Claudius also was governed by his favorites, generally men of low birth—freedmen who usurped the place of statesmen. Narcissus and Pallus were the most confidential of the emperor's advisers, who, in consequence, became enormously rich, for favors flowed through them, and received the great offices of State. The court became a scene of cabals and crimes, disgraced by the wanton shamelessness of the empress and the venality of courtiers. Appius Silanus, one of the best and greatest of the nobles, was murdered through the intrigues of Messalina, to whose progress in wickedness history furnishes no parallel, and Valerius Asiaticus, another great noble, also suffered the penalty of offending her, and was destroyed; and his magnificent gardens, which she coveted, were bestowed upon her.

(M1073) But Messalina was rivaled in iniquity by another princess, between whom and herself there existed the deadliest animosity. Thus was Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus, who had been married to Cn. Domitius Ahenobardus, grandson of Octavia, and whose issue was the future emperor Nero. The niece of Claudius occupied the second place in the imperial household, and it became her aim to poison the mind of her uncle against the woman she detested, and who returned her hatred. She now leagued with the freedmen of the palace to destroy her rival. An opportunity to gratify her vengeance soon occurred. Messalina, according to Tacitus, was guilty of the inconceivable madness of marrying Silanus, one of her paramours, while her husband lived, and that husband an emperor, which story can not be believed without also supposing that Claudius was a perfect idiot. Such a defiance of law, of religion, and of the feelings of mankind, to say nothing of its folly, is not to be supposed. Yet such was the scandal, and it filled the imperial household with consternation. Callistus, Pallas, and Narcissus—the favorites who ruled Claudius—united with Agrippina to secure her ruin. The emperor, then absent in Ostia, was informed of the shamelessness of his wife. It was difficult for him to believe such a fact, but it was attested by the trusted members of his household. His fears were excited, as well as his indignation, and he hastened to Rome for vengeance and punishment. Messalina had retired to her magnificent gardens on the Pineian, which had once belonged to Lucullus, the price of the blood of the murdered Asiaticus; but, on the approach of the emperor, of which she was informed, she advanced boldly to confront him, with every appearance of misery and distress, with her children Britannicus and Octavia. Claudius vacillated, and Messalina retired to her gardens, hoping to convince her husband of her innocence on the interview which he promised the following day. But Narcissus, knowing her influence, caused her to be assassinated, and the emperor drowned his grief, or affection, or anger, in wine and music, and seemingly forgot her. That Messalina was a wicked and abandoned woman is most probable; that she was as bad as history represents her, may be doubted, especially when we remember she was calumniated by a rival, who succeeded in taking her place as wife. It is easier to believe she was the victim of Agrippina and the freedmen, who feared as well as hated her, than to accept the authority of Tacitus and Juvenal. On the death of Messalina, Agrippina married her uncle, and the Senate sanctioned the union, which was incest by the Roman laws.

(M1074) The fourth wife of the emperor transcended the third in intrigue and ambition, and her marriage, at the age of thirty-three, was soon followed by the betrothal of her son, L. Domitius, a boy of twelve, with Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messalina. He was adopted by the emperor, and assumed the name of Nero. Henceforth she labored for the advancement of her son only. She courted the army and the favor of the people, and founded the city on the Rhine which we call Cologne. But she outraged the notions and sentiments of the people more by her unfeminine usurpation of public honors, than by her cruelty or her dissoluteness. She seated herself by the side of the emperor in military festivals. She sat by him at a sea-fight on the Lucrine Lake, clothed in a soldier's cloak. She took her station in front of the Roman standard, when Caractacus, the conquered British chief, was brought in chains to the emperor's tribunal. She caused the dismissal of the imperial officers who incurred her displeasure. She exercised a paramount sway over her husband, and virtually ruled the empire. She distracted the palace with discords, cabals, and jealousies.

How the bad influence of these women over the mind of Claudius can be reconciled with the vigilance, and the labors, and the beneficent measures of the emperor, as generally admitted, history does not narrate. But it was during the ascendency of both Messalina and Agrippina, that Claudius presided at the tribunals of justice with zeal and intelligence, that he interested himself in works of great public utility, and that he carried on successful war in Britain.

(M1075) In the year A.D. 54, and in the fourteenth of his reign, Claudius, exhausted by the affairs of State, and also, it is said, by intemperance, fell sick at Rome, and sought the medicinal waters of Sinuessa. It was there that Agrippina contrived to poison him, by the aid of Locusta, a professed poisoner, and Xenophon, a physician, while she affected an excess of grief. She held his son Britannicus in her arms, and detained him and his sisters in the palace, while every preparation was made to secure the accession of her own son, Nero. She was probably prompted to this act from fear that she would be supplanted and punished, for Claudius had said, when wine had unloosed his secret thoughts, "that it was his fate to suffer the crimes of his wives, but at last to punish them." She also was eager to elevate her own son to the throne, which, of right, belonged to Britannicus, and whose rights might have been subsequently acknowledged by the emperor, for his eyes could not be much longer blinded to the character of his wife.

(M1076) Claudius must not be classed with either wicked or imbecile princes, in spite of his bodily infirmities, or the slanders with which his name is associated. It is probable he indulged to excess in the pleasures of the table, like the generality of Roman nobles, but we are to remember that he ever sought to imitate Augustus in his wisest measures; that he ever respected letters when literature was falling into contempt; that his administration was vigorous and successful, fertile in victories and generals; that he exceeded all his ministers in assiduous labors, and that he partially restored the dignity and authority of the Senate. His great weakness was in being ruled by favorites and women; but his favorites were men of ability, and his women were his wives.

(M1077) Nero, the son of Agrippina and Cn. Domitius Ahenobardus, by the assistance of the praetorian guards, was now proclaimed imperator, A.D. 54, directly descended, both on his paternal and maternal side, from Antonia Major, the granddaughter of Antony and Domitius Ahenobardus. Through Octavia, his grandmother, he traced his descent from the family of Caesar. The Domitii—the paternal ancestors of Nero—had been illustrious for several hundred years, and no one was more distinguished than Lucius Domitius, called Ahenobardus, or Red-Beard, in the early days of the republic. The father of Nero, who married Agrippina, was as infamous for crimes as he was exalted for rank. But he died when his son Nero was three years of age. He was left to the care of his father's sister, Domitia Lepida, the mother of Messalina, and was by her neglected. His first tutors were a dancer and a barber. On the return of his mother from exile his education was more in accordance with his rank, as a prince of the blood, though not in the line of succession. He was docile and affectionate as a child, and was intrusted to the care of Seneca, by whom he was taught rhetoric and moral philosophy, and who connived at his taste for singing, piping, and dancing, the only accomplishments of which, as emperor, he was afterward proud. He was surrounded with perils, in so wicked an age, as were other nobles, and, by his adoption, was admitted a member of the imperial family—the sacred stock of the Claudii and Julii. He was under the influence of his mother—the woman who subverted Messalina, and murdered Claudius,—who used every art and intrigue to secure his accession.

(M1078) When he mounted the throne of the Caesars, he gave promise of a benignant reign. His first speech to the Senate made a good impression, and his first acts were beneficent. But he ruled only through his mother, who aspired to play the empress, a woman who gave answers to ambassadors, and sent dispatches to foreign courts. Burrhus, the prefect of the imperial guard, and Seneca, tutor and minister, through whose aid the claims of Nero had been preferred over those of Britannicus, the son of the late emperor, opposed her usurpations, and attempted to counteract her influence.

(M1079) The early promises of Nero were not fulfilled. He soon gave vent to every vice, which was disguised by his ministers. One of the first acts was to disgrace the freedman, Pallas,—the prime minister of Claudius,—and to destroy Britannicus by poison, which crimes were palliated, if not suggested, by Seneca.

(M1080) The influence which Seneca and Burrhus had over the young emperor, who screened his vices from the eyes of the people and Senate, necessarily led to a division between Nero and Agrippina. He withdrew her guard of honor, and paid her only formal visits, which conduct led to the desertion of her friends, and the open hostility of her enemies. The wretched woman defended herself against the charges they brought, with spirit, and for a time she escaped. The influence of Seneca, at this period, was paramount, and was exerted for the good of the empire, so that the Senate acquiesced in the public measures of Nero, and no notice was taken of his private irregularities. The empress mother apparently yielded to the ascendency of the ministers, and provoked no further trial of strength.

(M1081) Thus five years passed, until Nero was twenty-two, when Poppaea Sabina, the fairest woman of her time, appeared upon the stage. Among the dissolute women of imperial Rome, she was pre-eminent. Introduced to the intimacy of Nero, she aspired to still higher elevation, and this was favored by the detestation with which Agrippina was generally viewed, and the continued decline of her influence, since she had ruled by fear rather than love. Poppaea was now found intriguing against her, and induced Nero to murder his own mother, to whose arts and wickedness he owed his own elevation. The murder was effected in her villa, on the Lucrine Lake, under circumstances of utter brutality. Nero came to examine her mangled body, and coolly praised the beauty of her form. Nor were her ashes even placed in the mausoleum of Augustus. This wicked Jezebel, who had poisoned her husband, and was accused of every crime revolting to our nature, paid the penalty of her varied infamies, and her name has descended to all subsequent ages as the worst woman of antiquity.

(M1082) With the murder of Agrippina, the madness and atrocities of Nero gained new force. He now appears as a monster, and was only tolerated for the amusements with which he appeased the Roman people. He disgraced the imperial dignity by descending upon the stage, which was always infamous; he instituted demoralizing games; he was utterly insensible to national sentiments and feelings; he exceeded all his predecessors in extravagance and follies; he was suspected of poisoning Burrhus, by whom he was advanced to power; he executed men of the highest rank, whose crime was their riches; he destroyed the members of the imperial family; he murdered Doryphorus and Pallas, because they were averse to his marriage with Poppaea; he drove his chariot in the Circus Maximus, pleased with the acclamations of two hundred thousand spectators; he gave banquets in which the utmost excesses of bacchanalian debauchery were openly displayed; he is said to have kindled the conflagration of his own capital; he levied oppressive taxes to build his golden palace, and support his varied extravagance; he even destroyed his tutor and minister, Seneca, that he might be free from his expostulations, and take possession of the vast fortune which this philosopher had accumulated in his service; and he finally kicked his wife so savagely that she died from the violence he inflicted. If it were possible to add to his enormities, his persecution of the Christians swelled the measure of his infamies—the first to which they had been subjected in Rome, and in which Paul himself was a victim. But his government was supported by the cruelty and voluptuousness of the age, and which has never been painted in more vivid colors than by St. Paul himself. The corrupt morality of the age tolerated all these crimes, and excesses, and follies—an age which saw no great writers except Seneca, Lucan, Perseus, and Martial, two of whom were murdered by the emperor.

(M1083) But the hour of retribution was at hand. The provinces were discontented, and the city filled with cabals and conspiracies. Though one of them, instigated by Piso, was unsuccessful, and its authors punished, a revolt in Gaul, headed by Galba—an old veteran of seventy-two, and assisted by Vindex and Virginius, was fatal to Nero. The Senate and the praetorian guards favored the revolution. The emperor was no longer safe in his capital. Terrified by dreams, and stung by desertion, the wretched tyrant fled to the Servilian Gardens, and from thence to the villa of one of his freedmen, near which he committed suicide, at the age of thirty-six, and in the fourteenth year of his inglorious reign, during which there are scarcely other events to chronicle than his own personal infamies. "In him perished the last scion of the stock of the Julii, refreshed in vain by grafts from the Octavii, the Claudii, and the Domitii." Though the first of the emperors had married four wives, the second three, the third two, the fourth three, the fifth six, and the sixth three, yet Nero was the last of the Caesars. None of the five successors of Julius were truly his natural heirs. They trace their lineage to his sister Julia, but the three last had in their veins the blood of Antony as well as Octavia, and thus the descendants of the triumvir reigned at Rome as well as those of his rival Octavius. We have only to remark that it is strange that the Julian line should have been extinguished in the sixth generation, with so many marriages.



CHAPTER XLIV.

THE CLIMAX OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

On the extinction of the Julian line, a new class of emperors succeeded, by whom the prosperity of the empire was greatly advanced. We have now to fall back on Niebuhr, Gibbon, and the Roman historians, and also make more use of Smith's digest of these authors. But so much ground still remains to go over, that we can only allude to salient points, and our notice of succeeding emperors must be brief.

(M1084) The empire was now to be the prize of successful soldiers, and Galba, at the age of seventy-three, was saluted imperator by the legions before the death of Nero, A.D. 68, and acknowledged by the Senate soon after. There is nothing memorable in his short reign of a few months, and he was succeeded by Otho, who only reigned three months, and he was succeeded by Vitellius, who was removed by violent death, like Galba and Otho. These three emperors left no mark, and were gluttons and sensualists, who excited nothing but contempt; soldiers of fortune—only respectable in inferior rank.

(M1085) On the first of July, A.D. 69, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, of humble family, arose, as general, to the highest honors of the State, and was first proclaimed emperor at Alexandria, at the close of the Jewish war, which he conducted to a successful issue. A brief contest with Vitellius secured his recognition by the Senate, and the first of the Flavian line began to reign—a man of great talents and virtues. On the fall of Jerusalem, his son Titus returned to Rome, and celebrated a joint triumph with his father, and the gates of the temple of Janus were shut,—the first time since Augustus,—and universal peace was proclaimed.

(M1086) One of the first acts of the new emperor was to purify the Senate, reduced to two hundred members, soon followed by the restoration of the finances. He rebuilt the capitol, erected the temple of Peace, the new forum, the baths of Titus, and the Coliseum. He extended a generous patronage to letters, and under his reign Quintilian, the great rhetorician, and Pliny, the naturalist, flourished. It was in the ninth year of his reign that an eruption of Vesuvius occurred, when Herculaneum and Pompeii were destroyed, to witness which Pliny lost his life. Vespasian had associated with himself his son Titus in the government, and died, after a reign of ten years, exhausted by the cares of empire; and Titus quietly succeeded him, but reigned only for two years and a quarter, and was succeeded by his brother, Domitian, a man of some ability, but cruel, like Nero. He was ten years younger than Titus, and was thirty years of age when proclaimed emperor by the praetorians, and accepted by the Senate, A.D. 81. At first he was a reformer, but soon was stained by the most odious vices. He continued the vast architectural works of his father and brother, and patronized learning.

(M1087) It was during the reign of Domitian that Britain was finally conquered by Agricola, who was recalled by the jealousy of the emperor, after a series of successes which gave him immortality. The reduction of this island did not seriously commence until the reign of Claudius. By Nero, Suetonius Paulinus was sent to Britain, and under him Agricola took his first lessons of soldiership. Under Vespasian he commanded the twentieth legion in Britain, and was the twelfth Roman general sent to the island. On his return to Rome he was made consul, and Britain was assigned to him as his province, where he remained seven years, until he had extended his conquests to the Grampian Hills. He taught the Britons the arts and luxuries of civilized life, to settle in towns, and to build houses and temples. Among the foes he encountered, the most celebrated was Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, on the eastern coast, who led the incredible number of two hundred and forty thousand against the Roman legions, but was defeated, with the loss of eighty thousand,—some atonement for the seventy thousand Romans, and their allies, who had been slain at Londinium, when Suetonius Paulinus commanded.

(M1088) The year of Agricola's recall, A.D. 84, forms the epoch of the undisguised tyranny which Domitian subsequently exercised. The reign of informers and proscriptions recommenced, and many illustrious men were executed for insufficient reasons. The Christians were persecuted, and the philosophers were banished, and yet he received the most fulsome flattery from the poet Martial. The tyrant lived in seclusion, in his Alban villa, and was finally assassinated, after a reign of fifteen years, A.D. 96.

(M1089) On his death a new era of prosperity and glory was inaugurated, by the election of Nerva, and for five successive reigns the Roman world was governed with virtue and ability. It is the golden era of Roman history, praised by Gibbon and admired by all historians, during which the eyes of contemporaries saw nothing but to panegyrize.

(M1090) Marcus Cocceius Nerva was the great-grandson of a minister of Octavius, and was born in Umbria. He was consul with Vespasian, A.D. 71, and with Domitian, in A.D. 90, and was far advanced in life when chosen by the Senate. The public events of his short but beneficent reign are unimportant. He relieved poverty, diminished the expenses of the State, and set, in his own life, an example of republican simplicity. But he did not reign long enough to have his character tested. He died in sixteen months after his elevation to the purple. His chief work was to create a title for his successor, for he assumed the right of adoption, and made choice of Trajan, without regard to his own kin, then at the head of the armies of Germany.

(M1091) The new emperor, one of the most illustrious that ever reigned at Rome, was born in Spain, A.D. 52, and had spent his life in the camp. He had a tall and commanding form, was social and genial in his habits, and inspired universal respect. No better choice could have been made. He entered his capital without pomp, unattended by guards, distinguished only for the dignity of his bearing, allowing free access to his person, and paying vows to the gods of his country. His wife, Plotina, bore herself as the spouse of a simple senator, and his sister, Marciana, exhibited a demeanor equally commendable.

(M1092) The great external event of his reign was the war against the Dacians, and their country was the last which the Romans subdued in Europe. They belonged to the Thracian group of nations, and were identical with the Getae. They inhabited the country which was bordered on the south by the Danube and Moesia. They were engaged in frequent wars with the Romans, and obtained a decided advantage, in the reign of Domitian, under their king Decebalus. The honor of the empire was so far tarnished as to pay a tribute to Dacia, but Trajan resolved to wipe away the disgrace, and headed himself an expedition into this distant country, A.D. 101, with eighty thousand veterans, subdued Decebalus, and added Dacia to the provinces of the empire. He built a bridge over the Danube, on solid stone piers, about two hundred and twenty miles below the modern Belgrade, which was a remarkable architectural work, four thousand five hundred and seventy feet in length. Enough treasures were secured by the conquest of Dacia to defray the expenses of the war, and of the celebrated triumph which commemorated his victories. At the games instituted in honor of this conquest, eleven thousand beasts were slain, and ten thousand gladiators fought in the Flavian Amphitheatre. The column on which his victories were represented still remains to perpetuate his magnificence, with its two thousand five hundred figures in bas-relief, winding in a spiral band around it from the base to the summit—one of the most interesting relics of antiquity. Near this column were erected the Forum Trajanum, and the Basilica Ulpia, the former one thousand one hundred feet long, and the basilica connected with it, surrounded with colonnades, and filled with colossal statues. This enormous structure covered more ground than the Flavian Amphitheatre, and was built by the celebrated Apollodorus, of Damascus. It filled the whole space between the Capitoline and the Quirinal. The double colonnade which surrounded it was one of the most beautiful works of art in the world.

On the conquest of Dacia, Trajan devoted himself to the internal administration of his vast empire. He maintained the dignity of the Senate, and allowed the laws to take their course. He was untiring in his efforts to provide for the material wants of his subjects, and in developing the resources of the empire, nor did he rule by oppressive exactions.

(M1093) After seven years of wise administration, he again was called into the field to extend the eastern frontier of the empire. His efforts were directed against Armenia and Parthia. He reduced the former to a Roman province, and advanced into those Caucasian regions where no Roman imperator had preceded him, except Pompey, receiving the submission of Iberians and Albanians. To overthrow Parthia was now his object, and he advanced across the Tigris to Ctesiphon. In the Parthian capital he was saluted as imperator; but, oppressed with gloom and enfeebled by sickness, he did not presume to reach, as he had aspired, the limits of the Macedonian conquest. He was too old for such work. He returned to Antioch, sickened, and died in Cilicia, August, A.D. 117, after a prosperous and even glorious reign of nineteen and a half years. But he had the satisfaction of having raised the empire to a state of unparalleled prosperity, and of having extended its limits on the east and on the west to the farthest point it ever reached.

(M1094) Publius AElius Hadrian succeeded this great emperor, and was born in Rome A.D. 76, and was a son of the first cousin of Trajan. He made extraordinary attainments as a youth, and served honorably in the armies of his country, especially during the Dacian wars. At twenty-five he was quaestor, at thirty-one he was praetor, and in the following year was made consul, for the forms of the old republic were maintained under the emperors. He was adopted by Trajan, and left at the head of the army at Antioch at the age of forty-two, when Trajan died on his way to Rome. He was at once proclaimed emperor by the army, and its choice was confirmed by the Senate.

(M1095) He entered upon his reign with matured knowledge and experience, and sought the development of the empire rather than its extension beyond the Euphrates. He therefore withdrew his armies from Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Parthia, and returned to Rome to celebrate, in Trajan's name, a magnificent triumph, and by employing the spoils of war in largesses and remission of taxes. Averse to the extension of the empire, he still aimed to secure its limits from hostile inroads, and was thus led to repel invasions in Dacia and Britain. He marched at the head of his legions, bareheaded and on foot, as far as Moesia, and in another campaign through Gaul to the Rhine, and then crossed over to Britain, and secured the northern frontier, by a wall sixty-eight and a half miles in length, against the Caledonians. He then returned to Gaul, passed through Spain, crossed the straits to Mauritania, threatened by the Moors, restored tranquillity, and then advanced to the frontiers of Parthia. He then returned through Asia Minor, and across the AEgean to Athens, and commenced the splendid works with which he adorned the intellectual capital of the empire. Before returning to Rome, he visited Carthage and Sicily.

(M1096) Five years later, he made a second progress through the empire, which lasted ten years, with some intervals, spent in his capital, residing chiefly at Athens, constructing great architectural works, and holding converse with philosophers and scholars. During this period he visited Alexandria, whose schools were rivaled only by those of Athens, studying the fantastic philosophy of the Gnostics, and probably examining the Christian system. He ascended the Nile as far as Thebes, and then repaired to Antioch, and returned to Rome through Asia Minor. In his progress, he not merely informed himself of the condition of the empire, but corrected abuses, and made the Roman rule tolerable.

(M1097) His remaining years were spent at Rome, diligently administrating the affairs of his vast government, founding libraries and schools, and decorating his capital with magnificent structures. His temple of Venus at Rome was the largest ever erected in the city, and his mausoleum, stripped of its ornaments, now forms the Castle of St. Angelo. Next to the Coliseum, it was the grandest architectural monument in Rome. He also built a villa at Tivoli, whose remains are among the most interesting which seventeen centuries have preserved.

This good emperor made a noble choice for his successor, Titus Aurelius Antonius, and soon after died childless, A.D. 138, after a peaceful reign of twenty-one years, in which, says Merivale, "he reconciled, with eminent success, things hitherto found irreconcilable: a contented army and a peaceful frontier; an abundant treasury with lavish expenditure; a free Senate and stable monarchy; and all this without the lustre of a great military reputation, the foil of an odious predecessor, or disgust at recent civil commotions. He recognized, in theory, both conquerors and conquered as one people, and greeted in person every race among his subjects." He had personal defects of character, but his reign is one of the best of the imperial series, and marked the crowning age of Roman civilization.

(M1098) Antonius Pius, his successor, had less ability, but a still more faultless character. He sprung from the ranks of the nobility; was consul in the third year of Hadrian, and was prefect of Asia until his adoption, when he took up his residence in Rome, and never left its neighborhood during the remainder of his life. His peaceful reign is barren of external events, but fruitful in the peace and security of his subjects, and the only drawback in his happiness was the licentious character of his wife, who bore him two sons and two daughters. The sons died before his elevation, but one of his daughters married M. Annius Verus, whom he adopted as his successor, and associated with him in the government of the empire. He died after a reign of twenty-three years, and was buried in the mausoleum of Hadrian, which he completed. His character is thus drawn by his son-in-law and successor, Marcus Aurelius: "In my father, I noticed mildness of manner with firmness of resolution, contempt of vainglory, industry in business, and accessibility of person. He knew how to relax, as well as when to labor. From him I learned to acquiesce in every fortune, to exercise foresight in public affairs, to rise superior to vulgar praises, to worship the gods without superstition, to serve mankind without ambition, to be sober and steadfast, to be content with little, to be no sophist or dreaming bookworm, to be practical and active, to be neat and cheerful, to be temperate, modest in dress, and indifferent to the beauty of slaves and furniture, not to be led away by novelties, yet to render honor to true philosophers." What a picture of a heathen emperor, drawn by a pagan philosopher!—the single purpose of ruling for the happiness of their subjects, and realizing the idea of a paternal government, and this in one of the most corrupt periods of Roman society.

(M1099) Marcus Aurelius, like Trajan and Hadrian, derived his origin from Spain, but was born in Italy. His features are the most conspicuously preserved in the repositories of ancient art, as his name is the most honorably enshrined on the pages of history—the noblest and most august type of the ancient rulers of the world, far transcending any Jewish king in the severity of his virtues, and the elevation of his soul. His life was modeled on the strictest discipline of the stoical philosophy, of which he was the brightest ornament. He was nearly forty years of age on the death of his father-in-law, although for twenty-three years he had sat side by side with him on the tribunals of the State. His reign, therefore, was virtually a long one, and he was devoted to all the duties which his station imposed. He was great as ruler, as he was profound as a philosopher.

(M1100) It was under his illustrious reign that the barbarians formed a general union for the invasion of the Roman world, and struck the first of those fatal blows under which the empire finally succumbed. We have but little information of the long contest with Germans, Sarmatians, Marcomanni, Quadi, and Alani, on the banks of the Danube, who were pressed forward by the Scythian tribes. They were repelled, indeed, but they soon after advanced, with renovated forces, when the empire was weakened by the miserable emperors who succeeded Aurelius. And although this great prince commemorated his victory over the barbarians by a column similar to that of Trajan, still they were far from being subdued, and a disgraceful peace, which followed his death, shows that they were exceedingly formidable. He died at Sirmium, or Vindobona (Vienna), exhausted by incessant wars and the cares of State, A.D. 180, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and twentieth of his reign. The concurrent testimony of historians represents this emperor as the loftiest character that ever wielded a sceptre among the nations of antiquity, although we can not forget that he was a persecutor of the Christians.

(M1101) His son, Commodus, succeeded him, and the thirteen years of his inglorious reign are summed up in conflicts with the Moors, Dacians, and Germans. Skillful generals, by their successes, warded off the attacks of barbarians, but the character and rule of the emperor resembled that of Nero and Domitian. He was weak, cruel, pleasure-seeking, and dissolute. His time was divided between private vices and disgraceful public exhibitions. He fought as a gladiator more than seven hundred times, and against antagonists whose only weapons were tin and lead. He also laid claim to divinity, and was addicted to debasing superstitions. He destroyed the old ministers of his father, and decimated the Senate. All who excited his jealousy, or his covetousness, were put out of the way. He was poisoned by his favorite mistress, Marcia, and the Senate set the brand of infamy on his name. Thus perished the last of the line of the Antonines, even as the Julian line was ended by the assassination of Nero, and the Flavian by that of Domitian, and the empire became once again the prize of the soldier, A. D. 192.



CHAPTER XLV.

THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE.

(M1102) Able or virtuous princes had now ruled the Roman world, with a few exceptions, from Julius Caesar to Commodus, a period of more than two hundred years. Among these were some odious tyrants, or madmen, who were removed by assassination. But some of these very tyrants governed with ability, and such was the general prosperity, such the wonderful mechanism of government for which the Romans had a genius, that the general condition of the world was better than at any preceding period. All that government could do to preserve and extend civilization was done, on the whole. Despotism was not signally oppressive, and the regime of Augustus, of Vespasian, and Hadrian was generally maintained. The Roman governors, appointed by the emperors, ruled more wisely and beneficently than in the time of the republic. Peace, security, and law reigned, and, in consequence, the population increased, civilization advanced, and wealth was accumulated. The whole empire rejoiced in populous cities, in works of art, in literary culture, and in genial manners. Society was pagan, but attractive, and Rome herself was the resort of travelers, the centre of fashion and glory, the joy and the pride of the whole earth. There were no destructive wars, except on the frontiers; all classes were secure, the face of nature was cultivated and beautiful, and poets sung the praises of civilization such as never existed but in isolated cities and countries.

(M1103) But now we observe the commencement of a great and melancholy change. Prosperity had led to vice, false security, and pride. All classes had become corrupt. Disproportionate fortunes, slavery, and luxury undermined the moral health, and destroyed not only elevation of sentiment but martial virtues. Literature declined in spirit and taste, and was directed to frivolous subjects. Christianity had not become a power sufficiently strong to change or modify the corrupt institutions controlled by the powerful classes. The expensive luxury of the nobles was almost incredible. The most distant provinces were ransacked for game, fish, and fowl for the tables of the great. Usury was practiced at a ruinous rate. Every thing was measured by the money standard. Art was prostituted to please degraded tastes. There was no dignity of character; women were degraded; only passing vanities made any impression on egotistical classes; games and festivals were multiplied; gladiatorial sports outraged humanity; the descendants of the proudest families prided themselves chiefly on their puerile frivolities; the worst rites of paganism were practiced; slaves performed the most important functions; the circus and the theatre were engrossing pleasures; the baths were the resort of the idle and the luxurious, who almost lived in them, and were scenes of disgraceful orgies; great extravagance in dress and ornaments was universal; the pleasures of the table degenerated to riotous excesses; cooks, buffoons, and dancers received more consideration than scholars and philosophers; everybody worshiped the shrine of mammon; all science was directed to utilities that demoralized; sensualism reigned triumphant, and the people lived as if there were no God.

(M1104) Such a state must prepare the way for violence, and when external dangers came there were not sufficient virtues to meet them. But the decline was gradual, and dangers were still at a distance. Both nature and art were the objects of perpetual panegyric, and the worldly and sensual Romans dreamed only of a millennium of protracted joys.

The last experiment of a constitutional empire was succeeded by undisguised military despotism, and no one now desired or expected the restoration of the republic. The Senate was servile and submissive, the people had no voice in public affairs, and the prefects of the imperial guard were the recognized lieutenants and often masters of the emperors.

(M1105) Pertinax succeeded to the sceptre of Commodus, a wise and good man, and great hopes were entertained of a beneficent reign, when they were suddenly blasted by a sedition of the praetorians, only eighty-six days after the death of Commodus, and these guards publicly sold the empire to Didius Julianus, a wealthy senator, at the price of one thousand dollars to each soldier. Such a bargain disgusted the capital, and raised the legions in the provinces to revolt. Each of the three principal armies set up their own candidate, but L. Septimius Severus, who commanded in Illyricum, was the fortunate one, and was confirmed by the Senate. Didius Julianus was murdered after a brief reign of sixty-six days, and the praetorians who had created the scandal were disbanded.

The reign of this general was able and fortunate, although he was cruel and superstitious. His vigor prevented the separation of the empire for a century; but he had powerful rivals in Clodius Albinus, in Britain, and Pescennius Niger, in Syria, both of whom he subdued. At Lyons it is said that one hundred and fifty thousand Romans fought on both sides, when Albinus was killed. The full of Niger at the Hellespont insured the submission of the East, and the victorious emperor penetrated as far as Ctesiphon, and received the submission of Mesopotamia and Arabia. The triumphal arch erected by him celebrated those military successes.

(M1106) Having bestowed peace, and restored the dignity of the empire, this martial prince established an undisguised military despotism, and threw aside all deference to the Senate. He created a new guard of praetorian soldiers four times as numerous as the old, which were recruited from the ranks of the barbarians, who thus began to overawe the capital. The commander of this great force was no less a man than the celebrated jurist, Papianus, and he was the prime minister of the emperor. It was during his reign that a violent persecution of the Christians took place, A.D. 200, which called out the famous apology of Tertullian. Severus died in Britain, to which he was summoned by an irruption of Caledonians, A.D. 211, having reigned nineteen years, and with a vigor worthy of Trajan.

(M1107) He left two sons, who are best known by the names of Caracalla and Geta, and both of whom, in their father's lifetime, had been raised to the dignity of Augustus. The oldest son succeeded to the empire, and the year after his elevation murdered his brother in his mother's arms. He also executed Papinian, the praetorian prefect, because he refused to justify the fratricide, together with twenty thousand persons who were the friends of Geta. After this wholesale murder he left his capital, and never returned to it, spending his time in different provinces, which were alternately the scene of his cruelty and rapine, a victim of the foulest superstitions of the East, and arrogant and vainglorious as he was savage. His tyranny became unendurable, and he was murdered by an agent of the praetorian prefect, A.D. 217, Opilius Macrinus, who became the next emperor.

(M1108) Macrinus was only elevated to the purple by promising rich donations to the soldiers, for his rank was only that of a knight. He undertook to restore discipline in the army, and the licentious soldiery found a new candidate for the empire in the person of Avitus, of the family of Severus, a beautiful boy of seventeen, who officiated as priest of the sun in Syria, and whose name in history, from the god he served, is called Elagabalus, or Heliogabalus. But Macrinus was at the head of a formidable force, and fought his rival with bravery, but without success. The battle was decided against him, and he was overtaken in flight and put to death, A.D. 218.

(M1109) With Elagabalus is associated the most repulsive and loathsome reign of all the emperors. He was guilty of the most shameless obscenities, and the most degrading superstitions. He painted and dressed himself like an Oriental prince; he banqueted in halls hung with cloth of gold, and enriched with jewels; he slept on mattresses stuffed with down found only under the wings of partridges; he dined from tables of pure gold; he danced in public, arrayed in the garb of a Syrian priest; and he collected in his capital all the forms of idolatry and all the hideous abominations which even Grecian paganism despised. This wretch, who insulted every consecrated sentiment, was murdered after a reign of little more than three years, A.D. 222, and his body was thrown into the Tiber, and his memory branded with infamy by the Senate.

(M1110) The praetorians, who now controlled the State, offered the purple to his cousin, Alexander Severus, grand-nephew of Septimius Severus, an emperor who adorned those degenerate times, and who resembled the great Aurelius in the severity of his virtues. His prime minister—the prefect of the praetorian guards—was the celebrated Ulpian, the greatest of Roman jurists, and next to him in dignity and power was the historian, Dion Cassius, consul, governor in Africa, and legate in Dalmatia.

(M1111) The great labors of Alexander Severus were to quell the mutinous spirit of the praetorian guards, who reveled in the spoil of the empire; to subdue the Persians; and to repel barbarian inroads on the western frontiers. It was while he was in Thrace that a young barbarian of gigantic stature solicited permission to contend for the prize of wrestling. Sixteen of the stoutest Roman soldiers he successively overthrew, and he was permitted to enlist among the troops. The next day he attracted the notice of the emperor, and again contended successfully with seven of the Roman champions, and received, at the hand of the emperor, a gold collar and a place in the body-guard. He rose, step by step, till appointed to discipline the recruits of the army of the Rhine. He became the favorite of the army, and was saluted as imperator. Severus fled to his tent, and was assassinated, A.D. 235.

(M1112) The savage, Maximin, who now governed the empire, ruled like a barbarian, as he was, disdaining all culture, and hostile to all refinements. Confiscations, exile, or death awaited the few illustrious men who adorned the age. Only brute force was recognized as a claim to imperial favor. The sole object of Maximin was to secure the favor of the soldiers, barbarians like himself, whom he propitiated with exorbitant donations, extorted by fines and confiscations, and derived from the sack of temples. He lived in the camp, and knew nothing of the cities he ruled.

(M1113) Such outrages of course provoked rebellion, and M. Antonius Gordianus, the proconsul of Africa, a descendant of the Gracchi and of Trajan, distinguished for wealth and culture, was proclaimed emperor, at the age of eighty, who associated with him, in the government, his son. The Senate confirmed the Gordians, who fixed their court at Carthage, but Maximin suppressed the insurrection, and proceeded to Rome to satisfy his vengeance. The Senate, in despair, conferred the purple on two members of their own body, Maximus, an able soldier, and Balbinus, a poet and orator. The praetorians supported their claims, and Maximin was assassinated in his tent, A.D. 238. But the new emperors had scarcely given promise of a wise administration, before they in turn were assassinated by the praetorians, and Gordian, a grandson of the first of that name, was elevated to the imperial dignity. He, again, was soon murdered in a mutiny of the soldiers, who elected Philip as his successor, A.D. 244. This emperor, whose reign was marked by the celebration of the secular games with unwonted magnificence, to commemorate the one thousand years since Rome was founded, was put to death by the praetorian guards the following year, and the dignity of Augustus was conferred on Decius.

(M1114) His reign is memorable for a savage persecution of the Christians, and the victories of the Goths, who, in the preceding reign, had penetrated to Dacia, and conquered Moesia. The next twenty years were mournful and disgraceful. The emperor marched against these barbarians in person, but was defeated by them in Thrace, and lost his life at a place called Abrutum, A.D. 251. The Goths continued their ravages along the coasts of the Euxine, and made themselves masters of the Crimea. They then sailed, with a large fleet, to the northern parts of the Euxine, took Pityus and Trapezus, attacked the wealthy cities of the Thracian Bosphorus, conquered Chalcedon, Nicomedia, and Nice, and retreated laden with spoil. The next year, with five hundred boats, they pursued their destructive navigation, destroyed Cyzicus, crossed the AEgean, landed at Athens, plundered Thebes, Argos, Corinth and Sparta, advanced to the coasts of Epirus, and devastated the whole Illyrian peninsula. In their ravages they destroyed the famous temple of Ephesus, and, wearied with plunder, returned through Moesia to their own settlements beyond the Danube.

(M1115) During this raid, the son of Decius, Hostilianus, reigned in conjunction with Gallus, one of the generals of Decius, but were put to death by AEmilianus, governor of Pannonia and Moesia, who had succeeded in gaining a victory over the new and terrible enemy. He was in turn overthrown by Valerianus—a nobleman of great distinction, who signalized himself by considerable military ability, and who associated with himself in the empire his son, Gallienus, A.D. 253, whose frivolities were an offset to the virtues of his father. Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapor, king of Persia, and shortly after died, and the Roman world relapsed under the sway of his son, and at a time of great calamity, memorable for the successes of the Goths, and the direst pestilence which had ever visited the empire. Gallienus—not without accomplishments, but utterly unfit to govern an empire in the stormy times which witnessed the fierce irruptions of the Goths—was slain by a conspiracy of his officers, A.D. 268.

(M1116) The empire was now threatened by barbarians, and wasted by pestilence, and distracted by rebellions and riots. It was on the verge of ruin; but the ruin was averted for one hundred years by a succession of great princes, who traced their origin to the martial province of Illyricum. The first of these emperors was Claudius, one of the generals of Gallienus, and was fifty-four years of age when invested with the purple. He led the armies of the waning empire against the Alemanni, who had invaded Italy, and drove them beyond the Alps. But a fiercer tribe of Germanic barbarians remained to be subdued or repelled—those who had devastated Greece—the Goths. They again appeared upon the Euxine with a fleet, variously estimated from two thousand to six thousand vessels, carrying three hundred and twenty thousand men. A division of this vast, but undisciplined force, invaded Crete and Cyprus, but the main body ravaged Macedonia, and undertook the siege of Thessalonica. Claudius advanced to meet them, and gained at Naissus a complete victory, where fifty thousand of the barbarians perished. A desultory war followed in Thrace, Macedonia, and Moesia, which resulted in the destruction of the Gothic fleet, and an immense booty in captives and cattle.

(M1117) Claudius survived this great, but not decisive victory, but two years, and was carried off by pestilence, at Sirmiun, A.D. 270; but not until he had designated for his successor a still greater man—the celebrated Aurelian, whose father had been a peasant. Every day of his short reign was filled with wonders. He put an end to the Gothic war, chastised the Germans who invaded Italy, recovered Gaul, Britain, and Spain, defeated the Alemanni, who devastated the empire from the Po to the Danube, destroyed the proud monarchy which Zenobia had built up in the deserts of the East, took the queen captive, and carried her to Rome, where he celebrated the most magnificent triumph which the world had seen since the days of Pompey and Caesar. This celebrated woman, equaling Cleopatra in beauty, and Boadicea in valor, and blending the popular manners of the Roman princes with the stately pomp of Oriental kings, had retired, on her defeat, to the beautiful city which Solomon had built, shaded with palms, and ornamented with palaces. There, in that Tadmor of the wilderness, Palmyra, the capital of her empire, which embraced a large part of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, she had cultivated the learning of the Greeks, and the Oriental tongues of the countries she ruled, excelling equally in the chase and in war, the most truly accomplished woman of antiquity,—sprung, like Cleopatra, from the Greek kings of Egypt. Among her counselors was the celebrated Longinus—the most conspicuous ornament of the last age of Greek classic literature, and a philosopher who taught the wisdom of Plato. When Palmyra was taken by Aurelian, this great man, who had stimulated Zenobia in her rebellion, was executed, without uttering a word of complaint, together with the people of the city, with remorseless barbarity, and the city of Solomon became an inconsiderable Arab town. The queen, who had fled, was pursued and taken, and graced the magnificent triumph of the martial emperor. The captive queen was made to precede the triumphal chariot, on foot, loaded with fetters of gold, and arrayed in the most gorgeous dress of her former empire. She was not executed, but permitted to reside in the capital in the state of princes.

(M1118) This great and brilliant triumph—one of the last glories of the setting sun of Roman greatness—seemed to augur the restoration of the empire. The emperor was sanguine, and boasted that all external danger had passed away. But in a few months he was summoned to meet new enemies in the East, and he was murdered by a conspiracy of his officers, probably in revenge for the cruelties and massacres he had inflicted at Rome. In one of his reforms a sedition arose, and was quelled inexorably by the slaughter of seven thousand of the soldiers, besides a large number of the leading nobles.

(M1119) His sceptre descended to Tacitus, A.D. 275, a descendant of the great historian: a man, says Niebuhr, "who was great in every thing that could distinguish a senator; he possessed immense property, of which he made a brilliant use; he was a man of unblemished character; he possessed the knowledge of a statesman, and had, in his youth, shown great military skill." Scarcely was he inaugurated as emperor before he marched against the Alans, a Scythian tribe, who had ravaged Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Galatea. He, however, lost his life amid the hardships of his first campaign, at the age of seventy-five, and after a brief reign of six months.

(M1120) The veteran general, M. Aurelius Probus, the commander of the Eastern provinces, was proclaimed emperor by the legions, although originally of peasant rank. He was forty-five years of age, and united the military greatness of Aurelian with political prudence, in all respects the best choice which could have been made, and one of the best and greatest of all the emperors. His six years of administration were marked by uninterrupted successes, and he won a fame equal to that of the ancient heroes. He restored peace and order in all the provinces; he broke the power of the Sarmatians; he secured the alliance of the Goths; he drove the Isaurians to their strongholds among their inaccessible mountains; he chastised the rebellious cities of Egypt; he delivered Gaul from the Germanic barbarians; he drove the Franks to 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 on the borders of Silesia; he extended his victories to the Elbe, and erected a wall, two hundred miles in length, from the Danube to the Rhine; so that "there was not left," says Gibbon, "in all the provinces, a hostile barbarian, or tyrant, or even a robber." After having destroyed four hundred thousand of the barbarians, he returned to his capital to celebrate a triumph, which equaled in splendor that of Aurelian. He, too, fancied that all external enemies were subdued forever, and that Rome should henceforth rejoice in eternal peace. But scarcely had the paeans of victory been sung by a triumphant and infatuated people, when he was assassinated in a mutiny of his own troops, whom he had compelled to labor in draining the marshes around Sirmium, A.D. 282.

(M1121) The soldiers, repenting the act as soon as it was done, conferred the purple on the praetorian prefect, and notified the Senate of its choice. And the choice was a good one; and the new emperor, Carus, at sixty years of age, conferring the title of Caesar upon his two sons, Carinus and Numerianus, whom he left to govern the West, hastened against the Sarmatians, who had overrun Illyricum. Successful in his objects, he advanced, in the depth of winter, through Thrace and Asia Minor to the confines of Persia. The Persian king, wishing to avert the storm, sent his ambassadors to the imperial camp, and found the emperor seated on the grass, dining from peas and bacon, in all the simplicity of the early successors of Mohammed. But before he could advance beyond the Tigris, his tent was struck by lightning, and he was killed, on Christmas day, A.D. 283.

(M1122) Carinus and Numerian succeeded to the vacant throne. The former, at Rome, disgraced his trust by indolence and shameless vices; while the latter, in the camp, was unfit, though virtuous, to control the turbulent soldiers, and was found murdered in his bed the very day that Carinus celebrated the games with unusual magnificence.

(M1123) The army raised C. Valerius Diocletianus to the vacant dignity, and his first act was to execute the murderer of Numerian. His next was to encounter Carinus in battle, who was slain, A.D. 285, and Diocletian—perhaps the greatest emperor after Augustus—reigned alone. Diocletian is, however, rendered infamous in ecclesiastical history, as the most bitter of all the persecutors of the Christians, now a large and growing body; but he was a man of the most distinguished abilities, though of obscure birth, in a little Dalmatian town. He commenced his illustrious reign at the age of thirty-nine, and reigned twenty years,—more as a statesman than warrior,—politic, judicious, indefatigable in business, and steady in his purposes.

(M1124) This emperor inaugurated a new era, and a new policy of government. The cares of State in a disordered age, when the empire was threatened on every side by hostile barbarians, and disgraced by insurrections and tumults, induced Diocletian to associate with himself three colleagues, who had won fame in the wars of Aurelian and Carus. Maximian, Galerius, and Constantine—one of whom had the dignity of Augustus, and two that of Caesar.

Maximian, associated with Diocletian, with the rank of Augustus, had been also an Illyrian peasant, and was assigned to the government of the western provinces, while Diocletian retained that of the eastern. Maximum established the seat of his government at Milan, giving a death-blow to the Senate, which, though still mentioned honorably by name, was henceforth severed from the imperial court. The empire had been ruled by soldiers ever since pressing dangers had made it apparent that only men of martial virtues could preserve it from the barbarians. But now the most undisguised military rule, uninfluenced by old constitutional form, was the only recognized authority, and the warlike emperors, bred in the camp, had a disdain of the ancient capital, as well as great repugnance to the enervated praetorian soldiers, who made and unmade emperors, whose privileges were abolished forever. Milan was selected for the seat of imperial government, from its proximity to the frontier, perpetually menaced by the barbarians; and this city, before a mere military post, now assumed the splendor of an imperial city, and was defended by a double wall.

(M1125) Diocletian made choice, at first, of Nicomedia, the old capital of the Bithynian kings, as the seat of his Eastern government, equally distant from the Danube and the Euphrates. He assumed the manner and state of an Oriental monarch. He wore a diadem set with pearls, and a robe of silk and gold instead of the simple toga with its purple stripe. His shoes were studded with precious stones, and his court was marked by Oriental ceremonials. His person was difficult of access, and the avenues to his palace were guarded by various classes of officers. No one could approach him without falling prostrate in adoration, and he was addressed as "My lord the emperor." But he did not live in Oriental seclusion, and was perpetually called away by pressing dangers.

(M1126) The Caesars Galerius and Constantius were sent to govern the provinces on the frontiers; the former, from his capital, Sirmium, in Illyricum, watched the whole frontier of the Danube; the latter spent his time in Britain. Galerius was adopted by Diocletian, and received his daughter Valeria in marriage; while Constantius was adopted by Maximian, and married his daughter Theodora.

The division of the empire under these four princes nearly corresponded with the prefectures which Constantine subsequently established, and which were deemed necessary to preserve the empire from dissolution—a dissolution inevitable, had it not been for the great emperors whom the necessities of the empire had raised up, but whose ruin was only for a time averted. Not even able generals and good emperors could save the corrupted empire. It was doomed. Vice had prepared the way for violence. The four emperors, who now labored to prevent a catastrophe, were engaged in perpetual conflicts, and through their united efforts peace was restored throughout the empire, and the last triumph that Rome ever saw was celebrated by them.

(M1127) Only one more enemy, to the eye of Diocletian, remained to be subdued, and this was Christianity. But this enemy was unconquerable. Silently, surely, without pomp, and without art, the new religion had made its way, against all opposition, prejudice, and hatred, from Jews and pagans alike, and was now a power in the empire. The followers of the hated sect were, however, from the humble classes, and but few great men had arisen among them, and even these were unimportant to the view of philosophers and rulers. The believers formed an esoteric circle, and were lofty, stern, and hostile to all the existing institutions of society. They formed an imperium in imperio, but did not aim, at this time, to reach political power. They were scattered throughout the great cities of the empire, and were ruled by their bishops and ministers. They did not make war on men, but on their ideas and habits and customs. They avoided all external conflicts, and contended with devils and passions. But government distrusted and disliked them, and sought at different times to exterminate them. There had already been nine signal persecutions from the time of Nero, and yet they had constantly increased in numbers and influence. But now a more serious attack was to be made upon them by the emperors, provoked, probably, by the refusal of some Christians to take the military oath, and serve in the armies, on conscientious principles: but interpreted by those in authority as disloyalty in a great national crisis. The mind of the emperor was alienated; and both Galerius and Diocletian resolved that a religion which seemed hostile to the political relations of the empire, should be suppressed. A decree was issued to destroy all the Christian churches, to confiscate their property, to burn the sacred writings, to deprive Christians of their civil rights, and even to doom them to death. The decree which was publicly exhibited in Nicomedia, was torn down by a Christian, who expressed the bitterest detestation of the tyrannical governors. The fires which broke out in the palace were ascribed to the Christians, and the command was finally issued to imprison all the ministers of religion, and punish those who protected them. A persecution which has had no parallel in history, was extended to all parts of the empire. The whole civil power, goaded by the old priests of paganism, was employed in searching out victims, and all classes of Christians were virtually tormented and murdered. The earth groaned for ten years under the sad calamity, and there was apparently no hope. But whether scourged, or lacerated, or imprisoned, or burned, the martyrs showed patience, faith, and moral heroism, and invoked death to show its sting, and the grave its victory.

(M1128) The persecution of the Christians—this attempt to suppress religion thought to be hostile to the imperial authority, and not without some plausibility, since many Christians refused to be enrolled in the armies, and suffered death sooner than enlist—was the last great act of Diocletian. Whether wearied with the cares of State, or disgusted with his duties, or ill, or craving rest and repose, he took the extraordinary resolution of abdicating his throne, at the very summit of his power, and at the age of fifty-nine. He influenced Maximian to do the same, and the two Augusti gave place to the two Caesars. The double act of resignation was performed at Nicomedia and Milan, on the same day, May 1, A.D. 305. Diocletian took a graceful farewell of his soldiers, and withdrew to a retreat near his native city of Salonae, on the coast of the Adriatic. He withdrew to a magnificent palace, which he had built on a square of six hundred feet, in a lovely and fertile spot, in sight of the sea, and the mountains, and luxurious plains. He there devoted himself to the pleasures of agriculture, and planted cabbages with his own hand, and refused all solicitations to resume his power. But his repose was alloyed by the sight of increasing troubles, and the failure of the system he had inaugurated. If the empire could not be governed by one master, it could not be governed by four, with their different policies and rivalries. He lived but nine years in retirement; but long enough to see his religious policy reversed, by the edict of Milan, which confirmed the Christian religion, and the whole imperial fabric which he had framed reversed by Constantine.

(M1129) Confusion followed his abdication. Civil wars instead of barbaric wasted the empire. The ancient heart of the empire had no longer the presence of an Augustus, and a new partition virtually took place, by which Italy and Africa became dependencies of the East. Galerius—now Augustus—assumed the right to nominate the two new Caesars, one of whom was his sister's son, who assumed the name of Galerius Valerius Maximinus, to whom were assigned Syria and Egypt, and the other was his faithful servant, Severus, who was placed over Italy and Africa. According to the forms of the constitution, he was subordinate to Constantius, but he was devoted to Galerius. The emperor Constantius, then in Boulogne, was dying, and his son, Constantine, was at the court of Galerius. Though summoned to the bedside of his father, Galerius sought to retain him, but Constantine abruptly left Nicomedia, evaded Severus, traversed Europe, and reached his father, who was just setting out for Britain, to repel an invasion of the Caledonians. He reached York only to die, A.D. 306, and with his last breath transmitted his empire to his son, and commended him to the soldiers. Galerius was transported with rage, but was compelled to submit, and named Constantine Caesar over the western provinces, who was not elevated to the dignity of Augustus till two years later.

The elevation of Severus to supreme power in Italy by Galerius, filled the abdicated emperor Maximian with indignation, and humiliated the Roman people. The praetorians rose against the party of Severus, who retired to Ravenna, and soon after committed suicide. The Senate assumed their old prerogative, and conferred the purple on Maxentius, the son of Maximilian. Galerius again assumed the power of nominating an Augustus, and bestowed the purple, made vacant by the death of Severus, on an old comrade, Licinius, originally a Dacian peasant.

(M1130) Thus, there were six emperors at a time; Constantine, in Britain; Maximian, who resumed the purple; Maxentius, his son; Licinius Galerius, in the East; and Maximin, his nephew. Maximian crossed the Alps in person, won over Constantine to his party, and gave him his daughter, Fausta, in marriage, and conferred upon him the rank of Augustus; so, in the West, Maxentius and Constantine affected to be subordinate to Maximian; while, in the East, Licinius and Maximin obeyed the orders of their benefactor, Galerius. The sovereigns of the East and West were hostile to each other, but their mutual fears produced an apparent tranquillity, and a feigned reconciliation.

(M1131) The first actual warfare, however, broke out between Maximian and his son. Maxentius insisted on the renewed abdication of his father, and had the support of the praetorian guards. Driven into exile, he returned to Gaul, and took refuge with his son and daughter, who received him kindly; but in the absence of Constantine, he seized the treasure to bribe his troops, and was holding communication with Maxentius when Constantine returned from the Rhine. The old intriguer had only time to throw himself into Marseilles, where he strangled himself, when the city was hard pressed by Constantine, A.D. 310.

(M1132) In a year after, Galerius died, like Herod Agrippa, a prey to loathsome vermin—morbus pediculosus, and his dominions were divided between Maximin and Licinius, each of whom formed secret alliances with Maxentius and Constantine, between whom was war.

(M1133) The tyranny of Maxentius led his subjects to look to Constantine as a deliverer, who marched to the relief of the Senate and Roman people. He crossed the Alps with forty thousand men. Maxentius collected a force of one hundred and seventy thousand, to maintain which he had the wealth of Italy, Africa, and Sicily. Constantine first encountered the lieutenants of Maxentius in the plains of Turin, and gained a complete victory, the prize of which was Milan, the new capital of Italy. He was advancing to Rome on the Flaminian way, before Maxentius was aroused to his danger, being absorbed in pleasures. A few miles from Rome was fought the battle of Saxa Rubra, A.D. 312, between the rival emperors, at which Maxentius perished, and Constantine was greeted by the Senate as the first of the three surviving Augusti. The victory of Constantine was commemorated by a triumphal arch, which still remains, and which was only a copy of the arch of Trajan. The ensuing winter was spent in Rome, during which Constantine abolished forever the praetorian guards, which had given so many emperors to the world. In the spring Constantine gave his daughter Constantia in marriage to Licinius, but was soon called away to the Rhine by an irruption of Franks, while Licinius marched against Maximin, and defeated him under the walls of Heracles. Maximin retreated to Nicomedia, and was about to renew the war, when he died at Tarsus, and Licinius became master of the Eastern provinces.

(M1134) There were now but two emperors, one in the East, and the other in the West. Constantine celebrated the restoration of tranquillity by promulgating at Milan an edict in favor of universal religious toleration, and the persecution of the Christians by the pagans was ended forever, in Europe. About this time Constantine himself was converted to the new religion. In his march against Maxentius, it is declared by Eusebius, that he saw at noonday a cross in the heavens, inscribed with the words, "By this conquer." It is also asserted that the vision of the cross was seen by the whole army, and the cross henceforth became the standard of the Christian emperors. It was called the Labarum, and is still seen on the coins of Constantine, and was intrusted to a chosen guard of fifty men. It undoubtedly excited enthusiasm in the army, now inclined to accept the new faith, and Constantine himself joined the progressive party, and made Christianity the established religion of the empire. Henceforth the protection of the Christian religion became one of the cherished objects of his soul, and although his life was stained by superstitions and many acts of cruelty and wickedness, Constantine stands out in history as the first Christian emperor. For this chiefly he is famous, and a favorite with ecclesiastical writers. The edict of Milan is an era in the world's progress. But he was also a great sovereign, and a great general.

(M1135) The harmony between so ambitious a man and Licinius was not of long duration. Rival interests and different sympathies soon led to the breaking out of hostilities, and Licinius was defeated in two great battles, and resigned to Constantine all his European possessions, except Thrace. The nine successive years were spent by Licinius in slothful and vicious pleasures, while Constantine devoted his energies to the suppression of barbarians, and the enactment of important laws. He repulsed the Gothic and Sarmatian hordes, who had again crossed the Danube, and pursued them into Dacia; nor did the Goths secure peace until they had furnished forty thousand recruits to the Roman armies. This recruiting of the imperial armies from the barbarians was one of the most melancholy signs of decaying strength, and indicated approaching ruin.

(M1136) In the year 323 a new civil war broke out between Constantine and Licinius. The aged and slothful Eastern emperor roused himself to a grand effort and marshalled an army of one hundred and fifty thousand foot and fifteen thousand horse on the plains of Hadrianople, while his fleet of three hundred and fifty triremes commanded the Hellespont. Constantine collected an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men at Thessalonica, and advanced to attack his foe, intrenched in a strong position. The battle was decided in favor of Constantine, who slew thirty-four thousand of his enemies, and took the fortified camp of Licinius, who fled to Byzantium, July, A.D. 323.

(M1137) The fleet of Licinius still remained, and with his superior naval force he might have baffled his rival. But fortune, or valor, again decided in favor of the Western emperor, and after a fight of two days the admiral of Licinius retired to Byzantium. The siege of this city was now pressed with valor by Constantine, and Licinius fled with his treasures to Chalcedon, and succeeded in raising another army of fifty thousand men. These raw levies were, however, powerless against the veterans of Constantine, whom he led in person. The decisive battle was fought at Chrysopolis, and Licinius retired to Nicomedia, but soon after abdicated, and was banished to Thessalonica. There he was not long permitted to remain, being executed by order of Constantine, one of the foul blots on his memory and character.

(M1138) The empire was now reunited under a single man, at the cost of vast treasures and lives. The policy of Diocletian had only inaugurated civil war. There is no empire so vast which can not be more easily governed by one man than by two or four. It may be well for empires to be subdivided, like that of Charlemagne, but it is impossible to prevent civil wars when the power is shared equally by jealous rivals. It was better for the Roman world to be united under Octavius, than divided between him and Antony.

(M1139) On the fall of Byzantium, Constantine was so struck with its natural advantages, that he resolved to make it the capital of the empire. Placed on the inner of two straits which connect the Euxine and the AEgean with the Mediterranean, on the frontiers of both Europe and Asia, it seemed to be the true centre of political power, while its position could be itself rendered impregnable against any external enemy that threatened the Roman world. The wisdom of the choice of Constantine, and his unrivaled sagacity, were proved by the fact, that while Rome was successively taken and sacked by Goths and Vandals, Constantinople remained the capital of the eastern Roman empire for eleven continuous centuries.

(M1140) The reign of Constantine as sole emperor was marked by another event, A.D. 325. which had a great influence on the subsequent condition of the world in a moral and religious point of view, and this was the famous Council of Nicaea, which assembled to settle points of faith and discipline in the new religion which was now established throughout the empire. It is called the first Ecumenical, or General Council, and was attended by three hundred and eighteen bishops, with double the number of presbyters, assembled from all parts of the Christian world. Here the church and the empire met face to face. In this council the emperor left the cares of State, and the command of armies, to preside over discussions on the doctrine of the Trinity, as expounded by two great rival parties,—one headed by Athanasius, then archdeacon, afterward archbishop of Alexandria—the greatest theologian that had as yet appeared in the church,—and the other by Arius, a simple presbyter of Alexandria, but a man of subtle and commanding intellect. Arius maintained that the Son, the second person of the Trinity, derived his being from the Father within the limits of time, and was secondary to him in power and glory. Athanasius maintained that the Son was co-eternal with the Father, and the same in substance with the Father. This theological question had long been discussed, and the church was divided between the two parties, each of which exhibited extreme acrimony. Constantine leaned to the orthodox side, although his most influential adviser, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, the historian, inclined to the Arian view. But the emperor was more desirous to secure peace and unity, than the ascendency of any dogma, and the doctrine of Athanasius became the standard of faith, and has since remained the creed of the church.

(M1141) After the settlement of the faith of the church, now becoming the great power of the world, the reign of Constantine was disgraced by a domestic tragedy seldom paralleled in history. His son, Crispus, by a low-born woman, conspicuous for talents and virtues, either inflamed the jealousy of his father, or provoked him by a secret conspiracy. It has never been satisfactorily settled whether he was a rival or a conspirator, but he was accused, tried, and put to death, in the twentieth year of the reign, while Constantine was celebrating at Rome the festival of his vicennalia. After this bloody tragedy, for which he is generally reproached, he took his final departure from Rome, and four years after, the old capital was degraded to the rank of a secondary city, and Constantinople was dedicated as the new capitol of the empire. From the eastern promontory to the Golden Horn, the extreme length of Constantinople was three Roman miles, and the circumference measured ten, inclosing an area of two thousand acres, besides the suburbs. The new city was divided into fourteen wards, and was ornamented with palaces, fora, and churches. The church of St. Sophia was built on the site of an old temple, and was in the form of a Greek cross, surmounted by a beautiful and lofty dome. In a century afterward, Constantinople rivaled Rome in magnificence. It had a capitol, a circus, two theatres, eight public baths, fifty-two porticoes, eight aqueducts, four halls, and fourteen churches, and four thousand three hundred and eighty-three large palatial residences.

(M1142) After the building of this new and beautiful city, Constantine devoted himself to the internal regulation of the empire, which he divided into four prefectures, subdivided into thirteen dioceses, each governed by vicars or vice-prefects, who were styled counts and dukes. The provinces were subdivided to the number of one hundred and sixteen. Three of these were governed by proconsuls, thirty-seven by consuls, five by correctors, and seventy-one by presidents, chosen from the legal profession, and called clarissimi. The prefecture of the East embraced the Asiatic provinces, together with Egypt, Thrace, and the lower Moesia; that of Illyricum contained the countries between the Danube, the AEgean, and the Adriatic; that of Italy extended over the Alps to the Danube; and that of the Gauls embraced the western provinces beyond the Rhine and the Alps.

(M1143) The military power was separated from the civil. There were two master-generals, one of infantry, and the other of cavalry, afterward increased to eight, under whom were thirty-five commanders, ten of whom were counts, and twenty dukes. The legions were reduced from six thousand to fifteen hundred men. Their number was one hundred and thirty-two, and the complete force of the empire was six hundred and forty-five thousand, holding five hundred and eighty-three permanent stations.

(M1144) The ministers of the palace, who exercised different functions about the presence of the emperor, were seven in number: the prefect of the bed-chamber; a eunuch, who waited on the emperor; the master of offices—the supreme magistrate of the palace; the quaestor—at the head of the judicial administration, and who composed the orations and edicts of the emperor; the treasurer, and two counts of domestics, who commanded the body-guard.

(M1145) The bishopric nearly corresponded with the civil divisions of the empire, and the bishops had different ranks. We now observe archbishops and metropolitans.

The new divisions complicated the machinery of government, and led to the institution of many new offices, which greatly added to the expense of government, for which taxation became more rigorous and oppressive. The old constitution was completely subverted, and the emperor became an Oriental monarch.

(M1146) Constantine was called away from his labors of organization to resist the ambition of Sapor II., when he died, at the age of sixty-four, at his palace near Nicomedia, A.D. 337, after a memorable but tumultuous reign—memorable for the recognition of Christianity as a State religion; tumultuous, from civil wars and contests with barbarians. Constantinople, not Rome, became the future capital of the empire.



CHAPTER XLVI.

THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE.

After the death of Constantine, the decline was rapid, and new dangers multiplied. Warlike emperors had staved off the barbarians, and done all that man could do to avert ruin. But the seeds of ruin were planted, and must bear their wretched fruit. The seat of empire was removed to a new city, more able, from its position, to withstand the shock which was to come. In the strife between new and hardy races, and the old corrupt population, the issue could not be doubtful. The empire had fulfilled its mission. Christianity was born, protected, and rendered triumphant. Nothing more was wanted than the conversion of the barbarians to the new faith before desolation should overspread the world—and a State prepared for new ideas, passions, and interests.

(M1147) Constantine left three sons and two daughters, by Fausta, the daughter of Maximian,—Constantine, Constantius, Constans, Constantina, and Helena. The imperial dignity was enjoyed by the sons, and the youngest daughter, Helena, married the emperor Julian, grandson of Constantius Chlorus. The three sons of Constantine divided the empire between them. The oldest, at the age of twenty-one, retained the prefecture of Gaul; Constantius, aged twenty, kept Thrace and the East; while Constans, the youngest, at the age of seventeen, added the Italian prefecture with Greece.

(M1148) The ablest of these princes was Constantius, on whom fell the burden of the Persian war, and which ultimately ended on the defeat of Julian, in Sapor wresting from the emperor all the countries beyond the Euphrates.

Constantine II. was dissatisfied with his share of the empire, and compelled Constans to yield up Africa, but was slain in an expedition beyond the Julian Alps, A.D. 340.

(M1149) Constans held the empire of the West for ten years, during which he carried on war with the Franks, upon the Rhine, and with the Scots and Picts. His vices were so disgraceful that a rebellion took place, under Magnentius, who slew Constans, A.D. 350, and reigned in his stead, the seat of his government being Treves.

(M1150) Constantius II. made war on the usurper, Magnentius, a rough barbarian, and finally defeated him on the banks of the Danube, where fifty-four thousand men perished in battle, soon after which the usurper killed himself.

(M1151) Constantius, by the death of his brother, and overthrow of Magnentius, was now sole master of the empire, and through his permission Athanasius was restored to the arch-bishopric of Alexandria, but was again removed, the emperor being an Arian. This second removal raised a tumult in Alexandria, and he was allowed to return to his see, where he lived in peace until he died, A.D. 372—the great defender of the orthodox creed, which finally was established by councils and the emperors.

(M1152) The emperor Constantius was engaged in successive wars with the barbarians,—with the Persians on the East, the Sarmatians on the Danube, and the Franks and Alemanni, on the Rhine. During these wars, his brother-in-law, Julian, was sent to the West with the title of Caesar, where he restored order, and showed signal ability. On the death of Constantius, he was recognized as emperor without opposition, A.D. 361.

(M1153) Julian is generally called the Apostate, since he proclaimed a change in the established religion, but tolerated Christianity. He was a Platonic philosopher—a man of great virtue and ability, whose life was unstained by vices. But his attempt to restore paganism was senseless and ineffectual. As a popular belief, paganism had expired. His character is warmly praised by Gibbon, and commended by other historians. He struggled against the spirit of his age, and was unsuccessful. He was worthy of the best ages of the empire in the exercise of all pagan virtues—the true successor of Hadrian and the Antonines.

(M1154) He was also a great general, and sought to crush the power of the Persian kings and make Babylonia a Roman province. Here, too, he failed, although he gained signal successes. He was mortally wounded while effecting a retreat from the Tigris, after a short reign of twenty months. With him ended the house of Constantine. The empire was conferred by the troops on Flavius Claudius Jovianus, chief of the imperial household, A.D. 363—a man of moderate talents and good intentions, but unfit for such stormy times. He restored Christianity, which henceforth was the national religion. He died the following year, and was succeeded by Flavius Valentinianus, the son of Count Gratian, a general who had arisen from obscurity in Pannonia, to the command of Africa and Britain.

(M1155) Valentinian was forty-four years of age when he began to reign, A.D. 364, a man of noble character and person, and in a month associated his brother Flavius Valens with him in the government of the empire. Valentinian kept the West, and conferred the East on Valens. Thus was the empire again formally divided, and was not reunited until the reign of Theodosius. Valentinian chose the post of danger, rather than of pleasure and luxury, for the West was now invaded by various tribes of the Germanic race. The Alemanni were powerful on the Rhine; the Saxons were invading Britain; the Burgundians were commencing their ravages in Gaul; and the Goths were preparing for another inroad. The emperor, whose seat of power was Milan, was engaged in perpetual, but indecisive conflicts. He reigned with vigor, and repressed the barbarians. He bestowed the title of Augustus on his son Gratian, and died in a storm of wrath by the bursting of a blood-vessel, while reviling the ambassadors of the Quadi, A.D. 375.

(M1156) The emperor Valens, at Constantinople, was exposed to no less dangers, without the force to meet them. The great nation of the Goths, who had been at peace with the empire for a generation, resumed their hostilities upon the Danube. Hermanneric, the first historic name among these fierce people, had won a series of brilliant victories over other barbarians, after he was eighty years of age. His dominions extended from the Danube to the Baltic, and embraced the greater part of Germany and Scythia.

(M1157) But the Goths were invaded by a fierce race of barbarians, more savage than themselves, from the banks of the Don, called Scythians, or Huns, of Sclavonic origin. Pressed by this new enemy, they sought shelter in the Roman territory. Instead of receiving them as allies, the emperor treated them as enemies. Hostages from the flower of their youth were scattered through the cities of Asia Minor, while the corrupt governors of Thrace annoyed them by insults and grievances. The aged Hermanneric, exasperated by misfortune, made preparations for a general war, while Sarmatians, Alans, and Huns united with them. After three indecisive campaigns, the emperor Valens advanced to attack their camp near Hadrianople, defended by Fritagern. Under the walls of this city was fought the most bloody and disastrous battle which Rome ever lost, A.D. 378. Two-thirds of the imperial army was destroyed, the emperor was slain, and the remainder fled in consternation. Sixty thousand infantry and six thousand cavalry lay dead upon the fatal field. The victors, intoxicated with their success, invested Hadrianople, but were unequal to the task, being inexperienced in sieges. Laden with spoil, they retired to the western boundaries of Thrace. From the shores of the Bosphorus to the Julian Alps, nothing was seen but conflagration, murder, and devastation. So great were the misfortunes of the Illyrian provinces, that they never afterward recovered. Churches were turned into stables, palaces were burned, works of art were destroyed, the relics of martyrs were desecrated, the population decimated, and the provinces were overrun.