuments of art to the emperors. There was a cold and remorseless
+despotism; but the unnoticed millions toiled in peace. Literature did
+not thrive, since that can only live with freedom, but art received
+great encouragement, and genius, in the useful professions, did not go
+unrewarded. The empire did not fall till luxury and prosperity enervated
+the people and rendered them unable to cope with the barbarian hosts.
+Rome was never so rich as when she fell into the hands of Goths and
+Vandals. But the empire, under the old constitution, might have
+protected itself against external enemies. The mortal wound to Roman
+power and glory was inflicted by traitors.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+AUTHORITIES.--Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome; Mommsen, History
+of Rome; Arnold, History of Rome; Merivale, History of the Romans;
+Gibbon, Decline and Fall; Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman
+Antiquities gives the details, and points out the old classical
+authorities, as does Napoleon's Life of Caesar. Dionysius, Polybius,
+Livy, Plutarch, Cicero, Sallust, all shed light on important points. See
+also Gottling, _Gesch der Rom. Staat_. A large catalogue of writers
+could be mentioned, but allusion is only made to those most accessible
+to American readers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ROMAN JURISPRUDENCE.
+
+
+If the Romans showed great practical sagacity in distributing political
+power among different classes and persons, their laws evince still
+greater wisdom. Jurisprudence is generally considered to be their
+indigenous science. It is for this they were most distinguished, and by
+this they have given the greatest impulse to civilization. Their laws
+were most admirably adapted for the government of mankind, but they had
+a still higher merit; they were framed, to a considerable degree, upon
+the principles of equity or natural justice, and hence are adapted for
+all ages and nations, and have indeed been reproduced by modern
+lawgivers, and so extensively, as to have formed the basis of many
+modern codes. Hence it is by their laws that the Romans have had the
+greatest influence on modern times, and these constitute a wonderful
+monument of human genius. If the Romans had bequeathed nothing but laws
+to posterity, they would not have lived in vain. These have more
+powerfully affected the interests of civilization than the arts of
+Greece. They are as permanent in their effects as any thing can be in
+this world--more so than palaces and marbles. The latter crumble away,
+but the legacy of Gaius, of Ulpian, of Paulus, of Tribonian, will be
+prized to the remotest ages, not only as a wonderful work of genius, but
+for its practical utility. The enduring influence of Moses is chiefly
+seen in his legislation, for this has entered into the Christian codes,
+and is also founded on the principles of justice. It is for this chiefly
+that he ranks with the greatest intellects of earth, whether he was
+divinely instructed or not.
+
+[Sidenote: Object for which laws are made.]
+
+Roman laws were first made in reference to the political exigencies and
+changes of the state, and afterwards to the relations of the state with
+individuals, or of individuals with individuals. The former pertain more
+properly to constitutional history; the latter belong to what is called
+the science of jurisprudence, and only fall in with the scope of this
+chapter. The laws enacted by the Roman people in their centuries, or by
+the Senate, pertaining to political rights and privileges--those by
+which power passed from the hands of patricians to plebeians, or from
+the _populus_ to great executive officers--are highly important
+and interesting in an historical or political sense. But the genius of
+the Romans was most strikingly seen in the government of mankind; and it
+therefore the relations between the governing and the governed, the laws
+created for the general good, pertaining to property and crime and
+individual rights, which, in this chapter, it is my chief object to
+show.
+
+[Sidenote: Greeks inferior to the Romans in jurisprudence.]
+
+The Greeks, with all their genius, their great creation in literature,
+philosophy, and art, did very little for civilization, which we can
+trace, in the science of jurisprudence. They were too speculative for
+such a practical science. Nevertheless their speculative wisdom was made
+use of by Roman jurists. It was only so far as philosophy modified laws,
+that the influence of Greece was of much account.
+
+[Sidenote: Jurisprudence culminates with emperors.]
+
+Nor did Roman jurisprudence culminate in its serene majesty till the
+time of the emperors. It was not perfectly developed, until Justinian
+consolidated it in the Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes. The
+classical jurists may have laid the foundation; the superstructure was
+raised under the auspices of those whom we regard as despots.
+
+[Sidenote: Early legislation.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Twelve Tables.]
+
+Ingenious writers, like Vico and Niebuhr, have extended their researches
+to the government of the kings, and advanced many plausible
+speculations; but the earliest legislation worthy of notice, was the
+celebrated code called the Twelve Tables, framed from the reports of the
+commissioners whom the Romans sent to Athens and other Greek states, to
+collect what was most useful in their legal systems. But scarcely any
+part of the civil law contained in the Twelve Tables has come down to
+us. All we know with certainty, is that it was the intention of the
+decemviral legislation to bring the estates into closer connection, and
+to equalize the laws for both. Nor do the provisions of the decemviral
+code, with which we are acquainted, show that enlightened regard to
+natural justice which characterized jurisprudence in its subsequent
+development. It allowed insolvent debtors to be treated with great
+cruelty; they could be imprisoned for sixty days, loaded with chains,
+and then might be sold into foreign slavery. It sanctioned a barbarous
+retaliation--an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But it gave a
+redress for lampoons or libels, allowed an appeal from the magistrate to
+the people, and forbid capital punishment except by a decision of the
+centuries. [Footnote: Lord Mackenzie, part 6.] Niebuhr maintains,
+[Footnote: Lecture 25.] in his lectures on the History of Rome, that the
+Twelve Tables conceded the right to every _pater familias_ of
+making a will, by which regulation the child of a plebeian, by a
+patrician mother, could succeed to his father's property, which was of
+great importance, and a great step in natural justice. It is supposed
+that the most important part of the decemviral legislation was
+the _jus publicum_, [Footnote: Cicero, _De Legibus_.] or that
+which refers to the Roman constitution. The Twelve Tables obtained among
+the Romans a peculiar reverence; they were committed to memory by the
+young; they were transcribed with the greatest care, and were considered
+as the fountain of right. They were approved by the _comitia
+centuriata_, which was the supreme authority, and in the time of
+Appius Claudius was composed of patricians alone. If Niebuhr is right in
+his statement that the power of making wills was given to plebeians, it
+shows a greater liberality on the part of patricians than what they
+generally have had credit for, and is hardly to be reconciled with the
+statement of Lord Mackenzie, that all marriages between patricians and
+plebeians were prohibited by the new code.
+
+[Sidenote: The Twelve Tables the basis of Roman law.]
+
+[Sidenote: Progress of Roman Law.]
+
+The laws of the Twelve Tables were the basis of all the laws, civil and
+religious. But the edicts of the praetors, who were the great equity
+judges, as well as the common-law magistrates, [Footnote: Maine's
+_Ancient Law_, p. 67.] proclaimed certain changes which custom and
+the practice of the courts had introduced, and these, added to the
+_leges populi_ or laws proposed by the consul and passed by the
+centuries, the _plebiscita_ or laws proposed by the tribunes and
+passed by the tribes, and the _senatus consulta_, gradually swelled
+the laws to a great number. Three thousand plates of brass, containing
+these various laws, were deposited in the capitol. [Footnote: Suetonius,
+_In Vespa_.] Subtleties and fictions were introduced by the lawyers
+to defeat the written statutes, and jurisprudence became complicated,
+even in the time of Cicero. The opinions of eminent lawyers were even
+adopted by the legal profession, and were recognized by the courts. The
+evils of a complicated jurisprudence were so evident in the seventh
+century of the city, that Q. Mucius Scaevola, a great lawyer, when
+consul, published a scientific elaboration of the civil law. Cicero
+studied law under him, and his contemporaries, Alfenus Varus and Aeulius
+Gallus, wrote learned treatises, from which extracts appear in the
+Digest. Caesar contemplated a complete revision of the laws, but did not
+live long enough to carry out his intentions. His legislation, so far as
+he directed his mind to it, was very just. Among other laws was one
+which ordained that creditors should accept lands as payment for their
+outstanding debts, according to the value determined by commissioners.
+In his time, the relative value of money had changed, and was greatly
+diminished. The most important law of Augustus, was the _lex oelia
+sentia_, deserving of all praise, which related to the manumission of
+slaves. But he did not interfere with the social relations of the people
+after he had deprived them of political liberty. He once attempted, by
+his _Lex Julia et Papia Poppaea_, to counteract the custom which
+then prevailed, of abstaining from legal marriage and substituting
+concubinage instead, by which the free population declined; but this
+attempt to improve the morals of the people met with such opposition
+from the tribes or centuries, that the next emperor abolished popular
+assemblies altogether, which Augustus feared to do. The Senate, in the
+time of the emperors, composed chiefly of lawyers and magistrates, and
+entirely dependent upon them, became the great fountain of law. By the
+original constitution, the people were the source of power, and the
+Senate merely gave or refused its approbation to the laws proposed, but
+under the emperors the comitia disappeared, and the Senate passed
+decrees, which have the force of laws, subject to the veto of the
+emperor. It was not until the time of Septimus Severus and Caracalla,
+that the legislative action of the Senate ceased, and the edicts and
+rescripts of emperors took the place of all legislation.
+
+[Sidenote: Q. Mucius Scaevola.]
+
+The golden age of Roman jurisprudence was from the birth of Cicero to
+the reign of Alexander Severus. Before this period it was an occult
+science, confined to praetors, pontiffs, and patrician lawyers. There
+were no books nor schools to teach its principles. But in the latter
+days of the republic law became the fashionable study of Roman youth,
+and eminent masters arose. The first great lawyer who left behind him
+important works, was the teacher of Cicero, Q. Mucius Scaevola, who wrote
+a treatise in eighteen books on the civil law. "He was," [Footnote:
+Cicero, _De Or._ i. 39.] says Cicero, "the most eloquent of
+jurists, and the most learned of orators." This work, George Long
+thinks, had a great influence on contemporaries and on subsequent
+jurists, who followed it as a model. It is the oldest work from which
+there are any excerpts in the Digest.
+
+[Sidenote: Servius Sulpicius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Labeo.]
+
+[Sidenote: Gaius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Papinian.]
+
+[Sidenote: Paulus.]
+
+Servius Sulpicius, the friend of Cicero, and fellow-student of oratory,
+surpassed his teachers Balbus and Gallus, and was the equal in
+reputation of the great Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, who said
+it was disgraceful for a patrician and a noble to be ignorant of the law
+with which he had to do. Cicero ascribes his great superiority as a
+lawyer to the study of philosophy, which disciplined and developed his
+mind, and enabled him to deduce his conclusions from his premises with
+logical precision. He left behind him one hundred and eighty treatises,
+and had numerous pupils, among whom A. Ofilius and Alfenus Varus, Cato,
+Caesar, Antony, and Cicero, were great lawyers. Labeo, in the time of
+Augustus, wrote four hundred books on jurisprudence, spending six months
+in the year in giving instruction to his pupils, and in answering legal
+questions, and the other six months in the country in writing books.
+Like all the great Roman jurists, he was versed in literature and
+philosophy, and so devoted to his profession that he refused political
+office. His rival, Capito, was equally learned in all departments of the
+law, and left behind him as many treatises as Labeo. These two jurists
+were the founders of celebrated schools, like the ancient philosophers,
+and each had distinguished followers. Masurius Sabinus Gaius and
+Pomponius, were of the school of Capito. M. Cocceius Nerva, Sempronius
+Proculus, and Juventius Celsus, were of the school of Labeo. Gaius, who
+flourished in the time of the Antonines, was a great legal authority;
+and the recent discovery of his Institutes has revealed the least
+mutilated fragment of Roman jurisprudence which exists, and one of the
+most valuable, and sheds great light on ancient Roman law. It was found
+in the library of Verona. No Roman jurist had a higher reputation than
+Papinian, who was _praefectus praetorio_ under Septimius Severus, an
+office which made him only secondary to the emperor--a sort of grand
+vizier--whose power extended over all departments of the state. He was
+beheaded by Caracalla. The great commentator Cujacius, declares that he
+was the first of all lawyers who have been, or who are to be; that no
+one ever surpassed him in legal knowledge, and no one will ever equal
+him. Paulus was his contemporary, and held the same office as Papinian.
+He was the most fertile of Roman law-writers, and there is more taken
+from him in the Digest than from any other jurist, except Ulpian. There
+are two thousand and eighty-three excerpts from this writer, one sixth
+of the whole Digest. No legal writer, ancient or modern, has handled so
+many subjects. In perspicuity, he is said to be inferior to Ulpian, one
+of the most famous of jurists, who was his contemporary. He has
+exercised a great influence on modern jurisprudence from the copious
+extracts of his writings in Justinian's Digest. He was the chief adviser
+of Alexander Severus, and like Paulus was _praefectus praetorio_. The
+number of excerpts in the Digest from him, is said to be two thousand
+four hundred and sixty-two, and they form a third part of it. Some
+fragments of his writings remain. The last of the great civilians
+associated with Gaius, Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, as oracles of
+jurisprudence, was Modestinus, who was a pupil of Ulpian. He wrote both
+in Greek and Latin. There are three hundred and forty-five excerpts in
+the Digest from his writings, the titles of which show the extent and
+variety of his labors. [Footnote: These facts are drawn from the
+different articles of George Long, in _Smith's Dictionary_.]
+
+[Sidenote: The profession of law.]
+
+These great lawyers shed great glory on the Roman civilization. In the
+earliest times men sought distinction on the fields of battle, but in
+the latter days of the republic honor was conferred for forensic
+ability. The first pleaders of Rome were not jurisconsults, but
+aristocratic patrons looked after their clients. But when law became
+complicated, a class of men arose to interpret it, and these men were
+held in great honor, and reached, by their services, the highest
+offices--like Cicero and Hortensius. No remuneration was given
+originally for forensic pleading, beyond the services which the client
+gave to a patron, but gradually the practice of the law became
+lucrative. Hortensius, as well as Cicero, gained an immense fortune. He
+had several villas, a gallery of paintings, a large stock of wines,
+parks, fish-ponds, and aviaries. Cicero had villas in all parts of
+Italy; a house on the Palatine with columns of Numidian marble, and a
+fortune of twenty millions of sesterces, equal to $800,000. Most of the
+great statesmen of Rome, in the time of Cicero, were either lawyers or
+generals. Crassus, Pompey, P. Sextus, M. Marcellus, P. Clodius,
+Calidius, Messala Niger, Asinius Pollio, C. Cicero, M. Antonius, Caesar,
+Calvus, Caelius, Brutus, Catulus, Messala Cervirus, were all celebrated
+for their forensic efforts. Candidates for the bar studied four years
+under a distinguished jurist, and were required to pass a rigorous
+examination. The judges were chosen from members of the bar, as well as,
+in later times, the senators. The great lawyers were not only learned in
+the law, but possessed great accomplishments. Varro was a lawyer, and
+was the most learned man that Rome produced. But, under the emperors,
+the lawyers were chiefly distinguished for their legal attainments, like
+Paulus and Ulpian.
+
+[Sidenote: Roman jurists.]
+
+During this golden age of Roman jurisprudence, many commentaries were
+written on the Twelve Tables, the Perpetual Edict, the Laws of the
+People, and the Decrees of the Senate, as well as a vast mass of
+treatises on every department of the law, most of which have perished.
+The Institutes of Gaius, which have reached us nearly in their original
+form, are the most valuable which remain, and have thrown great light on
+some important branches previously involved in obscurity. Their use in
+explaining the Institutes of Justinian, is spoken of very highly by
+Mackenzie, since the latter are mainly founded on the long lost work of
+Gaius. A treatise of Ulpian, preserved in the Vatican, entitled
+"_Tituli ex corpore Ulpiani_" also contains valuable information,
+as well as the "_Receptae Sententiae_" of Julius Paulus, his great
+contemporary, both of which works, as well as others of inferior
+importance, were lately published at Rome by Dr. Gneist, called
+"_Corpus Juris Romani Antejustinianii_." [Footnote: Mackenzie, p.
+16.] The great lawyers who flourished from Trajan to Alexander Severus,
+like Gaius, Ulpian, Paulus, Papinian, and Modestinus, had no successors
+who can be compared with them, and their works became standard
+authorities in the courts of law.
+
+After the death of Alexander Severus no great accession was made to
+Roman law, until Theodosius II. caused the constitutions, from
+Constantine to his own time, to be collected and arranged in sixteen
+books. This was called the Theodosian Code, which in the West was held
+in high esteem, although superseded shortly after in the East by the
+Justinian Code.
+
+[Sidenote: Justinian labors.]
+
+To Justinian belongs the immortal glory of reforming the jurisprudence
+of the Romans. "In the space of ten centuries," says Gibbon, "the
+infinite variety of laws and legal opinions had filled many thousand
+volumes, which no fortune could purchase, and no capacity could digest.
+Books could not easily be found and the judges, poor in the midst of
+riches, were reduced to the exercise of their illiterate discretion."
+[Footnote: Gibbon, ch. 44.] Justinian determined to unite in one body
+all the rules of law, whatever may have been their origin, and in the
+year 528, appointed ten jurisconsults, among whom was the celebrated
+Tribonian, to select and arrange the imperial constitutions, leaving out
+what was obsolete or useless or contradictory, and to make such
+alterations as the circumstances required. This was called the
+_Code_, divided into twelve books, and comprising the constitutions
+from Hadrian to Justinian. This was published in fourteen months after
+it was undertaken.
+
+[Sidenote: Tribonian.]
+
+[Sidenote: The code of Pandects.]
+
+Justinian authorized Tribonian, then quaestor, "_vir magnificus
+magisteria dignitate inter agentes decoratus_," for great titles were
+now given to the officers of the crown, to prepare, with the assistance
+of seventeen associates, a collection of extracts from the writings of
+the most eminent jurists, so as to form a body of law for the government
+of the empire, with power to select and omit and alter; and this immense
+work was done in three years, and published under the title of Digest or
+Pandects. "All the judicial learning of former times," says Lord
+Mackenzie, "was laid under contribution by Tribonian and his colleagues.
+Selections from the works of thirty-nine of the ablest lawyers,
+scattered over two thousand separate treatises, were collected in one
+volume; and care was taken to inform posterity that three millions of
+lines were abridged and reduced, in these extracts, to the modest number
+of one hundred and fifty thousand. Among the selected jurists, only
+three names belonged to the age of the republic; the civilians who
+flourished under the first emperors are seldom appealed to; so that most
+of the writers, whose works have contributed to the Pandects, lived
+within a period of one hundred years. More than a third of the whole
+Pandects is from Ulpian, and next to him, the principal writers are
+Paulus, Papinian, Salvius Julianus, Pomponius, Q. Cervidius Scaevola, and
+Gaius. Though the variety of subjects is immense, the Digest has no
+claims to scientific arrangement. It is a vast cyclopedia of
+heterogeneous law badly arranged; every thing is there, but every thing
+is not in its proper place." [Footnote: Mackenzie, p. 25.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Institutes.]
+
+But neither the Digest nor the Code was adapted to elementary
+instruction. It was necessary to prepare a treatise on the principles of
+Roman law. This was entrusted to Tribonian, and two professors,
+Theophilus and Dorotheus. It is probable that Tribonian merely
+superintended the work, which was founded chiefly on the Institutes of
+Gains, and was divided into four books, and has been universally admired
+for its method and elegant precision. It was intended merely as an
+introduction to the Pandects and the Code.
+
+[Sidenote: The Novels of Justinian.]
+
+The _Novels of Justinian_ were subsequently published, being the
+new ordinances of the emperor, and the changes he thought proper to
+make, and are therefore a high authority.
+
+The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels of Justinian, comprise the
+Roman law, as received in Europe, in the form given by the school of
+Bologna, and is called the "_Corpus Juris Civilis_." "It was in
+that form," says Savigny, "that the Roman law became the common law of
+Europe; and when, four centuries later, other sources came to be added
+to it, the _Corpus Juris_ of the school of Bologna had been so
+universally received, and so long established as a basis of practice,
+that the new discoveries remained in the domain of science, and served
+only for the theory of the law. For the same reason, the Anti-Justinian
+law is excluded from practice." [Footnote: Savigny, _Droit Romani_,
+vol. i. p. 68.] After Justinian, the old texts were left to moulder as
+useless though venerable, and they have nearly all disappeared. The
+Code, the Pandects, and the Institutes, were declared to be the only
+legitimate authority and alone were admitted to the tribunals or taught
+in the schools. The rescripts of the early emperors recognized too many
+popular rights to suit the despotic character of Justinian, and the
+older jurists, like the Scaevolas, Sulpicius, and Labeo, were distasteful
+from their sympathy with free institutions. Different opinions have been
+expressed by the jurisconsults as to the merits of the Justinian
+collection. By some it is regarded as a vast mass of legal lumber; by
+others, as a beautiful monument of human labor. After the lapse of so
+many centuries, it is certain that a large portion of it is of no
+practical utility, since it is not applicable to modern wants. But
+again, no one doubts that it has exercised a great and good influence on
+moral and political science, and introduced many enlightened views
+concerning the administration of justice, as well as the nature of civil
+government, and thus has modified the codes of the Teutonic nations,
+which sprang up on the ruins of the old Roman world. It was used in the
+Greek empire until the fall of Constantinople. It never entirely lost
+authority in Italy, although it remained buried till the discovery of
+the Florentine copy of the Pandects at the siege of Amalfi in 1135.
+Peter Valence, in the eleventh century, made use of it in a law-book
+which he published. With the rise of the Italian cities, the study of
+Roman law revived, and Bologna became the seat from which it spread over
+Europe. In the sixteenth century, the science of theoretical law passed
+from Italy to France, under the auspices of Francis I., when Cujas or
+Cujacius became the great ornament of the school of Bourges, and the
+greatest commentator on Roman law until Dumoulin appeared. Grotius, in
+Holland, excited the same interest in civil law that Dumoulin did in
+France, followed by eminent professors in Leyden and the German
+universities. It was reserved for Pothier, in the middle of the
+eighteenth century, to reduce the Roman law to systematic order--one of
+the most gigantic tasks which ever taxed the industry of man. The recent
+discoveries, especially that made by Niebuhr, of the long lost work of
+Gaius have given a great impulse to the study of Roman law in Germany,
+and to this impulse no one has contributed so greatly as Savigny of
+Berlin.
+
+The great importance of the subject demands a more minute notice of the
+principles of the Roman law, than what the limits of this work should
+properly allow. I shall therefore endeavor to abridge what has been
+written by the more eminent authorities, taking as a basis the late work
+of Lord Mackenzie and the learned and interesting essay of Professor
+Maine.
+
+[Sidenote: Law of persons.]
+
+The Institutes of Justinian commenced with the law of persons,
+recognizing the distinction of ranks. All persons are capable of
+enjoying civil rights, but not all in the same degree. Greater
+privileges are allowed to men than to women, to freemen than to slaves,
+to fathers than to children.
+
+[Sidenote: Equality of citizens.]
+
+In the eye of the law all Roman citizens were equal, wherever they
+lived, whether in the capital or the provinces. Citizenship embraced
+both political and civil rights. The political rights had reference to
+the right of voting in the comitia, but this was not considered the
+essence of citizenship, which was the enjoyment of the _connubium_
+and _commercium_. By the former the citizen could contract a valid
+marriage, and acquire the rights resulting from it, particularly the
+paternal power; by the latter he could acquire and dispose of property.
+Citizenship was acquired by birth and by manumission; it was lost when a
+Roman became a prisoner of war, or had been exiled for crime, or became
+a citizen of another state. An unsullied reputation was necessary for a
+citizen to exercise his rights to their full extent.
+
+[Sidenote: Slaves.]
+
+The Roman jurists acknowledged all persons originally free by natural
+law; and, while they recognized slavery, ascribed the power of masters
+entirely to the law and custom of nations. Persons taken in war were
+considered at the absolute control of their captors, and were therefore,
+_de facto_, slaves; and the children of a female slave followed the
+condition of their mother, and belonged to her master. But masters could
+manumit their slaves, who thus became Roman citizens, with some
+restrictions. Until the time of Justinian, they were not allowed to wear
+the gold ring, the distinguishing symbol of a man born free. This
+emperor removed all restrictions between freedmen and citizens.
+Previously, after the emancipation of a slave, he was bound to render
+certain services to his former master as patron, and if the freedman
+died intestate his property reverted to his patron.
+
+[Sidenote: Marriage.]
+
+Marriage was contracted by the simple consent of the parties, though in
+early times, equality of condition was required. The _lex
+Canuleia_, A. U. C. 309, authorized connubium between patricians and
+plebeians, and the _lex Julia_, A. U. C. 757, allowed it between
+freedmen and freeborn. By the _conventio in manum_, a wife passed
+out of her family into that of her husband, who acquired all her
+property; without it, the woman remained in the power of her father, and
+retained the free disposition of her property. Poligamy was not
+permitted; and relationship within certain degrees rendered the parties
+incapable of contracting marriage, and these rules as to forbidden
+degrees have been substantially adopted in England. Celibacy was
+discouraged. The law of Augustus _Julia et Papia Poppaea_ contained
+some seven regulations against it, which were abolished by Constantine.
+Concubinage was allowed, if a man had not a wife, and provided the
+concubine was not the wife of another man. This heathenish custom was
+abrogated by Justinian. [Footnote: D. 25. 7. C. 5, 26.] The wife was
+entitled to protection and support from her husband, and she retained
+her property independent of her husband, when the _conventio_ was
+abandoned, as it was ultimately. The father gave his daughter, on her
+marriage, a dowry in proportion to his means, the management of which,
+with its fruits during marriage, belonged to the husband; but he could
+not alienate real estate without the wife's consent, and on the
+dissolution of marriage the _dos_ reverted to the wife. Divorce
+existed in all ages at Rome, and was very common at the commencement of
+the empire. To check its prevalence, laws were passed inflicting severe
+penalties on those whose bad conduct led to it. Every man, whether
+married or not, could adopt children, under certain restrictions, and
+they passed entirely under paternal power. But the marriage relation
+among the Romans did not accord after all with those principles of
+justice which we see in other parts of their legislative code. The Roman
+husband, like the father, was a tyrant. The facility of divorce
+destroyed mutual confidence, and inflamed every trifling dispute, for a
+word, or a message, or a letter, or the mandate of a freedman, was quite
+sufficient to secure a separation. It was not until Christianity became
+the religion of the empire, that divorce could not be easily effected
+without a just cause.
+
+[Sidenote: Paternal power.]
+
+Nothing is more remarkable in the Roman laws than the extent of paternal
+power. It was unjust, and bears the image of a barbarous age. Moreover,
+it seems to have been coeval with the foundation of the city. A father
+could chastise his children by stripes, by imprisonment, by exile, by
+sending them to the country with chains on their feet. He was even armed
+with the power of life and death. "Neither age nor rank, nor the
+consular office, could exempt the most illustrious citizen from the
+bonds of filial subjection. Without fear, though not without danger of
+abuse, the Roman legislators had reposed unbounded confidence in the
+sentiments of paternal love, and the oppression was tempered by the
+assurance that each generation must succeed in its turn to the awful
+dignity of parent and master." [Footnote: Gibbon, c. xliv.] By an
+express law of the Twelve Tables a father could sell his children as
+slaves. But the abuse of paternal power was checked in the republic by
+the censors, and afterwards by emperors. Alexander Severus limited the
+right of the father to simple correction, and Constantine declared the
+father who should kill his son to be guilty of murder. [Footnote: Ch.
+iv. 17.] The rigor of parents in reference to the disposition of the
+property of children, was also gradually relaxed. Under Augustus, the
+son could keep absolute possession of what he had acquired in war. Under
+Constantine, he could retain any property acquired in the civil service,
+and all property inherited from the mother could also be retained. In
+later times, a father could not give his son or daughter to another by
+adoption without their consent. Thus this _patria potestas_ was
+gradually relaxed as civilization advanced, though it remained a
+peculiarity of Roman law to the latest times, and severer than is ever
+seen in the modern world. [Footnote: Maine, _Ancient Law_, p. 143.]
+No one but a Roman citizen could exercise this awful paternal power, nor
+did it cease until the father died, or the daughter had entered into
+marriage with the _conventio in manum_. Illegitimate children were
+treated as if they had no father, and the mother was bound to support
+them until Justinian gave to natural children a right to demand aliment
+from their father. [Footnote: N. 89, ch. xii.] Fathers were bound to
+maintain their children when they had no separate means to supply their
+wants, and children were also bound to maintain their parents in want.
+These reciprocal duties, creditable to the Roman law-givers, are
+recognized in the French Code, but not in the English, which also
+recognizes the right of a father to bequeath his whole estate to
+strangers, which the Roman fathers had not power to do. [Footnote: Lord
+Mackenzie, p. 142.] The age when children attain majority among the
+Romans, was twenty-five years. Women were condemned to the perpetual
+tutelage of parents, husbands, or guardians, as it was supposed they
+never could attain to the age of reason and experience. The relation of
+guardian and ward was strictly observed by the Romans. They made a
+distinction between the right to govern a person, and the right to
+manage his estate, although the tutor could do both. If the pupil was an
+infant, the tutor could act without the intervention of the pupil; if
+the pupil was above seven years of age, he was considered to have an
+imperfect will. The tutor managed the estate of the pupil, but was
+liable for loss occasioned by bad management. He could sell movable
+property when expedient, but not real estate, without judicial
+authority. The tutor named by the father was preferred to all others.
+
+[Sidenote: Real rights.]
+
+The Institutes of Justinian pass from persons to things, or the law
+relating to real rights; in other words, that which pertains to
+property. Some things, common to all, like air, light, the ocean, and
+things sacred, like temples and churches, are not classed as property.
+Originally, the Romans divided things into _res mancipi_, and
+_res nec mancipi_. The former comprehended houses, lands, slaves,
+and beasts of burden, and could only be acquired by certain solemn
+forms, which, if not observed, the property was not legally transferred.
+The latter included all other things, and admitted of being transferred
+by simple tradition.
+
+[Sidenote: Occupancy.]
+
+Occupancy, one of the original modes of acquiring property, was applied
+to goods and persons taken in war; to things lost by negligence, or
+chance, or thrown away by necessity; to pearls, shells, and precious
+stones found on the sea-shore; to wild animals, to fish, to hidden
+treasure.
+
+Acquisition, by accession, pertained to the natural and industrial
+fruits of the land, the rents of houses, interest on money, the increase
+of animals, lands gained from the sea, and movables.
+
+[Sidenote: Transfer of property.]
+
+[Sidenote: Testaments and legacies.]
+
+[Sidenote: Laws of succession.]
+
+[Sidenote: The laws in inheritance.]
+
+Two things were required for the transfer of property, for it is the
+essence of property that the owner of a thing should have the right to
+transfer it,--first, the consent of the former owner to transfer the
+thing upon some just ground; and secondly, the actual delivery of the
+thing to the person who is to acquire it. Movables were presumed to be
+the property of the possessors, until positive evidence was produced to
+the contrary. A prescriptive title to movables was acquired by
+possession for one year, and to immovables by possession for two years.
+Undisturbed possession for thirty years constituted in general a valid
+title. When a Roman died, his heirs succeeded to all his property, by
+hereditary right. If he left no will, his estate devolved upon his
+relations in a certain order prescribed by law. The power of making a
+testament only belonged to citizens above puberty. Children under the
+paternal power could not make a will. Males above fourteen, and females
+above twelve, when not under power, could make wills without the
+authority of their guardian; but pupils, lunatics, prisoners of war,
+criminals, and various other persons, were incapable of making a
+testament. The testator could divide his property among his heirs in
+such proportions as he saw fit; but if there was no distribution, all
+the heirs participated equally. A man could disinherit either of his
+children by declaring his intentions in his will, but only for grave
+reasons, such as grievously injuring his person or character or
+feelings, or attempting his life. No will was effectual unless one or
+more persons were appointed heirs to represent the deceased. Wills were
+required to be signed by the testator, or some person for him, in the
+presence of seven witnesses who were Roman citizens. If a will was made
+by a parent for distributing his property solely among his children, no
+witnesses were required, and the ordinary formalities were dispensed
+with among soldiers in actual service, and during the prevalence of
+pestilence. The testament was opened in the presence of the witnesses,
+or a majority of them; and after they had acknowledged their seals, a
+copy was made, and the original was deposited in the public archives.
+According to the Twelve Tables, the powers of a testator in disposing of
+his property were unlimited, but in process of time laws were enacted to
+restrain immoderate or unnatural bequests. By the Falcidian law, in the
+time of Augustus, no one could leave in legacies more than three fourths
+of his estate, so that the heirs could inherit at least one fourth.
+Again a law was passed, by which the descendants were entitled to one
+third of the succession, and to one half if there were more than four.
+In France if a man die leaving one lawful child, he can only dispose of
+half of his estate by will; if he leaves two children, the third; if he
+leaves three or more, the fourth. [Footnote: _Code Civil_, Art.
+913.] In England a man can cut off both his wife and children.
+[Footnote: Williams, _Exec._, p. 3.] The Romans recognized bequests
+in trust, besides testaments, by which property descended directly to
+the heir. The person charged with a trust was bound to restore the
+subject at the time appointed by the testator. The trustee could not
+alienate an estate without the consent of all the parties interested,
+except for the payment of debts. All persons capable of making a will
+could leave legacies, real or personal, but these were not due if the
+testator died insolvent. When a man died intestate, the succession
+devolved on the descendants of the deceased; but, these failing, the
+nearest ascendants were called; if there were brothers and sisters, they
+were entitled to succeed together along with the ascendants in the same
+class. Children succeeded to property, if their father died intestate,
+in equal portions, without distinction of sex, and if there was only one
+child he took the whole estate. A descendant of either sex, or any
+degree, was preferred to all ascendants and collaterals. The descendants
+of a son or daughter, who had predeceased, took the same share of the
+succession that their parent would have done had he been alive. In
+England, if all the children are dead, and only grandchildren exist,
+they all take, not by families, but _per capita_, equal shares in
+their own right as next of kin, and Mackenzie thinks this arrangement is
+more equitable than the Roman. [Footnote: Mackenzie, p. 288] If there
+were no descendants, the Roman father and mother, and other ascendants,
+excluded all collaterals from the succession except brothers and sisters
+of the whole blood, and the children of deceased brothers and sisters.
+When ascendants stood alone, the father and mother succeeded in equal
+portions, and if only one survived, he or she succeeded to the whole, so
+that grandparents were excluded. If there were brothers and sisters of
+the whole blood, the estate was divided among them _in capita_,
+according to the number of persons, including the father and mother. The
+children of a deceased brother were not admitted to the succession along
+with ascendants and surviving brothers and sisters. [Footnote:
+_Ibid._ 290] If a person died leaving neither ascendants nor
+descendants, his brothers and sisters succeeded to his estate in equal
+shares. And if the intestate left also nephews and nieces by a deceased
+brother or sister, these succeeded, along with their uncles and aunts,
+to the share their parent would have taken. On the failure of brothers
+and sisters by the whole blood, the brother and sisters by the half
+blood succeeded, and if any of these brothers and sisters have died
+leaving children, the right of representation was extended to them also,
+just as in the case of children of brothers-german. When husband or wife
+died, without leaving relations, the survivor was called to the
+succession. A widow who was poor and unprovided for had a right to share
+in the succession of her deceased husband. When he left more than three
+descendants, she was entitled to participate with them equally. If there
+were only three or fewer, she was entitled to one fourth of the estate.
+If she had children by the deceased, she had only the usufruct of her
+portion during her life, and was bound to preserve it for them. If a man
+had no legitimate children, he could leave his whole inheritance to his
+natural children, or to their mother; but if he had lawful children, he
+could leave only one twelfth to the natural children and their mother.
+If the father died intestate, without leaving a lawful wife or issue,
+his natural children and their mother were entitled to one sixth of the
+succession, and the rest was divided among the lawful heirs.
+
+[Sidenote: Contracts.]
+
+In the matter of contracts, the Roman law was especially comprehensive,
+and the laws of France and Scotland are substantially based upon the
+Roman system. The Institutes of Gaius and Justinian distinguish
+four sorts of obligation,--aut _re_, aut _verbis_, aut _literis_,
+aut _consenser_. Gibbon, in his learned chapter, prefers to consider
+the specific obligations of men to each other under promises, benefits,
+and injuries. Lord Mackenzie treats the subject in the order of the
+Institutes.
+
+"Obligations contracted _re_--by the intervention of things--are
+called by the moderns real contracts, because they are not perfected
+till something has passed from one party to another. Of this description
+are the contracts of loan, deposit, and pledge. Till the subject is
+actually lent, deposited, or pledged, it does not form the special
+contract of loan, deposit, or pledge." [Footnote: Mackenzie.]
+
+[Sidenote: Loans.]
+
+In regard to loans, the borrower was obliged to take care of it as if it
+were his own. _In rebus commodatis tails diligentia proestanda est,
+qualem quisque diligentissimus paterfamilias suis rebus adhibet_.
+[Footnote: D. 13, 6, 1 pr.] He could only use a thing for the purpose for
+which it was lent; he could not keep it beyond the time agreed upon, nor
+detain it as a set-off against any debt. He was bound to restore the
+article in the same condition as received, subject only to the
+deterioration arising from reasonable use, whether a horse, a house, or
+a carriage. And he was required to make good all injuries caused by his
+own fault or negligence. If the article perished, without any blame or
+neglect, the loss fell on the owner. If the loan was for consumption,
+which was called _mutuum_, like corn, or oil, or wine, the borrower
+was required to return as much of the same kind and quality, whether the
+price of the commodity had risen or fallen. In a loan of money, under
+_mutuum_, the borrower was not required to pay interest. Interest
+was only due _ex lege_, or by agreement. The rate varied at
+different times; generally, it was eight and one third per cent., and
+even more than this in the latter years of the republic. Justinian
+introduced a scale which varied with different classes of society.
+Persons of illustrious rank could lend money at four per cent., ordinary
+people at six, and for maritime risks twelve; but it was unlawful to
+charge interest upon interest. [Footnote: C. 4, 32, 26, Section 1.]
+Property would double, at eight and one third, in twelve years, not so
+rapidly as by our system of compound interest, especially at the rate of
+seven per cent. In England the usury laws of different monarchs limited
+interest from ten per cent, to five; but these were repealed in 1854.
+Only five per cent. can now be recovered upon any contract.
+
+[Sidenote: Deposits.]
+
+A deposit differed from a loan in this,--that the depositary was not
+entitled to any use of a thing deposited, and was bound to preserve it
+with reasonable care, and restore it on demand. As he derived no
+advantage, he was entitled to be reimbursed for all necessary charges.
+Ship-masters, innkeepers, and stablers, were responsible for the luggage
+and effects of travellers intrusted to their care, which policy is now
+adopted in both Europe and America, on the ground that if they were not
+held strictly to their charge, being not a very reputable class of men
+in ancient times, they might be in league with thieves. An innkeeper was
+therefore held responsible for loss, or damage, or theft, to secure the
+protection of travellers, whose patronage was a compensation. In case of
+robbery, when goods were taken by superior force, he was not
+responsible, nor was he for loss occasioned by inevitable accident.
+
+[Sidenote: Pledges and securities.]
+
+At Rome, pledges were customary, as a security for money due, on
+condition of their restoration after the payment of a debt. Real
+property, like houses and lands, as well as movables, were the subject
+of pledge. [Footnote: D. 20, 1.] The creditor was bound to bestow
+ordinary care and diligence in the preservation of the subject, but he
+could not use it, or take the profits of it, without a special contract.
+By the _pactum antichresis_, the creditor was allowed to take the
+profits in lieu of the interest on his debt; by the _lex
+commissoria_, the thing pledged became the absolute property of the
+creditor if the debt was not paid at the time agreed on. But as this
+condition was found to be a source of oppression, it was prohibited by a
+law of Constantine. [Footnote: C, 7, 35.] When the debt, interest, and
+all necessary expenses were paid, the debtor was entitled to have his
+pledge restored to him. After the time of payment was passed, the
+creditor had a right to sell the pledge, and retain his debt out of the
+produce of the sale; if there was a deficiency, the balance could be
+recovered by an action; if there was a surplus, the debtor was entitled
+to it. The Roman pledge was of the nature of the modern business of
+pawnbroking and of a mortgage.
+
+[Sidenote: Verbal Contracts.]
+
+Next to the perfection of contracts by the intervention of things
+_re_, were obligations contracted by _verbis_--solemn words--
+and by _literis_ or writing. The _verborum obligatio_ was contracted
+by uttering certain formal words of style, an interrogation
+being put by one party and an answer given by the other. These
+stipulations were binding. In England all guarantees must be in writing.
+
+[Sidenote: Written obligations.]
+
+The _obligatio literis_ was a written acknowledgment of debt
+chiefly employed when money was borrowed, but the creditor could not sue
+upon the note within two years from its date, without being called upon
+also to prove that the money was in fact paid to the debtor.
+
+[Sidenote: Sales.]
+
+Contracts perfected by consent--_consenses_--had reference to sale,
+hiring, partnership, and mandate. All contracts of sale were good
+without writing. When an article was sold and delivered, the market
+price, as fixed by custom, determined the price, if nothing had been
+said about it. The seller was bound to warrant that the thing sold was
+free from defects, and when the subject did not answer this implied
+warranty, the sale might be set aside. But the seller could stipulate
+that he should not be held to warrant against defects. Property was not
+transferred without actual delivery. When the sale was completed, all
+the risks of the thing sold passed to the purchaser. In the case of
+commodities sold by weight, number, or measure, the contract was not
+completed until the goods were weighed, counted, or measured, which
+sometimes caused considerable difficulty. After delivery, the seller was
+bound to warrant the title to the buyer, and to indemnify him for any
+loss. [Footnote: D. 22, 2. C. 8, 45.]
+
+[Sidenote: Leases.]
+
+[Sidenote: Agents and Partners.]
+
+In regard to hiring, all sorts of things, which were the subject of
+commerce, may be let for hire. Leases of land and houses come under this
+head. They were generally given for five years, and unless there was an
+express stipulation, the lessee might sublet to another. The lessor was
+required to deliver the subject in a good state of repair, and maintain
+it in that condition, and to guarantee its peaceable enjoyment; the
+lessee was bound to use the subject well, to put it to no use except
+that for which it was let, to preserve it in good condition, and restore
+it at the end of the term. He was bound also to pay the rent at the
+stipulated period, and when two years' rent were in arrear, the tenant
+could be ejected. The tenant of a farm was entitled to a remission of
+his rent if his crop was destroyed by an unforeseen accident or
+calamity. A contractor who agreed to undertake a piece of work was
+required to finish it in a proper manner, and if from negligence or
+ignorance the work was defective, he was liable to damages. In a
+partnership, if there were no express agreement, the shares of profit
+and loss were divided equally. Each partner was bound to exercise the
+same care for the joint concern as if it were his own. The acts of one
+partner were not binding on another, if he acted beyond the scope of the
+partnership. If one of the partners advanced money on account of the
+partnership, each of the partners were bound to contribute to the
+indemnity in proportion to his share of the concern; and if any of them
+became insolvent, the solvent shareholders were obliged to make up the
+deficiency. [Footnote: D. 17, 2, 67.] An agent could be employed to
+transact business for another, but was required to act strictly
+according to his orders, and the mandant, who gave the orders, was bound
+to ratify what was done by the mandatary, and to reimburse him for all
+advances and expenses incurred in executing the commission. By the Roman
+law agents were not remunerated. Donations could not be made beyond a
+certain maximum. Justinian ordered that when gifts exceeded five hundred
+solidi, a formal act stating the particulars of the donation should be
+inscribed in a public register.
+
+When a person spontaneously assumed the management of the affairs of
+another in his absence, and without any mandate, this was called
+_negotiorum gestio_, and the person was bound to perform any act
+which he had begun, as if he held a proper mandate, and strictly account
+for his management, while the principal was bound to indemnify him for
+all advances and expenses.
+
+When money was paid through error it could be recovered, under certain
+circumstances. But this point is a matter concerning which the jurists
+differ.
+
+[Sidenote: Libels.]
+
+[Sidenote: Damages.]
+
+Acts which caused damage to another obliged the wrongdoer to make
+reparation, and this responsibility extended to damages arising not only
+from positive acts, but from negligence or imprudence. In an action of
+libel or slander, the truth of the allegation might be pleaded in
+justification. [Footnote: D. 47, 10, 18.] In all cases it was necessary
+to show that an injury had been committed maliciously. But if damage
+arose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave in self-defense, no
+claim for reparation could be maintained. If any one exercised a
+profession or trade for which he was not qualified, he was liable to all
+the damage his want of skill or knowledge might occasion. When any
+damage was done by a slave or an animal, the owner of the same was
+liable for the loss, though the mischief was done without his knowledge
+and against his will. If any thing was thrown from a window of a house
+near the public thoroughfare, so as to injure any one by the fall, the
+occupier was bound to repair the damage, though done by a stranger.
+Claims arising under obligations might be transferred to a third person,
+by sale, exchange, or donation; but to prevent speculators from
+purchasing debts at low prices, it was ordered that the assignee should
+not be entitled to exact from the debtor more than he himself had paid
+to acquire the debt with interest,--a wise and just regulation which it
+would be well for us to copy. In regard to the extinction of obligations
+the creditor is not bound to accept of payments by instalments, or any
+thing short of proper payment at the time and place agreed upon. When
+several debts were due, the debtor, in making payment, could appropriate
+it to any one he pleased. [Footnote: D. 46, 3, 1.] When performance
+became impossible, without any fault of the debtor, such as when the
+specific subject had perished by unavoidable accident, the obligation
+was extinguished; but if the impossibility was caused by the fault of
+the debtor, he was still liable. This was a great modification of the
+severity of the ancient code, when a debtor could be sold into slavery
+for his debt. As certain contracts are formed by consent alone, so they
+could be extinguished by the mutual consent of the contracting parties,
+without performance on either side. In some cases the mere lapse of time
+extinguished an obligation, as in accordance with the modern system of
+outlawry.
+
+[Sidenote: Law of actions.]
+
+The next great department of Roman jurisprudence pertained to actions
+and procedure. The state conferred on a magistrate or judge jurisdiction
+to determine questions according to law. Civil jurisdiction pertains to
+questions of private right; criminal jurisdiction takes cognizance of
+crimes. When jurisdiction was conferred on a Roman magistrate, he
+acquired all the powers necessary to exercise it. The _imperium
+merum_ gave the power to inflict punishment; the _imperium
+mixtum_ was the power to carry civil decrees into execution. A
+_real action_ was directed against a person in the territory where
+the subject in dispute was located.
+
+By the ancient constitution, the king had the prerogative of determining
+civil causes. The right then devolved on the consuls, afterwards on the
+praetor, and in certain cases on the curule and plebeian ediles, who
+were charged with the internal police of the city.
+
+[Sidenote: The Praetors.]
+
+The praetor, a magistrate next in dignity to the consuls, acted as
+supreme judge of the civil courts, assisted by a council of
+jurisconsults to determine questions in law. At first one praetor was
+sufficient, but as the limits of the city and empire extended, he was
+joined by a colleague. After the conquest of Sicily, Sardinia, and the
+two Spains, new praetors were appointed to administer justice in the
+provinces. The praetor held his court in the comitium, wore a robe
+bordered with purple, sat in a curule chair, and was attended by
+lictors.
+
+[Sidenote: Other judges.]
+
+The praetor delegated his power to judges, called Judex, Arbiter, and
+Recuperatores. When parties were at issue about facts, it was the custom
+for the praetor to fix the question of law upon which the action turned,
+and then to remit to a delegate to inquire into the facts and pronounce
+judgment according to them. In the time of Augustus there were four
+thousand judices, who were merely private citizens, generally senators
+or men of consideration. The judex was invested by the magistrate with a
+judicial commission for a single case only. After being sworn to duty,
+he received from the praetor a formula containing a summary of all the
+points under litigation, from which he was not allowed to depart. He was
+required not merely to investigate facts, but to give sentence. And as
+law questions were more or less mixed up with the case, he was allowed
+to consult one or more jurisconsults. If the case was beyond his power
+to decide, he could decline to give judgment. The arbiter, like the
+judex, received a formula from the praetor, and seemed to have more
+extensive power. The recuperatores heard and determined cases, but the
+number appointed for each case was usually three or five.
+
+[Sidenote: The centumvirs.]
+
+The centumvirs constituted a permanent tribunal composed of members
+annually elected, in equal numbers, from each tribe, and this tribunal
+was presided over by the praetor, and divided into four chambers, which,
+under the republic, was placed under the ancient quaestors. The
+centumvirs decided questions of property, embracing a wide range of
+subjects. [Footnote: _Cicero de Orat_., i. 38.] The Romans had no
+class of men like the judges of modern times. The superior magistrates
+were changed annually, and political duties were mixed with judicial.
+The evil was partially remedied by the institution of legal assessors,
+selected from the most learned jurisconsults. Under the empire, the
+praetors were greatly increased. Under Tiberius, there were sixteen who
+administered justice, beside the consuls, six ediles, and ten tribunes
+of the people. The emperor himself became the supreme judge, and he was
+assisted in the discharge of his judicial duties by a council composed
+of the consuls, a magistrate of each grade, and fifteen senators. The
+Praetorian prefects, although, at first, their duties were purely
+military, finally discharged important judicial functions. The prefect
+of the city, in the time of the emperors, was a great judicial
+personage, who heard appeals from the praetors themselves.
+
+[Sidenote: Witnesses.]
+
+In all cases brought before the courts, the burden of proof was with the
+party asserting an affirmative fact. Proof by writing was generally
+considered most certain, but proof by witnesses was also admitted.
+Pupils, lunatics, infamous persons, interested parties, near relations,
+and slaves, could not bear evidence, or any person who had a strong
+enmity against the party. The witnesses were required to give their
+testimony on oath. Two witnesses were enough to prove a fact, in most
+instances. When witnesses gave conflicting testimony, the judge regarded
+those who were worthy of credit rather than numbers. In the English
+courts, the custom used to be as with the Romans, of refusing testimony
+from those who were interested, but this has been removed. On the
+failure of regular proof, the Roman law allowed a party to refer the
+facts in a civil action to the oath of his adversary.
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of debtors.]
+
+Under the empire every judgment was reduced to writing and signed by the
+judge, and then entered upon a register. [Footnote: C. vii. 45, 12.]
+After the sentence, the debtor was allowed thirty days for the payment
+of his debt, after which he was assigned over to the creditor and kept
+in chains for sixty days, during which he was publicly exposed for three
+market days, and if no one released him by paying the debt, he could be
+sold as a slave. Justinian extended the period to four months for the
+payment of a judgment debt, after which, if the debt was not paid, the
+debtor could be imprisoned, but not, as formerly, in the creditor's
+house. At first the goods of the debtor were sold in favor of any one
+who offered to pay the largest dividend, but in process of time, the
+goods of the debtor were sold in detail, and all creditors were paid a
+ratable dividend. In no respect are modern codes superior to the Roman,
+so much as in reference to imprisonment for debt. In the United States
+it has practically ceased, and in England no one can be imprisoned for a
+debt under 20 pounds, and in France under 8 pounds.
+
+[Sidenote: Appeal.]
+
+Under the Roman republic, there was no appeal in civil suits, but under
+the emperors a regular system was established. Under Augustus, there was
+an appeal from all the magistrates to the prefect of the city, and from
+him to the Praetorian prefect or emperor. In the provinces there was an
+appeal from the municipal magistrates to the governors, and from them to
+the emperor. Under Justinian, no appeal was allowed from a suit which
+did not involve at least twenty pounds in gold.
+
+[Sidenote: Criminal courts.]
+
+In regard to criminal courts, among the Romans, during the republic, the
+only body which had absolute power of life and death was the _comitia
+centuriata_. The Senate had no jurisdiction in criminal cases, so far
+as Roman citizens were concerned. It was only in extraordinary
+emergencies that the Senate, with the consuls, assumed the
+responsibility of inflicting summary punishment. Under the emperors, the
+Senate was armed with the power of criminal jurisdiction. And as the
+Senate was the tool of the imperator, he could crush whomsoever he
+pleased.
+
+As it was inconvenient, when Rome had become a very great city, to
+convene the comitia for the trial of offenders, the expedient was
+adopted of delegating the jurisdiction of the people to persons invested
+with temporary authority, called _quaesitores_. These were
+established at length into regular and permanent courts, called
+_quaestiones perpetuae_. Every case submitted to these courts was
+tried by a judge and jury. It was the duty of the judge to preside and
+regulate proceedings according to law; and it was the duty of the jury,
+after hearing the evidence and pleadings, to decide upon the guilt or
+innocence of the accused. As many as fifty persons frequently composed
+the jury, whose names were drawn out of an urn. Each party had a right
+to challenge a certain number, and the verdict was decided by a majority
+of votes. At first the judices were chosen from the Senate, and
+afterwards from the Equestrians, and then again from both orders. But in
+process of time the _quaestiones perpetuae_ gave place to imperial
+magistrates. The accused defended himself in person or by counsel.
+
+[Sidenote: Crimes.]
+
+The Romans divided _crimes_ into public and private. Private crimes
+could only be prosecuted by the party injured, and were generally
+punished by pecuniary fines, as among the old Germanic nations.
+
+[Sidenote: Treason.]
+
+Of public crimes, the _crimen loesoe majestatis_, or treason, was
+regarded as the greatest, and this was punished with death, and with
+confiscation of goods, [Footnote: I. 4, 18, 3.] while the memory of the
+offender was declared infamous. Greater severity could scarcely be
+visited on a culprit. Treason comprehended conspiracy against the
+government, assisting the enemies of Rome, and misconduct in the command
+of armies. Thus Manlius, in spite of his magnificent services, was
+hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, because he was convicted of an intention
+to seize upon the government. Under the empire, not only any attempt on
+the life of the emperor was treason, but disrespectful words or acts.
+The criminal was even tried after death, [Footnote: C. 9, 8, 6.] that
+his memory might become infamous, and this barbarous practice existed
+even in France and Scotland, as late as the beginning of the seventeenth
+century. In England, men have been executed for treasonable words.
+Beside treason there were other crimes against the state, such as a
+breach of the peace, extortion on the part of provincial governors,
+embezzlement of public property, stealing sacred things, bribery, most
+of which offenses were punished by pecuniary penalties.
+
+[Sidenote: Capital punishments.]
+
+[Sidenote: Criminal law gradually ameliorated.]
+
+But there were also crimes against individuals which were punished with
+the death penalty. Willful murder, poisoning, parricide, were capitally
+punished. Adultery was punished by banishment, beside a forfeiture of
+considerable property. [Footnote: D, 48, 5.] Constantine made it a
+capital offense. The Romans made adultery to consist in sexual
+intercourse with another man's wife, but not with a woman who was not
+married, even if he were married. Rape was punished with death
+[Footnote: C. 9, 13.] and confiscation of goods, as in England till a
+late period, when transportation for life became the penalty. The
+punishments inflicted for forgery, coining base money, and perjury, were
+arbitrary. Robbery, theft, patrimonial damage, and injury to person and
+property, were private trespasses, and not punished by the state. After
+a lapse of twenty years, without accusation, crimes were supposed to be
+extinguished. The Cornelian, Pompeian, and Julian laws formed the
+foundation of criminal jurisprudence, which never attained the
+perfection that was seen in the Civil Code. It was in this that the full
+maturity of wisdom was seen. The emperors greatly increased the severity
+of punishments, as probably necessary in a corrupt state of society.
+After the decemviral laws fell into disuse, the Romans, in the days of
+the republic, passed from extreme rigor to great lenity, as is
+observable in the transition from the Puritan regime to our times in the
+United States. Capital punishment for several centuries was exceedingly
+rare, and this was prevented by voluntary exile. Under the empire,
+public executions were frequent and revolting.
+
+[Sidenote: Fines.]
+
+[Sidenote: Exile.]
+
+Fines were a common mode of punishment with the Romans, as with the
+early Germans. Imprisonment in a public jail was also rare, the custom
+of bail being in general use. Although retaliation was authorized by the
+Twelve Tables for bodily injuries, it was seldom exacted, since
+pecuniary compensation was taken in lieu. Corporal punishments were
+inflicted upon slaves, but rarely upon citizens, except for military
+crimes. But Roman citizens could be sold into slavery for various
+offenses, chiefly military, and criminals were often condemned to labor
+in the mines or upon public works. Banishment was common--_aquae et
+ignis interdictio_--and this was equivalent to the deprivation of the
+necessities of life, and incapacitating a person from exercising the
+rights of citizenship. Under the emperors, persons were confined often
+on the rocky islands off the coast, or a compulsory residence in a
+particular place assigned. Thus Chrysostom was sent to a dreary place on
+the banks of the Euxine. Ovid was banished to Tomi. Death, when
+inflicted, was by hanging, scourging, and beheading, also by strangling
+in prison. Slaves were often crucified, and were compelled to carry
+their cross to the place of execution. This was the most ignominious and
+lingering of all deaths. It was abolished by Constantine from reverence
+to the sacred symbol. Under the emperors, execution took place also by
+burning alive and exposure to wild beasts. It was thus the early
+Christians were tormented, since their offense was associated with
+treason. Persons of distinction were treated with more favor than the
+lower classes, and the punishment was less cruel and ignominious. Thus
+Seneca, condemned for privity to treason, was allowed to choose his mode
+of death. The criminal laws of modern European states followed too often
+the barbarous custom of the emperors until a recent date. Since the
+French Revolution, the severity of the penal codes has been much
+modified.
+
+[Sidenote: Excellence of laws pertaining to property.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rights of citizens.]
+
+The penal statutes of Rome, as Gibbon emphatically remarks, "formed a
+very small portion of the Code and the Pandects; and in all judicial
+proceedings, the life or death of the citizen was determined with less
+caution and delay than the most ordinary question of covenant or
+inheritance." This was owing to the complicated relations of society, by
+which obligations are created or annulled, while duties to the state are
+explicit and well known, being inscribed not only on tables of brass,
+but on the conscience itself. It was natural, with the growth and
+development of commerce and dominion, that questions would arise which
+could not be ordinarily settled by ancient customs, and the practice of
+lawyers and the decisions of judges continually raised new difficulties,
+to be met only by new edicts. It is a pleasing fact to record that
+jurisprudence became more just and enlightened as it became more
+intricate. The principles of equity were more regarded under the
+emperors than in the time of Cato. It is in the application of these
+principles that the laws of the Romans have obtained so high
+consideration. Their abuse consisted in the expense of litigation, and
+the advantages which the rich thus obtained over the poor. But if delays
+and forms led to an expensive and vexatious administration of justice,
+these were more than compensated by the checks which a complicated
+jurisprudence gave to hasty or partial decisions. It was in the
+minuteness and precision of the forms of law, and in the foresight with
+which questions were anticipated in the various transactions of
+business, that prove that the Romans, in their civil and social
+relations, were very much on a level with modern times. And it would be
+difficult to find, in the most enlightened of modern codes, greater
+wisdom and foresight than what appear in the legacy of Justinian, as to
+all questions pertaining to the nature, the acquisition, the possession,
+the use, and the transfer of property. Civil obligations are most
+admirably defined, and all contracts are determined by the wisest
+application of the natural principles of justice. What can be more
+enlightened than the laws which relate to leases, to sales, to
+partnerships, to damages, to pledges, to hiring of work, and to quasi
+contracts! How clear the laws pertaining to the succession to property,
+to the duties of guardians, to the rights of wards, to legacies, to
+bequests in trust, and to the general limitation of testamentary powers!
+How wise the regulations in reference to intestate succession, and to
+the division of property among males and females. We find no laws of
+entail, no unequal rights, no absurd distinctions between brothers, no
+peculiar privileges given to males over females, or to older sons. In
+the Institutes of Justinian, we see on every page a regard to the
+principles of natural justice. We discover that the property of the wife
+cannot be alienated nor mortgaged by a prodigal husband; that wards are
+to be protected from the cupidity of guardians; that property could be
+bequeathed by will, and that wills are sacred; that all promises are to
+be fulfilled; that he who is intrusted with the property of another is
+bound to restitution by the most imperative obligations; that usury
+should be restrained; that all injuries should be repaired; that cattle
+and slaves should be protected from malice and negligence; that
+atrocious cruelties in punishment should not be inflicted; that
+malicious witnesses should be punished; that corrupt judges should be
+visited with severe penalties; that libels and satires should subject
+their authors to severe chastisement; that every culprit should be
+considered innocent until his guilt was proved. In short, every thing
+pertaining to property and contracts and wills is guarded with the most
+zealous care. A man was sure of possessing his own, and of transmitting
+it to his children. No infringement on personal rights could be
+tolerated. A citizen was free to go where he pleased, to do whatsoever
+he would, if he did not trespass on the rights of another; to seek his
+pleasure unobstructed, and pursue his business without vexatious
+incumbrances. If he was injured or cheated, he was sure of redress. Nor
+could he be easily defrauded with the sanction of the laws. A rigorous
+police guarded his person, his house, and his property. He was supreme
+and uncontrolled within his family. And this security to property and
+life and personal rights was guaranteed by the greatest tyrants. The
+fullest personal liberty was enjoyed under the emperors, and it was
+under their sanction that jurisprudence, in some of the most important
+departments of life, reached perfection. If injustice was suffered, it
+was not on account of the laws, but the depravity of men, the venality
+of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers. But the laws were wise and
+equal. The civil jurisprudence could be copied with safety by the most
+enlightened of European states. And, indeed, it is the foundation of
+their civil codes, especially in France and Germany.
+
+[Sidenote: Abuse of paternal power.]
+
+That there were some features in the Roman laws which we, in these
+Christian times, cannot indorse, and which we reprehend, cannot be
+denied. Under the republic, there was not sufficient limit to paternal
+power, and the _paterfamilias_ was necessarily a tyrant. It was
+unjust that the father should control the property of his son, and cruel
+that he was allowed such absolute control, not only over his children,
+but his wife. But the limits of paternal power were more and more
+curtailed, so that under the latter emperors, fathers were not allowed
+to have more authority than was perhaps expedient.
+
+[Sidenote: Evils of slavery.]
+
+The recognition of slavery as a domestic institution was another blot,
+and slaves could be treated with the grossest cruelty and injustice
+without redress. But here the Romans were not sinners beyond all other
+nations, and our modern times have witnessed a parallel.
+
+It was not the existence of slavery which was the greatest evil, but the
+facility by which slaves could be made. The laws pertaining to debt were
+severe, and it was most disgraceful to doom a debtor to the absolute
+power of a creditor. To subject men of the same blood to slavery for
+trifling debts, which they could not discharge, was the great defect of
+the Roman laws. But even these cruel regulations were modified, so that
+in the corrupt times of the empire, there was no greater practical
+severity than what was common in England one hundred years ago. The
+temptations to fraud were enormous in a wicked state of society, and
+demanded a severe remedy. It is possible that future ages may see too
+great leniency shown to debtors, who are not merely unfortunate but
+dishonest, in these our times; and the problem is not yet solved,
+whether men should be severely handled who are guilty of reckless and
+unprincipled speculations and unscrupulous dealings, or whether they
+should be allowed immunity to prosecute their dangerous and disgraceful
+courses.
+
+[Sidenote: Evils of divorce.]
+
+The facility of divorce was another stigma on the Roman laws, and the
+degradation of woman was the principal consequence. But woman never was
+honored in any pagan land. Her condition at Rome was better than it was
+at Athens. She always was regarded as a possession rather than as a free
+person. Her virtue was mistrusted, and her aspirations were scorned. She
+was hampered and guarded more like a slave than the equal companion of
+man. But the whole progress of legislation was in her favor, and she
+continued to gain new privileges to the fall of the empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Severity of penal law.]
+
+[Sidenote: Certainty of punishment.]
+
+Moreover, the penal code of the Romans, in reference to breaches of
+trust, or carelessness, or ignorance, by which property was lost or
+squandered, may have been too severe, as is the case in England in
+reference to hunting game on another's grounds. It was hard to doom a
+man to death who drove away his neighbor's cattle, or entered in the
+night his neighbor's house. But severe penalties alone will keep men
+from crimes where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and
+society becomes impossible when there is no efficient protection to
+property. If sheep can be killed by dogs, if orchards can be stripped of
+their fruit, and jewelry be appropriated by servants with impunity, a
+great stimulus to honest industry is taken away, and men will be forced
+to seek more distant homes where they can reap the fruits of toil, or
+will give up in despair. Society was never more secure and happy in
+England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies
+were visited with certain retribution. Every traveler in France and
+England feels that in regard to the punishment of crime, those old
+countries, restricted as are political privileges, are vastly superior
+to our own. The Romans lost, under the emperors, their political rights;
+but they gained protection and safety in their relations with society.
+And where quiet and industrious citizens feel safe in their homes, and
+are protected in their dealings from scoundrels, and have ample scope
+for industrial enterprise, and are free to choose their private
+pleasures, they resign themselves to the loss of electing their rulers
+without great unhappiness. There are greater evils in the world than the
+deprivation of the elective franchise, great and glorious as is this
+privilege. The arbitrary rule of the emperors was fatal to political
+aspirations and rights, but the evils of political slavery were
+qualified and set off by the excellence of the civil code, and the
+privileges of social freedom.
+
+[Sidenote: Intricacy and uncertainty of the law.]
+
+The great practical evil connected with Roman jurisprudence was the
+intricacy and perplexity and uncertainty of the laws, together with the
+expense involved in litigation. The class of lawyers was large, and
+their gains were extortionate. Justice was not always to be found on the
+side of right. The law was uncertain as well as costly. The most learned
+counsel could only be employed by the rich, and even judges were venal.
+So that the poor did not easily find adequate redress, and the good
+became an evil. But all this is the necessary attendant on a factitious
+state of society. Material civilization will lead to an undue estimate
+of money. And when money purchases all that artificial people desire,
+then all classes will prostitute themselves for its possession, and
+justice, dignity, and elevation of sentiment are forced to retreat, as
+hermits sought a solitude, when society had reached its lowest
+degradation, out of pure despair of its renovation.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+The authorities for this chapter are very numerous. Since the Institutes
+of Gaius have been recovered, very many eminent writers on Roman law
+have appeared, especially in Germany and France. Among those who could
+be cited, are Beaufort, Histoire de la Republique Romaine; Colquhoun,
+Summary of the Roman Civil Law; De Fresquet, Traite Elementaire de Droit
+Romain; Ducaurroy (A. M. Professor of Roman Law at Paris), Les
+Institutes de Justinien nouvellement expliquees; Gneist (Dr. Reed),
+Institutionum et Regularum Juris Romani; Halifax (Dr. Samuel), Analysis
+of the Roman Civil Law; Heineccius (Jo. Gott.), Elementa Juris Civilis
+Secundum Ordinem Institutionum; Laboulaye, Essai sur les Lois
+Criminelles des Remains; Long's Articles on Roman Law in Dr. Smith's
+Dictionary; Maine's Ancient Law; Gaius, Institutionum Commentarii
+Quatuor; Marezole (Theodore, Professor at Leipsic), Lebruch der
+Institutionem des Romischen Rechts; Maynz (Charles, Professor of Law at
+Brussels), Elements du Droit Romain; Ortolan (M., Professor at Paris),
+Explication Historique des Institutes de l'Empereur Justinien;
+Phillimore, Introduction to the Study and History of Roman Law; Pothier,
+Pandectae Justinianae in Novum Ordinem Digestae; Savigny, Geschichte des
+Rom. Rechts; Walter, Histoire de la Procedure Civile Chez Romains.
+
+I have found the late work of Lord Mackenzie, on Roman Law, together
+with the articles of George Long, in Smith's Dictionary, the most useful
+in compiling this notice of Roman jurisprudence. Mr. Maine's Treatise on
+Roman Law is exceedingly interesting and valuable. Gibbon's famous
+chapter should also be read by every student. There is a fine
+translation of the Institutes of Justinian, which is quite accessible,
+by Dr. Harris of Oxford. The Code, Pandects, Institutes, and Novels,
+are, of course, the original authority, with the long-lost Institutes of
+Gaius.
+
+In connection with the study of the Roman law, it would be well to read
+Sir George Bowyer's Commentaries on the Modern Civil Law; Irving,
+Introduction to the Study of the Civil Law; Lindley, Introduction to the
+Study of Jurisprudence; and Wheaton's Elements of International Law;
+Vattel, Le Droit des Gens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ROMAN LITERATURE.
+
+
+If the ancient civilization rivaled the modern in the realm of
+_art_, it was equally remarkable in the field of letters. It is not
+my object to show that it was equal, or superior, or inferior to modern
+literature, either in original genius or artistic excellence. That point
+would be difficult to settle, and unprofitable to discuss. There is no
+doubt as to the superior advantage which the modern world derives in
+consequence of the invention of printing, and the consequent diffusion
+of knowledge. But the question is in reference to the height which was
+attained by the ancient pagan intellect, unaided by Christianity. I
+simply wish to show that the ancients were distinguished in all
+departments of literature, and that some of the masterpieces of genius
+were created by them.
+
+Nor is it my object to write a summary of the literature of antiquity.
+It would be as dull as a catalogue, or a dictionary, or a compendium of
+universal history for the use of schools in a single volume. And it
+would be as profitless. My aim is simply to show that the old
+civilization can boast of its glories in literature, as well as in art,
+and that the mind of man never more nobly asserted its power than in
+Greece and Rome. Our present civilization delights in those
+philosophers, poets, and historians, who caught their inspiration from
+the great pagan models which have survived the wreck of material
+greatness. The human intellect achieved some of its greatest feats
+before Christianity was born. The inborn dignity of the mind and soul
+was never more nobly asserted than by Plato and Aristotle, by Thucydides
+and Tacitus, by Homer and Virgil, by Demosthenes and Cicero. In
+attestation, therefore, of the glory of the ancient civilization, in the
+realm of literature, it is quite sufficient for our purpose to point out
+some of those great lights which, after the lapse of two thousand years
+or more, still continue to shine, and which are objects of hopeless
+imitation, even as they are of universal admiration. If we can show that
+the great heights were reached, even by a few, we prove the extent of
+civilization. If genius can soar, under Pagan, as well as under
+Christian influences, it would appear that civilization, in an
+intellectual point of view, may be the work of man, unaided by
+inspiration. It is the triumph of the native intellect of man which I
+wish to show.
+
+[Sidenote: Romans borrow from the Greeks.]
+
+Although it is my chief aim to present the magnificent civilization of
+the Roman empire under the emperors, I must cite the examples of Grecian
+as well as Roman genius, since Greece became a part of that grand
+empire, and since Grecian and Roman culture is mixed up and blended
+together. Roman youth were trained in the Grecian schools. Young men
+were sent to Athens and Rhodes after they had finished their education
+in the capital. Athens continued to be, for several hundred years after
+her political glory had passed away, the great university city of the
+world. Educated Romans were as familiar with the Greek classics as they
+were with those of their own country, and could talk Greek as modern
+Germans can talk French. The poems which kindled the enthusiasm of Roman
+youth are as worthy of notice as the statues which the conquerors
+brought from the Ionian cities, to ornament their palaces and baths.
+They equally attest the richness of the old civilization. And as it is
+the triumph of the pagan intellect which I wish to show, it matters but
+little whether we draw our illustrations from Greece or Rome. Without
+the aid of Greece, Rome could never have reached the height she
+attained.
+
+[Sidenote: Richness of Greek Poetry.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Homeric poems.]
+
+Now how rich in poetry was classical antiquity, whether sung in the
+Greek or Latin languages. In all those qualities which give immortality,
+it has never been surpassed, whether in simplicity, in passion, in
+fervor, in fidelity to nature, in wit, or in imagination. It existed
+from the early ages, and continued to within a brief period of the fall
+of the empire. With the rich accumulation of ages, the Romans were
+familiar. They knew nothing indeed of the solitary grandeur of the
+Jewish muse, or the mythological myths of the Ante-Homeric songsters;
+but they possessed the Iliad and the Odyssey, with their wonderful
+truthfulness, and clear portraiture of character, their absence of all
+affectation, their serenity and cheerfulness, their good sense and
+healthful sentiments, yet so original that the germ of almost every
+character which has since figured in epic poetry can be found in them.
+We see in Homer [Footnote: Born probably at Smyrna, an Ionian city,
+about one hundred and fifty years after the Trojan War.] a poet of the
+first class, holding the same place in literature that Plato does in
+philosophy, or Newton in science, and exercising a mighty influence on
+all the ages which have succeeded him. For nearly three thousand years
+his immortal creations have been the delight and the inspiration of men
+of genius, and they are as marvelous to us as they were to the
+Athenians, since they are exponents of the learning, as well as of the
+consecrated sentiments of the heroic ages. We see no pomp of words, no
+far-fetched thoughts, no theatrical turgidity, no ambitious
+speculations, no indefinite longings; but we read the manners and
+customs of the primitive nations, and lessons of moral wisdom and human
+nature as it is, and the sights and wonders of the external world, all
+narrated with singular simplicity, yet marvelous artistic skill. We find
+accuracy, delicacy, naturalness, yet grandeur, sentiment, and beauty,
+such as Pheidias represented in his statues of Jupiter. No poems have
+ever been more popular, and none have extorted greater admiration from
+critics. Like Shakespeare, Homer is a kind of Bible to both the learned
+and unlearned among all people and ages--one of the prodigies of this
+world. His poems form the basis of Greek literature, and are the best
+understood and the most widely popular of all Grecian composition. The
+unconscious simplicity of the Homeric narrative, its vivid pictures, its
+graphic details and religious spirit, create an enthusiasm such as few
+works of genius can claim. Moreover, it presents a painting of society,
+with its simplicity and ferocity, its good and evil passions, its
+compassion and its fierceness, such as no other poem affords. [Footnote:
+The Homeric poems have been translated into nearly all the European
+languages, and several times into English. The last translation is by
+the Earl of Derby--a most remarkable work. Guizot, _Cours d'Hist.
+Mod_., Lecon 7me; Grote, vol. ii. p. 277; _Studies in Homer_, by
+Hon. W. E. Gladstone; Mure, _Critical Hist. of Lang. and Lit. of
+Greece_; Muller, _Hist, of the Lit. of Ancient Greece_, translated
+by Donaldson.] Nor is it necessary to speak of any other Grecian
+epic, when the Iliad and the Odyssey attest the perfection which
+was attained one hundred and twenty years before Hesiod was born. Grote
+thinks that the Iliad and the Odyssey were produced at some period
+between 850 B.C., and 776 B.C.
+
+[Sidenote: Pindar.]
+
+In lyrical poetry the Greeks were no less remarkable, and indeed they
+attained to absolute perfection, owing to the intimate connection
+between poetry and music. Who has surpassed Pindar in artistic skill?
+His _triumphal odes_ are paeans, in which piety breaks out in
+expressions of the deepest awe, and the most elevated sentiments of
+moral wisdom. They alone of all his writings have descended to us, but
+all possess fragments of odes, songs, dirges, and panegyrics, which show
+the great excellence to which he attained. He was so celebrated that he
+was employed by the different states and princes of Greece to compose
+choral songs for special occasions, especially the public games.
+Although a Theban, he was held in the highest estimation by the
+Athenians, and was courted by kings and princes. [Footnote: Born in
+Thebes 522 B.C., and died probably in his eightieth year, and was
+contemporary with Aeschylus and the battle of Marathon.] We possess,
+also, fragments of Sappho, Simonides, Anacreon, and others, enough to
+show that, could the lyrical poetry of Greece be recovered, we should
+probably possess the richest collection that the world has produced.
+
+[Sidenote: Greek dramatic poetry.]
+
+But dramatic poetry was still more varied and remarkable. Even the great
+masterpieces of Sophocles and Euripides, were regarded by contemporaries
+as inferior to many tragedies utterly unknown to us.
+
+[Sidenote: Aeschylus.]
+
+The great creator of the Greek drama was Aeschylus, born at Eleusis, 525
+B.C. It was not till the age of forty-one that he gained his first
+prize. Sixteen years afterwards, defeated by Sophocles, he quitted
+Athens in disgust, and went to the court of Hiero, king of Syracuse. But
+he was always held, even at Athens, in the highest honor, and his pieces
+were frequently reproduced upon the stage. It was not so much his object
+to amuse an audience, as to instruct and elevate it. He combined
+religious feeling with lofty moral sentiment. And he had unrivaled power
+over the realm of astonishment and terror. "At his summons," says Sir
+Walter Scott, "the mysterious and tremendous volume of destiny, in which
+is inscribed the doom of gods and men, seemed to display its leaves of
+iron before the appalled spectators; the more than mortal voices of
+Deities, Titans, and departed heroes, were heard in awful conference;
+heaven bowed, and its divinities descended; earth yawned and gave up the
+pale spectres of the dead, and yet more undefined and ghastly forms of
+those infernal deities who struck horror into the gods themselves." His
+imagination dwells in the loftiest regions of the old mythology of
+Greece; his tone is always pure and moral, though stern and harsh. He
+appeals to the most violent passions, and he is full of the boldest
+metaphors. In sublimity he has never been surpassed. He was in poetry,
+what Pheidias and Michael Angelo were in art. The critics say that his
+sublimity of diction is sometimes carried to an extreme, so that his
+language becomes inflated. His characters are sublime, like his
+sentiments; they were gods and heroes of colossal magnitude. His
+religious views were Homeric, and he sought to animate his countrymen to
+deeds of glory, as it became one of the generals who fought at Marathon
+to do. He was an unconscious genius, and worked, like Homer, without a
+knowledge of artistical laws. He was proud and impatient, and his poetry
+was religious rather than moral. He wrote seventy plays, of which only
+seven are extant; but these are immortal, among the greatest creations
+of human genius, like the dramas of Shakespeare. He died in Sicily in
+the sixty-ninth year of his age. The principal English translation of
+his plays are by Potter, Harford, and Medwin. [Footnote: See Muller and
+Bode, histories of Greek Literature.]
+
+[Sidenote: Sophocles.]
+
+The fame of Sophocles is scarcely less than that of Aeschylus. He was
+twenty-seven years of age when he appeared as a rival. He was born in
+Colonus, in the suburbs of Athens, 495 B.C., and was the contemporary of
+Herodotus, of Pericles, of Pindar, of Pheidias, of Socrates, of Cimon,
+of Euripides--the era of great men; the period of the Peloponnesian War,
+when every thing that was elegant and intellectual culminated at Athens.
+Sophocles had every element of character and person which fascinated the
+Greeks: beauty of person, symmetry of form, skill in gymnastics,
+calmness and dignity of manner, a cheerful and amiable temper, a ready
+wit, a meditative piety, a spontaneity of genius, an affectionate
+admiration for talent, and patriotic devotion to his country. His
+tragedies, by the universal consent of the best critics, are the
+perfection of the Grecian drama, and they, moreover, maintain that he
+has no rival, Shakespeare alone excepted, in the whole realm of dramatic
+poetry, unless it be Aeschylus himself, to whom he bears the same
+relation in poetry that Raphael does to Michael Angelo in the world of
+art. It was his peculiarity to excite emotions of sorrow and compassion.
+He loved to paint forlorn heroes. He was human in all his sympathies,
+not so religious as his great rival, but as severely ethical; not so
+sublime, but more perfect in art. His sufferers are not the victims of
+an inexorable destiny, but of their own follies. Nor does he even excite
+emotion apart from a moral end. He lived to be ninety years old, and
+produced the most beautiful of his tragedies in his eightieth year, the
+"Oedipus at Colonus." He wrote the astonishing number of one hundred and
+thirty plays, and carried off the first prize twenty-four times. His
+"Antigone" was written when he was forty-five, and when Euripides had
+already gained a prize. Only seven of his tragedies have survived, but
+these are priceless treasures. The fertility of his genius was only
+equaled by his artistic skill. [Footnote: Schlegel, _Lectures on
+Dramatic Art_; Muller, _Hist. Lit._; Donaldson's _Antigone_;
+Lessing, _Leben des Sophokles_; Philip Smith, article in Smith's
+_Dict._.]
+
+[Sidenote: Euripides.]
+
+Euripides, the last of the great triumvirate of the Greek tragic poets,
+was born at Athens, B.C. 485. He had not the sublimity of Aeschylus, nor
+the touching pathos of Sophocles, but, in seductive beauty and
+successful appeal to passion, was superior to both. Nor had he their
+stern simplicity. In his tragedies the passion of love predominates, nor
+does it breathe the purity of sentiment. It approaches rather to the
+tone of the modern drama. He paints the weakness and corruptions of
+society, and brings his subjects to the level of common life. He was the
+pet of the Sophists, and was pantheistic in his views. He does not paint
+ideal excellence, and his characters are not as men ought to be, but as
+they are, especially in corrupt states of society. He wrote ninety-five
+plays, of which eighteen are extant. Whatever objection may be urged in
+reference to his dramas on the score of morality, nobody can question
+their transcendent art, or his great originality. With the exception of
+Shakespeare, all succeeding dramatists have copied these three great
+poets, especially Racine, who took Sophocles for his model. [Footnote:
+Muller, Schlegel. Sir Walter Scott on the Drama; Gote, vol. viii. p.
+442, Thorne, _Mag. Via. Eurip._ Potter has made a translation of
+all his plays.]
+
+[Sidenote: Greek comedy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Aristophanes.]
+
+The Greeks were no less distinguished for comedy. Both tragedy and
+comedy sprung from feasts in honor of Bacchus; and as the jests and
+frolics were found misplaced when introduced into grave scenes, a
+separate province of the drama was formed, and comedy arose. At first it
+did not derogate from the religious purposes which were at the
+foundation of the Greek drama. It turned upon parodies, in which the
+adventures of the gods are introduced by way of sport, like the appetite
+of Hercules, or the cowardice of Bacchus. Then the comic authors
+entertained spectators by fantastic and gross displays; by the
+exhibition of buffoons and pantomimes. But the taste of the Athenians
+was too severe to relish such entertainments, and comedy passed into
+ridicule of public men and measures, and of the fashions of the day. The
+people loved to see their great men brought down to their own level. Nor
+did comedy flourish until the morals of society were degenerated, and
+ridicule had become the most effective weapon to assail prevailing
+follies. Comedy reached its culminating point when society was both the
+most corrupt and the most intellectual, as in France, when Moliere
+pointed his envenomed shafts against popular vices. It pertained to the
+age of Socrates and the Sophists, when there was great bitterness in
+political parties, and an irrepressible desire for novelties. In
+Cratinus, comedy first made herself felt as a great power, who espoused
+the side of Cimon against Pericles, with great bitterness and vehemence.
+Many were the comic writers of that age of wickedness and genius, but
+all yielded precedence to Aristophanes, whose plays only have reached
+us. Never were libels on persons of authority and influence uttered with
+such terrible license. He attacked the gods, the politicians, the
+philosophers, and the poets of Athens; even private citizens did not
+escape from his shafts, and women were subjects of his irony. Socrates
+was made the butt of his ridicule, when most revered, and Cleon in the
+height of his power, and Euripides when he had gained the highest
+prizes. He has furnished jests for Rabelais, and hints to Swift, and
+humor for MoliEre. In satire, in derision, in invective, and bitter
+scorn, he has never been surpassed. No modern capital would tolerate
+such unbounded license. Yet no plays were ever more popular, or more
+fully exposed follies which could not otherwise be reached. He is called
+the Father of Comedy, and his comedies are of great historical
+importance, although his descriptions are doubtless caricatures. He was
+patriotic in his intentions, and set up for a reformer. His peculiar
+genius shines out in his "Clouds," the greatest of his pieces, in which
+he attacks the Sophists. He wrote fifty-four plays. He was born B.C.
+444, and died B.C. 380. His best comedies are translated by Mitchell.
+
+Thus it would appear that in the three great departments of poetry,--the
+epic, the lyric, and the dramatic,--the old Greeks were great masters,
+and have been the teachers of all subsequent nations and ages.
+
+The Romans, in these departments, were not their equals, but they were
+very successful copyists, and will bear competition with modern nations.
+If the Romans did not produce a Homer, they can boast of a Virgil; if
+they had no Pindar, they furnished a Horace, while in satire they
+transcended the Greeks.
+
+[Sidenote: Naevius.]
+
+The Romans, however, produced no poetry worthy of notice until the Greek
+language and literature were introduced. It was not till the fall of
+Tarentum that we read of a Roman poet. Livius Andronicus, a Greek slave,
+B.C. 240, rudely translated the Odyssey into Latin, and was the author
+of various plays, all of which have perished, and none of which,
+according to Cicero, were worth a second perusal. Still he was the first
+to substitute the Greek drama for the old lyrical stage poetry. One year
+after the first Punic War, he exhibited the first Roman play. As the
+creator of the drama, he deserves historical notice, though he has no
+claim to originality, and like a schoolmaster as he was, pedantically
+labored to imitate the culture of the Greeks. And his plays formed the
+commencement of Roman translation-literature, and naturalized the Greek
+metres in Latium, even though they were curiosities rather than works of
+art. [Footnote: Mommsen, vol. ii. b. ii. ch. xiv.] Naevius, B.C. 235,
+produced a play at Rome, and wrote both epic and dramatic poetry, but so
+little has survived, that no judgment can be formed of his merits. He
+was banished for his invectives against the aristocracy, who did not
+relish severity of comedy. [Footnote: Horace, _Ep_. ii. 11, 53.]
+Mommsen regards Naevius as the first among the Romans who deserves to be
+ranked among the poets. He flourished about the year 550, and closely
+adhered to Andronicus in metres. His language is free from stiffness and
+affectation, and his verses have a graceful flow. Plautus was perhaps
+the first great poet whom the Romans produced, and his comedies are
+still admired by critics, as both original and fresh. He was born in
+Umbria, B.C. 257, and was contemporaneous with Publius and Cneius
+Scipio. He died B.C. 184.
+
+[Sidenote: Plautus.]
+
+The first development of Roman genius in the field of poetry, seems to
+have been the dramatic, in which the Greek authors were copied. Plautus
+might be mistaken for a Greek, were it not for the painting of Roman
+manners. His garb is essentially Greek. He wrote one hundred and thirty
+plays, not always for the stage, but for the reading public. He lived
+about the time of the second Punic War, before the theatre was fairly
+established at Rome. His characters, although founded on Greek models,
+act, speak, and joke like Romans. He enjoyed great popularity down to
+the latest times of the empire, while the purity of his language, as
+well as the felicity of his wit, was celebrated by the ancient critics.
+[Footnote: Quint., x. i. Section 99.] Cicero places his wit on a par
+with the old Attic comedy, [Footnote: Cicero, _De Off_., i. 29.]
+while Jerome spent much time in reading his comedies, even though they
+afterward cost him tears of bitter regret. Modern dramatists owe much to
+him. Moliere has imitated him in his "_Avare_," and Shakespeare in
+his "Comedy of Errors." Lessing pronounces the "_Captivi_" to be
+the finest comedy ever brought upon the stage. [Footnote: Smith, _Dict.
+of Ant._ art. _Plaut_.] He has translated this play into German.
+It has also been admirably translated into English. The great excellence
+of Plautus was the masterly handling of the language, and the adjusting
+the parts for dramatic effect. His humor, broad and fresh, produced
+irresistible comic effects. No one ever surpassed him in his vocabulary
+of nicknames, and his happy jokes. Hence he maintained his popularity in
+spite of his vulgarity. [Footnote: Mommsen, vol. ii. b. iii. ch. xiv.]
+
+[Sidenote: Terence.]
+
+Terence shares with Plautus the throne of Roman comedy. He was a
+Carthaginian slave, and was born B.C. 160, but was educated by a wealthy
+Roman, into whose hands he fell, and ever after associated with the best
+society, and traveled extensively into Greece. He was greatly inferior
+to Plautus in originality, nor has he exerted a lasting influence like
+him; but he wrote comedies characterized by great purity of diction, and
+which have been translated into all modern languages. [Footnote:
+Coleman's _Terence_; Dryden, _On Dram. Poet._; Mommsen, vol.
+iii. b. v. ch. xiii.] Anterior to the Augustan age, no tragic production
+has reached us, although Quintilian speaks highly of Accius, [Footnote:
+Quint., x. 1. Section 97.] especially of the vigor of his style. But
+he merely imitated the Greeks. Terence closely copied Menander, whom
+Mommsen regards as the most polished, elegant, and chaste of all the
+poets of the newer comedy. Unlike Plautus, he draws his characters from
+good society, and his comedies, if not moral, were decent. Plautus wrote
+for the multitude; Terence for the few. Plautus delighted in a noisy
+dialogue and slang expressions; Terence confines himself to quiet
+conversation and elegant expressions, for which he was admired by Cicero
+and Quintilian, and other great critics. He aspired to the approval of
+the good, rather than the applause of the vulgar; and it is a remarkable
+fact that his comedies supplanted the more original productions of
+Plautus in the latter years of the republic, showing that the literature
+of the aristocracy was more prized than that of the people, even in a
+degenerate age. The "_Thyestes_" [Footnote: Hor., _Sat_. I 9;
+Martial, viii. 18.] of Varius, was regarded in its day as equal to Greek
+tragedies. Ennius composed tragedies in a vigorous style, and was
+regarded by the Romans as the parent of their literature, although most
+of his works have perished. [Footnote: Born B.C. 239.] Virgil borrowed
+many of his thoughts, and he was regarded as the prince of Roman song in
+the time of Cicero. The Latin language is greatly indebted to him.
+Pacuvius imitated Aeschylus in the loftiness of his style. [Footnote:
+Born B.C. 170] The only tragedy of the Romans which has reached us was
+written by Seneca the philosopher.
+
+[Sidenote: The Aeneid.]
+
+[Sidenote: Virgil.]
+
+In epic poetry the Romans accomplished more, though still inferior to
+the Greeks. The "Aeneid" has certainly survived the material glories of
+Rome. It may not have come up to the exalted ideal of its author; it may
+be defaced by political flatteries; it may not have the force and
+originality of the "Iliad," but it is superior in art, and delineates
+the passion of love with more delicacy than can be found in any Greek
+author. In soundness of judgment, in tenderness of feeling, in chastened
+fancy, in picturesque description, in delineation of character, in
+matchless beauty of diction, and in splendor of versification, it has
+never been surpassed by any poem in any language, and proudly takes its
+place among the imperishable works of genius. "Availing himself of the
+pride and superstition of the Roman people, the poet traces the origin
+and establishment of the 'Eternal City,' to those heroes and actions
+which had enough in them of what was human and ordinary to excite the
+sympathies of his countrymen, intermingled with persons and
+circumstances of an extraordinary and superhuman character to awaken
+their admiration and awe. No subject could have been more happily
+chosen. It has been admired also for its perfect unity of action; for
+while the episodes command the richest variety of description, they are
+always subordinate to the main object of the poem, which is to impress
+the divine authority under which Aeneas first settled in Italy. The wrath
+of Juno, upon which the whole fate of Aeneas seems to turn, is at once
+that of a woman and a goddess; the passion of Dido, and her general
+character, bring us nearer to the present world; but the poet is
+continually introducing higher and more effectual influences, until, by
+the intervention of gods and men, the Trojan name is to be continued in
+the Roman, and thus heaven and earth are appeased." [Footnote: Thompson,
+_Hist. Rom. Lit._, p. 92.] No one work of man has probably had such
+a wide and profound influence as this poem of Virgil,--a text-book in
+all schools since the revival of learning, the model of the Carlovingian
+poets, the guide of Dante, the oracle of Tasso. [Footnote: Virgil was
+born seventy years before Christ, and was seven years older than
+Augustus. His parentage was humble, but his facilities of education were
+great. He was a most fortunate man, enjoying the friendship of Augustus
+and Maecenas, fame in his own lifetime, leisure to prosecute his studies,
+and ample rewards for his labors. He died at Brundusium at the age of
+fifty.]
+
+[Sidenote: Horace.]
+
+In lyrical poetry, the Romans can boast of one of the greatest masters
+of any age or nation. The Odes of Horace have never been transcended,
+and will probably remain through all the ages, the delight of scholars.
+They may not have the deep religious sentiment, and the unity of
+imagination and passion which belong to the Greek lyrical poets, but as
+works of art, of exquisite felicity of expression, of agreeable images,
+they are unrivaled. Even in the time of Juvenal, his poems were the
+common school books of Roman youth. Horace, like Virgil, was a favored
+man, enjoying the friendship of the great with ease, fame, and fortune.
+But his longings for retirement, and his disgust at the frivolities
+around him, are a sad commentary on satisfied desires. [Footnote: Born
+B.C. 65. The best translation of his works is by Francis; but Horace is
+untranslatable.] His odes compose but a small part of his writings. His
+epistles are the most perfect of his productions, and rank with the
+Georgics of Virgil and the satires of Juvenal, as the most perfect form
+of Roman verse. His satires are also admirable, but without the fierce
+vehemence and lofty indignation that characterized Juvenal. It is the
+folly rather than the wickedness of vice which he describes with such
+playful skill and such keenness of observation. He was the first to
+mould the Latin tongue to the Greek lyric measures. Quintilian's
+criticism is indorsed by all scholars. "_Lyricorum Horatius fere solus
+legi dignus, in verbis felicissime audax_." No poetry was ever more
+severely elaborated than that of Horace, and the melody of the language
+imparts to it a peculiar fascination. If inferior to Pindar in passion
+and loftiness, it glows with a more genial humanity, and with purer wit.
+It cannot be enjoyed fully, except by those versed in the experiences of
+life. Such perceive a calm wisdom, a penetrating sagacity, a sober
+enthusiasm, and a refined taste, which are unusual even among the
+masters of human thought. It is the fashion to depreciate the original
+merits of this poet, as well as those of Virgil and Plautus and Terence,
+because they derived so much assistance from the Greeks. But the Greeks
+borrowed from each other. Pure originality is impossible. It is the
+mission of art to add to its stores, without hoping to monopolize the
+whole realm. Even Shakespeare, the most original of modern poets, was
+vastly indebted to those who went before him, and even he has not
+escaped the hypercriticism of minute observers.
+
+[Sidenote: Catullus.]
+
+In this allusion to lyrical poetry, I have not spoken of Catullus,
+unrivaled in tender lyric, and the greatest poet before the Augustan
+era. He was born B.C. 87, and enjoyed the friendship of the most
+celebrated characters. One hundred and sixteen of his poems have come
+down to us, most of which are short, and many of them defiled by great
+coarseness and sensuality. Critics say, however, that whatever he
+touched he adorned; that his vigorous simplicity, pungent wit, startling
+invective, and felicity of expression, make him one of the great poets
+of the Latin language.
+
+[Sidenote: Lucretius.]
+
+In didactic poetry, Lucretius was preeminent, and is regarded by
+Schlegel as the first of Roman poets in native genius. [Footnote: Born
+B.C. 95, died B.C. 52. Smith's _Dict._] He lived before the
+Augustan era, and died at the age of forty-two by his own hand. His
+great poem "De Rerum Natura," is a delineation of the epicurean
+philosophy, and treats of all the great subjects of thought with which
+his age is conversant. It somewhat resembles Pope's "Essay on Man," in
+style and subject, but immeasurably superior in poetical genius. It is a
+lengthened disquisition, in seven thousand four hundred lines, of the
+great phenomena of the outward world. As a painter and worshiper of
+nature, he was superior to all the poets of antiquity. His skill in
+presenting abstruse speculations is marvelous, and his outbursts of
+poetic genius are matchless in power and beauty. Into all subjects he
+casts a fearless eye, and writes with sustained enthusiasm. But he was
+not fully appreciated by his countrymen, although no other poet has so
+fully brought out the power of the Latin language. Professor Ramsay,
+[Footnote: The translation of Lucretius into English was made by I. M.
+Goode, Evelyn, and Drummond.] while alluding to the melancholy
+tenderness of Tibullus, the exquisite ingenuity of Ovid, the inimitable
+felicity and taste of Horace, the gentleness and splendor of Virgil, and
+the vehement declamation of Juvenal, thinks that, had the verses of
+Lucretius perished, we should never have known that it could give
+utterance to the grandest conceptions with all that self-sustained
+majesty and harmonious swell, in which the Grecian muse rolls forth her
+loftiest outpourings. The eulogium of Ovid is--
+
+  "Carmina sublimis tune sunt peritura Lucreti,
+  Exitio terras quum dabit una dies."
+
+[Sidenote: Ovid.]
+
+Elegiac poetry has an honorable place in Roman literature. To this
+school belongs Ovid, [Footnote: Born B.C. 43. Died A.D. 18.] whose
+"Metamorphoses" will always retain their interest. He, with that self-
+conscious genius common to poets, declares that his poem would be proof
+against sword, fire, thunder, and time,--a prediction, says Bayle,
+[Footnote: Bayle, _Dict._] which has not yet proved false. Niebuhr
+[Footnote: _Lect._, vol. ii. p. 166.] thinks that, next to
+Catullus, he was the most poetical of his countrymen. Milton thinks he
+could have surpassed Virgil had he attempted epic poetry. He was nearest
+to the romantic school of all the classical authors, and Chaucer,
+Ariosto, and Spenser owe to him great obligations. Like Pope, his verses
+flowed spontaneously. His "Tristia" were more admired by the Romans than
+his "Amores" or "Metamorphoses,"--probably from the doleful description
+of his exile,--a fact which shows that contemporaries are not always the
+best judges of real merit. His poems, great as was their genius, are
+deficient in the severe taste which marked the Greeks, and are immoral
+in their tendency. He had great advantages, but was banished by Augustus
+for his description of licentious love, "Carmina per libidinosa." Nor
+did he support exile with dignity. He died of a broken heart, and
+languished, like Cicero, when doomed to a similar fate. But few
+intellectual men have ever been able to live at a distance from the
+scene of their glories, and without the stimulus of high society.
+Chrysostom is one of the few exceptions. Ovid, as an immoral man, was
+justly punished.
+
+[Sidenote: Tibullus.]
+
+Tibullus was also a famous elegiac poet, and was born the same year as
+Ovid, and was the friend of Horace. He lived in retirement, and was both
+gentle and amiable. At his beautiful country seat he soothed his soul
+with the charms of literature and the simple pleasures of the country.
+Niebuhr pronounces his elegies doleful, [Footnote: _Lect._, vol.
+iii. p. 143.] but Merivale [Footnote: _Hist_, vol. iv. p. 602.]
+thinks that "the tone of tender melancholy in which he sung his
+unprosperous loves had a deeper and purer source than the caprices of
+three inconstant paramours." "His spirit is eminently religious, though
+it bids him fold his hands in resignation rather than open them in hope.
+He alone of all the great poets of his day remained undazzled by the
+glitter of the Caesarian usurpation, and pined away in unavailing
+despondency, in beholding the subjugation of his country."
+
+[Sidenote: Propertius.]
+
+His contemporary, Propertius, [Footnote: Born B.C. 51.] was, on the
+contrary, the most eager of all the flatterers of Augustus,--a man of
+wit and pleasure, whose object or idolatry was Cynthia, a poetess and a
+courtesan. He was an imitator of the Greeks, but had a great
+contemporary fame, [Footnote: Quint., x. 1. Section 93.] and shows
+great warmth of passion, but he never soared into the sublime heights of
+poetry, like his rival. Such were among the great elegiac poets of Rome,
+generally devoted to the delineation of the passion of love. The older
+English poets resembled them in this respect, but none of them have
+soared to such lofty heights as the later ones, like Wordsworth and
+Tennyson. It is in lyric poetry that the moderns have chiefly excelled
+the ancients, in variety, in elevation of sentiment, and in imagination.
+The grandeur and originality of the ancients were displayed rather in
+epic and dramatic poetry.
+
+[Sidenote: Juvenal.]
+
+[Sidenote: Perseus.]
+
+In _satire_ the Romans transcended both the Greeks and the moderns.
+There is nothing in any language which equals the fire, the intensity,
+and the bitterness of Juvenal,--not even Swift and Pope. But he
+flourished in the decline of literature, and has neither the taste nor
+elegance of the Augustan writers. He was the son of a freedman, and was
+born A.D. 38, and was the contemporary of Martial. He was banished by
+Domitian on account of a lampoon against a favorite dancer, but under
+the reign of Nerva he returned to Rome, and the imperial tyranny was the
+subject of his bitterest denunciation, next to the degradation of public
+morals. His great rival in satire was Horace, who laughed at follies;
+but he, more austere, exaggerated and denounced them. His sarcasms on
+women have never been equaled in severity, and we cannot but hope that
+they were unjust. In an historical point of view, as a delineation of
+the manners of his age, his satires are priceless, even like the
+epigrams of Martial. Satire arose with Lucilius, [Footnote: Born B.C.
+148.] in the time of Marius, an age when freedom of speech was
+tolerated. Horace was the first to gain immortality in this department.
+Persius comes next, born A.D. 34, the friend of Lucan and Seneca in the
+time of Nero; and he painted the vices of his age when it was passing to
+that degradation which marked the reign of Domitian when Juvenal
+appeared, who, disdaining fear, boldly set forth the abominations of the
+times, and struck without distinction all who departed from duty and
+conscience. This uncompromising poet, not pliant and easy like Horace,
+animadverted, like an incorruptible censor, on the vices which were
+undermining the moral health and preparing the way for violence; on the
+hypocrisy of philosophers and the cruelty of tyrants; on the weakness of
+women and the debauchery of men. He discourses on the vanity of human
+wishes with the moral wisdom of Dr. Johnson, and urges self-improvement
+like Socrates and Epictetus. [Footnote: The best translations of Juvenal
+are those of Dryden, Gifford, and Badham.]
+
+I might speak of other celebrated poets,--of Lucan, of Martial, of
+Petronius; but I only wish to show that the great poets of antiquity,
+both Greek and Roman, have never been surpassed in genius, in taste, and
+in art, and few were ever more honored in their lifetime by appreciating
+admirers showing the advanced state of civilization which was reached in
+every thing pertaining to the realm of thought.
+
+But the genius of the ancients was displayed in prose composition as
+well as in poetry, although perfection was not so soon attained. The
+poets were the great creators of the languages of antiquity. It was not
+until they had produced their immortal works that the languages were
+sufficiently softened and refined to admit of great beauty in prose. But
+prose requires art as well as poetry. There is an artistic rhythm in the
+writings of the classical authors, like those of Cicero and Herodotus
+and Thucydides, as marked as in the beautiful measure of Homer and
+Virgil. Burke and Macaulay are as great artists in style as Tennyson
+himself. Plato did not write poetry, but his prose is as "musical as
+Apollo's lyre." And it is seldom that men, either in ancient or modern
+times, have been distinguished for both kinds of composition, although
+Voltaire, Schiller, Milton, Swift, and Scott are among the exceptions.
+Cicero, the greatest prose writer of antiquity, produced only an
+inferior poem, laughed at by his contemporaries. Bacon could not write
+poetry, with all his affluence of thought and vigor of imagination and
+command of language, any easier than Pope could write prose.
+
+All sorts of prose compositions were carried to perfection by both
+Greeks and Romans, in history, in criticism, in philosophy, in oratory,
+in epistles.
+
+[Sidenote: Herodotus.]
+
+The earliest great prose writer among the Greeks was Herodotus,
+[Footnote: Born B.C. 484.] from which we may infer that _History_
+was the first form of prose composition which attained development. But
+Herodotus was not born until Aeschylus had gained a prize for tragedy,
+more than two hundred years after Simonides, the lyric poet, flourished,
+and probably six hundred years after Homer sung his immortal epics.
+After more than two thousand years the style of this great "Father of
+History" is admired by every critic; while his history, as a work of
+art, is still a study and a marvel. It is difficult to understand why no
+anterior work in prose is worthy of note, since the Greeks had attained
+a high civilization two hundred years before he appeared, and the
+language had reached a high point of development under Homer for more
+than five hundred years. The history of Herodotus was probably written
+in the decline of life, when his mind was enriched with great
+attainments in all the varied learning of his age, and when he had
+conversed with most of the celebrated men of the various countries which
+he visited. It pertains chiefly to the wars of the Greeks with the
+Persians; but, in his frequent episodes, which do not impair the unity
+of the work, he is led to speak of the manners and customs of the
+oriental nations. It was once the fashion to speak of Herodotus as a
+credulous man, who embodied the most improbable, though interesting
+stories. But now it is believed that no historian was ever more
+profound, conscientious, and careful; and all modern investigations
+confirm his sagacity and impartiality. He was one of the most
+accomplished men of antiquity, or of any age,--an enlightened and
+curious traveler, a profound thinker, a man of universal knowledge,
+familiar with the whole range of literature, art, and science in his
+day, acquainted with all the great men of Greece and at the courts of
+Asiatic princes, the friend of Sophocles, of Pericles, of Thucydides, of
+Aspasia, of Socrates, of Damon, of Zeno, of Pheidias, of Protagoras, of
+Euripides, of Polygnotus, of Anaxagoras, of Xenophon, of Alcibiades, of
+Lysias, of Aristophanes,--the most brilliant constellation of men of
+genius who were ever found together within the walls of a Grecian city,
+respected and admired by these great lights, all of whom he transcended
+in knowledge. Thus was he fitted for his task by travel, by study, and
+by intercourse with the great, to say nothing of his original genius,
+and the greatest prose work which had yet appeared in Greece was
+produced,--a prose epic, severe in taste, perfect in unity, rich in
+moral wisdom, charming in style, religious in spirit, grand in subject,
+without a coarse passage; simple, unaffected, and beautiful, like the
+narratives of the Bible; amusing, yet instructive, easy to understand,
+yet extending to the utmost boundaries of human research--a model for
+all subsequent historians. So highly was it valued by the Athenians,
+when their city was at the height of its splendor, that they decreed to
+its author ten talents, about twelve thousand dollars, for reciting it.
+He even went from city to city, a sort of prose rhapsodist, or like a
+modern lecturer, reciting his history--an honored and extraordinary man,
+a sort of Humboldt, having mastered every thing. And he wrote, not for
+fame, but to communicate the results of his inquiries, from the pure
+love of truth which he learned by personal investigation at Dodona, at
+Delphi, at Samos, at Athens, at Corinth, at Thebes, at Tyre; yea, he
+traveled into Egypt, Scythia, Asia Minor, Palestine, Babylonia, Italy,
+and the islands of the sea. His episode in Egypt is worth more, in an
+historical point of view, than every thing combined which has descended
+to us from antiquity. Herodotus was the first to give dignity to
+history; nor, in truthfulness, candor, and impartiality, has he ever
+been surpassed. His very simplicity of style is a proof of his
+transcendent art, even as it is the evidence of his severity of taste.
+[Footnote: Dahlman has written an admirable life of Herodotus; but
+Rawlinson's translation, with his notes, is invaluable.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thucydides.]
+
+To Thucydides, as an historian, the modern world also assigns a proud
+preeminence. He treated only of a short period, during the Peloponnesian
+War; but the various facts connected with that great event could only be
+known by the most minute and careful inquiries. He devoted twenty-seven
+years to the composition of his narration, and he weighed his testimony
+with the most scrupulous care. His style has not the fascination of
+Herodotus, but it is more concise. In a single volume he relates what
+could scarcely be compressed into eight volumes of a modern history. As
+a work of art, of its kind, it is unrivaled. In his description of the
+plague of Athens he is minute as he is simple. He abounds with rich
+moral reflections, and has a keen perception of human character. His
+pictures are striking and tragic. He is vigorous and intense, and every
+word he uses has a meaning. But some of his sentences are not always
+easily understood. One of the greatest tributes which can be paid to him
+is, that, according to the estimate of an able critic, [Footnote: George
+Long, Oxford.] we have a more exact history of a long and eventful
+period by Thucydides than we have of any period in modern history,
+equally long and eventful; and all this is compressed into a volume.
+[Footnote: Born 471 B.C.; lived twenty years in exile on account of a
+military failure.]
+
+[Sidenote: Xenophon.]
+
+Xenophon is the last of the trio of the Greek historians, whose writings
+are classical and inimitable. [Footnote: Born probably about 444 B.C.]
+He is characterized by great simplicity and absence of affectation. His
+"Anabasis," in which he describes the expedition of the younger Cyrus
+and the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, is his most famous book. But
+his "Cyropaedia," in which the history of Cyrus is the subject, although
+still used as a classic in colleges for the beauty of the style, has no
+value as a history, since the author merely adopted the current stories
+of his hero without sufficient investigation. Xenophon wrote a variety
+of treatises and dialogues, but his "Memorabilia" of Socrates is the
+most valuable. All antiquity and all modern writers unite in giving to
+Xenophon great merit as a writer, and great moral elevation as a man.
+
+If we pass from the Greek to the Latin historians,--to those who were as
+famous as the Greek, and whose merit has scarcely been transcended in
+our modern times, if, indeed, it has been equaled,--the great names of
+Sallust, of Caesar, of Livy, of Tacitus, rise up before us, together with
+a host of other names we have not room or disposition to present, since
+we only aim to show that the ancients were at least our equals in this
+great department of prose composition. The first great masters of the
+Greek language in prose were the historians, so far as their writings
+have descended, although it is probable that the orators may have shaped
+the language before them, and given it flexibility and refinement. The
+first great prose writers of Rome were the orators. Nor was the Latin
+language fully developed and polished until Cicero appeared. But we do
+not write a history of the language: we speak only of those who wrote
+immortal works in the various departments of learning.
+
+As Herodotus did not arise until the Greek language had been already
+formed by the poets, so no great prose writer appeared among the Romans
+for a considerable time after Plautus, Terence, Ennius, and Lucretius
+flourished.
+
+[Sidenote: Sallust.]
+
+The first great historian was Sallust, the contemporary of Cicero, born
+B.C. 86, the year that Marius died. Q. Fabius Pictor, M. Portius Cato,
+L. Cal. Piso had already written works which are mentioned with respect
+by the Latin authors, but they were mere annalists or antiquarians, like
+the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, and had no claim as artists. Sallust
+made Thucydides his model, but fell below him in genius and elevated
+sentiment. He was born a plebeian, and rose to distinction by his
+talents, but was ejected from the Senate for his profligacy. Afterwards
+he made a great fortune as praetor and governor of Numidia, and lived in
+magnificence on the Quirinal--one of the most profligate of the literary
+men of antiquity. We possess but a small portion of his works, but the
+fragments which have come down to us show peculiar merit. He sought to
+penetrate the human heart, and reveal the secret motives which actuate
+the conduct of men. His style is brilliant, but his art is always
+apparent. He is clear and lively, but rhetorical. Like Voltaire, who
+inaugurated modern history, he thought more of style than of accuracy of
+facts. He was a party man, and never soared beyond his party. He aped
+the moralist, but erected egotism and love of pleasure into proper
+springs of action, and honored talent disconnected with virtue.
+Like Carlyle, he exalted _strong_ men, and _because_ they were
+strong. He was not comprehensive like Cicero, or philosophical like
+Thucydides, although he affected philosophy as he did morality. He was
+the first who deviated from the strict narratives of events, and also
+introduced much rhetorical declamation, which he puts into the mouths of
+his heroes. [Footnote: The best translations of this author are those by
+Stewart, 1806, and Murphy, 1807.] He wrote for eclat.
+
+[Sidenote: Caesar.]
+
+Caesar, as an historian, ranks higher, and no Roman ever wrote purer
+Latin than he. But his historical works, however great their merit, but
+feebly represent his transcendent genius--the most august name of
+antiquity. He was mathematician, architect, poet, philologist, orator,
+jurist, general, statesman--imperator. In eloquence he was only second
+to Cicero. The great value of his history is in the sketches of the
+productions, the manners, the customs, and the political state of Gaul,
+Britain, and Germany. His observations on military science, on the
+operation of sieges, and construction of bridges and military engines,
+are valuable. But the description of his military operations is only a
+studied apology for his crimes, even as the bulletins of Napoleon were
+set forth to show his victories in the most favorable light. His fame
+rests on his victories and successes as a statesman rather than on his
+merits as an historian, even as Louis Napoleon will live in history for
+his deeds rather than as the apologist of Caesar. [Footnote: See
+_History of Caesar_, by Napoleon, a work more learned than popular,
+however greatly he may be indebted to the labors of others.] The
+"Commentaries" resemble the history of Herodotus more than any other
+Latin production, at least in style; they are simple and unaffected,
+precise and elegant, plain and without pretension.
+
+Caesar was born B.C. 100, and while I admire his genius and his
+generosity, I hold in detestation the ambition which led him to overturn
+the constitution of his country on the plea of revolutionary necessity.
+It is true that there was the strife of parties and factions, greedy of
+revenge, and still more of spoils. It was a period of "_great
+offenses_," but it was also the brightest period in Roman history, so
+far as pertains to the development of genius. It was more favorable to
+literature than the lauded "Augustan era." It was an age of free
+opinions, in which liberty gave her last sigh, and when heroic efforts
+were made to bring back the ancient virtue, and to save the state from
+despotism. The lives of Piso, of Milo, of Cinna, of Lepidus, of Cotta,
+of Dolabella, of Crassus, of Quintus Maximus, of Aquila, of Pompey, of
+Brutus, of Cassius, of Antony, show what extraordinary men of action
+were then upon the stage, both good and evil, while Varro, Cicero,
+Catullus, Lucretius, and Sallust gave glory to the world of letters. It
+may have resulted favorably to the peace of society that the imperial
+rule supplanted the aristocratic regime, but it was a change fatal to
+liberty of speech and all independent action--a change, the good of
+which was on the outside, and in favor of material interests, but the
+evil of which was internal, and consumed secretly, but surely, the real
+greatness of the empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Prose composition.]
+
+[Sidenote: High social position of historians.]
+
+The Augustan age, though it produced a constellation of poets who shed
+glory upon the throne before which they prostrated themselves in abject
+homage, like the courtiers of Louis XIV., still was unfavorable to prose
+composition,--to history as well as eloquence. Of the historians, Livy
+is the only one whose writings are known to us, and only fragments of
+his history. [Footnote: Born B.C. 59.] He was a man of distinction at
+court, and had a great literary reputation--so great that a Spaniard
+traveled from Cadiz on purpose to see him. Most of the great historians
+of the world have occupied places of honor and rank, which were given to
+them not as prizes for literary successes, but for the experience,
+knowledge, and culture which high social position and ample means
+secured. Herodotus lived in courts; Thucydides was a great general, also
+Xenophon; Caesar wrote his own exploits; Sallust was praetor and governor;
+Livy was tutor to Claudius; Tacitus was praetor and consul suffectus;
+Eusebius was bishop and favorite of Constantine; Ammianus was the friend
+of the Emperor Julian; Gregory of Tours was one of the leading prelates
+of the West; Froissart attended in person, as a man of rank, the
+military expeditions of his day; Clarendon was Lord Chancellor; Burnet
+was a bishop and favorite of William III.; Thiers and Guizot both were
+prime ministers; while Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Macaulay, Grote, Milman,
+Neander, Niebuhr, Muller, Dahlman, Buckle, Prescott, Irving, Bancroft,
+Motley, have all been men of wealth or position. Nor do I remember a
+single illustrious historian who has been poor and neglected.
+
+[Sidenote: Livy.]
+
+The ancients regarded Livy as the greatest of historians,--an opinion
+not indorsed by modern critics, on account of his inaccuracies. But his
+narrative is always interesting, and his language pure. He did not sift
+evidence like Grote, nor generalize like Gibbon; but he was, like
+Voltaire and Macaulay, an artist in style, and possessed undoubted
+genius. His annals are comprised in one hundred and forty-two books,
+extending from the foundation of the city to the death of Drusus, B.C.
+9, of which only thirty-five have come down to us--an impressive
+commentary on the vandalism of the Middle Ages, and the ignorance of the
+monks who could not preserve so great a treasure. "His story flows in a
+calm, clear, sparkling current, with every charm which simplicity and
+ease can give." He delineates character with great clearness and power;
+his speeches are noble rhetorical compositions; his sentences are
+rhythmical cadences. He was not a critical historian, like Herodotus,
+for he took his materials secondhand, and he was ignorant of geography;
+nor did he write with the exalted ideal of Thucydides, but as a painter
+of beautiful forms, which only a rich imagination could conjure, he is
+unrivaled in the history of literature. Moreover, he was honest and
+sound in heart, and was just and impartial in reference to those facts
+with which he was conversant.
+
+[Sidenote: Tacitus.]
+
+In the estimation of modern critics, the highest rank, as an historian,
+is assigned to Tacitus, and it would be difficult to find his rival in
+any age or country. He was born A.D. 57, about forty-three years after
+the death of Augustus. He belonged to the equestrian rank, and was a man
+of consular dignity. He had every facility for literary labors that
+leisure, wealth, friends, and social position could give, and he lived
+under a reign when truth could be told.
+
+The extant works of this great writer are the "Life of Agricola," his
+father-in-law; his "Annales," which commence with the death of Augustus,
+A.D. 14, and close with the death of Nero, A.D. 68; the "Historiae,"
+which comprise the period from the second consulate of Galba, A.D. 68,
+to the death of Domitian; and a treatise on the Germans.
+
+[Sidenote: Histories of Tacitus.]
+
+His histories describe Rome in the fullness of imperial glory, when the
+will of one man was the supreme law of the empire. He also wrote of
+events when liberty had fled, and the yoke of despotism was nearly
+insupportable. He describes a period of great moral degradation, nor
+does he hesitate to lift the veil of hypocrisy in which his generation
+had wrapped itself. He fearlessly exposes the cruelties and iniquities
+of the early emperors, and writes with judicial impartiality respecting
+all the great characters he describes. No ancient writer shows greater
+moral dignity and integrity of purpose than Tacitus. In point of
+artistic unity he is superior to Livy and equal to Thucydides, whom he
+resembles in conciseness of style. His distinguishing excellence as an
+historian is his sagacity and impartiality. Nothing escapes his
+penetrating eye; and he inflicts merited chastisement on the tyrants who
+reveled in the prostrated liberties of his country, while he
+immortalizes those few who were faithful to duty and conscience in a
+degenerate age. But his writings were not so popular as those of Livy.
+Neither princes nor people relished his intellectual independence and
+moral elevation. He does not satisfy Dr. Arnold, who thinks he ought to
+have been better versed in the history of the Jews, and who dislikes his
+speeches because they were fictitious.
+
+[Sidenote: Qualities which give immortality to historians.]
+
+Neither the Latin nor Greek historians are admired by those dry critics,
+who seek to give to rare antiquarian matter a disproportionate
+importance, and to make this matter as fixed and certain as the truths
+of natural science. History can never be other than an approximation to
+the truth, even when it relates to the events and characters of our own
+age. History does not give positive knowledge which cannot be disputed
+except in general terms. We _know_ that Caesar was ambitious, but we
+do not know whether he was more or less so than Pompey, nor do we know
+how far he was justified in his usurpation. A great history must have
+other merits than mere accuracy, or antiquarian research, or display of
+authorities and notes. It must be a work of art, and art has reference
+to style and language, to grouping of details and richness of
+illustration, to eloquence and poetry and beauty. A dry history, if ever
+so learned, will never be read; it will only be consulted, like a law-
+book, or Mosheim's "Commentaries." We wish _life_ in history, and
+it is for the life that the writings of Livy and Tacitus will be
+perpetuated. Voltaire and Schiller have no great merit as historians, in
+a technical sense, but the "Life of Charles XII." and the "Thirty Years'
+War" are still classics. Neander has written one of the most searching
+and recondite histories of modern times, but it is too dry, too
+deficient in art, to be cherished, and may pass away, like the
+voluminous writings of Varro, the most learned of the Romans. It is the
+_art_ which is immortal in a book, not the knowledge, or even the
+thoughts. What keeps alive the "Provincial Letters"? It is the style,
+the irony, the elegance. It is the exquisite delineation of character,
+the moral wisdom, the purity and force of language, the artistic
+arrangement, and the lively and interesting narratives, appealing to all
+minds, like the "Arabian Nights," or Froissart's "Chronicles," which
+give immortality to the classic authors of antiquity. We will not let
+them perish, because they amuse us, and inspire us. Livy doubtless was
+too ambitious in aspiring to write accurately the whole history of his
+country. He would have been wiser had he confined himself to a
+particular epoch, of which he was conversant, like Tacitus and
+Thucydides. But it is taking a narrow view of history to make all
+writers after the same pattern, even as it would be bigoted to make all
+Christians belong to the same sect. Some will be remarkable for style,
+others for learning, and others again for moral and philosophical
+wisdom. Some will be minute, and others generalizing. Some dig out a
+multiplicity of facts without apparent object, and others induce from
+those facts. Some will make essays, and others chronicles. We have need
+of all styles and all kinds of excellence. A great and original thinker
+may not have the time or opportunity or taste for a minute and searching
+criticism of original authorities; but he may be able to generalize
+previously established facts, so as to draw most valuable moral
+instruction. History is a boundless field of inquiry. No man can master
+it, in all its departments and periods. What he gains in minute details,
+he is apt to lose in generalization. If he attempts to embody too much
+learning, he may be deficient in originality; if he would say every
+thing, he is apt to be dry; if he elaborates too much, he loses life.
+Society, too, requires different kinds and styles of history,--history
+for students, history for ladies, histories for old men, histories for
+young men, histories to amuse, and histories to instruct. If all men
+were to write history according to Dr. Arnold's views, then we should
+have histories of interest only to classical scholars. A fellow of
+Christ Church may demand authorities, even if he never consults one of
+them, but a member of Congress may wish to see learning embodied in the
+text, and animated by genius, after the fashion of the ancient
+historians, who never quoted their sources of knowledge, and who were
+valued for the richness of thoughts and artistic beauty of style. The
+ages in which they flourished, attached no value to pedantic displays of
+labor, or evidences of learning paraded in foot-notes.
+
+[Sidenote: Greatness of the ancient historians.]
+
+Thus the great historians whom I have alluded to, both Greek and Latin,
+have few equals and no superiors, in our own times, in those things
+which are most to be admired. They were not pedants, but men of immense
+genius and learning, who blended the profoundest principles of moral
+wisdom with the most fascinating narratives, men universally popular
+among learned and unlearned, and men who were great artists in style,
+and masters of the language in which they wrote. We claim a superiority
+to them, because we are more recondite and critical; but the decline of
+Roman literature can be dated to times when commentaries became the
+fashion. We improve on commentaries. They are chiefly confined to
+biblical questions. _We_ write dictionaries and encyclopedias. In
+this respect we are superior to the ancients. Our latest fashion of
+histories makes them very long, and very uncertain, containing much
+irrelevant matter, and more remarkable for learning than for genius, or
+elegance of diction. Yet Macaulay, Prescott, and Motley have few equals
+among the ancients in interest or artistic beauty.
+
+[Sidenote: Suetonius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Marcellinus.]
+
+Rome can boast of no great historian after Tacitus, who should have
+belonged to the Ciceronian epoch. Suetonius, born about the year A.D.
+70, shortly after Nero's death, was rather a biographer than historian.
+Nor as a biographer does he take a high rank. His "Lives of the Caesars,"
+like Diogenes Laertius' "Lives of the Philosophers," are rather
+anecdotical than historical. L. A. Florus, who flourished during the
+reign of Trajan, has left a series of sketches of the different wars
+from the days of Romulus to those of Augustus. Frontinus epitomized the
+large histories of Pompeius. Marcellinus wrote a history from Nerva to
+Valens, and is often quoted by Gibbon. But none wrote who should be
+adduced as examples of the triumph of genius, except Sallust, Caesar,
+Livy, and Tacitus.
+
+[Sidenote: Ancient orators.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ancient eloquence.]
+
+There is another field of prose compositions in which the Greeks and
+Romans gained great distinction, and proved themselves equal to any
+nation of modern times, and this was that of eloquence. It is true we
+have not a rich collection of ancient speeches. But we have every reason
+to believe that both Greeks and Romans were most severely trained in the
+art of public speaking, and that forensic eloquence was highly prized
+and munificently rewarded. It commenced with democratic institutions,
+and flourished as long as the people were a great power in the state. It
+declined whenever and as soon as tyrants bore rule. Eloquence and
+liberty flourished together; nor can there be eloquence when there is
+not freedom of debate. In the fifth century before Christ--the first
+century of democracy--great orators arose, for without the power and the
+opportunity of defending himself against accusation, no man could hold
+an ascendent position. Socrates insisted upon the gift of oratory to a
+general in the army, [Footnote: Xen. _Mem._, iii. 3, 11.] as well as
+to a leader in political life. In Athens the courts of justice were
+numerous, and those who could not defend themselves were obliged to
+secure the services of those who were trained in the use of public
+speaking. Thus the lawyers arose, among whom eloquence has been more in
+demand, and more richly paid than in any other class, certainly of
+ancient times. Rhetoric became connected with dialectics, and in Greece,
+Sicily, and Italy, both were most extensively cultivated. Empedocles was
+distinguished as much for rhetoric as for philosophy. It was not,
+however, in the courts of law that eloquence displayed the greatest fire
+and passion, but in political assemblies. These could only coexist with
+liberty; and a democracy was more favorable than an aristocracy to a
+large concourse of citizens. In the Grecian republics, eloquence as an
+art, may be said to have been born. It was nursed and fed by political
+agitations; by the strife of parties. It arose from appeals to the
+people as a source of power; and, when the people were not cultivated,
+it appealed chiefly to popular passions and prejudices. When they were
+enlightened, it appealed to interests.
+
+[Sidenote: Pericles.]
+
+It was in Athens, where there existed the purest form of democratic
+institutions, that eloquence rose to the loftiest heights in the ancient
+world, so far as eloquence appeals to popular passions. Pericles, the
+greatest statesman of Greece, was celebrated for his eloquence, although
+no specimens remain to us. It was conceded by the ancient authors, that
+his oratory was of the highest kind, and the epithet of Olympian was
+given him as carrying the weapons of Zeus upon his tongue. [Footnote:
+Plutarch; Cic. _De Orat_., iii. 34; Quin., x. i. Section 82;
+Plat. _Phed_., p. 262.] His voice was sweet, and his utterance
+distinct and rapid. Pisistratus was also famous for his eloquence,
+although he was a usurper and a tyrant. Isocrates [Footnote: Born 436
+B.C.] was a professed rhetorician, and endeavored to base it upon sound
+moral principles, and rescue it from the influence of the Sophists. He
+was the great teacher of the most eminent statesmen of his day. Twenty-
+one of his orations have come down to us, and they are excessively
+polished and elaborated; but they were written to be read; they were not
+extemporary. His language is the purest and most refined Attic dialect.
+Lysias [Footnote: Born B.C. 458.] was a fertile writer of orations also,
+and he is reputed to have produced as many as four hundred and twenty-
+five. Of these only thirty-five are extant. They are characterized by
+peculiar gracefulness and elegance, which did not interfere with
+strength. So able were these orations, that only two were unsuccessful.
+They were so pure that they were regarded as the best canon of the Attic
+idiom. [Footnote: Dion. _Lys_., ii. 3.]
+
+[Sidenote: Demosthenes.]
+
+But all the orators of Greece--and Greece was the land of orators--gave
+way to Demosthenes, born B.C. 385. He received a good education, and is
+said to have been instructed in philosophy by Plato, and in eloquence by
+Isocrates. But it is more probable that he privately prepared himself
+for his brilliant career. As soon as he attained his majority, he
+brought suits against the men whom his father had appointed his
+guardians for their waste of property, and was, after two years,
+successful, conducting the prosecution himself. It was not until the age
+of thirty that he appeared as a speaker in the public assembly on
+political matters, and he enjoyed universal respect, and became one of
+the leading statesmen of Athens, and henceforth he took an active part
+in every question that concerned the state. He especially distinguished
+himself in his speeches against Macedonian aggrandizements, and his
+Philippics are, perhaps, the most brilliant of his orations. But the
+cause which he advocated was unfortunate. The battle of Cheronea, B.C.
+338, put an end to the independence of Greece, and Philip of Macedon was
+all-powerful. For this catastrophe Demosthenes was somewhat responsible,
+but his motives were pure and his patriotism lofty, and he retained the
+confidence of his countrymen. Accused by Aeschines, he delivered his
+famous Oration on the Crown. Afterwards, during the supremacy of
+Alexander, he was again accused, and suffered exile. Recalled from
+exile, on the death of Alexander, he roused himself for the deliverance
+of Greece, without success, and, hunted by his enemies, he took poison
+in the sixty-third year of his age, having vainly contended for the
+freedom of his country,--one of the noblest spirits of antiquity,
+spotless in his public career, and lofty in his private life. As an
+orator, he has not probably been equaled by any man of any country. By
+his contemporaries he was regarded as faultless as a public speaker, and
+when it is remembered that he struggled against physical difficulties
+which, in the early part of his career, would have utterly discouraged
+any ordinary man, we feel that he deserves the highest commendation. He
+never spoke without preparation, and most of his orations were severely
+elaborated. He never trusted to the impulse of the occasion. And all his
+orations exhibit him as a pure and noble patriot, and are full of the
+loftiest sentiments. He was a great artist, and his oratorical successes
+were greatly owing to the arrangement of his speeches and the
+application of the strongest arguments in their proper places. Added to
+this moral and intellectual superiority was the "magic power of his
+language, majestic and simple at the same time, rich yet not bombastic,
+strange and yet familiar, solemn without being ornamented, grave and yet
+pleasing, concise and yet fluent, sweet and yet impressive, which
+altogether carried away the minds of his hearers." [Footnote: Leonhard
+Schmitz.] His orations were most highly prized by the ancients, who
+wrote innumerable commentaries on them, but most of these criticisms are
+lost. Sixty, however, of these great productions of genius have come
+down to us, and are contained in the various collections of the Attic
+orators by Aldus, Stephens, Taylor, Reiske, Dukas, Bekker, Dobson, and
+Sauppe. Demosthenes, like other orators, first became known as the
+composer of speeches for litigants; but his great fame was based on the
+orations he pronounced in great political emergencies. His rival was
+Aeschines, but he was vastly inferior to Demosthenes, although bold,
+vigorous, and brilliant. Indeed, the opinions of mankind, for two
+thousand years, have been unanimous in ascribing to Demosthenes the
+highest position as an orator of all the men of ancient and modern
+times. David Hume says of him, "that, could his manner be copied, its
+success would be infallible over a modern audience." "It is rapid
+harmony exactly adjusted to the sense. It is vehement reasoning, without
+any appearance of art. It is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom involved
+in a continual stream of argument; so that, of all human productions,
+his orations present to us the models which approach the nearest to
+perfection." [Footnote: _Dissertation of Lord Brougham on the
+Eloquence of the Ancients._]
+
+[Sidenote: Roman orators.]
+
+It is probable that the Romans were behind the Athenians in all the arts
+of rhetoric; and yet in the days of the republic celebrated orators
+arose, called out by the practice of the law and political meetings. It
+was, in fact, in forensic eloquence that Latin prose first appears as a
+cultivated language; for the forum was to the Romans what libraries are
+to us. And the art of public speaking was very early developed. Cato,
+Laelius, Carbo, and the Gracchi are said to have been majestic and
+harmonious in speech. Their merits were eclipsed by Antonius, Crassus,
+Cotta, Sulpitius, and Hortensius. The last had a very brilliant career
+as an orator, although his orations were too florid to be read. Caesar
+was also distinguished for his eloquence, the characteristics of which
+were force and purity. Caelius was noted for lofty sentiment; Brutus for
+philosophical wisdom; Callidus for a delicate and harmonious style, and
+Calvus for sententious force.
+
+[Sidenote: Cicero.]
+
+But all the Roman orators yielded to Cicero, as the Greeks did to
+Demosthenes. These two men are always coupled together when allusion is
+made to eloquence. They were preeminent in the ancient world, and have
+never been equaled in the modern.
+
+Cicero was not probably equal to his great Grecian rival in vehemence,
+in force, in fiery argument, which swept every thing away before him;
+and he was not probably equal to him in original genius; but he was his
+superior in learning, in culture, and in breadth. [Footnote: Born B.C.
+106.] He distinguished himself very early as an advocate; but his first
+great public effort was in the prosecution of Verres for corruption.
+Although defended by Hortensius, and the whole influence of the Metelli
+and other powerful families, Cicero gained his cause,--more fortunate
+than Burke in his prosecution of Warren Hastings, who was also sustained
+by powerful interests and families. Burke also resembled Cicero in his
+peculiarities and in his fortunes more than any modern orator. His
+speech on the Manilian law, when he appeared as a political orator,
+greatly contributed to his popularity. I need not describe his memorable
+career; his successive election to all the highest offices of state, his
+detection of Catiline's conspiracy, his opposition to turbulent and
+ambitious partisans, his alienations and friendships, his brilliant
+career as a statesman, his misfortunes and sorrows, his exile and
+recall, his splendid services to the state, his greatness and his
+defects, his virtues and weaknesses, his triumphs and martyrdom. These
+are foreign to my purpose. No man of heathen antiquity is better known
+to us, and no man, by pure genius, ever won more glorious laurels. His
+life and labors are immortal. His virtues and services are embalmed in
+the heart of the world. Few men ever performed greater literary labors,
+and in most of its departments. Next to Aristotle, he was the most
+learned man of antiquity, but performed more varied labors than he,
+since he was not only great as a writer and speaker, but as a statesman,
+and was the most conspicuous man in Rome after Pompey and Caesar. He may
+not have had the moral greatness of Socrates, nor the philosophical
+genius of Plato, nor the overpowering eloquence of Demosthenes, but he
+was a master of all the wisdom of antiquity. Even civil law, the great
+science of the Romans, became interesting in his hands, and is divested
+of its dryness and technicality. He popularized history, and paid honor
+to all art, even to the stage. He made the Romans conversant with the
+philosophy of Greece, and systematized the various speculations. He may
+not have added to the science, but no Roman, after him, understood so
+well the practical bearing of all the various systems. His glory is
+purely intellectual, and it was by pure genius that he rose to his
+exalted position and influence.
+
+But it was in forensic eloquence that he was preeminent, and in which he
+had but one equal in ancient times. Roman eloquence culminated in him.
+He composed about eighty orations, of which fifty-nine are preserved.
+Some were delivered from the rostrum to the people, and some in the
+Senate. Some were mere philippics, as savage in denunciation as those of
+Demosthenes. Some were laudatory; some were judicial; but all were
+severely logical, full of historical allusion, profound in philosophical
+wisdom, and pervaded with the spirit of patriotism. "He goes round and
+round his object, surveys it in every light, examines it in all its
+parts, retires and then advances, compares and contrasts it,
+illustrates, confirms, and enforces it, till the hearer feels ashamed of
+doubting a position which seems built on a foundation so strictly
+argumentative. And having established his case, he opens upon his
+opponent a discharge of raillery so delicate and good natured that it is
+impossible for the latter to maintain his ground against it; or, when
+the subject is too grave, he colors his exaggerations with all the
+bitterness of irony and vehemence of passion. But the appeal to the
+gentler emotions is reserved for the close of the oration, as in the
+defense of Cluentius, Caelius, Milo, and Flaccus; the most striking
+instances of which are the poetical bursts of feeling with which he
+addresses his client, Plaucius, and his picture of the desolate
+condition of the vestal Fonteia, should her brother be condemned. At
+other times his peroration contains more heroic and elevated sentiments,
+as in the invocation of the Alban Altars, and in his defense of Sextius,
+and that on liberty at the close of the third Philippic." [Footnote:
+Newman, _Hist. Rom. Lit._, p. 305.]
+
+Critics have uniformly admired his style as peculiarly suited to the
+Latin language, which, being scanty and unmusical, requires more
+redundancy than the Greek. The simplicity of the Attic writers would
+make Latin composition bold and tame. To be perspicuous, the Latin must
+be full. Thus Arnold thinks that what Tacitus gained in energy he lost
+in elegance and perspicuity. But Cicero, dealing with a barren and
+unphilosophical language, enriched it with circumlocutions and
+metaphors, while he formed it of harsh and uncouth expressions, and thus
+became the greatest master of composition the world has seen. He was a
+great artist, making use of his scanty materials to the best effect; and
+since he could not attain the elegance of the Greeks, he sought to excel
+them in vigor. He had absolute control over the resources of his
+vernacular tongue, and not only unrivaled skill in composition, but tact
+and judgment. Thus he was generally successful, in spite of the venality
+and corruption of the times. The courts of justice were the scene of his
+earliest triumphs; nor did he speak from the rostra until he was praetor
+on mere political questions, as in reference to the Manilian and
+Agrarian laws. It is in his political discourses that he rises to the
+highest ranks. In his speeches against Verres, Catiline, and Antony, he
+kindles in his countrymen lofty feelings for the honor of his country,
+and abhorrence of tyranny and corruption. Indeed, he hated bloodshed,
+injustice, and strife, and beheld the downfall of liberty with
+indescribable sorrow.
+
+Cicero held a very exalted position as a philosophical writer and
+critic; but we defer what we have to say on this point until we speak of
+the philosophy of the ancients. Upon eloquence his main efforts were,
+however, directed, and eloquence was the most perfect fruit of his
+talents. Nor can we here speak of Cicero as a man. He has his admirers
+and detractors. He had great faults and weaknesses as well as virtues.
+He was egotistical, vain, and vacillating. But he was industrious,
+amiable, witty, and public spirited. In his official position he was
+incorruptible. He was no soldier, but he had a greater than a warrior's
+excellence. In spite of his faults, his name is one of the brightest of
+the ancients. His integrity was never impeached, even in an age of
+unparalleled corruption, and he was pure in morals. He was free from
+rancor and jealousy, was true in his friendships, and indulgent to his
+dependents. [Footnote: Professor Ramsay, of Glasgow, has written a most
+admirable article on Cicero in Smith's _Dictionary_. It is very
+full and impartial. Cicero's own writings are the best commentary on his
+life. Plutarch has afforded much anecdote. Forsythe is the last work of
+erudition. The critics sneer at Middleton's _Life of Cicero_; but
+it has lasted one hundred years. It is, perhaps, too eulogistic. Drumann
+is said to have most completely exhausted his subject in his
+_Geschichte Roms_.]
+
+Thus in oratory, as in history, the ancients can boast of most
+illustrious examples, never even equaled. Still, we cannot tell the
+comparative merits of the great classical orators of antiquity, with the
+more distinguished of our times. Only Mirabeau, Pitt, Fox, Burke,
+Brougham, Webster, and Clay, can even be compared with them. In power of
+moving the people, some of our modern reformers and agitators may be
+mentioned favorably; but their harangues are comparatively tame when
+read.
+
+[Sidenote: Varro.]
+
+In philosophy, the Greeks and Romans distinguished themselves more than
+even in poetry, or history, or eloquence. Their speculations pertained
+to the loftiest subjects which ever tasked the intellect of man. But
+this great department deserves a separate chapter. There were
+respectable writers, too, in various other departments of literature,
+but no very great names whose writings have descended to us.
+Contemporaries had an exalted opinion of Varro, who was considered the
+most learned of the Romans, as well as their most voluminous author. He
+was born ten years before Cicero, and he is highly commended by
+Augustine. [Footnote: Born B.C. 116; _Civ. Dei_., vi. 2.] He was
+entirely devoted to literature, took no interest in passing events, and
+lived to a good old age. St. Augustine says of him, "that he wrote so
+much that one wonders how he had time to read; and that he read so much,
+we are astonished how he found time to write." He composed four hundred
+and ninety books. Of these only one has descended to us entire--"De Re
+Rustica"--written at the age of eighty; but it is the best treatise
+which has come down from antiquity on ancient agriculture. We have parts
+of his other books, and we know of books which have entirely perished
+which, for their information, would be invaluable; especially his
+"Divine Antiquities," in sixteen books--his great work, from which St.
+Augustine drew his materials for his "City of God." He wrote treatises
+on language, on the poets, on philosophy, on geography, and various
+other subjects. He wrote satire and criticism. But although his writings
+were learned, his style was so bad that the ages have failed to preserve
+him. It is singular that the truly immortal books are most valued for
+their artistic excellences. No man, however great his genius, can afford
+to be dull. Style is to written composition, what delivery is to a
+public speaker. John Foster, one of the finest intellects of the last
+generation, preached to a "handful" of hearers, while "Satan" Montgomery
+drew ecstatic crowds. Nobody goes to hear the man of thoughts, every
+body to hear the man of words, being repelled or attracted by
+_manner_.
+
+[Sidenote: Seneca.]
+
+Seneca was another great writer among the Romans, but he belongs to the
+domain of philosophy, although it is his ethical works which have given
+him immortality, as may be truly said of Socrates and Epictetus,
+although they are usually classed among the philosophers. He was a
+Spaniard, and was born a few years before the Christian era, was a
+lawyer and a rhetorician, a teacher and minister of Nero. It was his
+misfortune to know one of the most detestable princes that ever
+scandalized humanity, and it is not to his credit to have accumulated,
+in four years, one of the largest fortunes in Rome, while serving such a
+master. But since he lived to experience his ingratitude, he is more
+commonly regarded as a martyr. Had he lived in the republican period, he
+would have been a great orator. He wrote voluminously on many subjects,
+and was devoted to a literary life. He rejected the superstitions of his
+country, and looked upon the ritualism of religion as a mere fashion;
+but his religion was a mere deism, and he dishonored his own virtues by
+a compliance with the vices of others. He saw much of life, and died at
+fifty-three. What is remarkable in his writings, which are clear but
+labored, is, that under pagan influences and imperial tyranny, he should
+have presented such lofty moral truth; and it is a mark of almost
+transcendent talent that he should, unaided by Christianity, have soared
+so high in the realm of ethical inquiry. Nor is it easy to find any
+modern author who has treated great questions in so attractive a way.
+
+[Sidenote: Quintilian.]
+
+Quintilian is a Latin classic, and belonged to the class of
+rhetoricians, and should have been mentioned among the orators, like
+Lysias the Greek, a teacher, however, of eloquence, rather than an
+orator. He was born A.D. 40, and taught the younger Pliny, also two
+nephews of Domitian, receiving a regular salary from the imperial
+treasury. His great work is a complete system of rhetoric.
+"_Institutiones Oratoriae_" is one of the clearest and fullest of
+all rhetorical manuals ever written in any language, although, as a
+literary production, inferior to the "_De Oratore_" of Cicero. It
+is very practical and sensible, and a complete compendium of every topic
+likely to be useful in the education of an aspirant for the honors of
+eloquence. In systematic arrangement, it falls short of a similar work
+by Aristotle; but it is celebrated for its sound judgment and keen
+discrimination, showing great reading and reflection. He should be
+viewed as a critic rather than as a rhetorician, since he entered into
+the merits and defects of the great masters of Greek and Roman
+literature. In his peculiar province he has had no superior. Like
+Cicero, or Demosthenes, or Plato, or Thucydides, or Tacitus, he would be
+a great man if he lived in our times, and could proudly challenge the
+modern world to produce a better teacher than he in the art of public
+speaking.
+
+[Sidenote: Lucian.]
+
+There are other writers of immense fame, who do not represent any
+particular class in the field of literature, which can be compared with
+the modern. But I can only draw attention to Lucian, a witty and
+voluminous Greek author, who lived in the reign of Commodus, wrote
+rhetorical, critical, and biographical works, and even romances which
+have given hints to modern authors. But his fame rests on his
+"Dialogues," intended to ridicule the heathen philosophy and religion,
+and which show him to have been one of the great masters of ancient
+satire and mockery. His style of dialogue--a combination of Plato and
+Aristophanes--is not much used by modern writers, and his peculiar kind
+of ridicule is reserved now for the stage. Yet he cannot be called a
+writer of comedy, like MoliEre. He resembles Rabelais and Swift more
+than any other modern writers, and has their indignant wit, indecent
+jokes, and pungent sarcasms. He paints, like Juvenal, the vices and
+follies of his time, and exposes the hypocrisy that reigns in the high
+places of fashion and power. His dialogues have been imitated by
+Fontanelle and Lord Lyttleton, but they do not possess his humor or
+pungency. Lucian does not grapple with great truths, but contents
+himself in ridiculing those who have proclaimed them; and, in his cold
+cynicism, depreciates human knowledge, and all the great moral teachers
+of mankind. He is even shallow and flippant upon Socrates. But he was
+well read in human nature, and superficially acquainted with all the
+learning of antiquity. In wit and sarcasm, he may be compared with
+Voltaire, and his end was the same, to demolish and pull down, without
+substituting any thing in its stead. His skepticism was universal, and
+extended to religion, to philosophy, and to every thing venerated and
+ancient. His purity of style was admired by Erasmus, and he has been
+translated into most European languages. The best English version is
+rendered by Dr. Franklin, London, 2 vols. 4to. In strong contrast to the
+"Dialogues" is the "City of God," by Saint Augustine, in which he
+demolishes with keener ridicule all the gods of antiquity, but
+substitutes instead the knowledge of the true God.
+
+Thus the Romans, as well as Greeks, produced works in all departments of
+literature which will bear comparison with the masterpieces of modern
+times. And where would have been the literature of the early Church, or
+of modern nations, had not the great original writers of Athens and Rome
+been our schoolmasters? And when we further remember that their glorious
+literature was created by native genius, without the aid of
+Christianity, we are filled with amazement, and may almost be excused if
+we deify the reason of man. At least we are assured that literature as
+well as art may flourish under pagan influences, and that Christianity
+has a higher mission than the culture of the mind. Religious skepticism
+cannot be disarmed if we appeal to Christianity as the test of
+intellectual culture. The realm of reason has no fairer fields than
+those which are adorned by pagan art. Nor have greater triumphs of
+intellect been witnessed in these, our Christian times, than among that
+class which is the least influenced by Christian ideas. Some of the
+proudest trophies of genius have been won by infidels, or by men
+stigmatized as such. Witness Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Hegel, Fichte,
+Gibbon, Hume, Buckle. And then how many great works are written without
+the inspiration or the spirit of a living Christianity! How little
+Bulwer, or Byron, or Dumas, or Goethe owe, apparently, to Christian
+teachings! Is Emerson superior to Epictetus, in an ethical point of
+view? Was Franklin a great philosopher, or Jefferson a great statesman,
+because they were surrounded by Christian examples? May there not be the
+greatest practical infidelity, with the most artistic beauty and native
+reach of thought? Milton justly ascribes the most sublime intelligence
+to Satan and his angels on the point of rebellion against the majesty of
+Heaven. A great genius may be kindled by the fires of discontent and
+ambition, which will quicken the intellectual faculties, even while they
+consume the soul, and spread their devastating influence on the homes
+and hopes of man.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+RERERENCES.--There are no better authorities than the classical authors
+themselves, and their works must be studied in order to comprehend the
+spirit of ancient literature. Modern historians of Roman literature are
+merely critics, like Drumann, Schlegel, Niebuhr, Muller, Mommsen, Mure,
+Arnold, Dunlap, and Thompson. Nor do I know of an exhaustive history of
+Roman literature in the English language. Yet nearly every great writer
+has occasional criticisms, entitled to respect. The Germans, in this
+department, have no equals. As critics and commentators they are
+unrivaled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+GRECIAN PHILOSOPHY.
+
+
+Whatever may be said of the inferiority of the ancients to the moderns
+in natural and mechanical science, which no one is disposed to question,
+or even in the realm of literature, which can be questioned, there was
+one department which they carried to absolute perfection, and to which
+we have added nothing of consequence. In the realm of art they were our
+equals, and probably our superiors; in philosophy they carried logical
+deductions to their utmost limit. They created the science. They
+advanced, from a few crude speculations on material phenomena, to an
+analysis of all the powers of the mind, and finally to the establishment
+of ethical principles which even Christianity did not overturn. The
+progress of the science, from Thales to Plato, is the most stupendous
+triumph of the human understanding. The reason of man soared to the
+loftiest flights that it has ever attained. It cast its searching eye
+into the most abstruse inquiries which ever tasked the famous intellects
+of the world. It exhausted all the subjects which dialectical subtlety
+ever raised. It originated and it carried out the boldest speculations
+respecting the nature of the soul and its future existence. It
+established most important psychological truths. It created a method for
+the solution of the most abstruse questions. It went on, from point to
+point, until all the faculties of the mind were severely analyzed, and
+all its operations were subjected to a rigid method. The Romans never
+added a single principle to the philosophy which the Greeks elaborated;
+the ingenious scholastics of the Middle Ages merely reproduced their
+ideas; and even the profound and patient Germans have gone round in the
+same circles that Plato and Aristotle marked out more than two thousand
+years ago. It was Greek philosophy in which noble Roman youth were
+educated, and hence, as it was expounded by a Cicero, a Marcus Aurelius,
+and an Epictetus, it was as much the inheritance of the Romans as it was
+of the Greeks themselves, after their political liberties were swept
+away, and the Grecian cities formed a part of the Roman empire. The
+Romans learned, or might have learned, what the Greeks created and
+taught, and philosophy became, as well as art, identified with the
+civilization which extended from the Rhine and the Po to the Nile and
+the Tigris. Grecian philosophy was one of the distinctive features of
+ancient civilization long after the Greeks had ceased to speculate on
+the laws of mind, or the nature of the soul, or the existence of God, or
+future rewards and punishments. Although it was purely Grecian in its
+origin and development, it cannot be left out of the survey of the
+triumphs of the human mind when the Romans were masters of the world,
+and monopolized the fruits of all the arts and sciences. It became one
+of the grand ornaments of the Roman schools, one of the priceless
+possessions of the Roman conquerors. The Romans did not originate
+medicine, but Galen was one of its greatest lights; they did not invent
+the hexameter verse, but Virgil sung to its measure; they did not create
+Ionic capitals, but their cities were ornamented with marble temples on
+the same principles as those which called out the admiration of
+Pericles. So, if they did not originate philosophy, and generally had
+but little taste for it, still its truths were systematized and
+explained by Cicero, and formed no small accession to the treasures with
+which cultivated intellects sought everywhere to be enriched. It formed
+an essential part of the intellectual wealth of the civilized world,
+when civilization could not prevent the world from falling into decay
+and ruin. And as it was the noblest triumph which the human mind, under
+pagan influences, ever achieved, so it was followed by the most
+degrading imbecility into which man, in civilized countries, was ever
+allowed to fall. Philosophy, like art, like literature, like science,
+arose, shined, grew dim, and passed away, and left the world in night.
+Why was so bright a glory followed by so dismal a shame? What a comment
+is this on the greatness and littleness of man!
+
+[Sidenote: Commencement of Grecian speculations.]
+
+The development of Greek philosophy is doubtless one commence-of the
+most interesting and instructive subjects Grecian in the whole history
+of mind. In all probability it originated with the Ionian Sophoi, though
+many suppose it was derived from the East. It is questionable whether
+the oriental nations had any philosophy distinct from religion. The
+Germans are fond of tracing resemblances in the early speculations of
+the Greeks to the systems which prevailed in Asia from a very remote
+antiquity. Gladish sees in the Pythagorean system an adoption of Chinese
+doctrines; in the Heraclitic system, the influence of Persia; in the
+Empedoclean, Egyptian speculations; and in the Anaxagorean, the Jewish
+creeds. [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. of Philos_., Introd.] But
+the Orientals had theogonies, not philosophies. The Indian speculations
+aim to an exposition of ancient revelation. They profess to liberate the
+soul from the evils of mortal life--to arrive at eternal beatitudes. But
+the state of perfectibility could only be reached by religious
+ceremonial observances and devout contemplation. The Indian systems do
+not disdain logical discussions, or a search after the principles of
+which the universe is composed; and hence we find great refinements in
+sophistry, and a wonderful subtlety of logical discussion; but these are
+directed to unattainable ends,--to the connection of good with evil, and
+the union of the supreme with nature. Nothing came out of these
+speculations but an occasional elevation of mind among the learned, and
+a profound conviction of the misery of man and the obstacles to his
+perfection. [Footnote: See Archer Butler's fine lecture on the Indian
+Philosophies.] The Greeks, starting from physical phenomena, went on in
+successive series of inquiries, until they elevated themselves above
+matter, above experience, even to the loftiest abstractions, and until
+they classified the laws of thought. It is curious how speculation led
+to demonstration, and how inquiries into the world of matter prepared
+the way for the solution of intellectual phenomena. Philosophy kept pace
+with geometry, and those who observed nature also gloried in abstruse
+calculations. Philosophy and mathematics seem to have been allied with
+the worship of art among the same men, and it is difficult to say which
+more distinguished them, aesthetic culture or power of abstruse
+reasoning.
+
+[Sidenote: Thales.]
+
+[Sidenote: Water the vital principle of Nature.]
+
+We do not read of any remarkable philosophical inquirer until Thales
+arose, the first of the Ionian school. He was born at Miletus, a Greek
+colony in Asia Minor, about the year B.C. 636, when Ancus Martius was
+king of Rome, and Josiah reigned at Jerusalem. He has left no writings
+behind him, but he was numbered as one of the seven wise men of Greece.
+He was numbered with the wise men on account of his political sagacity
+and wisdom in public affairs. [Footnote: Miller, Hist, of Grec. Lit., ch.
+xvii.]
+
+  "And he, 't is said, did first compute the stars
+  Which beam in Charles' wain, and guide the bark
+  Of the Phoenician sailor o'er the sea."
+
+He was the first who attempted a logical solution of material phenomena,
+without resorting to mythical representations. Thales felt that there
+was a grand question to be answered relative to the _beginning of
+things_. "Philosophy," it has been well said, "may be a history of
+_errors_, but not of _follies_" It was not a folly, in a rude
+age, to speculate on the first or fundamental principle of things. He
+looked around him upon Nature, upon the sea and earth and sky, and
+concluded that water or moisture was the vital principle. He felt it in
+the air, he saw it in the clouds above, and in the ground beneath his
+feet. He saw that plants were sustained by rain and by the dew, that
+neither animal nor man could live without water, and that to fishes it
+was the native element. What more important or vital than water? It was
+the _prima materia_, the [Greek: archae], the beginning of all things--the
+origin of the world. [Footnote: Aristotle, _Metaph._, 1. c. 3;
+Diog. Laertius, _Thales_.] I do not here speak of his astronomical
+and geometrical labors--as the first to have divided the year into three
+hundred and sixty-five days. He is celebrated also for practical wisdom.
+"Know thyself," is one of his remarkable sayings. But the foundation
+principle of his philosophy was that water is the first cause of all
+things--the explanation, of the origin of the universe. How so crude a
+speculation could have been maintained by so wise a man it is difficult
+to conjecture. It is not, however, the _reason_ which he assigns
+for the beginning of things which is noteworthy, so much as the
+_fact_ that his mind was directed to the solution of questions
+pertaining to the origin of the universe. It was these questions which
+marked the Ionian philosophers. It was these which showed the inquiring
+nature of their minds. What is the great first cause of all things?
+Thales saw it in one of the four elements of nature, as the ancients
+divided them. And it is the earliest recorded theory among the Greeks of
+the origin of the world. It is an induction from the phenomena of
+animated nature--the nutrition and production of a seed. [Footnote:
+Bitter, b. iii. c. 3; Lewes, ch. 1.] He regarded the entire world in the
+light of a living being gradually maturing and forming itself from an
+imperfect seed state, which was of a moist nature. This moisture endues
+the universe with vitality. The world, he thought, was full of gods, but
+they had their origin in water. He had no conception of God as
+_Intelligence_, or as a _creative_ power. He had a great and
+inquiring mind, but he was a pagan, with no knowledge of a spiritual and
+controlling and personal deity.
+
+[Sidenote: Anaximenes. Air the _animus mundi_.]
+
+Anaximenes, his disciple, pursued his inquiries, and adopted his method.
+He also was born in Miletus, but at what time is unknown, probably B.C.
+529. Like Thales, he held to the eternity of matter. Like him, he
+disbelieved in the existence of any thing immaterial, for even a human
+soul is formed out of matter. He, too, speculated on the origin of the
+universe, but thought that _air_, not water, was the primal cause.
+[Footnote: Cicero, _De Nat. D_., i. 10.] This seemed to be
+universal. We breathe it; all things are sustained by it. It is Life--
+that is pregnant with vital energy, and capable of infinite
+transmutations. All things are produced by it; all is again resolved
+into it; it supports all things; it surrounds the world; it has
+infinitude; it has eternal motion. Thus did this philosopher reason,
+comparing the world with our own living existence,--which he took to be
+air,--an imperishable principle of life. He thus advanced a step on
+Thales, since he regarded the world not after the analogy of an
+imperfect seed-state, but that of the highest condition of life,--the
+human soul. [Footnote: Ritter, b. iii. c. 3.] And he attempted to refer
+to one general law all the transformations of the first simple substance
+into its successive states, for the cause of change is the eternal
+motion of the air.
+
+[Sidenote: Diogenes. Air and soul identical.]
+
+Diogenes of Apollonia, in Crete, one of his disciples, born B.C. 460,
+also believed that air was the principle of the universe, but he imputed
+to it an intellectual energy, yet without recognizing any distinction
+between mind and matter. [Footnote: Diog. Laert., ii. 3; Bayle, _Dict.
+Hist. et Crit._] He made air and the soul identical. "For," says he,
+"man and all other animals breathe and live by means of the air, and
+therein consists their soul." [Footnote: Ritter, b. iii. c. 3.] And as
+it is the primary being from which all is derived, it is necessarily an
+eternal and imperishable body; but, as _soul_, it is also endued
+with consciousness. Diogenes thus refers the origin of the world to an
+intelligent being--to a soul which knows and vivifies. Anaximenes
+regarded air as having Life. Diogenes saw in it also Intelligence. Thus
+philosophy advanced step by step, though still groping in the dark; for
+the origin of all things, according to Diogenes, must exist in
+_Intelligence_.
+
+[Sidenote: Heraclitus--Fire the principle of life.]
+
+Heraclitus of Ephesus, classed by Ritter among the Ionian philosophers,
+was born B.C. 503. Like others of his school, he sought a physical
+ground for all phenomena. The elemental principle he regarded as
+_fire_, since all things are convertible into it. In one of its
+modifications, this fire, or fluid, self-kindled, permeating every thing
+as the soul or principle of life, is endowed with intelligence and
+powers of ceaseless activity. "If Anaximenes discovered that he had
+within him a power and principle which ruled over all the acts and
+functions of his bodily frame, Heraclitus found that there was life
+within him which he could not call his own, and yet it was, in the very
+highest sense, _himself_, so that without it he would have been a
+poor, helpless, isolated creature; a universal life which connected him
+with his fellow-men,--with the absolute source and original fountain of
+life." [Footnote: Maurice, _Moral and Metaph. Phil._] "He
+proclaimed the absolute vitality of nature, the endless change of
+matter, the mutability and perishability of all individual things in
+contrast with the eternal Being--the supreme harmony which rules over
+all." [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. of Phil._] To trace the divine
+energy of life in all things was the general problem of his philosophy,
+and this spirit was akin to the pantheism of the East. But he was one of
+the greatest speculative intellects that preceded Plato, and of all the
+physical theorists arrived nearest to spiritual truth. He taught the
+germs of what was afterwards more completely developed. "From his theory
+of perpetual fluxion Plato derived the necessity of seeking a stable
+basis for the universal system in his world of ideas." [Footnote: Archer
+Butler, series i. lect. v.; Hegel, _Gesch. D. Phil._, i. p. 334.]
+
+Anaxagoras, the most famous of the Ionian philosophers, was born B.C.
+500, and belonged to a rich and noble family. Regarding philosophy as
+the noblest pursuit of earth, he abandoned his inheritance for the study
+of nature. He went to Athens in the most brilliant period of her history,
+and had Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates for pupils. He taught that the
+great moving force of nature was intellect [Greek: nous]. Intelligence
+was the cause of the world and of order, and mind was the principle of
+motion; yet this intelligence was not a moral intelligence, but simply
+the _primum mobile_--the all-knowing motive force by which the
+order of nature is effected. He thus laid the foundation of a new system
+which, under the Attic philosophers, sought to explain nature, not by
+regarding matter in its different forms, as the cause of all things, but
+rather mind, thought, intelligence, which both knows and acts--a grand
+conception unrivaled in ancient speculation. This explanation of
+material phenomena by intellectual causes was his peculiar merit, and
+places him in a very high rank among the thinkers of the world.
+Moreover, he recognized the reason as the only faculty by which we
+become cognizant of truth, the senses being too weak to discover the
+real component particles of things. Like all the great inquirers, he was
+impressed with the limited degree of positive knowledge, compared with
+what there is to be learned. "Nothing," says he, "can be known; nothing
+is certain; sense is limited, intellect is weak, life is short"
+[Footnote: Cicero, _Qu. Ac._, i. 12.]--the complaint, not of a
+skeptic, but of a man overwhelmed with the sense of his incapacity to
+solve the problems which arose before his active mind. [Footnote:
+Lucret., lib. i. 834-875.] Anaxagoras thought that this spirit [Greek:
+Nous] gave to all those material atoms, which, in the beginning of the
+world, lay in disorder, the impulse by which they took the forms of
+individual things, and that this impulse was given in a circular direction.
+Hence that the sun, moon, and stars, and even the air, are constantly
+moving in a circle. [Footnote: Muller, _Hist. Lit. of Greece_,
+chap. xvii.]
+
+[Sidenote: Anaximander thought that the Infinite is the origin of
+things.]
+
+In the mean time another sect of philosophers arose, who like the
+Ionians, sought to explain nature, but by a different method.
+Anaximander, born B.C. 610, was one of the original mathematicians of
+Greece, yet, like Pythagoras and Thales, speculated on the beginning of
+things. His principle was that the _Infinite_ is the origin of all things.
+He used the word [Greek: archae] to denote the material out of which
+all things were formed, as the everlasting and divine. [Footnote: Arist.,
+_Phy_., iii. 4.] The idea of elevating an abstraction into a great
+first cause is certainly puerile, nor is it easy to understand his
+meaning, other than that the abstract has a higher significance than the
+concrete. The speculations of Thales tended toward discovering the
+material constitution of the universe, upon an _induction_ from
+observed facts, and thus made water to be the origin of all things.
+Anaximander, accustomed to view things in the abstract, could not accept
+so concrete a thing as water; his speculations tended toward
+mathematics, to the science of pure _deduction_. The primary being
+is a unity, one in all, comprising within itself the multiplicity of
+elements from which all mundane things are composed. It is only in
+infinity that the perpetual changes of things can take place. [Footnote:
+Diog. Laert., i. 119; Cicero, _Tus. Qu._, i. 16; Tennemann, p. 1,
+ch. i. Sec. 86.] This original but obscure thinker prepared the way for
+Pythagoras.
+
+[Sidenote: Pythagoras--Number the essence of things.]
+
+[Sidenote: Order and harmony in nature.]
+
+This philosopher and mathematician, born about the year B.C. 570, is one
+of the great names of antiquity; but his life is shrouded in dim
+magnificence. The old historians paint him as "clothed in robes of
+white, his head covered with gold, his aspect grave and majestic, wrapt
+in the contemplation of the mysteries of existence, listening to the
+music of Homer and Hesiod, or to the harmony of the spheres." [Footnote:
+Lewes, _Biog. Hist. Phil._] To him is ascribed the use of the word
+_philosopher_ rather than _sophos_, a lover of wisdom, not wise
+man. He taught his doctrines to a select few, the members of which
+society lived in common, and venerated him as an oracle. His great
+doctrine is, that _number_ is the essence of things, by which is
+understood the _form_ and not the _matter_ of the sensible.
+The elements of numbers are the _odd_ and _even_, the former
+being regarded as limited, the latter unlimited. Diogenes Laertius thus
+sums up his doctrines, which were that "the _monad_ is--the
+beginning of every thing. From the monad proceeds an indefinite
+_duad_. From the monad and the duad proceed _numbers_, and from
+numbers _signs_, and from these _lines_, of which plain figures
+consist. And from plain figures are derived solid bodies, and
+from these sensible bodies, of which there are four elements, fire,
+water, earth, and air. The world results from a combination of these
+elements." [Footnote: Diog. Laert., _Lives of Phil._] All this is
+unintelligible or indefinite. We cannot comprehend how the number theory
+will account for the production of corporeal magnitude any easier than
+we can identify monads with mathematical points. But underlying this
+mysticism is the thought that there prevails in the phenomena of nature
+a rational _order, harmony_, and conformity to _law_, and that
+these laws can be represented by numbers. Number or harmony is the
+principle of the universe, and order holds together the world. Like
+Anaximander, he passes from the region of physics to metaphysics, and
+thus opens a new world of speculation. His method was purely deductive,
+and his science mathematical. "The _Infinite_ of Anaximander became
+the _One_ of Pythagoras." Assuming that number is the essence of
+the world, he deduced that the world is regulated by numerical
+proportions, in other words, by a system of laws, and these laws,
+regular and harmonious in their operation, _may_ have suggested to
+the great mind of Pythagoras, so religious and lofty, the necessity for
+an intelligent creator of the universe. It was in moral truth that he
+delighted as well as metaphysical, and his life and the lives of his
+disciples were disciplined to a severe virtue, as if he recognized in
+numbers or order the necessity of a conformity to all law, and saw in
+obedience to it both harmony and beauty. But we have no _direct_
+and positive evidence of the kind or amount of knowledge which this
+great intellect acquired. All that can be affirmed is, that he was a man
+of extensive attainments; that he was a great mathematician, that he was
+very religious, that he devoted himself to doing good, that he placed
+happiness in the virtues of the soul or the perfect science of numbers,
+and made a likeness to the Deity the object of all endeavors. He
+believed that the soul was incorporeal, [Footnote: Ritter, b. iv. chap
+i.] and is put into the body by the means of number and harmonical
+relation, and thus subject to a divine regulation. Every thing was
+regarded by him in a moral light. The order of the universe is only a
+harmonical development of the first principle of all things to virtue
+and wisdom. [Footnote: Our knowledge of Pythagoras is chiefly derived
+from Aristotle. Both Ritter and Brandis have presented his views
+elaborately, but with more clearness than was to be expected.] He
+attached great value to music, as a subject of precise mathematical
+calculation, and an art which has a great effect on the affections.
+Hence morals and mathematics were linked together in his mind. As the
+heavens were ordered in consonance with number, they must move in
+eternal order. "The spheres" revolved in harmonious order around the
+great centre of light and heat--the sun--"the throne of the elemental
+world." Hence the doctrine of "the music of the spheres." _Pythagoras
+ad harmoniam canere mundum existimat_. [Footnote: Cicero, _De Nat.
+D_., iii. ii. 27.] The tendency of his speculations, obscure as they
+are to us, was to raise the soul to a contemplation of order and beauty
+and law, in the material universe, and hence to the contemplation of a
+supreme intelligence reigning in justice and truth. Justice and truth
+became therefore paramount virtues, to be practiced, to be sought as the
+great end of life, allied with the order of the universe, and with
+mathematical essences--the attributes of the deity, the sublime unity
+which he adored.
+
+The Ionic philosophers, and the Pythagoreans, sought to find the nature
+or first principle of all things in the elements, or in numbers. But the
+Eleatics went beyond the realm of physics to pure metaphysical
+inquiries. This is the second stage in the history of philosophy--an
+idealistic pantheism, which disregarded the sensible and maintained that
+the source of all truth is independent of sense.
+
+[Sidenote: Xenophanes.--God the first great cause.]
+
+The founder of this school was Xenophanes, born in Colophon, an Ionian
+city of Asia Minor, from which, being expelled, he wandered over Sicily
+as a rhapsodist or minstrel, reciting his elegiac poetry on the loftiest
+truths; and at last came to Elea, about the year 536, where he settled.
+The great subject of his inquiries was God himself--the first great
+cause--the supreme intelligence of the universe. "From the principle
+_ex nihilo nihil fit_, he concluded that nothing could pass from
+non-existence to existence. All things that exist are eternal and
+immutable. God, as the most perfect essence, is eternally One,
+unalterable, neither finite nor infinite, neither movable nor immovable,
+and not to be represented under any human semblance." [Footnote:
+Tennemann, _Hist. of Phil._, p. 1, Section 98.] What a great
+stride was this! Whence did he derive his opinions? He starts with the
+proposition that God is an all-powerful being, and denies all beginning
+of being, and hence infers that God must be from eternity. From this
+truth he advances to deny all multiplicity. A plurality of gods is
+impossible. With these sublime views--the unity and eternity and
+omnipotence of God--he boldly attacked the popular errors of his day. He
+denounced the transference to the deity of the human form; he inveighed
+against Homer and Hesiod; he ridiculed the doctrine of migration of
+souls. Thus he sings,--
+
+  "Such things of the gods are related by Homer and Hesiod,
+  As would be shame and abiding disgrace to mankind,--
+  Promises broken, and thefts, and the one deceiving the other."
+
+[Footnote: See Ritter, on Xenophanes. See note 20, in Archer Butler,
+series i. lect vi.]
+
+And, again, respecting anthropomorphic representations of the Deity,--
+
+  "But men foolishly think that gods are born like as men are,
+  And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice and their figure
+  But there's but one God alone, the greatest of gods and of mortals,
+  Neither in body, to mankind resembling, neither in ideas."
+
+God seen in all the manifestations of nature.
+
+[Sidenote: God seen in all manifestations of nature.]
+
+[Sidenote: He sought to create a knowledge of God.]
+
+Such were his sublime meditations. He believed in the _One_, which
+is God; but this all-pervading, unmoved, undivided being was not a
+personal God, nor a moral governor, but the deity pervading all space.
+He could not separate God from the world, nor could he admit the
+existence of world which is not God. He was a monotheist, but his
+monotheism was pantheism. He saw God in all the manifestations of
+nature. This did not satisfy him, nor resolve his doubts, and he
+therefore confessed that reason could not compass the exalted aims of
+philosophy. But there was no cynicism in his doubt. It was the soul-
+sickening consciousness that Reason was incapable of solving the mighty
+questions that he burned to know. There was no way to arrive at the
+truth, "for," as he said, "error is spread over all things." It was not
+disdain of knowledge, it was the combat of contradictory opinions that
+oppressed him. He could not solve the questions pertaining to God. What
+uninstructed reason can? "Canst thou by searching find out God, canst
+thou know the Almighty unto perfection." What was impossible to Job, was
+not possible to him. But he had attained a recognition of the unity and
+perfections of God, and this conviction he would spread abroad, and tear
+down the superstitions which hid the face of truth. I have great
+admiration of this philosopher, so sad, so earnest, so enthusiastic,
+wandering from city to city, indifferent to money, comfort, friends,
+fame, that he might kindle the knowledge of God. This was a lofty aim
+indeed for philosophy in that age. It was a higher mission than that of
+Homer, [Footnote: Lewes has some shallow remarks on this point, although
+spirited and readable. Ritter is more earnest.] great as his was, but
+not so successful.
+
+Parmenides of Elea, born about the year B.C. 536, followed out the
+system of Xenophanes, the central idea of which was the existence of
+God. With him the central idea was the notion of _being_. Being is
+uncreated and unchangeable; the fullness of all being is _thought_;
+the _All_ is thought and intelligence. He maintained the uncertainty
+of knowledge; but meant the knowledge derived through the senses.
+He did not deny the certainty of reason. He was the first who drew
+a distinction between knowledge obtained by the senses, and that
+obtained through the reason; and thus he anticipated the doctrine of
+innate ideas. From the uncertainty of knowledge derived through the
+senses, he deduced the twofold system of true and apparent knowledge.
+[Footnote: Prof. Brandis's article in Smith's _Dictionary_.]
+
+[Sidenote: Zeno introduces a new method.]
+
+Zeno of Elea, the friend and pupil of Parmenides, born B.C. 500, brought
+nothing new to the system, but invented _Dialectics_, that logic
+which afterwards became so powerful in the hands of Plato and Aristotle,
+and so generally admired among the schoolmen. It seeks to establish
+truth by refuting error by the _reductio ad absurdum_. While
+Parmenides sought to establish the doctrine of the _One_, Zeno
+proved the non-existence of the _Many_. He denied that appearances
+were real existences, but did not deny existences. It was the mission of
+Zeno to establish the doctrines of his master. But, in order to convince
+his listeners, he was obliged to use a new method of argument. So he
+carried on his argumentation by question and answer, and was, therefore,
+the first who used dialogue as a medium of philosophical communication.
+[Footnote: Cousin, _Nouveaux Fragments Philosophiques_.]
+
+[Sidenote: Empedocles.--Love the moving cause of all things.]
+
+Empedocles, born B.C. 444, like others of the Eleatics, complained of
+the imperfection of the senses, and looked for truth only in reason. He
+regarded truth as a perfect unity, ruled by love,--the only true force,
+the one moving cause of all things,--the first creative power by whom
+the world was formed. Thus "God is love," a sublime doctrine which
+philosophy revealed to the Greeks.
+
+[Sidenote: The loftiness of the Eleatic philosophers.]
+
+Thus did the Eleatic philosophers speculate almost contemporaneously
+with the Ionians, on the beginning of things and the origin of
+knowledge, taking different grounds, and attempting to correct the
+representations of sense by the notions of reason. But both schools,
+although they did not establish many truths, raised an inquisitive
+spirit and awakened freedom of thought and inquiry. They raised up
+workmen for more enlightened times, even as scholastic inquirers in the
+Middle Ages prepared the way for the revival of philosophy on sounder
+principles. They were all men of remarkable elevation of character as
+well as genius. They hated superstitions and attacked the
+Anthropomorphism of their day. They handled gods and goddesses with
+allegorizing boldness, and hence were often persecuted by the people.
+They did not establish moral truths by scientific processes, but they
+set examples of lofty disdain of wealth and factitious advantages, and
+devoted themselves with holy enthusiasm to the solution of the great
+questions which pertain to God and nature. Thales won the respect of his
+countrymen by devotion to studies. Pythagoras spent twenty-two years in
+Egypt to learn its science. Xenophanes wandered over Sicily as a
+rhapsodist of truth. Parmenides, born to wealth and splendor, forsook
+the feverish pursuit of sensual enjoyments to contemplate "the quiet and
+still air of delightful studies." Zeno declined all worldly honors to
+diffuse the doctrines of his master. Heraclitus refused the chief
+magistracy of Ephesus that he might have leisure to explore the depths
+of his own nature. Anaxagoras allowed his patrimony to run to waste in
+order to solve problems. "To philosophy," said he, "I owe my worldly
+ruin and my soul's prosperity." They were, without exception, the
+greatest and best men of their times. They laid the foundation of the
+beautiful temple which was constructed after they were dead, in which
+both physics and psychology reached the dignity of science. [Footnote:
+Archer Butler in his lecture on the Eleatic school follows closely, and
+expounds clearly, the views of Ritter.]
+
+Nevertheless, these great men, lofty as were their inquiries, and
+blameless their lives, had not established any system, nor any theories
+which were incontrovertible. They had simply speculated, and the world
+ridiculed their speculations. They were one-sided; and, when pushed out
+to their extreme logical sequence, were antagonistic to each other,
+which had a tendency to produce doubt and skepticism. Men denied the
+existence of the gods, and the grounds of certainty fell away from the
+human mind.
+
+[Sidenote: Circumstances which favoured the Sophists.]
+
+[Sidenote: Character of the Sophists.]
+
+This spirit of skepticism was favored by the tide of worldliness and
+prosperity which followed the Persian War. Athens became a great centre
+of art, of taste, of elegance, and of wealth. Politics absorbed the
+minds of the people. Glory and splendor were followed by corruption of
+morals and the pursuit of material pleasures. Philosophy went out of
+fashion, since it brought no outward and tangible good. More scientific
+studies were pursued--those which could be applied to purposes of
+utility and material gains; even, as in our day, geology, chemistry,
+mechanics, engineering, having reference to the practical wants of men,
+command talent, and lead to certain reward. In Athens, rhetoric,
+mathematics, and natural history supplanted rhapsodies and speculations
+on God and Providence. Renown and wealth could only be secured by
+readiness and felicity of speech, and that was most valued which brought
+immediate reward, like eloquence. Men began to practice eloquence as an
+_art_, and to employ it in furthering their interests. They made
+special pleadings, since it was their object to gain their point, at any
+expense of law and justice. Hence they taught that nothing was immutably
+right, but only so by convention. They undermined all confidence in
+truth and religion by teaching its uncertainty. They denied to men even
+the capability of arriving at truth. They practically affirmed the cold
+and cynical doctrine that there is nothing better for a man than that he
+should eat and drink. _Qui bono_, the cry of the Epicureans, of the
+latter Romans, and of most men in a period of great outward prosperity,
+was the popular inquiry,--who shall show us any good?--how can we become
+rich, strong, honorable?--this was the spirit of that class of public
+teachers who arose in Athens when art and eloquence and wealth and
+splendor were at their height in the fifth century before Christ, and
+when the elegant Pericles was the leader of fashion and of political
+power.
+
+[Sidenote: Power and popularity of the Sophists.]
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of the Sophists.]
+
+These men were the Sophists--rhetorical men who taught the children of
+the rich; worldly men who sought honor and power; frivolous men,
+trifling with philosophical ideas; skeptical men, denying all certainty
+to truths; men who, as teachers, added nothing to the realm of science,
+but who yet established certain dialectical rules useful to later
+philosophers. They were a wealthy, powerful, honored class, not much
+esteemed by men of thought, but sought out as very successful teachers
+of rhetoric. They were full of logical tricks, and contrived to throw
+ridicule upon profound inquiries. They taught also mathematics,
+astronomy, philology, and natural history with success. They were
+polished men of society, not profound nor religious, but very brilliant
+as talkers, and very ready in wit and sophistry. And some of them were
+men of great learning and talent, like Democritus, Leucippus, and
+Gorgias. They were not pretenders and quacks; they were skeptics who
+denied subjective truths, and labored for outward advantage. They were
+men of general information, skilled in subtleties, of powerful social
+and political connections, and were generally selected as ambassadors on
+difficult missions. They taught the art of disputation, and sought
+systematic methods of proof. They thus prepared the way for a more
+perfect philosophy than that taught by the Ionians, the Pythagoreans, or
+the Elentae, since they showed the vagueness of their inquiries,
+conjectural rather than scientific. They had no doctrines in common.
+They were the barristers of their age, _paid_ to make the "worse
+appear the better reason," yet not teachers of immorality any more than
+the lawyers of our day,--men of talents, the intellectual leaders of
+society. If they did not advance positive truths, they were useful in
+the method they created. They taught the art of disputation. They
+doubtless quibbled when they had a bad cause to present. They brought
+out the truth more forcibly when they defended a good cause. They had no
+hostility to truth; they only doubted whether it could be reached in the
+realm of psychological inquiries, and sought to apply it to their own
+purposes, or rather to distort it in order to gain a case. They are not
+a class of men whom I admire, as I do the old sages they ridiculed, but
+they were not without their use in the development of philosophy.
+[Footnote: Grote has a fine chapter on the Sophists (part ii. ch. 67).]
+The Sophists also rendered a service to literature by giving
+definiteness to language, and creating style in prose writing.
+Protagoras investigated the principles of accurate composition; Prodicus
+busied himself with inquiries into the significance of words; Gorgias
+proposed a captivating style. He gave symmetry to the structure of
+sentences.
+
+[Sidenote: Socrates.]
+
+[Sidenote: The method of Socrates.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ethical inquiries of Socrates.]
+
+The ridicule and skepticism of the Sophists brought out the great powers
+of Socrates, to whom philosophy is probably more indebted than to any
+man who ever lived, not so much for a perfect system, but for the
+impulse he gave to philosophical inquiries, and his successful exposure
+of error. He inaugurated a new era. Born in Athens in the year 470 B.C.,
+the son of a poor sculptor, he devoted his life to the search for truth,
+for its own sake, and sought to base it on immutable foundations. He was
+the mortal enemy of the Sophists, whom he encountered, as Pascal did the
+Jesuits, with wit, irony, puzzling questions, and remorseless logic.
+Like the earlier philosophers, he disdained wealth, ease, and comfort,
+but with greater devotion than they, since he lived in a more corrupt
+age, when poverty was a disgrace and misfortune a crime, when success
+was the standard of merit, and every man was supposed to be the arbiter
+of his own fortune, ignoring that Providence who so often refuses the
+race to the swift and the battle to the strong. He was what in our time
+would be called eccentric. He walked barefooted, meanly clad, and withal
+not over cleanly, seeking public places, disputing with every body
+willing to talk with him, making every body ridiculous, especially if
+one assumed airs of wisdom or knowledge,--an exasperating opponent,
+since he wove a web around a man from which he could not be extricated,
+and then exposed him to ridicule, in the wittiest city of the world. He
+attacked every body, and yet was generally respected, since it was
+_errors_ and not the person, _opinions_ rather than vices; and
+this he did with bewitching eloquence and irresistible fascination; so
+that, though he was poor and barefooted, a Silenus in appearance, with
+thick lips, upturned nose, projecting eyes, unwieldy belly, he was
+sought by Alcibiades and admired by Aspasia. Even Xantippe, a beautiful
+young woman, very much younger than he, a woman fond of the comforts and
+pleasures of life, was willing to be his wife, even if she did
+afterwards torment him, when the _res angusta domi_ disenchanted
+her from the music of his voice and the divinity of his nature. "I have
+heard Pericles," said the most dissipated and voluptuous man in Athens,
+"and other excellent orators, but was not moved by them; while this
+Marsyas--this Satyr--so affects me that the life I lead is hardly worth
+living, and I stop my ears, as from the Syrens, and flee as fast as
+possible, that I may not sit down and grow old in listening to his
+talk." He learned his philosophy from no one, and struck out an entirely
+new path. He declared his own ignorance, and sought to convince other
+people of theirs. He did not seek to reveal truth so much as to expose
+error. And yet it was his object to attain correct ideas as to moral
+obligations. He was the first who recognized natural right, and held
+that virtue and vice are inseparably united. He proclaimed the
+sovereignty of virtue, and the immutability of justice. He sought to
+delineate and enforce the practical duties of life. His great object was
+the elucidation of morals, and he was the first to teach ethics
+systematically, and from the immutable principles of moral obligation.
+Moral certitude was the lofty platform from which he surveyed the world,
+and upon which, as a rock, he rested in the storms of life. Thus he was
+a reformer and a moralist. It was his ethical doctrines which were most
+antagonistic to the age, and the least appreciated. He was a profoundly
+religious man, recognized Providence, and believed in the immortality of
+the soul. From the abyss of doubt, which succeeded the speculations of
+the first philosophers, he would plant grounds of certitude--a ladder
+on which he would mount to the sublime regions of absolute truth. He did
+not presume to inquire into the Divine essence, yet he believed that the
+gods were omniscient and omnipresent, that they ruled by the law of
+goodness, and that, in spite of their multiplicity, there was unity--a
+supreme intelligence that governed the world. Hence he was hated by the
+Sophists, who denied the certainty of arriving at the knowledge of God.
+From the comparative worthlessness of the body he deduced the
+immortality of the soul. With him, the end of life was reason and
+intelligence. He proved the existence of God by the order and harmony of
+nature, which belief was certain. He endeavored to connect the moral
+with the religious consciousness, and then he proclaimed his convictions
+for the practical welfare of society. In this light Socrates stands out
+the grandest personage of pagan antiquity,--as a moralist, as a teacher
+of ethics, as a man who recognized the Divine.
+
+[Sidenote: The mission of Socrates.]
+
+[Sidenote: The great aim of the Socratic method.]
+
+So far as he was concerned in the development of Grecian philosophy
+proper, he was probably inferior to some of his disciples. Yet he gave a
+turning-point to a new period, when he awakened the _idea_ of
+knowledge, and was the founder of the theory of scientific knowledge,
+since he separated the legitimate bounds of inquiry, and was thus the
+precursor of Bacon and Pascal. He did not attempt to make physics
+explain metaphysics, nor metaphysics the phenomena of the natural world.
+And he only reasoned from what was assumed to be true and invariable. He
+was a great pioneer of philosophy, since he resorted to inductive
+methods of proof, and gave general definiteness to ideas. [Footnote:
+Arist., _Metaph_., xiii. 4.] He gave a new method, and used great
+precision of language. Although he employed induction, it was his aim to
+withdraw the mind from the contemplation of nature, and to fix it on its
+own phenomena,--to look inward rather than outward, as carried out so
+admirably by Plato. The previous philosophers had given their attention
+to external nature; he gave up speculations about material phenomena,
+and directed his inquiries solely to the nature of knowledge. And, as he
+considered knowledge to be identical with virtue, he speculated on
+ethical questions mainly, and the method which he taught was that by
+which alone man could become better and wiser. To know one's self, in
+other words, "that the proper study of mankind is man," he was the first
+to proclaim. He did not disdain the subjects which chiefly interested
+the Sophists,--astronomy, rhetoric, physics; but he discussed moral
+questions, such as, what is piety? what is the just and the unjust? what
+is temperance? what is courage? what is the character fit for a
+citizen?--and such like ethical points. And he discussed them in a
+peculiar manner, in a method peculiarly his own. "Professing ignorance,
+he put perhaps this question--What is law? It was familiar and was
+answered off-hand. Socrates, having got the answer, then put fresh
+questions applicable to specific cases, to which the respondent was
+compelled to give an answer inconsistent with the first, thus showing
+that the _definition_ was too narrow or too wide, or defective in
+some essential condition. [Footnote: Grote, part ii. ch. 68.] The
+respondent then amended his answer; but this was a prelude to other
+questions, which could only be answered in ways inconsistent with the
+amendment; and the respondent, after many attempts to disentangle
+himself, was obliged to plead guilty to his inconsistencies, with an
+admission that he could make no satisfactory answer to the original
+inquiry which had at first appeared so easy." Thus, by this system of
+cross-examination, he showed the intimate connection between the
+dialectic method, and the logical distribution of particulars into
+species and genera. The discussion first turns upon the meaning of some
+generic term; the queries bring the answers into collision with various
+particulars which it ought not to comprehend, or which it ought to
+comprehend, but does not. He broke up the one into many by his
+analytical string of questions, which was a novel mode of argument. This
+was the method which he invented, and by which he separated _real_
+knowledge from the _conceit_ of knowledge, and led to precision in
+the use of definitions. It was thus that he exposed the false, without
+aiming even to teach the true; for he generally professed ignorance, and
+put himself in the attitude of a learner, while he made by his cross-
+examinations the man from whom he apparently sought knowledge to be as
+ignorant as himself, or, still worse, absolutely ridiculous. Thus he
+pulled away all the foundations on which a false science had been
+erected, and indicated the way by which alone the true could be
+established. Here he was not unlike Bacon, who pointed out the way that
+science could be advanced, without founding any school or advocating any
+system; but he was unlike Bacon in the object of his inquiries. Bacon
+was disgusted with ineffective _logical_ speculations, and Socrates
+with ineffective _physical_ researches. [Footnote: Archer Butler,
+s. i. 1. vii.] He never suffered a general term to remain undetermined,
+but applied it at once to particulars, and by questions the purport of
+which was not comprehended. It was not by positive teaching, but by
+exciting scientific impulse in the minds of others, or stirring up the
+analytical faculties, which constitute his originality. "The Socratic
+dialectics, clearing away," says Grote, [Footnote: Grote, part ii. ch.
+68; Maurice, _Ancient Philosophy_, p. 119.] "from the mind its mist
+of fancied knowledge, and, laying bare the real ignorance, produced an
+immediate effect like the touch of the torpedo; the newly created
+consciousness of ignorance was humiliating and painful, yet it was
+combined with a yearning after truth never before experienced. Such
+intellectual quickening, which could never commence until the mind had
+been disabused of its original illusion of false knowledge, was
+considered by Socrates not merely as the index and precursor, but as the
+indisputable condition of future progress." It was the aim of Socrates
+to force the seekers after truth into the path of inductive
+generalization, whereby alone trustworthy conclusions could be formed.
+He thus improved the method of speculative minds, and struck out from
+other minds that fire which sets light to original thought and
+stimulates analytical inquiry. He was a religious and intellectual
+missionary preparing the way for the Platos and Aristotles of the
+succeeding age by his severe dialectics. This was his mission, and he
+declared it by talking. He did not lecture; he conversed. For more than
+thirty years he discoursed on the principles of morality, until he
+arrayed against himself enemies who caused him to be put to death, for
+his teachings had undermined the popular system which the Sophists
+accepted and practiced. He probably might have been acquitted if he had
+chosen it, but he did not wish to live after his powers of usefulness
+had passed away. He opened to science new matter and a new method, as a
+basis for future philosophical systems. He was a "colloquial
+dialectician," such as this world has never seen, and may never see
+again. He was a skeptic respecting physics, but as far as man and
+society are concerned, he thought that every man might and ought to know
+what justice, temperance, courage, piety, patriotism, etc., were, and
+unless he did know what they were he would not be just, temperate, etc.
+He denied that men can know that on which they have bestowed no pains,
+or practice what they do not know. "The method of Socrates survives
+still in some of the dialogues of Plato, and is a process of eternal
+value and universal application. There is no man whose notions have not
+been first got together by spontaneous, unartificial associations,
+resting upon forgotten particulars, blending together disparities or
+inconsistencies, and having in his mind old and familiar phrases and
+oracular propositions of which he has never rendered to himself an
+account; and there is no man who has not found it a necessary branch of
+self-education to break up, analyze, and reconstruct these ancient
+mental compounds." [Footnote: Grote has written very ably, and at
+unusual length, respecting Socrates and his philosophy. Thirlwall has
+also reviewed Hegel and other German authors on Socrates' condemnation.
+Ritter has a full chapter of great value. See Donaldson's continuation
+of Muller. The original sources of knowledge respecting Socrates are
+found chiefly in Plato and Xenophon. Cicero may be consulted in
+his _Tusculan Questions_.] The services which he rendered to
+philosophy, as enumerated by Tennemann, [Footnote: Tennemann;
+Schliermacker, _Essay on the Worth of Socrates as a Philosopher_,
+translated by Bishop Thirlwall, and reprinted in Dr. Wigger's _Life of
+Socrates_.] "are twofold,--negative and positive: _Negative_,
+inasmuch as he avoided all vain discussions; combated mere speculative
+reasoning on substantial grounds, and had the wisdom to acknowledge
+ignorance when necessary, but without attempting to determine accurately
+what is capable, and what is not, of being accurately known.
+_Positive_, inasmuch as he examined with great ability the ground
+directly submitted to our understanding, and of which man is the
+centre."
+
+Socrates cannot be said to have founded a school, like Xenophanes. He
+did not bequeath a system of doctrines; he rather attempted to awaken
+inquiry, for which his method was admirably adapted. He had his
+admirers, who followed in the path which he suggested. Among these were
+Aristippus, Antisthenes, Euclid of Megara, Phaedo of Elis, and Plato, all
+of whom were disciples of Socrates, and founders of schools. Some only
+partially adopted his method, and all differed from each other. Nor can
+it be said that all of them advanced science. Aristippus, the founder of
+the Cyreniac School, was a sort of Epicurean, teaching that pleasure was
+the end of life. Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynics, was both
+virtuous and arrogant, placing the supreme good in virtue, but despising
+speculative science, and maintaining that no man can refute the opinions
+of another. He made it a virtue to be ragged, hungry, and cold, like the
+ancient monks; an austere, stern, bitter, reproachful man, who affected
+to despise all pleasures, like his own disciple Diogenes, who lived in a
+tub, and carried on a war between the mind and body--brutal, scornful,
+proud. To men who maintained that science was impossible, philosophy is
+not much indebted, although they were disciples of Socrates. Euclid
+merely gave a new edition of the Eleatic doctrines, and Phaedo speculated
+on the oneness of the good.
+
+[Sidenote: Plato.]
+
+[Sidenote: His education and travels.]
+
+[Sidenote: He adopts the Socratic method.]
+
+It was not till Plato arose that a more complete system of philosophy
+was founded. He was born of noble Athenian parents B.C. 429, the year
+that Pericles died, and the second year of the Peloponnesian War, and
+the most active period of Grecian thought. He had a severe education,
+studying poetry, music, rhetoric, and blending these with philosophy. He
+was only twenty when he found out Socrates, with whom he remained ten
+years, and from whom he was separated only by death. He then went on his
+travels, visiting every thing worth seeing in his day, especially in
+Egypt. When he returned, he commenced to teach the doctrines of his
+master, which he did, like him, gratuitously, in a garden near Athens,
+planted with lofty plane-trees, and adorned with temples and statues.
+This was called the Academy, and gave a name to his system of
+philosophy. And it is this only with which we have to do. It is not the
+calm, serious, meditative, isolated man that I would present, but _his
+contribution_ to the developments of philosophy on the principles of
+his master. And surely no man ever made a richer contribution. He may
+not have had the originality or breadth of Socrates, but he was more
+profound. He was preeminently a great thinker--a great logician--skilled
+in dialectics, and his "Dialogues" are such exercises of dialectical
+method that the ancients were divided whether he was a skeptic or a
+dogmatist. He adopted the Socratic method, and enlarged it. "Socrates
+relied on inductive reasoning, and on definitions, as the two principles
+of investigation. Definitions form the basis of all philosophy. To know
+a thing, you must know what it is not. Plato added a more efficient
+process of analysis and synthesis, of generalization and
+classification." [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. of Philos_.]
+"Analysis," continues the same author, "as insisted on by Plato, is the
+decomposition of the whole into its separate parts--is seeing the
+_one_ in many. Definitions were to Plato, what general or abstract
+ideas were to later metaphysicians. The individual thing was transitory;
+the abstract idea was eternal. Only concerning the latter could
+philosophy occupy itself. Socrates, insisting on proper definitions, had
+no conception of the classification of those definitions which must
+constitute philosophy. Plato, by the introduction of this process,
+shifted philosophy from the ground of inquiries into man and society,
+which exclusively occupied Socrates, to that of dialectics." Plato was
+also distinguished for skill in composition. Dionysius of Halicarnassus
+classes him with Herodotus and Demosthenes in the perfection of his
+style, which is characterized by great harmony and rhythm, as well as
+the variety of elegant figures. [Footnote: See Donaldson's quotations,
+_Hist. Lit. of Greece_, vol. ii. p. 257.]
+
+[Sidenote: His doctrines.]
+
+[Sidenote: The end of science is the contemplation of truth.]
+
+Plato made philosophy to consist in the discussion of general terms, or
+abstract ideas. General terms were synonymous with real existences, and
+these were the only objects of philosophy. These were called
+_Ideas_; and ideas are the basis of his system, or rather the
+subject matter of dialectics. He was a Realist, that is, he maintained
+that every general term, or abstract idea, has a real and independent
+existence. Here he probably was indebted to Pythagoras, for Plato was a
+master of the whole realm of philosophical speculation; but his
+conception of _ideas_ is a great advance on the conception of
+_numbers_. He was taught by Socrates that beyond this world of
+sense, there was the world of eternal truth, and that there were certain
+principles concerning which there could be no dispute. The soul
+apprehends the idea of goodness, greatness, etc. It is in the celestial
+world that we are to find the realm of ideas. Now God is the supreme
+idea. To know God should be the great aim of life. We know him by the
+desire which like feels for like. The divinity within feels for the
+divinity revealed in beauty, or any other abstract idea. The longing of
+the soul for beauty is _Love_. Love then is the bond which unites
+the human to the divine. Beauty is not revealed by harmonious outlines
+which appeal to the senses, but is _Truth_. It is divinity. Beauty,
+truth, love, these are God, the supreme desire of the soul to
+comprehend, and by the contemplation of which the mortal soul sustains
+itself, and by perpetual meditation becomes participant in immortality.
+The communion with God presupposes immortality. The search for the
+knowledge of God is the great end of life. Wisdom is the consecration of
+the soul to the search; and this is effected by dialectics, for only out
+of dialectics can correct knowledge come. But man, immersed in the flux
+of sensualities, can never fully attain this high excellence--the
+knowledge of God, the object of all rational inquiry. Hence the
+imperfection of all human knowledge. The supreme good is attainable; it
+is not attained. God is the immutable good, and justice the rule of the
+universe. "The vital principle of his philosophy is to show that true
+science is the knowledge of the good; is the eternal contemplation or
+truth, or ideas; and though man may not be able to apprehend it in its
+unity, because he is subject to the restraints of the body, he is,
+nevertheless, permitted to recognize it, imperfectly, by calling to mind
+the eternal measure of existence, by which he is in his origin
+connected." [Footnote: Ritter, _Hist, of Phil_., b. viii. p. 2,
+chap. i.] He was unable to find a transition from his world of ideas to
+that of sense, and his philosophy, vague and mystical, though severely
+logical, diverts the mind from the investigations of actual life--from
+that which is the object of experience.
+
+[Sidenote: The object of Plato's inquiries.]
+
+The writings of Plato have come down to us complete, and have been
+admired by all ages for their philosophical acuteness, as well as beauty
+of language. He was not the first to use the form of dialogue, but he
+handled it with greater mastery than any one who preceded him, or has
+come after him, and all with a view to bring his hearers to a
+consciousness of knowledge or ignorance. He regarded wisdom as the
+attribute of the godhead; that philosophy is the necessity of the
+intellectual man, and the greatest good to which he can attain. This
+wisdom presupposes, however, a communion with the divine. He regarded
+the soul as immortal and indestructible. He maintained that neither
+happiness nor virtue can consist in the attempt to satisfy our unbridled
+desires; that virtue is purely a matter of intelligence; that passions
+disturb the moral economy.
+
+[Sidenote: God the immutable good.]
+
+"When we review the doctrines of Plato, it is impossible to deny," says
+Hitter, "that they are pervaded with a grand view of life and the
+universe. This is the noble thought which inspired him to say, that God
+is the constant and immutable good; the world is good in a state of
+becoming, and the human soul that in and through which the good in the
+world is to be consummated. In his sublimer conception, he shows himself
+the worthy disciple of Socrates. His merit lies chiefly in having
+advanced certain distinct and precise rules for the Socratic method, and
+in insisting, with a perfect consciousness of its importance, upon the
+law of science, that to be able to descend from the higher to the lower
+ideas by a principle of the reason, and reciprocally from the
+multiplicity of the lower to the higher, is indispensable to the perfect
+possession of any knowledge. He thus imparted to this method a more
+liberal character. While he adopted many of the opinions of his
+predecessors, and gave due consideration to the results of the earlier
+philosophy, he did not allow himself to be disturbed by the mass of
+conflicting theories, but breathed into them the life-giving breath of
+unity. He may have erred in his attempts to determine the nature of
+good; still he pointed out to all who aspire to a knowledge of the
+divine nature, an excellent road by which they may arrive at it."
+
+Plato is very much admired by the Germans, who look upon him as the
+incarnation of dialectical power; but it were to be hoped that, some
+day, these great metaphysicians may make a clearer exposition of his
+doctrines, and of his services to philosophy, than they have as yet
+done. To me, Ritter, Brandis, and all the great authorities, are
+obscure. But that Plato was one of the greatest lights of the ancient
+world, there can be no reasonable doubt. Nor is it probable that, as a
+dialectician, he has ever been surpassed; while his purity of life, and
+his lofty inquiries, and his belief in God and immortality, make him, in
+an ethical point of view, the most worthy of the disciples of Socrates.
+He was to the Greeks what Kant was to the Germans, and these two great
+thinkers resemble each other in the structure of their minds and their
+relations to society.
+
+The ablest part of the lectures of Archer Butler of Dublin, is devoted
+to the Platonic philosophy. It is a criticism and an eulogium. No modern
+writer has written more enthusiastically of what he considers the
+crowning excellence of the Greek philosophy. The dialectics of Plato,
+his ideal theory, his physics, his psychology, and his ethics, are most
+ably discussed, and in the spirit of a loving and eloquent disciple. He
+represents the philosophy which he so much admires as a contemplation
+of, and the tendency to, the absolute and eternal good. The good is
+enthroned by Plato in majesty supreme at the summit of the whole
+universe, and the sensible world is regarded as a development of supreme
+perfection in an inferior and transitory form. Nor are ideas
+abstractions, as some suppose, but archetypal conceptions of the divine
+mind itself--the eternal laws and reasons of things. The sensible world
+is regarded as an imperfect image of ideal perfection, yet the
+uncertainty of physical researches is candidly admitted. The discovery
+of theological and moral truth, is the great object even of the
+"_Timoeus_." Hence the physics of Plato have a theological
+character--are mathematical rather than experimental. The psychology
+represents the body as the prison of the soul, somewhat after the spirit
+of oriental theogonists, and the aim of virtue is to preserve the
+distinctness of both, and realize liberty in bonds. The doctrine of
+preexistence is maintained, as well as a future state. In the ethics,
+the perfection of the human soul--the perfection which it may attain--is
+distinctly unfolded, and also the unity of the great ideas of the
+beautiful, just, and good. The "_Phoedo_" enforces the supremacy
+of wisdom, and the "_Philebus_" the "_summum bonum_." _Love_ is
+the aspiration after a communion with perfection. The chief
+excellence of the philosophy which Plato taught, consists in the
+immutable basis assigned to the principles of moral truth; the defects
+are a want of distinct apprehension of the claims of divine justice in
+consequence of human sin, and an indirect discouragement of active
+virtue.
+
+The great disciple of Plato was Aristotle, and he carried on the
+philosophical movement which Socrates had started to the highest limit
+that it ever reached in the ancient world. He was born at Stagira B.C.
+384, of wealthy parents, and early evinced an insatiable thirst for
+knowledge. When Plato returned from Sicily he joined his disciples, and
+was his pupil for seventeen years, at Athens. On the death of Plato, he
+went on his travels, and became the tutor of Alexander the Great, and
+B.C. 335, returned to Athens, after an absence of twelve years, and set
+up a school, and taught in the Lyceum. He taught while walking up and
+down the shady walks which surrounded it, from which he obtained the
+name of Peripatetic, which has clung to his name and philosophy. His
+school had a great celebrity, and from it proceeded illustrious
+philosophers, statesmen, historians, and orators. He taught thirteen
+years, during which he composed most of his greater works. He not only
+wrote on dialectics and logic, but also on physics in its various
+departments. His work on "The History of Animals" was deemed so
+important that his royal pupil presented him with eight hundred talents--
+an enormous sum--for the collection of materials. He also wrote on
+ethics and politics, history and rhetoric; letters, poems, and speeches,
+three fourths of which are lost. He was one of the most voluminous
+writers of antiquity, and probably the most learned man whose writings
+have come down to us. Nor has any one of the ancients exercised upon the
+thinking of succeeding ages so great an influence. He was an oracle
+until the revival of learning.
+
+[Sidenote: Genius of Aristotle.]
+
+"Aristotle," says Hegel, "penetrated into the whole mass, and into every
+department of the universe of things, and subjected to the comprehension
+its scattered wealth; and the greater number of the philosophical
+sciences owe to him their separation and commencement." [Footnote: Hagel
+is said to have comprehended Aristotle better than any modern writer,
+and the best work on his philosophy is by him.] He is also the father of
+the history of philosophy, since he gives an historical review of the
+way in which the subject has been hitherto treated by the earlier
+philosophers.
+
+"Plato made the external world the region of the incomplete and bad, of
+the contradictory and the false, and recognized absolute truth only in
+the eternal immutable ideas. Aristotle laid down the proposition that
+the idea, which cannot of itself fashion itself into reality, is
+powerless, and has only a potential existence, and that it becomes a
+living reality, only by realizing itself in a creative manner by means
+of its own energy." [Footnote: Adolph Stahr, Oldenburg.]
+
+[Sidenote: Vast attainments of Aristotle.]
+
+But there can be no doubt as to his marvelous power of systematization.
+Collecting together all the results of ancient speculation, he so
+elaborated them into a coordinate system, that for two thousand years he
+reigned supreme in the schools. In a literary point of view, Plato was
+doubtless his superior, but Plato was a poet making philosophy divine
+and musical; but Aristotle's investigations spread over a far wider
+range. He wrote also on politics, natural history, and ethics, in so
+comprehensive and able manner, as to prove his claim to be one of the
+greatest intellects of antiquity, the most subtle and the most patient.
+He differed from Plato chiefly in relation to the doctrine of ideas,
+without however resolving the difficulty which divided them. As he made
+matter to be the eternal ground of phenomena, he reduced the notion of
+it to a precision it never before enjoyed, and established thereby a
+necessary element in human science. But being bound to matter, he did
+not soar, as Plato did, into the higher regions of speculation; nor did
+he entertain as lofty views of God, or of immortality. Neither did he
+have as high an ideal of human life. His definition of the highest good
+was a perfect practical activity in a perfect life.
+
+With Aristotle closed the great Socratic movement in the history of
+speculation. When Socrates appeared there was the general prevalence of
+skepticism, arising from the unsatisfactory speculations respecting
+nature. He removed this skepticism by inventing a new method, and by
+withdrawing the mind from the contemplation of nature, to the study of
+man himself. He bade men to look inward.
+
+[Sidenote: Ethics the great subject of inquiry with Plato.]
+
+Plato accepted his method, but applied it more universally. Like
+Socrates, however, ethics were the great subject of his inquiries, to
+which physics were only subordinate. The problem he sought to solve was
+the way to live like the gods. He would contemplate truth as the great
+aim of life.
+
+[Sidenote: Main inquiries of Aristotle had reference to physics and
+metaphysics.]
+
+With Aristotle, ethics formed only one branch of his attention. His main
+inquiries were in reference to physics and metaphysics. He thus, by
+bringing these into the region or inquiry, paved the way for a new epoch
+of skepticism. [Footnote: Lewes, Ritter, Hegel, Maurice, Diogenes
+Laertius. See fine article in _Encyclopedia Britannica._ Schwegler,
+translated by Seelyn.]
+
+It is impossible, within the proper limits of this chapter, to enter
+upon an analysis of the philosophy of either the three great lights of
+the ancient world, or to enumerate and describe their other writings. I
+merely wish to show what are considered to be the vital principles on
+which their systems were based, and the general spirit of their
+speculations. The student must examine these in the elaborate treatises
+of modern philosophers, and in the original works of Plato and
+Aristotle.
+
+[Sidenote: Their characteristic inquiries.]
+
+Both Plato and Aristotle taught that reason alone could form science;
+but Aristotle differed from his master respecting the theory of ideas.
+He did not deny to ideas a _subjective_ existence, but he did deny
+that they have an objective existence. And he maintained that the
+individual things alone _existed_, and if individuals only exist,
+they can only be known by _sensation_. Sensation thus becomes the
+basis of knowledge. Plato made reason the basis of knowledge,
+but Aristotle made _experience_. Plato directed man to the
+contemplation of ideas; Aristotle, to the observations of Nature.
+Instead of proceeding synthetically and dialectically like Plato, he
+pursues an analytic course. His method is hence inductive--the
+derivation of certain principles from a sum of given facts and
+phenomena. It would seem that positive science commenced with him, since
+he maintained that experience furnishes the principles of every science;
+but, while his conception was just, there was not sufficient experience
+then accumulated from which to generalize with effect. He did not
+sufficiently verify his premises. His reasoning was correct upon the
+data given, as in the famous syllogism, "All black birds are crows; this
+bird is black; therefore this bird is a crow." The defect of the
+syllogism is not in the reasoning, but in the truth of the major
+premise, since all black birds are not crows. It is only a most
+extensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a proposition
+which will warrant reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned without
+sufficient examination of the major premise of his syllogisms.
+
+[Sidenote: Logic of Aristotle.]
+
+Aristotle was the father of logic, and Hegel and Kant think there has
+been no improvement upon it since his day. And this became to him the
+real organon of science. "He supposed it was not merely the instrument
+of thought, but the instrument of investigation." Hence it was futile
+for purposes of discovery, although important to aid the processes of
+thought. Induction and syllogism are the two great instruments of his
+logic. The one sets out from particulars already known to arrive at a
+conclusion; the other sets out from some general principle to arrive at
+particulars. The latter more particularly characterized his logic, which
+he presented in sixteen forms, showing great ingenuity, and useful as a
+dialectical exercise. This syllogistic process of reasoning would be
+incontrovertible, if the _general_ were better known than the
+_particular_. But it is only by induction, which proceeds from the
+world of experience, that we reach the higher world of cognition. We
+arrive at no new knowledge by the syllogism, since the major premise is
+more evident than the conclusion, and anterior to it. Thus he made
+speculation subordinate to logical distinctions, and his system, when
+carried out by the schoolmen, led to a spirit of useless quibbling.
+Instead of interrogating Nature, as Bacon led the way, they interrogated
+their own minds, and no great discoveries were made. From a want of a
+proper knowledge of the conditions of scientific inquiry, the method of
+Aristotle became fruitless. [Footnote: Maurice, _Anc. Phil_. See
+Whewell, _Hist. Ind. Science_.]
+
+Though Aristotle wrote in a methodical manner, yet there is great
+parsimony of language. There is no fascination in his style. It is
+without ornament, and very condensed. His merit consisted in great
+logical precision, and scrupulous exactness in the employment of terms.
+
+[Sidenote: The Skeptics.]
+
+Philosophy, as a great system of dialectics, as an analysis of the power
+and faculties of the mind, as a method to pursue inquiries, as an
+intellectual system merely, culminated in Aristotle. He completed the
+great fabric of which Thales laid the foundation. The subsequent schools
+of philosophy directed attention to ethical and practical questions,
+rather than to intellectual phenomena. The skeptics, like Pyrrho, had
+only negative doctrines, and had a disdain of those inquiries which
+sought to penetrate the mysteries of existence. They did not believe
+that absolute truth was attainable by man. And they attacked the
+prevailing systems with great plausibility. Thus Sextus attacked both
+induction and definitions. "If we do not know the thing we define," said
+he, "we do not comprehend it because of the definition, but we impose on
+it the definition because we know it; and if we are ignorant of the
+thing we would define, it is impossible to define it." Thus the skeptics
+pointed out the uncertainty of things and the folly of striving to
+comprehend them.
+
+The Epicureans despised the investigations of philosophy, since, in
+their view, they did not contribute to happiness. The subject of their
+inquiries was happiness, not truth. What will promote this, was the
+subject of their speculation. Epicurus, born B.C. 342, contended that
+pleasure was happiness; that pleasure should not be sought for its own
+sake, but with a view of the happiness of life obtained by it. He taught
+that it was inseparable from virtue, and that its enjoyments should be
+limited. He was averse to costly pleasures, and regarded contentedness
+with a little to be a great good. He placed wealth not in great
+possessions, but few wants. He sought to widen the domain of pleasure,
+and narrow that of pain, and regarded a passionless state of life the
+highest. Nor did he dread death, which was deliverance from misery.
+Epicurus has been much misunderstood, and his doctrines were
+subsequently perverted, especially when the arts of life were brought
+into the service of luxury, and a gross materialism was the great
+feature of society. Epicurus had much of the practical spirit of a
+philosopher, although very little of the earnest cravings of a religious
+man. He himself led a virtuous life, because it was wiser and better to
+be virtuous, not because it was his duty. His writings were very
+voluminous, and in his tranquil garden he led a peaceful life of study
+and enjoyment. His followers, and they were numerous, were led into
+luxury and effeminacy, as was to be expected from a skeptical and
+irreligious philosophy, the great principle of which was that whatever
+is pleasant should be the object of existence. [Footnote: the doctrines
+of the Epicureans are best set forth in Lucretius.]
+
+The Stoics were a large and celebrated sect of philosophers; but they
+added nothing to the domain of thought,--they created no system, they
+invented no new method, they were led into no new psychological
+inquiries. Their inquiries were chiefly ethical. And if ethics are a
+part of the great system of Grecian philosophy, they are well worthy of
+attention. Some of the greatest men of antiquity are numbered among
+them--like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. The philosophy they taught was
+morality, and this was eminently practical and also elevated.
+
+[Sidenote: Zeno.]
+
+The founder of this sect, Zeno, born rich, but reduced to poverty by
+misfortune, was a very remarkable man, and a very good one, and
+profoundly revered by the Athenians, who intrusted him with the keys of
+their citadel. The date of his birth is unknown, but he lived in a
+degenerate age, when skepticism and sensuality were eating out the life
+and vigor of Grecian society, when Greek civilization was rapidly
+passing away, when ancient creeds had lost their majesty, and general
+levity and folly overspread the land. Deeply impressed with the
+prevailing laxity of morals and the absence of religion, he lifted up
+his voice, more as a reformer than as an inquirer after truth, and
+taught for more than fifty years in a place called the Porch, which had
+once been the resort of the poets. He was chiefly absorbed with ethical
+questions, although he studied profoundly the systems of the old
+philosophers. He combated Plato's doctrine that virtue consists in
+contemplation, and of Epicurus, that it consisted in pleasure. Man, in
+his eyes, was made for active duties. He also sought to oppose
+skepticism, which was casting the funereal veil of doubt and uncertainty
+over every thing pertaining to the soul, and God, and the future life.
+"The skeptics had attacked both perception and reason. They had shown
+that perception is, after all, based upon appearance, and appearance is
+not a certainty; and they showed that reason is unable to distinguish
+between appearance and certainty, since it had nothing but phenomena to
+build upon, and since there is no criterion to apply to reason itself."
+Then they proclaimed philosophy a failure, and without foundation. But
+he, taking a stand on common sense, fought for morality, as did Reid and
+Beattie, when they combated the skepticism of Hume.
+
+[Sidenote: Doctrines of the Stoics.]
+
+[Sidenote: Influence of the Stoics.]
+
+Philosophy, according to Zeno and other Stoics, was intimately connected
+with the duties of practical life. The contemplation, recommended by
+Plato and Aristotle, seemed only a covert recommendation of selfish
+enjoyment. The wisdom, which it should be the aim of life to attain, is
+virtue. And virtue is to live harmoniously with nature. To live
+harmoniously with nature is to exclude all personal ends. Hence pleasure
+is to be disregarded, and pain is to be despised. And as all moral
+action must be in harmony with nature, the law of destiny is supreme,
+and all things move according to immutable fate. With the predominant
+tendency to the universal which characterized their system, the Stoics
+taught that the sage ought to regard himself as a citizen of the world
+rather than of any particular city or state. They made four things to be
+indispensable to virtue: a knowledge of _good and evil_, which is
+the province of the reason; _temperance_, a knowledge of the due
+regulation of the sensual passions; _fortitude_, a conviction that
+it is good to suffer what is necessary; and _justice_, or
+acquaintance with what ought to be to every individual. They made
+_perfection_ necessary to virtue, and saw nothing virtuous in the
+mere advance to it. Hence the severity of their system. The perfect
+sage, according to them, is raised above all influence of external
+events; he submits to the law of destiny; he is exempt from desire and
+fear, joy or sorrow; he is not governed even by what he is exposed to
+necessarily, like sorrow and pain; he is free from the restraints of
+passion; he is like a god in his mental placidity. Nor must the sage
+live only for himself, but for others; he is a member of the whole body
+of mankind; he ought to marry, and to take part in public affairs, but
+he will never give way to compassion or forgiveness, and is to attack
+error and vice with uncompromising sternness. But with this ideal, the
+Stoics were forced to admit that virtue, like true knowledge, although
+attainable, is beyond the reach of man. They were discontented with
+themselves, and with all around them, and looked upon all institutions
+as corrupt. They had a profound contempt of their age, and of human
+attainments; but it cannot be denied they practiced a lofty and stern
+virtue, and were the best people in their degenerate times. Their God
+was made subject to Fate, and he was a material god, synonymous with
+Nature. Thus their system was pantheistic. But they maintained the
+dignity of reason, and the ideal in nature, the actualization of which
+we should strive after, though without the hope of reaching it. "As a
+reaction against effeminacy, Stoicism may be applauded; as a doctrine,
+it is one-sided, and ends in apathy and egotism." [Footnote: See Cicero,
+_De Fin_. and _Tusculan Questions_; Diogenes Laertius on Zeno.
+This historian is quite full on this subject, and seems to furnish the
+basis for Ritter.]
+
+With the Stoics ended all inquiry among the Greeks of a philosophical
+nature worthy of especial mention, until philosophy was revived in the
+Christian schools of Alexandria, where faith was united with reason. The
+Stoics endeavored to establish the certitude of human knowledge in order
+that they might establish the truth of moral principles, and the basis
+of their system was common sense, with which they attacked the godless
+skepticism of their times, and raised up a barrier, feeble though it
+was, to prevailing degeneracy. The struggles of so many great thinkers,
+from Thales to Aristotle, all ended in doubt and in despair. It was
+discovered that all of them were wrong, but that their error was without
+a remedy.
+
+[Sidenote: Bright period of Grecian philosophy.]
+
+The bright and glorious period of Grecian philosophy was from Socrates
+to Aristotle. Philosophical inquiries began about the origin of things,
+and ended with an elaborate systematization of the forms of thought,
+which was the most magnificent triumph that the unaided intellect of man
+ever achieved. Socrates founds a school, but does not elaborate a
+system. He reveals most precious truths, and stimulates the youth who
+listen to his instructions by the doctrine that it is the duty of man to
+pursue a knowledge of himself, which is to be sought in that divine
+reason which dwells within him and which also rules the world. He
+confides in science; he loves truth for its own sake; he loves virtue,
+which consists in the knowledge of the good.
+
+[Sidenote: Summary.]
+
+Plato seizes his weapons and is imbued with his spirit. He is full of
+hope for science and humanity. With soaring boldness he directs his
+inquiries to futurity, dissatisfied with the present, and cherishing a
+fond hope of a better existence. He speculates on God and the soul. He
+is not much interested in physical phenomena. He does not, like Thales,
+strive to find out the beginning of all things, but the highest good, by
+which his immortal soul may be refreshed and prepared for the future
+life he cannot solve, yet in which he believes. The sensible is an
+impenetrable empire, but ideas are certitudes, and upon these he dwells
+with rapt and mystical enthusiasm,--a great poetical rhapsodist like
+Xenophanes, severe dialectician as he is, believing in truth and beauty
+and goodness.
+
+Then Aristotle, following out the method of _his_ teachers,
+attempts to exhaust experience, and directs his inquiries into the
+outward world of sense and observation, but all with the view of
+discovering from phenomena the unconditional truth, in which he, too,
+believes. But every thing in this world is fleeting and transitory, and,
+therefore, it is not easy to arrive at truth. A cold doubt creeps into
+the experimental mind of Aristotle with all his learning and all his
+logic.
+
+The Epicureans arise. They place their hopes in sensual enjoyment. They
+despair of truth. But the world will not be abandoned to despair. The
+Stoics rebuke the impiety which is blended with sensualism, and place
+their hopes on virtue. But it is unattainable virtue, while their God is
+not a moral governor, but subject to necessity.
+
+Thus did those old giants grope about, for they did not know the God who
+was revealed unto Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Isaiah. They solved
+nothing, since they did not _know_, even if they speculated on, the
+_Great First Cause_. And yet, with all their errors, they were the
+greatest benefactors of the ancient world. They gave dignity to
+intellectual inquiries, while they set, by their lives, examples of a
+pure morality--not the morality of the gospel, but the severest virtue
+practiced by the old guides of mankind.
+
+[Sidenote: Philosophy among the Romans.]
+
+The Romans added absolutely nothing to the philosophy of the Greeks. Nor
+were they much interested in any speculative inquiries. It was only the
+ethical views of the old sages which had attraction or force to them.
+They were too material to love pure subjective inquiries. They had
+conquered the land; they disdained the empire of the air.
+
+[Sidenote: Followers of the Greeks.]
+
+There were, doubtless, students of the Greek philosophy among the
+Romans, perhaps as early as Cato the Censor. But there were only two
+persons of note who wrote philosophy, till the time of Cicero,
+Aurafanius and Rubinus, and these were Epicureans.
+
+[Sidenote: Cicero.]
+
+Cicero was the first to systematize the philosophy which contributed so
+greatly to his intellectual culture. But even he added nothing. He was
+only a commentator and expositor. Nor did he seek to found a system or a
+school, but merely to influence and instruct men of his own rank. He
+regarded those subjects, which had the greatest attraction for the
+Grecian schools, to be beyond the power of human cognition, and,
+therefore, looked upon the practical as the proper domain of human
+inquiry. Yet he held logic in great esteem, as furnishing rules for
+methodical investigation. He adopted the doctrine of Socrates as to the
+pursuit of moral good. He regarded the duties which grow out of the
+relations of human society preferable to the obligations of pursuing
+scientific researches. Although a great admirer of Plato and Aristotle,
+he regarded patriotic calls of duty as paramount to any study of science
+or philosophy, which he thought was involved in doubt. He had a great
+contempt for knowledge which could neither lead to the clear
+apprehension of certitude, nor to practical applications. He thought it
+impossible to arrive at a knowledge of God, or the nature of the soul,
+or the origin of the world. And he thus was led to look upon the
+sensible and the present as of more importance than inconclusive
+inductions, or deductions from a truth not satisfactorily established.
+
+[Sidenote: His eclecticism.]
+
+Cicero was an Eclectic, seizing on what was true and clear in the
+ancient systems, and disregarding what was simply a matter of
+speculation. This is especially seen in his treatise "De Finibus Bonorum
+et Malorum," in which the opinions of all the Grecian schools concerning
+the supreme good are expounded and compared. Nor does he hesitate to
+declare that happiness consists in the cognition of nature and science,
+which is the true source of pleasure both to gods and men. Yet these are
+but hopes, in which it does not become us to indulge. It is the actual,
+the real, the practical, which preeminently claims attention; in other
+words, the knowledge which will but furnish man with a guide and rule of
+life. [Footnote: _De Fin._, v. 6.] Indeed, the sum of Philosophy,
+to the mind of Cicero, is that she is an instructress and a comforter.
+He takes an entirely practical view of the end of philosophy, which is
+to improve the mind, and make a man contented and happy. For philosophy
+as a science,--a series of inductions and deductions,--he had profound
+contempt. He also regards the doctrines of philosophy as involved in
+doubt, and even in the consideration of moral questions he is pursued by
+the conflict of opinions, although, in this department, he is most at
+home. The points he is most anxious to establish are the doctrines of
+God and the soul. These are most fully treated in his essay, "De Natura
+Deorum," in which he submits the doctrines of the Epicureans and the
+Stoics to the objections of the Academy. [Footnote: _De Nat. D._,
+iii. 10.] He admits that man is unable to form true conceptions of God,
+but acknowledges the necessity of assuming one supreme God as the
+creator and ruler of all things, moving all things, remote from all
+mortal mixture, and endued with eternal motion in himself. He seems to
+believe in a divine providence ordering good to man; in the soul's
+immortality, in free-will, in the dignity of human nature, in the
+dominion of reason, in the restraint of the passions as necessary to
+virtue, in a life of public utility, in an immutable morality, in the
+imitation of the divine.
+
+[Sidenote: His ethics.]
+
+The doctrines of Cicero on ethical subjects, are chiefly drawn from the
+Stoics and Peripatetics. They are opinions drawn sometimes from one
+system and sometimes from another. Thus he agrees with the disciples of
+Aristotle, that health, honors, friends, country, are worthy objects of
+desire. Then again, he coincides with the Stoics that passions and
+emotions of the soul are vices. But he recedes from their severe tone,
+which elevated the sage too high above his fellow-men.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of his philosophical writings.]
+
+Thus there is little of original thought in the moral theories of
+Cicero, and these are the result of observation rather than of any
+philosophical principle. We might enumerate his various opinions, and
+show what an enlightened mind he possessed; but this would not be the
+development of philosophy. His views, interesting as they are, and
+generally wise and lofty, yet do not indicate any progress of the
+science; He merely repeats earlier doctrines. These were not without
+their utility, since they had great influence on the Latin fathers. They
+were esteemed for their general enlightenment. He softened down the
+extreme views of the great thinkers before his day, and clearly unfolded
+what had become obscured. He is a critic of philosophy; an expositor
+whom we can scarcely spare.
+
+If any body advanced philosophy among the Romans, it was Epictetus, and
+he even only in the realm of ethics. Qumtius Sextius, in the time of
+Augustus, had revived the Pythagorean doctrines. Seneca had recommended
+the severe morality of the Stoics, but they added nothing that was not
+previously known. The Romans had no talent for philosophy, although they
+were acquainted with its various systems. Their greatest light was a
+Phrygian slave.
+
+[Sidenote: Epictetus.]
+
+[Sidenote: His lofty ethical system.]
+
+Epictetus taught in the time of Domitian, and though he did not leave
+any written treatises, his doctrines were preserved and handed down by
+his disciple Arrian, who had for him the reverence that Plato had for
+Socrates. The loftiness of his recorded views makes us feel that he must
+have been indebted to Christianity; for no one, before him, has revealed
+precepts so much in accordance with its spirit. He was a Stoic, but he
+held in the highest estimation Socrates and Plato. It is not for the
+solution of metaphysical questions that he was remarkable. He was not a
+dialectician, but a moralist, and, as such, takes the highest ground of
+all the old inquirers after truth. With him, philosophy, as it was to
+Cicero and Seneca, is a wisdom of life. He sets no value on logic, nor
+much on physics; but he reveals sentiments of great simplicity and
+grandeur. His great idea is the purification of the soul. He believes in
+the severest self-denial; he would guard against the syren spells of
+pleasure; he would make men feel that, in order to be good, they must
+first feel that they are evil; he condemns suicide, although it had been
+defended by the Stoics; he would complain of no one, not even of
+injustice; he would not injure his enemies; he would pardon all
+offenses; he would feel universal compassion, since men sin from
+ignorance; he would not easily blame, since we have none to condemn but
+ourselves; he would not strive after honor or office, since we put
+ourselves in subjection to that we seek or prize; he would constantly
+bear in mind that all things are transitory, and that they are not our
+own; he would bear evils with patience, even as he would practice self-
+denial of pleasure; he would, in short, be calm, free, keep in
+subjection his passions, avoid self-indulgence, and practice a broad
+charity and benevolence. He felt he owed all to God; that all was his
+gift, and that we should thus live in accordance with his will; that we
+should be grateful not only for our bodies, but for our souls, and
+reason, by which we attain to greatness. And if God has given us such a
+priceless gift, we should be contented, and not even seek to alter our
+external relations, which are doubtless for the best. We should wish,
+indeed, for only what God wills and sends, and we should avoid pride and
+haughtiness, as well as discontent, and seek to fulfill our allotted
+part. [Footnote: A fine translation of Epictetus has been published by
+Little and Brown.]
+
+[Sidenote: Marcus Aurelius.]
+
+Such were the moral precepts of Epictetus, in which we see the nearest
+approach to Christianity that had been made in the ancient world. And
+these sublime truths had a great influence, especially on the mind of
+the most lofty and pure of all the Roman emperors, Marcus Aurelius, who
+_lived_ the principles he had learned from a slave, and whose
+"Maxims" are still held in admiration.
+
+[Sidenote: General observations.]
+
+Thus did the speculations about the beginning of things lead to
+elaborate systems of thought, and end in practical rules of life, until,
+in spirit, they had, with Epictetus, harmonized with many of the
+revealed truths which Christ and his Apostles laid down for the
+regeneration of the world. Who cannot see in the inquiries of the old
+philosopher, whether into nature, or the operations of mind, or the
+existence of God, or the immortality of the soul, or the way to
+happiness and virtue, a magnificent triumph of human genius, such as has
+been exhibited in no other department of human science? We regret that
+our limits preclude a more extended view of the various systems which
+the old sages propounded--systems full of errors, yet also marked by
+important truths, but whether false or true, showing a marvelous reach
+of the human understanding. Modern researches have discarded many
+opinions which were highly valued in their day, yet philosophy, in its
+methods of reasoning, is scarcely advanced since the time of Aristotle;
+while the subjects which agitated the Grecian schools, have been from
+time to time revived and rediscussed, and are still unsettled. If any
+science has gone round in perpetual circles, incapable, apparently, of
+progression or rest, it is that glorious field of inquiry which has
+tasked more than any other the mightiest intellects of this world, and
+which, progressive or not, will never be relinquished without the loss
+of what is most valuable in human culture.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+For original authorities in reference to the matter of this chapter,
+read Diogenes Laertius' Lives of the Philosophers; the Writings of Plato
+and Aristotle; Cicero, De Nat., De Or., De Offic., De Div., De Fin.,
+Tusc. Quaest.; Xenophon, Memorabilia; Boethius, De Idea Hist. Phil.;
+Lucretius.
+
+The great modern authorities are the Germans, and these are very
+numerous. Among the most famous writers on the history of philosophy,
+are Bruckner, Hegel, Brandis, I. G. Buhle, Tennemann, Ritter, Plessing,
+Schwegler, Hermann, Meiners, Stallbaum, and Speugel. The history of
+Ritter is well translated, and is always learned and suggestive.
+Tennemann, translated by Morell, is a good manual, brief, but clear. In
+connection with the writings of the Germans, the great work of Cousin
+should be consulted.
+
+The English historians of ancient philosophy are not so numerous as the
+Germans. The work of Enfield is based on Bruckner, or is rather an
+abridgment. Archer Butler's Lectures are suggestive and able, but
+discursive and vague, as is the History of Ancient Philosophy by
+Maurice. Grote has written learnedly on Socrates and the other great
+lights. Lewes' Biographical History of Philosophy has the merit of
+clearness, and is very interesting, but rather superficial. Henry has
+written a good epitome. See also Stanley's History of Philosophy, and
+the articles in Smith's Dictionary, on the leading ancient philosophers.
+Donaldson's continuation of Muller's History of the Lit. of Greece, is
+learned, and should be consulted with Thompson's Notes on Archer Butler.
+There are also fine articles in the Encyclopedias Britannica and
+Metropolitana. Schleirmacher, on Socrates, translated by Bishop
+Thirlwall.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE AMONG THE ROMANS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Wonders of modern science.]
+
+[Sidenote: Every great age distinguished for something never afterwards
+equaled.]
+
+It would be absurd to claim for the ancients any great attainments in
+science, such as they made in the field of letters or the realm of art.
+It is in science, especially when applied to practical life, that the
+moderns show their great superiority to the most enlightened nations of
+antiquity. In this great department, modern genius shines with the
+lustre of the sun. It is this which most strikingly attests the advance
+of society, which makes their advance a most incontestible fact. It is
+this which has distinguished and elevated the races of Europe more
+triumphantly than what has resulted from the combined energies of Greeks
+and Romans in all other departments combined. With the magnificent
+discoveries and inventions of the last three hundred years in almost
+every department of science,--especially in physics, in the
+explorations of distant seas and continents, in the analysis of chemical
+compounds, in the explanation of the phenomena of the heavens, in the
+wonders of steam and electricity, in mechanical appliance to abridge
+human labor or destroy human life, in astronomical researches, in the
+miracles which inventive genius has wrought,--seen in our ships, our
+manufactories, our wondrous instruments, our printing-presses, of our
+observatories, our fortifications, our laboratories, our mills, our
+machines to cultivate the earth, to make our clothes, to build our
+houses, to multiply our means of offense and defense, to make weak
+children do the work of Titans, to measure our time with the accuracy of
+the orbit of the planets, to use the sun itself in perpetuating our
+likenesses to distant generations, to cause a needle to guide the
+mariner with assurance on the darkest night, to propel a heavy ship
+against the wind and tide without oars or sails, to make carriages
+ascend mountains without horses at the rate of thirty miles an hour, to
+convey intelligence with the speed of lightning from continent to
+continent, under oceans that ancient navigators never dared to cross;
+these and other wonders attest an ingenuity and audacity of intellect
+which would have overwhelmed with amazement the most adventurous of
+Greeks and the most potent of Romans. The achievements of modern science
+settle forever the question as to the advance of society and the
+superiority of modern times over those of the most favored nations of
+antiquity. But the great discoveries and inventions to which we owe this
+marked superiority are either accidental or the result of generations of
+experiment, assisted by an immense array of ascertained facts from which
+safe inductions can be made. It is not, probably, the superiority of the
+Teutonic races over the Greeks and Romans to which we may ascribe the
+wonderful advance of modern society, but the particular direction which
+genius was made to take. Had the Greeks given the energy of their minds
+to mechanical forces as they did to artistic creations, they might have
+made wonderful inventions. But it was so ordered by Providence. Nor was
+the world in that stage of development when this particular direction of
+intellect would have been favored. There were some things which the
+Greeks and Romans exhausted, some fields of labor and thought in which
+they never have been, and, perhaps, never will be, surpassed; and some
+future age may direct its energies into channels which are as unknown to
+us as clocks and steam-engines were to the Greeks. This is the age of
+mechanism and of science, and mechanism and science sweep every thing
+before them, and will probably be carried to their utmost capacity and
+development. Then the human mind may seek some new department, some new
+scope for energies, and a new age of wonders may arise,--perhaps after
+the present dominant races shall have become intoxicated with the
+greatness of their triumphs and have shared the fate of the old
+monarchies of the East. But I would not speculate on the destinies of
+the European nations, whether they are to make indefinite advances,
+until they occupy and rule the whole world, or are destined to be
+succeeded by nations as yet undeveloped,--savages, as their fathers
+were when Rome was in the fullness of material wealth and grandeur. We
+know nothing of the future. We only know that all nations are in the
+hands of God, who setteth up and pulleth down according to his infinite
+wisdom.
+
+I have shown that in the field of artistic excellence, in literary
+composition, in the arts of government and legislation, and even in the
+realm of philosophical speculations, the ancients were our
+schoolmasters, and that among them were some men of most marvelous
+genius, who have had no superiors among us.
+
+[Sidenote: The ancients deficient in the application of science.]
+
+But we do not see the exhibition of genius in what we call science, at
+least in its application to practical life. It would be difficult to
+show any department of science which the ancients carried to any degree
+of perfection. Nevertheless, there were departments in which they made
+noble attempts, and in which they showed considerable genius, even if
+they were unsuccessful in great practical results.
+
+[Sidenote: Labors of the ancients in astronomy.]
+
+Astronomy was one of these. So far as mathematical genius is concerned,
+so far as astronomy taxed the reasoning powers, such men as
+Eratosthenes, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy were great lights, of
+whom humanity may be proud; and, had they been assisted by our modern
+accidental inventions, they might have earned a fame scarcely eclipsed
+by that of Kepler and Newton. The Ionic philosophers added but little to
+the realm of true philosophy, but they were pioneers of thought, and
+giants in their native powers. The old astronomers did as little as they
+to place science on a true foundation, but they showed great ingenuity,
+and discovered some great truths which no succeeding age has repudiated.
+They determined the circumference of the earth by a method identical
+with that which would be employed by modern astronomers. They
+ascertained the position of the stars by right ascension and
+declination. They knew the obliquity of the ecliptic, and determined the
+place of the sun's apogee as well as its mean motion. Their calculations
+on the eccentricity of the moon prove that they had a rectilinear
+trigonometry and tables of chords. They had an approximate knowledge of
+parallax. [Footnote: Delambre, _Hist. d'Astr. Anc._, tom. 1, p.
+184.] They could calculate eclipses of the moon, and use them for the
+correction of their lunar tables. They understood spherical
+trigonometry, and determined the motions of the sun and moon, involving
+an accurate definition of the year, and a method of predicting eclipses.
+They ascertained that the earth was a sphere, and reduced the phenomena
+of the heavenly bodies to uniform movements of circular orbits.
+[Footnote: Lewis, _Hist. of Astron._, p. 209.] We have settled, by
+physical geography, the exact form of the earth, but the ancients
+arrived at their knowledge by astronomical reasoning. "The reduction of
+the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets to circular orbits, as
+was done by Hipparchus, implies deep concentrated thought and scientific
+abstraction. The theory of eccentrics and epicycles accomplished the end
+of explaining all the known phenomena. The resolution of the apparent
+motions of the heavenly bodies into an assemblage of circular motions,
+was a great triumph of genius, [Footnote: Whewell, _Hist. Induc.
+Science_, v. i. p. 181.] and was equivalent to the most recent and
+improved processes by which modern astronomers deal with such motions."
+
+But I will not here enumerate the few discoveries which were made by the
+Alexandrian school. I only wish to show that there are a few names among
+the ancients which are inscribed on the roll of great astronomers,
+limited as were the triumphs of the science itself. But, until the time
+of Aristarchus, most of the speculations were crude and useless. Nothing
+can be more puerile than the notions of the ancients respecting the
+nature and motions of the heavenly bodies.
+
+[Sidenote: Astronomy born in Chaldea.]
+
+Astronomy was probably born in Chaldea as early as the time of Abraham.
+The glories of the firmament were impressed upon the minds of the rude
+primitive races with an intensity which we do not feel with all the
+triumphs of modern science. The Chaldean shepherds, as they watched
+their flocks by night, noted the movements of the planets, and gave
+names to the more brilliant constellations. Before religious rituals
+were established, before great superstitions arose, before poetry was
+sung, before musical instruments were invented, before artists
+sculptured marble or melted bronze, before coins were stamped, before
+temples arose, before diseases were healed by the arts of medicine,
+before commerce was known, before heroes were born, those oriental
+shepherds counted the hours of anxiety by the position of certain
+constellations. Astronomy is, therefore, the oldest of the ancient
+sciences, although it remained imperfect for more than four thousand
+years. The old Assyrians, Egyptians, and Greeks made but few discoveries
+which are valued by modern astronomers, but they laid the foundation of
+the science, and ever regarded it as one of the noblest subjects which
+could stimulate the faculties of man. It was invested with all that was
+religious and poetical.
+
+[Sidenote: Discoveries made by oriental nations.]
+
+The spacious level and unclouded horizon of Chaldea afforded peculiar
+facilities of observation; and its pastoral and contemplative
+inhabitants, uncontaminated by the vices and superstitions of subsequent
+ages, active-minded and fresh, discovered, after a long observation of
+eclipses--some say extending over nineteen centuries--the cycle of two
+hundred and twenty-three lunations, which brings back the eclipses in
+the same order. Having once established their cycle, they laid the
+foundation for the most sublime of all the sciences. Callisthenes
+transmitted from Babylon to Aristotle a collection of observations of
+all the eclipses that preceded the conquests of Alexander, together with
+the definite knowledge which the Chaldeans had collected about the
+motions of the heavenly bodies. It was rude and simple, and amounted to
+little beyond the fact that there were spherical revolutions about an
+inclined axis, and that the poles pointed always to particular stars.
+The Egyptians also recorded their observations, from which it would
+appear that they observed eclipses at least one thousand six hundred
+years before the commencement of our era. Nor is this improbable, if the
+speculations of modern philosophers respecting the age of the world are
+entitled to respect. The Egyptians discovered, by the rising of Sirius,
+that the year consists of three hundred and sixty-five and one quarter
+days, and this was their sacred year, in distinction from the civil,
+which consisted of three hundred and sixty-five days. They also had
+observed the courses of the planets, and could explain the phenomena of
+the stations and retrogradations, and it is even asserted that they
+regarded Mercury and Venus as satellites of the sun. Some have
+maintained that the obelisks which they erected served the purpose of
+gnomons, for determining the obliquity of the ecliptic, the altitude of
+the pole, and the length of the tropical year. It is thought that even
+the Pyramids, by the position of their sides toward the cardinal points,
+attest their acquaintance with a meridional line. The Chinese boast of
+having noticed and recorded a series of eclipses extending over a period
+of three thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight years, and it is
+probable that they anticipated the Greeks two thousand years in the
+discovery of the Metonic cycle, or the cycle of nineteen years, at the
+end of which time the new moons fall on the same days of the year. They
+determined the obliquity of the ecliptic, one thousand one hundred years
+before our era, to be 23 degrees 54' 3-15". The Indians, at a remote
+antiquity, represented celestial phenomena with considerable exactness,
+and constructed tables by which the longitude of the sun and moon are
+determined. Bailly thinks that astronomy was cultivated in Siam three
+thousand one hundred and two years before Christ, which hardly yields in
+accuracy to that which modern science has built on the theory of
+universal gravitation. The Greeks divided the heavens into
+constellations fourteen centuries before Christ. Thales, born 640 B.C.,
+taught the rotundity of the earth, and that the moon shines with
+reflected light. He also predicted eclipses. Anaximander, born 610 B.C.,
+invented the gnomon, and constructed geographical charts.
+
+[Sidenote: The early Greek investigators.]
+
+But the Greeks, after all, were the only people of antiquity who
+elevated astronomy to the dignity of a science. They however confessed
+that they derived their earliest knowledge from the Babylonian and
+Egyptian priests, while the priests of Thebes asserted that they were
+the originators of exact astronomical observations. [Footnote: Diod., i.
+50.] Diodorus asserts that the Chaldeans used the Temple of Belus, in
+the centre of Babylon, for their survey of the heavens. [Footnote:
+Diod., ii. 9.] But whether the Babylonians or the Egyptians were the
+earliest astronomers, it is of little consequence, although the pedants
+make it a grave matter of investigation. All we know is, that astronomy
+was cultivated by both Babylonians and Egyptians, and that they made but
+very limited attainments. The early Greek philosophers, who visited
+Egypt and the East in search of knowledge, found very little to reward
+their curiosity or industry; not much beyond preposterous claims to a
+high antiquity, and an esoteric wisdom which has not yet been revealed.
+They approximated to the truth in reference to the solar year, by
+observing the equinoxes and solstices, and the heliacal rising of
+particular stars. Plato and Eudoxus spent thirteen years in Heliopolis
+for the purpose of extracting the scientific knowledge of the priests,
+but they learned but little beyond the fact that the solar year was a
+trifle beyond three hundred and sixty-five days. No great names have
+come down to us from the priests of Babylon or Egypt. No one gained an
+individual reputation. The Chaldean and Egyptian priests may have
+furnished the raw material of observation to the Greeks, but the latter
+alone possessed the scientific genius by which indigested facts were
+converted into a symmetrical system. The East never gave valuable
+knowledge to the West. It gave only superstition. Instead of astronomy,
+it gave astrology; instead of science, it gave magic and incantations
+and dreams--poison which perverted the intellect. [Footnote: Sir G. G.
+Lewis, _Hist. of Anc. Astron._, p. 293.] They connected their
+astronomy with divination from the stars, and made their antiquity reach
+back to two hundred and seventy thousand years. There were soothsayers
+in the time of Daniel, and magicians, exorcists, and interpreters of
+signs. [Footnote: Dan. i. 4, 17, 20.] They were not men of scientific
+research, seeking truth. It was power they sought, by perverting the
+intellect of the people. The astrology of the East was founded on the
+principle that a star or constellation presided over the birth of an
+individual, and either portended his fate, or shed a good or bad
+influence upon his future life. The star which looked upon a child at
+the hour of his birth, was called the horoscopus, and the peculiar
+influence of each planet was determined by professors of the genethliac
+art. The superstitions of Egypt and Chaldea unfortunately spread both
+among the Greeks and Romans, and these were about all that the western
+nations learned from the boastful priests of occult science. Whatever
+was known of real value among the ancients, is due to the earnest
+inquiries of the Greeks.
+
+[Sidenote: Researches of the Greeks.]
+
+And yet their researches were very unsatisfactory until the time of
+Hipparchus. The primitive knowledge, until Thales, was almost nothing.
+The Homeric poems regarded the earth as a circular plain, bounded by the
+heaven, which was a solid vault or hemisphere, with its concavity turned
+downwards. And this absurdity was believed until the time of Herodotus,
+five centuries after; nor was it exploded fully in the time of
+Aristotle. The sun, moon, and stars, were supposed to move upon, or
+with, the inner surface of the heavenly hemisphere, and the ocean was
+thought to gird the earth around as a great belt, into which the
+heavenly bodies sunk at their setting. [Footnote: _Il_., vii. 422;
+_Od_., iii. i. xix. 433.] Homer believed that the sun arose out of
+the ocean, ascending the heaven, and again plunging into the ocean,
+passing under the earth, and producing darkness. [Footnote: _Il_.
+viii. 485.] The Greeks even personified the sun as a divine charioteer
+driving his fiery steeds over the steep of heaven, until he bathed them
+at evening in the western waves. Apollo became the god of the sun, as
+Diana was the goddess of the moon. But the early Greek inquirers did not
+attempt to explain how the sun found his way from the west back again to
+the east. They merely took note of the diurnal course, the alternation
+of day and night, the number of the seasons, and their regular
+successions. They found the points of the compass by determining the
+recurrence of the equinoxes and solstices; but they had no conception of
+the ecliptic--of that great circle in the heaven, formed by the sun's
+annual course, and of its obliquity when compared with the equator. Like
+the Egyptians and Babylonians, they ascertained the length of the year
+to be three hundred and sixty-five days; but perfect accuracy was
+wanting for want of scientific instruments, and of recorded observations
+of the heavenly bodies. The Greeks had not even a common chronological
+era for the designation of years. Thus Herodotus informs us that the
+Trojan War preceded his time by eight hundred years: [Footnote:
+_Il_, ii. 53.] he merely states the interval between the event in
+question and his own time; he had certain data for distant periods. Thus
+the Greeks reckoned dates from the Trojan War, and the Romans from the
+building of their city. And they divided the year into twelve months,
+and introduced the intercalary circle of eight years, although the
+Romans disused it afterwards until the calendar was reformed by Julius
+Caesar. Thus there was no scientific astronomical knowledge worth
+mentioning among the primitive Greeks.
+
+Immense research and learning have been expended by modern critics, to
+show the state of scientific astronomy among the Greeks. I am equally
+amazed at the amount of research, and its comparative worthlessness,
+for what addition to science can be made by an enumeration of the
+puerilities and errors of the Greeks, and how wasted and pedantic the
+learning which ransacks all antiquity to prove that the Greeks adopted
+this or that absurdity. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated
+to chapter end.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thales.]
+
+[Sidenote: Anaximander and Anaximenes.]
+
+But to return. The earliest historic name associated with astronomy in
+Greece was Thales, the founder of the Ionic school of philosophers, born
+639 B.C. He is reported to have predicted an eclipse of the sun, to have
+made a visit to Egypt, to have fixed the year at three hundred and
+sixty-five days, and to have determined the course of the sun from
+solstice to solstice. He attributed an eclipse of the moon to the
+interposition of the earth between the sun and moon; and an eclipse of
+the sun to the interposition of the moon between the sun and earth.
+[Footnote: Sir G. G. Lewis, _Hist. of Astron._, p. 81.] He also
+determined the ratio of the sun's diameter to its apparent orbit. As he
+first solved the problem of inscribing a right-angled triangle in a
+circle, [Footnote: Diog. Laert, i. 24.] he is the founder of geometrical
+science in Greece. He left, however, nothing to writing, hence all
+accounts of him are confused. It is to be doubted whether in fact he
+made the discoveries attributed to him. His speculations, which science
+rejects, such as that water is the principle of all things, are
+irrelevant to a description of the progress of astronomy. That he was a
+great light, no one questions, considering the ignorance with which he
+was surrounded. Anaximander, who followed him in philosophy, held to
+puerile doctrines concerning the motions and nature of the stars, which
+it is useless to repeat. His addition to science, if he made any, was in
+treating the magnitudes and distances of the planets. He attempted to
+delineate the celestial sphere, and to measure time by a sun-dial.
+Anaximenes of Miletus taught, like his predecessors, crude notions of
+the sun and stars, and speculated on the nature of the moon, but did
+nothing to advance his science on true grounds, except the construction
+of sun-dials. The same may be said of Heraclitus, Xenophanes,
+Parmenides, Anaxagoras. They were great men, but they gave to the world
+mere speculations, some of which are very puerile. They all held to the
+idea that the heavenly bodies revolved around the earth, and that the
+earth was a plain. But they explained eclipses, and supposed that the
+moon derived its light from the sun. Some of them knew the difference
+between the planets and the fixed stars. Anaxagoras scouted the notion
+that the sun was a god, and supposed it to be a mass of ignited stone,
+for which he was called an atheist.
+
+[Sidenote: Socrates.]
+
+[Sidenote: Pythagoras.]
+
+Socrates, who belonged to another school, avoided all barren
+speculations concerning the universe, and confined himself to human
+actions and interests. He looked even upon geometry in a very practical
+way, so far as it could be made serviceable to land measuring. As for
+the stars and planets, he supposed it was impossible to arrive at a true
+knowledge of them, and regarded speculations upon them as useless. The
+Greek astronomers, however barren were their general theories, still
+laid the foundation of science. Pythagoras, born 580 B.C., taught the
+obliquity of the ecliptic, probably learned in Egypt, and the identity
+of the morning and evening stars. It is supposed that he maintained that
+the sun was the centre of the universe, and that the earth revolved
+around it. But this he did not demonstrate, and his whole system was
+unscientific, assuming certain arbitrary principles, from which he
+reasoned deductively. "He assumed that fire is more worthy than earth;
+that the more worthy place must be given to the more worthy; that the
+extremity is more worthy than the intermediate parts; and hence, as the
+centre is an extremity, the place of fire is at the centre of the
+universe, and that therefore the earth and other heavenly bodies move
+round the fiery centre." But this was no heliocentric system, since the
+sun moved like the earth, in a circle around the central fire. This was
+merely the work of the imagination, utterly unscientific, though bold
+and original. Nor did this hypothesis gain credit, since it was the
+fixed opinion of philosophers, that the earth was the centre of the
+universe, around which the sun and moon and planets revolved. But the
+Pythagoreans were the first to teach that the motions of the sun, moon,
+and planets, are circular and equable. Their idea that they emitted a
+sound, and were combined into a harmonious symphony, was exceedingly
+crude, however beautiful. "The music of the spheres" belongs to poetry,
+as well as the speculations of Plato.
+
+[Sidenote: Eudoxus.]
+
+Eudoxus, who was born 406 B.C., may be considered the founder of
+scientific astronomical knowledge among the Greeks. He is reputed to
+have visited Egypt with Plato, and to have resided thirteen years in
+Heliopolis, in constant study of the stars, communing with the Egyptian
+priests. His contribution to the science was a descriptive map of the
+heavens, which was used as a manual of sidereal astronomy to the sixth
+century of our era. He distributed the stars into constellations, with
+recognized names, and gave a sort of geographical description of their
+position and limits, although the constellations had been named before
+his time. He stated the periodic times of the five planets visible to
+the naked eye, but only approximated to the true periods.
+
+The error of only one hundred and ninety days in the periodic time of
+Saturn, shows that there had been, for a long time, close observations.
+Aristotle, whose comprehensive intellect, like that of Bacon, took in
+all forms of knowledge, condensed all that was known in his day in a
+treatise concerning the heavens. [Footnote: Delambre, _Hist. de
+l'Astron. Anc._, tom. i. p. 301.] He regarded astronomy as more
+intimately connected with mathematical science than any other branch of
+philosophy. But even he did not soar far beyond the philosophers of his
+day, since he held to the immobility of the earth--the grand error of
+the ancients. Some few speculators in science, like Heraclitus of Pontus
+and Hicetas, conceived a motion of the earth itself upon its axis, so as
+to account for the apparent motion of the sun, but they also thought it
+was in the centre of the universe.
+
+[Sidenote: Meton.]
+
+The introduction of the gnomon and dial into Greece advanced
+astronomical knowledge, since they were used to determine the equinoxes
+and solstices, as well as parts of the day. Meton set up a sun-dial at
+Athens in the year 433 B.C., but the length of the hour varied with the
+time of the year, since the Greeks divided the day into twelve equal
+parts. Dials were common at Rome in the time of Plautus, 224 B.C.;
+[Footnote: Ap. Gell., _N. A._, iii. 3.] but there was a difficulty
+of using them, since they failed at night and in cloudy weather, and
+could not be relied on. Hence the introduction of water-clocks instead.
+
+[Sidenote: Aristarchus.]
+
+Aristarchus is said to have combated (280 B.C.) the geocentric theory so
+generally received by philosophers, and to have promulgated the
+hypothesis "that the fixed stars and the sun are immovable; that the
+earth is carried round the sun in the circumference of a circle of which
+the sun is the centre; and that the sphere of the fixed stars having the
+same centre as the sun, is of such magnitude that the orbit of the earth
+is to the distance of the fixed stars, as the centre of the sphere of
+the fixed stars is to its surface." [Footnote: Lewis, p. 190.] This
+speculation, resting on the authority of Archimedes, was ridiculed by
+him; but if it were advanced, it shows a great advance in astronomical
+science, and considering the age, was one of the boldest speculations of
+antiquity. Aristarchus also, according to Plutarch, [Footnote: Plut.,
+_Plac. Phil._, ii. 24.] explained the apparent annual motion of the
+sun in the ecliptic, by supposing the orbit of the earth to be inclined
+to its axis. There is no evidence that this great astronomer supported
+his heliocentric theory with any geometrical proof, although Plutarch
+maintains that he demonstrated it. [Footnote: _Quaest. Plat._, viii.
+1.] This theory gave great offense, especially to the Stoics, and
+Cleanthes, the head of the school at that time, maintained that the
+author of such an impious doctrine should be punished. Aristarchus has
+left a treatise "On the Magnitudes and Distances of the Sun and Moon,"
+and his methods to measure the apparent diameters of the sun and moon,
+are considered sound by modern astronomers, [Footnote: Lewis, p. 193.]
+but inexact owing to defective instruments. He estimated the diameter of
+the sun at the seven hundred and twentieth part of the circumference of
+the circle, which it describes in its diurnal revolution, which is not
+far from the truth; but in this treatise he does not allude to his
+heliocentric theory.
+
+[Sidenote: Archimedes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Eratosthenes.]
+
+Archimedes, born 287 B.C., is stated to have measured the distance of
+the sun, moon, and planets, and he constructed an orrery in which he
+exhibited their motions. But it was not in the Grecian colony of
+Syracuse, but of Alexandria, that the greatest light was shed on
+astronomical science. Here Aristarchus resided, and also Eratosthenes,
+who lived between the years 276 and 196 B.C. He was a native of Athens,
+but was invited by Ptolemy Euergetes to Alexandria, and placed at the
+head of the library. His great achievement was the determination of the
+circumference of the earth. This was done by measuring on the ground the
+distance between Syene, a city exactly under the tropic, and Alexandria
+situated on the same meridian. The distance was found to be five
+thousand stadia. The meridional distance of the sun from the zenith of
+Alexandria, he estimated to be 7 degrees 12', or a fiftieth part of the
+circumference of the meridian. Hence the circumference of the earth was
+fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand stadia, not far from the truth.
+The circumference being known, the diameter of the earth was easily
+determined. The moderns have added nothing to this method. He also
+calculated the diameter of the sun to be twenty-seven times greater than
+of the earth, and the distance of the sun from the earth to be eight
+hundred and four million stadia, and that of the moon seven hundred and
+eighty thousand stadia--a very close approximation to the truth.
+
+[Sidenote: Hipparchus.]
+
+[Sidenote: Greatness of Hipparchus.]
+
+Astronomical science received a great impulse from the school of
+Alexandria, and Eratosthenes had worthy successors in Aristarchus,
+Aristyllus, Apollonius. But the great light of this school was
+Hipparchus, whose lifetime extended from 190 to 120 years B.C. He laid
+the foundation of astronomy upon a scientific basis. "He determined,"
+says Delambre, "the position of the stars by right ascensions and
+declinations; he was acquainted with the obliquity of the ecliptic. He
+determined the inequality of the sun, and the place of its apogee, as
+well as its mean motion; the mean motion of the moon, of its nodes and
+apogee; the equation of the moon's centre, and the inclination of its
+orbit; he likewise detected a second inequality, of which he could not,
+for want of proper observations, discover the period and the law. His
+commentary on Aratus shows that he had expounded, and given a
+geometrical demonstration of, the methods necessary to find out the
+right and oblique ascensions of the points of the ecliptic and of the
+stars, the east point and the culminating point of the ecliptic, and the
+angle of the east, which is now called the nonagesimal degree. He could
+calculate eclipses of the moon, and use them for the correction of his
+lunar tables, and he had an approximate knowledge of parallax."
+[Footnote: Delambre, _Hist. de l'Astron. Anc._, tom. i. p. 184.]
+His determination of the motions of the sun and moon, and method of
+predicting eclipses, evince great mathematical genius. But he combined,
+with this determination, a theory of epicycles and eccentrics, which
+modern astronomy discards. It was, however, a great thing to conceive of
+the earth as a solid sphere, and reduce the phenomena of the heavenly
+bodies to uniform motions in of circular orbits. "That Hipparchus should
+have succeeded in the first great steps of the resolution of the
+heavenly bodies into circular motions is a circumstance," says Whewell,
+"which gives him one of the most distinguished places in the roll of
+great astronomers." [Footnote: _Hist. Ind. Science_, vol. i. p.
+181.] But he even did more than this. He discovered that apparent motion
+of the fixed stars round the axis of the ecliptic, which is called the
+Precession of the Equinoxes, one of the greatest discoveries in
+astronomy. He maintained that the precession was not greater than fifty-
+nine seconds, and not less than thirty-six seconds. Hipparchus framed a
+catalogue of the stars, and determined their places with reference to
+the ecliptic, by their latitudes and longitudes. Altogether, he seems to
+have been one of the greatest geniuses of antiquity, and his works imply
+a prodigious amount of calculation.
+
+[Sidenote: Posidonius.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman Calendar.]
+
+Astronomy made no progress for three hundred years, although it was
+expounded by improved methods. Posidonius constructed an orrery, which
+exhibited the diurnal motions of the sun, moon, and five planets.
+Posidonius calculated the circumference of the earth to be two hundred
+and forty thousand stadia by a different method from Eratosthenes. The
+barrenness of discovery, from Hipparchus to Ptolemy, in spite of the
+patronage of the Ptolemies, was owing to the want of instruments for the
+accurate measure of time, like our clocks, to the imperfection of
+astronomical tables, and to the want of telescopes. Hence the great
+Greek astronomers were unable to realize their theories. Their theories
+were magnificent, and evinced great power of mathematical combination;
+but what could they do without that wondrous instrument by which the
+human eye indefinitely multiplies its power?--by which objects are
+distinctly seen, which, without it, would be invisible? Moreover, the
+ancients had no accurate almanacs, since the care of the calendar
+belonged to the priests rather than to the astronomers, who tampered
+with the computation of time for temporary and personal objects. The
+calendars of different communities differed. Hence Julius Caesar rendered
+a great service to science by the reform of the Roman calendar, which
+was exclusively under the control of the college of pontiffs. The Roman
+year consisted of three hundred and fifty-five days, and, in the time of
+Caesar, the calendar was in great confusion, being ninety days in
+advance, so that January was an autumn month. He inserted the regular
+intercalary month of twenty-three days, and two additional ones of
+sixty-seven days. These, together of ninety days, were added to three
+hundred and sixty-five days, making a year of transition of four hundred
+and forty-five days, by which January was brought back to the first
+month in the year after the winter solstice. And to prevent the
+repetition of the error, he directed that in future the year should
+consist of three hundred and sixty-five and one quarter days, which he
+effected by adding one day to the months of April, June, September, and
+November, and two days to the months of January, Sextilis, and December,
+making an addition of ten days to the old year of three hundred and
+fifty-five. And he provided for a uniform intercalation of one day in
+every fourth year, which accounted for the remaining quarter of a day.
+[Footnote: Suet., _Caesar_, 49; Plut., _Caesar_, 59.]
+
+  "Ille moras solis, quibus in sua signa rediret,
+  Traditur exactis disposuisse notis.
+  Is decies senos tercentum et quinque diebus
+  Junxit; et pleno tempora quarta die.
+  Hic anni modus est. In lustrum accedere debet
+  Quae consummatur partibus, una dies."
+
+[Footnote: Ovid, _Fast._, iii.]
+
+[Sidenote: Caesar's labors.]
+
+Caesar was a student of astronomy, and always found time for its
+contemplation. He is said even to have written a treatise on the motion
+of the stars. He was assisted in his reform of the calendar by
+Sosigines, an Alexandrian astronomer. He took it out of the hands of the
+priests, and made it a matter of pure civil regulation. The year was
+defined by the sun, and not, as before, by the moon.
+
+Thus the Romans were the first to bring the scientific knowledge of the
+Greeks into practical use; but while they measured the year with a great
+approximation to accuracy, they still used sun-dials and water-clocks to
+measure diurnal time. And even these were not constructed as they should
+have been. The hours on the sun-dial were all made equal, instead of
+varying with the length of the day, so that the hour varied with the
+length of the day. The illuminated interval was divided into twelve
+equal parts, so that, if the sun rose at five A.M. and set at eight
+P.M., each hour was equal to eighty minutes. And this rude method of
+measurement of diurnal time remained in use till the sixth century. But
+clocks, with wheels and weights, were not invented till the twelfth
+century.
+
+The earlier Greek astronomers did not attempt to fix the order of the
+planets; but when geometry was applied to celestial movements, the
+difference between the three superior planets and the two inferior was
+perceived, and the sun was placed in the midst between them, so that the
+seven movable heavenly bodies were made to succeed one another in the
+following order: 1. Saturn; 2. Jupiter; 3. Mars; 4. The Sun; 5. Venus;
+6. Mercury; 7. The Moon. Archimedes adopted this order, which was
+followed by the leading philosophers. [Footnote: Lewis, p. 247.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ptolemy and his system.]
+
+The last great light among the ancients in astronomical science was
+Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170 A.D. in Alexandria. He was acquainted
+with the writings of all the previous astronomers, but accepted
+Hipparchus as his guide. He held that the heaven is spherical and
+revolves upon its axis; that the earth is a sphere, and is situated
+within the celestial sphere, and nearly at its centre; that it is a mere
+point in reference to the distance and magnitude of the fixed stars, and
+that it has no motion. He adopted the views of the ancient astronomers,
+who placed Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars next under the sphere of the fixed
+stars, then the sun above Venus and Mercury, and lastly the moon next to
+the earth. But he differed from Aristotle, who conceived that the earth
+revolves in an orbit round the centre of the planetary system, and turns
+upon its axis--two ideas in common with the doctrines which Copernicus
+afterward unfolded. But even he did not conceive the heliocentric theory
+that the sun is the centre of the universe. Archimedes and Hipparchus
+both rejected this theory.
+
+In regard to the practical value of the speculations of the ancient
+astronomers, it may be said that, had they possessed clocks and
+telescopes, their scientific methods would have sufficed for all
+practical purposes. The greatness of modern discoveries lies in the
+great stretch of the reasoning powers, and the magnificent field they
+afford for sublime contemplation. "But," as Sir G. Cornwall Lewis
+remarks, "modern astronomy is a science of pure curiosity, and is
+directed exclusively to the extension of knowledge in a field which
+human interests can never enter. The periodic time of Uranus, the nature
+of Saturn's ring, and the occupation of Jupiter's satellites, are as far
+removed from the concerns of mankind as the heliacal rising of Sirius,
+or the northern position of the Great Bear." This may seem to be a
+utilitarian view with which those philosophers, who have cultivated
+science for its own sake, finding in the same a sufficient reward, as in
+truth and virtue, can have no sympathy.
+
+[Sidenote: Result of ancient investigations.]
+
+The upshot of the scientific attainments of the ancients, in the
+magnificent realm of the heavenly bodies, would seem to be that they
+laid the foundation of all the definite knowledge which is useful to
+mankind; while in the field of abstract calculation they evinced
+reasoning and mathematical powers which have never been surpassed.
+Eratosthenes, Archimedes, and Hipparchus were geniuses worthy to be
+placed by the side of Kepler, Newton, and La Place. And all ages will
+reverence their efforts and their memory. It is truly surprising that,
+with their imperfect instruments, and the absence of definite data, they
+reached a height so sublime and grand. They explained the doctrine of
+the sphere and the apparent motions of the planets, but they had no
+instruments capable of measuring angular distances. The ingenious
+epicycles of Ptolemy prepared the way for the elliptic orbits and laws
+of Kepler, which, in turn, conducted Newton to the discovery of the laws
+of gravitation--the grandest scientific discovery in the annals of our
+race.
+
+[Sidenote: Geometry.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ancient Greek geometers.]
+
+[Sidenote: Euclid.]
+
+[Sidenote: Archimedes.]
+
+Closely connected with astronomical science was geometry, which was
+first taught in Egypt,--the nurse and cradle of ancient wisdom. It arose
+from the necessity of adjusting the landmarks, disturbed by the
+inundations of the Nile. Thales introduced the science to the Greeks. He
+applied a circle to the measurement of angles. Anaximander invented the
+sphere, the gnomon, and geographical charts, which required considerable
+geometrical knowledge. Anaxagoras employed himself in prison in
+attempting to square the circle. Pythagoras discovered the important
+theorem that in a right-angled triangle the squares on the sides
+containing the right angle are together equal to the square on the
+opposite side of it. He also discovered that of all figures having the
+same boundary, the circle among plane figures and the sphere among
+solids, are the most capacious. The theory of the regular solids was
+taught in his school, and his disciple, Archytas, was the author of a
+solution of the problem of two mean proportionals. Democritus of Abdera
+treated of the contact of circles and spheres, and of irrational lines
+and solids. Hippocrates treated of the duplication of the cube, and
+wrote elements of geometry, and knew that the area of a circle was equal
+to a triangle whose base is equal to its circumference, and altitude
+equal to its radius. The disciples of Plato invented conic sections, and
+discovered the geometrical loci. They also attempted to resolve the
+problems of the trisection of an angle and the duplication of a cube. To
+Leon is ascribed that part of the solution of a problem, called its
+_determination_, which treats of the cases in which the problem is
+possible, and of those in which it cannot be resolved. Euclid has almost
+given his name to the science of geometry. He was born B.C. 323, and
+belonged to the Platonic sect, which ever attached great importance to
+mathematics. His "Elements" are still in use, as nearly perfect as any
+human production can be. They consist of thirteen books,--the first four
+on plane geometry; the fifth is on the theory of proportion, and applies
+to magnitude in general; the seventh, eighth, and ninth are on
+arithmetic; the tenth on the arithmetical characteristics of the
+division of a straight line; the eleventh and twelfth on the elements of
+solid geometry; the thirteenth on the regular solids. These "Elements"
+soon became the universal study of geometers throughout the civilized
+world. They were translated into the Arabic, and through the Arabians
+were made known to mediaeval Europe. There can be no doubt that this
+work is one of the highest triumphs of human genius, and has been valued
+more than any single monument of antiquity. It is still a text-book, in
+various English translations, in all our schools. Euclid also wrote
+various other works, showing great mathematical talent. But, perhaps, a
+greater even than Euclid was Archimedes, born 287 B.C., who wrote on the
+sphere and cylinder, which terminate in the discovery that the solidity
+and surface of a sphere are respectively two thirds of the solidity and
+surface of the circumscribing cylinder. He also wrote on conoids and
+spheroids. "The properties of the spiral, and the quadrature of the
+parabola were added to ancient geometry by Archimedes, the last being a
+great step in the progress of the science, since it was the first
+curvilineal space legitimately squared." Modern mathematicians may not
+have the patience to go through his investigations, since the
+conclusions he arrived at may now be reached by shorter methods, but the
+great conclusions of the old geometers were only reached by prodigious
+mathematical power. Archimedes is popularly better known as the inventor
+of engines of war, and various ingenious machines, than as a
+mathematician, great as were his attainments. His theory of the lever
+was the foundation of statics, till the discovery of the composition of
+forces in the time of Newton, and no essential addition was made to the
+principles of the equilibrium of fluids and floating bodies till the
+time of Stevin in 1608. He detected the mixture of silver in a crown of
+gold which his patron, Hiero of Syracuse, ordered to be made, and he
+invented a water-screw for pumping water out of the hold of a great ship
+he built. He used also a combination of pulleys, and he constructed an
+orrery to represent the movement of the heavenly bodies. He had an
+extraordinary inventive genius for discovering new provinces of inquiry,
+and new points of view for old and familiar objects. Like Newton, he had
+a habit of abstraction from outward things, and would forget to take his
+meals. He was killed by Roman soldiers when Syracuse was taken, and the
+Sicilians so soon forgot his greatness that in the time of Cicero they
+did not know where his tomb was. [Footnote: See article in Smith's
+_Dictionary_, by Prof. Darkin, of Oxford.]
+
+[Sidenote: Eratosthenes.]
+
+Eratosthenes was another of the famous geometers of antiquity, and did
+much to improve geometrical analysis. He was also a philosopher and
+geographer. He gave a solution of the problem of the duplication of the
+cube, and applied his geometrical knowledge to the measurement of the
+magnitude of the earth--one of the first who brought mathematical
+methods to the aid of astronomy, which, in our day, is almost
+exclusively the province of the mathematician.
+
+[Sidenote: Apollonius of Perga.]
+
+Apollonius of Perga, probably about forty years younger than Archimedes,
+and his equal in mathematical genius, was the most fertile and profound
+writer among the ancients who treated of geometry. He was called the
+Great Geometer. His most important work is a treatise on conic sections,
+regarded with unbounded admiration by contemporaries, and, in some
+respects, unsurpassed by any thing produced by modern mathematicians.
+He, however, made use of the labors of his predecessors, so that it is
+difficult to tell how far he is original. But all men of science must
+necessarily be indebted to those who have preceded them. Even Homer, in
+the field of poetry, made use of the bards who had sung for a thousand
+years before him. In the realms of philosophy the great men of all ages
+have built up new systems on the foundations which others have
+established. If Plato or Aristotle had been contemporaries with Thales,
+would they have matured so wonderful a system of dialectics? and if
+Thales had been contemporaneous with Plato, he might have added to his
+sublime science even more than Aristotle. So of the great mathematicians
+of antiquity; they were all wonderful men, and worthy to be classed with
+the Newtons and Keplers of our times. Considering their means, and the
+state of science, they made as _great_, though not as _fortunate_
+discoveries--discoveries which show patience, genius, and power
+of calculation. Apollonius was one of these--one of the master
+intellects of antiquity, like Euclid and Archimedes--one of the master
+intellects of all ages, like Newton himself. I might mention the
+subjects of his various works, but they would not be understood except
+by those familiar with mathematics. [Footnote: See Bayle's _Dict_.;
+Bossuet, _Essai sur L'Hist. Gen. des Math_.; Simson's _Sectiones
+Conicae_.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cultivation of geometry by the Greeks.]
+
+Other famous geometers could also be mentioned, but such men as Euclid,
+Archimedes, and Apollonius are enough to show that geometry was
+cultivated to a great extent by the philosophers of antiquity. It
+progressively advanced, like philosophy itself, from the time of Thales,
+until it had reached the perfection of which it was capable, when it
+became merged into astronomical science. It was cultivated more
+particularly by the disciples of Plato, who placed over his school this
+inscription, "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." He believed
+that the laws by which the universe is governed are in accordance with
+the doctrines of mathematics. The same opinion was shared by Pythagoras,
+the great founder of the science, whose great formula was, that number
+is the essence or first principle of all things. No thinkers ever
+surpassed the Greeks in originality and profundity, and mathematics,
+being highly prized by them, were carried to the greatest perfection
+their method would allow. They did not understand algebra, by the
+application of which to geometry modern mathematicians have climbed to
+greater heights than the ancients. But then it is all the more
+remarkable that, without the aid of algebraic analysis, they were able
+to solve such difficult problems as occupied the minds of Archimedes and
+Apollonius. No positive science can boast of such rapid development as
+geometry for two or three hundred years before Christ, and never was the
+intellect of man more severely tasked than by the ancient
+mathematicians.
+
+[Sidenote: Empirical sciences.]
+
+No empirical science can be carried to perfection by any one nation or
+in any particular epoch. It can only expand with the progressive
+developments of the human race itself. Nevertheless, in that science
+which for three thousand years has been held in the greatest honor, and
+which is one of the three great liberal professions of our modern times,
+the ancients, especially the Greeks, made considerable advance. The
+science of medicine, having in view the amelioration of human misery,
+and the prolongation of life itself, was very early cultivated. It was,
+indeed, in old times, another word for _physics_,--the science of
+nature,--and the _physician_ was the observer and expounder of
+physics. The physician was supposed to be acquainted with the secrets of
+nature--that is, the knowledge of drugs, of poisons, of antidotes to
+them, and the way to administer them. He was also supposed to know the
+process of preserving the body after death. Thus Joseph commanded his
+physician to embalm the body of his father seventeen hundred years
+before the birth of Christ, and the process of embalming was probably
+known to the Egyptians beyond the period when history begins. Helen, of
+Trojan fame, put into wine a drug that "frees man from grief and anger
+and causes oblivion of all ills." [Footnote: _Odyssey_, b. iv.]
+Solomon was a great botanist, with which the science of medicine is
+indissolubly connected. The "Ayur Veda," written nine hundred years
+before Hippocrates was born, sums up the knowledge of previous periods
+relating to obstetric surgery, to general pathology, to the treatment of
+insanity, to infantile diseases, to toxicology, to personal hygiene, and
+to diseases of the generative functions. [Footnote: Wise, _On the
+Hindu System of Medicine_, p. 12.] The origin of Hindu medicine is
+lost in remote antiquity.
+
+[Sidenote: Hippocrates.]
+
+Thus Hippocrates, the father of European medicine, must have derived his
+knowledge, not merely from his own observations, but from the writings
+of men unknown to us, and systems practiced for an indefinite period.
+The real founders of Greek medicine are fabled characters, like Hercules
+and Aesculapius--that is, benefactors whose names have not descended to
+us. They are mythical personages, like Hermes and Chiron. One thousand
+two hundred years before Christ temples were erected to Aesculapius in
+Greece, the priests of which were really physicians, and the temples
+themselves were hospitals. In them were practiced rites apparently
+mysterious, but which modern science calls by the names of mesmerism,
+hydropathy, mineral springs, and other essential elements of empirical
+science. And these temples were also medical schools. That of Cos gave
+birth to Hippocrates, and it was there that his writings were commenced.
+Pythagoras--for those old Grecian philosophers were the fathers of all
+wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and empirical sciences, as well as
+philosophy itself--studied medicine in the schools of Egypt, Phoenicia,
+Chaldea, and India, and came in conflict with sacerdotal power, which
+has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in science. He traveled from
+town to town as a teacher or lecturer, establishing communities in which
+medicine as well as numbers was taught.
+
+The greatest name in medical science, in ancient or in modern times,--
+the man who did the most to advance it; the greatest medical genius of
+whom we have record,--is Hippocrates, born on the island of Cos B.C.
+460, of the great Aesculapian family, and was instructed by his father.
+We know scarcely more of his life than we do of Homer himself, although
+he lived in the period of the highest splendor of Athens. And his
+writings, like those of Homer, are thought by some to be the work of
+different men. They were translated into Arabic, and were no slight
+means of giving an impulse to the Saracenic schools of the Middle Ages
+in that science in which the Saracens especially excelled. The
+Hippocratic collection consists of more than sixty works, which were
+held in the highest estimation by the ancient physicians. Hippocrates
+introduced a new era in medicine, which, before his time, had been
+monopolized by the priests. He carried out a system of severe induction
+from the observation of facts, and is as truly the creator of the
+inductive method as Bacon himself. He abhorred theories which could not
+be established by facts. He was always open to conviction, and candidly
+confessed his mistakes. He was conscientious in the practice of his
+profession, and valued the success of his art more than silver and gold.
+The Athenians revered him for his benevolence as well as genius. The
+great principle of his practice was trust in nature. Hence he was
+accused of allowing his patients to die; but this principle has many
+advocates among scientific men in our day, and some suppose the whole
+philosophy of homeopathy rests on the primal principle which Hippocrates
+advanced. He had great skill in diagnosis, by which medical genius is
+most severely tested. His practice was cautious and timid in contrast
+with that of his contemporaries. He is the author of the celebrated
+maxim, "Life is short and art is long." He divides the causes of disease
+into two principal classes,--the one comprehending the influence of
+seasons, climates, and other external forces; the other from the effects
+of food and exercise. To the influence of climate he attributes the
+conformation of the body and the disposition of the mind. He also
+attributes all sorts of disorders to a vicious system of diet. For more
+than twenty centuries his pathology was the foundation of all the
+medical sects. He was well acquainted with the medicinal properties of
+drugs, and was the first to assign three periods to the course of a
+malady. He knew, of course, but little of surgery, although he was in
+the habit of bleeding, and often employed his knife. He was also
+acquainted with cupping, and used violent purgatives. He was not aware
+of the importance of the pulse, and confounded the veins with the
+arteries. He wrote in the Ionic dialect, and some of his works have gone
+through three hundred editions, so highly have they been valued. His
+authority passed away, like that of Aristotle, on the revival of
+European science. Yet who have been greater ornaments and lights than
+these distinguished Greeks?
+
+[Sidenote: Galen.]
+
+The school of Alexandria produced eminent physicians, as well as
+mathematicians, after the glory of Greece had departed. So highly was it
+esteemed that Galen went there to study five hundred years after its
+foundation. It was distinguished for inquiries into scientific anatomy
+and physiology, for which Aristotle had prepared the way. He was the
+Humboldt of his day, and gave great attention to physics. In eight books
+he developed the general principles of natural science known to the
+Greeks. On the basis of the Aristotelian researches, the Alexandrian
+physicians carried out extensive inquiries in physiology. Herophilus
+discovered the fundamental principles of neurology, and advanced the
+anatomy of the brain and spinal cord.
+
+[Sidenote: Medical science among the Romans.]
+
+Although the Romans had but little sympathy for science or philosophy,
+being essentially political and warlike in their turn of mind, yet when
+they had conquered the world, and had turned their attention to arts,
+medicine received great attention. The first physicians were Greek
+slaves. Of these was Asclepiades, who enjoyed the friendship of Cicero.
+It is from him that the popular medical theories as to the "pores" have
+descended. He was the inventor of the shower-bath. Celsus wrote a work
+on medicine which takes almost equal rank with the Hippocratic writings.
+Medical science at Rome culminated in Galen, as it did at Athens in
+Hippocrates. He was patronized by Marcus Aurelius, and availed himself
+of all the knowledge of preceding naturalists and physicians. He was
+born at Pergamus about the year A.D. 165, where he learned, under able
+masters, anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics. He finished his studies
+at Alexandria, and came to Rome at the invitation of the emperor. Like
+his patron, he was one of the brightest ornaments of the heathen world,
+and one of the most learned and accomplished men of any age.
+"_Medicorum dissertissimus atque doctissimus_." [Footnote: St.
+Jerome, _Comment. in Aoms_, c. 5, vol. vi.] He left five hundred
+treatises, most of them relating to some branch of medical science,
+which give him the merit of being one of the most voluminous of authors.
+His celebrity is founded chiefly on his anatomical and physiological
+works. He was familiar with practical anatomy, deriving his knowledge
+from dissection. His observations about health are practical and useful.
+He lays great stress on gymnastic exercises, and recommends the
+pleasures of the chase, the cold bath in hot weather, hot baths to old
+people, the use of wine, three meals a day, and pork as the best of
+animal food. The great principles of his practice were that disease is
+to be overcome by that which is contrary to the disease itself, and that
+nature is to be preserved by that which has relation with nature. As
+disease cannot be overcome so long as its cause exists, that, if
+possible, was first to be removed, and the strength of the patient is to
+be considered before the treatment is proceeded with. His "Commentaries
+on Hippocrates" served as a treasure of medical criticism, from which
+succeeding annotators borrowed. No one ever set before the medical
+profession a higher standard than Galen, and few have more nearly
+approached it. He did not attach himself to any particular school, but
+studied the doctrines of each--an eclectic in the fullest sense.
+[Footnote: See Leclerc, _Hist. de la Medicine_; Hartt Shoengel,
+_Geschichte der Arzneykunde_. W. A. Greenhill, M.D., of Oxford, has
+a very learned article in Smith's _Dictionary_.] The works of Galen
+constituted the last production of ancient Roman medicine, and from his
+day the decline in medical science was rapid, until it was revived among
+the Arabs.
+
+The physical sciences, it must be confessed, were not carried by the
+ancients to any such length as geometry and astronomy. In physical
+geography they were particularly deficient. Yet even this branch of
+knowledge can boast of some eminent names. When men sailed timidly on
+the coasts, and dared not explore distant seas, the true position of
+countries could not be ascertained with the definiteness that it is at
+present. But geography was not utterly neglected, nor was natural
+history.
+
+[Sidenote: Physical geography.]
+
+Herodotus gives us most valuable information respecting the manners and
+customs of oriental and barbarous nations, and Pliny has written a
+natural history, in thirty-seven books, which is compiled from upwards
+of two thousand volumes, and refers to twenty thousand matters of
+importance. He was born A.D. 23, and was fifty-three when the eruption
+of Vesuvius took place which caused his death. Pliny cannot be called a
+scientific genius, in the sense understood by modern savants; nor was he
+an original observer. His materials are drawn up second hand, like a
+modern encyclopedia. Nor did he evince great judgment in his selection.
+He had a great love of the marvelous, and is often unintelligible. But
+his work is a wonderful monument of human industry. It treats of every
+thing in the natural world--of the heavenly bodies, of the elements, of
+thunder and lightning, of the winds and seasons, of the changes and
+phenomena of the earth, of countries and nations, seas and rivers, of
+men, animals, birds, fishes, and plants, of minerals and medicines and
+precious stones, of commerce and the fine arts. He is full of errors;
+but his work is among the most valuable productions of antiquity. Buffon
+pronounced his natural history to contain an infinity of knowledge in
+every department of human occupation, conveyed in a dress ornate and
+brilliant. It is a literary rather than a scientific monument, and as
+such it is wonderful--a compilation from one hundred and sixty volumes
+of notes. In strict scientific value, it is inferior to the works of
+modern research; but there are few minds, even in these times, who have
+directed inquiries to such a variety of subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: Strabo.]
+
+[Sidenote: Construction of maps.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ptolemy.]
+
+Geographical knowledge was advanced by Strabo, who lived in the Augustan
+era; but researches were chiefly confined to the Roman empire. Strabo
+was, like Herodotus, a great traveler, and much of his geographical
+information is the result of his own observations. It is probable he is
+much indebted to Eratosthenes, who preceded him by three centuries, and
+who was the first systematic writer on geography. The authorities of
+Strabo are chiefly Greek, but his work is defective, from the imperfect
+notions which the ancients had of astronomy; so that the determination
+of the earth's figure by the measure of latitude and longitude, the
+essential foundations of geographical description, was unknown. The
+enormous strides, which all forms of physical science have made since
+the discovery of America, throw all ancient descriptions and
+investigations into the shade, and Strabo appears at as great
+disadvantage as Pliny or Ptolemy; yet the work of Strabo, considering
+his means, and the imperfect knowledge of the earth's surface, and
+astronomical science, was really a great achievement of industry. He
+treats of the form and magnitude of the earth, and devotes eight books
+to Europe, six to Asia, and one to Africa. His great authorities are
+Eratosthenes, Polybius, Aristotle, Antiochus of Syracuse, Posidonius,
+Theopompus, Artemidorus Ephorus, Herodotus, Anaximenes, Thucydides, and
+Aristo, chiefly historians and philosophers. Whatever may be said of the
+accuracy of the great geographer of antiquity, it cannot be denied that
+he was a man of immense research and learning. His work in seventeen
+books is one of the most valuable which have come down from antiquity,
+both from the discussions which run through it, and the curious facts
+which can be found nowhere else. It is scarcely fair to estimate the
+genius of Strabo by the correctness and extent of his geographical
+knowledge. All men are lost in science, and science is progressive. The
+great scientific lights of our day may be insignificant, compared with
+those who are to arise, if profundity and accuracy of knowledge is the
+test. It is the genius of the ancients, their grasp and power of mind,
+their original labors which we are to consider. Anaxagoras was one of
+the greatest philosophical geniuses of all ages; but, as philosophy is a
+science, and is progressive, his knowledge could not be compared with
+that of Aristotle. Again, who doubts the original genius and grasp of
+Aristotle, but what was he, in accuracy of knowledge and true method, in
+comparison with the savants of the nineteenth century; yet, it would be
+difficult to show that Aristotle was inferior to Bacon or Cuvier, or
+Stuart Mill. If, however, we would compare the geographical knowledge of
+the ancients with that of the moderns, we confess to the immeasurable
+inferiority of the ancients in this branch. When Eratosthenes began his
+labors, it was known that the surface of the earth was spherical. He
+established parallels of latitude and longitude, and attempted the
+difficult undertaking of measuring the circumference of the globe by the
+actual measurement of a segment of one of its great circles. Posidonius
+determined the arc of a meridian between Rhodes and Alexandria to be a
+forty-eighth part of the whole circumference--an enormous calculation,
+yet a remarkable one in the infancy of astronomical science. Hipparchus
+introduced into geography a great improvement, namely, the relative
+situation of places, by the same process that he determined the
+positions of the heavenly bodies. He also pointed out how longitude
+might be determined by observing the eclipses of the sun and moon. This
+led to the construction of maps; but none have reached us except those
+which were used to illustrate the geography of Ptolemy. Hipparchus was
+born B.C. 276, the first who raised geography to the rank of a science.
+He starved himself to death, being tired of life, like Eratosthenes,
+more properly an astronomer, and the most distinguished among the
+ancients, born about 160 B.C., although none of his writings have
+reached us. The improvements he pointed out were applied by Ptolemy
+himself, an astronomer who flourished about the year 160 at Alexandria.
+His work was a presentation of geographical knowledge known in his day,
+so far as geography is the science of determining the position of places
+on the earth's surface. The description of places belongs to Strabo. His
+work was accepted as the textbook of the science till the fifteenth
+century, for in his day the Roman empire had been well surveyed. He
+maintained that the earth is _spherical_, and introduced the terms
+_longitude_ and _latitude_, which Eratosthenes had established,
+and computed the earth to be one hundred and eighty thousand
+stadia in circumference, and a degree five hundred stadia in length,
+or sixty-two and a half Roman miles. His estimates of the length
+of a degree of latitude were nearly correct; but he made great errors in
+the degrees of longitude, making the length of the world from east to
+west too great, which led to the belief in the practicability of a
+western passage to India. He also assigned too great length to the
+Mediterranean, arising from the difficulty of finding the longitude with
+accuracy. But it was impossible, with the scientific knowledge of his
+day, to avoid errors, and we are surprised that he made so few.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+REFERENCES.--An exceedingly learned work has recently been issued in
+London, by Parker and Son, on the Astronomy of the Ancients, by Sir
+George Cornwall Lewis, though rather ostentatious in his parade of
+authorities, and minute on points which are not of much consequence.
+Delambre's History of Ancient Astronomy has long been a classic, but
+richer in materials for a history than a history itself. There is a
+valuable essay in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which refers to a list of
+authors, among which are Biccoli, Weilder, Bailly, Playfair, La Lande.
+Lewis makes much reference to Macrobius, Vitruvius, Diogenes Laertius,
+Plutarch, and Suidas, among the ancients, and to Ideler, Unters. uber
+die Art. Beob. der Alten.
+
+Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences may also be consulted with
+profit. Leclerc, Hist, de Med.; Spengel, Gesch. der Arzneykunde.
+Strabo's Geography is the most valuable of Antiquity. See also Polybius.
+
+[Relocated Footnote: The style of modern historical criticism may thus
+be exemplified, like the discussions of the Germans, whether the Arx on
+the Capitoline Hill occupied the northeastern or southwestern corner,
+which take up nearly one half of the learned article in Smith's
+Dictionary, on the Capitoline. "Thales supposed the earth to float on
+the water, like a plank of wood": [Greek: oi d hudatos keisthai touton
+gar archaiotaton pareilaephamen ton logon hon phasin eipein thalae ton
+Milaesion]. Aristot., _De Coel_., ii. 13: "_Quoe sequitur Thaletis
+ineptq sententia est. Ait enim terrarum orbem aqua sustineri._" Seneca,
+_Nat. Quoest_., iii. 13. This notion is mentioned in _Schol. Iliad_,
+xiii. 125. This doctrine Thales brought from Egypt. See Plut., _Pac_.,
+in. 10; Galen, c. 21. But this maybe doubted. Callimach., _Frag_., 94;
+Hygin, _Poet. Astr_., ii. 2; Martin, _Timee de Platon_., tom. ii. p.
+109, thinks it questionable whether Thales saw Egypt. Diog. Laert.,
+viii. 60. Compare, however, Sturz, _Thales_, p. 80; Proclus, _in Tim_.,
+i. p. 40; _Schol. Aristophanes, Nub_., ii. 31; Varro, ii. vi. 10. See
+also, _Ideler Chron_., vol. i. p. 300. But Brandis sheds light upon the
+point, though his suggestions conflict with Origen, _Phil_., p. 11; also
+with Aristotle, _De Coel_., ii. 13.
+
+This style of expending learning on nothing, meets with great favor with
+the pedants, who attach no value to history unless one half of the page
+is filled with erudite foot-notes which few can verify, and which prove
+nothing, or nothing of any consequence.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+INTERNAL CONDITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+We have now surveyed all that was glorious in the most splendid empire
+of antiquity. We have seen a civilization which, in many respects,
+rivals all that modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in
+philosophy, in laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated
+face of nature, in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Romans
+were our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native
+and unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by
+perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circumstances; by great men,
+gifted with unusual talents. We are filled with admiration by all these
+trophies of genius, and cannot but feel that only a superior race could
+have accomplished such mighty triumphs.
+
+But all this splendid external was deceptive. It was hollow at heart.
+And the deeper we penetrate the social condition of the people, their
+real and practical life, the more we feel disgust and pity supplanting
+all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman empire, in its shame
+and degradation, suggests melancholy feelings in reference to the
+destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare depend upon his own
+unaided strength. And we see profoundly the necessity of some foreign
+aid to rescue him from his miseries.
+
+It is a sad picture of oppression, of injustice, of poverty, of vice,
+and of wretchedness, which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by
+shame, and strength by weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of
+the great mass is deplorable, and even the great and fortunate shine in
+a false and fictitious light. We see laws, theoretically good,
+practically perverted; monstrous inequalities of condition, selfishness,
+and egotism the mainsprings of life. We see energies misdirected, and
+art corrupted. All noble aspirations have fled, and the good and the
+wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter
+the tyrants who trample on human rights, and sensuality and Epicurean
+pleasures absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.
+
+[Sidenote: The imperial despotism.]
+
+The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the grand
+empire which embraced the civilized countries or the world, is the
+imperial despotism. It may have been a necessity, an inevitable sequence
+to the anarchy of civil war, the strife of parties, great military
+successes, and the corruptions of society itself. It may be viewed as a
+providential event in order that general peace and security might usher
+in the triumphs of a new religion. It followed naturally the subversion
+of the constitution by military leaders, the breaking up of the power of
+the Senate, the encroachments of democracy and its leaders, the wars of
+Sulla and Marius, of Pompey and Julius. It succeeded massacres and
+factions and demagogues. It came when conspiracies and proscriptions and
+general insecurity rendered a stronger government desirable. The empire
+was too vast to be intrusted to the guidance of conflicting parties.
+There was needed a strong, central, irrepressible, irresistible power in
+the hands of a single man. Safety and peace seemed preferable to glory
+and genius. So the people acquiesced in the changes which were made;
+they had long anticipated them; they even hailed them with silent joy.
+Patriots, like Brutus, Cassius, and Cato, gave themselves up to despair;
+but most men were pleased with the revolution that seated Augustus on
+the throne of the world. For twenty years the empire had been desolated
+by destructive and exhaustive wars. The cry of the whole empire was for
+peace, and peace could be secured only by the ascendency of a single
+man, ruling with absolute and unresisted sway.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity of revolution.]
+
+[Sidenote: Imperial Rule.]
+
+Historians generally have regarded the revolution, which changed the
+republic to a monarchy, as salutary in its influences for several
+generations. The empire was never so splendid as under the Caesars. The
+energies of the people were directed into peaceful and industrial
+channels. A new public policy was inaugurated by Augustus--to preserve
+rather than extend the limits of the empire. The world enjoyed peace,
+and the rich consoled themselves with riches. Society was established
+upon a new basis, and was no longer rent by factions and parties.
+Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace, nor were the provinces
+ransacked and devastated to provide for the means of carrying on war. So
+long as men did not oppose the government they were safe from
+molestation, and were left to pursue their business and pleasure in
+their own way. Wealth rapidly increased, and all mechanical arts, and
+all elegant pleasures. Temples became more magnificent, and the city was
+changed from brick to marble. Palaces arose upon the hills, and shops
+were erected in the valleys. There were fewer riots and mobs and public
+disturbances. Public amusements were systematized and enlarged, and the
+people indulged with sports, spectacles, and luxuries. Rome became a
+still greater centre of wealth and art as well as of political power.
+The city increased in population and beautiful structures. The emperors
+were great patrons of every thing calculated to dazzle the eyes of their
+subjects, whether amusements, or palaces, or baths, or aqueducts, or
+triumphal monuments. Artists and scholars flocked to the great emporium,
+as well as merchants and foreign princes. Nor was imperial cruelty often
+visited on the humble classes. It was the policy of the emperors to
+amuse and flatter the people, while they deprived them of political
+rights. But social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their
+pleasures and gains. All were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded
+glories and its fascinating pleasures. The city was probably supplied
+with better water, and could rely with more certainty on the necessaries
+of life, than under the old regime. The people had better baths, and
+larger houses, and cheaper corn. The government, for a time, was
+splendidly administered, even by tyrants. Outrages, extortions, and
+disturbances were punished. Order reigned, and tranquillity, and outward
+and technical justice. All classes felt secure. They could sleep without
+fear of robbery or assassination. And all trades flourished. Art was
+patronized magnificently, and every opportunity was offered for making
+and for spending fortunes. In short, all the arguments which can be
+adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war and violence,
+and the strife of factions and general insecurity of life and property,
+can be urged to show that the change, if inevitable, was beneficial in
+its immediate effects.
+
+[Sidenote: Despotism of the emperors.]
+
+[Sidenote: Tyranny of the emperors.]
+
+Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of
+things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were
+prostrated forever. Tyrants, armed with absolute and irresponsible
+power, ruled over the empire; nor could their tyranny end but with their
+lives. Noble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. The times were
+unfavorable to the development of genius, except in those ways which
+subserved the interests of the government. Under the emperors we read of
+no more great orators like Cicero, battling for human rights, and
+defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed. Nor was there
+liberty of speech in the Senate. The usual jealousy of tyrants was
+awakened to every emancipating influence on the people. They were now
+amused with shows and spectacles, but could not make their voices heard
+regarding public injuries. The people were absolutely in the hands of
+iron masters. So was the Senate. So were all orders and conditions of
+men. One man reigned supreme. His will was law. Resistance to it was
+vain. It was treason to find fault with any public acts. From the
+Pillars of Hercules to the Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all classes
+and orders. No one could fly from the agents and ministers of the
+empire. He was the vicegerent of the Almighty, worshiped as a deity,
+undisputed master of the lives and liberties of one hundred and twenty
+millions of people. There was no restraint on his inclinations. He could
+do whatever he pleased, without rebuke and without fear. No general or
+senator or governor could screen himself from his vengeance. He
+controlled the army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal
+administration of the empire, and the religious worship of the people.
+All offices and honors and emoluments emanated from him. All opposition
+ceased, and all conspired to elevate still higher that supreme arbiter
+of fortune whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was
+madness, and treason absurdity. And so perfect was the mechanism of the
+government that the emperor had time for his private pleasures. It was
+never administered with greater rigor than when Tiberius secluded
+himself in his guarded villa. And a timid, or weak, or irresolute
+emperor was as much to be feared as a monster, since he was surrounded
+with minions who might be unscrupulous. Nor was the imperial power
+exercised to check the gigantic social evils of the empire,--those which
+were gradually but surely undermining the virtues on which strength is
+based. They did not seek to prevent irreligion, luxury, slavery, and
+usury, the encroachments of the rich upon the poor, the tyranny of
+foolish fashions, demoralizing sports and pleasures, money-making, and
+all the follies which lax principles of morality allowed. They fed the
+rabble with com and oil and wine, and thus encouraged idleness and
+dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid retrograde in human
+rights, or a greater prostration of liberties. Taxes were imposed
+according to the pleasure or necessities of the government. Provincial
+governors became still more rapacious and cruel. Judges hesitated to
+decide against the government. A vile example was presented to the
+people in their rulers. The emperors squandered immense sums on their
+private pleasures, and set public opinion at defiance. Patriotism, in
+its most enlarged sense, became an impossibility. All lofty spirits were
+crushed. Corruption, in all forms of administration, fearfully
+increased, for there was no safeguard. Women became debased from the
+pernicious influences of a corrupt and unblushing court. Adultery,
+divorce, and infanticide became still more common. The emperors thought
+more of securing their own power and indulging their own passions than
+of the public good. The humiliating conviction was fastened upon all
+classes that liberty was extinguished, and that they were slaves to an
+irresponsible power. There are those who are found to applaud a
+despotism; but despotism presupposes the absence of the power of self-
+government, and the necessity of severe and rigorous measures. It
+presupposes the tendency to crime and violence, that men are brutes and
+must be coerced like wild beasts. We are warranted in assuming a very
+low condition of society when despotism became a necessity.
+Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are wise
+and just; but, practically, as men are, despotisms are cruel and
+revengeful. There are great and glorious exceptions; but it cannot be
+denied that society is mournful when tyrants bear rule. And it is seldom
+that society improves under them, without very powerful religious
+influences. It generally grows worse and worse. Despotism implies
+slavery, and slavery is the worst condition of mankind,--doubtless a
+wholesome discipline, under certain circumstances, yet still a great
+calamity.
+
+[Sidenote: Augustus.]
+
+The Roman world was fortunate in having such a man as Augustus for
+supreme ruler, after all liberties were subverted. He was one of the
+wisest and greatest of the emperors. He inaugurated the policy of his
+successors, from which the immediate ones did not far depart. He was
+careful, in the first place, to disguise his powers, and offend the
+moral sentiments of the people as little as possible. He met with but
+little opposition in his usurpation, for the most independent of the
+nobles had perished in the wars, and the rest consulted their interests.
+He selected the ablest and most popular men in the city to be his
+favorite ministers--Maecenas and Agrippa. His policy was peace. He
+declined the coronary gold proffered by the Italian states. He was
+profuse in his generosity, without additional burdens on the state, for,
+as the heir of Caesar, he came into possession of eight hundred and fifty
+millions of dollars, the amount which the Dictator had amassed from the
+spoils of war. He was but thirty-three years of age, in the prime of his
+strength and courage. He purged the Senate of unworthy members, and
+restored the appearance of its ancient dignity. He took a census of the
+Roman people. He increased the largesses of corn. He showed confidence
+in the people whom he himself deceived. He was modest in his demeanor,
+like Pericles at Athens. He visited the provinces and settled their
+difficulties. He appointed able men as governors, and perpetuated a
+standing army. He repaired the public edifices, and adorned the city.
+
+But he gradually assumed all the great offices of the state. He clothed
+himself with the powers and the badges of the consuls, the praenomen of
+imperator, the functions of perpetual dictator. He exacted the military
+oath from the whole mass of the people. He became _princeps
+senatus_. He claimed the prerogatives of the tribunes, which gave to
+him inviolability, with the right of protection and pardon. He was also
+invested with the illustrious dignity of the supreme pontificate. As the
+Senate and the people continued to meet still for the purpose of
+legislation, he controlled the same by assuming the initiative, of
+proposing the laws. He took occasion to give to his edicts, in his
+consular or tribunitian capacity, a perpetual force; and his rescripts
+or replies which issued from his council chamber, were registered as
+laws. He was released from the laws, and claimed the name of Caesar. The
+people were deprived of the election of magistrates. All officers of the
+government were his tools, and through them he controlled all public
+affairs. The prefect of the city became virtually his minister and
+lieutenant. Even the proconsuls received their appointment from him.
+Thus he became supreme arbiter of all fortunes, the fountain of all
+influence, the centre of all power, absolute over the lives and fortunes
+of all classes of men. Strange that the people should have submitted to
+such monstrous usurpations, although decently veiled under the names of
+the old offices of the republic. But they had become degenerate. They
+wished for peace and leisure. They felt the uselessness of any
+independent authority, and resigned themselves to a condition which the
+Romans two centuries earlier would have felt to be intolerable.
+
+[Sidenote: General character of the emperors.]
+
+Of the immediate successors of Augustus, none equaled him in moderation
+or talents. And with the exception of Titus and Vespasian, the emperors
+who comprised the Julian family, were stained with great vices. Some
+were monsters; others were madmen. But, as a whole, they were not
+deficient in natural ability. Some had great executive talents, like
+Tiberius--a man of vast experience. But he was a cruel and remorseless
+tyrant, full of jealousy and vindictive hatred. Still, amid disgraceful
+pleasures, he devoted himself to the cares of office, and exhibited the
+virtues of domestic economy. Nor did he take pleasure in the sports of
+the circus and the theatre, like most of his successors. But he
+destroyed all who stood in his way, as most tyrants do. Nor did he spare
+his own relatives. He was sensual and intemperate in his habits, and all
+looked to him with awe and trepidation. There was a perfect reign of
+terror at Rome during his latter days, and every body rejoiced when the
+tyrant died.
+
+[Sidenote: Caligula.]
+
+Caligula, who succeeded Tiberius, belonged to the race of madmen. He put
+to death some of the most eminent Romans, in order to seize on their
+estates. He repudiated his wife; he expressed the wish that Rome had but
+one neck, that it could be annihilated by a blow; he used to invite his
+favorite horse to supper, setting before him gilded corn and wine in
+golden goblets; he wasted immense sums in useless works; he took away
+the last shadow of power from the people; he impoverished Italy by
+senseless extravagance; he wantonly destroyed his soldiers by whole
+companies; he was doubtless as insane as he was cruel, luxurious,
+rapacious, and prodigal; he adorned the poops of galleys with precious
+stones, and constructed arduous works with no other purpose than
+caprice; he often dressed like a woman, and generally appeared with a
+golden beard; he devoted himself to fencing, driving, singing, and
+dancing, and was ruled by gladiators, charioteers, and actors. Such was
+the man to whom was intrusted the guardianship of an empire. No wonder
+he was removed by assassination.
+
+[Sidenote: Claudius.]
+
+His successor was Claudius, made emperor by the Praetorians. He took
+Augustus for his model, was well disposed, and contributed greatly to
+the embellishment of the capital. But he was gluttonous and intemperate,
+and subject to the influence of women and favorites. He was feeble in
+mind and body. He was married to one of the worst women in history, and
+Messalina has passed into a synonym for infamy. By this woman he was
+influenced, and her unblushing effrontery and disgraceful intrigues made
+the reign unfortunate. She trafficked in the great offices of the state,
+and sacrificed the best blood of the class to which she belonged.
+Claudius was also governed by freedmen, who performed such offices as
+Louis XV. intrusted to his noble vassals. Claudius resembled this
+inglorious monarch in many respects, and his reign was as disastrous on
+the morals of the people. When the death of his wife was announced to
+him at the banquet, he called for wine, and listened to songs and music.
+But she was succeeded by a worse woman, Agrippina, and the marriage of
+the emperor with his niece, was a scandal as well as a misfortune. Pliny
+mentions having seen this empress in a sea-fight on the Fucine Lake,
+clothed in a soldier's cloak. Daughter of an imperator, sister of
+another, and consort of a third, she is best known as the mother of
+Nero, and the patroness of every thing that was shameful in the follies
+of the times. That an emperor should wed and be ruled by two such
+infamous women, indicates either weakness or depravity, and both
+qualities are equally fatal to the welfare of the state over which he
+was called to rule.
+
+[Sidenote: Nero.]
+
+The supreme power then fell into the hands of Nero. He gave the promise
+of virtue and ability, and Seneca condescended to the most flattering
+panegyrics; but the prospects of ruling beneficently were soon clouded
+by the most disgraceful enormities. He destroyed all who were offensive
+to those who ruled him, even Seneca who had been his tutor. Lost to all
+dignity and decency, he indulged in the most licentious riots,
+disguising himself like a slave, and committing midnight assaults. He
+killed his mother and his aunt, and divorced his wife. He sung songs on
+the public stage, and was more ambitious of being a good flute-player
+than a public benefactor. It is even said that he fiddled when Rome was
+devastated by a fearful conflagration. He built a palace, which covered
+entirely Mount Esquiline, the vestibule of which contained a colossal
+statue of himself, one hundred and twenty feet high. His gardens were
+the scenes of barbarities, and his banqueting halls of orgies which were
+a reproach to humanity. He wasted the empire by enormous contributions,
+and even plundered the temples of his own capital. His wife, Poppaea,
+died of a kick which she received from this monster, because she had
+petulantly reproved him. Longinus, an eminent lawyer, Lucan the poet,
+and Petronius the satirist, alike, were victims of his hatred. This last
+of the Caesars, allied by blood to the imperial house of Julius, killed
+himself in his thirty-first year, to prevent assassination, to the
+universal joy of the Roman world, without having done a great deed, or
+evinced a single virtue. Flute-playing and chariot races were his main
+diversions, and every public interest was sacrificed to his pleasures,
+or his vengeance--a man delighting in evil for its own sake.
+
+[Sidenote: Galba.]
+
+Nero was succeeded by Galba, who also was governed by favorites. He was
+a great glutton, exceedingly parsimonious, and very unpopular. In the
+early stages of his life, he appeared equal to the trust and dignity
+reposed in him; but when he gained the sovereignty, he proved deficient
+in those qualities requisite to wield it. Tacitus sums up his character
+in a sentence. "He appeared superior to his rank before he was emperor,
+and would have always been considered worthy of the supreme power, if he
+had not obtained it." He was assassinated after a brief reign.
+
+[Sidenote: Otho.]
+
+His successor, Otho, finding himself unequal to the position to which he
+was elevated, ended his life by suicide. Vitellius, who wore the purple
+next to him, is celebrated for cruelty and gluttony, and was removed by
+assassination. Titus and Vespasian were honorable exceptions to the
+tyrants and sensualists that had reigned since Augustus, but Domitian
+surpassed all his predecessors in unrelenting cruelty. He banished all
+philosophers from Rome and Italy, and violently persecuted the
+Christians, and was dissolute and lewd in his private habits. He also
+met a violent death from the assassin's dagger, the only way that
+infamous monsters could be hurled from power. Yet such was the fulsome
+flattery to which he and all the emperors were accustomed, that Martial
+addressed this monster, preeminent of all in wickedness and cruelty,--
+
+  "To conquer ardent, and to triumph shy,
+  Fair Victory named him from the polar sky.
+  Fanes to the gods, to men he manners gave;
+  Rest to the sword, and respite to the brave;
+  So high could ne'er Herculean power aspire:
+  The god should bend his looks to the Tarpeian fire."
+[Footnote: Book ix. 101. ]
+
+[Sidenote: The latter emperors.]
+
+Of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, I will not speak, since
+they were great exceptions to those who generally ruled at Rome. Their
+virtues and their talents are justly eulogized by all historians. Great
+in war, and greater in peace, they were ornaments of humanity. Under
+their sway, the empire was prosperous and happy. Their greatness almost
+atoned for the weakness and wickedness of their predecessors. If such
+men as they could have ruled at Rome, the imperial regime would have
+been the greatest blessing. But with them expired the prosperity of the
+empire, and they were succeeded by despots, whose vices equaled those of
+Nero and Vitellius. Commodus, Caracalla, Elagabalus, Maximin, Philip,
+Gallienus, are enrolled on the catalogue of those who have obtained an
+infamous immortality. At last no virtue or talent on the part of the
+few emperors who really labored for the good of the state, could arrest
+the increasing corruption. The empire was doomed when Constantine
+removed the seat of government to Constantinople. Forty-four sovereigns
+reigned at Rome from Julius to Constantine, in a period of little more
+than three hundred and fifty years, of whom twenty were removed by
+assassination. What a commentary on imperial despotism! In spite of the
+virtues of such men as Trajan and the Antonines, the history of the
+emperors is a loathsome chapter of human depravity, and of its awful
+retribution. Never were greater powers exercised by single men, and
+never were they more signally abused. From the time of Augustus those
+virtues which give glory to society steadily declined. The reigns of the
+emperors were fatal to all moral elevation, and even to genius, as in
+the latter days of Louis XIV. The great lights which illuminated the
+Augustan age, disappeared, without any to take their place. Under the
+emperors there are fewer great names than for one hundred years before
+the death of Cicero. Eloquence, poetry, and philosophy were alike
+eclipsed. Noble aspirations were repressed by the all-powerful and
+irresistible despotism.
+
+The tyranny of these emperors was rendered endurable by the general
+familiarity with cruelty. In every Roman palace, the slave was chained
+to the doorway; thongs hung upon the stairs, and the marks of violence
+on the faces of the domestics impressed the great that they were despots
+themselves. They were accustomed to the sight of blood in the sports of
+the amphitheatre. They ruled as tyrants in the provinces they governed.
+
+But it must be allowed that the system of education was left untrammeled
+by the government, provided politics were not introduced; and it
+produced men of letters, if not practical statesmen. It sharpened the
+intellect and enlivened thought. The text-books of the schools were the
+most famous compositions of republican Greece, and the favorite subjects
+of declamation were the glories of the free men of antiquity. Nor was
+there any restriction placed upon writing or publication analogous to
+our modern censorship of the press, and many of the emperors, like
+Claudius and Hadrian, were patrons of literature. Even the stoical
+philosophers who tried to persuade the emperor that he was a slave, were
+endured, since they did not attempt to deprive him of sovereignty.
+
+Nor could the imperial tyranny be resisted by minds enervated by
+indulgence and estranged from all pure aspirations, by the pleasures of
+sense. They crouched like dogs under the uplifted arm of masters. They
+did not even seek to fly from the tyranny which ground them down.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of the emperors.]
+
+It cannot be denied that, on the whole, this long succession of emperors
+was more intellectual and able than oriental dynasties, and even many
+occidental ones in the Middle Ages, when the principle of legitimacy was
+undisputed. The Roman emperors, as men of talents, favorably compare
+with the successors of Mohammed, and the Carlovingian and Merovingian
+kings. But if these talents were employed in systematically crushing out
+all human rights, the despotism they established became the more
+deplorable.
+
+Nor can it be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who
+would have ornamented any age or country. Titus, Hadrian, Marcus
+Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus,
+Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as
+talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus
+Aurelius was one of the purest and noblest characters of antiquity.
+Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most illustrious
+sovereigns that ever wore a crown--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with
+William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.
+
+Of these Roman emperors some stand out as world heroes--greatest among
+men--remarkable for executive ability. Julius is the most renowned name
+of antiquity. He ranks only with Napoleon Bonaparte in modern times. His
+genius was transcendent; and, like Napoleon, he had great traits which
+endear him to the world--generosity, magnanimity, and exceeding culture;
+orator, historian, and lawyer, as well as statesman and general. But he
+overturned the liberties of his country to gratify a mad ambition, and
+waded through a sea of blood to the mastership of the world. Augustus
+was a profound statesman, and a successful general; but he was stained
+with the arts of dissimulation and an intense ambition, and sacrificed
+public liberties and rights to cement his power. Even Diocletian, tyrant
+and persecutor as he was, was distinguished for masterly abilities, and
+was the greatest statesman whom the empire saw, with the exception of
+Augustus. Such a despot as Tiberius ruled with justice and ability.
+Constantine ranks with the greatest monarchs of antiquity. The vices and
+ambition of these men did not dim the lustre of their genius and
+abilities.
+
+[Sidenote: The Imperial despotism.]
+
+Their cause was wrong. It matters not whether the emperors were good or
+bad, if the regime, to which they consecrated their energies, was
+exerted to crush the liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism,
+whether brilliant or disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde in the
+polity of Rome. It implied the extinction of patriotism, and the general
+degradation of the people, or else the fabric of despotism could not
+have been erected. It would have been impossible in the days of Cato,
+Scipio, or Metellus. It was simply a choice of evils. When nations
+emerge from utter barbarism into absolute monarchies, like the ancient
+Persians or the modern Russians, we forget the evils of a central power
+in the blessings which extend indirectly to the degraded people. But
+when a nation loses its liberties, and submits without a struggle to
+tyrants, it is a sad spectacle to humanity. The despotism of Louis XIV.
+was not disgraceful to the French people, for they never had enjoyed
+constitutional liberty. The despotism of Louis Napoleon is mournful,
+because the nation had waded through a bloody revolution to achieve the
+recognition of great rights and interests, and dreamed that they were
+guaranteed. It is a retrograde and not a progress; a reaction of
+liberty, which seats Napoleon on the throne of Louis Philippe; even as
+the reign of Charles II. is the saddest chapter in English history. If
+liberty be a blessing, if it be possible for nations to secure it
+permanently, then the regime of the Roman emperors is detestable and
+mournful, whatever necessities may have called it into being, since it
+annulled all those glorious privileges in which ancient patriots
+gloried, and prevented that scope for energies which made Rome mistress
+of the world. It was impossible for the empire to grow stronger and
+grander. It must needs become weaker and more corrupt, since despotism
+did not kindle the ambition of the people, but suppressed their noblest
+sentiments, and confined their energies to inglorious pursuits. Men
+might acquire more gigantic fortunes under the emperors than in the
+times of the republic, and art might be more extensively cultivated, and
+luxury and refinement and material pleasures might increase; but public
+virtue fled, and those sentiments on which national glory rests vanished
+before the absorbing egotism which pervaded all orders and classes. The
+imperial despotism may have been needed, and the empire might have
+fallen, even if it had not existed; still it was a sad and mournful
+necessity, and gives a humiliating view of human greatness. No lover of
+liberty can contemplate it without disgust and abhorrence. No
+philosopher can view it without drawing melancholy lessons of human
+degeneracy--an impressive moral for all ages and nations.
+
+If we turn to the class which, before the dictatorship of Julius, had
+the ascendency in the state, and, for several centuries, the supreme
+power, we shall find but little that is flattering to a nation or to
+humanity.
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman aristocracy.]
+
+The Roman aristocracy was the most powerful, most wealthy, and most
+august that this world has probably seen. It was under patrician
+leadership that the great conquests were made, and the greatness of the
+state reached. The glory of Rome was centred in those proud families
+which had conquered and robbed all the nations known to the Greeks. The
+immortal names of ancient Rome are identified with the aristocracy. It
+was not under kings, but under nobles, that military ambition became the
+vice of the most exalted characters. In the days of the republic, they
+exhibited a stern virtue, an inflexible policy, an indomitable will, and
+most ardent patriotism. The generals who led the armies to victory, the
+statesmen who deliberated in the Senate, the consuls, the praetors, the
+governors, originally belonged to this noble class. It monopolized all
+the great offices of the state, and it maintained its powers and
+privileges, in spite of conspiracies and rebellions. It may have yielded
+somewhat to popular encroachments, but when the people began to acquire
+the ascendency, the seeds of public corruption were sown. The real
+dignity and glory of Rome coexisted with patrician power.
+
+[Sidenote: Great families.]
+
+And powerful families existed in Rome until the fall of the empire. Some
+were descendants of ancient patrician houses, and numbered the
+illustrious generals of the republic among their ancestors. Others owed
+their rank and consequence to the accumulation of gigantic fortunes.
+Others, again, rose into importance from the patronage of emperors. All
+the great conquerors and generals of the republic were founders of
+celebrated families, which never lost consideration. Until the
+subversion of the constitution, they took great interest in politics,
+and were characterized for manly patriotism. Many of them were famous
+for culture of mind as well as public spirit. They frowned on the
+growing immoralities, and maintained the dignity of their elevated rank.
+The Senate was the most august assembly ever known on earth, controlling
+kings and potentates, and making laws for the most distant nations, and
+exercising a power which was irresistible.
+
+[Sidenote: Degeneracy of the nobles.]
+
+Under the emperors this noble class had degenerated in morals as well as
+influence. They still retained their enormous fortunes, originally
+acquired as governors of provinces, and continually increased by
+fortunate marriages and speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked
+and melancholy at Rome than the disproportionate fortunes, the general
+consequences of a low or a corrupt civilization. In the better days of
+the republic, property was more equally divided. The citizens were not
+ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the
+lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of
+powerful families. The classes of society widened as great fortunes were
+accumulated. Pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry. And when
+Plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with
+the old aristocracy. The Equestrian order, founded substantially on
+wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivaled senatorial
+families. Even freedmen, in an age of commercial speculation, became
+powerful for their riches. Ultimately the rich formed a body by
+themselves. Under the emperors, the pursuit of money became a passion;
+and the rich assumed all the importance and consideration which had once
+been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services. The
+laws of property were rigorous among the Romans, and wealth, when once
+obtained, was easily secured and transmitted.
+
+[Sidenote: Gigantic fortunes.]
+
+Such gigantic fortunes were ultimately made, since the Romans were
+masters of the world, that Rome became a city of palaces, and the spoils
+and riches of all nations flowed to the capital. Rome was a city of
+princes, and wealth gave the highest distinction. The fortunes were
+almost incredible. It has been estimated that the income of some of the
+richest of the senatorial families equaled a sum of five million dollars
+a year in our money. It took eighty thousand dollars a year to support
+the ordinary senatorial dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces.
+Trimalchio--a rich freedman whom Petronius ridiculed--could afford to
+lose thirty millions of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly
+diminishing his fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius,
+possessed a fortune of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the
+philosopher, amassed an enormous fortune.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of the nobles.]
+
+[Sidenote: Excessive luxury.]
+
+[Sidenote: Luxury of the aristocracy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Luxury of the nobles.]
+
+The Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, and they
+accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living
+which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of
+the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the
+days of the greatest corruption. They had around them a regular court of
+parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as
+their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated
+schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher
+estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal:--
+
+  "To such perfection now is carving brought,
+  That different gestures, by our curious men
+  Are used for different dishes, hare or hen."
+
+Their entertainments were accompanied with every thing which could
+flatter vanity or excite the passions. Musicians, male and female
+dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and
+gladiators, exhibited while the guests reclined at table. The tables
+were made of Thuja-root, with claws of ivory or Delian bronze, and cost
+immense sums. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six hundred and
+fifty pounds for his banqueting table. These tables were waited upon by
+an army of slaves, clad in costly dresses. In the intervals of courses
+they played with dice, or listened to music, or were amused with dances.
+They wore a great profusion of jewels--such as necklaces and rings and
+bracelets. They reclined at table after the fashion of the Orientals.
+They ate, as delicacies, water-rats and white worms. Gluttony was
+carried to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set
+off their tables. The women passed whole nights at the table, and were
+proud of their power to carry off an excess of wine. As Cleopatra says
+of her riotings with Antony,--
+
+                "O times!--
+  I laughed him out of patience; and that night
+  I laughed him into patience: and next morn,
+  Ere the ninth hour, I drank him to his bed."
+
+The wines were often kept for two ages, and some qualities were so
+highly prized as to sell for about twenty dollars an ounce. Large hogs
+were roasted whole at a banquet. The ancient epicures expatiate on
+ram's-head pies, stuffed fowls, boiled calf, and pastry stuffed with
+raisins and nuts. Dishes were made of gold and silver, set with precious
+stones. Cicero and Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his
+ordinary banquets, when he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty
+thousand drachmas--about four thousand dollars. His beds were of purple,
+and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus were
+hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels. His beds were of massive
+silver, his table and plate of pure gold, and his mattresses, covered
+with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with down found only under
+the wings of partridges. Crassus paid one hundred thousand sesterces for
+a golden cup. Banqueting rooms were strewed with lilies and roses.
+Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred millions of sesterces
+in debauchery and gluttony. Having only ten millions left, he ended his
+life with poison, thinking he might die of hunger. The suppers of
+Heliogabalus never cost less than one hundred thousand sesterces. And
+things were valued for their cost and rarity, rather than their real
+value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the
+Romans. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a dish to be made of
+five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had one made of such
+prodigious size that they were obliged to build a furnace on purpose for
+it; and at a feast in honor of this dish which he gave, it was filled
+with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of peacocks, the
+tongues of a bird of red plumage, called Phaesuicopterus, and the roes of
+lampreys caught in the Carpathian Sea. Falernian wine was never drunk
+until ten years old, and it was generally cooled with ices. The passion
+for play was universal. Nero ventured four hundred thousand sesterces on
+a single throw of the dice. Cleopatra, when she feasted Antony, gave
+each time to that general the gold vessels, enriched with jewels, the
+tapestry and purple carpets, embroidered with gold, which had been used
+in the repasts. Horace speaks of a debauchee who drank at a meal a
+goblet of vinegar, in which he dissolved a pearl worth a million of
+sesterces, which hung at the ear of his mistress. Precious stones were
+so common that a woman of the utmost simplicity dared not go without her
+diamonds. Even men wore jewels, especially elaborate rings, and upon all
+the fingers at last. The taste of the Roman aristocracy, with their
+immense fortunes, inclined them to pomp, to extravagance, to
+ostentatious modes of living, to luxurious banquets, to
+conventionalities and ceremonies, to an unbounded epicureanism. They
+lived for the present hour, and for sensual pleasures. There was no
+elevation of life. It was the body and not the soul, the present and not
+the future, which alone concerned them. They were grossly material in
+all their desires and habits. They squandered money on their banquets,
+their stables, and their dress. And it was to their crimes, says
+Juvenal, that they were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their
+tables, and their fine old plate. The day was portioned out in the
+public places, in the bath, the banquet. Martial indignantly rebukes
+these extravagances, as unable to purchase happiness, in his Epigram to
+Quintus: "Because you purchase slaves at two hundred thousand sesterces;
+because you drink wines stored during the reign of Numa; because your
+furniture costs you a million; because a pound weight of wrought silver
+costs you five thousand; because a golden chariot becomes yours at the
+price of a whole farm; because your mule costs you more than the value
+of a house--do not imagine that such expenses are the proof of a great
+mind." [Footnote: Book iii. p. 62.]
+
+Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked
+this noble class. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians
+and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.
+The sole result of friendship with a great man was a meal, at which
+flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by
+the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and
+fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to
+be no reproach. They violated the laws of chastity and decorum. They
+scourged to death their slaves. They degraded their wives and sisters.
+They patronized the most demoralizing sports. They enriched themselves
+by usury, and enjoyed monopolies. They practiced no generosity, except
+at their banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice. They
+measured every thing by the money-standard. They had no taste for
+literature, but they rewarded sculptors and painters, if they
+prostituted art to their vanity or passions. They had no reverence for
+religion, and ridiculed the gods. Their distinguishing vices were
+meanness and servility, the pursuit of money by every artifice, the
+absence of honor, and unblushing sensuality.
+
+[Sidenote: Gibbon's account of the nobles.]
+
+[Sidenote: Sarcasms of Ammianus Marcellinus.]
+
+Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammianus Marcellinus,
+respecting these people: "They contend with each other in the empty
+vanity of titles and surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses
+in statues of bronze or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these
+statues are covered with plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of
+their estates. They measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness
+of their chariots, and the weighty magnificence of their dress. Their
+long robes of silk and purple float in the wind, and, as they are
+agitated by art or accident, they discover the under garments, the rich
+tunics embroidered with the figures of various animals. Followed by a
+train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along
+the streets as if they traveled with post-horses; and the example of the
+senators is boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered
+carriages are continually driving round the immense space of the city
+and suburbs. Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they
+assume, on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and
+maintain a haughty demeanor, which, perhaps, might have been excused in
+the great Marcellus, after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these
+heroes undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in
+Italy, and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amusements of the
+chase. And if, at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the
+courage to sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their
+elegant villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare
+these expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander. Yet, should a
+fly presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas,
+should a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded chink, they deplore
+their intolerable hardships, and lament, in affected language, that they
+were not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of
+domestic jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any
+personal injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of
+mankind. When they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy
+in his obedience, he is chastised with an hundred lashes; should he
+commit a willful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a
+worthless fellow, and should be punished if he repeat the offense. If a
+foreigner of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is
+welcomed with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their
+affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified
+to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The
+modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous
+banquets; but the most worthless of mankind--parasites who applaud every
+look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and variegated
+pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance which he is
+taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the Roman table,
+the birds, the squirrels, the fish which appear of uncommon size, are
+contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned to
+attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of
+introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a
+sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if
+placed, at a supper, below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a
+surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when
+refused the praetorship. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the
+attention of the nobles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the
+advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of
+Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries
+they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary
+sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the
+theatre, flutes and hydraulic organs, are constructed for their use. In
+their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to
+that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to
+excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain
+will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of
+arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or
+legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the
+Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury
+often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When
+they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the
+slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they assume
+the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the
+demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to
+maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who
+is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the
+whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superstition which
+disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the
+productions of haru-spices, who pretend to read in the entrails of
+victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this
+superstition is observed among those very skeptics who impiously deny or
+doubt the existence of a celestial power." [Footnote: Found in the sixth
+chapter of the fourteenth, and the fourth of the twenty-eighth, book of
+Ammianus Marcellinus.]
+
+Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading class at Rome,
+and probably in the cities which aped the fashions of the capital. There
+was a melancholy absence of elevation of sentiment, of patriotism, of
+manly courage, and of dignity of character. Frivolity and luxury
+loosened all the ties of society. The animating principle of their lives
+was a heartless Epicureanism. They lived for the present hour, and for
+their pleasures, indifferent to the great interests of the public, and
+to the miseries of the poor. They were bound up in themselves. They were
+grossly material in all their aims. They had lost all ideas of public
+virtue. They degraded women; they oppressed the people; they laughed at
+philanthropy; they could not be reached by elevated sentiments; they had
+no concern for the future. Scornful, egotistical, haughty, self-
+indulgent, affected, cynical, all their thoughts and conversation were
+directed to frivolities. Nothing made any impression upon them but
+passing vanities. They ignored both Heaven and Hell. They were like the
+courtiers of Louis XV. in the most godless period of the monarchy. They
+were worse, for they superadded pagan infidelities. There were memorable
+exceptions, but not many, until Christianity had reached the throne.
+"One after another, the nobles sunk into a lethargy almost without a
+parallel. The proudest names of the old republic were finally associated
+with the idlest amusements and the most preposterous novelties. A
+Gabrius, a Callius, and a Crassus were immortalized by the elegance of
+their dancing. A Lucullus, a Hortensius, a Philippus estimated one
+another, not by their eloquence, their courage, or their virtue, but by
+the perfection of their fish-ponds, and the singularity of the breeds
+they nourished. They seemed to touch the sky with their finger if they
+had stocked their preserves with bearded mullets, and taught them to
+recognize their masters' voices, and come to be fed from their hands."
+[Footnote: Merivale, chap. ii.]
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of the people.]
+
+As for the miserable class whom they oppressed, their condition became
+worse every day from the accession of the emperors. The Plebeians had
+ever disdained those arts which now occupy the middle classes. These
+were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed themselves upon the
+lands which had been obtained by conquest. But these lands were
+gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The small
+farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to their
+wealthy creditors. In the time of Cicero, it was computed that there
+were only about two thousand citizens possessed of independent property.
+These two thousand people owned the world. The rest were dependent; and
+they were powerless when deprived of political rights, for the great
+candidate for public honors and offices liberally paid for votes. But
+under the emperors the commons had subsided into a miserable populace,
+fed from the public stores. They would have perished but for largesses.
+Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily allowance for
+bread. They were amused with games and festivals. From the stately baths
+they might be seen to issue without shoes and without a mantle. They
+loitered in the public streets, and dissipated in gaming their miserable
+pittance. They spent the hours of the night in the lowest resorts of
+crime and misery. As many as four hundred thousand sometimes assembled
+to witness the chariot races. The vast theatres were crowded to see male
+and female dancers. The amphitheatres were still more largely attended
+by the better populace. They expired in wretched apartments without
+attracting the attention of government. Pestilence and famine and
+squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they would have been annihilated
+but for constant succession to their ranks from the provinces. In the
+busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of the
+world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective countries.
+They had no education, and but little of religious advantages. They were
+held in terror by both priests and nobles. The priest terrified them
+with Egyptian sorceries, the noble crushed them by iron weight. Like
+Iazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded into filthy
+apartments. Several families tenanted the same house. A gladiatorial
+show delighted them, but the circus was their peculiar joy. Here they
+sought to drown the consciousness of their squalid degradation. They
+were sold into slavery for trifling debts. They had no home. The poor
+man had no ambition or hope. His wife was a slave; his children were
+precocious demons, whose prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter
+was the howl of pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature
+iniquity, whose beauty was the squalor of disease and filth. He fled
+from a wife in whom he had no trust, from children in whom he had no
+hope, from brothers for whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom
+he felt no reverence. The circus was _his_ home, the wild beast
+_his_ consolation. The future was a blank. Death was the release
+from suffering. Historians and poets say but little of his degraded
+existence; but from the few hints we have, we infer depravity and brutal
+tastes. If degraded at all, they must have been very degraded, since the
+Romans had but little sentiment, and no ideality. They were sunk in
+vice, for they had no sense of responsibility. They never emerged from
+their wretched condition. The philosophers, poets, scholars, and lawyers
+of Rome, sprang uniformly from the aristocratic classes. In the
+provinces, the poor sometimes rose, but very seldom. The whole aspect of
+society was a fearful inequality--disproportionate fortunes, slavery,
+and beggary. There was no middle class, of any influence or
+consideration. It was for the interest of people without means to enroll
+themselves in the service of the rich. Hence the immense numbers
+employed in the palaces in menial work. They would have been enrolled in
+the armies, but for their inefficiency. The army was recruited from the
+provinces--the rural population--and even from the barbarians
+themselves. There were no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one
+on an island in the Tiber. The old and helpless were left to die,
+unpitied and unconsoled. Suicide was so common that it attracted no
+attention, but infanticide was not so marked, since there was so little
+feeling of compassion for the future fate of the miserable children.
+Superstition culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and
+devotees of all the countries which it governed--"the dark-skinned
+daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of
+the Persian Mithras, imported by the Pompeians from Cilicia; emasculated
+Asiatics, priests of Berecynthian Cybele, with their wild dances and
+discordant cries; worshipers of the great goddess Diana; barbarian
+captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians, Jews, Chaldean
+astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers." Oh, what scenes of sin and
+misery did that imperial capital witness in the third and fourth
+centuries--sensualism and superstition, fears and tribulations,
+pestilence and famine, even amid the pomps of senatorial families, and
+the grandeur of palaces and temples. "The crowds which flocked to Rome
+from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, brought with them
+practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of initiation, the
+tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets and charms, the
+riddles of emblematical idolatry, with which the superstition of the
+East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who neither had the
+energy for a moral belief, nor the boldness requisite for logical
+skepticism." They were brutal, bloodthirsty, callous to the sight of
+suffering, and familiar with cruelties and crimes. They were
+superstitious, without religious faith, without hope, and without God in
+the world.
+
+[Sidenote: The slaves.]
+
+[Sidenote: Slavery.]
+
+We cannot pass by, in this enumeration of the different classes of Roman
+society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the
+population belonged to this servile class. Originally introduced by
+foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their
+debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many as a fifth part
+of the whole population. Four hundred were maintained in a single
+palace, at a comparatively early period. A freedman in the time of
+Augustus left behind him four thousand one hundred and sixteen. Horace
+regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a gentleman. Some
+senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the number at about
+sixty millions, one half of the whole population. One hundred thousand
+captives were taken in the Jewish war, who were sold as slaves, and sold
+as cheap as horses. [Footnote: Wm. Blair, _On Roman Slavery_,
+Edinburgh, 1833; Robertson, _On the State of the World at the
+Introduction of Christ_.] Blair supposes that there were three slaves
+to one freeman, from the conquest of Greece to the reign of Alexander
+Severus. Slaves often cost two hundred thousand sesterces. [Footnote:
+Martial, xii. 62.] Every body was eager to possess a slave. At one time
+his life was at the absolute control of his master. He could be treated
+at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and branded he toiled to
+cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at night he was shut up
+in subterranean cells. The laws did not recognize his claim to be
+considered scarcely as a moral agent. He was _secundum hominum
+genus_. He could acquire no rights, social or political. He was
+incapable of inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a
+legal marriage. His value was estimated like that of a brute. He was a
+thing and not a person--"a piece of furniture possessed of life." He was
+his master's property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a
+wealthy proprietor died, under circumstances which excited suspicion of
+foul play, his whole household was put to the torture. It is recorded,
+that, on the murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave
+in his possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless
+rabbles of the cities, and devoured the revenues of the state. All
+manual labor was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country. Even
+the mechanical arts were cultivated by the slaves. And more, slaves were
+schoolmasters, secretaries, actors, musicians, and physicians. In
+intelligence, they were on an equality with their masters. They came
+from Greece and Asia Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the
+African deserts. They were white as well as black. All captives in war
+were made slaves, and unfortunate debtors. Sometimes they could regain
+their freedom; but, generally, their condition became more and more
+deplorable. What a state of society when a refined and cultivated Greek
+could be made to obey the most offensive orders of a capricious and
+sensual Roman, without remuneration, without thanks, without favor,
+without redress. [Footnote: Says Juvenal, _Sat._ vi., "Crucify that
+slave. What is the charge to call for such a punishment? What witness
+can you present? Who gave the information? Listen! Idiot! So a slave is
+a man then! Granted he has done nothing. I _will_ it. I insist upon
+it. Let my will stand instead of reason." Read Martial, Juvenal, and
+Plautus.] What was to be expected of a class who had no object to live
+for. They became the most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and
+justly to be feared in the hour of danger. Slavery undoubtedly proved
+the most destructive canker of the Roman state. It destroyed its
+vitality. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which
+undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse,
+destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest
+labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent,
+powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this
+incubus, the standing disgrace of the pagan world. Paganism never
+recognized what is most noble and glorious in man; never recognized his
+equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. There was no
+compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest
+privileges. Its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and cause
+forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best, when the generous
+instincts are suppressed, and egotism and sensuality and pride are the
+dominant springs of human action.
+
+[Sidenote: Degradation of woman.]
+
+The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has
+given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general
+intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex. In the
+earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was
+simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic,
+woman was comparatively virtuous and respected. She asserted her natural
+equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the
+training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds. But,
+under the emperors, these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably
+educated, being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed
+to ribald conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions.
+She was regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and
+was chiefly valued for household labors. She was reduced to dependence;
+she saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her
+home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female
+slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be
+easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an
+animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the
+inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.
+Love after marriage was not frequent, since she did not shine in the
+virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous, or frivolous,
+without dignity or public esteem. Her happiness was in extravagant
+attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a
+retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in
+voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in
+frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so
+much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of
+arts to deceive her husband. Her genius was sharpened by perpetual
+devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty
+friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no
+ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her
+amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected,
+her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned. And
+here I do not allude to great and infamous examples which history has
+handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that
+unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of the
+times. I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the
+debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and
+Agrippinas of imperial Rome. I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine
+Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of
+Pompeii. But there was a general frivolity and extravagance among women
+which rendered marriage inexpedient, unless large dowries were brought
+to the husband. Numerous were the efforts of emperors to promote
+honorable marriages, but the relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped
+the privilege of wives, and with unblushing effrontery. A man was
+derided who contemplated matrimony, for there was but little confidence
+in female virtue or capacity. And woman lost all her fascination when
+age had destroyed her beauty. Even her very virtues were distasteful to
+her self-indulgent husband. And whenever she gained the ascendency by
+her charms, she was tyrannical. Her relations incited her to despoil her
+husband. She lived amid incessant broils. She had no care for the
+future, and exceeded men in prodigality. "The government of her house is
+no more merciful," says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian tyrant."
+In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of
+cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing. She delighted in magical
+incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal, we get
+an impression most melancholy and loathsome:--
+
+  "'T were long to tell what philters they provide,
+  What drugs to set a son-in-law aside.
+  Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong,
+  By every gust of passion borne along.
+  To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows;
+  Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes,
+  And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will
+  Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.
+  Women support the _bar_; they love the law,
+  And raise litigious questions for a straw;
+  Nay, more, they fence! who has not marked their oil,
+  Their purple rigs, for this preposterous toil!
+  A woman stops at nothing, when she wears
+  Rich emeralds round her neck, and in her ears
+  Pearls of enormous size; these justify
+  Her faults, and make all lawful in her eye.
+  More shame to Rome! in every street are found
+  The essenced Lypanti, with roses crowned,
+  The gay Miletan, and the Tarentine,
+  Lewd, petulant, and reeling ripe with wine!"
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of woman.]
+
+In the sixth satire of Juvenal is found the most severe delineation of
+woman that ever mortal penned. Doubtless he is libellous and
+extravagant, for only infamous women can stoop to such arts and
+degradations, which would seem to be common in his time. But, with all
+his exaggeration, we are forced to feel that but few women, even in the
+highest class, except those converted to Christianity, showed the
+virtues of a Lucretia, a Volumnia, a Cornelia, or an Octavia. There was
+but a universal corruption. The great virtues of a Perpetua, a
+Felicitas, an Agnes, a Paula, a Blessilla, a Fabiola, would have adorned
+any civilization. But the great mass were, what they were in Greece,
+even in the days of Pericles, what they have ever been under the
+influence of Paganism, what they ever will be without Christianity to
+guide them, victims or slaves of man, revenging themselves by
+squandering his wealth, stealing his secrets, betraying his interests,
+and deserting his home.
+
+[Sidenote: Games and festivals.]
+
+Another essential but demoralizing feature of Roman society, were the
+games and festivals and gladiatorial shows, which accustomed the people
+to unnatural excitements, and familiarity with cruelty and suffering.
+They made all ordinary pleasures insipid. They ended in making homicide
+an institution. The butcheries of the amphitheatre exerted a fascination
+which diverted the mind from literature, art, and the enjoyments of
+domestic life. Very early it was the favorite sport of the Romans.
+Marcus and Decimus Brutus employed gladiators in celebrating the
+obsequies of their fathers, nearly three centuries before Christ. "The
+wealth and ingenuity of the aristocracy were taxed to the utmost, to
+content the populace and provide food for the indiscriminate slaughter
+of the circus, where brute fought with brute, and man again with man, or
+where the skill and weapons of the latter were matched against the
+strength and ferocity of the first." Pompey let loose six hundred lions
+in the arena in one day. Augustus delighted the people with four hundred
+and twenty panthers. The games of Trajan lasted one hundred and twenty
+days, when ten thousand gladiators fought, and ten thousand beasts were
+slain. Titus slaughtered five thousand animals at a time. Twenty
+elephants contended, according, to Pliny, against a band of six hundred
+captives. Probus reserved six hundred gladiators for one of his
+festivals, and massacred, on another, two hundred lions, twenty
+leopards, and three hundred bears. Gordian let loose three hundred
+African hyenas and ten Indian tigers in the arena. Every corner of the
+earth was ransacked for these wild animals, which were so highly valued
+that, in the time of Theodosius, it was forbidden by law to destroy a
+Getulian lion. No one can contemplate the statue of the Dying Gladiator
+which now ornaments the capitol at Rome, without emotions of pity and
+admiration. If a marble statue can thus move us, what was it to see the
+Christian gladiators contending with the fierce lions of Africa. The
+"Christians to the lions," was the watchword of the brutal populace.
+What a sight was the old amphitheatre of Titus, five hundred and sixty
+feet long, and four hundred and seventy feet wide, built on eighty
+arches, and rising one hundred and forty feet into the air, with its
+four successive orders of architecture, and inclosing its eighty
+thousand seated spectators, arranged according to rank, from the emperor
+to the lowest of the populace, all seated on marble benches, covered
+with cushions, and protected from the sun and rain by ample canopies!
+What an excitement when men strove not with wild beasts alone, but with
+one another, and when all that human skill and strength, increased by
+elaborate treatment, and taxed to the uttermost, were put forth in the
+needless homicide, and until the thirsty soil was wet and matted with
+human gore! Familiarity with such sights must have hardened the heart
+and rendered the mind insensible to refined pleasures. What theatres are
+to the French, what bull-fights are to the Spaniards, what horse-races
+are to the English, these gladiatorial shows were to the ancient Romans.
+The ruins of hundreds of amphitheatres attest the universality of the
+custom, not in Rome alone, but in the provinces.
+
+[Sidenote: The circus.]
+
+The sports of the circus took place from the earliest periods. The
+Circus Maximus was capable of containing two hundred and sixty thousand,
+as estimated by Pliny. It was appropriated for horse and chariot races.
+The enthusiasm of the Romans for races exceeded all bounds. Lists of the
+horses, with their names and colors, and those of drivers, were handed
+about, and heavy bets made on each faction. The games commenced with a
+grand procession, in which all persons of distinction, and those who
+were to exhibit, took part. The statues of the gods formed a conspicuous
+feature in the show, and were carried on the shoulders as saints are
+carried in modern processions. The chariots were often drawn by eight
+horses, and four generally started in the race.
+
+The theatre was also a great place of resort. Scaurus built one capable
+of seating eighty thousand spectators. That of Pompey, near the Circus
+Maximus, could contain forty thousand. But the theatre had not the same
+attraction to the Romans that it had to the Greeks. They preferred
+scenes of pomp and splendor.
+
+[Sidenote: The circus and theatre.]
+
+[Sidenote: Baths.]
+
+No people probably abandoned themselves to pleasures more universally
+than the Romans, after war ceased to be the master passion. All classes
+alike pursued them with restless eagerness. Amusements were the fashion
+and the business of life. At the theatre, at the great gladiatorial
+shows, at the chariot races, senators and emperors and generals were
+always present in conspicuous and reserved seats of honor; behind them
+were the ordinary citizens, and in the rear of these, the people fed at
+the public expense. The Circus Maximus, the Theatre of Pompey, the
+Amphitheatre of Titus, would collectively accommodate over four hundred
+thousand spectators. We may presume that over five hundred thousand
+people were in the habit of constant attendance on these demoralizing
+sports. And the fashion spread throughout all the great cities of the
+empire, so that there was scarcely a city of twenty thousand people
+which had not its theatres, or amphitheatres, or circus. The enthusiasm
+of the Romans for the circus exceeded all bounds. And when we remember
+the heavy bets on favorite horses, and the universal passion for
+gambling in every shape, we can form some idea of the effect of these
+amusements on the common mind, destroying the taste for home pleasures,
+and for all that was intellectual and simple. What are we to think of a
+state of society, where all classes had leisure for these sports. Habits
+of industry were destroyed, and all respect for employments which
+required labor. The rich were supported by the contributions from the
+provinces, since they were the great proprietors of conquered lands. The
+poor had no solicitude for a living, for they were supported at the
+public expense. They, therefore, gave themselves up to pleasure. Even
+the baths, designed for sanatory purposes, became places of resort and
+idleness, and ultimately of improper intercourse. When the thermae came
+fully into public use, not only did men bathe together in numbers, but
+even men and women promiscuously in the same baths. In the time of
+Julius Caesar, we find no less a personage than the mother of Augustus
+making use of the public establishments; and in process of time the
+emperors themselves bathed in public with the meanest of their subjects.
+The baths in the time of Alexander Severus were not only kept open from
+sunrise to sunset, but even the whole night. The luxurious classes
+almost lived in the baths. Commodus took his meals in the bath. Gordian
+bathed seven times in the day, and Gallienus as often. They bathed
+before they took their meals, and after meals to provoke a new appetite.
+They did not content themselves with a single bath, but went through a
+course of baths in succession, in which the agency of air as well as
+water was applied. And the bathers were attended by an army of slaves
+given over to every sort of roguery and theft. "_O furum optume
+balmariorum_," exclaims Catullus, in disgust and indignation. Nor was
+water alone used. The common people made use of scented oils to anoint
+their persons, and perfumed the water itself with the most precious
+perfumes. Bodily health and cleanliness were only secondary
+considerations; voluptuous pleasure was the main object. The ruins of
+the baths of Titus, Caracalla, and Diocletian, in Rome, show that they
+were decorated with prodigal magnificence, and with every thing that
+could excite the passions--pictures, statues, ornaments, and mirrors.
+Says Seneca, Epistle lxxxvi., "_Nisi parietes magnis et preciosis
+orbibus refulserunt_." The baths were scenes of orgies consecrated to
+Bacchus, and the frescoes on the excavated baths of Pompeii still raise
+a blush on the face of every spectator who visits them. I speak not of
+the elaborate ornaments, the Numidian marbles, the precious stones, the
+exquisite sculptures, which formed part of the decorations of the Roman
+baths, but the demoralizing pleasures with which they were connected,
+and which they tended to promote. The baths became, according to the
+ancient writers, ultimately places of excessive and degrading
+debauchery.
+
+  "_Balnea, vina, Venas corrumpunt corpora nostra_."
+
+[Sidenote: Dress and ornament.]
+
+The Romans, originally, were not only frugal, but they dressed with
+great simplicity. In process of time, they became extravagantly fond of
+elaborately ornamented attire, particularly the women. They wore a great
+variety of rings and necklaces; they dyed their hair, and resorted to
+expensive cosmetics; they wore silks of various colors, magnificently
+embroidered. Pearls and rubies, for which large estates had been
+exchanged, were suspended from their ears. Their hair glistened with a
+network of golden thread. Their stolae were ornamented with purple bands,
+and fastened with diamond clasps, while their pallae trailed along the
+ground. Jewels were embroidered upon their sandals, and golden bands,
+pins, combs, and pomades raised the hair in a storied edifice upon the
+forehead. They reclined on luxurious couches, and rode in silver
+chariots. Their time was spent in paying and receiving visits, at the
+bath, the spectacle, and the banquet. Tables, supported on ivory
+columns, displayed their costly plate; silver mirrors were hung against
+the walls, and curious chests contained their jewels and money. Bronze
+lamps lighted their chambers, and glass vases, imitating precious
+stones, stood upon their cupboards. Silken curtains were suspended over
+the doors and from the ceilings, and lecticae, like palanquins, were
+borne through the streets by slaves, on which reclined the effeminated
+wives and daughters of the rich. Their gardens were rendered attractive
+by green-houses, flower-beds, and every sort of fruit and vine.
+
+But it was at their banquets the Romans displayed the greatest luxury
+and extravagance. No people ever thought more of the pleasures of the
+table. And the prodigality was seen not only in the indulgence of the
+palate by the choicest dainties, but in articles which commanded, from
+their rarity, the highest prices. They not only sought to eat daintily,
+but to increase their capacity by unnatural means. The maxim, "_Il
+faut manger pour vivre, et non pas vivre pour manger_," was reversed.
+At the fourth hour they breakfasted on bread, grapes, olives, and cheese
+and eggs; at the sixth they lunched, still more heartily; and at the
+ninth hour they dined; and this meal, the _coena_, was the
+principal one, which consisted of three parts: the first--the
+_gustus_--was made up of dishes to provoke an appetite, shell-fish
+and piquant sauces; the second--the _fercula_--composed of
+different courses; and the third--the dessert, a _mensae
+secundae_--composed of fruits and pastry. Fish were the chief object
+of the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the _rhombus_,
+and the _asellus_ were the most valued. It is recorded that a
+mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand
+sesterces. Oysters, from the Lucrine Lake, were in great demand. Snails
+were fed in ponds for the purpose, while the villas of the rich had
+their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peacocks and
+pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the
+absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest
+favorite was the wild boar, the chief dish of a grand _coena_, and
+came whole upon the table, and the practiced gourmand pretended to
+distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the
+very names of which excite disgust, were used at fashionable banquets,
+and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his
+"Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet. He
+refers to almost every fruit and vegetable and meat that we now use--to
+cabbages, leeks, turnips, asparagus, beans, beets, peas, lettuces,
+radishes, mushrooms, truffles, pulse, lentils, among vegetables; to
+pheasants, ducks, doves, geese, capons, pigeons, partridges, peacocks,
+Numidian fowls, cranes, woodcocks, swans, among birds; to mullets,
+lampreys, turbots, oysters, prawns, chars, murices, gudgeons, pikes,
+sturgeons, among fish; to raisins, figs, quinces, citrons, dates, plums,
+olives, apricots, among fruit; to sauces and condiments; to wild game,
+and to twenty different kinds of wine; on all of which he expatiates
+like an epicure. He speaks of the presents made to guests at feasts, the
+tablets of ivory and parchment, the dice-boxes, style-cases, toothpicks,
+golden hair-pins, combs, pomatum, parasols, oil-flasks, tooth-powder,
+balms and perfumes, slippers, dinner-couches, citron-tables, antique
+vases, gold-chased cups, snow-strainers, jeweled and crystal vases,
+rings, spoons, scarlet cloaks, table-covers, Cilician socks, pillows,
+girdles, aprons, mattresses, lyres, bath-bells, statues, masks, books,
+musical instruments, and other articles of taste, luxury, or necessity.
+The pleasures of the table, however, are ever uppermost in his eye, and
+the luxuries of those whom he could not rival, but which he reprobates:--
+
+
+  "Nor mullet delights thee, nice Betic, nor thrush;
+  The hare with the scut, nor the boar with the tusk;
+  No sweet cakes or tablets, thy taste so absurd,
+  Nor Libya need send thee, nor Phasis, a bird.
+  But capers and onions, besoaking in brine,
+  And brawn of a gammon scarce doubtful are thine.
+  Of garbage, or flitch of hoar tunny, thou'rt vain;
+  The rosin's thy joy, the Falernian thy bane."
+[Footnote: Martial, b. iii. p. 77.]
+
+[Sidenote: A poet's dinner.]
+
+He thus describes a modest dinner, to which he, a poet, invites his
+friend Turanius: "If you are suffering from dread of a melancholy dinner
+at home, or would take a preparatory whet, come and feast with me. You
+will find no want of Cappadocian lettuces and strong leeks. The tunny
+will lurk under slices of egg; a cauliflower hot enough to burn your
+fingers, and which has just left the garden, will be served fresh on a
+black platter; white sausages will float on snow-white porridge, and the
+pale bean will accompany the red-streaked bacon. In the second course,
+raisins will be set before you, and pears which pass for Syrian, and
+roasted chestnuts. The wine you will prove in drinking it. After all
+this, excellent olives will come to your relief, with the hot vetch and
+the tepid lupine. The dinner is small, who can deny it? but you will not
+have to invent falsehoods, or hear them invented; you will recline at
+ease, and with your own natural look; the host will not read aloud a
+bulky volume of his own compositions, nor will licentious girls, from
+shameless Cadiz, be there to gratify you with wanton attitudes; but the
+small reed pipe will be heard, and the nice Claudia, whose society you
+value even more than mine." [Footnote: _Ibid_. b. v. p. 78.]
+
+How different this poet's dinner, a table spread without luxury, and
+enlivened by wit and friendship, from that which Petronius describes of
+a rich freedman, which was more after the fashion of the vulgar and
+luxurious gourmands of his day.
+
+[Sidenote: Expensive furniture.]
+
+Next to the pleasures of the table, the passion for expensive furniture
+seemed to be the prevailing folly. We read of couches gemmed with
+tortoise-shell, and tables of citron-wood from Africa. Silver and gold
+vases, Tables, also, of Mauritanian marble, supported on pedestals of
+Lybian ivory; cups of crystal; all sorts of silver plate, the
+masterpieces of Myro, and the handiwork of Praxiteles, and the
+engravings of Phidias. Gold services adorned the sideboard. Couches were
+covered with purple silks. Chairs were elaborately carved; costly
+mirrors hung against the walls, and bronze lamps were suspended from the
+painted ceilings. But it was not always the most beautiful articles
+which were most prized, but those which were procured with the greatest
+difficulty, or brought from the remotest provinces. That which cost most
+received uniformly the greatest admiration.
+
+[Sidenote: Money making.]
+
+If it were possible to allude to an evil more revolting than the sports
+of the amphitheatre, or the extravagant luxuries of the table, I would
+say that the universal abandonment to money-making, for the enjoyment of
+the factitious pleasures it purchased, was even still more melancholy,
+since it struck deeper into the foundations which supported society. The
+leading spring of life was money. Boys were bred from early youth to all
+the mysteries of unscrupulous gains. Usury was practiced to such an
+incredible extent that the interest on loans, in some instances equaled,
+in a few months, the whole capital. This was the more aristocratic mode
+of making money, which not even senators disdained. The pages of the
+poets show how profoundly money was prized, and how miserable were
+people without it. Rich old bachelors, without heirs, were held in the
+supremest honor. Money was the first object in all matrimonial
+alliances, and provided that women were only wealthy, neither bridegroom
+nor parent was fastidious as to age, or deformity, or meanness of
+family, or vulgarity of person. The needy descendants of the old
+Patricians yoked themselves with fortunate Plebeians, and the blooming
+maidens of a comfortable obscurity sold themselves, without shame or
+reluctance, to the bloated sensualists who could give them what they
+supremely valued, chariots and diamonds. It was useless to appeal to
+elevated sentiments when happiness consisted in an outside, factitious
+life. The giddy women, in love with ornaments and dress, and the godless
+men, seeking what they should eat, could only be satisfied with what
+purchased their pleasures. The haughtiest aristocracy ever known on
+earth, tracing their lineage to the times of Cato, and boasting of their
+descent from the Scipios and the Pompeys, accustomed themselves at last
+to regard money as the only test of their own social position. There was
+no high social position disconnected with fortune. Even poets and
+philosophers were neglected, and gladiators and buffoons preferred
+before them. The great Augustine found himself utterly neglected at
+Rome, because he was dependent on his pupils, and his pupils were mean
+enough to run away without paying. Literature languished and died, since
+it brought neither honor nor emolument. No dignitary was respected for
+his office, only for his gains; nor was any office prized which did not
+bring rich emoluments. And corruption was so universal, that an official
+in an important post was sure of making a fortune in a short time. With
+such an idolatry of money, all trades and professions fell into
+disrepute which were not favorable to its accumulation, while those who
+administered to the pleasures of a rich man were held in honor. Cooks,
+buffoons, and dancers, received the consideration which artists and
+philosophers enjoyed at Athens in the days of Pericles. But artists and
+scholars were very few indeed in the more degenerate days of the empire.
+Nor would they have had influence. The wit of a Petronius, the ridicule
+of a Martial, the bitter sarcasm of a Juvenal, were lost on a people
+abandoned to frivolous gossip and demoralizing excesses. The haughty
+scorn with which a sensual beauty, living on the smiles and purse of a
+fortunate glutton, would pass, in her gilded chariot, some of the
+impoverished descendants of the great Camillus, might have provoked a
+smile, had any one been found, even a neglected poet, to have given them
+countenance and sympathy. But, alas! every body worshiped the shrine of
+Mammon. Every body was valued for what he _had_, rather than for
+what he _was_; and life was prized, not for those pleasures which
+are cheap and free as heaven, not for quiet tastes and rich affections
+and generous sympathies and intellectual genius,--the glorious
+certitudes of love, esteem, and friendship, which, "be they what they
+may, are yet the fountain-life of all our day,"--but for the
+gratification of depraved and expensive tastes; those short-lived
+enjoyments which ended with the decay of appetite, and the _ennui_
+of realized expectation,--all of the earth, earthy; making a wreck of
+the divine image which was made for God and heaven, and preparing the
+way for a most fearful retribution, and producing, on contemplative
+minds, a sadness allied with despair, driving them to caves and
+solitudes, and making death the relief from sorrow. Cynicism, scorn,
+unbelief, and disgusting coarseness and vulgarity, made grand sentiments
+an idle dream. The fourteenth satire of Juvenal is directed mainly to
+the universal passion for gain, and the demoralizing vices it brings in
+its train, which made Rome a Pandemonium and a Vanity Fair.
+"Flatterers," says he, "consider misers as men of happy minds, since
+they admire wealth supremely, and think no instance can be found of a
+poor man that is also happy; and therefore they exhort their sons to
+apply themselves to the arts of money making. Come, boys; sack the
+Numidian hovels and the forts of Brigantes, that your sixtieth year may
+bestow on you the eagle which will make you rich. Or, if you shrink from
+the long-protracted labors of the camp, then bring something that you
+may profitably dispose of, and never let disgust of trade enter your
+head, nor think that any difference can be drawn between perfumes and
+leather. The smell of gain is good from any thing whatever. No one
+asks you _how_ you get money, but _have_ it you must." The poet
+Persius paints this passion for gold, displayed in the customs of the
+day, in a strain at once lofty and mournful, bitter and satirical:
+[Footnote: _Satire_ ii.]--
+
+  "O that I could my rich old uncle see
+  In funeral pomp! O that some deity
+  To pots of buried gold would guide my share!
+  O that my ward, whom I succeed as heir,
+  Were once at rest! Poor child! he lies in pain,
+  And death to him must be accounted gain.
+  By will thrice has Nerius swelled his store,
+  And now he is a widower once more.
+  O groveling souls, and void of things divine!
+  Why bring our passions to the immortal's shrine?"
+
+The old Greek philosophers gloried in their poverty; but poverty was the
+greatest reproach to a Roman. "In exact proportion to the sum of money a
+man keeps in his chest," says Juvenal, [Footnote: _Satire_ iii.]
+"is the credit given to his oath. And the first question ever asked of a
+man is in reference to his income, rather than his character. How many
+slaves does he keep? How many acres does he own? What dishes are his
+table spread with?--these are the universal inquiries. Poverty, bitter
+though it be, has no sharper sting than this,--that it makes them
+ridiculous. Who was ever allowed at Rome to become a son-in-law if his
+estate was inferior, and not a match for the portion of the young lady?
+What poor man's name appears in any will? When is one summoned to a
+consultation even by an aedile?"
+
+  "Long, long ago, in one despairing band,
+  The poor, self-exiled, should have left the land."
+
+And with this reproach of poverty there was no means to escape from it.
+Nor was there alleviation. A man was regarded as a fool who gave any
+thing except to the rich. Charity and benevolence were unknown virtues.
+The sick and the miserable were left to die unlamented and unknown.
+Prosperity and success, no matter by what means they were purchased,
+secured reverence and influence.
+
+Indeed, the Romans were a worldly, selfish, Epicurean people, for whom
+we can feel but little admiration in any age of the republic. They never
+were finely moulded. They had no sentiment, unless in the earlier ages,
+it took the form of glory and patriotism. In their prosperity, they were
+proud and scornful. In adversity, they buried themselves in low
+excesses. They were not easily moved by softening influences. They had
+no lofty idealism, like the Greeks; nor were they even social, as they
+were. They were disgustingly _practical. Oui bono?_--"who shall
+show us any good?"--this was their by-word, this the sole principle of
+their existence. They were jealous of their dignity, and carried away by
+pomps and show. They were fond of etiquette and ceremony, and were
+conventional in all their habits. They had very little true intellectual
+independence, and were slaves of fashion as they were of ceremony and
+dress. They were inordinately greedy of social position and of social
+distinctions. They loved titles and surnames and inequalities of rank.
+They plumed themselves on taking a common-sense view of life, disdaining
+all lofty standards. They were dazzled by an outside life, and cared but
+little for the great certitudes on which real dignity and happiness
+rest. They had no conception of philanthropy. They lived for themselves.
+Nor had they veneration for ideal worth or beauty or abstract truth.
+They were reserved and reticent and haughty in social life. They were
+superstitious, and believed in dreams and omens and talismans. They were
+hospitable to their friends, but chiefly to display their wealth and
+pomp. They were coarse and indecent in banquets. They loved money
+supremely, but squandered it recklessly to gratify vanity. They had no
+high conceptions of art. They were copyists of the Greeks, and never
+produced any thing original but jurisprudence. They did not even add to
+the arts and sciences, which they applied to practical purposes. Their
+literature never produced a sentimentalist; their philosophy never
+soared into idealism; their art never ventured upon new creations. Their
+supreme ambition was to rule, and to rule despotically. They gloried in
+slavery, and degraded women and trod upon the defenseless. They had no
+pity, no gentleness, no delicacy of feeling. They could not comprehend a
+disinterested action. They lived to eat and drink, and wear robes of
+purple, and ride in chariots of silver, and receive greetings in the
+market-place, and be attended by an army of sycophants, flatterers, and
+slaves. What was elevated and what was pure were laughed at as unreal,
+as dreamy, as transcendental. All science was directed to
+_utilities_, and utilities were wines, rare fishes and birds,
+carpets, silks, cooking, palaces, chariots, horses, pomps. Their supreme
+idea was conquest, dominion over man, over beast, over seas, over
+nature--all with a view of becoming rich, comfortable, honorable. This
+was their Utopia. Epicurus was their god. Sensualism was the convertible
+term for their utilities, and pervaded their literature, their social
+life, and their public efforts; extinguishing poetry, friendship,
+affections, genius, self-sacrifice, lofty sentiments--the real utilities
+which make up our higher life, and fit man for an ever-expanding
+felicity. Practically, they were atheists--unbelievers of what is fixed
+and immutable in the soul, and glorious in the soul's aspirations. They
+had will and passion, sagacity and the power to rule, by which they
+became aggrandized; but they were wanting in those elements and virtues
+which endear their memory to mankind. They were both tyrants and
+sensualists; fitted to make conquests, unfitted to enjoy them. In an
+important sense, they were great civilizers, but their civilization
+pertained to material life. They worshiped the god of the sense, rather
+than the god of the reason; and, compared with the Greeks, bequeathed
+but little to our times which we value, except laws and maxims of
+government, and ideas of centralized power.
+
+Such was imperial Rome, in all the internal relations of life, and amid
+all the trophies and praises which resulted from universal conquest. I
+cannot understand the enthusiasm of Gibbon for such a people, or for
+such an empire,--a grinding and resistless imperial despotism, a
+sensual and proud aristocracy, a debased and ignorant populace,
+disproportionate fortunes, slavery flourishing to a state unprecedented
+in the world's history, women the victims and the toys of men, lax
+sentiments of public morality, a whole people given over to demoralizing
+sports and spectacles, pleasure the master passion of the people, money
+the mainspring of society, all the vices which lead to violence and
+prepare the way for the total eclipse of the glory of man. What was a
+cultivated face of nature, or palaces, or pomps, or a splendid material
+civilization, or great armies, or a numerous population, or the triumph
+of energy and skill, when the moral health was completely undermined?
+The external grandeur was nothing amid so much vice and wickedness and
+wretchedness. A world, therefore, as fair and glorious as our own, must
+needs crumble away. There were no proper conservative forces. The poison
+had descended to the extremities of the social system. A corrupt body
+must die when vitality had fled. The soul was gone. Principle,
+patriotism, virtue, had all passed away. The barbarians were advancing
+to conquer and desolate. There was no power to resist them, but
+enervated and timid legions, with the accumulated vices of all the
+nations of the earth, which they had been learning for four hundred
+years. Society must needs resolve itself into its original elements when
+men would not make sacrifices, and so few belonged to their country. The
+machine was sure to break up at the first great shock. No state could
+stand with such an accumulation of wrongs, with such complicated and
+fatal diseases eating out the vitals of the empire. The house was built
+upon the sands. The army may have rallied under able generals, in view
+of the approaching catastrophe; philosophy may have gilded the days of a
+few indignant citizens; good emperors may have attempted to raise
+barriers against corruption; and even Christianity may have converted by
+thousands: still nothing, according to natural laws, could save the
+empire. It was doomed. Retributive justice must march on in its majestic
+course. The empire had accomplished its mission. The time came for it to
+die. The Sibylline oracle must needs be fulfilled: "O haughty Rome, the
+divine chastisement shall come upon thee; the fire shall consume thee;
+thy wealth shall perish; foxes and wolves shall dwell among thy ruins:
+and then what land that thou hast enslaved shall be thy ally, and which
+of thy gods shall save thee? for there shall be confusion over the face
+of the whole earth, and the fall of cities shall come." [Footnote: If
+any one thinks this general description of Roman life and manners
+exaggerated, he can turn from such poets as Juvenal and Martial, and
+read what St. Pani says in the first chapter of the _Epistle to the
+Romans._]
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+REFERENCES.--Mr. Merivale has written most fully of modern writers on
+the condition of the empire. Gibbon has occasional paragraphs which show
+the condition of Roman society. Lyman's Life of the Emperors should be
+read, and also DeQuincy's Lives of the Caesars. See, also, Niebuhr,
+Arnold, and Mommsen, though these writers have chiefly confined
+themselves to republican Rome. But, if one would get the truest and most
+vivid description, he must read the Roman poets, especially Juvenal and
+Martial. The work of Petronius is too indecent to be read. Ammianus
+Marcellinus gives us some striking pictures of the latter Romans.
+Suetonius, in his Lives of the Caesars, furnishes many facts. Becker's
+Gallus is a fine description of Roman habits and customs. Smith's
+Dictionary of Antiquities should be consulted, as it is a great
+thesaurus of important facts. Lucian does not describe Roman manners,
+but he aims his sarcasms on the hollowness of Roman life, as do the
+great satirists generally. Tillemont is the basis of Gibbon's history,
+so far as pertains to the emperors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
+
+
+We have contemplated the grandeur and the glory of the Roman empire; and
+we have also seen, in connection with the magnificent triumphs of art,
+science, literature, and philosophy, a melancholy degradation of
+society, so fatal and universal, that all strength was undermined, and
+nothing was left but worn-out mechanisms and lifeless forms to resist
+the pressure of external enemies. So vast, so strong, so proud was this
+empire, that no one dreamed it could ever be subverted. With all the
+miseries of the people, with that hateful demoralization which pervaded
+all classes and orders and interests, there was still a splendid
+external, which called forth general panegyrics, and the idea of public
+danger was derided or discredited. If Rome, in the infancy of the
+republic, had resisted the invading Gauls, what was there to fear from
+the half-naked barbarians who lived beyond the boundaries of the empire?
+The long-continued peace and prosperity had engendered not merely the
+vices of self-interest, those destructive cankers which ever insure a
+ruin, but a general feeling of security and self-exaggeration. The
+eternal city was still prosperous and proud, the centre of all that was
+grand in the civilization of the ancient world. Provincial cities vied
+with the capital in luxuries, in pomps, in sports, and in commercial
+wealth. The cultivated face of nature betokened universal prosperity.
+Nothing was wanting but energy, genius, and virtue among the people.
+
+[Sidenote: Prosperity deceptive.]
+
+But all this prosperity was deceptive. All was rotten and hollow at
+heart; and, had there not been universal delusion, it would have been
+apparent that the machine would break up at the first great shock. There
+was no spring in the splendid mechanism. It was broken, and society had
+really been retrograding from the time of Trajan--from the moment that
+it had completed its task of conquest. There was a strange torpor
+everywhere, so soon as external antagonism had ceased, and if the
+barbarians had not come the empire would have been disintegrated, and
+would scarcely have lasted two centuries longer.
+
+[Sidenote: The empire had fulfilled its mission.]
+
+Moreover, the empire had fulfilled its mission. It had conquered the
+world that a great centralization of power might be created, under which
+peace and plenty might reign, and a new religion might spread.
+
+Still, whatever the plans of Providence may have been in allowing that
+imperial despotism to grow and spread from the banks of the Tiber to the
+uttermost parts of the civilized world, we cannot but feel that a great
+retribution was deserved for the crimes which Rome had committed upon
+mankind. He that takes the sword shall perish with the sword. Rome had
+drank of the blood of millions, and was foul with all the abominations
+of the countries she had subdued, and her turn must come, and a new race
+must try new experiments for humanity.
+
+[Sidenote: War the instrument of punishment.]
+
+The great instrument of God in punishing wicked nations and effecting
+important changes, is war. There are other forms or divine displeasure.
+Plague, pestilence, and famine are often sent upon degraded peoples. But
+these are either the necessary attendants on war itself, or they are
+limited and transient. They do not produce the great revolutions in
+which new ideas are born and new forms of social life arise.
+
+But war seems to be the ultimate scourge of God, when he dooms nations
+to destruction, or to great changes. It combines within itself all kinds
+of evil and calamity--poverty, sickness, captivity, disgrace, and
+death. A conquered nation is most forlorn and dismal. The song of the
+conquered is--"By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept."
+
+The passions which produce war are born in hell. They are pride,
+ambition, cruelty, avarice, and lust. These are the natural causes which
+array nation against nation, or people against people. But these are
+second causes. The primary cause is God, who useth the passions and
+interests of men, as his instruments of punishment.
+
+[Sidenote: Illustrated by the history of nations.]
+
+How impressive the history of the different civilized nations, which
+formed so large a part of the universal monarchy of the Romans. Assyria,
+Egypt, Persia, Asia Minor, Palestine, Greece, had successively been
+great empires and states--independent and conquering. They arose from
+the prevalence of martial virtues, of courage, temperance, fortitude,
+allied with ambition and poverty. Then monarchs craved greater power and
+possessions. Their passions were inexcusable; but they possessed men who
+were powerful and not enslaved to enervating vices. They made war on
+nations sunk in effeminacy and vile idolatries--men worse than they. The
+conquered nations needed chastisement and reconstruction; and,
+generally, by their blindness and arrogance, provoked the issue. Wealth
+and power had inflated them with false security, with egotistic aims; or
+else had enervated them and undermined their strength. They became
+subject to a stronger power. Their pride was buried in the dust. They
+became enslaved, miserable, ruined. They were punished in as signal,
+though not miraculous manner, as the Antediluvians, or the cities of
+Sodom and Gomorrah. The same hand, _however_, is seen in vengeance
+and in mercy. They regained in adversity the strength they had lost in
+prosperity, and civilization lost nothing by their sufferings.
+
+[Sidenote: Wars over-ruled.]
+
+The conquering powers, in their turn, became powerful, wealthy, and
+corrupt. Effeminacy and weakness succeeded; war came upon them, and they
+became the prey of the stronger. Their conquerors, again, were enslaved
+by their vices, and their empire passed away in the same gloom and
+despair.
+
+We see, however, in each successive conquest, the destruction, not of
+civilization, but of men. Countries are overrun, thrones are subverted,
+the rich are made slaves, the proud utter cries of despair; but the land
+survives, and arts and science take a new direction, and the new masters
+are more interested in great improvements than the old tyrants. The
+condition of Babylonia was probably better for the Persian conquest,
+while the whole oriental world gained by the wars of Alexander. Grecian
+culture succeeded Persian misrule. The Romans came and took away from
+Grecian dynasties, in Asia and Egypt, when they became enfeebled by
+prosperity and self-indulgence, the powers they had usurped, without
+destroying Grecian civilization. That remained, and will remain, in some
+form, forever, as an heirloom of priceless value to all future nations.
+The Greeks, when they conquered the Persians, had also spared the most
+precious monuments of their former industry and genius. The Romans,
+also, when they conquered Greece itself, guarded and prized her peculiar
+contributions to mankind. And they gave to all these conquered
+territories, something of their own. They gave laws, and a good
+government. The Grecian and Asiatic cities were humiliated by what they
+regarded as barbaric inroads; for the culture of Athens, Corinth,
+Antioch, and Ephesus, was higher than that of Rome, at that time; but
+who can doubt a beneficent change in the administration of public
+affairs? Society was doubtless improved everywhere by the Roman
+conquests. It is not probable that Athens, after she became tributary to
+Rome, was equal to the Athens of Pericles and Plato; but it is probable
+that society in Athens was better than what it was for a century before
+her fall. But what if particular cities suffered? These did not
+constitute the whole country. Can it be doubted that Syria, as a
+province, enjoyed more rational liberty and more scope for energy, under
+the Roman rule, than under that of the degenerate scions of the old
+Grecian kings? We see a retribution in the conquest, and also a blessing
+in disguise.
+
+[Sidenote: The Celtic nations.]
+
+But still more forcibly are these truths illustrated in the conquest of
+the Celtic nations of Europe. They were barbarians; they had neither
+science, nor literature, nor art; they were given over to perpetual
+quarrels, and to rude pleasures. Ignorance, superstition, and
+unrestrained passions were the main features of society. Other rude
+warriors wandered from place to place, with no other end than pillage.
+They had fine elements of character, but they needed civilization. They
+were conquered. The Romans taught them laws, and language, and
+literature, and arts. Cities arose among them, and these conquered
+barbarians became the friends of order and peace, and formed the most
+prosperous part of the whole empire. It was from these Celtic nations
+that the Roman armies were recruited. The great men of Rome, in the
+second and third centuries, came from these Celtic provinces. They
+infused a new blood into the decaying body. Who can doubt the benefit to
+mankind by the conquests of Britain, of Gaul, and of Spain? The Romans
+proved the greatest civilizers of the ancient world, with all their
+arrogance and want of appreciation of those things which gave a glory to
+the Greeks. They introduced among the barbaric nations their own arts,
+language, literature, and laws; and the civilization which they taught
+never passed away. It was obscured, indeed, during the revolutions which
+succeeded the fall of the empire, but it was gradually revived, and
+beamed with added lustre when its merits were at last perceived.
+
+Thus wars are not an unmixed calamity, since the evils are overruled in
+the ultimate good of nations. But they are a great calamity for the
+time, and they are sent when nations most need chastisement.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquest of the Celts.]
+
+The Romans triumphed, by their great and unexampled energy and patience
+and heroism, over all the world, and erected their universal empire upon
+the ruins of all the states of antiquity. They were suffered to increase
+and prosper, that great ends might be accomplished, either by the
+punishment of the old nations, or the creation of a new civilization.
+
+But they, in their turn, became corrupted by prosperity, and enervated
+by peace. They had been guilty of the most heartless and cruel
+atrocities for eight hundred years. Their empire was built upon the
+miseries of mankind. They also must needs suffer retribution.
+
+It was long delayed. It did not come till every conservative influence
+had failed. The condition of society was becoming worse and worse, until
+it reached a depravity and an apathy fatal to all genius, and more
+disgraceful than among those people whom they stigmatized as barbarians.
+Then must come revolution, or races would run out and civilization be
+lost.
+
+[Sidenote: Barbaric conquests.]
+
+God sent war--universal, cruel, destructive war, at the hands of unknown
+warriors; and they effected a total eclipse of the glory of man. The
+empire was resolved into its original elements. Its lands were overrun
+and pillaged; its cities were burned and robbed; and unmitigated
+violence overspread the earth, so that the cry of despair ascended to
+heaven, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Caspian Sea. Indeed, the end
+of the world was so generally believed to be at hand, on this universal
+upturning of society, that some of the best men fled to caves and
+deserts; and there were more monks that sought personal salvation by
+their austerities, than soldiers who braved their lives in battle.
+
+It is this great revolution which I seek to present, this great
+catastrophe to which the Romans were subjected, after having conquered
+one hundred and twenty millions of people. It was probably the most
+mournful, in all its aspects, ever seen on the face of this earth since
+the universal deluge. Never, surely, were such calamities produced by
+the hand of man. The Greeks and Romans, when they had conquered a
+rebellious or enervated nation, introduced their civilization, and
+promoted peace and general security. They brought laws, science,
+literature, and arts, in the train of their armies; they did not sweep
+away ancient institutions; they left the people as they found them, only
+with greater facilities of getting rich; they preserved the pictures,
+the statues, and the temples; they honored the literature and revered
+the sages who taught it; they may have brought captives to their
+capitals as slaves, but they did not root out every trace of
+cultivation, or regarded it with haughty scorn. But, when their turn of
+punishment came, the whole world was filled with mourning and
+desolation, and all the relations of society were reversed.
+
+[Sidenote: Infatuation of the Romans.]
+
+It was a sad hour in the old capital of the world, when its blinded
+inhabitants were aroused from the stupendous delusion that they were
+invincible; when the crushing fact stared every one in the face, that
+the legions had been conquered, that province after province had been
+overrun, that proud and populous cities had fallen, that the barbarians
+were advancing, treading beneath their feet all that had been deemed
+valuable, or rare, or sacred, that they were advancing to the very gates
+of Rome,--that her doom was sealed, that there was no shelter to which
+they could fly, that there was no way by which ruin could be averted,
+that they were doomed to hopeless poverty or servitude, that their wives
+and daughters would be subject to indignities which were worse than
+death, and that all the evils their ancestors had inflicted in their
+triumphant march, would be visited upon them with tenfold severity. The
+Romans, even then, when they cast their eyes upon external nature, saw
+rich corn-fields, smiling vineyards, luxurious gardens, yea, villas and
+temples and palaces without end; and how could these be destroyed which
+had lasted for centuries? How could the eternal city, which had not seen
+a foreign enemy near its gates since the invasion of the Gauls, which
+had escaped all dangers, so rich and gay, how could she now yield to
+naked barbarians from unknown forests? They still beheld the splendid
+mechanism of government, the glitter and the pomp of armies, triumphal
+processions, new monuments of victory, the proud eagles, and all the
+emblems of unlimited dominion. What had _they_ to fear? "_Nihil
+est, Quirites, quod timere possitis_."
+
+[Sidenote: Fatal security of the Romans.]
+
+Nor to the eye of contemporaries was the great change, which had
+gradually taken place since the reign of Trajan, apparent. Cowardice and
+weakness were veiled from the view of men. In proportion to the
+imbecility of the troops, were the richness of their uniform, and the
+insolence of their manners. It was the day of boasts and pomps. All
+forms and emblems had their ancient force. All men partook of the vices
+and follies which were praised. In their levity and delusion, they did
+not see the real emptiness and hollowness of their institutions. A
+blinded generation never can see the signs of the times. Only a few
+contemplative men hid themselves in retired places, but were denounced
+as croakers or evil minded. Every body was interested in keeping up the
+delusion. Panics seldom last long. The world is too fond of its ease to
+believe the truths which break up repose and gains. All felt safe,
+because they had always been protected. Ruin might come ultimately, but
+not in their day. "_Apres moi le deluge_" No one would make
+sacrifices, since no one feared immediate danger. Moreover, public
+spirit and patriotism had fled. If their cities were in danger, they
+said, better perish here with our wives and children than die on the
+frontiers after having suffered every privation and exposure. There must
+have been a universal indifference, or the barbarians could not have
+triumphed. The Romans had every inducement which any people ever had to
+a brave and desperate resistance. Not merely their own lives, but the
+security of their families was at stake. Their institutions, their
+interests, their rights, their homes, their altars, all were in
+jeopardy. And they were attacked by most merciless enemies, without pity
+or respect, and yet they would not fight, as nations should fight, and
+do sometimes fight, when their country is invaded. Why did they offer no
+more stubborn resistance? Why did the full-armed and well-trained
+legions yield to barbaric foes, without discipline and without the most
+effective weapons? Alas, dispirited and enervated people will never
+fight. They prefer slavery to death. Thus Persia succumbed before
+Alexander, and Asia Minor before the Saracen generals. Martial courage
+goes hand in hand with virtue. Without elevation of sentiment there will
+be no self-sacrifice. There is no hope when nations are abandoned to
+sensuality or egotism.
+
+[Sidenote: Weakness of the empire.]
+
+We must believe in a most extraordinary degeneracy of society, or Rome
+would not have fallen. With any common degree of courage, the empire
+should have resisted the Goths and Vandals. They were not more numerous
+than those hordes which Marius and Caesar annihilated even in their own
+marshes and forests. It was not like the Macedonians, with their
+impenetrable phalanx, and their perfected armor, contending with semi-
+barbarians. It was not like the Spaniards, marching over Peru and
+Mexico. It was not like the English, with all the improved weapons of
+our modern times, firing upon a people armed with darts and arrows. But
+it was barbarians, without defensive armor, without discipline, without
+prestige, attacking legions which had been a thousand years learning the
+art of war. _Proh Pudor!_ The soldiers of the empire must have lost
+their ancient spirit. They must have represented a most worthless
+people. We lose our pity in the strength of our indignation and disgust.
+A civilized nation that will yield to barbarians must deserve their
+fate. Noble as were the elements of character among the Germanic tribes,
+they were yet barbarians in arts, in manners, in knowledge, in
+mechanisms. They had nothing but brute force. Science should have
+conquered brute force; but it did not. We cannot but infer a most
+startling degeneracy. It is to be regretted that we have no more
+satisfactory data as to the precise state of society. I am inclined to
+the opinion that society was much more degraded than it is generally
+supposed. When for two centuries the whole empire scarcely produced a
+poet, or a philosopher, or an historian; when even the writings of
+famous men in the time of Augustus were lost or unread; when, from
+Trajan to Honorius, a period of three hundred and fifty years, scarcely
+a work of original genius appeared, it must be that society was utterly
+demoralized, and all life and vigor had fled.
+
+[Sidenote: Conquerors of Rome.]
+
+Then it was time for the empire to fall. And it is our work to sketch
+the ruin--and such a ruin. The bloody conquerors were Goths and Vandals,
+and other Teutonic tribes--Franks, Sueves, Alans, Heruli, Burgundians,
+Lombards, Saxons. They came originally from Central Asia, in the region
+of the Caspian Sea, and were kindred to the Medes and Persians. They
+drove before them older inhabitants, probably Celtic nations, and
+ultimately settled in the vast region between the Baltic and the Danube,
+the Rhine and the Vistula, embracing those countries which are now
+called Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.
+
+[Sidenote: The Germanic nations.]
+
+All these tribes were probably similar in manners, habits, tastes, and
+natural elements of character. Tacitus has furnished us with the most
+authentic record of their customs and peculiarities. [Footnote: Tacitus,
+_De Moribus Germanorum_.] Their eyes were stern and blue, their
+hair red, their bodies large, their strength great. They were ruled by
+kings, but not with unlimited power. The priests had also an
+extraordinary influence, which they shared with the women, who were
+present in battles, and who were characterized for great purity and
+courage. Even the power to predict the future was ascribed to women. The
+Germans were superstitious, and were given to divinations by omens and
+lots, by the flight of birds and the neighing of horses. They transacted
+no business, public or private, without being armed. They were warlike
+in all their habits and tastes, and the field of battle was the field of
+glory. Their chief deity was an heroic prince. Odin, the type-man of the
+nation, was a wild captain, who taught that it was most honorable to die
+in battle. They hated repose and inactivity, and, when not engaged in
+war, they pursued with eagerness the pleasures of the chase; yet, during
+the intervals of war and hunting, they divided their time between
+sleeping and feasting. They loved the forests, and dangerous sports, and
+adventurous enterprises. They abhorred cities, which they regarded as
+prisons of despotism. A rude passion for personal independence was one
+of their chief characteristics, as powerful as veneration for the women
+and religious tendency of mind. They would brook no restraint on their
+wills or their passions. Their wills were stern and their passions
+impetuous. They only yielded to the voice of entreaty or of love. They
+were ordinarily temperate, except on rare occasions, when they indulged
+in drunken festivities. Chastity was a virtue which was rigorously
+practiced. There were few cases of adultery among them, and the
+unfaithful wife was severely punished. Men and women, without seductive
+spectacles or convivial banquets, were fenced around with chastity, and
+bound together by family ties. Polygamy was unknown, and the marriage
+obligation was sacred. The wife brought no dowry to her husband, but
+received one from him, not frivolous presents, but oxen, a caparisoned
+steed, a shield, spear, and sword, to indicate that she is to be a
+partner in toil and danger, to suffer and to dare in peace and war.
+Hospitality was another virtue, extended equally to strangers and
+acquaintances, but, at the festive board, quarrels often took place, and
+enmities once formed were rarely forgiven. Vindictive resentments were
+as marked as cordial and frank friendships. They drank beer or ale,
+instead of wine, at their feasts, although their ordinary drink was
+water. Their food was fruits, cheese, milk, and venison. They had an
+inordinate passion for gambling, and would even stake their very freedom
+on a throw. Slavery was common, but not so severe and ruthless as among
+the Romans. They had but little commerce, and were unacquainted with the
+arts of usury. Their agriculture was rude, and corn was the only product
+they raised. They had the ordinary domestic animals, but their horses
+were neither beautiful nor swift.
+
+[Sidenote: The native elements of character of the barbarians.]
+
+It is easy to see that, in their manners and traits, they had a great
+resemblance to the Celts, before they were subdued and civilized, but
+were not so passionate, nor impulsive, nor thoughtless, nor reckless as
+they. Nor were they so much addicted to gluttony and drunkenness. They
+were more persevering, more earnest, more truthful, and more chaste. Nor
+were they so much enslaved by the priesthood. The Druidical rule was
+confined to the Celts, yet, like the Celts, they worshiped God in the
+consecrated grove. Their religion was pantheistic: they saw God in the
+rocks, the rain, the thunder, the clouds, the rivers, the mountains, the
+stars. He was supposed to preside everywhere, and to be a supreme
+intelligence. Their view of God was quite similar to the early Ionic
+philosophers of Greece: "_Regnator omnium deus, coetera subjecta atque
+parentia_." They Were never idol-worshipers; they worshiped nature,
+and called its wonders gods. But this worship of nature was modified by
+the worship of a hero. In Odin they beheld strength, courage,
+magnanimity, the attributes they adored. To be brave was an elemental
+principle of religion, and they attributed to the Deity every thing
+which could inspire horror as the terrible,--the angry god who marked
+out those destined to be slain. Hence their groves, where he was
+supposed to preside, were dark and mysterious. We adore the gloom of
+woods, the silence which reigns around. "_Lucos atque in iis silentia,
+ipsa adoremus_." While the priests of this awful being were not so
+despotic as the Druids, they still exercised a great ascendency: they
+conjured the storms of internal war; they pronounced the terrible
+anathema; they imparted to military commanders a sacred authority; and
+they carried at the head of their armies the consecrated banner of the
+Deity. In short, they wielded those spiritual weapons which afterward
+became thunderbolts in the hands of the clergy, and which prepared the
+way for the autocratic reign of the popes, in whom the Germanic nations
+ever recognized the vicegerent of their invisible Lord. They were most
+preeminently a religious people, governed by religious ideas--by which I
+mean they recognized a deity to whose will they were to be obedient, and
+whose favor could only be purchased by deeds of valor or virtue. Their
+morality sprung out of veneration for the Great Unseen, in whose hands
+were their destinies.
+
+This trait is the most remarkable and prominent among the Germans, next
+to their fierce passion for war, their veneration for woman, and their
+love of personal independence, to which last Guizot attaches great
+importance. The feeling one's self a man in the most unrestricted sense,
+was the highest pleasure of the German barbarian. There was a
+personality of feeling and interest hostile to social forms and
+municipal regulations. They cared for nothing beyond the gratification
+of their inclinations. To be unrestrained, to be free in the wildest
+sense, to do what they pleased under the impulse of the moment, this was
+their leading characteristic. Who cannot see that such a trait was
+hostile to civilization, and would prevent obedience to law--would make
+the uncultivated warrior unsocial and solitary, and lead him, in after-
+times, when he got possession of the lands of the conquered Romans, to
+build his castle on inaccessible heights and rugged rocks? Hence
+isolated retreats, wild adventures, country life, the pleasures of the
+chase, characterized the new settlers. They avoided cities, and built
+castles.
+
+[Sidenote: National traits.]
+
+[Sidenote: Character of the Germanic nations.]
+
+This passion for liberty, accompanied with the spirit of daring,
+adventure, and war, would have been fatal but for the rule of priests,
+and the great influence of woman. In this latter element of character,
+the barbarians from Scandinavia stand out in interesting contrast with
+the civilized nations whom they subverted. They evidently had a greater
+respect for woman than any of the nations of antiquity, not excepting
+the Jews. In her they beheld something sacred and divine. In her voice
+was inspiration, and in her presence there was safety. There was no true
+enthusiasm for woman in Greece even when Socrates bowed before the
+charms of Aspasia. There was none at Rome when Volumnia screened the
+city from the vengeance of her angry son. But the Germans worshiped the
+fair, and beheld in her the incarnation of all virtue and loveliness.
+And thus, among such a race, arose the glorious old institution of
+chivalry, which could not have existed among the Romans or the Greeks,
+even after Christianity had softened the character and enlarged the
+heart. In the baronial mansion of the Middle Ages this natural
+veneration was ripened into devotion and gallantry. Among the knights,
+zeal for God and the ladies was enjoined as a single duty; and "he who
+was faithful to his mistress," says Hallam, "was sure of salvation, in
+the theology of castles, if not of cloisters." This devotion was
+expressed in the rude poetry of barbarous ages, in the sports of the
+tournament and tilt, in the feasts of the castle, in the masculine
+pleasures of the chase, in the control of the household, in the
+education of children, in the laws which recognized equality, in the
+free companionship with man, in the trust reposed in female honor and
+virtue, in the delicacy of love, and in the refinements of friendship.
+This trait alone shows the superior nature of the Germanic races,
+especially when taught by Christianity, and makes us rejoice that the
+magnificent conquests of the Romans were given to them for their proud
+inheritance.
+
+Such were the men who became the heirs of the Romans,--races never
+subdued by arms or vices, among whom Christianity took a peculiar hold,
+and gradually developed among them principles of progress such as were
+never seen among the older nations. Can we wonder that such men should
+prevail?--men who loved war as the Romans did under the republic; men
+who gloried in their very losses, and felt that death in the field would
+secure future salvation and everlasting honor; men full of hope, energy,
+enthusiasm, and zeal; men who had, what the old races had not,--a soul,
+life, uncorrupted forces.
+
+Yet, when they invaded the Roman world, it must not be forgotten that
+they were rude, ignorant, wild, fierce, and unscrupulous. They were held
+in absolute detestation, as the North American Indians, whom they
+resembled in many important respects, were held in this country two
+hundred years ago. Their object was pillage. They roamed in search of
+more fruitful lands and a more congenial sky. They were bent on
+conquest, rapine, and violence. They were called the Northern Hordes--
+barbarians--and even their vices were exaggerated. They were, indeed,
+most formidable and terrific foes; and when conquered in battle would
+rally their forces, and press forward with renewed numbers.
+
+[Sidenote: The Goths.]
+
+The first of these Teutonic barbarians who made successful inroads were
+the Goths. I do not now allude to the Celtic nations who were completely
+subdued and incorporated with the empire before the accession of the
+emperors. Nor do I speak of the Teutons whom Marius defeated one hundred
+years before the Christian era, nor yet of the Germanic tribes who made
+unsuccessful inroads during the reigns of the earlier emperors. Augustus
+must have had melancholy premonitions of danger when his general, Varus,
+suffered a disgraceful defeat by the sword of Arminus in the dark
+recesses of the Teuto-burger Wald, even as Charlemagne covered his face
+with his iron hands when he saw the invasion of his territories by the
+Norman pirates. For three centuries there was a constant struggle
+between the Roman armies and the barbarians beyond the Rhine. In the
+reign of Marcus Antoninus they formed a general union for the invasion
+of the Roman world, but they were signally defeated, and the great
+pillar of Marcus Aurelius describes his victories on the Danube, who
+died combating the Vandals, A.D. 180. In the year 241 A.D., the great
+Aurelian is seen fighting the Franks near Mayence, who, nevertheless,
+pressed forward until they made their way into Spain.
+
+[Sidenote: Invasion of the Goths.]
+
+The most formidable of the enemies of Rome were the Goths. When first
+spoken of in history they inhabited the shores of the Baltic. They were
+called by Tacitus, Gothones. In the time of Caracalla they had migrated
+to the coast of the Black Sea. Under the reign of Alexander Severus,
+222-235, A.D., they threatened the peace of the province of Dacia. Under
+Philip, A.D. 244-249, they succeeded in conquering that province, and
+penetrated into Mosia. In the year 251, they encountered a Roman army
+under Decius, which they annihilated, and the emperor himself was slain.
+Then they continued their ravages along the coasts of the Euxine until
+they made themselves masters of the Crimea. With a large fleet of flat-
+boats they sailed to all the northern parts of the Euxine, took Pityus
+and Trapezus, attacked the wealthy cities on the Thracian Bosphorus,
+conquered Chalcedon, Nicomedia, and Nice, and retreated laden with
+spoil. The next year, with five hundred boats--they cannot be called
+ships,--they pursued their destructive navigation, destroyed Cyzicus,
+crossed the Aegean Sea, and landed at Athens, which they plundered.
+Thebes, Argos, Corinth, and Sparta were unable to defend their
+dilapidated fortifications. They advanced to the coasts of Epirus and
+devastated the whole Illyrian peninsula. In this destructive expedition
+they destroyed the famous temple of Diana at Ephesus, with its one
+hundred and twenty-seven marble columns sixty feet in height, and its
+interior ornamented with the choicest sculptures of Praxiteles. But they
+at length got wearied of danger and toil, and returned through Mosia to
+their own settlements. Though this incursion was a raid rather than a
+conquest, yet what are we to think of the military strength of the
+empire and the condition of society, when, in less than three hundred
+years after Augustus had shut the temple of Janus, fifteen thousand
+undisciplined barbarians, without even a leader of historic fame, were
+allowed to ravage the most populous and cultivated part of the empire,
+even the classic cities which had resisted the Persian hosts, and retire
+unmolested with their spoils? The Emperor Gallienus, one of the most
+frivolous of all the Caesars, received the intelligence with epicurean
+indifference, and abandoned himself to inglorious pleasures; and as Nero
+is said to have fiddled while his capital was in ashes, so he, in this
+great emergency, consumed his time in gardening and the arts of cookery,
+and was commended by his idolatrous courtiers as a philosopher and a
+hero.
+
+In fact, this invasion of the Goths was not contemplated with that alarm
+which it ought to have excited, but rather as an accidental evil, like a
+pestilence or a plague. Moreover, it was lost sight of in the general
+misery and misfortunes of the times. The Emperor Valerian had just been
+defeated and taken prisoner by Sapor. Pretenders had started up in
+nineteen different places for the imperial purple. Banditti had spread
+devastation in Sicily. Alexandria was disturbed by tumults. Famine and
+the plague raged for ten years in nearly all parts of the empire. Rome
+lost by the pestilence five thousand daily, while half the inhabitants
+of Alexandria were swept away. Soldiers, tyrants, barbarians, and the
+visitation of God threatened the ruin of the Roman world.
+
+But the ruin was staved off one hundred years by the labors and genius
+of a series of great princes, who traced their origin to the martial
+province of Illyricum. And all that was in the power of the emperors to
+do was done to arrest destruction. No empire was ever ruled by a
+succession of better and greater men than the calamities of the times
+raised up on the death of Gallienus, A.D. 268. But what avail the energy
+and talents of rulers when a nation is doomed to destruction? We have
+the profoundest admiration for the imperial heroes who bore the burdens
+of a throne in those days of tribulation. They succeeded in restoring
+the ancient glories--but glories followed by a deeper shame. They
+attempted impossibilities when their subjects were sunk in sloth and
+degradation.
+
+[Sidenote: Success and the defeat of the Goths.]
+
+Claudius, one of the generals of Gallienus, was invested with the purple
+at the age of fifty-four. He restored military discipline, revived law,
+repressed turbulence, and bent his thoughts to head off the barbaric
+invasions. The various nations of Germany and Sarmatia, united under the
+Gothic standard, and in six thousand vessels, prepared once more to
+ravage the world. Sailing from the banks of the Dniester, they crossed
+the Euxine, passed through the Bosphorus, anchored at the foot of Mount
+Athos, and assaulted Thessalonica, the wealthy capital of the Macedonian
+provinces. Claudius advanced to meet these three hundred and twenty
+thousand barbarians. At Naissus, in Dalmatia, was fought one of the most
+memorable and bloody battles of ancient times, but not one of the most
+decisive. Fifty thousand Goths were slain in that dreadful fight. Three
+Gothic women fell to the share of every imperial soldier. The
+discomfited warriors fled in consternation, but their retreat was cut
+off by the destruction of their fleet; and on the return of spring the
+mighty host had dwindled to a desperate band in the inaccessible parts
+of Mount Hemus.
+
+[Sidenote: Victories of Claudius.]
+
+Claudius survived his victory but two years, and was succeeded, A.D.
+270, by a still greater man--his general Aurelian, whose father had been
+a peasant of Sirmium. Every day of his short reign was filled with
+wonders. He put an end to the Gothic war; he chastised the Germans who
+invaded Italy; he recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain, from the hands of
+an usurper; he destroyed the proud monarchy which Zenobia had built up
+in the deserts of the East; he defeated the Alemanni who, with eighty
+thousand foot and forty thousand horse, had devastated the country from
+the Danube to the Po; and, not least, he took Zenobia herself a prisoner
+--one of the most celebrated women of antiquity, equaling Cleopatra in
+beauty, Elizabeth in learning, and Artemisia in valor--a woman who
+blended the popular manners of the Roman princes with the stately pomp
+of oriental kings.
+
+Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, the widow of Odenatus, ruled a large portion
+of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, and with a numerous army she advanced
+to meet the imperial legions. Conquered in two disastrous battles, she
+retired to the beautiful city which Solomon had built, shaded with
+palms, ornamented with palaces, and rich in oriental treasure. Then
+again, attacked by her persevering enemy, she mounted the fleetest of
+her dromedaries, but was overtaken on the banks of the Euphrates, and
+brought a captive to the tent of the martial emperor, while Palmyra, her
+capital, with all its riches, fell into the hands of the conqueror.
+
+[Sidenote: Successes of Aurelian.]
+
+Aurelian, with the haughty queen who had presumed to rise up in arms
+against the empire, returned to successes of Rome, and then was
+celebrated the most magnificent triumph which the world had seen since
+the days of Pompey and of Caesar. And since the foundation of the city,
+no conqueror more richly deserved a triumph than this virtuous and
+rugged soldier of fortune. And as the august procession, with all the
+pomp and circumstance of war, moved along the Via Sacra, up the
+Capitoline Hill, and halted at the Temple of Jupiter, to receive the
+benediction of the priests, and to deposit within its sacred walls the
+treasures of the East, it would seem that Rome was destined to surmount
+the ordinary fate of nations, and reign as mistress of the world _per
+secula seculorum_.
+
+But this grand pageant was only one of the last glories of the setting
+sun of Roman greatness. Aurelian had no peace or repose. "The gods
+decree," said the impatient emperor, "that my life should be a perpetual
+warfare." He was obliged to take the field a few months after his
+triumph, and was slain, not in battle, but by the hands of assassins--
+the common fate of his predecessors and successors--"the regular portal"
+through which the Caesars passed to their account with the eternal Judge.
+He had boasted that public danger had passed--_"Ego efficiam ne sit
+aliqua solicitudo Romana. Nos publicae necessitates teneant; vos occupent
+voluptates."_ But scarcely had this warlike prince sung his requiem
+to the agitations of Rome before new dangers arose, and his sceptre
+descended to a man seventy-five years of age.
+
+Tacitus, the new emperor, was however worthy of his throne. He was
+selected as the most fitting man that could be found. Scarcely was he
+inaugurated, before he was obliged to march against the Alans, who had
+spread their destructive ravages over Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and
+Galatia. He lost his life, though successful in battle, amid the
+hardships of a winter campaign, and Probus, one of his generals, who had
+once been an Illyrian peasant, was clothed with the imperial purple,
+A.D. 278.
+
+[Sidenote: The successes of Probus.]
+
+This vigorous monarch was then forty-five years of age, in the prime of
+his strength, popular with the army, and patriotic and enlarged in his
+views. He reigned six years, and won a fame equal to that of the ancient
+heroes. He restored peace and order in every province of the empire; he
+broke the power of the Sarmatian tribes; he secured the alliance of the
+Gothic nation; he drove the Isaurians to their strongholds among the
+mountains; he chastised the rebellious cities of Egypt; he delivered
+Gaul from the Germanic barbarians, who again inundated the empire on the
+death of Aurelian; he drove back the Franks into their morasses at the
+mouth of the Rhine; he vanquished the Burgundians, who had wandered in
+quest of booty from the banks of the Oder; he defeated the Lygii, a
+fierce tribe from the frontiers of Silesia, and took their chieftain
+Semno alive; he passed the Rhine and pursued his victories to the Elbe,
+exacting a tribute of corn, cattle, and horses, from the defeated
+Germans; he even erected a bulwark against their future encroachments--a
+stone wall of two hundred miles in length, across valleys and hills and
+rivers, from the Danube to the Rhine--a feeble defense indeed, but such
+as to excite the wonder of his age; he, moreover, dispersed the captive
+barbarians throughout the provinces, who were afterward armed in defense
+of the empire, and whose brethren were persuaded to make settlements
+with them, so that, at length, "there was not left in all the
+provinces," says Gibbon, "a hostile barbarian, a tyrant, or even a
+robber."
+
+After having destroyed four hundred thousand barbarians, the victor
+returned to Rome, and, like Aurelian, celebrated his successes in one of
+those gorgeous triumphs to which modern nations have no parallel. Then
+he again, like the conqueror of Zenobia, mounted the Pisgah of hope, and
+descried the Saturnian ages which, in his vision of Peace, he fancied
+were to follow his victories. _"Respublica orbis terrarum, ubique
+secura, non arma fabricabit. Boves habebuntur aratro; equus nasciter ad
+pacem. Nulla erunt bella; nulla captivitas. Aeternes thesauros haberet
+Romana respublica."_ But scarcely had the paeans escaped him, before,
+in his turn, he was assassinated in a mutiny of his own troops--a man of
+virtue and abilities, although his austere temper insensibly, under
+military power, subsided into tyranny and cruelty.
+
+Without the approbation of the Senate, the soldiers elected a new
+emperor, and he too was a hero. Carus had scarcely assumed the purple,
+A.D. 282, before he marched against the Persians, through Thrace and
+Asia Minor, in the midst of winter, and the ambassadors of the Persian
+king found the new emperor of the world seated on the grass, at a frugal
+dinner of bacon and pease, in that severe simplicity which afterward
+marked the early successors of Mohammed. But before he could carry his
+victorious arms across the Tigris, he suddenly died in his tent, struck,
+as some think, by lightning. His son Carinus was unworthy of the throne
+to which he succeeded, and his reign is chiefly memorable for the
+magnificence of his games and festivals. His reign, and that of his
+brother Numerian, was however short, and a still greater man than any
+who had mounted the throne of the Caesars since Augustus, took the helm
+at the most critical period of Roman history, A.D. 285.
+
+[Sidenote: Diocletian.]
+
+This man was Diocletian, rendered infamous in ecclesiastical history, as
+the most bitter persecutor the Christians ever had; a man of obscure
+birth, yet of most distinguished abilities, and virtually the founder of
+a new empire. He found it impossible to sustain the public burdens in an
+age so disordered and disorganized, when every province was menaced by
+the barbarians, and he associated with himself three colleagues who had
+won fame in the wars of Aurelian and Carus, and all of whom had rendered
+substantial services--Galerius, Maximian, and Constantius. These four
+Caesars, alive to the danger which menaced the empire, took up their
+residence in the distant provinces. They were all great generals; and
+they won great victories on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, in
+Africa and Egypt, in Persia and Armenia. Their lives were spent in the
+camp; but care, vexation, and discontent pursued them. The barbarians
+were continually beaten, but they continually advanced. Their progress
+reminds one of the rising tide on a stormy and surging beach. Wave after
+wave breaks upon the shore, recedes, returns, and nothing can stop the
+gradual advance of the waters. So in the hundred years after Gallienus,
+wave after wave of barbaric invasion constantly appeared, receded,
+returned, with added strength. The heroic emperors were uniformly
+victors; but their victories were in vain. They were perpetually
+reconquering rebellious provinces, or putting down usurpers, or
+punishing the barbarians, who acquired strength after every defeat, and
+were more and more insatiable in their demands, and unrelenting in their
+wills. They were determined to conquer, and the greatest generals of the
+Roman empire during four hundred years could not subdue them, although
+they could beat them.
+
+[Sidenote: Constantine.]
+
+The empire is again united under Constantine, after bloody civil wars,
+A.D. 324, thirty-four years after Diocletian had divided his power and
+provinces with his associates. He renews the war against the Goths and
+Sarmatians, severely chastises them as well as other enemies of Rome,
+and dies leaving the empire to his son, unequal to the task imposed upon
+him. The inglorious reigns of Constantius and Gallus only enabled the
+barbarians to renew their strength. They are signally defeated by the
+Emperor Julian, A.D. 360, who alone survives of all the heirs of
+Constantius Chlorus. The studious Julian, who was supposed to be a mere
+philosopher, proves himself to be one of the most warlike of all the
+emperors. He repulses the Alemanni, defeats the Franks, delivers Gaul,
+and carries the Roman eagles triumphantly beyond the Rhine. His
+victories delay the ruin of the empire; they do not result in the
+conquest of Germany, and he dies, mortally wounded, not by a German
+spear, but by the javelin of a Persian horseman, beyond the Tigris, in
+an unsuccessful enterprise against Sapor, A.D. 363.
+
+[Sidenote: New invasions of barbarians.]
+
+After his death the ravages of the barbarians became still more fearful.
+The Alemanni invade Gaul, A.D. 365, the Persians recover Armenia, the
+Burgundians appear upon the Rhine, the Saxons attack Britain, and spread
+themselves from the Wall of Antoninus to the shores of Kent, the Goths
+prepare for another invasion; in Africa there is a great revolt under
+Firmus. The empire is shaken to its centre.
+
+Valentinian, a soldier of fortune, and an able general, now wears the
+imperial purple. Like Diocletian, he finds himself unable to bear the
+burdens of his throne. He elects an associate, divides the empire, and
+gives to Valens the eastern provinces. All idea of reigning in peace,
+and giving the reins to pleasure, has vanished from the imperial mind.
+The office of emperor demands the severest virtues and the sternest
+qualities and the most incessant labors. "Uneasy sits the head that
+wears a crown," can now be said of all the later emperors. The day is
+past for enjoyment or for pomp. The emperor's presence is required here
+and there. Valentinian rules with vigor, and gains successes over the
+barbarians. He is one of the great men of the day. He reserves to
+himself the western provinces, and fixes his seat at Milan, but cannot
+preserve tranquillity, and dies in a storm of wrath, by the bursting of
+a blood-vessel, while reviling the ambassadors of the Quadi, A.D. 375,
+at the age of fifty-four.
+
+[Sidenote: Disasters of Valens.]
+
+His brother, Valens, Emperor of the East, had neither his talents nor
+energy; and it was his fate to see the first great successful inroads of
+the Goths. For thirty years the Romans had secured their frontiers, and
+the Goths had extended their dominions. Hermanric, the first historic
+name of note among them, ruled over the entire nation, and had won a
+series of brilliant victories over other tribes of barbarians after he
+was eighty years of age. His dominions extended from the Danube to the
+Baltic, including the greater part of Germany and Scythia. In the year
+366 his subjects, tempted by the civil discords which Procopius
+occasioned, invaded Thrace, but were resisted by the generals of Valens.
+The aged Hermanric was exasperated by the misfortune, and made
+preparations for a general war, while the emperor himself invaded the
+Gothic territories. For three years the war continued, with various
+success, on the banks of the Danube. Hermanric intrusted the defense of
+his country to Athanaric, who was defeated in a bloody battle, and a
+hollow peace was made with Victor and Arintheus, the generals of Valens.
+The Goths remained in tranquillity for six years, until, driven by the
+Scythians, who emerged in vast numbers from the frozen regions of the
+north, they once more advanced to the Danube and implored the aid of
+Valens. [Footnote: See Ammianus Marcellinus, b. xxi., from which Gibbon
+has chiefly drawn his narratives.] The prayers of the Goths were
+answered, and they were transported across the Danube--a suicidal act of
+the emperor, which imported two hundred thousand warriors, with their
+wives and children, into the Roman territories. The Goths retained their
+arms and their greed, and pretended to settle peaceably in the province
+of Mosia. But they were restless and undisciplined barbarians, and it
+required the greatest adroitness to manage them in their new abodes.
+They were insolent and unreasonable in their demands and expectations,
+while the ministers of the emperor were oppressive and venal.
+Difficulties soon arose, and, too late, it was seen by the emperor that
+he had introduced most dangerous enemies into the heart of the empire.
+
+[Sidenote: Fritigern, leader of the Goths.]
+
+[Sidenote: Death of the Emperor Valens.]
+
+The great leader of these Goths was Fritigern, who soon kindled the
+flames of war. He united under his standard all the various tribes of
+his nation, increased their animosities, and led them to the mouth of
+the Danube. There they were attacked by the lieutenants of Valens, and a
+battle was fought without other result than that of checking for a time
+the Gothic progress. But only for a time. The various tribes of
+barbarians, under the able generalship of Fritigern, whose cunning was
+equal to his bravery, advanced to the suburbs of Hadrianople. Under the
+walls of that city was fought the most disastrous battle, A.D. 378, to
+the imperial cause which is recorded in the annals of Roman history. The
+emperor himself was slain with two thirds of his whole army, while the
+remainder fled in consternation. Sixty thousand infantry and six
+thousand cavalry were stretched in death upon the bloody field--one
+third more than at the fatal battle of Cannae. The most celebrated orator
+of the day, though a Pagan, [Footnote: Libanius of Antioch.] pronounced
+a funeral oration on the vanquished army, and attributed the
+catastrophe, not to the cowardice of the legions, but the anger of the
+gods. "The fury of the Goths," says St. Jerome, "extended to all
+creatures possessed of life: the beasts of the field, the fowls of the
+air, and the fishes of the sea." The victors, intoxicated with their
+first great success, invested Hadrianople, where were deposited enormous
+riches. But they were unequal to the task of taking so strong a city;
+and when the inhabitants aroused themselves in a paroxysm of despair,
+they raised the siege and departed to ravage the more unprotected West.
+Laden with spoils, they retired to the western boundaries of Thrace, and
+thence scattered their forces to the confines of Italy. From the shores
+of the Bosphorus to the Julian Alps nothing was to be seen but
+conflagration and murders and devastations. Churches were turned into
+stables, palaces were burned, works of priceless value were destroyed,
+the relics of martyrs were desecrated, the most fruitful provinces were
+overrun, the population was decimated, the land was overgrown with
+forests, cultivation was suspended, and despair and fear seized the
+minds of all classes. So great was the misfortune of the Illyrian
+provinces that they never afterward recovered, and for ten centuries
+only supplied materials for roving robbers. The empire never had seen
+such a day of calamity.
+
+[Sidenote: Desperate condition of the Romans.]
+
+This melancholy state of affairs, so desperate and so general, demanded
+a deliverer and a hero; but where was a hero to be found? Nothing but
+transcendent ability could now arrest the overthrow. Who should succeed
+to the vacant throne of Valens?
+
+[Sidenote: Theodosius.]
+
+[Sidenote: His character and illustrious deeds.]
+
+The Emperor Gratian, who wielded the sceptre of Valentinian in the West,
+in this alarming crisis, cast his eyes upon an exile, whose father had
+unjustly suffered death under his own sanction three years before. This
+man was Theodosius, then living in modest retirement on his farm in
+Spain, near Valladolid, as unambitious as David among his sheep, as
+contented as Cincinnatus at the plough. Great deliverers are frequently
+selected from the most humble positions; but no world hero, in ancient
+or modern times, is more illustrious than Theodosius for modesty and
+magnanimity united with great abilities. No man is dearer to the Church
+than he, both for his services and his virtues. The eloquent Flechier
+has emblazoned his fame, as Bossuet has painted the Prince of Conde.
+Even Gibbon lays aside his sneers to praise this great Christian
+Emperor, although his character was not free from stains. He modestly
+but readily accepted the vacant sceptre and the conduct of the Gothic
+war. He was thirty-three years of age, in the pride of his strength, and
+well instructed in liberal pursuits. No better choice could have been
+made by Gratian. He was as prudent as Fabius, as magnanimous as Richard,
+as persevering as Alfred, as comprehensive as Charlemagne, as beneficent
+as Henry IV., as full of resources as Frederic II. One of the greatest
+of all the emperors, and the last great man who swayed the sceptre of
+Trajan his ancestor, his reign cannot but be too highly commended,
+living in such an age, exposed to so many dangers, invested with so many
+difficulties. He was the last flickering light of the expiring monarchy,
+beloved and revered by all classes of his subjects. "The vulgar gazed
+with admiration on the manly beauty of his face and the graceful majesty
+of his person, which they were pleased to compare with the pictures and
+medals of the Emperor Trajan; while intelligent observers discovered, in
+the qualities of the heart and understanding, a more important
+resemblance to the best and greatest of the Roman emperors." [Footnote:
+Gibbon, chap. xxvi.]
+
+Mr. Long, of Oxford, in a fine notice of Theodosius, thinks that the
+praises of Gibbon are extravagant, and that the emperor was probably a
+voluptuary and a persecutor. But Gibbon is not apt to praise the
+favorites of the Church. Tillemont presents him in the same light as
+Gibbon. [Footnote: Tillemont, _Hist, des Emp._ vol. v.] A man who
+could have submitted to such a penance as Ambrose imposed for the
+slaughter of Thessalonica, could not have been cast in a different mould
+from old David himself. For my part I admire his character and his
+deeds.
+
+[Sidenote: Defeat of the Goths.]
+
+Soon as he was invested with the purple, he gave his undivided energies
+to the great task intrusted to him; but he never succeeded in fully
+revenging the battle of Hadrianople, which was one of the decisive
+battles of the world in its ultimate effects. He had the talents and the
+energy and the prudence, but he was beset with impossibilities. Still,
+he staved off ruin for a time. The death of Fritigern unchained the
+passions of the barbarians, and they would have been led to fresh
+revolts had they not submitted to the authority of Athanaric, whom the
+emperor invited to his capital and feasted at his table, and astonished
+by his riches and glory. The Visigoths, won by the policy or courtesy of
+Theodosius, became subjects of the empire. The Ostrogoths, who had
+retired from the provinces of the Danube four years before, returned
+recruited with a body of Huns, and crossed the Danube to assail the
+Roman army, but were defeated by Theodosius; and a treaty was made with
+them, by which they were settled in Phrygia and Lydia. Forty thousand of
+them were kept in the service of the emperor; but they were doubtful
+allies, as subsequent events proved, even in the lifetime of the
+magnanimous emperor. [Footnote: Zosimus, i. 4.]
+
+[Sidenote: Honorius and Arcadius.]
+
+Theodosius died at Milan in the arms of Ambrose, A.D. 395, and with his
+death the real drama of the fall of Rome begins. His empire was divided
+between his two sons, Honorius and Arcadius, who were unworthy or
+unequal to maintain their great inheritance. The barbarians, released
+from the restraint which the fear of Theodosius imposed, recommenced
+their combinations and their ravages, while the soldiers of the empire
+were dispirited and enervated. About this time they threw away their
+defensive armor, not able to bear the weight of the cuirass and the
+helmet; and even the heavy weapons of their ancestors, the short sword
+and the pilum, were supplanted by the bow,--a most remarkable retrograde
+in military art. Without defensive armor, not even the shield, they were
+exposed to the deadly missiles of their foes, and fled at the first
+serious attacks, especially of cavalry, in which the Goths and Huns
+excelled.
+
+[Sidenote: Alaric, king of the Visigoths.]
+
+History has taken but little notice of the leaders of the various tribes
+of barbarians until Alaric appeared, the able successor of Fritigern. He
+belonged to the second noblest family of his nation, and first appears
+in history as a general of the Gothic auxiliaries in the war of
+Theodosius against Eugenius, A.D. 394. In 396, stimulated by anger or
+ambition, or the instigation of Rufinus, [Footnote: Socrates, _Eccles.
+Hist._, vii. 10.] he invaded Greece at the head of a powerful body,
+and devastated the country. He descended from the plains of Macedonia
+and Thessaly, and entered the classic land, which for a long time had
+escaped the ravages of war, through the pass of Thermopylae. Degenerate
+soldiers, half armed, now defended the narrow passage where three
+hundred heroes had once arrested the march of the Persian hosts. But
+Greece was no longer Greece. The soldiers fled as Alaric advanced, and
+the fertile fields of Phocis and Boeotia were at once covered with
+hostile and cruel barbarians, who massacred the men and ravished the
+women in all the villages through which they passed. Athens purchased
+her preservation by an enormous ransom. Corinth, Argos, Sparta, yielded
+without a blow, but did not escape the fate of vanquished cities. Their
+palaces were burned, their works of art destroyed, their women subjected
+to indignities which were worse than death, and their families were
+enslaved. [Footnote: Gibbon, chap. xxx.]
+
+[Sidenote: Succeses of the Goths.]
+
+Only one hope remained to the feeble and intimidated Arcadius, and that
+was the skill and courage of Stilicho, by birth a Vandal, but who had
+risen in the imperial service until he was virtually intrusted by
+Theodosius with the guardianship of his sons and of the empire. He was
+the lieutenant of Honorius, who had espoused his daughter, but summoned
+by the dangers of Arcadius, he advanced to repulse the invaders of
+Greece, who had not met with any resistance from Thermopylae to Corinth.
+A desperate campaign followed in the woody country where Pan and the
+Dryads were fabled to reside in the olden times. The Romans prevailed,
+and Alaric was in imminent peril of annihilation, but was saved by the
+too confident spirit of Stilicho, and his indulgence in the pleasures of
+the degenerate Greeks. He effected his release by piercing the lines of
+his besiegers and performing a rapid march to the Gulf of Corinth, where
+he embarked his soldiers, his captives, and his spoil, and reached
+Epirus in safety, from which he effected a treaty with the ministers of
+Arcadius, which he never intended to keep, and was even made master-
+general of Eastern Illyricum. Successful war brings irresistible
+_eclat_ equally among barbarians and civilized nations. There is no
+fame like the glory of a warrior. Poets and philosophers drop their
+heads in the presence of great military chieftains; and those people who
+rest their claims to the gratitude or the admiration of the world on
+their intellectual and moral superiority, are among the first to yield
+precedence to conquering generals, whether they are ignorant, or
+unscrupulous, or haughty, or ambitious. The names of warriors descend
+from generation to generation, while the benefactors of mind are
+forgotten or depreciated. Who can wonder at military ambition when
+success in war has been uniformly attended with such magnificent
+rewards, from the times of Pompey and Caesar to those of Marlborough and
+Napoleon?
+
+The Gothic robber and murderer was rewarded by his nation with all the
+power and glory it could bestow. He was made a king, and was assured of
+unlimited support in all his future enterprises.
+
+[Sidenote: Danger of Italy.]
+
+He cast his eyes on Italy, for many generations undefiled by the
+presence of a foreign enemy, and enriched with the spoils of three
+hundred triumphs. He marched from Thessalonica, through Pannonia to the
+Julian Alps; passed through the defiles of those guarded mountains, and
+appeared before the walls of Aquileia, one of the most important cities
+of Northern Italy, enriched by the gold mines of the neighboring Alps,
+and a prosperous trade with the Illyrians and Pannonians. Here the great
+Julius had made his head-quarters when he made war upon Illyria, and
+here the younger Constantine was slain. It was the capital of Venetia,
+and had the privilege of a mint. It was the ninth city of the whole
+empire, inferior in Italy to Rome, Milan, and Capua alone. It was
+situated on a plain, and was strongly fortified with walls and towers.
+And it seems to have resisted the attacks of Alaric, who retired to the
+Danube for reinforcements for a new campaign.
+
+[Sidenote: Stilicho commands the Romans.]
+
+The Emperor Honorius, weak, timid, and defenseless at Milan, was
+overwhelmed with fear, and implored the immediate assistance of his only
+reliable general. Stilicho responded to the appeal, and appreciated the
+danger. He summoned from every quarter the subjects or the allies of the
+emperor. The fortresses of the Rhine were abandoned; the legions were
+withdrawn from Britain; the Alani were enlisted as auxiliaries, and
+Stilicho advanced to the relief of his fugitive sovereign, who had fled
+from Milan to a town in Piedmont, just in time to rescue him from the
+grasp of Alaric, who, in his turn, became besieged by the troops which
+issued from all the passes of the Alps. The Goths were attacked in their
+intrenchments at Pollentia, and were obliged to retreat, leaving the
+spoils of Corinth and Argos, and even the wife of Alaric. The poet
+Claudian celebrated the victory as greater than even that achieved by
+Marius over the Cimbri and Teutones. The defeated Goth, however, rose
+superior to misfortune and danger. He escaped with the main body of his
+cavalry, broke through the passes of the Apennines, and spread
+devastation on the fruitful fields of Tuscany, and was resolved to risk
+another battle for the great prize which he coveted--the possession of
+Rome itself. He was, however, foiled by Stilicho, who _purchased_
+the retreat of the enemy for forty thousand pounds of gold. But the
+Goths respected no treaties. Scarcely had they crossed the Po, before
+their leader resolved to seize Verona, which commanded the passes of the
+Rhaetian Alps. Here he was again attacked by Stilicho, and suffered
+losses equal to those incurred at Pollentia, and was obliged to retreat
+from Italy, A.D. 404.
+
+[Sidenote: Infatuation of the Romans.]
+
+The conqueror was hailed with joy and gratitude; too soon succeeded by
+envy and calumny, as is usual with benefactors in corrupt times. The
+retreat of Alaric was regarded as a complete deliverance; and the Roman
+people abandoned themselves to absurd rejoicings, gladiatorial shows,
+and triumphant processions. In the royal chariots, side by side with the
+emperor, Stilicho was seated, and the procession passed under a
+triumphal arch which commemorated the complete destruction of the Goths.
+For the last time, the amphitheatre of Rome was polluted with the blood
+of gladiators, for Honorius, exhorted by the poet Claudian, abolished
+forever the inhuman sacrifices.
+
+[Sidenote: New hordes of barbarians.]
+
+[Sidenote: Devastation of Gaul.]
+
+Yet scarcely was Italy delivered from the Goths, before an irruption of
+Vandals, Suevi, and Burgundians, under Rodogast or Rhadagast, two
+hundred thousand in number of fighting men, beside an equal number of
+women and children, issued from the coast of the Baltic. One third of
+these crossed the Alps, the Po, and the Apennines, ravaged the cities of
+Northern Italy, and laid siege to Florence, which was reduced to its
+last necessity, when the victor of Pollentia appeared beneath its walls,
+with the _last_ army which the empire could furnish, and introduced
+supplies. Moreover, he surrounded the enemy in turn with strong
+intrenchments, and the barbaric host was obliged to yield. The leader
+Rodogast was beheaded, and the captives were sold as slaves. Stilicho, a
+second time, had delivered Italy; but one hundred thousand barbarians
+still remained in arms between the Alps and the Apennines. Shut out of
+Italy, they invaded Gaul, and never afterward retreated beyond the Alps.
+Gaul was then one of the most cultivated of the Roman provinces; the
+banks of the Rhine were covered with farms and villas, and peace and
+plenty had long accustomed the people to luxury and ease. But all was
+suddenly changed, and changed for generations. The rich corn-fields and
+fruitful vineyards became a desert. Mentz was destroyed and burned.
+Worms fell after an obstinate siege, and experienced the same fate.
+Strasburg, Spires, Rheims, Tournay, Arras, Amiens, passed under the
+German yoke, and the flames of war spread over the seventeen provinces
+of Gaul. The country was completely devastated, and all classes
+experienced a remorseless rigor. Bishops, senators, and virgins were
+alike enslaved. No retreat was respected, and no sex or condition was
+spared. Gaul ceased to exist as a Roman province.
+
+[Sidenote: Assassination of Stilicho.]
+
+Italy, however, had been for a time delivered, and by the only man of
+ability who remained in the service of the emperor. He might possibly
+have checked the further progress of the Goths, had the weak emperor
+intrusted himself to his guidance. But imperial jealousy, and the voice
+of faction, removed forever this last hope of Rome. The frivolous Senate
+which he had saved, and the timid emperor whom he had guarded, were
+alike demented. The savior of Italy was an object of fear and hatred,
+and the assassin's dagger, which cut short his days, inflicted a fatal
+and suicidal blow upon Rome herself.
+
+[Sidenote: Alaric ravages Italy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rome without defenders.]
+
+The Gothic king, in his distant camp on the confines of Italy, beheld
+with undissembled joy, the intrigues and factions which deprived the
+emperor of his best defender, and which placed over his last army
+incompetent generals. So, hastening his preparations, he again descends
+like an avalanche upon the plains of Italy. Aquileia, Altinum,
+Concordia, and Cremona, yielded to his arms, and increased his forces.
+He then ravaged the coasts of the Adriatic; and, following the Flaminian
+way, crossed the passes of the Apennines, ravaged the fertile plains of
+Umbria, and reached without obstruction the city which for six hundred
+years had not been violated by the presence of a foreign enemy. But Rome
+was not what she was when Hannibal led his Africans to her gates. She
+was surrounded with more extensive fortifications, indeed, and contained
+within her walls, which were twenty-one miles in circuit, a large
+population. But where were her one hundred and fifty thousand warriors?
+Where were even the three armies drawn out in battle array, that had
+confronted the Carthaginian leader? She could boast of senators who
+traced their lineage to the Scipios and the Gracchi; she could enumerate
+one thousand seven hundred and eighty palaces, the residence of wealthy
+and proud families, many of which were equal to a town, including within
+their precincts, markets, hippodromes, temples, fountains, baths,
+porticoes, groves, and aviaries; she could tell of senatorial incomes of
+four thousand pounds of gold, about eight hundred thousand dollars
+yearly, without computing the corn, oil, and wine, which were equal to
+three hundred thousand dollars more--men so rich that they could afford
+to spend five hundred thousand dollars in a popular festival, and this
+at a time when gold was worth at least eight times more than its present
+value; she could point with pride to her Christian saints, one of whom,
+the illustrious Paula, the friend of St. Jerome, was the sole proprietor
+of the city of Nicopolis, which Augustus had founded to commemorate his
+victory over Antony; she could count two millions of inhabitants,
+crowded in narrow streets, and four hundred thousand pleasure-seekers
+who sought daily the circus or the theatre, and three thousand public
+female dancers, and three thousand singers who sought to beguile the
+hours of the lazy rabble who were fed at the public expense, and who,
+for a small copper coin, could wash their dirty bodies in the marble
+baths of Diocletian and Caracalla; but where were her defenders--where
+were her legions?
+
+[Sidenote: Alaric beseiges Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: Disgraceful terms of peace.]
+
+The day of retribution had come, and there was no escape. Alaric made no
+efforts to storm the city, but quietly sat down and inclosed the
+wretched citizens with a cordon through which nothing could force its
+way. He cut off all communications with the country, intercepted the
+navigation of the Tiber, and commanded the twelve gates. The city,
+unprovided for a siege, and never dreaming of such a calamity, soon felt
+all the evils of famine, to which those of pestilence were added. The
+most repugnant food was eagerly devoured, and even mothers are said to
+have tasted the flesh of their murdered children. Thousands perished
+daily in the houses, and the public sepulchres infected the air. Despair
+at last seized the haughty citizens, and they begged the clemency of the
+Gothic king. He derided the ambassadors who were sent to treat, and
+insulted them with rude jests. At last he condescended to spare the
+lives of the people, on condition that they gave up _all_ their
+gold and silver, _all_ their precious movables, and _all_ their
+slaves of barbaric birth. More moderate terms were afterward
+granted; but the victor did not retreat until he had loaded his wagons
+with more wealth and more liberated captives than the Romans had brought
+from both Carthage and Antioch. He retired to the fertile fields of
+Tuscany to make negotiations with Honorius; and it was only on condition
+that he were appointed master-general of the armies of the emperor, with
+an annual subsidy of corn and money, and the free possession of the
+provinces of Dalmatia, Noricum, and Venetia, for the seat of his
+kingdom, that he would grant peace to the emperor, who had entrenched
+himself at Ravenna. These terms were disregarded, and once more Alaric
+turned his face to Rome. He took possession of Ostia, one of the most
+stupendous works of Roman magnificence, and the port of Rome secured,
+the city was once again at his mercy. Again the Senate, fearful of
+famine and impelled by the populace, consented to the demands of the
+conqueror. He nominated Atticus, prefect of the city, emperor instead of
+the son of Theodosius, and received from him the commission of master-
+general of the armies of the West.
+
+[Sidenote: Alaric takes Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: The miseries of the Romans.]
+
+The new emperor had a few days of prosperity, and the greater part of
+Italy submitted to his rule, backed by the Gothic forces. But he was
+after all a mere puppet in the hands of Alaric, who used him as a tool,
+and threw him aside when it suited his purposes. Atticus, after a brief
+reign, was degraded, and renewed negotiations took place between Alaric
+and Honorius. The emperor, having had a temporary relief, broke finally
+with the barbarians, who held Italy at their mercy, and Alaric,
+vindictive and indignant, once again set out for Rome, now resolved on
+plunder and revenge. In vain did the nobles organize a defense.
+Cowardice and treachery opened the Salarian gate. No Horatius kept the
+bridge. No Scipio arose in the last extremity. In the dead of night the
+Gothic trumpet rang unanswered in the streets. The Queen of the World,
+the Eternal City, was the prey of savage soldiers. For five days and
+nights she was exposed to every barbarity and license. Only the
+treasures collected in the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul were
+saved. Although the captor had promised to spare the lives of the
+people, a cruel slaughter was made, and the streets were filled with the
+dead. Forty thousand slaves were let loose by the bloody conquerors to
+gratify their long-stifled passions of lust and revenge. The matrons and
+virgins of Rome were--exposed to every indignity, and suffered every
+insult. The city was abandoned to pillage, and the palaces were stripped
+even or their costly furniture. Sideboards of massive silver, and
+variegated wardrobes of silk and purple, were piled upon the wagons. The
+works of art were destroyed or injured. Beautiful vases were melted down
+for the plate. The daughters and wives of senatorial families became
+slaves--such as were unable to purchase their ransom. Italian fugitives
+thronged the shores of Africa and Syria, begging daily bread. They were
+scattered over various provinces, as far as Constantinople and
+Jerusalem. The whole empire was filled with consternation. The news made
+the tongue of old St. Jerome to cleave to the roof of his mouth in his
+cell at Bethlehem, which even was besieged with beggars. "For twenty
+years," cried he, "Roman blood has been flowing from Constantinople to
+the Julian Alps. Scythia, Thrace, Macedonia, Dacia, Epirus, Dalmatia,
+Achaia, the two Pannonias," yea, he might have added, Gaul, Britain,
+Spain, and Italy, "all belong to the barbarians. Sorrow, misery,
+desolation, despair, death, are everywhere. What is to be seen but one
+universal shipwreck of humanity, from which there is no escape save on
+the plank of penitence." The same bitter despair came from St.
+Augustine. The end of the world was supposed to be at hand, and the
+great churchmen of the age found consolation only in the doctrine that
+the second coming of our Lord was at hand to establish a new
+dispensation of peace and righteousness on the earth, or to appear as a
+stern and final judge amid the clouds of heaven.
+
+[Sidenote: The Goths in Italy.]
+
+After six days the Goths evacuated the city they had despoiled, and
+advanced along the Appian way into the southern provinces of Italy,
+destroying ruthlessly all who opposed their march, and loading
+themselves with still greater spoils. The corn, wine, and oil of the
+country were consumed within the barbarian camp, and the beautiful
+villas of the coast of Campania were destroyed or plundered. The rude
+inhabitants of Scythia and Germany stretched their limbs under the shade
+of the Italian palm-trees, and compelled the beautiful daughters of the
+proud senators of the fallen capital to attend on them like slaves,
+while they quaffed the old Falernian wines from goblets of gold and
+gems. Nothing arrested the career of the Goths. Their victorious leader
+now meditated the invasion of Africa, but died suddenly after a short
+illness, and the world was relieved, for a while, of a mighty fear.
+
+[Sidenote: Ravages in other provinces.]
+
+His successor Adolphus suspended the operations of war, and negotiated
+with the emperor a treaty of peace, and even enlisted under his standard
+to chastise his enemies in Gaul. But the oppressed provincials were
+cruelly ravaged by their pretended friends, who occupied the cities of
+Narbonne, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and spread from the Mediterranean to
+the Ocean. Adolphus espoused Placidia, a sister of Honorius, to the
+intense humiliation of the ministers of Honorius. But the marriage
+proved fortunate for the empire, and the Goths settled down in the
+fertile provinces they had conquered, and established a Gothic kingdom.
+Among the treasures which the Goths carried to Narbonne, was a famous
+dish of solid gold, weighing five hundred pounds, ornamented with
+precious stones, and exquisitely engraved with the figures of men and
+animals. But this precious specimen of Roman luxury was not to be
+compared with the table formed from a single emerald, encircled with
+three rows of pearls, supported by three hundred and sixty-five feet of
+gems and massive gold, which was found in the Gothic treasury when
+plundered by the Arabs, and which also had been one of the ornaments of
+a senatorial palace. [Footnote: This emerald table was probably colored
+glass. It was valued at five hundred thousand pieces of gold.] The favor
+of the Franks was, in after times, purchased with this golden dish by a
+Spanish monarch, who stole it back, but compensated by a present of two
+hundred thousand pieces of gold, with which Dagobert founded the Abbey
+of St. Denys. [Footnote: Gibbon, chap. xxx.]
+
+[Sidenote: New barbaric invasions.]
+
+[Sidenote: Permanent settlements of the Goths in Spain.]
+
+The sack of Rome by the Goths was followed by the successful inroads of
+other barbaric tribes. The Suevi, the Alans, and the Vandals invaded
+Spain, which for four hundred years had been prosperous in all the arts
+of peace. The great cities of Corduba, Merida, Seville, Bracara, and
+Barcelona, testified to her wealth and luxury, while science and
+commerce both elevated and enfeebled the people. Yet no one of the Roman
+provinces suffered more severely. Gibbon thus quotes the language of a
+Spanish historian. "The barbarians exercised an indiscriminate cruelty
+on the fortunes of both Spaniards and Romans, and ravaged with equal
+fury the cities and the open country. Famine reduced the miserable
+inhabitants to feed on the flesh of their fellow-creatures, and
+pestilence swept away a large portion of those whom famine spared. Then
+the barbarians fixed their permanent seats in the country they had
+ravaged with fire and sword; Galicia was divided between the Suevi and
+the Vandals; the Alani were scattered over the provinces of Carthagenia
+and Lusitania, and Botica was allotted to the Vandals." But he adds, and
+this is a most impressive fact, "that the greater part of the Spaniards
+preferred the condition of poverty and barbarism to the severe
+oppressions of the Roman government." [Footnote: Gibbon, chap. xxx.]
+
+The successors of Alaric, A.D. 419, established themselves at Toulouse,
+forty-three years after they had crossed the Danube, which became the
+seat of the Gothic empire in Gaul. About the same time the Burgundians
+and the Franks obtained a permanent settlement in that distracted but
+wealthy province, and effected a ruin of all that had been deemed
+opulent or fortunate.
+
+[Sidenote: The Romans leave Britain.]
+
+Meanwhile, Britain had been left, by the withdrawal of the legions, to
+the ravages of Saxon pirates, and the savages of Caledonia. The island
+was irrevocably lost to the empire, A.D. 409, although it was forty
+years before the Saxons obtained a permanent footing, and secured their
+conquest.
+
+But a more savage chastisement than Rome received from the Goths--the
+most powerful and generous of her foes--was inflicted by the Vandals,
+whose name is synonymous with all that is fierce and revolting.
+
+[Sidenote: The Vandals.]
+
+These barbarians belonged to the great Teutonic race, although some
+maintain that they were of Slavonic origin. Their settlements were
+between the Elbe and the Vistula; and, during the reign of Marcus
+Aurelius, they had, with other tribes, invaded the Roman world, but were
+defeated by the Roman emperor. One hundred years later they settled in
+Pannonia, where they had a bitter contest with the Goths. Defeated by
+them, they sought the protection of Rome, and enlisted in the imperial
+armies. In 406, they crossed the Rhine and invaded Gaul, and it was not
+in the power of the Franks to resist them. They advanced to the very
+foot of the Pyrenees, inflicting every atrocity upon the Celtic and
+Roman inhabitants. Neither age, nor sex, nor condition was spared, and
+the very churches were given to the flames. They then crossed into
+Spain, A.D. 409, and settled in Andalusia, and under its sunny skies
+resumed the agricultural life they had led in Pannonia. [Footnote:
+Sheppard's _Fall of Rome_, p. 364.] The land now wore an aspect of
+prosperity; rich harvests covered the plains, while the hills were white
+with flocks. They seem to have lived in amity with the Romans, so that
+"there were found those who preferred freedom with poverty among the
+barbarians, to a life rendered wretched by taxation among their own
+countrymen." [Footnote: Orosious, vii. 41.] This testimony is confirmed
+by Salvian, who declares, "they prefer to live as freemen under the
+guise of captivity, rather than as captives under the guise of freedom."
+[Footnote: _De Gub. Dei_, v.] If this be true, it would seem that
+the rule of the barbarians was preferred to the taxation and oppression
+with which they were ground down by the Roman officials. And this
+conclusion is legitimate, when we remember the indifference and apathy
+that seized the old inhabitants when the empire was seriously
+threatened. It may have been that the irruptions of the barbarians were
+not regarded as so great a calamity after all, if they should break the
+bondage and alleviate the misery which filled the Roman world.
+
+[Sidenote: Success of the Vandals.]
+
+The Roman government, it would seem, [Footnote: Sheppard, p. 364.] would
+not tolerate the Vandals in Spain, and intrigued with the Goths, their
+hereditary enemies, to make an attack upon them, perhaps with the view
+of weakening the strength of the Goths themselves, A.D. 416. Wallia,
+king of the Goths, was successful, and the Vandals were worried. The
+Romans also sent an army to reconquer Spain from their grasp, which
+drove the Vandals into Andalusia. But the Vandals turned upon their
+enemies and entirely discomfited them, and twenty thousand men were left
+dead upon the field. Spain was now entirely at the mercy of these
+infuriated barbarians, who might have peacefully settled had it not been
+for the jealousy of the imperial government, which, in those days, drew
+upon itself evils by its own mismanagement. For two years "Vandalism"
+reigned throughout the peninsula, which was pillaged and sacked.
+
+[Sidenote: Genseric.]
+
+The king of these Vandals was Genseric, the worthy rival of Alaric and
+Attila, as a "scourge of God." If we may credit the writers who belonged
+to the people whom he humbled, [Footnote: Procopious, _Bell.
+Vand._, i. 3.] he was one of the most hideous monsters ever clothed
+with power. He was ambitious, subtle, deceitful, revengeful, cruel, and
+passionate. But he was temperate, of clear vision, and inflexible
+purpose.
+
+[Sidenote: The Vandals Threaten Africa.]
+
+He cast his eyes on Africa, the granary of Rome, and the only province
+which had thus far escaped the ravages of war. In the hour of triumph,
+and in the plenitude of power, he resolved on leaving Spain, which he
+held by uncertain tenure, since he was only an illegitimate son of the
+late monarch Gunderic, and founding a new kingdom in Africa. It was rich
+in farms and cities, whose capital, Carthage, had arisen from her ashes,
+and was once again the rival of Rome in majesty and splendor. She had
+even outgrown Alexandria, and her commerce was more flourishing than
+that of the capital of Egypt. She was even famous for schools and chairs
+of philosophy; but more for those arts which material prosperity ever
+produces.
+
+[Sidenote: Dissensionsof Roman generals.]
+
+There were, at that time, two distinguished generals in the service of
+the empire--Boniface and Aetius, the former of whom was governor of
+Africa. They were, unfortunately, rivals, and their dissensions and
+jealousies compromised the empire. United, they could have withstood,
+perhaps, the torrent which was about to sweep over Africa and Italy.
+Aetius persuaded the emperor to recall Boniface, while he advised the
+Count to disobey the summons, representing it as a sentence of death.
+Boniface put himself in the attitude of a rebel, and fearing the
+imperial forces, invited Genseric and his Vandals to Africa, with the
+proposal of an alliance and an advantageous settlement. Doubtless he was
+driven to this grand folly by the intrigues of Aetius.
+
+Genseric gladly availed himself of an invitation which held out to him
+the richest prize in the empire. With fifty thousand warriors he landed
+on the coast of Africa, formed an alliance with the Moors, and became as
+dangerous an ally to Count Boniface, as Lord Clive was to the native
+princes of India. Africa was then disturbed by the schism of the
+Donatists, and these fanatical people were taken under the
+_protection_ of the Vandals. The Moors always hated their Roman
+masters. With Vandals, Moors, and Donatists, leagued together, Africa
+was in serious danger.
+
+[Sidenote: The Vandals invade Africa.]
+
+The landing of the Vandals, who, of all barbarians, bore the most
+terrible name, was the signal of head-long flight. Consternation seized
+all classes of people. The gorges and the caverns of Mount Atlas were
+crowded with fugitives. The Vandals burned the villages through which
+they marched, and sacked the cities, and destroyed the harvests, and cut
+down the trees. The Moors swelled the ranks of the invaders, and
+indulged their common hatred of civilization and of Rome. Boniface, too
+late, perceived his mistake, and turned against the common foe; but was
+defeated in battle, and forced to cede away three important provinces as
+the price of peace, A.D. 432. But peace was not of long duration. The
+Vandals continually encroached upon more valuable territory. Moreover,
+they had been nominally converted to Christianity, and were bitter
+zealots of the Arian faith, and most relentlessly persecuted the
+Catholic Christians who adhered to the Nicene Creed.
+
+[Sidenote: Genseric at Carthage.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fate of the city.]
+
+At last (439 A.D.), the storm burst out, and the world was thunderstruck
+with the intelligence that Genseric had seized and plundered Carthage.
+Suddenly, without warning, in a day looked not for, this magnificent
+city was plundered, and her inhabitants butchered by the most faithless
+and perfidious barbarians, who trampled out the dying glories of the
+empire. Her doom was like that pronounced upon Tyre and Sidon. The
+bitter cry which went up from the devastated city proclaimed the
+retribution of God for sins more hideous than those of Antioch or
+Babylon. Of all the cities of the world, Carthage was probably the
+wickedest--a seething caldron of impurities and abominations, the home
+of all the vices which disgraced humanity--so indecent and scandalous as
+to excite the disgust of the barbarians themselves. According to one of
+the authors of those times, as quoted by Sheppard, [Footnote: Salvian,
+_De Gub. Dei_, vii. 251.] "they were notorious for drunkenness,
+avarice, and perjury--the peculiar sins of degenerate commercial
+capitals. The Goths are perfidious but chaste, the Franks are liars but
+hospitable, the Saxons are cruel but continent; but the Africans are a
+blazing fire of impurity and lust; the rich are drunk with debauchery,
+the poor are ground down with relentless oppression, while other vices,
+too indecent to be named, pollute every class. Who can wonder at the
+fall of Roman society? What hope can there be for Rome, when barbarians
+are more chaste and temperate than they?"
+
+In the sack of Carthage, the voluminous writings of Augustine, then
+breathing his last in prayer to God that the fate of Sodom might be
+averted, were fortunately preserved, and have doubtless done more to
+instruct, and perhaps civilize, the western nations, than all the arts
+and sciences of the commercial metropolis. It is singular how little
+remains of the commercial cities of antiquity, which we value as
+trophies of civilization. A few sculptured ruins are all that attest
+ancient pride and glory. The poems of a blind schoolmaster at Chios, and
+the rhapsodies of a wandering philosopher on the hills of Greece, have
+proved greater legacies to the world than the combined treasures of
+Africa and Asia Minor. Where is the literature of Carthage, except as
+preserved in the writings of Augustine, the influence of which in
+developing the character of the barbarians cannot be estimated.
+
+[Sidenote: Renewed dangers of Rome.]
+
+The cry of agony which went from Carthage across the Mediterranean,
+announced to Rome that her turn would come. She looked in vain to every
+quarter for assistance. Every city and province had need of their own
+forces. Theodoric, king of the Visigoths, was contending with Aetius; in
+Spain the Sueves were extending their ravages; Attila menaced the
+eastern provinces; the Emperor Valentinian was forced to hide in the
+marshes of Ravenna, and see the second sack of the imperial capital, now
+a prostrate power--a corpse in a winding-sheet.
+
+[Sidenote: The Vandals in Italy.]
+
+The Vandals landed on the Italian coast. They advanced to the Tiber's
+banks. The Queen of Cities wrapped around her the faded folds of her
+imperial purple, rent by faction, pierced with barbaric daggers, and
+trampled in the dust. Yet not with the dignity of her great Julius did
+she die. She begged for mercy, not proud and stately amid her
+executioners, but like a withered hag, with the wine-cup of sorceries in
+her hand, pale, haggard, ghastly, staggering, helpless.
+
+[Sidenote: Sack and fall of Rome.]
+
+The last hope of Rome was her Christian bishop, and the great Leo, who
+was to Rome what Augustine had been to Carthage, in his pontifical
+robes, hastened to the barbarians' camp. But all he could secure was the
+promise that the unresisting should be spared, the buildings protected
+from fire, and the captives from torture. Even this promise was only
+partially fulfilled. The pillage lasted fourteen days and fourteen
+nights, and all that the Goths had spared was transported to the ships
+of Genseric. Among the spoils were the statues of the old pagan gods
+which adorned the capitol, the holy vessels of the Jewish temples which
+Titus had brought away from Jerusalem, and the shrines and altars of the
+Christian churches enriched by the liberality of popes and emperors. The
+gilding of the capitol had cost Domitian twelve million dollars, or
+twelve thousand talents, but the bronze on which it was gilt was carried
+away. The imperial ornaments of the palace, the magnificent furniture
+and wardrobe of senatorial mansions, and the sideboards of massive
+plate, gold, silver, brass, copper, whatever could be found, were
+transported to the ships. The Empress Eudoxia herself was stripped of
+her jewels, and carried away captive with her two daughters, the only
+survivors of the great Theodosius. Thousands of Romans were forced upon
+the fleet, while wives were separated from their husbands, and children
+from their parents, and sold into slavery. [Footnote: Gibbon, chap.
+xxxvi.]
+
+[Sidenote: The doom of Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: The heroism of the Pope.]
+
+Such was the doom of Rome, A.D. 455, forty-five years after the Gothic
+invasion. The haughty city had met the fate she had inflicted upon her
+rivals. And she never would probably have arisen from her fall, but
+would have remained ruined and desolate, had not her great bishop,
+rising with the greatness of the crisis, and inspired with the old
+imperishable idea of national unity, which had for three hundred years
+sustained the crumbling empire, exclaimed to the rude spoliators, now
+converted to his faith, while all around him were desolation and ruin,
+weeping widows, ashes, groans, lamentations, bitter sorrows--nothing
+left but recollections, nothing to be seen but the desolation spoken of
+by Jeremy the prophet, as well as the Cumean Sybil; all central power
+subverted, law and justice by-words, literature and art crushed, vice
+rampant multiplying itself, the contemplative hiding in cells, the rich
+made slaves, women shrieking in terror, bishops praying in despair, the
+heart of the world bleeding, barbarians everywhere triumphant--in this
+mournful crisis, did Leo, the intrepid Pontiff, alone and undismayed,
+and concentrating within himself all that survived of the ambition and
+haughty will of the ancient capital, exclaim to the superstitious
+victors, in the spirit if not in the words of Hildebrand, "Beware, I am
+the successor of St. Peter, to whom God has given the keys of the
+kingdom of heaven, and against whose church the gates of hell cannot
+prevail; I am the living representative of divine power upon the earth;
+I am Caesar, a Christian Caesar, ruling in love, to whom all Christians
+owe allegiance; I hold in my hands the curses of hell, and the
+benedictions of heaven; I absolve all subjects from allegiance to kings;
+I give and take away, by divine right, all thrones and principalities of
+Christendom--beware how you desecrate the patrimony given me by your
+invisible king, yea, bow down your necks to me, and pray that the anger
+of God may be averted." And the superstitious conquerors wept, and bowed
+their faces to the dust, in reverence and in awe, and Rome again arose
+from her desolation--the seat of a new despotism more terrible than the
+centralized power of the emperors, controlling the wills of kings,
+priests, and people, and growing more majestic with the progress of
+ages; a vital and mysterious power which even the Reformation could not
+break, and which even now gives no signs of decay, and boldly defies, in
+the plenitude of spiritual power, a greater prince than he who stood in
+the winter time three days and nights before the gates of the castle of
+Canossa, bareheaded and barefooted, in abject submission to Gregory VII.
+
+[Sidenote: Renewed invasion of barbarians.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Huns.]
+
+While the Vandals were thus plundering Rome, a still fiercer race of
+barbarians were trampling beneath their feet the deserted sanctuaries of
+the empire. The Huns, a Slavonic race, most hideous and revolting
+savages, Tartar hordes, with swarthy faces, sunken eyes, flat noses,
+square bodies, big heads, broad shoulders, low stature, without pity, or
+fear, or mercy--equally the enemies of the Romans and the Germans--races
+thus far incapable of civilization, now spread themselves from the Volga
+to the Danube, from the shores of the Caspian to the Hadriatic. They
+were a nomadic people, with flocks and herds, planting no seed, reaping
+no harvest, wandering about in quest of a living, yet powerful with
+their horses and darts. For fifty years after they had invaded Southern
+Europe, their aid was sought and secured by the rash court of
+Constantinople, as a counterpoise to the power of the Goths and other
+Germanic tribes. They were obstinate pagans, and had an invincible
+hatred of civilization. They had various fortunes in their migrations
+and wars, and experienced some terrible defeats. But they had their eyes
+open to the spoil of the crumbling empire--"ripe fruit" for them to
+pluck, as well as for the Goths and Vandals.
+
+[Sidenote: Attila.]
+
+The leader of the Huns at this period was Attila--a man of great
+astuteness and military genius, who succeeded in conquering, one after
+another, every existing tribe of barbarians beyond the Danube and the
+Rhine, and then turned his arms against the eastern empire. This was in
+the year 441. They ravaged Pannonia, routed two Roman armies, laid
+Thessaly in waste, and threatened Constantinople. The Emperor
+Theodosius, A.D. 446, purchased peace by an ignominious tribute, so
+great as to reduce many leading families to poverty. "The scourge of God"
+then turned his steps to the more exhausted fields of the western
+provinces, and invaded Gaul. The Visigoths had there established a
+kingdom, hostile to the Vandal power. The Huns and the Vandals united,
+with all the savage legions which could be collected from Lapland to the
+Indus, against the Goths and imperial forces under the command of Aetius.
+"Never," says Thierry, [Footnote: _Histoire d'Attilla_, vol. i.
+p. 141] "since the days of Xerxes, was there such a gathering of nations
+as now followed the standard of Attila, some five hundred thousand
+warriors--Huns, Alans, Gepidae, Neuvi, Geloni, Bastarnae, Heruli,
+Lombards, Belloniti, Rugi, some German but chiefly Asiatic tribes, with
+their long quivers and ponderous lances, and cuirasses of plaited hair,
+and scythes, and round bucklers, and short swords." This heterogeneous
+host, from the Sarmatian plains, and the banks of the Vistula and
+Niemen, extended from Basle to the mouth of the Rhine. Attila directed
+it against Orleans, on the Loire, an important strategic position. Aetius
+went to meet him, bringing all the barbaric auxiliaries he could
+collect--Britons, Franks, Burgundians, Sueves, Saxons, Visigoths. It was
+not so much Roman against barbarian, as Europe against Asia, which was
+now arrayed upon the plains of Champagne, for Orleans had fallen into
+the hands of the Huns. There, at Chalons, was fought the most decisive
+and bloody battle of that dreadful age, by which Europe was delivered
+from Asia, even as at a later day the Saracens were shut out of France
+by Charles Martel. "_Bellum atrox, multiplex, immane, pertinax, cui
+simile nulla usquam narrat antiquitas._" [Footnote: Jordanes.] Attila
+began the fight; on his left were the Ostrogoths under Vladimir, on his
+right were the Gepidae, while in the centre were stationed the Huns, with
+their irresistible cavalry. Aetius stationed the Franks and Burgundians,
+whose loyalty he doubted, in the centre, while he strengthened his
+wings, and assumed the command of his own left. The Huns, as expected,
+made their impetuous charge; the Roman army was cut in two; but the
+wings of Aetius overlapped the cavalry of Attila, and drove back his
+wings. Attila was beaten, and Gaul was saved from the Slavonic invaders.
+It is computed that three hundred thousand barbarians, on both sides,
+were slain--the most fearful slaughter recorded in the whole annals of
+war. The discomfited king of the Huns led back his forces to the Rhine,
+ravaging the cities and villages through which he passed, and collected
+a new army. The following year he invaded Italy.
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman general Aetius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Retreat of Attila.]
+
+Aetius alone remained to stem the barbaric hosts. He had won one of the
+greatest victories of ancient times, and sought for a reward. And
+considering the brilliancy of his victory, and the greatness of his
+services, the marriage of his son with the princess Eudoxia was not an
+unreasonable object of ambition. But his greatness made him unpopular
+with the debauched court at Ravenna, and he was left without a
+sufficient force to stem the invasion of the Huns. Aquileia, the most
+important and strongly fortified city of Northern Italy, for a time
+stood out against the attack of the barbarians, but ultimately yielded.
+Fugitives from the Venetian territory sought a refuge among the islands
+which skirt the northern coast of the Adriatic--the haunts of fishermen
+and sea-birds. There Venice was born, which should revive the glory of
+the West, and write her history upon the waves for a thousand years.
+Attila had spent the spring in his attack on Aquileia, and the summer
+heats were unfavorable for further operations, and his soldiers clamored
+for repose; but, undaunted by the ravages which sickness produced in his
+army, he resolved to cross the Apennines and give a last blow to Rome.
+Leo again sought the barbarians' camp, and met with more success than he
+did with the Vandals. Attila consented to leave Italy in consideration
+of an annual tribute, and the promise of the hand of the princess
+Honoria, sister of the Emperor Valentinian, who, years before, in a fit
+of female spitefulness for having been banished to Constantinople, had
+sent her ring as a _gage d'amour_ to the repulsive barbarian. He
+then retired to the Danube by the passes of the Alps, where he spent the
+winter in bacchanalian orgies and preparations for an invasion of the
+eastern provinces. But his career was suddenly cut off by the avenging
+poniard of Ildigo, a Bactrian or Burgundian princess, whom he had taken
+for one of his numerous wives, and whose relations he had slain.
+
+[Sidenote: Disasters of the Huns.]
+
+On his death, the German tribes refused longer to serve under the
+divided rule of his sons, and after a severe contest with the more
+barbarous Huns, the empire of Attila disappeared as one of the great
+powers of the world, and Italy was delivered forever from this plague of
+locusts. The battle of Netad, in which they suffered a disastrous
+defeat, was perhaps as decisive as the battle of Chalons. They returned
+to Asia, or else were gradually worn out in unavailing struggles with
+the Goths.
+
+[Sidenote: The Avars.]
+
+The Avars, a tribe of the great Turanian race, and kindred to the Huns,
+a few years after their retreat, crossed the Danube, established
+themselves between that river and the Save, invaded the Greek empire,
+and ravaged the provinces almost to the walls of Constantinople. It
+would seem from Sheppard that the Avars had migrated from the very
+centre of Asia, two thousand miles from the Caspian Sea, fleeing from
+the Turks who had reduced them to their sway. [Footnote: Sheppard, Lect.
+iv.] In their migration to the West, they overturned every thing in
+their way, and spread great alarm at Constantinople. Justinian, then an
+old man, A.D. 567, purchased their peace by an annual tribute and the
+grant of lands. In 582, the Avar empire was firmly established on the
+Danube, and in the valleys of the Balkan. But it was more hostile to the
+Slavic tribes, than to the Byzantine Greeks, who then occupied the
+centre and southeast of Europe, and who were reduced to miserable
+slavery. With the Franks, the Avars also came in conflict, and, after
+various fortunes, were subdued by Charlemagne. Their subsequent history
+cannot here be pursued, until they were swept away from the roll of the
+European nations. Moreover, it was not until _after_ the fall of
+Rome, that they were formidable.
+
+[Sidenote: Final disasters of the empire.]
+
+[Sidenote: Imbecile emperors.]
+
+The real drama of the fall of Rome closes with the second sack of the
+city by the Vandals, since the imperial power was nearly prostrated in
+the West, and shut up within the walls of Ravenna. But Italy was the
+scene of great disasters for twenty years after, until the last of the
+emperors--Augustulus Romulus; what a name with which to close the series
+of Roman emperors!--was dethroned by Odoacer, chief of the Heruli, a
+Scythian tribe, and Rome was again stormed and sacked, A.D. 476. During
+these twenty years, the East and the West were finally severed, and
+Italy was ruled by barbaric chieftains, and their domination permanently
+secured. Valentinian, the last emperor of the race of Theodosius, was
+assassinated in the year 455 (at the instigation of the Senator Maximus,
+of the celebrated Anician family, whose wife he had violated), a man who
+had inherited all the weaknesses of his imperial house, without its
+virtues, and under whose detestable reign the people were so oppressed
+with taxes and bound down by inquisitions that they preferred the
+barbarians to the empire. The successive reigns of Maximus, Avitus,
+Majorian, Severus, Anthemius, Olybrius, Glycerius, Nepos, and
+Augustulus, nine emperors in twenty--one years, suggests nothing but
+disorder and revolution. The murderer of Valentinian reigned but three
+months, during which Rome was sacked by the Vandals. Avitus was raised
+to his vacant throne by the support of the Visigoths of Gaul, then ruled
+by Theodoric, a majestic barbarian, and the most enlightened and
+civilized of all the leaders of the Gothic hosts who had yet appeared.
+He fought and vanquished the Suevi, who had established themselves in
+Spain, in the name of the emperor whom he had placed upon the throne,
+but he really ruled on both sides of the Alps, and Avitus was merely his
+puppet, and distinguished only for his infamous pleasures, although, as
+a general, he had once saved the empire from the Huns.
+
+[Sidenote: Last days of Rome.]
+
+He was in turn deposed by Count Ricimer, a Sueve, and generalissimo of
+the Roman armies, and Majorian, whom Ricimer thought to make a tool, was
+placed in his stead. But he was an able and good man, and attempted to
+revive the traditions of the empire, and met the fate of all reformers
+in a hopeless age, doubtless under the influence of Ricimer, who
+substituted Severus, a Lucanian, who perished by poison after a reign of
+four years, so soon as he became distasteful to the military
+subordinate, who was all-powerful at Rome, and who ruled Italy for six
+years without an emperor with despotic authority. During these six years
+Italy was perpetually ravaged by the Vandals, who landed and pillaged
+the coast, and then retired with their booty. Ricimer, without ships,
+invoked the aid of the court of Constantinople, who imposed a Greek upon
+the throne of Italy. Though a man of great ability, Anthemius, the new
+emperor, was unpopular with the Italians and the barbarians, and he,
+again, was deposed by Ricimer, and Olybrius, a senator of the Anician
+house, reigned in his stead, A.D. 472. It was then that Rome for the
+third time was sacked by one of her own generals. Olybrius reigned but a
+few months, and Glycerius, captain of his guard, was selected as his
+successor--an appointment disagreeable to the Greek Emperor Leo, who
+opposed to him Julius Nepos--a distinguished general, who succeeded in
+ejecting Glycerius. The Visigoths, offended, made war upon Roman Gaul.
+Julius sent against them Orestes, a Pannonian, called the Patrician, who
+turned a traitor, and, on the assassination of Julius, entered Ravenna
+in triumph. His son, christened Romulus, the soldiers elevated upon a
+shield and saluted Augustus; but as he was too small to wear the purple
+robe, they called him Augustulus--a bitter mockery, recalling the battle
+of Actium, and the foundation of Rome. He was the last of the Caesars. It
+was easier to make an emperor than keep him in his place. The bands of
+Orestes clamored for lands equal to a third of Italy. Orestes hesitated,
+and refused the demand. The soldiers were united under Odoacer--chief of
+the Heruli, a general in the service of the Patrician--one of the
+boldest and most unscrupulous of those mercenaries who lent their arms
+in the service of the government of Ravenna. The. standard of revolt was
+raised, and the barbarian army marched against their former master.
+Leaving his son in Ravenna, Orestes, himself an able general trained in
+the service of Attila, went forth to meet his enemy on the Lombard
+plains. Unable to make a stand, he shut himself up in Pavia, which was
+taken and sacked, and Orestes put to death. The barbarians then marched
+to Ravenna, which they took, with the boy who wore the purple, who was
+not slain as his father was, but pensioned with six thousand crowns, and
+sent to a Campanian villa, which once belonged to Sulla and Lucullus.
+The throne of the Caesars was hopelessly subverted, and Odoacer was king
+of Italy, and portioned out its lands to his greedy followers, A.D. 476.
+He was not unworthy of his high position, but his kingdom was in a sad
+state of desolation, and after a reign of fourteen years he was in turn
+supplanted by the superior genius of Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths,
+under whom a new era dawned upon Italy and the West, A.D. 490.
+
+[Sidenote: Dismemberment of the empire.]
+
+The Roman empire was now dismembered, and the various tribes of
+barbarians, after a contest of two hundred years were fairly settled in
+its provinces.
+
+[Sidenote: The settlement of the Ostrogoths in Italy.]
+
+In Italy we find the Ostrogoths as a dominant power, who, migrating from
+the mouth of the Danube, with all the barbarians they could enlist under
+the standard of Theodoric, prevailed over Odoacer, and settled in Italy.
+The Gothic kingdom was assailed afterward by Belisarius and Narses, the
+great generals of Justinian, also by the Lombards under Alboin, who
+maintained themselves in the north of Italy.
+
+[Sidenote: The settlement of the franks in Gaul.]
+
+Gaul was divided among the Franks, the Burgundians, and the Visigoths,
+whose perpetual wars, and whose infant kingdom, it is not my object to
+present.
+
+[Sidenote: The settlement of the Saxons in Britain.]
+
+Britain was possessed by the Saxons, Spain by the Vandals, Suevi, and
+Visigoths, and Africa by the Vandals, while the whole eastern empire
+fell into the hands of the Saracens, except Constantinople, which
+preserved the treasures of Greek and Roman civilization, until the
+barbarians, elevated by the Christian religion, were prepared to ingraft
+it upon their own rude laws and customs.
+
+It would be interesting to trace the various fortunes of these Teutonic
+tribes in the devastated provinces which they possessed by conquest. But
+this would lead us into a boundless field, foreign to our inquiry. It is
+the fall of Rome, not the reconstruction by the new races, which I seek
+to present. It would also be interesting to survey the old capital of
+the world in the hands of her various masters, pillaged and sacked by
+all in turn; but her doom was sealed when Alaric entered the gates which
+had been closed for six hundred years to a foreign enemy, and the empire
+fell, virtually, when the haughty city, so long a queen among the
+nations, yielded up her palaces as spoil. The eastern empire had a
+longer life, but it was inglorious when Rome was no longer the superior
+city.
+
+[Sidenote: Reflections on the fall of the empire.]
+
+The story of the fall of the grandest empire ever erected on our earth
+is simple and impressive. Genius, energy, and patience led to vast
+possessions, which were retained by a uniform policy which nothing could
+turn aside. Prosperity and success led to boundless self-exaggeration
+and a depreciation of enemies, while the vices of self-interest
+undermined gradually all real strength. Society became utterly
+demoralized and weakened, and there were no conservative forces
+sufficiently, strong to hold it together. Vitality was destroyed by
+disproportionate fortunes, by slavery, by the extinction of the middle
+classes, by the degradation of woman, by demoralizing excitements, by
+factitious life, by imperial misrule, by proconsular tyranny, by
+enervating vices, by the absence of elevated sentiments, by an all-
+engrossing abandonment to money-making and the pleasures it procured, so
+that no lofty appeal could be made to which the degenerate people would
+listen, or which they could understand. The empire was rotten to the
+core--was steeped in selfishness, sensuality, and frivolity, and the
+poison pervaded all classes and orders, and descended to the extremities
+of the social system. What could be done? There was no help from man.
+The empire was on the verge of dissolution when the barbarians came.
+They only gave a shock and hastened the fall. The empire was ripe fruit,
+to be plucked by the strongest hand.
+
+Three centuries earlier a brave resistance would have been' made, and
+the barbarians would have been overthrown and annihilated or sold as
+slaves. But they were now the stronger, even with their rude weapons,
+and without the arts of war which the Romans had been learning for a
+thousand years. Yet they suffered prodigious losses before they became
+ultimately victorious. But they persevered, driven by necessity as well
+as the love of adventure and rapine. Wave after wave was rolled back by
+desperate generals; but the tide returned, and swept all away.
+
+Fortunately, they reconstructed after they had once destroyed. They were
+converts of Christianity, and had sympathy with many elements of
+civilization. "Some solitary sparks fell from the beautiful world that
+was passed upon the night of their labors." These kindled a fire which
+has never been extinguished. They had, with all their barbarism, some
+great elements of character, and in all the solid qualities of the
+heart, were superior to the races they subdued. They brought their fresh
+blood into the body politic, and were alive to sentiments of religion,
+patriotism, and love. They were enthusiastic, hopeful, generous, and
+uncontaminated by those subtle vices which ever lead to ruin. They made
+innumerable mistakes, and committed inexcusable follies. But, after a
+long pilgrimage, and severely disciplined by misfortunes, they erected a
+new fabric, established by the beautiful union of German strength and
+Roman art, on the more solid foundations of Christian truth.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+The authorities for this chapter are not numerous. They are the
+historians of the empire in its decline and miseries. Gibbon's history
+is doubtless the best in English. He may be compared with Tillemont's
+Hist, des Emperors. Sheppard has written an interesting and instructing
+book on this period, but it pertains especially to the rise of the new
+barbaric states. Tacitus' chapter on the Manners of the Germans should
+be read in connection with the wars. Gibbon quotes largely from Ammianus
+Marcellinus, who is the best Latin historian of the last days of Rome.
+Zosimus is an authority, but he is brief. Procopius wrote a history of
+the Vandal wars. Gregory of Tours describes the desolations in Gaul, as
+well as Journandes. The writings of Jerome, Augustine, and other
+fathers, allude somewhat to the miseries and wickedness of the times.
+But of all the writers on this dark and gloomy period, Gibbon is the
+most satisfactory and exhaustive; nor is it probable he will soon be
+supplanted in a field so dreary and sad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE REASONS WHY THE CONSERVATIVE INFLUENCES OF PAGAN CIVILIZATION DID
+NOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE ROMAN WORLD.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Nothing conservative in mere human creation.]
+
+It is a most interesting inquiry why art, literature, science,
+philosophy, and political organizations, and other trophies of the
+unaided reason of man, did not prevent so mournful an eclipse of human
+glory as took place upon the fall of the majestic empire of the Romans.
+There can be no question that civilization achieved most splendid
+triumphs, even under the influence of pagan institutions. But it was not
+paganism which achieved these victories; it was the will and the reason
+of a noble race, in spite of its withering effects. It was the proud
+reason of man which soared to such lofty heights, and attempted to
+secure happiness and prosperity. These great ends were measurably
+attained, and a self-sufficient philosopher might have pointed to these
+victories as both glorious and permanent. When the eyes of
+contemporaries rested on the beautiful and cultivated face of nature, on
+commerce and ships, on military successes and triumphs, on the glories
+of heroes and generals, on a subdued world, on a complicated mechanism
+of social life, on the blazing wonders of art, on the sculptures and
+pictures, the temples and monuments which ornamented every part of the
+empire, when they reflected on the bright theories which philosophy
+proposed, on the truths which were incorporated with the system of
+jurisprudence, on the wondrous constitution which the experience of ages
+had framed, on the genius of poets and historians, on the whole system
+of social life, adorned with polished manners and the graces of genial
+intercourse--when they saw that all these triumphs had been won over
+barbarism, and had been constantly progressing with succeeding
+generations, it seemed that the reign of peace and prosperity would be
+perpetual. It is nothing to the point whether the civilization of which
+all people boasted, and in which they trusted, was superior or inferior
+to that which has subsequently been achieved by the Gothic races. The
+question is, _Did_ these arts and sciences produce an influence
+sufficiently strong to conserve society? That they polished and adorned
+individuals cannot be questioned. Did they infuse life into the decaying
+mass? Did they prolong political existence? Did they produce valor and
+moral force among the masses? Did they raise a bulwark capable of
+resisting human degeneracy or barbaric violence? Did they lead to self-
+restraint? Did they create a lofty public sentiment which scorned
+baseness and lies? Did they so raise the moral tone of society that
+people were induced to make sacrifices and noble efforts to preserve
+blessings which had already been secured.
+
+[Sidenote: Civilisation can only rise to a certain height by unabled
+reason.]
+
+I have to show that the grandest empire of antiquity perished from the
+same causes which destroyed Babylon and Carthage; that all the
+magnificent trophies of the intellect were in vain; that the sources of
+moral renovation were poisoned; that nothing worked out, practically and
+generally, the good which was intended, and which enthusiasts had hoped;
+that the very means of culture were perverted, and that the savor unto
+life became a savor unto death. In short, it will appear from the
+example of Rome, that man cannot save himself; that he cannot originate
+any means of conservation which will not be foiled and rendered nugatory
+by the force of human corruption; that man, left to himself, will defeat
+his own purposes, and that all his enterprises and projects will end in
+shame and humiliation, so far as they are intended to preserve society.
+The history of all the pagan races and countries show that only a
+limited height can ever be reached, and that society is destined to
+perpetual falls as well as triumphs, and would move on in circles
+forever, where no higher aid comes than from man himself. And this great
+truth is so forcibly borne out by facts, that those profound and learned
+historians who are skeptical of the power of Christianity, have
+generally embraced the theory that nations _must_ rise and fall to
+the end of time; and society will show, like the changes of nature, only
+phases which have appeared before. Their gloomy theories remind us of
+the perpetual swinging of a pendulum, or the endless labors of Ixion--
+circles and cycles of motion, but no general and universal progress to a
+perfect state of happiness and prosperity. And if we were not supported
+by the hopes which Christianity furnishes, if we adopted the pagan
+principles of Gibbon or Buckle, history would only confirm the darkest
+theories. But the history of Greece and Rome and Egypt are only chapters
+in the great work which Providence unfolds. They are only acts in the
+great drama of universal life. The history of those old pagan empires is
+full of instruction. In one sense, it seems mournful, but it only shows
+that society must be a failure under the influences which man's genius
+originates. This world is not destined to be a failure, although the
+empires of antiquity were. I fall in with the most cheerless philosophy
+of the infidel historians, if there is no other hope for man, as
+illustrated by the rise and fall of empires, than what the pagan
+intellect devised. But this induction is not sufficiently broad. They
+have too few facts upon which to build a theory. Yet the theory they
+advance is supported by all the facts brought out by the history of
+pagan countries. And this is my reason for bringing out so much that is
+truly glorious, in an important sense, in Roman history, to show that
+these glories did not, and could not, save. And the moral lesson I would
+draw is, that _any_ civilization, based on what man creates or
+originates, even in his most lofty efforts, will fail as signally as the
+Grecian and the Roman, so far as the conservation of society is
+concerned, in the hour of peril, when corruption and degeneracy have
+also accomplished their work. Paganism cannot give other than temporary
+triumphs. Its victories are not progressive. They do not tend to
+indefinite and ever-expanding progress. They simply show an intellectual
+brilliancy, which is soon dimmed by the vapors which arise out of the
+fermentations of corrupt society.
+
+[Sidenote: The virtues of the primitive races.]
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of civilization in the ancient races.]
+
+The question here may arise why the Greeks and Romans themselves arose
+from a state of barbarism to the degree of culture which has given them
+immortality? Why did they not remain barbarians, like the natives of
+Central Africa? But they belonged to a peculiar race--that great
+Caucasian race which, in all of its ramifications, showed superior
+excellences, and which, in the earliest times, seems to have cherished
+ideas and virtues which probably were learned from a primitive
+revelation. The Romans, in the early ages of the republic, were superior
+to their descendants in the time of the emperors in all those qualities
+which give true dignity to character. I doubt if there was ever any
+great improvement among the Romans in a moral point of view. They
+acquired arts as they declined in virtue. If strictly scrutinized I
+believe it would appear that the Roman character was nobler six hundred
+years before Christ than in the second century of our era. It was the
+magnificent material on which civilizing influences had to work that
+accounts for Roman greatness, in the same sense that there was a dignity
+in the patriarchal period of Jewish history not to be found under the
+reigns of the kings. The same may be said of the Greeks. The Homeric
+poems show a natural beauty and simplicity more attractive than the
+rationalistic character of the Athenians in the time of Socrates. There
+was a progress in arts which was not to be seen in common life. And this
+is true also of the Persians. They were really a greater people under
+Cyrus than when they reigned in Babylon. There are no records of the
+Indo-Germanic races which do not indicate a certain greatness of
+character in the earliest periods. The Germanic tribes were barbarians,
+but in piety, in friendship, in hospitality, in sagacity, in severe
+morality, in the high estimation in which women were held, in the very
+magnificence of superstitions, we see the traits of a noble national
+character. It would be difficult to show absolute degradation at any
+time among these people. How they came to have these grand traits in
+their primeval forests it is difficult to show. Certainly they were
+never such a people as the Africans or the Malay races, or even the
+Slavonic tribes. These natural elements of character extorted the
+admiration of Tacitus, even as the Orientals won the respect of
+Herodotus. It is more easy to conceive why such a people as the Greeks
+and Romans were, in their primitive simplicity, when they were brave,
+trusting, affectionate, enterprising, should make progress in arts and
+sciences, than why they should have degenerated after a high
+civilization had been reached. They made the arts and sciences. The arts
+and sciences did not make them. They were great before civilization, as
+technically understood, was born. Why they were so superior to other
+races we cannot tell. They were either made so, or else they must have
+received a revelation from above, or learned some of the great truths
+which by God were taught to the patriarchs. Possibly the wisdom they
+very early evinced had come down from father to son from the remotest
+antiquity. The divine savor may have leavened the whole race before
+history was written. With their uncorrupted and primitive habits, they
+had a moral force which enabled them to make great improvements. Without
+this force they never would have reached so high a culture. And when the
+moral force was spent, the civilization they created also passed away
+from them to other uncorrupted races. The Greeks learned from Egyptians,
+as Romans learned from Greeks. Civilization only reached a limited state
+among the Egyptians. It never advanced for three thousand years. Greek
+culture retrograded after the age of Pericles. There were but few works
+of genius produced at Rome after the Antonines. The age of Augustus saw
+a higher triumph of art than the age of Cato, yet the moral greatness of
+the Romans was more marked in the time of Cato than in that of Augustus.
+If moral elevation kept pace with art, why the memorable decline in
+morals when the genius of the Romans soared to its utmost height? The
+virtues of society were a soil on which art prospered, and art continued
+to be developed long after real vigor had fled, but only reached a
+certain limit, and declined when life was gone. In other words, the
+force of character, which the early Romans evinced, gave an immense
+impulse to civilization, whose fruits appeared after the glory of
+character was gone; but, having no soil, the tree of knowledge at last
+withered away. If the old civilization had a life of itself, it would
+have saved the race. But as it was purely man's creation, his work, it
+had no inherent vitality or power to save him. The people were great
+before the fruits of their culture appeared. They were great in
+consequence of living virtues, not legacies of genius. They ran the
+usual course of the ancient nations. The sterling virtues of primitive
+times produced prosperity and material greatness. Material greatness
+gave patronage to art and science. Art and science did not corrupt the
+people until they had also become corrupted. But prosperity produced
+idleness, pride, and sensuality, by which science, art, and literature
+became tainted. The corruption spread. Society was undermined, and the
+arts fell with the people, except such as ministered to a corrupt taste,
+like demoralizing pictures and inflammatory music. Why did not the arts
+maintain the severity of the Grecian models? Why did philosophy
+degenerate to Epicureanism? Why did poetry condescend to such trivial
+subjects as hunting and fishing? Why did, the light of truth become dim?
+Why were the great principles of beauty lost sight of? Why the
+discrepancy between the laws and the execution of them? Why was every
+triumph of genius perverted? It was because men, in their wickedness,
+were indifferent to truth and virtue. Good men had made good laws; bad
+men perverted them. A corrupted civilization hastened, rather than
+retarded the downward course, and civilization must needs become corrupt
+when men became so. We cannot see any progress in peoples without moral
+forces, and these do not originate in man. They may be retained a long
+time among a people; they are not natural to them. They are _given_
+to them; they are given originally by God. They are the fruit of his
+revelations. Neither in the wilderness nor in the crowded city are they
+naturally produced. A perfect state of nature, without light from
+Heaven, is extreme rudeness, poverty, ignorance, and superstition, where
+brutal passions are dominant and triumphant. The vices of savages are as
+fatal as the vices of cities. They equally destroy society. Place man
+anywhere on the earth, or under any circumstances, without religious
+life, and moral degradation follows. Whence comes religious life? Where
+did Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, those eastern herdsmen and shepherds,
+get their moral wisdom? Surely it was inherited from earlier patriarchs,
+taught them by their fathers, or given directly from God himself.
+
+[Sidenote: Virtues of primitive life.]
+
+The most that can be said of a primitive state of society is that it is
+favorable for the _retention_ of religious and moral truth, more so
+than populous cities, since it has fewer temptations to excite the
+passions. But a savage in any country will remain a savage, unless he is
+elevated and taught through influences independent of himself.
+Hottentots make no progress. Greeks made progress, since they had moral
+wisdom communicated to them by their ancestors: the divine light
+struggled with human propensities. When outward circumstances were
+favorable the virtues were retained; they were not born, and these were
+the stimulus to all improvement; and when they were lost, all
+improvement that is real vanished away. Civilization is the fruit of
+man's genius, when man is virtuous. But it does not renovate races. It
+is only religion coming from God which can do this.
+
+It would be an interesting inquiry how far the religion of the old
+Greeks and Romans was pure--how far it was uncontaminated by
+superstitions. I think it would be found on inquiry, if we had the means
+of definite knowledge, that all that was elevating to the character had
+descended from a remote antiquity, and that the superstitions with which
+it was blended were more recent inventions. The ancestors of the Greeks
+were probably more truly religious than the Greeks themselves. And as
+new revelations were not made by God, the primitive revelations were
+obscured by increasing darkness, until superstition formed the
+predominant element.
+
+[Sidenote: Christianity the only conservative power.]
+
+Hence the revelations of God can only be preserved in a written form,
+without change or comment. Christianity is perpetuated by the Bible. So
+long as the Bible exists Christianity will have converts, and will be
+able to struggle successfully with human degeneracy. The revelations
+originally made to the eastern nations became traditions. The standard
+was not preserved in a written form to which the people had access.
+
+[Sidenote: Primitive life favors virtue.]
+
+[Sidenote: Evils of prosperity.]
+
+[Sidenote: The superiority of the early to the later Greeks in Virtue.]
+
+Moreover, the Greeks and Romans, when they were most virtuous, when they
+were in a state to produce a civilization, had great obstacles to
+surmount and difficulties to contend with. These ever develop genius and
+keep down destructive passions. Strength ever comes through weakness and
+dependence. This is the stern condition of our moral nature. It is a
+primeval and unalterable law that man must earn his living by the sweat
+of his brow, even as woman can only be happy and virtuous when her will
+is subject to that of her husband. A condition where labor is not
+necessary engenders idleness, sensuality, indifference to suffering,
+self-indulgence, and a conventional hardness that freezes the soul.
+Never, in this world, have more exalted virtues been brought to light
+than among the Puritans in their cold and dreary settlements in New
+England, even those which it is the fashion to attribute to congenial
+climates and sunny skies. The Puritan character was as full of passion
+as it was of sacrifice. We read of the existence and culture of
+friendship, love, and social happiness when the country was most
+sterile, and the difficulty of earning a living greatest. There was an
+outward starch and acerbity produced by toil and danger. But when people
+felt they could unbend, they were not icebergs but volcanoes, because
+the fires which burned unseen were those of the soul. The mirth of wine
+is maudlin and short-lived. It prompts to no labor, and kindles no
+sacrifices. It is satanic; it blazes and dies, a horrid mockery,
+exultant and evanescent. But the joy of homes, the beaming face of
+forgiveness, the charity which covers a multitude of faults, the
+assistance rendered in hours of darkness and difficulty, enthusiasm for
+truth, the aspiration for a higher life, the glorious interchange of
+thoughts and sentiments, these are well-springs of life, of peace, and
+of power. Nothing is to be relied upon which does not stimulate the
+higher faculties of the mind and soul. Ease of living blunts the moral
+sensibilities, and even the beauty of nature is not appreciated, when
+"all save the spirit of man is divine." But when men are earnest and
+true, uncorrupted by the vices of self-interest, and unseduced by the
+pleasures of factitious life, then even nature, in all her wildness, is
+a teacher and an inspiration. The grand landscape, the rugged rocks, the
+mystic forests, and the lofty mountains, barren though they be, bring
+out higher sentiments than the smiling vineyard, or the rich orange-
+grove, or the fertile corn-field, where slaves do the labor, and lazy
+proprietors recline on luxurious couches to take their mid-day sleep, or
+toy with frivolous voluptuousness. Neither a great nor a rich country is
+anything, if only pride and folly are fostered; while isolation,
+poverty, and physical discomfort, if accompanied by piety and
+resignation, are frequently the highest boons which Providence bestows
+to keep men in mind of Him. Prosperity may have been the blessing of the
+old Testament, but adversity is the blessing of the New--the mysterious
+benediction of Christ and Apostles and martyrs. A rich country does not
+make great men, except in craft or politics or business calculations;
+nor is there a more subtle falsehood than that which builds a nation's
+hope on the extent of its prairies, or the deep soil of its valleys, or
+the rich mines of its mountains, or the great streams which bear its
+wealth to the ocean. Mr. Buckle, fallaciously and sophistically,
+instances--Egypt as peculiarly fortunate and happy, because it possessed
+the Nile; but all that was glorious in Egypt passed away before
+authentic history was written, while Greece, with her barren mountains,
+laid the foundation of all that was valuable in the ancient
+civilization. What survives of Carthage or Antioch or Tyre that society
+now cherishes? Yet much may be traced to Greece when the people were
+poor, and struggling with the waves and the forests. It is not nature
+that ennobles man; it is man that consecrates nature. The development of
+mind is greater than the development of material resources. True
+greatness is not in an easy life, but in the struggle against nature and
+the victory over adverse influences. Even in our own country, it will be
+seen that schools and colleges and religious institutions have more
+frequently flourished when the people were poor and industrious than
+when they were rich and prodigal. Why has New England produced so many
+educators? Why is it that so few eminent men of genius and learning have
+arisen out of the turmoil and vanity of prosperous cities? Why is it
+that money cannot create a college, and is useless unless there is a
+vitality among its professors and students? The condition of national
+greatness is the same as that seen in the rise and fortunes of
+individuals. Industry, honesty, and patience, are greater than banks and
+storehouses. Character, even in a wicked and busy city, is of more value
+than money.
+
+These truths are most emphatically illustrated by the civilization of
+the Romans. We are attracted by the glitter and the glare of arts and
+sciences. Let us see what they did for Rome, when Rome became
+degenerate. Let us review the chapters that have been written in this
+book. We point with pride to the trophies of genius and strength. We do
+not disparage them. They were human creations. Let us see how far they
+had a force to save.
+
+The first great development of genius among the Romans was military
+strength. We are dazzled by the glory of warlike deeds. We see a grand
+army, the power of the legions, the science of war. Why did not military
+organizations save the empire in the hour of trial?
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman armies in the republic.]
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of military virtues.]
+
+[Sidenote: Degeneracy of the legions.]
+
+The legions who went forth to battle in the days of Aurelian and
+Severus, were not such as marched under Marius and Caesar. The soldiers
+of the republic went forth to battle expecting death, and ready to die.
+The sacrifice of life in battle was the great idea of a Roman hero, as
+it was of a Germanic barbarian. Without this idea deeply impressed upon
+a soldier's mind, there can be no true military enthusiasm. It has
+characterized all conquering races. Mere mechanism cannot do the work of
+life. Under the empire, the army was mere machinery. It had lost its
+ancient spirit; it was not inspired by patriotic glory; it maintained
+the defensive. The citizens were unwilling to enlist, and the ranks were
+gradually filled with the very barbarians against whom the Romans had
+formerly contended. The army was virtually composed of mercenaries from
+all nations, adventurers who had nothing to lose, who had but little to
+gain. They were turbulent and rebellious. Revolts among the soldiers
+were common. They brought new vices to the camps, and learned in
+addition all the vices of the Romans. They were greedy, unreliable, and
+cherished concealed enmities. They had no common interest or bond of
+union. They were always ready for revolt, and gave away the highest
+prizes to fortunate generals. They sold the imperial dignity, and became
+the masters rather than the servants of the emperors. Diocletian was
+obliged to disband the Praetorian band. The infantry, which had
+penetrated the Macedonian phalanx, threw away their defensive armor, and
+were changed to troops of timid horsemen, whose chief weapon was the
+bow. And they wasted their strength in civil contests more than against
+barbaric foes. They no longer swam rivers, or climbed mountains, or
+marched with a burden of eighty pounds. They scorned their ancient fare
+and their ancient pay. They sought pleasure and dissipation. The expense
+of maintaining the army kept pace with its inefficiency. Soldiers were a
+nuisance wherever they were located, and fanned disturbances and mobs.
+Their license and robbery made them as much to be dreaded by friends as
+by enemies. They assassinated the emperors when they failed to comply
+with their exorbitant demands. They often sympathized with the very
+enemies whom they ought to have fought. Enfeebled, treacherous, without
+public spirit, caring nothing for the empire, degenerate, they were thus
+unable to resist the shock of their savage enemies. Finally, they could
+not even maintain order in the provinces. "There was not," says Gibbon,
+"a single province in the empire in which a uniform government was
+maintained, or in which man could look for protection from his fellow
+man." What could be hoped of an empire when people were unwilling to
+enlist, and when troops had lost the prestige of victory? The details of
+the military history of the latter Romans are most sickening--revolts,
+rival generals, an enfeebled central power, turbulence, anarchy. Even
+military obedience was weakened. What would Caesar have thought of the
+soldiers of Valentinian siding with the clergy of Milan, when Ambrose
+was threatened with imperial vengeance? What would Tiberius have thought
+of the seditions of Constantinople, when the most trusted soldiers
+demanded the head of a minister they detested? Where was the power of
+mechanism, without genius to direct it? What could besieged cities do,
+when treachery opened the gates? The empire fell because no one would
+belong to it. How impotent the army, without spirit or courage, when the
+hardy races of the North, adventurous and daring, were pouring down upon
+the provinces--men who feared not death; men who gloried in their very
+losses! The legions became utterly unequal to their task; they were
+recalled from the distant provinces in the greater danger of the
+capitals; and the boundaries of the empire were left without protectors.
+The empire was created by strength, enthusiasm, and courage; when these
+failed, it melted away. And even if the old discipline were maintained,
+how inadequate the army against the overwhelming tide of barbarians,
+fully armed, and bent on conquest. In all the victories of Valerian,
+Constantine, and Theodosius, we see only the flickering lights of
+departing glory. Military genius, united with patriotism, might have
+delayed the fall, but where was the glory of the legions in those last
+days? Military science belonged to the republic, not the empire. One
+reason why the army did not save the empire was, because there was no
+army capable of meeting the exigencies of the fourth and fifth
+centuries. It was corrupted, perverted, conquered.
+
+[Sidenote: The hopeless imbecility of the army under emperors.]
+
+[Sidenote: Despair of the military emperors.]
+
+Nor could _any_ army, however strong, do more than prop up existing
+institutions. These themselves were rotten. Despotism cannot save a
+state. The reign of Louis XIV. was one of the most brilliant in modern
+annals. But no reign ever more signally undermined the state. It is the
+patriotism of soldiers that saves, not their physical force. Their force
+can be turned against the interests of a state as well as employed in
+its favor. Despotism sows the seeds of future ruin. No state was ever
+supported by military strength, except for a time, and then only when
+the soldiery were animated by noble sentiments. The imperial forces of
+Rome, while they preserved the throne of absolutisms, destroyed the
+self-reliance of the citizens, and supported wicked institutions. The
+difference in the aims of government under the Caesars, and under the
+consuls, was heaven-wide. The military genius which created an empire,
+was misdirected when that empire sought to perpetuate wrong. How
+different is the spirit which animated the armies of the United States,
+when they sought to preserve the institutions of liberty and the
+integrity of the state, from that spirit which animates the armies of
+the Sultan of Turkey! The Roman empire under the later emperors was more
+like the Ottoman empire, than the republic in the days of Cato. It was
+sick, and must die. A great army devoted to the interests of despotism
+generates more evils than it cures. It eats out the vitals of strength,
+and poisons the sources of renovation. It suppresses every generous
+insurrection of human intelligence. It merely arms tyrants with the
+power to crush genius and patriotism. It prevents the healthful
+development of energies in useful channels. The most that can be said in
+favor of the armies of the empire is, that they preserved for a time the
+decaying body. They could not restore vitality; they warded off the
+blows of fate. They could only keep the empire from falling until the
+forces of enemies were organized. No generalship could have saved Rome.
+The great military emperors must have felt that they were powerless
+against the combination of barbaric forces. The soul of Theodosius must
+have sunk within him to see how fruitless were his victories, how barren
+_any_ victories to such a diseased and crumbling empire. Diocletian
+retired, in the plenitude of his power, to die of a broken heart. The
+utmost the emperors could do, was to erect on the banks of the Bosphorus
+a new capital, and virtually make a new combination of those provinces
+most removed from danger. The old capital was abandoned to its fate.
+
+[Sidenote: The Roman constitution.]
+
+[Sidenote: Infamy of the imperial regime.]
+
+[Sidenote: Abortive efforts of good emperors.]
+
+The elaborate and complicated constitution of the Romans, on which so
+much genius and experience were employed, was subverted when Caesar
+passed the Rubicon. Only forms remained, a bitter mockery, and a thin
+disguise. These were nothing. Neither consuls, nor praetors, nor
+pontiffs, nor censors, nor tribunes existed, except in name. Every
+office of the republic was absorbed in the imperial despotism. The
+glorious constitution, which gave authority to Cato and dignity to
+Cicero, was a dead-letter. Flatterers, and sycophants, and courtiers,
+took the place of senators. The imperial despotism crushed out every
+element of popular power, every protest of patriots, every gush of
+enthusiasm. The constitution could not save when it was itself lost.
+Never was there a more wanton and determined disregard of those great
+rights for which the nations had bled, than under the emperors. Every
+conservative influence that came from the people was hopelessly
+suppressed. The reign of beneficent emperors, like the Antonines, and of
+monsters like Nero and Caracalla, was alike fatal. The seal of political
+ruin was set when Augustus was most potent and most feared. Government
+simply meant an organized mechanism of oppression. There is nothing
+conservative in government which does not have in view the interests of
+the governed. When it is merely used to augment gigantic fortunes, or
+create inequalities, or encourage frivolities, and allows great evils to
+go unredressed, then its very mechanism becomes a refinement of despotic
+cruelty. When sycophants, jesters, flatterers, and panderers to passions
+become the recipients of court favor, and control the hand that feeds
+them, then there is no responsible authority. The very worst government
+is that of favorites, and that was the government of Rome, when only
+courtiers could gain the ear of the sovereign, and when it was for their
+interest to cover up crimes. What must, have been the government when
+even Seneca accumulated one of the largest fortunes of antiquity as
+minister? What must have been the court when such women as Messalina and
+Agrippina controlled its councils? The ascendency of women and
+sycophants is infinitely worse than the arbitrary rule of stern but
+experienced generals. The whole empire was ransacked for the private
+pleasure of the emperors, and those who surrounded them. "_L'etat,
+c'est moi_," was the motto of every emperor from Augustus to
+Theodosius. With such a spirit, so monopolizing and so proud, the rights
+of subjects were lost in an all-controlling despotism, which crushed out
+both grand sentiments and noble deeds. None could rise but those who
+administered to the pleasures of the emperor. All were sure to fall who
+opposed his will. From this there was no escape. Resistance was ruin.
+There was a perfect system of espionage established in every part of the
+empire, and it was impossible to fly from the agents of imperial
+vengeance. And the despotism of the emperors was particularly hateful,
+since it veiled its powers under the forms of the ancient republic,
+until in the very wantonness of its vast prerogatives it threw away its
+vain disguises, and openly and insultingly reveled on the forced
+contributions of the world. There were good and wise emperors who sought
+the welfare of the state, but these were exceptions to the general rule.
+Octavius, that Ulysses of state craft, checked open immoralities by
+legal enactments, discouraged celibacy, expelled unworthy members from
+the Senate, appointed able ministers and governors, and sought to
+prevent corruption, which was then so shameful. Vespasian introduced a
+severe military discipline among the legions, permitted citizens to have
+free access to his person, and promoted many great objects of public
+utility.
+
+[Sidenote: Hadrian.]
+
+[Sidenote: Marcus Aurelius.]
+
+Hadrian attempted to give dignity to the Senate, and visited in person
+nearly all the provinces of his empire, impartially administered
+justice, magnificently patronized art, and encouraged the loftiest form
+of Greek philosophy. Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius set, in their
+own lives, examples of the sternest virtue, although they were deceived
+in the character of those to whom they delegated their powers, and were
+even ruled by unworthy favorites. Marcus Aurelius was, after all, the
+finest character of antiquity who was intrusted with absolute power.
+Contrasted with Solomon, or Augustus, or even Theodosius, he was a model
+prince, for he had every facility of indulging his passions, but his
+passions he restrained, and lived a life of the severest temperance and
+virtue to the end, sustained by the severest doctrines of the Stoical
+school. All that his rigid severity and moral elevation could do to save
+a decaying empire was done. He sought to base the stability of the
+throne on a rigid morality, on self-denial and self-sacrifice. When only
+twelve, he adopted the garb and the austerities of a philosopher,
+believing in virtue for its own sake.
+
+From his earliest youth he associated with his instructors in the
+greatest freedom, and it was the happiness of his life to reward
+philosophers and scholars. He promoted men of learning to the highest
+dignities of the empire, and even showed the greatest reverence for the
+cultivation of the mind. Philosophy was the great object of his zeal,
+but he also gave his attention to all branches of science, to law, to
+music, and to poetry. His disposition was kind and amiable, and he
+succeeded in acquiring that self-command and composure which it was the
+professed object of the Stoics to secure. He was firm without being
+obstinate, gentle without being weak. He was modest, retiring, and
+studious. He believed that it was necessary for good government that
+rulers should be under the dominion of philosophy. He was so universally
+beloved and esteemed, that everybody who could afford it had his statue
+in his house. No man on a throne was ever held in such profound
+veneration. If ever there was, in a heathen country, an example of
+sublime virtue, it shone in the life of Marcus Aurelius; if ever there
+was an expression of supernal beauty, it was in his features beaming
+with love and gentleness and humility. He never neglected the duties of
+his office. He was noble in all the relations of a family. He was the
+model of an emperor. He only complained of want of time to prosecute his
+literary labors. He was probably the most learned man in his dominions.
+The Romans called him brother and father, and the Senate felt that its
+ancient dignity was restored. He had great causes of unhappiness. The
+barbarians invaded his territories; a long peace had destroyed martial
+energies; the Roman world was sinking into languor and decay; his
+adoptive brother Verus lived in luxury and dissoluteness; his wife
+Faustina was a second Messalina, abandoned to promiscuous profligacy; a
+pestilence ravaged Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Gaul, still this great
+man preserved his serenity, his virtues, and his fame. He was unseduced
+by any kind of mortal temptation, and left an unstained character, and
+an unrivaled veneration for his memory. And when we consider that he was
+the absolute master of one hundred and twenty millions, having at his
+disposal the riches of the world, and all its pleasures,--above public
+opinion, with no law to check him--a law only to himself, we find more
+to admire than in Solomon before his fall. _His meditations_ have
+lately been translated and published--a work full of moral wisdom,
+rivaling Epictetus in morality, and the sages of the Middle Ages in
+contemplative piety. Niebuhr says it is more delightful to speak of him
+than of any man in history. The historical critic can see but one
+defect--his persecution of the Christians. He was doubtless a bigoted
+Stoic, as Paul was, at one time, a bigoted Pharisee; and the great
+delusion of his life was to rear a basis of national prosperity on the
+sublime morality of the philosophers whom he copied. He sought to save
+the state by the Stoical philosophy. Never were nobler efforts put forth
+on the part of a philosophic prince; but neither his patronage of
+philosophers, nor his own bright example, nor the doctrines of the
+Porch, conservative as they are, were of any avail. The Roman world
+could not be saved by the philosophy of Aurelius any more easily than
+the imperial despotism could be averted by the patriotism of Cicero. He
+was succeeded, after a glorious reign of twenty years, by his son
+Commodus, as incapable of managing an empire as Rehoboam was the kingdom
+of his father Solomon. Thus are the schemes and enterprises of the best
+men baffled by a mysterious power above us, who holds in his own hands
+the destinies of nations--the Divine Providence who giveth and who
+withholdeth strength.
+
+Marcus Aurelius did all that human virtue could do to arrest the ruin
+which he saw, with the saddest grief, was impending over the empire, in
+spite of all the external prosperity which called forth such universal
+panegyric. And the empire was also favored by a succession of military
+emperors, who tried the force of arms, as Aurelius had philosophy.
+
+Never did abler men reign on an absolute throne. All that genius and
+experience and skill could do to arrest the waves of the barbarians was
+done. A succession of most brilliant victories marked these later days
+of Rome. Amid unparalleled disasters, there were also most memorable
+triumphs. The glory of the Roman name was revived in Claudius, Aurelian,
+Probus, Carus, Diocletian, Constantius, Galerius, Constantine, Julian,
+all of whom rendered important services. These great emperors were
+uniformly victors, yet were doomed to hurl back perpetually advancing
+forces of Teutonic warriors, who were resolved on conquest. Diocletian
+was a second Augustus, and Constantine another Julius. But their
+conquests and reconstructions were all in vain. The barbarians advanced.
+They were getting more and more powerful with defeat; the Romans weaker
+and weaker after victory. In the middle of the fourth century the Goths
+were firmly settled in Dacia, the Persians had recovered the provinces
+between the Euphrates and the Tigris, Gaul was invaded by Germans, the
+Saxons had ravaged Britain, the Scots and Picts had spread themselves
+from the wall of Antoninus to the shores of Kent, Africa had revolted,
+Sapor had broken his treaties, the Goths had crossed the Danube, the
+Emperor Valens had been slain, with sixty thousand infantry and six
+thousand cavalry. From the shores of the Bosphorus to the Julian Alps,
+nothing was to be seen but rapes, murders, and conflagrations. Palaces
+were destroyed, churches were turned into stables, the relics of martyrs
+were desecrated, women were ravished, bishops were praying in despair,
+cities had fallen, the country was laid waste; the desolation extended
+to fishes and birds. Fruitful fields became pastures, or were overgrown
+with forests. The day of ruin was at hand. There was needed a hero to
+arise, a deliverer, a second Moses. And a great man appeared in the
+person of Theodosius--the most able and valiant of all the emperors
+after Julius Caesar.
+
+[Sidenote: Theodosius.]
+
+The career of Theodosius is exceedingly interesting, since it shows that
+every thing which imperial genius could do to arrest ruin, was done by
+him.
+
+Theodosius was thirty-three years of age when summoned from retirement
+to govern the world. He had learned the art of war from his father in
+Britain, and had, in his lifetime, defeated the Sarmatians. The Romans,
+disheartened by the tremendous defeat they had sustained under the walls
+of Adrianople, and the death of Valens the emperor, had no longer the
+courage to brave the Goths in the open field, and Theodosius was too
+prudent to lead them against a triumphant enemy. He retired to
+Thessalonica to watch the barbarians. In four years he had revived the
+courage of his troops, even as Alfred subsequently rekindled the martial
+ardor of the Saxons after their defeat by the Danes. On the death of
+Fritigern, the first great historic name among the Visigoths, his
+soldiers were demoralized, and divided by jealousies, and were won over
+by the arts and statesmanship of Theodosius, and a treaty was made with
+them by which they obtained a settlement within the limits of the
+empire, and became the allies of the emperor. The Ostrogoths were soon
+after defeated in a decisive battle on the Danube, and all fears were
+removed, at least for the present, of these hostile barbarians.
+
+[Sidenote: Successors of Theodosius.]
+
+[Sidenote: Diocletian.]
+
+Theodosius was equally fortunate in his conflicts with Maximus, who had
+usurped the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, and who meditated the
+conquest of Italy. At Aquileia the usurper was seized, after a
+succession of defeats, stripped of his imperial ornaments, and delivered
+to the executioner, and Theodosius reigned without a rival in the
+renovated empire, practicing the virtues of domestic life, rewarding
+eminent merit, and protecting the interests of the church. He restored
+the--authority of the laws, and corrected the abuses of the preceding
+reigns. Whatever rival or enemy, in those distracted times, raised
+himself up against the imperial authority, was easily subdued. Eugenius
+met the fate of Maximus, and Arbogastes turned his sword against his own
+breast. Theodosius reigned in peace and wisdom, the idol of the church,
+and the object of fear to the barbaric world. He had his defects and
+vices, and committed errors and crimes, but his reign was beneficent,
+and the Christian world hoped that the evils which threatened the empire
+were removed. Alas, the empire was doomed. The death of Theodosius was
+the signal for renewed hostilities. His sons, the feeble Arcadius and
+Honorius, were unequal to the task of governing the empire, and it fell
+into the hands of the barbarians, who ruthlessly marched over the
+crumblings ruins, regardless of the treasures of the classic soil and of
+the guardians which Christianity presented in the presence of protesting
+bishops. The empire could not be saved by able emperors, however great
+their military genius. Absolutism, whether wielded by tyrants, or
+philosophers, or generals, was alike a failure. What hope for the empire
+when the Senate inculcated maxims of passive obedience to tyrants; when
+such lawyers as Papinias and Paulus declared that emperors were freed
+from all restraints? What could Alexander Severus do when the most
+illustrious man in the empire--the learned and immortal Ulpian--was
+murdered before his eyes by the guards, of which he was the prefect, and
+when such was the license of the soldiers, that the emperor could
+neither revenge his murdered friend, nor his insulted dignity; when his
+own life was sacrificed to the discontents of an army which had become
+the master of the emperors themselves? After the murder of this brave
+and enlightened prince, no emperor was safe upon his throne, or could do
+more than oppose a feeble barrier to the barbarians upon the frontiers.
+External dangers may have raised up able commanders, like Decius,
+Aurelian, and Probus; but they could not prevent the inroads of the
+Goths, or heal the miseries of society. Of the nineteen tyrants who
+arose during the reign of Gallienus, not one died a natural death. And
+when, after a disgraceful period of calamities, Diocletian ascended the
+throne, the ablest perhaps of all the emperors after Augustus, no
+talents could sustain the weight of public administration, and even this
+emperor attempted to extinguish the only influence that had power to
+save. Absolutism had sowed seeds of ruin, which were destined to bear
+most wretched fruit.
+
+[Sidenote: Roman jurisprudence.]
+
+Jurisprudence was the science of which the Romans have the most to
+boast; and this was not perfected until the time of the emperors. It was
+closely connected with the constitution, but was superior to it, since
+it was based upon the principles of natural justice or equity. This has
+lasted when all material greatness has vanished, and still forms the
+basis of the laws of European nations. This was a great element of
+civilization itself; it was part of the mechanism of social order; it
+pervaded all parts of the empire; it made the reign of tyrants
+endurable.
+
+There is no doubt that the excellence of the laws formed one of the most
+powerful conservative influences of pagan antiquity. We glory in those
+laws as one of the proudest achievements of the human mind. But laws are
+rather an exponent of the state of society than a controlling force
+which modifies it. If a murderer is to be hung, or a thief imprisoned,
+the rigid law shows simply no mercy to murderers and thieves; it does
+not create a sentiment which prevents, though it may punish, iniquity.
+The wise division of property among heirs may operate against injurious
+accumulations, but does not prevent disproportionate fortunes. The more
+complicated the jurisprudence, the more need it seems that society has
+of restraints and balances. The law cannot go higher than the fountain.
+The more perfect the state of society, the less need there is of laws.
+The cautious guards against fraud simply show that frauds are common and
+easy. The minute regulations in reference to the protection of property
+and contracts, show that the prevailing customs and habits of dealers
+were corrupt, and needed the strong arm of a protecting government. As a
+general thing, it will be found that the laws are best, and most rigidly
+enforced, when iniquity prevails. A man is safe in Paris when he is not
+in Boston, but we do not infer from this fact that society is higher,
+but that there is a sterner necessity on the part of government to
+restrain crime. The laws of the Romans give the impression of the
+necessity of a constant watchfulness and supervision to prevent the
+strong preying upon the weak. Other influences are more necessary than
+laws to keep men virtuous and orderly. Laws are necessary, indeed; but
+they are not the first conditions of social existence.
+
+[Sidenote: Perversion of the laws.]
+
+But what are we to think of laws when they are either evaded or
+perverted, when there is not wisdom to feel their justice or virtue to
+execute them? What are laws if judges are corrupt? The venality of the
+judges of Rome was proverbial. Even in the comparatively virtuous age of
+Cicero, a friend wrote to him not to recall a certain great functionary,
+since he himself was implicated in his robberies, and the request was
+granted. The empire was regarded as spoil, and the provinces were robbed
+of their most valuable treasures. Witness the extortions of Verres in
+Sicily, when a residence of two years was enough to make the fortune of
+a provincial governor. Nor was Roman law ever independent of political
+power. The praetors were politicians having ambitious aims beyond the
+exercise of judicial authority. Influential men could ever buy verdicts,
+and the government winked at the infamy. There _was_ justice in the
+_abstract_, but not in the _reality_. And when jurisprudence
+became complicated, judgments were made on technical points rather than
+on principles of equity. It was as ruinous to go to law at Rome as in
+London. Lawyers absorbed the money at issue by their tricks and delays.
+They made the practice of their noble profession obscure and uncertain.
+Clients danced attendance on eminent jurists, and received promises,
+smiles, and oyster-shells. It was, too, often better to submit to an
+injury than seek to redress it. Cases were decided _against_
+justice, if some technical form or ancient usage favored the more
+powerful party. Lawyers formed a large and powerful class, and they had
+fortunes to make. Instead of protecting the innocent, they shielded the
+guilty. Those who paid the highest fees were most certain of favorable
+verdicts. The laws practically operated to make the rich richer and the
+poor poorer. Between the venality of the court and the learned jugglery
+of advocates, there was little hope for the obscure and indigent. Says
+Merivale: "The occupation of the bench of justice was the great
+instrument by which powerful men protected their monopolies; for, by
+keeping this in their own hands, they could quash every attempt at
+revealing, by legal practice, the enormities of their administration.
+And the means of seduction allowed by law, such as the covert bribery of
+shows and festivals, were used openly and boldly." What, then, could be
+hoped from the laws when they were made the channel of extortion and
+oppression? Law, the glory of Rome in the abstract, became the most
+dismal mockery of the rights of man. Salt is good, but if the salt has
+lost its savor it is good for nothing, not even for the dunghill. When
+the laws practically add to the evils they were intended to cure, what
+hope is there in their conservative influence? The practice of the law
+ever remained an honorable profession, and the sons of the great were
+trained to it; but we find such men as Cyprian, Chrysostom, and
+Augustine, who originally embarked in it, turning from it with disgust,
+as full of tricks and pedantries, in which success was only earned by a
+prostitution of the moral powers. Laws perverted were worse than no laws
+at all, since they could be turned by cunning, and sharp lawyers against
+truth and innocence. It would be harsh and narrow to say that lawyers
+were not necessary; but they did very little to avert evils. A wicked
+generation pressed over the feeble barriers which the laws presented
+against iniquity. They were only cobwebs to catch the insignificant.
+Unless good laws are enforced by virtue and intelligence, they prove a
+snare. It is the enforcement of laws, on the principles of justice, not
+the creation of them, that saves a state.
+
+[Sidenote: Art among the later Romans.]
+
+If a complicated system of laws and government, on which the reason and
+experience of ages were expended, did not prevent the empire from
+falling into the hands of barbarians, much less was to be expected of
+art, for which the Romans were also distinguished in common with the
+Greeks. Much is said of the ennobling influence of those great creations
+which gave so great lustre to ancient civilization. Founded on
+imperishable ideas, we naturally attribute to them a great element of
+national preservation, as they were of glory and pride.
+
+[Sidenote: Its inherent beauty.]
+
+It cannot be denied that art, when in harmony with the exalted ideals of
+beauty and grace, which it seeks to perpetuate on canvas or in marble,
+does much to improve the taste, to promote refinement and aesthetic
+culture. And when art is pursued with a lofty end, seeking, like virtue,
+its own reward, there is much that is ennobling in it. Even that
+literature is most prized and most enduring which is artistic, like the
+odes of Horace, the epics of Virgil, the condensed narrative of Tacitus;
+like the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," or the "Deserted Village," or
+"Corinne," or "Waverley." Varro was the most learned writer whom Rome
+produced, and the most voluminous. Yet scarcely any thing remains of his
+productions. They were deficient in art, like German histories--very
+useful in their day, but only survive in the writings of those who made
+use of their materials. Hence science is not so enduring as poetry, when
+poetry is exalted, since it is superseded by new discoveries. Hence
+style in writing, when of great excellence, gives immortality to works
+which could not have lived without it, even had they been ever so
+profound. Voltaire's "Charles XII." is still a classic, like the numbers
+of the "Spectator," although superficial, and, perhaps, unreliable. A
+great painting is like the history of Thucydides--it lives because it is
+a creation. Hence art, when severe and lofty, cannot be too highly
+praised or cherished. A man cannot write for bread as he writes for
+fame; and he cannot write for fame as he writes to satisfy his own
+ideal. The immortal poets are those who sing themselves away to the
+regions of bliss, in a divine ecstacy, from love of art, or to give
+expression to the feelings which fill the soul. Sir Walter Scott could
+write his "Ivanhoe" when inspired by the sentiments which warmed the
+chivalrous ages; he became a mere literary hack when he wrote to pay his
+debts.
+
+[Sidenote: The true artist.]
+
+The true artist is one of the favorites of Heaven, in a great measure
+exalted above mortal commiseration, even if his days are clouded with
+cares and sorrows. He lives in a different and purer atmosphere than
+ordinary men. He may not banquet on the pleasures of sense, but he
+revels in the joys of the soul. A Dante may be sad and sorrowful, as
+when, in his gloomy wanderings and isolations, he asked of Fra Ilario
+the rest and peace of his sacred monastery; but he was sad as a greater
+than he wept over Jerusalem, in the profound seriousness of superior
+knowledge, in the sublime solitariness of an inhabitant of another and
+grander sphere. Genius ever partakes of this sadness, and it is as
+shallow to mistake it for misery as it would be to pity the saint
+passing through the tribulations of our worldly pilgrimage, in full view
+of the unending glories which are in store for him in the celestial
+city. The higher joys of the soul are foreign to frivolity, tumult, and
+the mirth of wine,--those pleasures most prized by the weak or sensual.
+There is nothing more sublime in this world than the example of a lofty
+nature seeking the imperishable, the true, the beautiful, the good, amid
+discomfort, or reproach, or neglect.
+
+Such are truly great artists. Sometimes they are munificently rewarded
+by their generation with praises and material goods, as was Apelles
+among the Greeks, and Raphael among the Italians. Sometimes their
+excellence was unappreciated, except by a few. But whether appreciated
+or not, the great artists of antiquity belong to the constellation of
+men of genius which shall shine forever. They lived in their own
+glorious realm of thought and feeling, which the world can neither
+understand nor share. They did not live for utilities. They lived to
+realize their own exalted ideas of excellence.
+
+[Sidenote: Decline of art.]
+
+[Sidenote: Prostitution of art.]
+
+[Sidenote: The later Romans incapable of appreciating art.]
+
+[Sidenote: The degradation of art.]
+
+[Sidenote: utter failure of art as a conservative power.]
+
+But this was not the case in imperial Rome. All writers speak of a most
+signal decline in the arts from Augustus to Diocletian. Even
+architecture became corrupted. It was without taste, or a mere copy,
+like the arch of Constantine, from the older models. There were no
+original edifices erected, and such as were built were in defiance of
+all the principles that were established by the Greek architects. Least
+of all did art encourage grand sentiments. It did not paint ethereal
+beauty. It did not chisel the marble to elevate or instruct. Statues
+were made to please the degraded taste of rich but vulgar families, to
+give pomp to luxury, to pander wicked passions. Painting was absolutely
+disgraceful; and we veil our eyes and hide our blushes as we survey the
+decorations of Pompeii. How degrading the pictures which are found amid
+the ruins of ancient baths! Art was sensualized, perverted, corrupting.
+Paintings appealed either to perverted tastes, or fostered a senseless
+pride, or stimulated unholy passions, or flattered the vanity of the
+rich--brought angels down to earth, not raised mortals to heaven. They
+commemorated the regime of tyrants, or amused the wealthy classes, whose
+wealth had bought alike the muse of the poets and the visions of the
+sculptor. Art was venal. She sold her glories, which ought to be as
+unbought as the graces of life and the smiles of beauty; and she became
+a painted Haetera, drunk with the wine-cups of Babylon, and fantastic
+with the sorceries of Egypt. How could she, thus prostituted, elevate
+the people, or arrest degeneracy, or consecrate the ancient
+superstitions? She facilitated rather than retarded the ruin. It is
+marvelous how soon art degenerated with the progress of luxury,
+reproducing evil more rapidly than good, and obscuring even truth
+itself. Pleasures that appeal to the intellect will ever be in
+accordance with prevailing tastes, and the more exquisite the art the
+more fatally will it lead astray by the insidious entrance of a form as
+an angel of light. We cannot extinguish art without destroying one of
+the noblest developments of civilization; but we cannot have
+civilization without multiplying the dangers and temptations of human
+society. And even granting that the arts of the pagan world had a
+refining influence on the few, what is this unless accompanied with the
+virtues which grow out of self-sacrifice? I am not speaking of those
+glories which art ought to represent, but of those attractions which it
+presents when degraded. What conservative influence can result from the
+Venus of Titian? Why did not art reform morals, as morals elevated art?
+And why did art degenerate? Why did it not keep its own? The truth is,
+that art is esoteric, and not popular. The imagination of the vulgar is
+not sufficiently cultivated to see, in the emblems which art typifies,
+those passions or sentiments which have moved generations with
+enthusiasm. A Gothic cathedral is infinitely more interesting to a man
+of sentiment or learning than to an unlettered boor. The ignorant cannot
+appreciate the historical fidelity and marvelous study of races which
+appear in such a statue as the African Sybil. We must comprehend the
+character of Moses before we can kindle with admiration at the dignity
+and majesty which Michael Angelo impersonated in his statue. When
+Phidias, Praxiteles, and Lysippus moulded their clay models, they had a
+Pericles, a Plato, or a Demosthenes for their critics and admirers. It
+was for them they worked, and by them they were stimulated--not the
+rabble crowd of slaves and sycophants. But when, at Rome, there was no
+Cicero, no Octavius, no Mecaenas, no Horace, the artists toiled to please
+imperial gluttons, pretentious freedmen, ignorant generals, drunken
+senators, and venal judges. Their sublime art became the handmaid of
+effeminacy, of vanity, of sensuality. It could not rise above the level
+of those who dedicated themselves to its service. It did not make men
+better. Was Leo X. a wiser Pope because he delighted in pictures? Did
+art make the Medici at Florence more susceptible to religious
+impressions? Does art sanctify Dresden or Florence? Does it make modern
+capitals stronger, or more self-sacrificing, better fitted to contend
+with violence, or guard against the follies which undermine a state?
+What are the true conservative forces of our world? On what did Luther
+and Cranmer build the hopes of regeneration? The cant of dilettanti
+would be laughed at by the old apostles and martyrs. Art amuses, and may
+refine when it is itself pure. It does not brace up the soul to
+conflict. It does not teach how to resist temptation. It presents
+temptations rather. It gilds the fascinations of earth. It does not
+point to duties, or the life to come. That which is conservative is what
+saves, not what adorns. We want ideas, invisible agencies, that which
+exalts the mind above the material. So far as art can do this it is
+well. It is a great element of civilization. So far as gardens and
+flowers and villas and groves can do this, let us have them. Let us make
+a paradise out of a desert. Man was put into Eden to dress and to keep
+it. The material, rightly directed and used, is part of our just
+inheritance. Man is physical as well as intellectual. It is monkish and
+erratic to spurn the outward blessings of Providence. An inheritance in
+Middlesex is worth more than one in Utopia. Give us beauty and grace--
+they are invaluable. But let us remember, also, that it is chiefly from
+moral truth that the soul expands--the recognition of responsibilities
+and duties. No matter how splendid we make the triumphs of art in its
+aesthetic influence, the question returns, Did these, in their best
+estate, in Greece and Rome, lead to patriotism, to sacrifice, to an
+elevated social home? And if these did not arrest corruption, how could
+art, when perverted, save a falling empire? All profound inquiries as to
+the progress of the race centre in moral truths,--those which have
+reference to the spiritual rather than the material, the future rather
+than the present. Art failed because it did not propound grand ideas
+which pertain to spiritual and future interests. It especially failed
+when it pandered to perverted tastes, when it was the mere pastime of
+the rich, and diverted the mind from what is greatest and holiest. St.
+Paul, when he wandered through the Grecian cities, said very little of
+the sculptures and the temples which met his eye at every turn. He was
+not insensible to beauty and grandeur. But he felt that all renovating
+forces came from the ideas which he was sent to preach. He did not
+condemn art; he probably admired it; but this he saw was a poor
+foundation of national happiness and strength. If the severe morality of
+the Stoics was a feeble barrier against corruption, how much more feeble
+were temples to Minerva, and statues to Jupiter, and pictures of Venus?
+Great was Diana of the Ephesians, but not as an influence to stem
+degeneracy. Exalt art as highly as we can, it is not a renovating power,
+and it is this of which we speak.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts of literature.]
+
+[Sidenote: Degradation of literature.]
+
+Literature attempted something higher than art; nor need we expatiate on
+its transcendent excellence in the classical ages. This itself was art,
+art in the highest and most enduring form, and will live when marbles
+moulder away. Virgil, Cicero, Horace, Tacitus, Livy, Ovid, were great
+artists, and civilization will perpetuate their fame. They cannot die.
+What more immortal than the artistic delineations of man and of nature
+which the poets and historians wrought out with so much labor and
+genius? When did men, uninspired by Christianity, utter sentiments more
+tender, or thoughts more profound, or aspirations more lofty? They are
+our perpetual study and marvel--prodigies of genius, such as appear only
+at great intervals. All that is most valuable in the ancient
+civilization is perpetuated in its literature, and survives empires and
+changes. The men who were amused and instructed by these great
+masterpieces _have_ passed away, as well as their empire, but these
+will interest remotest generations. These live by their own vitality. If
+the unaided intellect of man could soar so high under the withering
+influence of paganism and political slavery and social degradation, we
+cannot but feel that Christianity has higher missions to accomplish than
+to stimulate the intellectual faculties of man; and, while we remember
+that, in our own times, some of the highest creations of genius have
+been made by those who have repudiated the spirit of Christianity, we
+cannot but feel that conservative influences do not come from
+literature, in its best estate, unless its ideas are inspired by the
+Gospel. The great writers of the Augustan age did not arrest degeneracy,
+any more than Goethe and Bulwer and Byron and Hugo have in our own day.
+They amused, they cultivated, they adorned; they did not save. Nor is it
+probable that the great masterpieces of antiquity were favorite subjects
+of study, except with a cultivated few, any more than Milton, Bacon, and
+Pascal are read in our times by the people. They enriched libraries;
+they were venerated and preserved in costly bindings; but they were not
+familiar guides. The people read nothing. The great writers of antiquity
+complain of the frivolity of the public taste. Moreover, the troubles of
+the empire and the corruptions of society were unfavorable to lofty
+creations of genius. Men were absorbed in passing events; and literary
+men generally pandered to the vile taste of the people, or stooped to
+adulate the monsters whom they feared. Hunting and hawking furnished
+subjects for the muse of the poets. History was reduced to dull and dry
+abridgments, and still drier commentaries. The people sought scandalous
+anecdotes, or demoralizing sketches, or frothy poetry. The decline in
+letters, like the decline in art, kept pace with the public misfortunes.
+When lofty and contemplative characters were saddened and discouraged,
+in view of public and private corruption, and saw ruin approaching, they
+had no spirit to make great exertions--and exertions which would not be
+appreciated. They sought retreats. There was no life, no enthusiasm in
+literature. It was conventional--to suit fashionable coteries, with whom
+strength was unpalatable and dignity a rebuke. Sound was preferred to
+sense. Rhetoric supplanted thought. A sentimental flow of words passed
+current for poetry. Literary men united into mutual admiration
+societies, and exalted their own frivolous productions. As the penny-a-
+liners of our day enumerate in their catalogue of great men chiefly
+those who have written romances and poetry for magazines, and pass
+unnoticed the stern thinkers of the age, so the literary gossips of Rome
+made the city ring, like grasshoppers, with their importunate chink.
+Unfortunately they were the only inhabitants of the field, for "no great
+cattle" kept silence under the shadow of the protecting oak. Nero
+suppressed the writings of Lucan, because he painted, in his
+"Pharsalia," the follies of the time. Lucian gave vent to his bitter
+sarcasms, and raised the veil of hypocrisy in which his generation had
+wrapped itself; but his mockery, like that of Voltaire, demolished,
+without seeking to substitute any thing better instead. Petronius
+laughed at the vices he did not wish to remove, and in which he himself
+shared. Juvenal and Martial both flattered the tyrants they detested.
+The nobles may have laughed at their bitter sarcasms, but they pursued
+their pleasures. Literature, under Augustus, did but little to elevate
+the Roman mind. What could be expected when it was coarse, feeble, and
+frivolous? If intellectual strength will not keep men from vices, what
+can be expected when intellect panders to passions and interests? There
+is no more absurd cant than that the culture of the mind favors the
+culture of the heart. What do operas and theatres for the elevation of
+society? Does a sentimental novel prompt to duty? Education seldom keeps
+people from follies when the will is not influenced by virtues. If
+Socrates sought the society of Aspasia, if Seneca amassed a gigantic
+fortune in the discharge of great public trusts, if Cicero languished in
+his exile because deprived of his accustomed pleasures, if Marcus
+Aurelius was blind to the rights and virtues of Christians, what could
+be hoped of the literary sensualists of the fourth century? If knowledge
+did not restrain the passions of philosophers, how could passions be
+restrained when every influence tended to excite them? Athens fell when
+her arts and schools were in the zenith of their glory, how could Rome
+stand when arts and schools undermined the moral health? Neither poets,
+nor historians, nor critics had in view the regeneration of society.
+They wrote, as poets and novelists write now, for bread, for fame, for
+social position. If such a man as Racine, so lofty and severe, was
+killed by a frown from Louis XIV., how could such an elaborate
+voluptuary as Petronius live out of the smiles of Nero and the
+flatteries of the court? If literature is feeble to arrest degeneracy
+when it is lofty, inasmuch as it reaches only the cultivated few, how
+inadequate it is when it is itself corrupted! The taste of our times,
+with all our glorious Christian literature, and our public libraries,
+our lecturers, our preachers, our professors, and our standard classical
+authorities, is scarcely kept from being perverted by the flimsy
+literature which has inundated us, and the newspaper platitudes which we
+devour with our breakfast. With every effort of true and Christian
+philanthropists, it is questionable whether there is any moral progress
+among us. There is a material growth; but does the moral correspond,
+with all our immense machinery for the elevation of society? What, then,
+could be expected at Rome, where there were no public libraries, no
+newspapers, no lyceums, no pulpits, no printing-presses, and where books
+were the solace of a few aristocrats, and where these aristocrats could
+only be amused by scandalous anecdotes and frivolous poetry. Literature
+did not even hold its own. It steadily declined from the Augustan age.
+It declined in proportion as the people had leisure to read it. Instead
+of elevating society, society corrupted literature. The same may be said
+of literature as was said of art. It did not fulfill its mission, if it
+was intended to save. It could reach only a small part of the
+population, and those whom it did reach were simply amused.
+
+[Sidenote: Failure of literature.]
+
+It would be too sweeping to affirm that the better forms of Roman
+literature did not refine and elevate, but unfortunately they reached
+only a few minds, and not always those who had political and social
+power. Literature was not powerful enough, was not sufficiently
+circulated, and the greater part of it was demoralizing, thus proving a
+savor of death rather than a savor of life. When a civilization
+reproduces evil more rapidly than good, there is not much hope for
+society, except from some signal interposition of Almighty power.
+Society is infinitely gloomy to a contemplative man, when there are no
+antidotes to the poison which is rapidly consuming the vitality of
+states. We contemplate approaching death, and death amid the array of
+physical glories. It is like a rich man laid on the bed from which he
+will never rise, surrounded with every comfort and every pleasure that
+men seek. Literature was a feeble medicine to the dying patient. Had all
+classes banqueted on the rich treasure of the mind, and been content,
+then there might have been some hope. But this was not the fact. Only a
+few reveled in the glories of thought. And these scorned the people.
+
+[Sidenote: Ancient philosophy.]
+
+But philosophy attempted something higher and nobler--even to reform
+morals, especially at Rome. The Romans had but little taste for abstract
+speculations. And hence they did not extend the boundaries of thought
+and reason beyond the limits which the Greeks arrived at. But they
+adopted what was most practical in the Grecian philosophy, and applied
+it to common life.
+
+If there is any thing lofty in paganism, it is philosophy. It proposed
+to seek the beautiful, the true, the good; to divert men from degrading
+pursuits; to set a low estimate on money, and material gains, and empty
+pleasures. It was calm, fearless, and inquiring. All sects of
+philosophers despised the pursuits of the vulgar, and affected wisdom.
+Minerva, not Venus, not Diana, was the goddess of their idolatry. It
+deified reason, and sought to control the passions. It longed for the
+realms of truth and love. It believed in the divine, and detested the
+gross. Hence the philosophers were not eager for outward rewards, and
+kept aloof from the demoralizing pleasures of the people. They attired
+themselves in a different garb, lived retired, and studied the welfare
+of the soul. Mind was adored, and matter depreciated. They were esoteric
+men who abhorred vice, and sought the higher good. Morally, they were in
+general superior to other men, as they were in intellectual gifts and
+attainments. And they opposed the popular current of opinions, and
+stemmed popular vices. They were the reformers of the ancient world, the
+sages--earnest men, advocating the great certitudes of love and
+friendship and patriotism--the lofty spirits of their time, preoccupied
+and rapt in their noble inquiries into nature and God. Look at Socrates,
+so careless of dress, walking barefooted, giving what he had away,
+courting mortification, and disdaining popular favor, if he could only
+persuade his pupils of the greatness of the infinite and imperishable.
+Look at Pythagoras, refusing political office, and consecrating himself
+to teaching. Look to Xenophanes, wandering over Sicily in the holy
+enthusiasm of a rhapsodist of truth. Look at Parmenides, forsaking
+patrimonial wealth, that he might teach the distinction between ideas
+obtained through the reason, and ideas obtained through the senses. Look
+at Heraclitus, refusing the splendid offers of Darius, and retiring to
+solitudes, that he might explore the depths of his own nature. See
+Anaxagoras, allowing his fortune to melt away, that he might discover
+the many faces of nature. See Empedocles, giving away his fortune to
+poor girls, that he might attack the Anthropomorphism of his day; or
+Democritus declining the sovereignty of Abdera, that he might have
+leisure to speculate on the distinction between reflection and
+sensation; or Diogenes living in a tub; or Plato in his garden; or
+Aristotle in the shady side of the Lyceum; or Zeno guarding the keys of
+the citadel. See the good Aurelius, in later and more corrupt ages,
+forsaking the pleasures of an imperial throne, that he might meditate on
+his soul's welfare, or the slave Epictetus, unfolding the richest
+lessons of moral wisdom to a corrupt and listless generation.
+
+[Sidenote: The Romans fail to appreciate philosophy.]
+
+The loftier forms of the ancient philosophy were never popular, even at
+Athens. The popular teachers were sophists and rhetoricians, who, as men
+of fashion and ambition, despised the sublime speculations of Socrates
+and Plato. The Platonic philosophy had a hold only of a few, and these
+were men of powerful minds, but stood aloof from the prevailing tastes
+and pleasures. It had still less influence on the Roman mind, which was
+practical and worldly. Platonism opposed the sensualism and materialism
+of the times, believed in eternal ideas, sought the knowledge of God as
+the great end of life--a sublime realism which was hardly more
+appreciated than Christianity itself. Platonism was doubtless the
+highest effort of uninspired men, under the influence of pagan ideas and
+institutions, to attain a knowledge of God and the soul. It gloried in
+immortality, and claimed for man a nature akin to the deity, and
+destined to a higher development after death. It endeavored to
+understand our complex nature, and trace a connection between earth and
+heaven. It sought to distinguish between forms and essence, the
+spiritual and the sensual. It spiritualized the popular mythology, and
+insisted on the unity on which it fundamentally rests. It did not sneer
+at religious earnestness, and looked upon the beatitudes of the soul as
+the highest good of earth.
+
+[Sidenote: Platonism.]
+
+But such knowledge was too wonderful for the Romans. It was high, and
+they could not attain unto it. Its ends were too spiritual and elevated.
+There was scarcely an eminent Roman who adopted the system. Cicero came
+the nearest to understand its spiritual import, but it was too lofty
+even for him. He composed a republic and a treatise of laws, in which
+reason and the rule of right should be made the guide of states and
+empires. In this way Platonism, as a sublime hypothesis, entered into
+jurisprudence. It affected the thinking of master minds, even as it
+entered into Christianity at a later period, and formed an alliance with
+it. But, practically, it did not have much effect on life and manners.
+It was regarded as a system of mysticism, cherished by a very small
+esoteric body of believers, who were spurned as dreamers. They were
+looked upon very much as the transcendentalists of our own day are
+regarded, with whom the great body of even thinkers had but little
+sympathy. There was no more respect for Plato at Rome than there is for
+Kant among the merchants of London. His name may have been pronounced
+with an oracular admiration, but there was no profound appreciation of
+him, no general knowledge of his writings, no sympathy for his
+doctrines. They were to the Romans foolishness, somewhat after the sense
+that Christianity was to the Greeks. They transcended their experience,
+went beyond the limits of their thoughts, and sought spiritual
+certitudes which they disdained.
+
+[Sidenote: The Aristotelian philosophy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Its failure.]
+
+The philosophy of Aristotle was nearly as distasteful to the Romans as
+that of Plato, and it was less lofty. It had a skeptical tendency, and
+excluded scientific light from the sphere of activity, and inculcated a
+proud and self-reliant spirit. The academics denied the possibility of
+arriving at truth with certainty; and, therefore, held it uncertain
+whether the gods existed or not, whether the soul is mortal or survives
+the body, whether virtue is preferable to vice, or the contrary. They
+sneered at religious earnestness, and tacitly encouraged influences
+greatly to be dreaded. They held in supreme contempt the popular
+religion, and made a mockery of religious ceremonies. They undermined
+superstition, but weakened religion also by substituting nothing instead
+of the absurdities they brushed away. Lucian was a type of these
+philosophers, and his bitter sarcasms were more powerful than the logic
+of Cicero to destroy what could not be proved. The academics may be said
+to have been the rationalists of antiquity. The old religions could not
+maintain their ground before the inquiring skepticism and sarcastic wit
+of these irreligious philosophers, who contented themselves with a
+lifeless deism--a system which did not, indeed, deny the existence and
+providence of God, but which attributed to the Deity an indifference
+respecting the affairs of men. Dr. Neander, in the first volume of the
+"History of the Church," has shown the effects of the unbelief of the
+academics on the state of society at Rome, especially on the men of rank
+and fashion. Infidelity, in any form, can have no conservative
+influence. It is designed to pull down, and not to build up.
+Superstition, with all its puerilities, is better than a scornful and
+proud philosophy which takes no cognizance of popular wants and
+aspirations.
+
+[Sidenote: The Stoical philosophy.]
+
+If any form of ancient philosophy could have renovated society, it was
+the Stoical school, which Zeno had founded. It commended itself, in a
+corrupt age, to many noble and powerful minds, because it raised them
+above the corruption around them, and proclaimed an ideal standard of
+morality. The Romans cared very little for mere speculations on God or
+the universe; but they did revere that which proposed a practical aim.
+The Stoics despised prevailing baseness, and set examples of a severe
+morality. Marcus Aurelius, one of the loftiest followers of this school,
+was a model of every virtue, and he looked upon his philosophy as a
+means of salvation to a crumbling empire. But the Stoics, with all their
+morality, were the Pharisees of pagan antiquity. They held themselves
+superior to all other classes of men. They gloried in their proud
+isolation. And with all the loftiness of Stoicism, it did not teach of a
+God who governed the world in mercy and love, but according to the iron
+decrees of necessity. It attacked error with a stern severity, but had
+no toleration for human weakness. It confounded the idea of God with
+that of the universe, and therefore destroyed his personality, making
+the Deity himself an influence, or a development. The Stoic despised the
+age, and despised every influence to elevate it which did not come from
+himself. He treated the most wholesome truths so partially as to be led
+into the greatest absurdities of doctrine and inconsistencies with their
+general principle. Epictetus, indeed, infused a new life into the
+Stoical philosophy. He taught the doctrine of passive endurance so
+forcibly that the Christians claimed him for their own. But there was
+nothing which appealed to the people in Stoicism. It was too stern and
+cold. It had no humanity. Hence they stood aloof, as they did from all
+the systems of Grecian philosophy. It was not for them, but for the
+learned and the cultivated. It was a system of thought; it was not a
+religion--a speculation and not a life. Like Platonism, the Stoical
+philosophy was esoteric, and only appealed to a few elevated minds, who
+had affected indifference to the evils of life, and had learned to
+conquer natural affections. The Stoical doctrines of Epictetus had a
+more practical end in view than those of Zeno, since they were applied
+to Roman thought and life. We cannot deny the purity and beauty of his
+aphorisms, but he was like Noah preaching before the flood. He had his
+disciples and admirers, but they made a feeble barrier against
+corruptions. It was the protest of a man before a mob of excited and
+angry persecutors resolved on his death. It was no more heard than the
+dying speech of Stephen. It was lost utterly on a people abandoned to
+inglorious pleasure.
+
+[Sidenote: The Epicurean philosophy.]
+
+The only form of philosophy which was popular with the Romans, and which
+was appreciated, was the Epicurean. The disciples of this school were,
+of course, the luxurious, the fashionable, the worldly, and it exercised
+upon them but a feeble restraining influence. It denied the providence
+of God; it maintained that the world was governed by chance; it denied
+the existence of moral goodness; it affirmed that the soul was mortal,
+and that pleasure was the only good. If the more contemplative and the
+least passionate rebuked gross vices, they still advocated a tranquil
+indifference to outward events that showed neither loftiness nor fear of
+judgment. Their system was openly based upon atheism. Self-love was the
+foundation of all action, and self-indulgence was the ultimate good. The
+Epicureans were the patrons of the circus, and the theatre, and the
+banquet, and, indeed, of all those vanities and follies which disgraced
+the latter days of Rome. Their influence tended to enervate and corrupt.
+Their philosophy, instead of preserving old forms of life, old customs,
+old institutions, old traditions and associations, made a mockery of
+them all, and was as efficient in producing decay as was the philosophy
+of the eighteenth century in France in paving the way for the
+revolution. The purest type of Epicureanism may have refined a few of
+the better sort, but the prevailing influence, doubtless, undermined
+society. The god of the reason was allied with the god of the sense, and
+the maniac soul of the lying prophet entered the schools. Education, as
+directed by them, served only to make youth worldly and frivolous.
+Teachers sought to amuse and not to instruct, to make royal roads to
+knowledge, to exalt the omnipotence of money, to set a high value on
+what passes away. They limited man to himself, and acknowledged no other
+object of human exertion than is to be found within the compass of the
+fleeting phenomena of the present life. They had no wish beyond the
+present hour, and only aimed to console man in the corruption and misery
+which he saw around him. They had no high aims; nor did they seek to
+produce profound impressions. They adapted themselves to what was,
+rather than what ought to be. They were easy and gracious, but utterly
+without earnestness. The Peripatetic inquired, sneeringly, "What
+_is_ truth?" The Epicurean languidly said, "What is truth to
+_me_. There is no truth nor virtue, nor is there a God, nor a place
+of rewards and punishments. This world is my theatre. Let me eat and
+drink, for to-morrow I die. I will abstain from inordinate self-
+indulgence, for it will shorten my life, or produce satiety, ennui,
+disgust--not because it is wrong. I will make the most of earth and of
+my faculties for pleasure. Wealth is the greatest blessing, poverty the
+greatest calamity. Friends are of no account, unless they amuse me or
+help me. The sentiment of friendship is impossible, and would be
+unsatisfactory." The true Epicurean quarreled with no person and with no
+opinions. Nothing was of consequence but ease, prosperity, self-
+forgetfulness. The soul of man could aspire to nothing beyond this life;
+and when death came, it was a release, a thing neither to be regretted
+nor rejoiced in, but an irresistible fate. What could be expected from
+such a system? What renovation in such a cold, barren, negative faith,
+without hope, without God in the world? The most prevalent of all the
+systems of philosophy, so far from doing good, did evil. How could it
+save when its ends were destructive of all those sentiments on which
+true greatness rests? What could be expected of a philosophy which only
+served to amuse the great, to throw contempt on the people, to undermine
+religious aspirations, to vitiate the moral sense, to ignore God and
+duty and a life to come?
+
+Thus every influence at Rome, whether proceeding from art, or
+literature, or philosophy, or government, instead of saving, tended to
+destroy. All these things came from man, and could not elevate him
+beyond himself. Even religion was a compound of superstitions, ritual
+observances, and puerilities. It did not come from God. It was neither
+lofty nor pure. What good there was soon became perverted, and the evil
+was reproduced more rapidly than good. Only error seemed to have
+vitality. The false lights which sin had kindled shed only a delusive
+gleam. The soul occasionally asserted the dignity which God had given
+it, and great men swept and garnished houses, but devils reentered, and
+the normal condition of humanity was what the Bible declares it to be
+since Adam was expelled from Paradise. Genius, energy, ambition, were
+allowed to win their victories, and they shed a glorious light, and for
+a time exalted the reason of man, but alas, were soon followed by shame
+and degradation.
+
+[Sidenote: All forms of civilization fail to be conservative.]
+
+And what is the logical inference--the deduction which we are compelled
+to draw from this mournful history of the failure of all those grand
+trophies of the civilization which man has made? Can it be other than
+this: that man cannot save himself; that nothing which comes from him,
+whether of genius or will, proves to be a conservative force from
+generation to generation; that it will be perverted, however true, or
+beautiful, or glorious, because "men love darkness rather than light."
+All that is truly conservative, all that grows brighter and brighter
+with the progress of ages, all that is indestructible and of permanent
+beauty, must come from a power higher than that of man, whether
+supernatural or not--must be a revelation to man from Heaven, assisted
+by divine grace. It must be divine truth in conjunction with divine
+love. It must be a light from Him who made us, and which alone baffles
+the power of evil.
+
+He did send Christianity, when every thing else had signally failed, as
+it will forever fail. And this is the seed of the woman which shall
+bruise the serpent's head.
+
+We have now to show why this great renovating and life-giving influence
+did not prevent the destruction of the empire; and we may be convinced
+that if this great end could not be accomplished in accordance with the
+plans of Providence, and in accordance with the laws by which He rules
+the world, Christianity was in no sense a failure, as man's devices
+were; but, through the mouths and writings of great bishops, saints, and
+doctors, projected its saving truths far into the shadows of barbaric
+Europe, and laid the foundation for a new and more glorious
+civilization--a civilization not destined to perish, so far as it is in
+harmony with divine revelation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+WHY CHRISTIANITY DID NOT ARREST THE RUIN OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+One of the most interesting inquiries which is suggested by history is,
+Why Christianity did not prevent the glory of the old civilization from
+being succeeded by shame? This is not only a grand inquiry, but it is
+mysterious. We are naturally surprised that literature, art, science,
+laws, and the perfect mechanism of government should have proved such
+feeble barriers against degeneracy, for these are among the highest
+triumphs of the human mind, and such as the world will not willingly let
+die. But a still more potent and majestic influence than any thing which
+proceeds from man still remained to the haughty masters of the ancient
+world. A new religion had been proclaimed with the establishment of the
+empire, which gradually broke down the old superstitions, conquered the
+hatred and prejudices of both Greeks and Romans, supplanted the old
+systems of Paganism, and went on from conquering to conquer, until it
+seated itself on the imperial throne, and proved itself to be the wisdom
+and the power of God.
+
+But we see that as this wonderful religion gained ground, whether in
+changing the lives of individuals, or in allying itself with dominant
+institutions, the Roman Empire declined. When Christianity was first
+proclaimed, the Roman eagles surmounted the principal cities of
+antiquity, and the central despotism on the banks of the Tiber was the
+law of the world. When it was a feeble light on the mountains of
+Galilee, the glory of Rome was the object of universal panegyric, and
+the city of the seven hills rejoiced in a magnificence which promised to
+be eternal. But when Paganism yielded to Christianity, and when the
+latter had spread to every city and village in the empire, with its
+grand hierarchy of bishops and doctors, the proud empire was in ruins.
+It would even seem that its decline and fall kept pace with the triumphs
+of a religion it had spurned and persecuted.
+
+[Sidenote: Society retrograded as Christianity spread.]
+
+What is the explanation of this grand mystery? Why should society have
+declined as Christianity spread, if, as we believe, Christianity is the
+great conservative force of the world, and is destined to regenerate all
+government, science, and social life? If the stability of the empire
+rested on virtues, and was undermined by vices, virtue must have
+declined and vice increased. But how can we reconcile such a fact with
+the progress of a religion which is the mainspring of all virtue, and
+the destruction of all vice? We do know that Christianity did not
+prevent the empire from falling, but also we have the testimony of poets
+and historians to the exceeding wickedness of society when Christianity
+was fairly established.
+
+[Sidenote: A mysterious fact.]
+
+In presenting the strange phenomenon of a falling empire with an all-
+conquering religion, it is necessary to grapple with the gloomy problem.
+We have unbounded faith in the power of Christianity to save the world,
+and yet we see a mighty empire crumbling to pieces from vices which
+Christianity did not subdue. What a deduction might be drawn from this
+strange fact, that Christianity _can_, _but did not, save_.
+How mournful the future of modern Christian nations if the
+same fact should be repeated--if civilization should decline as
+Christianity achieves its triumphs! Is it possible that civilization,
+the triumph of human genius and will, may fade away as Christianity,
+which gives vitality to society, advances? Has civilization nothing to
+do with Christianity?
+
+[Sidenote: Christianity not however a failure.]
+
+But there can be nothing mournful in the developments of a divine
+religion--nothing discouraging in the conquests which seemed incomplete.
+Nor did it really, in any important task, prove a failure; but amid the
+ashes of the old world, as it disappeared, we see the new creation, and
+listen to melodious birth-songs. Indeed, the fall of the empire, when we
+profoundly survey it, instead of detracting from Christianity, only
+prepared the way for higher triumphs, and for a loftier development of
+civilization itself. Future ages have probably lost nothing by the ruin
+of Rome, while the world has gained by the establishment of
+Christianity, even by the seeds of truth planted by the early church.
+
+Still, it cannot be questioned that, in the Roman empire, vices and
+corruptions spread with terrific and mournful rapidity even after
+Christianity was revealed--so rapidly, indeed, that Christianity opposed
+but a feeble barrier.
+
+The history of Christianity among the Romans suggests these three
+inquiries:--
+
+First, why it proved so feeble in arresting degeneracy; secondly, how
+far it conserved old institutions; and thirdly, how far it created a new
+and higher civilization.
+
+[Sidenote: Christianity fails to check degeneracy.]
+
+The first inquiry, on a superficial view, is discouraging. We see a
+sublime realism making quietly its converts by thousands, without
+seemingly checking ordinary vices. We are reminded of Socrates creating
+Platos, yet failing to reform Athens. We behold witnesses of the truth
+in every land, which gradually sinks deeper and deeper in infamy as the
+witnesses increase. And, when the land is about to be overrun by
+barbarians, when despair seizes the public mind, and desolation
+overspreads the earth, and good men hide in rocks, and dens, and caves,
+we see the church resplendent with wealth and glory, her bishops
+enthroned as dignitaries, princes doing homage to saints, and even the
+barbarians themselves bowing down in reverence and awe. How barren these
+ecclesiastical victories seem to a superficial or infidel eye! If
+Christianity is what its converts claim, why did it accomplish so
+little?
+
+[Sidenote: Yet still a conquering religion.]
+
+But, in another aspect, the victories do not seem so barren; and they
+even appear more and more majestic the more they are contemplated. There
+is something grand in the spread of new ideas which are unpalatable to
+the mighty and the wise. Considering the humble characters of the early
+Apostles and their disciples, their triumphs were really magnificent. It
+is astonishing that the teachings of fishermen should have supplanted
+the teachings of Jewish rabbis and Grecian philosophers, amid so great
+and general opposition. It is remarkable that their doctrines should
+have so completely changed the lives of those who embraced them. It is
+wonderful that emperors who persecuted and sages who spurned the
+religion of Jesus, should have been won over by a moral force superior
+to all the venerated influences of the old religion of which they were
+guardians and expounders. It is surprising that such relentless and
+bloody persecutions as took place for three hundred years should have
+been so futile. When we remember the extension of Christianity into all
+the countries known to the ancients, and the marvelous fruits it bore
+among its converts, making them brothers, heroes, martyrs, saints,
+doctors--a benediction and a blessing wherever they went; and when we
+see these little esoteric bands, in upper chambers or in catacombs,
+persecuted, tormented, despised, yet gaining daily new adherents,
+without the aid of wealth, or learning, or social position, or political
+power, until generals, senators, and kings came willingly into their
+fraternity, and bound themselves by their rules, and changed the whole
+habits of their lives, looking to the future rather than the present--
+the infinite rather than the finite; blameless in morals, lofty in
+faith, heavenly in love; sheep among wolves, yet not devoured--we feel
+that Christianity cannot be too highly exalted as a conquering power.
+
+But the point is, not that Christianity failed to conquer, but that it
+failed to save the Roman world. The conquests of the church are
+universally admitted and universally admired. They were the most
+wonderful moral victories ever achieved. But, while Christianity
+conquered Rome, why did she fail to arrest its ruin? Vice gained on
+virtue, rather than virtue gained on vice, even when the cross was
+planted on the battlements of the imperial palaces.
+
+[Sidenote: Christianity too late to save.]
+
+The victories of Christianity came not too late for the human race, but
+for the stability of the Roman empire. Had Christianity completely
+triumphed when Julius Caesar overturned the republic, the empire might
+have lasted. But when Constantine was converted, the empire was shaken
+to its foundations, and the barbarians were advancing. No medicine could
+have prevented the diseased old body from dying. The time had come. When
+the wretched inebriate embraces a spiritual religion with one foot in
+the grave, with a constitution completely undermined, and the seeds of
+death planted, then no repentance or lofty aspiration can prevent
+physical death. It was so in Rome. Society was completely undermined
+long before the emperors became Christians. The fruits of iniquity were
+being reaped when Chrysostom and Augustine lifted up their voices. The
+body was diseased, so that no spiritual influence could work upon it.
+Had every man in the empire been a Christian, yet, when, the army had
+lost its discipline and efficiency, when patriotism had fled, when
+centuries of vices had enfeebled the physical forces, when puny races
+had lost all martial ardor, and could present nothing but weakness and
+cowardice--all from physical causes, how could they have successfully
+contended with the new and powerful barbaric armies? Christianity saves
+the soul; it does not restore exhausted physical functions. The vices
+which had undermined were learned before Christianity protested, and
+were dominant when Christianity was feeble. The effects of those vices
+were universal before a remedy could be applied.
+
+[Sidenote: Limited number of the converts.]
+
+[Sidenote: Early Christians unimportant.]
+
+Moreover, when Christianity itself was a vital and conquering force, the
+number of its converts formed but a small proportion of the inhabitants
+of the empire. Witnesses of the truth were sent into every important
+city in the world, but they simply protested in a dark corner. Their
+warning voice was unheeded except by a few, and these were unimportant
+people in a social or political or intellectual point of view. Even when
+Constantine was converted, the number of Christians in the empire,
+according to Gibbon, whose statement has not been refuted, was only one
+fifth of the whole population. And this accounts for the insignificant
+social changes that Christianity wrought. A vast majority was opposed to
+them even in the fourth century. There were doubtless large numbers of
+Christians at Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Corinth, Ephesus, and other
+populous cities, in the third century, and also there were powerful
+churches in the great centres of trade, where people of all nations
+congregated; but they were exposed to bitter persecutions, and they
+durst not be ostentatious, not even in those edifices where they
+congregated for the worship of Jehovah. For two centuries they worshiped
+God in secret and lonely places, exposed to persecution and scorn. Not
+only were the Christians few in number, when compared with the whole
+population, but they were chiefly confined to the humble classes. In the
+first century not many wise or noble were called. No great names have
+been handed down to us. Now and then a centurion was converted, or some
+dependent on a great man's household, or some servant in the imperial
+family; but no philosophers, or statesmen, or nobles, or generals, or
+governors, or judges, or magistrates. In the first century the
+Christians were not of sufficient importance to be generally persecuted
+by the government. They had not even arrested public attention. Nobody
+wrote against them, not even Greek philosophers. We do not read of
+protests or apologies from the Christians themselves. No contemporary
+historian or poet alludes to them. They had no great men in their ranks,
+either for learning, or talents, or wealth, or social position. In the
+cities they were chiefly artisans, slaves, servants, or mechanics, and
+in the country they were peasants. They were unlettered, plebeian,
+unimportant. If there were distinguished converts, we do not know their
+names. Ecclesiastical history is silent as to distinguished persons
+except as persecutors, or as great contemporaries. We read of the
+calamities of the Jews, of Herod Agrippa, of Philo, of Nero's
+persecution, of the emperors, but not of Christians. Eusebius does not
+narrate a single interesting or important fact which took place in the
+first century through the agency of a great man. We know scarcely more
+than what is contained in the New Testament. We read that Clement was
+bishop of Rome, but know nothing of his administration. We do not know
+whether or not he was a man of any worldly consideration. Nothing in
+history is more barren than the annals of the church in the first
+century, so far as great names are concerned. Yet in this century
+converts were multiplied in every city, and traditions point to the
+martyrdoms of those who were prominent, including nearly all of the
+Apostles.
+
+[Sidenote: Obscurity of the early Christians.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their intense religious life.]
+
+In the second century there are no greater names than Polycarp,
+Irenaeus, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Clement Melito, and Apollonius--quiet
+bishops or intrepid martyrs--bishops who addressed their flocks in upper
+chambers, and who held no worldly rank--famous only for their sanctity
+or simplicity of character, and only mentioned for their sufferings and
+faith. We read of martyrs, some of whom wrote valuable treatises and
+apologies; but among them we find no people of rank, not even ladies
+like Paula and Marcella and Fabiola, in the time of Jerome, unless
+Symphorosa is an exception. It was a disgrace to be a Christian in the
+eye of fashion or power. Even the great Marcus Aurelius, so
+distinguished as a man and a philosopher, had supreme contempt of the
+new apostles of truth, and was one of their most unrelenting
+persecutors. The early Christian literature is chiefly apologetic, and
+the doctrinal character of the fathers of this century is simple and
+practical, showing no great acquaintance with the system of heathen
+thought. There were controversies in the church--an intense religious
+life--great activities, great virtues, but no outward conflicts, no
+secular history, nothing to arrest public notice. But the converts to
+Christianity, plebeian as they were, were yet of sufficient consequence
+to be persecuted. They had attracted the notice of government. They were
+looked upon as fanatics who sought to destroy a reverence for existing
+institutions. But they had not as yet assailed the government, or the
+great social institutions of the empire. In this century the polity of
+the church was quietly organized. There was an organized fellowship
+among the members: bishops had become influential, not in society, but
+among the Christians; dioceses and parishes were established; there was
+a distinction between city and rural bishops; delegates of churches
+assembled to discuss points of faith, or suppress nascent heresies; the
+diocesan system was developed, and ecclesiastical centralization
+commenced; deacons began to be reckoned among the higher clergy; the
+weapons of excommunication were forged; missionary efforts were carried
+on; the festivals of the church were created; Gnosticism--a kind of
+philosophical religion--was embraced by many leading minds; catechetical
+schools taught the faith systematically; the formulas of baptism and the
+other sacraments became of great importance; marriage with unbelievers
+was discouraged; and monachism became popular. The internal history of
+the church becomes interesting, but still the Christians had no great
+influence outside their own body; it was esoteric, quiet, unobtrusive;
+and it was a very small body of pure and blameless men, who did not
+aspire to control society.
+
+[Sidenote: The empire in a hopeless state.]
+
+While the church was thus laying the foundation of its future polity and
+power, but nothing more, and failed to attract the great, or men of
+ambitious views--those who led society--the empire was approaching a
+most fearful crisis. Hadrian had built a wall from the Rhine to the
+Danube to arrest the incursions of barbarians; the Roman garrisons
+beyond the Danube were withdrawn; the Goths had advanced from the
+Vistula and the Oder to the shores of the Black Sea; the Jews were
+dispersed; a chaos of deities was in the Roman Pantheon; Grecian
+philosophy had degenerated; the taste of the people had become utterly
+corrupt; games and festivals were the business and the amusement of the
+people; the despotism of the emperors had utterly annulled all rights; a
+succession of feeble and wicked princes ruled supreme; the empire was
+falling into a state of luxury and inglorious peace; the middle classes
+had become extinct; and disproportionate fortunes had vastly increased
+slavery. The work of disintegration had commenced.
+
+[Sidenote: The church of the third century.]
+
+The third century saw the church more powerful as an institution.
+Regular synods had assembled in the great cities of the empire; the
+metropolitan system was matured; the canons of the church were
+definitely enumerated; great schools of theology attracted inquiring
+minds; the doctrines of faith were systematized; Christianity had spread
+so extensively that it must needs be persecuted or legalized; great
+bishops ruled the growing church; great doctors speculated on the
+questions which had agitated the Grecian schools; church edifices were
+enlarged, and banquets instituted in honor of the martyrs. The church
+was rapidly advancing to a position which extorted the attention of
+mankind. But even so late as the close of the third century, there were
+but few Christians eminent for riches or rank. There were some great
+bishops like Cyprian, Hippolytus, Victor, Demetrius; some great
+theologians like Origen, Tertullian, and Clement; some great heretics
+like Hermogones, Sabellius, and Novatian--all marked men, immortal men;
+but of no great influence outside their ranks.
+
+What could they do in a time of so much public misery and misfortune as
+marked the empire when it was ruled by monsters; when the barbarians had
+obtained a foothold in the provinces; when the capital was deserted by
+the emperors for the camp; and when signs of decay and ruin were
+apparent to all thoughtful minds?
+
+[Sidenote: The church of the fourth century.]
+
+It was not till the fourth century--when imperial persecution had
+stopped; when Constantine was converted; when the church was allied with
+the state; when the early faith was itself corrupted; when superstition
+and vain philosophy had entered the ranks of the faithful; when bishops
+became courtiers; when churches became both rich and splendid; when
+synods were brought under political influence; when monachists had
+established a false principle of virtue; when politics and dogmatics
+went hand in hand, and emperors enforced the decrees of councils--that
+men of rank entered the church, and the church had a visible influence
+on the state. It was not till the fourth century that such great names
+as Arius, Athanasius, Hosius, Eusebius, Cyril of Alexandria, Hilary of
+Poictiers, Martin of Tours, Diodorus of Tarsus, Ambrose of Milan, Basil
+of Caesarea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzen, Theophilus of
+Alexandria, Chrysostom of Constantinople, arose and made their voices
+heard in the council chambers of the great.
+
+[Sidenote: The empire dismembered before the political triumphs of
+Christianity.]
+
+But when the church had become a mighty and recognized power, when it
+had assailed social institutions, when it drew men of rank into its
+folds, when it was no longer an obloquy to be a Christian--then the seat
+of empire had been removed to the banks of the Bosphorus; then the Goths
+and Vandals had become most formidable enemies, and Theodosius, the last
+great emperor, was making a brave but futile attempt to revive the
+glories of Trajan and the Antonines. The empire was crumbling to pieces--
+was dying--and even Christianity could not save it politically.
+
+[Sidenote: The Christians form an imperfect barrier against corruption.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Christians an esoteric band of worshipers.]
+
+[Sidenote: Christians powerless outside their ranks.]
+
+[Sidenote: The church powerless outside its circle.]
+
+[Sidenote: Christianity itself corrupted.]
+
+Thus, when Christianity was pure, and a truly renovating religion, it
+had no social influence on the leaders of rank and fashion. How could
+people of no political or social position, who were objects of ridicule
+and contempt, have effected great social or political changes? Until
+their conversion, they had not modified a law, and still less enacted
+one. How could they reach the ear of those who disdained, repelled, and
+persecuted them? They had no influence on the makers or the executors of
+laws. They could not call in the vast power of fashion, for they had no
+social prestige. They could not create a public opinion, for they were
+obliged to hide to save their lives. They had no learning to attract
+philosophers. They were not allowed to preach in public, and could not
+reach the people. They had no schools, nor books, nor colleges. They
+could not assail public institutions, for despotism was established and
+was irresistible. There was no liberty of speech by which they might
+have made converts above their rank. They could not subvert slavery
+without influencing those who controlled it. They could not destroy
+disproportionate fortunes, since the wealthy were protected by
+government. They could not interfere with games and demoralizing
+spectacles, for these were controlled by the emperor and his ministers,
+whose ear they could not reach, and upon whom all lofty arguments would
+have been wasted. The court, the army, the aristocracy, rushed with
+headlong eagerness into excesses and pleasures, which could not have
+been arrested by the wise and good of their own rank; much less by a
+class who were obnoxious and forgotten. The Christians could not even
+utter indignant protests without personal danger, to which they were not
+called. There was no possible way of presenting a barrier against
+corruption, outside their own ranks. Obscure men in these times can
+write books, but not under the empire; now they can lecture and preach,
+but not then. They were obliged to conceal their sentiments when there
+was danger of being suspected of being Christians. Those who have
+observed the resistless tyranny of fashion in our times--how even
+Christians are drawn into its eddies, not merely in such matters as
+dress, and houses, and education, but even in pleasures which are
+questionable, and in opinions which are false--what are we to think of
+the overwhelming influence of fashion at Rome, when society was still
+more artificial, when its leaders were kings and tyrants, and when all
+the propensities of human nature were in accordance with the customs
+handed down for centuries, and endorsed by all who were powerful in
+ordinary life. If Christians are so feeble in Paris, London, and New
+York, in suppressing acknowledged evils which come from the world, how
+could the early Christians prevent the ascendency of evils among those
+over whom they had no influence--perhaps those who did not feel them to
+be evils at all. If Christians who affect great social position in our
+cities cannot break up theatres and other demoralizing pleasures, how
+could the early Christians bring the games of the amphitheatre into
+disrepute? If social evils increase among us in spite of churches and
+schools and a free press and lectures, how could we expect them to
+decrease when no power was exerted to bring them into disrepute, and
+when the general tone of society was infinitely lower than in the worst
+capitals of modern times? What would wealthy senators, with their armies
+of clients and slaves, or the frivolous courtiers of godless emperors,
+or the sensual equestrians who composed a moneyed class, care for
+opposition to their pleasures from those whom they despised, and with
+whom they never associated, and who had no influence on public opinion?
+The Christians could not, and dared not, make their voices heard, to any
+extent, outside their own esoteric circle. They had an influence, or
+their circle could not have increased, but it was private and concealed.
+Artisans talked with artisans, servants with servants, soldiers with
+soldiers. They converted, quietly and unobtrusively, by private talk and
+blameless lives, those with whom alone they freely mingled. Thus their
+numbers multiplied, but their prestige did not increase, until these
+mechanics and laborers and slaves exercised some fortunate influence, by
+occasional entreaties, on their haughty masters. A favorite slave could
+sometimes gain the ear of the lady whose hair she dressed; or some
+veteran and trusted servant might persuade an indulgent master to listen
+to the new truths which were such a life to him. Thus the circle of the
+Christians gradually embraced some of the more candid and intellectual
+and fearless of the great. But it should be borne in mind that as the
+circle was enlarged, especially so as to embrace people whose lives had
+been egotistical and self-indulgent, the standard of morality was
+lowered. Also we should remember, as the circle increased, even of
+devout believers, that vice and degeneracy increased also outside the
+circle, and also as rapidly. The overwhelming current of corruption
+swept every thing away before it. What if the small minority were
+virtuous, when the vast majority were vicious. They were only witnesses
+of truth; they were not triumphant conquerors of error. If the state
+could have lasted a thousand years longer in peace and prosperity, then
+the leaven of the Gospel might have leavened the whole lump. But the
+barbarians could not wait for society to be renovated. They came when
+society was most enervated. When the Christians had gained sufficient
+influence to stop the games of the circus and the amphitheatre; when
+they had induced emperors to modify slavery; when they uttered protests
+against demoralizing amusements, the barbarians had advanced, and were
+becoming the new masters of the empire. The prayers of Augustine, the
+letters of Jerome, the sermons of Chrysostom, the ascetic example of
+Basil, could no more arrest the march of the avengers of centuries of
+misrule than the intercession of Abraham could stop the thunderbolts of
+God on the guilty inhabitants of Sodom. The Roman world, so long
+abandoned to every folly and sin, must reap the bitter fruit. It was no
+reproach to Christianity that it did not avert the consequences of sin,
+any more than it was a reproach to Jonah that he could not save Nineveh.
+If Christianity effects so little with us, when there are no opposing
+religions, and all institutions are professedly in harmony with it; when
+it controls the press and the schools and the literature of the country;
+when its churches are gilded with the emblem of our redemption in every
+village; when its ministers go forth unopposed, and have every facility
+of delivering their message, even to the wise and mighty; when
+philanthropy comes in with its mighty arm and knocks off the fetters of
+the slave, and sends the Gospel to every land--how could it affect
+society when every influence was against it. If religion wanes before
+the dazzling forces of a brilliant material civilization, and scarcely
+holds her own, when all profess to be governed by Christian truth, so
+that in a moral and spiritual view, society rather retrogrades than
+advances, I am amazed that it made so considerable a progress in the
+Roman empire, and increased from generation to generation until it shook
+the throne of emperors. And the example of the early church would seem
+to indicate that religion can only spread in a healthy manner, by
+constantly guarding and purifying those who profess it. It would seem
+that the true mission of the church is to elevate her own members rather
+than to mingle in scenes which have a corrupting influence. It is not
+easy to make the theatre a means of moral improvement, for it will be
+deserted when it rises above popular tastes, and the more it panders to
+these tastes the more it flourishes. The theatre may have been elevated
+at Athens, when the citizens who thronged to hear the plays of Sophocles
+were themselves cultivated. Racine may have been relished at Versailles,
+but only because the court of a great king composed the audience. The
+theatre never rises _above_ the taste of those who patronize it.
+Christian teachings would have been spurned at Rome even had there been
+no persecution. The church flourished because it instructed its own
+members, and quietly gained an extension of its influence, not because
+it appealed to those who opposed it. The church, in those days, was not
+a philanthropical institution, or an educational enterprise, or a
+network of agencies and "instrumentalities" to bring to bear on society
+at large certain ameliorating influences or benignant reforms. These
+were beyond its reach. But it was a secret body of believers, a kind of
+freemasonry which aimed to control and reform those who belonged to it.
+Its rules were for members, not the outside world. Hence the history of
+the early church refers chiefly to its discipline, to its officers, to
+the management of dioceses, to councils, holydays, festivals, liturgies,
+creeds, bearing only on its own internal organization. The members of
+this secret society lived apart from the world, absorbed in their own
+spiritual interests, or seeking to save the souls of those with whom
+they came in contact. The true triumphs of Christianity were seen in
+making good men of those who professed her doctrines, rather than
+changing outwardly popular institutions, or government, or laws, or even
+elevating the great mass of unbelievers. And it is more comforting to
+feel that the church was small and pure than that it was large and
+corrupt. And for three centuries there is reason to believe that the
+Christians, if feeble in influence and few in numbers when compared with
+the whole population, were remarkable for their graces and virtues--for
+their noble resistance to those temptations which enthrall so great a
+number of our modern believers. Insignificant in every public sense,
+they may not have lifted up their voices against the system of slavery
+which did so much to undermine the state; they may not have lectured
+against the despotic power of the imperator; they may have taken but
+little interest in politics, rendering unto Caesar whatever was due,
+whether taxes or obedience; they may not have formed schools or colleges
+or lyceums; they may not have meddled with any thing outside their
+ranks, except to preach temperance, justice, and a judgment to come, and
+a Saviour who was crucified, and a heaven to be obtained; but they did
+practice among themselves all the duties enjoined by Christ and his
+Apostles; they refused to sacrifice to the gods of pagan antiquity; they
+visited no shows; they attended no pageants; they gave no sumptuous
+banquets; they did not witness the games of the theatre and the circus;
+they did not play at dice, or take usury, or dye their hair, or wear
+absurd ornaments, or indulge in unseemly festivities: they detested
+astrologers and soothsayers, shrines, images, and idolatry; they kept
+the Sabbath, educated their children in the faith, settled their
+disputes without going to law, were patient under injuries, were
+charitable and unobtrusive, were full of faith and love, practicing the
+severest virtues, devout and spiritual when all were worldly and
+frivolous around them, ready for the martyr's pile, and looking to the
+martyr's crown. That Christianity should have rescued so many from the
+pollution of paganism in such general degeneracy, is very wonderful.
+That it should have extended its circle of sincere believers amid
+increasing degeneracy, is still more so, and is a most encouraging fact
+to the friends of religious progress. If it could not reach the
+fashionable and the worldly wise before society was undermined, and the
+provinces had become the prey of barbarians, it still could boast of a
+glorious army of martyrs, witnesses of the truth, whom all ages will
+hold in veneration, precious seed for future and better times. If
+Christianity, when it was a life,--a great transforming and renovating
+power, reforming what was bad, conserving what was good,--had but little
+influence beyond the circle of believers, still less could it save the
+empire when it was itself corrupted, when it was a mere nominal
+religion, however extensively it had spread. When it became the religion
+of the court and of the fashionable classes, it was used to support the
+very evils against which it originally protested, and which it was
+designed to remove.
+
+[Sidenote: It adopts oriental errors.]
+
+It first adopted many of the errors of the oriental philosophy.
+Gnosticism was embraced by many of the leading intellects of the church.
+It was the reaction of that old aristocratic spirit which had ruled the
+pagan world. It was an eclecticism of knowledge and culture which had
+originally despised the doctrines of the Cross. It united the oriental
+theosophy with the Platonic philosophy, both of which were proud,
+exclusive, disdainful. "It drew a distinction between the man of
+intellect, whose vocation it was to know, and the man who could not rise
+above blind and implicit faith." The early Christians were characterized
+for the simplicity of their faith. But with the triumphs of faith arose
+the cravings for knowledge among the more cultivated part of the
+converts.
+
+[Sidenote: Attempts to reconcile reason with faith.]
+
+Paul had seemingly discouraged all vain speculations, and the Grecian
+spirit of philosophy, believing that they would not avail to the
+explanation of the Christian mysteries, but rather prove a stumbling-
+block and a folly, since the realm of faith was essentially different
+from the realm of reason--not necessarily antagonistic, but distinct.
+This fundamental principle has ever been maintained by the more orthodox
+leaders of the church--by Athanasius, Augustine, Bernard, Pascal,
+Calvin--even as the fundamental principle of sound philosophy which
+Bacon advocated, that the world of experience and observation could not
+be explained by metaphysical deductions, has been the cause of all great
+modern progress in the sciences. The Gnostics, the men who aimed at
+superior knowledge, disdained the humbling doctrine of Paul, which made
+faith supreme over all forms of philosophy, and were the first to seek
+solutions of difficult points of theology by abstruse inquiries--
+honorable to the intellect, but subversive of that docile spirit which
+Christianity enjoined. This tendency to speculation was unfortunate, but
+natural to those active minds who sought to discover a connection
+between the truths taught by revelation, and those which we arrive at by
+consciousness. Grecian philosophy, when most lofty, as expressed by
+Plato, was based on these mental possessions--these internal
+convictions reached by logic and reflection. What more harmless, and
+even praiseworthy, to all appearance, than was this earnest attempt to
+reconcile reason with faith? The finest minds and characters of the
+church entered into the discussion with singular intensity and ardor.
+They would explain the Man-God, the Trinity, the Word made flesh, and
+all the other points which grew out of grace and free will. A
+dialectical spirit arose, which combated or explained what had formerly
+been received with unquestioning submission. In the first century there
+was scarcely any need of creeds, for the faith of the Christians was
+united on a few simple doctrines, such as are expressed in the Apostles'
+Creed. In the second and third centuries agitations and speculations
+began, and with the Gnostics, that class who invoked the aid of Oriental
+and Grecian philosophies in the propagation of the new religion. It was
+to be made dependent on human speculation--a most dangerous error, since
+it reintroduced the very wisdom which knew not God, and which the
+Apostles ignored. It ushered in the reign of rationalism, which still
+refuses to abdicate her throne, and which is absolutely rampant and
+exulting in the great universities of the most learned and inquiring of
+European nations.
+
+[Sidenote: Gnosticism.]
+
+But Gnosticism partook more of the haughty and exclusive spirit of the
+eastern sages, than of the patient and inquiring nature of the Grecian
+schools. It soared into regions whither even Platonism did not presume
+to venture. It sought to subject even the Grecian mind to its wild and
+lofty flights. The doctrines which Zoroaster taught pertaining to the
+two antagonistic principles of good and evil--the oriental dualism--
+Parsism had great fascination, especially to those who were inclined to
+monastic seclusion. The spirit of Evil, which seemed to be dominant on
+earth, and which was associated with material things, chained the soul
+to sense. The soul, longing for truth and holiness--for God and heaven--
+panted to be free of the corrupting influences of matter, which
+imprisoned the noblest part of man. The oriental Christian, not fully
+emancipated from the spirit which Buddhism communicated to all the
+countries of the East--that is, the longing of the soul for the release
+from matter, its reunion with the primal power from which all life has
+flowed, and the estrangement from human passions and worldly interests--
+sought repose and retirement where the mind would be free to dwell on
+the great questions which pertained to God and immortality. The
+dualistic principle, one of the chief elements of Gnosticism, harmonized
+with the prevailing temper of that age, even as the pantheistic
+principle rules the schools of philosophy in our own. All Christians
+were alive to consciousness of the power of evil. Gnosticism recognized
+it. Christianity triumphs over it by the power of the Cross which
+procures redemption. Gnosticism would work out salvation by
+abstractions, by ascetic severities, by a renunciation of the pleasures
+of the world. Hence it is the real father of monasticism--that spirit of
+seclusion and self-abnegation which became so prevalent in the third and
+fourth centuries, and which remained in the church through the mediaeval
+period. Gnosticism busied itself with the solution of insoluble
+questions respecting the origin of evil, which Christianity justly
+relinquished to the domain of useless inquiries--"the wisdom of the
+world." Gnosticism would acknowledge no limits to human speculation;
+Christianity accepts mysteries hidden from the wise and prudent, and yet
+revealed unto babes. Hence all sorts of crudities of belief crept into
+the church, such as the idea of the demiurge, and the different ways of
+contemplating the person of Christ. Moreover, the Gnostics subjected the
+New Testament to the boldest criticism, affirming it to be impossible to
+arrive at the true doctrines of Christ; and hence they sought to go
+beyond Christ, explaining difficult subjects by rationalistic
+interpretations. Cerinthus placed a boundless chasm between God and the
+world, and filled it up with different orders of spirits as intermediate
+beings. Basilides supposed an angel was set over the entire earthly
+course of the world. Valentine announced the distinction between a
+psychical and pneumatical Christianity. Ptolemaeus maintained that the
+creation of the world did not proceed from the supreme God. Bardesanes
+sought to trace the vestiges of truth among people of every nation.
+Carpocrates maintained that all existence flowed from one supreme
+original being, to whom it strives to return. Prodicus asserted that as
+men were sons of the supreme God, a royal race, they were bound by no
+law. Saturnine advanced a fanciful system on the creation. Tatian
+advocated the mortality of the soul. Marcion attempted to sunder the God
+of Nature and the God of the Old Testament from the God of the Gospel.
+It is difficult to enumerate all the fanciful theories propounded by the
+Gnostics, and which arose from the attempt to engraft Orientalism upon
+Christianity.
+
+[Sidenote: Manicheism.]
+
+A still greater attempt to blend Christianity with the religions of
+ancient Asia was made by Mani, a Persian, who especially attempted to
+fuse Zoroastrian with Christian doctrines. He aimed to produce the
+utmost estrangement from all mundane influences, since the evil
+principle held in bondage the elements springing out of the kingdom of
+light. Deliverance from this bondage he regarded as the great end and
+aim of life. His spirit was pantheistic, probably derived from Buddhism,
+which he had learned during his extensive journeys into India and China.
+He adopted the dualism of Zoroaster, and supposed two principles
+antagonistic to each other, on the one side God, the primal light, from
+whom all light radiates, on the other side Evil, whose essence is self-
+conflicting uproar, matter, darkness. Most nearly connected with the
+supreme God were Aeons,--the channels for the diffusion of light,--
+innumerable in number and of surpassing greatness. The Aeon-mother of
+life generated the primitive man to oppose the powers of darkness. Hence
+man's nature is full of dignity, although he was worsted in the conflict
+with Evil. But the spirit raises him once more to the kingdom of light,
+and purifies his soul which sprung from the primitive man. The pure soul
+is Christ, enthroned in the sun, superior to all contact with matter,
+and incapable of suffering.
+
+[Sidenote: Mysticism.]
+
+These were some of the features of that mystical philosophy which made
+Christ the spirit of the sun, giving light and life to the soul
+imprisoned in the kingdom of darkness. Man thus becomes a copy of the
+world of light and darkness, struggling against matter, elevated by the
+source of life--a soul living in the kingdom of light, and a body
+derived from the kingdom of darkness, and enticed by all the pleasures
+of sense, and thus drawn down to the world which is matter and evil,
+counteracted by the angel of light. This is the dualism which formed the
+essential element of the Manichean speculations, so congenial to the
+mystic theogonies of the East, and which was embraced by a portion of
+the eastern church, especially by those who were fascinated by the
+refinements and pretensions of a philosophy which aimed to solve the
+highest problems of existence--the nature of God, and the creation of
+man. These daring speculations, which led astray so many inquiring
+minds, were, however, too mystical and indefinite to reach the popular
+mind, and they pertained to questions which did not shock Christian
+instincts, like those which attacked the person or the offices of
+Christ. Gnosticism was viewed as a sort of Judaism, inasmuch as it did
+not rest its exclusiveness on the title of birth, but on especial
+knowledge communicated to the enlightened few. It was a philosophy whose
+esoteric doctrines soared above the comprehension of the vulgar; but it
+affected more than the surface of society; it poisoned the minds of
+those who aspired to lead the intelligence of the age. Its spirit was
+antagonistic to the simplicity of the faith, and so, as it prevailed,
+was an influence much to be dreaded, and called forth the greatest
+energies of the Alexandrian school, in order to defeat it and nullify
+it. But its dangerous seeds remained to germinate a rationalistic
+theology, especially when united with the Neo-Platonic philosophy.
+
+[Sidenote: Adoption of oriental ceremonies and pomps.]
+
+But the church was not only impregnated with the errors of pagan
+philosophy, but it adopted many of the ceremonials of oriental worship,
+which were both minute and magnificent. If any thing marked the
+primitive church it was the simplicity of worship, and the absence of
+ceremonies and festivals and gorgeous rites. The churches became, in the
+fourth century, as imposing as the old temples of idolatry. The
+festivals became authoritative; at first they were few in number, and
+purely voluntary. It was supposed that when Christianity superseded
+Judaism, the obligations to observe the ceremonies of the Mosaic law
+were abrogated. Neither the apostles nor evangelists imposed the yoke of
+servitude, but left Easter and every other feast to be honored by the
+gratitude of the recipients of grace. The change in opinion, in the
+fourth century, called out the severe animadversion of the historian
+Socrates, but it was useless to stem the current of the age. Festivals
+became frequent and imposing. The people clung to them because they
+obtained a cessation from labor, and obtained excitement. The ancient
+rubrics mention only those of the Passion, of Easter, of Whitsunday,
+Christmas, and the descent of the Holy Spirit. But there followed the
+celebration of the death of Stephen, the memorial of John, the
+commemoration of the slaughter of the Innocents, the feast of Epiphany,
+the feast of Purification, and others, until the Catholic Church had
+some celebration for some saint and martyr for every day in the year.
+They contributed to create a craving for an outward religion, which
+appealed to the senses and the sensibilities rather than the heart. They
+led to innumerable quarrels and controversies about unimportant points,
+especially in relation to the celebration of Easter. They produced a
+delusive persuasion respecting pilgrimages, the sign of the cross, and
+the sanctifying effects of the sacraments. Veneration for martyrs
+ripened into the introduction of images--a future source of popular
+idolatry. Christianity was emblazoned in pompous ceremonies. The
+veneration for saints approximated to their deification, and
+superstition exalted the mother of our Lord into an object of absolute
+worship. Communion-tables became imposing altars typical of Jewish
+sacrifices, and the relics of martyrs were preserved as sacred amulets.
+
+[Sidenote: Monastic life.]
+
+Monastic life ripened also into a grand system of penance, and expiatory
+rites, such as characterized oriental asceticism. Armies of monks
+retired to gloomy and isolated places, and abandoned themselves to
+rhapsodies and fastings and self-expiations, in opposition to the grand
+doctrine of Christ's expiation. They despaired of society, and abandoned
+the world to its fate--a dismal and fanatical set of men, overlooking
+the practical aims of life. They lived more like beasts and savages than
+enlightened Christians--wild, fierce, solitary, superstitious, ignorant,
+fanatical, filthy, clothed in rags, eating the coarsest food, practicing
+gloomy austerities, introducing a false standard of virtue, regardless
+of the comforts of civilization, and careless of those great interests
+which were intrusted them to guard. They were often men of extraordinary
+virtue and influence, and their lives were not assailed by great
+temptations. They abstained from marriage, and celibacy came to be
+regarded as the angelic virtue--a proof of the highest and purest
+Christian life. Vast numbers of men left the sanctities and beatitudes
+of home for a cheerless life in the desert, and their gloomy and
+repulsive austerities were magnified into extraordinary virtues. The
+monks and hermits sought to save themselves by climbing to Heaven by the
+same ladder that had been sought by the soofis and the fakirs,--which
+delusion had an immense influence in undermining the doctrines of grace.
+Christianity was fast merging itself into an oriental theosophy.
+
+[Sidenote: Ambition and wealth of the clergy.]
+
+Again the clergy became ambitious and worldly, and sought rank and
+distinction. They even thronged the courts or princes, and aspired to
+temporal honors. They were no longer supported by the voluntary
+contributions of the faithful, but by revenues supplied by government,
+or property inherited from the old temples. Great legacies were made to
+the church by the rich, and these the clergy controlled. These bequests
+became sources of inexhaustible wealth. As wealth increased, and was
+intrusted to the clergy, they became indifferent to the wants of the
+people, no longer supported by them. They became lazy, arrogant, and
+independent. The people were shut out of the government of the church.
+The bishop became a grand personage, who controlled and appointed his
+clergy. The church was allied with the state, and religious dogmas were
+enforced by the sword of the magistrate. An imposing hierarchy was
+established, of various grades, which culminated in the bishop of Rome.
+The emperor decided points of faith, and the clergy were exempted from
+the burdens of the state. There was a great flocking to the priestly
+offices when the clergy wielded so much power, and became so rich; and
+men were elevated to great sees, not because of their piety or talents,
+but influence with the great. What a falling off from the teachings of
+the original clergy, when bishops were the companions of princes rather
+than preachers to the poor, and when the clergy could live without the
+offerings of the people, and were appointed from favor and not from
+merit. The spiritual mission of the church was lost sight of in a
+degrading alliance with the state and the world. "Make me bishop of
+Rome," said a pagan general, "and I too would become a Christian."
+
+[Sidenote: The church conforms to the world.]
+
+[Sidenote: Christianity produces witnesses, but is not all conquering.]
+
+When Christianity itself was in such need of reform, when Christians
+could scarcely be distinguished from pagans in love of display, and in
+egotistical ends, how could it reform the world? When it was a pageant,
+a ritualism, an arm of the state, a vain philosophy, a superstition, a
+formula, how could it save, if ever so dominant? The corruptions of the
+church in the fourth century are as well authenticated as the purity and
+moral elevation of Christians in the second century. Isaac Taylor has
+presented a most mournful view of the state of Christian society when
+the religion of the cross had become the religion of the state. And the
+corruptions kept pace with the outward triumphs of the faith, especially
+when the pagans had yielded to the supremacy of the cross. The same fact
+is noticeable in the history of Mohammedanism. When it was first
+declared by the extraordinary man who claimed to be the greatest of the
+prophets of God, when it was a sublime theism, immeasurably superior to
+the prevailing religions of Arabia, and especially when it was
+promulgated by moral means, its converts were few, but these were lofty.
+When it was extended by an appeal to the sword, and to the bad passions
+of men, when it gave a promise of demoralizing joys, and was embraced by
+powerful classes and chieftains, it had rapidly extended over Asia and
+Africa, and even invaded Europe. Mohammedanism doubtless prevailed in
+consequence of its very errors, by adapting itself to the corrupt
+inclinations of mankind. If it prospered by means of its truths, why was
+its progress so slow when it was comparatively pure and elevated? The
+outward triumphs of a religion are no indications of its purity, since
+the more corrupt it is the more popular it will be, and the purer it is
+the less likely it is to be embraced, except by a few, whom God designs
+to be witnesses of his power and truth. Buddhism and Brahminism have
+more adherents than Mohammedanism, and Mohammedanism more than
+Christianity, and Roman Catholic Christianity has more than
+Protestantism, and Protestantism, when it is a life, is narrowed down to
+a very small body of believers. Christianity which is popular and
+fashionable, is not necessarily elevated and ennobling, and when it is
+fashionable or popular is very apt to assume the forms of an imposing
+ritualism, or to be blended with philosophical speculations, or to sink
+to the degradation of superstitious rites and ceremonies. When
+Christianity falls to the level of prevailing fashions and customs and
+opinions, it has not a very powerful renovating influence on human life.
+The Jesuits made great conquests in Japan and China, but how barren they
+have proved. The Puritans planted the barren hills of New England with
+stern and rugged believers in a spiritual and personal God, and they
+have extended their principles throughout the country. What renovating
+influence has the nominal Christianity of South America, or Spain, or
+Italy? The religion embraced by the wise and great is apt to become a
+rationalism, and that professed by the degraded populace to become a
+superstition. The reception of Christianity in the heart implies
+sacrifices and self-denial, and will not be cordially embraced except by
+a few thus far, in any age. The Lollards in England, in the time of
+Henry VII., were a feeble body, but they did more to infuse a religious
+life than the whole machinery and influence of the Roman Catholic
+Church. And as soon as the Church of England gained over the state, and
+became established, it began to degenerate, and had need of successive
+reforms. How feeble every form of dissent as a truly renovating power
+when it has become triumphant! What have the fashionable court religions
+of Europe done towards the real regeneration of society? Protestantism
+in Germany, when it was protesting, had a mighty life. When universities
+and courts accepted it, it became a poisonous rationalism, or a dead
+formula. Puritanism, established in New England just previous to the
+Revolution, was a very different thing from what it was when its
+adherents were exiles and wanderers. It spread and was honored, but
+retained chiefly its forms, its traditions, its animosities. How rapidly
+the Huguenots degenerated after the battle of Ivry! Even Jesuitism could
+not stand before its own triumphs. Its real life was in the times of
+Xavier and Aquaviva, not of Escobar and La Chaise. Any dominant faith
+will find its supporters among those whose practical lives are false to
+the original principles. Its powers of renovation depend upon its
+exalted doctrines, not upon the numbers who profess it, because, when
+dominant, men are drawn to it by ambition or interest. They degrade it
+more than it elevates them. Hence it would almost seem that
+Christianity, in this dispensation, is designed to call out witnesses
+of its truths, in every land, the elect of God, rather than to
+be a universally renovative power on human institutions. But if it is
+destined to be all-conquering, bringing government and science and
+social life in harmony with its spirit, as most people believe, and
+perhaps with the greatest evidence on their side, still its _real_
+conquests must be slow, without supernatural aid. It will spread, from
+its inherent life and power; it will become corrupted, and fail to exert
+as great a spiritual influence as was hoped; it will be reformed, after
+great debasements, when it is scarcely more than a nominal faith, except
+among the few witnesses; and the reforming party or sect will gain
+ascendency, and in its turn become degenerate and powerless as a
+renovating force. So history seems to indicate, from the times of
+Theodosius to our own, specially illustrated by the establishment of the
+different monastic orders, the great awakenings under Luther and Calvin
+and Knox, the successes of Jesuits and Jansenists, the triumphs of the
+Puritans, the Quakers, and the Methodists, the rise of Puseyism, or the
+Church of England. That Christianity remains vital in the world, and
+makes true advances from generation to generation, can scarcely be
+questioned. But these advances are slow and delusive. Spiritual power
+will pass away as the conquering party gains adherents from the world of
+fashion and of rank. It will not become extinct, but the difference
+between its true influence, when it is persecuted and when it is
+triumphant, is less than generally supposed. The spiritual cannot be
+measured by the material. Who can tell wherein true and permanent
+influence abides? Who can estimate the power of spiritual agencies? It
+is common to speak of enlarged spheres of usefulness; but a clergyman in
+a humble parish may set in motion ideas which will have more effect on
+the age in which he lives, and on succeeding times, than by any splendid
+position in a large and populous city. God seeth not as man seeth. To
+fill the sphere which Providence appoints is the true wisdom; to
+discharge trusts faithfully and live exalted ideas, that is the mission
+of good men.
+
+[Sidenote: Reasons why Christianity did not save the empire.]
+
+Christianity, then, in the fourth century was not more of a renovating
+power in consequence of its rapid extension and vast external influence.
+It was never more sublime than when it made martyrs and heroes of the
+few who dared to embrace its doctrines. There was more hope of its
+regenerating the world when it was a continually expanding circle of
+devout believers, uncompromising and aggressive, than when it numbered
+the wise and noble and mighty, with their old vices and follies. Its
+external triumphs rather diminished its spiritual power.
+
+If Christianity failed as a gorgeous ritualism, armed with the weapons
+of the state, and allied with pagan philosophy, attractive as it was
+made to different classes, where is the hope of the renovation of this
+world from the effects of climate, soil, material wealth, and the other
+boasts of physical improvements and culture? What a poor basis for the
+hopes of man to rest upon is furnished by such guides as the Comtes, the
+Buckles, and the Mills? If a fashionable and popular religion could not
+save, how can a cold materialism which chains the thoughts to sense, and
+confines aspirations to worldly success.
+
+Christianity, as it would seem, did not avert the ruin of the empire,
+because, when pure, it had but little influence outside its circle of
+esoteric believers, while society was rotten to the core, and was
+rapidly approaching a natural dissolution. When it was dominant it
+failed, because it was itself corrupted, and the ruin had begun. The
+barbarians were advancing to desolate and destroy, were routing armies
+and sacking cities and enslaving citizens, when the great fathers of the
+church were laying the foundation of a Christian state. The ruin of the
+empire was threatening when Christianity was a proscribed and persecuted
+faith; it was inevitable when it was grasping the sceptre of princes.
+
+[Sidenote: True mission of the church.]
+
+[Sidenote: The fall of the empire a necessity.]
+
+[Sidenote: The creation which succeeds destruction.]
+
+[Sidenote: What is truly valuable never perishes.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reconstruction.]
+
+Moreover, we take a low and material view of Christianity when we wonder
+why it did not save the empire. It was sent to save the world, not the
+institutions of an egotistical people. Why should we grieve that it
+failed to perpetuate such an organization or government as that wielded
+by the emperors? What was a central and proud despotism, with vast
+military machinery, and accompanying aristocracies and inequalities, and
+the accumulated treasure of all ages and nations on the banks of the
+Tiber, compared with a state more favorable for the development of a new
+civilization? What does humanity care for the perpetuation of Roman
+pride? Providence attaches but little value to human sorrows and
+sacrifices, to the melting away of delusions, pomps, vanities, and
+follies, compared with the spread of those indestructible ideas on which
+are based the real happiness of man. If the empire had withstood the
+shock of barbarians, a state would have existed unfavorable to the
+higher and future triumphs of the cross. Where was hope, when imperial
+despotism, and disproportionate fortunes, and slavery, and the reign of
+conventional forms and traditions, and the tyranny of foolish fashions
+were likely to be perpetuated? How could Christianity have subverted
+these monstrous evils without producing revolutions more blasting than
+even barbaric violence? There seem to be some evils so subtle,
+poisonous, and deeply-rooted that nothing but violence can remove them.
+How long before slavery would have been destroyed in the United States
+by any moral means? How could slavery be destroyed when the most
+eloquent of Christian teachers were its defenders, and all its kindred
+institutions were upheld by the church? So of slavery in the Roman
+Empire. There were sixty millions of slaves, not of the posterity of
+Ham, but of Shem and Japhet. Every prosperous person was eager to
+possess a slave, nor had Christianity openly and signally rebuked such a
+gigantic institution. Where was the hope of the abolition of such an
+evil when Christianity adapted itself to prevailing fashions and
+opinions, and only thought of alleviating some of its worst forms? Would
+slaves decrease when worldly men became the overseers of the church, and
+emperors presided at councils? Where were the hopes of its abolition
+when the whole world was its theatre, and every rich man its defender;
+where, instead of four millions, there were sixty millions, and where
+the general level of morality and intelligence was lower than it is at
+present? So of disproportionate fortunes. They were a hopeless evil. If
+aristocratic institutions keep their ground in the best country of
+Europe, what must have been the grasp of nobles in the Roman world?
+Abandonment to money-making was another social evil. If we in America
+cannot weaken its power, even in the most Christian communities; if we
+cannot prevent the tyranny of money in our very churches, where we are
+reminded every Sunday that it is the root of all evil, yea, when we have
+Bibles in our hands,--what could a corrupted Christianity do with it
+when material pleasures were more prized than they are with us, and when
+philanthropic institutions were unborn? If the whole power of the
+Gallican Church was exerted to prop up the feudal privileges of the
+French noblesse, and there was needed a dreadful and bloody revolution
+to destroy them, much more was a revolution needed at Rome to destroy
+the inherited powers of a still prouder and more powerful aristocracy.
+If the rights of women are so slowly recognized among the descendants of
+chivalrous nations, with all the moral forces of the Gospel, how
+hopeless the elevation of women among peoples where woman for thousands
+of years was regarded as a victim, a toy, or a slave? When we remember
+the inherited opinions of Orientals, Greeks, and Romans as to the
+condition and duties and relations of the female sex, it seems as if no
+ordinary instruction could have broken the fetters of woman for an
+indefinite period. The institutions of the pagan world were too firmly
+rooted to afford hope to Christian teachers, if ever so enlightened. The
+great cardinal principle of the common brotherhood of man could only be
+applied under more favorable circumstances. The unity of the empire
+_did_ facilitate the outward triumphs and spread of Christianity,
+and perhaps that was the great mission which the Roman empire was
+designed by God to promote. But the social and political institutions of
+the Romans were exceedingly adverse to a healthy development of
+Christian virtue. The teachers of the new religion originally aimed
+entirely at the salvation of the soul. It was to save men from the wrath
+to come, and publish tidings of great joy to the miserable populace of
+the ancient world, that apostles labored. They did not attack political
+or great organized systems of corruption openly and directly. It was
+enough to promise Heaven, not to change the structure of society. For
+four centuries neither the condition of woman nor of the slave was
+radically improved. Christianity could not, without miraculous power,
+bear its best fruit on a Roman soil. It could not do its best work on
+degenerate and worn-out races. How many centuries would it take for
+Christianity, even if embraced by all the people of Japan or China, to
+make as noble Christians as in Scotland or New England? There must be a
+material to work upon. There was not this material in the Roman empire.
+A dreadful revolution was necessary, in which new and uncorrupted races
+should obtain ascendency, and on whom Christianity could work with
+renewed power. In such a catastrophe, the good must suffer with the
+evil, the just with the unjust. A Gothic soldier would not spare a
+cloister any sooner than a palace, or a palace sooner than a hut, a
+philosopher more readily than a peasant. Christians as well as pagans
+must drink the bitter cup, for natural law has no tears to shed and no
+indulgence to give. The iniquities of the fathers were visited upon the
+children, even to the third and fourth generation. And what if there was
+suffering on the earth? Tribulation is generally a blessing in disguise.
+Men are not born for undisturbed happiness on earth, but for a
+preparation for heaven. Whatever calls the thoughts from a lower to a
+higher good is the greatest boon which Providence gives. The monstrous
+calamities of the fourth and fifth centuries had a marked influence in
+opening the portals of the church, even for the barbarians themselves--
+for they were not converted until they became conquerors. A new life, in
+spite of calamities, was infused into the empire, tottering and falling.
+It was among the new races that the new creation began, and it is among
+their descendants that the loftiest triumphs of civilization have been
+achieved. So it was ultimately a good thing for the world that the
+empire and all its bad institutions were swept away. Creation followed
+destruction, and the death-song was succeeded by a melodious birth-song.
+All suffering and sorrow were over-ruled. Future ages were the better
+for such sad calamities. Temples were destroyed, but the sublime ideas
+of beauty and grace by which they were erected still survive. Armies
+were annihilated, but military science was not lost. Libraries were
+burned, but models of ancient style survived to incite to new creation.
+Anarchy prevailed, but new states arose on the ruins of the old
+provinces. Men passed away, but not the fruits of the earth, nor the
+relics of genius. The new races gave a new impulse, when fairly
+established, to agriculture, to commerce, and to art. The fall of the
+empire was the destruction of fortunes and of farms, the change of
+masters, the dissolution of the central power of emperors, the breaking
+up of proconsular authority, the dissipation of conventionalities and
+fashions; but these were not the ruin of human hopes or the bondage of
+human energies. Genius, poetry, faith, sentiment, and piety, remained.
+Nor was the earth depopulated; it was decimated. All the substantial
+elements of greatness were moulded into new forms. A fresh and beautiful
+life arose among the simple and earnest people who had descended from
+the Oder and the Vistula. Entirely new institutions were formed. The old
+fabric was shattered to pieces, but of the ruins a new edifice was
+constructed more calculated to shelter the distressed and miserable. The
+barbarians seized the old traditions of the church and invested them
+with poetical beauty. The Teutonic civilization, more Christian than the
+Roman, surpassed it in all popular forms, and became more adapted to the
+wants of man. Probably nothing really great in civilization has ever
+perished, or ever will perish. I don't believe in "lost arts." They are
+only buried for a time, like the glorious sculptures of Praxiteles or
+Lysippus, amid the debris of useless fabrics, to be dug up when wanted
+and valued, as models of new creations. I doubt if any thing really
+valuable in even the Egyptian, or Assyrian, or Indian civilization has
+hopelessly passed away, which can be made of real service to mankind. It
+is, indeed, a puzzle how the capstones of the Pyramids were elevated--
+such huge blocks raised five hundred feet into the air; but I believe
+the mechanical forces are really known, or will be known, at the proper
+time, and will be again employed, if the labor is worth the cost. We
+could build a tower of Babel in New York, or a temple of Carnac, or a
+Colosseum, and would build it, if such a structure were needed or we
+could afford the waste of time, material, and labor. There is nothing in
+all antiquity so grand as a modern railroad, or the _Great Eastern_
+steamship, or the Erie Canal. Nebuchadnezzar's palace would not compare
+with St. Peter's Church or Versailles, nor his hanging gardens with the
+Croton reservoirs. Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein is more impregnable than
+the walls of Babylon, which Cyrus despaired to scale or batter down.
+Every succeeding generation inherits the riches and learning of the
+past, even if Rome and Carthage are sacked, and the library of
+Alexandria is burned. The barbarians destroyed the monuments of former
+greatness--temples, palaces, statues, pictures, libraries, schools,
+languages, and laws. These _they_ did not restore, but they were
+restored by their descendants, as there was need, and new creations
+added. The Parthenon reappears in the Madeleine; the Golden House of
+Nero in the Tuileries and the Louvre; Jupiter of Phidias in the Moses of
+Michael Angelo; the Helen of Zeuxis in the Venus of Titian; the library
+of Alexandria in the Bibliotheque Imperiale; the Academy of Plato in the
+University of Oxford; the orations of Cicero in the eloquence of Burke;
+the Institutes of Justinian in the Code Napoleon. In addition, we have
+cathedrals whose architectural effect Vitruvius could not have
+conceived; pictures that Polygnotus could not have painted; books which
+Aristotle could not have imagined; universities before which Zeno would
+have stood awestruck; courts of law that would have called out the
+admiration of Paul and Papinian; houses which Scaurus would have envied;
+carriages that Nero would have given the lives of ten thousand
+Christians to possess; carpets that Babylon could not have woven; dyes
+surpassing the Tyrian purple; silks, velvets, glass mirrors, sideboards,
+fabrics of linen and cotton and wool, ships, railroads, watches,
+telescopes, compasses, charts, printing-presses, gunpowder, fire-arms,
+photographs, engravings, bank-notes, telegraphic wires, chemical
+compounds, domestic utensils, mills, steam-engines, balloons, and a
+thousand other wonders of a civilization which no ancient race attained.
+_We_ have lost nothing of the old trophies of genius, and have
+gained new ones for future civilization. The Romans, if left in
+possession of the provinces they had conquered for two thousand years
+longer, would never, probably, have made our modern discoveries and
+inventions. They would have been more like the modern inhabitants of
+China. A new race was required to try new experiments and achieve new
+triumphs. The Greeks and Romans did their share, fulfilled a great
+mission for humanity, but they could not monopolize forever the human
+race itself.
+
+[Sidenote: Every age has a peculiar mission.]
+
+Every great nation and age has its work to do in the field of
+undeveloped energies; but the field is inexhaustible in resources, for
+the intellect of man is boundless in its reserved powers. No limit can
+be assigned to the future triumphs of genius and strength. We are as
+ignorant of some future wonders as the last century was of steam and
+telegraphic wires. Nor can we tell what will next arise. The wonders of
+the Greeks and Romans would have astonished Egyptians and Assyrians. The
+Oriental civilization gave place to the Hellenic and the Roman; and the
+Hellenic and Roman gave place to the Teutonic. So the races and the ages
+move on. They have their missions, become corrupt, and pass away. But
+the breaking up of their institutions, even by violence, when no longer
+a blessing to the world, and the surrender of their lands and riches to
+another race, not worn out, but new, fresh, enthusiastic, and strong,
+have resulted in permanent good to mankind, even if we feel that the
+human mind never soared to loftier flights, or put forth greater and
+more astonishing individual energies than in that old and ruined world.
+
+[Sidenote: How far Christianity conserved.]
+
+How far Christianity conserved the treasures of the past we cannot tell.
+No one can doubt the influence of Christianity in reviving letters, in
+giving a stimulus to thought, in creating a noble ambition for the good
+of society, and producing that moral tone which fits the soul to
+appreciate what is truly great. It was the church which preserved the
+manuscripts of classical ages; which perpetuated the Latin language in
+chants and litanies and theological essays; which gave a new impulse to
+agriculture and many useful arts; which preserved the traditions of the
+Roman empire; which made use of the old canons of law; which gave a new
+glory to architecture in the Gothic vaults of mediaeval cathedrals; which
+encouraged the rising universities; which gave wisdom to rulers and laws
+to social life. The monasteries and convents, in their best ages, were
+receptacles of arts, beehives of industry, schools of learning, asylums
+for the miserable, retreats for sages, hospitals for the poor, and
+bulwarks of civilization which rude warriors dared not assail. What did
+not the Christian clergy guard and perpetuate?
+
+[Sidenote: The real triumphs of Christianity.]
+
+That the Teutonic nations would have arisen to as lofty a platform as
+the ancient Greeks or Romans, without Christianity, is probable enough.
+There is no limit to the intellect of a noble race until corrupted.
+Without Christianity, society might still have possessed our modern
+discoveries, since the Gothic races have shown a distinguishing genius
+in mechanical inventions. I apprehend that Christianity has not much to
+do with many of the wonders of our present day; and I find some classes
+of men who have made great attainments in certain channels in antagonism
+to Christianity. I question whether a spiritual religion has given an
+impulse to steam navigation, or rifled cannons, or electrical machines,
+or astronomical calculations, or geological deductions. It has not
+created scientific schools, or painters' studios, or Lowell mills, or
+Birmingham wares, or London docks. Material glories we share with the
+ancients; we have simply improved upon them. In some things they are our
+superiors. We do not see the superiority of modern over ancient
+civilization in material wonders, so much as in immaterial ideas. What
+is really greatest and noblest in our civilization comes from Christian
+truths. Certainly, what is most characteristic is the fruit of spiritual
+ideas, such as paganism never taught,--never could have conceived; such,
+for instance, as pertains to social changes, to popular education, to
+philanthropic enterprise, to enlightened legislation, to the elevation
+of the poor and miserable, to the breaking off the fetters of the slave,
+and to the true appreciation of the mission of woman. Nor was the Roman
+empire swept away until the seeds of all these great modern
+improvements, which raise society, were planted by the sainted fathers
+and doctors of the church. They worked for us, for all future ages, for
+all possible civilizations, as well as for their own times. They are,
+therefore, immortal benefactors of the human race, since they were the
+first to declare great renovating ideas. The early church is the real
+architect of European civilization. She laid the foundation of the noble
+edifice under which the nations still shelter themselves against the
+storms of life. Christianity not only rescued a part of the population
+of the Roman empire from degradation and ruin; it not only had glorious
+witnesses or its transcendent power and beauty in every land, thus
+triumphing over human infirmity and misery as no other religion ever
+did; but it has also proved itself to be a progressively conquering
+power by the great and beneficent ideas which were planted in the minds
+of barbarians, as well as oriental Christians, and which from time to
+time are bearing fruit in every land, so as to make it evident to any
+but a perverted intellect, that Christianity is the source of what we
+most prize in civilization itself, and that without it the nations can
+only reach a certain level, and will then, from the law of depravity,
+decline and fall like Greece, Asia Minor, and Rome. If we had no
+Christianity, we should be compelled, so far as history teaches us
+lessons, to adopt the theory of Buckle and his school, of the necessary
+progress and decline of nations--the moving round, like systems of
+philosophy, in perpetual circles. But, with the indestructible ideas
+which the fathers planted, there must be a perpetual renovation and an
+unending progress, until the world becomes an Eden.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+REFERENCES.--The reader is directed only to the ordinary histories of
+the church. The great facts are stated by all the historians, and few
+new ones have been brought to light. Historians differ merely in the
+mode of presenting their subject. The ecclesiastical histories are
+generally deficient in art, and hence are uninteresting. The ablest and
+the most learned of modern historians is doubtless Neander. He is also
+the fullest and most satisfactory; but even he is unattractive. Mosheim
+is dry and dull, but learned in facts. Dr. Schaff has most ably
+presented primitive Christianity, and his recent work is both popular
+and valuable. Milman is the best English writer on the church, and he is
+the most readable of modern historians. Tillemont and Dupin are very
+full and very learned. But a truly immortal history of the church,
+exhaustive yet artistic, brilliant as well as learned, is yet to be
+written. The ancient historians, like Eusebius and Socrates and Zosimus,
+are very meagre. The genius and spirit of the early church can only be
+drawn from the lives and writings of the fathers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE LEGACY OF THE EARLY CHURCH TO FUTURE GENERATIONS.
+
+
+It is my object in this chapter to show the great Christian ideas which
+the fathers promulgated, and which have proved of so great influence on
+the Middle Ages and our own civilization. These were declared before the
+Roman empire fell; and if they did not arrest ruin, still alleviated the
+miseries of society, and laid the foundation of all that is most
+ennobling among modern nations. The early church should be the most
+glorious chapter in the history of humanity. While the work of
+destruction was going on in every part of the world, both by vice and
+violence, there was still the new work of creation proceeding with it, a
+precious savor of life to future ages. If there is any thing sublime, it
+is the power of renovating ideas amid universal degeneracy. They are
+seeds of truth, which grow and ripen into grand institutions. These did
+not become of sufficient importance to arrest the attention of
+historians until they were cultivated by the Germanic nations in the
+Middle Ages.
+
+It could be shown that almost everything which gives glory to Christian
+civilization had its origin in the early church. Few are aware what
+giants and heroes were those fathers and saints whom this age has been
+taught to despise. We are really reaping the results of those conflicts--
+conflicts with bigoted Jewish sects; conflicts with the high priests of
+paganism, with Greek philosophers, with Gnostic Manichaean illuminati;
+with the symbolists, soothsayers, astrologers, magicians, which mystic
+superstition conjured up among degenerate people. And not merely their
+conflicts with the prince of the power of the air alone, but with
+themselves, with their own fiery passions, and with tangible outward
+foes. They were illustrious champions and martyrs in the midst of a
+great Vanity Fair, in a Nebuchadnezzar fire of persecutions, an all-
+pervading atmosphere of lies, impurities, and abominations which cried
+to heaven for vengeance. They solved for us and for all future
+generations the thousand of new questions which audacious paganism
+proposed in its last struggles; they exposed the bubbles which charmed
+that giddy generation of egotists; they eliminated the falsehoods which
+vain-glorious philosophers had inwrought with revelation; and they
+attested, with dying agonies, to the truth of those mysteries which gave
+them consolation and hope amid the terrors of a dissolving world. They
+absorbed even into the sphere of Christianity all that was really
+valuable in the system they exploded, whether of philosophy or social
+life, and transmitted the same to future ages. And they set examples, of
+which the world will never lose sight, of patience, fortitude, courage,
+generosity, which will animate all martyrs to the end of time. And if,
+in view of their great perplexities, of circumstances which they could
+not control, utter degeneracy and approaching barbarism, they lent their
+aid to some institutions which we cannot endorse, certainly when
+corrupted, like Manichaeism and ecclesiastical domination, let us
+remember that these were adapted to their times, or were called out by
+pressing exigencies. And further, let us bear in mind that, in giving
+their endorsement, they could not predict the abuse of principles
+abstractly good and wise, like poverty, and obedience, and chastity, and
+devout meditation, and solitary communion with God. In all their conduct
+and opinions, we see, nevertheless, a large-hearted humanity, a
+toleration and charity for human infirmities, and a beautiful spirit of
+brotherly love. If they advocated definite creeds with great vehemence
+and earnestness, they yet soared beyond them, and gloried in the general
+name they bore, until the fundamental doctrines of their religion were
+assailed.
+
+For two centuries, however, they have no history out of the records of
+martyrdom. We know their sufferings better than any peculiar ideas which
+they advocated. We have testimony to their blameless lives, to their
+irreproachable morals, to their good citizenship, and to their Christian
+graces, rather than to any doctrines which stand out as especial marks
+for discussion or conflict, like those which agitated the councils of
+Nice or Ephesus. But if we were asked what was the first principle which
+was brought out by the history of the early church, we should say it was
+that of martyrdom. Certainly the first recorded act in the history of
+Christianity was that memorable scene on Calvary, when the founder of
+our religion announced the fulfillment of the covenant made with Adam in
+the Garden of Eden. And as the deliverance of mankind was effected by
+that great sacrifice for sin, so the earliest development of Christian
+life was the spirit of martyrdom. The moral grandeur with which the
+martyrs met reproach, isolation, persecution, suffering, and death, not
+merely robbed the grave of its victory, but implanted a principle of
+inestimable power among all future heroes. Martyrdom kindled an heroic
+spirit, not for the conquest of nations, but for the conquest of the
+soul, and the resignation of all that earth can give in attestation of
+grand and saving truths. We have a few examples of martyrs in pagan
+antiquity, like Socrates and Seneca, who met death with fortitude,--but
+not with faith, not with indestructible joy that this mortal was about
+to put on immortality. The Christian martyrdoms were a new development
+of humanity. They taught the necessity of present sacrifice for future
+glory, and more, for the great interests of truth and virtue, with which
+good men had been identified. They brought life and immortality to the
+view of the people, who had not dared to speculate on their future
+condition. Their martyrs inspired a spirit into society that nothing
+could withstand; a practical belief that the life was more than meat;
+that the future was greater than the present: and this surely is one of
+the grand fundamental principles of Christianity. They incited to a
+spirit of fortitude and courage under all the evils of life, and gave
+dignity to men who would otherwise have been insignificant. The example
+of men who rejoiced to part with their lives for the sake of their
+religion, became to the world the most impressive voice which it yet
+heard of the insignificance of this life when compared with the life to
+come. "What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his
+own soul?" became thus one of the most stupendous inquiries which could
+be impressed on future generations, and affected all the relations of
+society. Martyrdom was one solution of this mighty question which
+introduced a new power upon the earth, for we cannot conceive of
+Christianity as an all-conquering influence, except as it unfolds a new
+and superior existence, in contrast with which the present is worthless.
+The principle of martyrdom, setting at defiance the present, led to
+unbounded charity and the renunciation of worldly possessions. What are
+they really worth? Every martyr had the comparative worthlessness of
+wealth and honor and comfort profoundly impressed upon his mind, in view
+of the greatness of the Infinite and the importance of the future.
+
+The early martyrdoms thus brought out with immeasurable force the
+principle of faith, without which life can have no object,--faith in
+future destinies, faith in the promises of God, faith in the power of
+the Cross to subdue finally all forms of evil. The sacrifice of Christ
+introduced into the world sentiments of unbounded love and gratitude,
+that He, the most perfect type of humanity, and the Son of God himself,
+should come into this world to bear its sins upon the cross, and thus
+give a heaven which could not be bought by expiatory gifts. It was love
+which prompted the crucifixion of Jesus; and love produced love, and
+stimulated thousands to bear with patience the evils under which they
+would have sunk. The martyrdoms of the early Christians did not indeed
+kindle sentiments of gratitude; but they inspired courage, and led to
+immeasurable forms of heroism. The timid and the shrinking woman, the
+down-trodden slave, and the despised pauper, all at once became serene,
+lofty, unconquerable, since they knew that though their earthly
+tabernacle would be destroyed, they had a dwelling in the heavens free
+from all future toil and sorrow and reproach. Martyrdoms made this world
+nothing and heaven everything. They proved a powerful faith in the
+ultimate prevalence of truth, and created an invincible moral heroism,
+which excited universal admiration; and they furnished models and
+examples to future generations, when Christians were subjected to bitter
+trials.
+
+We cannot but feel that martyrdom is one of the most impressive of all
+human examples, since it is the mark of a practical belief in God and
+heaven. And while we recognize it as among the most interesting among
+spiritual triumphs, we are persuaded that the absence of its spirit, or
+its decline, is usually followed by a low state of society. Epicureanism
+is its antagonistic principle, and is as destructive as the other is
+conservative. The moment men are unwilling to sacrifice themselves to a
+great cause, they virtually say that temporal and worldly interests are
+to be preferred to the spiritual and the future. The language of the
+Epicurean is intensely egotistic. It is: "Soul, take thine ease; eat,
+drink, and be merry;" to which God says, "Thou fool." Christianity was
+sent to destroy this egotism, which undermined the strength of the
+ancient world; and it created a practical belief in the future, and a
+faith in truth. Without this faith, society has ever retrograded; with
+it there have been continual reforms. It is an important element of
+progress, and a mark of dignity and moral greatness.
+
+Shall we seek a connection between their martyrdoms and civilization?
+They bore witness to a religion which is the source of all true progress
+upon earth; they attested to its divine truth amid protracted agonies;
+they were illustrious examples for all ages to contemplate.
+
+Perhaps the most powerful effect of their voluntary sacrifice was to
+secure credence to the mysteries of Christianity. Socrates died for his
+own opinions; but who was ever willing to die for the opinions of
+Socrates? But innumerable martyrs exulted in the privilege of dying for
+the doctrines of Him whose sacrifice saved the world. Nor to these had
+death its customary terrors, since they were assured of a glorious
+immortality. They impressed the pagan world with a profound lesson that
+the future is greater than the present; that there is to be a day of
+rewards and punishments. Amid all the miseries and desolations of
+society, it was a great thing to bear witness to the reality of future
+happiness and misery. The hope of immortality must have been an
+unspeakable consolation to the miserable sufferers of the Roman Empire.
+It gave to them courage and patience and fortitude. It inspired them
+with hope and peace. Amid the ravages of disease, and the incursions of
+barbarians, and the dissolution of society, and the approaching eclipse
+of the glory of man, it was a great and holy mystery that the soul
+should survive these evils, and that eternal bliss should be the reward
+of the faithful. Nothing else could have reconciled the inhabitants of
+the decaying empire to slavery, war, and pillage. There was needed some
+powerful support to the mind under the complicated calamities of the
+times. This support the death and exultation of the martyrs afforded. It
+was written on the souls of the suffering millions that there was a
+higher life, a glorious future, an exceeding great reward. It was
+impossible to see thousands ready to die, exulting in the privilege of
+martyrdom, anticipating with confidence their "crown," and not feel that
+immortality was a certitude brought to light by the Gospel. And the
+example of the martyrs kindled all the best emotions of the soul into a
+hallowed glow. Their death, so serene and beautiful, filled the
+spectators with love and admiration. Their sufferings brought to light
+the greatest virtues, and diffused their spirit into the heart of all
+who saw their indestructible joy. Is it nothing, in such an age, to have
+given an impulse to the most exalted sentiments that men can cherish?
+The welfare of nations is based on the indestructible certitudes of
+love, friendship, faith, fortitude, self-sacrifice. It was not Marathon
+so much as Thermopylae which imparted vitality to Grecian heroism, and
+made that memorable self-sacrifice one of the eternal pillars which mark
+national advancement. So the sufferings of the martyrs, for the sake of
+Christ, warmed the dissolving empire with a belief in Heaven, and
+prepared it to encounter the most unparalleled wretchedness which our
+world has seen. They gave a finishing blow to Epicureanism and skeptical
+cynicism; so that in the calamities which soon after happened, men were
+buoyed with hope and trust. They may have hidden themselves in caves and
+deserts, they may have sought monastic retreats, they may have lost
+faith in man and all mundane glories, they may have consumed their lives
+in meditation and solitude, they may have anticipated the dissolution of
+all things, but they awaited in faith the coming of their Lord. Prepared
+for any issue or any calamity, a class of heroes arose to show the moral
+greatness of the passive virtues, and the triumphs of faith amid the
+wrecks of material grandeur. Were not such needed at the close of the
+fourth century? Especially were not such bright examples needed for the
+ages which were to come? Polycarp and Cyprian were the precursors of the
+martyrs of the Middle Ages, and were of the Reformation. Early
+persecutions developed the spirit of martyrdom, which is the seed of the
+church, impressed it upon the mind of the world, and prepared the way
+for the moral triumphs of the Beckets and Savonarolas of remote
+generations. Martyrdoms were the first impressive facts in the history
+of the church, and the idea of dying for a faith one of the most signal
+evidences of superiority over the ancient religions. It was a new idea,
+which had utterly escaped the old guides of mankind.
+
+Another great idea which was promulgated by the church long before the
+empire fell, was that of benevolence. Charities were not one of the
+fruits of paganism. Men may have sold their goods and given to the poor,
+but we have no record of such deeds. Hospitals and eleemosynary
+institutions were nearly unknown. When a man was unfortunate, there was
+nothing left to him but to suffer and die. There was no help from
+others. All were engrossed in their schemes of pleasure or ambition, and
+compassion was rare. The sick and diseased died without alleviation.
+"The spectator who gazed upon the magnificent buildings which covered
+the seven hills, temples, arches, porticoes, theatres, baths and
+palaces, could discover no hospitals and asylums, unless perchance the
+temple of Aesculapius, on an island in the Tiber, where the maimed and
+sick were left in solitude to struggle with the pangs of death." But the
+church fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and visited the prisoner,
+and lodged the stranger. Charity was one of the fundamental injunctions
+of Christ and of the Apostles. The New Testament breathes unbounded
+love, benevolence so extensive and universal that self was ignored.
+Self-denial, in doing good to others, was one of the virtues expected of
+every Christian. Hence the first followers of our Lord had all things in
+common. Property was supposed to belong to the whole church, rather than
+to individuals. "Go and sell all that thou hast" was literally
+interpreted. It devolved on the whole church to see that strangers were
+entertained, that the sick were nursed, that the poor were fed, that
+orphans were protected, that those who were in prison were visited. For
+these purposes contributions were taken up in all assemblies convened
+for public worship. Individuals also emulated the whole church, and gave
+away their possessions to the poor. Matrons, especially, devoted
+themselves to these works of charity, feeding the poor, and visiting the
+sick. They visited the meanest hovels and the most dismal prisons. But
+"what heathen," says Tertullian, "will suffer his wife to go about from
+one street to another to the houses of strangers? What heathen would
+allow her to steal away into the dungeon to kiss the chain of the
+martyr?" And these works of benevolence were not bestowed upon friends
+alone, but upon strangers; and it was this, particularly, which struck
+the pagans with wonder and admiration--that men of different countries,
+ranks, and relations of life, were bound together by an invisible cord
+of love. A stranger, with letters to the "brethren," was sure of a
+generous and hearty welcome. There were no strangers among the
+Christians; they were all brothers; they called each other brother and
+sister; they gave to each other the fraternal kiss; they knew of no
+distinctions; they all had an equal claim to the heritage of the church.
+And this generosity and benevolence extended itself to the wants of
+Christians in distant lands; the churches redeemed captives taken in
+war, and even sold the consecrated vessels for that purpose on rare
+occasions, as Ambrose did at Milan. A single bishop, in the third
+century, supported two thousand poor people. Cyprian raised at one time
+a sum equal to four thousand dollars in his church at Carthage, to be
+sent to the Manichaean bishops for the purposes of charity. Especially in
+times of public calamity was this spirit of benevolence manifested, and
+in striking contrast with the pagans. [Footnote: Neander, vol. i.
+Section 3.] When Alexandria was visited with the plague during the
+reign of Gallienus, the pagans deserted their friends upon the first
+symptoms of disease; they left them to die in the streets, without even
+taking the trouble to bury them when dead; they only thought of escaping
+from the contagion themselves. The Christians, on the contrary, took the
+bodies of their brethren in their arms, waited upon them without
+thinking of themselves, ministered to their wants, and buried them with
+all possible care, even while the best people of the community,
+presbyters and deacons, lost their own lives by their self-sacrificing
+generosity. [Footnote: Eusebius, 1. vii. chap. 22.] And when Carthage
+was ravaged by a similar pestilence in the reign of Gallus, the pagans
+deserted the sick and the dying, and the streets were filled with dead
+bodies, which greatly increased the infection. No one came near them
+except for purposes of plunder; but Cyprian, calling his people together
+in the church, said: "If we do good only to our own, what do we more
+than publicans and heathens." Animated by his words, the members of the
+church divided the work between them, the rich giving money, and the
+poor labor, so that in a short time the bodies which filled the streets
+were buried.
+
+And this principle of benevolence has never been relinquished by the
+church. It was one of the foundation-pillars of monastic life in the
+Middle Ages, when monasteries and convents were blessed retreats for the
+miserable and unfortunate, where all strangers found a shelter and a
+home; where they diffused charities upon all who sought their aid. The
+monastery itself was built upon charities, upon the gifts and legacies
+of the pious. In pagan Rome men willed away their fortunes to favorites;
+they were rarely bestowed upon the poor. But Christianity inculcated
+everywhere the necessity of charities, not merely as a test of Christian
+hope and faith, but as one of the conditions of salvation itself. One of
+the most glorious features of our modern civilization is the wide-spread
+system of public benevolence extended to missions, to destitute
+churches, to hospitals, to colleges, to alms-houses, to the support of
+the poor, who are not left to die unheeded as in the ancient world.
+Every form of Christianity, every sect and party, has its peculiar
+charities; but charities for some good object are a primal principle of
+the common creed. What immeasurable blessings have been bestowed upon
+mankind in consequence of this law of kindness and love! What a
+beautiful feature it is in the whole progress of civilization!
+
+The early church had set a good example of patience under persecution,
+and practical benevolence extended into every form of social life which
+has been instituted in every succeeding age, and to which the healthy
+condition of society may in a measure be traced.
+
+The next mission of the church was to give dignity and importance to the
+public preaching of the Gospel, which has never since been lost sight
+of, and has been no inconsiderable element of our civilization. This was
+entirely new in the history of society. The pagan priest did not exhort
+the people to morality, or point out their religious duties, or remind
+them of their future destinies, or expound the great principles of
+religious faith. He offered up sacrifices to the Deity, and appeared in
+imposing ceremonials. He wore rich and gorgeous dresses to dazzle the
+senses of the people, or excite their imaginations. It was his duty to
+appeal to the gods, and not to men; to propitiate them with costly
+rites, to surround himself with mystery, to inspire awe, and excite
+superstitious feelings. The Christian minister had a loftier sphere.
+While he appealed to God in prayer, and approached his altar with
+becoming solemnity, it was also his duty to preach to the people, as
+Paul and the Apostles did throughout the heathen world, in order to
+convert them to Christianity, and change the whole character of their
+lives and habits. The presbyter, while he baptized believers and
+administered the symbolic bread and wine, also taught the people,
+explained to them the mysteries, enforced upon them the obligations,
+appealed to their intellects, their consciences, and their hearts. He
+plunged fearlessly into every subject bearing upon religious life, and
+boldly presented it for contemplation.
+
+What a grand theatre for the development of mind, for healthy
+instruction and commanding influence, was opened by the Christian
+pulpit. There was no sphere equal to it in moral dignity and force. It
+threw into the shade the theatre and the forum. And in times when
+printing was unknown, it was almost the only way by which the people
+could be taught. It vastly added to the power of the clergy, and gave
+them an influence that the old priests of paganism could never exercise.
+It created an entirely new power in the world, a moral power, indeed,
+but one to which history presents no equal. The philosophers taught in
+their schools, they taught a few admiring pupils; but the sphere of
+their teachings was limited, and also the number whom they could
+address. The pulpit became an institution. All the Christians were
+required to assemble regularly for public instruction as well as
+worship. On every seventh day the people laid aside their secular duties
+and devoted themselves to religious improvement. The pulpit gave power
+to the Sabbath; and what an institution is the Christian Sabbath. To the
+Sabbath and to public preaching Christendom owes more than to all other
+sources of moral elevation combined. It is true that the Jewish
+synagogue furnished a model to the church; but the Levitical race
+claimed no peculiar sanctity, and discharged no friendly office beyond
+the precincts of the temple. In the synagogue the people assembled to
+pray, or to hear the Scriptures read and expounded, not to receive
+religious instruction. The Jewish religion was as full of ceremonials as
+the pagan, and the intellectual part of it was confined to the lawyers,
+to the rabbinical hierarchy. But the preaching of the great doctrines of
+Christianity was made a peculiarly sacred office, and given to a class
+of men who avoided all secular pursuits. The Christian priest was the
+recognized head of the society which he taught and controlled. In
+process of time, he became a great dignitary, controlling various
+interests; but his first mission was to preach, and his first theme was
+a crucified Saviour. He ascended the pulpit every week as an authorized
+as well as a sacred teacher, and, in the illustration of his subjects,
+he was allowed great latitude in which to roam. It is not easy to
+appreciate what a difference there was between pagan and Christian
+communities from the rise of this new power, and we might also say
+institution, since the pulpit and the Sabbath are interlinked and
+associated together. Whatever the world has gained by the Sabbath, that
+gain is intensified and increased vastly by public teaching. It placed
+the Christian as far beyond the Jew, as the Jew was before beyond the
+pagan. It also created a sacerdotal caste. The people may have had the
+privilege of pouring out their hearts before the brethren, and of
+speaking for their edification, but all the members were not fitted for
+the secular office of teachers. Christianity claims the faculties of
+knowledge, as well as those of feeling. Teaching was early felt to be a
+great gift, implying not only superior knowledge, but superior wisdom and
+grace. Only a few possessed the precious charisma to address profitably
+the assembled people, [Greek: charisma didaskalias], and those few
+became the appointed guides of the Christian flocks, [Greek: didaskaloi].
+Other officers of the new communities shared with them the administration,
+but the teacher was the highest officer, and he became gradually the
+presbyter, whose peculiar function it was to discourse to the people on
+the great themes which it was their duty to learn. And even after the
+presbyter became a bishop, it was his chief office to teach publicly,
+even as late as the fourth and fifth centuries. Leo and Gregory, the
+great bishops of Rome, were eloquent preachers.
+
+Thus the church gradually claimed the great prerogative of eloquence.
+Eloquence was not born in the church, but it was sanctified, and set
+apart, and appropriated to a thousand new purposes, and especially
+identified with the public teaching of the people. The great mysteries,
+the profound doctrines, the suggestive truths, the touching histories,
+the practical duties of Christianity were seized and enforced by the
+public teacher; and eloquence appeared in the sermon. In pagan ages,
+eloquence was confined to the forum or the senate chamber, and was
+directed entirely into secular channels. It was always highly esteemed
+as the birthright of genius--an inspiration, like poetry, rather than an
+art to be acquired. But it was not always the handmaid of poetry and
+music; it was brought down to earth for practical purposes, and employed
+chiefly in defending criminals, or procuring the passage of laws, or
+stimulating the leaders of society to important acts. The gift of tongue
+was reserved for rhetoricians, lawyers, politicians, philosophers; not
+for priests, who were intercessors with the Divine. Now Christianity
+adopted all the arts of eloquence, and enriched them, and applied them
+to a variety of new subjects. She carried away in triumph the brightest
+ornament of the pagan schools, and placed it in the hands of her chosen
+ministers. The pulpit soon began to rival the forum in the displays of a
+heaven-born art, which was now consecrated to far loftier purposes than
+those to which it had been applied. As public instruction became more
+and more learned, it also became more and more eloquent, for the
+preacher had opportunity, subject, audience, motive, all of which are
+required for great perfection in public speaking. He assembled a living
+congregation at stated intervals; he had the range of all those lofty
+inquiries which entrance the soul; and he had souls to save--the
+greatest conceivable motive to a good man who realizes the truths of the
+Gospel. All human enterprises and schemes become ultimately insipid to a
+man who has no lofty view of benefiting mankind, or his family, or his
+friend. We were made to do good. Take away this stimulus, and energy
+itself languishes and droops. There is no object in life to a seeker of
+pleasure or gain, when once the passion is gratified. What object of
+pity so melancholy as a man worn out with egotistical excitements, and
+incapable of being amused. But he who labors for the good of others is
+never ennuied. The benevolent physician, the patriotic statesman, the
+conscientious lawyer, the enthusiastic teacher, the dreaming author, all
+work and toil in weary labors, with the hope of being useful to the
+bodies, or the intellects, or the minds of the people. This is the great
+condition of happiness. There is an excitement in gambling as in
+pleasure, in money-making as in money-spending; but it wears out, or
+exhausts the noble faculties, and ends in ennui or self-reproach and
+bitter disappointment. It is not the condition of our nature, which was
+made to be useful, to seek the good of others. They are the happiest and
+most esteemed who have this good constantly at heart. There can be no
+unhappiness to a man absorbed in doing good. He may be poor and
+persecuted like Socrates; he may walk barefooted, and have domestic
+griefs, and be deprived of his comforts--but he is serene, for the soul
+triumphs over the body. Now, what motive so grand as to save the
+immortal part of man. This desire filled the ancient Christian orator
+with a preternatural enthusiasm, as well as gave to him an unlimited
+power, and an imposing dignity. He was the most happy of mortals when
+led to the blazing fire of his persecutors, and he was the most august.
+The feeling that he was kindling a fire which should never be quenched,
+even that which was to burn up all the wicked idols of an idolatrous
+generation, unloosed his tongue and animated his features. The most
+striking examples of seraphic joy, of a sort of divine beauty playing
+upon the features, are among orators. In animated conversation, a person
+ordinarily homely, like Madame de Stael, becomes beautiful and
+impressive. But in the pulpit, when the sacred orator is moving a
+congregation with the fears and hopes of another world, there is a
+majesty in his beauty which is nowhere else so fully seen. There is no
+eloquence like that of the pulpit, when the preacher is gifted and in
+earnest. Greece had her Pericles and Demosthenes, and Rome her
+Hortensius and Cicero. Many other great orators we could mention. But
+when Greece and Rome had an intellectual existence such as that to which
+our modern times furnish no parallel, in our absorbing pursuit of
+pleasure and gain, and amid the wealth of mechanical inventions, there
+were, even in those classic lands, but few orators whose names have
+descended to our times; while, in the church, in a degenerated period,
+when literature and science were nearly extinct, there were a greater
+number of Christian orators than what classic antiquity furnished. Yea,
+in those dark and miserable ages which succeeded the fall of the Roman
+empire, there were in every land remarkable pulpit orators, like those
+who fanned the Crusades. There was no eloquence in the Middle Ages
+outside the church. Bernard exercised a far greater moral power than
+Cicero in the fullness of his fame. And in our modern times, what
+orators have arisen like those whom the Reformation produced, both in
+the Roman Catholic church, and among the numerous sects which protested
+against her? What orator has Germany given birth to equal in fame to
+Luther? What orator in France has reached the celebrity of Bossuet, or
+Bourdaloue, or Massillon? Even amid all the excitements attending the
+change of government, who have had power on the people like a Lacordaire
+or Monod? In England, the great orators have been preachers, with a very
+few exceptions; and these men would have been still greater in the arts
+of public speaking had they been trained in the church. In our day, we
+have seen great orators in secular life, but they yield in fascination
+either to those who are accustomed to speak from the sacred desk, or to
+those whose training has been clerical, like many of our popular
+lecturers. Nothing ever opened such an arena of eloquence as the
+preaching of the Gospel, either in the ancient, the mediaeval, or the
+modern world, not merely from the grandeur and importance of the themes
+discussed, but also from the number of the speakers. In a legislative
+assembly, where all are supposed to be able to address an audience, and
+some are expected to be eloquent, only two or three can be heard in a
+day. Only some twenty or thirty able speeches are delivered in Congress
+or Parliament in a whole session; but in England, or the United States,
+some thirty thousand preachers are speaking at the same time, many of
+whom are far more gifted, learned, and brilliant than any found in the
+great councils of the nation. Nor is this eloquence confined to the
+Protestant church; it exists also in the Roman Catholic in every land.
+There are no more earnest and inspiring orators than in Italy or France.
+Even in rude and unlettered and remote districts, we often hear
+specimens of eloquence which would be wonderful in capitals. What chance
+has the bar, in a large city, compared with the pulpit, for the display
+of eloquence? Probably there are more eloquent addresses delivered every
+Sunday from the various pulpits of Christendom than were pronounced by
+all the orators of Greece during the whole period of her political
+existence. Doubtless there are more touching and effective appeals made
+to the popular heart every Sunday in every Christian land, than are made
+during the whole year beside on subjects essentially secular. Then what
+an impulse has pulpit oratory given to objects of a strictly
+philanthropic character! The church has been the nurse and mother of all
+schemes of benevolence since it was organized. It is itself a great
+philanthropic institution, binding up the wounds of the prisoner,
+relieving the distressed, and stimulating great enterprises. For all of
+this the pulpit has been called upon, and has lent its aid; so that the
+world has been more indebted to the eloquence of divines than to any
+other source. Who can calculate the moral force of one hundred and fifty
+thousand to two hundred thousand Christian preachers in a world like
+ours, most of whom are arrayed on the side of morality and learning. It
+may be said that these benefits may more properly be considered to flow
+from Christianity as revealed in the Bible; that the Bible is the cause
+of all this great impulse to civilization. We do not object to such an
+interpretation; nevertheless, in specifying the influence of the church,
+even before the empire fell, the creation of pulpit eloquence should be
+mentioned, since this has contributed so much to the moral elevation of
+Christendom. Christianity would be shorn of half her triumphs were it
+not for the public preaching of her truths. Paganism had no public
+teachers who regularly taught the people and stimulated their noblest
+energies. It was a new institution, these Sabbath-day exercises, and has
+had an inconceivable influence on the progress and condition of the
+race. The power of the Gospel was indeed the main and primary cause; but
+the church must have the credit of appropriating what was most prized in
+the intellectual centres of antiquity, and giving to it a new direction.
+Christian oratory is also an interesting subject to present in merely
+its artistical relations. Its vast influence no one can question.
+
+Again, who can estimate the debt which civilization, in its largest and
+most comprehensive sense, owes to the fathers of the early church, in
+the elaboration of Christian doctrine. They found the heathen world
+enslaved by a certain class of most degrading notions of God, of deity,
+of goodness, of the future, of rewards and punishments. Indeed, its
+opinions were wrong and demoralizing in almost every point pertaining to
+the spiritual relations of man. They met the wants of their times by
+seizing on the great radical principles of Christianity, which most
+directly opposed these demoralizing ideas, and by giving them the
+prominence which was needed. Moreover, in the church itself, opinions
+were from time to time broached, so intimately allied with pagan
+philosophies and oriental theogonies, that the faith of Christians was
+in danger of being subverted. The Scriptures were indeed recognized to
+contain all that is essential in Christian truth to know; but they still
+allowed great latitude of belief, and contradictory creeds were drawn
+from the same great authority. If the Bible was to be the salvation of
+man, or the great thesaurus of religious truth, it was necessary to
+systematize and generalize its great doctrines, both to oppose dangerous
+heathen customs and heretical opinions in the church itself. And more
+even than this, to set forth a standard of faith for all the ages which
+were to come; not an arbitrary system of dogmas, but those which the
+Scriptures most directly and emphatically recognized. Christian life had
+been set forth by the martyrs in the various forms of teaching, in the
+worship of God, in the exercise of those virtues and graces which Christ
+had enjoined, in benevolence, in charity, in faith, in prayer, in
+patience, in the different relations of social life, in the sacraments,
+in the fasts and festivals, in the occupations which might be profitably
+and honorably carried on. But Christianity influenced thought and
+knowledge as well as external relations. It did not declare a rigid
+system of doctrines when first promulgated. This was to be developed
+when the necessity required it. For two centuries there were but few
+creeds, and these very simple and comprehensive. Speculation had not
+then entered the ranks, nor the pagan spirit of philosophy. There was
+great unity of belief, and this centered around Christ as the Redeemer
+and Saviour of the world. But, in process of time, Christianity was
+forced to contend with Judaism, with Orientalism, and with Greek
+speculation, as these entered into the church itself, and were more or
+less embraced by its members. With downright Paganism there was a
+constant battle; but in this battle all ranks of Christians were united
+together. They were not distracted by any controversies whether idolatry
+should be or should not be tolerated. But when Gnostic principles were
+embraced by good men, those which, for instance, entered into monastic
+or ascetic life, it was necessary that some great genius should arise
+and expose their oriental origin, and lay down the Christian law
+definitely on that point. So when Manichaeism, and Arianism, and other
+heretical opinions, were defended and embraced by the Christians
+themselves, the fathers who took the side of orthodoxy in the great
+controversies which arose, rendered important services to all subsequent
+generations, since never, probably, were those subtle questions
+pertaining to the Trinity, and the human nature of Christ, and
+predestination, and other kindred topics, discussed with so much acumen
+and breadth. They occupied the thoughts of the whole age, and emperors
+entered into the debates on theological questions with an interest
+exceeding that of the worldly matters which claimed their peculiar
+attention. It is not easy for Christians of this age, when all the great
+doctrines of faith are settled, to appreciate the prodigious excitement
+which their discussion called forth in the times of Athanasius and
+Augustine. The whole intellect of the age was devoted to theological
+inquiries. Everybody talked about them, and they were the common theme
+on all public occasions. If discussions of subjects which once had such
+universal fascination can never return again, if they are passed like
+Olympic games, or the discussions of Athenian schools of philosophy, or
+the sports of the Colosseum, or the oracles of Dodona, or the bulls of
+mediaeval popes, or the contests of the tournament, or the "field of the
+cloth of gold," they still have a historical charm, and point to the
+great stepping-stones of human progress. If they are really grand and
+important ideas, which they claimed to be, they will continue to move
+the most distant generations. If they are merely dialectical deductions,
+they are among the profoundest efforts of reason in the Christian
+schools of philosophy.
+
+We cannot, of course, enter into the controversies through which the
+church elaborated the system of doctrines now generally received, nor
+describe those great men who gave such dignity to theological inquiries.
+Clement was raised up to combat the Gnostics, Athanasius to head off the
+alarming spread of Arianism, and Augustine to proclaim the efficacy of
+divine grace against the Pelagians. The treatises of these men and of
+other great lights on the Trinity, on the incarnation, and on original
+sin, had as great an influence on the thinking of the age and of
+succeeding ages, as the speculations of Plato, or the syllogisms of
+Thomas Aquinas, or the theories of Kepler, or the expositions of Bacon,
+or the deductions of Newton, or the dissertations of Burke, or the
+severe irony of Pascal. They did not create revolutions, since they did
+not labor to overturn, but they stimulated the human faculties, and
+conserved the most valued knowledge. Their definite opinions became the
+standard of faith among the eastern Christians, and were handed down to
+the Germanic barbarians. They were adopted by the Catholic church, and
+preserved unity of belief in ages of turbulence and superstition. One of
+the great recognized causes of modern civilization was the establishment
+of universities. In these the great questions which the fathers started
+and elaborated were discussed with renewed acumen. Had there been no
+Origen, or Tertullian, or Augustine, there would have been no Anselm, or
+Abelard, or Erigena. The speculations and inquiries of the Alexandrian
+divines controlled the thinking of Europe for one thousand years, and
+gave that intensely theological character to the literature of the
+Middle Ages, directing the genius of Dante as well as that of Bernard.
+Their influence on Calvin was as marked as on Bossuet. Pagan philosophy
+had no charm like the great verities of the Christian faith. Augustine
+and Athanasius threw Plato and Aristotle into the shade. Nothing more
+preeminently marked the great divines whom the Reformation produced,
+than the discussion of the questions which the fathers had systematized
+and taught. Nor was the interest confined to divines. Louis XIV.
+discussed free will and predestination with Racine and Fenelon, even as
+the courtiers of Louis XV. discussed probabilities and mental
+reservations. And in New England, at Puritan firesides, the passing
+stranger in the olden times, when religion was a life, entered into
+theological discussions with as much zest as he now would describe the
+fluctuations of stocks or passing vanities of crinoline and hair dyes.
+Nor is it one of the best signs of this material age that the interest
+in the great questions which tasked the intellects of our fathers is
+passing away. But there is a mighty permanence in great ideas, and the
+time, we trust, will come again when indestructible certitudes will
+receive more attention than either politics or fashions.
+
+The influence of the fathers is equally seen in the music and poetry
+which have come down from their times. The church succeeded to an
+inheritance of religious lyrics unrivaled in the history of literature.
+The _Magnificat_ and the _Nunc dimittis_ were sung from the
+earliest Christian ages. The streets of the eastern cities echoed to the
+seductive strains of Arius and Chrysostom. Flavian and Diodorus
+introduced at Antioch the antiphonal chant, which, improved by Ambrose,
+and still more by Gregory, became the joy of blessed saints in those
+turbulent ages, when singing in the choir was the amusement as well as
+the duty of a large portion of religious people. So numerous were the
+hymns of Ambrose, Hilary, Augustine, and others, that they became the
+popular literature of centuries, and still form the most beautiful part
+of the service of the Catholic church. Who can estimate the influence of
+hymns which have been sung for fifty successive generations? What a
+charm is still attached to the mediaeval chants! The poetry of the early
+church is preserved in those sacred anthems. They inspired the
+barbarians with enthusiasm, even as they had kindled the rapture of
+earlier Christians in the church of Milan. The lyrical poets are
+immortal, and exert a wide-spread influence. The fervent stanzas of
+Watts, of Steele, of Wesley, of Heber, are sung from generation to
+generation. The hymns of Luther are among the most valued of his various
+works. "From Greenland's icy mountains"--that sacred lyric--shall live
+as long as the "Elegy in a Country Church-yard," or the "Cotter's
+Saturday Night," yea, shall survive the "Night Thoughts," and the
+"Course of Time." There is nothing in Grecian or Roman poetry that fills
+the place of the psalmody of the early church. The songs of Ambrose were
+his richest legacy to triumphant barbarians, consoling the monk in his
+dreary cell and the peasant on his vine-clad hills, speaking the
+sentiment of a universal creed, and consecrating the most tender
+recollections. So that Christian literature, in its varied aspects, its
+exegesis, its sermons, its creeds, and its psalmody, if not equal in
+artistic merit to the classical productions of antiquity, have had an
+immeasurable influence on human thought and life, not in the Roman world
+merely, but in all subsequent ages.
+
+But the great truths which the fathers proclaimed in reference to the
+moral and social relations of society are still more remarkable in their
+subsequent influence.
+
+The great idea of Christian equality struck at the root of that great
+system of slavery which was one of the main causes of the ruin of the
+empire. Christianity did not break up slavery; it might never have
+annihilated it under a Roman rule, but it protested against it so soon
+as it was clothed with secular power. As in the sight of heaven there is
+no distinction of persons, so the idea of social equality gained ground
+as the relations of Christianity to practical life were understood. The
+abolition of slavery, and the general amelioration of the other social
+evils of life, are all a logical sequence from the doctrine of Christian
+equality,--that God made of one blood all the nations of the earth, that
+they are equally precious in his sight, and have equal claims to the
+happiness of heaven. All theories of human rights radiate from, and
+centre around, this consoling doctrine. That we are born free and equal
+may not, practically, be strictly true; but that the relations of
+society ought to be viewed as they are regarded in the Scriptures, which
+reveal the dignity of the soul and its glorious destinies, cannot be
+questioned; so that oppression of man by man, and injustice, and unequal
+laws militate with one of the great fundamental revelations of God.
+Impress Christian equality on the mind of man, and social equality
+follows as a matter of course. The slave was recognized to be a man, a
+person, and not a thing. Whenever he sat down, as he did once a week,
+beside his master, in the adoration of a common Lord, the ignominy of
+his hard condition was removed, even if his obligations to obedience
+were not abrogated. As a future citizen of heaven, his importance on the
+earth was more and more recognized, until his fetters were gradually
+removed.
+
+From the day when Christian equality was declared, the foundations of
+slavery were assailed, and the progress of freedom has kept pace with
+Christian civilization, although the Apostles did not directly denounce
+the bondage that disgraced the ancient world. It was something to
+declare the principles which, logically carried out, would ultimately
+subvert the evil, for no evil can stand forever which is in opposition
+to logical deductions from the truths of Christianity. Moral philosophy
+is as much a series of logical deductions from the doctrine of loving
+our neighbor as ourself as that great network of theological systems
+which Augustine and Calvin elaborated from the majesty and sovereignty
+of God. Those distinctions which Christ removed by his Gospel of
+universal brotherhood can never return or coexist with the progress of
+the truth. A vast social revolution began when the eternal destinies of
+the slave were announced. It will not end with the mere annihilation of
+slavery as an institution; it will affect the relations of the poor and
+the rich, the unlucky and the prosperous, in every Christian country
+until justice and love become dominant principles. What a stride from
+Roman slavery to mediaeval serfdom! How benignant the attitude of the
+church, in all ages, to the poor man! The son of a peasant becomes a
+priest, and rises, in the Christian hierarchy, to become a ruler of the
+world. There was no way for a poor peasant boy to rise in the Middle
+Ages, except in the church. He attracts the notice of some beneficent
+monk; he is educated in the cloister; he becomes a venerated brother, an
+abbot, perhaps a bishop or a pope. Had he remained in service to a
+feudal lord, he never could have risen above his original rank. The
+church raises him from slavery, and puts upon his brow her seal and in
+his hands the thunderbolts of spiritual power, thus giving him dignity
+and consideration and independence. Rising, as the clergy did in the
+Middle Ages, in all ages, from the lower and middle classes, they became
+as much opposed to slavery as they were to war. It was thus in the bosom
+of the church that liberty was sheltered and nourished. Nor has the
+church ever forgotten her mission to the poor, or sympathized, as a
+whole, with the usurpations of kings. She may have aimed at dominion,
+like Hildebrand and Innocent III., but it was spiritual domination,
+control of the mind of the world. But she ever sympathized with
+oppressed classes, like Becket, even as he defied the temporal weapons
+of Henry II. The Jesuits, even, respected the dignity of the poor. Their
+errors were trust in machinery and unbounded ambition, but they labored
+in their best ages for the good of the people. And in our times, the
+most consistent and uncompromising foes of despotism and slavery are in
+the ranks of the church. The clergy have been made, it is true,
+occasionally, the tools of despotism, and have been absurdly
+conservative of their own privileges, but on the whole, have ever lifted
+up their voices in defense of those who are ground down.
+
+The elevation of woman, too, has been caused by the doctrine of the
+equality of the sexes which Christianity revealed; not "woman's rights"
+as interpreted by infidels; not the ignoring of woman's destiny of
+subservience to man, as declared in the Garden of Eden and by St. Paul,
+but her glorious nature which fits her for the companionship of man.
+Heathendom reduces her to slavery, dependence, and vanity. Christianity
+elevates her by developing her social and moral excellences, her more
+delicate nature, her elevation of soul, her sympathy with sorrow, her
+tender and gracious aid. The elevation of woman did not come from the
+natural traits of Germanic barbarians, but from Christianity. Chivalry
+owes its bewitching graces to the influence of Christian ideas. Clemency
+and magnanimity, gentleness and sympathy, did not spring from German
+forests, but the teachings of the clergy. Veneration for woman was the
+work of the church, not of pagan civilization or Teutonic simplicity.
+The equality of the sexes was acknowledged by Jerome when he devoted
+himself to the education of Roman matrons, and received from the hand of
+Paula the means of support while he, labored in his cell at Bethlehem.
+How much more influential was Fabiola or Marcella than Aspasia or
+Phryne! It was woman who converted barbaric kings, and reigned, not by
+personal charms, like Eastern beauties, but by the solid virtues of the
+heart. Woman never occupied so proud a position in an ancient palace as
+in a feudal castle. When Paula visited the East, she was welcomed by
+Christian bishops, and the proconsul of Palestine surrendered his own
+palace for her reception, not because she was high in rank, but because
+her virtues had gone forth to all the world; and when she died, a great
+number of the most noted people followed her body to the grave with
+sighs and sobs. The sufferings of the female martyrs are the most
+pathetic exhibitions of moral greatness in the history of the early
+church. And in the Middle Ages, whatever is most truly glorious or
+beautiful can be traced to the agency of woman. Is a town to be spared
+for a revolt, or a grievous tax remitted, it is a Godiva who intercedes
+and prevails. Is an imperious priest to be opposed, it is an Ethelgiva
+who alone dares to confront him even in the king's palace. It is
+Ethelburga, not Ina, who reigns among the Saxons--not because the king
+is weak, but his wife is wiser than he. A mere peasant-girl, inspired
+with the sentiment of patriotism, delivers a whole nation, dejected and
+disheartened, for such was Joan of Arc. Bertha, the slighted wife of
+Henry, crosses the Alps in the dead of winter, with her excommunicated
+lord, to remove the curse which deprived him of the allegiance of his
+subjects. Anne, Countess of Warwick, dresses herself like a cook-maid to
+elude the visits of a royal duke, and Ebba, abbess of Coldingham, cuts
+off her nose, to render herself unattractive to the soldiers who ravage
+her lands. Philippa, the wife of the great Edward, intercedes for the
+inhabitants of Calais, and the town is spared.
+
+The feudal woman gained respect and veneration because she had the moral
+qualities which Christianity developed. If she entered with eagerness
+into the pleasures of the chase or the honor of the banquet, if she
+listened with enthusiasm to the minstrel's lay and the crusader's tale,
+her real glory was her purity of character and unsullied fame. In
+ancient Rome men were driven to the circus and the theatre for amusement
+and for solace, but among the Teutonic races, when converted to
+Christianity, rough warriors associated with woman without seductive
+pleasures to disarm her. It was not riches, nor elegance of manners, nor
+luxurious habits, nor exemption from stern and laborious duties which
+gave fascination to the Christian woman of the Middle Ages. It was her
+sympathy, her fidelity, her courage, her simplicity, her virtues, her
+noble self-respect, which made her a helpmeet and a guide. She was
+always found to intercede for the unfortunate, and willing to endure
+suffering. She bound up the wounds of prisoners, and never turned the
+hungry from her door. And then how lofty and beautiful her religious
+life. History points with pride to the religious transports and
+spiritual elevation of Catharine of Sienna, of Margaret of Anjou, of
+Gertrude of Saxony, of Theresa of Spain, of Elizabeth of Hungary, of
+Isabel of France, of Edith of England. How consecrated were the labors
+of woman amid feudal strife and violence. Whence could have arisen such
+a general worship of the Virgin Mary had not her beatific loveliness
+been reflected in the lives of the women whom Christianity had elevated?
+In the French language she was worshiped under the feudal title of Notre
+Dame, and chivalrous devotion to the female sex culminated in the
+reverence which belongs to the Queen of Heaven. And hence the qualities
+ascribed to her, of Virgo Fidelis, Mater Castissima, Consolatrix
+Afflictorum, were those to which all lofty women were exhorted to
+aspire. The elevation of woman kept pace with the extension of
+Christianity. Veneration for her did not arise until she showed the
+virtues of a Monica and a Nonna, but these virtues were the fruit of
+Christian ideas alone.
+
+We might mention other ideas which have entered into our modern
+institutions, such as pertain to education, philanthropy, and missionary
+zeal. The idea of the church itself, of an esoteric band of Christians
+amid the temptations of the world, bound together by rules of discipline
+as well as communion of soul, is full of grandeur and beauty. And the
+unity of this church is a sublime conception, on which the whole
+spiritual power of the popes rested when they attempted to rule in peace
+and on the principles of eternal love. However perverted the idea of the
+unity of the church became in the Middle Ages, still who can deny that
+it was the mission of the church to create a spiritual power based on
+the hopes and fears of a future life? The idea of a theocracy forms a
+prominent part of the polity of Calvin, as of Hildebrand himself. It is
+the basis of his legislation. He maintained it was long concealed in the
+bosom of the primitive church, and was gradually unfolded, though in a
+corrupt form, by the popes, the worthiest of whom kept the idea of a
+divine government continually in view, and pursued it with a clear
+knowledge of its consequences. And those familiar with the lofty schemes
+of Leo and Gregory, will appreciate their efforts in raising up a power
+which should be supreme in barbarous ages, and preserve what was most to
+be valued of the old civilization. The autocrat of Geneva clung to the
+necessity of a spiritual religion, and aimed to realize that which the
+Middle Ages sought, and sought in vain, that the church must always
+remain the mother of spiritual principles, while the state should be the
+arm by which those principles should be enforced. Like Hildebrand, he
+would, if possible, have hurled the terrible weapon of excommunication.
+In cutting men off from the fold, he would also have cut them off from
+the higher privileges of society. He may have carried his views too far,
+but they were founded on the idea of a church against which the gates of
+hell could not prevail. Who can estimate the immeasurable influence of
+such an idea, which, however perverted, will ever be recognized as one
+of the great agencies of the world? A church without a spiritual power,
+is inconceivable; nor can it pass away, even before the material
+tendencies of a proud and rationalistic civilization. It will assert its
+dignity when thrones and principalities shall crumble in the dust.
+
+Such are among the chief ideas which the fathers taught, and which have
+entered even into the modern institutions of society, and form the
+peculiar glory of our civilization. When we remember this, we feel that
+the church has performed no mean mission, even if it did not save the
+Roman empire. The glory of warriors, of statesmen, of artists, of
+philosophers, of legislators, and of men of science and literature in
+the ancient world, still shines, and no one would dim it, or hide it
+from the admiration of mankind. But the purer effulgence of the great
+lights of the church eclipses it all, and will shine brighter and
+brighter, until the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head.
+This is the true sun which shall dissipate the shadows of superstition
+and ignorance that cover so great a portion of the earth, and this shall
+bring society into a healthful glow of unity and love.
+
+          *          *          *          *         *
+
+In another volume I shall present, more in detail, the labors of the
+Christian Fathers in founding the new civilization which still reigns
+among the nations. And in the creation which succeeded destruction we
+shall be additionally impressed with the wisdom and beneficence of the
+Great First Cause, through whose providences our fallen race is led to
+the new Eden, where truth and justice and love reign in perpetual beauty
+and glory.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Note: The spellings "panygeric," "beauitful," and
+"sytematically" occurred as such on lines 2285, 2473, and 10763,
+respectively, and were corrected.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Roman World, by John Lord
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