# The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Oxford)/II

Of the Union and Internal Prosperity of the Roman Empire in the Age of the Antonines
CHAPTER II
OF THE UNION AND INTERNAL PROSPERITY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES.
Principles of government.IT is not alone by the rapidity or extent of conquest that we should estimate the greatness of Rome. The sovereign of the Russian deserts commands a larger portion of the globe. In the seventh summer after his passage of the Hellespont, Alexander erected the Macedonian trophies on the banks of the Hyphasis. Within less than a century, the irresistible Zingis, and the mogul princes of his race, spread their cruel devastations and transient empire from the sea of China to the confines of Egypt and Germany. But the firm edifice of Roman power was raised and preserved by the wisdom of ages. The obedient provinces of Trajan and the Antonines were united by laws, and adorned by arts. They might occasionally suffer from the partial abuse of delegated authority; but the general principle of government was wise, simple, and beneficent. They enjoyed the religion of their ancestors, whilst in civil honours and advantages they were exalted, by just degrees, to an equality with their conquerors.
Universal spirit of toleration.I. The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious part of their subjects. The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true ; by the philosopher, as equally false ; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.
Of the people.The superstition of the people was not imbittered by any mixture of theological rancour ; nor was it con​CHAP. II. -----fined by the chains of any speculative system. The ' devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different religions of the earth. Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey, perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief, and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of the pagan mythology was interwoven with various, but not discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that sages and heroes, who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality; it was universally confessed, that they deserved, if not the adoration, at least the reverence of all mankind. The deities of a thousand groves and a thousand streams possessed, in peace, their local and respective influence ; nor could the Roman who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers of nature, the planets, and the elements, were the same throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative ; every art and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods of such opposite tempers and interest, required in every system the moderating hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of knowledge and flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime perfections of an eternal parent, and an omnipotent monarch. Such was the mild spirit of ​CHAP. II. -----antiquity, that the nations were less attentive to the difference, than to the resemblance of their religious worship. The Greek, the Roman, and the barbarian, as they met before their respective altars, easily persuaded themselves, that under various names, and with various ceremonies, they adored the same deities. The elegant mythology of Homer gave a beautiful, and almost a regular form to the polytheism of the ancient world.
Of philosophers.The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the nature of man, rather than from that of God. They meditated, however, on the divine nature, as a very curious and important speculation ; and in the profound enquiry they displayed the strength and weakness of the human understanding. Of the four most celebrated schools, the stoics and the platonists endeavoured to reconcile the jarring interests of reason and piety. They have left us the most sublime proofs of the existence and perfections of the first cause ; but, as it was impossible for them to conceive the creation of matter, the workman in the stoic philosophy was not sufficiently distinguished from the work ; whilst, on the contrary, the spiritual god of Plato and his disciples, resembled an idea rather than a substance. The opinions of the academics and epicureans were of a less religious cast ; but whilst the modest science of the former induced them to doubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny the providence of a supreme ruler. The spirit of enquiry, prompted by emulation, and supported by freedom, had divided the public teachers of philosophy into a variety of contending sects; but the ingenuous youth, who, from every part, resorted to Athens and the other seats of learn​CHAP. II. -----ing in the Roman empire, were alike instructed, in every school, to reject and to despise the religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it possible, that a philosopher should accept, as divine truths, the idle tales of the poets, and the incoherent traditions of antiquity; or, that he should adore as gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have despised as men! Against such unworthy adversaries, Cicero condescended to employ the arms of reason and eloquence; but the satire of Lucian was a much more adequate, as well as more efficacious weapon. We may be well assured, that a writer, conversant with the world, would never have ventured to expose the gods of his country to pubHc ridicule, had they not already been the objects of secret contempt among the polished and enlightened orders of society.
Notwithstanding the fashionable irreligion which prevailed in the age of the Antonines, both the interests of the priests and the credulity of the people were sufficiently respected. In their writings and conversation, the philosophers of antiquity asserted the independent dignity of reason ; but they resigned their actions to the commands of law and of custom. Viewing, with a smile of pity and indulgence, the various errors of the vulgar, they diligently practised the ceremonies of their fathers, devoutly frequented the temples of the gods ; and sometimes condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they concealed the sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal robes. Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely inclined to wrangle about their respective modes of faith or of worship. It was indifferent to them what shape the folly of the multitude might choose to assume; and they approached, with the same inward contempt and the same external reverence, the altars of the Libyan, the Olympian, or the capitoline Jupiter. ​CHAP. II. ----- Of the magistrate.It is not easy to conceive from what motives a spirit of persecution could introduce itself into the Roman councils. The magistrates could not be actuated by a blind, though honest bigotry, since the magistrates were themselves philosophers; and the schools of Athens had given law^s to the senate. They could not be impelled by ambition or avarice, as the tem-poral and ecclesiastical powers were united in the same hands. The pontiffs were chosen among the most illustrious of the senators; and the office of supreme pontiff was constantly exercised by the emperors themselves. They knew and valued the advantages of religion, as it is connected with civil government. They encouraged the public festivals, which humanize the manners of the people. They managed the arts of divination as a convenient instrument of policy; and they respected, as the firmest bond of society, the useful persuasion that, either in this or in a future life, the crime of perjury is most assuredly punished by the avenging gods. But whilst they acknowledged the general advantages of religion, they were convinced that the various modes of worship contributed alike to the same salutary purposes; and that, in every country, the form of superstition which had received the sanction of time and experience, was the best adapted to the climate and to its inhabitants. Avarice and taste very frequently despoiled the van-In the provinces.quished nations of the elegant statues of their gods, and the rich ornaments of their temples: but, in the exercise of the religion which they derived from their ancestors, they uniformly experienced the indulgence, and even protection, of the Roman conquerors. The province of Gaul seems, and indeed only seems, an exception to this universal toleration. Under the spe​CHAP. II. ----cious pretext of abolishing human sacrifices, the emperors Tiberius and Claudius suppressed the dangerous power of the druids: but the priests themselves, their gods and their altars, subsisted in peaceful obscurity till the final destruction of paganism.
At Home.Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled with subjects and strangers from every part of the world, who all introduced and enjoyed the favourite superstitions of their native country. Every city in the empire was justified in maintaining the purity of its ancient ceremonies; and the Roman senate, using the common privilege, sometimes interposed to check this inundation of foreign rites. The Egyptian superstition, of all the most contemptible and abject, was frequently prohibited; the temples of Serapis and Isis demolished, and their worshippers banished from Rome and Italy. But the zeal of fanaticism prevailed over the cold and feeble efforts of policy. The exiles returned, the proselytes multiplied, the temples were restored with increasing splendour, and Isis and Serapis at length assumed their place among the Roman deities. Nor was this indulgence a departure from the old maxims of government. In the purest ages of the commonwealth, Cybele and iEsculapius had been invited by solemn embassies; and it was customary to tempt the protectors of besieged cities, by the promise of more distinguished honours than they possessed in ​CHAP. II. -----their native country. Rome gradually became the common temple of her subjects ; and the freedom of the city was bestowed on all the gods of mankind.
Freedom of Rome.II. The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture, the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune, and hastened the ruin of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more prudent, as well as honourable, to adopt virtue and merit for her own wheresoever they were found, among slaves or strangers, enemies or barbarians. During the most flourishing era of the Athenian commonwealth, the number of citizens gradually decreased from about thirty to twenty-one thousand. If, on the contrary, we study the growth of the Roman republic, we may discover that, notwithstanding the incessant demands of wars and colonies, the citizens, who in the first census of Servius Tullius amounted to no more than eighty-three thousand, were multiplied, before the commencement of the social war, to the number of four hundred and sixty-three thousand men, able ^ to bear arms in the service of their country. When the allies of Rome claimed an equal share of honours and privileges, the senate indeed preferred the chance of arms to an ignominious concession. The Samnites and the Lucanians paid the severe penalty of their rashness; but the rest of the Itahan states, as they successively returned to their duty, were admitted into the bosom of the republic and soon contributed to the ruin of public freedom. Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sove​CHAP. II. -----reignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude. But when the popular assemblies had been suppressed by the administration of the emperors, the conquerors were distinguished from the vanquished nations, only as the first and most honourable order of subjects; and their increase, however rapid, was no longer exposed to the same dangers. Yet the wisest princes, who adopted the maxims of Augustus, guarded with the strictest care the dignity of the Roman name, and diffused the freedom of the city with a prudent liberahty.
Italy. Till the privileges of Romans had been progressively extended to all the inhabitants of the empire, an important distinction was preserved between Italy and the provinces. The former was esteemed the centre of public unity, and the firm basis of the constitution. Italy claimed the birth, or at least the residence, of the emperors and the senate. The estates of the Italians were exempt from taxes ; their persons from the arbitrary jurisdiction of governors. Their municipal corporations, formed after the perfect model of the capital, were intrusted, under the immediate eye of the supreme power, with the execution of the laws. From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial distinctions were obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into one great nation, united by language, manners, and civil institutions, and equal to the weight of a powerful empire. The republic gloried in her generous policy, and was frequently rewarded by the merit and services of her adopted sons. Had she always confined the distinction of Romans to the ancient families within the ​CHAP. II. -----walls of the city, that immortal name would have been deprived of some of its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native of Mantua ; Horace was inclined to doubt whether he should call himself an Apulian or a Lucanian ; it was in Padua that an historian was found worthy to record the majestic series of Roman victories. The patriot family of the Catos emerged from Tusculum; and the little town of Arpinum claimed the double honour of producing Marius and Cicero; the former of whom deserved, after Romulus and Camillus, to be styled the third founder of Rome ; and the latter, after saving his country from the designs of Catiline, enabled her to contend with Athens for the palm of eloquence.
The provinces.The provinces of the empire, (as they have been described in the preceding chapter,) were destitute of any public force, or constitutional freedom. In Etruria, in Greece, and in Gaul, it was the first care of the senate to dissolve those dangerous confederacies which taught mankind, that, as the Roman arms prevailed by division, they might be resisted by union. Those princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude or generosity permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were dismissed from their thrones, as soon as they had performed their appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations. The free states and cities which had embraced the cause of Rome, were rewarded with a nominal alliance, and insensibly sunk into real servitude. The public authority was everywhere exercised by the ministers of the senate and of the emperors, and that authority was absolute, and without control. But the same salutary maxims of government, which had secured the peace and obedience of Italy, were extended to the most distant con​CHAP. II. -----quests. A nation of Romans was gradually formed in the provinces, by the double expedient of introducing colonies, and of admitting the most faithful and deserving of the provincials to the freedom of Rome.
Colonies and municipal towns."Wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits," is a very just observation of Seneca, confirmed by history and experience. The natives of Italy, allured by pleasure or by interest, hastened to enjoy the advantages of victory; and we may remark, that, about forty years after the reduction of Asia, eighty thousand Romans were massacred in one day by the cruel orders of Mithridates. These voluntary exiles were engaged, for the most part, in the occupations of commerce, agriculture, and the farm of the revenue. But after the legions were rendered permanent by the emperors, the provinces were peopled by a race of soldiers; and the veterans, whether they received the reward of their service in land or in money, usually settled with their families in the country where they had honourably spent their youth. Throughout the empire, but more particularly in the western parts, the most fertile districts, and the most convenient situations, were reserved for the establishment of colonies; some of which were of a civil, and others of a military nature. In their manners and internal policy, the colonies formed a perfect representation of their great parent; and as they were soon endeared to the natives by the ties of friendship and alliance, they effectually diffused a reverence for the Roman name, and a desire, which was seldom disappointed, of sharing, in due time, its honours and advantages. The municipal cities insensibly equalled the rank and splendour of the colonies ; and in the reign of Hadrian, it was dis​CHAP. II. ---------puted which was the preferable condition, of those societies which had issued from, or those which had been received into the bosom of Rome. The risht of Latium, as it was called, conferred on the cities to which it had been granted, a more partial favour. The magistrates only, at the expiration of their office, assumed the quality of Roman citizens ; but as those offices were annual, in a few years they circulated round the principal families. Those of the provincials who were permitted to bear arms in the legions; those who exercised any civil employment; all, in a word, who performed any public service, or displayed any personal talents, were rewarded with a present, whose value was continually diminished by the hicreasing hberality of the emperors. Yet even in the age of the Antonines, when the freedom of the city had been bestowed on the greater number of their subjects, it was still accompanied with very solid advantages. The bulk of the people acquired, with that title, the benefit of the Roman laws, particularly in the interesting articles of marriage, testaments, and inheritances; and the road of fortune was open to those whose pretensions were seconded by favour or merit. The grandsons of the Gauls who had besieged Julius Caesar in Alesia, commanded legions, governed provinces, and were admitted into the senate of Rome. Their ambition, instead of disturbing the tranquillity of the state, was intimately connected with its safety and greatness.
Division of the Latin and the Greek provinces.So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over national manners, that it was their most serious care to extend, with the progress of their arms, ​CHAP. II. -----the use of the Latin tongue. The ancient dialects of Italy, the Sabine, the Etruscan, and the Venetian, sunk into oblivion; but in the provinces, the east was less docile than the west, to the voice of its victorious preceptors. This obvious difference marked the two portions of the empire with a distinction of colours, which, though it was in some degree concealed during the meridian splendour of prosperity, became gradually more visible, as the shades of night descended upon the Roman world. The western countries were civilized by the same hands which subdued them. As soon as the barbarians were reconciled to obedience, their minds were opened to any new impressions of knowledge and politeness. The language of Virgil and Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption, was so universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Pannonia, that the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms were preserved only in the mountains, or among the peasants. Education and study insensibly inspired the natives of those countries with the sentiments of Romans; and Italy gave fashions, as well as laws, to her Latin provincials. They solicited with more ardour, and obtained with more facility, the freedom and honours of the state ; supported the national dignity in letters and in arms ; and, at length, in the person of Trajan, produced an emperor whom the Scipios would not have disowned for their countryman. The situation of the Greeks was very different from that of the barbarians. The former had been long since civilized and corrupted. ​CHAP. II. -----They had too much taste to relinquish their language, and too much vanity to adopt any foreign institutions. Still preserving the prejudices, after they had lost the virtues of their ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolished manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled to respect their superior wisdom and power. Nor was the influence of the Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow limits of that once celebrated country. Their empire, by the progress of colonies and conquest, had been diffused from the Adriatic to the Euphrates and the Nile. Asia was covered with Greek cities ; and the long reign of the Macedonian kings had introduced a silent revolution into Syria and Egypt. In their pompous courts those princes united the elegance of Athens with the luxury of the east ; and the example of the court was imitated, at an humble distance, by the higher ranks of their subjects. Such was the general division of the Roman empire into the Latin and Greek languages. To these we may add a third distinction for the body of the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt. The use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of mankind, checked the improvements of those barbarians. The slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them to the contempt, the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited the aversion of the conquerors. Those nations had submitted to the Roman power, but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the city ; and it was remarked, that more than two hundred and thirty years elapsed after the ruin of the Ptolemies, before an Egyptian was admitted into the senate of Rome. ​CHAP. II. ------- General use of both languages. It is a just though trite observation, that victorious Rome was herself subdued by the arts of Greece. Those immortal writers who still command the admiration of modern Europe, soon became the favourite object of study and imitation in Italy and the western provinces. But the elegant amusements of the Romans were not suffered to interfere with their sound maxims of policy. Whilst they acknowledged the charms of the Greek, they asserted the dignity of the Latin tongue, and the exclusive use of the latter was inflexibly maintained in the administration of civil as well as mihtary government. The two languages exercised at the same time their separate jurisdiction throughout the empire : the former, as the natural idiom of science; the latter, as the legal dialect of public transactions. Those who united letters with business, were equally conversant with both; and it was almost impossible, in any province, to find a Roman subject, of a liberal education, who was at once a stranger to the Greek and to the Latin language.
Slaves.It was by such institutions that the nations of the empire insensibly melted away into the Roman name and people. But there still remained, in the centre of every province and of every family, an unhappy condition of men who endured the weight, without sharing the bene-Their treatment.fits of society. In the free states of antiquity, the domestic slaves were exposed to the wanton rigour of despotism. The perfect settlement of the Roman empire was preceded by ages of violence and rapine. The slaves consisted, for the most part, of barbarian captives, taken in thousands by the chance of war, purchased at a vile price, accustomed to a life of independence, and impatient to break and to revenge their fetters. Against such internal enemies, whose desperate insurrections had more than once reduced the republic to the brink ​of destruction, the most severe regulations, and the most cruel treatment, seemed almost justified by the great law of self-preservation. But when the principal nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa, were united under the laws of one sovereign, the source of foreign supplies flowed with much less abundance, and the Romans were reduced to the milder but more tedious method of propagation. In their numerous families, and particularly in their country estates, they encouraged the marriage of their slaves. The sentiments of nature, the habits of education, and the possession of a dependent species of property, contributed to alleviate the hardships of servitude. The existence of a slave became an object of greater value; and though his happiness still depended on the temper and circumstances of the master, the humanity of the latter, instead of being restrained by fear, was encouraged by the sense of his own interest. The progress of manners was accelerated by the virtue or policy of the emperors; and by the edicts of Hadrian and the Antonines, the protection of the laws was extended to the most abject part of mankind. The jurisdiction of life and death over the slaves, a power long exercised and often abused, was taken out of private hands, and reserved to the magistrates alone. The subterraneous prisons were abolished; and, upon a just complaint of intolerable treatment, the injured slave obtained either his deliverance, or a less cruel master.
Enfran­chisement.Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, was not denied to the Roman slave; and if he had any opportunity of rendering himself either useful or agreeable, he might very naturally expect that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would be rewarded with the ​CHAP. II. -----inestimable gift of freedom. The benevolence of the master was so frequently prompted by the meaner suggestions of vanity and avarice, that the laws found it more necessary to restrain than to encourage a profuse and undistinguishing liberality, which might degenerate into a very dangerous abuse. It was a maxim of ancient jurisprudence, that as a slave had not any country of his own, he acquired with his liberty an admission into the political society of which his patron was a member. The consequences of this maxim would have prostituted the privileges of the Roman city to a mean and promiscuous multitude. Some seasonable exceptions were therefore provided; and the honourable distinction was confined to such slaves only, as, for just causes, and with the approbation of the magistrate, should receive a solemn and legal manumission. Even these chosen freedmen obtained no more than the private rights of citizens, and were rigorously excluded from civil or military honours. Whatever might be the merit or fortune of their sons, they likewise were esteemed unworthy of a seat in the senate; nor were the traces of a servile origin allowed to be completely obliterated till the third or fourth generation. Without destroying the distinction of ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honours was presented, even to those whom pride and prejudice almost disdained to number among the human species.
Numbers. It was once proposed to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar habit; but it was justly apprehended that there might be some danger in acquainting them with their own numbers. Without interpreting, in their utmost strictness, the liberal appellations of legions and myriads; we may venture to pronounce, that the pro​CHAP. II. ------portion of slaves, who were valued as property, was more considerable than that of servants, who can be computed only as an expense. The youths of a promising genius were instructed in the arts and sciences, and their price was ascertained by the degree of their skill and talents. Almost every profession, either liberal or mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent senator. The ministers of pomp and sensuality were multiplied beyond the conception of modern luxury. It was more for the interest of the merchant or manufacturer to purchase, than to hire his workmen ; and in the country, slaves were employed as the cheapest and most laborious instruments of agriculture. To confirm the general observation, and to display the multitude of slaves, we might allege a variety of particular instances. It was discovered, on a very melancholy occasion, that four hundred slaves were maintained in a single palace of Rome. The same number of four hundred belonged to an estate which an African widow, of a very private condition, resigned to her son, whilst she reserved for herself a much larger share of her property. A freedman, under the reign of Augustus, though his fortune had suffered great losses in the civil wars, left behind him three thousand six hundred yoke of oxen, two hundred and fifty thousand head of smaller cattle, and, what was almost included in the description of cattle, four thousand one hundred and sixteen slaves.
Populousness of the Roman empire.The number of subjects who acknowledged the laws of Rome, of citizens, of provincials, and of slaves, can​CHAP. II. -----not now be fixed with such a degree of accuracy as the importance of the object would deserve. We are informed, that when the emperor Claudius exercised the office of censor, he took an account of six millions nine hundred and forty-five thousand Roman citizens, who, with the proportion of women and children, must have amounted to about twenty millions of souls. The multitude of subjects of an inferior rank was uncertain and fluctuating. But, after weighing with attention every circumstance which could influence the balance, it seems probable, that there existed, in the time of Claudius, about twice as many provincials as there were citizens, of either sex, and of every age ; and that the slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of the Roman world. The total amount of this imperfect calculation would rise to about one hundred and twenty millions of persons: a degree of population which possibly exceeds that of modern Europe, and forms the most numerous society that has ever been united under the same system of government.
Obedience and union.Domestic peace and union were the natural consequences of the moderate and comprehensive policy embraced by the Romans. If we turn our eyes towards the monarchies of Asia, we shall behold despotism in the centre, and weakness in the extremities; the collection of the revenue, or the administration of justice, enforced by the presence of an army hostile barbarians established in the heart of the country, hereditary satraps usurping the dominion of the provinces, and subjects incHned to rebellion, though incapable of freedom. But the obedience of the Roman world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent. The vanquished nations, blended into one great people, resigned the hope, nay even the wish, of resuming their independence, and ​CHAP. II. -----scarcely considered their own existence as distinct from the existence of Rome. The established authority of the emperors pervaded without an effort the wide extent of their dominions, and was exercised with the same facility on the banks of the Thames, or of the Nile, as on those of the Tiber. The legions were destined to serve against the public enemy, and the civil magistrate seldom required the aid of a military force. In this state of general security, the leisure as well as opulence both of the prince and people, were devoted to improve and to adorn the Roman empire.
Roman monuments.Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet even the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the provinces, would be sufficient to prove, that those countries were once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. Their greatness alone, or their beauty, might deserve our attention; but they are rendered more interesting by two important circumstances, which connect the agreeable history of the arts with the more useful history of human manners. Many of those works were erected at private expense, and almost all were intended for public benefit.
Many of them erected at private expense.It is natural to suppose that the greatest number, as well as the most considerable of the Roman edifices, were raised by the emperors, who possessed so unbounded a command both of men and money. Augustus was accustomed to boast, that he had found his capital of brick, and that he had left it of marble. The strict economy of Vespasian was the source of ​CHAP.II. _____his magnificence. The works of Trajan bear the stamp of his genius. The pubhc monuments with which Hadrian adorned every province of the empire, were executed, not only by his orders, but under his immediate inspection. He was himself an artist ; and he loved the arts, as they conduced to the glory of the monarch. They were encouraged by the Antonines, as they contributed to the happiness of the people. But if the emperors were the first, they were not the only architects of their dominions. Their example was universally imitated by their principal subjects, who were not afraid of declaring to the world, that they had spirit to conceive, and wealth to accomplish the noblest undertakings. Scarcely had the proud structure of the Coliseum been dedicated at Rome, before edifices of a smaller scale indeed, but of the same design and materials, were erected for the use, and at the expense of the cities of Capua and Verona. The inscription of the stupendous bridge of Alcantara, attests that it was thrown over the Tagus by the contribution of a few Lusitanian communities. When Pliny was intrusted with the government of Bithynia and Pontus, provinces by no means the richest or most considerable of the empire, he found the cities within his jurisdiction striving with each other in every useful and ornamental work, that might deserve the curiosity of strangers, or the gratitude of their citizens. It was the duty of the proconsul to supply their deficiencies, to direct their taste, and sometimes to moderate their emulation. The opulent senators of Rome and the provinces esteemed it an honour, and almost an obligation, to adorn the splendour of their age and country ; and the influence of fashion very frequently supphed the want of taste or generosity. Among a crowd of ​CHAP. II. _____these private benefactors, we may select Herodes Atticus, an Athenian citizen, who lived in the age of the Antonines. Whatever might be the motive of his conduct, his magnificence would have been worthy of the greatest kings.
Example of Herodes Atticcus.The family of Herod, at least after it had been favoured by fortune, was lineally descended from Cimon and Miltiades, Theseus and Cecrops, AEacus and Jupiter. But the posterity of so many gods and heroes was fallen into the most abject state. His grandfather had suffered by the hands of justice; and Julius Atticus, his father, must have ended his life in poverty and contempt, had he not discovered an immense treasure buried under an old house, the last remains of his patrimony. According to the rigour of law, the emperor might have asserted his claim ; and the prudent Atticus prevented, by a frank confession, the officiousness of informers. But the equitable Nerva, who then filled the throne, refused to accept any part of it; and commanded him to use, without scruple, the present of fortune. The cautious Athenian still insisted, that the treasure was too considerable for a subject, and that he knew not how to "use it." " Abuse it, then," replied the monarch, with a good-natured peevishness ; for it is your own. Many will be of opinion, that Atticus literally obeyed the emperor's last instructions; since he expended the greatest part of his fortune, which was much increased by an advantageous marriage, in the service of the public. He had obtained for his son Herod, the prefecture of the free cities of Asia ; and the young magistrate, observing that the town of Troas was indifferently supplied with water, obtained from the munificence of Hadrian, three hundred myriads of drachms (about a hundred thousand pounds) for the construction of a new aqueduct. But in the execution of the work the charge amounted to more ​CHAP. II. _____than double the estimate; and the officers of the revenue began to murmur, till the generous Atticus silenced their complaints, by requesting that he might be permitted to take upon himself the whole additional expense.
His reputation. The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by liberal rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their pupil soon became a celebrated orator, according to the useless rhetoric of that age, which, confining itself to the schools, disdained to visit either the forum or the senate. He was honoured with the consulship at Rome ; but the greatest part of his life was spent in a philosophic retirement at Athens, and his adjacent villas ; perpetually surrounded by sophists, who acknowledged, without reluctance, the superiority of a rich and generous riva. The monuments of his genius have perished; some considerable ruins still preserve the fame of his taste and munificence : modern travellers have measured the remains of the stadium which he constructed at Athens. It was six hundred feet in length, built entirely of white marble, capable of holding the whole body of the people, and finished in four years, whilst Herod was president of the Athenian games. To the memory of his wife Regilla he dedicated a theatre, scarcely to be paralleled in the empire : no wood, except cedar, very curiously carved, was employed in any part of the building. The Odeum, designed by Pericles for musical performances, and the rehearsal of new tragedies, had been a trophy of the victory of the arts over barbaric greatness ; as the timbers employed in the construction consisted chiefly of the masts of the Persian vessels. Notwithstanding the repairs bestowed on that ancient edifice by a king of Cappadocia, it was again fallen to decay. Herod restored its ancient beauty and magnificence. Nor was the liberality of ​CHAP. II. _____that illustrious citizen confined to the walls of Athens. The most splendid ornaments bestowed on the temple of Neptune in the Isthmus, a theatre at Corinth, a stadium at Delphi, a bath at Thermopylae, and an aqueduct at Canusium in Italy, were insufficient to exhaust his treasures. The people of Epirus, Thessaly, Eubcea, Bceotia, and Peloponnesus, experienced his favours ; and many inscriptions of the cities of Greece and Asia gratefully style Herodes Atticus their patron and benefactor.
Most of the Roman monuments for public use; temples, theatres, aqueducts, etc.In the commonwealths of Athens and Rome, the modest simplicity of private houses announced the equal condition of freedom ; whilst the sovereignty of the people was represented in the majestic edifices destined to the public use: nor was this republican spirit totally extinguished by the introduction of wealth and monarchy. It was in works of national honour and benefit, that the most virtuous of the emperors affected to display their magnificence. The golden palace of Nero excited a just indignation; but the vast extent of ground which had been usurped by his selfish luxury, was more nobly filled under the succeeding reigns by the Coliseum, the baths of Titus, the Claudian portico, and the temples dedicated to the goddess of peace and to the genius of Rome. These monuments of architecture, the property of the Roman people, were adorned with the most beautiful productions of Grecian painting and sculpture ; and in the temple of Peace, a very curious library was open to the curiosity of the learned. At a small distance from thence was situated the forum of Trajan. It was sur​CHAP. II. _____rounded with a lofty portico, in the form of a quadrangle, into which four triumphal arches opened a noble and spacious entrance : in the centre arose a column of marble, whose height, of one hundred and ten feet, denoted the elevation of the hill that had been cut away. This column, which still subsists in its ancient beauty, exhibited an exact representation of the Dacian victories of its founder. The veteran soldier contemplated the story of his own campaigns; and by an easy illusion of national vanity, the peaceful citizen associated himself to the honours of the triumph. All the other quarters of the capital, and all the provinces of the empire, were embellished by the same liberal spirit of public magnificence, and were filled with amphitheatres, theatres, temples, porticoes, triumphal arches, baths, and aqueducts, all variously conducive to the health, the devotion, and the pleasures of the meanest citizen. The last mentioned of those edifices deserve our peculiar attention. The boldness of the enterprise, the solidity of the execution, and the uses to which they were subservient, rank the aqueducts among the noblest monuments of Roman genius and power. The aqueducts of the capital claim a just preeminence ; but the curious traveller, who, without the light of history, should examine those of Spoleto, of Metz, or of Segovia, would very naturally conclude, that those provincial towns had formerly been the residence of some potent monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once covered with flourishing cities, whose populousness, and even whose existence, was derived from such artificial supplies of a perennial stream of fresh water.
Number and greatness of the cities of the empire.We have computed the inhabitants, and contemplated the public works of the Roman empire. The observation of the number and greatness of its cities will serve to confirm the former, and to multiply the latter. It may not be unpleasing to collect a few scat​CHAP. II. _____tered instances relative to that subject, without forgetting, however, that from the vanity of nations and the poverty of language, the vague appellation of city has been indifferently bestowed on Rome and upon Laurentum. First, ancient Italy is said to have con-In Italy.tained eleven hundred and ninety-seven cities ; and for whatsoever era of antiquity the expression might be intended, there is not any reason to believe the country less populous in the age of the Antonines than in that of Romulus. The petty states of Latium were contained within the metropolis of the empire, by whose superior influence they had been attracted. Those parts of Italy which have so long languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and viceroys, had been afflicted only by the more tolerable calamities of war ; and the first symptoms of decay which thet/ experienced, were amply compensated by the rapid improvements of the Cisalpine Gaul. The splendour of Verona may be traced in its remains : yet Verona was less celebrated than Aquileia or Padua, Milan or Ravenna. Second, Gaul and Spain.the spirit of improvement had passed the Alps, and been felt even in the woods of Britain, which were gradually cleared away to open a free space for convenient and elegant habitations. York was the seat of government; London was already enriched by commerce; and Bath was celebrated for the salutary effects of its medicinal waters. Gaul could boast of her twelve hundred cities; and though, in the northern parts, many of them, without excepting Paris itself, were little more than the rude and imperfect townships of a rising people, the southern provinces imitated the wealth and elegance of Italy. Many were the cities of Gaul, Marseilles, Aries, Nismes, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Bordeaux, Autun, Vienna, Lyons, Langres, and Treves, whose ancient condition might sustain an ​CHAP. II. _____equal, and perhaps advantageous comparison with their present state. With regard to Spain, that country flourished as a province, and has decHned as a kingdom. Exhausted by the abuse of her strength by America, and by superstition, her pride might possibly be confounded, if we required such a list of three hundred and sixty cities, as Pliny has exhibited Africa.under the reign of Vespasian. Third, three hundred African cities had once acknowledged the authority of Carthage, nor is it likely that their numbers diminished under the administration of the emperors : Carthage itself rose with new splendour from its ashes; and that capital, as well as Capua and Corinth, soon recovered all the advantages which can Asia.be separated from independent sovereignty. Fourth, the provinces of the east present the contrast of Roman magnificence with Turkish barbarism. The ruins of antiquity scattered over uncultivated fields, and ascribed by ignorance to the power of magic, scarcely afford a shelter to the oppressed peasant or wandering Arab. Under the reign of the Caesars, the proper Asia alone contained five hundred populous cities, enriched with all the gifts of nature, and adorned with all the refinements of art. Eleven cities of Asia had once disputed the honour of dedicating a temple to Tiberius, and their respective merits were examined by the senate. Four of them were immediately rejected as unequal to the burden; and among these was Laodicea, whose splendour is still displayed in ​CHAP. II. _____its ruins. Laodicea collected a very considerable revenue from its flocks of sheep, celebrated for the fineness of their wool; and had received, a little before the contest, a legacy of above four hundred thousand pounds by the testament of a generous citizen. If such was the poverty of Laodicea, what must have been the wealth of those cities whose claim appeared preferable, and particularly of Pergamus, of Smyrna, and of Ephesus, who so long disputed with each other the titular primacy of Asia? The capitals of Syria and Egypt held a still superior rank in the empire: Antioch and Alexandria looked down with disdain on a crowd of dependent cities, and yielded with reluctance to the majesty of Rome itself.
Roman roads.All these cities were connected with each other, and with the capital, by the public highways, which, issuing from the forum of Rome, traversed Italy, pervaded the provinces, and were terminated only by the frontiers of the empire. If we carefully trace the distance from the wall of Antoninus to Rome, and from thence to Jerusalem, it will be found that the great chain of communication, from the north-west to the south-east point of the empire, was drawn out to the length of four thousand and eighty Roman miles. The public ​CHAP. II. _____roads were accurately divided by mile-stones, and ran in a direct line from one city to another, with very little respect for the obstacles either of nature or private property. Mountains were perforated, and bold arches thrown over the broadest and most rapid streams. The middle part of the road was raised into a terrace which commanded the adjacent country, consisted of several strata of sand, gravel, and cement, and was paved with large stones, or in some places near the capital, with granite. Such was the solid construction of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not entirely yielded to the effort of fifteen centuries. They united the subjects of the most distant provinces by an easy and familiar intercourse ; but their primary object had been to facilitate the marches of the legions ; nor was any country considered as completely subdued, till it had been rendered, in all its parts, pervious to the Posts.arms and authority of the conqueror. The advantage of receiving the earliest intelligence, and of conveying their orders with celerity, induced the emperors to establish throughout their extensive dominions the regular institution of posts. Houses were everywhere erected at the distance only of five or six miles ; each of them was constantly provided with forty horses, and by the help of these relays, it was easy to travel an hundred miles in a day along the Roman roads. The use of the posts was allowed to those who claimed ​it by an imperial mandate; but though originally intended for the public service, it was sometimes indulged to the business or conveniency of private citizens.Navigation. Nor was the communication of the Roman empire less free and open by sea than it was by land. The provinces surrounded and enclosed the Mediterranean; and Italy, in the shape of an immense promontory, advanced into the midst of that great lake. The coasts of Italy are, in general, destitute of safe harbours; but human industry had corrected the deficiencies of nature; and the artificial port of Ostia, in particular, situate at the mouth of the Tiber, and formed by the emperor Claudius, was an useful monument of Roman greatness. From this port, which was only sixteen miles from the capital, a favourable breeze frequently carried vessels in seven days to the columns of Hercules, and in nine or ten to Alexandria in Egypt.
Improve­ment of a­griculture in the western countries of the empire.Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the improvements of social life. In the more remote ages of antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The east was in the immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the west was inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the protection of an established government, the productions of happier climates, and the industry of more civilized nations, were gradually introduced into the western countries of Europe; and the natives were encouraged, by an open and profitable commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve the latter. It would be almost impossible to ​CHAP. II. _____enumerate all the articles, either of the animal or the vegetable reign, which were successively imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt; but it will not be unworthy of the dignity, and much less of the utility of an historical work, slightly to touch on a few of the Introduction of fruits, etc.principal heads. 1. Almost all the flowers, the herbs, and the fruits that grow in our European gardens, are of foreign extraction, which, in many cases, is betrayed even by their names : the apple was a native of Italy ; and when the Romans had tasted the richer flavour of the apricot, the peach, the pomegranate, the citron, and the orange, they contented themselves with applying to all these new fruits the common denomination of apple, discriminating them from each other by The vine.the additional epithet of their country. 2. In the time of Homer, the vine grew wild in the island of Sicily, and most probably in the adjacent continent; but it was not improved by the skill, nor did it afford a liquor grateful to the taste, of the savage inhabitants. A thousand years afterwards, Italy could boast, that, of the fourscore most generous and celebrated wines, more than two thirds were produced from her soil. The blessing was soon communicated to the Narbonnese province of Gaul ; but so intense was the cold to the north of the Cevennes, that, in the time of Strabo, it was thought impossible to ripen the grapes in those parts of Gaul. This difficulty, however, was gradually vanquished; and there is some reason to believe, that the vineyards of Burgundy are as old as The olive, the age of the Antonines. 3. The olive, in the western ​CHAP. II. _____world, followed the progress of peace, of which it was considered as the symbol. Two centuries after the foundation of Rome, both Italy and Africa were strangers to that useful plant: it was naturalized in those ^countries ; and at length carried into the heart of Spain and Gaul. The timid errors of the ancients, that it required a certain degree of heat, and could only flourish in the neighbourhood of the sea, were insensibly exploded by industry and experience. 4. Flax.The cultivation of flax was transported from Egypt to Gaul, and enriched the whole country, however it might impoverish the particular lands on which it was sown. 5. The use of artificial grasses became fa-Artificial grass.miliar to the farmers both of Italy and the provinces, particularly the lucerne, which derived its name and origin from Media. The assured supply of wholesome and plentiful food for the cattle during winter, multiplied the number of the flocks and herds, which in their turn contributed to the fertility of the soil. To all these improvements may be added an assiduous attention to mines and fisheries, which, by employing a multitude of laborious hands, serve to increase the pleasures of the rich, and the subsistence of the poor. The elegant treatise of Columella describes the ad-General plenty.vanced state of the Spanish husbandry under the reign of Tiberius ; and it may be observed, that those famines which so frequently afflicted the infant republic, were seldom or never experienced by the extensive empire of Rome. The accidental scarcity in any single province, was immediately relieved by the plenty of its more fortunate neighbours.
Arts of luxury.Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures ; since the productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman empire, the labour of an industrious and ingenious people was variously but incessantly employed in the service of the rich. In their dress, their ​CHAP. II. _____table, their houses, and their furniture, the favourites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency, of elegance, and of splendour ; whatever could sooth their pride, or gratify their sensuality. Such refinements, under the odious name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of every age ; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue, as well as happiness of mankind, if all possessed the necessaries, and none the superfluities of life. But in the present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can cbrrect the unequal distribution of property. The diligent mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the possessors of land ; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may purchase additional pleasures. This operation, the particular eflPects of which are felt in every society, acted with much more diffusive energy in the Roman world. The provinces would soon have been exhausted of their wealth, if the manufactures and commerce of luxury had not insensibly restored to the industrious subjects, the sums which were exacted from them by the arms and authority of Rome. As long as the circulation was confined within the bounds of the empire, it impressed the political machine with a new degree of activity; and its consequences, sometimes beneficial, could never become pernicious.
Foreign trade.But it is no easy task to confine luxury within the limits of an empire. The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forest of Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought over land from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube ; and the barbarians were astonished at the price which they received in exchange for so useless a commodity. ​CHAP. II. _____There was a considerable demand for Babylonian carpets, and other manufactures of the east ; but the most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade was carried on with Arabia and India. Every year, about the time of the summer solstice, a fleet of an hundred and twenty vessels sailed from Myos-hormos, a port of Egypt on the Red sea. By the periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean in about forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of Ceylon, was the usual term of their navigation ; and it was in those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt was fixed to the months of December or January ; and as soon as their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels from the Red sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far as Alexandria, it was poured without delay into the capital of the empire. The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling: silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in value to a pound of gold; precious stones, among which the pearl claimed the first rank after the diamond; and a variety of aromatics, that were consumed in religious worship and the pomp of funerals. The labour and risk of the voyage was rewarded with almost incredible profit ; but the profit was made upon Roman subjects, and a few individuals were enriched at the expense of the public. As the natives of Arabia Gold and silver.and India were contented with the productions and manufactures of their own country, silver, on the side ​CHAP. II. _____of the Romans, was the principal, if not the only instrument of commerce. It was a complaint worthy of the gravity of the senate, that in the purchase of female ornaments the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away to foreign and hostile nations. The annual loss is computed, by a writer of an inquisitive but censorious temper, at upwards of eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. Such was the style of discontent, brooding over the dark prospect of approaching poverty. And yet, if we compare the proportion between gold and silver, as it stood in the time of Pliny, and as it was fixed in the reign of Constantine, we shall discover within that period a very considerable increase. There is not the least reason to suppose that gold was become more scarce; it is therefore evident that silver was grown more common ; that whatever might be the amount of the Indian and Arabian exports, they were far from exhausting the wealth of the Roman world ; and that the produce of the mines abundantly supplied the demands of commerce.
General felicity Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past and depreciate the present, the tranquil and prosperous state of the empire was warmly felt, and honestly confessed, by the provincials as well as Romans. "They acknowledged, that the true principles of social life, laws, agriculture, and science, which had been first invented by the wisdom of Athens, were now firmly established by the power of Rome, under whose auspicious influence the fiercest barbarians were united by an equal government and common language. They affirm, that with the improvement of arts the human species was visibly multiplied. They celebrate the increasing splendour of the cities, the beautiful face ​CHAP. II. _____of the country, cultivated and adorned like an immense garden ; and the long festival of peace, which was enjoyed by so many nations, forgetful of their ancient animosities, and delivered from the apprehension of future danger. Whatever suspicions may be suggested by the air of rhetoric and declamation which seems to prevail in these passages, the substance of them is perfectly agreeable to historic truth.
Decline of courage.It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the mihtary spirit evaporated. The natives of Europe were brave and robust. Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum supplied the legions with excellent soldiers, and constituted the real strength of the monarchy. Their personal valour remained; but they no longer possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of independence, the sense of national honour, the presence of danger, and the habit of command. They received laws and governors from the will of their sovereign, and trusted for their defence to a mercenary army. The posterity of their boldest leaders was contented with the rank of citizens and subjects. The most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard of the emperors ; and the deserted provinces, deprived of political strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid indifference of private life.
of genius.The love of letters, almost inseparable from peace and refinement, was fashionable among the subjects of Hadrian and the Antonines, who were themselves men of learning and curiosity. It was diflfused. over the whole extent of their empire ; the most northern tribes of Britons had acquired a taste for rhetoric ; Homer as ​CHAP. II. _____well as Virffil were transcribed and studied on the banks of the Rhine and Danube ; and the most liberal rewards sought out the faintest glimmerings of literary merit. The sciences of physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the Greeks; the observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are studied by those who have improved their discoveries and corrected their errors ; but if we except the inimitable Lucian, this age of indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of original genius, or who excelled in the arts of elegant composition. The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers or enlarge the limits of the human mind. The beauties of the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own, inspired only cold and servile imitations : or if any ventured to deviate from those models, they deviated at the same time from good sense and propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful vigour of the imagination, after a long repose, national emulation, a new religion, new languages, and a new world, called forth the genius of Europe. But the provincials of Rome, trained by a uniform artificial foreign education, were engaged in a very unequal competition with those bold ancients, who, by expressing their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already occupied every place of honour. The name of poet was almost forgotten ; that of orator ​CHAP. II. _____was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.
Degeneracy.The sublime Longinus, who in somewhat a later period, and in the court of a Syrian queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens, observes and laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which debased their sentiments, enervated their courage, and depressed their talents. " In the same manner," says he, " as some children always remain pygmies, whose infant limbs have been too closely confined ; thus our tender minds, fettered by the prejudices and habits of a just servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the ancients ; who, living under a popular government, wrote with the same freedom as they acted." This diminutive stature of mankind, if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the old standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of pygmies, when the fierce giants of the north broke in, and mended the puny breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom ; and after the revolution of ten centuries, freedom became the happy parent of taste and science.
* ↑ They were erected about the midway between I.ahor and Delhi. The conquests of Alexander in Hindostan were confined to the Punjab, a country watered by the five great streams of the Indus.
* ↑ See M. de Guignes, Histoire des Huns, 1. xv. xvi. and xvii.
* ↑ There is not any writer who describes in so lively a manner as Herodotus, the true genius of polytheism. The best commentary may be found in Mr. Hume's Natural History of Religion ; and the best contrast in Bossuet's Universal History. Some obscure traces of an intolerant spirit appear in the conduct of the Egyptians; (see Juvenal, sat. xv.) and the christians as well as jews who lived under the Roman empire, formed a very important exception ; so important indeed, that the discussion will require a distinct chapter of this work.
* ↑ The rights, powers, and pretensions of the sovereign of Olympus, are very clearly described in the fifteenth book of the Iliad : in the Greek original, I mean ; for Mr. Pope, without perceiving it, has improved the theology of Homer.
* ↑ See, for instance, Caesar de Bell. Gall. vi. 17. Within a century or two, the Gauls themselves applied to their gods the names of Mercury, Mars, Apollo, etc.
* ↑ The admirable work of Cicero de Natxira Deorum, is the best clue we have to guide us through the dark and profound abyss. He represents with candour, and confutes with subtlety, the opinions of the philosophers.
* ↑ I do not pretend to assert, that in this irreligious age the natural terrors of superstition, dreams, omens, apparitions, etc. had lost their efficacy.
* ↑ Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, and Plutarch, always inculcated a decent reverence for the religion of their own country and of mankind. The devotion of Epicuius was assiduous and exemplary. Diogen. Laert.x. 10.
* ↑ Polybius, 1. vi. c. 53, 54. Juvenal, (sat. xiii.) laments, that in his time this apprehension had lost much of its effect.
* ↑ See the fate of Syracuse, Tarentum, Ambracia, Corinth, etc. the conduct of Verres, in Cicero, (Actio ii. Orat. 4.) and the usual practice of governors, in the eighth satire of Juvenal.
* ↑ Sueton. in Claud. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxx. 1.
* ↑ Pelloutier, Histoire des Celtes, torn. vi. p. 230 — 252.
* ↑ Seneca, Consolat. ad Helviam, p. 74. edit. Lips.
* ↑ Dionysius Halicarn. Antiquitat. Roman. 1. ii.
* ↑ In the year of Rome 701, the temple of Isis and Serapis was demolished by the order of the senate, (Dion Cassius, 1. xl. p. 252.) and even by the hands of the consul Valerius Maximus, i. 3. After the death of Caesar, it was restored at the public expense, Dion, 1. xlvii. p. 501. When Augustus was in Egypt, he revered the majesty of Serapis, (Dion, 1. li. p. 647.) but in the Pomasrium of Rome, and a mile round it, he prohibited the worship of the Egyptian gods, Dion, 1. liii. p. 679 ; 1. liv. p. 735. They remained, however, very fashionable under his reign, (Ovid, de Art. Amand.l. i.) and that of his successor, till the justice of Tiberius was provoked to some acts of severity. See Tacit. Annal. ii. 85 ; Joseph. Antiquit. 1. xviii. c. 3.
* ↑ TertuUian, in Apologetic, c. 6. p. 74. edit. Havercamp. I am inclined to attribute their establishment to the devotion of the Flavian family.
* ↑ See Livy, 1. xi. and xxix.
* ↑ Macrob. Saturnalia, 1. iii. c. 9. He gives us a form of evocation.
* ↑ Minutius Felix in Octavio, p. 54. Arnobius, 1. vi. p. 115.
* ↑ Tacit. Annal. xi. 24. The Orbis Romanus of the learned Spanheim, is a complete history of the progressive admission of Latium, Italy, and the provinces, to the freedom of Rome.
* ↑ Herodotus, v. 97. It should seem, however, that he followed a large and popular estimation.
* ↑ Athenreus, Deipnosophist. 1. vi. p. 272. edit. Casaubon ; Meursius de Fortuna Attica, c. 4.
* ↑ See a very accurate collection of the numbers of each lustrum in M. de Beaufort, Republique Romaine, 1. iv. c. 4.
* ↑ Appian. de Bell. Civil. 1. i. Velleius Paterculus, 1, ii. c. 15, o, 17.
* ↑ Maecenas had advised him to declare, by one edict, all his subjects citizens. But we may justly suspect that the historian Dion was the author of a counsel so much adapted to the practice of his own age, and so little to that of Augustus.
* ↑ The senators were obliged to have one third of their own landed property in Italy. See Plin. 1. vi. ep. 19. The qualification was reduced by Marcus to one fourth. Since the reign of Trajan, Italy had sunk nearer to the level of the provinces.
* ↑ The first part of the Verona Illustrata of the marquis MafFei, gives the clearest and most comprehensive view of the state of Italy under the Caesars.
* ↑ See Pausanias, 1. vii. The Romans condescended to restore the names of those assemblies when they could no longer be dangerous.
* ↑ They are frequently mentioned by Caesar. The abb6 Dubos attempts, with very little success, to prove that the assemblies of Gaul were continued under the emperors. Histoire de rEtablissement de la Monarchic Fran9oise, 1. i. c. 4.
* ↑ Seneca in Consolat. ad Helviam, c. 6.
* ↑ Memnon apud Photium, c. 33 j Valer. Maxim, ix. 2. Plutarch and Dion Cassius swell the massacre to one hundred and fifty thousand citizens; but I should esteem the smaller number to be more than sufficient.
* ↑ Twenty-five colonies were settled in Spain, (see Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 3, 4. iv. 35.) and nine in Britain, of which London, Colchester, Lincoln, Chester, Gloucester, and Bath, still remain considerable cities : see Richard of Cirencester, p. 36. and Whitaker's History of Manchester, 1. i. c. 3.
* ↑ Aul. Gell. Noctes Atticae, xvi. 13. The emperor Hadrian expressed his surprise, that the cities of Utica, Gades, and Itatica, which already enjo)?ed the rights oi municipia, should solicit the title of colonies. Their example, however, became fashionable, and the empire was filled with honorary colonies. See Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum, Dissertat. xiii.
* ↑ Spanheim, Orbis Roman, c. 8. p. 62.
* ↑ Aristid. in Romae Encomio, torn. i. p. 218. edit. Jebb.
* ↑ Tacit. Annal. xi. 23, 24. Hist. iv. 74.
* ↑ See Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5 ; Augustin. de Civitate Dei, xix. 7 j Lipsius de Pronunciatione Linguae Latinae, c. 3.
* ↑ Apuleius and Augustin will answer for Africa ; Strabo for Spain and Gaul; Tacitus, in the life of Agricola, for Britain ; and Velleius Paterculus for Pannonia. To them we may add the language of the Inscriptions.
* ↑ The Celtic was preserved in the mountains of Wales, Cornwall, and Armorica. We may observe that Apuleius reproaches an African youth, who lived among the populace, with the use of the Punic ; whilst he had almost forgot Greek, and neither could nor would speak Latin, (Apolog. p. 596.) The greater part of St. Austin's congregations were strangers to the Punic.
* ↑ Spain alone produced Columella, the Senecas, Lucan, Martial, and Quintilian.
* ↑ There is not, I believe, from Dionysius to Libanius, a single Greek critic who mentions Virgil or Horace. They seem ignorant that the Romans had any good writers.
* ↑ The curious reader may see in Dupin, (Biblioth6que Ecclesiastique, torn. xix. p. 1. c. 8.) how much the use of the Syriac and Egyptian languages was still preserved.
* ↑ See Juvenal, sat. iii. and xv. ; Ammian. Marcellin. xxii. 16.
* ↑ Dion Cassius, 1. Ixxvii. p. 1275. The first instance happened under the reign of Septimius Severus.
* ↑ See Valerius Maximus, 1. ii. c. 2. n. 2. The emperor Claudius disfranchised an eminent Grecian for not understanding Latin. He was probably in some public office. Suetonius in Claud, c. 16.
* ↑ In the camp of Lucullus, an ox sold for a drachma, and a slave for four drachms, or about three shillings. Plutarch, in Lucull. p. 580.
* ↑ Diodorus Siculus in Eclog. Hist. 1. xxxiv. and xxxvi. Florus, iii. 19, 20.
* ↑ See a remarkable instance of severity in Cicero in Verrem, v.3.
* ↑ See in Gruter, and the other collectors, a great number of inscriptions addressed by slaves to their wives, children, fellow-servants, masters, etc. They are all, most probably, of the imperial age.
* ↑ See the Augustan History, and a dissertation of M. de Burigny, in the thirty-fifth volume of the Academy of Inscriptions, upon the Roman slaves.
* ↑ See another dissertation of M. de Burigny in the thirty-seventh volume, on the Roman freedmen.
* ↑ Spanheim, Orbis Roman. 1. i. c. 16. p. 124, etc.
* ↑ Seneca de dementia, 1. i. c. 24. The original is much stronger: "Quantum periculum immineret si servi nostri numerare nos coepissent."
* ↑ See Pliny, Hist. Natur. 1. xxxiii. and Athenaeus, Deipnosophist. 1. vi. p. 272. The latter boldly asserts, that he knew very many (TrdfnroXXoi) Romans vi^ho possessed, not for use, but ostentation, ten and even twenty thousand slaves.
* ↑ In Paris there are not more than forty-three thousand seven hundred domestics of every sort, and not a twelfth part of the inhabitants. Messange, Recherches sur la Population, p. 186.
* ↑ A learned slave sold for many hundred pounds sterling: Atticus always bred and taught them himself. Cornel. Nepos in Vit. c. 13.
* ↑ Many of the Roman physicians were slaves. See Dr. Middleton's Dissertation and Defence.
* ↑ Their ranks and offices are very copiously enumerated by Pignorius de Servis.
* ↑ Tacit. Annal. xiv. 43. They were all executed for not preventing their master's murder.
* ↑ Apuleius in Apolog. p. 548. edit. Delphin.
* ↑ Plin. Hist. Natur. 1. xxxiii. 47.
* ↑ Compute twenty millions in France, twenty-two in Germany, four in Hungary, ten in Italy with its islands, eight in Great Britain and Ireland, eight in Spain and Portugal, ten or twelve in the European Russia, six in Poland, six in Greece and Turkey, four in Sweden, three in Denmark and Norway, four in the Low Countries. The whole would amount to one hundred and five, or one hundred and seven millions. See Voltaire, Histoire G6nerale.
* ↑ Joseph, de Bell. Judaico, 1. ii. c. 16. The oration of Agrippa, or rather of the historian, is a fine picture of the Roman empire.
* ↑ Sueton. in August, c. 28. Augustus built in Rome the temple and forum of Mars the avenger ; the temple of Jupiter tonans in the capitol; that of Apollo palatine, with public libraries j the portico and basilica of Caius and Lucius, the porticoes of Livia and Octavia, and the theatre of Marcellus. The example of the sovereign was imitated by his ministers and generals ; and his friend Agrippa left behind him the immortal monument of the Pantheon.
* ↑ See Maffei, Verona Illustrata, 1. iv. p. 68.
* ↑ See the tenth book of Pliny's epistles. He mentions the following works carried on at the expense of the cities : at Nicomedia, a niew forum, an aqueduct, and a canal left unfinished by a king ; at Nice, a gymnasium, and a theatre which had already cost near ninety thousand pounds ; baths at Prusa and Claudiopolis ; and an aqueduct of sixteen miles in length for the use of Sinope.
* ↑ Hadrian afterwards made a very equitable regulation, which divided all treasure- trove between the right of property and that of discovery. Hist. August, p. 9.
* ↑ Philostrat. in Vit. Sophist. 1. ii. p. 548.
* ↑ Aulus Gellius, in Noct. Attic, i. 2. ix. 2. xviii. 10. xix. 12. Philostrat. p. 564.
* ↑ See Philostrat. 1. ii. p. 548. 560. Pausanias, 1. i. and vii. 10. The life of Herodes, in the thirtieth volume of the Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions.
* ↑ It is particularly remarked of Athens by Dicaearchus, de Statu Graeciae, p. 8. inter Geographos Minores, edit. Hudson.
* ↑ Donatus de Roma Vetere, 1. iii. c. 4, 5, 6. Nardini Roma Antica, l.iii. 11, 12, 13. and a manuscript description of ancient Rome, by Bernardus Oricellarius, or Rucellai, of which I obtained a copy from the library of the canon Ricardi at Florence. Two celebrated pictures of Timanthes and of Protogenes are mentioned by Pliny as in the temple of Peace j and the Laocoon was found in the baths of Titus.
* ↑ Montfaucon, I'Antiquite Expliqu^e, torn. iv. p. 2. 1. i. c. 9. Fabretti has composed a very learned treatise on the aqueducts of Rome.
* ↑ AElian, Hist. Var. 1. ix. c. 16. He lived in the time of Alexander Severus. See Fabricius, Biblioth. Graeca, 1. iv. c. 21.
* ↑ Joseph, de Bell. Jud. ii. 16. The number, however, is mentioned, and should be received with a degree of latitude.
* ↑ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5.
* ↑ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 3, 4. iv. 35. The list seems authentic and accurate : the division of the provinces, and the different condition of the cities, are minutely distinguished.
* ↑ Strabon. Geograph. 1. xvii. p. 1189.
* ↑ Joseph, de Bell. Jud. ii. 16 j Philostrat. in Vit. Sophist. 1. ii. p. 548. edit. Olear.
* ↑ Tacit. Annal. iv. 55. I have taken some pains in consulting and comparing modern travellers with regard to the fate of those eleven cities of Asia : seven or eight are totally destroyed ; Hypaepe, Tralles, Laodicea, Ilium, Halicarnassus, Miletus, Ephesus, and we may add Sardes. Of the remaining three, Pergamus is a straggling village of two or three thousand inhabitants. Magnesia, under the name of Guzel-hissar, a town of some consequence ; and Smyrna, a great city, peopled by an hundred thousand souls. But even at Smyrna, while the Franks have maintained commerce, the Turks have ruined the arts.
* ↑ See a very exact and pleasing description of the ruins of Laodicea, in Chandler's Travels through Asia Minor, p. 225, etc.
* ↑ Strabo, 1. xii. p. 866. He had studied at Tralles.
* ↑ See a dissertation of M. de Boze, Mem. de I'Acad^mie, torn, xviii. Aristides pronounced an oration, which is still extant, to recommend concord to the rival cities.
* ↑ The inhabitants of Egypt, exclusive of Alexandria, amounted to seven millions and a half. Joseph, de Bell. Jud. ii. 16. Under the military government of the mamalukes, Syria was supposed to contain sixty thousand villages. Histoire de Timur Bee, 1. v. c. 20.
* ↑ The following itinerary may serve to convey some idea of the direction of the road, and of the distance between the principal towns. 1. From the wall of Antoninus to York, two hundred and twenty-two Roman miles. 2. London, two hundred and twenty-seven. 3. Rhutupiae, or Sandwich, sixty-seven. 4. The navigation to Boulogne, forty-five. 5. Rheiras, one hundred and seventy-four. 6. Lyons, three hundred and thirty. 7. Milan, three hundred and twenty-four. 8. Rome, four hundred and twenty-six. 9. Brundusium, three hundred and sixty. 10. The navigation to DyiTachium, forty. 11. Byzantium, seven hundred and eleven. 12. Ancyra, two hundred and eighty-three. 13. Tarsus, three hundred and one. 14. Antioch, one hundred and forty-one. 15. Tyre, two hundred and fifty-two. 16. Jerusalem, one hundred and sixty-eight. In all, four thousand and eighty Roman, or three thousand seven hundred and forty English miles. See the itineraries published by Wesseling, his annotations ; Gale and Stukeley for Britain, and M. d'Anville for Gaul and Italy.
* ↑ Montfaucon, (PAntiquit^ Expliquee, torn. iv. p. 2. 1. i. c. 5.) has described the bridges of Narni, Alcantara, Nismes, etc.
* ↑ Bergier, Histoire des Grands Chemins de I'Empire Romain, 1. ii. c. 1—28.
* ↑ Procopius in Hist. Arcana, c. 30 ; Bergier, Hist, des Grands Chemins, 1. iv. ; Codex Theodosian. 1. viii. tit. v. vol. ii. p. 506 — 563 ; with Godefroy's learned commentary.
* ↑ In the time of Theodosius, Caesarius, a magistrate of high rank, went post from Antioch to Constantinople. He began his journey at night, was in Cappadocia, (one hundred and sixty five miles from Antioch,) the ensuing evening, and arrived at Constantinople the sixth day about noon. The whole distance was seven hundred and twenty-five Roman, or six hundred and sixty-five English miles. See Libanius Orat. xxii. and the Itineraria, p. 572 — 581.
* ↑ Pliny, though a favourite and a minister, made an apology for granting post horses to his wife on the most urgent business. Epist. x. 121, 122.
* ↑ Bergier, Hist. des Grands Chemins, 1. iv. c. 49.
* ↑ Plin. Hist. Natur. xix. 1.
* ↑ It is not improbable that the Greeks and Phoenicians introduced some new arts and productions into the neighbourhood of Marseilles and Gades.
* ↑ See Homer, Odyss. 1. ix. v. 358.
* ↑ Plin. Hist. Natur. 1. xiv.
* ↑ Strab. Geograph. I. iv. p. 223. The intense cold of a Gallic winter was almost proverbial among the ancients.
* ↑ In the beginning of the fourth century, the orator Eumenius, (Panegyric. Veter. viii. 6. edit. Delphin.) speaks of the vines in the territory of Autun, which were decayed through age, and the first plantation of which was totally unknown. The Pagus Arebrignus is supposed by M. d'Anville to be the district of Beaune, celebrated, even at present, for one of the first growths of Burgundy.
* ↑ Plio. Hist. Natur. 1. xv.
* ↑ Ibid. 1. xix.
* ↑ See the agreeable essays on agriculture by Mr. Harte, in which he has collected all that the ancients and moderns have said of lucerne.
* ↑ Tacit. Germania, c. 45 ; Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxviii. 11. The latter observed, with some humour, that even fashion had not yet found out the use of amber. Nero sent a Roman knight to purchase great quantities on the spot where it was produced, the coast of modern Prussia.
* ↑ Called Taprobana by the Romans, andScrendib by the Arabs. It was discovered under the reign of Claudius, and gradually became the principal mart of the east.
* ↑ Plin. Hist. Natur. 1. vi. ; Strabo, 1. xvii.
* ↑ Hist. August, p. 224. A silk garment was considered as an ornament to a woman, but as a disgrace to a man.
* ↑ The two great pearl fisheries were the same as at present, Ormuz and cape Comorin. As well as we can compare ancient with modern geography, Rome was supplied with diamonds from the mine of Jumelpur in Bengal, which is described in the Voyages de Tavernier, tom. ii. p. 281.
* ↑ Tacit. Atinal. iii. 52. in a speech of Tiberius.
* ↑ Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 18. In another place he computes half that sum, Quingenties H. S. for India, exclusive of Arabia.
* ↑ The proportion, which was one to ten, and twelve and one half, rose to fourteen and two fifths, the legal regulation of Constantine. See Arbutlinot's Tables of Ancient Coins, c. v.
* ↑ Among many other passages, see Pliny, Hist. Natur. iii. 5; Aristides de Urbe Roma ; and Tertullian de Anima, c. 30.
* ↑ Herodes Atticus gave the sophist Polemo above eight thousand pounds for three declamations. See Philostrat. 1. i. p. 558. The Antonines founded a school at Athens, in w^hich professors of grammar, rhetoric, politics, and the four great sects of philosophy, were maintained at the public expense for the instruction of youth. The salary of a philosopher was ten thousand drachmae, betw^een three and four hundred pounds a year. Similar establishments were formed in the other great cities of the empire. See Lucian in Eunuch, torn. ii. p. 353. edit. Reitz. ; Philostrat. 1. ii. p. 566 ; Hist. August, p. 21 ; Dion Cassius, 1. Ixxi. p. 1195. Juvenal himself, in a morose satire, which in every line betrays his own disappointment and envy, is obliged, however, to say, ——O juvenes, circumspicit et agitat vos Materiamque sibi ducis indulgentia quaerit. — Satir. vii. 20.
* ↑ Longin. de Sublim. c. 43. p. 229. edit. Toll. Here too we may say of Longinus, " His own example strengthens all his laws." Instead of proposing his sentiments with a manly boldness, he insinuates them with the most guarded caution, puts them into the mouth of a friend, and, as far as we can collect from a corrupted text, makes a show of refuting them himself.