Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 16)

J. A. Froude, Cæsar, chapter 26.

ROME: B. C. 44. The genius and character of Cæsar. His rank among great men.

"Was Cæsar, upon the whole, the greatest of men? Dr. Beattie once observed, that if that question were left to be collected from the suffrages already expressed in books, and scattered throughout the literature of all nations, the scale would be found to have turned prodigiously in Cæsar's favor, as against any single competitor; and there is no doubt whatsoever, that even amongst his own countrymen, and his own contemporaries, the same verdict would have been returned, had it been collected upon the famous principle of Themistocles, that he should be reputed the first, whom the greatest number of rival voices had pronounced the second."

T. De Quincey, The Cæsars, chapter 1.

"The founder of the Roman Empire was a very great man. With such genius and such fortune it is not surprising that he should be made an idol. In intellectual stature he was at least an inch higher than his fellows, which is in itself enough to confound all our notions of right and wrong. He had the advantage of being a statesman before he was a soldier, whereas Napoleon was a soldier before he was a statesman. His ambition coincided with the necessity of the world, which required to be held together by force; and, therefore, his Empire endured for four hundred, or, if we include its Eastern offset, for fourteen hundred years, while that of Napoleon crumbled to pieces in four. But unscrupulous ambition was the root of his character. It was necessary, in fact, to enable him to trample down the respect for legality which still hampered other men. To connect him with any principle seems to me impossible. He came forward, it is true, as the leader of what is styled the democratic party, and in that sense the empire which he founded may be called democratic. But to the gamblers who brought their fortunes to that vast hazard table, the democratic and aristocratic parties were merely rouge and noir. The social and political equity, the reign of which we desire to see, was, in truth, unknown to the men of Cæsar's time. It is impossible to believe that there was an essential difference of principle between one member of the triumvirate and another. The great adventurer had begun by getting deeply into debt, and had thus in fact bound himself to overthrow the republic. He fomented anarchy to prepare the way for his dictatorship. He shrank from no accomplice however tainted, not even from Catiline; from no act however profligate or even cruel. … The noblest feature in Cæsar's character was his clemency. But we are reminded that it was ancient, not modern clemency, when we find numbered among the signal instances of it his having cut the throats of the pirates before he hanged them, and his having put to death without torture (simplici morte punivit) a slave suspected of conspiring against his life. Some have gone so far as to speak of him as the incarnation of humanity. But in the whole history of Roman conquest will you find a more ruthless conqueror? A million of Gauls we are told perished by the sword. Multitudes were sold into slavery. The extermination of the Eburones went to the verge even of ancient licence. The gallant Vercingetorix, who had fallen into Cæsar's hands under circumstances which would have touched any but a depraved heart, was kept by him a captive for six years, and butchered in cold blood on the day of the triumph. The sentiment of humanity was then undeveloped. Be it so, but then we must not call Cæsar the incarnation of humanity. Vast plans are ascribed to Cæsar at the time of his death, and it seems to be thought that a world of hopes for humanity perished when he fell. But if he had lived and acted for another century, what could he have done with those moral and political materials but found, what he did found, a military and sensualist empire. A multitude of projects are attributed to him by writers, who, we must remember, are late, and who make him ride a fairy charger with feet like the hands of a man. Some of these projects are really great, such as the codification of the law, and measures for the encouragement of intellect and science; others are questionable, such as the restoration of commercial cities from which commerce had departed; others, great works to be accomplished by an unlimited command of men and money, are the common dreams of every Nebuchadnezzar. … Still Cæsar was a very great man, and he played a dazzling part, as all men do who come just at the fall of an old system, when society is as clay in the hands of the potter, and found a new system in its place; while the less dazzling task of making the new system work, by probity and industry, and of restoring the shattered allegiance of a people to its institutions, descends upon unlaurelled heads. But that the men of his time were bound to recognise in him a Messiah, to use the phrase of the Emperor of the French, and that those who opposed him were Jews crucifying their Messiah is an impression which I venture to think will in time subside."

Goldwin Smith, The Last Republicans of Rome (Macmillan's Magazine, April, 1868).

ALSO IN: T. Arnold, History of the Later Roman Commonwealth, chapter 9 (volume 2).

A. Trollope, Life of Cicero, volume 2, chapter 8.

{2698}

ROME: B. C. 44. After Cæsar's death. Flight of "the Liberators." Mark Antony in power.- Arrival and wise conduct of Cæsar's heir, the young Octavius.

The assassins of Cæsar were not long in discovering that Rome gave no applause to their bloody deed. Its first effect was a simply stupefying consternation. The Senators fled,—the forum and the streets were nearly emptied. When Brutus attempted an harangue his hearers were few and silent. In gloomy alarm, he made haste, with his associates, to take refuge on the heights of the capitol. During the night which followed, a few senators, who approved the assassination—Cicero among the number—climbed the hill and held council with them in their place of retreat. The result was a second attempt made, on the following day, to rouse public feeling in their favor by speeches in the forum. The demonstration was again a failure, and the "liberators," as they wished to be deemed, returned with disappointment to the capitol. Meantime, the surviving consul, who had been Cæsar's colleague for the year, M. Antonius—known more commonly as Mark Antony—had acted with vigor to secure power in his own hands. He had taken possession of the great treasure which Cæsar left, and had acquired his papers. He had come to a secure understanding, moreover, with Lepidus, Cæsar's Master of Horse, who controlled a legion quartered near by, and who really commanded the situation, if his energy and his abilities had been equal to it. Lepidus marched his legion into the city, and its presence preserved order. Yet, with all the advantage in their favor, neither Antony nor Lepidus took any bold attitude against Cæsar's murderers. On the contrary, Antony listened to propositions from them and consented, as consul, to call a meeting of the Senate for deliberation on their act. At that meeting he even advocated what might be called a decree of oblivion, so far as concerned the striking down of Cæsar, and a confirmation of all the acts executed and unexecuted, of the late Imperator. These had included the recent appointment of Brutus, Cassius and other leaders among the assassins to high proconsular commands in the provinces. Of course the proposed measure was acceptable to them and their friends, while Antony, having Cæsar's papers in his possession, expected to gain everything from it. Under cover of the blank confirmation of Cæsar's acts, he found in Cæsar's papers a ground of authority for whatever he willed to do, and was accused of forging without limit where the genuine documents failed him. At the same time, taking advantage of the opportunity that was given to him by a public funeral decreed to Cæsar, he delivered an artful oration, which infuriated the people and drove the bloodstained "liberators" in terror from the city. But in many ways Antonius weakened the strong position which his skilful combinations had won for him. In his undisguised selfishness he secured no friends of his own; he alienated the friends of Cæsar by his calm indifference to the crime of the assassins of Cæsar, while he harvested for himself the fruits of it; above all, he offended and insulted the people by his impudent appropriation of Cæsar's vast hoard of wealth. The will of the slain Imperator had been read, and it was known that he had bequeathed three hundred sesterces—nearly £3 sterling, or $15—to every citizen of Rome. The heir named to the greater part of the estate was Cæsar's favorite grand-nephew (grandson of his younger sister, Julia) Caius Octavius, who became, by the terms of the will, his adopted son, and who was henceforth to bear the name Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus. The young heir, then but eighteen years of age, was at Apollonia, in Illyria, at the quarters of a considerable force which Cæsar had assembled there. With wonderful coolness and prudence for his age, he declined proposals to lead the army to Rome, for the assertion of his rights, but went quietly thither with a few friends, feeling the public pulse as he journeyed. At Rome he demanded from Antony the moneys which Cæsar had left, but the profligate and reckless consul had spent them and would give no account. By great exertions Octavius raised sufficient means on his own account to pay Cæsar's legacy to the Roman citizens, and thereby he consolidated a popular feeling in his own favor, against Antony, which placed him, at once, in important rivalry with the latter. It enabled him presently to share the possession of power with Antony and Lepidus, in the Second Triumvirate, and, finally, to seize the whole sovereignty which Cæsar intended to bequeath to him.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapters 23-24.

ALSO IN: G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapter 34.

ROME: B. C. 44-42. Destruction of the Liberators. Combination of Antony, Octavius and Lepidus. The Second Triumvirate.

Mark Antony's arrangement of peace with the murderers of Cæsar, on the basis of a confirmation in the Senate of all Cæsar's acts, gave to Marcus Brutus the government of Macedonia, to Decimus Brutus that of Cisalpine Gaul, and to Cassius that of Syria, since Cæsar had already named them to those several commands before they slew him. But Antony succeeded ere long in procuring decrees from the Senate, transferring Macedonia to his brother, and Syria to Dolabella. A little later he obtained a vote of the people giving Cisalpine Gaul to himself, and cancelling the commission of Decimus Brutus. His consular term was now near its expiration and he had no intention to surrender the power he had enjoyed. An army in northern Italy would afford the support which his plans required. But, before those plans were ripe, his position had grown exceedingly precarious. The Senate and the people were alike unfriendly to him, and alike disposed to advance Octavius in opposition. The latter, without office or commission, had already, in the lawless manner of the time, by virtue of the encouragement given to him, collected an army of several legions under his personal banner. Decimus Brutus refused to surrender the government of Gaul, and was supported by the best wishes of the Senate in defying Antony to wrest it from him. The latter now faced the situation boldly, and, although two legions brought from Epirus went over to Octavius, he collected a strong force at Ariminum, marched into Cisalpine Gaul and blockaded Decimus Brutus in Mutina (modern Modena). Meantime, new consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, had taken office at Rome, and the Senate, led by Cicero, had declared its hostility to Antony. {2699} Octavius was called upon to join the new consuls with his army, in proceeding against the late consul—now treated as a public enemy, though not so pronounced. He did so, and two battles were fought, on the 15th of April, B. C. 43, at Forum Gallorum, and on the 27th of the same month under the walls of Mutina, which forced Antony to retreat, but which cost Rome the lives of both her consuls. Antony retired across the Alps and joined his old friend Lepidus in Transalpine Gaul. Octavius declined to follow. Instead of doing so, he sent a military deputation to Rome to demand the consulship, and quickly followed it with his army when the demand had been refused. The demonstration proved persuasive, and he was elected consul, with his half-brother for colleague. His next business was to come to terms with Antony and Lepidus, as against the Liberators and their friends. A conference was arranged, and the three new masters of Rome met in October, B. C. 43, on an island near Bononia (modern Bologna), constituting themselves a commission of three—a triumvirate —to settle the affairs of the commonwealth. They framed a formal contract of five years' duration; divided the powers of government between themselves; named officials for the subordinate places; and—most serious proceeding of all—prepared a proscription list, as Sulla had done, of enemies to be put out of the way. It was an appalling list of 300 senators (the immortal Cicero at their head) and 2,000 knights. When the work of massacre in Rome and Italy had been done, and when the terrified Senate had legalized the self-assumed title and authority of the triumvirs, these turned their attention to the East, where M. Brutus and Cassius had established and maintained themselves in power. Decimus Brutus was already slain, after desertion by his army and capture in attempted flight. In the summer of the year 42 B. C., Antony led a division of the joint army of the triumvirate across the sea and through Macedonia, followed soon after by Octavius with additional forces. They were met at Philippi, and there, in two great battles, fought with an interval of twenty days between, the republic of Rome was finally done to death. "The battle of Philippi, in the estimation of the Roman writers, was the most memorable conflict in their military annals. The numbers engaged on either side far exceed all former experience. Eighty thousand legionaries alone were counted on the one side, and perhaps 120,000 on the other—at least three times as many as fought at Pharsalia." Both Cassius and Brutus died by their own hands. There was no more opposition to the triumvirs, except from Sextus Pompeius, last survivor of the family of the great Pompeius, who had created for himself at sea a little half-piratical realm, and who forced the three to recognize him for a time as a fourth power in the Roman world. But he, too, perished, B. C. 35. For seven years, from B. C. 42 to B. C. 36, Antony ruled the East, Octavius the West, and Lepidus reigned in Africa.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapters 24-28.

ALSO IN: C. Merivale, The Fall of the Roman Republic, chapter 15.

ROME: B. C. 31. The victory of Octavius at Actium. The rise of the Empire.

The battles of Philippi, which delivered the whole Roman world to Antony, Octavius and Lepidus (the Triumvirs), were fought in the summer of 42 B. C. The battle of Actium, which made Octavius—soon to be named Augustus—the single master of a now fully founded Empire, was fought on the 2d of September, B. C. 31. In the interval of eleven years, Octavius, governing Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the West, had steadily consolidated and increased his power, gaining the confidence, the favor and the fear of his subject people. Antony, oppressing the East, had consumed his energies and his time in dalliance with Cleopatra, and had made himself the object of hatred and contempt. Lepidus, who had Africa for his dominion to begin with, had measured swords with Octavius and had been summarily deposed, in the year 36 B. C. It was simply a question of time as to when Antony, in his turn, should make room for the coming monarch. Already, in the year after Philippi, the two sovereign-partners had been at the verge of war. Antony's brother and his wife, Fulvia, had raised a revolt in Italy against Octavius, and it had been crushed at Perusia, before Antony could rouse himself to make a movement in support of it. He did make a formidable demonstration at last; but the soldiers of the two rivals compelled them on that occasion to patch up a new peace, which was accomplished by a treaty negotiated at Brundisium and sealed by the marriage of Antony to Octavia, sister of Octavius. This peace was maintained for ten years, while the jealousies and animosities of the two potentates grew steadily more bitter. It came to an end when Octavius felt strong enough to defy the superior resources, in money, men and ships, which Antony held at his command. The preparations then made on both sides for the great struggle were stupendous and consumed a year. It was by the determination of Antony that the war assumed chiefly a naval character; but Octavius, not Antony, forced the sea-fight when it came. His smaller squadrons sought and attacked the swarming fleets of Egypt and Asia, in the Ambracian gulf, where they had been assembled. The great battle was fought at the inlet of the gulf, off the point, or "acte," of a tongue of land, projecting from the shores of Acarnania, on which stood a temple to Apollo, called the Actium. Hence the name of the battle. The cowardly flight of Cleopatra, followed by Antony, ended the conflict quickly, and the Antonian fleet was entirely destroyed. The deserted army, on shore, which had idly watched the sea-fight, threw down its arms, when the flight of Antonius was known. Before Octavius pursued his enemy into Egypt and to a despairing death, he had other work to do, which occupied him for nearly a year. But he was already sure of the sole sovereignty that he claimed. The date of the battle of Actium "has been formally recorded by historians as signalizing the termination of the republic and the commencement of the Roman monarchy."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 28.

{2700}

ROME: B. C. 31-A. D. 14. The settlement of the Empire by the second Cæsar, Octavius, called Augustus. His organization of government.

"Power and repute had passed away from the old forms of the Republic. The whole world lay at the feet of the master of many legions; it remained only to define the constitutional forms in which the new forces were to work. But to do this was no easy task. The perplexities of his position, the fears and hopes that crossed his mind, are thrown into dramatic form by the historian Dion Cassius, who brings a scene before our fancy in which Octavianus listens to the conflicting counsels of his two great advisers, Agrippa and Mæcenas. … There is little doubt that schemes of resignation were at some time discussed by the Emperor and by his circle of advisers. It is even possible, as the same writer tells us, that he laid before the Senators at this time some proposal to leave the helm of state and let them guide it as of old. … The scene, if ever really acted, was but an idle comedy. … It is more probable that he was content with some faint show of resistance when the Senate heaped their honours on his head, as afterwards when, more than once, after a ten years' interval, they solemnly renewed the tenure of his power. But we cannot doubt his sincerity in one respect—in his wish to avoid the kingly title and all the odious associations of the same. … He shrank also from another title, truly Roman in its character, but odious since the days of Sulla; and though the populace of Rome, when panic-struck by pestilence and famine, clamoured to have him made dictator, … yet nothing would induce him to bear the hateful name. But the name of Cæsar he had taken long ago, after his illustrious uncle's death, and this became the title first of the dynasty and then of the imperial office.

See CÆSAR, THE TITLE.

Besides this he allowed himself to be styled Augustus, a name which roused no jealousy and outraged no Roman sentiment, yet vaguely implied some dignity and reverence from its long association with the objects of religion. …

See AUGUSTUS, THE TITLE.

With this exception he assumed no new symbol of monarchic power, but was satisfied with the old official titles, which, though charged with memories of the Republic, yet singly corresponded to some side or fragment of absolute authority. The first of these was Imperator, which served to connect him with the army. … The title of the tribunician power connected the monarch with the interests of the lower orders. … The Emperor did not, indeed, assume the tribunate, but was vested with the tribunician power which overshadowed the annual holders of the office. It made his person sacred. … The 'princeps senatus' in old days had been the foremost senator of his time. … No one but the Emperor could fill this position safely, and he assumed the name henceforth to connect him with the Senate, as other titles seemed to bind him to the army and the people. For the post of Supreme Pontiff, Augustus was content to wait awhile, until it passed by death from the feeble hands of Lepidus. He then claimed the exclusive tenure of the office, and after this time Pontifex Maximus was always added to the long list of imperial titles. … Besides these titles to which he assumed an exclusive right he also filled occasionally and for short periods most of the republican offices of higher rank, both in the capital and in the country towns. He took from time to time the consular power, with its august traditions and imposing ceremonial. The authority of censor lay ready to his hands when a moral reform was to be set on foot, … or when the Senate was to be purged of unworthy members and the order of equites or knights to be reviewed and its dignity consulted. Beyond the capital the pro-consular power was vested in him without local limitations. … The offices of state at Rome, meantime, lasted on from the Republic to the Empire, unchanged in name, and with little seeming change of functions. Consuls, Prætors, Quæstors, Tribunes, and Ædiles rose from the same classes as before, and moved for the most part in the same round of work, though they had lost for ever their power of initiative and real control. … They were now mainly the nominees of Cæsar, though the forms of popular election were still for a time observed. … The consulship was entirely reserved for his nominees, but passed rapidly from hand to hand, since in order to gratify a larger number it was granted at varying intervals for a few months only. … It was part of the policy of Augustus to disturb as little as possible the old names and forms of the Republic. … But besides these he set up a number of new offices, often of more real power, though of lower rank. … The name præfectus, the 'préfêt' of modern France, stood in earlier days for the deputy of any officer of state charged specially to execute some definite work. The præfects of Cæsar were his servants, named by him and responsible to him, set to discharge duties which the old constitution had commonly ignored. The præfect of the city had appeared in shadowy form under the Republic to represent the consul in his absence. Augustus felt the need, when called away from Rome, to have some one there whom he could trust to watch the jealous nobles and control the fickle mob. His trustiest confidants, Mæcenas and Agrippa, filled the post, and it became a standing office, with a growing sphere of competence, overtopping the magistracies of earlier date. The præfects of the prætorian cohorts first appeared when the Senate formally assigned a body-guard to Augustus later in his reign. …

See PRÆTORIAN PRÆFECTS.

Next to these in power and importance came the præfects of the watch—the new police force organised by Augustus as a protection against the dangers of the night, and of the corn supplies of Rome, which were always an object of especial care on the part of the imperial government. … The title 'procurator,' which has come down to us in the form of 'proctor,' was at first mainly a term of civil law, and was used for a financial agent or attorney. The officers so called were regarded at the first as stewards of the Emperor's property or managers of his private business. … The agents of the Emperor's privy purse throughout the provinces were called by the same title, but were commonly of higher rank and more repute. Such in its bare outline was the executive of the imperial government. We have next to see what was the position of the Senate. … It was one of the first cares of Augustus to restore its credit. At the risk of odium and personal danger he more than once revised the list, and purged it of unworthy members, summoning eminent provincials in their place. … The functions also of the Senate were in theory enlarged. … But the substance of power and independence had passed away from it forever. Matters of great moment were debated first, not in the Senate House, but in a sort of Privy Council formed by the trusted advisers of the Emperor. … {2701} If we now turn our thoughts from the centre to the provinces we shall find that the imperial system brought with it more sweeping changes and more real improvement. … Augustus left to the Senate the nominal control of the more peaceful provinces, which needed little military force. … The remaining countries, called imperial provinces, were ruled by generals, called 'legati,' or in some few cases by proctors only. They held office during the good pleasure of their master. … There are signs that the imperial provinces were better ruled, and that the transference of a country to this class from the other was looked upon as a real boon, and not as an empty honour. Such in its chief features was the system of Augustus. … This was his constructive policy, and on the value of this creative work his claims to greatness must be based."

W. W. Capes, Roman History: The Early Empire, chapter 1.

"The arrangement undoubtedly satisfied the requirements of the moment. It saved, at least in appearance, the integrity of the republic, while at the same time it recognised and legalised the authority of the man, who was already by common consent 'master of all things'; and this it effected without any formal alteration of the constitution, without, the creation of any new office, and by means of the old constitutional machinery of senate and assembly. But it was an arrangement avowedly of an exceptional and temporary character. The powers voted to Augustus were, like those voted to Pompey in 67 B. C., voted only to him, and, with the exception of the tribunician power, voted only for a limited time. No provision was made for the continuance of the arrangement, after his death, in favour of any other person. And though in fact the powers first granted to Augustus were granted in turn to each of the long line of Roman Cæsars, the temporary and provisional character impressed upon the 'principate' at its birth clung to it throughout. When the princeps for the time being died or was deposed, it was always in theory an open question whether any other citizen should be invested with the powers he had held. Who the man should be, or how he should be chosen, were questions which it was left to circumstances to answer, and even the powers to be assigned to him were, strictly speaking, determined solely by the discretion of the senate and people in each case. It is true that necessity required that some one must always be selected to fill the position first given to Augustus; that accidents, such as kinship by blood or adoption to the last emperor, military ability, popularity with the soldiers or the senate, determined the selection; and that usage decided that the powers conferred upon the selected person should be in the main those conferred upon Augustus. But to the last the Roman emperor was legally merely a citizen whom the senate and people had freely invested with an exceptional authority for special reasons. Unlike the ordinary sovereign, he did not inherit a great office by an established law of succession; and in direct contrast to the modern maxim that 'the king never dies,' it has been well said that the Roman 'principate,' died with the princeps. Of the many attempts made to get rid of this irregular, intermittent character, none were completely successful, and the inconveniences and dangers resulting from it are apparent throughout the history of the empire."

H. F. Pelham, Outlines of Roman History, book 5, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: W. T. Arnold, The Roman System of Provincial Administration, chapter 3.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapters 30-34 (volume 3-4).

ROME: B. C. 16-15 Conquest of Rhætia.

See RHÆTIA.

ROME: B. C. 12-9. Campaigns of Drusus in Germany.

See GERMANY: B. C. 12-9.

ROME: B. C. 8-A. D. 11. Campaigns of Tiberius in Germany.

See GERMANY: B. C. 8-A. D. 11.

ROME: A. D. 14-16. Campaigns of Germanicus in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 14-16.

ROME: A. D. 14-37. Reign of Tiberius. Increasing vices and cruelties of his rule. Campaigns of Germanicus in Germany. His death. The Delatores and their victims. Malignant ascendancy of Sejanus. The Prætorians quartered at Rome.

Augustus had one child only, a daughter, Julia, who was brought to him by his second wife Scribonia; but on his last marriage, with Livia, divorced wife of Tiberius Claudius Nero (divorced by his command), he had adopted her two sons, Tiberius and Drusus. He gave his daughter Julia in marriage, first, to his nephew, Marcellus, the son of his sister Octavia, by her first husband, C. Marcellus. But Marcellus soon died, without offspring, and Julia became the spouse of the emperor's friend and counsellor, Agrippa, to whom she bore three sons, Caius, Lucius, and Agrippa Posthumus (all of whom died before the end of the life of Augustus), and two daughters. Thus the emperor was left with no male heir in his own family, and the imperial succession fell to his adopted son Tiberius—the eldest son of his wife Livia and of her first husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero. There were suspicions that Livia had some agency in bringing about the several deaths which cleared her son's way to the throne. When Augustus died, Tiberius was "in his 56th year, or at least at the close of the 55th. … He had by this time acquired a perfect mastery in dissembling his lusts, and his mistrust. … He was anxious to appear as a moral man, while in secret he abandoned himself to lusts and debaucheries of every kind. … In accordance with this character, Tiberius now played the farce which is so admirably but painfully described by Tacitus; he declined accepting the imperium, and made the senate beg and intreat him to accept it for the sake of the public good. In the end Tiberius yielded, inasmuch as he compelled the senate to oblige him to undertake the government. This painful scene forms the beginning of Tacitus' Annals. The early part of his reign is marked by insurrections among the troops in Pannonia and on the Rhine. … Drusus [the son of Tiberius] quelled the insurrection in Illyricum, and Germanicus [the emperor's nephew, son of his brother Drusus, who had died in Germany, B. C. 9], that on the Rhine; but, notwithstanding this, it was in reality the government that was obliged to yield. … The reign of Tiberius, which lasted for 23 years, that is till A. D. 37, is by no means rich in events; the early period of it only is celebrated for the wars of Germanicus in Germany. … The war of Germanicus was carried into Germany as far as the river Weser [see GERMANY. A. D. 14-16], and it is surprising to see that the Romans thought it necessary to employ such numerous armies against tribes which had no fortified towns. … {2702} The history of his reign after the German wars becomes more and more confined to the interior and to his family. He had an only son, Drusus, by his first wife Agrippina; and Germanicus, the son of his brother Drusus, was adopted by him. Drusus must have been a young man deserving of praise; but Germanicus was the adored darling of the Roman people, and with justice: he was the worthy son of a worthy father, the hero of the German wars. … Germanicus had declined the sovereignty, which his legions had offered to him after the death of Augustus, and he remained faithful to his adopted father, although he certainly could not love him. Tiberius, however, had no faith in virtue, because he himself was destitute of it; he therefore mistrusted Germanicus, and removed him from his victorious legions." He sent him "to superintend the eastern frontiers and provinces. On his arrival there he was received with the same enthusiasm as at Rome; but he died very soon afterwards, whether by a natural death or by poison is a question upon which the ancients themselves are not agreed. … In the reign of Augustus, any offence against the person of the imperator had, by some law with which we are not further acquainted, been made a 'crimen majestatis,' as though it had been committed against the republic itself. This 'crimen' in its undefined character was a fearful thing; for hundreds of offences might be made to come within the reach of the law concerning it. All these deplorable cases were tried by the senate, which formed a sort of condemning machine set in motion by the tyrant, just like the national convention under Robespierre. … In the early part of Tiberius' reign, these prosecutions occurred very rarely; but there gradually arose a numerous class of denouncers ('delatores'), who made it their business to bring to trial anyone whom the emperor disliked."

See DELATION.—DELATORS).

This was after the death of the emperor's mother, Livia, whom he feared, and who restrained his worst propensities. After her influence was removed, "his dark and tyrannical nature got the upper hand: the hateful side of his character became daily more developed, and his only enjoyment was the indulgence of his detestable lust. … His only friend was Aelius Sejanus, a man of equestrian rank. … His character bore the greatest resemblance to that of his sovereign, who raised him to the office of præfectus praetorio. … Sejanus increased the number of the praetorian cohorts, and persuaded Tiberius to concentrate them in the neighbourhood of Rome, in the 'castrum praetorianum,' which formed us it were the citadel outside the wall of Servius Tullius, but in the midst of the present city. The consequences of this measure render it one of the most important events in Roman history; for the praetorians now became the real sovereigns, and occupied a position similar to that which the Janissaries obtained in Algeria: they determined the fate of the empire until the reign of Diocletian. …

See PRÆTORIAN GUARDS.

The influence of Sejanus over Tiberius increased every day, and he contrived to inspire his imperial friend with sufficient confidence to go to the island of Capreae. While Tiberius was there indulging in his lusts, Sejanus remained at Rome and governed as his vicegerent. … Prosecutions were now instituted against all persons of any consequence at Rome; the time when Tiberius left the capital is the beginning of the fearful annals of his reign." The tyrannical proceedings of Sejanus "continued for a number of years, until at length he himself incurred the suspicion of Tiberius," and was put out of the way. "But a man worse even than he succeeded; this was Macro, who had none of the great qualities of Sejanus, but only analogous vices. … The butchery at Rome even increased. … Caius Caesar, the son of Germanicus, commonly known by the name of Caligula, formed with Macro a connexion of the basest kind, and promised him the high post of 'praefectus praetorio' if he would assist him in getting rid of the aged monarch. Tiberius was at the time severely ill at a villa near cape Misenum. He fell into a state of lethargy, and everybody believed him to be dead. He came to life again however; on which he was suffocated, or at least his death was accelerated in some way, for our accounts differ on this point. Thus Tiberius died in the 23d year of his reign, A. D. 37, at the age of 78."

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lectures 111-112 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: Tacitus, Annals, books 1-6.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapters 42-46 (volume 5).

ROME: A. D. 37-41. Reign of Caligula, the first of the imperial madmen.

Cains Cæsar, son of Germanicus, owed his nickname, Caligula, to the soldiers of his father's command, among whom he was a great favorite in his childhood. The name was derived from "Caliga," a kind of foot covering worn by the common soldiers, and is sometimes translated "Little Boots." "Having … secured the imperial power, he fulfilled by his elevation the wish of the Roman people, I may venture to say, of all mankind: for he had long been the object of expectation and desire to the greater part of the provincials and soldiers, who had known him when a child; and to the whole people of Rome, from their affection for the memory of Germanicus, his father, and compassion for the family almost entirely destroyed. … Immediately on his entering the city, by the joint acclamations of the senate, and people, who broke into the senate-house, Tiberius's will was set aside, it having left his other grandson, then a minor, coheir with him; the whole government and administration of affairs was placed in his hands; so much to the joy and satisfaction of the public that, in less than three months after, above 160,000 victims are said to have been offered in sacrifice. … To this extraordinary love entertained for him by his countrymen was added an uncommon regard by foreign nations. … Caligula himself inflamed this devotion by practising all the arts of popularity. … He published accounts of the proceedings of the government—a practice which had been introduced by Augustus, but discontinued by Tiberius. He granted the magistrates a full and free jurisdiction, without any appeal to himself. He made a very strict and exact review of the Roman knights, but conducted it with moderation; publicly depriving of his horse every knight who lay under the stigma of any thing base and dishonourable. … He attempted likewise to restore to the people their ancient right of voting in the choice of magistrates. … He twice distributed to the people a bounty of 300 sesterces a man, and as often gave a splendid feast to the senate and the equestrian order, with their wives and children. … {2703} He frequently entertained the people with stage-plays of various kinds, and in several parts of the city, and sometimes by night, when he caused the whole city to be lighted. … He likewise exhibited a great number of circensian games from morning until night; intermixed with the hunting of wild beasts from Africa. … Thus far we have spoken of him as a prince. What remains to be said of him bespeaks him rather a monster than a man. … He was strongly inclined to assume the diadem, and change the form of government from imperial to regal; but being told that he far exceeded the grandeur of kings and princes, he began to arrogate to himself a divine majesty. He ordered all the images of the gods which were famous either for their beauty or the veneration paid them, among which was that of Jupiter Olympius, to be brought from Greece, that he might take the heads off, and put on his own. Having continued part of the Palatium as far as the Forum, and the temple of Castor and Pollux being converted into a kind of vestibule to his house, he often stationed himself between the twin brothers, and so presented himself to be worshipped by all votaries; some of whom saluted him by the name of Jupiter Latialis. He also instituted a temple and priests, with choicest victims, in honour of his own divinity. … The most opulent persons in the city offered themselves as candidates for the honour of being his priests, and purchased it successively at an immense price. … In the day-time he talked in private to Jupiter Capitolinus; one while whispering to him, and another turning his ear to him. … He was unwilling to be thought or called the grandson of Agrippa, because of the obscurity of his birth. … He said that his mother was the fruit of an incestuous commerce maintained by Augustus with his daughter Julia. … He lived in the habit of incest with an his sisters. … Whether in the marriage of his wives, in repudiating them, or retaining them, he acted with greater infamy, it is difficult to say." Some senators, "who had borne the highest offices in the government, he suffered to run by his litter in their togas for several miles together, and to attend him at supper, sometimes at the head of his couch, sometimes at his feet, with napkins. Others of them, after he had privately put them to death, he nevertheless continued to send for, as if they were still alive, and after a few days pretended that they had laid violent hands upon themselves. … When flesh was only to be had at a high price for feeding his wild beasts reserved for the spectacles, he ordered that criminals should be given them to be devoured; and upon inspecting them in a row, while he stood in the middle of the portico, without troubling himself to examine their cases he ordered them to be dragged away, from 'bald-pate to bald-pate' [a proverbial expression, meaning, without distinction.—Translator's foot-note]. … After disfiguring many persons of honourable rank, by branding them in the face with hot irons, he condemned them to the mines, to work in repairing the high-ways, or to fight with wild beasts; or tying them, by the neck and heels, in the manner of beasts carried to slaughter, would shut them up in cages, or saw them asunder. … He compelled parents to be present at the execution of their sons. … He generally prolonged the sufferings of his victims by causing them to be inflicted by slight and frequently repeated strokes; this being his well-known and constant order: . Strike so that he may feel himself die.' … Being incensed at the people's applauding a party at the Circensian games in opposition to him, he exclaimed, 'I wish the Roman people had but one neck.' … He used also to complain aloud of the state of the times, because it was not rendered remarkable by any public calamities. … He wished for some terrible slaughter of his troops, a famine, a pestilence, conflagrations, or an earthquake. Even in the midst of his diversions, while gaming or feasting, this savage ferocity, both in his language and actions, never forsook him. Persons were often put to the torture in his presence, whilst he was dining or carousing. A soldier, who was an adept in the art of beheading, used at such times to take off the heads of prisoners, who were brought in for that purpose. … He never had the least regard either to the chastity of his own person, or that of others. … Besides his incest with his sisters … there was hardly any lady of distinction with whom he did not make free. … Only once in his life did he take an active part in military affairs. … He resolved upon an expedition into Germany. … There being no hostilities, he ordered a few Germans of his guard to be carried over and placed in concealment on the other side of the Rhine, and word to be brought him after dinner that an enemy was advancing with great impetuosity. This being accordingly done, he immediately threw himself, with his friends, and a party of the pretorian knights, into the adjoining wood, where, lopping branches from the trees, and forming trophies of them, he returned by torch-light, upbraiding those who did not follow him with timorousness and cowardice. … At last, as if resolved to make war in earnest, he drew up his army upon the shore of the ocean, with his balistæ and other engines of war, and while no one could imagine what he intended to do, on a sudden commanded them to gather up the sea shells, and fill their helmets and the folds of their dress with them, calling them 'the spoils of the ocean due to the Capitol and the Palatium.' As a monument of his success he raised a lofty tower. … He was crazy both in body and mind, being subject, when a boy, to the falling sickness. … What most of all disordered him was want of sleep, for he seldom had more than three or four hours' rest in a night; and even then his sleep was not sound."

Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars: Caligula (translated by A. Thomson).

ALSO IN: C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapters 47-48 (volume 5).

S. Baring-Gould, The Tragedy of the Cæsars, volume 2.

ROME: A. D. 41. The murder of Caligula. Elevation of Claudius to the throne by the Prætorians. Beginning of the domination of the soldiery.

"If we may believe our accounts, the tyrant's overthrow was due not to abhorrence of his crimes or indignation at his assaults on the Roman liberties, so much as to resentment at a private affront. Among the indiscretions which seem to indicate the partial madness of the wretched Caius, was the caprice with which he turned from his known foes against his personal friends and familiars. … No one felt himself secure, neither the freedmen who attended on his person, nor the guards who watched over his safety. {2704} Among these last was Cassius Chærea, tribune of a prætorian cohort, whose shrill woman's voice provoked the merriment of his master, and subjected him to injurious insinuations. Even when he demanded the watchword for the night the emperor would insult him with words and gestures. Chærea resolved to wipe out the affront in blood. He sought Callistus and others … and organized with them and some of the most daring of the nobles a plot against the emperor's life. … The festival of the Palatine games was fixed on for carrying the project into effect. Four days did Caius preside in the theatre, surrounded by the friends and guards who were sworn to slay him, but still lacked the courage. On the fifth and last, the 24th of January 794 [A. D. 41], feeling indisposed from the evening's debauch, he hesitated at first to rise. His attendants, however, prevailed on him to return once more to the shows; and as he was passing through the vaulted passage which led from the palace to the Circus, he inspected a choir of noble youths from Asia, who were engaged to perform upon the stage. … Caius was still engaged in conversation with them when Chærea and another tribune, Sabinus, made their way to him: the one struck him on the throat from behind with his sword, while the other was in the act of demanding the watchword. A second blow cleft the tyrant's jaw. He fell, and drawing his limbs together to save his body, still screamed, 'I live! I live!' while the conspirators thronging over him, and crying, 'again! again!' hacked him with thirty wounds. The bearers of his litter rushed to his assistance with their poles, while his body-guard of Germans struck wildly at the assassins, and amongst the crowd which surrounded them, killed, it was said, more than one senator who had taken no part in the affair. … When each of the conspirators had thrust his weapon into the mangled body, and the last shrieks of its agony had been silenced, they escaped with all speed from the corridor in which it lay; but they had made no dispositions for what was to follow, and were content to leave it to the consuls and senate, amazed and unprepared, to decide on the future destiny of the republic. … Some cohorts of the city guards accepted the orders of the consuls, and occupied the public places under their direction. At the same time the consuls, Sentins Saturninus and Pomponins Secundus, the latter of whom had been substituted for Caius himself only a few days before, convened the senate. … The first act of the sitting was to issue an edict in which the tyranny of Caius was denounced, and a remission of the most obnoxious of his taxes proclaimed, together with the promise of a donative to the soldiers. The fathers next proceeded to deliberate on the form under which the government should be henceforth administered. On this point no settled principles prevailed. Some were ready to vote that the memory of the Cæsars should be abolished, their temples overthrown, and the free state of the Scipios and Catos restored; others contended for the continuance of monarchy in another family, and among the chiefs of nobility more than one candidate sprang up presently to claim it. The debate lasted late into the night; and in default of any other specific arrangement, the consuls continued to act as the leaders of the commonwealth. … But while the senate deliberated, the prætorian guards had resolved. … In the confusion which ensued on the first news of the event, several of their body had flung themselves furiously into the palace, and begun to plunder its glittering chambers. None dared to offer them any opposition; the slaves and freedmen fled or concealed themselves. One of the inmates, half hidden behind a curtain in an obscure corner, was dragged forth with brutal violence; and great was the intruders' surprise when they recognised him as Claudius, the long despised and neglected uncle of the murdered emperor. He sank at their feet almost senseless with terror: but the soldiers in their wildest mood still respected the blood of the Cæsars, and instead of slaying or maltreating the suppliant, the brother of Germanicus, they hailed him, more in jest perhaps than earnest, with the title of Imperator, and carried him off to their camp. … In the morning, when it was found that the senate had come to no conclusion, and that the people crowding about its place of meeting were urging it with loud cries to appoint a single chief, and were actually naming him as the object of their choice, Claudius found courage to suffer the prætorians to swear allegiance to him, and at the same time promised them a donative of 15,000 sesterces apiece. … The senators assembled once again in the temple of Jupiter; but now their numbers were reduced to not more than a hundred, and even these met rather to support the pretensions of certain of their members, who aspired to the empire … than to maintain the cause of the ancient republic. But the formidable array of the prætorians, who had issued from their camp into the city, and the demonstrations of the popular will, daunted all parties in the assembly. … Presently the Urban cohorts passed over, with their officers and colours, to the opposite side. All was lost; the prætorians, thus reinforced, led their hero to the palace, and there he commanded the senate to attend upon him. Nothing remained but to obey and pass the decree, which had now become a formal act of investiture, by which the name and honours of Imperator were bestowed upon the new chief of the commonwealth. Such was the first creation of an emperor by the military power of the prætorians. … Surrounded by drawn swords Claudius had found courage to face his nephew's murderers, and to vindicate his authority to the citizens, by a strong measure of retribution, in sending Chærea and Lupus, with a few others of the blood-embrued, to immediate execution. … Claudius was satisfied with this act of vigour, and proceeded, with a moderation but little expected, to publish an amnesty for all the words and acts of the late interregnum. Nevertheless for thirty days he did not venture to come himself into the Curia. … The personal fears, indeed, of the new emperor contributed, with a kindly and placable disposition, to make him anxious to gain his subjects' good-will by the gentleness and urbanity of his deportment. … His proclamation of amnesty was followed by the pardon of numerous exiles and criminals, especially such as were suffering under sentence for the crime of majestas. … The popularity of the new prince, though manifested, thanks to his own discretion, by no such grotesque and impious flatteries as attended on the opening promise of Caius, was certainly not less deeply felt. … {2705} The confidence indeed of the upper classes, after the bitter disappointment they had so lately suffered, was not to be so lightly won. The senate and knights might view their new ruler with indulgence, and hope for the best; but they had been too long accustomed to regard him as proscribed from power by constitutional unfitness, as imbecile in mind, and which was perhaps in their estimation even a worse defect, as misshapen and half-developed in physical form, to anticipate from him a wise or vigorous administration. … In another rank he would have been exposed perhaps in infancy; as the son of Drusus and Antonia he was permitted to live: but he became from the first an object of disgust to his parents, who put him generally out of their sight, and left him to grow up in the hands of hirelings without judgment or feeling. … That the judgment of one from whom the practical knowledge of men and things had been withheld was not equal to his learning, and that the infirmities of his body affected his powers of decision, his presence of mind, and steadfastness of purpose, may easily be imagined: nevertheless, it may be allowed that in a private station, and anywhere but at Rome, Claudius would have passed muster as a respectable, and not, perhaps, an useless member of society. The opinion which is here given of this prince's character may possibly be influenced in some degree by the study of his countenance in the numerous busts still existing, which represent it as one of the most interesting of the whole imperial series. If his figure, as we are told, was tall, and when sitting appeared not ungraceful, his face, at least in repose, was eminently handsome. But it is impossible not to remark in it an expression of pain and anxiety which forcibly arrests our sympathy. It is the face of an honest and well-meaning man, who feels himself unequal to the task imposed upon him. … There is the expression of fatigue both of mind and body, which speaks of midnight watches over books, varied with midnight carouses at the imperial table, and the fierce caresses of rival mistresses. There is the glance of fear, not of open enemies, but of pretended friends; the reminiscence of wanton blows, and the anticipation of the deadly potion. Above all, there is the anxious glance of dependence, which seems to cast about for a model to imitate, for ministers to shape a policy, and for satellites to execute it. The model Claudius found was the policy of the venerated Augustus; but his ministers were the most profligate of women, and the most selfish of emancipated slaves. … The commencement of the new reign was marked by the renewed activity of the armies on the frontiers."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapters 48-49 (volume 5).

ALSO IN: W. W. Capes, The Early Empire, chapters 3-4.

ROME: A. D. 42-67. St. Peter and the Roman Church: The question.

See PAPACY: ST. PETER AND THE CHURCH AT ROM[E.

ROME: A. D. 43-53. Conquests of Claudius in Britain.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 43-53.

ROME: A. D. 47-54. The wives of Claudius, Messalina and Agrippina. Their infamous and terrible ascendancy. Murder of the emperor. Advent of Nero.

The wife of Claudius was "Valeria Messalina, the daughter of his cousin Barbatus Messala, a woman whose name has become proverbial for infamy. His most distinguished freedmen were the eunuch Posidus; Felix, whom he made governor of Judæa, and who had the fortune to be the husband of three queens; and Callistus, who retained the power which he had acquired under Caius. But far superior in point of influence to these were the three secretaries (as we may term them), Polybius, Narcissus, and Pallas. … The two last were in strict league with Messalina; she only sought to gratify her lusts; they longed for honours, power, and wealth. … Their plan, when they would have anyone put to death, was to terrify Claudius … by tales of plots against his life. … Slaves and freedmen were admitted as witnesses against their masters; and, though Claudius had sworn, at his accession, that no freeman should be put to the torture, knights and senators, citizens and strangers, were tortured alike. … Messalina now set no bounds to her vicious courses. Not content with being infamous herself, she would have others so; and she actually used to compel ladies to prostitute themselves even in the palace, and before the eyes of their husbands, whom she rewarded with honours and commands, while she contrived to destroy those who would not acquiesce in their wives' dishonour." At length (A. D. 48) she carried her audacity so far as to go publicly through a ceremony of marriage with one of her lovers. This nerved even the weak Claudius to resolution, and she was put to death. The emperor then married his niece, Julia Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus. "The woman who had now obtained the government of Claudius and the Roman empire was of a very different character from the abandoned Messalina. The latter had nothing noble about her; she was the mere bond-slave of lust, and cruel and avaricious only for its gratification; but Agrippina was a woman of superior mind, though utterly devoid of principle. In her, lust was subservient to ambition; it was the desire of power, or the fear of death, and not wantonness, that made her submit to the incestuous embraces of her brutal brother Caius, and to be prostituted to the companions of his vices. It was ambition and parental love that made her now form an incestuous union with her uncle. … The great object of Agrippina was to exclude Britannicus [the son of Claudius by Messalina], and obtain the succession for her own son, Nero Domitius, now a boy of twelve years of age. She therefore caused Octavia [daughter of Claudius] to be betrothed to him, and she had the philosopher Seneca recalled from Corsica, whither he had been exiled by the arts of Messalina, and committed to him the education of her son, that he might be fitted for empire. In the following year (51) Claudius, yielding to her influence, adopted him." But, although Britannicus was thrust into the background and treated with neglect, his feeble father began after a time to show signs of affection for him, and Agrippina, weary of waiting and fearful of discomfiture, caused poison to be administered to the old emperor in his food (A. D. 54). "The death of Claudius was concealed till all the preparations for the succession of Nero should be made, and the fortunate hour marked by the astrologers be arrived. He then (October 13) issued from the palace, … and, being cheered by the cohort which was on guard, he mounted a litter and proceeded to the camp. He addressed the soldiers, promising them a donative, and was saluted emperor. The senate and provinces acquiesced without a murmur in the will of the guards. Claudius was in his 64th year when he was poisoned."

T. Keightley, History of the Roman Empire, part 1, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: C. Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, chapter 50 (volume 5).

Tacitus, Annals, books 11-12.

{2706}

ROME: A. D. 54-64. The atrocities of Nero. The murder of his mother. The burning of the city.

"Nero … was but a variety of the same species [as Caligula]. He also was an amateur, and an enthusiastic amateur, of murder. But as this taste, in the most ingenious hands, is limited and monotonous in its modes of manifestation, it would be tedious to run through the long Suetonian roll-call of his peccadilloes in this way. One only we shall cite, to illustrate the amorous delight with which he pursued any murder which happened to be seasoned highly to his taste by enormous atrocity, and by almost unconquerable difficulty. … For certain reasons of state, as Nero attempted to persuade himself, but in reality because no other crime had the same attractions of unnatural horror about it, he resolved to murder his mother Agrippina. This being settled, the next thing was to arrange the mode and the tools. Naturally enough, according to the custom then prevalent in Rome, he first attempted the thing by poison. The poison failed: for Agrippina, anticipating tricks of this kind, had armed her constitution against them, like Mithridates; and daily took potent antidotes and prophylactics. Or else (which is more probable) the emperor's agent in such purposes, fearing his sudden repentance and remorse, … had composed a poison of inferior strength. This had certainly occurred in the case of Britannicus, who had thrown off with ease the first dose administered to him by Nero," but who was killed by a second more powerful potion. "On Agrippina, however, no changes in the poison, whether of kind or strength, had any effect; so that, after various trials, this mode of murder was abandoned, and the emperor addressed himself to other plans. The first of these was some curious mechanical device, by which a false ceiling was to have been suspended by bolts above her bed; and in the middle of the night, the bolt being suddenly drawn, a vast weight would have descended with a ruinous destruction to all below. This scheme, however, taking air from the indiscretion of some amongst the accomplices, reached the ears of Agrippina. … Next, he conceived the idea of an artificial ship, which, at the touch of a few springs, might fall to pieces in deep water. Such a ship was prepared, and stationed at a suitable point. But the main difficulty remained, which was to persuade the old lady to go on board." By complicated stratagems this was brought about. "The emperor accompanied her to the place of embarkation, took a most tender leave of her, and saw her set sail. It was necessary that the vessel should get into deep water before the experiment could be made; and with the utmost agitation this pious son awaited news of the result. Suddenly a messenger rushed breathless into his presence, and horrified him by the joyful information that his august mother had met with an alarming accident; but, by the blessing of Heaven, had escaped safe and sound, and was now on her road to mingle congratulations with her affectionate son. The ship, it seems, had done its office; the mechanism had played admirably; but who can provide for everything? The old lady, it turned out, could swim like a duck; and the whole result had been to refresh her with a little sea-bathing. Here was worshipful intelligence. Could any man's temper be expected to stand such continued sieges? … Of a man like Nero it could not be expected that he should any longer dissemble his disgust, or put up with such repeated affronts. He rushed upon his simple congratulating friend, swore that he had come to murder him, and as nobody could have suborned him but Agrippina, he ordered her off to instant execution. And, unquestionably, if people will not be murdered quietly and in a civil way, they must expect that such forbearance is not to continue for ever; and obviously have themselves only to blame for any harshness or violence which they may have rendered necessary. It is singular, and shocking at the same time, to mention, that, for this atrocity, Nero did absolutely receive solemn congratulations from all orders of men. With such evidences of base servility in the public mind, and of the utter corruption which they had sustained in their elementary feelings, it is the less astonishing that he should have made other experiments upon the public patience, which seem expressly designed to try how much it would support. Whether he were really the author of the desolating fire which consumed Rome for six days and seven nights [A. D. 64], and drove the mass of the people into the tombs and sepulchres for shelter, is yet a matter of some doubt. But one great presumption against it, founded on its desperate imprudence, as attacking the people in their primary comforts, is considerably weakened by the enormous servility of the Romans in the case just stated: they who could volunteer congratulations to a son for butchering his mother (no matter on what pretended suspicions), might reasonably be supposed incapable of any resistance which required courage, even in a case of self-defence or of just revenge. … The great loss on this memorable occasion was in the heraldic and ancestral honours of the city. Historic Rome then went to wreck for ever. Then perished the 'domus priscorum ducum hostilibus ad-huc spoliis adornatæ'; the 'rostral' palace; the mansion of the Pompeys; the Blenheims and the Strathfieldsayes of the Scipios, the Marcelli, the Paulli, and the Cæsars; then perished the aged trophies from Carthage and from Gaul; and, in short, as the historian sums up the lamentable desolation, 'quidquid visendum atque memorabile ex antiquitate duraverat.' And this of itself might lead one to suspect the emperor's hand as the original agent; for by no one act was it possible so entirely and so suddenly to wean the people from their old republican recollections. … In any other sense, whether for health or for the conveniences of polished life, or for architectural magnificence, there never was a doubt that the Roman people gained infinitely by this conflagration. For, like London, it arose from its ashes with a splendour proportioned to its vast expansion of wealth and population; and marble took the place of wood. For the moment, however, this event must have been felt by the people as an overwhelming calamity. {2707} And it serves to illustrate the passive endurance and timidity of the popular temper, and to what extent it might be provoked with impunity, that in this state of general irritation and effervescence Nero absolutely forbade them to meddle with the ruins of their own dwellings—taking that charge upon himself, with a view to the vast wealth which he anticipated from sifting the rubbish."

T. De Quincey, The Cæsars chapter 3.

ALSO IN: Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars: Nero.

Tacitus, Annals, books 13-16.

S. Baring-Gould, The Tragedy of the Cæsars, volume 2.

ROME: A. D. 61. Campaigns of Suetonius Paulinus in Britain.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 61.

ROME: A. D. 64-68. The first persecution of Christians. The fitting end of Nero.

"Nero was so secure in his absolutism, he had hitherto found it so impossible to shock the feelings of the people or to exhaust the terrified adulation of the Senate, that he was usually indifferent to the pasquinades which were constantly holding up his name to execration and contempt. But now [after the burning of Rome] he felt that he had gone too far, and that his power would be seriously imperilled if he did not succeed in diverting the suspicions of the populace. He was perfectly aware that when the people in the streets cursed those who set fire to the city, they meant to curse him. If he did not take some immediate step he felt that he might perish, as Gaius [Caligula], had perished before him, by the dagger of the assassin. It is at this point of his career that Nero becomes a prominent figure in the history of the Church. It was this phase of cruelty which seemed to throw a blood-red light over his whole character, and led men to look on him as the very incarnation of the world-power in its most demoniac aspect—as worse than the Antiochus Epiphanes of Daniel's Apocalypse—as the Man of Sin whom (in language figurative, indeed, yet awfully true) the Lord should slay with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. For Nero endeavoured to fix the odious crime of having destroyed the capital of the world upon the most innocent and faithful of his subjects—upon the only subjects who offered heartfelt prayers on his behalf—the Roman Christians. … Why he should have thought of singling out the Christians, has always been a curious problem, for at this point St. Luke ends the Acts of the Apostles, perhaps purposely dropping the curtain, because it would have been perilous and useless to narrate the horrors in which the hitherto neutral or friendly Roman Government began to play so disgraceful a part. Neither Tacitus, nor Suetonius, nor the Apocalypse, help us to solve this particular problem. The Christians had filled no large space in the eye of the world. Until the days of Domitian we do not hear of a single noble or distinguished person who had joined their ranks. … The slaves and artisans, Jewish and Gentile, who formed the Christian community at Rome, had never in any way come into collision with the Roman Government. … That the Christians were entirely innocent of the crime charged against them was well known both at the time and afterwards. But how was it that Nero sought popularity and partly averted the deep rage which was rankling in many hearts against himself, by torturing men and women, on whose agonies he thought that the populace would gaze not only with a stolid indifference, but even with fierce satisfaction? Gibbon has conjectured that the Christians were confounded with the Jews, and that the detestation universally felt for the latter fell with double force upon the former. Christians suffered even more than the Jews because of the calumnies so assiduously circulated against them, and from what appeared to the ancients to be the revolting absurdity of their peculiar tenets. 'Nero,' says Tacitus, 'exposed to accusation, and tortured with the most exquisite penalties, a set of men detested for their enormities, whom the common people called Christians. Christus, the founder of this sect, was executed during the reign of Tiberius by the Procurator Pontius Pilate, and the deadly superstition, suppressed for a time, began to burst out once more, not only throughout Judaea, where the evil had its root, but even in the City, whither from every quarter all things horrible or shameful are drifted, and find their votaries.' The lordly disdain which prevented Tacitus from making any inquiry into the real views and character of the Christians, is shown by the fact that he catches up the most baseless allegations against them. … The masses, he says, called them 'Christians;' and while he almost apologises for staining his page with so vulgar an appellation, he merely mentions in passing, that, though innocent of the charge of being turbulent incendiaries, on which they were tortured to death, they were yet a set of guilty and infamous sectaries, to be classed with the lowest dregs of Roman criminals. But the haughty historian throws no light on one difficulty, namely, the circumstances which led to the Christians being thus singled out. The Jews were in no way involved in Nero's persecution. … The Jews were by far the deadliest enemies of the Christians; and two persons of Jewish proclivities were at this time in close proximity to the person of the Emperor. One was the pantomimist Aliturus, the other was Poppaea, the harlot Empress. … If, as seems certain, the Jews had it in their power during the reign of Nero more or less to shape the whisper of the throne, does not historical induction drive us to conclude with some confidence that the suggestion of the Christians as scapegoats and victims came from them? … Tacitus tells us that 'those who confessed were first seized, and then on their evidence a huge multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of incendiarism as for their hatred to mankind.' Compressed and obscure as the sentence is, Tacitus clearly means to imply by the 'confession' to which he alludes the confession of Christianity; and though he is not sufficiently generous to acquit the Christians absolutely of all complicity in the great crime, he distinctly says that they were made the scapegoats of a general indignation. The phrase—'a huge multitude'—is one of the few existing indications of the number of martyrs in the first persecution, and of the number of Christians in the Roman Church. When the historian says that they were convicted on the charge of 'hatred against mankind' he shows how completely he confounds them with the Jews, against whom he elsewhere brings the accusation of 'hostile feelings towards all except themselves.' Then the historian adds one casual but frightful sentence—a sentence which flings a dreadful light on the cruelty of Nero and the Roman mob. {2708} He adds, 'And various forms of mockery were added to enhance their dying agonies. Covered with the skins of wild beasts, they were doomed to die by the mangling of dogs, or by being nailed to crosses; or to be set on fire and burnt after twilight by way of nightly illumination. Nero offered his own gardens for this show, and gave a chariot race, mingling with the mob in the dress of a charioteer, or actually driving about among them. Hence, guilty as the victims were, and deserving of the worst punishments, a feeling of compassion towards them began to rise, as men felt that they were being immolated not for any advantage to the commonwealth, but to glut the savagery of a single man.' Imagine that awful scene, once witnessed by the silent obelisk in the square before St. Peter's at Rome! … Retribution did not linger, and the vengeance fell at once on the guilty Emperor and the guilty city. The air was full of prodigies. There were terrible storms; the plague wrought fearful ravages. Rumours spread from lip to lip. Men spoke of monstrous births; of deaths by lightning under strange circumstances; of a brazen statue of Nero melted by the flash; of places struck by the brand of heaven in fourteen regions of the city; of sudden darkenings of the sun. A hurricane devastated Campania; comets blazed in the heavens; earthquakes shook the ground. On all sides were the traces of deep uneasiness and superstitious terror. To all these portents, which were accepted as true by Christians as well as by Pagans, the Christians would give a specially terrible significance.… In spite of the shocking servility with which alike the Senate and the people had welcomed him back to the city with shouts of triumph, Nero felt that the air of Rome was heavy with curses against his name. He withdrew to Naples, and was at supper there on March 19, A. D. 68, the anniversary of his mother's murder, when he heard that the first note of revolt had been sounded by the brave C. Julius Vindex, Præfect of Farther Gaul. He was so far from being disturbed by the news, that he showed a secret joy at the thought that he could now order Gaul to be plundered. For eight days he took no notice of the matter. … At last, when he heard that Virginius Rufus had also rebelled in Germany, and Galba in Spain, he became aware of the desperate nature of his position. On receiving this intelligence he fainted away, and remained for some time unconscious. He continued, indeed, his grossness and frivolity, but the wildest and fiercest schemes chased each other through his melodramatic brain. … Meanwhile he found that the palace had been deserted by his guards, and that his attendants had robbed his chamber even of the golden box in which he had stored his poison. Rushing out, as though to drown himself in the Tiber, he changed his mind, and begged for some quiet hiding-place in which to collect his thoughts. The freedman Phaon offered him a lowly villa about four miles from the city. Barefooted, and with a faded coat thrown over his tunic, he hid his head and face in a kerchief, and rode away with only four attendants. … There is no need to dwell on the miserable spectacle of his end, perhaps the meanest and most pusillanimous which has ever been recorded. The poor wretch who, without a pang, had caused so many brave Romans and so many innocent Christians to be murdered, could not summon up resolution to die. … Meanwhile a courier arrived for Phaon. Nero snatched his despatches out of his hand, and read that the Senate had decided that he should be punished in the ancestral fashion as a public enemy. Asking what the ancestral fashion was, he was informed that he would be stripped naked and scourged to death with rods, with his head thrust into a fork. Horrified at this, he seized two daggers, and after theatrically trying their edges, sheathed them again, with the excuse that the fatal moment had not yet arrived! Then he bade Sporus begin to sing his funeral song, and begged some one to show him how to die. … The sound of horses' hoofs then broke on his ears, and, venting one more Greek quotation, he held the dagger to his throat. It was driven home by Epaphroditus, one of his literary slaves. … So died the last of the Cæsars! And as Robespierre was lamented by his landlady, so even Nero was tenderly buried by two nurses who had known him in the exquisite beauty of his engaging childhood, and by Acte, who had inspired his youth with a genuine love."

F. W. Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity, book 1, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: T. W. Allies, The Formation of Christendom, chapter 10 (volume 2).

ROME: A. D. 68-96. End of the Julian line. The "Twelve Cæsars" and their successors. A logical classification.

"In the sixth Caesar [Nero] terminated the Julian line. The three next princes in the succession were personally uninteresting; and, with a slight reserve in favor of Otho, … were even brutal in the tenor of their lives and monstrous; besides that the extreme brevity of their several reigns (all three, taken conjunctly, having held the supreme power for no more than twelve months and twenty days) dismisses them from all effectual station or right to a separate notice in the line of Caesars. Coming to the tenth in the succession, Vespasian, and his two sons, Titus and Domitian, who make up the list of the twelve Caesars, as they are usually called, we find matter for deeper political meditation and subjects of curious research. But these emperors would be more properly classed with the five who succeed them—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines; after whom comes the young ruffian, Commodus, another Caligula or Nero, from whose short and infamous reign Gibbon takes up his tale of the decline of the empire. And this classification would probably have prevailed, had not the very curious work of Suetonius, whose own life and period of observation determined the series and cycle of his subjects, led to a different distribution. But as it is evident that, in the succession of the first twelve Caesars, the six latter have no connection whatever by descent, collaterally, or otherwise, with the six first, it would be a more logical distribution to combine them according to the fortunes of the state itself, and the succession of its prosperity through the several stages of splendour, declension, revival, and final decay. Under this arrangement, the first seventeen would belong to the first stage; Commodus would open the second; Aurelian down to Constantine or Julian would fill the third; and Jovian to Agustulus would bring up the melancholy rear."

T. De Quincey, The Cæsars, chapter 3.

ROME: A. D. 69. Revolt of the Batavians under Civilis.

See BATAVIANS: A. D. 69.

{2709}

ROME: A. D. 69. Galba, Otho, Vitellius. Vespasian. The Vitellian conflict.

On the overthrow and death of Nero, June, A. D. 68, the veteran soldier Galba, proclaimed imperator by his legions in Spain, and accepted by the Roman senate, mounted the imperial throne. His brief reign was terminated in January of the following year by a sudden revolt of the prætorian guard, instigated by Salvius Otho, one of the profligate favorites of Nero, who had betrayed his former patron and was disappointed in the results. Galba was slain and Otho made emperor, to reign, in his turn, for a brief term of three months. Revolt against Otho was quick to show itself in the provinces, east and west. The legions on the Rhine set up a rival emperor, in the person of their commander, Aulus Vitellius, whose single talent was in gluttony, and who had earned by his vices the favor of four beastly rulers, from Tiberius to Nero, in succession. Gaul having declared in his favor, Vitellius sent forward two armies by different routes into Italy. Otho met them, with such forces as he could gather, at Bedriacum, between Verona and Cremona, and suffered there a defeat which he accepted as decisive. He slew himself, and Vitellius made his way to Rome without further opposition, permitting his soldiers to plunder the country as they advanced. But the armies of the east were not disposed to accept an emperor by the election of the armies of the west, and they, too, put forward a candidate for the purple. Their choice was better guided, for it fell on the sturdy soldier, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, then commanding in Judea. The advance corps of the forces supporting Vespasian (called "Flavians," or "Flavianites") entered Cisalpine Gaul from Illyricum in the autumn of 69, and encountered the Vitellians at Bedriacum, on the same field where the latter had defeated the Othonians a few weeks before. The Vitellians were defeated. Cremona, a flourishing Roman colony, which capitulated to the conquerors, was perfidiously given up to a merciless soldiery and totally destroyed,—one temple, alone, escaping. Vitellius, in despair, showed an eagerness to resign the throne, and negotiated his resignation with a brother of Vespasian, residing in Rome. But the mob of fugitive Vitellian soldiers which had collected in the capital interposed violently to prevent this abdication. Flavius Sabinus—the brother of Vespasian—took refuge, with his supporters, in the Capitolium, or temple of Jupiter, on the Capitoline Hill. But the sacred precincts were stormed by the Vitellian mob, the Capitol—the august sanctuary of Rome—was burned and Sabinus was slain. The army which had won the victory for Vespasian at Bedriacum, commanded by Antonius Primus, soon appeared at the gates of the city, to avenge this outrage. The unorganized force which attempted opposition was driven before it in worse disorder. Victors and vanquished poured into Rome together, slaughtering and being slaughtered in the streets. The rabble of the city joined in the bloody hunt, and in the plundering that went with it. "Rome had seen the conflicts of armed men in the streets under Sulla and Cinna, but never before such a hideous mixture of levity and ferocity." Vitellius was among the slain, his brief reign ending on the 21st of December, A. D. 69. Vespasian was still in the east, and did not enter Rome until the summer of the following year.

Tacitus, History, book 1-3.

ALSO IN: C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapters 56-57.

ROME: A. D. 70. Siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus.

See JEWS: A. D. 66-70.

ROME: A. D. 70-96. The Flavian family. Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian.

"Unfortunately Tacitus fails us … at this point, and this time completely. Nothing has been saved of his 'Histories' from the middle of the year 70, and we find ourselves reduced to the mere biographies of Suetonius, to the fragments of Dion, to the abridgments of Aurelius Victor and Eutropius. The majestic stream from which we have drawn and which flowed with brimming banks is now only a meagre thread of water. Of all the emperors Vespasian is the one who loses the most by this, for he was, says S. Augustine, a very good prince and very worthy of being beloved. He came into power at an age when one is no longer given to change, at 60 years. He had never been fond of gaming or debauchery, and he maintained his health by a frugal diet, even passing one day every month without eating. His life was simple and laborious. … He had no higher aim than to establish order in the state and in the finances; but he accomplished this, and if his principate, like all the others, made no preparations for the future, it did much for the present. It was a restorative reign, the effects of which were felt for several generations; this service is as valuable as the most brilliant victories. Following the example of the second Julius, the first of the Flavians resolved to seek in the senate the support of his government. This assembly, debased by so many years of tyranny, needed as much as it did a century before to be submitted to a severe revision. … Vespasian acted with resolution. Invested with the title of censor in 73, with his son Titus for colleague, he struck from the rolls of the two orders the members deemed unworthy, replaced them by the most distinguished persons of the Empire, and, by virtue of his powers as sovereign pontiff, raised several of them to the patriciate. A thousand Italian or provincial families came to be added to the 200 aristocratic families which had survived, and constituted with these the higher Roman society, from which the candidates for all civil, military, and religious functions were taken. … This aristocracy, borrowed by Vespasian from the provincial cities, where it had been trained to public affairs, where it had acquired a taste for economy, simplicity, and order, brought into Rome pure morals. … It will furnish the great emperors of the second century, the skilled lieutenants who will second them, and senators who will hereafter conspire only at long intervals. … To the senate, thus renewed and become the true representation of the Empire, Vespasian submitted all important matters. … Suetonius renders him this testimony, that it would be difficult to cite a single individual unjustly punished in his reign, at least unless it were in his absence or without his knowledge. He loved to dispense justice himself in the Forum. … The legions, who had made and unmade five emperors in two years, were no longer attentive to the ancient discipline. He brought them back to it. … The morals of the times were bad; he did more than the laws to reform them—he set good examples. … {2710} Augustus had raised two altars to Peace; Vespasian built a temple to her, in which he deposited the most precious spoils of Jerusalem; and … the old general closed, for the sixth time, the doors of the temple of Janus. He built a forum surrounded by colonnades, in addition to those already existing, and commenced, in the midst of the city, the vast amphitheatre, a mountain of stone, of which three-fourths remain standing to-day. … A colossal statue raised near by for Nero, but which Vespasian consecrated to the Sun, gave it its name, the Coliseum. … We have no knowledge of the wars of Vespasian, except that three times in the year 71 he assumed the title of 'imperator,' and three times again the following year. But when we see him making Cappadocia an imperial proconsular province with numerous garrisons to check the incursions which desolated it; and, towards the Danube, extending his influence over the barbarians even beyond the Borysthenes; when we read in Tacitus that Velleda, the prophetess of the Bructeri, was at that time brought a captive to Rome; that Cerialis vanquished the Brigantes and Frontinus the Silures, we must believe that Vespasian made a vigorous effort along the whole line of his outposts to impress upon foreign nations respect for the Roman name. … Here is the secret of that severe economy which appeared to the prodigal and light-minded a shameful stinginess. … Vespasian … was 69 years old, and was at his little house in the territory of Reate when he felt the approach of death. 'I feel that I am becoming a god,' he said to those around him, laughing in advance at his apotheosis. … 'An emperor,' he said, 'ought to die standing.' He attempted to rise and expired in this effort, on the 23rd of June, 79. The first plebeian emperor has had no historian, but a few words of his biographer suffice for his renown: 'rem publicam stabilivit et ornavit,' 'by him the State was strengthened and glorified.' … Vespasian being dead, Titus assumed the title of Augustus. … His father had prepared him for this by taking him as associate in the Empire; he had given to him the title of Cæsar, the censorship, the tribunitian power, the prefecture of the prætorium, and seven consulates. Coming into power at the age of maturity, rich in experience and satiated with pleasures by his very excesses, he had henceforth but one passion, that of the public welfare. At the outset he dismissed his boon companions; in his father's lifetime he had already sacrificed to Roman prejudices his tender sentiments for the Jewish queen Berenice, whom he had sent back to the East. In taking possession of the supreme pontificate he declared that he would keep his hands pure from blood, and he kept his word: no one under his reign perished by his orders." It was during the short reign of Titus that Herculaneum and Pompeii were overwhelmed by an eruption of Vesuvius (August 23, A. D. 79), while other calamities afflicted Italy. "Pestilence carried off thousands of people even in Rome [see PLAGUE: A. D. 78-266]; and at last a conflagration, which raged three days, consumed once more the Capitol, the library of Augustus, and Pompey's theatre. To Campania Titus sent men of consular rank with large sums of money, and he devoted to the relief of the survivors the property that had fallen to the treasury through the death of those who had perished in the disaster without leaving heirs. At Rome he took upon himself the work of repairing everything, and to provide the requisite funds he sold the furniture of the imperial palace. … This reign lasted only 26 months, from the 23rd of June, A. D. 79, to the 13th of September, A. D. 81. As Titus was about to visit his paternal estate in the Sabine territory he was seized by a violent fever, which soon left no hope of his recovery. There is a report that he partly opened the curtains of his litter and gazed at the sky with eyes full of tears and reproaches. 'Why,' he exclaimed, 'must I die so soon? In all my life I have, however, but one thing to repent.' What was this? No one knows." Titus was succeeded by his brother Domitian, then thirty years old. "The youth of Domitian had been worthy of the times of Nero, and he had wearied his father and brother by his intrigues. Nevertheless he was sober, to the extent of taking but one meal a day, and he had a taste for military exercises, for study and poetry, especially since the elevation of his family. Vespasian had granted him honours, but no power, and, at the death of Titus, he had only the titles of Cæsar and Prince of the Youth. In his hurry to seize at last that Empire so long coveted, he abandoned his dying brother to rush to Rome, to the camp of the prætorians. … On the day of their coronation there are few bad princes. Almost all begin well, but, in despotic monarchies, the majority end badly, particularly when the reigns are of long duration. … Domitian reigned 15 years, one year longer than Nero, and his reign reproduced the same story: at first it wise government, then every excess. Happily the excesses did not come till late. … Fully as vain as the son of Agrippina, Domitian heaped every title upon his own head and decreed deification to himself. His edicts stated: 'Our lord and our god ordains … ' The new god did not scorn vulgar honours. … He was consul 17 times, and 22 times did he have himself proclaimed 'imperator' for victories that had not always been gained. He recalled Nero too by his fondness for shows and for building. … There were several wars under Domitian, all defensive excepting the expedition against the Catti [see CHATTI], which was only a great civil measure to drive away the hostile marauders from the frontier. If Pliny the Younger and Tacitus are to be believed, these wars were like those which Caligula waged: Domitian's victories were defeats; his captives, purchased slaves; his triumphs, audacious falsehoods. Suetonius is not so severe. … Domitian's cruelty appeared especially, and perhaps we should say only, after the revolt of a person of high rank, Antonius Saturninus, who pretended to be a descendant of the triumvir. … He was in command of two legions in Germany whom he incited to revolt, and he called the Germans to his aid. An unexpected thaw stopped this tribe on the right bank of the Rhine, while Appius Norbanus Maximus, governor of Aquitania, crushed Antonius on the opposite shore. … This revolt must belong to the year 93, which, as Pliny says, is that in which Domitian's great cruelties began. … Domitian lived in a state of constant alarm; every sound terrified him, every man seemed to him an assassin, every occurrence was an omen of evil." He endured this life of gloomy terror for three years, when his dread forebodings were realized, and he was murdered by his own attendants, September 18, A. D. 96.