Читать книгу The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel - Thomas H. Prescott - Страница 12

The assassination of Cæsar has justly been pronounced ‘the most stupid action that ever the Romans committed.’ The later ages of the republic had been one continued scene of violence and anarchy; and not until Cæsar had risen to the chief power in the state was there a restoration of order and efficient government. His assassination plunged the Roman dominions into new and complicated civil wars. On the one side were the conspirators with Brutus and Cassius at their head, bent on the futile project of throwing back the Empire into the condition of a republic. On the other were Mark Antony, an able and valiant officer of Cæsar’s; Lepidus, another officer of less distinguished abilities; and Marcus Octavius, a young man of eighteen, Cæsar’s grandnephew, and who, as his uncle’s heir, now assumed the name of Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus. These three united themselves into a triumvirate (November B. C. 44) for avenging Cæsar’s death, and settling the affairs of the republic. After making themselves masters of Italy, and putting to death by wholesale proscription all those citizens whose views they suspected, among others the great and amiable Cicero, they pursued the conspirators into Greece. At length, in the autumn of B. C. 42, two great battles were fought at Philippi in Macedonia between the republican forces and those of the triumvirate. The former were defeated; Cassius caused himself to be slain, Brutus committed suicide, and the triumvirs thus remained masters of the Roman world. They divided it among them: Antony assuming the government of the East, Lepidus obtaining Africa, and Octavianus returning to Italy, master of the countries adjacent to that peninsula. Each continued to govern his share for some time independently; but a quarrel ensuing between Octavianus and Lepidus, the latter was deprived of his power, and obliged to retire into private life. The Empire was now divided between Antony and Octavianus, the former master of the East, the latter of the West. At length, however, political and private reasons led to a rupture between the two potentates (B. C. 33). The rash and pleasure-loving Antony, who had been caught in the toils of Cleopatra, the licentious queen of Egypt, and therefore one of his subject sovereigns as master of the East, was no match for the cunning, abstemious, and remorseless Octavianus. Defeated at the battle of Actium (2d September B. C. 31), he fled with Cleopatra to Egypt, where, being hard pressed by Octavianus, they both died by their own hands. Octavianus thus remained sole master (B. C. 30) of the great Empire which Julius Cæsar had prepared for him; and under the new name of Augustus, he continued to wield the sovereignty during the long period of forty-four years (B. C. 30-A. D. 14). During these forty-four years, the various races and nations which so many centuries of conquest had connected together, became consolidated into that historic entity—​‘The Roman Empire.’

CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE UNDER AUGUSTUS.

The Roman Empire under Augustus consisted of Italy and the following countries governed as provinces:—​In Europe, Sicily, Sardinia, and the other islands in the west of the Mediterranean, Gaul as far as the Rhine, Spain, Illyricum, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, and the islands of the Ægean; in Asia, all the countries between the Caspian Sea, the Parthian Empire, the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, the Mediterranean, and the Caucasus; and in Africa, Mauritania, Numidia, the ancient territory of Carthage, Cyrene, and Egypt. Within these limits there may have been included, in all, about 100,000,000 of human beings, of different races, complexions, languages, and degrees of civilization. Not less than one-half of the whole number must have been in a condition of slavery, and of the rest, only that small proportion who, under the envied name of Roman citizens, inhabited Italy, or were distributed, in official or other capacities, through the cities of the Empire, enjoyed political independence. These ‘citizens,’ diffused through the conquered countries, constituted the ingredient by which the whole was kept in union. Working backwards and forwards in the midst of the various populations in which they were thus planted, the Romans assimilated them gradually to each other, till Celts, Spaniards, Asiatics, etc., became more or less Romanized. This process of assimilation was much facilitated by the circumstance that, with the exception of Judea and other portions of the East, all the nations of the Roman Empire were polytheistic in their beliefs, so that there was no fundamental repugnance in this respect between the modes of thought of one nation and those of another. In fact, the Roman Empire may be defined as a compulsory assemblage of polytheistic nations, in order that Christianity might operate over a large surface at once of that polytheism which it was to destroy and supersede. In the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Augustus, and while that prince was ruling with undisturbed sway over 100,000,000 of fellow-polytheists, there took place in that small monotheistic corner of his dominions which lay on the southern border of the Levant, an event, the importance of which the wisest of the Romans could not have foreseen. This was the birth, in an obscure Jewish town, of Jesus Christ. From that town, and from that obscure corner of the vast Roman Empire, was to proceed an influence which was to overspread the polytheistic nations, eat out or dissolve into itself all existing creeds and philosophies, and renovate the thoughts, the habits, the whole constitution of mankind. Waiting for this influence, the various nations—​Celts, Greeks, Spaniards, etc.,—​were submitted to the preliminary pressure of Roman institutions, modifying, and in some cases changing, their native characters. The eastern half of the Empire, however, had been too thoroughly impregnated with the Greek element to yield easily to the new pressure; and accordingly while the Latin language spread among the barbarians of the west, Greek still continued to be the language of the East. This demarcation between the western or Latin-speaking and the eastern or Greek-speaking portions of the Empire became exceedingly important afterwards.

Of this vast empire Rome was the metropolis, now a city of innumerable streets and buildings, and containing, it is calculated, a population of about two millions and a half. From Rome roads branched out in all directions leading to the other towns of Italy, and passing through the villa-studded estates of the rich Roman citizens. From the coasts of Italy, the Mediterranean afforded an easy access to the various provinces, by whose industry the metropolis and Italy itself were in a great measure supported. The provinces themselves were traversed by roads connecting town with town, and laying all parts of the Empire open to the civil and military functionaries of government. Usually residing at Rome, the will of the emperor vibrated through a hierarchy of intermediate functionaries, so as to be felt throughout the whole of his vast dominions. In effect, this will was absolute. In Augustus, as in Julius Cæsar, all the great offices of state, which had so long subsisted as mutual checks upon each other, were united, so as to confer on him power of the most unlimited description. The senate still met, but only as a judicial body in cases of treason, or legislatively to pass the decrees which Augustus had previously matured with a few private counselors; and the comitia were still held, but only to elect candidates already nominated by the emperor. In this system of absolute dominion in the hands of a single individual, the Romans cheerfully acquiesced, partly from experience of the superior nature of the government thus exercised to the wretched anarchy from which they had escaped, and partly in consequence of the hopelessness of revolt against a man who had the entire military force of the Empire at his disposal. In Rome and Italy, the public peace was preserved by the prætorian cohorts—​bodies of soldiers of tried valor, to whom Augustus gave double pay. Throughout the provinces, the people were kept in check by the regular troops, who were accumulated, however, principally in the frontier provinces of the Empire, where they might both maintain tranquillity among the recently-conquered populations, and resist the attacks of the barbarian races beyond. The provinces where military force was required, Augustus retained in his own hands, administering them through legates appointed by himself, usually for several years; the others he intrusted to the senate, who named governors for a single year.

The cities of the Empire were the centres of Roman influence. It was in them that the Roman citizens were congregated, that schools were established, and that the various agencies of civilization operated most uniformly. In the rustic populations of the provinces, the national individuality was preserved with the national language. It was part of the policy of Augustus to found cities in the choicest situations in the provinces; and so rapid was the spread of the Roman civilization during his reign, that Roman writers and orators of note began to be produced even in remote parts of the Empire. The Greek language and literature began also to penetrate the provinces of the west, and to find students among the Celts and Spaniards.

THE SUCCESS OF AUGUSTUS—​DISSEMINATION OF CHRISTIANITY—​DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE.

During a period of nearly three centuries after the death of Augustus, the Empire remained, so far as political arrangements were concerned, pretty nearly as he had left it; and the history of Rome during these centuries is little more than an account of the personal characters of the successive emperors. Some of these seem to have been specimens of the utmost depravity to which human nature could attain; others were men of great mind, and worthy of their station. At first, the Empire was inherited as a birthright by those who could claim descent from Augustus; but in the end, the real patrons of the sovereign dignity were the armies, and especially the prætorian cohorts. To raise favorite generals to the purple, and afterwards to murder them for the sake of the donations which it was customary to receive in the case of a new accession, became the pastime of the various armies; and sometimes it happened that there were several emperors at the same time, different armies throughout the Empire having each appointed one. The effect of these military appointments was to raise to the highest dignity of the state men born at a distance from Rome, and who, spending their lives in the camp, entertained no affection for the city of the Cæsars. Meanwhile, under all the emperors alike, the great family of nations incorporated under the Roman rule were daily advancing towards that condition out of which modern society was to arise. The reader, however, must imagine for himself the toil and bustle of the successive generations of Celts, Spaniards, Greeks, Africans, and Asiatics, who were born and buried during these three important centuries in which modern civilization was cradled; all that we can give here is a chronological list of the emperors during that period:—

Augustus,	from	30	B. C.	to 14	A. D.
Tiberius,	“	14	A. D.	to 37	“
Caligula,	“	38	“	41	“
Claudius,	“	41	“	54	“
Nero,	“	54	“	68	“
Galba, Otho, Vitellius,	“	68	“	70	“
Vespasian,	“	70	“	79	“
Titus,	“	79	“	81	“
Domitian,	“	81	“	96	“
Nerva,	“	96	“	98	“
Trajan,	“	98	“	117	“
Hadrian,	“	117	“	138	“
Antonius Pius,	“	138	“	161	“
Marcus Antoninus,	“	161	“	180	“
Commodus,	“	180	“	192	“
Pertinax,	“	193
Septimius Severus	“	193	“	211	“
Caracalla,	“	211	“	217	“
Heliogabalus,	“	218	“	222	“
Alexander Severus,	“	222	“	235	“
Julius Maximinus,	“	235	“	238	“
Gordian,	“	238	“	243	“
Philip,	“	243	“	249	“
Decius,	“	249	“	251	“
Gallus,	“	251	“	253	“
Valerian and Gallienus,	“	253	“	260	“
Gallienus,	“	261	“	268	“
Aurelius,	“	268	“	270	“
Aurelianus,	“	270	“	275	“
Tacitus,	“	275	“	276	“
Florian,	“	276
Probus,	“	276	“	282	“
Carus,	“	282	“	284	“
Diocletian & Maximian,	“	284	“	305	“

The only facts connected with the reigns of these emperors which need be noticed here are, that in the reign of Claudius, Britain was added to the Roman dominion; that under the great Trajan, the Empire was still farther extended; and that under Caracalla, the Roman franchise was extended to all the free inhabitants of the Empire. The vices of such emperors as Caligula, Nero, Commodus, Caracalla, and Heliogabalus, may pass unnoticed, as may also the military achievements of some of the later emperors. The reign of Diocletian, however (A. D. 248–305), constitutes an epoch in the history of the Empire. Finding the unwieldy mass too great for the administration of a single individual, he divided it between himself and his colleague Maximian, assigning to Maximian the western or Latin-speaking nations, and retaining the East in his own hands. Under each emperor there was to be a royal personage called Cæsar, who was to govern part of that emperor’s section of the Empire, and afterwards succeed him in the chief dignity. This arrangement did not last long; and after various subdivisions of the Empire, and struggles between emperors and Cæsars, the whole was reunited under Constantine the Great (A. D. 306–337). Under this remarkable man Christianity was established as the religion of the Empire.

During the three centuries which had elapsed between the crucifixion of Christ—​which took place in the nineteenth year of the reign of Tiberius—​and the accession of Constantine to the supreme government of the whole Empire, the new religion had been silently but surely spreading itself; first among the Jews, then among the Greek or eastern, and lastly among the Latin or western Gentiles. It had been subjected to numerous persecutions, some local, and others general, over the whole Empire; but had, nevertheless, made such progress, that it is calculated that in Constantine’s reign about a twentieth part of the whole population of the Empire were professed Christians, while even over the nineteen-twentieths who continued in polytheism, the indirect influence of Christianity had been immense. Led to embrace Christianity himself, although with a considerable tincture of polytheistic superstition, Constantine gave his imperial recognition to the already fully-organized ecclesiastical system of the Christians, with its churches, presbyters, bishops, metropolitans. The civil ban having thus been removed from the profession of Christianity, it began to prevail in form, as it already did in fact, over the heterogeneous polytheism of the Empire.

Another important act of Constantine’s reign, besides his proclamation of toleration for Christianity (A. D. 321), was his removal of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople. Not long after this was effected, Constantine died at the age of sixty, leaving the Empire divided among his three sons. One of them, Constantius, ultimately acquired the whole, and transmitted it to his successors; but in the year 395, Theodosius, one of these successors, effected a permanent separation between the East and the West. From that date, the history of Rome divides itself into two distinct histories—​that of the Western or Latin and that of the Eastern or Greek empire. The latter protracted its existence till A. D. 1453, when Constantinople was taken by the Turks: the former crumbled to pieces much earlier, before the attacks of the northern barbarians, who finally destroyed it in 476.

DOWNFALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE.

From an early period, the Empire had been assailed on its northern frontier by the German and Sclavonian races living east of the Rhine and north of the Danube. Partly by force, and partly by negotiation, the authorities of the Empire had been able to keep these barbarian populations in check; but towards the end of the fourth century, the growing decrepitude of the Empire tempted invasion, and hordes of barbarians from Scandinavia, Russia, and Tartary, rolled themselves toward the Danube. At first, it seemed as if the eastern empire would be the first to fall before them; but the tide of invasion was at length decisively diverted towards the west. Province after province was torn away by Goths, Alans, Huns, Vandals, and others: Italy itself was ravaged several times; and at length, A. D. 476, Romulus Augustus, the last sovereign, was dethroned, and Italy became a prey to the Germans. The various steps in this gradual disintegration of the Empire, the heroic deeds of the two chief agents in the dismemberment—​Alaric, king of the Goths, and Attila, king of the Huns—​and the gradual formation of Romano-Germanic kingdoms out of fragments of the shattered Roman society, cannot here be detailed.