The collected writings of Thomas De Quincey

THIS BOOK IS PRESENT

IN OUR LIBRARY

THROUGH THE

GENEROUS

CONTRIBUTIONS OF

ST. MICHAEL'S ALUMNI

TO THE VARSITY

FUND

DE QUINCEY'S COLLECTED WRITINGS

VOL. VI
HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

COLLECTED WRITINGS

THOMAS

DE QUINCEY

DAVID MASSON

ERITUS PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
IN' THK UNIVERSITY OF F.DINBURGH

LONDON
. & C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE

1897

CONTENTS OF VOL. VI

PAGE

EDITOR'S PREFACE ...... 1

HOMER AND THE HOMERID.E ..... 7

POSTSCRIPT IN 1857 . . . . .94

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS . . . . .96

THE THEBAN SPHINX ...... 139

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY . . . .152

CICERO. ... ... 179

POSTSCRIPT ...... 222

THE CAESARS —

INTRODUCTION ...... 225

CHAP.

I. JULIUS C^SAR ..... 242

II. AUGUSTUS C^SAR ..... 268

III. CALIGULA, NERO, AND OTHERS . . . 282

IV. HADRIAN, ANTONINUS Pius, MARCUS AURELIUS, AND

OTHERS ...... 315

V. FROM COMMODUS TO PHILIP THE ARAB . . 354

VI. FROM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN . . . 384

POSTSCRIPT IN 1859 ..... 418

AELIUS LAMIA . . . . . . .421

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY . . 429

COLLEGE LIBRAS^
ACCESSION No, J~D

EDITOE'S PEEFACE

IN the present volume and the next the reader comes to a
class of De Quincey's writings differing from those which
have occupied the preceding volumes, and belonging rather
to the second of the three varieties into which he has him-
self suggested that his writings might be distributed.
" Into the second class," he said (General Preface, Vol. I,
p. 10), "I throw those papers which address themselves
" purely to the understanding as an insulated faculty,
" or do so primarily. Let me call them by the general
" name of ESSAYS." To leave no doubt as to what he meant
to include under the term so denned, the very papers he
proceeded to mention as conspicuously representative ex-
amples of the class of his writings he had in view were
three of his historical papers, — to wit, Cicero and The Ccesars,
which form a large part of the contents of the present
volume, and The Essenes, which lies over for the next. As
the other papers in the same two volumes are all, more or
less, of a similar nature, it is evident that these two volumes
may offer themselves as containing exactly such writings of
De Quincey as he himself thought entitled to the special
name of "Essays." That name, however, as De Quincey
really intended it, is of somewhat extensive signification.
An " Essay," in his definition of it (which, however, may
not be universally accepted), is a paper addressed purely or
primarily to the understanding as an insulated faculty, — i.e.
distinguished from other papers by containing a good deal
of the speculative element. It does not merely give in-
formation by presenting in a compact shape all the existing

VOL. VI

B

2 EDITOR'S PREFACE

knowledge on any subject ; nor is its main object that of
delight to the reader by dreams and pictures of the poetical
kind ; nor does it seek merely to rouse and stimulate the
feelings for active exertion of some sort \ but, without any
of these aims, or while perhaps studying one or other of
them to some extent, it has in view always the solution of
some problem, the investigation of some question, so as to
effect a modification or advance of the existing doctrine on
the subject. How firmly De Quincey held by this notion of
the distinctive characteristic of the "Essay," as compared
with other kinds of writing, appears from the striking words
in which, after referring to the three above-named essays as
examples of his own efforts in this line, he claims the merit
of fidelity to his principle, in intention at least, in all his
other efforts of the same general character. " These speci-
" mens," he says, meaning Cicero, The Gcesars, and The Essenes,
" are sufficient for the purpose of informing the reader that
" I do not write without a thoughtful consideration of my
" subject, and also that to think reasonably upon any
" question has never been allowed by me as a sufficient
" ground for writing upon it, unless I believed myself able
" to offer some considerable novelty." What a panic in
the writing industry, what a dropping, of pens, what a sup-
pression of cartloads of intended matter for the press, if this
principle of De Quincey's were made imperative, — viz. the
principle (to state it in its fullest form) that all literature
worthy of the name must, in some way or other, and to
some extent or other, consist of the previously unknown, un-
imagined, or uncommuuicated ! Meanwhile it is with Essay
literature that we are immediately concerned. Now,
although it was to three historical essays that De Quincey
pointed as illustrations of his own practice in Essay-writing,
that was a mere accident of the moment. He might have
pointed to other papers of his, not expressly historical, or
less obviously historical, which for that very reason would
have perhaps better illustrated his notion of the charac-
teristic distinction of an Essay, — viz. that it should exhibit
the strictly speculative or ratiocinative mode of intellect at
work in the investigation of some question or the solution of
some problem. Such papers of his await us in future

EDITOR'S PREFACE 3

volumes, — e.g. in a volume which is to consist specially of
what may be called his "Speculative and Theological Essays."
Indeed, in all De Quincey's writings, even those papers of
Autobiography, Literary "Reminiscence, and Biography, which
we have now left behind us, the strength of the speculative
vein in his genius is remarkable, asserting itself often in
digressions and interpolated discourses, sometimes even to the
degree of obtrusiveness. What is required of us at present,
however, is to attend to his instruction that the historical
papers with which we are here dealing are to be regarded as
typical " essays " of his, equally with other papers less osten-
sibly historical. And this is true. While the papers consist
of matter of scholarship, erudition, tradition from the past, and
so belong to Historical Literature, or, as Bacon called it, the
Literature of Memory, all of them, or most of them, are
pervaded by a distinctly speculative element, and some of
them are among the most notable exhibitions of De Quincey's
faculty in propounding subtle problems, questioning old doc-
trines, and starting paradoxes. Inasmuch, however, as they
differ among themselves in respect of the proportion of the
speculative ingredient to the descriptive and narrative sub-
stance, and some of them are more of the nature of mere
compiled digests of information than others, the best name
for them collectively may be that which we have chosen.
Let the name HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND KESEARCHES be
accepted, therefore, as sufficiently descriptive of the papers
in this volume and the next.

The papers are arranged, as nearly as may be, in the
chronological order of their subjects. In Homer and the
HomeridcB and in The Philosophy of Herodotus we are back in
the earliest ages of the world as known through Greek record
and tradition. We are listening to De Quincey as he opens
to us his budget of carefully acquired erudition, often most
curious and out of the way, respecting the actualities that lie
in those old mists, and extracts gleams of credibility and con-
ceivability for us out of the vast opaque, chatting to us
meanwhile of the errors and absurdities of previous scholars,
especially those of the duller sort, in their attempts in the
same business, and of his faith, if people would but trust
him, in the results of his own superior inquisitiveness. In

4 EDITOR'S PREFACE

the brief paper called The Theban Sphinx we are still kept on
Greek ground, though only for the purpose of obliging De
Quincey by attending to his ingeniously fantastic re-inter-
pretation of one particular Greek legend. The Toilette of
the Hebrew Lady is an independent paper of mere digested or
compiled information of the archaeological kind, with little
or nothing of speculative interfusion. Then, coming to the
Romans in the days of their assured supremacy over the
whole world, i.e. over the Mediterranean and its adjuncts,
he launches out, — first in his Cicero, then in his series of papers
called The Caesars (from which the clever trifle called Aelius
Lamia may be regarded as a detached splinter), and finally in
his Philosophy of Roman History, — on the centuries-long current
of that great theme. Nothing abashed by its greatness or its
complexity, but as if with the fascination of a prepared
scholarly familiarity with its whole extent, he asserts his
right not merely to select passages of the old story for more
impressive visual treatment than usual, but also to challenge
former interpretations of the facts and intermingle new explana-
tions and comments with the flow of the scenic procession.
His most ambitious attempt of this kind is in his papers on
The Caesars. These, making as they do in their aggregate
a little book by itself, present us with a panoramic view of
the history of Imperial Rome, from the days of the " mightiest
Julius " (estimated by De Quincey, one is glad to find, as he
was by Shakespeare, and has been by every other fit modern
authority, as the noblest of Roman men), on to the time of
Diocletian, the split between the East and the West, and that
organised division of the Csesarship which was the prelude
to the final disintegration. With all its defects and occasional
cloudiness, it is perhaps the most vivid panoramic sketch
of the Imperial History to be found in our language. It
is certainly entitled, at all events, to De Quincey's claim for
it, that it is far from being "a simple recapitulation or
resume," inasmuch as, though " it moves rapidly over the
ground," it does so with an " exploring eye " wherever the
darkness is deepest. Here, in fact, as in others of his
historical essays, the objection of later scholars, reviewing
what he has written, is likely to be that his " exploring
eye " has sometimes been beguiled by a vagrant will-o'-the-

EDITOR'S PREFACE 5

wisp, or even a casual flicker of light within its own socket,
and so that what he offers as " novelties '; are sometimes mere
mistakes.

Whatever may be the worth of this last objection with
respect to the particular essays included in the present volume,
it certainly hits on one peculiarity of De Quincey's character.
Gentle and shy though he was personally, placid and polite
to the uttermost in his demeanour within his own nook,
he carried in him nevertheless an unusual fund of what
may be called opinionativeness, which could be translated on
occasion into pugnacity, or even a kind of fierceness, on
behalf of any opinion of his which he specially valued and
found specially resisted. Whether his passion for specu-
lative novelty, even in his historical researches, did not
sometimes lead him into violent paradoxes, and whether
his readiness to propound these at any risk of subsequent
confutation did not proceed from this excess in him of
sheer opinionativeness, are questions which can hardly be
answered without a specification of his paradoxes one by
one, and a consideration in each case of the evidences
for and against. That is beyond our duty here ; and
there will be a better opportunity for any approach to a
hint on the subject in connexion with a historical paradox,
reputed by some the most flagrant of all De Quincey's ven-
tures of that kind, which will make its appearance in next
volume. Meanwhile, for the Historical Essays and Ee-
searches which compose this volume one may claim, what-
ever may be the abatements on the ground indicated or on
any other, the admiration due to rare intellectual power and
fine literary management. The combination in them of ripe
and curious erudition with speculative subtlety and sagacity,
and of both with pictorial effect and general literary
charm, is really remarkable. In the last particular the
reader will not fail to note for himself how much of the
charm depends on a constant lightsomeness, a recurring play
of wit and humour, in the treatment of the gravest matters.
It was De Quincey's determination that whatever he wrote
in a magazine should be as interesting and amusing for
magazine readers as the subject would permit ; and he cer-
tainly succeeded in this where other writers would have

6 EDITOR'S PREFACE

failed. Hence, or rather perhaps from no such deter-
mination at all, but simply because, being De Quincey, he
could not write otherwise than as De Quincey, those whim-
sical extravagances of fancy and phrase, those detections of
fun in the midst of the antique and stately, those descents
into colloquialism and even into slang, in which some readers
find cause of offence. All in all, however, and with this
last fault added to any others that may be in the reckoning,
where have we such historical magazine-writing nowadays,
matter and manner taken together, as in these Greek and
Koman Essays of De Quincey 1

With the exception of the two slightest, they all appeared
in Blackwood's Magazine during the palmy days of De Quincey's
contributorship to that periodical between 1828 and 1842.
Was it that the standard of scholarship in magazine-writing
generally was different in those days from what it has be-
come since ; or was it that Blackwood in particular could make
its standard of scholarship exceptionally high because there
was a man in Edinburgh called De Quincey and Christopher
North knew his worth ? D. M.

HOMER AND THE HOMERID.E1

PART I

HOMER, the general patriarch of Occidental Literature, re-
minds us oftentimes, and powerfully, of the river Nile. If
yon, reader, should (as easily you may) be seated on the
banks of that river in the months of February or March
1858, you may count on two luxuries for a poetic eye : first,
on a lovely cloudless morning ; secondly, on a gorgeous
Flora. For it has been remarked that nowhere out of
tropical regions is the vernal equipage of nature so rich, so
pompously variegated, in buds, and bells, and blossoms, as
precisely in this unhappy Egypt — "a house of bondage,"
undeniably, in all ages, to its own working population ; and
yet, as if to mock the misery it witnesses, the gayest of all
lands in its spontaneous Flora. Now, supposing yourself to
be seated, together with a child or two, on some flowery
carpet of the Delta ; and supposing the Nile — " that ancient
river " — within sight ; happy infancy on the one side, the
everlasting pomp of waters on the other, and the thought
'still intruding that on some quarter of your position, per-
haps fifty miles out of sight, stand pointing to the heavens
the mysterious pyramids : these circumstances presupposed,
it is inevitable that your thoughts should wander upwards to
the dark fountains of origination. The pyramids, why and
when did they arise ? This infancy, so lovely and innocent,

1 From Blackwood's Magazine for October, November, and Decem-
ber 1841 ; reprinted by De Quincey in 1857, with merely verbal
changes, in the sixth volume of his Collected Writings. — M.

8 HISTOEICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

whence does it come, whither does it go ? This creative
river, what are its ultimate well-heads ? That last question
was viewed by antiquity as charmed against solution. It
was not permitted, they fancied, to dishonour the river
Nile by stealing upon his solitude in a state of weakness
and childhood —

" Nee licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre."

' ' No license there was to the nations of earth for seeing thee, 0 Nile !
in a condition of infant imbecility."

So said Lucan. And in those clays no image that the earth
suggested could so powerfully express a mysterious secrecy
as the coy fountains of the Nile. At length came Abyssinian
Bruce ; and that superstition seemed to vanish. Yet no :
for now again the mystery has revolved upon us. You have
drunk, you say, from the fountains of the Nile. Good ; but,
my friend, from which fountains 1 " Which king, Bezonian ? "
Understand that there is another branch of the Nile — another
mighty arm, whose fountains lie in far other regions. The
great letter Y, that Pythagorean marvel, is still covered with
shades in one-half of its bifurcation. And the darkness
which, from the eldest of days, has invested Father Nile with
fabulous awe still broods over the most ancient of his
fountains, defies our curious impertinence, and will not suffer
us to behold the survivor of Memphis in his cradle, and of
Thebes the hundred-gated other than in his grandeur as the
benefactor of nations.

Such thoughts, a world of meditations pointing in the
same direction, settle also upon Homer. Eight-and-twenty
hundred years, according to the improved views of chronology,
have men drunk from the waters of this earliest among
known poets. Himself, under one of his denominations, the
son of a river (Melesigenes), or the grandson of a river
(Mseonides), he has been the parent of fertilising streams
carried off derivatively into every land. Not the fountains
of the Nile have been so diffusive, or so creative, as those of
Homer —

" A quo, ceu fonte perenni,
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis."

" From whom, as from a perennial fountain, the mouths of poets are
refreshed with Pierian streams."

HOMER AND THE HOMERID.E 9

There is the same gaiety of atmosphere, the same " blue
rejoicing sky," the same absence of the austere and the gloomy
sublime, investing the Grecian Homer as invests the Nile of
the Delta. And, again, if you would go upwards to the
fountains of this ancient Nile, or of this ancient Homer, you
would find the same mysterious repulsion. In both cases
you find their fountains shyly retreating before you, and,
like the sacred peaks of Ararat, where the framework of
Noah's ark reposes, never less surmounted than when a man
fancies himself within arm's reach of their central recesses.1

A great poet appearing in early ages, and a great river,
bear something of the same relation to human civility and
culture. In this view, with a peculiar sublimity, the Hindoos
consider a mighty fertilising river, when bursting away with
torrent rapture from its mountain cradle, and billowing
onwards through two thousand miles of realms made rich by
itself, as in some special sense " the Son of God." The word
Burrampooter is said to bear that sublime interpretation.
Hence arose the profound interest about the Nile : what
cause could produce its annual swelling ? Even as a pheno-
menon (had it led to nothing) this was awful, but much more
so as a creative agency ; for it was felt that Egypt, which is

1 Seven or eight Europeans — some Russian, some English — have not
only taken possession of the topmost crag on Ararat by means of the
broadest disk which their own persons offered, but have left flags
flying to mark out for those below the exact station which they had
reached. All to no purpose ! The bigoted Armenian still replied —
" These are mere illusions worked by demons." This incredulity in the
people of Armenia is the result of mere religious bigotry. But in a
similar case, amongst people that ought to be more enlightened — yes,
amongst educated Sicilians of high social standing — the same angry
disbelief is the product of pure mortified vanity. About the time of
Waterloo, Captain Smyth settled the height of Mount Etna finally at
10,874 feet ; this result was scientifically obtained, and not open to
any reasonable doubts. Nine years later, Sir John Herschel, knowing
nothing of this previous measurement, ascertained the height to be
10,872^ feet — a most remarkable coincidence ; and the more satisfac-
tory as being obtained barometrically, whilst Captain Smyth's measure-
ment had been trigonometrical. Many of the people in Catania,
however, who had been in the habit for half-a-century of estimating
the height at 13,000 feet, were so incensed at this degradation of their
pretensions that even yet (thirty-three years later) they have not
reconciled themselves to the mathematical truth.

10 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

but the valley ploughed out for itself by the Nile, had been
the mere creation of the river annually depositing its rich
layers of slime. Hence also arose the corresponding interest
about Homer ; for Greece and the Grecian Isles were in many
moral respects as much the creation of Homer as Egypt of
the ;Nile. And, if, on the one hand, it is unavoidable to
assume some degree of civilisation before a Homer could
exist, on the other it is certain that Homer, by the picture
of unity which he held aloft to the Greeks in making
them co-operate to a common enterprise against Asia, and
also by the intellectual pleasure which he first engrafted upon
the innumerable festivals of Hellas, did more than lawgivers
to propagate this early civilisation, and to protect it against
those barbarising feuds or migrations which through some
centuries menaced its existence.

Having, therefore, the same motive of curiosity, — having,
in the indulgence of this curiosity, the same awe, connected,
first, with secrecy, secondly, with remoteness, and, thirdly,
with beneficent power, which turns our inquiries to the infant
Nile, — let us pursue a parallel investigation with regard to
the infant Homer. How was Homer possible ? how could
such a poet as Homer, how could such a poem as the
" Iliad," arise in days so illiterate ? Or rather, and first of
all, was Homer possible ? If the " Iliad " could and did
arise, not as a long series of separate phenomena, but as one
solitary birth of revolutionary power, how was it preserved ?
how passed onwards from generation to generation ? how
propagated over Greece during centuries, when our modern
facilities for copying on paper, and the general art of reading,
were too certainly unknown ?

I presume every man of letters to be aware that since
the time of the great German philologer Fred. Augustus
Wolf1 (for whose life and services to literature see Wilhelm
Koerte's " Leben und Studien Friedr. Aug. Wolfs " : " Life
and Studies of F. A. Wolf," 1833), a great shock has been
given to the slumbering credulity of men on these Homeric
subjects ; a galvanic resuscitation to the ancient scepticism
on the mere possibility of an " Iliad," such as we now have
it, issuing sound and complete, in the tenth or eleventh
1 F. A. Wolf, 1759-1824.— M.

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^ 11

century before Christ, from the brain of a blind man, who
had not (they say) so much as chalk towards the scoring down
of his thoughts. The doubts moved by Wolf in 1795 pro-
pagated a controversy in Germany which has subsisted down
to the present time. This controversy concerns Homer him-
self, and his first-born child, the "Iliad"; for, as to the
" Odyssey," sometimes reputed the child of his old age, and
as to the minor poems, which never could have been ascribed
to him by philosophic critics, these are universally given up,
as having no more connexion with Homer personally than
any other of the many epic and cyclical poems which arose
during post-Homeric ages, in a spirit of imitation, more or
less widely diverging from the primitive Homeric model.

Fred. Wolf raised the question soon after the time of the
French Revolution. Afterwards he pursued it (1797) in his
letters to Heyne. But it is remarkable that a man so power-
ful in scholarship, witnessing the universal fermentation he
had caused, should not have responded to the general call
upon himself to come forward and close the dispute with a
comprehensive valuation of all that had been said, and all
that yet remained to be said, upon this difficult problem.
Voss, the celebrated translator of Homer into German dactylic
hexameters,1 was naturally interested by a kind of personal
stake in the controversy. He wrote to Wolf — warmly, per-
haps, and in a tone almost of moral remonstrance — but
without losing his temper, or forgetting the urbanity of a
scholar. " I believe," said he in his later correspondence of
the year 1796 — "I believe in one 'Iliad,' in one 'Odyssey,'
and in one Homer as the sole father of both. Grant that
Homer could not write his own name — and so much I will
concede that your acute arguments have almost demonstrated
— still to my thinking that only enhances the glory of the
poet. The unity of this poet [that there were not more
authors of the ' Iliad ' than one], and the unity of his works
[that the ' Iliad ' was not made up by welding into a fictitious
unity many separate heroic ballads], are as yet to me unshaken
ideas. But what then ? I am no bigot in my creed, so as
to close my ears against all hostile arguments. And these
arguments, let me say plainly, you now owe to us all ;
1 J. H. Voss, 1751-1826.— M.

12 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

arguments drawn from the internal structure of the Homeric
poems. You have wounded us, Mr. Wolf, in our affections ;
Mr. Wolf, you have affronted us in our tenderest sensibilities.
You liave, Mr. Wolf. But still we are just men ; ready to
listen, willing to bear and to forbear. Meantime the matter
cannot rest here. You owe it, Mr. Wolf, to the dignity of
the subject, not to keep back those proofs which doubtless
you possess ; proofs, observe, conclusive proofs. For hitherto,
permit me to say, you have merely played with the surface
of the question. True, even that play has led to some
important results ; and for these no man is more grateful
than myself. But the main battle, Mr. Wolf, is still in
arrear."

Mr. Wolf, however, hearkened not to such appeals. He
had called up spirits, by his evocation, more formidable than
he looked for or could lay. Perhaps, like the goddess Eris
at the wedding feast, he had merely sought to amuse himself
by throwing a ball of contention amongst the literati : a
little mischief was all that he intended, and a little learned
billingsgate all that he expected. Things had taken a wider
circuit. Wolfs acuteness in raising objections to all the
received opinions had fallen upon a kindly soil ; the public
mind had reacted powerfully ; for the German mind is but
too naturally disposed to scepticism ; and Mr. Wolf found
himself at length in this dilemma : viz. that either, by
writing a very inadequate sequel, he must forfeit the reputa-
tion he had acquired ; or else that he must prepare himself
for a compass of research to which his spirits were not equal,
and to which his studies had not latterly been directed. A
man of high celebrity may be willing to come forward in
undress, and to throw out such casual thoughts as the occasion
may prompt, provided he can preserve his incognito ; but, if
he sees a vast public waiting to receive him with theatric
honours, and a nourish of trumpets announcing his approach,
reasonably he may shrink from facing expectations so highly
raised ; and perhaps in this case he might truly plead an
absolute impossibility of pursuing further the many questions
arising, under such original sterility of materials, and after so
elaborate a cultivation by other labourers.

Wolf, therefore, is not to be blamed for having declined,

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 13

in its mature stages, to patronise his own quarrel. His own
I call it, because he first pressed its strongest points ; because
he first kindled it into a public feud ; and because, by his
own revisal of the Homeric text, he gave to the world,
simultaneously with his doubts, the very strongest credentials
of his right to utter doubts. And the public, during the
interval of half-a-century which has succeeded to his first
opening of the case, have viewed the question as so exclusively
Ms that it is generally known under the name of the Wolfian
hypothesis. All this is so natural that it is almost fair:
that rebel who heads the mob of insurgents is rightly viewed
as the father of the insurrection, whether partially disowning
it or not. Yet still, in the rigour of justice, we must not
overlook the earlier conspirators. Not to speak here of more
ancient sceptics, it is certain that in modern times Bentley,
something more than one hundred and sixty years back, with
his usual divinity of eye, saw the opening for doubts.
Already in the year 1689, when he was a young man fresh
from college, Bentley gave utterance to several of those
particular scruples which a later generation called by the
too exclusive name of " Wolfian." And, indeed, had he done
nothing more than call attention to the digamma, as applied
to the text of Homer, he could not have escaped feeling and
communicating these scruples. To a man who was one day
speaking of some supposed hiatus in the "Iliad," Bentley,
from whom courtesy flowed as naturally as "milk from a
male tiger," called out, "Hiatus, man! Hiatus in your
throat ! There is no such thing in Homer." And, when
the other had timidly submitted to him such cases as //eya
eiTToov or /caAa epya, or ^ueAir/Sea otvov, Bentley showed him
that, unless where the final syllable of the prior word hap-
pened to be in arsi (as suppose in HrjXrjiaSeoy 5A^tA?yos),
universally the hiatus had not existed to the ears of Homer.
And why ? Because it was cured by the interposition of the
digamma: "Apud Homerum seepe videtur hiatus esse, ubi
prisca littera digamma explebat intermedium spatium." [In
Homer there often seems to be a hiatus, where in fact that
ancient letter the digamma filled up the intermediate space.]
Thus ^eAir/Sea olvov in Homer's age was /xeAi^Sea Foivov ;
from which ^Eolic form of otVos (the Greek word for wine] is

14 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

derived our modern word for wine in all the western and
central languages of Christendom. F is V, and V is W, all
the world over — whence, therefore, vin, wine, vino, wein,
wiin, and so on ; all originally depending upon that ^lolic
letter F, or digamma, — that is V, that is W, — which is so
necessary to the metrical integrity of Homer. Now, when
once a man of Bentley's sagacity had made that step — forcing
him to perceive that here of old time had been people
tampering with Homer's text (else how had the digamma
dropped out of the place which once it must have occupied ?)
— he could not but go a little further. If you see one or
two of the indorsements on a bill misspelt, you begin to
suspect a case of general forgery. When the text of Homer
had once become frozen and settled, no man could take
liberties with it at the risk of being tripped up himself on
its glassy surface, and landed in a lugubrious sedentary
posture, to the derision of all critics, compositors, pressmen,
devils, and devilets. But, whilst the text was yet in a state
of fusion, or lukewarm, or in the transitional state of cooling,
every man who had a private purpose to serve might impress
upon its plastic wax whatever alterations he pleased, whether
by direct addition or by substitution, provided only he had
skill to evade any ugly seam or cicatrice. It is true, he
could run this adulterated Homer only on that particular
road to which he happened to have access. But then, in
after generations, when all the Homers were called in by
authority for general collation, his would go up with the
rest ; his forgery would be accepted for a various reading,
and would thus have a fair chance of coming down to posterity
— which word means, at this moment, the reader and myself.
We are posterity. Yes, even we have been humbugged by
this Pagan rascal ; and have doubtless drunk off much of his
swipes, under the firm faith that we were drinking the pure
fragrant wine (the fieAi^Sea Foivov) of Homer.

Bentley having thus warned the public, by one general
caveat, that trioks upon travellers might be looked for on this
road, was succeeded by Wood,1 who, in his " Essay on the
Genius of Homer," occasionally threw up rockets in the
same direction. This essay first crept out in the year 1769,
1 Robert Wood, 1716-1771.— M.

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 15

but only to the extent of seven copies ; and it was not until
the year 1775 * that a second edition diffused the new views
freely amongst the world. The next memorable era for this
question occurred in 1788, during which year it was that
Villoisin 2 published his " Iliad " ; and, as part of its apparatus,
he printed the famous Venetian " Scholia," hitherto known
only to inspectors of MSS. These " Scholia " gave strength
to the modern doubts, by showing that many of them were
but ancient doubts in a new form. Still, as the worshipful
Scholiasts do not offer the pleasantest reading in the world,
most of them being rather drowsy or so — truly respectable
men, but somewhat apoplectic, — it could not be expected that
any explosion of sympathy should follow : the clouds
thickened ; but the man who was to draw forth the lightnings
from their surcharged volumes had not yet come forward.
In the meantime, Herder,3 not so much by learning as by the
sagacity of his genius, threw out some pregnant hints of the
disputable points. And finally, in 1795, Wolf marched
forth in complete mail, a sheaf of sceptical arrows rattling on
his harness, all of which he pointed and feathered, giving by his
learning, or by masculine sense, buoyancy to their flight, so
as to carry them into every corner of literary Europe.
Then began the " row " — then the steam was mounted which
has never since subsided — and then opened upon Germany a
career of scepticism which from the very first promised to be
contagious. It was a mode of revolutionary disease, which
could not by its very nature confine itself to Homer. The
religious reader has since had occasion to see, with pain, the
same principles of audacious scepticism applied to books and
questions more important ; but, as might be shown upon a
fitting occasion, with no reason whatever for serious anxiety
as to any popular effect. Meantime, for those numerous
persons who do not read Latin or German with fluency, but
are familiar with French, the most comprehensive view of

1 It is a proof, however, of the interest even at that time taken by
Germany in English literature, as well as of the interest taken in this
Homeric question, that one of the seven copies published in 1769 must
have found its way to some German scholar ; for already in 1773 a
German translation of Wood had been published at Frankfort.

2 J. B. G. de Villoisiu, 1750-1805.— M.

3 Herder, 1744-1803.— M.

16 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Wolfs arguments (as given in his Homeric " Prolegomena,"
or subsequently in his " Briefe an Heyne " : " Letters to
Heyne") is to be found in Franceson's "Essai sur la
question Si Homere a connu 1'usage de 1'ecriture : Berlin,
1818."

This French work on the question whether Homer were
acquainted with the art of writing I mention as meeting the
wants of those who simply wish to know how the feud began.
But, as that represents only the early stages of the entire
speculation, it will be more satisfactory for all who are
seriously interested in Homer, and without partisanship seek
to know the plain unvarnished truth — " Is Homer a hum,
and the ' Iliad ' a hoax ? " — to consult the various papers on
this subject which have been contributed by Nitzsch to the
great "Allgemeine Encyclopedic " ("Universal Encyclo-
paedia ") of modern Germany. Nitzsch's name is against him.
It is intolerable to see such a thicket of consonants with but
one little bit of a vowel amongst them ; it is like the pro-
portions between FalstafFs bread and his sack. However,
after all, the man did not make his own name ; and the name
looks worse than it sounds ; for it is but our own word niche,
barbarously written. This man's essays are certainly the most
full and representative pleadings which this extensive question
has produced. On the other hand, they labour in excess
with the prevailing vices of German speculation : viz., first,
vague indeterminate conception ; secondly, total want of
power to methodise or combine the parts, and, indeed,
generally, a barbarian inaptitude for composition. But,
waiving our quarrel with Nitzsch and with Nitzsch's name,
no work of his can be considered as generally accessible ; his
body is not in court, and, if it were, it talks German. So in
his chair I shall seat myself ; and now, with one advantage
over him — viz. that I shall never leave the reader to muse
for an hour over my meaning — I propose to state the outline
of the controversy, to report the decisions upon the several
issues sent down for trial upon this complex suit, and the
apparent tendencies, so far as they are yet discoverable,
towards that kind of general judgment which must be
delivered by the Chancery of European criticism before this
dispute will subside into repose.

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 17

The great sectional or subordinate points into which the
Homeric controversy breaks up are these : —

1. Homer — that is, the poet as distinct from his works ;
the poet apart from the poems.

2. The " Iliad " and the " Odyssey "—that is, the poems
as distinct from their author ; the poems apart from the poet.

3. The Rhapsodoi, or poetic chanters of Greece ; these, and
their predecessors or their contemporaries — the Aoidoi, the
Citharcedi, the Homeridai.

4. Lycurgus.

5. Solon — and the Pisistratidse.

6. The Diasceuastce ; the Eemodellers, or publishers of
Recasts.

I hardly know at what point to take up this ravelled
tissue ; but, by way of tracing the whole theme ab ovo,
suppose, reader, we begin by stating the chronological
bearings of the principal objects (things as well as persons)
connected with the " Iliad."

Ilium, or Troy, was that city of Asia Minor whose mem-
orable fortunes and catastrophe furnished the subject of the
" Iliad." At what period of human history may we reason-
ably suppose this catastrophe to have occurred ? Never did
a great man err so much as apparently Sir Isaac Newton, on
this very question, in deducing the early chronology of
Greece. The semi -fabulous section of Grecian annals he
crowded into so narrow a space, and he depressed the whole
into such close proximity to the regular opening of History
(that is, to the Olympiads), that we are perfectly at a loss to
imagine with what sort of men, events, and epochs Sir Isaac
would have peopled that particular interval of a thousand
years in Grecian chronology which corresponds to the
Scriptural interval between the patriarch Abraham and
Solomon the Jewish king. This interval commences with
the year 2000 before Christ, and terminates with the year
1000 before Christ. But such is the fury of Sir Isaac for
depressing all events not absolutely fabulous below this latter
terminus that he has really left himself without counters to
mark the progress of man, or to fill the cells of history,
through a millennium of Grecian life. The whole thousand
years, as respects Hellas, is a mere desert upon Sir Isaac's
VOL. vi c

18 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

map of time. As one instance of Sir Isaac's modernising
propensities, I never could sufficiently marvel at his sup-
posing the map of the heavens, including those constel-
lations which are derived from the Argonautic enterprise,
to have been completed about the very time of that enter-
prise ; as if it were possible that a coarse clumsy hulk like the
ship Argo, at which no possible Newcastle collier but would
have sneezed, or that any of the men who navigated her,
could take a consecrated place in men's imagination, or
could obtain an everlasting memorial in the starry heavens,
until time, by removing gross features, and by blending all
the circumstances with the solemnities of vast distance, had
reconciled the feelings to a sanctity which must have been
shocking if applied to things local and familiar.

Far different from Sir Isaac's is the present chronological
theory. Almost universally it is now agreed that the Siege
of Troy occurred about 1300, or, at the lowest calculation,
more than 1200 years before Christ. What, then, is the
chronological relation of Homer to Troy ? Perhaps the most
tenable theory on this relation is that which represents the
period of his nourishing as having been from two to three
centuries after Troy. By some it was imagined that Homer
himself had been a Trojan, and therefore contemporary with
the very heroes whom he exhibits. Others, like our Jacob
Bryant,1 have fancied that he was not merely coeval with
those heroes, but actually was one of those heroes — viz.
Ulysses ; and that the " Odyssey," therefore, rehearses the
personal adventures, the voyages, the calamities of Homer
himself. It is our old friend the poet, but with a new face ;
he is now a soldier, a sailor, a king, and, in case of necessity,
a very fair boxer, or "fistic artist," for the abatement of
masterful beggars, " sorners," and other nuisances. But
these wild fancies have found no success. All scholars have
agreed in placing a deep gulf of years between Homer and
that Ilium which he sang. Aristarchus fixes the era of
Homer at 140 years after the Trojan war ; Philochorus at
180 years; Apollodorus at 240; the Arundel Marbles at
302 ; and Herodotus, who places Homer about 400 years
before his own time (which " own time " may be dated as
1 Jacob Bryant, 1715-1804,— M,

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 19

about 450 B.C.), ought, therefore, to be interpreted as assum-
ing 350 years at least between Homer and Troy. So that
the earliest series of events connected from before and from
behind with the Grecian bard may be thus arranged : — -

Years before
Christ.

1220 — Trojan Expedition.

1000 — Homer a young man, and contemporary with the

building of the first Temple at Jerusalem.
820 — Lycurgus brings into the Peloponnesus from the island
of Crete (or else from Ionia — that is, not from any
island, but from some place in the mainland of
Asia Minor) the Homeric poems, hitherto unknown
upon the Grecian continent.

Up to this epoch (the epoch of transplanting the " Iliad "
from Greece insular and Greece colonial to Greece continental)
the Homeric poems had been left to the custody of two schools
or professional orders, interested in the text of these poems :
how interested, or in what way their duties connected them
with Homer, I will not at this point inquire. Suffice it,
that these two separate orders of men did confessedly exist —
one being elder, perhaps, than Homer himself, or even than
Troy : viz. the Aoidoi, or Chanters, and Citharcedi, or
Harpers. These, no doubt, had originally no more relation
to Homer than to any other narrative poet ; their duty of
musical recitation had brought them connected with Homer,
as it would have done with any other popular poet ; and it
was only the increasing current of Homer's predominance
over all rival poets which gradually gave such a bias and
inflection to these men's professional art as at length to suck
them within the great Homeric tide. They became, but
were not originally, a sort of Homeric choir and orchestra —
a chapel of priests having a ministerial duty in the vast
Homeric cathedral. Through them exclusively, or, if not,
certainly through them chiefly, the two great objects were
secured : first, that to each successive generation of men
Homer was published with all the advantages of a musical
accompaniment ; secondly, that for distant generations Homer
was preserved. I do not thus beg the question as to the existence
of alphabetic writing in the days of Homer ; on the contrary,

20 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

I go along with Nitzsch and others in opposing Wolf upon
that point. I believe that a laborious and painful art of writing
did exist ; but with such disadvantages as to writing materials
that Homer (I am satisfied) would have fared ill as regarded
his chance of reaching the polished age of Pericles had he relied
on written memorials, or upon any mode of publication less
impassioned than the orchestral chanting of the Rhapsodoi.

The other order of men dedicated to some Homeric
interest, whatever that might be, were those technically
known as the Homeridce. The functions of these men have
never been satisfactorily ascertained, or so as to discriminate
them broadly and firmly from the Oitharcedi and Rhapsodoi.
But in two features it is evident that they differed essentially :
first, that the Homeridce constituted a more local and domestic
college of Homeric ministers, confined originally to a single
island, not diffused (as were the Rhapsodoi) over all Greece ;
secondly, that by their very name, which refers them
back to Homer as a mere radiation from his life-breathing
orb, this class of followers is barred from pretending in the
Homeric equipage (like the Githarcedi) to any independent
existence, still less to any anterior existence. The musical
reciters had been originally a general and neutral class of
public ministers, gradually sequestered into the particular
service of Homer ; but the Homeridce were, in some way or
other, possibly by blood, or by fiction of love and veneration,
Homer's direct personal representatives, — like the green-
turbaned Seyuds of Islamism, who claim a relation of
consanguinity to the Prophet himself.

Thus far, however, though there is evidence of two
separate colleges or incorporations who charged themselves
with the general custody, transmission, and publication of the
Homeric poems, we hear of no care applied to the periodical
review of the Homeric text ; we hear of no man taking pains
to qualify himself for that office by collecting copies from all
quarters, or by applying the supreme political authority of
his own peculiar commonwealth to the conservation and the
authentication of the Homeric poems. The text of no book
can become an object of anxiety until by numerous corrup-
tions it has become an object of doubt. Lycurgus, it is true,
the Spartan lawgiver, did apply his own authority, in a very

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 21

early age, to the general purpose of importing and naturalis-
ing the " Iliad." But there his office terminated. Critical
skill, applied to the investigation of an author's text, was a
function of the human mind as much unknown in the Greece
of Lycurgus as in the Germany of Tacitus, or in the Tongata-
boo of Captain Cook. And, of all places in Greece, such
delicate reactions of the intellect upon its own creations were
least likely to arise amongst the illiterate Dorian tribes of
the Peloponnesus — wretches that hugged their own barbaris-
ing institutions as the very jewels of their birthright, and
would most certainly have degenerated rapidly into African
brutality had they not been held steady, hustled and forcibly
shouldered into social progress, by the press of surrounding
tribes, fortunately more intellectual than themselves.

Thus continued matters through about four centuries
from Homer. And by that time we begin to feel anxious
about the probable state of the Homeric text. Not that
I suppose any interregnum in Homer's influence — not that
I believe in any possible defect of links in that vast series
of traditional transmitters ; the integrity of that succession
was guaranteed by its interwreathing itself with human
pleasures, with religious ceremonies, with household and
national festivals. It is not that Homer would have become
apocryphal or obscure for want of public repetition ; on the
contrary, he would have suffered by too much repetition —
too constant and too fervent a repetition would have been
the main source of corruptions in the text. Sympathy in
the audience must always have been a primary demand with
the Rhapsodoi ; and, to a perfect sympathy, it is one ante-
cedent condition to be perfectly understood. Hence, when
allusions were no longer intelligible or effectual, what result
would be likely to follow ? Too often it must happen that
they would be dropped from the text ; and, when any Homeric
family or city had become extinct, the temptation would be
powerful for substituting the names of others who could
delight the chanter by fervid gratitude for such a vicarious
distinction where it had been merited, or could reward him
with gifts where it had not. But it is not necessary to go
over the many causes in preparation, after a course of four
centuries, for gradually sapping the integrity of Homer's

22 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

text. Everybody will agree that it was at length high time
to have some edition "by authority "; and that, had the
" Iliad " and " Odyssey " received no freezing arrest in their
licentious tendency towards a general interfusion of their
substance, and an adulterating of their diction, with modern
words and ideas, most certainly by the time of Alexander —
i.e. about seven centuries from Homer — either poem would
have existed only in fractions. The connecting parts between
the several books would have dropped out ; and all the
a/060-retcu, or episodes dedicated to the honour of a particular
hero, might, with regard to names less hallowed in the
imagination of Greece, or where no representatives of the
house remained, have perished utterly. Considering the
great functions of the Greek language subsequently in propa-
gating Christianity, it was a real providential provision which
caused the era of state editions to supersede the ad libitum
text of the careless or the interested, and just at that precise
period when the rapidly rising tide of Athenian refinement
would else soon have swept away all the landmarks of
primitive Greece, and when the altered character of the
public reciters would have co-operated with the other difficul-
ties of the case to make a true Homeric text irrecoverable.
For the Rhapsodoi were in a regular course of degradation to
the rank of mere mercenary artists, from that of sacred min-
strels who connected the past with the present, and who
sang — precisely because their burden of truth was too solemn
for unimpassioned speech. This was the station they had
occupied ; but it remains in evidence against them, that they
were rapidly sinking under the changes of the times ; were
open to bribes ; and, as one consequence (whilst partly it was
one cause) of this degradation, that they had ceased to com-
mand the public respect. The very same changes, and
through the very same steps, and under the very same
agencies, have been since exhibited to Europe in the parallel
history of our mediaeval minstrels. The pig-headed Ritson,1
in mad pursuit of that single idea (no matter what) which
might vex Bishop Percy,2 made it his business, in one essay,

1 Joseph Ritson, 1752-1803.— M.

2 Bishop Thomas Percy, 1728-1811. His famous Reliques of
English Poetry appeared in 1765. — M.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIC^ 23

to prove, out of the statutes at large, and out of local court
records, that the minstrel, so far from being that honoured
guest in the courts of princes whom the bishop had described,
was in fact, by Act of Parliament, a rogue and a vagabond,
standing in awe of the parish beadle, and liable to be kicked
out of any hundred or tithing where he should be found
trespassing. But what nonsense ! All that Ritson said was
virtually false, though plausibly half -true. The minstrel
was, and he was not, all that the bishop and others had
affirmed. The contradiction lay in the time : Percy and
Ritson were speaking of different periods ; the bishop of the
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries — the attorney 1
of the sixteenth and seventeenth. Now, the Grecian Rhapsodoi
passed through corresponding stages of declension. Having
ministered- through many centuries to advancing civilisation,
finally they themselves fell before a higher civilisation ; and
the particular aspect of the new civilisation which proved
fatal to them was the general diffusion of reading as an art
of liberal education. In the age of Pericles every well-
educated man could read ; and one result from his skill, as
no doubt it had also been one amongst its exciting causes,
was that he had a fine copy at home, beautifully adorned,
of the " Iliad " and " Odyssey." Paper and vellum, for the
last six centuries B.C. (that is, from the era of the Egyptian
king Psammetichus), were much less scarce in Greece than
during the ages immediately consecutive to Homer ; and this
scarcity it was that had retarded manuscript literature, as
subsequently it retarded the art of printing.

How providential, therefore — and, with the recollection
of that great part played by Greece in propagating Chris-
tianity through the previous propagation of her own litera-
ture and language, what is there in such an interference
unworthy of Providence ? — how providential, that precisely
in that interval of one hundred and eleven years between
the year 555 B.C., the locus- of Pisistratus, and 444 B.C., the

1 Ritson was the most litigious of attorneys ; the leader of all
black-letter literature ; dreaded equally by Bishop Percy and Sir
Walter Scott ; but constantly falling into error through pure mulish
perverseness. Of Greek he knew nothing. In Latin he was self-
taught, and consequently laid himself open to the scoffs of scholars
better taught.

24 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND EESEAKCHES

locus of Pericles, whilst as yet the traditional text of Homer
was retrievable, though rapidly nearing to the time when it
would be strangled with weeds, and whilst as yet the arts of
reading and writing had not weakened the popular devotion
to Homer by dividing it amongst multiplied books, just
then, in that critical isthmus of transitional time, did two or
three Athenians of rank — first Solon, next Pisistratus, and
lastly (if Plato is right) Hipparchus — step forward to make a
public, solemn, and legally operative review of the Homeric
poems. They drew the old hulk into dock ; laid bare its timbers ;
and stopped the further progress of decay. What more they
did than this, and by what characteristic services each con-
nected his name with a separate province in this memorable
restoration of the " Iliad " and " Odyssey," I shall inquire
further on.

One century after Pisistratus we come to Pericles ; or,
counting from the locus of each (555 B.C., and 444 B.C.),
exactly one hundred and eleven years divide them. One
century after Pericles we come to Alexander the Great ; or,
counting from the locus of each (444 B.C., and 333 B.C.),
exactly one hundred and eleven years divide them. During
this period of two hundred and twenty -two years Homer had
rest. Nobody was tempted by any oblique interest to tor-
ment his text any more. And it is singular enough that this
period of two hundred and twenty-two years, during which
Homer reigned in the luxury of repose, having nothing to do
but to let himself be read and admired, was precisely that
ring-fence of years within which lies true Grecian history ;
for, if any man wishes to master the Grecian history, he
needs not to ascend above Pisistratus, nor to come down
below Alexander. Before Pisistratus all is mist and fable ;
after Alexander all is dependency and servitude. And re-
markable it is that, soon after Alexander, and indirectly
through changes caused by him, Homer was again drawn out
for the pleasure of the tormentors. Among the dynasties
founded by Alexander's lieutenants was one memorably
devoted to literature. The Macedonian house of the Ptole-
mies, when seated on the throne of Egypt, had founded the
very first public library and the first learned public. Alex-
ander died in the year 320 B.C. ; and already in the year

HOMER AND THE HOM BRIDGE 25

280 B.C. (that is, not more than forty years after) the learned
Jews of Alexandria and Palestine had commenced, under the
royal patronage, that translation of the Hebrew Scriptures
into Greek which, from the supposed number of the trans-
lators— (viz. septuaginta, seventy) — has obtained the name of
the " Septuagint." This was a service to posterity. But
the earliest Grecian service to which this Alexandrian Library
ministers was Homeric ; and it strikes us as singular when we
contrast it with the known idolatry towards Homer of that
royal soldier from whom the city itself, with all its novelties,
drew its name and foundation. Had Alexander survived
forty years longer, as very easily he might if he had insisted
upon leaving his heel-taps at Babylon, how angry it would
have made him that the very first trial of this new and
powerful galvanic battery, involved in the institution of a
public library, should be upon the body of the " Iliad " !

From 280 B.C. to 160 B.C. there was a constant succession
of Homeric critics. The immense material found in the
public library towards a direct history of Homer and his
fortunes would alone have sufficed to evoke a school of critics.
But there was, besides, another invitation to Homeric criticism,
more oblique, and eventually more effective. The Alex-
andrian Library contained vast collections towards the study
of the Greek language through all its dialects, and through
all its chronological stages. This study led back by many
avenues to Homer. A verse or a passage which hitherto had
passed for genuine, and which otherwise, perhaps, yielded no
internal argument for suspicion, was now found to be veined
by some phrase, dialect, terminal form, or mode of using
words, that might be too modern for Homer's age, or too far
removed in space from Homer's Ionian country. We mo-
derns, from our vast superiority to the Greeks themselves
in Greek metrical science, have in this science found an
extra resource laid open to us for detecting the spurious in
Greek poetry ; and many are the condemned passages in our
modern editions of Greek books against which no jealousy
would ever have arisen amongst unmetrical scholars. Here,
however, the Alexandrian critics, with all their slashing
insolence, showed themselves sons of the feeble ; they groped
about in twilight. But, even without that resource,

26 HISTOEICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

they contrived to riddle Homer through and through with
desperate gashes. In fact, after being "treated" and
"handled" by three generations of critics, Homer came
forth (just as we may suppose one of Lucan's legionary
soldiers from the rencounter with the amphisbsena, the
dipsas, and the water-snake of the African wilderness) one
vast wound, one huge system of confluent ulcers. Often, in
reviewing the labours of three particularly amongst these
Alexandrian scorpions, I think of the ^Esopian fable, in
which an old man with two wives, one aged as befitted him,
and the other young, submits his head alternately to what
may be called the Alexandrian revision of each. The old lady
goes to work first ; and upon " moral principle " she indig-
nantly extirpates all the black hairs which could ever have
inspired him with the absurd fancy of being young and
making love to a girl. Next conies the young critic : she is
disgusted with age ; and upon system eliminates (or, to speak
with Aristarchus, " obelises ") all the grey hairs. And thus,
between the two ladies and their separate editions of the old
gentleman, he, poor Homeric creature, comes forth as bald as
the back of one's hand. Aristarchus might well boast that
he had cured Homer of the dry-rot ! he has, and by leaving
hardly one whole spar of his ancient framework. Nor can
I, with my poor share of penetration, comprehend what sort
of abortion it is which Aristarchus would have us to accept
and entertain in the room of our old original " Iliad " and
" Odyssey." To cure a man radically of the toothache by
knocking all his teeth down his throat seems a suspicious
recommendation for "dental surgery." And, with respect
to the Homer of Aristarchus, it is to be considered that,
besides the lines, sentences, and long passages to which that
Herod of critics affixed his obelus (t) or stiletto,1 there were
entire books which he found no use in obelising piecemeal ;
because it was not this line or that line into which he wished
to thrust his dagger, but the whole rabble of lines — " tag,
rag, and bobtail." Which reminds me of John Paul Kichter,
who suggests to some author anxiously revising the table of

1 This obelus, or little spit, or in fact dagger, prefixed to a word, or
verse, or paragraph, indicated that it might consider itself stabbed,
and assassinated for ever.

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 27

his own errata, that, perhaps, on reflection, he might see
cause to put his whole book into the list of errata, request-
ing of the reader kindly to erase the total work as one entire
oversight and continuous blunder, from page one down to the
word finis. In such cases, as Martial observes, no plurality
of cancellings or erasures will answer the critic's purpose :
but " una litura potest." One mighty bucket of ink thrown
over the whole will execute the critical sentence; But, as to
obelising, that is no better than snapping pocket-pistols in a
sea-fight.

With the Alexandrian tormentors we may say that
Homer's pre-Christian martyrdom came to an end. His post-
Christian sufferings have been due chiefly to the Germans,
who have renewed the warfare not only of Alexandrian
critics, but of the ancient Chorizontes, These people I have
not mentioned separately, because, in fact, nothing remains
of their labours, and the general spirit of their warfare may
be best understood from that of modern Germany. They
acquired their name of Chorizontes (or separators) from their
principle of breaking up the " Iliad " into multiform groups
of little tadpole "Iliads" ; as also of splitting the one old
hazy but golden Homer, that looms upon us so venerably
through a mist of centuries, into a vast reverberation of little
silver Homers, that twinkled up and down the world, and
lived where they found it convenient.

Now let us converge the separate points of this chrono-
logical deduction into one focus ; after which I will try to
review, each for itself, the main questions which I have
already numbered as making up the elements of the contro-
versy.

Years before
Christian Era.

1220 — Troy captured and burned after a ten years' siege.

1000 — Solomon the king of Jewry, and Homer the Grecian
poet, both young men " on the spree." In the
thousandth year before Christ, without sound of
chisel or hammer, the elder Temple was built in
Jerusalem. In that same year, or thereabouts,
rose silently, like an exhalation, the great Homeric
temple of the " Iliad."

28 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND KESE ARCHES

Years before
Christian Era.

800 — Lycurgus the lawgiver imports the " Iliad " into Sparta ;
and thus first transplants it from Greece insular
and Greece colonial into Greece continental.

555 — Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, Pisistratus, the ruler
of Athens, and Hipparchus, his son, do something
as yet undetermined for the better ascertaining and
maintaining of the original Homeric text.

444 — From the text thus settled must presumably have
been cited the numerous Homeric passages which
we find in Plato and other wits of this period,
the noontide of Greek literature — viz. the period
of Pericles ; and these passages generally coincide
with our present text, so that, upon the whole, we
have good reason to rely upon our present " Iliad "
as essentially the same with that which was used
and read in the family of Pisistratus.

333 — This is the main year (at least it is the inaugurating
year) of Alexander's Persian expedition, and prob-
ably the year in which his tutor, Aristotle, pub-
lished those notions about the tragic and epic
" unities " which have since had so remarkable
effect upon the arrangement of the "Iliad." In
particular, the notion of " episodes," or digressional
narratives, interwoven parenthetically with the
principal narrative, was entirely Aristotelian, and
was explained and regulated by him ; and under
that notion people submitted easily to interpola-
tions in the text of the " Iliad " which would else
have betrayed themselves for what they are.

320 — Alexander the Great dies.

280 — The Alexandrian Library is applied to the searching
down revision of Homer ; and a school of Alexandrian

to critics (in which school, through three consecutive

160 generations, flourished, as its leaders, Zenodotus,
Aristophanes, and Aristarchus) dedicated them-
selves to Homer. They are usually called the
Alexandrian "grammatici" ; which word " gram-
matici," as I have explained some scores of times,

HOMER AND THE HOM BRIDGE 29

did not express so limited a notion as that of
grammarians, but was the orthodox mode of
indicating classically those whom the French call
litterateurs, and we English less compactly call
men of letters.

After the era of 160 B.C., by which time the Second
(which is in effect the only great) Punic War had liberated
Rome from her African rival, the Grecian or eastern states of
the Mediterranean began rapidly to fall under Roman con-
quest. Henceforwards the text of Homer suffered no further
disturbance or inquisition, until it reached that little wicked
generation (ourselves and our immediate fathers) which I
have the honour to address. Now, let us turn from the
" Iliad" viewed in its chronological series of fortunes to the
" Iliad " viewed in itself and its relations ; i.e. in reference to
its author, to its Grecian propagators, to its reformers or
restorers, its re-casters or interpolators, and its critical ex-
plorers.

A. — HOMER.

About the year 1797 Messrs. Pitt and Harry Dundas
laboured under the scandal of sometimes appearing drunk in
the House of Commons ; and on one particular evening this
impression was so strong against them that the morning
papers of the following three days fired a salute of exactly one
hundred-and-one epigrams on the occasion. One was this : —

PITT. — I cannot see the Speaker, Hal — can you ?
DUND. — Not see the Speaker ! D — m'e, I see two.

Thus it has happened to Homer. Some say, " There never
was such a person as Homer." — " No such person as Homer !
On the contrary," say others, " there were scores." This
latter hypothesis has much more to plead for itself than the
other. Numerous Homers were postulated with some ap-
parent reason, by way of accounting for the numerous
Homeric poems, and numerous Homeric birthplaces. One
man, it was felt, never could be equal to so many claims.
Ten camel-loads of poems you may see ascribed to Homer in
the " Bibliotheca Graeca " of Fabricius ; and more states than

30 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

seven claimed the man. These claims, it is true, would
generally have vanished if there had been the means of
critically probing them ; but still there was a primd facie
case made out for believing in a plurality of Homers ; whilst,
on the other hand, for denying Homer there never was any
but a verbal reason. The Polytheism of the case was
natural ; but the Atheism was monstrous. Ilgen, in the pre-
face to his edition of the Homeric Hymns, says, " Homeri
nomen, si recte video, derivandum est ex 6/zov et a/W And
so, because the name (like many names) can be made to yield
a fanciful emblematic meaning, Homer must be a myth.
But, in fact, Mr. Ilgen has made little advance towards a
settlement, if that was what he aimed at, with his opov a/aw.
What do the words mean ? A/aw is to join, to fit, to adapt
— OJJLOV is together, or in harmony. But such a mere out-
line or schematism of an idea may be filled up under many
different constructions. One critic, for instance, understands
it in the sense of dovetailing, or metaphorical cabinet-making,
as if it applied chiefly to the art of uniting words into
metrical combinations. Another — viz. Mr. Ilgen himself —
takes it quite differently ; it describes not the poetical com-
position, or any labour whatever of the poet as a poet, but
the skill of the musical accompaniment and adaptations.
Homer means the man that put together, or fitted into concert,
the words and the music — the libretto of the opera and its
fine Mozartian accompaniment. By accident the poet may
chance to be also the musical reciter of the poem ; and in
that character he may have an interest in this name of 'O/z^/jos,
but not as a poet. 'Opypeiv and 6p7/o€vav, says Hesychius,
mean o-iy>t</>toveiv (to harmonise in point of sound) ; the latter
of the two is used in this sense by Hesiod ; and more nicely,
says Mr. Ilgen, it means accinere, to sing an accompaniment
to another voice or to an instrument ; and it means also
succinere, to sing such an accompaniment in an under-key, or
to sing what we moderns call a second — i.e. an arrangement
of notes corresponding, but subordinated, to the other or lead-
ing part. So says Ilgen in mixed Latin, German, and Greek.
Now, I also have my pocket theory. I maintain that op.ov
apco is Greek for packing up. And my view of the case is
this : — " Homer " was a sort of Delphic or prophetic name

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 31

given to the poet under a knowledge of that fate which
awaited him in Crete, where, if he did not pack up any
trunk tli at has yet been discovered, he was, however, himself
packed up in the portmanteau of Lycurgus. Such, at least,
is the colouring which the credulous Plutarch, nine hundred
years after Lycurgus, gives to the story. " Man alive ! " says
a German, apostrophising this thoughtless Plutarch, how could
Lycurgus make a shipment of Homer's poems in the shape of
a parcel for importation, unless there were written copies in
Crete at a time when nobody could write ? Or, how, why,
and for what intelligible purpose, could he have consigned
this bale to a house in the Peloponnesus — viz. Somebody & Co.
— when notoriously neither Somebody nor Go. could read ?
Homer, he thinks, could be imported at that period only in
the shape of an orchestra, as a band of Homeric chanters.
But, returning seriously to the name 'Op?/oos, I say that,
were this name absolutely bursting with hieroglyphic life,
that would be no proof that the man Homer, instead of
writing a considerable number of octavo volumes, was (to use
Mr. Ilgen's uncivil language) " an abstract idea." Decent
people's children are not to be treated as " abstract ideas " be-
cause their names may chance to look allegoric. Bunyan's
" Mr. Ready-to-sink " might seem suspicious in offering him-
self for a life-insurance ; but Mr. Strong-i'-th'-arm, who would
have been a desirable companion for such an exhausted
gentleman, is no abstract idea at all ; he is, to my personal
knowledge, a broad-shouldered reality in a most celebrated
street of London, liable to bills, duns, and other affections of
our common humanity. Suppose, therefore, that Homer, in
some one of his names, really had borne a designation
glancing at a symbolical meaning, what of that ? this should
rather be looked upon as a reflex name, artificially con-
structed for expressing and reverberating his glory after it
had gathered, than as any predestinating (and so far marvel-
lous) name. Chrysostom, for instance, that eloquent father
of early Christianity, had he been baptized by such a name
as golden-mouthed (Chrysostomos), you would have suspected
for one of Mr. Ilgen's " abstract ideas " ; but, as it happens,
we all know that he existed in the body, and that the appel-
lation by which he is usually recognised was a name of

32 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

honour conferred upon him by the public in commemoration
of his eloquence. However, I will bring this point to a
short issue, by drawing the reader's attention to the following
case : — Any man who has looked into the body of Greek
rhetoricians must know that, in that hebdomas idearum, or
septenary system of rhetorical forms, which Hermogenes and
many others illustrated, two of the seven (and the foremost
two) were the qualities called gorgotes and demotes. Now,
turn to the list of early Greek rhetoricians or popular
orators, and who stands first ? Chronologically, the very
first is a certain Tisias, perhaps ; but he is a mere nominis
umbra. The first who made himself known to the literature
of Greece is Gorgias ; that Gorgias who visited Athens in the
days of Socrates (see Athenseus for a rigorous examination of
the date assigned to that visit by Plato) ; the same Gorgias
from whose name Plato has derived a title for one of his
dialogues. Again, amongst the early Greek orators, you will
see Deinarchus. Gorgias and Deinarchus ! Who is there
but would say, were it not that these men had flourished in
the meridian light of Athenian literature — " Here we behold
two ideal or symbolic orators typifying the qualities of gor-
gotes and deinotes ! " — But a stronger case still is that of
Demosthenes. Were this great orator not (by comparison
with Homer) a modern person, under the full blaze of his-
tory, and coeval with Alexander the Great, 333 years B.C.,
who is there that would not pronounce him a mere allegoric
man, upon reflecting that the name was composed of these
two elements — Demos, the " people " in its most democratic
expression, and sthenos, " strength " ? this last word having
been notoriously used by Homer (mega sthenos Okeanoio) to
express that sort of power which makes itself known by
thundering sound, " the thundering strength of the people ! "
or, " the people's fulminating might ! " 1 — who would believe
that the most potent of Greek orators had actually brought
with him into his cradle this ominous and magnificent name,
this natural patent of precedency to the Athenian hustings ?

1 Which (to borrow Milton's grand words from "Paradise Re-
gained ")

''Thundered over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne,"

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^ 33

It startles us to find lurking in any man's name a prophecy
of his after career ; as, for instance, to find a Latin legend —
" And his glory shall be from the Nile " (Est honor a Nilo) con-
cealing itself in the name Horatio Nelson.1 But there the
prophecy lies hidden, and cannot be extracted without a pain-
ful corkscrew process of anagram. Whereas, in Demosthenes,
the handwriting is plain to every child : it seems witchcraft
— and a man is himself alarmed at his own predestinating
name. Yet, for all that, with Mr. Ilgen's permission, Demos-
thenes was not an "abstract idea." Consequently, had
Homer brought his name in his waistcoat-pocket to the com-
position of the " Iliad," he would still not have been half as
mythical in appearance as several well-authenticated men,
decent people's sons, who have kicked up an undeniable dust
on the Athenian hustings. Besides, the word Homer has
other significant or symbolising senses. It means a hostage,
it means a blind man, as much as a cabinet-maker, or even
as a packer of trunks. Many of these " significant names "
either express accidents of birth commonly recurring — such
as Benoni, " the child of sorrow," a name frequently given by
young women in Westmoreland to any child born under cir-
cumstances of desertion, sudden death, &c., on the part of the
father — or express those qualities which are always presum-
able in woman by the courtesy of the human race. Honour,
Prudence, Patience, &c., are common female names : or, if
they imply anything special, any peculiar determination of
general qualities that never could have been foreseen, in that
case they must be referred to an admiring posterity — that
senior posterity which was such for Homer, but for us has
long ago become a worshipful ancestry.

From the name it is a natural step to the country. All
the world knows, by means of a satirical couplet, that

" Seven cities claimed the mighty Homer dead,
Through which that Homer, living, begged his bread. "

What were the names of those seven cities (and islands) I can

1 A still more startling (because more complex) anagram is found in
the words Revolution Fran$aise : for, if (as was said in 1800, after Ma-
rengo) from those two words, involving nineteen letters, you subtract
the king's VETO (viz. exactly those four letters), in that case there will
remain — Un Corse lafinira.

VOL. VI D

34 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

inform the reader by means of an old Latin couplet amongst
my schoolboy recollections —

"Smyrna, Chios, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodes, Argos, Athense,
Orbis de patria certat, Homere, tua."

" Smyrna, &c., nay the whole world, contends for the honour of thy
nativity, 0 Homer."

Among these, the two first, Smyrna and Chios, have very
superior pretensions. Had Homer been passed to his parish
as a vagrant, or had Colophon (finding a settlement likely to
be obtained by his widow) resolved upon trying the question,
she might probably have quashed any attempt to make the
family chargeable upon herself. But Smyrna lies under
strong suspicion : the two rivers from which Homer's
immediate progenitors were named — the Mceon and the
Meles — bound the plains close to Smyrna. And Wood
insists much upon the perfect correspondence of the climate
in that region of the Levant with each and all of Homer's
atmospherical indications. I suspect Smyrna myself, and
quite as much as Mr. Wood ; but still I hesitate to charge
any local idiosyncrasy upon the Smyrniote climate that could
nail it in an action of damages. Gay and sunny, pellucid in
air and water, I am sure that Smyrna is ; in short, every-
thing that could be wished by the public in general, or by
currant-dealers in particular. But really that any city -what-
ever, in that genial quarter of the Mediterranean, should pre-
tend to a sort of patent for sunshine, looks very much like
an extract from a private letter to the marines.

Meantime those seven places are far from being all the
competitors that have entered their names with the clerk of
the course. Homer has been pronounced a Syrian, — which
name in early Greece of course included the Hebrew, the
Syrian proper, the Arab, and the Idumean ; and so the
" Iliad" may belong to the synagogue. Babylon, also, dusky
Babylon, has put in her claim to Homer ; so has Egypt.
And thus, if the poet were really derived from an oriental
race, his name (sinking the aspiration) may have been Omar.
But these oriental pretensions are mere bubbles, exhaling
from national vanity. The place which, to my thinking, lies
under the heaviest weight of suspicion as the seat of Homer's

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJ3 35

connexions, and very often of his own residence, is the
island of Crete. Smyrna, I doubt not, was his birthplace.
But in those summer seas, quiet as lakes, and basking in
everlasting sunshine, it would be inevitable for a stirring
animated mind to float up and down the ^Egean. " Home-
keeping youths had ever homely wits," says a great poet of
our own,1 and I doubt not that Homer (if able to afford it)
had a yacht, in which he visited all the festivals of the
^Egean Islands. Thus he acquired that learned eye which
he manifests for female beauty. Rhododactylus, "rosy-
fingered"; arguropeza, " silver- footed "; bathukolpos, "full-
bosomed " ; boopis, " ox-eyed," — with a large vocabulary of
similar notices, — show how widely Homer had surveyed the
different chambers of Grecian beauty ; for it has happened,
through accidents of migration and consequent modifications
of origin, combined with varieties of diet and customs, that
the Greek Islands still differ greatly in the style of their
female beauty.2 Now, the time for seeing the young women
of a Grecian city all congregated under the happiest circum-
stances of display was in their local festivals. Many were
the fair Phidiacan 3 forms which Homer had beheld moving
like goddesses through the mazes of religious choral dances.
But at the islands of los, of Chios, and of Crete, in particu-
lar, I am satisfied that he had a standing invitation. To this
hour, the Cretan life presents us with the very echo of the
Homeric delineations. Take four several cases : —

1. The old Homeric superstition, for instance, which con-
nects horses by the closest sympathy, and even by prescience,
with their masters — that superstition which Virgil has
borrowed from Homer in his beautiful episode of Mezentius
(Rhcebe, diu, res si qua diu mortalibus ulla est, Viximus) — still
lingers unbroken in Crete. Horses foresee the fates of riders
who are doomed, and express their prescience by weeping in

1 Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona. — M.

2 For .instance, the Athenian females, even when mature women,
seemed still girls in their graceful slenderness : they were, in modern
French phrase, sveltes. But the Boeotian, even whilst yet young girls,
seemed already mature women, fully developed.

3 From the expression of Phidiaca manu — used by Horace — we
learn that the adjective, derived from Phidias, the immortal architect
and sculptor, was Phidiacus.

36 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

a human fashion. The horses of Achilles weep, in "Iliad"
xvii, on seeing Automedon, their beloved driver, prostrate
on the ground. With this view of the horse's capacity, it is
singular that in Crete this animal by preference should be
called TO aAoyov, the brute, or irrational creature. But the
word 67T7TOS has, by some accident, been lost in the modern
Greek. As an instance both of the disparaging name, and of
the ennobling superstition, take the following stanza from a
Cretan ballad of 1825, written in the modern Greek : —

' aXoyo TOV.
Kat roreo-a TO eyvwpicre

Iltos etvai 6 Oavaros TOV."

" Upon which he mounted, and his horse wept ; and then he saw
clearly how this should bode his death. "

Under the same old Cretan faith, Homer, in " Iliad " xvii.
437, says —

" AaKyova Se cn£i
Kara fiXecfraptov \a[j.aSi<s /oee (j,vpofji€vouv

"Tears, scalding tears, trickled to the ground down the eyelids of
them (the horses), fretting through grief for the loss of their
charioteer."

2. Another almost decisive record of Homer's familiarity
with Cretan life lies in his notice of the agrimi, a peculiar
wild goat, or ibex, found in no part of the Mediterranean
world, whether island or mainland, except in Crete. And it
is a case almost without a parallel in literature, that Homer
should have sent down to all posterity, in sounding Greek,
the most minute measurement of this animal's horns;
which measurement corresponds with all those recently
examined by English travellers, and in particular with three
separate pairs of these horns brought to England about the
year 1836 by Mr. Pashley, the learned Mediterranean tra-
veller of Trinity College, Cambridge. Mr. Pashley, at pre-
sent (viz. in 1857) a barrister of philosophic as well as high
forensic pretensions, has since published his travels, and from
him I extract the following description of these shy but

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 37

powerful animals, furnished to Mr. Pashley by a Cretan
mountaineer : — " The agrimia are so active that they will
u leap up a perpendicular rock of ten to fourteen feet high.
" They spring from precipice to precipice, and bound along
" with such speed that no dog would be able to keep up
" with them, even on better ground than that where they
" are found. The sportsman must never be to windward of
" them, or they will perceive his approach long before he
" comes within musket-shot. They often carry off a ball ;
" and, unless they fall immediately on being struck, are mostly
" lost to the sportsman, although they may have received
" a mortal wound. They are commonly found two, three, or
" four together ; sometimes a herd of eight, and even nine,
" is seen. They are always larger than the common goat.
" In the winter time they may be tracked by the sportsman
" in the snow. It is common for men to perish in the chase
" of them [in that respect resembling the chamois -hunter
11 of the Alps]. They are of a reddish colour, and never
" black or parti- coloured like the common goat. The num-
" ber of prominences on each horn indicates the years of the
" animal's age."

Now, Homer, in " Iliad" iv. 105, on occasion of Pandarus
drawing out his bow, notices it as an interesting fact that
this bow, so beautifully polished, was derived from (the
horns of) a wild goat, cuyos aypiov ; and the epithet by
which he describes this wild creature is i£oAos — preternatur-
ally agile. In his Homeric manner he adds a short
digressional history of the fortunate shot from a secret
ambush by which Pandarus had himself killed the creature.
From this it appears that, before the invention of gun-
powder, men did not think of chasing the Cretan ibex, so
hopeless was the prospect of success ; and from the circum-
stantiality of the account it is evident that special honour
attached to the sportsman who had succeeded in such a
capture. He closes with the measurement of the horns in
this memorable line (memorable as preserving such a fact for
three thousand years) —

" Tov Ktpa €K K€<pa\r)<s eKKcuSeKa Swpa ir€<f)VK€i."

" The horns from this creature's head measured sixteen dora in
length."

38 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Ay ; but what is a doron ? In the Venetian " Scholia " some
annotator had hit the truth, but had inadvertently used a
wrong word. This word, an oversight, was viewed as such
by Heyne ; who corrected it accordingly before any scholar
had seen the animal. The doron is now ascertained to be a
Homeric expression for the palm, or sixth part of a Grecian
foot; and thus the extent of the horns, in that specimen
which Pandarus had shot, would be two feet eight inches.
Now, the casual specimens sent to Cambridge by Mr. Pashley
(not likely to be quite so select as that which formed a per-
sonal weapon for a man of rank) were all two feet seven and
a -half inches on the outer margin, and two feet one and
a-half inches on the inner. And thus the accuracy of
Homer's account (which, as Heyne observes, had been greatly
doubted in past ages) was not only remarkably confirmed,
but confirmed in a way which at once identifies, beyond all
question, the Homeric wild-goat (cu£ aypios) with the present
agrimi of Crete — viz. by the unrivalled size of the animal's
horns, and by the unrivalled agility of the animal's move-
ments, which rendered it necessary, in days before the dis-
covery of powder, to shoot it from an ambush.

But this result becomes still more conclusive for my
present purpose — viz. for identifying Homer himself as in
some measure a Cretan by his habits of life — when I mention
the scientific report from Mr. Kothman of Trinity College,
Cambridge, on the classification and habitat of the animal : —
" It is not," he says, "the bouquetin [of the Alps], to
" which, however, it bears considerable resemblance, but the
" real wild -goat, the capra cegagrus [Pallas], the supposed
" origin of all our domestic varieties. The horns present the
" anterior trenchant edge characteristic of this species. The
" discovery of the cegagrus in Crete is perhaps a fact of some
" zoological interest, as it is the first well-authenticated Euro-
" pean locality of this animal."

Here is about as rigorous a demonstration, emanating
from Mr. Pashley, the Greek archaeologist, that the sporting
adventure of Pandarus must have been a Cretan adventure,
as would be required by the same Mr. Pashley, barrister (and
by this time I hope Q.C.) in the Court of Queen's Bench ;
whilst the spirited delineation of the capture, in which every

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^l 39

vvord is emphatic, and picturesquely true to the very life of
1841,1 indicates pretty strongly that Homer had participated
in such modes of sporting himself. >^^

3. Another argument for the Cretan habitudes of Homer
is derived from his allusion to the Cretan .tumblers — the
/ci»/?toTT^r?;/)es — the most whimsical, perhaps^* ill luiu mnuilil ; "^
and to this hour the practice continues unaltered as in pre-
Homeric days. The description is easily understood. Two
men place themselves side by side ; one stands upright in his
natural posture ; the other stands on his head. Of course,
this latter would be unable to keep his feet aloft and in the
place belonging to his head, were it not that his comrade
throws his arms round his ankles, so as to sustain his legs
inverted in the air. Thus placed, they begin to roll forward,
head over heels, and heels over head ; every tumble inverts
their positions ; but always there is one man, after each roll,
standing upright on his pins, and another whose lower
extremities are presented to the clouds. And thus they go

on for hours. The performance obviously requires two
associates ; or, if the number were increased, it must still be
by pairs ; and, accordingly, Homer describes his tumblers as
in the dual number.

4. A fourth, and most remarkable, among the Homeric
mementoes of Cretan life, is the rr\ AeAaAta — or conversation
from a distance. This it is, and must have been, which sug-
gested to Homer his preternatural male voices : Stentor's, for
instance, who spoke as loud "as other fifty men"; and that
of Achilles, whom Antilochus roused up with a long pole,
like a lion couchant in his lair, to come out and roar at the
Trojans — simply by which roar he scares the whole Trojan
army. Now, in Crete (and from Colonel Leake, it appears,
in Albania, where I believe that all the emigrant settlers are
Cretan), shepherds and others are found with voices so
resonant, — aided, perhaps, by the quality of a Grecian
atmosphere, — that they are able to challenge a person " out
of sight," and will actually conduct a ceremonious conver-
sation (for all Cretan mountaineers are as ceremonious as the
Homeric heroes) at distances which to us seem incredible.

1 1841 — viz. the date of publication for this little essay in its
earliest form.

40 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

What distances ? demands the litigious reader. Why, oiu
own countrymen, modest and veracious, decline to state in
punctilious arithmetical terms what they have not measured,
or even had full means of computing. They content them-
selves with saying that sometimes their guide, from the midst
of a solitary valley, would shout aloud to the European
public in general — taking his chance of any strollers from
that great body, though quite out of sight, chancing to be
within mouth-shot. But the French are not so scrupulous.
M. Zallony, in his " Voyage a 1'Archipel," says that some of
the Greek islanders '•' out la voix forte et animee ; et deux
habitans, a une distance d'une demi-lieue, meme plus, peuvent
tres facilement s'entendre, et quelquefois s'entretenir." Now,
a royal league is hard upon three English miles, and a sea
league, I believe, is two and a-half ; so that half-a-league et
m$me plus would bring us near to a mile and a-half, or
twelve furlongs, — which seems a long interval at which to
conduct a courtship. Yet possibly not. Some forty years
back, a witness, under examination at the York Assizes,
being asked by the presiding judge how he came to think
that the defendant was making love to a lady concerned in
the action, replied, because he talked to her in italics. Now,
the hint in this precedent would suggest to any of us, when
making love at Cretan distances, the propriety of talking to
the lady in capitals. In Crete, meantime, and again, no
doubt, from atmospheric advantages, the r^Aco-KOTria, or
power of descrying remote objects by the eye, is carried to
an extent that, were it not countenanced by modern
experience, would seem drawn from a fairy tale. This
faculty also may be called Homeric ; for Homer repeatedly
alludes to it.

5. But the legends and mythology of Crete are what
most detect the intercourse of Homer with that island.
A volume would be requisite for the full illustration of
this truth. It will be sufficient here to remind the reader
of the early civilisation, long anterior to that of Greece
continental, which Crete had received. That premature
refinement of itself furnishes an a priori argument for
supposing that Homer would resort to Crete ; and, in-
versely, the elaborate Homeric use of Cretan traditions

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 41

furnishes an a posteriori argument that Homer did seek
this island.

Let me not be thought by the courteous and malicious
reader to be travelling into extrajudicial questions. It is
of great use towards any full Homeric investigation that
we should fix Homer's locality and trace his haunts ; for
locality, connected with the internal indications of the
"Iliad," is the best means of approximating to Homer's
true era; as, on the other hand, Homer's era, if otherwise
deduced, would assist the indications of the "Iliad" to
determine his locality. And, if any reader demands, in
a spirit of mistrust, how it is that Crete, so harassed by
intestine wars from Turkish, Venetian, and recently from
Egyptian tyranny, the bloodiest and most exterminating,
has been able, through three thousand years, to keep up
unbroken her inheritance of traditions, I reply that the
same cause has protected the Cretan usages which (since
the days of our friend Pandarus) has protected the Cretan
ibex — viz. the physical conformation of the island : its
mountains \ its secret passes, where one resolute band of
two hundred men is equal to an army ; ledges of rock
which a mule cannot tread with safety ; crags where even
infantry must break and lose their cohesion ; and, above
all, the blessedness of rustic poverty, which offers no tempt-
ation to the marauder. These have been the Cretan safe-
guards ; and a brave Sfakian population, by many degrees
the finest of all Grecian races in their persons and their
hearts.

The main point about Homer the man which now remains
to be settled, amongst the many that are desirable, and the
few that are hopeful, is this — Gould he write ? and, if he could,
did he use that method for fixing his thoughts and images
as they arose, or did he trust to his own memory for the
rough sketch, and to the chanters for publishing the revised
copies ?

This question, however, as it will again meet us under
the head Solon and the Pisistratidce, I will defer to that
section ; and I will close this personal section on Homer by
one remark borrowed from Plato. The reader will have
noticed that, amongst the cities pretending to Homer as a

42 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

native child, stands the city of Argos. Now, Plato, by way
of putting a summary end to all such windy pretensions from
Dorian cities, introduces in one of his dialogues a stranger,
who remarks, as a leading characteristic of Homer, that
everywhere he keeps the reader moving amongst scenes,
images, and usages, which reflect the forms and colouring of
IONIAN life. This remark is important.

PAKT II
THE "ILIAD"

What is the "Iliad" about? What is the true and
proper subject of the " Iliad " ? If that could be settled, it
would facilitate our inquiry. Now, everybody knows that,
according to the ordinary notion, founded upon the opening
lines of this poem, the subject is the Wrath of Achilles.
Others, however, have thought, with some reason, that this
idea was not sufficiently self-diffusive — was not all-pervasive :
it seemed a ligament that passed through some parts of the
poem, and connected them intimately, but missed others
altogether. It has, therefore, become a serious question —
How much of the "Iliad" is really interveined, or at all
modified, by the son of Peleus and his feud with Aga-
memnon ?

Thus far, at any rate, we must concede to the Chorizontes,
or breakers-up of the "Iliad," that the original stem on
which the " Iliad " grew was probably an " Achilleis " ; for it
is inconceivable that Homer himself could have expected
such a rope of sand as the " Iliad " now presents to preserve
its order and succession under the rough handling of posterity.
Watch the fate of any intricate machine in any private family.
All the loose or detached parts of such a machine are sure to
be lost. Ask for it at the end of a year, and, the more
elaborate was the machine, so much the more certain is the
destruction which will have overtaken it. It is only
when any compound whole, whether engine, poem, or tale,
carries its several parts absolutely interlocked with its
own substance, that it has a chance of maintaining its
integrity.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIC 43

Now, certainly it cannot be argued by the most idolatrous
lover of the "Iliad" that the main central books exhibit
that sort of natural intercohesion which determines their place
and order. But, says the reader, here they are : they have
held together : no use in asking whether it was natural for
them to hold together. They have reached us : it is now
past asking — Could Homer expect them to reach us ? Yes,
they have reached us : but since when ? Not, probably, in
their present arrangement, from an earlier period than that
of Pisistratus. When manuscripts had once become general,
it might be easy to preserve even the loosest succession of
parts — especially where great veneration for the author, and
the general notoriety of the poems, would secure the fidelity
of copies. But what the sceptics require to be enlightened
upon is the principle of cohesion which could carry these
loose parts of the " Iliad " over that gulf of years between
Homer and Pisistratus — the one a whole millennium before
our Christian era, the other little more than half a millennium
— and whilst traditionary transmission through singers and
harpers constituted, perhaps, the sole means of preservation,
and therefore of arrangement.

Let not the reader suppose German scepticism to be the
sole reason for jealousy with regard to the present canon of
the " Iliad." On the contrary, some interpolations are con-
fessed by all parties. For instance, it is certain — and even
Eustathius records it as a regular tradition in Greece — that
the night adventure of Diomed and Ulysses against the Trojan
camp, their capture of the beautiful horses brought by Rhesus,
and of Dolon the Trojan spy, did not originally form a part
of the " Iliad." At present this adventure forms the tenth
book; but previously it had been an independent epos, or
epic narrative, perhaps locally circulated amongst the de-
scendants of Diomed,1 and known by the title of the

1 Descendants, or, perhaps, amongst the worshippers ; for, though
everybody is not aware of that fact, many of the Grecian heroes at
Troy were deified. Ulysses and his wife, Idomeneus, &c., assume
even a mystical place in the subsequent superstitions of Greece. But
Diomed also became a god : and the occasion was remarkable. A
peerage (i.e. a godship) had been promised by the gods to his father
Tydeus ; but, when the patent came to be enrolled, a flaw was detected
—it was found that Tydeus had once eaten part of a man ! What was

44 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

" Doloneia." Now, if one such intercalation could pass,
why not more ? With respect to this particular night
episode, it has been remarked that its place in the series
is not asserted by any internal indication. There is an
allusion, indeed, to the wrath of Achilles ; but probably
introduced, to harmonise it as a part of the " Iliad," by the
same authority which introduced the poem itself : else, the
whole book may be dropped out without any hiatus. The
battle, suggested by Diomed at the end of the ninth book,
takes place in the eleventh • and, as the critics remark, no
allusion is made in that eleventh book, by any of the Grecian
chiefs, to the remarkable plot of the intervening night.

But of all the incoherences which have been detected in
the " Iliad," as arising out of arbitrary juxtapositions
between parts not originally related, the most amusing is
that brought to light by the late Wilhelm Mueller. " It
is a fact," says he, "that (as the arrangement now stands)
Ulysses is not ashamed to attend three dinner parties on
one evening." First, he had a dinner engagement with
Agamemnon, — which, of course, he keeps (B. ix. 90); so
prudent a man could not possibly neglect an invitation from
the commander of the forces. Even in free and independent
England the sovereign does not ask you to dinner, but com-
mands your attendance. Next, this gormandising Ulysses
dines with Achilles (B. ix. 221) ; and finally with Diomed
(B. xi. 578). Now, Diomed was a swell of the first magni-
tude, a man of fashion and a dandy, as may be seen in the
" Troilus and Cressida " of Shakspere (who took his character
from tradition, and, in making him the Greek rival of Troilus,
unavoidably makes him an accomplished man). He, therefore,
pushes his dinner as far towards " to-morrow " as was well
possible ; so that it is near morning before that dinner is
over. And the sum of the Ithacan's enormities is thus truly
stated by Mueller : — " Deny it who will, the son of Laertes

to be done ? The objection was fatal ; no cannibal could be a god,
though a god might be a cannibal. Tydeus, therefore, requested Jove
to settle the reversion on his son Diomed. Which arrangement was
finally adopted. I would beg the reader to notice, by the way, that
this very capacity of apotheosis presupposes a venerable antiquity in
its subjects, receding far from the vulgarising approaches of familiarity.

HOMER AND THE HOMERID.E 45

accepts three distinct feeds between the sunset, suppose, of
Monday and the dawn of Tuesday ! "

This is intolerable. Yet, perhaps, apologists will say
(for some people will varnish anything), "If the man had
three dinners in one day, often, perhaps, in three days he
had but one dinner ! " For myself I frankly confess that,
if there is one man in the Grecian camp whom I should have
believed capable of such a thing, it is precisely this reptile
Ulysses. Mueller insists on calling him the "noble" Ulysses;
but, to my thinking, his nearest representative in modern
times is " Sixteen-string Jack," whose life may be read in the
"Newgate Calendar." What most amuses myself in the
business is Mueller's steady pursuit of Ulysses through two
books of the " Iliad," in order to watch how many dinner
parties he attended ! And there is a good moral in the
whole discovery ; for it shows all knaves that, though hidden
for three thousand years, their tricks are sure to be found out
at the last.

In general, it is undeniable that some of the German
objections to the present arrangement, as °. possible Homeric
arrangement, are valid. For instance, the following, against
the present position of the duel between Paris and Menelaus :
— " This duel, together with the perfidious shot of Pandarus,
" and the general engagement which follows, all belonging
" to the same epos, wear the appearance of being perfectly
" insulated where they now stand, and betray no sort of con-
" nexion with any of the succeeding cantos. In the 'Apto-reia
" Ato/^Sov?, which forms the fifth canto, the whole incident
" is forgotten, and is never revived. The Grecians make no
" complaint of the treachery practised ; nor do the gods (ex
" officio the avengers of perjury) take any steps to punish it.
" Not many hours after the duel, Hector comes to his brother's
" residence ; but neither of them utters one word about the
" recent duel, and as little about what had happened since
" the duel, though necessarily unknown to Paris. Hector's
" reproaches, again, to Paris, for his Idchete', are in manifest
" contradiction to the trial of gallantry involved in the single
" combat which he had so recently faced. Yet Paris takes
" no notice whatever of the energy manifested by himself.
" And, as to his final evasion, that was no matter of reproach

46 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

" to him, since it was the irresistible work of a goddess.
" Besides, when he announces his intention to Hector of
" going again to the field of battle, who would not anticipate
" from him a proposal for re-establishing the interrupted
" duel? Yet not a syllable of all that. Now, with these
" broad indications to direct our eyes upon the truth, can we
" doubt that the duel, in connexion with the breach of truce,
" and all that now fills the third and fourth books " [in a
foot-note Mueller adds — "and also the former half of the
" second book "] " originally composed an independent epos,
" which belonged, very probably, to an earlier stage of the
" Trojan war, and was first thrust, by the authorised arrangers
" of the ' Iliad,' into the unhappy place it now occupies —
" viz. in the course of a day already far overcrowded with
" events?"

In the notes, where Mueller replies to some objections, he
again insists upon the impossibility, under the supposition
that Homer had authorised the present arrangement, of his
never afterwards making the Greeks allude to the infraction
of the treaty ; especially when Hector proposes a second duel
between himself and some one of the Grecian chiefs. Yet,
perhaps, as regards this particular feature — viz. the treachery
— of the duel, it might be suggested that, as the interposition
of Venus is not to be interpreted in any foolish allegorical
way (for the battle interferences of the gods are visible and
undisguised), doubtless the Greeks, not less than the Trojans,
understood the interruption as in effect divine ; after which,
the act of Pandarus is covered by that general apology, no
matter in what light Pandarus might have meant it. Even
in the first " Iliad," it is most childish to understand the
whispering of Minerva to Achilles as an allegorical way of
expressing that his good sense or his prudence arrested his
hand. Nonsense ! that is not Homer's style of thinking,
nor the style of Homeric ages. Where Mars, upon being
wounded, howls, and, instead of licking the man who offered
him this insult, shows the white feather and limps off in
confusion, do these critics imagine an allegory ? What is an
allegoric howl ? or what does a cur sneaking from a fight
indicate symbolically ? The Homeric simplicity speaks
plainly enough. Venus finds that her man is likely to bo

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 47

beaten ; which, by the way, surprises us ; for a stout young
shepherd, like Paris, ought to have found no trouble in
taking the "conceit" — or (speaking in fresher slang) the
" bounce " — out of an elderly diner-out, such as Menelaus.
And, perhaps, with his mauleys, he would; but with the
scimitar and spear a shepherd like Paris, trained upon Mount
Ida, was naturally not familiar. Finding, however, how the
affair was likely to go, Venus withdraws her man. Paris
does not come to time ; the umpires quarrel ; the mob breaks
the ring ; and a battle-royal ensues. But the interference of
Venus must have been palpable ; and this is one of the
circumstances in the " Iliad " which satisfy me that the age
of Troy was removed by several generations from the age of
Homer. To elder days, and to men fancied more heroic
than those of his own day (a fancy which Homer expressly
acknowledges — viz. in valuing the paving-stones interchanged
between Telanionian Ajax and his antagonists), he might find
himself inclined to ascribe a personal intercourse with the
gods ; and he would meet everywhere an audience favouring
this belief. A generation of men that often rose themselves
to divine honours might readily be conceived to mix person-
ally with the gods. But no man could think thus of his
own contemporaries, of whom he must know that the very
best were liable to indigestion, and suspected often to have
scirrhous livers. Eeally no : a dyspeptic demigod it makes
one dyspeptic to think of !

Meantime, the duel of Paris is simply overlooked and
neglected in the subsequent books of the " Iliad " : it is
nowhere absolutely contradicted by implication : but other
cases have been noticed in the " Iliad " which involve direct
contradictions : these, therefore, argue either that Homer in
those "naps" which Horace imputes to him slumbered too
profoundly, or that counterfeits got mixed up with the true
bullion of the " Iliad." Amongst other examples pointed
out by Heyne or by Franceson, the following deserve
notice : —

1. Pylsemenes the Paphlagonian is killed by Menelaus
(!L. v. 579-590); but further on (!L. xiii. 643-658) we find
the poor man pretty well in his health, and chief mourner at
the funeral of his son Harpalion.

48 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

2. Sarpedon is wounded in the leg by Tlepolemus (!L. v.
628, &c.) ; and an ugly wound it is, for the bone is touched,
so that an operation might be looked for. Operation indeed !
Two days after, he is stumping about upon the wounded pin,
and "operating" upon other people (!L. xii. 290, &c.) The
contradiction, if it really is one, was not found out until the
approved chronology of the " Iliad " had been settled. My
reason for doubting about the contradiction is simply this : —
Sarpedon was a son of Jupiter ; and Jupiter might have a
salve for wounded legs ; or else the leg (as in Dean Swift's
problem offered to the consideration of the Royal Society)
might have been a wooden one, and thus liable to a sudden
cure of its very worst fracture by a preparation of hemp.

3. Teucer, however, was an undeniable mortal. Yet he
(!L. viii. 323) is wounded desperately in the arm by Hector.
His neurtf is smashed, — which generally is taken to mean his
bowstring; but some surgical critics understand it as the
sinew of his arm. At all events it was no trifle ; his brother,
Telamonian Ajax, and two other men, carry off the patient,
groaning heavily, probably upon a shutter, to the hospital
He, at least, is booked for the doctor, you think. Not at
all. Next morning he is abroad on the field of battle, and
at his old trade of thumping respectable men (!L. xii. 387).

4. The history of Vulcan, and his long day's tumble from
the sky, in IL. i. 586, does not harmonise with the account
of the same accident in IL. xix. 394.

5. As an inconsistency, not in the " Iliad " internally, but
between the " Iliad " and the " Odyssey," it has often been
noticed that in the former this same Vulcan is married
to Venus, whilst in the " Odyssey " his wife is one of the
Graces.

u As upon earth," says Mueller, "so in Olympus, the
" fable of the ' Iliad ' is but loosely put together ; and we
" are not to look for any very severe succession of motives
" and results, of promises and performances, even amongst
" the gods. In the first ( Iliad,' Thetis receives a Jovian
" guarantee — viz. Jove's authentic nod — on behalf of her
" offended son Achilles, that he will glorify him in a par-
" ticular way ; and the way was by making the Trojans
" victorious, until the Grecians should see their error, and

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^ 49

" propitiate the irritated hero. Mindful of his promise,
" Jove disposes Agamemnon, by a delusive dream, to lead
" out the Grecian host to battle. At this point, however,
" Thetis, Achilles, and the ratifying nod, appear at once to
" be blown entirely out of the Jovian remembrance. The
" duel between Paris and Menelaus takes place, and the
" abrupt close of that duel by Venus, apparently with equal
" indifference on Jove's part to either incident. Even at
" the general meeting of the gods in the fourth book, there
" is no renewal of the proposal for the glorifying of Achilles.
" It is true that Jove, from old attachments, would willingly
" deliver the stronghold of Priam from ruin, and lead the
" whole feud to some pacific issue. But the passionate
" female divinities, Juno and Minerva, triumph over his
" moderation ; and the destruction of Troy is finally deter-
" mined. Now, grant that Jove wanted firmness for meet-
" ing the furious demands of the goddesses by a candid
" confession of his previous promise to Thetis, still we might
" have looked for some intimation that this degradation of
" himself in the eyes of a confiding suppliant had cost him
a a struggle. But no ; nothing of the kind. In the next
" great battle the Trojans are severely pressed, and the
" Greeks are far enough from feeling any regret for the
" absence of Achilles. Nay, as if expressly to show that
" Achilles was not wanted, Diomed turns out a trump of the
" first magnitude ; and a son of Priam describes him point-
" edly as more terrific than Pelides, the goddess-born !
" And, indeed, it was time to retreat before the man who
" had wounded Mars, making him yell with pain, and howl
" like ' ten thousand mortals.' This Mars, however — he at
" least must have given some check to the advancing Greeks ?
" True, he had so ; but not as fulfilling any Jovian counsels.
" which, on the contrary, tend rather to the issue of this
" god's being driven out of the Trojan ranks. First of all
" in the eighth book Jove steps forward to guide the course
" of war ; and, with remembrance of his promise to Thetis, he
" forbids peremptorily both gods and goddesses to interfere
" on either side ; and he seats himself on Mount Ida to over-
:{ look the field of battle, threatening to the Greeks, by his
" impartial scales, a preponderance of calamity. From this
VOL. vi

50 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

" review, it appears tolerably certain that the third to the
" seventh book belong to no epos that could have been dedi-
" cated to the glory of Achilles. The wrath of that hero,
" his reconciliation, and his return to battle, having been
" announced in the opening as the theme of the poem, are
" used as a connecting link for holding together all the
" cantos about other heroes which had been intercalated
" between itself and the close ; but this tie is far too slack ;
" and one rude shake makes all the alien parts tumble out."

TIME OF THE " ILIAD "

Next let us ask, as a point very important towards in-
vestigating the true succession and possible nexus of the
events, what is the duration — the compass of time — through
which the action of the poem revolves ? This has been of
old a disputed point, and many are the different " diaries "
which have been abstracted by able men during the last two
centuries. Bossu made the period of the whole to be forty-
seven days ; Wood (in his earliest edition) forty ; and a
calculation in the "Memoirs de Trevoux" (May 1708)
carries it up to forty-nine. But the computus now finally
adopted, amended, and ruled irreversibly, is that of Heyne
(as given in a separate " Excursus "), countersigned by Wolf.
This makes the number to be fifty-two ; but, with a sub-
sequent correction for an obvious oversight of Heyne's, fifty-
one : —

" Book i. — Nine days the plague rages (v. 53). On the
" tenth Achilles calls a meeting of the staff-officers. What
" occurs in that meeting subsequently occasions his mother's
" visit. She tells him (v. 422) that Jove had set off the day
" before to a festival of the Ethiopians, and is not expected
" back in less than twelve days. From this we gather that
" the visit of Thetis to Jove (v. 493) must be transplanted
" to the twenty-first day. With this day terminates the first
" book ; which contains, therefore, twenty-one days.

"Book ii, up to v. 293 of Book vii, comprehends a single
« day — viz. the twenty-second.

" Book vii (v. 381, 421, and 432), the twenty-third day.

" Book vii (v. 433-465), the twenty-fourth day.

HOMER AND THE HOMERTD^E 51

"Book viii, up to the close of Book x, the twenty-fifth
" day and the succeeding night.

" Book xi, up to the close of Book xviii, the twenty-sixth
« day.

"Book xix, to v. 201 of Book xxiii, the twenty-seventh
" day, with the succeeding night.

"Book xxiii (v. 109-225), the twenty-eighth day.

"Book xxiii (v. 226 to the end), the twenty-ninth day.

" Book xxiv. — Eleven days long Achilles trails the corpse
" of Hector round the sepulchre of Patroclus. On the
" twelfth day a meeting is called of the gods ; consequently
" on the thirty-ninth day of the general action ; for this
11 indignity to the dead body of Hector must be dated from
" the day of his death, which is the twenty- seventh of the
11 entire poem. On the same thirty -ninth day, towards
" evening, the body is ransomed by Priam, and during the
" night is conveyed to Troy. With the morning of the
" following day — viz. the fortieth — the venerable king
" returns to Troy ; and the armistice of eleven days, which
" had been concluded with Achilles, is employed in mourn-
11 ing for Hector during nine days, and in preparing his
" funeral. On the tenth of these days takes place the burn-
" ing of the body and the funeral banquet. On the eleventh
" is celebrated the solemn interment of the remains and the
" raising of the sepulchral mound. With the twelfth recom-
" mences the war.

" Upon this deduction, the entire ' Iliad ' is found to
" revolve within the space of fifty-one days. Heyne's mis-
" reckoning is obvious : he had summed up the eleven days
" of the corpse-trailing as a clear addition, by just so much,
" to the twenty-seven previous days ; whereas the twenty-
" seventh of those days coincides with the first of the trail-
" ing, and is thus counted twice over in effect."

This computus, in the circumstantial detail here presented,
is due to Wilhelm Mueller. But substantially it is guaran-
teed by numerous scholars. And, as to Heyne's little
blunder, corrected by Wolf, it is nothing ; for I have myself
known a Quaker, and a celebrated bank, the two select
models of accuracy, to make an error of the same amount,
in computing the number of days to run upon a bill at six

52 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

weeks. But I soon "wolfed" them into better arithmetic,
upon finding that the error was against myself.

NAME OF THE " ILIAD "

What follows I offer as useful towards the final judgment.
When first arose the great word, that ever memorable
amongst human names — " Ilias," if Greek it is that we are
expected to speak ; the " Iliad," if English ? This is past
determination ; but so much we know, that the eldest author
now surviving, in whom that designation occurs as a regular
familiar word, is Herodotus, and he was contemporary with
Pericles. Herodotus must be considered as the senior author
in that great stage of Athenian literary splendour, as Plato
and Xenophon were the junior. Herodotus, therefore, might
have seen Hipparchus, the son of Pisistratus, if that prince
had not been cut off prematurely by Jacobinical daggers.
It is, therefore, probable in a high degree that the name
" Iliad " was already familiar to Pisistratus : first, because it
is so used by Herodotus as to imply that it was no novelty
to him at that time ; secondly, because he, who first gathered
the entire series of Trojan legends into artificial unity,
would be the first to require an expression for that unity.
The collector would be the first to want a collective title.
Solon, therefore, or Pisistratus, no matter which, did (as I
fully believe) first gather the whole cycle of Iliac romances
into one body. And to this aggregate whole he gave the
name of " Ilias." But why ? in what sense ? Not for any
purpose of deception, small or great. Were that notion once
admitted, then we open a door to all sorts of licentious con-
jectures. Consciously authorising one falsehood, there is no
saying where he would have stopped. But there was no
falsehood. Pisistratus, whose original motive for stirring in
such an affair could have been only love and admiration,
was not the author, but the sworn foe, of adulteration. It
was to prevent changes, not to sanction them — to bar all
frauds, not to promote them— that he could ever have inter-
posed with the state authority. And what, then, did he mean
by calling these collected poems t{ the Iliad " ? He meant
precisely what a man would now mean, who should publish

HOMER AND THE HOMERID.E 53

a body of ancient romances relating to the Bound Table of
King Arthur, or to Charlemagne, or to the Crusades ; not im-
plying, by any unity in the title, that these romances were
all one man's work, or several parts of one individual whole,
but that they had a common reference to one terminal object.
The unity implied would lie not in the mind conceiving,
nor in the nexus of the several divisions, but in the com-
munity of subject, — as, when we call the five books of Moses
by the name of the Pentateuch, we do not assert any unity
running through these books, as though one took up the
subject where another left it ; for, in reality, some parts are
purely historical, some purely legislative, some purely cere-
monial. But we mean that all, whether record of fact or
record of institution and precept, bear upon one object — viz.
the founding a separate nation as the depository of theologic
truth, and elaborately, therefore, kept, by countless distinc-
tions in matters originally trivial, from ever blending with
Pagans. On the one hand, therefore, I concede to the
sceptics that several independent poems (though still by
possibility from the same author) were united by Pisistratus.
But, on the other hand, I deny any purpose of fraud in this
— I deny that the name " Iliad " was framed to disguise and
mask this independence. Some had a closer nexus than
others. But what Pisistratus says is this : — Behold a series
of poems, all ancient ; all from Homeric days ; and (whether
Homer's or not) all relating to the great crusade against
Ilium.

SOLON AND PISISTRATUS

What was it, service or injury, that these men did to
Homer ? No one question, in the whole series of Homeric
questions, is more perplexing. Homer did a great service to
them ; if tradition is right, to both of them — viz. by settling
a legal dispute for each ; so that it was a knavish return for
such national benefits, if they — if these two Athenian states-
men— went about to undermine that text from which they
had reaped such singular fruits in their own administration.
But I am sure that they did no such thing : they were both
gentlemen, both scholars. Yet something, certainly, they

54 HISTOEICAL ESSAYS AND RESEAKCHES

must have done to Homer ; in that point all are agreed ; but
what it was remains a mystery to this hour. Every man is
entitled to his opinion ; I to mine ; which in some corner or
other I shall whisper into the private ear of the public, and
into the public ear of my private friends.

The first thing which puzzles every man of reflection,
when he hears of this anecdote, is — the extraordinary co-
incidence that two great lawgivers, at different eras, should
both interest themselves in a poet ; and not only so, but the
particular two who faced and confronted each other in the
same way that any leader of English civilisation (Alfred,
suppose) might be imagined as facing and confronting any
leader (Charlemagne, suppose) of French civilisation. For
Christian Europe, the names and tutelary powers of France
and England are by analogy that same guiding constellation
which for Pagan Greece were the names Sparta and Athens ;
I mean, as respects the two great features of permanent
rivalship and permanent leadership. From the moment
when they were regularly organised by law and institutions,
Athens and Sparta became the two counterforces — attracting
and repelling — of Greece. About 800 B.C., Lycurgus draws
up a system of laws for Sparta ; more than two centuries
later, Solon draws up a correspondent system of laws for
Athens. And, most unaccountably, each of these political
leaders takes upon him, not passively, as a private literary
citizen, to admire the Homeric poems — that might be natural
in men of high birth enjoying the selectest advantages of
education — but actually to privilege Homer, to place him on
the matricula of denizens, to consecrate his name, and to set
in motion the whole machinery of government on behalf of
his poems. Wherefore, and for what purpose1? On the
part of Lycurgus, for a purpose well known and appreciated
— viz. to use the "Iliad" as the basis of a public education,
and thus mediately as the basis of a warlike morality ; but,
on the part of Solon, for no purpose ever yet ascertained.
Strangely enough, from the literary land, and from the later
period, we do not learn the " how " and the " why " ; from
the gross illiterate land and the earlier period, we do.

What Lycurgus did was rather for an interest of Greece
than for any interest of Homer. The order of his thoughts

HOMER AND THE HOMERIC 55

was not, as has been supposed, " I love Homer ; and I will
show my love by making Sparta co-operate in extending his
influence " : not at all ; but this — " I love Sparta ; and I
will show my love by making Homer co-operate with the
martial foundations of the land ; I will introduce a martial
poem, like the * Iliad,' to operate through public education,
through national training, and through hereditary festivals."
For Solon, on the other hand, Homer must have been a final
object ; no means towards something else, but an end per se.
Doubtless, Solon as little as Lycurgus could be indifferent to
the value of this popular poem for his own professional
objects. But, practically, it is not likely that Solon could
find any opening for Homeric services in that direction.
Precisely those two causes which would insure to Solon a
vast superiority to Lycurgus in all modes of intellectual
liberality — viz. his chronologic period and his country —
must have also caused that the whole ground would be pre-
occupied. For education, for popular influence, Athens would
have already settled upon Homer all that dowry of distinc-
tion which Solon might wish to settle. Polished Athens
surely in the sixth century B.C., if brutal Sparta in the
ninth !

At this point our suspicions revolve upon us. That the
two vanward potentates of Greece — Athens and Sparta —
should each severally ascribe to her own greatest lawgiver
a separate Homeric labour, looks too much like the Papal
heraldries of European sovereigns; amongst whom all the
great ones are presumed to have rendered some characteristic
service to the Church. " Are you ruler of France, and there-
fore the Most Cliristian ? Be it so ; but I again, as King of
Spain, am the Most Catholic ; and my brother here, King of
Portugal, is the Most Faithful ; and this Britannic sovereign
is Defender of the Faith" Was Homer, do you say, an
Ionian? "Well, be it so," the Spartan replies, "with all
my heart : and we Dorians might seem to have no part in
that inheritance, being rather asinine in our literary char-
acter ; but, for all that, Dorian as he was, you cannot deny
that my countryman, Lycurgus, first introduced Homer upon
the continent of Greece." Indeed the Spartans had a craze
about the " Iliad," as though it bore some special relation to

56 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

themselves : for Plutarch mentions it as a current doctrine in
Sparta that Hesiod was the poet for Helots (and, in a lower
key, perhaps they added — for some other people beside),
since, according to his poetry, the end of man's existence is
to plough and to harrow; but Homer, said they, is the
Spartan poet, since the moral of the " Iliad " proclaims that
the whole duty of man lies in fighting.

Meantime, though it cannot be denied that these attempts
in Greek statesmen to connect themselves with Homer by
some capital service certainly do look too much like the conse-
quent attempts of western nations (Home, Britain, &c.) to
connect their ancestries with Troy, still there seems to be
good historic authority for each of the cases separately. Or,
if any case were suspicious, it would be that of Lycurgus.
Solon, the legislatorial founder of Athens — the Pisistratida3,
or final princes of Athens — these great men, it is undeniable,
did link their names with Homer : each and all by specific
services. "What services ? what could be the service of Solon ?
Or, after Solon, what service could remain for Pisistratus ?

A fantastic Frenchman pretended to think that History,
to be read beneficially, ought to be read backwards — i.e. in
an order inverse to the chronological succession of events.
This absurd rule might, in the present case, be applied with
benefit. Pisistratus and his son Hipparchus stand last in the
order of Homeric modifiers. Now, if we ascertain what it
was that they did, this may show us what it was that their
predecessors did not do ; and to that extent it will narrow
the range from which we have to select the probable functions
of those predecessors.

What, then, was the particular service to Homer by which
Pisistratus and his son made themselves so famous ? The
best account of this is contained in an obscure grammaticus
or litterateur, one Diomedes, no small fool, who thus tells his
tale : — " The poems of Homer, in process of time, were it by
" fire, by flood, by earthquake, had come near to extinction ;
" they had not absolutely perished, but they were continu-
" ally coming nearer to that catastrophe, through wide
" dispersion. From this dispersion it arose naturally that
" one place possessed a hundred Homeric books ; some second
" place a thousand ; some third place a couple of hundreds ;

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 57

" and the Homeric poetry was fast tending to a fractionary
" state. In that conjuncture there occurred to Pisistratus,
" who ruled at Athens about 555 years B.C., the following
" scheme : — With the double purpose of gaining glory for
" himself and preservation for Homer, he dispersed a notifica-
" tion through Greece that every man who possessed any
" Homeric fragments was summoned, or was requested, to
" deliver them into Athenian hands at a fixed rate of com-
" pensation. The possessors naturally hastened to remit
" their quotas, and were honestly paid. Indeed, Pisistratus
" did not reject even those contributors who presented verses
" already sent in by another ; to these also he paid the
" stipulated price without any discount at all. And by this
" means it happened that oftentimes he recovered, amongst a
" heap of repetitions, one, two, or more verses that were
" new. At length this stage of the labour was completed ;
" all the returns from every quarter had come in. Then it
" was that Pisistratus summoned seventy men of letters, at
" salaries suitable to their pretensions, as critical assessors
" upon these poems ; giving to each man separately a copy
" of the lines collected, with the commission of arranging
" them according to his individual judgment. When, at
" last, the commissioners had closed their labours, Pisistratus
" assembled them, and called upon each man separately to
" exhibit his own result. This having been done, the general
" voice, in mere homage to merit and the truth, unanimously
" pronounced the revisions of Aristarchus and Zenodotus to
" be the best ; and, after a second collation between these
" two, the edition of Aristarchus was found entitled to the
" palm."

Now, the reader must not allow himself to be repelled by
the absurd anachronisms of this account, which brings Pisis-
tratus of the sixth century B.C. face to face with Aristarchus
of the third ; nor must he allow too much weight to the
obvious plagiarism from the old marvellous legend of the
seventy -two Jewish translators working upon the Mosaic
Pentateuch. That very legend shows him how possible it is
for a heap of falsehoods, and even miracles, to be embroidered
upon a story which, after all, is true in its main texture.
We all know it to be true, in spite of the fables engrafted

58 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

upon this truth, that, under the patronage of a Macedonian
prince, seventy-two learned Jews really were assembled at
Alexandria, and did make that Greek translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures which, from the number (septuaginta) of
the translators, we still call the Septuagint. And so we must
suppose this ignorant Diomedes, though embellishing the
story according to his slender means, still to have built upon
old traditions. Even the rate of payment has been elsewhere
recorded ; by which it appears that " penny-a-liners " (of whom
we hear so much in our day) existed also for early Athens.

If this legend were accurate even in its commencement,
it would put down Plato's story that the Homeric poems
were first brought to Athens by Hipparchus, the son of
Pisistratus ; and it would put down the mere possibility that
Solon, thirty or forty years earlier than either, had ever
intermeddled with those poems. But, if we adopt the tradi-
tion about Lycurgus, or even if we reject it, we must believe
that copies of the " Iliad " and " Odyssey " (that is, quoad the
substance, not quoad the present arrangement) existed in
Athens long before the Pisistratidse, or even before Solon.
Were it only through the rhapsodoi, or continuous reciters of
the Homeric poems, both " Iliad " and " Odyssey " must
have been known many a long year before Pisistratus ; or
else I undertake to say they would never have been known
at all. For, in a maritime city like Athens, communicating
so freely with Ionia and with all insular Greece, — so consti-
tutionally gay besides, — how is it possible to suppose that
the fine old poetic romances, chanted to the accompaniment
of harps, about those ancestral Greek heroes whom we may
style the paladins of Greece, could be unknown or un-
welcomed, unless by supposing them non-existent ? If they
lurked anywhere, they would assuredly float across those
sunny seas of the J^gean to Athens ; that city which, in
every age (according to Milton: "Paradise Kegained"), was
equally " native to famous wits " and " hospitable " — that is,
equally fertile in giving birth to men of genius itself, and
forward to welcome those of foreign birth.

Throughout this story of Diomedes, disfigured as it is, we
may read that the labours of Pisistratus were applied to
written copies. That is a great step in advance. And

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 59

instantly this step reacts upon Solon, as a means of approxi-
mating to the nature of his labours. If (as one German
writer holds) Solon was the very first person to take down the
" Iliad " in writing from the recitations of the rhapsodoi, then
it would seem that this step had suggested to Pisistratus the
further improvement of collating Solon's written copy with
such partial copies, or memorials, or fractional recollections
of reciters, or local and enchorial legends, as would be likely
to exist in many different parts of Greece, amongst families
or cities tracing their descent from particular heroes of the
" Iliad." If, on the other hand, Pisistratus was the first man
who matured a written copy, what will then remain open to
Solon for his share in the play ? This : — viz. that he applied
some useful check to the exorbitances of the musical re-
hearsers. The famous Greek words still surviving in Plato,
and long after in Diogenes Laertius, support this notion.
The words must be true, though they may be obscure. They
must involve the fact, though they may conceal it. What
are these words ? Let us review them. To chant e£
v7roX.-r)if/€(j)<s — and to chant e£ v7ro/?oA^5 — these were the new
regulations introduced by Solon and his successor. Now,
what is the meaning of v7roXr)\/;L<s 1 The commonest sense of
the word is opinion. Thus, on the title-page of Lord Shaftes-
bury's " Characteristics " stands, as a general motto, Havra
V7ro\r)if/Ls — "All things are in effect opinion" ; i.e. nothing
really is ; but imperfectly it is, or it is not, according to the
hold which it has obtained over the general opinion of men.
This, however, is a sense which will not answer. Another and
rarer sense is — succession. And the way in which the preposi-
tions -UTTO and sub are used by the ancients to construct the idea
of succession (a problem which Dr. Parr failed to solve) is by
supposing such a case as the slated roof of a house. Were
the slates simply contiguous by their edges, the rain would
soon show that their succession was not perfect. But, by
making each to underlap the other, the series is made virtu-
ally perfect. In this way, the word came to be used for
succession. And, applied to the chanters, it must have meant
that, upon some great occasion periodically recurring, they
were obliged by the new law to pursue the entire series of
the several rhapsodies composing the "Iliad," and not to

60 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

pick and choose, as heretofore, with a view to their own
convenience, or to local purposes. But what was the use of
this 1 I presume that it had the same object in view as
the rubric of the English Church (I believe also of the Jewish
Synagogue) in arranging the succession of lessons appointed
for each day's service — viz. to secure the certainty that, with-
in a known period of time, the whole of the canonical books
should be read once through from beginning to end. The
particular purpose is of my own suggestion ; but the fact
itself is placed beyond all doubt. Plato says that the
chanters were obliged, at the great Panathenaic festival, to
recite the " Iliad " e£ •uTroA^^eo)? e<£e£??s ; where the one
expression applies to the succession of parts recited, and the
other to the succession of persons reciting.

The popular translation would be that they were obliged,
by relieving each other, or by regular relays of chanters,
to recite the whole poem, in its order, by succession of parts
from beginning to end. This very story is repeated by an
orator still extant not long after Plato. And in his case
there is no opening to doubt ; for he does not affirm the
story, — he assumes it, and recalls it to the people's attention
as a thing notorious to them all. The other expression, e£
•L>7To/?oA^s or V7ro/3\tfir)v, has occasioned some disputing ; but
why, I cannot conjecture. If ever there was a word whose
meaning is certain in a position like this, that word is
t>7ro/2o,AAto, with its derivatives. And I am confounded at
hearing that less than a Boeckh would not suffice to prove
that the «£ V7ro/3o\rj<s means " by way of suggestion/5 " under
the condition of being prompted." The meaning of which
is evident : a state copy of the " Iliad," however it had been
obtained by Solon, a canon of the Homeric text, was con-
fided to a prompter, whose duty was to check the slightest
deviation from this authorised standard, to allow of no
shortenings, omissions, or sycophantic l alterations.

1 "Sycophantic": — The reader must remember that the danger
was imminent : there was always a body ready to be bribed into forgery
— viz. the mercenary rhapsodoi : there was always a body having a
deep interest of family ostentation in bribing them into flattering
interpolations. And standing by was a public the most uncritical and
the most servile to literary forgeries (such as the Letters of Phalaris, of
Themistocles, &c. ) that ever can have existed.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDJ5 61

In this sense the two regulations support and check each
other. One provides for quantity, the other for quality.
One secures that the whole shall be recited — the " Iliad,"
the whole " Iliad," and nothing but the " Iliad " ; the other
secures the fidelity of this whole. And here again comes
in the story of Salamis to give us the "why" and the
" wherefore " of these new regulations. If a legal or in-
ternational question about Salamis had just been decided by
the mere authority of a passage in the "Iliad," it was high
time for statesmen to look about them, and to see that a
poem which was thus solemnly adjudged to be good evidence
in the supreme courts of law, not only as between man and
man, but also as between state and state, should have its
text authenticated. And, in fact, several new cases (see
Eustathius on the second " Iliad ") were decided not long
after on the very same Homeric evidence.

But does not this prompter's copy presuppose a complete
manuscript of the " Iliad " ? Most certainly it does ; and
the question is left to the reader : whether this in fact was
the service by which Pisistratus followed up and completed
the service of Solon (as to going through the whole "Iliad");
or whether both services were due to Solon, — in which case
it will become necessary to look out for some idea of a new
service that could remain open to Pisistratus.

Towards that idea, let us ask universally what services
could be rendered by a statesman in that age to a poem
situated as the " Iliad " ? Such a man might restore j might
authenticate ; might assemble ; might arrange.

1 . He might restore — as from incipient decay or corruption.

2. He might authenticate — as between readings that were
doubtful.

3. He might assemble the scattered — as from local dis-
persion of parts.

4. He might arrange — as from confusion into self-justify-
ing order — supplying links, healing dislocations, and revivi-
fying the vestiges of more natural successions.

All these services, I have little doubt, were, in fact,
rendered by Pisistratus. The three first are already involved
in the story of our foolish friend Diomedes. Pisistratus
would do justice to the wise enactment of Solon, by which

62 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

the " Iliad " was raised into a liturgy periodically rehearsed
by law at the greatest of the Athenian festivals : he would
ratify the regulation as to the prompter's (or state) copy.
But this latter ordinance was rather the outline of a useful
idea than one which the first proposer could execute satis-
factorily. Solon probably engrossed upon brazen tablets
such a text as any one man could obtain. But it would be
a work of time, of labour, of collation, and fine taste, to
complete a sound edition. Even the work of Pisistratus was
liable, as we know, to severe maltreatment by the Alexan-
drine critics. And, by the way, those very Alexandrine
revisals presuppose a received and orthodox text ; for how
could Zenodotus or Aristarchus breathe their mildewing
breath upon the received readings, — how could they pro-
nounce X or F, for instance, spurious, — unless by reference
to some standard text in which X or Y had been adopted
for legitimate ? However, there is one single argument
upon which the reader may safely allow himself to suspect
the suspicions of Aristarchus, and to amend his emendations.
It is this : Valkenaer, that exquisite Grecian, points out to
merited reprobation a correction applied by Aristarchus to
the autobiographical sketch of himself which Phoenix gives
to Achilles in " Iliad " x. Phoenix, in his old age, goes
back to his youthful errors in a spirit of amiable candour.
Out of affection to his mother, whose unmerited ill treat-
ment he witnessed with filial sympathy, he had offered, at
her request, an affront to his father's harem for which he
could obtain no forgiveness. Ty TriOo/jLyv, says Phoenix :
her I obeyed. Which passage one villain alters into Ty ov
TriOonrjv : her I did not obey ; and thus the whole story is
ruined. But Aristarchus goes further : he cancels and
stilettoes * the whole passage. But why 1 Upon what con-
ceivable objection ? Simply, in both cases, upon the ridicu-
lous allegation that this confession, so frank, and even
pathetic, was immoral, and might put bad thoughts into
the minds of " our young men." 0, you two old vagabonds !
And thus, it seems, we have had a Bowdler's " Iliad " long
before our own Bowdler's Shakspere. It is fit, however,

1 " Stilettoes" : — i.e. obelises, or places his autocratic obelus before
the passage.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIM 63

that this anecdote should be known, as it shows the sort of
principles that governed the revisal of Aristarchus. An
editor who could castrate a text upon any plea of disliking
the sentiment is not trustworthy ; such a man is ripe for the
forgery of bank-notes. And, for my part, I should far
prefer the authorised edition of Pisistratus to all the re-
modelled copies that issued from the Alexandrian Library.

So far with reference to the three superior functions of
Pisistratus. As to the fourth, his labour of arrangement,
there is an important explanation to be made. Had the
question been simply this — given four-and-twenty cantos
of the "Iliad," to place them in the most natural order —
the trouble would have been trivial for the arranger, and
the range of objections narrower for us. Some books deter-
mine their own place in the series ; and those which leave
it doubtful are precisely the least important. But the case
is supposed to have been very different. The existing dis-
tribution of the poem into twenty -four tolerably equal
sections, designated by the twenty-four capitals of the Greek
alphabet, is ascribed to Aristarchus, though one incompar-
able donkey, a Greek scholiast, actually denies this upon
the following ground : — Do you know, reader (says he), why
Homer began the " Iliad " with the word menin (pijViv l) ?
Look this way and I will tell you : it is a great mystery.
What does the little p of the Greek alphabet signify numeri-
cally ? Why, forty. Good : and what does the 17 mean ?
Why, eight. Now, put both together, you have a prophecy
or a promise on the part of Homer that he meant to write
forty-eight books, which proves that the " Iliad " must have
had originally twenty-four ; because, if you take twenty-four
from forty-eight, there remain just twenty-four books for the
" Odyssey." Quod erat demonstrandum. Is not this a man
for looking through milestones ?

THE AOIDOI, RHAPSODOI, HOMERID^

The Germans are exceedingly offended that any man in
ancient days should presume to call himself a rhapsodos

1 The first words of the " Iliad " are, Myviv aeiSe 6ea — i.e. Wrath
sing, Goddess.

64 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

without sending down a sealed letter to posterity stating
all the reasons which had induced him to take so unaccount-
able a step. And the uproar is inconceivable which they
have raised about the office or function indicated by the
word, as well as about the word itself considered etymo-
logically. I for my part honestly confess that, instead of
finding that perplexity in the rhapsodos which my German
brothers find, I am chiefly perplexed in accounting for their
perplexity. However, I had been seduced into writing a
very long essay 011 the several classes named in my title,
until I came to this discovery — that, however curious in
itself, the whole inquiry could not be, and was not, by the
Germans themselves, connected with any one point at issue
about Homer or the "Iliad." After all the fighting on the
question, it remains past denial, that the one sole proposition
by which the rhapsodoi have been brought even into any
semblance of connexion with Homer is the following : —
Every narrative poem of any length was called a rhapsodia ;
and hence it is that the several subordinate narratives of the
" Iliad," — such as that called the Aptcrreta Aya/>iejuvovos,
The Prowess of Agamemnon, the A/HO-TCIO, Atavro?, The
Prowess of Ajax, IIe/3t7roTa/x,tos paxVi The Battle by the
River-side, 'OTrAoTroua, The Fabric of the Arms, Newv
KttToAoyos, The Muster of the Ships, AoAwveca, The
Adventure of Dolon, and many others which are now
united into the composite structure called the " Iliad,"—
were always introduced by the chanter with a proemial
address to some divinity. And the Hymns which we have
now under the name of Homer are supposed by some to
have been occasional preludes of that sort, detached sub-
sequently from their original station by some forgotten
accident. The single fact which we know about these
preludes is that they were pure detached generalities,
applicable to all cases indifferently ; aTraSovra, irrelevant,
as an old Greek author calls them ; and, to prevent any
misconstruction of his meaning, as if that musical metaphor
might have been applied by him to the mere music of
the chanter, he adds — KO.L ovSev TT/DOS TO Trpa.yp.ci SrjXoi :
"and they foreshow nothing at all that relates to the
matter.'' Now, from this little notice of their character,

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 6f>

it is clear that, like doxologies, or choral burdens, or refrains
to songs, they were not improvised; not impromptus; they
were stereotyped forms, ready for all occasions. A Jove
prinripium, says Horace : with this opening a man could
never go wrong, let the coming narrative point which way
it would. And Pindar observes that all the Homeric rhaps-
odoi did in fact draw their openings from Jove. Or, by
way of variety, the Muses might be a good inauguration, or
Apollo ; and in a great city, like Athens or Ephesus, the
local divinity — viz. the maiden goddess Athene, in the one
case, or Artemis, in the other.

But the Germans, who will not leave this bone, after all
its fruitless mumbling, want to pick a quarrel about the
time when these rhapsodoi began to exist. What does that
signify ? I will quarrel with no man " about the age of Sir
Archy's great-grandmother " ; and yet, on consideration, I
will. They say that their rhapsodoi were, comparatively
with Homer, young people. I say that they were not. I
cannot say that I know this "of my own knowledge";
but I have better evidence for it than any which they
can have against it. In a certain old scholiast on Aristo-
phanes there is a . couplet quoted from Hesiod in the
following terms : —

"'Ev A^A.0) TOT6 TT/OWTOV lyO) KCU 'O/^jOOS (XOtSoi

ev vea/oots v^ivois /Sa^avres aoto^v."

" Then first in Delos did I and Homer, two bards, perform as musical
reciters, laying the nexus of our poetry in original hymns."

Plato, again, who stood nearer to Homer than any one of us
by the little difference of two thousand two hundred and
sixty years, swears that he knows Homer to have been a
rhapsodos.

But what does the word mean ? Strabo, in a passage
which deserves closer attention than it has received, explains
why it is that poetry in general was called aotcfy, or song.
This name having been established, then afterwards each
special kind of poetry bore this appellation — viz. aoide, or
od^ or odia, as a common or generic element in its designa-

VOL. VI F

66 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

tion, whilst its differential element was prefixed. Thus,
goat-song, or tragodia, revel-song, or Jcomodia, were designa-
tions (derived from their occasional origins) of tragedy and
comedy, both being chanted. On the same principle, rhaps-
odia shows by its ending that it is poetry, some kind or
other : but what kind ? Why, that secret is confided to the
keeping of rliaps. And what may rhaps mean ? Why,
rhapto means to sew with a needle, consequently to connect.
But, say you, all poetry must have some connexion, in-
ternally at least. True ; but this circumstance is more
noticeable and emphatic with regard to long narrative poems.
The more were the parts to be connected, the more WHS the
connexion : more also depended upon it ; and it caught the
attention more forcibly. An ode, a song, a hymn, might
contain a single ebullition of feeling. The connexion might
lie in the very rapture and passion, without asking for any
effort on the poet's part. But, in any epos or epic romance,
the several adventures; and parts of adventures, had a con-
necting link running through them, such as bespoke design
and effort in the composer — viz. the agency of a single hero,
or of a predominant hero. And thus rhapsodia, or linked
song, indicated, by an inevitable accident of all narrations,
that it was narrative poetry. And a rhapsodos was the
personal correlate of such poetry ; he was the man that
chanted it.

Scarcely is one row over before another commences.
Pindar, it seems, has noticed the rhapsodoi ; and, as if it
were not enough to fight furiously about the explanation of
that word, a second course of fights is undertaken, by
German critics, about Pindar's explanation of the explana-
tion. The Pindaric passages are two : one in the 3d Isth-
mian, where, speaking of Homer, Pindar says that he
established (i.e. raised into life and celebrity) all modes of
excellence, Kara pa/SSov. It is a poet's way of saying that
Homer did this as a rhapsodos. Rhabdos, therefore, is used
as the symbol of a rhapsodos ; it is, or it may be conceived
to be, his instrument for connecting the narrative poem
which gives him his designation. But what instrument ?
Is it a large darning-needle for sewing the parts together ?
If so, Homer will want a thimble. No, says one solemn

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDCE 67

critic, not a needle : none but a blockhead would think of
such a thing. Well, what is it, then ? It is, says he, a cane
— a wand — a rattan. And what is Homer to do with a
cane ? Why, understand that, when his singing robes were
on (for it is an undoubted fact that the ancient rhapsodos not
only chanted in full pontificals, but had two sets of robes,
crimson when he chanted the " Iliad," violet-coloured when he
chanted the " Odyssey "), in that case the rhapsodos held his
stick in his right hand. But what sort of a stick ? Stick is
a large genus, running up from switch to cudgel, from rod
to bludgeon. And my own persuasion is that this stick,
whether cylinder or pencil of wood, had something to do
with the roll of remembrances (not perhaps written copies,
but mechanical suggestions for recovering the main succes-
sion of paragraphs) which the rhapsodos used as shorthand
notes for aiding his performance. Perhaps it was a Lacede-
monian scytale.

The other passage of Pindar is in the second Nemean —
KCLL 'O/zrypiSac pairrayv ITTCWV ra iroAX* aotSoi
Of a certain conqueror at the games, Pindar says
that he took his beginning from that point — viz. Jove — whence
the Homeridae take theirs ; alluding to the prelusive hymns.
Now, what seems most remarkable in this passage is the art
with which Pindar identifies the three classes of — 1.
Homeridce ; 2. Aoidoi ; 3. Rhapsodoi. The words pairTtov
€7rea>v aoiSoi are an ingenious way of expressing that the
aoidoi were the same as the rhapsodoi. But, where Pindar
saw no essential difference, except as a species differs from a
genus, it is not likely that we of this day shall detect one.
At all events, it is certain that no discussion connected with
any one of these three classes has thrown any light upon the
main question as to the integrity of the " Iliad." The aoidoi,
and perhaps the rhapsodoi, certainly existed in the days of
Homer. The Homeridce must have arisen after him; but
when, or under what circumstances, no record remains to say.
Only the place of the Homeridce is known : it was Crete ; and
this again brings us round to the personal connexion of

1 Literally — Whence also the Homeridce, who are in effect the singers
(aoiSot) of continuous metrical narratives (i.e. pa-wruv etreuv), do for
the most part (TO. TroXX') derive their openings

68 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Homer with that famous island. But all is too obscure to
penetrate, and in fact has not been penetrated.

PART III

VERDICT ON THE HOMERIC QUESTION

I will now, reader, endeavour to give you the heads of a
judgment, or verdict, on this intricate question, drawn up
with extreme care by myself.

1. Rightly was it said by Voss that all arguments worth
a straw in this matter must be derived from the internal
structure of the " Iliad." Let us, therefore, hold an inquest
upon the very body of this memorable poem ; and first of all
let us consider its outside characteristics, its style, language,
metrical structure.

One of the arguments on which the sceptics rely is this :
a thousand years, say they, make a severe trial of a man's
style. What is very good Greek at one end of that period
will sometimes be unintelligible Greek at the other. And
throughout this period it will have been the duty of the
rhapsodoi, or public reciters, to court the public interest,
to sustain it, to humour it, by adapting their own forms of
delivery to the existing state of language. Well, what of
that ? Why, this — that, under so many repeated alterations, the
" Iliad," as we now have it, must resemble Sir Francis Drake's
ship — repaired so often that not a spar of the original vessel
can have remained.

In answer to this, I demand — why a thousand years ?
Doubtless there was that space between Homer and the
Christian era. But why particularly connect the Greek
language with the Christian era ? In this artifice, reader,
though it sounds natural to bring forward our Christian era
in a question that is partly chronological, already there is bad
faith. The Greek language had nothing to do with the
Christian era. Mark this, and note well — that already in
the era of Pericles, whose chronological locus is 444 years
B.C., the Greek language had reached its consummation. And
by that word I mean its state of rigid settlement. Will any

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 69

man deny that the Greek of Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides,
who were, in the fullest sense, contemporaries with Pericles
—that the Greek of Plato or Xenophon, who were at least
children of some growth before Pericles died — continued
through all after ages (in the etymological sense of the word)
standard Greek ? That is, it was standing Greek — Greek
which stood still, and never afterwards shifted its ground ;
so that eighteen hundred and ninety years later, at the final
capture of Constantinople by the Ottomans, it remained the
true familiar Greek of educated people, such Greek as all
educated people talked, and removed even from the vulgar
Greek of the mob only as the written language of books
always differs from the spoken dialect of the uneducated.
The time, therefore, for which we have to account is, not a
thousand years, but a little more than one-half of that
space. The range, therefore — the compass of time within
which Homer had to struggle with the agencies of change,
viz. down to Pericles — was about five centuries and a-half.

Now, the tendency to change is different in different
languages, both from internal causes (mechanism, &c.), and
from causes external to the language, laid in the varying
velocities of social progress. Secondly, besides this varying
liability to change in one language as compared with another,
there is also a varying rate of change in the same language
compared with itself. Change in language is not, as in many
natural products, continuous : it is not equable, but eminently
moves by fits and starts. Probably one hundred and fifty
years at stagnant periods of history do less to modify a
language than forty years amidst great struggles of intellect.
And one thing I must insist on \ which is that between
Homer and Pisistratus the changes in Grecian society likely
to affect the language were not to be compared, for power,
with those acting upon English society ever since the
Reformation.

This being premised, I request attention to the following
case. Precisely on this very summer day, so bright and
brilliant, of 184 1,1 are the five hundred years completed (less
by forty-five years than the interspace between Homer and
Pisistratus) since Chaucer was a stout boy, " alive," and
1 About which time this paper was tivst published.

70 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

probably "kicking," for he was fined, about 1341, for kicking
a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street, — though Ritson erroneously
asserts that the story was a " hum," invented by Chatterton.
Now, what was the character of Chaucer's diction ? A great
delusion exists on that point. Some ninety or one hundred
words that are now obsolete, certainly not many more, vein
the whole surface of Chaucer j and thus a primd facie
impression is conveyed that Chaucer is difficult to understand,
whereas a very slight practice familiarises his language.
The "Canterbury Tales" were not made public until 1380 ;
but the composition was certainly proceeding between 1350
and 1380,1 and before 1360 some considerable parts were
published — yes, published. Here we have a space greater by
thirty-five years than that between Homer and Pisistratus.
And observe : had Chaucer's Tales enjoyed the benefit of an
oral recitation, — were they assisted to the understanding by
the pauses in one place, the hurrying and crowding of unim-
portant words at another, and by the proper distribution of
emphasis every where (all which,though impracticable in regular
singing, is well enough accomplished in a chant, or Aoyos
/Ae/x,eA,«r/x,ei/os), — there is no man, however unfamiliar with old
English, but might be made to go along with the movement
of his admirable tales, as regards the sense and the passion,
though he might still remain at a loss for the meaning of
insulated words.

Not Chaucer himself, however, but that model of language
which Chaucer ridicules and parodies, as becoming obsolete
in his days, the rhyme of Sir Thopas — a model which may
be safely held to represent the language of the two centuries
previous — is the point of appeal. Sir Thopas is clearly a
parody of the Metrical Romances. Some of those hitherto
published by Ritson, &c., are not older than Chaucer ; but
some ascend much higher, and may be referred to 1200, or
perhaps earlier. Date them from 1240, and that places a
period of six centuries complete between ourselves and them.
Notwithstanding which, the greater part of the Metrical
Romances, when aided by the connexion of events narrated,

1 De Quincey's Chaucer datings have been superseded by recent
research ; but the small discrepancy does not in the least affect his
argument. — M.

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^: 71

or when impassioned, remain perfectly intelligible to this
hour.

" What for labour, and what for faint,
Sir Bevis was well nigh attaint."

This is a couplet in Bevis of Southampton ; and another I
will quote from memory in the romance of " Sir Gawaine
and Sir Ywaine." In a vast forest, Sir Gawaine, by striking
a magical shield suspended to a tree, had caused a dreadful
storm to succeed ; which, subsiding, is followed by the
gloomy apparition of a mailed knight, who claims the forest
for his own, taxes Sir Gawaine with having intruded on his
domain, and concludes a tissue of complaints with saying
that he (Sir Gawaine) had

" With weathers wakened him of rest,
And done him wrong in his forest."

Now, these two casual recollections well and fairly represent
the general current of the language ; not certainly what
would now be written, but what is luminously intelligible
from the context. At present, for instance, faint is an
adjective ; but the context, and the corresponding word labour,
easily teach the reader that it here means faintness. So,
again, " weather " is not now used for storms ; but it is so
used by a writer as late as Lord Bacon, and yet survives in
such words as " weather-beaten," " weather-stained."

Now, I say that the interval of time between these
romances and ourselves is greater than between Homer and
the age of Pericles. I say, also, that the constant succession
of metrical writers connecting the time of Homer with that
of Pericles, — such as the authors of the " Nostoi " (or Memor-
able Returns homeward from Troy), of the " Cypria," of the
many Cyclical poems, next of the Lyric poets, a list closing
with Pindar, in immediate succession to whom, and through
most of his life strictly a contemporary with Pindar, comes
^Eschylus, close upon whose heels follow the whole cluster of
dramatic poets who glorified the life of Pericles — this
apparently continuous series of verse - writers, without the
interposition of a single prose-writer, would inevitably have
the effect of keeping alive the poetic forms and choice of

72 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

words, in a degree not so reasonably to be expected under
any interrupted succession. Our Chaucer died an old man,
about seventy, in the year 1 400 ; that is, in the closing year
of the fourteenth century. The next century — that is, the
fifteenth — was occupied in much of its latter half by the Civil
Wars of the two Koses, which threw back the development of
the English Literature, and tended to disturb the fluent
transmission of Chaucer's and Gower's diction. The
tumultuous century which came next — viz. the sixteenth,
the former half of which was filled with the Reformation —
caused a prodigious fermentation and expansion of the
English intellect. But such convulsions are very unfavourable
to the steady conservation of language, and of everything else
depending .upon usage. Now, in Grecian history, there are
no corresponding agitations of society ; the currents of
tradition seem to flow downwards without meeting any-
thing to ripple their surface. It is true that the great Persian
War did agitate Greece profoundly ; and, by combining the
Greeks from every quarter in large masses, this memorable
war must have given a powerful shock to the stagnant ideas
inherited from antiquity. But, as this respects Honier,
observe how thoroughly its operation is defeated : for the
outrageous conflagration of Sardis by Grecian troops, which
it was that provoked the invasion of Greece by the Persians
under Darius, occurred about 500 B.C. ; and the final events
of the war under Xerxes — viz. Salamis, Plataea, &c. —
occurred in 480 B.C. But already, by Pisistratus, whose
locus is fifty years before the affair of Sardis, Homer had
been revised and settled, and (as one might express it) stereo-
typed. Consequently, the chief political revolution affecting
Greece collectively, if you except the Dorian migrations, &c.,
between Homer and Pericles, was intercepted from all
possibility of affecting the Homeric diction, &c., through the
seasonable authentication of the entire Homeric text under
the seal and imprimatur of Pisistratus. Here is the old
physical guarantee urged by M sop's lamb versus wolf, that
Homer's text could not have been reached by any influence,
direct or oblique, from the greatest of post-Homeric political
convulsions. It would be the old miracle of the Greek
proverb ('Ai/o> Trora^wi', &c.), which adopted the reflux of

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E . 73

rivers towards their fountains as the liveliest type of the
impossible.

There is also a philosophic reason why the range of diction
in Chaucer should be much wider, and liable to greater
changes, than that of Homer. Review those parts of Chaucer
which at this day are most obscure, and it will uniformly be
found that they are the subjective sections of his poetry;
those, for instance, in which he is elaborately decomposing a
character. A character is a subtle fugacious essence, which
does, or does not, exist, according to the capacity of the eye
which is applied to it. In Homer's age, no such meditative
differences were perceived. All is objective in the descriptions,
and external. And in those cases where the mind or its
affections must be noticed, always it is by the broad dis-
tinctions of anger, fear, love, hatred, without any vestige of
a sense for the more delicate interblendings or nuances of
such qualities. But a language built upon these elementary
distinctions is necessarily more durable than another, which,
applying itself to the subtler phenomena of human nature,
exactly in that proportion applies itself to what is capable of
being variously viewed, or viewed in various combinations,
as society shifts its aspects.

The result from all this is that, throughout the four
hundred and forty-five years from Homer to Pisistratus, the
diction even of real life would not have suffered so much
alteration as in modern times it would be likely to do within
some single centuries. But with respect to poetry the result
is stronger.

The diction of poetry is everywhere a privileged diction ;
the antique or scriptural language is everywhere affected in
serious or impassioned poetry. So that no call would arise
for modern adaptations, until the language had grown un-
intelligible. Nor would that avail to raise such a call. The
separate non-intelligibility of a word would cause no difficulty,
whilst it would give the grace of antique colouring. For a
word which is separately obscure is not so in nexu. Suppose,
reader, we were to ask you the meaning of the English word
chode, you might be a little puzzled. Yet it is an honest and
once an industrious word, though now retired from business ;
and it stands in our authorised translation of the Bible :

74 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

where, if you had chanced to meet it in loco, you would
easily have collected from the context that it was the past
tense of chide. Again, what southern reader of Sir Walter
Scott's novels has failed to gather the full sense of the
Scottish dialect ? or what Scotchman to gather the sense of
the Irish dialect, so plentifully strewed in modern tales ? or
what landsman to gather the sense of the marine dialect in
our nautical novels ? Or — which is a case often of more
trying effort — which of us Britishers has been repelled by
the anomalous dialect of Mrs. Beecher Stowe (with its sorter,
lander, &c.) from working through the jungles of " Uncle
Tom " ? In all such cases, the passion, the animation and
movement of the feeling, very often the logic, as they arise
from the context, carry you fluently along with the
meaning, though many of the words, taken separately and
detached from this context, might have been unintelligible.

Equating, therefore, the sleeping state of early Greece
with the stirring progress of modern Christian lands, I come
to this conclusion : that Homer, the genuine unaltered Homer,
would not, by all likelihood, be more archaic in his colour-
ing of style to the age of Solon, or even of Pericles, than the
"Froissart" of Lord Berners is to ourselves. That is, I
equate four hundred and forty-five early Greek years with
the last three hundred and twenty English years. But I
will concede something more. The common English transla-
tion of the long prose romance called " Mort d'Arthur " was
composed, I believe, about the year 1480.1 This will, there-
fore, be three hundred and sixty years old. Now, both Lord
Berners 2 and the " Mort d'Arthur" are as intelligible as this
morning's newspaper in June 1841. And one proof that
they are so is that both works have been reprinted verbatim
et literatim in this generation for popular use. Something
venerable and solemn there is in both these works, — as again
in the " Paston Letters," 3 which are hard upon four hundred

1 Sir Thomas Malory completed his compilation or composition
of the Morte d'Arthur in 1470, and it was published by Caxton in
1485.— M.

2 Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, 1474-1532,— M.

3 The Paston Letters, a collection of letters, ranging in date from
about 1450 to 1509, preserved among the papers of an old NorfolksMre
family, were published in successive volumes between 1787 and 18'J3,

HOMER AND THE HOMERID.E 75

years old, — but no shadow of retarding difficulty to the least
practised of modern readers.

B. — HOMER'S LEXIS

Now, reader, having stated, by known English examples,
what eifect was reasonably to have been anticipated from age,
let us next inquire what effect has in fact taken place.
Observe the monstrous dishonesty of these German critics.
What if a mail should argue thus : " This helmet never can
have descended from Mambrino ; for, if it had, there would
have been weather-stains, cracks, dents of swords," &c. To
which it is replied : — " Doubtless ; but have you looked to
see if there are not such marks of antiquity ? " Would you
not think the disparager of the helmet worthy of the tread-
mill, if it should turn out that he had never troubled him-
self to examine it ? These Germans argue a priori that,
upon certain natural causes, there would arise a temptation
to the Homeric chanters for adapting the diction to their
audience. Conditionally I grant this — that is, if a deep
night of darkness fell suddenly upon the language. But my
answer is that this condition never would be realised ; and
that a solemnising twilight is the very utmost which could
ever steal over Homer's diction. Meantime, where is the
sense of calculating a priori what would be likely to happen,
when, by simply opening a book, we can see what has hap-
pened ? These Germans talk as if the Homer we now have
spoke exactly such Greek as Euripides and Sophocles, or, if
some slight differences are admitted, as though these were
really too inconsiderable to meet the known operation of
chance and change through four and a-half centuries. To
hear them, you must suppose that Homer differed little more
from the golden writers of Greece than as Pope's diction
differs from that of 1841. Who now says writ for wrote
and for written ? Who says 'tis and 'twas since Queen Anne's
reign ? There are not twelve consecutive lines in Pope,
Swift, Addison, which will not be found marked by such
slight peculiarities of their age. Yet their general agreement

and are now most completely accessible, to the number of over 500, in
Mr. James Gairdner's edition of IS 72-5.— M.

76 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

with ourselves is so striking that the difficulty is to detect
the differences. Now, if Homer were in that condition re-
latively to the age of Pericles — were it even that he
exhibited no more sombre hues than those which ^schylus
exhibits, as compared with his younger brothers of the drama
— I should grant at once that a case is made out, calling for
some explanation. There has been a change ; there is some-
thing to account for. Somebody has been " doctoring " this
man, would be the inference. But how stands the truth ?
Why, reader, the Homeric lexis is so thoroughly peculiar and
individual that it requires a separate lexicon ; and, if all
men do not use a separate lexicon, it is only because that
particular vocabulary has been digested into the series of
general vocabularies. Pierce Plowman l is not more unlike
in diction to Sir Walter Scott than is Homer to Euripides.
And, instead of simply accounting for the time elapsed, and
fairly answering to the reasonable attrition of that time, the
Homeric diction is sufficient to account for three such spaces.
What would the infidels have ? Homer, they say, is an old
—old — very old man, whose trembling limbs have borne him
to your door ; and, therefore — what ? Why, he ought to
look very old indeed. Well, good men, he does look very old
indeed. He ought, they say, to be covered with lichens and
ivy. Well, he is covered with lichens and ivy. And sure I
am that few people will undertake to know how a man looks
when he is five hundred years old by comparison with him-
self at four hundred. Suffice it here to say, for the benefit
of the unlearned, that not one of our own earliest writers,
hardly Thomas of Ercildoune,2 has more of peculiar antique
words in his vocabulary than Homer.

C. — HOMER'S METRE

In this case the Germans themselves admit the extraordi-
nary character of the Homeric rliyihmus. " How free, how
spirited in its motion ! " they all exclaim ; " how charac-

1 William Langland, the author of the Piers Plowman visions,
lived from about 1332 to about 1400. — M.

2 Thomas of Ercildoune, alias Thomas the Rhymer, reputed author
of the metrical romance Sir Tristrcm, died about 1299. — M.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIM 77

teristically his own ! " Well, now, did the father of sophisms
ever hear of such stuff as this, when you connect it with
what these Germans say elsewhere ? As well might a woman
say that you had broken her china cups, but that you had
artfully contrived to preserve the original Chinese designs.
How could you preserve the form or surface, if you destroy
the substance ? And, if these imaginary adapters of Homer,
according to the German pretence, modernised his whole
diction, how could they preserve his metrical effects ? With
the peculiar word or idiom would vanish the peculiar pro-
sody. Even a single word is not easily replaced by
another having the same sense, the same number of syllables,
and in each syllable the same metrical quantity ; but how
immeasurably more difficult is this when the requisition is
for a whole sentence or clause having the same sense in the
same number of syllables and the same prosody ? Why, a
man would not doctor three lines in a century under such
intolerable conditions. And, at the end of his labour, like
Addison's small poet, who worked for years upon the name
of "Mary Bohun," whom he was courting, in order to bind
its stubborn letters within the hoop-ring of an anagram, he
would fail, and would go mad into the bargain, upon finding
that the colloquial pronunciation of the name (viz. Boon) had
misled him in his spelling. If the metre is characteristically
Homeric, as say these infidels, then is the present text (so
inextricably coadunated with the metre), upon their own
showing, the good old Homeric text — and no mistake.

But, reader, the Homeric metre is not truly described by
these men. It is certainly Jcenspeck, to use a good old Eng-
lish word — that is to say, recognisable ; you challenge it for
Homer's whenever you meet it. Characteristic it is, but not
exactly for the reason they assign. The fact is, though flow-
ing and lively, it betrays the immaturity of the metrical art.
Those constraints from which the Germans praise its free-
dom are the constraints of exquisite art — art of a kind un-
known to the simple Homer. This is a difficult subject ;
for, in our own literature, the true science of metrical effects
has not belonged to our later poets, but to the elder. Spen-
ser, Shakspere, Milton, are the great masters of exquisite
versiii cation. And Waller, who was idly reputed to have

78 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

refined our metre, was a mere trickster, having a single tune
moving in his imagination, without compass and without
variety. Chaucer, also, whom Dryden in this point so
thoroughly misunderstood, was undoubtedly a most elaborate
master of metre, as will appear when we have a really good
edition of him. But in the Pagan literature this was other-
wise. We see in the Koman poets that, precisely as they
were antique, they were careless, or at least very inartificial
in the management of their metre. Thus Lucilius, Ennius,
even Lucretius, leave a class of faults in their verse from
which Virgil would have revolted.1 And the very same class
of faults is found in Homer. But, though faults as regards
severe art, they are in the very spirit of nawettfoT picturesque
naturalness, and wear the stamp of a primitive age — artless
and inexperienced.

This article would require a volume. But I will content
myself with one illustration. Every scholar is aware of the
miserable effect produced where there is no caesura, in that
sense of the word ccesura which means the interlocking of the
several feet into the several words. Thus, imagine a line
like this : —

" Urbem Romam primo condit Romulus anno.'

Here the six feet of the hexameter are separately made out
by six several words. Each word is a foot ; and no foot
interlocks into another. So that there is no ccesura.
Yet even that is not the worst fault of the line. The other
and more destructive is — the coincidence of the ictus, or
emphasis, with the first syllable of ^very foot. Now, in
Homer we see both faults repeatedly. Thus, to express the
thundering pace with which a heavy stone comes trundling
back from a hill-top, he says,

" Autis epeita ped6nde kulindeto laas anaides."

Here there is the shocking fault, to any metrical ear, of
making the emphasis fall regularly on the first syllable,
which in effect obliterates all the benefit of the caesura. Now,
Virgil, in an age of refinement, has not one such line, nor

] Ennius, B.C. 239-169 ; Lucilius, B.C. 148-103 ; Lucretius, B.G
95-55 ; Virgil, B.C. 70-19.— M.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIM 79

could have endured such a line. In that verse, expressing
the gallop of a horse, he also has five dactyles :

" Quadrupedante putreni sonitu quatit ungula campum."

But he takes care to distribute the accents properly, — on
which so much even of the ancient versification depended :
except in the two last feet, the emphasis of Virgil's line
never coincides with the first syllable of the foot. Homer,
it will be said, wished to express mimetically the rolling,
thundering, leaping motion of the stone. True ; but so did
Virgil wish to express the thundering gallop of the horse, in
which the beats of the hoofs return with regular intervals.
Each sought for a picturesque effect ; each adopted a dactylic
structure : but to any man who has studied this subject I
need not say that picturesqueness, like any other effect, must
be subordinated to a higher law of beauty. Whence, indeed,
it is that the very limits of imitation arise from every art, —
sculpture, painting, &c., — indicating what it ought to imitate,
and what it ought not to imitate. And, unless regard is
had to such higher restraints, metrical effects become as silly
and childish as the musical effects in Kotzwarra's " Battle of
Prague," with its ridiculous attempts to mimic the firing of
cannon, groans of the wounded, &c., instead of involving the
passion of a battle in the agitation of the music.

These rudenesses of art, however, are generally found in
its early stages. And I am satisfied that, as art advanced,
these defects must have been felt for such ; so that, had any
licence of improvement existed, — which is what the Germans
pretend, — they would have been removed. That they were
left untouched in the ages of the great lyrical masters, when
metre was so scientifically understood, is a strong argument
that Homer was sacred from all tampering. Over the whole
field of the Homeric versification, both for its quality of
faults and its quality of merits, lies diffused this capital
truth — that no opening existed for the correction of any fault
in any age after the perception of that fault — (that is, no
opening to correction when the temptation to correct could
first have arisen).

80 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

D. — THE HOMERIC FORMULA

Here is another countersign for the validity of our present
Homeric text. In onr own metrical romances, or wherever
a poem is meant not for readers but for chanters and oral
reciters, these formula, to meet the same recurring cases,
exist by scores. Thus every woman in these metrical
romances who happens to be young, is described as " so
bright of ble," or complexion ; always a man goes " the moun-
tenance of a mile " before he overtakes or is overtaken. And
so on through a vast bead-roll of cases. In the same spirit
Homer has his eternal rov &' ap vTroSpa t8cov, or eTrea Trrepoevra
TrpocrrjvSa, or rov 8' cwra/zei/^o/zevos Tr/aoae^, &c. Now, these
again, under any refining spirit of criticism at liberty to act
freely, are characteristics that would have disappeared. Not
that they are faults : on the contrary, to a reader of sensi-
bility, such recurrences wear an aspect of childlike simpli-
city, beautifully recalling the features of Homer's primitive
age. But they would have appeared faults to all common-
place critics in literary ages.

I say, therefore, that, first, the Diction of the " Iliad "
(B) ; secondly, the Metre of the " Iliad " (C) ; thirdly, the
Formulae and recurring Clauses of the " Iliad " (D) — -all pre-
sent us with so many separate guarantees for good faith — so
many separate attestations to the purity of the Homeric text
from any considerable interference. For every one of these
would have given' way to the " Adapters," had any such
people operated upon Homer.

2. The first class of arguments, therefore, for the sanity of
the existing Homer is derived from language. A second
argument I derive from THE IDEALITY OF ACHILLES. This I
owe to a suggestion of Wordsworth's. Once, when I observed
to him that of imagination, in his own sense, I saw no in-
stance in the " Iliad," he replied, " Yes ; there is the charac-
ter of Achilles ; this is imaginative, in the same sense as
Ariosto's Angelica." Character is not properly the word, nor
was it what Wordsworth meant. It is an idealised concep-
tion. The excessive beauty of Angelica, for instance, in the
" Orlando Furioso," robs the paladins of their wits ; draws

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDyE 81

anchorites into guilt ; tempts the baptized into mortal feud ;
summons the unbaptized to war ; brings nations together
from the ends of the earth. And so, with different but
analogous effects, the very perfection of courage, beauty,
strength, speed, skill of eye, of voice, and all personal accom-
plishments, are embodied in the son of Peleus. He has the
same supremacy in modes of courtesy, and doubtless, accord-
ing to the poet's conception, in virtue. In fact, the astonish-
ing blunder which Horace made in deciphering this Homeric
portrait gives the best memorandum for recalling the real
points of his most self-commanding character :

"Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,
Jura negat sibi nata, nihil non arrogat armis."

Was that man "iracundus" who, in the very opening of
the " Iliad," makes his anger, under the most brutal insult,
bend to the public welfare ? When two people quarrel, it
is too commonly the unfair award of careless bystanders
that " one is as bad as the other " ; whilst generally it
happens that one of the parties is but the respondent in a
quarrel originated by the other. I never witnessed a
quarrel in my life where the fault was equally divided be-
tween the parties. Homer says of the two chiefs, Staa-Trjrrjv
cpia-avrt, they stood aloof in feud ; but what was the nature
of the feud ? Agamemnon had inflicted upon Achilles,
himself a king, and the most brilliant chieftain of the
confederate army, the very foulest outrage (matter and
manner) that can be imagined. Because his own brutality
to a priest of Apollo had caused a pestilence, and he finds
that he must resign this priest's daughter, he declares that
he will indemnify himself by seizing a female captive from
the tents of Achilles. Why of Achilles more than of any
other man ? Colour of right, or any relation between his
loss and his redress, this brutal Agamemnon does not offer
by pretence. But he actually executes his threat. Nor
does he ever atone for it ; since his returning Briseis, without
disavowing his right to have seized her, is wide of the whole
point at issue. Now, under what show of common sense
can that man be called iracundm who calmly submits to
such an indignity as this ? Or is that man inexorabilis who

VOL. VI G

82 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

sacrifices to the tears and grey hairs of Priam his own
meditated revenge, giving back the body of the enemy who
had robbed him of his dearest friend ? Or is there any
gleam of truth in saying that jura negat sibi nata when, of
all the heroes in the " Iliad," he is the most punctiliously
courteous, the most ceremonious in his religious observances,
and the one who most cultivated the arts of peace 1 Or
is that man the violent defier of all law and religion who
submits with so pathetic a resignation to the doom of early
death ?

' ' Enough, I know my fate — to die ; to see no more
My much-loved parents, or my native shore."

Charles XII of Sweden threatened to tickle that man who
had libelled his hero Alexander. But Alexander himself
would have tickled Master Horace for this infernal libel on
Achilles, if they had happened to be contemporaries. I have
a love for Horace ; but my wrath has always burned furiously
against him for his horrible perversion of the truth in this
well-known tissue of calumnies.

The character, in short, of the matchless Pelides has an
ideal finish and a divinity about it which argue that it
never could have been a fiction or a gradual accumulation
from successive touches. It was raised by a single flash
of creative imagination ; it was a reality seen through the
harmonising abstractions of two centuries1 ; and it is in
itself a great unity, which penetrates every section where it
comes forward with an identification of these several parts as
the work of one man.

3. Another powerful guarantee of the absolute integrity
which belongs to the " Iliad " lies in the Ionic forms of
language, combined everywhere (as Plato remarks) with Ionic
forms of life. Homer had seen the modes of Dorian life, as
in many cities of Crete. But his heart turned habitually to
the Ionian life of his infancy. Here the man who builds on
pretences of recasting, &c., will find himself in this dilemma.
If, in order to account for the poem still retaining its Ionic
dress, which must have been affected by any serious attempts

1 "Two centuries" : — i.e. the supposed interval between Troy and
Homer.

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 83

at modernising it, he should argue that the Ionic dialect,
though not used on the continent, continued to be perfectly
intelligible, then, my good sir, what call for recasting it?
Nobody supposes that an antique form of language would be
objectionable per se, or that it. would be other than solemn
and religious in its effect, so long as it continued to be in-
telligible. On the other hand, if he argues that it must
gradually have grown unintelligible or less intelligible (for
that the Ionic of Herodotus, in the age of Pericles, was very
different from the Homeric), in that case to whom would it be
unintelligible 1 Why, to the Athenians, for example, or
to some people of continental Greece. But, on that sup-
position, it would have been exchanged for some form of
Attic or other continental Greek. To be Ionian by descent
did not imply the use of a dialect formed in Asia Minor.
And not only would heterogeneous forms of language have
thus crept into the " Iliad," but inevitably, in making these
changes, other heterogeneities in the substance would have
crept in concurrently. That purity and sincerity of Ionic
life which arrested the eye of Plato would have melted
away under such modern adulterations.

4. But another argument against the possibility of such
recasts is founded upon a known remarkable fact. It is
a fact of history, coming down to us from several quarters,
that the people of Athens were exceedingly discontented
with the slight notice taken of themselves in the " Iliad."
Now, observe, already this slight notice is in itself one
argument of Homer's antiquity ; and the Athenians did
wrong to murmur at .so many petty towns of the Pelopon-
nesus being glorified while in their case Homer only gives
one line or so to Menestheus their chief. Let them be
thankful for getting anything. Homer knew what Athens
was in those days much better than any of us ; and surely
Glasgow or Liverpool could not complain of being left out of
the play in a poem on the Crusades. But there was another
case that annoyed the Athenians equally. Theseus, it is
well known, was a great scamp ; in fact, a very bad fellow
indeed. You need go no further than Ariadne (who, by
most traditions, hanged herself in her garters at Naxos) to
prove tliat. Now, Homer, who was determined to tell no

84 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND KESEARCHES

lies in the matter, roundly blurts out the motive of Theseus
for his base desertion of Ariadne, which had the double guilt
of cruelty and of ingratitude, as in Jason's conduct towards
Medea. It was, says the honest bard, because he was
desperately in love with Mgl&. This line in Homer was
like a coroner's verdict on Ariadne — died by the visitation of
Theseus. It was impossible to hide this act of the national
hero, if the line were suffered to stand. An attempt was
therefore made to eject it. Pisistratus is charged, in this one
instance, with having smuggled in a single forged line. But,
even in his own lifetime, it was dismally suspected ; and,
when Pisistratus saw men looking askance at it, he would
say, " Well, sir, what's in the wind now ? What are you
squinting at ?" Upon which the man would answer, "Oh,
nothing, sir ; I was only looking at things in general." But
Pisistratus knew better : it was no go — that he saw ; and the
line is obelised to this day. Now, where Athens failed, is it
conceivable that anybody else would succeed ?

5. A fifth argument, upon which we rely much, is the
CIRCUMSTANTIALITY of the "Iliad." Let the reader pause
to consider what that means in this particular case. The
invention of little personal circumstances and details is now
a well-known artifice of novelists. We see, even in our
oldest metrical romances, a tendency to this mode of giving
a lively expression to the characters, as well as of giving a
colourable reality to the tale. Yet, even with us, it is an
art that has never but once been successfully applied to
regular history. De Foe is the only author known who
has so plausibly circumstantiated his false historical records
as to make them pass for genuine, even with literary men
and critics. In his " Memoirs of a Cavalier," one of his
poorest forgeries, he assumes the character of a soldier who
had fought under Gustavus Adolphus (1628-31), and after-
wards (1642-45) in our own Parliamentary War; in fact,
he corresponds chronologically to Captain Dalgetty. In other
works he personates a sea - captain, a hosier, a runaway
apprentice, an officer under Lord Peterborough in his Cata-
lonian expedition. In this last character he imposed upon
Dr. Johnson ; and, by men better read in History than Dr.
Johnson, he has actually been quoted as a regular historical

HOMER AND THE HOMERIM 85

authority. How did he accomplish so difficult an end ?
Simply by inventing such little circumstantiations of any
character or incident as seem, by their apparent inertness of
effect, to verify themselves ; for, where the reader is told
that such a person was the posthumous son of a tanner, that
his mother married afterwards a Presbyterian schoolmaster,
who gave him a smattering of Latin, but, the schoolmaster
dying of the plague, that he was compelled at sixteen to
enlist for bread — in all this, as there is nothing at all
amusing, we conclude that the author could have no reason
to detain us with such particulars but simply because they
were true. To invent, when nothing at all is gained by
inventing, there seems no imaginable temptation. It never
occurs to us that this very construction of the case, this very
inference from such neutral details, was precisely the object
which De Foe had in view — was the very thing which he
counted on, and by which he meant to profit. He thus
gains the opportunity of impressing upon his tales a double
character : he makes them so amusing that girls read them
for novels ; and he gives them such an air of verisimilitude
that men read them for histories.

Now, this is one amongst the many arts by which, in
comparison of the ancients, we have so prodigiously extended
the compass of literature. In Grecian, or even in Eoman
literature, no dream ever arose of interweaving a fictitious
interest with a true one. Nor was the possibility then
recognised of any interest founded in fiction, even though
kept apart from historic records. Look at Statius ; look at
Virgil ; look at Valerius Flaccus ; or look at the entire
Greek drama : not one incident beyond the mere descriptive
circumstances of a battle, or a storm, or a funeral solemnity,
with the ordinary turns of skill or chance in the games
which succeed, can be looked upon as matter of invention.
All rested upon actual tradition : — in the " ^Eneid," for
instance, upon ancient Italian traditions still lingering
amongst a most ignorant people ; in the " Thebaid," where
the antiquity of the story is too great to allow of this
explanation, doubtless they were found in Grecian poems.
Four centuries after the Christian era, — if the " Satyricon "
of Petronius Arbiter is excepted, and a few sketches of

86 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Lucian,1 — we find the first feeble tentative development of
the romance interest. The "Cyropaedia" was not so much
a romance as simply one-sided in its information. But in
the "Iliad" we meet with many of these little individual
circumstances, which can be explained (consistently with the
remark here made) upon no principle whatever except that
of downright notorious truth. Homer could not have
wandered so far astray from the universal sympathies of
his country as ever to think of fictions so useless ; and,
if he had, he would soon have been recalled to the truth by
disagreeable experiences; for the construction would have
been that he was a person very ill informed, and not trust-
worthy through ignorance.

Thus, in speaking of Polydamas, Homer says ("Iliad"
xviii. 250) that he and Hector were old cronies ; which might
strike the reader as odd, since Polydamas was no fighting
man at all, but cultivated the arts of peace. Partly, therefore,
by way of explaining their connexion — partly for the simple
reason that doubtless it was a fact — Homer adds that they
were both born in the same night ; a circumstance which is
known to have had considerable weight upon early friendships
in the houses of oriental princes.

" 'E/cro/H 8' rjtv erat/aos, irj 8* cv VVKTL ycvoi/ro."

"To Hector he was a bosom friend,
For in one night they were born."

I argue, therefore, that, had Homer not lived within a reason-
able number of generations after Troy, he never would have
learned a little fact of this kind. He heard it perhaps from
his nurse, good old creature, who again had heard it from
her grandfather when talking with emotion of Troy and its
glorious palaces, and of the noble line of princes that perished
in its final catastrophe. A ray of that great sunset had still
lingered in the old man's imagination ; and the deep im-
pression of so memorable a tragedy had carried into popular
remembrance vast numbers of specialties and circumstanti-
alities, such as might now be picked out of the "Iliad," that
could have no attraction for the mind but simply under the
one condition that they were true. An interval as great as

1 Petronius Arbiter, cl. A.D. 66 ; Lucian, about A. D. 200. — M.

HOMER AND THE HOMERTP/K 87

four centuries, when all relation between the house of Priam
and the surrounding population must have been obliterated,
would cause such petty anecdotes to lose their entire interest ;
and, in that case, they would never have reached Homer.
Here, therefore, is a collateral indication that Homer lived
probably within two centuries of Troy. On the other hand,
if the "Iliad" had ever become so obsolete in its diction
that popular feeling called for a diaskeu^ or thorough recast,
in that case I argue that all such trivial circumstances
(interesting only to those who happened to know them for
facts) would have dropped out of the composition.

6. That argument is of a nature to yield me an extensive
field, if I had space to pursue its cultivation. The following
argument is negative, but far from unimportant. It lies in
the absence of all anachronisms, which would most certainly
have arisen in any modern remodelling, and which do in fact
disfigure all the Greek forgeries of letters, &c., in Alexandrian
ages. How inevitable, amongst a people so thoroughly un-
critical as the Greeks, would have been the introduction of
anachronisms by wholesale, had a more modern hand been
allowed to tamper with the texture of the poem ! But, on
the contrary, all inventions, rights, usages, known to have
been of later origin than the Homeric ages are absent from
the " Iliad." For instance, in any recast subsequent to the
era of 700 B.C., how natural it would have been (as has been
more than once remarked) to introduce the trumpet ! Yet
this is absent from the "Iliad." Cavalry, again, how
excellent a resource for varying and inspiriting the battles ;
yet Homer introduces horses only as attached to the chariots,
and the chariots as used only by a few leading heroes, whose
heavy mail made it impossible for them to go on foot, as the
mass of the army did. Why, then, did Homer himself forbear
to introduce cavalry ? Was he blind to the variety he would
have gained for his descriptive scenes ? No ; but simply
upon the principle (so absolute for him) of adhering to the
facts. But what caused the fact ? Why was there no
cavalry ? Evidently from the enormous difficulty of carrying
any number of horses by sea, under the universal non-adapta-
tion to such a purpose of the Greek shipping. To form a
cavalry, a man must begin by horse-stealing. The " horse

88 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

marines " had not begun to show out ; and a proper " troop-
ship " must have been as little known to Agamemnon as
Havanna cigars, or as duelling pistols to Menelaus.

7. A seventh argument for the integrity of our present
" Iliad," in its main section, lies in the nexus of its subordi-
nate parts. Every canto in this main section implies every
other. Thus the funeral of Hector implies that his body had
been ransomed. That fact implies the whole journey of
Priam to the tents of Achilles. This journey, so fatiguing
to the aged king, and in the compulsory absence of his body-
guards so alarming to a feeble old prince, implies the death
and capture of Hector. For no calamity less than that could
have prompted such an extreme step as a suppliant and
perilous pilgrimage to the capital enemy of his house and
throne. But how should Hector and Achilles have met in
battle after the wrathful vow of Achilles ? That argues the
death of Patroclus as furnishing the sufficient motive. But
the death of Patroclus argues the death of Sarpedon, the
Trojan ally, which it was that roused the vindictive fury of
Hector. These events in their turn argue the previous
success of the Trojans, which had moved Patroclus to inter-
fere. And this success of the Trojans argues the absence of
Achilles, which again argues the feud with Agamemnon.
The whole of this story unfolds like a process of vegetation.
And the close intertexture of the several parts is as strong a
proof of unity in the design and execution as the intense life
and consistency in the conception of Achilles.

8. By an eighth argument, I meet the objection some-
times made to the transmission of the " Iliad " through the
rhapsodoi from the burden which so long a poem would have
imposed upon the memory. Some years ago I published a
paper on the Flight of the Kalmuck Tartars from Russia.
Bergmann, the German from whom that account was chiefly
drawn, resided for a long time amongst the Kalmucks, and
had frequent opportunities of hearing musical recitations
selected from the " Dschangaeriade.'' This is the great Tartar
epic ; and it extends to three hundred and sixty cantos,
each averaging the length of a Homeric book. Now, it was
an ordinary effort for a Tartar minstrel to master a score of
these cantos ; which amounts pretty nearly to the length of

HOMER AND THE HOMERIDyE 89

the " Iliad." But a case more entirely in point is found in
a minor work of Xenophon's. A young man is there intro-
duced as boasting that he could repeat by heart the whole of
the " Iliad" and the "Odyssey " — a feat, by the way, which
has been more than once accomplished by English school-
boys.1 But the answer made to this young man is that there
is nothing at all extraordinary in that ; for that every
common rhapsodos could do as much. To me, indeed, the
whole objection seems idle. The human memory is capable
of far greater efforts ; and the music would prodigiously
lighten the effort. But, as it is an objection often started,
we may consider it fortunate that we have such a passage as
this in Xenophon, which not only illustrates the kind of
qualification looked for in a rhapsodos, but shows also that
such a class of people continued to practise in the generation
subsequent to that of Pericles.

Upon these eight arguments I build. This is my case.
They are amply sufficient for the purpose. Homer is not a
person known to us separately and previously, concerning
whom we are inquiring whether, in addition to what else we
know of him, he did not also write the " Iliad." " Homer "
means nothing else but the man who wrote the " Iliad."
Somebody, you will say, must have written it. True ; but,
if that somebody should appear, by any probable argument,
to have been a multitude of persons, there goes to wreck the
unity which is essential to the idea of a Homer. Now, this
unity is sufficiently secured if it should appear that a con-
siderable section of the " Iliad " — and that section by far the
most full of motion, of human interest, of tragical cata-
strophe, and through which runs, as the connecting principle,
a character the most brilliant, magnanimous, and noble that
Pagan morality could conceive — was, and must have been,
the work and conception of a single mind. Achilles revolves
through that section of the " Iliad " in a series of phases,
each of which looks forward and backward to all the rest.
He travels like the sun through his diurnal course. We see
him first of all rising upon us as a princely councillor for the

1 In particular, by an Eton boy about the beginning of this cen-
tury, known extensively as Homeric Wright.

90 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

welfare of the Grecian host. We see him atrociously insulted
in this office ; yet still, though a king, and unused to opposi-
tion, and boiling with youthful blood, nevertheless controlling
his passion, and retiring in clouded majesty. Even thus,
though having now so excellent a plea for leaving the army,
and though aware of the early death that awaited him if he
staid, he disdains to profit by the evasion. We see him still
living in the tented field, and generously unable to desert
those who had so insultingly deserted him. We see him in
a dignified retirement, fulfilling all the duties of religion,
friendship, hospitality ; and, like an accomplished man of
taste, cultivating the arts of peace. We see him so far
surrendering his wrath to the earnest persuasion of friend-
ship that he comes forth at a critical moment for the Greeks
to save them from ruin. What are his arms ? He has none
at all. Simply by his voice he changes the face of the
battle. He shouts and nations fly from the sound. Never
but once again is such a shout recorded by a poet —

" He called so loud that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded."

Who called ? That shout was the shout of an archangel.
Next we see him reluctantly allowing his dearest friend to
assume his own arms ; the kindness and the modesty of his
nature forbidding him to suggest that not the divine weapons,
but the immortal arm of the wielder, had made them
invincible. His friend perishes. Then we see him rise in
his noontide wrath, before which no life could stand. The
frenzy of his grief makes him for a time cruel and implacable.
He sweeps the field of battle like a monsoon. His revenge
descends perfect, sudden, like a curse from heaven. We
now recognise the goddess-born. This is his avatar — the
incarnate descent of his wrath. Had he moved to battle
under the ordinary impulses of Ajax, Diomed, and the other
heroes, we never could have sympathised or gone along with
so withering a course. We should have viewed him as a
" scourge of God," or fiend, born for the tears of wives and
the maledictions of mothers. But the poet, before he would
let him loose upon men, creates for him a sufficient, or at
least palliating, motive. In the sternest of his acts we read
only the anguish of his grief. This is surely the perfection

HOMER AND THE HOMERIM 91

of art. At length the work of destruction is finished ; but,
if the poet leaves him at this point, there would be a want of
repose, and we should be left with a painful impression of
his hero as forgetting the earlier humanities of his nature,
and brought forward only for final exhibition in his terrific
phases. Now, therefore, by machinery the most natural, we
see this paramount hero travelling back within our gentler
sympathies, and revolving to his rest like the vesper sun
disrobed of his blazing terrors. We see him settling down
to that humane and princely character in which he had been
first exhibited ; we see him relenting at the sight of Priam's
grey hairs, touched with the sense of human calamity, and
once again mastering his passion (grief now), as formerly he
had mastered his wrath. He consents that his feud shall
sleep ; he surrenders the corpse of his capital enemy ; and
the last farewell chords of the poem rise with a solemn
intonation from the grave of " Hector, the tamer of horses "
— that noble soldier who had so long been the column of
his country, and to whom, in his dying moments, the stern
Achilles had declared (but then in the middle career of
his grief) that no honourable burial should ever be granted.

Such is the outline of an Achilleis, as it might be
gathered from the " Iliad " ; and, for the use of schools, I am
surprised that such a beautiful whole has not long since
been extracted. A tale more affecting by its story and
vicissitudes does not exist ; and, after this, who cares in
what order the non-essential parts of the poem may be
arranged, or whether Homer was their author ? It is
sufficient that one mind must have executed this Achilleis,
in consequence of its intense unity. Every part implies
every other part. With such a model before him as this
poem on the wrath of Achilles, Aristotle could not carry his
notions of unity too high. And the unifying mind which
could conceive and execute this Achilleis — that is what we
mean by Homer. As well might it be said that the para-
bola described by a cannon-ball was in one half due to a
first discharge, and in the other half to a second, as that one
poet could lay the preparations for the passion and sweep of
such a poem, whilst another conducted it to a close.
Creation does not proceed by instalments : the steps of its

92 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

revolution are not successive, but simultaneous ; and the last
book of the Achilleis was undoubtedly conceived in the same
moment as the first.

What effect such an Achilleis, abstracted from the " Iliad,"
would probably leave upon the mind, it happens that I can
measure by my own childish experience. In Kussell's
" Ancient Europe," a book much used in the last century,
there is an abstract of the "Iliad," which presents very
nearly the outline of an Achilleis such as I have sketched.
The heroes are made to speak in a sort of stilted, or at least
buskined language, not unsuited to a youthful taste ; and,
from the close convergement of the separate parts, the interest
is condensed. This book in my eighth year I read. It was
my first introduction to the " Tale of Troy divine " ; and I
do not deceive myself in saying that this memorable
experience drew from me the first tears that ever I owed to
a book, and, by the stings of grief which it left behind,
demonstrated its own natural pathos.

Whether the same mind conceived also the " Odyssey " is
a separate question. I am myself strongly inclined to believe
that the " Odyssey " belongs to a post-Homeric generation — to
the generation of the Nostoi, or homeward voyages of the several
Grecian chiefs. And, with respect to all the burlesque or
satiric poems ascribed to Homer, such as the " Batrachomyo-
machia," the " Margites," &c., the whole fiction seems to have
arisen out of an uncritical blunder : they had been classed as
Homeric poems — meaning by the word " Homeric," simply
that they had a relation or reference to objects in which
Homer was interested ; which they certainly have. At least
we may say this of the " Batrachomyomachia," which still
survives, — that it undoubtedly points to the "Iliad," as a
mock-heroic parody upon its majestic forms and diction. In
that sense it is Homeric — i.e. it relates to Homer's poetry ;
it presupposes it as the basis of its own fun. But subsequent
generations, careless and uncritical, understood the word
Homeric to mean actually composed by Homer. How
impossible this was the reader may easily imagine to himself
by the parallel case of our own parodies on Scripture.
What opening for a parody could have arisen in the same
age as that scriptural translation ? " Howbeit," " peradven-

HOMER AND THE HOMERID^E 93

ture," "lifted up his voice and wept," "found favour in thy
sight " — phrases such as these have, to our modern feelings,
a deep colouring of antiquity ; placed, therefore, in juxtaposi-
tion with modern words or modern ideas, they produce a
sense of contrast which is strongly connected with the
ludicrous. But nothing of this result could possibly exist for
those who first used these phrases in translation. The words
were such as, in their own age, ranked as classical and
proper. These were no more liable to associations of the
ludicrous than the serious style of our own age is at this
moment. And on the same principle, in order to suppose
the language of the " Iliad," — as, for example, the solemn
formulae which introduce all the replies and rejoinders, —
open to the ludicrous, they must, first of all, have had time
to assume the sombre hues of antiquity. But even that is
not enough : the " Iliad " must previously have become so
popular that a man might count with certainty upon his own
ludicrous travesties as applying themselves at once to a
serious model radicated in the universal feeling. Otherwise,
to express the case mechanically, there is no resistance, and
consequently no possibility of a rebound. Hence it is certain
that the burlesques of the " Iliad " could not be Homeric, in
the sense which an unlearned Grecian public imagined ; and,
as to the satiric poem of the " Margites," it is contrary to all
the tendencies of human nature that a public sensibility to
satire should exist until the simple age of Homer had been
supplanted by an age of large cities, and a complex state of
social refinement. Thus far I abjure, as monstrous moral
anachronisms, the parodies and lampoons attributed to
Homer. But, finally, as regards the " Iliad," I hold that its
noblest section has a perfect and separate unity ; that so far,
therefore, it was written by one man ; that it was also
written a thousand years before our Christian era ; and that
it has not been essentially altered. These are the elements
which make up my compound meaning when I assert the
existence of Homer in any sense interesting to modern ages.
And for the affirmation of that question in that interesting
sense I presume myself to have offered perhaps more and
weightier arguments than all which any German army of
infidels has yet been able to muster against it.

POSTSCRIPT IN 1857 l

IN the paper On Homer and the Homeridce it will be observed
that I have uniformly assumed the chronologic date of
Homer as 1000 years B.C. Among the reasons for this
some are so transcendent that it would not have been worth
while to detain the reader upon minute grounds of ap-
proximation to that date. One ground is sufficient : Lycur-
gus, the Spartan lawgiver, seems accurately placed about
800 years B.C. Now, if at that era Lycurgus naturalises
the " Iliad " as a great educational power in Sparta (led to
this, no doubt, by gratitude for Homer's glorification of so
many cities in the Peloponnesus), then — because one main
reason for this must have been the venerable antiquity of
Homer — it is impossible to assign him less at that time than
200 years of duration. An antiquity that was already
venerable in the year 800 B.C. would argue, at the very
least, a natal origin for the poet (if not for the poem) of
1000 B.C.

A second explanation is due to the reader upon another
point : I have repeatedly spoken of " publication " as an
incident to which literary works were, or might be, liable in
the times of Solon and Pisistratus ; that is, in times that
ranged between 500 and 600 years B.C. But, as very many
readers — especially female readers — make no distinction
between the act of printing and the act of publication, there
are few who will not be perplexed by this form of expres-

1 What is here printed as a postscript was part of De Quiucey's
"Preface" to the volume of his collected writings containing liis
reprint of the Homeric Essay. — M.

POSTSCRIPT 95

sion, as supposing that neither one nor the other was an
advantage physically open in those days to any author
whatever. Printing, it is true, was not ; but for a very
different reason from that ordinarily assigned — viz. that it
had not been discovered. It had been discovered many
times over ; and many times forgotten. Paper it was, cheap
paper (as many writers have noticed), that had not been
discovered ; which failing, the other discovery fell back con-
stantly into oblivion. This want forced the art of printing
to slumber for pretty nearly the exact period of 2000 years
from the era of Pisistratus. But that want did not affect
the power of publication. JEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Aristophanes, Menander, were all published, to the extent
of many modern editions, on the majestic stage of Athens ;
published to myriads in one day ; published with advantages
of life-like action, noble enunciation, and impassioned music.
No modern author, except Thomas a Kempis, has ever been
half so well published. The Greek orators on the Bema were
published to more than all the citizens of Athens. And,
some 2000 and odd years later, in regal London, at White-
hall, the dramas of Shakspere were published effectually to
two consecutive Princes of Wales, Henry and Charles, with
royal apparatus of scenery and music.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS1

FEW, even amongst literary people, are aware of the true
place occupied, de facto or de jure, by Herodotus in universal
literature ; scarce here and there a scholar up and down a
century is led to reflect upon the multiplicity of his relations
to the whole range of civilisation. We endeavour in these
words to catch, as in a net, the gross prominent faults of his
appreciation. On which account, first, we say pointedly
universal literature, not Grecian — since the primary error is
to regard Herodotus merely in relation to the literature of
Greece ; secondly, on which account we notice the circuit,
the numerical amount, of his collisions with science — because
the second and greater error is to regard him exclusively as
an historian. But now, under a juster allocation of his
rank, as the general father of prose composition, Herodotus
is nearly related to all literature whatsoever, modern not
less than ancient ; and, as the father of what may be called
ethnographical, geography, as a man who speculated most
ably on all the humanities of science — that is, on all the
scientific questions which naturally interest our human
sensibilities in this great temple which we look up to, the
pavilion of the sky, the sun, the moon, the atmosphere, with
its climates and its winds, or in this home which we inherit,
the earth, with its hills and rivers — Herodotus ought least
of all to be classed amongst historians. That is but a
secondary title for him; he deserves to be rated as the

1 From Blackwood's Magazine for January 1842 : reprinted by D8
Quincey, revised and with added footnotes, in 1858, in the ninth
volume of his Collected Writings. — M.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 97

leader amongst philosophical " polyhistors " ; which is the
nearest designation to that of "encyclopaedist" current in
the Greek literature.

And yet is not this word encyclopcedist much lower than
his ancient name — father of history ? Doubtless it is no
great distinction at present to be an encyclopaedist ; which is
often but another name for bookmaker, craftsman, mechanic,
journeyman, in his meanest degeneration. Yet in those
early days, when the timid muse of science had scarcely
ventured sandal-deep into waters so unfathomable, it seems
to us a great thing indeed that one solitary man should have
founded an entire encyclopaedia for his countrymen upon
those difficult problems which challenged their primary
attention, because starting forward from the very roof —
the walls — the floor of that beautiful theatre which they
tenanted. The habitable world, T) oi/cov/xev^, was now daily
becoming better known to the human race ; but how ?
Chiefly through Herodotus. There are amusing evidences
extant of the profound ignorance in which nations the most
enlightened had hitherto lived as to all lands beyond their
own and its frontier adjacencies. But within the single
generation (or the single half century) previous to the birth
of Herodotus vast changes had taken place. The mere
revolutions consequent upon the foundation of the Persian
Empire had approximated the whole world of civilisation.
First came the conquest of Egypt by the second of the new
emperors. This event, had it stood alone, was immeasurable
in its effects for meeting curiosity, and in its immediate
excitement for prompting it. It brought the whole vast
chain of Persian dependencies, from the river Indus east-
wards to the Nile westwards, or even through Cyrene to
the gates of Carthage, under the unity of a single sceptre.
The world was open. Jealous interdicts, inhospitable laws,
national hostilities, always in procinctu, no longer fettered
the feet of the merchant, or neutralized the exploring
instincts of the philosophic traveller. Next came the
restoration of the Jewish people. Judea, no longer weep-
ing by the Euphrates, was again sitting for another half
millennium of divine probation under her ancient palm-
tree. Next after that came the convulsions of Greece,

VOL. VI H

98 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND EESEARCHES

earthquake upon earthquake ; the trampling myriads of
Darius, but six years before the birth of Herodotus ; the
river-draining millions of Xerxes in the fifth year of his
wandering infancy. Whilst the swell from this great storm
was yet angry and hardly subsiding (a metaphor used by
Herodotus himself, tn olSeovrojv Tr^y/zarwv), whilst the
scars of Greece were yet raw from the Persian scimitar, her
towns and temples to the east of the Corinthian isthmus
smouldering ruins yet reeking from the Persian torch, the
young Herodotus had wandered forth in a rapture of im-
passioned curiosity to see, to touch, to measure, all those
great objects, whose names had been recently so rife in men's
mouths. The luxurious Sardis, the nation of Babylon, the
Nile, that oldest of rivers, Memphis and Thebes the hundred-
gated, that were but amongst Nile's youngest daughters,
with the pyramids inscrutable as the heavens — all these he
had visited. As far up the Nile as Elephantine he had
personally pushed his inquiries ; and far beyond that by his
obstinate questions from all men presumably equal to the
answers. Tyre, even, he made a separate voyage to explore.
Palestine he had trodden with Grecian feet ; the mysterious
Jerusalem he had visited, and had computed her proportions.
Finally, as to Greece continental, though not otherwise con-
nected with it himself than by the bond of language, and as
the home of his Ionian ancestors (in which view he often
calls by the great moral name of Hellas regions that geogra-
phically belong to Asia and even to Africa), he seems, by
mere casual notices, now prompted by an historical incident,
now for the purpose of an illustrative comparison, to have
known it so familiarly that Pausanias in after ages does not
describe more minutely the local features to which he had
dedicated a life than this extraordinary traveller, for whom
they did but point a period or circumstantiate a parenthesis.
As a ' geographer, often as a hydrographer — witness his
soundings thirty miles off the mouths of the Nile — Hero-
dotus was the first great parent of discovery ; as between
nation and nation he was the author of mutual revelation ;
whatsoever any one nation knew of its own little ringfence
through daily use and experience, or had received by ances-
tral tradition, that he published to all other nations. He

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 99

was the first central interpreter, the common dragoman to
the general college of civilisation that now belted the
Mediterranean, holding up, in a language already laying
the foundations of universality, one comprehensive mirror,
reflecting to them all the separate chorography, habits,
institutions, and religious systems of each. Nor was it in
the facts merely that he retraced the portraits of all leading
states : whatsoever in these facts was mysterious, for that he
had a self-originated solution ; whatsoever was perplexing by
equiponderant counter-assumptions, for that he brought a
determining impulse to the one side or the other ; whatso-
ever seemed contradictory, for that he brought a reconciling
hypothesis. Were it the annual rise of a river, were it the
formation of a famous kingdom by alluvial depositions, were
it the unexpected event of a battle, or the apparently capri-
cious migration of a people — for all alike Herodotus had
such resources of knowledge as took the sting out of the
marvellous, or such resources of ability as at least suggested
the plausible. Antiquities or mythology, martial institutions
or pastoral, the secret motives to a falsehood which he
exposes, or the hidden nature of some truth which he
deciphers : all alike lay within the searching dissection of
this astonishing intellect, the most powerful lens by far that
has ever been brought to bear upon the mixed objects of a
speculative traveller.

To have classed this man as a mere fabling annalist, — or
even if it should be said on better thoughts, "No, not as a
fabling annalist, but as a great scenical historian," — is so
monstrous an oversight, so mere a neglect of the proportions
maintained amongst the topics treated by Herodotus, that we
do not conceive any apology requisite for revising, in this
place or at this time, the general estimate on a subject
always interesting. What is everybody's business the proverb
instructs us to view as nobody's by duty ; but under the
same rule it is anybody's by right ; and what belongs to all
hours alike may, for that reason, belong without blame to
January of the year 1842. Yet, if any man, obstinate in
demanding for all acts a "sufficient reason" (to speak
Leibnitice), demurs to our revision, as having no special
invitation at this immediate moment, then we are happy to

100 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

tell him that Mr. Hermann Bobrik has furnished us with
such an invitation by a recent review of Herodotus as a
geographer,1 and thus furnished even a technical plea for
calling up the great man before our bar.

We have already said something towards reconsidering
the thoughtless classification of a writer whose works do
actually, in their major proportion, not essentially concern
that subject to which by their translated title they are
exclusively referred ; or even that part which is historical
often moves by mere anecdotes or personal sketches. And
the uniform object of these is not the history, but the
political condition, of the particular state or province. But
we now feel disposed to press this rectification a little more
keenly by asking — What was the reason for this apparently
wilful error ? The reason is palpable : it was the ignorance
of ineffectiveness.

I. For with respect to the first oversight on the claim of
Herodotus as an earliest archetype of composition so much
is evident : that, if prose were simply the negation of verse,
were it the fact that prose had no separate laws of its own,
but that to be a composer in prose meant only his privilege
of being inartificial, his dispensation from the restraints of
metre, then, indeed, it would be a slight nominal honour to
have been the Father of Prose. But this is ignorance,
though a pretty common ignorance. To walk well, it is not
enough that a man abstains from dancing. Walking has
rules of its own the more difficult to perceive or to practise
as they are less broadly prononces. To forbear singing is
not, therefore, to speak well or to read well : each of which
offices rests upon a separate art of its own. Numerous laws
of transition, connexion, preparation, are different for a
writer in verse and a writer in prose. Each mode of com-
position is a great art ; well executed, is the highest and most
difficult of arts. And we are satisfied that, one century
before the age of Herodotus, the effort must have been
greater to wean the feelings from a key of poetic composition
to which all minds had long been attuned and prepared than

1 Geograpliie des Herodot, dargestellt von Hermann Bobrik.
Konigsberg, 1838.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 101

at present it would be for any paragraphist in the newspapers
to make the inverse revolution by suddenly renouncing the
modesty of prose for the impassioned forms of lyrical poetry.
It was a great thing to be the leader of prose composition ;
great even, as we all can see at other times, to be absolutely
first in any one subdivision of composition : how much more
in one whole bisection of literature 1 And, if it is objected
that Herodotus was not the eldest of prose writers, doubtless,
in an absolute sense, no man was. There must always have
been short public inscriptions, not admitting of metre, as
where numbers, quantities, dimensions, were concerned. It
is enough that all feeble tentative explorers of the art had
been too meagre in matter, too rude in manner, like Fabius
Pictor amongst the Eomans, to captivate the ears of men, and
thus to insure their own propagation. Without annoying the
reader by the cheap erudition of parading defunct names
before him, it is certain that Scylax, an author still surviving,
was nearly contemporary with Herodotus ; and not very wide
of him by his subject.1 In his case it is probable that the
mere practical benefits of his book to the navigators of the
Mediterranean in that early period, had multiplied his book
so as eventually to preserve it. Yet, as Major Rennel
remarks, " Geog. Syst. of Herod.," p. 610 — " Scylax must be
regarded as a seaman or pilot, and the author of a coasting
directory " ; as a mechanic artisan, ranking with Hamilton
Moore or Gunter, — not as a great liberal artist, an intellectual
potentate, like Herodotus. Such now upon the scale of
intellectual claims as was this geographical rival by com-
parison with Herodotus, such doubtless were his rivals or pre-
decessors in history, in antiquities, and in the other provinces
which he occupied. And, generally, the fragments of these
authors, surviving in Pagan as well as Christian collections,
show that they were such. So that, in a high, virtual sense,

1 Scylax, a Carian, was sent by Darius Hystaspes, King of Persia
(B.C. 521-485), on a voyage down the Indus. He returned by the
Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, completing the voyage in thirty months.
The Greek book bearing his name, and giving an account of the voyage
is generally attributed now to a later compiler ; but De Quincey keeps
to the old opinion. In that case Scylax was an author nearly con-
temporary with Herodotus (B.C. 484-408), who mentions him and
describes his voyage. — M.

102 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Herodotus was to prose composition what Homer, six hundred
years earlier, had been to Verse.

II. But whence arose the other mistake about Herodotus
— the fancy that his great work was exclusively (or even
chiefly) a history 1 It arose simply from a mistranslation,
which subsists everywhere to this day. We remember that
Kant, in one of his miscellaneous essays, finding a necessity
for explaining the term Historie (why we cannot say, since
the Germans have the self-grown word Geschichte for that
idea), deduces it, of course, from the Greek 'lo'Topta. This
brings him to an occasion for defining the term. And how ?
It is laughable to imagine the anxious reader bending his
ear to catch the Kantean whisper, and finally solemnly hear-
ing that 'loTo/oia means — History. Really, Professor Kant,
we should almost have guessed as much. But such derivations
teach no more than the ample circuit of Bardolph's definition
— " accommodated : that whereby a man is, or may be
thought to be " — what ? " accommodated." Kant was a masterly
Latin scholar, — in fact, a fellow-pupil with the admirable D.
Ruhnken, — but an indifferent Grecian. And, spite of the old
traditional " Historiarum Libri Novem," which stands upon
all Latin title-pages of Herodotus, we need scarcely re-
mind a Greek scholar, that the verb toropeu) or the noun
io-Topia never bears, in this writer, the latter sense of record-
ing and memorializing. The substantive is a word frequently
employed by Herodotus } often in the plural number, and
uniformly it means inquiries or investigations ; so that the
proper English version of the title-page would be — " Of the
Researches made by Herodotus, Nine Books." And, in
reality, that is the very meaning, and the secret drift of the
consecration (running overhead through these nine sections)
to the nine Muses. Had the work been designed as chiefly
historical, it would have been placed under the patronage of
the one sole muse presiding over History. But, because the
very opening sentence tells us that it is not chiefly historical,
that it is so partially, that it rehearses the acts of men (ra
yevo/zeva) together with the monumental structures of human
labour (ra e/oya) — for the true sense of which word, in this
position, see the first sentence in section thirty -five of
Euterpe, — and other things beside (rot re aAAa) ; because, in

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS

short, not any limited annals, because the mighty revelation
of the world to its scattered inhabitants, because

" Quicquid agunt homines, voturn\ timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago Jibelli " : ^^^- .

/ T D p kH H

therefore it was that a running title, or superscription,
extensive and so aspiring had at some time been adopted.
Every muse, and not one only, is presumed to be interested
in the work ; and, in simple truth, this legend of dedication
is but an expansion of variety more impressively conveyed of
what had been already notified in the inaugural sentence ;
whilst both this sentence and that dedication were designed
to meet that very misconception which has since, notwith-
standing, prevailed.1

These rectifications ought to have some effect in elevating
— first, the rank of Herodotus ; secondly, his present
attractions. Most certain we are that few readers are awrare
of the various amusement conveyed from all sources then
existing by this most splendid of travellers. Dr. Johnson
has expressed in print (and not merely in the strife of con-
versation) the following extravagant idea — that to Homer, as
its original author, may be traced back, at least in outline,
every tale or complication of incidents now moving in mod-
ern poems, romances, or novels. Now, it is not necessary to
denounce such an assertion as false, because, upon two separate
reasons, it shows itself to be impossible. In the first place,
the motive to such an assertion was to emblazon the inventive
faculty of Homer ; but it happens that Homer could not
invent anything, small or great, under the very principles
of Grecian art. To be a fiction as to matters of action (for

1 But — "How has it prevailed," some will ask, "if an error?
Have not great scholars sate upon Herodotus ? " Doubtless, many.
There is none greater, for instance, merely as a Grecian scholar, than
Valckenaer. Whence we conclude that inevitably this error has been
remarked somewhere. And, as to the erroneous Latin version still
keeping its ground, partly that may be due to the sort of superstition
which everywhere protects old usages in formal situations like a title-
page, partly to the fact that there is no happy Latin word to express
"Researches." But, however that may be, all the scholars in the
world cannot get rid of the evidence involved in the general use of
the word Iffropia (investigation] by Herodotus.

104 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

in embellishments the rule might be otherwise) was to be
ridiculous and unmeaning in Grecian eyes. We may illustrate
the Grecian feeling on this point (however little known
to modern readers) by our own dolorous disappointment
when we opened the Alhambra of Mr. Washington Irving.
We had supposed it to be some real Spanish or Moorish
legend connected with that grand architectural romance ; and,
behold ! it was a mere Sadler's Wells travesty (we speak of
its plan, not of its execution) applied to some slender frag-
ments from past days. Such, but far stronger, would have
been the disappointment to Grecian feelings in finding any
poetic (a fortiori, any prose) legend to be a fiction of the
writer's : words cannot measure the reaction of disgust.
And thence it was that no tragic poet of Athens ever took for
his theme any tale or fable not already pre-existing in some
known version of it, though now and then it might be the
least popular version. It was capital as an offence of the
intellect, it was lunatic, to do otherwise. This is a most
important characteristic of ancient taste, and most interesting
in its philosophic value for any comparative estimate of
modern art as against ancient. In particular, no just com-
mentary can ever be written on the Poetics of Aristotle
which leaves this out of sight. Secondly, as against Dr.
Johnson, it is evident that the whole character, the very
principle of movement, in many modern stories, depends
upon sentiments derived remotely from Christianity, and
others upon usages or manners peculiar to modern civilisa-
tion ; so as in either case to involve a moral anachronism if
viewed as Homeric, consequently as Pagan. Not the colouring
only of the fable, but the very incidents, one and all, and
the situations, and the perplexities, are constantly the product
of something characteristically modern in the circumstances,
— sometimes, for instance, in the climate ; for the ancients had
no experimental knowledge of severe climates. With these
double impossibilities before us of any absolute fictions in a
Pagan author that could be generally fitted to anticipate
modem tales, we shall not transfer to Herodotus the im-
practicable compliment paid by Dr. Johnson to Homer.
But it is certain that the very best collection of stories
furnished by Pagan funds lies dispersed through his great

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 105

work. One of the best of the Arabian Nights, the very best
as regards the structure of the plot — viz. the tale of All Baba
and the Forty Thieves — is evidently derived from an incident
in that remarkable Egyptian legend connected with the
treasury-house of Rhampsinitus. This, except two of his
Persian legends (Cyrus and Darius), is the longest tale in
Herodotus, and by much the best in an artist's sense ;
indeed, its own remarkable merit, as a fable in which the
incidents successively generate each other, caused it to be
transplanted by the Greeks to their own country. Vossius,
in his work on the Greek historians, and, a hundred years
later, Valckenaer, with many other scholars, had pointed out
the singular conformity of this memorable Egyptian story
with several that afterwards circulated in Greece. The
eldest of these transfers was undoubtedly the Boaotian tale (but
in days before the name Bceotia existed) of Agamedes and
Trophonius, architects, and sons to the King of Orchomenos,
who built a treasure-house at Hyria (noticed by Homer in
his ship catalogue), followed by tragical circumstances, the
very same as those recorded by Herodotus. It is true that
the latter incidents, according to the Egyptian version — the
monstrous device of Rhampsinitus for disco vering the robber
at the price of his daughter's honour, and the final reward of
the robber for his petty ingenuity (which, after all, belonged
chiefly to the deceased architect) — ruin the tale as a whole.
But these latter incidents are obviously forgeries of another
age; " angeschlossen," fastened on by fraud, "an den ersten
aelteren theil" to the first and elder part, as Mueller rightly
observes, p. 97 of his Orchomenos. And even here it is
pleasing to notice the incredulity of Herodotus ; who was
not, like so many of his Christian commentators, sceptical
upon previous system and by wholesale, but equally prone
to believe wherever his heart (naturally reverential) suggested
an interference of superior natures, and ready to doubt where-
ever his excellent judgment detected marks of incoherency.
He records the entire series of incidents as ra Aeyo/xeva
awr], reports of events which had reached him by hearsay,
€/J.OL Se ov TTLcrra — "but to me," he says pointedly, "not
credible."

In this view, as a thesaurus fabularum, a great repository

106 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

of anecdotes and legends, tragic or romantic, Herodotus is so
far beyond all Pagan competition that we are thrown upon
Christian literatures for any corresponding form of merit.
The case has often been imagined playfully that a man
were restricted to one book, and in that case what ought to
be his choice ; and, supposing all books so solemn as those of
a religious interest to be laid out of the question, many are
the answers which have been pronounced, according to the
difference of men's minds. Rousseau, as is well known, on
such an assumption made his election for Plutarch. But
shall we tell the reader why ? It was not altogether his
taste, or his judicious choice, which decided him ; for choice
there can be none amongst elements unexamined — it was his
limited reading. Rousseau, like William Wordsworth, had
read at the outside twelve volumes 8vo in his whole life-
time. Except a few papers in the French Encydopddie
during his maturer years, and some dozen of works presented
to him by their authors where they happened to be his own
friends, Rousseau had read little (if anything at all) beyond
Plutarch's Lives in a bad French translation, and Montaigne.
Though not a Frenchman, having had an education (if such
one can call it) thoroughly French, he had the usual puerile
French craze about Roman virtue, and republican simplicity,
and Cato, and " all that." So that his decision goes for little.
And even he, had he read Herodotus, would have thought
twice before he made up his mind. The truth is that in such
a case, — suppose, for example, Robinson Crusoe empowered to
import one book and no more into his insular hermitage, —
the most powerful of human books must be unavoidably
excluded, and for the following reason : that in the direct
ratio of its profundity will be the unity of any fictitious
interest ; a Paradise Lost, or a King Lear, could not agitate or
possess the mind in the degree that they do if they were at
leisure to " amuse " us. So far from relying on its unity,
the work which should aim at the maximum of amusement
ought to rely on the maximum of variety. And in that view
it is that we urge the paramount pretensions of Herodotus :
since not only are his topics separately of primary interest,
each for itself, but they are collectively the most varied in
the quality of that interest, and they are touched with the

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 107

most flying and least lingering pen ; for, of all writers,
Herodotus is the most cautious not to trespass on his reader's
patience : his transitions are the most fluent whilst they are
the most endless, justifying themselves to the understanding
as much as they recommend themselves to the spirit of hurry-
ing curiosity ; and his narrations or descriptions are the most
animated by the generality of their abstractions, whilst they
are the most faithfully individual by the felicity of their
selection amongst circumstances.

Once, and in a public situation, I myself denominated
Herodotus the Froissart of antiquity. But I was then speak-
ing of him exclusively in his character of historian ; and,
even so, I did him injustice. Thus far it is true the two
men agree, that both are less political, or reflecting, or moral-
izing, as historians, than they are scenical and splendidly
picturesque. But Froissart is little else than an annalist,
whereas Herodotus is the counterpart of some ideal Pandora
by the universality of his accomplishments. He is a traveller
of discovery, like Captain Cook or Park. He is a naturalist,
the earliest that existed. He is a mythologist, and a specu-
lator on the origin, as well as value, of religious rites. He
is a political economist by instinct of genius, before the science
of economy had a name or a conscious function ; and, by two
great records, he has put us up to the level of all that can
excite our curiosity at that great era of moving civilisation :
first, as respects Persia, by the elaborate review of the
various satrapies or great lieutenancies of the empire — that
vast empire which had absorbed the Assyrian, Median, Baby-
lonian, Little Syrian, and Egyptian kingdoms — registering
against each separate viceroyalty, from Algiers to Lahore
beyond the Indus, what was the amount of its annual tribute
to the gorgeous exchequer of Susa ; and, secondly, as
respects Greece, by his review of the numerous little Grecian
states, and their several contingents in ships, or in soldiers,
or in both (according as their position happened to be inland
or maritime), towards the universal armament against the
second and greatest of the Persian invasions. Two such
documents, two such archives of political economy, two
monuments of corresponding value, do not exist elsewhere
in history. Egypt had now ceased, and we may say that

108 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

(according to the scriptural prophecy) it had ceased for ever,
to be an independent realm. Persia had now for seventy
years had her foot upon the neck of this unhappy land ; and,
in one century beyond the death of Herodotus, the two-
horned 1 he-goat of Macedon was destined to butt it down
into hopeless prostration. But, so far as Egypt, from her
vast antiquity, or from her great resources, was entitled to a
more circumstantial notice than any other satrapy of the
great empire, such a notice she has ; and I do not scruple to
say, though it may seem a bold word, that from the many
scattered features of Egyptian habits or usages incidentally
indicated by Herodotus a better portrait of Egyptian life,
and a better abstract of Egyptian political economy, might
even yet be gathered than from all the writers of Greece for
the cities of their native land.

But take him as an exploratory traveller and as a natur-
alist, who had to break ground for the earliest entrenchments
in these new functions of knowledge : it may be said without
exaggeration that, mutatis mutandis and concessis concedendis,
Herodotus has the separate qualifications of the two men
whom we would select by preference as the most distin-
guished amongst Christian traveller-naturalists. He has the
universality of the Prussian Huraboldt ; and he has the
picturesque fidelity to nature of the English Dampier — of
whom the last was a simple self-educated seaman, but strong-
minded by nature, austerely accurate through his moral
reverence for truth, and zealous in pursuit of knowledge to
an excess which raises him to a level with the noble Greek.
Dampier, when in the last stage of exhaustion from a
malignant dysentery, unable to stand upright, and surrounded
by perils in a land of infidel fanatics, crawled on his hands

1 " Two-horned" : — In one view, as having no successor, Alexander
was called the one-horned. But it is very singular that all Oriental
nations, without knowing anything of the scriptural symbols under
which Alexander is described by Daniel as the strong he-goat who
butted against the ram of Persia, have always called him the " two-
horned," with a covert allusion to his European and his Asiatic king-
dom. And it is equally singular that unintentionally this symbol falls
in with Alexander's own assumption of a descent from Libyan Jupiter-
Ammon, to whom the double horns were an indispensable and
characteristic symbol.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 109

and feet to verify a question in natural history, under the
blazing forenoon of the tropics ; and Herodotus, having no
motive but his own inexhaustible thirst of knowledge,
embarked on a separate voyage, fraught with hardships,
towards a chance of clearing up what seemed a difficulty of
some importance in deducing the religious mythology of his
country.

But it is in those characters by which he is best known to
the world — viz. as a historian and a geographer — that Hero-
dotus levies the heaviest tribute on our reverence ; and
precisely in those characters it is that he now claims the
amplest atonement, having formerly sustained the grossest
outrages of insult and slander on the peculiar merits attached
to each of those characters. Credulous he was supposed to
be, in a degree transcending the privilege of old garrulous
nurses ; hyperbolically extravagant beyond Sir John Mande-
ville ; and lastly, as if he had been a Mendez Pinto or a
Munchausen, he was saluted as the " father of lies." l Now,
on these calumnies, it is pleasant to know that his most
fervent admirer no longer feels it requisite to utter one word
in the way of complaint or vindication. Time has carried
him round to the diametrical counterpole of estimation.
Examination and more learned study have justified every
iota of those statements to which he pledged his own private
authority. His chronology is better to this day than any
single system opposed to it. His dimensions and distances
are so far superior to those of later travellers, whose hands
were strengthened by all the powers of military command
and regal autocracy, that Major Kennel, upon a deliberate
retrospect of his works, preferred his authority to that of
those who came after him as conquerors and rulers of the
kingdoms which he had described as a simple traveller ; nay,
to the later authority of those who had conquered those
conquerors. It is gratifying that a judge so just and thought-
ful as the Major should declare the reports of Alexander's
officers on the distances and stations in the Asiatic part of
his empire less trustworthy by much than the reports of

1 Viz. (as I believe) by Vicesimus Knox — a writer now entirely
forgotten. "Father of History you call him? Much rather the
Father oj Lies"

110 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Herodotus : yet, who was more liberally devoted to science
than Alexander ? or what were the humble powers of the
foot traveller in comparison with those of the mighty earth-
shaker, for whom prophecy had been on the watch for
centuries ? It is gratifying that a judge like the Major
should find the same advantage on the side of Herodotus, as
to the distances in the Egyptian and Libyan part of this
empire, on a comparison with the most accomplished of
Romans, — Pliny, Strabo, Ptolemy (for all are Romans who
benefited by any Roman machinery), — coming five and six
centuries later. I, for my part, hold the accuracy of Hero-
dotus to be all but marvellous, considering the wretched
apparatus which he could then command in the popular
measures. The stadium, it is true, was more accurate, because
less equivocal, in those Grecian days than afterwards, when
it inter -oscillated with the Roman stadium; but all the
multiples of that stadium, such as the schcenus, the Persian
parasang, or the military stathmus, were only less vague than
the coss of Hindostan in their ideal standards, and as fluctuat-
ing practically as are all computed distances at all times and
places. The close approximations of Herodotus to the returns
of distances upon caravan routes of five hundred miles by the
most vigilant of modern travellers, checked by the caravan
controllers, is a bitter retort upon his calumniators. And,
as to the consummation of the insults against him in the
charge of wilful falsehood, I explain it out of hasty read-
ing and slight acquaintance with Greek. The sensibility
of Herodotus to his own future character in this respect,
under a deep consciousness of his upright forbearance on
the one side, and of the extreme liability on the other side
to uncharitable construction for any man moving amongst
Egyptian thaumaturgical traditions, comes forward continu-
ally in his anxious distinctions between what he gives on his
own ocular experience (o^ts) — what upon his own inquiries,
or combination of inquiries with previous knowledge (to-ropt^)
— what upon hearsay (a/cor?) — what upon current tradition
(Aoyos). And the evidences are multiplied, over and above
these distinctions, of the irritation which besieged his mind
as to the future wrongs he might sustain from the careless
and the unprincipled. Had truth been less precious in his

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 111

eyes, was it tolerable to be supposed a liar for so vulgar an
object as that of creating a stare by wonder-making ? The
high-minded Grecian, justly proud of his superb intellectual
resources for taking captive the imaginations of his half-
polished countrymen, disdained such base artifices, which,
belong more properly to an effeminate and over-stimulated
stage of civilisation. And, once for all, he had announced
at an early point as the principle of his work, as what ran
along the whole line of his statements by way of basis or
subsumption (irapa Travra rov Aoyov -uTTOKetrat) — that he
wrote upon the faith of hearsay from the Egyptians severally :
meaning by " severally " (eKaorreov) that he did not adopt
any chance hearsay, but such as was guaranteed by the men
who presided over each several department of Egyptian
official or ceremonial life.

Having thus said something towards revindicating for
Herodotus his proper station — first, as a power in literature ;
next, as a geographer, economist, mythologist, antiquary,
historian — I shall draw the reader's attention to the remark-
able " set of the current " towards that very consummation
and result of justice amongst the learned within the last two
generations. There is no similar case extant of truth slowly
righting itself. Seventy years ago the reputation of Herodotus
for veracity was at the lowest ebb. That prejudice still
survives popularly. But amongst the learned it has gradu-
ally given way to better scholarship, and to two generations
of travellers, starting with far superior preparation for their
difficult labours. Accordingly, at this day, each successive
commentator, better able to read Greek, and better provided
with solutions for the inevitable errors of a reporter, drawing
upon others for his facts, with only an occasional interposi-
tion of his own opinion, comes with increasing reverence to
his author. The laudator temporis acti takes for granted in
his sweeping ignorance that we of the present generation are
less learned than our immediate predecessors. It happens
that all over Europe the course of learning has been precisely
in the inverse direction. Poor was the condition of Greek
learning in England when Dr. Cooke (one of the five wretched
old boys who operated upon Gray's Elegy in the character of
Greek translators) presided at Cambridge as their Greek

112 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

professor. See, or rather touch with the tongs, his edition
of Aristotle's Poetics.1 Equally poor was its condition in
Germany ; for, if one swallow could make a summer, we hud
that in England. Poorer by far was its condition (as gener-
ally it is) in France, where a great Don in Greek letters, an
Abbe who passed for unfathomably learned, having occasion
to translate a Greek sentence, saying that " Herodotus, even
whilst Tonicizing (using the Ionic dialect), had yet spelt a
particular name with the alpha and not with the eta" rendered
the passage "Herodote et aussi Jazon." The Greek words
were these three — 'HpoSoros KCU ictfwi/ — i.e. Herodotus even
whilst Tonicizing. He had never heard that KOLL means even
almost as often as it means and : thus he introduced to the
world a fine new author, — one Jazon, Esquire; and the
squire holds his place in the learned Abbe"'s book to this day.
Good Greek scholars are now in the proportion of perhaps
sixty to one by comparison with the penultimate generation :
and this proportion holds equally for Germany and for
England. So that the restoration of Herodotus to his place
in literature, his Palingenesia, has been no caprice, but is due
to the vast depositions of knowledge, equal for the last
seventy or eighty years to the accumulated product of the
entire previous interval from Herodotus himself down to
1760, in every one of those particular fields which this
author was led by his situation to cultivate.

Meantime, the work of cleansing this great tank or de-
pository of archseology (the one sole reservoir so placed in
point of time as to collect and draw all the contributions
from the frontier ground between the mythical and the his-
torical period) is still proceeding. Every fresh labourer, by
new accessions of direct aid, or by new combinations of old
suggestions, finds himself able to purify the interpretation of
Herodotus by wider analogies, or to account for his mistakes

1 Which edition the arrogant Mathias in his Pursuits of Literature
(by far the most popular of books from 1797 to 1802) highly praised ;
though otherwise amusing himself with the folly of the other grey-
headed men contending for a school-boy's prize. It was the loss of
dignity, however, in the reverend translator, not their worthless Greek,
which he saw cause to ridicule ; for Mathias, though reading ordinary
Greek with facility, and citing it with a needless and a pedantic
profusion, was not in any exquisite sense a Grecian.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 113

by mure accurately developing the situation of the speaker.
We also bring our own unborrowed contributions. We also
would wish to promote this great labour, — which, be it re-
membered, concerns no secondary section of human progress,
searches no blind corners or nooks of history, but traverses
the very crests and summits of human annals, with a solitary
exception for the Hebrew Scriptures, so far as opening
civilisation is concerned. The commencement — the solemn
inauguration — of History is placed no doubt in the commence-
ment of the Olympiads, 777 years before Christ. The doors
of the great theatre were then thrown open. That is un-
deniable. But the performance did not actually commence
till 555 B.C. (the locus of Cyrus). Then began the great
tumult of nations — the termashaw, to speak Bengalice. Then
began the procession, the pomp, the interweaving of the
western tribes, not always by bodily presence, but by the
actio in distans of politics. And the birth of Herodotus was
precisely in the seventy-first year from that period. It is
the greatest of periods that is concerned. And we also, as
willingly we repeat, would offer our contingent. What we
propose to do is to bring forward two or three important
suggestions of others not yet popularly known — shaping and
pointing, if possible, their application — brightening their
justice, or strengthening their outlines. And with these we
propose to intermingle one or two suggestions more ex-
clusively our own.

I. — The Non-Planetary Earth of Herodotus in its relation to
the Planetary Sun.

Mr. Hermann Bobrik is the first torch-bearer to Herodotus
who has thrown a strong light on his theory of the earth's
relation to the solar system. This is one of the prcecognita
literally indispensable to the comprehension of the geographical
basis assumed by Herodotus. And it is really interesting to see
how one original error had drawn after it a train of others —
how one restoration of light has now illuminated a whole
hemisphere of objects. We suppose it the very next thing to
a fatal impossibility that any man should at once rid his
mind so profoundly of all natural biases from education, or

VOL. VI I

114 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

almost from human instinct, as barely to suspect the physical
theory of Herodotus — barely to imagine the idea of a divorce
occurring in any theory between the solar orb and the great
phenomena of summer and winter. Prejudications, having
the force of a necessity, had blinded generation after genera-
tion of students to the very admission in limine of such a
theory as could go the length of dethroning the sun himself
from all influence over the great vicissitudes of heat and cold
— seed-time and harvest — for man. They did not see what
actually was, what lay broadly below their eyes, in Hero-
dotus, because it seemed too fantastic a dream to suppose that
it could be. The case is far more common than feeble
psychologists imagine. Numerous are the instances in which
we actually see — not that which is really there to be seen,
but that which we believe a priori ought to be there. And
in cases so palpable as that of an external sense it is not
difficult to set the student on his guard. But in cases more
intellectural or moral, like several in Herodotus, it is difficult
for the teacher himself to be effectually vigilant. It was not
anything actually seen by Herodotus which led him into
denying the solar functions ; it was his own independent
speculation. This suggested to him a plausible hypothesis :
plausible it was for that age of the world ; and afterwards,
on applying it to the actual difficulties of the case, this
hypothesis seemed so far good that it did really unlock them.
The case stood thus : — Herodotus contemplated Cold not as a
mere privation of Heat, but as a positive quality ; quite as
much entitled to " high consideration," in the language of
ambassadors, as its rival Heat ; and quite as much to a
" retiring pension," in case of being superannuated. Thus
we all know, from Addisoii's fine raillery, that a certain
philosopher regarded darkness not at all as any result from
the absence of light, but fancied that, as some heavenly
bodies are luminaries, so others (which he called tenebriftc
stars) might have the office of " raying out positive darkness."
In the infancy of science the idea is natural to the human
mind • and we remember hearing a great man of our own
times declare that no sense of conscious power had ever so
vividly dilated his mind, nothing so like a revelation, as
when one day in broad sunshine, whilst yet a child, he dis-

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 115

covered that his own shadow, which he had often angrily
hunted, was no real existence, but a mere hindering of the
sun's light from filling up the space screened by his own
body. The old grudge, which he cherished against this coy
fugitive shadow, melted away in the rapture of this great
discovery. To him the discovery had doubtless been origin-
ally half suggested by explanations of his elders imperfectly
comprehended. But in itself the distinction between the
affirmative and the negative is a step perhaps the most costly
in effort of any that the human mind is summoned to take ;
and the greatest indulgence is due to those early stages of
civilisation when this step had not been taken. For Hero-
dotus there existed two great counter-forces in absolute hosti-
lity— heat and cold ; and these forces were incarnated in the
WINDS. It was the north and north-east wind, not any dis-
tance of the sun, which radiated cold and frost ; it was the
southern wind from Ethiopia, not at all the sun, which radiated
heat. But could a man so sagacious as Herodotus stand with
his ample Grecian forehead exposed to the noonday sun, and
suspect no part of the calorific agency to be seated in the
sun ? Certainly he could not. But this partial agency is
no more than what we of this day allow to secondary or tertiary
causes apart from the principal. We, that regard the sun as
upon the whole our planetary fountain of light, yet recognise
an electrical aurora, a zodiacal light, &c., as substitutes not
palpably dependent. We, that regard the sun as upon the
whole our fountain of heat, yet recognise many co-operative,
many modifying, forces having the same office — such as the
local configuration of ground — such as sea neighbourhoods or
land neighbourhoods, marshes or none, forests or none, strata
of soil fitted to retain heat and fund it, or to disperse it and
cool it. Precisely in the same way Herodotus did allow an
agency to the sun upon the daily range of heat, though he
allowed none to the same luminary in regulating the annual
range. What caused the spring and autumn, the summer
and winter (though generally in those ages there were but
two seasons recognised), was the action of the winds. The
diurnal arch of heat (as we may call it) ascending from sun-
rise to some hour (say two P.M.) when the sum of the two
heats (the funded annual heat and the fresh increments of

116 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

daily heat) reaches its maximum, and the descending limb of
the same arch from this hour to sunset — this he explained
entirely out of the sun's daily revolution, which to him was,
of course, no apparent motion, but a real one in the sun. It
is truly amusing to hear the great man's infantine simplicity
in describing the effects of the solar journey. The sun rises,
it seems, in India * ; and these poor Indians, roasted by
whole nations at breakfast-time, are then up to their chins in
water, whilst we thankless Westerns are taking " tea and
toast " at our ease. However, it is a long lane which has no
turning ; and by noon the sun has driven so many stages
away from India that the poor creatures begin to come out of
their rivers, and really find things tolerably comfortable.
India is now cooled down to a balmy Grecian temperature.
" All right behind ! " as the mail-coach guards proclaim ; but
not quite right ahead, when the sun is racing away over the
boiling brains of the Ethiopians, Libyans, &c., and driving
Jupiter-Ammon perfectly distracted with his furnace. But,
when things are at the worst, the proverb assures us that
they will mend. And, for an early five o'clock dinner,
Ethiopia finds that she has no great reason to complain. All
civilized people are now cool and happy for the rest of the
day. But, as to the woolly-headed rascals 011 the west coast
of Africa, they " catch it " towards sunset, and " no mistake."
Yet why trouble our heads about inconsiderable black fellows
like them, who have been cool all day whilst better men
were melting away by pailfuls 1 And such is the history of
a summer's day in the heavens above and on the earth be-
neath. As to little Greece, she is but skirted by the sun,

1 Which word India, it must be remembered, was liable to no such
equivocation as it is now. India meant simply the land of the river
Indus, i.e. all the territory lying eastward of that river down to the
mouths of the Ganges ; and the Indians meant simply the Hindoos, or
natives of Hindostan. Whereas, at present, we give a secondary sense
to the word Indian, applying it to a race of savages in the New
World, viz. to all the aboriginal natives of the American continent,
and also to the aboriginal natives of all the islands scattered over the
Pacific Ocean to the west of that continent, and all the islands in the
Gulf of Mexico to the east of it. Standing confusion has thus been
introduced into the acceptation of the word Indian ; a confusion cor-
responding to that which besieged the ancient use of the term Scythian,
and, in a minor degree, the term Ethiopian.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 117

who keeps away far to the south ; thus she is maintained in
a charming state of equilibrium by her fortunate position on
the very frontier line of the fierce Boreas and the too volup-
tuous Notos.

Meantime one effect follows from this transfer of the
solar functions to the winds, which has not been remarked,
— viz. that Herodotus has a double north ; one governed by
the old noisy Boreas, another by the silent constellation
Arktos. And the consequence of this fluctuating north, as
might be guessed, is the want of any true north at all : for
the two points of the wind and the constellation do not coin-
cide, in the first place ; and, secondly, the wind does not
coincide with itself, but naturally traverses through a few
points right and left. Next, the east also will be indeter-
minate from a separate cause. Had Herodotus lived in a
high northern latitude, there is no doubt that the ample
range of difference between the northerly points of rising in
the summer and the southerly in winter would have forced
his attention upon the fact that only at the equinox, vernal
or autumnal, does the sun's rising accurately coincide with
the east. But in his Ionian climate the deflections either
way, to the north or to the south, were too inconsiderable to
force themselves upon the eye ; and thus a more indeter-
minate east would arise — never rigorously corrected, because
requiring so moderate a correction. Now, a vague unsettled
east would support a vague unsettled north. And, of course,
through whatever arch of variations either of these points
vibrated, precisely upon that scale the west and the south
would follow them.

Thus arises, upon a simple and easy genesis, that condi-
tion of the compass (to use the word by anticipation) which
must have tended to confuse the geographical system of
Herodotus, and which does, in fact, account for the else
unaccountable obscurities in some of its leading features.
These anomalous features would, on their own account, have
deserved notice ; but now, after this explanation, they will
have a separate value of illustrated proofs in relation to the
present article, No. I.

118 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

II. — The Danube of Herodotus considered as a
counterpole to the Nile.

There is nothing more perplexing to some of the many
commentators on Herodotus than all which lie says of the
river Danube : nor anything easier, under the preparation of
the preceding article. The Danube, or, in the nomenclature
of Herodotus, the Istros, is described as being in all respects
€K 7rapa\\Trj\ov ; by which we must understand correspond-
ing rigorously, yet antistrophically (as the Greeks express it),
— similar angles, similar dimensions, but in an inverse
order, — to the Egyptian Nile. The Nile, in its most easterly
section, flows from south to north. Consequently the Danube,
by the rule of parallelism, ought to flow through a corre-
sponding section from north to south. But, say the com-
mentators, it does not. Now, verbally they might seem
wrong ; but substantially, as regards the justification of
Herodotus, they are right. Our business, however, is not to
justify Herodotus, but to explain him. Undoubtedly there
is a point, about one hundred and fifty miles east of Vienna,
where the Danube descends almost due south for a space of
three hundred miles ; and this is a very memorable reach of
the river ; for somewhere within that long corridor of land
which lies between itself (this Danube section) and a direct
parallel section, equally long, of the Hungarian river Theiss,
once lay, in the fifth century, the royal city or encampment
of Attila. Gibbon placed the city in the northern part of
this corridor (or, strictly speaking, this Mesopotamia), conse-
quently about two hundred miles to the east of Vienna ; but
others, and especially Hungarian writers, better acquainted
by personal examination with the ground, remove it to one
hundred and fifty miles more to the south, — that is, to the
centre of the corridor (or gallery of land margined by the two
rivers). Now, undoubtedly, except along the margin of this
Attila's corridor, there is no considerable section of the Danube
which flows southward : and this will not answer the
postulates of Herpdotus. Generally speaking, the Danube
holds a headlong course to the east. Undoubtedly this must
be granted^- and so far it might seem hopeless to seek for

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 119

that kind of parallelism to the Nile which Herodotus asserts.
But the question for us does not concern what is or then was
— the question is solely about what Herodotus can be shown
to have meant. And here comes in, seasonably and service-
ably, that vagueness as to the points of the compass which
we have explained in the preceding article. This, connected
with the positive assertion of Herodotus as to an inverse
correspondency with the Nile (north and south, therefore, as
the antistrophe to south and north), would place beyond a
doubt the creed of Herodotus — which is the question that
concerns us. And, vice versd, this creed of Herodotus as to
the course of the Danube, in its main latter section when
approaching the Euxine Sea, reacts to confirm all we have
said, proprio marte, on the indeterminate articulation of the
Ionian compass then current. Here we have at once the
a priori reasons making it probable that Herodotus would
have a vagrant compass ; secondly, many separate instances
confirming this probability ; thirdly, the particular instance
of the Danube, as antistrophizing with the Nile, not recon-
cilable with any other principle ; and, fourthly, the following
independent demonstration that the Ionian compass must
have been confused in its leading divisions. Mark, reader.
Herodotus terminates his account of the Danube and its
course by affirming that this mighty river enters theEnxine
— at what point 1 Opposite, says he, to Sinope. Could that
have been imagined ? Sinope, being a Greek settlement in
a region where such settlements were rare, was notorious to
all the world as the flourishing emporium, on the south shore
of the Black Sea, for a civilized people, literally hustled by
barbarians. Consequently — and this is a point to which all
commentators alike are blind — the Danube of Herodotus
descends upon the Euxine in a line running due south.
Else, we demand, how could it antistrophize with the Nile ?
Else, we demand, how could it lie right over against
Sinope ? Else, we demand, how could it make that right-
angle bend to the west in the earlier section of its course
which is presupposed in its perfect analogy to the Nile of
Herodotus ? If already it were lying east and west in that
lower part of its course which approaches the Euxine, what
occasion could it offer for a right-angle turn, or for any turn

120 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

at all — what possibility for any angle whatever between this
lower reach and that superior reach so confessedly running
eastward, according to all accounts of its derivation ?

For, as respects the Nile, by way of close to this article,
it remains to inform the reader that Herodotus had evidently
met in Upper Egypt slaves or captives in war from the
regions of Soudan, Tombuctoo, &c. This is the opinion of
Rennel, of Browne, the visitor of the Ammonian Oasis, and
many other principal authorities ; and for a reason which we
always regard with more respect, though it were the weakest
of reasons, than all the authorities of this world clubbed
together. And this reason was the coincidence of what Hero-
dotus reports with the truth of facts first ascertained thousands
of years later. These slaves, or some people from those
quarters, had told him of a vast river lying east and west, —
of course the Niger, but (as he and they supposed) a superior
section of the Nile ; and, therefore, by geometrical necessity,
falling at right angles upon that other section of the Nile, so
familiar to himself, lying south and north. Hence arose a
faith (that is to say, not primarily hence, but hence in com-
bination with a previous construction existing in his mind
for the geometry of the Danube) that the two rivers Danube
and Nile had a mystic relation as arctic and antarctic powers
over man. Herodotus had been taught to figure the Danube
as a stream of two main inclinations — an upper section rising
in the extreme west of Europe, whence he travelled with the
arrow's flight due east in search of his wife the Euxiiie ; but,
somewhere in the middle of his course, hearing that her
dwelling lay far to the south, and having then completed his
distance in longitude, afterwards he ran down his latitude
with the headlong precipitation of a lover, and surprised the
bride due north from Sinope. This construction it was of
the Danube's course which subsequently, upon his hearing of
a corresponding western limb for the Nile, led him to per-
ceive the completion of that analogy between the two rivers,
its absolute perfection, which already he had partially sus-
pected. Their very figurations now appeared to reflect and
repeat each other in solemn mimicry, as previously he had
discovered the inimical correspondence of their functions ;
for this latter doctrine had been revealed to him by the

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 121

Egyptian priests, the then chief depositaries of the Egyptian
learning. They had informed him, and evidently had per-
suaded him, that already more than once the sun had gone
round to the region of Europe ; pursuing his diurnal arch
as far to the north of Greece as now he did to the south,
and carrying in his equipage all the changes of every kind
which were required to make Scythia an. Egypt, and conse-
quently to make the Istros a Nile. The same annual
swelling then filled the channel of the Danube which at
present gladdens the Nile. The same luxuriance of vegeta-
tion succeeded as a dowry to the gay summer-land of Trans-
Euxine and Para-Danubian Europe which for thousands of
years had seemed the peculiar heritage of Egypt. Old
Boreas — we are glad of that — was required to pack up
" his alls," and be off ; his new business was to plague the
black rascals, and to bake them with hoar-frost ; which
must have caused them to shake their ears in some asto-
nishment for a few centuries, until they got used to it.
Whereas "the sweet south wind" of the Ancient Mariner,
leaving Africa, pursued the " mariner's holloa " all over the
Euxine and the Palus Mceotis. The Danube, in short,
became the Nile in another zone ; and the same deadly
curiosity haunted its fountains. But all in vain : nobody
would reach the fountains ; particularly as there would be
another arm, El-Abiad or White River.

We are sorry that Herodotus should have been so vague
and uncircumstantial in his account of these vicissitudes ;
since it is pretty evident to any man who reflects on the
case that, had he pursued the train of changes inevitable
to Egypt under the one single revolution affecting the Nile
itself as a slime-depositing river, his judicious intellect would
soon have descried the obliteration of the whole Egyptian
valley (elsewhere he himself calls that valley SW/DOV TOV
NeiAov — a gift of the Nile), consequently the obliteration
of the people, consequently the immemorial extinction of
all those records — or, if they were posterior to the last re-
volution in favour of Egypt, at any rate of the one record
— which could have transmitted the memory of such an
astonishing transfer. Meantime the reader is now in pos-
session of the whole theory contemplated by Herodotus.

122 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

It was no mere lusus naturce that the one river repeated
tfie other, and, as it were, mocked the other in form and
geographical relations. It was no joke that lurked under
that mask of resemblance. Each was the other alternately.
It was the case of Castor and Pollux, one brother rising
as the other set. The Danube could always comfort him-
self with the idea that he was the Nile " elect " ; the other,
or provisional Nile, only " continuing to hold the seals until
his successor should be installed in office." The Nile, in
fact, appears to have the best of it in our time ; but then
there is " a braw time coming," and, after all, swelling as
he is with annual conceit, Father Nile, in parliamentary
phrase, is but the " warming-pan " for the Danube, keeping
the office warm for him. A new administration is formed,
and out he goes, bag and baggage.

It is less important, however, for us, though far more so
for the two rivers, to speculate on the reversion of their final
prospects than upon the present symbols of this reversion
in the unity of their forms. That is, it less concerns i\s
to deduce the harmony of their functions from the harmony
of their geographical courses than to abide by the inverse
argument — that, where the former harmony was so loudly
inferred from the latter, at any rate that fact will demon-
strate the existence of the latter harmony in the judgment
and faith of Herodotus. He could not possibly have insisted
on the analogy between the two channels geographically, as
good in logic for authenticating a secret and prophetic analogy
between their alternating offices, but that at least he must
firmly have believed in the first of these analogies — as already
existing and open to the verification of the human eye. The
second or ulterior analogy might be false, and yet affect only
its own separate credit, whilst the falsehood of the first was
ruinous to the credit of both. Whence it is evident that, of
the two resemblances in form and function, the resemblance
in form was the least disputable of the two for Herodotus.

This argument, and the others which we have indicated,
and, amongst those others, above all, the position of the
Danube's mouths right over against a city situated as was
Sinope — i.e. not doubtfully emerging from either flank of
the Euxine, west or east, but broadly and almost centrally

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 123

planted on the southern basis of that sea — we offer as a
body of demonstrative proof that, to the mature faith of
Herodotus, the Danube or Istros ran north and south in
its Euxine section, and that its right angled section ran
west and east : a very important element towards the true
Europe of Herodotus, which, as we contend, has not yet been
justly conceived or figured by his geographical commentators.

III. — On the Africa of Herodotus.

There is an amusing blunder on this subject committed
by Major Kennel. How often do we hear people com-
menting on the Scriptures, and raising up aerial edifices of
argument, in which every iota of the logic rests, uncon-
sciously to themselves, upon the accidental words of the
English version, and melts away when applied to the ori-
ginal text ; so that, in fact, the whole has no more strength
than if it were built upon a pun or an equivoque. Such is
the blunder of the excellent Major. And it is not timidly
expressed. At p. 410, Geog. Hist, of Herodotus, he thus
delivers himself: — "Although the term Lybia" (thus does
Kennel always spell it, instead of Libya — a most unscholar-
like blunder, but most pardonable in one so honestly pro-
fessing to be no Greek scholar) "is occasionally used by
Herodotus as synonymous to Africa (especially in Melpom.,
&c. &c.), yet it is almost exclusively applied to that part
bordering on the Mediterranean Sea between the Greater
Syrtis arid Egypt " ; and he concludes the paragraph thus :
— " So that Africa, and not Lybia, is the term generally
employed by Herodotus." We stared on reading tbes^
words, as Aladdin stared when he found his palace missing,
and the old thief, who had bought his lamp, trotting off
with it on his back far beyond the bills of mortality.
Naturally we concluded that it was ourselves who must be
dreaming, and not the Major ; so, taking a bed-candle, off
we marched to bed. But, the next morning, air clear and
frosty, ourselves as sagacious as a greyhound, we pounced
at first sight on the self -same words. Thus, after all, it
was the conceit mantling in our brain (of being in that
instance a cut above the Major) which turned out to be the

124 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

sober truth ; and our modesty, our sobriety of mind, it was
which turned out a windy tympany. Certainly, said we, if
this be so, and that the word Africa is really standing in
Herodotus, then it must be like that secret island called
'EA^Sto, lying in some Egyptian lake, which was reported to
Herodotus as having concealed itself from human eyes for
five hundred and four years : a capital place it must have
been against duns and the sheriff ; for it was an English
mile in diameter, and yet no man could see it until a fugi-
tive king, happening to be hard pressed in the rear, dived
into the water, and came up to the light in the good little
island ; where he lived happily for fifty years, and every
day got bousy as a piper, in spite of all his enemies, who
were roaming about the lake night and day to catch his
most gracious majesty. He was king, at least, of Elbo, if
he had no particular subjects but himself, as Nap was in
our days of Elba ; and perhaps both were less plagued with
rebels than when sitting on the ampler thrones of Egypt
and France. But surely the good Major must have dreamed
a dream about this word Africa ; for how would it look in
Ionic Greek — 'A^/xmj ? Did any man ever see such a
word ? However, let not the reader believe that we are
triumphing meanly in the advantage of our Greek. Milton,
in one of his controversial works, exposing an insolent
antagonist who pretended to a knowledge of Hebrew, which,
in fact, he had not, remarks that the man must be ignoble,
whoever he were, that would catch at a spurious credit,
though it were but from a language which really he did
not understand.1 But so far was Major Rennel from doing
this that, when no call upon him existed for saying one
word upon the subject, frankly he volunteered a confession
to all the world — that Greek he had none. The marvel is
the greater that, as Saunderson, blind from his infancy, was
the best lecturer on colours early in the eighteenth century,
so by far the best commentator on the Greek Herodotus
has proved to be a military man who knew nothing at all of
Greek. Yet mark the excellence of upright dealing. Had
Major Rennel pretended to Greek, were it but as much as

1 The passage occurs in Colasterion, one of Milton's Divorce
Pamphlets. — M.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 125

went to the spelling of the word Africa, here was he a lost
man. ^ Blackwood's Magazine would now have exposed him.
Whereas, things being as they are, we respect him and admire
him sincerely. And, as to his wanting this one accomplish-
ment, every man wants some. We ourselves can neither
dance a hornpipe nor whistle Jim Crow -1 without driving the
whole musical world into black despair.

Africa, meantime, is a word imported into Herodotus by
Mr. Beloe ; whose name, we have been given to understand,
was pronounced like that of our old domesticated friend
the bellows, shorn of the s \ and whose translation, judging
from such extracts as we have seen in books, may be better
than Littlebury's ; but, if so, we should be driven into a
mournful opinion of Mr. Littlebury.2 Strange that nearly
all the classics, Koman as well as Greek, should be so meanly
represented by their English reproducers. The French
translators, it is true, are worse as a body. But in this
particular instance of Herodotus they have a respectable trans-
lator. Larcher read Greek sufficiently ; and was as much
master of his author's peculiar learning as any one general
commentator that can be mentioned.

But Africa the thing, not Africa the name, is that which
puzzles all students of Herodotus, as, indeed, no little it
puzzled Herodotus himself. Rennel makes one difficulty
where, in fact, there is none ; viz. that sometimes Hero-
dotus refers Egypt to Libya, and sometimes refuses to do so.
But in this there is no inconsistency, and no forgetfulness.
Herodotus wisely adopted the excellent rule of " thinking
with the learned, and talking with the people." Having
once firmly explained his reasons for holding Egypt to be
neither an Asiatic nor an African region, but the neutral
frontier artificially created by the Nile, — as, in short, a long
corridor of separation between Asia and Africa, — thus having,
once for all, borne witness to the truth, afterwards, and
generally, he is too little of a pedant to make war upon
current forms of speech. What is the use of drawing off

1 Jim Crow, — which political air, at the time when this was
written, every other man did (or could) whistle.

2 The translation of Herodotus by Isaac Littlebury was published
in 1709 ; that by the Rev. William Beloe, in 1791.— M.

126 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

men's attention, in questions about things, by impertinent
revisions of diction or by alien theories ? Some people
have made it a question whether Great Britain were not
extra - European ; and the island of Candia is generally
assumed to be so. Some lawyers also (nay, some courts of
justice) have entertained the question whether a man could
be held related to his own mother ? Not as though too
remotely related, but as too nearly, and, in fact, absorbed
within the lunar beams. Permit us to improve upon this
by asking — Is a man related to himself ? Yet, in all such
cases, the publicist, the geographer, the lawyer, continue to
talk as other people do ; and, assuredly, the lawyer would
regard a witness as perjured who should say, in speaking
of a woman notoriously his mother, " Oh ! I do assure you,
sir, the woman is no relation of mine." The world of that
day (and, indeed, it is not much more candid even now)
would have it that Libya comprehended Egypt ; and Hero-
dotus, like the wise man that he was, having once or twice
lodged his protest against that idea, then replies to the
world — " Very well, if you say so, it is so " ; precisely as
Petruchio's wife, to soothe her mad husband, agrees that
the sun is the moon, and, back again, that it is not the
moon.

Here there is no real difficulty ; for the arguments of
Herodotus are of two separate classes, and both too strong
to leave any doubt that his private opinion never varied by
a hair's-breadth on this question. And it was a question
far from verbal ; of which any man may convince himself
by reflecting on the disputes, at different periods, with regard
to Macedon (both Macedon the original germ, and Macedonia
the expanded kingdom) as a claimant of co-membership in
the household of Greece, or on the disputes, more angry if
less scornful, between Carthage and Cyrene as to the true
limits between this dissyllabic daughter of Tyre and the
trisyllabic daughter of Greece.1 The very colour of the soil
in Egypt — the rich black loam, precipitated by the creative
river — already symbolized to Herodotus the deep repulsion
lying between Egypt, on the one side, and Libya, where all

, the Greek name for Carthage, is certainly more than
dissyllabic ; but we speak of the English names.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 127

was red ; between Egypt, on the one side, and Asia, where
all was calcined into white sand. And, as to the name, does
not the reader catch us still using the word " Africa " instead
of Libya, after all our sparring against that word as scarcely
known by possibility to Herodotus ?

But, beyond this controversy as to the true marches or
frontier lines of the two great continents in common — Asia
and Africa — there was another and a more grave one as to
the size, shape, and limitations of Africa in particular. It is
true that both Europe and Asia were imperfectly defined for
Herodotus. But he fancied otherwise ; for them he could
trace a vague, rambling outline. Not so for Africa, unless a
great event in Egyptian records were adopted for true. This
was the voyage of circumnavigation accomplished under the
orders of Pharaoh Necho.1 Disallowing this earliest recorded
Periplus, then no man could say of Africa whether it were a
large island or a boundless continent having no outline trace-
able by man, or (which, doubtless, would have been the
favourite creed) whether it were not a technical akte such as
Asia Minor ; that is, not a peninsula like the Peloponnesus,
or the tongues of land near mount Athos — because in that
case the idea required a narrow neck or isthmus at the point
of junction with the adjacent continent — but a square, tabular
plate of ground, " a block of ground " (as the Americans say),
having three sides washed by some sea, but a fourth side
absolutely untouched by any sea whatever. On this word
akte, as a term but recently drawn out of obscurity, we may
say a word or two elsewhere ; at present we proceed with the
great African Periplus. We, like the rest of this world,
held that to be a pure fable, so long as we had never anxiously
studied the ancient geography, and consequently had never
meditated on the circumstances of this story under the light
of that geography, or of the current astronomy. But we have
since greatly changed our opinion. And, though it would
not have shaken that opinion to find Rennel dissenting,

1 The reference is to the amazing circumnavigation of Africa, in the
fifty or sixth century B.C., by the Carthaginian Hanno. The Greek
Periplus, or account of this circumnavigation, of which De Quincey
goes on to speak, is supposed to be a version or tradition of a Cartha-
ginian original. — -M.

128 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

undoubtedly it much strengthened our opinion to find so
cautious a judge concurring. Perhaps the very strongest
argument in favour of the voyage, if we speak of any single
argument, is that which Rennel insists on — namely, the sole
circumstance reported by the voyagers which Herodotus pro-
nounced incredible, viz. the assertion that in one part of it
they had the sun on the right hand. And, as we have
always found young students at a loss for the meaning of
that expression, since naturally it struck them that a man
might bring the sun at any place on either hand, or on
neither, we will stop for one moment to explain, for the use
of such youthful readers, that, — as in military descriptions
you are always presumed to look down the current of a river,
so that the "right " bank of the Rhine, for instance, is always
to a soldier the German bank, the " left " always in a military
sense the French bank, in contempt of the traveller's position,
— so, in speaking of the sun, you are presumed to place your
back to the east, and to accompany him on his daily route.
In that position it will be impossible for a man in our latitudes
to bring the sun on his right shoulder, since the sun never
even rises to be vertically over his head. First when the
man goes south so far as to enter the northern tropic would
such a phenomenon be possible ; and, if he persisted in going
beyond the equator and southern tropic, then he would find
all things inverted as regards our hemisphere. Then he
would find it as impossible, when moving concurrently with
the sun, not to have the sun on his right hand as with us to
realize that phenomenon. Now, it is very clear that, if the
Egyptian voyagers did actually double the Cape of Good
Hope so far to the south of the equator, then, by mere
necessity, this inexplicable phenomenon (for to them it was
inexplicable) would pursue them for months in succession.
Here is the point in this argument which we would press on
the reader's consideration ; and, inadvertently, Rennel has
omitted this aspect of the argument altogether. To Herodotus,
as we have seen, it was so absolutely incredible a romance
that he rejected it summarily. And why not, therefore, go
the entire length, and reject the total voyage, when thus in
his view partially discredited ? That question recalls us to
the certainty that there must have been other proofs, inde-

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 129

pendent of this striking allegation, too strong to allow of
scepticism in this wise man's mind. He fancied (and, with
his theory of the heavens, in which there was no equator, no
central limit, no province of equal tropics on either hand of
that limit, could he have done otherwise than fancy ?) that
Jack, after his long voyage, having then no tohacco for his
recreation, and no grog, took out his allowance in the shape
of wonder-making. He " bounced " a little, he " Cretized " l ;
and who could be angry ? And laughable it is to reflect
that, — like the poor credulous mother who listened com-
placently to her seafaring son whilst using a Sinbad's licence
of romancing, but gravely reproved him for the sin of untruth
when he told her of flying fish or some other simple zoological
fact, — so Herodotus would have made careful memoranda of
this Egyptian voyage had it told of men " whose heads do
grow beneath their shoulders " (since, if he himself doubted
about the one-eyed Arimaspians, he yet thought the legend
entitled to a report), but scouted with all his energy the one
great truth of the Periplus, and eternal monument of its
reality, as a fable too monstrous for toleration. On the
other hand, for us, who know its truth, and how inevadibly
it must have haunted for months the Egyptians in the face
of all their previous impressions, it ought to stand for an
argument, strong " as proofs of holy writ," that the voyage
did really take place. There is exactly one possibility, but
a very slight one, that this truth might have been otherwise
learned — learned independently ; and that is from the chance
that those same Africans of the interior who had truly
reported the Niger to Herodotus (though erroneously as a
section of the Nile) might simultaneously have reported the
phenomena of the sun's course. But we reply to that possible
suggestion — that, in fact, it could scarcely have happened.
Many other remarkable phenomena of Nigritia had not been
reported, or had been dropped out of the lecord as idle or
worthless. Secondly, as slaves they would have obtained
little credit, except when falling in with a previous idea or
belief. Thirdly, none of these men would be derived from
any place to the south of the line, still less south of the

1 " All the Cretans are liars " : old Mediterranean proverb — Kp^res
det \f/ev(TTai.

VOL. VI K

130 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

southern tropic. Generally they would belong to the
northern tropic : and (that being premised) what would
have been the true form of the report ? Not that they had
the sun on the right hand, but that sometimes he was
directly vertical, sometimes on the left hand, sometimes on
the right. " What, ye black villains ! The sun, that never
was known to change, unless when he reeled a little at
seeing the anthropophagous banquet of Thyestes, — he to
dance cotillons in this absurd way up and down the heavens,
— why, crucifixion is too light a punishment for such insults
to Apollo " : so would a Greek have spoken. And, at least,
if the report had survived at all, it would have been in this
shape — as the report of an uncertain movement in the African
sun.

But, as a regular nautical report made to the Pharaoh of
the day, as an extract from the log-book, for this reason it
must be received as unanswerable evidence, as an argument
that never can be surmounted on behalf of the voyage, that
it contradicted all theories whatsoever — Greek no less than
Egyptian — and was irreconcilable with all systems that the
wit of men had yet devised (viz. two centuries before Hero-
dotus) for explaining the solar motions. Upon this logic we
will take our stand. Here is the stronghold, the citadel, of
the truth. Many a thing has been fabled, many a thing
carefully passed down by tradition as a fact of absolute
experience, simply because it fell in with some previous
fancy or prejudice of men. And even Baron Munchausen's
amusing falsehoods,1 if examined by a logician, will uniformly
be found squared or adjusted — not, indeed, to a belief, but
to a whimsical sort of plausibility, that reconciles the mind
to the extravagance for the single instant that is required.
If he drives up a hill of snow, and next morning finds his
horse and gig hanging from the top of a church steeple, the
monstrous fiction is still countenanced by the sudden thaw
that had taken place in the night-time, and so far physically
possible as to be removed beyond the limits of magic. And
the very disgust which revolts us in a supplement to the

1 Lowndes gives 1786 as the date of the third edition of the famous
Travels, Campaigns, Voyages, and A dventures of Baron MuncJdiousen,
commonly called Munchhausen. — M.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 131

Baron that we remember to heave seen arises from the neglect
of those smooth plausibilities.1 We are there summoned to
believe blank impossibilities, without a particle of the Baron's
most ingenious and winning speciousness of preparation.
The Baron candidly admits the impossibility ; faces it ;
regrets it for the sake of truth : but a fad is a fact ; and he
puts it to our equity whether we also have not met with
strange events. And never in a single instance does the
Baron build upwards without a massy foundation of specious
physical plausibility. Whereas the fiction, if it had been a
fiction, recorded by Herodotus, is precisely of that order
which must have roused the incredulus odi in the fulness of
perfection. Neither in the wisdom of man, nor in his follies,
was there one resource for mitigating the disgust which would
have pursued it. This powerful reason for believing the
main fact of the circumnavigation let the reader, courteous
or not, if he is but the logical reader, condescend to balance
in his judgment.

Other arguments, only less strong, on behalf of the voyage
we will not here notice — except this one, most reasonably
urged by Rennel, from his peculiar familiarity, even in that
day (1799), with the currents and the prevalent winds of the
Indian ocean : viz. that such a circumnavigation of Africa
was almost sure to prosper if commenced from the Red Sea
(as it was) along the east coast of Africa, and even more sure
to fail if taken in the inverse order, — that is to say, through
the Straits of Gibraltar, and so down the western shore of
Africa. In that order, which was peculiarly tempting for
two reasons to the Carthaginian sailor or Phoenician, Rennel
has shown how all the currents, the monsoons, &c., would
baffle the navigator ; whilst, taken in the opposite series,
they might easily co-operate with the bold enterpriser, so as
to waft him, if once starting at a proper season, almost to the
Cape, before (to use Sir Bingo Binks's phrase) he could say
dumpling. Accordingly, a Persian nobleman of high rank,
having been allowed to commute his sentence of capital

1 De Quincey may refer to a Sequel to the Adventures of Baron
Munchausen published in 1792 by way of jest upon Bruce, the
African traveller, and sometimes bound up with the original and
genuine Munchausen. — M.

132 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

punishment for that of sailing round Africa, did actually
fail from the cause developed by Rennel. Naturally he had
a Phoenician crew, as the king's best nautical subjects.
Naturally they preferred the false route by Gibraltar.
Naturally they failed. And the nobleman, returning from
transportation before his time, as well as re infectd, was
executed.

But (ah, villainous word !) some ugly objector puts in his
oar, and demands to know — why, if so vast an event had
actually occurred, it could have ever been forgotten, or at all
have faded ? To this we answer briefly what properly ought
to form a separate section in our notice of Herodotus. The
event was not so vast as we, with our present knowledge of
Africa, should regard it.

This is a very interesting aspect of the subject. We
laugh long and loud when we hear Des Cartes (great man
as he was) laying it down amongst the golden rules for
guiding his studies that he would guard himself against all
" prej udices " ; because we know that, when a prej udice of
any class whatever is seen as such, when it is recognised for
a prejudice, from that moment it ceases to be a prejudice.
Those are the true baffling prejudices for man which he never
suspects for prejudices. How widely, from the truisms of
experience, could we illustrate this truth ! But we abstain.
We content ourselves with this case. Even Major Rennel,
starting semi-con sciously from his own previous knowledge
(the fruit of researches pursued through many centuries after
Herodotus), lays down an Africa at least ten times too great
for meeting the Greek idea. Unavoidably Herodotus knew
the Mediterranean dimensions of Africa ; else he would have
figured it to himself as an island, equal perhaps to Greece,
Macedon, and Thrace. As it was, there is no doubt to us,
from many indications, that the Libya of Herodotus, after
all, did not exceed the total bulk of Asia Minor carried east-
wards to the Tigris. But there is not such an awful corrupter
of truth in the whole world, — there is not such an unconquer-
able enslaver of men's minds, — as the blind instinct by which
they yield to the ancient root -bound trebly -anchored pre-
judications of their childhood and original belief. Misconceive
us not, reader. We do not mean that, having learned such

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 133

and such doctrines, afterwards they cling to them by affection.
Not at all. We mean that, duped by a word and the
associations clinging to it, they cleave to certain notions, not
from any partiality to them, but because this pre-occupation
intercepts the very earliest dawn of a possible conception or
conjecture in the opposite direction. The most tremendous
error in human annals is of that order. It has existed for
seventeen centuries in strength \ and is not extinct, though
public in its action, as upon another occasion we shall show.
In this case of Africa, it was not that men resisted the truth
according to the ordinary notion of a " prejudice " ; it was
that every commentator in succession upon Herodotus, coming
to the case with the fullest knowledge that Africa was a vast
continent, ranging far and wide in both hemispheres, uncon-
sciously slipped into the feeling that this had always been
the belief of men, — possibly some might a little fall short of
the true estimate, some a little exceed it, — but that, on the
whole, it was at least as truly figured to men's minds as
either of the two other continents. Accordingly, one and all
have presumed a bulk for the Libya of Herodotus absolutely
at war with the whole indications. And, if they had once
again read Herodotus under the guiding light furnished by a
blank denial of this notion, they would have found a meaning
in many a word of Herodotus, such as they never suspected
whilst trying it only from one side. In this blind submission
to a prejudice of words and clustering associations Kennel
also shares.

It will be retorted, however, that the long time allowed by
Herodotus for the voyage argues a corresponding amplitude
of dimensions. Doubtless a time upwards of two years is
long for a modern Periplus, even of that vast continent. But
Herodotus knew nothing of monsoons, or trade -winds, or
currents : he allowed nothing for these accelerating forces,
which were enormous, though allowing fully (could any
Greek have neglected to allow ?) for all the retarding forces.
Daily advances of thirty-three miles at most ; nightly reposes,
of necessity to men without the compass ; above all, a coasting
navigation, searching (if it were only for water) every nook
and inlet, bay, and river's mouth, except only where the
winds or currents might violently sweep them past these

134 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

objects. Then we are to allow for a long stay on the shore
of Western Africa, for the sake of reaping, or getting reaped
by natives, a wheat harvest — a fact which strengthens the
probability of the voyage, but diminishes the disposable time
which Herodotus would use as the exponent of the space.
We must remember the want of sails aloft in ancient vessels,
the awkwardness of their build for fast sailing, and, above
all, their cautious policy of never tempting the deep, unless
when the wind would not be denied. And, in the meantime,
all the compensatory forces of air and water, so utterly un-
suspected by Herodotus, we must subtract from his final
summation of the effective motion, leaving for the actual
measure of the sailing, as inferred by Herodotus — conse-
quently for the measure of the virtual time, consequently of
the African space, as only to be collected from the time so
corrected — a very small proportion indeed, compared with
the results of a similar voyage, even by the Portuguese,
about A.D. 1500. To Herodotus we are satisfied that Libya
(disarming it of its power over the world's mind in the
pompous name of Africa) was not bigger than the true
Arabia, or even Spain, as known to ourselves.

And hence, also, by a natural result, the obliteration of
this Periplus from the minds of men. It accomplished no
great service, as men judged. It put a zone about a large
region undoubtedly ; but what sort of a region 1 A mere
worthless wilderness, — here ^/ncocfys, dedicated by the gods
to wild beasts, there a/^/x-wS^?, trackless from sands, and
everywhere fountainless, arid, scorched (as they believed) in
the interior. Subtract Egypt, as not being part, and to the
world of civilisation at that time Africa must have seemed
a worthless desert, except for Gyrene and Carthage, its two
choice gardens, already occupied by Phoanicians and Greeks.
This, by the way, suggests a new consideration, viz. that
even the Mediterranean extent of Africa must have been
unknown to Herodotus — since all beyond Carthage, as
Mauritania, &c., would wind up into a small inconsiderable
tract, as being dispuncted by no great states or colonies.

Therefore it was that this most interesting of all circum-
navigations at the present day did virtually and could not
but perish as a vivid record. It measured a region which

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 135

touched no man's prosperity. It recorded a discovery for
which there was no permanent appreciator. A case exists
at this moment, in London, precisely parallel. There is a
chart of New Holland still preserved among the Kei/z^Ato,
of the British Museum, which exhibits a Periplus of that
vast region from some navigator almost by three centuries
prior to Captain Cook. A rude outline of Cook's labours in
that section had been anticipated at a time when it was not
wanted. Nobody cared about it : value it had none, or
interest ; and it was utterly forgotten. That it did not also
perish in the literal sense, as well as in spirit, was owing to
an accident.

IV. — The Geographical AKT£ of Greece.

We had intended to transfer, for the use of our readers,
the diagram imagined by Niebuhr in illustration of this
idea. But our growing exorbitance from our limits warns
us to desist. Two points only we shall notice : — 1. That
Niebuhr — not the traveller, as might have been expected,
but his son, the philosophic historian J — first threw light on
this idea, which had puzzled multitudes of honest men.
Here we see the same singularity as in the case of Eennel.
In that instance a man without a particle of Greek
"whipped" (to speak Kentuckice) whole crowds of drones
who had more Greek than they could turn to any good
account ; and in the other instance we see a sedentary
scholar, travelling chiefly between his study and his bed-
room, doing the work that properly belonged to active tra-
vellers. 2. Though we have already given one illustration
of an Akte in Asia Minor, it may be well to mention as
another the vast region of Arabia. In fact, to Herodotus
the tract of Arabia and Syria, on the one hand, made up
one akte (the southern) for the Persian Empire ; Asia Minor,
with part of Armenia, made up another akte (the western)
for the same empire : the two being at right angles, and
both abutting on imaginary lines drawn from different points
of the Euphrates.

1 Carsten Niebuhr, the traveller, 1733-1815 ; Bertliold G. Niebuhr,
the historian, 1776-1831.— M.

136 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

V. — Chronology of Herodotus.

The commentator of Herodotus who enjoys the reputa-
tion of having best unfolded his chronology is the French
President Bouhier.1 We cannot say that this opinion co-
incides with our own. There is a lamentable imbecility in
all the chronological commentators, of two opposite tend-
encies. Either they fall into that folly of drivelling in-
fidelity which shivers at every fresh revelation of geology,
and every fresh romance of fabulous chronology, as fatal to
religious truths ; or, with wiser feelings, but equal silliness,
they seek to protect Christianity, by feeble parryings, from
a danger which exists only for those who never had any
rational principles of faith ; as if the mighty spiritual power
of Christianity were to be thrown upon her defence as often
as any old woman's legend from Hindostan (see Bailly's
Astronomie), or from Egypt (see the whole series of chrono-
logical commentators on Herodotus), became immeasurably
extravagant, and exactly in proportion to that extravagance.
Amongst these latter chroaologers, perhaps Larcher 2 is the
most false and treacherous. He affects a tragical start as
often as he rehearses the traditions of the Egyptian priests,
and assumes a holy shuddering. " Eh quoi ! Ce seroit done
ces gens-la qui auroient ose insulter a notre sainte religion ! "
But, all the while, beneath his mask the reader can perceive,
not obscurely, a perfidious smile ; as on the face of some
indulgent mother, who affects to menace with her hand some
favourite child at a distance whilst the present subject of a
stranger's complaint, but in fact ill disguises her foolish
applause to its petulance.

Two remarks only we shall allow ourselves upon this
extensive theme ; which, if once entered in good earnest,
would go on to a length more than commensurate with all
the rest of our discussion.

1. The three hundred and thirty kings of Egypt who
were interposed by the Egyptian priests between the endless
dynasty of the gods and the pretty long dynasty of real

1 Bouhier, 1673-1746.— M.
2 P. H. Larcher, 1726-1812.— M.

PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 137

kings (the Shepherds, the Pharaohs, &c.) are upon this argu-
ment to be objected as mere unmeaning fictions : viz. that
they did nothing. This argument is reported as a fact (not
as an argument of rejection) by Herodotus himself, and
reported from the volunteer testimony of the priests them-
selves ; so that the authority for the number of kings is also
the authority for their inertia. Can there be better proof
needed that they were men of straw, got up to colour the
legend of a prodigious antiquity ? The reign of the gods
was felt to be somewhat equivocal, as susceptible of allegoric
explanations. So this long human dynasty is invented to
furnish a substantial basis for the chronology. Meantime,
the whole three hundred and thirty are such absolute
faindans that confessedly not one act — not one monument of
art or labour — is ascribed to their auspices ; whilst every one
of the real unquestionable sovereigns, coinciding with known
periods in the tradition of Greece, or with undeniable events
in the divine simplicity of the Hebrew Scriptures, is memor-
able for some warlike act, some munificent institution, or
some almost imperishable monument of architectural power.

2. But weaker even than the fabling spirit of these
genealogical inanities is the idle attempt to explode them by
turning the years into days. In this way, it is true, we get
rid of pretensions to a cloudy antiquity by wholesale clusters.
The moonshine and the fairy tales vanish — but how ? To
leave us all in a moonless quagmire of substantial difficulties,
from which (as has been suggested more than once) there is
no extrication at all ; for, if the diurnal years are to reconcile
us to the three hundred and thirty kings, what becomes of
the incomprehensibly short reigns (not averaging above two
or three months for each) on the long basis of time assumed
by the priests ; and this in the most peaceful of realms, and
in fatal contradiction to another estimate of the priests, by
which the kings are made to tally with as many yevecu, or
generations of men ? Herodotus, and doubtless the priests,
understood a generation in the sense then universally cur-
rent ; agreeably to which three generations were equated to
a century.

But the questions are endless which grow out of Hero-
dotus. Pliny's Natural History has been usually thought

138 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

the greatest Encyclopaedia of ancient learning. But we hold
that Herodotus furnishes by much the largest basis for vast
commentaries revealing the archaeologies of the human race ;
whilst, as the eldest of prose writers, he justifies his majestic
station as a brotherly assessor on the same throne with
Homer.

THE THEBAN SPHINX1

THE most ancient 2 story in the Pagan records, older by two
generations than the story of Troy, is that of CEdipus and his
mysterious fate, which wrapt in ruin both himself and all his
kindred. No story whatever continued so long to impress
the Greek sensibilities with religious awe, or was felt by the
great tragic poets to be so supremely fitted for scenical repre-
sentation. In one of its stages, this story is clothed with the
majesty of darkness j in another stage, it is radiant with
burning lights of female love, the most faithful and heroic,
offering a beautiful relief to the preternatural malice dividing
the two sons of CEdipus. This malice was so intense that,
when the corpses of both brothers were burned together on
the same funeral pyre (as by one tradition they were), the
flames from each parted asunder, and refused to mingle.

1 Appeared in one of the numbers for 1849 of the Edinburgh
periodical called Hogg's Instructor ; and reprinted by De Quincey
in 1859, in vol. x of his Collected Writings. — M.

2 That is, amongst stories not wearing a mythologic character, such
as those of Prometheus, Hercules, &c. The era of Troy and its siege
is doubtless by some centuries older than its usual chronologic date
of nine centuries before Christ. And, considering the mature age of
Eteocles and Polynices, the two sons of CEdipus, at the period of the
"Seven against Thebes," — which seven were contemporary with the

fathers of the heroes engaged in the Trojan War, — it becomes necessary
to add sixty or seventy years to the Trojan date, in order to obtain that
of CEdipus and the Sphinx. Out of the Hebrew Scriptures, there is
nothing purely historic so old as this. [CEdipus is mentioned both in
the Iliad and in the Odyssey ; but the legend of his life comes to us
most fully and grandly in two of the tragedies of Sophocles — (Edipus
Tyrannus and (Edipus Coloneus. — M.]

140 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

This female love was so intense that it survived the death of
its object, cared not for human praise or blame, and laughed
at the grave which waited in the rear for itself, yawning
visibly for immediate retribution. There are four separate
movements through which this impassioned tale devolves ;
all are of commanding interest, and all wear a character of
portentous solemnity, which fits them for harmonizing with
the dusky shadows of that deep antiquity into which they
ascend.

One only feature there is in the story, — and this belongs
to its second stage (which is also its sublimest stage), — where
a pure taste is likely to pause, and to revolt from something
not perfectly reconciled with the general depth of the colour-
ing. This lies in the Sphinx's Riddle, which, as hitherto
explained, seems to us deplorably below the grandeur of the
occasion. Three thousand years, at the least, have passed
away since that riddle was propounded ; and it seems odd
enough that the proper solution should not present itself till
November of 1849. That is true : it seems odd, but still it
is possible that we, in anno domini 1849, may see further
through a milestone than GEdipus, the king, in the year B.C.
twelve or thirteen hundred. The long interval between the
enigma and its answer may remind the reader of an old story
in Joe Miller, where a traveller, apparently an inquisitive
person, in passing through a toll-bar, said to the keeper,
" How do you like your eggs dressed ? " Without waiting
for the answer, he rode off; but twenty -five years later,
riding through the same bar, kept by the same man, the
traveller looked steadfastly at him, and received the mono-
syllabic answer, "Poached." A long parenthesis is twenty-
five years ; and we, gazing back over a far wider gulf of
time, shall endeavour to look hard at the Sphinx, and to
convince that mysterious young lady — if our voice can reach
her — that she was too easily satisfied with the answer given ;
that the true answer is yet to come ; and that, in fact,
(Edipus shouted before he was out of the wood.

But, first of all, let us rehearse the circumstances of this
old Grecian story. For in a popular journal it is always a
duty to assume that perhaps three readers out of four may
have had no opportunity, by the course of their education,

THE THEBAN SPHINX 141

for male ing themselves acquainted with classical legends.
And in this present case, besides the indispensableness of the
story to the proper comprehension of our own improved
answer to the Sphinx, the story has a separate and inde-
pendent value of its own ; for it illustrates a profound but
obscure idea of pagan ages, which is connected with the
elementary glimpses of man into the abysses of his higher
relations, and lurks mysteriously amongst what Milton so
finely calls " the dark foundations " of our human nature.
This notion it is hard to express in modern phrase, for we
have no idea exactly corresponding to it ; but in Latin it
was called piacularity. The reader must understand upon
our authority, nostro periculo, and in defiance of all the false
translations spread through books, that the ancients (meaning
the Greeks and Romans before the time of Christianity) had
no idea, not by the faintest vestige, of what in the scriptural
system is called sin. The Latin word peccatum, the Greek
word amartia, are translated continually by the word sin ;
but neither one word nor the other has any such meaning in
writers belonging to the pure classical period. When baptized
into new meanings through their adoption by Christianity,
these words, in common, with many others, transmigrated
into new and philosophic functions. But originally they
tended towards no such acceptations ; nor could have done so,
— seeing that the ancients had no avenue opened to them
through which the profound idea of sin would have been
even dimly intelligible. Plato, 400 years before Christ, or
Cicero, more than 300 years later, was fully equal to the idea
of guilt through all its gamut ; but no more equal to the idea
of sin than a sagacious hound to the idea of gravitation, or of
central, forces. It is the tremendous postulate upon which
this idea reposes, that constitutes the initial moment of that
revelation which is common to Judaism and to Christianity.
We have no intention of wandering into any discussion upon
this question. It will suffice for the service of the occasion
if we say that guilt, in all its modifications, implies only a
defect or a wound in the individual. Sin, on the other
hand, the most mysterious, and the most sorrowful of all
ideas, implies a taint not in the individual but in the race,
— that is the distinction ; or a taint in the individual, not

142 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

through any local disease of his own, but through a scrofula
equally diffused through the infinite family of man. We are
not speaking controversially, either as teachers of theology
or of philosophy ; and we are careless of the particular con-
struction by which the reader interprets to himself this
profound idea. What we affirm is, that this idea was utterly
and exquisitely inappreciable by Pagan Greece and Kome ;
that various translations from Pindar,1 from Aristophanes,
and from the Greek tragedians, embodying at intervals this
word sin, are more extravagant than would be the word
category, or the synthetic unity of consciousness, introduced into
the harangue of an Indian sachem amongst the Cherokees ;
and, finally, that the very nearest approach to the abysmal
idea which we Christians attach to the word sin (an approach,
but to that which never can be touched ; a writing as of
palmistry upon each man's hand, but a writing which " no
man can read") lies in the pagan idea of piacularity ; which
is an idea thus far like hereditary sin, that it expresses an
evil to which the party affected has not consciously con-
curred ; which is thus far not like hereditary sin, that it
expresses an evil personal to the individual, and not extend-
ing itself to the race.

This was the evil exemplified in (Edipus. He was loaded
with an insupportable burthen of pariah participation in
pollution and misery, to which his will had never consented.
He seemed to have committed the most atrocious crimes ; he
was a murderer, he was a parricide, he was persistently in-
cestuous ; and yet how ? In the case where he might be
thought a murderer, he had stood upon his self-defence, not

1 And, when we are speaking of this subject, it may be proper to
mention (as the very extreme anachronism which the case admits of),
that Mr. Archdeacon W. has absolutely introduced the idea of sin into
the Iliad, and, in a regular octavo volume, has represented it as the
key to the svhole movement of the fable. It was once made a reproach
to Southey that his Don Roderick spoke, in his penitential moods, a
language too much resembling that of Methodism : yet, after all, that
prince was a Christian, and a Christian amongst Mussulmans. But
what are we to think of Achilles and Ajax, when described as being
(or not being) "under convictions of sin"? [The "Mr. Archdeacon
W." of this note was Archdeacon Williams, a learned and eccentric
Welshman, and a familiar figure in Edinburgh from 1824 onwards,
when he was Rector of the Edinburgh Academy. — M.]

THE THEBAN SPHINX 143

benefiting by any superior resources, but, on the contrary,
fighting as one man against three, and under the provocation
of insufferable insolence. Had he been a parricide ? What
matter, as regarded the moral guilt, if his father (and by the
fault of that father) were utterly unknown to him ? Incestu-
ous had he been ? but how, if the very oracles of fate, as
expounded by events, and by mysterious creatures such as
the Sphinx, had stranded him, like a ship left by the tide,
upon this dark unknown shore of a criminality unsuspected
by himself? All these treasons against the sanctities of
nature had CEdipus committed ; and yet was this (Edipus a
thoroughly good man, no more dreaming of the horrors in
which he was entangled than the eye at noon-day in mid-
summer is conscious of the stars that lie far behind the day-
light. Let us review rapidly the incidents of his life.

Laius, king of Thebes, the descendant of Labdacus, and
representing the illustrious house of the Labdacidee, about the
time when his wife, Jocasta, promised to present him with a
child, had learned from various prophetic voices that this
unborn child was destined to be his murderer. It is singular
that in all such cases, which are many, spread through classical
literature, the parties menaced by fate believe the menace, —
else why do they seek to evade it ; and yet believe it not, —
else why do they fancy themselves able to evade it ? This
fatal child, \\lio was the CEdipus of tragedy, being at length
born, Laius committed the infant to a slave, with orders to
expose it on Mount Cithoeron. This was done : the infant
was suspended, by thongs running through the fleshy parts
of his feet, to the branches of a tree, and he was supposed to
have perished by wild beasts. But a shepherd, who found
him in this perishing state, pitied his helplessness, and carried
him to his master and mistress, king and queen of Corinth,
who adopted and educated him as their own child. That he
was not their own child, and that in fact he was a foundling
of unknown parentage, CEdipus was not slow of finding from
the taunts of his schoolfellows ; and, at length, with the
determination of learning his origin and his fate, being now
a full-grown young man, he strode off from Corinth to Delphi.
The oracle at Delphi, being as usual in collusion with his
evil destiny, sent him off to seek his parents at Thebes. On

144 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

his journey thither, he met, in a narrow part of the road, a
chariot proceeding in the counter direction from Thebes to
Delphi. The charioteer, relying upon the grandeur of his
master, insolently ordered the young stranger to clear the
road ; upon which, under the impulse of his youthful blood,
GEdipus slew him on the spot. The haughty grandee who
occupied the chariot rose up in fury to avenge this outrage,
fought with the younger stranger, and was himself killed.
One attendant upon the chariot remained ; but he, warned
by the fate of his master and his fellow-servant, withdrew
quietly into the forest that skirted the road, revealing no
word of what had happened, but reserved by the dark destiny
of CEdipus to that evil day on which his evidence, concurring
with other circumstantial exposures, should convict the young
Corinthian emigrant of parricide. For the present, CEdipus
viewed himself as no criminal, but much rather as an injured
man, who had simply used his natural powers of self-defence
against an insolent aggressor. This aggressor, as the reader
will suppose, was Laius. The throne therefore was empty
on the arrival of CEdipus in Thebes : the king's death was
known indeed, but not the mode of it ; and that CEdipus was
the murderer could not reasonably be suspected either by the
people of Thebes, or by GEdipus himself. The whole affair
would have had no interest for the young stranger, but through
the accident of a public calamity then desolating the land.
A mysterious monster, called the Sphinx, half woman and
half brute, was at that time on the coast of Boeotia, and
levying a daily tribute of human lives from the Boeotian
territory. This tribute, it was understood, would continue
to be levied from the territories attached to Thebes, until a
riddle proposed by the monster should have been satisfactorily
solved. By way of encouragement to all who might feel
prompted to undertake so dangerous an adventure, the
authorities of Thebes offered the throne and the hand of the
widowed Jocasta as the prize of success ; and CEdipus, either
on public or on selfish motives, entered the lists as a
competitor.

The riddle proposed by the Sphinx ran in these terms :
"What creature is that which moves on four feet in the
" morning, on two feet at noon-day, and on three towards the

THE THEBAN SPHINX 145

" going down of the sun ? " (Edipus, after some considera-
tion, answered that the creature was MAN, who creeps 011
the ground with hands and feet when an infant, walks upright
in the vigour of manhood, and leans upon a staff in old age.
Immediately the dreadful Sphinx confessed the truth of his
solution by throwing herself headlong from a point of rock
into the sea ; her power being overthrown as soon as her
secret had been detected. Thus was the Sphinx destroyed ;
and, according to the promise of the proclamation, for this
great service to the state (Edipus was immediately recom-
pensed. He was saluted King of Thebes, and married to the
royal widow Jocasta. In this way it happened, but without
suspicion either in himself or others pointing to the truth,
that (Edipus had slain his father, had ascended his father's
throne, and had married his own mother.

Through a course of years all these dreadful events lay
hushed in darkness ; but at length a pestilence arose, and an
embassy was despatched to Delphi, in order to ascertain the
cause of the heavenly wrath, and the proper means of pro-
pitiating that wrath. The embassy returned to Thebes armed
with a knowledge of the fatal secrets connected with (Edipus,
but under some restraints of prudence in making a publica-
tion of what so dreadfully affected the most powerful personage
in the state. Perhaps in the whole history of human art as
applied to the evolution of a poetic fable there is nothing
more exquisite than the management of this crisis by
Sophocles. A natural discovery, first of all, connects (Edipus
with the death of Laius. That discovery comes upon him
with some surprise, but with no shock of fear or remorse.
That he had killed a man of rank in a sudden quarrel, he
had always known ; that this man was now discovered to be
Laius added nothing to the reasons for regret. The affair
remained as it was. It was simply a case of personal strife
on the highroad, and one which had really grown out of aristo-
cratic violence in the adverse party. (Edipus had asserted
his own rights and dignity only as all brave men would have
done in an age that knew nothing of civic police.

It was true that this first discovery — the identification of
himself as the slayer of Laius — drew after it two others : viz.
that it was the throne of his victim on which he had seated

VOL. VI L

146 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

himself, and that it was his widow whom he married. But
these were no offences : and, on the contraiy, they were
distinctions won at great risk to himself, and by a great
service to the country. Suddenly, however, the reappearance
and disclosures of the shepherd who had saved his life during
infancy in one moment threw a dazzling but funereal light
upon the previous discoveries that else had seemed so trivial.
In an instant everything was read in another sense. The
death of Laius, the marriage with his widow, the appropriation
of his throne, the incest with his mother, which had called
into life four children (two daughters Ismene and Antigone,
with two fierce rival sons Eteocles and Polynices), all towered
into colossal crimes, illimitable, and opening no avenues to
atonement. CEdipus, in the agonies of his horror, inflicts
blindness upon himself ; Jocasta commits suicide ; the two
sons fall into fiery feuds for the assertion of their separate
claims on the throne, but previously unite for the expulsion
of CEdipus, as one who had become a curse to Thebes.
And thus the poor heart-shattered king would have been
turned out upon the public roads, aged, blind, and a helpless
vagrant, but for the sublime piety of his two daughters, but
especially of Antigone, the elder. They share witli their
unhappy father the hardships and perils of the road, and do
not leave him until the moment of his mysterious summons
to some ineffable death in the woods of Colonus, not far from
Athens. The expulsion of Polynices, the younger son, from
Thebes ; his return with a confederate band of princes for
the recovery of his rights ; the death of the two brothers in
single combat; the public prohibition of funeral rites to
Polynices, as one who had levied war against his native land ;
and the final reappearance of Antigone, who defies the law,
and secures a grave to her brother at the certain price of
a grave to herself ; — these are the sequels and arrears of the
family overthrow accomplished through the dark destiny of
CEdipus.

And now, having reviewed the incidents of the story, in
what respect is it that we object to the solution of the
Sphinx's Riddle ? We do not object to it as a solution of
the riddle, and the only one possible at the moment. It is
really a solution ; and for the moment a satisfactory solution ;

THE THEBAN SPHINX 147

but what we contend is that it is not the solution. All great

prophecies, all great mysteries, are likely to involve double,

triple, or even quadruple interpretations ; each rising in

dignity, each cryptically involving another. Even amongst

natural agencies, precisely as they rise in grandeur, they

multiply their final purposes. Rivers and seas, for instance,

are useful, not merely as means of separating nations from

each other, but also as means of uniting them ; not merely

as baths, and for all purposes of washing and cleansing, but

also as reservoirs of fish, as highroads for the conveyance of

commodities, as permanent sources of agricultural fertility,

&c. In like manner, a mystery of any sort having a public

reference may be presumed to couch within it a secondary

and a profounder interpretation. The reader may think that

the Sphinx ought to have understood her own riddle best ;

and that, if she were satisfied with the answer of (Edipus, it

must be impertinent in us at this time of day to censure it.

To censure, indeed, is more than we propose. The solution of

(Edipus was a true one ; and it was all that he could have

given in that early period of his life. But perhaps, at the

moment of his death amongst the gloomy thickets of Attica,

he might have been able to suggest another and a better. If

not, then we have the satisfaction of thinking ourselves

somewhat less dense than (Edipus. The slave in Terence,

viz. Davus, though otherwise a clever fellow, when puzzled

by a secret, or (as in America they say) teetotaciously ex-

fluncticated, excuses himself by saying — "Davus sum, non

(Edipus " ; but we make no such excuse. We hold ourselves

a cut above (Edipus and the Sphinx together. Exfluncticated

we certainly were : but not teetotaciously ; for a few years'

meditation whispered to us that revelation, that second vision

of truth, which not Davus, nor even (Edipus, in moments

when it might have saved him, could guess ; for, in our

opinion, the full and final answer to the Sphinx's riddle lay

in the word (EDIPUS. (Edipus himself it was that fulfilled

the conditions of the enigma. He it was, in the most

pathetic sense, that went upon four feet when an infant ; for

the general condition of helplessness attached to all mankind

in the period of infancy, and which is expressed symbolically

by this image of creeping, applied to (Edipus in a far more

148 HISTOEICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

significant manner, as one abandoned by all his natural pro-
tectors, thrown upon the chances of a wilderness, and upon
the mercies of a slave. The allusion to this general helpless-
ness had, besides, a special propriety in the case of (Edipus,
who drew his very name (viz. Swollen Foot) from the injury
done to his infant feet. He again it was that, in a more
emphatic sense than usual, asserted that majestic self-
sumcingness and independence of all alien aid which is
typified by the act of walking upright at noonday upon his
own natural basis. Throwing off all the power and splendour
borrowed from his royal protectors at Corinth, trusting
exclusively to his native powers as a man, he had fought his
way through insult and outrage to the presence of the dread-
ful Sphinx ; her he had confounded and vanquished ; he had
leaped into a throne, the throne of him who had insulted
him, without other resources than such as he drew from him-
self ; and he had in the same way obtained a royal bride.
With good right, therefore, he was foreshadowed in the
riddle as one who walked upright by his own masculine
vigour, and relied upon no gifts but those of nature. Lastly,
but by a sad and a pitying image, CEdipus is described as
supporting himself at nightfall on three feet : for (Edipus it
was that by his cruel sons would have been rejected from
Thebes with no auxiliary means of motion, or support beyond
his own languishing powers : blind and broken-hearted, he
must have wandered into snares and ruin ; his own feet must
have been supplanted immediately • but then came to his aid
another foot, the holy Antigone. She it was that guided
and cheered him when all the world had forsaken him ; she
it was that already, in the vision of the cruel Sphinx, had
been prefigured dimly as the staff upon which (Edipus should
lean, as the third foot that should support his steps when the
deep shadows of his sunset were gathering and settling about
his grave.

In this way we obtain a solution of the Sphinx's Eiddle
more commensurate and symmetrical with the other features
of the story, which are all clothed with the grandeur of
mystery. This Sphinx herself is a mystery. Whence came
her monstrous nature, that so often renewed its remembrance
amongst men of distant lands in Egyptian or Ethiopian

THE THEKAN SPHINX 149

marble ? Whence came her wrath against Thebes ? This
wrath, how durst it tower so high as to measure itself
against the enmity of a nation ? This wrath, how came it
to sink so low as to collapse at the echo of a word from a
friendless stranger 1 Mysterious again is the blind collusion
of this unhappy stranger with the dark decrees of fate. The
very misfortunes of his infancy had given into his hands one
chance more for escape: these misfortunes had transferred
him to Corinth ; and, staying there, he was safe. But the
headstrong haughtiness of youthful blood causes him to recoil
unknowingly upon the one sole spot of all the earth where
the co-efficients for ratifying his destruction are all lying in
ambush. Heaven and earth are silent for a generation ; one
might fancy that they are treacherously silent, in order that
CEdipus may have time for building up to the clouds the
pyramid of his mysterious offences. His four children,
incestuously born — sons that are his brothers, daughters that
are his sisters — have grown up to be men and women before
the first mutterings are becoming audible of that great tide,
slowly coining up from the sea, which is to sweep away him-
self and the foundations of his house. Heaven and earth
must now bear joint witness against him. Heaven speaks
first : the pestilence that walketh in darkness is made the
earliest minister of the discovery ; the pestilence it is,
scourging the seven-gated Thebes, as very soon the Sphinx
also will scourge her, that is appointed to usher in, like some
great ceremonial herald, that sad drama of Nemesis, that vast
procession of revelation and retribution which the earth, and
the graves of the earth, must finish. Mysterious also is the
pomp of ruin with which this revelation of the past descends
upon that ancient house of Thebes. Like a shell from
modern artillery, it leaves no time for prayer or evasion, but
shatters by the same explosion all that stand within its circle
of fury. Every member of that devoted household, as if they
had been sitting not around a sacred domestic hearth, but
around the crater of some surging volcano, — all alike, father
and mother, sons and daughters, are wrapt at once in fiery
whirlwinds of ruin. And, amidst this general agony of
destroying wrath, one central mystery, as a darkness within
a darkness, withdraws itself into a secrecy unapproachable

150 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

by eyesight, or by filial love, or by guesses of the brain, —
and that is the death of CEdipus. Did he die ? Even that
is more than we can say. How dreadful does the sound fall
upon the heart of some poor, horror-stricken criminal, pirate
or murderer, that has offended by a mere human offence,
when, at nightfall, tempted by the sweet spectacle of a peace-
ful hearth, he creeps stealthily into some village inn, and
hopes for one night's respite from his terror, but suddenly
feels the touch and hears the voice of the stern officer, saying,
" Sir, you are wanted." Yet that summons is but too
intelligible : it shocks, but it bewilders not ; and the utmost
of its malice is bounded by the scaffold. " Deep," says the
unhappy man, " is the downward path of anguish which I
am called to tread ; but it has been trodden by others."
For CEdipus there was no such comfort. What language of
earth or trumpet of heaven could decipher the woe of that
unfathomable call, when, from the depth of ancient woods, a
voice that drew like gravitation, that sucked in like a vortex,
far off yet near, — in some distant world, yet close at hand, —
cried, " Hark, CEdipus ! King CEdipus ! come hither ! thou
art wanted ! " Wanted ! for what 3 Was it for death ] was
it for judgment ? was it for some wilderness of pariah
eternities ? No man ever knew. Chasms opened in the
earth ; dark gigantic arms stretched out to receive the king ;
clouds and vapour settled over the penal abyss ; and of him
only, though the neighbourhood of his disappearance was
known, no trace or visible record survived,— neither bones,
nor grave, nor dust, nor epitaph.

Did the Sphinx follow with her cruel eye this fatal tissue
of calamity to its shadowy crisis at Colonus ? As the billows
closed over her head, did she perhaps attempt to sting with
her dying words ? Did she say, " I, the daughter of mystery,
am called ; I am wanted. But, amidst the uproar of the sea,
and the clangour of sea-birds, high over all I hear another
though a distant summons. I can hear that thou, (Edipus,
son of mystery, art called from afar ; thou also wilt be
wanted" Did the wicked Sphinx labour in vain, amidst her
parting convulsions, to breathe this freezing whisper into the
heart of him that had overthrown her ?

Who can say ? Both of these enemies were pariah

THE THEBAN SPHINX 151

mysteries, and may have faced each k other again with
blazing malice in some pariah world. But all things in
this dreadful story ought to be harmonized. Already in
itself it is an ennobling and an idealizing of the riddle that
it is made a double riddle : that it contains an exoteric sense
obvious to all the world, but also an esoteric sense —
now suggested conjecturally after thousands of years — possibly
unknown to the Sphinx, and certainly unknown to CEdipus ;
that this second riddle is hid within the first ; that the one
riddle is the secret commentary upon the other ; and that
the earliest is the hieroglyphic of the last. Thus far as
regards the riddle itself ; and, as regards CEdipus in par-
ticular, it exalts the mystery around him, that, in reading
this riddle, and in tracing the vicissitudes from infancy to
old age attached to the general destiny of his race, un-
consciously he was tracing the dreadful vicissitudes attached
specially and separately to his own.

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY
EXHIBITED IN SIX SCENES1

To the Editor of a great Literary Journal 2

SIR, — Some years ago you published a translation of
Bottiger's SaUna, a learned account of the Roman toilette.
I here send you a companion to that work, — not a direct
translation, but a very minute abstract (weeded of that wordi-
ness which has made the original unreadable, and therefore
unread) from a similar dissertation by Hartmann on the
toilette and the wardrobe of the ladies of ancient Palestine.
Hartmann was a respectable Oriental scholar, and he pub-
lished his researches, which occupy three thick octavos,
making in all one thousand four hundred and eighty-eight
pages, under the title of Die Hetoaerin am Putztische und als
Braut, Amsterdam, 1809 (The Hebrew Woman at her Toilette,
and in her Bridal Character). I understand that the poor
man is now gone to Hades ; where, let us hope that it is
considered by Minos or Rhadamanthus no crime in a learned
man to be exceedingly tedious, and to repeat the same thing
ten times over, or even, upon occasion, fifteen times, pro-
vided that his own upright heart should incline him to think
that course the most advisable. Certainly Mr. Hartmann
has the most excellent gifts at verbal expansion, and talents
the most splendid for tautology, that ever came within my

1 In Blackwood 's Magazine for March 1828 ; reprinted by De
Quinceyin 1859 in the twelfth volume of his Collected Writings. — M.

2 Originally "To the Editor of Elackwooffs Magazine" and one
hardly sees why De Quincey made the change. — M.

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 153

knowledge ; and I have found no particular difficulty in
compressing every tittle of what relates to his subject into a
compass which, I imagine, will fill about cne twenty-eighth
part at the utmost of the original work.

It was not to be expected, with the scanty materials
before him, that an illustrator of the Hebrew costume should
be as full and explicit as Bottiger, with the advantage of
writing upon a theme more familiar to us Europeans of this
day than any parallel theme even in our own national
archaeologies of two centuries back. United, however, with
his great reading, this barrenness of the subject is so far an
advantage for Hartmann, as it yields a strong presumption
that he has exhausted it. The male costume of ancient
Palestine is yet to be illustrated ; but, for the female, it is
probable that little could be added to what Hartmann has
collected,1 and that any clever dressmaker would, with the
indications here given, enable any lady at the next great
masquerade in London to support the part of one of the
ancient daughters of Palestine, and to call back, after
eighteen centuries of sleep, the buried pomps of Jerusalem.
As to the talking, there would be no difficulty at all in that
point : bishops and other " sacred " people, if they ever go
a-masquing, for their own sakes will not be likely to betray
themselves by putting impertinent questions in Hebrew ;
and, for " profane " people like myself, who might like the
impertinence, they would very much dislike the Hebrew ;
indeed, of uncircumcised Hebrews, barring always the clergy,
it is not thought that any are extant. In other respects,
and as a spectacle, the Hebrew masque would infallibly
eclipse every other in the room. The upper and under

1 It is one great advantage to the illustrator of ancient costume
that, — when almost everything in this sort of usages was fixed and
determined either by religion and state policy (as with the Jews), or
by state policy alone (as with the Romans), or by superstition and by
settled climate (as with both) ; and when there was no stimulation to
vanity in the love of change from an inventive condition of art and
manufacturing skill ; and where the system and interests of the
government relied for no part of its power on such a condition, — dress
was stationary for ages, both as to materials and fashion. Rebecca,
the Bedouin, was dressed pretty nearly as Mariamne, the wife of
Herod, in the age of the Caesars. And thus the labours of a learned
investigator for one age are valid for many which follow and precede.

154 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

chemise, if managed properly (and either you or I, Mr.
Editor, will be most proud to communicate our private
advice on that subject, without fee or pot-de-vin, as the
French style a bribe), would transcend, in gorgeous display,
the coronation robes of queens ; nose-pendants would cause
the masque to be immediately and unerringly recognised ;
or, if those were not thought advisable, the silver ankle-
bells, with their melodious chimes — the sandals, with their
jewelled network — and the golden diadem, binding the fore-
head, and dropping from each extremity of the polished temples
a rouleau of pearls, which, after traversing the cheeks, unite
below the chin, — are all so unique and exclusively Hebraic
that each and all would have the same advantageous effect ;
proclaiming and notifying the character, without putting the
fair supporter to any disagreeable expense of Hebrew or
Chaldee. The silver bells alone would " bear the bell " from
every competitor in the room ; and she might, besides, carry
a cymbal, a dulcimer, or a timbrel in her hands.

In conclusion, my dear Sir, let me congratulate you that
Mr. Hartmann is now in Hades (as I said before) rather than

in ; for, had he been in this latter place, he would

have been the ruin of you. It was his intention, as I am
well assured, just about the time that he took his flight for
Elysium, to have commenced regular contributor to your
journal ; so great was his admiration of you, and also of the
terms which you offer to the literary world. As a learned
Orientalist, you could not decorously have rejected him ;
and yet, once admitted, he would have beggared you before
any means could have been discovered by the learned for
putting a stop to him. 'ATrepavroAoyia, or what may be
translated literally world-without-ending-ness, was his forte ;
upon this he piqued himself, and most justly, since for
covering the ground rapidly, and yet not advancing an inch,
those who knew and valued him as he deserved would have
backed him against the whole field of the gens de plume now
in Europe. Had he lived, and fortunately for himself com-
municated his Hebrew Toilette to the world through you,
instead of foundering (as he did) at Amsterdam, he would
have flourished upon your exchequer ; and you would not
have heard the last of him or his Toilette for the next twenty

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 155

years. He dates, you see, from Amsterdam ; and, had you
been weak enough to take him on board, he would have
proved that " Flying Dutchman " that would infallibly have
sunk your vessel.

The more is your obligation to me, I think, for sweating
him down to such slender dimensions. And, speaking
seriously, both of us perhaps will rejoice that, even with his
talents for telling everything, he was obliged on this subject
to leave many things untold. For, though it might be
gratifying to a mere interest of curiosity, yet I believe that
we should both be grieved if anything were to unsettle in
our feelings the mysterious sanctities of Jerusalem, or to
disturb that awful twilight which will for ever brood over
Judea, by letting in upon it the "common light of day" ;
and this effect would infallibly take place, if any one depart-
ment of daily life as it existed in Judea were brought, with
all the degrading minutiae of its details, within the petty
finishing of a domestic portrait.

Farewell, my dear Sir, and believe me always your
devoted servant and admirer, 12. 3>.1

SCENE THE FIRST

I. That simple body-cloth, framed of leaves, skins, flax,
wool, &c., which modesty had first introduced, for many
centuries perhaps sufficed as the common attire of both
sexes amongst the Hebrew Bedouins. It extended down-
wards to the knees, and upwards to the hips, about which it
was fastened. Such a dress is seen upon many of the
figures in the sculptures of Persepolis ; even in modern
times, Niebuhr found it the ordinary costume of the lower
Arabians in Hedsjas ; and Shaw assures us that, from its
commodious shape, it is still a favourite dishabille of the
Arabian women when they are behind the curtains of the
tent.

From this early rudiment was derived, by gradual elon-

1 In the original of this letter in Blackwood the ending had been in
this form, " Farewell, my dear North, and believe me your old friend
and admirer, 0. <£." So in the preceding sentences "Mr. North" or
"dear North," had stood for "Sir " or "dear Sir."— M.

156 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

gation, that well-known under-habiliment which in Hebrew
is called Ch'tonet, and in Greek and Latin by words of similar
sound.1 In this stage of its progress, when extended to the
neck and the shoulders, it represents pretty accurately the
modern shirt, camisa or chemise — except that the sleeves are
wanting ; and during the first period of Jewish history it
was probably worn as the sole under-garment by women of
all ranks, both amongst the Bedouin-Hebrews and those who
lived in cities. A very little further extension to the elbows
and the calves of the legs, and it takes a shape which sur-
vives even to this day in Asia. Now, as then, the female
habiliment was distinguished from the corresponding male
one by its greater length ; and through all antiquity we find
long clothes' a subject of reproach to men, as an argument of
effeminacy.

According to the rank or vanity of the wearer, this tunic
was made of more or less costly materials ; for wool and
flax was often substituted the finest byssus, or other silky
substance ; and perhaps, in the latter periods, amongst
families of distinction in Jerusalem, even silk itself. Splen-
dour of colouring was not neglected ; and the opening at the
throat was eagerly turned to account as an occasion for dis-
playing fringe or rich embroidery.

Bottiger remarks that, even in the age of Augustus, the
morning dress of Roman ladies when at home was nothing
more than this very tunic, which, if it sate close, did not
even require a girdle. The same remark applies to the
Hebrew women, who, during the nomadic period of their
history, had been accustomed to wear no night chemises at
all, but slept quite naked,2 or, at the utmost, with a cestus or
zone : by way of bed-clothes, however, it must be observed
that they swathed their person in the folds of a robe or

1 Chiton (XiroH'), in Greek, and, by inversion of the syllables,
Tunica in Latin ; that is (1.) Chi-ton ; then (2.) Ton-chi. But, if so,
(3.) Why not Ton-cha ; and (4.) Why not Tun-cha ; as also (5.) Why
not Tun-i-ca ?— Q.E.D. Such, I believe, is the received derivation.

2 When the little Scottish King, about 1566, was taken ill in the
night at Holyrood, Pinkerton mentions that all his attendants, male
and female, rushed out into the adjacent gallery, naked as they were
born ; and thence comes the phrase so often used in the contemporary
ballads — "Even as I left my naked bed."

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 157

shawl. Up to the time of Solomon this practice obtained
through all ranks, and so long the universal household dress
of a Hebrew lady in her harem was the tunic as here de-
scribed ; and in this she dressed herself the very moment
that she rose from bed. Indeed, so long as the Hebrew
women were content with a single tunic, it flowed loose
in liberal folds about the body, and was fastened by a belt
or a clasp, just as we find it at this day amongst all Asiatic
nations. But, when a second under-garment was introduced,
the inner one fitted close to the shape, whilst the outer one
remained full and free as before.

II. No fashion of the female toilet is of higher antiquity
than that of dyeing the margin of the eyelids and the eye-
brows with a black pigment. It is mentioned or alluded to,
2 Kings ix. 30, Jeremiah iv. 30, Ezekiel xxiii. 40 ; to which
may be added Isaiah iii. 16. The practice had its origin in
a discovery made accidentally in Egypt. For it happens
that the substance used for this purpose in ancient times is a
powerful remedy in cases of ophthalmia and inflammation of
the eyes, — complaints to which Egypt is, from local causes,
peculiarly exposed. This endemic infirmity, in connexion
with the medical science for which Egypt was so distinguished,
easily accounts for their discovering the uses of antimony,
which is the principal ingredient in the pigments of this
class. Egypt was famous for the fashion of painting the face
from an early period ; and in some remarkable curiosities
illustrating the Egyptian toilette, which were discovered in
the catacombs of Sahara in Middle Egypt, there was a single
joint of a common reed containing an ounce or more of the
colouring powder, and one of the needles for applying it.
The entire process was as follows : — The mineral powder,
finely prepared, was mixed up with a preparation of vinegar
and gall-apples — sometimes with oil of almonds or other oils
— sometimes, by very luxurious women, with costly gums
and balsams.1 And perhaps, as Sonnini describes the practice

1 Cheaper materials were used by the poorer Hebrews, especially
of the Bedouin tribes — burnt almonds, lamp-black, soot, the ashes of
particular woods, the gall-apple boiled and pulverised, or any dark
powder made into an unguent by suitable liquors. The modern
Grecian women, in some districts, as Sonnini tells us, use the spine of

158 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

among the Mussulman women at present, the whole mass
thus compounded was dried and again reduced to an impalp-
able powder, and consistency then given to it by the vapours
of some odorous and unctuous substance. Thus prepared, the
pigment was applied to the tip or pointed ferule of a little
metallic pencil, called in Hebrew Makachol, and made of
silver, gold, or ivory ; the eyelids were then closed, and the
little pencil, or probe, held horizontally, was inserted between
them, a process which is briefly and picturesquely described
in the Bible. The effect of the black rim which the pigment
traced about the eyelid was to throw a dark and majestic
shadow over the eye ; to give it a languishing and yet a
lustrous expression \ to increase its apparent size, and to
apply the force of contrast to the white of the eye. Together
with the eyelids, the Hebrew women coloured the eyebrows :
the point aimed at being twofold — to curve them into a
beautiful arch of brilliant ebony, and, at the same time, to
make the inner ends meet or flow into each other.

III. EAR-RINGS of gold, silver, inferior metals, or even
horn, were worn by the Hebrew women in all ages ; and, in
the flourishing period of the Jewish kingdom, probably by
men ; and so essential an ornament were they deemed that
in the idolatrous times even the images of their false gods
were not considered becomingly attired without them. Their
ear-rings were larger, according to the Asiatic taste, but
whether quite large enough to admit the hand is doubtful.
In a later age, as we collect from the Thalmud, Part vi. 43,
the Jewish ladies wore gold or silver pendants, of which the
upper part was shaped like a lentil, and the lower hollowed
like a little cup or pipkin. It is probable also that, even in
the oldest ages, it was a practice amongst them to suspend
gold and silver rings, not merely from the lower but also
from the upper end of the ear, which was perforated like a
sieve. The tinkling sound with which, upon the slightest
motion, two or three tiers of rings would be set a-dancing
about the cheeks, was very agreeable to the baby taste of the
Asiatics.

the sea-polypus, calcined and finally pulverised, for this purpose.
Boxes of horn were used for keeping the pigment by the poorer
Hebrews, — of onyx or alabaster by the richer.

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 159

From a very early age the ears of Hebrew women
were prepared for this load of trinketry ; for, according
to the Thalmud (ii. 23), they kept open the little holes
after they were pierced by threads or slips of wood, a
fact which may show the importance they attached to this
ornament.

IV. NOSE-RINGS at an early period became a universal
ornament in Palestine. We learn, from Biblical and from
Arabic authority, that it was a practice of Patriarchal
descent, amongst both the African and Asiatic Bedouins, to
suspend rings of iron, wood, or braided hair, from the
nostrils of camels, oxen, &c. — the rope by which the animal
was guided being attached to these rings. It is probable,
therefore, that the early Hebrews, who dwelt in tents, and
who in the barrenness of desert scenery drew most of their
hints for improving their personal embellishment from the
objects immediately about them, were indebted for their
nose-rings to this precedent of their camels. Sometimes a
ring depended from both nostrils ; and the size of it was
equal to that of the ear-ring ; so that, at times, its compass
included both upper and under lip, as in the frame of a
picture ; and, in the age succeeding to Solomon's reign, we
hear of rings which were not less than three inches in
diameter. Hebrew ladies of distinction had sometimes a
cluster of nose-rings, as well for the tinkling sound which
they were contrived to emit, as for the shining light which
they threw off upon the face.

That the nose-ring possessed no unimportant place in the
Jewish toilette is evident from its being ranked, during the
nomadic state of the Israelites, as one of the most valuable
presents that a young Hebrew woman could receive from
her lover. Amongst the Midianites, who were enriched by
the caravan commerce, even men adopted this ornament :
and this appears to have been the case in the family to
which Job belonged (chap. xli. 2). Under these circum-
stances, we should naturally presume that the Jewish
courtezans, in the cities of Palestine, would not omit so
conspicuous a trinket, with its glancing lights, and ita
tinkling sound : this we might presume, even without the
authority of the Bible; but, in fact, both Isaiah and

160 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Ezekiel expressly mention it amongst their artifices of
attraction.

Judith, when she appeared before the tent of Holofernes
in the whole pomp of her charms, and apparelled with the
most elaborate attention to splendour of effect, for the pur-
pose of captivating the hostile general, did not ornit this
ornament. Even the Jewish proverbs show how highly it
was valued ; and that it continued to be valued in later
times appears from the ordinances of the Thalmud (ii. 21) in
respect to the parts of the female wardrobe which were
allowed to be worn on the Sabbath.

V. The Hebrew women of high rank, in the nourishing
period of their state, wore NECKLACES, composed of multiple
rows of pearls. The thread on which the pearls were strung
was of flax or woollen, — and sometimes coloured, as we learn
from the Thalmud (vi. 43) ; and the different rows were not
exactly concentric ; but, whilst some invested the throat,
others descended to the bosom, and in many cases even to
the zone. On this part of the dress was lavished the greatest
expense ; and the Roman reproach was sometimes true of a
Hebrew family, that its whole estate was locked up in
a necklace. Tertullian complains heavily of a particular
pearl necklace, which had cost about ten thousand pounds of
English money, as of an enormity of extravagance. But,
after making every allowance for greater proximity to the
pearl fisheries, and for other advantages enjoyed by the
people of Palestine, there is reason to believe that some
Hebrew ladies possessed pearls which had cost at least five
times that sum.1 So much may be affirmed, without mean-
ing to compare the most lavish of the ladies of Jerusalem
with those of Rome, where it is recorded of some JUgantes
that they actually slept with little bags of pearls suspended
from their necks, that, even when sleeping, they might have
mementoes of their pomp.

But the Hebrew necklaces were not always composed

1 Cleopatra had a couple at that value ; and Julius Caesar had one,
which he gave to Servilia, the beautiful mother of Brutus, valued by
knaves who wished to buy (empturiebant) at forty-eight thousand
pounds English, but by the envious female world of Rome at sixty -
thi'ee thousand.

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 161

of pearls, or of pearls only : sometimes it was the custom to
interchange the pearls with little golden bulbs or berries :
sometimes they were blended with the precious stones ; and
at other times the pearls were strung two and two, and their
beautiful whiteness relieved by the interposition of red
coral.

VI. Next came the BRACELETS, of gold or ivory, and
fitted up at the open side with a buckle or enamelled clasp
of elaborate workmanship. These bracelets were also occa-
sionally composed of gold or silver thread ; and it was not
unusual for a series of them to ascend from the wrist to the
elbow. From the clasp, or other fastening of the bracelet,
depended a delicate chain-work or netting of gold, and in
some instances miniature festoons of pearls. Sometimes the
gold chain-work was exchanged for little silver bells, which
could be used, upon occasion, as signals of warning or invita-
tion to a lover.

VII. This bijouterie for the arms naturally reminded the
Hebrew lady of the ANKLE BELLS, and other similar orna-
ments for the feet and legs. These ornaments consisted
partly in golden belts, or rings, which, descending from
above the ankle, compressed the foot in various parts, and
partly in shells and little jingling chains, which depended so
as to strike against clappers fixed into the metallic belts.
The pleasant tinkle of the golden belts in collision, the
chains rattling, and the melodious chime of little silver
ankle-bells, keeping time with the motions of the foot, made
an accompaniment so agreeable to female vanity that the
stately daughters of Jerusalem, with their sweeping trains
flowing after them, appear to have adopted a sort of
measured tread, by way of impressing a regular cadence
upon the music of their feet. The chains of gold were
exchanged, as luxury advanced, for strings of pearls and
jewels, which swept in snaky folds about the feet and ankles.

This, like many other peculiarities in the Hebrew dress,
had its origin in a circumstance of their early nomadic life.
It is usual with the Bedouins to lead the camel, when dis-
posed to be restive, by a rope or a belt fastened to one of the
fore-feet, sometimes to both ; and it is also a familiar practice
to soothe and to cheer the long-suffering animal with the

VOL. VI M

162 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

sound of little bells, attached either to the neck or to one of
the fore legs. Girls are commonly employed to lead the
camels to water ; and it naturally happened that, with their
lively fancies, some Hebrew or Arabian girl should be
prompted to repeat, on her own person, what had so often
been connected with an agreeable impression in her mute
companions to the well.

It is probable, however, that afterwards, having once been
introduced, this fashion was supported and extended by
Oriental jealousy. For it rendered all clandestine move-
ments very difficult in women ; and, by giving notice of
their approach, it had the effect of preparing men for their
presence, and keeping the road free from all spectacles that
could be offensive to female delicacy.

From the Hebrew Bedouins this custom passed to all the
nations of Asia, — Medes, Persians, Lydians, Arabs, &c., — and
is dwelt on with peculiar delight by the elder Arabic poets.
That it had spread to the westernmost parts of Africa early
in the Christian times we learn from Tertullian, who (foolish
man) cannot suppress his astonishment that the foolish
women of his time should bear to inflict such compression
upon their tender feet. Even as early as the times of Hero-
dotus, we find, from his account of a Libyan nation, that the
women and girls universally wore copper rings about their
ankles. And at an after period these ornaments were so
much cherished by the Egyptian ladies that, sooner than
appear in public without their tinkling ankle-chimes, they
preferred to bury themselves in the loneliest apartments of
the harem.

Finally, the fashion spread partially into Europe, — to
Greece even, and to polished Home, — in so far as regarded the
ankle-belts, and the other ornamental appendages, with the
single exception of the silver bells : these were too entirely
in the barbaresque taste to support themselves under the
frown of European culture.

VIII. The first rude sketch of the Hebrew SANDAL may
be traced in that little tablet of undrest hide which the
Arabs are in the habit of tying beneath the feet of their
camels. This primitive form, after all the modifications and
improvements it has received, still betrays itself to an atten-

TOILETTE OF THE HEBEEW LADY 163

tive observer in the very latest fashions of the sandal which
Palestine has adopted.

To raw hides succeeded tanned leather, made of goat-skin,
deer-skin, &c. : this, after being accurately cut out to the
shape of the sole, was fastened on the bare upper surface of
the foot by two thongs, of which one was usually carried
within the great toe, and the other in many circumvolutions
round about the ankles, so that both finally met and tied
just above the instep.

The laced sole or sandal of this form continued in Pales-
tine to be the universal out-of-doors protection for the foot,
up to the Christian era ; and it served for both sexes alike.
It was not, however, worn within doors. At the threshold
of the inner apartments the sandals were laid aside, and
visitors from a distance were presented with a vessel of
water to cleanse the feet from the soiling of dust and per-
spiration.1

With this extreme simplicity in the form of the foot-
apparel, there was no great field for improvement. The
article contained two parts — the sole and the fastening. The
first, as a subject for decoration, was absolutely desperate ;
coarse leather being exchanged for fine, all was done that
could be done ; and the wit of man was able to devise no
further improvement. Hence it happened that the whole
power of the inventive faculty was accumulated upon the
fastenings, as the only subject that remained. These were
infinitely varied. Belts of bright yellow, of purple, and of
crimson, were adopted by ladies of distinction — especially
those of Palestine ; and it was a trial of art to throw these
into the greatest possible varieties of convolution, and to
carry them on to a nexus of the happiest form, by which
means a reticulation, or trellis- work, was accomplished, of the
most brilliant colouring, which brought into powerful relief
the dazzling colour of the skin.

It is possible that, in the general rage for ornaments of

1 Washing the feet was a ceremony of ancient times, adopted not
merely with a view, 1st, to personal comfort in hotter climates, or,
2d, to decorum of appearance, where people walked about barefooted ;
but also, 3d, to the reclining posture in use at meals, which necessarily
brought the feet into immediate contact with the snowy swan-down
cushions, squabs, &c., of couches.

164 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

gold which possessed the people of Palestine during the ages
of excessive luxury, the beauties of Jerusalem may have
adopted gilt sandals with gilt fastenings, as the ladies of
Egypt did. It is possible also that the Hebrew ladies
adopted at one time, in exchange for the sandal, slippers that
covered the entire foot, such as were once worn at Babylon,
and are still to be seen on many of the principal figures on
the monuments of Persepolis ; and, if this were really so,
ample scope would in that case have been obtained for
inventive art : variations without end might then have been
devised on the fashion or the materials of the subject ; and,
by means of colour, embroidery, and infinite combinations of
jewellery and pearls, an unceasing stimulation of novelty
applied to the taste of the gorgeous, but still sensual and bar-
baresque, Asiatic.

IX. The VEIL, of various texture — coarse or fine, accord-
ing to circumstances — was thrown over the~ head by the
Hebrew lady, when she was unexpectedly surprised, or when
a sudden noise gave reason to expect the approach of a
stranger. This beautiful piece of drapery, which flowed
back in massy folds over the shoulders, is particularly
noticed by Isaiah, as holding an indispensable place in the
wardrobe of his haughty countrywomen ; and in this it was
that the enamoured Hebrew woman sought the beloved of
her heart.

ADDENDA TO SCENE THE FIRST

I. Of the Hebrew ornaments for the throat, some were
true necklaces, in the modern sense, of several rows, the
outermost of which descended to the breast, and had little
pendulous cylinders of gold (in the poorer classes, of copper),
so contrived as to make a jingling sound on the least motion
of the person ; others were more properly golden stocks, or
throat-bands, fitted so close as to produce in the spectator an
unpleasant imagination, and in the wearer, as we learn from
the Thalmud (vi. 43), until reconciled by use, to produce an
actual feeling of constriction approaching to suffocation.
Necklaces were, from the earliest times, a favourite ornament
of the male sex in the East, and expressed the dignity of the

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 165

wearer, as we see in the instances of Joseph, of Daniel, &c. ;
indeed the gold chain of office, still the badge of civic (and,
until lately, of military) dignities, is no more than the outer-
most row of the Oriental necklace. Philo of Alexandria,
and many other writers, both Persic and Arabian, give us
some idea of the importance attached by the women of
Asia to this beautiful ornament, and of the extraordinary
money value which it sometimes bore : and, from the case of
the necklace of gold and amber in the 15th Odyssey (v. 458),
combined with many other instances of the same kind, there
can be no doubt that it was the neighbouring land of
Phoenicia from which the Hebrew women obtained their
necklaces and the practice of wearing them.

II. The fashion, however, of adorning the necklace with
golden Suns and Moons, so agreeable to the Hebrew ladies of
Isaiah's time (chap. iii. 18), was not derived from Phoenicia,
but from Arabia At an earlier period (Judges viii. 21) the
camels of the Midianites were adorned with golden moons,
which also decorated the necks of the emirs of that nomadic
tribe. These appendages were not used merely by way of
ornament, but originally as talismans, or amulets, against
sickness, danger, and every species of calamity to which the
desert was liable. The particular form of the amulet is to
be explained out of the primitive religion which prevailed
in Arabia up to the rise of Mohammedanism in the seventh
century of Christianity, viz. the Sabean religion, or worship
of the heavenly host — sun, moon, and stars — the most
natural of all idolatries, and especially to a nomadic people
in flat and pathless deserts, without a single way-mark or
guidance for their wanderings, except what they drew from
the silent heavens above them. It is certain, therefore, that
long before their emigration into Palestine the Israelites had
received the practice of wearing suns and moons from the
Midianites ; even after their settlement in Palestine, it is
certain that the worship of the starry host struck root pretty
deeply at different periods, and that to the sun and moon, in
particular, were offered incense and libations.

From Arabia, this fashion diffused itself over many
countries ; and it was not without great displeasure that,
in a remote age, Jerome and Tertullian discovered this

166 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

idolatrous ornament upon the bosoms of their country-
women.

The crescents, or half- moons of silver, in connexion
with the golden suns,1 were sometimes set in a brilliant
frame that represented a halo, and still kept their ground
on the Persian and Turkish toilette, as a favourite ornament.

III. The GOLDEN SNAKES, worn as one of the Hebrew
appendages to the necklace, had the same idolatrous deriva-
tion, and originally were applied to the same superstitious
use — as an amulet, or prophylactic ornament. For minds
predisposed to this sort of superstition, the serpent had a
special attraction under the circumstances of the Hebrews,
from the conspicuous part which this reptile sustains in the
mythologies of the East. From the earliest periods to
which tradition ascends, serpents of various species were
consecrated to the religious feelings of Egypt by temples,
sacrifices, and formal rites of worship. This mode of idola-
try had at various periods infected Palestine. According to
2 Kings xviii. 4, at the accession of King Hezekiah, the
Israelites had raised peculiar altars to a great brazen serpent,
and burned incense upon them. Even at this day the
Abyssinians have an unlimited reverence for serpents ; and
the blacks in general regard them as fit subjects for divine
honours. Sonnini (ii. 388) tells us that a serpent's skin is
still looked upon in Egypt as a prophylactic against com-
plaints of the head, and also as a certain cure for them.
And of the same origin, no doubt, was the general belief of
antiquity (according to Pliny, 30, 12) that the serpent's skin
was a remedy for spasms. That the golden serpent kept its
place as an ornament of the throat and bosom after the
Christian era we learn from Clement of Alexandria. That
zealous father, so intolerant of superstitious mummery under
every shape, directs his efforts against this fashion, as against
a device of the devil.

IV. To the lowest of the several concentric circles which
composed the necklace was attached a little box, exquisitely
wrought in silver or gold, sometimes an onyx phial of

1 Chemistry had its first origin in Arabia ; and it is not impossible
that the chemical nomenclature for gold and silver, viz. sol and luna,
was derived from this early superstition of the Bedouin dress.

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 167

dazzling whiteness, depending to the bosom or even to the
cincture, and filled with the rarest aromas and odorous spices
of the East. What were the favourite essences preserved in
this beautiful appendage to the female costume of Palestine
it is not possible at this distance of time to determine with
certainty — Isaiah having altogether neglected the case, and
Hosea, who appears to allude to it (ii. 14), having only once
distinctly mentioned it (ii. 20). However, the Thalmud par-
ticularizes musk, and the delightful oil distilled from the
leaf of the aromatic tnalabathrum of Hindostan. To these
we may venture to add oil of spikenard, myrrh, balsams,
attar of roses, and rose-water, as the perfumes usually con-
tained in the Hebrew scent-pendants.

Kose-water, which I am the first to mention as a Hebrew
perfume, had, as I presume, a foremost place on the toilette
of a Hebrew belle. Express scriptural authority for it un-
doubtedly there is none ; but it is notorious that Palestine
availed itself of all the advantages of Egypt, amongst which
the rose in every variety was one. Fium, a province of
Central Egypt, which the ancients call the Garden of Egypt,
was distinguished for innumerable species of the rose, and
especially for those of the most balsamic order, and for the
most costly preparations from it. The Thalmud not only
speaks generally of the mixtures made by tempering it with
oil (i. 135), but expressly cites (ii. 41) a peculiar rose-water
as so costly an essence that from its high price alone it
became impossible to introduce the use of it into the ordinary
medical practice. Indeed this last consideration, and the fact
that the highly -prized quintessence cannot be obtained except
from an extraordinary multitude of the rarest roses, forbid
us to suppose that even women of the first rank in Jerusalem
could have made a very liberal use of rose-water. In our
times Savary found a single phial of it in the place of its
manufacture valued at four francs. As to the oil of roses,
properly so called, which floats in a very inconsiderable
quantity upon the surface of distilled rose-water, it is certain
that the Hebrew ladies were not acquainted with it. This
preparation can be obtained only from the balsamic roses of
Fiurn, of Shiras, of Kerman, and of Kashmire, which surpass
all the roses of the earth in power and delicacy of odour ;

168 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

and it is matter of absolute certainty, and incontrovertible
established by the celebrated Langles, that this oil, which
even in the four Asiatic countries just mentioned ranks with
the greatest rarities, and in Shiras itself is valued at its
weight in gold, was discovered by mere accident, on occasion
of some festival solemnity in the year 1612.

V. To what I said in the first scene of my exhibition
about the Hebrew ear-ornaments, I may add : —

1. That sometimes, as Best remarked of the Hindoo
dancing girls, their ears were swollen from the innumerable
perforations drilled into them to support their loads of
trinketry.

2. That in the large pendants of coral which the Hebrew
ladies were accustomed to attach to their ears, either in pre-
ference to jewels, or in alternation with jewels, they par-
ticularly delighted in that configuration which imitated a
cluster of grapes.

3. That, in ear-rings made of gold, they preferred the
form of drops, or of globes and bulbs.

4. That of all varieties, however, of this appendage, pearls
maintained the preference amongst the ladies of Palestine,
and were either strung upon a thread, or attached by little
hooks — singly, or in groups, according to their size. This
taste was very early established amongst the Jews, and chiefly,
perhaps, through their intercourse with the Midianites,
amongst whom we find the great emirs wearing pearl orna-
ments of this class.

Mutatis mutandis, these four remarks apply also and
equally to the case of the nose ornaments.

SCENE THE SECOND

I. THE HAIR. — This section I omit altogether, though
with more room at my disposal it would be well worth
translating as a curiosity. It is the essay of a finished and
perfect knave, who, not merely being rather bare of facts,
but having literally not one solitary fact of any kind or
degree, small or great, sits down to write a treatise on the
mode of dressing hair amongst Hebrew ladies. Samson's
hair, and the dressing it got from the Philistines, is the

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 169

nearest approach, that he ever makes to his subject ; and,
being conscious that this case of Samson and the Philistines
is the one sole allusion to the subject of Hebrew hair that he
is possessed of — for he altogether overlooks (which surely
in him is criminal and indictable inadvertence) the hair of
Absalom — he brings it round upon the reader as often
perhaps as it will bear, viz. not oftener than once every sixth
page. The rest is one continued shuffle to avoid coming upon
the ground ; and, upon the whole, though too barefaced, yet
really not without ingenuity. Take, by way of specimen, his
very satisfactory dissertation on the particular sort of combs
which the Hebrew ladies were pleased to patronise : —

" Combs. — Whether the ladies of Palestine had upon their
toilette a peculiar comb for parting the hair, another for
turning it up, &c. ; as likewise whether these combs were, as
in ancient Rome, made of box-wood or of ivory, or other
costly and appropriate material, all these are questions upon

which I am not able, upon my honour, to communicate

the least information. But from the general silence of
antiquity, prophets and all,1 upon the subject of Hebrew
combs, my own private opinion is that the ladies used their
fingers for this purpose, in which case there needs no more
to be said on the subject of Hebrew combs." Certainly not.
All questions are translated from the visionary combs to the
palpable and fleshly fingers : the combs, being usually of ivory
in the Roman establishments, were costly, and might breed
disputes ; but the fingers were a dowry of nature, and cost
nothing.

II. PERFUMES. — Before, however, the hair received its
final arrangement from the hands of the waiting-maid, it
was held open and dishevelled to receive the fumes of
frankincense, aloeswood, cassia, costmary, and other odorous
woods, gums, balsams, and spices of India, Arabia, or
Palestine — placed upon glowing embers, in vessels of golden

1 The Thalmud is the only Jewish authority which mentions such
a utensil of the toilette as a comb (vi. 39), but without any particular
description. Hartmann adds two remarks worth quoting. 1. That
the Hebrew style of the coiffure may probably be collected from the
Syrian coins ; and 2. That, black hair being admired in Palestine, and
the Jewish hair being naturally black, it is probable that the Jewish
ladies did not colour their hair, as the Romans did.

170 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

fretwork. It is probable also that the Hebrew ladies used
amber, bisam, and the musk of Thibet ; and, when fully
arranged, the hair was sprinkled with oil of nard, myrrh, oil
of cinnamon, &c. The importance attached to this part of
the Hebrew toilette may be collected indeed from an
ordinance of the Thalmud (iii. 80), which directs that the
bridegroom shall set apart one-tenth of the income which
the bride brings him for the purchase of perfumes, essences,
precious ointments, &c. All these articles were preserved
either in golden boxes or in little oval narrow-necked phials
of dazzling white alabaster, which bore the name of onyx,
from its resemblance to the precious stone of that name, but
was in fact a very costly sort of marble, obtained in the
quarries of Upper Egypt or those of the Libanus in Syria.
Indeed, long before the birth of Christ, alabaster was in such
general use for purposes of this kind in Palestine that it
became the generic name for valuable boxes, no matter of
what material. To prevent the evaporation of the contents,
the narrow neck of the phial was re-sealed every time that
it was opened. It is probable also that the myrrhine cups,
about which there has been so much disputing, were no
strangers to the Jewish toilette.

III. The MIRROR was not made of glass (for glass mirrors
cannot be shown to have existed before the thirteenth century),
but of polished metals ; and amongst these silver was in the
greatest esteem, as being capable of a higher burnish than
other metals, and less liable to tarnish. Metallic mirrors are
alluded to by Job (xxxvii. 18). But it appears from the
Second Book of Moses (xxxviii. 8) that in that age copper
must have been the metal employed throughout the harems
of Palestine. For, a general contribution of mirrors being
made upon one occasion by the Israelitish women, they were
melted down and re-cast into washing vessels for the priestly
service. Now, the sacred utensils, as we know from other
sources, were undeniably of copper. There is reason to
think, however, that the copper was alloyed, according to the
prevailing practice in that age, with some proportions of lead
or tin. In after ages, when silver was chiefly employed, it
gave place occasionally to gold. Mines of this metal were
well known in Palestine ; but there is no evidence that

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 171

precious stones, which were used for this purpose in the ages
of European luxury, were ever so used in Palestine, or in any
part of Asia.

As to shape, the Hebrew mirrors were always either
circular or oval, and cast indifferently flat or concave. They
were framed in superb settings, often of pearls and jewels,
and, when tarnished, were cleaned with a sponge full of
hyssop, the universal cleansing material in Palestine.

SCENE THE THIRD
Head-Dresses.

The head-dresses of the Hebrew ladies may be brought
under three principal classes : —

The first was a NETWORK CAP, made of fine wool or cotton,
and worked with purple or crimson flowers. Sometimes
the meshes of the net were of gold thread. The rim or
border of the cap, generally of variegated colouring, was
often studded with jewellery or pearls, and at the back was
ornamented with a bow, having a few ends or tassels flying
loose.

Secondly, a TURBAN, managed in the following way : —
First of all, one or more caps in the form of a half oval, such
as are still to be seen upon the monuments of Egyptian and
Persepolitan art, was fastened round the head by a ribbon
or fillet tied behind. This cap was of linen, sometimes
perhaps of cotton, and in the inferior ranks oftentimes of
leather, or, according to the prevailing fashion, of some kind
of metal ; and, in any case, it had ornaments worked into its
substance. Round this white or glittering ground were
carried, in snaky windings, ribbons of the finest tiffany, or of
lawn resembling our cambric ; and, to conceal the joinings, a
silky substance was carried in folds, which pursued the
opposite direction, and crossed the tiffany at right angles.
For the purpose of calling out and relieving the dazzling
whiteness of the ground, colours of the most brilliant class
were chosen for the ribbons ; and these ribbons were either
embroidered with flowers in gold thread, or had ornaments
of that description interwoven with their texture.

172 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND KESE ARCHES

Thirdly, the HELMET, adorned pretty nearly as the turban,
and, in imitation of the helmets worn by Chaldean generals,
having long tails or tassels depending from the hinder part,
and flowing loosely between the shoulders. According to the
Oriental taste for perfumes, all the ribbons or fillets used in
these helmets and turbans were previously steeped in
perfumes.

Finally, in connexion with the turban, and often with the
veil, was a beautiful ornament for the forehead and the face,
which the ladies of this day would do well to recall. Round
the brow ran a bandeau or tiara of gold or silver, three
fmgers'-breadth, and usually set with jewels or pearls : from
this, at each of the temples, depended a chain of pearls or of
coral, which, following the margin of the cheeks, either hung
loose or united below the chin.

SCENE THE FOURTH

I. The reader has been already made acquainted with the
chemise, or innermost under-dress. The Hebrew ladies, how-
ever, usually wore two under-dresses, the upper of which it
now remains to describe. In substance it was generally
of a fine transparent texture, like the muslins (if we may so
call them) of Cos ; in the later ages it was no doubt of
silk.

The chemise sate close up to the throat ; and we have
already mentioned the elaborate work which adorned it
about the opening. But the opening of the robe which we
are now describing was of much larger compass, being cut
down to the bosom ; and the embroidery, &c., which enriched
it was still more magnificent. The chemise reached down
only to the calf of the leg, and the sleeve of it to the elbow :
but the upper chemise or tunic, if we may so call it,
descended in ample draperies to the feet, scarcely allowing the
point of the foot to discover itself ; and the sleeves enveloped
the hands to their middle. Great pomp was lavished on the
folds of the sleeves ; but still greater on the hem of the robe
and the fringe attached to it. The hem was formed by a
broad border of purple, shaded and relieved according to
patterns, and sometimes embroidered in gold thread with the

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 173

most elegant objects from the animal or vegetable kingdoms.
To that part which fell immediately behind the heels there
were attached thin plates of gold ; or, by way of variety, it
was studded with golden stars and filigree- work, sometimes
with jewels and pearls interchangeably.

II. On this upper tunic, to confine the exorbitance of its
draperies, and to prevent their interfering with the free
motions of the limbs, a suberb GIRDLE was bound about the
hips. Here, if anywhere, the Hebrew ladies endeavoured to
pour out the whole pomp of their splendour, both as to
materials and workmanship. Belts from three to four inches
broad, and of the most delicate cottony substance, were
chosen as the ground of this important part of female attire.
The finest flowers of Palestine were here exhibited in rich
relief, and in their native colours, either woven in the loom,
or by the needle of the embroiderer. The belts being thirty
or forty feet long, and carried round and round the person,
it was in the power of the wearer to exhibit an infinite
variety of forms, by allowing any fold or number of folds at
pleasure to rise up more or less to view, just as fans or the
coloured edges of books with us are made to exhibit land-
scapes, &c., capable of great varieties of expansion as they are
more or less unfolded. The fastening was by a knot below the
bosom, and the two ends descended below the fringe ; which,
if not the only fashion in use, was, however, the prevailing
one, as we learn both from the sculptures at Persepolis and
from the costume of the high priest.

Great as the cost was of these girdles, it would have been
far greater had the knot been exchanged for a clasp ; and in
fact at a later period, when this fashion did really take
place, there was no limit to the profusion with which pearls
of the largest size and jewellery were accumulated upon this
conspicuous centre of the dress. Latterly the girdles were
fitted up with beautiful chains, by means of which they could
be contracted or enlarged, and with gold buckles, and large
bosses and clasps, that gradually became the basis for a
ruinous display of expenditure.

In conclusion, I must remark that in Palestine, as else-
where, the girdle was sometimes used as a purse ; whether it
were that the girdle itself was made hollow (as is expressly

174 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

affirmed of the high priest's girdle), or that, without being
hollow, its numerous foldings aiforded a secure depository
for articles of small size. Even in our days it is the custom
to conceal the dagger, the handkerchief for wiping the face,
and other bagatelles of personal convenience, in the folds of
the girdle. However, the richer and more distinguished
classes in Palestine appear to have had a peculiar and separate
article of that kind. And this was —

III. A PURSE, made either of metal (usually gold or
silver) or of the softest leather, &c., which was attached by a
lace to the girdle, or kept amongst its folds, and which, even
in the eyes of Isaiah, was important enough to merit a dis-
tinct mention. It was of a conical shape, and at the broader
end was visually enriched with ornaments of the most elaborate
and exquisite workmanship. No long time after the Christian
era, the cost of these purses had risen to such a height that
Tertullian complains, with great displeasure, of the ladies of
his time, that in the mere purse, apart from its contents,
they carried about with them the price of a considerable
estate.

The girdle, however, still continued to be the appropriate
depository for the napkin (to use the old English word) or
sudatory — i.e. handkerchief for clearing the forehead of per-
spiration. As to pocket-handkerchiefs, in our northern use
of them, it has been satisfactorily shown by Bottiger, in a
German Journal, that the Greek and Roman ladies knew
nothing of that modern appendage to the pocket,1 however
indispensable it may appear to us ; and the same arguments
apply with equal force to the climate of Palestine.

IV. The glittering RINGS with which (according to Isaiah
iii. 2 1) the Hebrew ladies adorned their hands seem to me

1 Or rather it was required only in a catarrh, or other case of
checked perspiration, which in those climates was a case of very
rare occurrence. It has often struck me that, without needing the
elaborate aid of Bottiger's researches, simply from one clause in
Juvenal's picture of old age and its infirmities we might deduce the
Roman habit of dispensing with a pocket-handkerchief. Amongst
these infirmities he notices the madidi infantia nasi — the second
childhood of a nose that needs wiping. But, if this kind of defluxion
was peculiar to infancy and extreme old age, it was obviously no
affection of middle age.

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 175

originally to have been derived from the seal-rings which,
whether suspended from the neck, or worn upon the finger,
have in all ages been the most favourite ornament of Asiatics.
These splendid baubles were naturally in the highest degree
attractive to women, both from the beauty of the stones which
were usually selected for this purpose, and from the richness
of the setting — to say nothing of the exquisite art which the
ancient lapidaries displayed in cutting them. The stones
chiefly valued by the ladies of Palestine were rubies, emeralds,
and chrysolites; and these, set in gold, sparkled on the
middle or little finger of the right hand, and in luxurious
times upon all the fingers, even the thumb, — nay, in some
cases, upon the great toe.

SCENE THE FIFTH

Upper Garment

The upper or outer garments, which, for both sexes, under
all varieties and modifications, the Hebrews expressed by the
comprehensive denomination of SBILAH, have in every age,
and through all parts of the hot climates, in Asia and Africa
alike, been of such voluminous compass as not only to envelope
the whole person, but to be fitted for a wide range of miscel-
laneous purposes. Sometimes (as in the triumphal entry of
Christ into Jerusalem) they were used as carpets ; sometimes
as coverings for the backs of camels, horses, or asses, to render
the rider's seat less incommodious ; sometimes as a bed cover-
lid or counterpane ; at other times as sacks for carrying
articles of value ; or, finally, as curtains, hangings of parlours,
occasional tapestry, or even as sails for boats.

From these illustrations of the uses to which it was ap-
plicable, we may collect the form of this robe : that it was
nothing more than a shawl of large dimensions, or long
square of cloth, just as it came from the weaver's loom, which
was immediately thrown round the person, without receiving
any artificial adjustment to the human shape.

So much for the form : with regard to the material there
was less uniformity ; originally it was of goats' or camels'
hair ; but, as civilization and the luxury of cities increased,

176 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

these coarse substances were rejected for the finest wool and
Indian cotton. Indeed, through all antiquity, we find that
pure unsullied white was the festal colour, and more especi-
ally in Palestine, where the indigenous soaps, and other
cleaning materials, gave them j3eculiar advantages for adopt-
ing a dress of that delicate and perishable lustre.

"With the advance of luxury, however, came a love of
variety ; and this, added to the desire for more stimulating
impressions than could be derived from blank unadorned
white, gradually introduced all sorts of innovations, both in
form and colour ; though, with respect to the first, amidst
all the changes through which it travelled, the old original
outline still manifestly predominated. An account of the lead-
ing varieties we find in the celebrated third chapter of Isaiah.

The most opulent women of Palestine, beyond all other
colours for the upper robe, preferred purple ; or, if not purple
throughout the entire robe, at any rate purple flowers upon
a white ground. The winter clothing of the very richest
families in Palestine was manufactured in their own houses ;
and, for winter clothing more especially, the Hebrew taste,
no less than the Grecian and the Eoman, preferred the warm
and sunny scarlet, the puce colour, the violet, and the regal
purple.1

Very probable it is that the Hebrew ladies, like those of
Greece, were no strangers to the half-mantle — fastened by a
clasp in front of each shoulder, and suffered to flow in free
draperies down the back : this was an occasional and super-
numerary garment, flung over the regular upper robe, properly
so called.

There was also a longer mantle, reaching to the ankles,
usually of a violet colour, which, having no sleeves, was
meant to expose to view the beauty not only of the upper
robe, but even of the outer tunic formerly described.

By the way, it should be mentioned that, in order to
steep them in fine odour, all parts of the wardrobe were
stretched on a reticulated or grated vessel — called by the
Thalrnud (vi. 77) Kanklin — from which the steams of rich
perfumes were made to ascend.

1 By which was probably meant a colour nearer to crimson than to
the blue or violet class of purples.

TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 177

In what way the upper robe was worn and fastened may
be collected perhaps with sufficient probability from the
modern Oriental practice, as described by travellers ; but, as
we have no direct authority on the subject, I shall not detain
the reader with any conjectural speculations

SCENE THE SIXTH
Dress of Ceremony

One magnificent dress remains yet to be mentioned, viz.
the dress of honour or festival dress, which answers in every
respect to the modern CAFTAN. This was used on all occa-
sions of ceremony, as splendid weddings, presentations at the
courts of kings, sumptuous entertainments, &c. ; and all
persons who stood in close connexion with the throne, as
favourites, crown-officers, distinguished military commanders,
&c., received such a dress as a gift from the royal treasury,
in order to prepare them at all times for the royal presence.
According to the universal custom of Asia, the trains were
proportioned in length to the rank of the wearer ; whence it
is that the robes of the high-priest were adorned with a train
of superb dimensions ; and even Jehovah is represented
(Isaiah vi. 1) as filling the heavenly palace with the length
of his train.1 Another distinction of this festival robe was
the extraordinary fulness and length of the sleeves : these
descended to the knee, and often ran to the ankle or to the
ground. In the sleeves and in the trains, but especially in
the latter, lay the chief pride of a Hebrew belle, when dressed
for any great solemnity or occasion of public display.;

FINAL NOTES

I. The Syndon, mentioned by Isaiah, &c., was a delicate and trans-
parent substance, like our tiffany, and in point of money value was

1 It has been doubted whether these trains were supported by train-
bearers ; but one argument makes it probable that they were not, —
viz. that they were particularly favourable to the peacock walk or
strut which was an express object of imitation in the gait of the Hebrew
women.

VOL. VI N

178 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

fully on a level with the Caftan ; but whether imported from Egypt
or imitated in the looms of the Hebrews and Phoenicians is doubtful.
It was worn next to the skin, and consequently, in the harems of the
great, occupied the place of the under tunic (or chemise) previously
described ; and, as luxury advanced, there is reason to think that it
was \ised as a night chemise.

II. The Caftan is the Kalaat of the East, or Kelaat, so often
mentioned by modern travellers ; thus, for example, Thevenot (torn.
iii. p. 352) says — " Le Roi fait assez souvent des presens a ses Khans,
&c., L'on appelle ces presens Kalaat" Chardin. (iii. 101), "On
appelle Calaat les habits que le Roi doune par honneur." And lately,
in Lord Amherst's progress through the northern provinces of our
Indian Empire, &c., we read continually of the Khelaivt, or robe of
state, as a present made by the native princes to distinguished officers.

The Caftan, or festival robe of the Hebrews, was, in my opinion,
the HeTrXos of the Greeks, or palla of the Romans. Among the points
of resemblance are these : —

1. The palla was flung like a cloak or mantle over the stola or
uppermost robe, "Ad talos stola demissa et circumdata palla."

2. The palla not only descended in flowing draperies to the feet
(thus Tibullus, i. vii. C, "Fusa sed ad teneros lutea palla pedes"),
but absolutely swept the ground. "Verrit humum Tyrio saturata
murice palla."

3. The palla was one of the same wide compass, and equally dis-
tinguished for its splendour.

4. Like the Hebrew festival garment, the palla was a vestis seposita,
and reserved for rare solemnities.

With respect to the HeTrXos, Eustathius describes it as f^eyav /cat
Trepi/caXXea /cat iroiKi\ov Trept/SoXatoi', a large and very beautiful and
variegated enveloping mantle ; and it would be easy in other respects
to prove its identity with the Palla.

Salmasius, by the way, in commenting upon Tertullian de Pallia,
is quite wrong where he says — "Palla nunquam de virili pallio
dicitur." Tibullus (torn. iii. iv. 35) sufficiently contradicts that
opinion.

CICERO

IN drawing attention to a great question of whatsoever
nature connected with Cicero, there is no danger of miss-
ing my purpose through any want of reputed interest in
the subject. Nominally, it is not easy to assign a period
more eventful, a revolution more important, or a personal
career more dramatic, than that period — that revolution
— that career which, with almost equal right, we may
describe as all essentially Ciceronian by the quality of the
interest which they excite. For the age, it was fruitful in
great men ; but, amongst them all, if we except the sublime
Julian leader, none as regards splendour of endowments
stood upon the same level as Cicero. For the revolution,
it was that unique event which brought ancient civilisation
into contact and commerce with modern ; since, if we figure
the two worlds of Paganism and Christianity under the idea
of two great continents, it is through the isthmus of Rome
imperialised that the one was able virtually to communicate
with the other. Civil Law and Christianity, the two central
forces of modern civilisation, were upon that isthmus of time
ripened into potent establishments. And through those two
establishments, combined with the antique literature, as
through so many organs of metempsychosis, did the Pagan
world send onwards whatever portion of its own life was
fitted for surviving its own peculiar forms. Yet, in a revolu-

1 From Blackwood's Magazine for July 1842 : reprinted by De
Quincey in 1858 in the seventh volume of his Collected Writings,
with only such slight changes as the substitution of "I" for "we"
when the author speaks directly. — M.

180 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

tion thus unexampled for grandeur of results, the only great
actor who stood upon the authority of his character was
Cicero. All others, from Pompey, Curio, Domitius, Cato,
down to the final partisans at Actium, moved by the
authority of arms : " tantum auctoritate valebant quantum
milite " ; and they could have moved by no other. Lastly,
as regards the personal biography, although the same series
of trials, perils, and calamities, would have been in any case
interesting for themselves, yet undeniably they derive a
separate power of affecting the mind from the peculiar merits
of the individual concerned. Cicero is one of the very few
Pagan statesmen who can be described as a thoughtfully
conscientious man.

It is not, therefore, any want of splendid attraction in
my subject from which I am likely to suffer. It is of this
very splendour that I complain, as having long ago defeated
the simplicities of truth, and preoccupied the minds of all
readers with ideas politically romantic. All tutors, school-
masters, academic authorities, together with the collective
corps of editors, critics, commentators, have a natural bias in
behalf of a literary man who did so much honour to literature,
and who, in all the storms of this difficult life, manifested so
much attachment to the pure literary interest. Readers of
sensibility acknowledge the effect from any large influence of
deep halcyon repose, when relieving the agitations of history ;
as, for example, that which arises in our domestic annals
from interposing between two bloody reigns, like those 01
Henry VIII and his daughter Mary, the serene morning of a
child-like king, destined to an early grave, yet in the mean-
time occupied with benign counsels for propagating religion,
for teaching the young, or for protecting the poor. Such a
repose, the same luxury of rest for the mind, is felt, by all
who traverse the great circumstantial records of those
tumultuous Roman times, in the Ciceronian epistolary
correspondence. In this we come suddenly into deep lulls
of angry passions : here, upon some scheme for the extension
of literature by a domestic history, or by a comparison of
Greek with Roman jurisprudence \ there, again, upon some
ancient problem from the quiet fields of philosophy. And
all men are already prejudiced in favour of one who, in the

CICERO 181

midst of belligerent partisans, was the patron of a deep pacific
interest. But amongst Christian nations this unfair personal
bias has struck deeper : Cicero was not merely a philosopher ;
he was one who cultivated ethics ; he was himself the author
of an ethical system, composed with the pious purpose of
training to what he thought just moral views his only son.
This system survives, is studied to this day, is honoured
perhaps extravagantly, and has repeatedly been pronounced
the best practical theory to which Pagan principles were
equal. Were it only upon this impulse, it was natural that
men should receive a clinamen, or silent bias, towards Cicero,
as a moral authority amongst disputants whose arguments
were legions. The author of a moral code cannot be sup-
posed indifferent to the moral relations of his own party
views. If he erred, it could not be through want of medita-
tion upon the ground of judgment, or want of interest in the
results. So far Cicero has an advantage. But he has more
lively advantage in the comparison by which he benefits, at
every stage of his life, with antagonists whom the reader is
taught to believe dissolute, incendiary, and almost desperate
citizens. Verres in the youth of Cicero, Catiline and Clodius
in his middle age, Mark Antony in Cicero's old age, have all
been left to operate on the modern reader's feelings precisely
through that masquerade of misrepresentation which invari-
ably accompanied the political eloquence of Rome. The
monstrous caricatures from the forum, or the senate, or the
democratic rostrum, which were so confessedly distortions,
by original design, for attaining the ends of faction, have
imposed upon scholars pretty generally as faithful portraits.
Recluse scholars are rarely politicians ; and in the timid
horror of German literati, at this day, when they read of
real brickbats or of paving-stones not metaphorical, used as
figures of speech by a Clodian mob, we British understand
the little comprehension of that rough horse-play, proper to
the hustings, which can as yet be available for the rectifica-
tion of any continental judgment. "Play, do you call it ?"
says a German commentator ; " why, that brickbat might
break a man's leg ; and this paving-stone would be sufficient
to fracture a skull." Too true : they certainly might do
so. But, for all that, our British experience of electioneering

182 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

" rough -and -tumbling " has long blunted the edge of our
moral anger. Contested elections are unknown to the
Continent — hitherto even to those nations of the Continent
which boast of representative governments. And, with no
experience of their inconveniences, they have as yet none of
the popular forces in which such contests originate. We, on
the other hand, are familiar with such scenes. What Eome
saw upon one sole hustings, we see repeated upon hundreds.
And we all know that the bark of electioneering mobs is
worse than their bite. Their fury is without malice, and
their insurrectionary violence is without system. Most un-
doubtedly the mobs and seditions of Clodius are entitled to
the same benefits of construction. And, with regard to the
graver charges against Catiline or Clodius, as men sunk
irredeemably into sensual debaucheries, these are exag-
gerations which have told only from want of attention to
Roman habits. Such charges were the standing material,
the stock-in-trade, of every orator against every antagonist.
Cicero, with the same levity as every other public speaker,
tossed about such atrocious libels at random. And with
little blame where they were known and allowed for as
tricks. Not are they true ? but will they tell ? was the question.
Insolvency and monstrous debauchery were the two ordi-
nary reproaches on the Roman hustings. No man escaped
them who was rich enough, or had expectations notorious
enough, to win for such charges any colourable plausibility.
Those only were unmolested in this way who stood in no
man's path of ambition ; or who had been obscure (that is to
say, poor) in youth ; or who, being splendid by birth or con-
nexions, had been notoriously occupied in distant campaigns.
The object in such calumnies was to produce a momentary
effect upon the populace : and sometimes, as happened to
Csesar, the merest falsehoods of a partisan orator were adopted
subsequently for truths by the simple-minded soldiery. But
the misapprehension of these libels in modern times origin-
ates in erroneous appreciation of Roman oratory. Scandal
was its proper element. Senate or law-tribunal, forum or
mob rostrum, made no difference in the licentious practice
of Roman eloquence. And, unfortunately, the calumnies
survive ; whilst the state of things which made it needless

CICERO 183

to notice them in reply has entirely perished. During the
transitional period between the old Roman frugality and the
luxury succeeding to foreign conquest, a reproach of this
nature would have stung with some severity ; and it was not
without danger to a candidate. But the age of growing
voluptuousness weakened the effect of such imputations ; and
this age may be taken to have commenced in the youth of
the Gracchi, about one hundred years before Pharsalia.
The change in the direction of men's sensibilities since
then was as marked as the change in their habits. Both
changes had matured themselves in Cicero's days ; and one
natural result was that few men of sense valued such
reproaches (incapable, from their generality, of specific
refutation), whether directed against friends or enemies.
Ctesar, when assailed for the thousandth time by the old
fable about Nicomedes the sovereign of Bithynia, no more
troubled himself to expose its falsehood in the senate than
when previously dispersed over Home through the libellous
facetice of Catullus. He knew that the object of such petty
malice was simply to tease him ; and for himself to lose
any temper, or to manifest anxiety, by a labour so hope-
less as any effort towards the refutation of an unlimited
scandal, was childishly to collude with his enemies. He
treated the story, therefore, as if it had been true ; and
showed that, even under that assumption, it would not
avail for the purpose before the house. Subsequently,
Suetonius, as an express collector of anecdotage and pointed
personalities against great men, has revived many of these
scurrilous jests ; but his authority, at the distance of two
generations, can add nothing to the credit of calumnies
originally founded on plebeian envy, or the jealousy of rivals.
I may possibly find myself obliged to come back upon this
subject. And at this point, therefore, I will not further
pursue it than by remarking that no one snare has proved
so fatal to the sound judgment of posterity upon public men
in Rome as this blind credulity towards the oratorical
billingsgate of ancient forensic licence. Libels, whose very
point and jest lay in their extravagance, have been received
for historical truth with respect to many amongst Cicero's
enemies. And the reaction upon Cicero's own character has

184 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

been naturally to exaggerate that imputed purity of morals
which has availed to raise him into what is called a " pattern
man."

The injurious effect upon biographic literature of all such
wrenches to the truth is diffused everywhere. Fenelon, or
Howard the philanthropist, may serve to illustrate the
effect I mean, when viewed in relation to the stern simpli-
cities of truth. Both these men have long been treated with
such uniformity of dissimulation, — ''petted" (so to speak)
with such honeyed falsehoods as beings too bright and
seraphic for human inquisition, — that now their real circum-
stantial merits, quite as much as their human frailties, have
faded away in this blaze of fabling idolatry. Sir Isaac New-
ton, again, for about one entire century since his death in
1V27, was painted by all biographers as a man so saintly in
temper, so meek, so detached from worldly interests, that,
by mere strength of potent falsehood, the portrait had ceased
to be human, and a great man's life furnished no moral
lessons to posterity. At length came the odious truth,
exhibiting Sir Isaac in a character painful to contemplate, —
as a fretful, peevish, and sometimes even malicious, intriguer ;
traits, however, in Sir Isaac already traceable in the sort of
chicanery attending his subornation of managers in the
Leibnitz controversy, and in the publication of the "Com-
mercium Epistolicum." For the present, the effect has been
purely to shock and to perplex. As regards moral instruction,
the lesson comes too late ; it is now defeated by its incon-
sistency with our previous training in steady theatrical
delusion.

I do not make it a reproach to Cicero that his reputation
with posterity has been affected by these or similar arts of
falsification. Eventually this had been his misfortune.
Adhering to the truth, his indiscreet eulogists would have
presented to the world a much more interesting picture ;
not so much the representation of " vir bonus cum mala
fortund compositus" which is, after all, an ordinary spectacle
for so much of the conflict as can ever be made public ; but
that of a man generally upright, matched as in single duel
with a standing temptation to error, growing out of his
public position ; often seduced into false principles by the

CICERO 185

necessities of ambition, or by the coercion of self-consistency ;
and often, as he himself admits, biassed fatally in a public
question by the partialities of friendship. The violence of
that crisis was overwhelming to all moral sensibilities ; no
sense, no organ, remained true to the obligations of political
justice ; principles and feelings were alike darkened by the
extremities of the political quarrel ; the feelings obeyed the
personal engagements ; and the principles indicated only the
position of the individual — as between a senate clinging
desperately to oligarchic privileges and a Julian patriot
under a mask of partial self-interest fighting in effect for
extensions of popular influence.

So far nothing has happened to Cicero which does not
happen to all men entangled in political feuds. There are
few cases of large party dispute which do not admit of con-
tradictory delineations, as the mind is previously swayed
to this extreme or to that. But the peculiarity in the case
of Cicero is — not that he has benefited by the mixed quality
of that cause which he adopted, but that the very dubious
character of the cause has benefited by him. Usually it
happens that the individual partisan is sheltered under the
authority of his cause. But here the whole merits of the
case have been predetermined and adjudged by the authority
of the partisan. Had Cicero been absent, or had Cicero
practised that neutrality to which he often inclined, the
general verdict of posterity on the great Eoman Civil War
would have been essentially different from that which we
find in History. At present the error is an extreme one ;
and I call it such without hesitation, because it has main-
tained itself by imperfect reading even of such documents
as survive, and by too general an oblivion of the important
fact that these surviving documents (meaning the contemporary
documents) are pretty nearly all ex parte.1

1 Even here there is a risk of being misunderstood. Some will
read this term ex parte in the sense that now there are no neutral
statements surviving. But such statements there never were. The
controversy moving for a whole century in Rome before Pharsalia was
not about facts, but about constitutional principles ; and as to that
question there could be no neutrality. From the nature of the case,
the truth must have lain with one of the parties ; compromise, or
intermediate temperament, was inapplicable. What I complain of as

186 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

To judge of the general equity in the treatment of Cicero,
considered as a political partisan, let us turn to the most
current of the regular biographies. Amongst the infinity
of slighter sketches, which naturally draw for their materials
upon those which are more elaborate, it would be useless to
confer a special notice upon any. I will cite the two which
at this moment stand foremost in European literature : that
of Conyers Middleton, now about one century old, as the
memoir most generally read l ; that of Bernhard Abeken 2
(amongst that limited class of memoirs which build upon any
political principles), as accidentally the latest.

Conyers Middleton is a name that cannot be mentioned
without an expression of disgust. I sit down in perfect
charity at the same table with deists or atheists alike. To
me, simply in his social character, and supposing him sincere,
a sceptic is as agreeable as another. Anyhow he is better
than a craniologist, than a punster, than a St. Simonian,
than a Jeremy-Benthamite, or an anti-corn-law lecturer.
What signifies a name ? Free-thinker he calls himself ?
Good — let him " free-think " as fast as he can ; but let him
obey the ordinary laws of good faith. No sneering in the
first place ; because, though it is untrue that " a sneer can-
not be answered," the answer too often imposes circumlocu-
tion. And, upon a subject which makes wise men grave, a
sneer argues so much perversion of heart that it cannot be
thought uncandid to infer some corresponding perversion of
intellect : perfect sincerity never existed in a professional
sneerer. Secondly, no treachery, no betrayal of the cause
which the man is sworn and paid to support ! Conyers
Middleton held considerable preferment in the Church of
England. Long after he had become an enemy to that
Church (not separately for itself, but generally as a strong

overlooked is, not that the surviving records of the quarrel are
partisan records (that being a mere necessity), but, in the forensic use
of the term exparte, that they are such without benefit of equilibrium or
modification from the partisan statements in the opposite interest.

1 The History of the Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, by Conyers
Middleton, D.D., was originally published in 1741, and was long the
standard English Life of Cicero. — M.

2 " Cicero in Seinen Briefen. VON BERNHARD RUDOLF ABEKEN,
Professor am Raths-Gymnasium zu Osnabriick. Hanover, 1835."

CICERO 187

form of Christianity), he continued to receive large quarterly
cheques upon a bank in Lombard Street, of which the original
condition had been that he should defend Christianity "with
all his soul and with all his strength." Yet such was his
perfidy to this sacred engagement that even his private or
personal feuds grew out of his capital feud with the Christian
faith. From the Church he drew his bread ; and the labour
of his life was to bring the Church into contempt. He
hated Bentley, he hated Warburton, he hated Waterland ;
and why ? All alike as powerful champions of that religion
which he himself daily betrayed ; and Waterland, as the
strongest of these champions, he hated most. But all these
by-currents of malignity emptied themselves into one vast
cloaca maxima of rancorous animosity to the mere spirit,
temper, and tendencies, of Christianity. Even in treason
there is room for courage ; but Middleton, in the manner,
was as cowardly as he was treacherous in the matter. He
wished to have it whispered about that he was worse than
he seemed, and that he would be a fort esprit of a high caste
but for the bigotry of his Church. It was a fine thing, he
fancied, to have the credit of infidelity without paying for a
licence ; to sport over those manors without a qualification.
As a scholar, meantime, he was trivial and incapable of
labour. Even the Roman antiquities, political or juristic, he
had studied neither by research and erudition, nor by medi-
tation on their value and analogies. Lastly, his English
style, for which at one time he obtained some credit through
the caprice of a fashionable critic, is such that, by weeding
away from it whatever is colloquial, you would strip it of all
that is characteristic ; and, if you should remove its slang
vulgarisms, you would remove its whole principle of vitality.
That man misapprehends the case who fancies that the
infidelity of Middleton can have but a limited operation
upon a memoir of Cicero. On the contrary, because this
prepossession was rather a passion of hatred J than any non-

1 "Hatred" : — It exemplifies the pertinacity of this hatred to
mention that Middleton was one of the men who sought, for twenty
years, some historical fact that might conform to Leslie's four con-
ditions (" Short Method with, the Deists "), and yet evade Leslie's logic.
I think little of Leslie's argument, which never could have been valued

188 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

conformity of the intellect, it operated as a false bias univer-
sally ; and, in default of any sufficient analogy between
Roman politics and the politics of England at Middleton's
time of publication, there was no other popular bias derived
from modern ages which could have been available. It was
the object of Middleton to paint, in the person of Cicero, a
pure Pagan model of scrupulous morality, and to show that,
in most difficult times, he had acted with a self-restraint and
a considerate integrity to which Christian ethics could have
added no element of value. Now, this object had the effect
of, already in the preconception, laying a restraint over all
freedom in the execution. No man could start from the
assumption of Cicero's uniform uprightness and afterwards
retain any latitude of free judgment upon the most momentous
transactions of Cicero's life ; because, unless some plausible
hypothesis could be framed for giving body and consistency
to the pretences of the Pompeian cause, it must, upon any
examination, turn out to have been as merely a selfish cabal,
for the benefit of a few lordly families, as ever yet has
prompted a conspiracy. The slang words " respuUica " and
"causa" are caught up by Middleton from the letters of
Cicero ; but never, in any one instance, has either Cicero or
a modern commentator been able to explain what general
interest of the Roman people was represented by these vague
abstractions as then paraded. The strife was not then
between the conservative instinct, as organised in the upper
classes, and the destroying instinct, as concentrated in the
lowest. The strife was not between the property of the
nation and its rapacious pauperism — the strife was not
between the honours, titles, institutions, created by the state,
and the plebeian malice of levellers, seeking for a commence-
ment de novo, with the benefits of a general scramble : — it
was a strife between a small fraction of confederated oligarchs
upon the one hand and the nation upon the other. Or,
looking still more narrowly into the nature of the separate
purposes at issue, it was, on the Julian side, an attempt to
make such a re-distribution of constitutional functions as
should harmonise the necessities of the public service with

by a sincerely religious man. But the rage of Middleton, and his
perseverance, illustrate the temper of his warfare.

CICERO 189

the working of the republican machinery : whereas, under
the existing condition of Rome, through the silent changes
of time operating upon the relations of property and upon
the character of the populace, it had been long evident that
armed supporters — now legionary soldiers, now gladiators,
— enormous bribery, and the constant reserve of anarchy in
the rear, were become the regular counters for conducting the
desperate game of the mere ordinary civil administration.
Not the demagogue only, but the peaceful or patriotic citizen,
and the constitutional magistrate, could now move and
exercise their public functions only through the deadliest
combinations of violence and fraud. This dreadful condition
of things, which no longer acted through that salutary
opposition of parties essential to the energy of free countries,
but involved all Rome in a permanent panic, was acceptable
to the senate only ; and of the senate, in sincerity, to a very
small section. Some score of great houses there was, that,
by vigilance of intrigues, by far-sighted arrangements for
armed force or for critical retreat, and by overwhelming com-
mand of money, could always guarantee their own denomina-
tion. For this purpose all that they needed was a secret
understanding with each other, and the interchange of mutual
pledges by means of marriage alliances. Any revolution
which should put an end to this anarchy of selfishness must
reduce the exorbitant power of the paramount grandees.
They naturally confederated against a result so shocking to
their pride. Cicero, as a new member of this faction, him-
self rich * in a degree sufficient for the indefinite aggrandise-
ment of his son, and sure of support from all the interior
cabal of the senators, had adopted their selfish sympathies.
And it is probable enough that all changes in a system which
worked so well for himself, to which also he had always
looked up from his youngest days as the reward and haven of
his toils, did seriously strike him as dreadful innovations.
Names were now to be altered for the sake of things j forms

1 "Mich" : — We may consider Cicero as worth, in a case of necessity,
at least £400,000. Upon that part of this property which lay in
money there was always a very high interest to be obtained ; but not so
readily a good security for the principal. The means of increasing
this fortune by marriage was continually offering to a leading senator,
such as Cicero ; and the facility of divorce aided this resource.

190 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

for the sake of substances : this already gave some verbal
power of delusion to the senatorial faction. And a prospect
still more startling to them all was the necessity towards any
restoration of the old republic that some one eminent grandee
should hold provisionally a dictatorial power during the
period of transition.

Abeken — and it is honourable to him as a scholar of a
section not conversant with politics — saw enough into the
situation of Koine at that time to be sure that Cicero was
profoundly in error upon the capital point of the dispute \
that is, in mistaking a cabal for the commonwealth, and the
narrowest of intrigues for a public " cause." Abeken, like
an honest man, had sought for any national interest cloaked
by the wordy pretences of Pompey, and he had found none.
He had seen the necessity, towards any regeneration of Rome,
that Csesar, or some leader pursuing the same objects, should
be armed for a time with extraordinary power. In that way
only had both Marius and Sylla, each in the same general
circumstances, though with different feelings, been enabled to
preserve Rome from total anarchy. I give Abeken's express
words, that I may not seem to tax him with any responsi-
bility beyond what he courted. At p. 342 (8th sect.) he
owns it as a rule of the sole conservative policy possible for
Rome: — "Dass Csesar der einzige war der ohne weitere
" stuerme Rom zu dem ziele zu fuehren vermochte welchem
" es seit einem jahrhundert sich zuwendete " — (" that Csesar
" was the sole man who had it in his power, without farther
" convulsions, to lead Rome onwards to that final mark to-
" wards which, in tendency, she had been travelling through-
" out one whole century "). Neither could it be of much
consequence whether Csesar should personally find it safe to
imitate the example of Sylla in laying down his authority,
provided he so matured the safeguards of the reformed con-
stitution that, on the withdrawal of this temporary scaffolding,
the great arch was found capable of self-support. Thus far,
as an ingenuous student of Cicero's correspondence, Abeken
gains a glimpse of the truth which has been so constantly
obscured by historians. But, with the natural incapacity for
practical politics which besieges all Germans, he fails in
most of the subordinate cases to decipher the intrigues at

CICERO 191

work, and oftentimes finds special palliation for Cicero's
conduct where, in reality, it was but a reiteration of
that selfish policy in which he had united himself with
Pompey.

By way of slightly reviewing this policy, as it expressed
itself in the acts or opinions of Pompey, I will pursue it
through the chief stages of the contest. Where was it that
Cicero first heard of the appalling news of a civil war as
inevitable ? It was at Ephesus, at the moment of reaching
that city on his return homewards from his proconsular
government in Cilicia ; and the circumstances of his position
were these : — On the last day of July 703 A b Urb. Cond.,
he had formally entered on that office. On the last day but
one of the same month in 704 he laid it down. The con-
duct of Cicero in this command was meritorious. And, if
my purpose had been generally to examine his merits, I could
show cause for making a higher estimate of those merits than
has been offered by his professional eulogists. The circum-
stances, however, in the opposite scale ought not to be over-
looked. He knew himself to be under a jealous supervision
from the friends of Verres, or all who might have the same
interest. This is one of the two facts which may be pleaded
in abatement of his disinterested merit. The other is that,
after all, he did undeniably pocket a large sum of money
(more than twenty thousand pounds) upon his year's ad-
ministration ; whilst, in the counter scale, the utmost extent
of that sum by which he refused to profit was not large.
This at least we are entitled to say with regard to the only
specific sum brought under our notice as one certainly await-
ing his private disposal.

Here occurs a very important error of Middleton's. In
a question of money very much will turn upon the specific
amount. An abstinence which is exemplary may be shown
in resisting an enormous gain ; whereas under a slight
temptation the abstinence may be little or none. Middleton
makes the extravagant, almost maniacal, assertion, that the
sum available by custom as a perquisite to Cicero's suite was
" eight hundred thousand pounds sterling." Not long after
the period in which Middleton wrote, newspapers, and the
increased facilities for travelling in England, had begun to

192 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND EESE ARCHES

operate powerfully upon the character of our English univer-
sities. Kectors and students, childishly ignorant of the
world (such as Parson Adams and the Vicar of Wakefield) be-
came a rare class. Possibly Middleton was the last clergyman
of that order — though, in any amiable sense, having little
enough of guileless simplicity. In my own experience I have
met with but one similar case of heroic ignorance. This
occurred near Caernarvon. A poor Welshwoman, leaving
home to attend an annual meeting of the Methodists, replied
to me, who had questioned her as to the numerical amount
of the probable assemblage, " that perhaps there would be a
matter of four millions ! " This in little Caernarvon, that
by no possibility could accommodate as many thousands !
Yet, in justice to the poor cottager, it should be said that she
spoke doubtingly, and with an anxious look, whereas Middle-
ton announces this little bonus of eight hundred thousand
pounds with a glib fluency that demonstrates him to have
seen nothing in the amount worth a comment. Let the
reader take along with him these little adjuncts of the case.
First of all, the money was a mere surplus arising on the
public expenditure, and resigned in any case to the suite of
the governor only under the presumption that it must be
too trivial to call for any more deliberate appropriation.
Secondly, it was the surplus of a single year's expenditure.
Thirdly, the province itself was chiefly Grecian in the com-
position of its population, — that is, poor in a degree not
understood by most Englishmen, frugally penurious in its
habits. Fourthly, the public service was of the very simplest
nature. The administration of justice, and the military appli-
cation of about eight thousand regular troops to the local
seditions of the Isaurian freebooters, or to the occasional
sallies from the Parthian frontier — these functions of the pro-
consul summed up his public duties. To me the marvel is
how there could arise a surplus even equal to eight thousand
pounds, which some copies countenance. Eight pounds I
should have surmised. But, to justify Middleton, he ought
to have found in the text " millies " — a reading which exists
nowhere. Figures, in such cases, are always so suspicious as
scarcely to warrant more than a slight bias to the sense which
they establish : and words are little better, since they may

CICERO 193

always have been derived from a previous authority in
figures. Meantime, simply as a blunder in accurate
scholarship, I should think it unfair to have pressed it. But
it is in the light of an evidence against Middleton's good
sense and thoughtfulness that I regard it as capital. The
man who could believe that a sum not far from a million
sterling had arisen in the course of twelve months from a
province sown chiefly with paving-stones, as a little bagatelle
of office, a pot-de-vin, mere customary fees, payable to the dis-
cretional appropriation of one who held the most fleeting
relation to the province, is not entitled to an opinion upon
any question of doubtful tenor. Had this been the scale of
regular profits upon a poor province, why should any Verres
create risk for himself by an arbitrary scale ?

In cases, therefore, where the merit turns upon money,
unavoidably the ultimate question will turn upon the
amount. And the very terms of the transaction, as they are
reported by Cicero, indicating that the sum was entirely at
his own disposal, argue its trivial value. Another argument
implies the same construction. Former magistrates, most of
whom took such offices with an express view to the creation
of a fortune by embezzlement and by bribes, had established
the precedent of relinquishing this surplus to their official
"family." This fact of itself shows that the amount must
have been uniformly trifling : being at all subject to fluctua-
tions in the amount, most certainly it would have been made
to depend for its appropriation upon the separate merits of
each annual case as it came to be known. In this particular
case Cicero's suite grumbled a little at his decision : he ordered
that the money should be carried to the credit of the public.
But, had a sum so vast as Middleton's been at his disposal in
mere perquisites, proh deum atque hominum fidem ! the
honourable gentlemen of the suite would have taken un-
pleasant liberties with the proconsular throat. They would
have been entitled to divide on the average forty thousand
pounds a-man ; and they would have married into senatorian
houses. Because a score or so of monstrous fortunes existed
in Rome, we must not forget that in any age of the Republic
a sum of twenty -five thousand pounds would have constituted
a most respectable fortune for a man not embarked upon a

VOL. vi o

194 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

public career ; and with sufficient connexions it would fur-
nish the early costs even for such a career.

I have noticed this affair with some minuteness, both
from its importance to the accuser of Verres, and because I
shall here have occasion to insist on this very case, as amongst
those which illustrate the call for political revolution at
Rome. Returning from Cicero the governor to Cicero the
man, I may remark that, although his whole life had been
adapted to purposes of ostentation, and a fortiori this
particular provincial interlude was sure to challenge from
his enemies a vindictive scrutiny, still I find cause to think
Cicero very sincere in his purity as a magistrate. Many of
his acts were not mere showy renunciations of doubtful
privileges, but were connected with painful circumstances of
offence to intimate friends. Indirectly we may find in these
cases a pretty ample revelation of the Roman morals. Pre-
tended philosophers in Rome, who prated in set books about
" virtue " and the " summum bonum," made no scruple, in
the character of magistrates, to pursue the most extensive
plans of extortion, through the worst abuses of military
licence ; some, as the " virtuous " Marcus Brutus, not stop-
ping short of murder. A foul case of this description had
occurred in the previous year under the sanction of Brutus ;
and Cicero had to stand his friend, by seeming to be his
enemy, in nobly refusing to abet the further prosecution of
the very same atrocity. Even in the case of the perquisites,
as stated above, Cicero had a more painful duty than that of
merely sacrificing a small sum of money : he was summoned
by his conscience to offend those men with whom he lived
as a modern prince or ambassador lives amongst the mem-
bers of his official " family." Naturally it could be no trifle
to a gentle-hearted man that he was creating for himself a
necessity of encountering frowns from those who surrounded
him, and who might think, with some reason, that, in bring-
ing them to a distant land, he had authorised them to look
for all such remunerations as precedent had established.
Right or wrong in the casuistical point — I believe him to
have been wrong — Cicero was eminently right, when once
satisfied by arguments, sound or not sound, as to the point of
duty, in pursuing that duty through all the vexations which

CICERO 195

it entailed. This justice I owe him pointedly in a review
which has for its general object the condemnation of his
political conduct.

Never was a child, torn from its mother's arms to an
odious school, more homesick at this moment than was
Cicero. He languished for Rome ; and, when he stood
before the gates of Rome, about five months later, not at
liberty to enter them, he sighed profoundly after that
vanished peace of mind which he had enjoyed in his wild
mountainous province. " Qusesivit lucem — ingemuitque
reperta." Vainly he flattered himself that he could compose,
by his single mediation, the mighty conflict which had now
opened. As he pursued his voyage homewards, through the
months of August, September, October, and November, he
was met, at every port where he touched for a few days'
repose, by reports, more and more gloomy, of the impending
rupture between the great partisan leaders. These reports
ran along, like the undulations of an earthquake, to the last
recesses of the east. Every king and every people had been
canvassed for the coming conflict ; and many had been
already associated by pledges to the one side or the other.
The fancy faded away from Cicero's thoughts as he drew nearer
to Italy that any effect could now be anticipated for media-
torial counsels. The controversy, indeed, was still pursued
through diplomacy ; and the negotiations had not reached an
ultimatum from either side. But Cicero was still distant
from the parties ; and, before it was possible that any general
congress representing both interests could assemble, it was
certain that reciprocal distrust would have coerced them into
irrevocable measures of hostility. Cicero landed at Otranto.
He went forward by land to Brundusium, where, on the
25th of November, his wife and daughter, who had come
from Rome to meet him, entered the public square of that
town at the same moment with himself. Without delay he
moved towards Rome ; but he could not gratify his ardour for
a personal interference in the great crisis of the hour without
entering Rome ; and that he was not at liberty to do without
surrendering his pretensions to the honour of a triumph.

Many writers have amused themselves with the idle
vanity of Cicero in standing upon a claim so windy under

196 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

circumstances so awful. But, on the one hand, it should
be remembered how eloquent a monument it was of civil
grandeur for a novus homo to have established his own
amongst the few surviving triumphal families of Rome ; and,
on the other hand, he could have effected nothing by his
presence in the senate. No man could at this moment :
Cicero least of all ; because his policy had been thus
arranged — ultimately to support Pompey, but in the mean-
time, as strengthening the chances against war, to exhibit
a perfect neutrality. Bringing, therefore, nothing in his
counsels, he could hope for nothing influential in the result.
Caesar was now at Ravenna, as the city nearest to Rome of
all which he could make his military head-quarters within
the Italian (i.e. the Cisalpine) province of Gaul. But he
held his forces well in hand, and ready for a start, with his
eyes almost fastened on the walls of Rome; so near had he
approached. Cicero warned his friend Atticus that a dread-
ful and perfectly unexampled war — a struggle " of life and
death " — was awaiting them ; and that in his opinion
nothing could avert it, short of a great Parthian invasion,
deluging the eastern provinces — Greece, Asia Minor, Syria
— such as might force the two chieftains into an instant dis-
traction of their efforts. Out of that would grow the absence
of one or other ; and upon that separation, for the present,
might hang an incalculable series of changes. Else, and but
for this one contingency, he announced the fate of Rome to
be sealed.

The new year came, the year 705, and with it new
consuls. One of these, C. Marcellus, was distinguished
amongst the enemies of Csosar by his personal rancour — a
feeling which he shared with his twin-brother Marcus. On
the first day of this month, the Senate was to decide upon
Caesar's proposals, as a basis for future arrangement. They
did so ; they voted the proposals, by a large majority, un-
satisfactory— instantly assumed a fierce martial attitude —
fulminated the most hostile of all decrees, and authorised
shocking outrages upon those who, in official situations,
represented Caesar's interest. These men fled for their lives.
Caesar, on receiving their report, gave the signal for advance ;
and in forty-eight hours had crossed the little brook, called.

CICERO 197

the Rubicon, which determined the marches or frontier line
of his province. Earlier by a month than this great event,
Cicero had travelled southwards. Thus his object was to
place himself in personal communication with Pompey,
whose vast Neapolitan estates drew him often into that
quarter. But, to his great consternation, he found himself
soon followed by the whole stream of Roman grandees, fly-
ing before Caesar through the first two months of the year.
A majority of the senators had chosen, together with the
consuls, to become emigrants from Rome, rather than abide
any compromise with Csesar. And, as these were chiefly
the rich and potent in the aristocracy, naturally they drew
along with themselves many humble dependants, both in a
pecuniary and a political sense. A strange rumour prevailed
at this moment, to which even Cicero showed himself
maliciously credulous, that Caesar's natural temper was cruel,
and that his policy also had taken that direction. But the
brilliant result within the next six or seven weeks changed
the face of politics, disabused everybody of their delusions,
and showed how large a portion of the panic had been due to
monstrous misconceptions. For already in March multitudes
of refugees had returned to Caesar. By the first week of
April, that " monster of energy," that re/acts of superhuman
despatch, as Cicero repeatedly styles Caesar, had marched
through Italy — had received the submission of every strong
fortress — had driven Pompey into his last Calabrian retreat
of Brundusium (at which point it was that this unhappy
man unconsciously took his last farewell of Italian ground) —
had summarily kicked him out of Brundusium — and, having
thus cleared all Italy of enemies, was on his road back to
Rome. From this city, within the first ten days of April, he
moved onwards to the Spanish War, where, in reality, the
true strength of Pompey's cause — strong legions of soldiers,
chiefly Italian — awaited him in strong positions, chosen at
leisure, under Afranius and Petreius. For the rest of this
year (705) Pompey was unmolested. In 706, Caesar, vic-
torious from Spain, addressed himself to the task of over-
throwing Pompey in person ; and on the 9th of August in
that year took place the ever-memorable battle on the river
Pharsalus in Thessaly.

198 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

During all this period of about one year and a-half
Cicero's letters, at intermitting periods, hold the same lan-
guage. They fluctuate, indeed, strangely in temper ; for
they run through all the changes incident to hoping, trust-
ing, and disappointed friendship. Nothing can equal the
expression of his scorn for Pompey's inertia, when contrasted
with energy so astonishing on the part of his antagonist.
Cicero had also been deceived as to facts. The plan of the
campaign had, to him in particular, not been communicated ;
he had been allowed to calculate on a final resistance in
Italy. This was certainly impossible. But the policy of
maintaining a show of opposition which it was intended to
abandon at every point, or of procuring for Caesar the credit
of so many successive triumphs which might all have been
evaded, has never received any explanation.

Towards the middle of February, Cicero acknowledges
the receipt of letters from Rome, which in one sense are
valuable, as exposing the system of self-delusion prevailing.
Domitius, it seems, who soon after laid down his arms at
Corfinium and with Corfinium, parading his forces only to
make a more solemn surrender, had, as the despatches from
Rome asserted, an army on which he could rely ; as to Caesar,
that nothing was easier than to intercept him ; that such was
Caesar's own impression ; that honest men were recovering
their spirits ; and that the rogues at Rome (Romce improbos)
were one and all in consternation. It tells powerfully for
Cicero's sagacity that now, amidst this general explosion of
childish hopes, he only was sternly incredulous. " Hcec
metuo, equidem, ne sint somnia" Yes, he had learned by
this time to appreciate the windy reliances of his party. He
had an argument from experience for slighting their vain
demonstrations ; and he had a better argument from the
future, as that future was really contemplated in the very
counsels of the leader. Pompey, though nominally con-
trolled by other men of consular rank, was at present an
autocrat for the management of the war. What was his
policy ? Cicero had now discovered, not so much through
confidential interviews, as by the mute tendencies of all
the measures adopted : Cicero was satisfied that his total
policy had been, from the first, a policy of despair.

CICERO 199

The position of Pompey, as an old invalid, from whom
his party exacted the services of youth, is worthy of separate
notice. There is not, perhaps, a more pitiable situation than
that of a veteran reposing upon his past laurels who is
summoned from beds of down, and from the elaborate system
of comforts engrafted upon a princely establishment, suddenly
to re-assume his armour — to prepare for personal hardships
of every kind — to renew his youthful anxieties, without
support from youthful energies — once again to dispute sword
in hand the title to his own honours — to pay back into the
chancery of war, as into some fund of abeyance, all his own
prizes, and palms of every kind — to re-open every decision
or award by which he had ever benefited — and to view his
own national distinctions of name, trophy, laurel crown,1 as
all but so many stakes provisionally resumed, which must be
redeemed by services tenfold more difficult than those by
which originally they had been earned.

Here was a trial, painful, unexpected, sudden ; such as
any man, at any age, might have honourably declined. The
very best contingency in such a struggle was that nothing
might be lost ; whilst along with this doubtful hope ran
the certainty that nothing could be gained. More glorious
in the popular estimate of his countrymen Pompey could not
become, for his honours were already historical, and touched
with the autumnal hues of antiquity, having been won in a
generation now gone by ; but, on the other hand, he might
lose everything : for, in a contest with so dreadful an
antagonist as Caesar, he could not hope to come off un-
scorched ; and, whatever might be the final event, one result
must have struck him as inevitable — viz. that a new genera-
tion of men, who had come forward into the arena of life
within the last twenty years, would watch the approaching
collision with Caesar as putting to the test a question much
canvassed of late with regard to the soundness and legitimacy

1 " Laurel crown " : — Amongst the honours granted to Pompey at
a very early period was the liberty to wear a diadem or corona on
ceremonial occasions. The common reading was "auream coronam,"
until Lipsius suggested lauream; which correction has since been
generally adopted into the text. This idstinction is remarkable when
contrasted with the same trophy as afterwards conceded to Caesar, in
relation to the popular feelings, so different in the two cases.

200 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

of Pompey's military exploits. As a commander-in- chief,
Pompey was known to have been inequitably fortunate. The
bloody contests of Marius, China, Sylla, and their vindictive,
but perhaps unavoidable, proscription, had thinned the ranks
of natural competitors at the very opening of Pompey's career.
That interval of about eight years by which he was senior to
Csesar happened to make the whole difference between a
crowded list of candidates for offices of trust and no list at
alL Even more lucky had Pompey found himself in the
character of his appointments, and in the quality of his
antagonists. All his wars had been of that class which yield
great splendour of external show, but impose small exertion
and less risk. In the war with Mithridates he succeeded to
great captains who had sapped the whole stamina and resist-
ance of the contest ; besides that, after all the varnishings
of Cicero, when speaking for the Manilian law, the enemy
was too notoriously effeminate. The by - battle with the
Cilician pirates is more obscure ; but it is certain that the
extraordinary powers conferred on Pompey by the Gabinian
law gave to him, as compared with his predecessors in the
same effort at cleansing the Levant from a nuisance, some-
thing like the unfair superiority above their brethren enjoyed
by some of Charlemagne's paladins in the possession of en-
chanted weapons. The success was already insured by the
great armament placed at Pompey's disposal ; and still more
by his unlimited commission, which enabled him to force
these water-rats out of their holes, and to bring them all
into one focus ; whilst the pompous name of Bellum Piraticum
exaggerated to all after years a success which had been at the
moment too partially facilitated. Finally, in his triumph
over Sertorius, where only he would have found a great
Koman enemy capable of applying some measure of power
to himself by the energies of resistance, although the transac-
tion is circumstantially involved in much darkness, enough
remains to show that Pompey shrank from open contest :
passively, how far co-operatively it is hard to say, Pompey
owed his triumph to mere acts of decoy and subsequent
assassination.

Upon this sketch of Pompey's military life, it is evident
that he must have been regarded, after the enthusiasm of

CICERO 201

the moment had gone by, as a hollow scenical pageant.
But what had produced this enthusiasm at the moment 1
It was the remoteness of the scenes. The pirates had been
a troublesome enemy, precisely in that sense which made the
Pindarrees of India such to ourselves ; because, as flying
marauders, lurking and watching their opportunities, they
could seldom be brought to action ; so that not their power,
but their want of power, made them formidable, indisposing
themselves to concentration, and consequently weakening the
motive to a combined effort against them. Then, as to
Mithridates, a great error prevailed in Rome with regard to
the quality of his power. The spaciousness of his kingdom,
its remoteness, his power of retreat into Armenia — all enabled
him to draw out the war into a lingering struggle. These
local advantages were misinterpreted. A man who could
resist Sylla, Lucullus, and others, approved himself to the
raw judgments of the multitude as a dangerous enemy.
Whence a very disproportionate appreciation of Pompey —
as of a second Scipio who had destroyed a second Hannibal.
If Hannibal had transferred the war to the gates of Rome,
why not Mithridates, who had come westwards as far as
Greece ? And, upon that argument, the panicstruck people
of Rome fancied that Mithridates might repeat the experi-
ment. They overlooked the changes which nearly one
hundred and fifty years since Hannibal had wrought. As
possible it would have been for Scindia and Holkar fifty
years ago, as possible for Tharawaddie at this moment,1 to
conduct an expedition into England, as for Mithridates to
have invaded Italy at the era of 670-80 of Rome. There is
a wild romantic legend, surviving in old Scandinavian litera-
ture, that Mithridates did not die by suicide, but that he
passed over the Black Sea from Pontus on the south-east of
that sea to the Baltic, crossed the Baltic, and became that
Odin whose fierce vindictive spirit reacted upon Rome, in
after centuries, through the Goths and Vandals, his supposed
descendants, — just as the blood of Dido, the Carthaginian
queen, after mounting to the heavens, under her dying
imprecation,

1 " Tharawaddie" : — The Burmese Emperor then [1842] invaded
by us.

202 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

4<Exoriare aliquis uostro de sanguine vindex,"

came round in a vast arch of bloodshed upon Rome, under
the retaliation of Hannibal, four or five centuries later.
This Scandinavian legend might answer for a grand romance,
carrying with it, like the Punic legend, a semblance of mighty
retribution ; but, as a historical possibility, any Mithridatic
invasion of Italy would be extravagant. Having been
swallowed, however, by Roman credulity as a danger always
in procinctu so long as the old Pontic lion should be unchained,
naturally it had happened that this groundless panic, from
its very indistinctness and shadowy outline, became more
available for Pompey's immoderate glorification than any
service so much nearer to home as to be more rationally
appreciable. With the same unexampled luck, Pompey, as
the last man in the series against Mithridates, stepped into
the inheritance of merit belonging to the entire succession in
that service, and, as the labourer who without effort and
without merit reaped the harvest, practically threw into
oblivion all those who had so painfully sown it.

But a special Nemesis haunts the steps of men who become
great and illustrious by appropriating the trophies of their
brothers. Pompey, more strikingly than any man in history,
illustrates this moral in his catastrophe. It is perilous to be
dishonourably prosperous ; and equally so, as the ancients
imagined, whether by direct perfidies (of which Pompey is
deeply suspected) or by silent acquiescence in unjust advan-
tages. Seared as Pompey 's sensibilities might be through
long self-indulgence, and latterly by annual fits of illness,
founded on dyspepsy, — which again probably founded on
gluttony, — he must have had, at this great era, a dim mis-
giving that his good genius was forsaking him. No Shakspere
had then proclaimed the dark retribution which awaited his
final year : but the sentiment of Shakspere (see his Sonnets)
is eternal, and must have whispered itself to Pompey's heart,
as he saw the billowy war advancing upon him in his old
age —

" The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled,"

CICERO 203

To say the truth, in this instance as in so many others, the
great moral of the retribution escapes us because we do not
connect the scattered phenomena into their rigorous unity.
Moat readers pursue the early steps of this mightiest amongst
all civil wars with the hopes and shifting sympathies natural
to those who accompanied its motions. Cicero must ever be
the great authority for the daily fluctuations of public opinion
and confidence in the one party, as Csesar, with a few later
authors, for those in the other. But inevitably these coeval
authorities, shifting their own positions as events advanced,
break the uniformity of the lesson. They did not see, as we
may if we will, to the end. Sometimes the Pompeian partisans
are cheerful ; sometimes even they are sanguine ; once or twice
there is absolutely a slight success to colour their vaunts. But
much of this is mere political dissimulation. We now find,
from the confidential parts of Cicero's correspondence, that he
had never heartily hoped from the hour when he first ascer-
tained Pompey's drooping spirits and his desponding policy.
And, in a subsequent stage of the contest, when the war had
crossed the Adriatic, we now know, by a remarkable passage
in his " De Divinatione," that, whatever he might think it
prudent to say, never from the moment when he personally
attached himself to Pompey's camp had he felt any reliance
whatever on the composition of the army. Even to Pompey's
misgiving ear in solitude a fatal summons must have been
sometimes audible, to resign his quiet life and his showy
prosperity. The call was in effect " Leave your palaces ;
come back to camps — never more to know a quiet hour ! "
What if he could have heard the ultimate moral of the silent
call ! " Live through a brief season of calamity ; live long
enough for total ruin ; live for a morning on which it will
be said, All is lost; as a panicstricken fugitive, sue to the
mercies of slaves ; and in return, as a headless trunk, lie like
a poor mutilated mariner, rejected by the sea, a wreck from
a wreck — owing even the last rites of burial to the pity of a
solitary exile." This doom, and thus circumstantially, no
man could know. But, in features that were even gloomier
than these, Pompey might, through his long experience of
men, have foreseen the bitter course which he had to traverse.
It did not require any extraordinary self-knowledge to guess

204 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

that continued opposition upon the plan of the campaign
would breed fretfulness in himself ; that the irritation of
frequent failure, inseparable from a war so widely spread,
would cause blame and decaying confidence ; that his coming
experience would be a mere chaos of obstinacy in council,
loud remonstrance in action, crimination and recrimination,
insolent dictation from rivals, treachery on the part of friends,
flight and desertion on the part of confidants. Yet even this
fell short of the shocking consummation into which the frenzy
of faction ripened itself within a few months. I know of
but one case which resembles it in a single remarkable
feature. Those readers who are acquainted with Lord
Clarendon's " History " will remember the very striking
portrait which he draws of the king's small army of reserve
in Devonshire and the adjacent districts, subsequently to the
great parliamentary triumph of Naseby in June 1645. The
ground was now cleared ; no work remained for Fairfax but
to advance, and to sweep away the last relics of opposition.
In every case this would have proved no trying task. But
what was the condition of the hostile forces ? Lord Clarendon,
who had personally presided at their head-quarters whilst in
attendance upon the Prince of Wales, describes them in these
errphatic terms — "a wicked beaten army." Karely does
History present us with such a picture of utter debasement
in an army — coming from no enemy, but from one who, at
the very moment of painting the portrait, knew this army to
be the king's final resource. Reluctant as a wise man must
feel to reject as irredeemable in vileness that which he knows
to be indispensable to hope, this solemn opinion of Lord
Clarendon's upon his royal master's last stake had been in
earlier ages prefigured by Cicero, under the very same circum-
stances, with regard to the analogous ultimate resource. The
army which Pompey had concentrated in the regions of
northern Greece was the ultimate resource of that party;
because, though a strong nucleus for other armies existed in
other provinces, these remoter dependencies were in all likeli-
hood contingent upon the result from this : were Pompey
prosperous, they would be prosperous ; if not, not. Knowing,
therefore, the fatal emphasis which belonged to his words,
not blind to the inference which they involved, Cicero did,

CICERO 205

notwithstanding, pronounce confidentially that same judgment
of despair upon the army soon to perish at Pharsalia which,
from its strange identity of tenor and circumstances, I have
quoted from Lord Clarendon. Both statesmen spoke con-
fessedly of a last sheet-anchor ; both spoke of an army vicious
in its military composition : but also, — which is the pecu-
liarity of the case, — both charged the onus of their own
despair upon the non-professional qualities of the soldiers,
upon their licentious imcivic temper, upon their open antici-
pations of plunder, and upon their tiger-training towards a
great festival of coming revenge.

Lord Clarendon, however, it may be said, did not include
in his denunciation the commander of the Devonshire army.
No : and there it is that the two reports differ. Cicero did.
It was the commander whom he had chiefly in his eye.
Others, indeed, were parties to the horrid conspiracy against
the country which he charged upon Pompey : for non datur
conjuratio aliter quam per plures ; but these " others " were
not the private soldiers — they were the leading officers, the
staff, the council at Pompey's head-quarters, and generally
the men of senatorial rank. Yet still, to complete the dismal
unity of the prospect, these conspirators had an army of
ruffians under their orders, such as formed an appropriate
engine for their horrid purposes.

This is a most important point for clearing up the true
character of the war ; and it has been neglected by historians.
It is notorious that Cicero, on first joining the faction of
Pompey after the declaration of hostilities, had for some
months justified his conduct on the doctrine that the " causa,"
the constitutional merits of the dispute, lay with Pompey.
He could not deny that Caesar had grievances to plead ; but
he insisted on two things : — 1, that the mode of redress by
which Csesar made his appeal was radically illegal ; 2, that
the certain tendency of this redress was to a civil revolution.
Such had been the consistent representation of Cicero, until
the course of events made him better acquainted with Pom-
pey's real temper and policy. It is also notorious — and here
lies the key to the error of all biographers — that about two
years later, when the miserable death of Pompey had indis-
posed Cicero to remember his wicked unaccomplished pur-

206 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

poses, and when the assassination of Caesar had made it safe
to resume his ancient mysterious animosity to the very name
of that great man, Cicero did undoubtedly go back to his
early way of distinguishing between them. As an orator,
and as a philosopher, he brought back his original distortions
of the case. Pompey, it was again pleaded, had been a
champion of the state (sometimes he ventured upon saying,
of liberty) ; Caesar had been a traitor and a tyrant. The
two extreme terms of his own politics, the earliest and the
last, do in fact meet and blend. But the proper object of
scrutiny for the sincere inquirer is this parenthesis of time,
that intermediate experience which placed him in daily com-
munion with the real Pompey of the year Ab Urle Gond.
705, and which extorted from his indignant patriotism
revelations to his friend Atticus so atrocious that nothing in
history approaches them.

This is the period to examine ; for the logic of the case is
urgent. Were Cicero now alive, he could make no resistance
to a construction and a personal appeal such as this. Easily
(we should say to him) — easily you might have a motive,
subsequently to your friend's death, for dissembling the evil
you had once imputed to him. But it is impossible that, as
an unwilling witness, you could have had any motive at all
for counterfeiting or exaggerating on your friend an evil
purpose that did not exist. The dissimulation might be
natural — the simulation was inconceivable. To suppress a
true scandal was the office of a sorrowing friend — to propa-
gate a false one was the office of a knave : not, therefore,
that later testimony which to have garbled was amiable, but
that coeval testimony which to have invented would have
been insanity, — this it is which we must abide by. Besides
that, there is another explanation of Cicero's later language
than simple piety to the memory of a friend. His discovery
of Pompey's execrable plan was limited to a few months ; so
that, equally from its brief duration, its suddenness, and its
astonishing contradiction to all he had previously believed of
Pompey, such a painful secret was likely enough to fade from
his recollection after it had ceased to have any practical
importance for the world. On the other hand, Cicero had a
deep vindictive policy in keeping back any evil that he knew

CICEEO 207

of Pompey. It was a mere necessity of logic that, if Pompey
had meditated the utter destruction of his country by tire
and sword — if, more atrociously still, he had cherished a
resolution of unchaining upon Italy the most ferocious
barbarians he could gather about his eagles, Getae for
instance, Colchians, Armenians — if he had ransacked the
ports of the whole Mediterranean world, and had mustered
all the shipping from fourteen separate states enumerated by
Cicero, with an express purpose of intercepting all supplies
for Home, and of inflicting the slow torments of famine upon
that vast yet non-belligerent city — then, in opposing such a
monster, Caesar was undeniably a public benefactor. Cicero
could not hide from himself that result. He felt also that
not only would the magnanimity and the gracious spirit of
forgiveness in Caesar be recalled with advantage into men's
thoughts by any confession of this hideous malignity in his
antagonist ; but that it really became impossible to sustain
any theory of ambitious violence in Caesar, when regarded
under his relations to such a body of parricidal conspirators.
Fighting for public objects that are difficult of explaining to
a mob, easily may any chieftain of a party be misrepresented
as a child of selfish ambition. But, once emblazoned as the sole
barrier between his native land and a merciless avenger by
fire and famine, he would take a tutelary character in the
minds of all men. To confess one solitary council — such as
Cicero had attended repeatedly at Pompey's head-quarters in
Epirus — was, by acclamation from every house in Home, to
evoke a hymn of gratitude towards that great Julian deliverer
whose Pharsalia had turned aside from Italy a deeper woe
than any which Paganism records.

I insist inexorably upon this state of relations as existing
between Cicero and the two combatants. I refuse to quit
this position. I affirm that, at a time when Cicero argued
upon the purposes of Caesar in a manner confessedly conjec-
tural, on the other hand, with regard to Pompey, from
confidential communications, he reported it as a dreadful
discovery that mere destruction to Eome was, upon Pompey's
policy, the catastrophe of the war. Caesar, he might persuade
himself, would revolutionise Rome ; but Pompey, he knew
in confidence, meant to leave no Rome to revolutionise. Does

208 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

any reader fail to condemn the selfishness of the Constable
Bourbon — ranging himself at Pavia in a pitched battle against
his sovereign on an argument of private wrong ? Yet the
Constable's treason had perhaps identified itself with his
self-preservation ; and he had 110 reason to anticipate a last-
ing calamity to his country from any act possible to an
individual. If we look into Ancient History, the case of
Hippias, the son of Pisistratus, scarcely approaches to this.
He indeed returned to Athens in company with the invading
hosts of Darius. But he had probably been expelled from
Athens by violent injustice ; and, though attending a hostile
invasion, he could not have caused it. Hardly a second case
can be found in all History as a parallel to the dreadful
design of Pompey, unless it be that of Count Julian calling
in the Saracens to ravage Spain, and to overthrow the
altars of Christianity, on the provocation of one outrage to
his own house, — early in the eighth century invoking a
scourge that was not entirely to be withdrawn until the
sixteenth.

But then for Count Julian it may be pleaded — that the
whole tradition is doubtful ; that, if true to the letter, his
own provocation was enormous ; and that we must not take
the measure of what he meditated by the frightful conse-
quences which actually ensued. Count Julian might have
relied on the weakness of Don Roderick for giving a present
effect to his vengeance, but might still rely consistently
enough on the natural strength of his country, when once
coerced into union, for ultimately confounding the enemy,
and perhaps for confounding the Mahometan fanaticism itself.
For the worst traitor whom History has recorded there
remains some plea of mitigation, something in aggravation of
the wrongs which he had sustained, something in abatement
of the retaliation which he designed. Only for Pompey
there is none. Rome had given him no subject of complaint.
It was true that the strength of Ca3sar lay there ; because
immediate hopes from revolution belonged to the democracy,
to the oppressed, to the multitudes in debt, for whom the
law had neglected to provide any prospect or degree of relief ;
and these were exactly the class of persons that could not
find funds for emigrating. But still there was no overt act,

CICERO 209

no official act, no representative act, by which Rome had
declared herself for either party.

Cicero was now aghast at the discoveries he made with
regard to Pompey. Imbecility of purpose, distraction of
counsels, feebleness in their dilatory execution, all tended to
one dilemma : either that Pompey, as a mere favourite of
luck, never had possessed any military talents, or that, by
age and conscious inequality to his enemy, these talents were
now in a state of collapse. Having first, therefore, made the
discovery that his too celebrated friend was anything but a
statesman (aTroAtTt/cwraros), Cicero came at length to pro-
nounce him aoT/xxT^yiKomxTov — anything but a general.
But all this was nothing in the way of degradation to Pom-
pey's character, by comparison with the final discovery of
the horrid retaliation which he meditated upon all Italy by
coming back with barbarous troops to make a wilderness of
the opulent land, and upon Rome in particular by so posting
his blockading fleets and his cruisers as to intercept all
supplies of corn from Sicily, from the province of Africa, and
from Egypt. The great moral, therefore, from Cicero's con-
fidential confessions is that he abandoned the cause as unten-
able ; that he abandoned the supposed party of " good men,"
as found upon trial to be odious intriguers; and that he
abandoned Pompey in any privileged character of a patriotic
leader. If he still adhered to Pompey as an individual, it
was in memory of his personal obligations to that oligarch ;
but, secondly, for the very generous reason that Pompey 's
fortunes were declining, and because Cicero would not be
thought to have shunned that man in his misfortunes whom
in reality he had felt tempted to despise only for his enormous
errors.

After these distinct and reiterated acknowledgments, it is
impossible to find the smallest justification for the great
harmony of historians in representing Cicero as having abided
by those opinions with which he first entered upon the party
strife. Even at that time it is probable that Cicero's deep
sense of gratitude to Pompey secretly had entered more
largely into his decision than he had ever acknowledged to
himself. For he had at first exerted himself anxiously to
mediate between the two parties. Now, if he really fancied

VOL. VI P

210 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

the views of Caesar to proceed on principles of destruction to
the Koman constitution, all mediation was a hopeless attempt.
Compromise between extremes lying so widely apart, and in
fact as between the affirmation and the negation of the same
propositions, must have been too plainly impossible to have
justified any countenance to so impracticable a speculation.

But was not such a compromise impossible in practice,
even upon our own theory of the opposite requisitions ? No.
And a closer statement of the true principles concerned will
show it was not. The great object of the Julian party was
to heal the permanent collision between the supposed func-
tions of the people, in their electoral capacity, in their powers
of patronage, and in their vast appellate jurisdiction, with
the assumed privileges of the Senate. We all know how
dreadful have been the disputes in our own country as to the
limits of the constitutional forces composing the total state.
Between the privileges of the Commons and the prerogative
of the Crown, how long a time, and how severe a struggle,
was required to adjust the true temperament ! To say nothing
of the fermenting disaffection towards the government through-
out the reign of James I and the first fifteen years of his
son, the great Civil War grew out of the sheer contradictions
arising between the necessities of the public service and the
letter of superannuated prerogatives. The simple history of
that great strife was that the democracy, the popular element,
in the commonwealth, had outgrown the provisions of old
usages and statutes. The King, a man wishing to be con-
scientious, believed that the efforts of the Commons, which
represented only the instincts of rapid growth in all popular
interests, cloaked a secret plan of encroachment on the
essential rights of the sovereign. In this view he was con-
firmed by lawyers, the most dangerous of all advisers in
political struggles ; for they naturally seek the solution of
all contested claims either in the positive determination of
ancient usage or in the constructive view of its analogies.
Whereas here the very question was concerning a body of
usage and precedent not denied in many cases as facts, —
whether that condition of policy, not unreasonable as adapted
to a community having but two dominant interests, were any
longer safely tenable under the rise and expansion of a third.

CICERO 211

For instance, the whole management of our foreign policy
had always been reserved to the crown, as one of its most
sacred mysteries, or a-jropprjra ; yet, if the people could
obtain no indirect control of this policy through the amplest
control of the public purse, even their domestic rights might
easily be made nugatory. Again, it was indispensable that
the crown, free from all direct responsibility, should be
checked by some responsibility operating in a way to pre-
serve the sovereign in his constitutional sanctity. This was
finally effected by the admirable compromise of lodging the
responsibility in the persons of all servants by or through
whom the sovereign could act. But this was so little under-
stood by Charles I as any constitutional privilege of the
people that he resented the proposal as much more insulting
to himself than that of fixing the responsibility in his own
person. The latter proposal he viewed as a violation of his
own prerogative, founded upon open wrong. There was an
injury, but no insult. On the other hand, to require of him
the sacrifice of a servant, whose only offence had been in his
fidelity to himself, was to expect that he should act collusively
with those who sought to dishonour him. The absolute lo el
Key of Spanish kings, in the last resort, seemed in Charles's
eye indispensable to the dignity of his crown. And his legal
counsellors assured him that, in conceding this point, he
would degrade himself into a sort of upper constable, having
some disagreeable functions, but none which could surround
him with majestic attributes in the eyes of his subjects.
Feeling thus, and thus advised, and religiously persuaded
that he held his powers for the benefit of his people, so as to
be under a deep moral incapacity to surrender " one dowle " 1
from his royal plumage, he did right to struggle with that
energy and that cost of blood which marked his own personal
war from 1642 to 1645. Now, on the other hand, we know
that nearly all the concessions sought from the king, and
refused as mere treasonable demands, were subsequently re-
affirmed, assumed into our constitutional law, and solemnly
established for ever, about forty years later, by the Revolution
of 1688-89. And this great event was in the nature of a
compromise. For the patriots of 1642 had been betrayed
1 " One dowle" :— Shakspere [Tempest, III. 3].

212 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

into some capital errors, claims both irreconcilable with the
dignity of the crown, and useless to the people. This ought
not to surprise us, and does not extinguish our debt of grati-
tude to those great men. Where has been the man, much
less the party of men, that did not, in a first essay upon so
difficult an adjustment as that of an equilibration between
the limits of political forces, travel into some excesses ? But
forty years' experience, the restoration of a party familiar
with the invaluable uses of royalty, and the harmonious co-
operation of a new sovereign, already trained to a system of
restraints, made this final settlement as near to a perfect
adjustment and compromise between all conflicting rights as
perhaps human wisdom could attain.

Now, from this English analogy, we may explain some-
thing of what is most essential in the Roman conflict. This
great feature was common to the two cases — that the change
sought by the revolutionary party was not an arbitrary
change, but in the way of a natural nisus, working secretly
throughout two or three generations. It was a tendency
that would not be denied, — just as, in the England of 1640,
it is impossible to imagine that, under any immediate result
whatever, ultimately the mere necessities of expansion in a
people ebullient with juvenile energies, and passing, at every
decennium, into new stages of development, could have been
gainsaid or much retarded. Had the nation embodied less of
that stern political temperament which leads eventually to
extremities in action, it is possible that the upright and
thoughtful character of the sovereign might have reconciled
the Commons to expedients of present redress, and for thirty
years the crisis might have been evaded. But the licentious
character of Charles II would inevitably have challenged the
resumption of the struggle in a more embittered shape ; for,
in the actual war of 1642, the separate resources of the crown
were soon exhausted, and a deep sentiment of respect towards
the king kept alive the principle of fidelity to the crown
through all the oscillations of the public mind. Under a
stronger reaction against the personal sovereign, it is not
absolutely impossible that the aristocracy might have come
into the project of a republic. Whenever this body stood
aloof, and by alliance with the Church, as well as with a

CICERO 213

very large section of the Democracy, their non-adhesion to
republican plans finally brought them to extinction. But
the principle cannot be refused — that the conflict was inevit-
able ; that the collision could in no way have been evaded,
and for the same reason as spoke out so loudly in Kome —
because the grievances to be redressed, and the incapacities
to be removed, and the organs to be renewed, were absolute
and urgent ; that the evil grew out of the political system ;
that this system had generally been the silent product of
time ; and that, as the sovereign in the English case most
conscientiously, so, on the other hand, in Rome, the Pompeian
faction, with no conscience at all, stood upon the letter of
usage and precedent, where the secret truth was that nature
herself, — that nature which works in political things by
change, by growth, by destruction, not less certainly than in
physical organisations, — had long been silently superannuat-
ing these precedents, and preparing the transition into forms
more in harmony with public safety, with public wants, and
with public intelligence.

The capital fault in the operative constitution of Eome
had long been in the antinomies, if I may be pardoned for so
learned a term, of the public service. It is not so true an
expression that anarchy was always to be apprehended as, in
fact, that anarchy always subsisted. What made this
anarchy more and less dangerous was the personal character
of the particular man militant for the moment ; next, the
variable interest which such a party might have staked upon
the contest ; and, lastly, the variable means at his disposal
towards public agitation. Fortunately for the public safety,
these forces, like all forces in this world of compensations
and of fluctuations, obeying steady laws, rose but seldom into
the excess which menaced the framework of the state. Even
in disorder, when long continued, there is an order that can
be calculated : dangers were foreseen ; remedies were put
into an early state of preparation. But, because the evil had
not been so ruinous as might have been predicted, it was not
the less an evil, and it was not the less enormously increas-
ing. The democracy retained a large class of functions, for
which the original uses had been long extinct. Powers
which had utterly ceased to be available for interests of their

214 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

own were now used purely as the tenures by which they held
a vested interest in bribery. The sums requisite for bribery
were rising as the great estates rose. No man, even in a
gentlemanly rank, no eques, no ancient noble even, unless his
income were hyperbolically vast, or unless as the creature of
some party in the background, could at length face the ruin
of a political career. I do not speak of men anticipating a
special resistance, but of those who stood in ordinary circum-
stances. Atticus is not a man whom I should cite for any
authority in a question of principle, for I believe him to
have been a dissembling knave, and the most perfect vicar of
Bray extant ; but in a question of prudence his example is
decisive. Latterly he was worth a hundred thousand pounds.
Four-fifths of this sum, it is true, had been derived from a
casual bequest ; however, he had been rich enough, even in
early life, to present all the poor citizens of Athens — prob-
ably twelve thousand families — with a year's consumption
for two individuals of excellent wheat ; and he had been dis-
tinguished for other ostentatious largesses : yet this man held
it to be ridiculous, in common prudence, that he should
embark upon any political career. Merely the costs of an
sedileship, to which he might have arrived in early life,
would have swallowed up the entire hundred thousand pounds
of his mature good luck. " Honores non petiit, quod neque
peti more majorum, neque capipossent, conservatis legibus, in
tarn effusis largitionibus, neque geri sine periculo, corruptis
civitatis moribus " — ("For public honours he was no candidate;
because, under a system of bribery so unlimited, such distinctions
could neither be sought after in the old ancestral mode, nor won
without violation of the laws ; nor administered satisfactorily, as
regarded the duties which they imposed, without personal risk in
a condition of civic morals so generally relaxed "). But this argu-
ment on the part of Atticus pointed to a modest and pacific
career. When the politics of a man, or his special purpose,
happened to be polemic, the costs, and the personal risk, and
the risk to the public peace, were on a scale prodigiously
greater. No man with such views could think of coming
forward without a princely fortune, and the courage of a
martyr. Milo, Curio, Decimus Brutus, and many persons
besides, in a lapse of twenty-five years, spent fortunes of four

CICERO 215

and five hundred thousand pounds, and without accomplish-
ing, after all, much of what they proposed. In other shapes,
the evil was still more malignant : and, as these circum-
stantial cases are the most impressive, I will bring forward
a few.

1. Provisional administrations. — The Komans were not
characteristically a rapacious or dishonest people — the
Greeks were ; and it is a fact strongly illustrative of that
infirmity in principle and levity which made the Greek so
contemptible to the graver judgments of Rome that hardly a
trustworthy man could be found for the receipt of taxes.
The regular course of business was that the Greeks absconded
with the money, unless narrowly watched. Whatever else
they might be — sculptors, buffoons, dancers, tumblers — they
were a nation of swindlers. For the art of fidelity in pecu-
lation you might depend upon them to any amount. Now,
amongst the Romans, these petty knaveries were generally
unknown. Even as knaves they had aspiring minds ; and
the original key to their spoliations in the provinces was
undoubtedly the vast scale of their domestic corruption. A
man who had to begin by bribing one nation must end by
fleecing another. Almost the only open channels through
which a Roman nobleman could create a fortune (always
allowing for a large means of marrying to advantage, since a
man might shoot a whole series of divorces, still refunding
the last dowry, but still replacing it with a better) were
these two : lending money on sea risks, or to embarrassed
municipal corporations on good landed or personal security,
with the gain of twenty, thirty, or even forty per cent ; and,
secondly, the grand resource of a provincial government.
The abuses I need not state : the prolongation of these lieu-
tenancies beyond the legitimate year was one source of
enormous evil ; and it was the more rooted an abuse because
very often it was undeniable that other evils arose in the
opposite scale from too hasty a succession of governors, upon
which principle no consistency of local improvements could
be insured, nor any harmony even in the administration of
justice, since each successive governor brought his own
system of legal rules. As to the other and more flagrant

216 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

abuses, in extortion from the province, in garbling the
accounts and defeating all scrutiny at Home, in embezzle-
ment of military pay, and in selling every kind of private
advantage for bribes, these have been made notorious by the
very circumstantial exposure of Verres. But some of the
worst evils are still unpublished, and must be looked for in
the indirect revelations of Cicero when himself a governor,
as well as the incidental relations by special facts and cases.
I, on my part, will venture to raise a doubt whether Verres
ought really to be considered that exorbitant criminal whose
guilt has been so profoundly impressed upon us all by the
forensic artifices of Cicero. The true reasons for his condem-
nation must be sought, first, in the proximity to Koine of
that Sicilian province where many of his alleged oppressions
had occurred. The fluent intercourse with this island, and
the multiplied interconnexions of individual towns with
Roman grandees, aggravated the facilities of making charges;
whilst the proofs were anything but satisfactory in the
Roman judicature. Here lay one disadvantage of Verres ;
but another was that the ordinary system of bribes — viz. the
sacrifice of one portion from the spoils in the shape of bribes
to the jury (judices) in order to redeem the other portions —
in this case could not be applied. The spoils were chiefly
works of art. Verres was the very first man who formed a
gallery of art in Rome ; and a French writer in the " Aca-
demie des Inscriptions " has written a most elaborate catalogue
raisonntf to this gallery — drawn from the materials left by
Cicero and Pliny. But this was obviously a sort of treasure
that did not admit of partition. And the object of Verres
would equally have been defeated by selling a part for the
costs of " salvage " on the rest. In this sad dilemma,
Verres, upon the whole, resolved to take his chance ; or, if
bribery were applied to some extent, it must have stopped far
short of that excess to which it would have proceeded under a
more disposable form of his gains. But I will not conceal the
truth which Cicero indirectly reveals. The capital abuse in
the provincial system was, not that the guilty governor might
escape, but that the innocent governor might be ruined. It
is evident that, in a majority of cases, this magistrate was
thrown upon his own discretion. Nothing could be so

CICERO 217

indefinite and uncircumstantial as the Roman laws on this
head. The most upright administrator was almost as cruelly
laid open to the fury of calumnious persecution as the worst ;
both were often cited to answer upon parts of their adminis-
tration altogether blameless ; but, when the original rule
had been so wide and lax, the final resource must be in the
mercy of the particular tribunal.

2. The Roman judicial system. — This would require a
separate volume, and chiefly upon this ground — that in no
country upon earth, except Rome, has the ordinary adminis-
tration of justice been applied as a great political engine.
Men who could not otherwise be removed were constantly
assailed by impeachments, and oftentimes for acts done forty
or fifty years before the time of trial. But this dreadful
aggravation of the injustice was not generally needed. The
system of trial was the most corrupt that has ever prevailed
under European civilisation. The composition of their
courts, as to the rank of the numerous jury, was continually
changed : but no change availed to raise them above
bribery. The rules of evidence were simply none at all.
Every hearsay, erroneous rumour, or atrocious libel, was
allowed to be offered as evidence. Much of this never could
be repelled, as it had not been anticipated. And, even in
those cases where no bribery was attempted, the issue was
dependent, almost in a desperate extent, upon the impression
made by the advocate. And, finally, it must be borne in
rnind that there was no presiding judge, in our sense of the
word, to sum up, to mitigate the effect of arts or falsehood
in the advocate, to point the true bearing of the evidence,
still less to state and to restrict the law. Law there very
seldom was any, in a precise circumstantial shape. The
verdict might be looked for accordingly. And I do not
scruple to say that so triumphant a machinery of oppression
has never existed — no, not in the dungeons of the Inquisi-
tion.

3. The licence of public libelling. — Upon this I had pro-
posed to enlarge. But I must forbear. One only caution
I must impress upon the reader : he may fancy that Cicerc

218 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

would not practise or defend in others the absolute abuse of
confidence on the part of the jury and audience by employ-
ing direct falsehoods. But this is a mistake. Cicero, in his
justification of the artifices used at the bar, evidently goes
the whole length of advising the employment of all mis-
statements whatsoever which wear a plausible air. His own
practice leads to the same inference. Not the falsehood, but
the defect of probability, is what in his eyes degrades any
possible assertion or insinuation. And he holds, also, that a
barrister is not accountable for the frequent self-contradic-
tions in which he must be thus involved at different periods
of time. The immediate purpose is paramount to all
extrajudicial consequences whatever, and to all subsequent
exposures of the very grossest inconsistency in the most
calumnious falsehoods.

4. The morality of expediency employed by Roman statesmen.
— The regular relief furnished to Rome under the system of
anarchy which Caesar proposed to set aside lay in seasonable
murders. When a man grew potent in political annoyance,
somebody was employed to murder him. Never was there
a viler or better established murder than that of Claudius by
Milo, or that of Carbo and others by Pompey when a young
man, acting as the tool of Sylla. Yet these, and the murders
of the two Gracchi, nearly a century before, Cicero justifies
as necessary. So little progress had law and sound political
wisdom then made that Cicero was not aware of anything
monstrous in pleading for a most villainous act that circum-
stances had made it expedient. Such a man is massacred,
and Cicero appeals to all your natural feelings of honour
against the murderers. Such another is massacred, on the
opposite side, and Cicero thinks it quite sufficient to reply,
" Oh, but I assure you he was a bad man — I knew him to
be a bad man. And it was his duty to be murdered, as the
sole service he could render the commonwealth." So again,
in common with all his professional brethren, Cicero never
scruples to ascribe the foulest lust and abominable propen-
sities to any public antagonist ; never asking himself any
question but this, Will it look plausible ? He personally
escaped such slanders, because, as a young man, he was

CICERO 219

known to be rather poor, and very studious. But in later
life a horrible calumny of that very class settled upon him-
self, arid one peculiarly shocking to his parental grief ; for
he was then sorrowing in extremity for the departed lady
who had been associated in the slander. Do I lend a
moment's credit to the foul insinuation ? No. But I see
the equity of this retribution revolving upon one who had so
often slandered others in the same malicious way. At last
the poisoned chalice came round to his own lips, and at a
moment when its venom reached his heart of hearts.

5. The continued repetition of convulsions in the state. —
Under the last head I have noticed a consequence of the
long Koman Anarchy dreadful enough to contemplate — viz.
the necessity of murder as a sole relief to the extremities
continually recurring, and as a permanent temptation to the
vitiation of all moral ideas in the necessity of defending it
imposed often upon such men as Cicero. This was an evil
which cannot be exaggerated : but a more extensive evil lay
in the recurrence of those conspiracies which the public
anarchy promoted. We have all been deluded upon this
point. The conspiracy of Catiline, to those who weigh well
the mystery still enveloping the names of Caesar, of the
Consul C. Antonius, and others suspected as partial accom-
plices in this plot, and who consider also what parties were
the exposers or merciless avengers of this plot, was but a
reiteration of the attempts made within the previous fifty
years by Marius, Cinna, Sylla, and finally by Caesar and by
his heir Octavius, to raise a reformed government, safe and
stable, upon this hideous oligarchy that annually almost
brought the people of Rome into the necessity of a war and
the danger of a merciless proscription. That the usual
system of fraudulent falsehoods was offered by way of evi-
dence against Catiline, is pretty obvious. Indeed, why should
it have been spared ? The evidence, in a lawyer's sense, is
after all none at all. The pretended revelations of foreign
envoys go for nothing. These could have been suborned mo.st
easily. And the shocking defect of the case is that the
accused parties were never put on their defence, never con-
fronted with the base tools of the accusers, and the senators

220 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

amongst them were overwhelmed with clamours if they
attempted their defence in the senate. The motive to this
dreadful injustice is manifest. There was a conspiracy ;
that I do not doubt ; and of the same nature as Caesar's.
Else why should eminent men, too dangerous for Cicero to
touch, have been implicated in the obscurer charges ? How
had they any interest in the ruin of Kome ? How had
Catiline any interest in such a tragedy 1 But all the
grandees, who were too much embarrassed in debt to bear
the means of profiting by the machinery of bribes applied to
so vast a populace, naturally wished to place the administra-
tion of public affairs on another footing ; many from merely
selfish purposes, like Cethegus or Lentulus — some, I doubt
not, from purer motives of enlarged patriotism. One charge
against Catiline I may quote from many, as having tainted
the most plausible part of the pretended evidence with
damnatory suspicions. The reader may not have remarked
— but the fact is such — that one of the standing artifices for
injuring a man with the populace of Kome, when all other
arts had failed, was to say that amongst his plots was one for
burning the city. This cured that indifference with which
otherwise the mob listened to stories of mere political con-
spiracy against a system which they hated. Now, this most
senseless charge was renewed against Catiline. It is hardly
worthy of notice. Of what value to him could be a heap of
ruins ? Or how could he hope to found an influence amongst
those who were yet reeking from such a calamity ?

But, in reality, this conspiracy was that effort continually
moving underground, and which would have continually
exploded in shocks dreadful to the quiet of the nation, which
mere necessity, and the instincts of position, prompted to the
parties interested. Let the reader only remember the long
and really ludicrous succession of men sent out against
Antony at Mutina by the Senate, viz. Octavius, Plancus,
Asinius Pollio, Lepidus, every one of whom fell away almost
instantly to the anti-senatorial cause, to say nothing of the
consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, who would undoubtedly have
followed the general precedent, had they not been killed
prematurely : and it will become apparent how irresistible
this popular cause was, as the sole introduction to a patriotic

CICERO 221

reformation, ranged too notoriously against a narrow scheme
of selfishness, which interested hardly forty families. It does
not follow that all men, simply as enemies of an oligarchy,
would have afterwards exhibited a pure patriotism. Caesar,
however, did. His reforms, even before his Pompeian
struggle, were the greatest ever made by an individual ; and
those which he carried through after that struggle, and
during that brief term which his murderers allowed him,
transcended by much all that in any one century had been
accomplished by the collective patriotism of Rome.

POSTSCRIPT1

THE late Dr. Arnold of Rugby mentions that, when he was
meditating a work on some section (I forget what) of Ancient
History, there reached him from one of the Napiers (either
Sir William, it must have been, or the late General Sir
Charles) an admonitory caution to beware of treating Pompey
with any harshness or undervaluation under the common
notion that he had been spoiled in youth by unmerited
success, had been petted by a most ignorant populace through
half-a-century, and, finally, coming into collision with the
greatest of men, had naturally made a total shipwreck ; for
that, on the contrary, he was a very great strategist ; yes, in
spite of Pharsalia (and in spite, I presume, of his previous
Italian campaign). Now, the Napiers, a distinguished
family, " multum nostrce quce proderat urbi" and qualified to
offer suit and service " tarn Marti quam Mercurio" have a
right to legislate on such a subject, — have a limited right
even to dogmatise, and to rivet their conclusions (if at any
odd corner shaky) by what Germans term a macht-spruch.
But the general impression is likely to prevail, until his
annals are re- written, that, in the fullest sense of that modern
sneer, Pompey (if any man on the rolls of History) was " a
Sepoy General" : he earned his reputation too surely by
building on other men's foundations ; and he prospered in
any brilliant degree only so long as he contended with
Asiatic antagonists. That famous sneer came round with

1 What is here printed as a Postscript appeared originally as part
of a " Preface" prefixed by De Quiucey in 1858 to the volume of his
Collected Writings containing his paper on Cicero. — M.

POSTSCRIPT 223

killing recoil before the play was over upon those that
launched it, like the boomerang of the poor Australian
savage in unskilful hands : but it is a sneer that still tells
retrospectively upon the Pompey that in his morning hours
was the pet of ill-distinguishing Rome. A Sepoy General
is one to whom the praise of the martinet is the breath of
his nostrils, — who thinks it a bagatelle in a soldier to have
the trick of running away, provided he runs with grace and
a stately air ; and, above all, a Sepoy General is one that
reaps a perpetual consolation under calamities from the
luxury of " prospecting " malice. " I may be beaten," says
the gallant man, " on the open field of battle. But what
then ? My secret consolations remain : ' my mind to me
a kingdom is.' And this mind suggests that, if unable to
face my enemy in the daylight, I may yet find the means to
murder him at night." Such as these were the habits and
the reversionary consolations of Pompey. And I should
have suggested to Dr. Arnold that, after all, since there is no
State Paper Office in Rome surviving from classical days that
might contribute new materials when the old had failed, and
since Pompeii itself, though built on the Neapolitan landed
estate of this very Pharsalian Pompey, has hitherto furnished,
amongst all her unrolled papyri, nothing at all towards the
military vindication of her ground landlord, even the
Napiers must be content for the present with the old docu-
ments that have failed to whitewash the pompous old torso,
now lying without a head, somewhere on the coast of
Aboukir, at the bottom of the sea. Meantime all this
relates to Pompey as a military captain and tactician ; upon
which aspect of his pretensions I have said nothing at all.
It is Pompey as a man, and as a citizen more deeply indebted
to Rome than any other amongst his contemporaries, that I
am reviewing. A bad man he was, — a vile man ; and upon
the evidence of one who would have been (and long had
been) his friend for purposes that could be decently avowed,
and his horrorstruck confidant for such as could not. On
the impulse of mere vindictive fury against Csesar and the
supporters of Csosar, he would have visited Rome with
famine and the sword. All the absurd designs against Rome
that ever were mendaciously imputed to Catiline Pompey in

224 HISTOEICAL ESSAYS AND EESEARCHES

his secret purposes entertained steadily and inexorably. Cicero
was far from being a good man : too ambitious he was by
much ; and the enjoyment of his patrician honours was too
incompatible with the general welfare for any true civic
patriotism. But he was too moderate and decent a man to
harmonise with the faction that had formed itself in Pom-
pey's camp. But this subject I will not pursue ; it would
be actuni agere, — as it is already sketched, though rapidly
and insufficiently, in the paper entitled " Cicero."

THE C.ESARS1

INTRODUCTION 2

THE majesty of the Roman Csesar Semper Augustus has
never yet been fully appreciated ; nor has any man yet
explained sufficiently in what respects this title and this
office were absolutely unique. There was but one Rome : no
other city, as we are satisfied by the collation of many facts,
has ever rivalled this astonishing metropolis in the grandeur
of magnitude ; and not many — perhaps, if we except the
cities built under Grecian auspices along the line of three
thousand miles from Western Capua or Syracuse to the
Euphrates and oriental Palmyra, none at all — in the gran-
deur of architectural display. Speaking even of London,
we ought in all reason to say the Nation of London, and not
the City of London ; but of Rome in her meridian hours
nothing else could be said in the naked rigour of logic. A
million and a half of souls — that population, apart from any
other distinctions, is per se for London a justifying ground
for such a classification ; a fortiori, then, will it belong to a
city which counted from one horn to the other of its mighty
suburbs not less than four millions of inhabitants at the very
least, — as we resolutely maintain after reviewing all that has

1 The series of papers with this title appeared originally in Black-
wood's Magazine for October and November 1832, January 1833, and
June, July, and August 1834. They were reprinted by De Quincey in
1859 in the tenth volume of his Collected Writings, with slight
changes of phraseology here and there, and some added footnotes. — M.

2 This was the first portion of the first Paper on "The Csesars" as
it stood in Blackwood for October 1832.— M.

VOL. VI O

22G HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

been written on that much-vexed theme, — and not impossibly
half as many more.1 Republican Rome had her prerogative
Tribe ; the Earth has its prerogative City ; and that City
was Rome.

As was the City, such was its Prince — mysterious, solitary,
unique. Each was to the other an adequate counterpart,
each reciprocally that perfect mirror which reflected, as in
alia materia, those incommunicable attributes of grandeur
that under the same shape and denomination never upon this
earth were destined to be revived. Rome has not been re-
peated ; neither has Caesar. Ubi Ccesar, ibi Roma, was a

1 "A million and a half," which was the true numerical return of
population from the English capital about twenty years back [1832],
when this paper was written. At present [1859], and for some time,
it has stood at two millions plus as many thousands as express the
days of a solar year. But, if adjusted to meet the corrections due
upon the annual growths of the people, in that case the true return
must now (viz. January of the year 1859) show a considerable excess
beyond two and a half millions. Do we mean to assert, then, that
the ancient Eome of the Caesars, that mighty ancestral forerunner of
the Papal Rome, — which, in this year 1859, counts about 180,000
citizens (or, in fact, above Edinburgh by a trifle, by 200,000 below
Glasgow, by 150,000 below Manchester), — did in reality ever surmount
numerically the now awful London ? Is that what we mean ? Yes ;
that is what we mean. We must remember the prodigious area which
Rome stretched over. We must remember that feature in the Roman
domestic architecture (so impressively insisted on by the rhetorician
Aristides) in which the ancient Rome resembled the ancient Edinburgh,
and so far greatly eclipsed London, viz. the vast ascending series of
storeys, laying stratum upon stratum, tier upon tier, of men and
women, as in some mighty theatre of human hives. Not that London
is deficient in thousands of lofty streets ; but the storeys rarely ascend
beyond the fourth, or, at most, the fifth ; whereas the old Rome and
the old Edinburgh counted at intervals by sevens or even tens. This
element in the calculation being allowed for, perhaps the four millions
of Lipsius may seem a reasonable population for the flourishing days
of Caesarian Rome, which ran far ahead of Republican Rome. On
this assumption, Rome will take the first place, London (as it now is)
the second, Paris (of to-day) the third, New York (800,000) and prob-
ably the ancient Alexandria the fourth places, on the world's register
of mighty metropolitan cities. Babylon and Nineveh are too entirely
within the exaggerating influences of misty traditions and nursery
fables, like the vapoury exhalations of the Fata Morgana — a species
of delusion resting upon a primary basis of reality, but repeating this
reality so often, through endless self -multiplication, by means of
optical reflexion and refraction, that the final result is little better

THE CAESARS 227

maxim of Roman jurisprudence. And the same maxim may
be translated into a wider meaning ; in which it becomes
true also for our historical experience. Caesar and Rome
have flourished and expired together. Each reciprocally was
essential to the other. Even the Olympian Pantheon needed
Rome for its full glorification ; and Jove himself first knew
his own grandeur when robed and shrined as Jupiter
Capitolinus. The illimitable attributes of the Roman Prince,
boundless and comprehensive as the universal air — like that
also bright and apprehensible to the most vagrant eye, yet in
parts (and those not far removed) unfathomable as outer

than absolute fiction. And, universally, with regard to Asiatic cities
(above all, with regard to Chinese cities), the reader must carry with
him these cautions : —

1st, That Asiatics, with rare exceptions, have little regard for
truth : by habit and policy they are even more mendacious than they
are perfidious. Fidelity to engagements, sincerity, and disinterested
veracity, rank, in Oriental estimates, as the perfection of idiocy.

2d, That, having no liberal curiosity, the Chinese man never
troubles his head about the statistical circumstances of his own city,
province, or natal territory. Such researches he would regard as
ploughing the sands of the sea-shore, or counting the waves.

3d, That, two grounds of falsification being thus laid, in (A) the
ostentatious mendacity, and (B), which glories in its own blindness,
the ignorance of all those who ought to be authorities upon such
questions, a third ground arises naturally from the peculiar and special
character of Eastern cities, which, for all European ears, too readily aids
in misleading. Too often such cities are improvised by means of
mud, turf, light spars, canvas, &c. Hibernian cabins, Scotch bothies
(which word is radically the same as the booth of English fairs), hovels
for sheltering cattle from the weather, — or buildings of a similar style
and fugitive make-shift character, under the hurried workmanship of
three or four hundred thousand men, — run up within a single forenoon
a perishable town that meets the necessities of a southern climate.
Schiller, in his " Wallenstein," sketches such a light canvas town as
the hurried extempore creation of soldiers. Schiller's description is
a sketch ; and such a military creation is itself but a sketch of a
regular and finished town. Military by its first outline and sugges-
tion, such a frail scenical town always retains its military make-shift
character ; and is, in fact, to the very last, an encampment of gipsies
or migrating travellers, rather than an architectural residence of
settlers who have ceased from vagrancy. Even as an improvised
home, such a stage mimicry of a city could find toleration only in a
warm climate. But such a climate, and such slender masquerading
abodes, are found throughout the Northern Tropic in the southern
regions of Asia.

228 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

darkness (for no chamber in a dungeon could shroud in more
impenetrable concealment a deed of murder than the upper
chambers of the air) : these attributes, so impressive to the
imagination, and which all the subtlety of the Roman l wit
could as little fathom as the fleets of Caesar could traverse the
Polar basin or unlock the gates of the Pacific, are best
symbolized, and find their most appropriate exponent, in the
illimitable City itself — that Rome, whose centre, the Capitol,
was immovable as Teneriffe or Atlas, but whose circumference
was shadowy, uncertain, restless, and advancing as the
frontiers of her all-conquering empire. It is false to say that
with Caesar came the destruction of Roman greatness. Peace,
hollow rhetoricians ! until Caesar came, Rome was a minor ;
by him she attained her majority, and fulfilled her destiny.
Caius Julius, you say, deflowered the virgin purity of her
civil liberties. Doubtless, then, Rome had risen immaculate
from the arms of Sylla and of Marius. But, if it were Caius
Julius that deflowered Eome, if under him she forfeited her
dowry of civic purity, if to him she first unloosed her maiden
zone, then be it affirmed boldly that she reserved her greatest
favours for the noblest of her wooers ; and we may plead the
justification of Falconbridge for his mother's transgression
with the lion-hearted king — such a sin was self - ennobled.
Did Julius deflower Rome ? Then, by that consummation,
he caused her to fulfil the functions of her nature ; he com-
pelled her to exchange the imperfect and inchoate condition of
a mere fcemina for the perfections of a mulier. And, metaphor
apart, we maintain that Rome lost no liberties by the mighty
Julius. That which in tendency and by the spirit of her
institutions, that which by her very corruptions and abuses
co-operating with her laws, Rome promised and involved in
the germ — even that, and nothing less or different, did Rome
unfold and accomplish under this Julian violence. The rape
(if such it were) of Caesar, her final Romulus, completed for
Rome that which the rape under Romulus, her initial or in-
augurating Caesar, had prosperously begun. And thus by one

1 Or even of modern wit ; witness the vain attempt of so many
eminent JCTI (i.e. jurisconsult!), and illustrious Antecessors (i.e. doctors
of law), to explain in self-consistency the differing functions of the
Roman Caesar, and in what sense he was legibus solutus.

THE OESARS 229

supreme man was a nation-city matured ; and from the ever-
lasting and nameless 1 city was a man produced capable of
taming her indomitable nature, and of forcing her to immolate
her wild virginity to the state best fitted for the destined
" Mother of Empires." Peace, then, rhetoricians, false
threnodists of false liberty ! hollow chanters over the ashes of
a hollow republic ! Without Caesar we affirm a thousand
times that there would have been no perfect Rome ; and, but
for Rome, there could have been no such man as Caesar.

Both then were immortal ; each worthy of each. And
the Cui viget nihil simile aut secundum of the poet was as
true of one as of the other. For, if by comparison with Rome
other cities were but villages, with even more propriety it
may be asserted that after the Roman Caesars all modern
kings, kesars, or emperors are mere phantoms of royalty.
The Caesar of Western Rome — he only of all earthly potentates,
past or to come, could be said to reign as a monarch, that is,
as a solitary king. He was not the greatest of princes,
simply because there was no other but himself. There were
doubtless a few outlying rulers, of unknown names and titles,
upon the margins of his empire ; there were tributary
lieutenants and barbarous reguli, the obscure vassals of his
sceptre, whose homage was offered on the lowest step of his
throne, and scarcely known to him but as objects of disdain.
But these feudatories could no more break the unity of his
empire, which embraced the whole oiKov/xei/^ — the total
habitable world as then known to geography or recognised
by the muse of history — than at this day the British Empire
on the sea can be brought into question or made conditional
because some chief of Owyhee or Tongataboo should proclaim
a momentary independence of the British trident, or should
even offer a transient outrage to her sovereign flag. Such
a tempestas in matuld might raise a brief uproar in his
little native archipelago, but too feeble to reach the shores of
Europe by an echo, or to ascend by so much as an infantine
susurritf to the ears of the British Neptune. Parthia, it
is true, might pretend to the dignity of an empire. But
her sovereigns, though sitting in the seat of the great king

1 "Nameless city" : — The true name of Rome it was a point of
religion to conceal ; and, in fact, it was never revealed.

230 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

(6 /^acrtAevs), were no longer the rulers of a vast and polished
nation. They were regarded as barbarians — potent only by
their standing army, not upon the larger basis of civic
strength ; and, even under this limitation, they were supposed
to owe more to the circumstances of their position — their
climate, their remoteness, and their inaccessibility except
through arid and sultry deserts — than to intrinsic resources,
such as could be permanently relied on in a serious trial of
strength between the two powers. The kings of Parthia,
therefore, were far enough from being regarded in the light
of antagonist forces to the majesty of Rome. And, these
withdrawn from the comparison, who else was there — what
prince, what king, what potentate of any denomination — to
break the universal calm that through centuries continued to
lave, as with the quiet undulations of summer lakes, the
sacred footsteps of the Csesarean throne ?

The Byzantine Court, which, merely as the inheritor of
some fragments from that august throne, was drunk with
excess of pride, surrounded itself with elaborate expressions
of a grandeur beyond what mortal eyes were supposed able to
sustain. These fastidious, and sometimes fantastic, ceremonies,
originally devised as the very extremities of anti-barbarism,
were often themselves but too nearly allied in spirit to the
barbaresque in taste. In reality, some parts of the Byzantine
court ritual were arranged in the same spirit as that of China
or the Burman Empire ; or fashioned by anticipation, as one
might think, on the practice of that Oriental Cham (the
progenitor, by the way, of the present Chinese Emperor) who
used daily to proclaim by sound of trumpet to the kings in
the four corners of the earth that they, having dutifully
awaited the close of his dinner, might now with his royal
licence go to their own.

From such vestiges of derivative grandeur, propagated to
ages so remote from itself, and sustained by manners so dif-
ferent from the spirit of her own, we may faintly measure the
strength of the original impulse given to the feelings of men
by the soared majesty of the Roman throne. How potent
must that splendour have been whose mere reflection shot
rays upon a distant crown, under another heaven, and across
the wilderness of fourteen centuries ! Splendour thus trans-

THE (LESARS 231

mitted, thus sustained, and thus imperishable, argues a
transcendent vigour in the basis of radical power. Broad
and deep must those foundations have been laid which could
support an " arch of empire " rising to that giddy altitude —
an altitude which sufficed to bring it within the ken of
posterity to the sixtieth generation.

Power is measured by resistance. Upon such a scale, if
it were applied with skill, the relations of greatness in Rome
to the greatest of all that has gone before her, and hitherto
has come after her, would first be adequately revealed. The
youngest reader will know that the grandest forms in which
the collective might of the human race has manifested itself
are the Four Monarchies. Four times have the distributive
forces of nations gathered themselves, under the strong com-
pression of the sword, into mighty aggregates — denominated
Universal Empires or Monarchies. These are noticed in the
Holy Scriptures ; and it is upon their warrant that men
have supposed no Fifth Monarchy or Universal Empire
possible in an earthly sense, but that, whenever such an
empire arises, it will have Christ for its head, — in other
words, that no fifth monarchia can take place until Christianity
shall have swallowed up all other forms of religion, and
shall have gathered the whole family of man into one fold
under one all-conquering Shepherd. Hence the fanatics of
1650, who proclaimed Jesus for their king, and who did
sincerely anticipate his near advent in great power, and
under some personal manifestation, were usually styled Fifth-
Monarchists.1

However, waiving the question (interesting enough in
itself) whether upon earthly principles a fifth universal
empire could by possibility arise in the present condition of
knowledge for man individually and of organization for man
in general — this question waived, and confining ourselves to
the comparison of those four monarchies which actually have
existed, — of the Assyrian, or earliest, we may remark that it

1 This we mention because a great error has been sometimes com-
mitted in exposing their error ; which consisted, not in supposing that
for a fifth time men were to be gathered under one sceptre, and that
sceptre wielded by Jesus Christ, but in supposing that this great era
had then arrived, or that with no deeper moral revolution men could
be fitted for that yoke.

•2'J-2 HISTORICAL ASSAYS AND RESEARCHES

found men in no state of cohesion. This cause, which caine
in aid of its first foundation, would probably continue, and
would diminish the intensity of the power in the same pro-
portion as it promoted its extension. This monarchy would
be absolute only by the personal presence of the monarch ;
elsewhere, from mere defect of organization, it would and
must betray the total imperfections of an elementary state,
and of a first experiment. More by the weakness inherent
in its enemy than by its own strength, did the Persian spear
of Cyrus prevail against the Assyrian. Two centuries re-
volved, seven or eight generations, when Alexander found
himself in the same position as Cyrus for building a third
monarchy, and aided by the self-same vices of luxurious
effeminacy in his enemy, confronted with the self-same virtues
of enterprise and hardihood in his compatriot soldiers. The
native Persians, in the earliest and very limited import of
that name, were a poor and hardy race of mountaineers. So
were the men of Macedon ; and neither one tribe nor the
other found any adequate resistance in the luxurious
occupants of Babylonia, We may add, with respect to these
two earliest monarchies, that the Assyrian was undefined with
regard to space, and the Persian fugitive with regard to time.
But, for the third — the Grecian or Macedonian — we know
that the arts of civility and of civil organization had made
great progress before the Roman strength was measured
against it. In Macedon, in Achaia, in Syria, in Asia Minor,
in Egypt, — everywhere the members of this empire had
begun to knit \ the cohesion was far closer, the development
of their resources more complete ; the resistance, therefore,
by many hundred degrees more formidable : consequently,
by the fairest inference, the power in that proportion greater
which laid the foundations of this last great monarchy. It is
probable, indeed, both a priori and upon the evidence of
various facts which have survived, that each of the four great
empires successively triumphed over an antagonist barbarous
in comparison of itself, and each by and through that very
superiority in the arts and policy of civilisation.

Rome, therefore, which came last in the succession, and
swallowed up the three great powers that had seriatim cast
the human race into one uiould, and had brought them under

TUN CAESARS 233

tlic unity of a single will, entered by inheritance upon all
that its predecessors in that career had appropriated, but in a
condition of far ampler development. Estimated merely by
longitude and latitude, the territory of the Roman Empire
was the finest by much that has ever fallen under a single
sceptre. Amongst modern empires, doubtless, the Spanish
of the sixteenth century, and the British of the present, can-
not but be admired as prodigious growths out of so small a
stem. In that view, they will be endless monuments in
attestation of the marvels which are lodged in civilisation.
But, considered in and for itself, and with no reference to the
proportion of the creating forces, each of these empires has
the great defect of being disjointed, and even insusceptible of
perfect union. It is in fact no vinculum of social organiza-
tion which held them together, but the ideal vinculum of a
common fealty, and of submission to the same sceptre. This
is not like the tie of manners, operative even where it is not
perceived, but like the distinctions of geography — existing
to-day, forgotten to-morrow, and abolished by a stroke of
the pen, or a trick of diplomacy. Russia, again, a mighty
empire as respects the simple grandeur of magnitude, builds
her power upon sterility. She has it in her power to seduce
an invading foe into vast circles of starvation, of which the
radii measure a thousand leagues. Frost and snow are con-
federates of her strength. She is strong by her very weak-
ness. But Rome laid a belt about the Mediterranean of a
thousand miles in breadth — of more than two thousand
in length ; and within that zone she comprehended not only
all the great cities of the ancient world, but so perfectly did
she lay the garden of the world in every climate, and for
every mode of natural wealth, within her own ring-fence,
that since that era no land, not having been part and parcel
of the Roman Empire, has ever risen into strength and
opulence, except where unusual artificial industry has availed
to counteract the tendencies of nature. So entirely had
Rome engrossed whatsoever was rich by the mere bounty of
native endowment.

Vast, therefore, unexampled, immeasurable, was the basie
ol natural power upon which the Roman throne reposed.
The military force which put Rome in possession of this

234 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

inordinate power was certainly in some respects artificial ;
but the power itself was natural, and not subject to the ebbs
and flows which attend the commercial empires of our days ;
and, in fact, to be commercial is the very laurel-crown of
man's development as civilisation slowly ascends to its
supreme stages, for all are in part commercial. The depres-
sion, the reverses, of Rome, were confined to one shape —
famine ; a terrific shape, doubtless, but one which levies its
penalty of suffering not by elaborate processes that do not
exhaust their total cycle in less than long periods of years.
Fortunately for those who survive, no arrears of misery are
allowed by this scourge of ancient days l ; the total penalty
is paid down at once. As respected the hand of man, Rome
slept for ages in absolute security. She could suffer only by
the wrath of Providence ; and, so long as she continued to
be Rome, for many a generation she only of all the monarchies
has feared no mortal hand : 2

— ' ' God and his Son except,
Created thing nought valued she nor shunned."

1 " Of ancient days " : — For it is remarkable, and it serves to mark
an indubitable progress of mankind, that before the Christian era
famines were of frequent occurrence in countries the most civilised ;
afterwards they became rare, and latterly have entirely altered their
character into occasional dearths.

2 Unless that hand were her own armed against herself; upon
which topic there is a burst of noble eloquence in one of the ancient
Panegyrici, when haranguing the Emperor Theodosius : " Thou, Rome !

' that, having once suffered by the madness of Cinna, and of the cruel
' Marius raging from banishment, and of Sylla, that won his wreath
' of prosperity from thy disasters, and of Caesar, compassionate to the
' dead, didst shudder at every blast of the trumpet filled by the
' breath of civil commotion, — thou, that, besides the wreck of thy
' soldiery perishing on either side, didst bewail, amongst thy spec-
' tacles of domestic woe, the luminaries of thy senate extinguished,
' the heads of thy consuls fixed upon a halberd, weeping for ages over
' thy self-slaughtered Catos, thy headless Ciceros (truncosque Cicer-
' ones) and unburied Pompeys ; — to whom the party madness of thy
' own children had wrought in every age heavier woe than the Car-
' thaginian thundering at thy gates, or the Gaul admitted within thy
' walls ; on whom CEmathia, more fatal than the day of Allia,—
' Collina, more dismal than Cannae, — had inflicted such deep memorials
' of wounds that, from bitter experience of thy own valour, no enemy
' was to thee so formidable as thyself ; — thou, Rome ! didst now for
' the first time behold a civil war issuing in a hallowed prosperity, a

THE C^ISARS 235

That the possessor and wielder of such enormous power —
power alike admirable for its extent, for its intensity, and
for its consecration from all counter-forces which could re-
strain it, or endanger it — should be regarded as sharing in
the attributes of supernatural beings, is no more than might
naturally be expected. All other known power in human
hands has either been extensive, but wanting in intensity —
or intense, but wanting in extent — or, thirdly, liable to
permanent control and hazard from some antagonist power
commensurate with itself. But the Roman power, in its
centuries of grandeur, involved every mode of strength, with
absolute immunity from all kinds and degrees of weakness.
It ought not, therefore, to surprise us that the Emperor, as
the depositary of this charmed power, should have been
looked upon as a sacred person, and the imperial family
considered a " divina domus." It is an error to regard this
as excess of adulation, or as built originally upon hypocrisy.
Undoubtedly the expressions of this feeling are sometimes
gross and overcharged, as we find them in the very greatest
of the Roman poets ; for example, it shocks us to find a fine
writer, in anticipating the future canonization of his patron,
and his instalment amongst the heavenly hosts, begging him
to keep his distance warily from this or that constellation,
and to be cautious of throwing his weight into either hemi-
sphere, until the scale of proportions were accurately ad-
justed. These, doubtless, are passages degrading alike to the
poet and his subject. But why ? Not because they ascribe
to the Emperor a sanctity which he had not in the minds of
men universally, or which even to the writer's feeling was
exaggerated, but because it was expressed coarsely, and as a
physical power. Now, everything physical is measurable by
weight, motion, and resistance, and is therefore definite.
But the very essence of whatsoever is supernatural lies in
the indefinite. That power, therefore, with which the minds
of men invested the Emperor was vulgarized (in Roman
phrase obsolefiebat] by this coarse translation into the region

" soldiery appeased, recovered Italy, and for thyself liberty established.
" Now first in thy long annals thou didst rest from a civil war in such
" a peace that righteously, and with maternal tenderness, thou mightst
" claim for it the honours of a civic triumph.

236 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

of physics. Else it is evident that any power which, by
standing above all human control, occupies the next station
to superhuman modes of authority, must be invested by all
minds alike with some dim and undefined relation to the
sanctities of the unseen world. Thus, for instance, the Pope,
as the father of Catholic Christendom, could not but be
viewed with awe by any Christian of deep feeling, as stand-
ing in some relation to the true and unseen Father of the
spiritual body. Nay, considering that even false religions,
as those of Pagan mythology, have probably never been
utterly stripped of all truth, but that every such mode of
error has perhaps been designed as a process, and adapted by
Providence to the case of those who were capable of admit-
ting no more perfect shape of truth — even the heads of such
superstitions (the Dalai Lama, for instance) may not unreason-
ably be presumed as within the cognisance and special pro-
tection of Heaven. Much more may this be supposed of
him to whose care was confided the weightier part of the
human race ; who had it in his power to promote or to
suspend the progress of human improvement ; and of whom,
and the motions of whose will, the very prophets of Judea
took cognisance. No nation, and no king, was utterly
divorced from the councils of God. Palestine, as a central
chamber of God's administration, stood in some relation to
all. It has been remarked, as a mysterious and significant
fact, that the founders of the great empires all had some
connexion, more or less, with the temple of Jerusalem.
Melanchthon even observes it, in his Sketch of Universal
History, as worthy of notice that Pompey died, as it were,
within sight of that very temple which he had polluted.
Let us not suppose that Paganism, or Pagan nations, were
therefore excluded from the concern and tender interest of
Heaven. They also had their place allowed. And we may
be sure that, amongst them, the Koman Emperor, as the
great steward and factor for the happiness of more men, and
men more cultivated, than ever before were intrusted to the
motions of a single will, had a special, singular, and mys-
terious relation to the secret counsels of Heaven.

Even we, therefore, may lawfully attribute some sanctity
to the Koman Emperor. That the Komans did so with

THE CAESARS 237

absolute sincerity is certain. The altars of the Emperor hart
a twofold consecration ; to violate them was the double
crime of treason and sacrilege. In his appearances of state
and ceremony, the fire, the sacred fire, €7ro/x7reve, moved
pompously in ceremonial solemnity before him ; and every
other circumstance of divine worship attended the Emperor
in his lifetime.1

To this view of the imperial character and relations must
be added one single circumstance, which in some measure
altered the whole for the individual who happened to fill
the office. The Emperor de facto might be viewed under
two aspects; there was the man, and there was the office.
In his office he was immortal and sacred : but, as a question
might still be raised, by means of a mercenary army, as to
the claims of the particular individual who at any time
filled the office, the very sanctity and privilege of the char-
acter with which he was clothed might actually be turned
against himself; and here it is, at this point, that the
character of Roman Emperor became truly and mysteriously
awful. Gibbon has taken notice of the extraordinary situa-
tion of a subject in the Roman Empire who should attempt
to fly from the wrath of the Caesar. Such was the ubiquity
of the Emperor that this was metaphysically hopeless.
Except across pathless deserts or amongst barbarous nomads,
it was impossible to find even a transient sanctuary from the
imperial pursuit. If the fugitive went down to the sea,
there he met the Emperor : if he took the wings of the
morning, and fled to the uttermost parts of the earth, there
also was Csesar in the person of his lieutenants. But, by a
dreadful counter-charm, the same omnipresence of imperial
anger and retribution which withered the hopes of the poor
humble prisoner met and confounded the Emperor himself,
when hurled from his elevation by some fortunate rival.
All the kingdoms of the earth, to one in that situation,
became but so many wards of the same infinite prison.
Flight, if it were even successful for the moment, did but a

1 The fact is that the Emperor was more of a sacred and divine
creature in his lifetime than after his death. His consecrated char-
acter as a living ruler was a truth ; his canonization, a fiction of
tenderness to his memory.

238 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

little retard his inevitable doom. And so evident was this
that hardly in one instance did the fallen prince attempt to
fly ; passively he met the death which was inevitable, in the
very spot where ruin had overtaken him. Neither was it
possible even for a merciful conqueror to show mercy ; for,
in the presence of an army so mercenary and factious, his
own safety was but too deeply involved in the extermination
of rival pretenders to the crown.

Such, amidst the sacred security and inviolability of the
office, was the hazardous tenure of the individual. Nor
did his danger always arise from persons in the rank of
competitors and rivals. Sometimes it menaced him in
quarters which his eye had never penetrated, and from
enemies too obscure to have reached his ear. By way of
illustration we will cite a case from the life of the Emperor
Commodus, which, is wild enough to have furnished the plot
of a romance, though as well authenticated as any other
passage in that reign. The story is narrated by Herodian,
and the outline was this : — A slave of noble qualities, and
of magnificent person, having liberated himself from the
degradation of bondage, determined to avenge his own
wrongs by inflicting continual terror upon the town and
neighbourhood which had witnessed his humiliation. For
this purpose he resorted to the woody recesses of the pro-
vince (somewhere in the modern Transsylvania), and, attract-
ing to his wild encampment as many fugitives as he could,
by degrees he succeeded in training a very formidable troop
of freebooters. Partly from the energy of his own nature,
and partly from the neglect and remissness of the provincial
magistrates, the robber captain rose from less to more, until
he had formed a little army, equal to the task of assaulting
fortified cities. In this stage of his adventures, he encoun-
tered and defeated several of the imperial officers command-
ing large detachments of troops ; and at length grew of
consequence sufficient to draw upon himself the Emperor's
eye, and the honour of his personal displeasure. In high
wrath and disdain at the insults offered to his eagles by
this fugitive slave, Commodus fulminated against him such
an edict as left him no hope of much longer escaping with
impunity.

THE (LftSARS 239

Public vengeance was now awakened ; the imperial troops
were marching from every quarter upon the same centre ;
and the slave became sensible that in a very short space of
time lie must be surrounded and destroyed. In this des-
perate situation he took a desperate resolution : he assembled
his troops, laid before them his plan, concerted the various
steps for carrying it into effect, and then dismissed them as
independent wanderers. So ends the first chapter of the tale.

The next opens in the passes of the Alps, whither, by
various routes, of seven or eight hundred miles in extent,
these men had threaded their way in manifold disguises
through the very midst of the Emperor's camps. According
to this man's gigantic enterprise, in which the means were as
audacious as the purpose, the conspirators were to rendezvous,
and first to recognise each other, at the gates of Rome. From
the Danube to the Tiber did this band of robbers severally
pursue their perilous routes through all the difficulties of the
road and the jealousies of the military stations, sustained by
the mere thirst of vengeance — vengeance against that mighty
foe whom they knew only by his proclamations against them-
selves. Everything continued to prosper; the conspirators
met under the walls of Rome ; the final details were ar-
ranged ; and those also would have prospered but for a
trifling accident. The season was one of general carnival at
Rome ; and, by the help of those disguises which the licence
of this festival time allowed, the murderers were to have
penetrated as maskers to the Emperor's retirement, when a
casual word or two awoke the suspicions of a sentinel. One
of the conspirators was arrested ; under the terror and un-
certainty of the moment, he made much ampler discoveries
than were expected of him ; the other accomplices were
secured; and Commodus was delivered from the uplifted
daggers of those who had sought him by months of patient
wanderings, pursued through all the depths of the Illyrian
forests, and the difficulties of the Alpine passes. It is not
easy to find words of admiration commensurate to the
energetic hardihood of a slave who, by way of answer and
reprisal to an edict summarily consigning him to persecution
and death, determines to cross Europe in quest of its author,
though no less a person than the master of the world — to

240 HISTORICAL ASSAYS AND RESEARCHES

seek him out in the inmost recesses of his capital city, of his
private palace, of his consecrated bed-chamber — and there to
lodge a dagger in his heart, as the adequate reply to the
imperial sentence of proscription against himself.

Such, amidst the superhuman grandeur and hallowed
privileges of the Roman Emperor's office, were the extra-
ordinary perils which menaced the individual officer. The
office rose by its grandeur to a region above the clouds and
vapours of earth : the officer might find his personal security
as unsubstantial as those wandering vapours. Nor is it
possible that these circumstances of violent opposition can
be better illustrated than in this tale of Herodian. Whilst
the Emperor's mighty arms were stretched out to arrest some
potentate in the heart of Asia, a poor slave is silently and
stealthily creeping round the base of the Alps, with the pur-
pose of winning his way as a murderer to the imperial bed-
chamber ; Caesar is watching some potent rebel of the Orient
at a distance of two thousand leagues, and he overlooks the
dagger which is within three stealthy steps, and one tiger's
leap, of his own heart. All the heights and the depths which
belong to man's frailty, all the contrasts of glory and mean-
ness, the extremities of what is highest and lowest in human
casualties, meeting in the station of the Roman Caesar Semper
Augustus, have combined to call him into high marble relief,
and to make him the most interesting study of all whom
History has emblazoned with colours of fire and blood, or has
crowned most lavishly with diadems of cypress and laurel.

This, as a general proposition, will be readily admitted.
But, meantime, it is remarkable that no field has been leps
trodden than the private memorials of those very Csesars ;
whilst, at the same time, it is equally remarkable that pre-
cisely with the first of the Ca3sars commences the first page
of what, in modern times, we understand by Anecdotes.
Suetonius is the earliest writer in that department of Bio-
graphy ; so far as we know, he may be held first to have
devised it as a mode of History, for he came a little before
Plutarch. The six writers whose sketches are collected
under the general title of the Augustan History followed in
the same track.1 Though full of entertainment and of the
1 Suetonius, the author of The Lives of the Ccesars, was born about

THE CJ4SARS 241

most curious researches, they are all of them entirely un-
known, except to a few elaborate scholars. We purpose to
collect from these obscure but most interesting memorialists*
a few sketches and biographical portraits of those great princes,
whose public life is sometimes known, but very rarely any
part of their private and personal memoirs. We must, of
course, commence with the mighty founder of the Caesars.
In his case we cannot expect so much of absolute novelty as
in that of those who succeed. But, if, in this first instance,
we are forced to touch a little upon old things, we shall
confine ourselves as much as possible to those which are
susceptible of new aspects. For the whole gallery of those
who follow, we can undertake that the memorials which we
shall bring forward may be looked upon as belonging pretty
much to what has hitherto been a sealed book.

A.D. 70, aiid died about A.D. 130. This book contains anecdotes re-
specting the first twelve of the Emperors, — viz. Julius Caesar, Augustus,
Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian,
Titus, and Domitian. The so-called Augustan History, which may be
regarded as a continuation of the work of Suetonius, consists of a
collection of similar biographies of the long series of the later Emperors
(Trajan and Hadrian skipped) down to Diocletian, written by six
independent authors of the fourth century, — to wit, Aelius Spartianus,
Julius Capitolinus, Aelius Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallicanus, Trebel-
lius Pollio. and Flavius Vopiscus. — M.

VOL. VI

CHAPTER I

JULIUS

(B.C. 100— B.C. 44)

THE character of the First Caesar has perhaps never been
worse appreciated than by him who in one sense described it
best \ that is, with most force and eloquence wherever he
really did comprehend it. This was Lucan,2 who has nowhere
exhibited more brilliant rhetoric, nor wandered more from
the truth, than in the contrasted portraits of Caesar and
Pompey. The famous line, " Nil actum reputans si quid
superesset agendum" is a fine feature of the real character,
finely expressed. But, if it had been Lucan's purpose (as
possibly, with a view to Pompey's benefit, in some respects it
was) utterly and extravagantly to falsify the character of the
great Dictator, by no single trait could he more effectually
have fulfilled that purpose, nor in fewer words, than by this
expressive passage, " Gaudensque viam fecisse ruind" Such a
trait would be almost extravagant applied even to Marius,
who (though in many respects a perfect model of Roman
grandeur, massy, columnar, imperturbable, and more perhaps
than any one man recorded in History capable of justifying
the bold illustration of that character in Horace, " Si fractus
illabatur orbis, impavidum ferient ruince ") had, however, a
ferocity in his character, and a touch of the devil in him,

1 In Blackwood for October 1832, as continuation of the preceding
Introduction on the Caesars generally. — M.

2 M. Annseus Lucanus, A.D. 38 — A.D. 65. His Pharsalia is an
epic poem on the Civil War between Caesar and Pompey. — M.

THE CAESARS 243

very rarely united with the same tranquil intrepidity. But,
for Csesar, the all - accomplished statesman, the splendid
orator, the man of elegant habits and polished taste, the
patron of the fine arts in a degree transcending all example
of his own or the previous age, and as a man of general
literature so much beyond his contemporaries, except Cicero,
that he looked down even upon the brilliant Sylla as an
illiterate person — to class such a man with the race of furious
destroyers exulting in the desolations they spread is to err
not by an individual trait, but by the whole genus. The
Attilas and the Tamerlanes, who rejoice in avowing them-
selves the scourges of God, and the special instruments of his
wrath, have no one feature of affinity to the polished and
humane Ceesar, and would as little have comprehended his
character as he could have respected theirs. Even Cato, the
unworthy hero of Lucan, might have suggested to him a
little more truth in this instance, by a celebrated remark
which he made on the characteristic distinction of Csesar, in
comparison with other revolutionary disturbers ; for, said he,
whereas others had attempted the overthrow of the state in a
continued paroxysm of fury, and in a state of mind resembling
the lunacy of intoxication, Csesar, on the contrary, among
that whole class of civil disturbers, was the only one who
had come to the task in a temper of sobriety and moderation
(unum accessisse sobrium ad rempublicam delendam).

In reality, Lucan did not think as he wrote. He had a
purpose to serve ; and, in an age when to act like a freeman
was no longer safe, he determined at least to write in that
character. It is probable, also, that he wrote with a vindic-
tive or a malicious feeling towards Nero, and, as the single
means he had for gratifying such impulses, resolved upon
sacrificing the grandeur of Caesar's character wherever it
should be found possible. Meantime, in spite of himself,
Lucan for ever betrays his lurking consciousness of the truth.
Nor are there any testimonies to Caesar's vast superiority
more memorably pointed than those which are indirectly
and involuntarily extorted from this Catonic poet by the
course of his narration. Never, for example, was there within
the same compass of words a more emphatic expression of
Ceesar's essential and inseparable grandeur of thought, which

244 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

could not be disguised or be laid aside for an instant, co.ilcl
not be taught or trained to run in the harness of ordinary
unaspiring life, than is found in the three casual words —
Indocilis privata loqui. The very mould, it seems, by Lucan's
confession, of his trivial conversation was regal ; nor could
he abjure it for so much as a casual purpose. The acts of
Caesar speak also the same language ; and, as these are less
susceptible of a false colouring than the features of a general
character, we find this poet of liberty, in the midst of one
continuous effort to distort the truth, and to dress up two
scenical heroes, nevertheless forced by the mere necessities of
history into a reluctant homage to Caesar's supremacy of
moral grandeur.

Of so great a man it must be interesting to know all the
well-attested opinions which bear upon topics of universal
interest to human nature ; as indeed no others stood much
chance of preservation, unless it were from so minute and
curious a collector of anecdotage as Suetonius. And, first, it
would be gratifying to know the opinion of Csesar, if he had
any peculiar to himself, on the great theme of Keligion. It
has been held, indeed, that the constitution of his mind, and
the general cast of his character, indisposed him to religious
thoughts. Nay, it has been common to class him amongst
deliberate atheists ; and some well-known anecdotes are
current in books, which illustrate his contempt for the vulgar
class of religious credulities. In this, however, he went no
farther than Cicero, and other great contemporaries, who
assuredly were no atheists. One mark perhaps of the wide
interval which, in Caesar's age, had begun to separate the
Roman nobility from the hungry and venal populace who
were daily put up to sale, and bought in crowds by the
highest bidder, manifested itself in the increasing disdain for
the tastes and ruling sympathies of the mere rude Quirites.
No mob could be more abjectly servile than was that of
Rome to the superstition of portents, prodigies, and omens.
Thus far, in common with his order, and in this sense, Julius
Csesar was naturally a despiser of superstition. Mere strength
of understanding would, perhaps, have made him such in
any age, and apart from the circumstances of his personal
history. But this natural tendency in him would doubtless

THE CAESARS 245

receive a further bias in the same direction from the office of
Pontifex Maximus, which he held at an early stage of his
public career. This office, by letting him too much behind
the curtain, and exposing too entirely the base machinery of
ropes and pulleys which sustained the miserable jugglery
played off upon the popular credulity, impressed him perhaps
even unduly with contempt for those who could be its dupes.
And we may add that Caesar was constitutionally, as well as
by accident of position, too much a man of the world, had
too powerful a leaning to the virtues of active life, was
governed by too partial a sympathy with the whole class of
active forces in human nature, as contradistinguished from
those which tend to contemplative purposes, under any
circumstances to have become a profound believer, or a stead-
fast reposer of his fears and anxieties, in religious influences.
A man of the world is but another designation for a man
indisposed to religious awe or to spiritual enthusiasm. Still
it is a doctrine which we cherish that grandeur of mind in
any one department whatsoever, supposing only that it exists
in excess, disposes a man to some degree of sympathy with
all other grandeur, however alien in its quality or different
in its form. And upon this ground we presume the great
Dictator to have had an interest in religious themes by mere
compulsion of his own extraordinary elevation of mind, after
making the fullest allowance for the special quality of that
mind, which did certainly, to the whole extent of its charac-
teristics, tend entirely to estrange him from such themes.
We find, accordingly, that, though sincerely a despiser of
superstition, and with a frankness which must sometimes
have been hazardous in that age, Caesar was himself also
superstitious. No man could have been otherwise who lived
and conversed with that generation and people. But, if
superstitious, he was so after a mode of his own. In his
very infirmities Caesar manifested his greatness : his very
littlenesses were noble.

" Nee licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre."

That he placed some confidence in dreams, for instance, is
certain : because, had he slighted them unreservedly, he would
not have dwelt upon them afterwards, or have troubled him-

246 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

self to recall their circumstances. Here we trace his human
weakness. Yet again we are reminded that it was the weak-
ness of Caesar ; for the dreams were noble in their imagery,
and Caesarean (so to speak) in their tone of moral feeling.
Thus, for example, the night before he was assassinated, he
dreamt at intervals that he was soaring above the clouds on
wings, and that he placed his hand within the right hand of
Jove. It would seem that perhaps some obscure and half-
formed image floated in his mind, of the eagle, as the king of
birds ; secondly, as the tutelary emblem under which his
conquering legions had so often obeyed his voice ; and,
thirdly, as the bird of Jove. To this triple relation of the
bird his dream covertly appears to point. And a singular
coincidence appears between this dream and a little anecdote
brought down to us, as having actually occurred in Rome
about twenty-four hours before his death. A little bird,
which by some is represented as a very small kind of sparrow,
but which, both to the Greeks and the Romans, was known
by a name implying a regal station (probably from the
ambitious courage which at times prompted it to attack the
hawk), was observed to direct its flight towards the senate-
house consecrated by Pompey, whilst a crowd of other birds
were seen to hang upon its flight in close pursuit. What
might be the object of the chase, whether the little king
himself, or a sprig of laurel which he bore in his mouth,
could not be determined. The whole train, pursuers and
pursued, continued their flight towards Pompey's hall. Flight
and pursuit were there alike arrested ; the little king was
overtaken by his enemies, who fell upon him as so many
conspirators, and tore him limb from limb.

If this anecdote were reported to Caesar, — which is not at
all improbable, considering the earnestness with which his
friends laboured to dissuade him from his purpose of meeting
the Senate on the approaching Ides of March, — it is very
little to be doubted that it had a considerable effect upon his
feelings, and that, in fact, his own dream grew out of the
impression which it had made. This way of linking the
two anecdotes, as cause and effect, would also bring a third
anecdote under the same nexus. We are told that Calpurnia,
the last wife of Caesar, dreamed on the same night, and to

THE GESAKS 247

the same ominous result. The circumstances of her dream
are less striking, because less figurative ; but on that account
its import was less open to doubt : she dreamed, in fact,
that, after the roof of their mansion had fallen in, her husband
was stabbed in her bosom. Laying all these omens together,
Caesar would have been more or less than human had he
continued utterly undepressed by them. And, if so much
superstition as even this implies must be taken to argue some
little weakness, on the other hand let it not be forgotten that
this very weakness does but the more illustrate the unusual
force of mind, and the heroic will, which obstinately laid
aside these concurring prefigurations of impending destruc-
tion ; concurring, we say, amongst themselves — and concur-
ring also with a prophecy of older date, which was totally
independent of them all.

There is another and somewhat sublime story of the same
class, which belongs to the most interesting moment of Caesar's
life; and those who are disposed to explain all such tales
upon physiological principles will find an easy solution of
this, in particular, in the exhaustion of body and the intense
anxiety which must have debilitated even Caesar under the
whole circumstances of the case. On the ever memorable
night when he had resolved to take the first step (and in such
a case the first step, as regarded the power of retreating, was
also the final step) which placed him in arms against the
state, it happened that his head-quarters were at some distance
from the little river Rubicon, which formed the boundary of
Ins province. With his usual caution, that no news of his
motions might run before himself, on this night Caesar gave
an entertainment to his friends, in the midst of which
he slipped away unobserved, and with a small retinue pro-
ceeded through the woods to the point of the river at which
he designed to cross. The night l was stormy, and by the

1 It is an interesting circumstance in the habits of the ancient
Romans that their journeys were pursxied very much in the night-
time, and by torchlight. Cicero, in one of his letters, speaks of pass-
ing through the towns of Italy by night as a serviceable scheme for
some political purpose, either of avoiding too much to publish his
motions, or of evading the necessity (else perhaps not avoidable) of
drawing out the party sentiments of the magistrates in the circum-
stances of honour or neglect with which they might choose to receive

248 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

violence of the wind all the torches of his escort were blown
out, so that the whole party lost their road, having probably
at first intentionally deviated from the main route, and
wandered about through the whole night, until the early
dawn enabled them to recover their true course. The light
was still grey and uncertain as Csesar and his retinue rode down
upon the banks of the fatal river — to cross which with arms
in his hands, since the further bank lay within the territory
of the Republic, ipso facto proclaimed any Koman a rebel and
a traitor. No man, the firmest or the most obtuse, could be
otherwise than deeply agitated when looking down upon
this little brook — so insignificant in itself, but invested by
law with a sanctity so awful, and so dire a consecration.

him. His words, however, imply that the practice was by no means
an uncommon one. And, indeed, from some passages in writers of
the Augustan era, it would seem that this custom was not confined
to people of distinction, but was familiar to a class of travellers so low
in rank as to be capable of abusing their opportunities of concealment
for the infliction of wanton injury upon the woods and fences which
bounded the margin of the high-road. Under the cloud of night and
solitude, the mischief-loving traveller was often in the habit of apply-
ing his torch to the withered boughs of woods, or to artificial hedges ;
and extensive ravages by fire, such as now happen not unfrequently
in the American woods (but generally from carelessness in scattering
the glowing embers of a fire, or even the ashes of a pipe), were then
occasionally the result of mere wantonness of mischief. Ovid accord-
ingly notices, as one amongst the familiar images of daybreak, the
half-burnt torch of the traveller ; and, apparently, from the position
which it holds in his description, where it is ranked with the .most
familiar of all circumstances in all countries — that of the rural
labourer going out to his morning tasks — it nmst have been common
indeed :

' ' Semiustamque facem vigilata" nocte viator
Ponet ; et ad solitum rusticus ibit opus."

This occurs in the Fasti : — elsewhere he notices it for its danger :

" Ut facibus sepes ardent, cum forte viator
Vel nimis admovit, vel jam sub luce reliquit."

He, however, we see, good - naturedly ascribes the danger to mere
carelessness, in bringing the torch too near to the hedge, or tossing
it away at daybreak. But Varro, a more matter-of-fact observer,
does not disguise the plain truth, that these disasters were often the
product of pure malicious frolic. For instance, in recommending a
certain kind of quickset fence, he insists upon it, as one of its advan-

THE CJ5SARS 249

The whole course of future history, and the fate of every
nation, would necessarily be determined by the irretrievable
act of the next half hour.

In these moments, and with this spectacle before him, and
contemplating these immeasurable consequences consciously
for the last time that could allow him a retreat, — impressed
also by the solemnity and deep tranquillity of the silent dawn,
whilst the exhaustion of his night wanderings predisposed
him to nervous irritation, — Caesar, we may be sure, was
profoundly agitated. The whole elements of the scene were
almost scenically disposed ; the law of antagonism having
perhaps never been employed with so much effect : the little
quiet brook presenting a direct antithesis to its grand poli-
tical character ; and the innocent dawn, with its pure, un-

tages, that it will not readily ignite under the torch of the mischiev-
ous wayfarer : " Naturale sepiraentum," says he, " quod obseri solet
virgultis aut spinis, prcetereuntis lascivi non metuet facem. " It is
not easy to see the origin or advantage of this practice of nocturnal
travelling (which must have considerably increased the hazards of a
journey), excepting only in the heats of summer. It is probable,
however, that men of high rank and public station may have intro-
duced the practice by way of releasing corporate bodies in large towns
from the burdensome ceremonies of public receptions ; thus making
a compromise between their own dignity and the convenience of the
provincial piiblic. Once introduced, and the arrangements upon the
road for meeting the wants of travellers once adapted to such a prac-
tice, it would easily become universal. It is, however, very possible
that mere horror of the heats of day-time may have been the original
ground for it. The ancients appear to have shrunk from no hardship
so trying and insufferable as that of heat. And, in relation to that
subject, it is interesting to observe the way in which the ordinary
use of language has accommodated itself to that feeling. Our north-
ern way of expressing effeminacy is derived chiefly from the hard-
ships of cold. He that shrinks from the trials and rough experience
of real life in any department is described by the contemptuous
prefix of chimney-corner, as if shrinking from the cold which he
would meet on coming out into the open air amongst his fellow-men.
Thus, a chimney-corner politician, for a mere speculator or unpractical
dreamer. But the very same indolent habit of aerial speculation,
which courts no test of real life and practice, is described by the
ancients under the term umbraticus, or seeking the cool shade, and
shrinking from the heat. Thus, an umbraticus doctor is one who has
no practical solidity in his teaching. The fatigue and hardship of
real life, in short, are represented by the ancients under the uniform
image of heat, and by the moderns under that of cold.

250 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

troubled repose, contrasting potently, to a man of any
intellectual sensibility, with the long chaos of bloodshed,
darkness, and anarchy, which was to take its rise from the
apparently trifling acts of this one morning. So prepared,
we need not much wonder at what followed. Csesar was
yet lingering on the hither bank, when suddenly, at a point
not far distant from himself, an apparition was descried in
a sitting posture, and holding in its hand what seemed a
flute. This phantom was of unusual size, and of beauty
more than human, so far as its lineaments could be traced
in. the early dawn. What is singular, however, in the story,
on any hypothesis which would explain it out of Caesar's
individual condition, is that others saw it as well as he ;
both pastoral labourers (who were present, probably, in the
character of guides) and some of the sentinels stationed at
the passage of the river. These men fancied even that a
strain of music issued from this aerial flute. And some,
both of the shepherds and the Roman soldiers, who were
bolder than the rest, advanced towards the figure. Amongst
this party, it happened that there were a few Roman trum-
peters. From one of these, the phantom, rising as they
advanced nearer, suddenly caught a trumpet, and, blowing
through it a blast of superhuman strength, plunged into the
Rubicon, passed to the other bank, and disappeared in the
dusky twilight of the dawn. Upon which Ccesar ex-
claimed : — " It is finished — the die is cast — let us follow
whither the guiding portents from Heaven, and the malice
of our enemy, alike summon us to go." So saying, he
crossed the river with impetuosity ; and, in a sudden rap-
ture of passionate and vindictive ambition, placed himself
and his retinue upon the Italian soil ; and, as if by inspira-
tion from Heaven, in one moment involved himself and his
followers in treason, raised the standard of revolt, put his
foot upon the neck of the invincible republic which had
humbled all the kings of the earth, and founded an empire
which was to last for a thousand and half a thousand years.
In what manner this spectral appearance was managed —
whether Csesar were its author, or its dupe — will remain
unknown for ever. But undoubtedly this was the first
time that the advanced guard of a victorious army was

THE (LESARS 251

headed by an apparition ; and we may conjecture that it will
be the last.1

In the mingled yarn of human life tragedy is never far
asunder from farce ; and it is amusing to trace in imme-
diate succession to this incident of epic dignity, — which has
its only parallel, by the way, in the case of Vasco de Gama
(according to the narrative of Camoens) when met and con-
fronted by a sea phantom whilst attempting to double the
Cape of Storms (Cape of Good Hope), — a ludicrous passage,
in which one felicitous blunder did Caesar a better service than
all the truths which Greece and Home could have furnished.
In our own experience, we once witnessed a blunder about
as gross. — Lord Brougham, in his first electioneering contest
with the Lowthers (A.D. 1818), upon some occasion where he
was recriminating upon the other party, and complaining
that stratagems which they might practise with impunity
were denied to him and his, happened to point the moral
of his complaint by alleging the old adage that one man
might steal a horse with more hope of indulgence than
another could look over the hedge. Whereupon, by benefit
of the universal mishearing in the outermost ring of the
audience, it became generally reported that Lord Lowther
had once been engaged in an affair of horse-stealing, and that
he, Henry Brougham, could (had he pleased) have lodged an
information against him, seeing that he was then looking over
the hedge. And this charge naturally won the more credit
because it was notorious and past denying that his lordship

1 According to Suetonius, the circumstances of this memorable
night were as follows : — As soon as the decisive intelligence was re-
ceived that the intrigues of his enemies had prevailed at Rome, and
that the interposition of the popular magistrates (the tribunes) was
set aside, Caesar sent forward the troops, who were then at his head-
quarters, but in as private a manner as possible. He himself, by way
of masque (per dissimuLationem), attended a public spectacle, gave an
audience to an architect who wished to lay before him a plan for a
school of gladiators which Csesar designed to build, and finally pre-
sented himself at a banquet, which was very numerously attended.
From this, about sunset, he set forward in a carriage, drawn by mules,
and with a small escort (modico comitatu). Losing his road, which
was the most private he could find (occultissimum), he quitted his
carriage and proceeded on foot. At dawn he met with a guide ; after
which followed the above incidents.

252 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

was a capital horseman, fond of horses, and much connected
with the turf. To this hour, therefore, amongst some worthy
shepherds and other "dalesmen" of bonny Westmoreland,
it is a received article of their creed, and (as they justly
observe in northern pronunciation) a shamfnl thing to be
told, that Lord Lowther was once a horse-stealer, and that
he escaped lagging by reason of Harry Brougham's pity
for his tender years and hopeful looks. — Not less was the
blunder which, on the banks of the Rubicon, befriended
Caesar. Immediately after crossing, he harangued the troops
whom he had sent forward, and others who there met him
from the neighbouring garrison of Ariminium. The tribunes
of the people, those great officers of the democracy, corre-
sponding by some of their functions to our House of Com-
mons,— men personally, and by their position in the state,
entirely in Caesar's interest, and who, for his sake, had fled
from home, — there and then he produced to the soldiery ;
thus identified his cause, and that of the soldiers, with the
cause of the people of Rome and of Roman liberty ; and,
perhaps with needless rhetoric, attempted to conciliate those
who were, by a thousand ties and by claims innumerable, his
own already ; for never yet has it been found that with the
soldier, who from youth upwards passes his life in camps,
could the duties or the interests of the citizen survive those
stronger and more personal relations connecting him with his
military superior. In the course of this harangue, Caesar
often raised his left hand with Demosthenic action, and once
or twice he drew oif the ring which every Roman gentleman
— simply as such — wore as the inseparable adjunct and
symbol of his rank. By this action he wished to give
emphasis to the accompanying words, in which he protested,
that, sooner than fail in satisfying and doing justice to any
the least of those who heard him and followed his fortunes,
he would be content to part with his own birthright, and to
forgo his dearest claims. This was what he really said;
but the outermost circle of his auditors, who rather saw
his gestures than distinctly heard his words, carried off the
notion (which they were careful everywhere to disperse
amongst the legions afterwards associated with them in the
same camps) that Caesar had vowed never to lay down his

THE CLESA.RS 253

anus until he had obtained for every man, the very meanest
of those who heard him, the rank, privileges, and appoint-
ments of a Roman knight. Here was a piece of sovereign
good luck. Had he really made such a promise, Caesar
might have found that he had laid himself under very em-
barrassing obligations ; but, as the case stood, he had, through
all his following campaigns, the total benefit of such a
promise, and yet could always absolve himself from the
embarrassing penalties of responsibility which it imposed by
appealing to the evidence of those who happened to stand in
the first ranks of his audience. The blunder was gross and
palpable * and yet, with the unreflecting and dull - witted
soldier, it did him service greater than all the subtilities of
all the schools could have accomplished, and a service which
subsisted to the end of the war.

Great as Csesar was by the benefit of his original nature,
there can be no doubt that he, like others, owed something
to circumstances ; and perhaps amongst those which were
most favourable to the premature development of great self-
dependence we must reckon the early death of his father.
It is, or it is not, according to the nature of men, an ad-
vantage to be orphaned at an early age. Perhaps utter
orphanage is rarely or never such : but to lose a father
betimes may, under appropriate circumstances, profit a
strong mind greatly. To Caesar it was a prodigious benefit
that he lost his father when not much more than fifteen.
Perhaps it was an advantage also to his father that he died
thus early. Had he stayed a year longer, he might have
seen himself despised, baffled, and made ridiculous. For
where, let us ask, in any age, was the father capable of
adequately sustaining that relation to the unique Caius Julius
— to him, in the appropriate language of Shakspere,

"The foremost man of all tins world " ?

And, in this fine and Csesarean line, " this world " is to be
understood not of the order of co-existences merely, but also
of the order of successions ; he was the foremost man not
only of his contemporaries, but also, within his own intellect-
ual class, of men generally — of all that ever should come
after him, or should sit on thrones under the denominations

254 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

of Czars, Kesars, or Caesars of the Bosphorus and the Danube ;
of all in every age that should inherit his supremacy of
mind, or should subject to themselves the generations of
ordinary men by qualities analogous to his. Of this infinite
superiority some part must be ascribed to his early emanci-
pation from paternal control. There are very many cases
in which, simply from considerations of sex, a female cannot
stand forward as the head of a family, or as its suitable
representative. If they are even ladies paramount, and in
situations of command, they are also women. The staff of
authority does not annihilate their sex ; and scruples ; of
female delicacy interfere for ever to unnerve and emasculate
in their hands the sceptre however otherwise potent. Hence
we see, in noble families, the merest boys put forward to
represent the family dignity, as fitter supporters of that
burden than their mature mothers. And of Caesar's mother,
though little is recorded, and that little incidentally, this
much at least we learn — that, if she looked down upon him
with maternal pride and delight, she looked up to him with
female ambition as the re-edifier of her husband's honours, —
looked with reverence as to a column of the Roman grandeur,
and with fear and feminine anxieties as to one whose aspiring
spirit carried him but too prematurely into the fields of
adventurous strife. One slight and evanescent sketch of the
relations which • subsisted between Caesar and his mother,
caught from the wrecks of time, is preserved both by Plutarch
and Suetonius. We see in the early dawn the young
patrician standing upon the steps of his patrimonial portico,
his mother with her arms wreathed about his neck, looking
up to his noble countenance, sometimes drawing auguries of
hope from features so fitted for command, sometimes boding
an early blight to promises so dangerously magnificent. That
she had something of her son's aspiring character, or that he
presumed so much in a mother of his, we learn from the few
words which survive of their conversation. He addressed to
her no language that could tranquillize her fears. On the
contrary, to any but a Roman mother his valedictory words,
taken in connexion with the known determination of his
character, were of a nature to consummate her depression, as
they tended to confirm the very worst of her fears. He was then

THE C.ESARS 255

going to stand his chance in a popular electioneering contest
for an office of the highest dignity, and to launch himself
upon the storms of the Campus Martius. At that period,
besides other and more ordinary dangers, the bands of
gladiators, kept in the pay of the more ambitious or turbulent
amongst the Roman nobles, gave a popular tone of ferocity
and of personal risk to the course of such contests ; and,
either to forestall the victory of an antagonist, or to avenge
their own defeat, it was not at all impossible that a body of
incensed competitors might intercept his final triumph by
assassination. For this danger, however, he had no leisure
in his thoughts of consolation ; the sole danger which he
contemplated, or supposed his mother to contemplate, was
the danger of defeat, and for that he reserved his consolations.
He bade her fear nothing ; for that his determination was to
return with victory, and with the ensigns of the dignity he
sought, or to return a corpse.

Early indeed did Caesar's trials commence ; and it is prob-
able, that, had not the death of his father, by throwing him
prematurely upon his own resources, prematurely developed
the masculine features of his character, forcing him whilst yet
a boy under the discipline of civil conflict and the yoke of
practical life, even his energies might have been insufficient
to sustain them. His age is not exactly ascertained ; but it is
past a doubt that he had not reached his twentieth year when
he had the hardihood to engage in a struggle with Sylla, then
Dictator, and exercising the immoderate powers of that office
with the licence and the severity which History has made so
memorable. He had neither any distinct grounds of hope,
nor any eminent example at that time, to countenance him in
this struggle — which yet he pushed on in the most uncom-
promising style, and to the utmost verge of defiance. The
subject of the contrast gives it a further interest. It was the
youthful wife of the youthful Csesar who stood under the
shadow of the great Dictator's displeasure ; not personally,
but politically, on account of her connexions : and her it was,
Cornelia, the daughter of a man who had been four times
consul, that Crcsar was required to divorce : but he spurned
the haughty mandate, and carried his determination to a
triumphant issue, notwithstanding his life was at stake,

256 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

and at one time saved only by shifting his place of conceal-
ment every night ; and this young lady it was who afterwards
became the mother of his only daughter. Both mother
and daughter, it is remarkable, perished prematurely,
and at critical periods of Caesar's life ; for it is probable
enough that these irreparable wounds to Caesar's domestic
affections threw him with more exclusiveness of devotion
upon the fascinations of glory and ambition than might have
happened under a happier condition of his private life.
That Caesar should have escaped destruction in this unequal
contest with an enemy then wielding the whole thunders of
the state, is somewhat surprising ; and historians have sought
their solution of the mystery in the powerful intercessions of
the vestal virgins, and several others of high rank amongst
the connexions of his great house. These may have done
something ; but it is due to Sylla, who had a sympathy with
everything truly noble, to suppose him struck with powerful
admiration for the audacity of the young patrician, standing
out in such severe solitude among so many examples of timid
concession ; and that to this magnanimous feeling in the
Dictator much of the indulgence which he showed may have
been really due. In fact, according to some accounts, it was
not Sylla, but the creatures of Sylla (adjutores), who pursued
Caesar. We know, at all events, that Sylla formed a right
estimate of Caesar's character, and that, from the complexion
of his conduct in this one instance, he drew that famous
prophecy of his future destiny ; bidding his friends beware
of that slipshod boy, " for that in him lay couch ant many a
Marius." A grander testimony to the awe which Caesar
inspired, or from one who knew better the qualities of that
Cyclopean man by whose scale he measured the patrician boy,
cannot be imagined.

It is not our intention, or consistent with our plan, to
pursue this great man through the whole circumstances of his
romantic career ; though it is certain that many parts of his
life require investigation much keener than has ever been
applied to them, and that many might be placed in a new
light. Indeed, the whole of this most momentous section of
ancient history ought to be recomposed with the critical
scepticism of a Niebuhr, and the same comprehensive collation,

THE OESARS 257

resting, if possible, on the felicitous interpretation of
authorities. In reality it is the hinge upon which turned the
future destiny of the whole earth, and, having therefore a
common relation to all modern nations whatsoever, should
naturally have been cultivated with the zeal which belongs
to a personal concern. In general, the anecdotes which
express most vividly the grandeur of character in the first
Csesar are those which illustrate his defiance of danger in
extremity : the prodigious energy and rapidity of his
decisions and motions in the field (looking to which it was
that Cicero called him a re/oas or portentous revelation) ; the
skill with which lie penetrated the designs of his enemies,
and the electric speed with which he met disasters with
remedy and reparation, or, where that was impossible, with
relief ; the extraordinary presence of mind which he showed
in turning adverse omens to his own advantage, as when, upon
stumbling in coming on shore (which was esteemed a capital
omen of evil), he transfigured as it were in one instant its
whole meaning by exclaiming, " Thus, and by this contact
with the earth, do I take possession of thee, 0 Africa ! " in
that way giving to an accident the semblance of a symbolic
purpose. Equally conspicuous was the grandeur of fortitude
with which he faced the whole extent of a calamity when
palliation could do no good, " non negando, minuendove, sed
insuper amplificando, ementiendoque " ; as when, upon finding
his soldiery alarmed at the approach of Juba, with forces
really great, but exaggerated by their terrors, he addressed them
in a military harangue to the following effect : — " Know that
within a few days the king will come up with us, bringing
with him sixty thousand legionaries, thirty thousand cavalry,
one hundred thousand light troops, besides three hundred
elephants. Such being the case, let me hear no more of con-
jectures and opinions, for you have now my warrant for the
fact, whose information is past doubting. Therefore, be
satisfied ; otherwise, I will put every man of you on board
some crazy old fleet, and whistle you down the tide — no
matter under what winds, no matter towards what shore."
Finally, we might seek for characteristic anecdotes of Caesar
in his unexampled liberalities and contempt of money.1

1 Middleton's Life of Cicero, which still continues to be the most
VOL. VI s

258 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Upon this last topic it is the just remark of Casaubon that
some instances of Ceesar's munificence have been thought
apocryphal, or to rest upon false readings, simply from
ignorance of the heroic scale upon which the Roman splen-
dours of that age proceeded. A forum which Caesar built out
of the products of his last campaign, by way of a present to
the Roman people, cost him — for the ground merely on
which it stood — nearly eight hundred thousand pounds. To
the citizens of Rome he presented, in one congiary, about two
guineas and a half a head. To his army, in one donation,
upon the termination of the Civil War, he gave a sum which
allowed about two hundred pounds a man to the infantry,
and four hundred to the cavalry. It is true that the legionary
troops were then much reduced by the sword of the enemy,
and by the tremendous hardships of their last campaigns. In
this, however, he did perhaps no more than repay a debt.
For it is an instance of military attachment, beyond all that
Wallenstein or any commander, the most beloved amongst
his troops, has ever experienced, that, on the breaking out of
the Civil War, not only did the centurions of every legion
severally maintain a horse soldier, but even the privates
volunteered to serve without pay, and (what might seem im-
possible) without their daily rations. This was accomplished
by subscriptions amongst themselves, the more opulent under-
taking for the maintenance of the needy. Their disinterested
love for Caesar appeared in another and more difficult
illustration : it was a traditionary anecdote in Rome that the
majority of those amongst Caesar's troops who had the
misfortune to fall into the enemy's hands refused to accept
their lives under the condition of serving against him.

In connexion with this subject of his extraordinary muni-
ficence, there is one aspect of Caesar's life which has suffered
much from the misrepresentations of historians, and that is —
the vast pecuniary embarrassments under which he laboured,
until the profits of war had turned the scale even more

readable digest of these affairs, is feeble and contradictory. He dis-
covers thcit Csesar was no general ! But the single merit which M.'s
tvork was supposed to possess, viz. the better and more critical
arrangement of Cicero's Letters in respect to their chronology, has of
late years been detected as a robbery from the celebrated Bellenden,
of James the First's time. [See ante, Vol. V. p. 140.]

THE (LESAKS 259

prodigiously in his favour. At one time of his life, when
appointed to a foreign office, so numerous and so clamorous
were his creditors that he could not have left Rome on his
public duties had not Crassus come forward with assistance in
money, or by guarantees, to the amount of nearly two hundred
thousand pounds. And at another he was accustomed to
amuse himself with computing how much money it would
require to make him worth exactly nothing (i.e. simply to
clear him of debts) • this, by one account, amounted to
upwards of two millions sterling. Now, the error of
historians has been to represent these debts as the original
ground of his ambition and his revolutionary projects, as
though the desperate condition of his private affairs had
suggested a civil war to his calculations as the best or only
mode of redressing it. Such a policy would have resembled
the last desperate resource of an unprincipled gambler, who,
on seeing his final game at chess, and the accumulated stakes
depending upon it, all on the brink of irretrievable sacrifice,
dexterously upsets the chess-board, or extinguishes the
lights. But Julius, the one sole patriot of Eome, could find
no advantage to his plans in darkness or in confusion. Honestly
supported, he would have crushed the oligarchies of Rome
by crushing in its lairs that venal and hunger -bitten
democracy which made oligarchy and its machineries resist-
less. Caesar's debts, far from being stimulants and exciting
causes of his political ambition, stood in an inverse relation
to the ambition ; they were its results, and represented its
natural costs, being contracted from first to last in the service
of his political intrigues, for raising and maintaining a power-
ful body of partisans, both in Rome and elsewhere. Who-
soever indeed will take the trouble to investigate the progress
of Caesar's ambition, from such materials as even yet remain,
may satisfy himself that the scheme of revolutionizing the
Republic, and placing himself at its head, was no growth of
accident or circumstances ; above all, that it did not arise
upon any so petty and indirect a suggestion as that of his
debts ; but that his debts were in their very first origin
purely ministerial to his wise, indispensable, and patriotic
ambition ; and that his revolutionary plans were at all
periods of his life a direct and foremost object, but in no case

260 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

bottomed upon casual impulses. In this there was not
only patriotism, but in fact the one sole mode of patriotism
which could have prospered, or could have found a field of
action. Chatter not, sublime reader, commonplaces of
scoundrel moralists against ambition. In some cases am-
bition is a hopeful virtue ; in others (as in the Home of our
resplendent Julius) ambition was the virtue by which any
other could flourish. It had become evident to everybody
that Home, under its present constitution, must fall ; and the
sole question was — by whom ? Even Pompey, not by nature
of an aspiring turn, and prompted to his ambitious course
undoubtedly by circumstances and the friends who besieged
him, was in the habit of saying, "Sylla potuit : ego non
potero ? " Sylla found it possible : shall I find it not so ?
Possible to do what ? To overthrow the political system of
the Republic. This had silently collapsed into an order of
things so vicious, growing also so hopelessly worse, that all
honest patriots invoked a purifying revolution, even though
bought at the heavy price of a tyranny, rather than face the
chaos of murderous distractions to which the tide of feuds
and frenzies was violently tending. Such a revolution at
such a price was not less Pompey's object than Caesar's. In
a case, therefore, where no benefit of choice was allowed to
Rome as respected the thing, but only as respected the person,
Csesar had the same right to enter the arena in the character
of combatant as could belong to any one of his rivals. And
that he did enter that arena constructively, and by secret
design, from his very earliest manhood, may be gathered
from this — that he suffered no openings towards a revolution,
provided they had any hope in them, to escape his participa-
tion. It is familiarly known that he was engaged pretty
deeply in the conspiracy of Catiline,1 and that he incurred
considerable risk on that occasion ; but it is less known that
he was a party to at least two other conspiracies. There
was even a fourth, meditated by Crassus, which Cassar so far

1 Suetonius, speaking of this conspiracy, says that Caesar was
nominatus inter socios Catilince; which has been erroneously understood
to mean that he was talked of as an accomplice ; but in fact, as
Casaubon first pointed out, nominatus is a technical term of the
Roman jurisprudence, and means that he was formally denounced.

THE (LESARS 261

encouraged as to undertake a journey to Home from a very
distant quarter merely with a view to such chances as it
might offer to him ; but, as it did not, upon examination,
seem to him a very promising scheme, he judged it best to
look coldly upon it, or not to embark in it by any personal
co-operation. Upon these and other facts we build our
inference — that the scheme of a revolution was the one great
purpose of Csesar from his first entrance upon public life.
Nor does it appear that he cared much by whom it was
undertaken, provided only there seemed to be any sufficient
resources for carrying it through, and for sustaining the first
collision with the regular forces of the existing oligarchies,
taking or not taking the shape of triumvirates. He relied, it
seems, on his own personal superiority for raising him to the
head of affairs eventually, let who would take the nominal
lead at first. To the same result, it will be found, tended
the vast stream of Caesar's liberalities. From the senator
downwards to the lowest fcex Romuli, he had a hired body of
dependents, both in and out of Rome, equal in numbers to a
nation. In the provinces, and in distant kingdoms, he
pursued the same schemes. Everywhere he had a body
of mercenary partisans ; kings even are known to have
taken his pay. And it is remarkable that even in his
character of commander-in-chief, where the number of legions
allowed to him for the accomplishment of his Gaulish mission
raised him for a number of years above all fear of coercion
or control, he persevered steadily in the same plan of pro-
viding for the distant day when he might need assistance,
not from the state, but against the state. For, amongst the
private anecdotes which came to light under the researches
made into his history after his death, was this — that, soon
after his first entrance upon his government in Gaul, he had
raised, equipped, disciplined, and maintained, from his own
private funds, a legion amounting, possibly, to six or seven
thousand men, who were bound by no sacrament of military
obedience to the state, nor owed fealty to any auspices
except those of Coesar. This legion, from the fashion of their
crested helmets, which resembled the heads of a small
aspiring bird, received the popular name of the Alauda (or
Lark) legion. And very singular it was that Cato, or

262 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Marcellus, or some amongst those enemies of Caesar who
watched his conduct during the period of his Gaulish com-
mand with the vigilance of rancorous malice, should not
have come to the knowledge of this fact ; in which case
we may be sure that it would have been denounced to the
Senate.

Such, then, for its purpose and its uniform motive, was
the sagacious munificence of Caesar. Apart from this motive,
and considered in and for itself, and simply with a reference
to the splendid forms which it often assumed, this munificence
would furnish the materials for a volume. The public enter-
tainments of Caesar, his spectacles and shows, his naumachiae,
and the pomps of his unrivalled triumphs (the closing triumphs
of the Republic), were severally the finest of their kind which
had then been brought forward. Sea-fights were exhibited
upon the grandest scale, according to every known variety of
nautical equipment and mode of conflict, upon a vast lake
formed artificially for that express purpose. Mimic land-
fights were conducted, in which all the circumstances of real
war were so faithfully rehearsed that even elephants "indorsed
with towers,"1 twenty on each side, took part in the combat.
Dramas were represented in every known language (per
omnium Unguarum histriones). And hence (that is, from the
conciliatory feeling thus expressed towards the various tribes
of foreigners resident in Rome) some have derived an ex-
planation of what is else a mysterious circumstance amongst
the ceremonial observances at Caesar's funeral — that all people
of foreign nations then residing at Rome distinguished them-
selves by the conspicuous share which they took in the
public mourning ; and that, beyond all other foreigners, the
Jews for night after night kept watch and ward about the
Emperor's grave. Never before, according to traditions
which lasted through several generations in Rome, had there
been so vast a conflux of the human race congregated to any
one centre, on any one attraction of business or of pleasure,
as to Rome on occasion of these triumphal spectacles exhibited
by Caesar.

In our days, the greatest occasional gatherings of the

1 " Elephants indorsed with towers " : — See Milton's gorgeous de-
scription of the Parthian warfare in the Paradise Regained.

THE OESARS 263

human race are in India, especially at the great fair of the
Hurdwar on the Ganges in northern Hindustan : a confluence
of some millions is sometimes seen at that spot, brought
together under the mixed influences of devotion and com-
mercial business, but very soon dispersed as rapidly as they
had been convoked. Some such spectacle of nations crowding
upon nations, and some such Babylonian confusion of dresses,
complexions, languages, and jargons, was then witnessed at
Rome. Accommodations within doors, and under roofs of
houses, or roofs of temples, was altogether impossible.
Myriads encamped along the streets, and along the high-
roads, fields, or gardens. Myriads lay stretched on the
ground, without even the slight protection of tents, in a
vast circuit about the city. Multitudes of men, even senators,
and others of the highest rank, were trampled to death in
the crowds. And the whole family of man might seem
at that time to be converged at the bidding of the dead
Dictator. But these, or any other themes connected with the
public life of Caesar, we notice only in those circumstances
which have been overlooked, or partially represented, by
historians. Let us now, in conclusion, bring forward, from
the obscurity in which they have hitherto lurked, the anec-
dotes which describe the habits of his private life, his tastes,
and personal peculiarities.

In person, he was tall,1 fair, gracile, and of limbs dis-
tinguished for their elegant proportions. His eyes were
black and piercing. These circumstances continued to b,e
long remembered, and no doubt were constantly recalled to
the eyes of all persons in the imperial palaces by pictures,
busts, and statues ; for we find the same description of his
personal appearance three centuries afterwards in a work of

1 "Tall": — Whereas, to show the lawless caprices upon which
French writers have endeavoured to found a brief notoriety, some
contributor to the memoirs of L'Acad$mie des Inscriptions expressly
asserts, without a vestige of countenance from any authority whatso-
ever, that Caesar was "several feet high," but, being "invited" to
circumstantiate, replied " five feet nothing " ; but this, being French
measure, would give him (if we rightly remember the French scale)
about five times three-fourths of an inch more. Nonsense ! Suetonius,
who stood so near to the Julian generation, is guarantee for his pro-
ceritas.

264 HISTOEICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

the Emperor Julian's. He was a most accomplished horse-
man, and a master (peritissimus') in the use of arms. But,
notwithstanding his skill and horsemanship, it seems that,
when he accompanied his army on marches, he walked oftener
than he rode ; no doubt, with a view to the benefit of his
example, and to express that sympathy with his soldiers
which gained him their hearts so entirely. On other occasions,
when travelling apart from his army, he seems more frequently
to have ridden in a carriage than on horseback. His purpose,
in this preference, must have been with a view to the trans-
port of luggage. The carriage which he generally used was
a rheddy a sort of gig, or rather curricle ; for it was a four-
wheeled carriage, and adapted (as we find from the imperial
regulations for the public carriages, &c.) to the conveyance of
about half a ton. The mere personal baggage which Caesar
carried with him was probably considerable ; for he was a
man of elegant habits, and in all parts of his life sedulously
attentive to elegance of personal appearance. The length of
journeys which he accomplished within a given time appears
even to us at this day, and might well therefore appear to his
contemporaries, truly astonishing. A distance of one hundred
miles was no extraordinary day's journey for him in a rheda,
such as we have described it. So refined were his habits,
and so constant his demand for the luxurious accommodations
of polished life as it then existed in Rome, that he is said to
have carried with him, as indispensable parts of his personal
baggage, the little ivory lozenges, squares and circles or ovals,
with other costly materials, wanted for the tessellated flooring
of his tent. Habits such as these will easily account for his
travelling in a carriage rather than on horseback.

The courtesy and obliging disposition of Cassar were
notorious ; and both were illustrated in some anecdotes
which survived for generations in Rome. Dining on one
occasion, as an invited guest, at a table where the servants
had inadvertently, for salad-oil, furnished some sort of coarse
lamp-oil, Csesar would not allow the rest of the company to
point out the mistake to their host, for fear of shocking him
too much by exposing what might have been construed into
inhospitality. At another time, whilst halting at a little
cabaret, when one of his retinue was suddenly taken ill,

THE C.ESARS 265

Caesar resigned to his use the sole bed which the house
afforded. Incidents as trifling as these express the urbanity
of Caesar's nature ; and hence one is the more surprised to
find the alienation of the Senate charged, in no trifling
degree, upon a gross and most culpable failure in point of
courtesy. Csesar, it is alleged — but might we presume to
call upon antiquity for its authority ? — neglected to rise from
his seat, on their approaching him with an address of con-
gratulation. It is said, and we can believe it, that he gave
deeper offence by this one defect in a matter of ceremonial
observance than by all his substantial attacks upon their
privileges. What we find it difficult to believe is not that
result from that offence — this is no more than we should all
anticipate — not that, but the possibility of the offence itself,
from one so little arrogant as Csesar, and so entirely a man of
the world. He was told of the disgust which he had given ;
and we are bound to believe his apology, in which he charged
it upon sickness, that would not at the moment allow him
to maintain a standing attitude. Certainly the whole tenor
of his life was not courteous only, but kind, and to his
enemies merciful in a degree which implied so much more
magnanimity than men in general could understand that by
many it was put down to the account of weakness.

Weakness, however, there was none in Caius Csesar ; and,
that there might be none, it was fortunate that conspiracy
should have cut him off in the full vigour of his faculties,
in the very meridian of his glory, and on the brink of com-
pleting a series of gigantic achievements. Amongst these
are numbered : — a digest of the entire body of laws, even then
become unwieldy and oppressive ; the establishment of vast
and comprehensive public libraries, Greek as well as Latin ;
the chastisement of Dacia (that needed a cow-hiding for
insolence as much as Affghanistan from us in 1840) ; the
conquest of Parthia ; and the cutting a ship canal through
the Isthmus of Corinth. The reformation of the Calendar
he had already accomplished. And of all his projects it may
be said that they were equally patriotic in their purpose and
colossal in their proportions.

As an orator, Caesar's merit was so eminent that, accord-
ing to the general belief, had he found time to cultivate this

266 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

department of civil exertion, the received supremacy of Cicero
would have been made questionable, or the honours would
have been divided. Cicero himself was of that opinion, and
on different occasions applied the epithet splendidus to Caesar,
as though in some exclusive sense, or with some peculiar
emphasis, due to him. His taste was much simpler, chaster,
and less inclined to the florid and Asiatic, than that of
Cicero. So far he would, in that condition of the Eoman
culture and feeling, have been less acceptable to the public ;
but, on the other hand, he would have compensated this
disadvantage by much more of natural and Demosthenic
fervour.

In literature, the merits of Csesar are familiar to most
readers. Under the modest title of Commentaries, he meant
to offer the records of his Gallic and British campaigns,
simply as notes, or memoranda, afterwards to be worked up
by regular historians ; but, as Cicero observes, their merit
was such in the eyes of the discerning that all judicious
writers shrank from the attempt to alter them. In another
instance of his literary labours he showed a very just sense
of true dignity. Rightly conceiving that everything patriotic
was dignified, and that to illustrate or polish his native
language was a service of real and paramount patriotism, he
composed a work on the grammar and orthoepy of the Latin
language. Cicero and himself were the only Romans of
distinction in that age who applied themselves with true
patriotism to the task of purifying and ennobling their
mother tongue. Both were aware of a transcendent value
in the Grecian literature as it then stood ; but that splendour
did not depress their hopes of raising their own to something
of the same level. As respected the natural wealth of the
two languages, it was the private opinion of Cicero that the
Latin had the advantage ; and, if Csesar did not accompany
him to that length, — which, perhaps, under some limitations
he ought to have done, — he yet felt that it was but the more
necessary to draw forth any special or exceptional advantage
which it really had.1

1 Csesar had the merit of being the first person to propose the
daily publication of the acts and votes of the Senate. So far, i.e. to
the extent of laying a large foundation, Csesar was the Father of

THE C^SARS 267

Was Caesar, upon the whole, the greatest of men? We
restrict the question, of course, to the classes of men great in
action : great by the extent of their influence over their social
contemporaries ; great by throwing open avenues to extended
powers that previously had been closed; great by making
obstacles once vast to become trivial, or prizes that once
were trivial to be glorified by expansion. I (said Augustus
Ceesar) found Borne built of brick ; but I left it built of
marble. Well, my man, we reply, for a wondrously little
chap, you did what in Westmoreland they call a good darroch
(day's work) ; and, if navvies had been wanted in those days,
you should have had our vote to a certainty. But Gains
Julius, even under such a limitation of the comparison, did
a thing as much transcending this as it was greater to project
Rome across the Alps and the Pyrenees, — expanding the
grand Republic into crowning provinces of 1. France (Gallid),
2. Belgium, 3. Holland (Batavia), 4. England (Britannia), 5.
Savoy (Allobroges), 6. Switzerland (Helvetia], 7. Spain (His-
pania), — than to decorate a street or to found an amphitheatre.
Dr. Beattie once observed that, if that question as to the
greatest man in action upon the rolls of History 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 Caesar's
favour 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 to be the
second.

Newspapers. In the form of public and official despatches he made
also some useful innovations ; and it may be mentioned, for the curiosity
of the incident, that the cipher which he used in his correspondence
was the following very simple one : — For every letter of the alphabet
he substituted that which stood third removed from it in the order of
succession. Thus, for A, he used D ; for D, G ; and so on.

CHAPTER II

AUGUSTUS (LESAR1
(B.C. 31 — A.D. 14)

THE situation of the Second Caesar at the crisis of the great
Dictator's assassination was RO hazardous and delicate as to
confer interest upon a character not otherwise attractive.
To many, we know, it was positively repulsive, and in the
very highest degree. In particular, it is recorded of Sir
William Jones that he regarded this Emperor with feelings
of abhorrence so personal and deadly as to refuse him his
customary titular honours whenever he had occasion to
mention him by name. Yet it was the whole Roman people
that conferred upon him his title of Augustus. But Sir
William, ascribing no force to the acts of a people who had
sunk so low as to exult in their chains, and to decorate with
honours the very instruments of their own vassalage, would
not recognise this popular creation, and spoke of him always
by his family name of Octavius.2 The flattery of the popu-
lace, by the way, must, in this instance, have been doubly
acceptable to the Emperor, — first, for what it gave, and,
secondly, for what it concealed. Of his grand-uncle, the
first Csesar, a tradition survives — that of all the distinctions
created in his favour, either by the Senate or the People, he
put most value upon the laurel crown which was voted to
him after his last campaigns, a beautiful and conspicuous

1 From Blackwood for December 1832.— M.

2 His original name was Caius Octavius, after his father; his mother
was a niece (daughter of a sister) of Julius Csesar. — M.

THE OESARS 269

memorial to every eye of his great public acts, and at the
same time an overshadowing veil of his one sole personal
defect. This laurel diadem at once proclaimed his grand
career of victory and concealed his baldness — a defect which
was more mortifying to a Roman than it would be to our-
selves, from the peculiar theory which then prevailed as to
its probable origin. A gratitude of the same mixed quality
must naturally have been felt by the Second Caesar for his
title of Augustus; which, whilst it illustrated his public
character by the highest expression of majesty,1 set apart and
sequestrated to public functions, had also the agreeable effect
of withdrawing from the general remembrance his obscure
descent. For the Octavian house (gens) had in neither of its
branches risen to any great splendour of civic distinction ;
and in his own branch to little or none. But for their
alliance with a Julian family (by intermarriage with the
niece of Csesar), the Octavian family was a cipher in Rome.
The same titular decoration, therefore, so offensive to the
celebrated English Whig, was, in the eyes of Augustus, at
once a trophy of public merit, a monument of public grati-
tude, and an effectual obliteration of his own natal obscurity.
But, if merely odious to men of Sir William's principles,
to others the character of Augustus, in relation to the circum-
stances which surrounded him, was not without its appro-
priate interest. He was summoned in early youth, and
without warning, to face a crisis of tremendous hazard, being
at the same time himself a man of no very great constitu-
tional courage ; perhaps he was even a coward. And this
we say without meaning to adopt as gospel truths all the
party reproaches of Antony. Certainly he was utterly
unfurnished by nature with those endowments which seemed
to be indispensable in a successor to the power of the great
Dictator. But exactly in these deficiencies, and in certain
accidents unfavourable to his ambition, lay his security. He
had been adopted by his grand-uncle, Julius. That adop-
tion made him, to all intents and purposes of law, the son 2

1 Yes, of majesty, but majesty combined with sanctity.

2 " The son" : — This is a fact which we should do well to remem-
ber more seriously than we have ever done in the cases of Indian
princes claiming under this title. The miscreant Nana Sahib to all

270 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

of his great patron ; and doubtless, in a short time, this
adoption would have been applied to more extensive uses,
and as a station of vantage for introducing him to the public
favour. From the inheritance of the Julian estates and
family honours, he would have been trained to mount, as
from a stepping-stone, to the inheritance of the Julian power
and political station ; and the Eoman People would have
been familiarized to regard him in that character. But,
luckily for himself, the finishing or ceremonial acts were
yet wanting in this process — the political heirship was
inchoate and imperfect. Tacitly understood, indeed, it was ;
but, had it been formally proposed and ratified, there cannot
be a doubt that the young Octavius would have been pointed
out to the vengeance of the patriots, and included in the
scheme of the conspirators, as a fellow- victim with his
nominal father, and would have been cut off too suddenly to
benefit by that reaction of popular feeling which saved the
partisans of the Dictator by separating the conspirators, and
obliging them, without loss of time, to look to their own
safety. It was by this fortunate accident that the young
heir and adopted son of the first Csesar not only escaped
assassination, but was enabled to postpone indefinitely the
final and military struggle for the vacant seat of empire, and
in the meantime to maintain a coequal rank with the leaders
in the state by those arts and resources in which he was
superior to his competitors. His place in the favour of
Caius Julius was of power sufficient to give him a share in
any triumvirate which could be formed ; but, wanting the
formality of a regular introduction to the people, and the
ratification of their acceptance, that place was not sufficient
to raise him permanently into the perilous and invidious
station of absolute supremacy which he afterwards occupied.
The felicity of Augustus was often vaunted by antiquity (with
whom success was not so much a test of merit as itself a
merit of the highest quality), and in no instance was this
felicity more conspicuous than in the first act of his entrance

appearance was really ill-used originally by us : was he not really and
truly the child by adoption of the Peishwah ? Let us recollect that
one of the Scipios, received for such by the whole Roman world, was
really an Emilian, and a Scipio only by adoption.

THE OESARS 271

upon the political scene. No doubt his friends and enemies
alike thought of him, at the moment of Cresar's assassination,
as we now think of a young man heir-elect to some person of
immense wealth, cut off by a sudden death before he has had
time to ratify a will in execution of his purposes. Yet in
fact the case was far otherwise. Brought forward distinctly
as the successor of Cesar's power, had he even, by some
favourable accident of absence from Eome, or otherwise,
escaped being involved in that great man's fate, he would at
all events have been thrown upon the instant necessity of
defending his supreme station by arms. To have left it
unassorted, when once solemnly created in his favour by a
reversionary title, would have been deliberately to resign it.
This would have been a confession of weakness liable to no
disguise, and ruinous to any subsequent pretensions. Yet,
without preparation of means, with no development of
resources nor growth of circumstances, an appeal to arms
would, in his case, have been of very doubtful issue. His
true weapons, for a long period, were the arts of vigilance
and dissimulation. Cultivating these, he was enabled to
prepare for a contest which, undertaken prematurely, must
have ruined him, and to raise himself to a station of even
military pre-eminence to those who naturally, and by circum-
stances, were originally every way superior to himself.

The qualities in which he really excelled, the gifts of
intrigue, patience, long-suffering, dissimulation, and tortuous
fraud, were thus brought into play, and allowed their full
value. Such qualities had every chance of prevailing in the
long-run against the noble carelessness and the impetuosity
of the passionate Antony — and they did prevail. Always
on the watch to lay hold of those opportunities which the
generous negligence of his rival was but too frequently
throwing in his way — unless by the sudden reverses of war
and the accidents of battle, which as much as possible, and
as long as possible, he declined — there could be little ques-
tion in any man's mind that eventually He would win his
way to a solitary throne by a policy so full of caution and
subtlety. He was sure to risk nothing which could be had
on easier terms, and nothing unless for a great overbalance
of gain in prospect ; to lose nothing which he had once

272 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

gained, and in no case to miss an advantage, or sacrifice an
opportunity, by any consideration of generosity. No modern
insurance office but would have guaranteed an event depend-
ing upon the final success of Augustus on terms far below
those which they must in prudence have exacted from the
fiery and adventurous Antony. Each was an ideal in his
own class. But Augustus, having finally triumphed, has
met with more than justice from succeeding ages. Even
Lord Bacon says that, by comparison with Julius Ceesar, he
was " non tarn impar quam dispar " — surely a most extrava-
gant encomium, applied to whomsoever. On the other hand,
Antony, amongst the most signal misfortunes of his life,
might number it that Cicero, the great dispenser of immor-
tality, in whose hands (more perhaps than in any one man's
of any age) were the vials of good and evil fame, should
happen to have been his bitter and persevering enemy. It
is, however, some balance to this that Shakspere had a just
conception of the original grandeur which lay beneath that
wild tempestuous nature presented by Antony to the eye of
the undiscriminating world. It is to the honour* of Shak-
spere that he should have been able to discern the true
colouring of this most original character under the smoke
and tarnish of antiquity. It is no less to the honour of the
great triumvir that a strength of colouring should survive in
his character, capable of baffling the wrongs and ravages of
time ; capable of forcing its way by mere weight of metal
through a tract of sixteen hundred and odd years to the
notice of one immortal eye that could read its true linea-
ments and proportions. Neither is it to be thought strange
that a character should have been misunderstood and falsely
appreciated for nearly two thousand years. It happens not
uncommonly, especially amongst an unimaginative people
like the Romans, that the characters of men are ciphers and
enigmas to their own age, and are first read and interpreted
by a far-distant posterity. Stars are supposed to exist whose
light has been travelling for many thousands of years with-
out having yet reached our system ; and the eyes are yet
unborn upon which their earliest rays will fall. Men like
Mark Antony, with minds of chaotic composition — light
conflicting with darkness, proportions of colossal grandeur

THE C^SARS 273

disfigured by unsymmetrical arrangement, the angelic in
close neighbourhood with the brutal — are first read in their
true meaning by an age learned in the philosophy of the
human heart. Of this philosophy the Romans had, by the
necessities of education and domestic discipline, not less than
by original constitution of mind, the very narrowest visual
range. In no literature whatsoever are so few tolerable
notices to be found of any great truths in Psychology. Nor
could this have been otherwise amongst a people who tried
everything by the standard of social value ; never seeking
for a canon of excellence in man considered abstractedly in
and for himself, and as having an independent value, but
always and exclusively in man as a gregarious being, and
designed for social uses and functions. Not man in his own
separate nature, but man in his relations to other men, was
the station from which the Roman speculators took up their
philosophy of human nature. Tried by such standard, Mark
Antony would be found wanting. As a citizen, he was
irretrievably licentious, and therefore there needed riot the
bitter personal feud which circumstances had generated
between them to account for the acharnement with which
Cicero pursued him. Had Antony been his friend even,
or his near kinsman, Cicero must still have been his public
enemy. And not merely for his vices ; for even the grander
features of his character, his towering ambition, his magna-
nimity, and the fascinations of his popular qualities, were all,
in the circumstances of those times, and in his position, of a
tendency dangerously uncivic.

So remarkable was the opposition, at all points, between
the Second Csesar and his rival that, whereas Antony even
in his virtues seemed dangerous to the state, Octavius gave
a civic colouring to his most indifferent actions, and, with a
Machiavelian policy, observed a scrupulous regard to the
forms of the Republic, after every fragment of the republican
institutions, the privileges of the republican magistrates, and
the functions of the great popular officers, had been absorbed
into his own autocracy. Even iri the most prosperous days
of the Roman State, when the democratic forces balanced,
and were balanced by, those of the aristocracy, it was far
from being a general or common praise that a man was of

VOL. VI T

274 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND EESEARCHES

a civic turn of mind, animo civili. Yet this praise did
Augustus affect, and in reality attain, at a time when the
very object of all civic feeling was absolutely extinct; so
much are men governed by words. Suetonius assures us
that many evidences were current even to his times of this
popular disposition (civilitas) in the emperor, and that it
survived every experience of servile adulation in the Roman
populace, and all the effects of long familiarity with irre-
sponsible power in himself. Such a moderation of feeling
we are almost obliged to consider as a genuine and unaffected
expression of his real nature ; for, as an artifice of policy, it
had soon lost its uses. And it is worthy of notice that with
the army he laid aside those popular manners as soon as
possible, addressing them haughtily as milites, not (according
to his earlier practice) by the conciliatory title of commili-
tones. It concerned his own security to be jealous of en-
croachments on his power. But of his rank, and the honours
which accompanied it, he seems to have been uniformly
careless. Thus, he would never leave a town or enter it by
daylight, unless some higher rule of policy obliged him to do
so ; by which means he evaded a ceremonial of public
honour which was burdensome to all the parties concerned
in it. Sometimes, however, we find that men careless of
honours in their own persons are glad to see them settling
upon their family and immediate connexion. But here
again Augustus showed the sincerity of his moderation.
For, upon one occasion, when the whole audience in the
Roman theatre had risen upon the entrance of his two
adopted sons, at that time not seventeen years old, he was
highly displeased, and even thought it necessary to publish
his displeasure in a separate edict. It is another, and a
striking, illustration of his humility that he willingly
accepted of public appointments, and sedulously discharged
the duties attached to them, in conjunction with colleagues
who had been chosen with little regard to his personal
partialities. In the debates of the Senate he showed the
same equanimity, — suffering himself patiently to be contra-
dicted, and even with circumstances of studied incivility. In
the public elections he gave his vote like any private citizen ;
and, when he happened to be a candidate himself, he can-

THE C.ESARS 275

vassed the electors with the same earnestness of personal
application as any other candidate with the least possible
title to public favour from present power or past services.
But perhaps by no expressions of his civic spirit did Augustus
so much conciliate men's minds as by the readiness with
which he participated in their social pleasures, and by the
uniform severity with which he refused to apply his influence
in any way that could disturb the pure administration of
justice. The Eoman juries (judices they were called) were
very corrupt, and easily swayed to an unconscientious verdict
by the appearance in court of any great man on behalf of one
of the parties interested : nor was such an interference with
the course of private justice anyways injurious to the great
man's character. The wrong which he promoted did but
the more forcibly proclaim the warmth and fidelity of his
friendships. So much the more generally was the upright-
ness of the Emperor appreciated, who would neither tamper
with justice himself, nor countenance any motion in that
direction, though it were to serve his very dearest friend,
either by his personal presence, or by the use of his name.
And, as if it had been a trifle merely to forbear, and to show
his regard to justice in this negative way, he even allowed
himself to be summoned as a witness on trials, and showed
no anger when his own evidence was overborne by stronger
on the other side. This disinterested love of justice, and an
integrity so rare in the great men of Rome, could not but
command the reverence of the people. But their affection,
doubtless, was more conciliated by the freedom with which
the Emperor accepted invitations from all quarters, and
shared continually in the festal pleasures of his subjects.
This practice, however, he discontinued, or narrowed, as he
advanced in years. Suetonius, who, as a true anecdote-
monger, would solve everything and account for every change
by some definite incident, charges this alteration in the
Emperor's condescensions upon one particular party at a
wedding feast, where the crowd incommoded him much by
their pressure and heat. But, doubtless, it happened to
Augustus as to other men : his spirits failed, and his powers
of supporting fatigue or bustle, as years stole upon him.
Changes coming by insensible steps, and not willingly

276 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

acknowledged, for some time escape notice ; until some
sudden shock reminds a man forcibly to do that which he has
long meditated in an irresolute way. The marriage banquet
may have been the particular occasion from which Augustus
stepped into the habits of old age, but certainly not the cause
of so entire a revolution in his mode of living.

It might seem to throw some doubt, if not upon the fact,
yet at least upon the sincerity, of his civism, that undoubtedly
Augustus cultivated his kingly connexions with considerable
anxiety. It may have been upon motives merely political
thai: he kept at Rome the children of nearly all the kings
then known as allies or vassals of the Roman power : a
curious fact, and not generally known. In his own palace
were reared a number of youthful princes ; and they were
educated jointly with his own children. It is also upon
record that in many instances the fathers of these princes
spontaneously repaired to Rome, and there, assuming the
Roman dress — as an expression of reverence to the majesty
of the omnipotent state — did personal " suit and service "
(more dientum] to Augustus. It is an anecdote of not less
curiosity that a whole " college " of kings subscribed money
for a temple at Athens, to be dedicated in the name of
Augustus. Throughout his life, indeed, this Emperor paid a
marked attention to all royal houses then known to Rome as
occupying the thrones upon the vast margin of the empire.
It is true that in part this attention might be interpreted as
given politically to so many lieutenants, wielding a remote
or inaccessible power for the benefit of Rome. And the
children of these kings might be regarded as hostages,
ostensibly entertained for the sake of education, but really as
pledges for their parents' fidelity, and also with a view to the
large reversionary advantages which might be expected to
arise upon the basis of so early and affectionate a connexion.
But it is not the less true that, at one period of his life,
Augustus did certainly meditate some closer personal con-
nexion with the royal families of the earth. He speculated,
undoubtedly, on a marriage for himself with some barbarous
princess, and at one time designed his daughter Julia as a
wife for Cotiso, the king of the Getse. Superstition perhaps
disturbed the one scheme, and policy the other. He married,

THE CAESARS 277

as is well known, for his final wife, and the partner of his
life through its whole triumphant stage, Livia Brasilia ;
compelling her husband, Tiberius Nero, to divorce her, not-
withstanding she was then six months advanced in pregnancy.
With this lady, who was distinguished for her beauty, it is
certain that he was deeply in love ; and that might be
sufficient to account for the marriage. It is equally certain,
however, upon the concurring evidence of independent writers,
that this connexion had an oracular sanction — not to say,
suggestion ; a circumstance which was long remembered, and
was afterwards noticed by the Christian poet Prudentius : —

" Idque Deum sortes et Apollinis antra dederunt
Consiliura : nunquam melius nam csedere taedas
Eesponsum est quam cum praegnans nova nupta jugatur."

His daughter Julia had been promised by turns, and
always upon reasons of state, to a whole muster-roll of suitors :
first of all, to a son of Mark Antony ; secondly, to a
barbarous king ; thirdly, to her first cousin — that Marcellus,
the son of Octavia, only sister to Augustus, whose early
death, in the midst of great expectations, Virgil has intro-
duced into the vision of Eoman grandeurs as yet unborn
which jEneas beholds in the shades : fourthly, she was promised
(and this time the promise was kept) to the fortunate soldier
Agrippa, whose low birth was not permitted to obscure his
military merits. By him she had a family of children, upon
whom, if upon any in this world, the wrath of Providence
seems to have rested ; for, excepting one, and in spite of all
the favours that earth and heaven could unite to shower
upon them, all came to an early, a violent, and an infamous
end. Fifthly, upon the death of Agrippa, and again upon
motives of policy, and in atrocious contempt of all the ties
that nature and the human heart and human laws have
hallowed, she was promised (if that word may be applied to
the violent obtrusion upon a man's bed of one who was
doubly a curse — first, for what she brought, and, secondly,
for what she took away) and given to Tiberius, the future
Emperor. Upon the whole, as far as we can at this day
make out the connexion of a man's acts and purposes, which
even to his own age were never entirely cleared up, it is

278 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

probable that, so long as the triumvirate survived, and so
long as the condition of Eoman power or intrigues, and the
distribution of Roman influence, were such as to leave a
possibility that any new triumvirate should arise — so long
Augustus was secretly meditating a retreat for himself at
some barbarous court, against any sudden reverse of fortune,
by means of a domestic connexion which should give him the
claim of a kinsman. Such a court, as against a sudden
emergency, might prove a tower of strength, however unable
to make head against the collective power of Rome : such a
court might offer a momentary front of resistance to any
single partisan who should attain a brief ascendency ; or, at
the worst, as a merely defensive power, might offer a retreat,
strong by its distance, or by its difficult access ; or might be
available as a means of delay for recovering from some else
fatal defeat. It is certain that Augustus viewed Egypt with
jealousy as a province which might be turned to account in
some such way by any aspiring insurgent. And it must have
often struck him as a remarkable circumstance, which by
good luck had turned out entirely to the advantage of his
own family, but which might as readily have had an opposite
result, that the three decisive battles of Pharsalia, of Thapsus,
and of Munda, in which the empire of the world was three
times over staked on the issue, had severally brought upon
the defeated leaders a ruin which was total, absolute, and
final. One hour had seen the whole fabric of their aspiring
fortunes fuming away in smoke ; and no resource was left to
them but either in suicide (which, accordingly, even Caesar
had meditated at one crisis in the battle of Munda, when it
seemed to be going against him) or in the mercy of the victor.
That a victor in a hundred fights should in his hundred-
and-first,1 as in his first, risk the loss of that particular battle,
is inseparable from the condition of man, and the uncertainty
of human means \ but that the loss of this one battle should
be equally fatal and irrecoverable with the loss of his first,

1 " The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toiled. "

SHAKSPEBE'S Sonnets.

THE CAESARS 279

that it should leave him with means no more cemented, and
resources no better matured for retarding his fall, and throw-
ing a long succession of hindrances in the way of his con-
queror, argues some essential defect of system. Under our
modern policy, military power — though it may be the growth
of one man's life — soon takes root ; a succession of campaigns
is required for its extirpation; and it revolves backwards to its
final extinction through all the stages by which originally it
grew. On the Roman system this was mainly impossible
from the solitariness of the Roman power : co-rival nations
who might balance the victorious party there were absolutely
none ; and all the underlings hastened to make their peace,
whilst peace was yet open to them, on the known terms
of absolute treachery to their former master, and instant
surrender to the victor of the hour. For this capital defect
in the tenure of Roman power, no matter in whose hands
deposited, there was no absolute remedy. Many a sleepless
night, during the perilous game which he played with Antony,
must have familiarized Octavius with that view of the risk
which to some extent was inseparable from his position as the
leader in such a struggle carried on in such an empire. In
this dilemma, struck with the extreme necessity of applying
some palliation to the case, we have no doubt that Augustus
would devise the scheme of laying some distant king under
such obligations to fidelity as would suffice to stand the first
shock of misfortune. Such a person would have power
enough, of a direct military kind, to face the storm at its
outbreak. He would have power of another kind in his
distance. He would be sustained by the courage of hope, as
a kinsman having a contingent interest in a kinsman's pros-
perity. And, finally, he would be sustained by the courage
of despair, as one who never could expect to be trusted by
the opposite party. In the worst case, such a prince would
always offer a breathing time and a respite to his friends,
were it only by his remoteness, and if not the means of rally-
ing, yet at least the time for rallying, more especially as the
escape to his frontier would be easy to one who had long
forecast it. We can hardly doubt that Augustus meditated
such schemes ; that he laid them aside only as his power
began to cement and to knit together after the battle of

280 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Actium ; and that the memory and the prudential tradition
of this plan survived in the imperial family so long as itself
survived. Amongst other anecdotes of the same tendency,
two are recorded of Nero, the emperor in whom expired the
line of the original Caesars, which strengthen us in a belief
of what is otherwise in itself so probable. Nero, in his first
distractions, upon receiving the fatal tidings of the revolt in
Gaul, when reviewing all possible plans of escape from the
impending danger, thought at intervals of throwing himself
on the protection of the barbarous King Vologesus. And,
twenty years afterwards, when the Pseudo-Nero appeared, he
found a strenuous champion and protector in the King of
the Parthians. Possibly, had an opportunity offered for
searching the Parthian chancery, some treaty would have
been found binding the Kings of Parthia, from the age of
Augustus through some generations downwards, in requital
of services there specified, or of treasures lodged, to secure a
perpetual asylum to the posterity of the Julian family.

The cruelties of Augustus were perhaps equal in atrocity
to any which are recorded ; and the equivocal apology for
those acts (one which might as well be used to aggravate as
to palliate the case) is that they were not prompted by a
ferocious nature, but by calculating policy. He once actually
slaughtered upon an altar a large body of his prisoners ; and
such was the contempt with which he was regarded by some
of that number that, when led out to death, they saluted
their other proscriber, Antony, with military honours, acknow-
ledging merit even in an enemy, — in words beautiful and
memorable they paid their homage, Morituri te salutamus, —
but Augustus they passed with scornful silence, or with loud
reproaches. Too certainly no man has ever contended for
empire with unsullied conscience, or laid pure hands upon
the ark of so magnificent a prize. Every friend to Augustus
must have wished that the twelve years of his struggle might
for ever be blotted out from human remembrance. During
the forty-two years of his prosperity and his triumph, being
above fear, he showed his natural or prudential lenity.

That prosperity, in a public sense, has been rarely equalled ;
but far different was his fate, and memorable was the con-
trast, within the circuit of his own family. This lord of the

THE C.ESARS 281

universe groaned as often as the ladies of his house, his
daughter and grand-daughter, were mentioned. The shame
which he felt on their account led him even to unnatural
designs, and to wishes not less so : for at one time he enter-
tained a plan for putting the elder Julia to death ; and at
another, upon hearing that Phoebe (one of the female slaves
in his household) had hanged herself, he exclaimed audibly,
— " Would that I had been the father of a Phoebe ! " It
must, however, be granted that in this dark episode or
parenthesis of his public life he behaved with very little of
his usual discretion. In the first paroxysms of his rage, on
discovering his daughter's criminal conduct, he made a com-
munication of the whole to the Senate. That body could do
nothing in such a matter, either by act or by suggestion ; and
in a short time, as everybody could have foreseen, he him-
self repented of his own deficient self-command. Upon the
whole, it cannot be denied that, according to the remark of
Jeremy Taylor, of all the men signally decorated by History,
Augustus Caesar is that one who exemplifies, in the most
emphatic forms, the mixed tenor of human life, and the
equitable distribution, even on this earth, of good and evil
fortune. He made himself master of the world, and against
the most formidable competitors ; his power was absolute,
from the rising to the setting sun ; and yet in his own house,
where the peasant who does the humblest chares claims an
undisputed authority, he was baffled, dishonoured, and made
ridiculous. He was loved by nobody ; and, if at the moment
of his death he desired his friends to dismiss him from this
world by the common expression of scenical applause (vos
plaudite /), in that valedictory injunction he expressed inad-
vertently the true value of his own long life : which, in
strict candour, may be pronounced one continued series of
histrionic efforts ; of dissimulation, therefore, even if usefully
directed ; yes, little man ! one huge &alage of excellent
acting, adapted to ends essentially selfish.

CHAPTER III

CALIGULA, NERO, AND OTHERS1
(A.D. 37— A.D. 117)

THE three next Emperors, — Caligula, Claudius, and Nero,2 —
were the last princes who had any connexion by blood 3 with
the Julian house. In Nero, the sixth emperor, expired the
last of the Caesars who was such in reality. These three
were also the first in that long line of monsters who, at
different times, under the title of Caesars, dishonoured humanity

1 From Blackwood for January 1833. The heading of the chapter
is not De Quincey's own ; but it fairly describes the matter. — M.

2 The opening phrase of this chapter, ' ' The three next Emperors,
— Caligula, Claudius, and Nero," coming immediately after the chapter
devoted to Augustus, makes one inquire what had become of Augustus's
successor, Tiberius. As De Quincey cannot have forgotten an Emperor
so important, and who would have been such an interesting theme for
his pen, one wonders whether a paper on Tiberius dropped out of the
series by some mishap. At all'events, in Blackwood for January 1833
it is this paper on Caligula, &c., that follows that on Augustus in the
number for December 1832. — M.

3 And this was entirely by the female side. The family descent of
the first six Caesars is so intricate that it is rarely understood accu-
rately; so that it may be well to state it briefly. Augustus was
grand-nephew to Julius Caesar, being the son of Caesar's sister's
daughter. Augustus was also, by adoption, the son of Julius. He
himself had one child only, viz. the infamous Julia, who was brought
him by his second wife Scribonia ; and through this Julia it was that
the three princes who succeeded to Tiberius claimed relationship to
Augustus. On that emperor's third and last marriage, viz. with
Livia, he adopted the two sons whom she had borne to her divorced
husband. These two noblemen, who stood in no degree of con-
sanguinity whatever to Augustus, were Tiberius and Drusus. Tiberius,

THE C^ESAKS 283

more memorably than was possible except in the cases of
those (if any such can be named) who have abused the same
enormous powers in times of the same civility and in defiance
of the same general illumination. But for them, it is a fact
that some crimes which now stain the page of History would
have been accounted fabulous dreams of impure romancers,
taxing their extravagant imaginations to create combinations
of wickedness more hideous than civilized men would tolerate,
and more unnatural than the human heart could conceive.
Let us, by way of example, take a short chapter from the
diabolic life of Caligula.

In what way did he treat his nearest and tenderest female
connexions 1 His mother had been tortured and murdered
by another tyrant almost as fiendish as himself. She was
happily removed from his cruelty. Disdaining, however, to
acknowledge any connexion with the blood of so obscure a
man as Agrippa, he publicly gave out that his mother was
indeed the daughter of Julia, but by an incestuous commerce
with her father Augustus. His three sisters he debauched.
One died, and her he canonized ; the other two he prostituted
to the basest of his own attendants. Of his wives, it would
be hard to say whether they were first sought and won with

who succeeded his adopted father, Augustus, as emperor, left no
children ; but Drusus, the younger of the two brothers, by his marriage
with the younger Antonia (daughter of Mark Antony), had the cele-
brated Germanicus, and Claudius, afterwards emperor. Germanicus,
though adopted by his uncle Tiberius, and destined to the empire,
died prematurely. But, like Banquo, though he wore no crown, he
left descendants who did. For, by his marriage with Agrippina, a
daughter of Julia's by Agrippa (and therefore grand - daughter of
Augustus), he had a large family ; of whom one son became the Emperor
Caligula, and one of the daughters, Agrippina the younger, by her
marriage with a Roman nobleman, became the mother of the Emperor
Nero. Hence it appears that Tiberius was uncle to Claudius, Claudius
was uncle to Caligula, Caligula was uncle to Nero : a worshipful
succession of uncles. But it is observable that Nero and Caligula
stood in another degree of consanguinity to each other through their
grandmothers, who were both daughters of Mark Antony the triumvir ;
for the elder Antonia married the grandfather of Nero ; the younger
Antonia (as we have stated above) married Drusus, the grandfather of
Caligula ; and again, by these two ladies, they were connected not
only with each other, but also with the Julian house, for the two
Antonias were daughters of Mark Antony by Octavia, sister to
Augustus.

284 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

more circumstances of injury and outrage, or dismissed with
more insult and levity. The one whom he treated best, and
with most profession of love, and who commonly rode by his
side, equipped with spear and shield, to his military inspec-
tions and reviews of the soldiery, though not particularly
beautiful, was exhibited to his friends at banquets in a state
of absolute nudity. His motive for treating her with so
much kindness was probably that she brought him a daughter ;
and her he acknowledged as his own child, from the early
brutality with which she attacked the eyes and cheeks of
other infants who were presented to her as play-fellows.
Hence it would appear that he was aware of his own ferocity,
and treated it as a jest. The levity, indeed, which he
mingled with his worst and most inhuman acts, and the
slightness of the occasions upon which he delighted to hang
his most memorable atrocities, aggravated their impression at
the time, and must have contributed greatly to sharpen the
sword of vengeance. His palace happened to be contiguous
to the circus. Some seats, it seems, were open indiscrimi-
nately to the public ; consequently, the only way in which
they could be appropriated was by taking possession of them
as early as the midnight preceding any great exhibitions.
Once, when it happened that his sleep was disturbed by such
an occasion, he sent in soldiers to eject them, and with orders
so rigorous, as it appeared by the event, that in this singular
tumult twenty Koman knights, and as many mothers of
families, were cudgelled to death upon the spot, to say
nothing of what the reporter calls "innumeram turbam
ceteram."

But this is a trifle to another anecdote reported by the
same authority : — On some occasion it happened that a
dearth prevailed, either generally of cattle, or of such cattle
as were used for feeding the wild beasts reserved for the
bloody exhibitions of the amphitheatre. Food could be had,
and perhaps at no very exorbitant price, but on terms
somewhat higher than the ordinary market price. A slight
excuse served with Caligula for acts the most monstrous.
Instantly repairing to the public jails, he caused all the
prisoners to pass in review before him (custodiarum seriem
recognomt\ and then, pointing to two bald-headed men, he

THE C^SARS 285

ordered that the whole file of intermediate persons should
be marched off to the dens of the wild beasts : " Tell them
off," said he, " from the bald man to the bald man." Yet
these were prisoners committed, not for punishment, but
trial. Nor, had it been otherwise, were the charges against
them equal, but running through every graduation of guilt.
But the elogia, or records of their commitment, he would
not so much as look at. With such inordinate capacities
for cruelty, we cannot wonder that he should in his common
conversation have deplored the tameness and insipidity of
his own times and reign, as likely to be marked by no wide-
spreading calamity. "Augustus," said he, "was happy;
ah, yes, he was fortunate, for in his reign occurred the
slaughter of Varus and his legions. Tiberius was happy ;
for in his occurred that glorious fall of the great amphi-
theatre at Fidena3. But for me — alas ! alas ! " And then
he would pray earnestly for fire or slaughter, pestilence or
famine. Famine, indeed, was to some extent in his own
power ; and, accordingly, as far as his courage would carry
him, he did occasionally try that mode of tragedy upon the
people of Rome, by shutting up the public granaries against
them. As he blended his mirth and a truculent sense of
the humorous with his cruelties, we cannot wonder that he
should soon blend his cruelties with his ordinary festivities,
and that his daily banquets would soon become insipid
without them. Hence he required a daily supply of exe-
cutions in his own halls and banqueting-rooms ; nor was a
dinner held to be complete without such a dessert. Artists
were sought out who had dexterity and strength enough to
do what Lucan somewhere calls ensem rotare, that is to
cut off a human head with one whirl of the sword. Even
this became insipid, as wanting one main element of misery
to the sufferer and an indispensable condiment to the jaded
palate of the connoisseur, viz. a lingering duration. As a
pleasant variety, therefore, the tormentors were introduced
with their various instruments of torture ; and many a
dismal tragedy in that mode of human suffering was con-
ducted in the sacred presence during the Emperor's hours of
amiable relaxation.

The result of these horrid indulgences was exactly what

286 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

we might suppose, — that even such scenes ceased to irritate
the languid appetite, and yet that without tnem life was
not endurable. Jaded and exhausted as the sense of pleasure
had become .in Caligula, still it could be roused into any
activity by nothing short of these murderous luxuries.
Hence it seems that he was continually tampering and
dallying with the thought of murder ; and, like the old
Parisian jeweller Cardillac, in Louis XI Vs time, who was
stung with a perpetual lust for murdering the possessors of
fine diamonds — not so much for the value of the prize (of
which he never hoped to make any use) as from an uncon-
querable desire for precipitating himself into the difficulties
and hazards of the murder — Caligula never failed to ex-
perience (and sometimes even to acknowledge) a secret tempta-
tion to any murder which seemed either more than usually
abominable, or more than usually difficult. Thus, when the
two consuls were seated at his table, he burst out into sudden
and profuse laughter ; and, upon their courteously requesting
to know what witty and admirable conceit might be the
occasion of the imperial mirth, he frankly owned to them,
and doubtless he did not improve their appetites by this
confession, that in fact he was laughing, and that he could
not but laugh (and then the monster laughed immoderately
again), at the pleasant thought of seeing them both headless,
and that with so little trouble to himself (uno suo nutu) he
could have both their throats cut. No doubt he was con-
tinually balancing the arguments for and against such little
escapades ; nor had any person a reason for security in the
extraordinary obligations, whether of hospitality or of religious
vows, which seemed to lay him under some peculiar restraints
in that case above all others; for such circumstances of
peculiarity, by which the murder would be stamped with
unusual atrocity, were but the more likely to make its
fascinations irresistible. Hence he dallied with the thoughts
of murdering her whom he loved best, and indeed exclusively
— his wife Ca3sonia ; and, whilst fondling her, and toying
playfully with her polished throat, he was distracted (as he
half insinuated to her) between the desire of caressing it,
which might be often repeated, and that of cutting it, which
could be gratified but once.

THE (LESARS 287

Nero (for, as to Claudius, he came too late to the throne
to indulge any propensities of this nature with so little
discretion) was but a variety of the same species. 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. It would
really be pleasant, were it not for the revolting consideration
of the persons concerned, and their relation to each other, to
watch the tortuous pursuit of the hunter, and the doubles of
the game, in this obstinate chase. 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 prophy-
lactics. Or else (which is more probable) the Emperor's
agent in such purposes, fearing his sudden repentance and
remorse on first hearing of his mother's death, or possibly
even witnessing her agonies, 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. Upon which he had sum-
moned to his presence the woman employed in the a-ffair,
and, compelling her by threats to mingle a more powerful
potion in his own presence, had tried it successively upon
different animals, until he was satisfied with its effects ;
after which, immediately inviting Britannicus to a banquet,
he had finally despatched him. 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.

288 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

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 accom-
plices, reached the ears of Agrippina ; upon which the old
lady looked about her too sharply to leave much hope in
that scheme : so that also was abandoned. 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. Not that she knew in this case who had been
the ship -builder, for that would have ruined all ; but it
seems that she took it ill to be hunted in this murderous
spirit, and was out of humour with her son ; besides that
any proposal coming from him, though previously indifferent
to her, would have instantly become suspected. To meet
this difficulty, a sort of reconciliation was proposed, and a
very affectionate message sent, which had the effect of throw-
ing Agrippina off her guard, and seduced her to Baiae for the
purpose of joining the Emperor's party at a grand banquet
held in commemoration of a solemn festival. She came
by water in a sort of light frigate, and was to return in
the same way. Meantime Nero tampered with the com-
mander of her vessel, and prevailed upon him to wreck it.
What was to be done ? The great lady was anxious to
return to Rome, and no proper conveyance was at hand.
Suddenly it was suggested, as if by chance, that a ship of
the Emperor's, new and properly equipped, was moored at a
neighbouring station. This was readily accepted by Agrip-
pina : 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,

THE CLESARS 289

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 ? Money, and trouble, and infinite contrivance, \vasted
upon one old woman, who absolutely would not, upon any
terms, be murdered ! Provoking it certainly was ; and 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 nobady
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 corrup-
tion 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,1 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

1 But a memorial stone, in its inscription, makes the time longer :
"Quando urbs per novem dies arsit Neronianis temporibus."
VOL. VI U

290 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

suspicions) might reasonably be supposed incapable of any
resistance which required courage even in a case of self-
defence or of just revenge. The direct reasons, however, for
implicating him in this affair seem at present insufficient.
He was displeased, it seems, with the irregularity and un-
sightliness of the antique buildings, and also with the streets,
as too narrow and winding (angustiis flexurisque vicorum).
But in this he did but express what was no doubt the common
judgment of all his contemporaries who had seen the beautiful
cities of Greece and Asia Minor. The Rome of that time
was in many parts built of wood ; and there is much prob-
ability that it must have been a picturesque city, and in
parts almost grotesque. But it is remarkable, and a fact
which we have nowhere seen noticed, that the ancients,
whether Greeks or Romans, had no eye for the picturesque •
nay, that it was a sense utterly unawakened amongst them,
and that the very conception of the picturesque, as of a thing
distinct from the beautiful, is not once alluded to through
the whole course of ancient literature, nor would it have
been intelligible to any ancient critic ; so that, whatever
attraction for the eye might exist in the Rome of that day,
there is little doubt that it was of a kind to be felt only by
modern spectators. Mere dissatisfaction with its external
appearance, which must have been a pretty general senti-
ment, argued, therefore, no necessary purpose of destroying
it. Certainly it would be a weightier ground of suspicion,
if it were really true, that some of his agents were detected
on the premises of different senators in the act of applying
combustibles to their mansions. But this story wears a very
fabulous air. For why resort to the private dwellings of
great men, where any intruder was sure of attracting notice,
when the same effect, and with the same deadly results,
might have been attained quietly and secretly in so many of
the humble Roman ccenacula, i.e. garrets ?

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 adhuc spoliis adornatce : the
"rostral" palace; the mansion of the Pompeys ; the Blen-
heims and the Strathfieldsayes of the Scipios, the Marcelli.

THE OESARS 291

the Paulli, and the Caesars ; then perished the aged trophies
from Carthage and from Ganl ; and, in short, as the historian
siims up the lamentable desolation, " quidquid viscndum atque
memorabile ex antiquitate dura/oerat" 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,
and in one week to obliterate the memorials of their popular
forces, and their trophies of many ages. The old people of
Rome were gone ; their characteristic dress even was gone ;
for already in the time of Augustus they had laid aside the
toga, and assumed the cheaper and scantier pcenula, so that
the eye sought in vain for Virgil's

"Eomanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam."

Why, then, after all the constituents of Roman grandeur
had passed away, should their historical trophies survive,
recalling to them the scenes of departed heroism in which
they had no personal property, and suggesting to them vain
hopes, which for them were never to be other than chimeras ?
Even in tLat sense, therefore, and as a great depository of
heart-stirring historical remembrances, Rome was profitably
destroyed ; and 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. 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. And,
as if that mode of plunder were not sufficient, he exacted
compulsory contributions to the rebuilding of the city so
indiscriminately as to press heavily upon all men's finances

292 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

and thus, in the public account which universally imputed
the fire to him, he was viewed as a twofold robber, who
sought to heal one calamity by the infliction of another and
a greater.

The monotony of wickedness and outrage becomes at
length fatiguing to the coarsest and most callous senses ; and
the historian even who caters professedly for the taste which
feeds upon the monstrous and the hyperbolical is glad at
length to escape from the long evolution of his insane
atrocities, to the striking and truly scenical catastrophe of
retribution which overtook them, and avenged the wrongs
of an insulted world. Perhaps History contains no more
impressive scenes than those in which the justice of Provi-
dence at length arrested -the monstrous career of Nero.

It was at Naples, and, by a remarkable fatality, on the
very anniversary of his mother's murder, that he received the
first intelligence of the revolt in Gaul under the Proprsetor
Vindex. This news for about a week he treated with levity ;
and, — like Henry VII of England, who was nettled not so
much at being proclaimed a rebel as because he was described
under the slighting denomination of " one Henry Tidder or
Tudor," — he complained bitterly that Vindex had mentioned
him by his family name of ^Enobarbus, rather than his
assumed one of Nero. But much more keenly he resented
the insulting description of himself as a " miserable harper,"
appealing to all about him whether they had ever known a
better, and offering to stake the truth of all the other charges
against himself upon the accuracy of this in particular. So
little even in this instance was he alive to the true point of
the insult ; not thinking it any disgrace that a Roman
Emperor should be chiefly known to the world in the
character of a harper, but only if he should happen to be a
bad one. Even in those days, however, imperfect as were
the means of travelling, rebellion moved somewhat too
rapidly to allow any long interval of security so light-
minded as this. One courier followed upon the heels of
another, until he felt the necessity for leaving Naples ; and
he returned to Rome, as the historian says, prcetrepidus : by
which word, however, according to its genuine classical
acceptation, we apprehend, is not meant that he was highly

THE C.ESARS 293

alarmed, but only that he was in a great hurry. That he
was not yet under any real alarm (for he trusted in certain
prophecies, which, like those made to the Scottish tyrant,
"kept the promise to the ear, but broke it to the sense") is
pretty evident from his conduct on reaching the capital.
For, without any appeal to the Senate or the People, but
sending out a few summonses to some men of rank, he held
a hasty council, which he speedily dismissed, and occupied
the rest of the day with experiments on certain musical
instruments of recent invention, in which the keys were
moved by hydraulic machineries. He had come to Rome,
it appeared, merely from a sense of decorum.

Suddenly, however, arrived news, which fell upon him
with the shock of a thunderbolt, that the revolt had extended
to the Spanish provinces, and was headed by Galba. He
fainted upon hearing this; and, falling to the ground, lay
for a long time lifeless, as it seemed, and speechless. Upon
coming to himself again, he tore his robe, struck his forehead,
and exclaimed aloud that for him all was over. In this
agony of mind, it strikes across the utter darkness of the
scene with the sense of a sudden and cheering flash, recalling
to us the possible goodness and fidelity of human nature,
when we read that one humble creature adhered to him, and,
according to her slender means, gave him consolation during
these trying moments : this was the woman who had tended
his infant years ; and she now recalled to his remembrance
such instances of former princes in adversity as appeared
fitted to sustain his drooping spirits. It seems, however,
that, according to the general course of violent emotions, the
rebound of high spirits was in proportion to his first despond-
ency. He omitted nothing of his usual luxury or self-indul-
gence, and even found spirits for going incognito to the theatre,
where he took sufficient interest in the public performances
to send a message to a favourite actor. At times, even in
this hopeless situation, his native ferocity returned upon
him, and he was believed to have framed plans for removing
all his enemies at once : the leaders of the rebellion, by
appointing successors to their offices, and secretly sending
assassins to despatch their persons ; the senate, by poison at
a great banquet ; the Gaulish provinces, by delivering them

294 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

up for pillage to the army ; the city, by again setting it on
fire, whilst, at the same time, a vast number of wild beasts
was to have been turned loose upon the unarmed populace,
for the double purpose of destroying them and of distracting
their attention from the fire. But, as the mood of his frenzy
changed, these sanguinary schemes were abandoned (not,
however, under any feelings of remorse, but from mere
despair of effecting them), and on the same day, but after a
luxurious dinner, the imperial monster grew bland and
pathetic in his ideas : he would proceed to the rebellious
army ; he would present himself unarmed to their view, and
would recall them to their duty by the mere spectacle of his
tears. Upon the pathos with which he would weep he was
resolved to rely entirely. And, having received the guilty
to his mercy without distinction, upon the following day he
would unite his joy with their joy, and would chant hymns
of victory (epinicia) ; " which, by the way," said he, suddenly,
breaking off to his favourite pursuits, " it is necessary that I
should immediately compose." This caprice vanished like
the rest ; and he made an effort to enlist the slaves and
citizens into his service, and to raise by extortion a large
military chest. But in the midst of these vacillating purposes
fresh tidings surprised him ; other armies had revolted, and
the rebellion was spreading contagiously. This consummation
of his alarms reached him at dinner ; and the expressions of
his angry fears took even a scenical air : he tore the despatches,
upset the table, and dashed to pieces upon the ground two
crystal beakers, which, from the sculptures that adorned them,
had a high value as works of art even in the Aurea Domus.

He now took steps for flight ; and, sending forward com-
missioners to prepare the fleet at Ostia for his reception, he
tampered with such officers of the army as were at hand, to
prevail upon them to accompany his retreat. But all showed
themselves indisposed to such schemes, and some flatly refused.
Upon which he turned to other counsels ; sometimes medi-
tating a flight to the King of Parthia, or even to throw
himself on the mercy of Galba ; sometimes inclining rather
to the plan of venturing into the forum in mourning apparel,
begging pardon for all past offences, and, as a last resource^
entreating that he might receive the appointment of Egyptian

THE CAESARS L'95

prefect. This plan, however, he hesitated to adopt, from
some apprehension that he should be torn to pieces on his
road to the forum ; and, at all events, he concluded to post-
pone it to the following day. Meantime events were now
hurrying to their catastrophe, which for ever anticipated
that intention. His hours were numbered, and the closing
scene was at hand.

Kecord there is not amongst libraries of man, libraries
that stretch into infinity like the armies of Xerxes, of a
human agony distilling itself through moments and pulses
of intermitting misery so cruel, and into such depths of
darkness descending from such glittering heights. In the
middle of the night he was aroused from slumber with the
intelligence that the military guard who did duty at the
palace had all quitted their posts. Upon this the unhappy
prince leaped from his couch, never again to taste the luxury
of sleep, and despatched messengers to his friends. No
answers were returned ; and upon that he went personally
with a small retinue to their hotels. But he found their
doors everywhere closed ; and all his importunities could not
avail to extort an answer. Sadly and slowly he returned to
his own bed-chamber; but there again he found fresh instances
of desertion, which had occurred during his short absence.
The pages of his bed-chamber had fled, carrying with them
the coverlids of the imperial bed, which were probably in-
wrought with gold thread, and even a golden box, in which
Nero had on the preceding day deposited poison prepared
against the last extremity. Wounded to the heart by this
general perfidy, and by some special case, no doubt, of in-
gratitude, such as would probably enough be signalized in
the flight of his personal favourites, he called for a gladiator
of the household to come and despatch him. But, none
appearing — " What ! " said he, " have I neither friend nor
foe ? " This pretty little epigrammatic query we suspect to
be the manufacture of the rhetorician in after days, embroider-
ing the case at his leisure. For the honour of human nature,
we rejoice that one man in Home was capable of gratitude
and stern fidelity. Else the poor nurse would have placed
our rascally sex at a discount. And, so saying, or perhaps
not saying, he ran towards the Tiber, with the purpose of

296 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

drowning himself. But that paroxysm, like all the rest,
proved transient ; and he expressed a wish for some hiding-
place, or momentary asylum, in which he might collect his
unsettled spirits, and fortify his wandering resolution. Such
a retreat was offered to him by his libertus Phaon, in his own
rural villa, about four miles distant from Home. This offer
was accepted ; and the Emperor, without further preparation
than that of throwing over his person a short mantle of a
dusky hue, and enveloping his head and face in a handker-
chief, mounted his horse, and left Rome with four attendants.
It was still night, but probably verging towards the early
dawn ; and even at that hour the imperial party met some
travellers on their way to Rome (coming up, no doubt,1 on
law business), who said, as they passed, " These men, doubt-
less, are in chase of Nero." Two other incidents, of an
interesting nature, are recorded of this short but memorable
ride. At one point of the road the shouts of the soldiery
assailed their ears from the neighbouring encampment of
Galba. They were probably then getting under arms for
their final march to take possession of the palace. At
another point an accident occurred of a more ominous kind,
but so natural and so well circumstantiated that it serves to
verify the whole narrative. A dead body was lying on the
road, at which the Emperor's horse started so violently as
nearly to dismount his rider ; the difficulty of the moment
compelled the Emperor to drop the hand which held up the
handkerchief, so that with the suddenness of a theatrical
surprise his features were exposed. Only for a moment was
this exposure ; but a moment was sufficient. Precisely at
this critical moment it happened that an old half-pay officer
passed, recognised the Emperor, and saluted him. Perhaps
it was with some purpose of applying a remedy to this
unfortunate rencontre that the party dismounted at a point
where several roads met, and turned their horses adrift, to
graze at will amongst the furze and brambles. Their own

1 At this early hour witnesses, sureties, &c., and all concerned in
the law courts, came up to Rome from villas, country towns, &c.
But no ordinary call existed to summon travellers in the opposite
direction ; which accounts for the comment of the travellers on the
errand of Nero and his attendants.

THE (LESARS 297

purpose was to make their way to the Lack of the villa ; but,
to accomplish that, it was necessary that they should first
cross a plantation of reeds, from the peculiar marshy state of
which they found themselves obliged to cover successively
each space upon which they trode with parts of their dress,
in order to gain any supportable footing. In this way, and
contending with such hardships, they reached at length the
postern side of the villa. Here we must suppose that there
was no regular ingress ; for, after waiting until an entrance
was pierced, it seems that the Emperor could avail himself
of this entrance in no more dignified posture than by creeping
through the hole on his hands and feet (quadrupes per angustias
rcceptus}.

Now, then, after such anxiety, alarm, and hardship, Nero
had reached a quiet rural asylum. But for the unfortunate
concurrence of his horse's alarm with the passing of the
soldier, he might perhaps have counted on the respite of a
day or two in this noiseless and obscure abode. But what a
habitation for him who was yet ruler of the world in the eye
of law, and even de facto was so had any fatal accident
befallen his aged competitor ! The room in which (as the
one most removed from notice and suspicion) he had secreted
himself was a cella, or little sleeping - closet of a slave,
furnished only with a miserable pallet and a coarse rug.
Here lay the founder and possessor of the Golden House, too
happy if he might hope for the peaceable possession even of
this miserable crypt. But that, he knew too well, was
impossible. Could he ever have believed it possible ? A
rival pretender to the empire was like the plague of fire — as
dangerous in the shape of a single spark left unextinguished
as in that of a prosperous conflagration. But a few brief
sands yet remained to run in the Emperor's hour-glass ;
much variety of degradation or suffering seemed scarcely
within the possibilities of his situation, or within the compass
of the time. Yet, as though Providence had decreed that
his humiliation should pass through every shape and stage,
and speak by every expression which came home to his
understanding, or was intelligible to his senses, even in those
few moments he was attacked by hunger and thirst. No
other bread could be obtained (or, perhaps, if the Emperor's

'298 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

presence were concealed from the household, it was not safe
to raise suspicion by calling for better) than that which was
ordinarily given to slaves, — coarse, black, and, to a palate so
luxurious, doubtless disgusting. This accordingly he rejected;
but a little tepid water he drank. After which, with the
haste of one who fears that he may be prematurely inter-
rupted, but otherwise with all the reluctance which we may
imagine, and which his streaming tears proclaimed, he
addressed himself to the last labour in which he supposed
himself to have any interest on this earth, — that of digging
a grave. Measuring a space adjusted to the proportions of
his person, he inquired anxiously for any loose fragments of
marble, such as might suffice to line it. He requested also
to be furnished with wood and water, as the materials for
the last sepulchral rites. And these labours were accom-
panied, or continually interrupted, by tears and lamentations,
or by passionate ejaculations on the blindness of fortune, in
suffering so divine a musical artist to be thus violently
snatched away, and on the calamitous fate of musical science,
which then stood on the brink of so dire an eclipse. In
these moments he was most truly in an agony, according to
the original meaning of that word ; for the conflict was great
between two master principles of his nature : on the one
hand, he clung with the weakness of a girl to life, even in
4iat miserable shape to which it had now sunk ; and, like
thtpoor malefactor with whose last struggles Prior had so
atrocrusly amused himself, "he often took leave, but was
loth todepart." Yet, on the other hand, to resign his life
very speelily seemed his only chance for escaping the con-
tumelies, perhapofhe tortures, of his enemies, and, above all
other considerations, for liaking sure of a burial, and possibly
of burial rites; to want \\hich, in the judgment of the
ancients, was the last consummation of misery. Thus
occupied and thus distracted — steely attracted to the grave
by his creed, hideously repelled by infirmity of nature — he
was suddenly interrupted by a courier with letters for the
master of the house : letters, and frdP Koine ! What was
their import ? That was soon told : bi*en*y that Nero was
adjudged to be a public enemy by the base sycophantic
Senate, and that official orders were issued f°r apprehending

THE CLESARS 299

him, in order that he might be brought to condign punish-
ment according to the method of ancient precedent. Ancient
precedent ! more majorum ! And how was that ? eagerly
demanded the Emperor. He was answered that the state
criminal in such cases was first stripped naked, then impaled
as it were between the prongs of a pitchfork, and in that
condition scourged to death. Horror-struck with this account,
he drew forth two poniards, or short swords, tried their edges,
and then, in utter imbecility of purpose, returned them to
their scabbards, alleging that the destined moment had not
yet arrived. Then he called upon Sporus, the infamous
partner in his former excesses, to commence the funeral
anthem. Others, again, he besought to lead the way in
dying, and to sustain him by the spectacle of their example.
But this purpose also he dismissed in the very moment of
utterance ; and, turning away despairingly, he apostrophized
himself in words reproachful or animating, now taxing his
nature with infirmity of purpose, now calling on himself by
name, with abjurations to remember his dignity, and to act
worthily of his station : ov TrpeVei Ne/oow, cried he ; ov
7rp€7T€f vrjfatv Set ev rots TOIOVTOIS' aye, eyeipe creavrov —
i.e. " Fie, fie, then, Nero ! this is not becoming to Nero. In
such extremities a man should be wide awake. Up, then,
and rouse thyself to action."

Thus, and in similar efforts to master the weakness of his
reluctant nature — weakness which would extort pity from
the severest minds, were it not from the odious connexion
which in him it had with cruelty the most merciless — did
this unhappy prince, jam non salutis spem sed exitii solatium
qucerens, no longer looking for any hope of deliverance, but
simply for consolation in his ruin, consume the flying
moments, until at length his ears caught the fatal sounds or
echoes from a body of horsemen riding up to the villa.
These were the officers charged with his arrest ; and, if he
should fall into their hands alive, he knew that his last
chance was over for liberating himself, by a Roman death,
from the burden of ignominious life, and from a lingering
torture. He paused from his restless motions, listened
attentively, then repeated a line from Homer —

KTVTTOS ovara

300 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

(" The resounding tread of swift-footed horses reverberates
upon my ears ") ; then, under some momentary impulse of
courage, gained perhaps by figuring to himself the bloody
populace rioting upon his mangled body, yet even then
needing the auxiliary hand and vicarious courage of his
private secretary, the feeble-hearted prince stabbed himself
in the throat. The wound, however, was not such as to cause
instant death. He was still breathing, and not quite speech-
less, when the centurion who commanded the party entered
the closet ; and to this officer, who uttered a few hollow
words of encouragement, he was still able to make a brief
reply. But in the very effort of speaking he expired, and
with an expression of horror impressed upon his stiffened
features which communicated a sympathetic horror to all
beholders.

Such was the too memorable tragedy which closed for
ever the brilliant line of the Julian family, and translated
the august title of Caesar from its original purpose as a proper
name to that of an official designation. It is the most striking
instance upon record of a dramatic and extreme vengeance
overtaking extreme guilt ; for, as Nero had exhausted the
utmost possibilities of crime, so it may be affirmed that he
drank off the cup of suffering to the very extremity of what
his peculiar nature allowed. And in no life of so short a
duration have ever been crowded equal extremities of gorgeous
prosperity and abject infamy. It may be added, as another
striking illustration of the rapid mutability and revolutionary
excesses which belonged to what has been properly called
the stratocracy or martial despotism then disposing of the
world, that within no very great succession of weeks that
same victorious rebel, the Emperor Galba, at whose feet Nero
had been self-immolated, was laid a murdered corpse in the
same identical cell which had witnessed the lingering agonies
of his unhappy victim. This was the act of an emancipated
slave, anxious, by a vindictive insult to the remains of one
prince, to place on record his gratitude to another. " So runs
the world away ! " And in this striking way is retribution
sometimes dispensed.

In the sixth Caesar terminated the Julian line. The

THE C^SARS 301

three next princes in the succession were personally unin-
teresting, and, with a slight reserve in favour of Otho, whose
motives for committing suicide (if truly reported) argue great
nobility of mind,1 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 Csesars, 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 a 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 Csesars, the six latter have no
connexion 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 Augustulus would bring up the melancholy rear.
Meantime it will be proper, after thus briefly throwing our
eyes over the monstrous atrocities of the early Csesars, to
spend a few lines in examining their origin, and the circum-

1 We may add that the unexampled public grief which followed the
death of Otho, exceeding even that which followed the death of
Germanicus, and causing several officers to commit suicide, implies
some remarkable goodness in this prince, and a very unusual power of
conciliating attachment.

302 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

stances which favoured their growth. For a mere hunter
after hidden or forgotten singularities, a lover on their own
account of all strange perversities and freaks of nature,
whether in action, taste, or opinion, for a collector and
amateur of misgrowths and abortions — for a Suetonius, in
short — it may be quite enough to state and to arrange his
cabinet of specimens from the marvellous in human nature.
But certainly in modern times any historian, however little
affecting the praise of a philosophic investigator, would feel
himself called upon to remove a little the taint of the
strange and preternatural which adheres to such anecdotes by
entering into the psychological grounds of their possibility, —
whether lying in any peculiarly vicious education, early
familiarity with bad models, corrupting associations, or other
plausible key to effects which, taken separately, and out of
their natural connexion with their explanatory causes, are
apt rather to startle and revolt the feelings of sober thinkers.
Except, perhaps, in some chapters of Italian history, — as, for
example, among the most profligate of the Papal houses, and
amongst some of the Florentine princes, — we find hardly any
parallel to the atrocities of Caligula and Nero ; nor indeed
was Tiberius much (if at all) behind them, though otherwise
so wary and cautious in his conduct. The same tenor of
licentiousness beyond the needs of the individual, the same
craving after the monstrous and the stupendous in guilt, is
continually emerging in succeeding Emperors — in Vitellius,
in Domitian, in Commodus, in Caracalla — everywhere, in
short, where it was not overruled by one of two causes :
either by original goodness of nature too powerful to be
mastered by ordinary seductions (and in some cases removed
from their influence by an early apprenticeship to camps),
or by the terrors of an exemplary ruin immediately pre-
ceding. For such a determinate tendency to the enormous
and the anomalous sufficient causes must exist. What were
they ?

In the first place, we may observe that the people of
Rome in that age were generally more corrupt by many
degrees than has been usually supposed possible. The effect
of revolutionary times to relax all modes of moral obligation,
and to unsettle the moral sense, has been well and philo-

THE (LESARS 303

sophically stated by Coleridge ; but that would hardly
account for the utter licentiousness and depravity of Imperial
Rome. Looking back to Republican Rome, and considering
the state of public morals but fifty years before the Emperors,
we can with difficulty believe that the descendants of a
people so severe in their habits could thus rapidly degenerate,
and that a populace once so hard and masculine should
assume the manners which we might expect in the debauchees
of Daphne (the infamous suburb of Antioch), or of Canopus,
into which settled the very lees and dregs of the vicious
Alexandria. Such extreme changes would falsify all that we
know of human nature : we might a priori pronounce them
impossible ; and in fact, upon searching history, we find
other modes of solving the difficulty. In reality, the citizens
of Rome were at this time a new race, brought together from
every quarter of the world, but especially from Asia. So
vast a proportion of the ancient citizens had been cut off by
the sword, and, partly to conceal this waste of population,
but much more by way of cheaply requiting services, or of
showing favour, or of acquiring influence, slaves had been
emancipated in such great multitudes, and afterwards in-
vested with all the rights of citizens, that, in a single
generation, Rome became almost transmuted into a baser
metal, the progeny of those whom the last generation had
purchased from the slave merchants. These people derived
their stock from Cappadocia, Pontus, &c., and the other
populous regions of Asia Minor ; and hence the taint of
Asiatic luxury and depravity which was so conspicuous to
all the Romans of the old republican austerity. Juvenal is
to be understood more literally than is sometimes supposed
when he complains that long before his time the Orontes
(that river which washed the infamous capital of Syria) had
mingled his impure waters with those of the Tiber. And, a
little before him, Lucan speaks with more historic gravit}r
when he says —

" Vivant Galatseque Syrique,

Cappadoces, Gallique, extremique orbis Iberi,

Armenii, Cilices : nam post cimlia bella

Hie Populus Romanus erit. " 1

1 Blackwell, in his Court of Augustus, vol. i. p. 382, when noticing

304 HISTOETCAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Probably in the time of Nero not one man in six was of pure
Roman descent.1 And the consequences were answerable.
Scarcely a family has come clown to our knowledge that
could not in one generation enumerate a long catalogue of
divorces within its own contracted circle. Every man had
married a series of wives ; every woman a series of husbands.
Even in the palace of Augustus, who wished to be viewed as
an exemplar or ideal model of domestic purity, every
principal member of his family was tainted in that way ;
himself in a manner and a degree infamous even at that
time.2 For the first four hundred years of Rome not one

these lines, upon occasion of the murder of Cicero in the final pro-
scription under the last triumvirate, comments thus : " Those of the
greatest and truly Roman spirit had been murdered in the field by
Julius Caesar ; the rest were now massacred in the city by his son and
successors ; in their room came Syrians, Cappadocians, Phrygians, and
other enfranchised slaves from the conquered nations." — "These in
half a century had sunk so low that Tiberius pronounced her very
senators to be homines ad servitutem natos — men born to be slaves."

1 Suetonius indeed pretends that Augustus, personally at least,
struggled against this ruinous practice — thinking it a matter of the
highest moment " sincerum atque ab omni colluvione peregrini et
servilis sanguinis incorruptum servare populum." And Horace is
ready with his flatteries on the same topic, lib. 3, Od. 6. But the facts
are against them ; for the question is not what Augustus did in his
own person (which at most could not operate very widely except by
the example), but what he permitted to be done. Now, there was a
practice familiar to those times : that, when a congiary or any other
popular liberality was announced, multitudes were enfranchised by
avaricious masters in order to make them capable of the bounty (as
citizens) and yet under the condition of transferring to their eman-
cipators whatsoever they should receive ; Ivh TOV d-rj/jLOfficos dido/mevov
<nrbv \a[j.(3dvovTes KO.TCL i^vo. <f>£pu<Tt ToTs 5e5c6/cao"i TTJV e\ev6epiav,
says Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in order that, after receiving the corn
given publicly in every month, they might carry it to those who had
bestowed upon them their freedom. In a case, then, where an
extensive practice of this kind was exposed to Augustus, and publicly
reproved by him, how did he proceed ? Did he reject the new-made
citizens ? No ; he contented himself with diminishing the proportion
originally destined for each, so that, the same absolute sum being
distributed among a number increased by the whole amount of the
new enrolments, of necessity the relative sum for each separately was
so much less. But this was a remedy applied only to the pecuniary
fraud as it would have affected himself. The permanent mischief to
the state went unredressed.

2 Part of the story is well known, but not the whole. Tiberius

THE CAESARS 305

divorce had been granted or asked, although the statute
which allowed of this indulgence had always been in force.
But in the age succeeding to the Civil Wars men and women
" married," says one author, " with a view to divorce, and
divorced in order to marry. Many of these changes happened
within the year, especially if the lady had a large fortune,
which always went back with her, and procured her choice
of transient husbands.'' And, " Can one imagine," asks the
same writer, " that the fair one who changed her husband
every quarter strictly kept her matrimonial faith all the
three months 1 " Thus the very fountain of all the " house-
hold charities " and household virtues was polluted. And
after that we need little wonder at the assassinations, poison-
ings, and forging of wills, which then laid waste the domestic
life of the Romans.

2. A second source of the universal depravity was the
growing inefficacy of the public religion ; and this arose
from its disproportion and inadequacy to the intellectual
advances of the nation. Religion, in its very etymology, has
been held to imply a religatio, that is a reiterated or secondary

Nero, a promising young nobleman, had recently married a very
splendid beauty. Unfortunately for him, at the marriage of Octavia
(sister to Augustus) with Mark Antony, he allowed his young wife,
then about eighteen, to attend upon the bride. Augustus was deeply
and suddenly fascinated by her charms, and without further scruple
sent a message to Nero, intimating that he was in love with his wife,
and would thank him to resign her. The other, thinking it vain, in
those days of lawless proscription, to contest a point of this nature
with one who commanded thirty legions, obeyed the requisition.
Upon some motive, now unknown, he was persuaded even to degrade
himself further ; for he actually officiated at the marriage in character
of father, and gave away to his insolent rival the insolent beauty, at
that time six months advanced in pregnancy by himself. These
humiliating concessions were extorted from him, and yielded (probably
at the instigation of friends) in order to save his life. In the sequel
they had the very opposite result ; for he died soon after, and it is
reasonably supposed of grief and mortification. At the marriage feast
an incident occurred which threw the whole company into confusion.
A little boy, roving from couch to couch among the guests, came at
length to that in which Livia (the bride) was reclining by the side
of Augustus ; whereupon he cried out aloud, — "Lady, what are you
doing here ? You are mistaken ; this is not your husband ; he is
there " (pointing to Tiberius) : " go, go ; arise, lady, and recline beside
him.'"

VOL. VI X

306 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

obligation of morals ; a sanction supplementary to that of the
conscience. Now, for a rude and uncultivated people, the
Pagan mythology might not be too gross to discharge the
miin functions of sucli a religious sanction. So long as the
understanding could submit to the fables of the Pagan creed,
so long it was possible that the hopes and fears built upon
that creed might be practically efficient on men's lives and
intentions. But, when the foundation gave way, the whole
superstructure of necessity fell to the ground. Those who
were obliged to reject the ridiculous legends which invested
the whole of their Pantheon, together with the fabulous
adjudgers of future punishments, could not but dismiss the
punishments, which were, in fact, as laughable, and as obvi-
ously the fictions of human ingenuity, as their dispensers.
In short, the civilized part of the world in those days lay in
this dreadful condition : their intellect had far outgrown
their religion ; the disproportions between the two were at
length become monstrous ; and as yet no purer or more
elevated faith was prepared for their acceptance. The case
was as shocking as if, with our present intellectual needs, we
should be unhappy enough to have no creed on which to rest
the burden of our final hopes and fears, of our moral obliga-
tions, and of our consolations in misery, except the fairy
mythology of our nurses. The condition of a people so
situated, of a people under the calamity of having outgrown
its religious faith, has never been sufficiently considered. It
is probable that such a condition has never existed before or
since that era of the world. The consequences to Rome were
that the reasoning and disputatious part of her population took
refuge from the painful state of doubt in Atheism ; amongst the
thoughtless and irreflective the consequences were chiefly felt
in their morals, which were thus sapped in their foundation.
3. A third cause, which from the first had exercised a
most baleful influence upon the arts and upon literature in
Rome, had by this time matured its disastrous tendencies
towards the extinction of the moral sensibilities. This was
the circus, and the whole machinery, form and substance, of
the circensian shows, but, far more than the simply brutal
circus, the human amphitheatre. Why had tragedy no exist-
ence as a part of the Roman literature ? Because — and thai

THE CLESAKS 307

was a reason which would have sufficed to stifle all the
dramatic genius of Greece and England — there was too much
tragedy in the shape of gross reality almost daily before their
eyes. The amphitheatre extinguished the theatre. How was
it possible that the fine and intellectual griefs of the drama
should win their way to hearts seared and rendered callous
by the continual exhibition of scenes the most hideous, in
which human blood was poured out like water, and a human
life sacrificed at any moment either to caprice in the populace,
or to a strife of rivalry between the ays and the noes, or as
the penalty for any trifling instance of awkwardness in the
gladiator himself ? Even the more innocent exhibitions, in
which brutes only were the sufferers, could not but be mortal
to all the finer sensibilities. Five thousand wild animals,
torn from their native abodes in the wilderness or forest,
were often turned out to be hunted, or for mutual slaughter,
in the course of a single exhibition of this nature ; and it
sometimes happened (a fact which of itself proclaims the
course of the public propensities) that the person at whose
expense the shows were exhibited, by way of paying special
court to the people and meriting their favour in the way
most conspicuously open to him, issued orders that all, with-
out a solitary exception, should be slaughtered. He made it
known, as the very highest gratification which the case
allowed, that (in the language of our modern auctioneers) the
whole, "without reserve," should perish before their eyes.
Even such spectacles must have hardened the heart, and
blunted the more delicate sensibilities ; but these would soon
cease to stimulate the pampered and exhausted sense. From
the combats of tigers or leopards, in which the passions of
the contending brutes could only be gathered indirectly, and
by way of inference from the motions, the transition must
have been almost inevitable to those of men, whose nobler
and more varied passions spoke directly, and by the intel-
ligible language of the eye, to human spectators ; and from
the frequent contemplation of these authorized murders, — in
which a whole people, women l as much as men, and children

1 Augustus, indeed, strove to exclude the women from one part of
tlie circensian spectacles ; and what was that ? Simply from the sight
of the Athletes, as being naked. But that they should witness the

308 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

intermingled with both, looked on with leisurely indifference,
with anxious expectation, or with rapturous delight, whilst
below them were passing the direct revelations of human
agony, and not seldom its dying pangs, — it was impossible to
expect a result different from that which did in fact take
place : universal hardness of heart, obdurate depravity, and
a twofold degradation of human nature, which acted simul-
taneously upon the two pillars of morality (otherwise not
often assailed together), — of natural sensibility in the first
place, and, in the second, of conscientious principle.

4. But these were circumstances which applied to the
whole population indiscriminately. Superadded to these, in
the case of the Emperor, and affecting him exclusively, was
this prodigious disadvantage — that all ancient reverence for
the immediate witnesses of his actions, and for the People
and Senate, who would under other circumstances have exer-
cised the old functions of the Censor, was, as to the Emperor,
pretty nearly obliterated. The very title of imperator, from
which we have derived our modern one of emperor, proclaims
the nature of the government, and the tenure of that office.
It was a merely military title, not popular or democratic by
the smallest trace, but exclusively castrensian ; and, if born
in camps, necessarily the gift of a rude and perhaps wicked
soldiery, trained in licentious habits, and often, by the coercion
of their situation, robbers and ruffians. The government of
an Imperator was therefore purely a government by the
sword, or permanent Stratocracy having a moveable head.
Never was there a people who inquired so impertinently as
the Romans into the domestic conduct of each private citizen.
No rank escaped this jealous vigilance ; and private liberty,
even in the most indifferent circumstances of taste or expense,

pangs of the dying gladiators he deemed quite allowable. The
smooth barbarian considered that a licence of the first sort offended
against decorum, whilst the other violated only the sanctities of the
human heart, and the whole sexual character of women. It is our
opinion that to the brutalizing effect of these exhibitions we are to
ascribe not only the early extinction of the Roman Drama, but gener-
ally the inferiority of Rome to Greece in every department of the fine
arts. The fine temper of Roman sensibility, which no culture could
have brought to the level of the Grecian, was thus dulled for every
application.

THE (LESAKS 309

was sacrificed to this inquisitorial rigour of surveillance
exercised on behalf of the State, sometimes by erroneous
patriotism, too often by malice in disguise. To this spirit
the highest public officers were obliged to bow ; the Consuls,
not less than, others. And even the occasional Dictator, if
by law irresponsible, acted nevertheless as one who knew
that any change which depressed his party might eventually
abrogate his privilege. For the first time in the person of
an Imperator was seen a supreme autocrat, who had virtually
and effectively all the irresponsibility which the law assigned
and the origin of his office presumed. Satisfied to know
that he possessed such power, Augustus, as much from natural
taste as policy, was glad to dissemble it, and by every means
to withdraw it from public notice. But he had passed his
youth as citizen of a Republic, and in the state of transition
to autocracy, in his office of triumvir, had experimentally
known the perils of rivalship, and the pains of alien control,
too feelingly to provoke unnecessarily any sleeping embers of
the Republican spirit. Tiberius, though familiar from his
infancy with the servile homage of a court, was yet modified
by the popular temper of Augustus ; and he came late to the
throne. Caligula was the first prince on whom the entire
effect of his political situation was allowed to operate ; and
the natural results were seen, — he was the first absolute
monster. He must early have seen the realities of his posi-
tion, and from what quarter it was that any cloud could arise
to menace his security. To the Senate or People any respect
which he might think proper to pay must have been imputed
by all parties to the lingering superstitions of custom, to
involuntary habit, to court dissimulation, or to the decencies
of external form, and the prescriptive reverence for ancient
names. But neither Senate nor People could enforce their
claims, whatever they might happen to be. Their sanction
and ratifying vote might be worth having, as consecrating
what was already secure, and conciliating the scruples of the
weak to the absolute decision of the strong. But their resist-
ance, as an original movement, was so wholly without hope
that they were seldom weak enough to threaten it.

The Army was the true successor to their places, being
the ultimate depository of power. Yet, as the Army was

310 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

necessarily subdivided, as the shifting circumstances upon
every frontier were continually varying the strength of the
several divisions as to numbers and state of discipline, one
part might be balanced against any other by an Imperator
standing in the centre of the whole. The rigour of the
military sacramentum, or oath of allegiance, made it dangerous
to offer the first overtures to rebellion ; and the money which
the soldiers were continually depositing in the bank placed
at the foot of their military standards, if sometimes turned
against the Emperor, was also liable to be sequestrated in his
favour. There were then, in fact, two great forces in the
government acting in and by each other — the Stratocracy
and the Autocracy. Each needed the other ; each stood in
awe of each. But, as regarded all other forces in the empire,
constitutional or irregular, popular or senatorial, neither had
anything to fear. Under any ordinary circumstances, there-
fore, considering the hazards of a rebellion, the Emperor was
substantially liberated from all control. Vexations or out-
rages upon the populace were not such to the army. It was
but rarely that the soldier participated in the emotions of
the citizen. And thus, being effectually without check, the
most vicious of the Caesars went on without fear, presuming
upon the weakness in one part of his subjects, and the indif-
ference in the other, until he was tempted onwards to
atrocities which armed against him the common feelings of
human nature ; so that all mankind, as it were, rose in a
body with one voice, and apparently with one heart, united
by mere force of indignant sympathy, to put him down, and
" abate " him as a monster. But, until he brought matters
to this extremity, Ceesar had no cause to fear. Nor was it
at all certain, in any one instance where this exemplary
chastisement overtook him, that the apparent unanimity of
the actors went further than the practical conclusion of
"abating" the imperial nuisance, or that their indignation
had settled upon the same offences. In general, the Army
measured the guilt by the public scandal rather than by its
moral atrocity, and Caesar suffered perhaps in every case not
so much because he had violated his duties as because he had
dishonoured his office.

It is, therefore, in the total absence of the checks which

THE CAESARS 311

have almost universally existed to control other despots under
some indirect shape, even where none was provided by the
laws, that we must seek for the main peculiarity affecting the
condition of the Roman Caesar; which peculiarity it was,
superadded to the other three, that finally made those three
operative in their fullest extent. It is in the perfection of
the Stratocracy that we must look for the key to the excesses
of the Autocrat. Even in the bloody despotisms of the
Barbary States there has always existed, in the religious
prejudices of the people, which could not be violated with
safety, one check more upon the caprices of the despot than
was found at Rome. Upon the whole, therefore, what affects
us on the first reading as a prodigy or anomaly in the frantic
outrages of the early Caesars falls within the natural bounds
of intelligible human nature when we state the case consider-
ately. Surrounded by a population which had not only
gone through a most vicious and corrupting discipline, and
had been utterly ruined by the licence of revolutionary times
and the bloodiest proscriptions, but had even been extensively
changed in its very elements, and from the descendants of
Romulus had been transmuted into an Asiatic mob ; starting
from this point, and considering, as the second feature of the
case, that this transfigured people, morally so degenerate, were
carried, however, by the progress of civilisation to a certain
intellectual altitude, — which the popular religion had not
strength to ascend, but from inherent disproportion remained
at the base of the general civilisation, incapable of accom-
panying the other elements in their advance, — thirdly, that
this polished condition of society, which should naturally
with the evils of a luxurious repose have counted upon its
pacific benefits, had yet, by means of its circus and its gladi-
atorial contests, applied a constant irritation and a system of
provocations to the appetites for blood, such as in all other
nations are connected with the rudest stages of society, and
with the most barbarous modes of warfare, nor even in
such circumstances without many palliatives wanting to the
spectators of the amphitheatre : combining these considera-
tions, we have already a key to the enormities and hideous
excesses of the Roman Imperator. The hot blood which
excites, and the adventurous courage which accompanies, the

312 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

excesses of sanguinary warfare, presuppose a condition of the
moral nature not to be compared for malignity and baleful
tendency to the cool and cowardly spirit of amateiuship in
which the lloman (who might after all be an effeminate Asiatic)
sat looking down upon the bravest of men (Thracians, or other
Europeans) mangling each other for his recreation. When,
lastly, from such a population, and thus disciplined from his
nursery days, we suppose the case of one individual selected,
privileged, and raised to a conscious irresponsibility, except
at the bar of one extrajudicial tribunal, not easily irritated,
and notoriously to be propitiated by other means than those
of upright or impartial conduct, we lay together the elements
of a situation too trying for human nature, and fitted only to
the faculties of an angel or a demon : of an angel, if he
should resist its temptations ; of a demon, if he should revel
in its opportunities. Thus interpreted and solved, Caligula
and Nero become ordinary and almost natural men.

But, finally, what if, after all, the worst of the Caesars, and
these in particular, were entitled to the benefit of a still
more summary and conclusive apology ? What if, in a true
medical sense, they were insane ? It is certain that a vein
of madness ran in the family ; and anecdotes are recorded of
the three worst which go far to establish it as a fact, and
others which would imply it as symptoms preceding or
accompanying. As belonging to the former class, take the
following story : — At midnight, an elderly gentleman sud-
denly sends round a message to a select party of noblemen,
rouses them out of bed, and summons them instantly to his
palace. Trembling for their lives from the suddenness of
the summons, and from the unseasonable hour, and scarcely
doubting that by some anonymous delator they have been
denounced as parties to a conspiracy, they hurry to the
palace, are received in portentous silence by the ushers and
pages in attendance, are conducted to a saloon, where (as
everywhere else) the silence of night prevails, united with
the silence of fear and whispering expectation. All are
seated ; all look at each other in ominous anxiety. Which
is accuser ? Which is the accused ? On whom shall their
suspicion settle ; on whom their pity ? All are silent, almost
speechless ; and even the current of their thoughts is frost-

THE OESARS 313

bound by fear. Suddenly the sound of a fiddle is caught
from a distance ; it swells upon the ear ; steps approach ;
and in another moment in rushes the elderly gentleman,
grave and gloomy as his audience, but capering about in a
frenzy of excitement. For half an hour he continues to
perform all possible evolutions of caprioles, pirouettes, and
other extravagant feats of activity, accompanying himself on
the fiddle ; and, at length, not having once looked at his
guests, the elderly gentleman whirls out of the room in the
same transport of emotion with which he entered it. The
panic-struck visitors are requested by a slave to consider
themselves dismissed ; they retire ; resume their couches ;
the nocturnal pageant has " dislimned " and vanished • and
on the following morning, were it not for their concurring
testimonies, all would be disposed to take this interruption
of their sleep for one of its most fantastic dreams. The
elderly gentleman that figured in this delirious pas seul —
who was he ? He was Tiberius Caesar, king of kings, and
lord of the terraqueous globe.1 Would a British jury
demand better evidence than this of a disturbed intellect in
any formal process de lunatico inquirendo ? For Caligula,
again, the evidence of symptoms is still plainer. He knew his
own defect, and proposed going through a course of hellebore,
— white hellebore, we believe, cultivated in the Mediterranean
island of Anticyra expressly as a remedy for insanity. Sleep-
lessness, one among the commonest indications of lunacy,
haunted him in an excess rarely recorded.2 The same or

1 See footnote, ante, p. 282.— M.

2 No fiction of romance presents so awful a picture of the ideal
tyrant as that of Caligula by Suetonius. His palace radiant with
purple and gold, but murder everywhere lurking beneath flowers ;
his smiles and echoing laughter, masking (yet hardly meant to mask)
his foul treachery of heart ; his hideous and tumultuous dreams, his
baffled sleep, and his sleepless nights : compose the picture of an
^Eschylus. What a master's sketch lies in these few lines : " Incita-
batur insomnio maxime ; neque euim plus tribus horis nocturnis
quiescebat ; ac ne his placida quiete, at pavida miris rerum imagini-
bus : ut qui inter ceteras pelagi quondam speciem colloqueutem secum
videre visus sit. Ideoque magna parte noctis, vigilia? cubandique
taedio, mine toro residens, nunc per longissimas portions vagus, invo-
care identidem atque exspectare lucem consueverat " : i.e. "But,
above all, he was tormented with nervous irritation, by sleeplessness ;

314 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

similar facts might be brought forward on behalf of Nero.
And thus these unfortunate princes, who have so long (and
with so little investigation of their cases) passed for monsters
or for demoniac counterfeits of men, would at length be
brought back within the fold of humanity, as objects rather
of pity than of abhorrence, and, when thus reconciled at last
to our human charities, would first of all be made intelligible
to our understandings.

for he enjoyed not more than three hours of nocturnal repose ; nor
even these in pure untroubled rest, but agitated by phantasmata of
portentous augury ; as, for example, upon one occasion among other
spectral visions he fancied that he saw the Sea, under some definite
impersonation, conversing with himself. Hence it was, and from
this incapacity of sleeping, and from weariness of lying awake, that
he had fallen into habits of ranging all the night long through the
palace, sometimes throwing himself on a couch, sometimes wandering
along the vast corridors, watching for the earliest dawn, and anxiously
invoking its approach."

CHAPTER IV

HADRIAN, ANTONINUS PIUS, MARCUS AURELIUS, AND OTHERS l
(A.D. 117— A. D. 180)

THE five Csesars — viz. Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two
Antonines, Pius, and his adopted son, Marcus Aurelius, —
who succeeded immediately to the first twelve, were, in as
high a sense as their office allowed, patriots. Hadrian is
perhaps the first of all whom circumstances permitted to
show his patriotism without fear. It illustrates at one and
the same moment a trait in this Emperor's character, and in
the Roman habits, that he acquired much reputation for
hardiness by walking bareheaded. " Never, on any occa-
sion," says one of his memorialists (Dio), "neither in sum-
mer heat nor in winter's cold, did he cover his head ; but,
as well in the Celtic snows as in Egyptian heats, he went
about bareheaded." This anecdote could not fail to win the
especial admiration of Isaac Casaubon, who lived in an age
when men believed a hat no less indispensable to the head,
even within doors, than shoes or stockings to the feet. At
the time when Isaac Casaubon was writing his commentary
on the six authors of the Augustan History, — viz., in all
likelihood, during the seven last years of Queen Elizabeth
(1595-1602), — no man, gentle or simple, doffed his night-cap
without donning his hat ; which he wore all day long at home
or abroad. His astonishment on the occasion is thus expressed :
" Tantum est r) aova^cris " : such and so mighty is the force

1 From Blackwood for June 1834 ; where it was printed under the
title "The Patriot Emperors."— M.

316 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

of habit and daily use. And then he goes on to ask : " Quis
hodie nudum caput radiis solis, ant omnia perurenti frigori,
ausit exponere ? — Who is it that now-a-days would dare to
expose his uncovered head to the solar beams, or to the all-
scorching and withering frost ? " Who is it ? dost thou ask,
Isaac ? why, pretty nearly everybody ; and, amongst others,
we ourselves that are writing this book. Yes, we and our
illustrious friend, Christopher North, did for three -and-
twenty years walk amongst our British lakes and mountains
hatless, and amidst both snow and rain, such as Konians did
not often experience. We were naked, but were not ashamed.
Nor in this are we altogether singular. But, says Casaubon,
the Romans went farther ; for they walked about the streets
of Rome bareheaded,1 and never assumed a hat or a cap, a
petasus or a galerus, a Macedonian causia, or a pileus, whether
Thessalian, Arcadian, or Laconic, unless when they entered
upon a journey. Nay, some there were, as Massinissa and
Julius Caesar, who declined even on such an occasion to
cover their heads. Perhaps in imitation of these celebrated
leaders it might be that Hadrian adopted the same practice,
but not with the same result ; for to him, either from age or
constitution, this very custom proved the original occasion
of his last illness.

Imitation, indeed, was a general principle of action with
Hadrian, and the key to much of his public conduct ; and
allowably enough, considering the exemplary lives (in a
public sense) of some who had preceded him, and the sin-
gular anxiety with which he distinguished between the lights
and shadows of their examples. He imitated the great
Dictator, Julius, in his vigilance of inspection into the civil,
not less than the martial police of his times, shaping his
new regulations to meet abuses as they arose, and strenu-
ously maintaining the old ones in vigorous operation. As
respected the Army, this was matter of peculiar praise,
because peculiarly disinterested ; for his foreign policy was
pacific 2 ; he made no new conquests ; and he retired from

1 And hence we may the better estimate the trial to a Roman's
feelings in the personal deformity of baldness, connected with the
Roman theory of its cause ; for the exposure of it was perpetual.

* " Expeditiones sub eo," says Spartian, "graves nullse fuerunt.

THE (LESARS 317

the old ones of Trajan, where they could not have been
maintained without disproportionate bloodshed, or a jealousy
beyond the value of the stake. In this point of his admin-
istration he took Augustus for his model ; as again in his
care of the Army, in his occasional bounties, and in his
paternal solicitude for their comforts, he looked rather to
the example of Julius. Him also he imitated in his affability
and in his ambitious courtesies ; one instance of which, as
blending an artifice of political subtlety and simulation with
a remarkable exertion of memory, it may be well to mention.
The custom was, in canvassing the citizens of Rome, that
the candidate should address every voter by his name ; it
being a fiction of republican etiquette that every man parti-
cipating in the political privileges of the State, every man
who prided himself on possessing the jus suffragii, must be
personally known to public aspirants. But, as this was
impossible, in any literal sense, to men with the ordinary
endowments of memory, in order to reconcile the pretensions
of republican hauteur with the necessities of human weak-
ness, a custom had grown up of relying upon a class of men,
called nomenclators, whose express business and profession it
was to make themselves acquainted with the person and
name of each individual citizen. One of these people ac-
companied every candidate, and quietly whispered into his
ear the name of each voter as he came in sight. Few,
indeed, were they who could dispense with the services of
such an assessor ; for the office imposed a twofold memory,
that of names and of persons ; and, to estimate the immensity
of the effort, we must recollect that the number of voters
often far exceeded one quarter of a million. Hadrian, how-
ever, relied upon his own unprompted powers for the discharge
of this duty. The very same trial of memory he undertook
with respect to his own army, — in this instance recalling the
well-known feat, or pretended feat, of Mithridates. And
throughout his life he did not once forget the face or name
of any veteran soldier whom he had ever occasion to notice,
no matter under what remote climate, or under what differ-
ence of circumstances. Wonderful is the effect upon soldiers

Bella etiam sileutio pene transacta." But lie does not the less add,
"A multibus, propter curam exercitus nimiam, niultum aniatus est."

318 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

of such enduring and separate remembrance ; which operates
always as the most touching kind of personal flattery, and
which, in every age of the world since the social sensibilities
of men have been much developed, military commanders are
found to have played upon as the most effectual chord in the
great system which they modulated : some few by a rare
endowment of nature ; others, as Napoleon Bonaparte, by
elaborate mimicries of pantomimic art.1

Other modes he had of winning affection from the Army ;
in particular that, so often practised before and since, of
accommodating himself to the strictest ritual of martial dis-
cipline and castrensian life. He slept in the open air ; or, if
he used a tent (papilio), it was open at the sides. He ate
the ordinary rations of cheese, bacon, &c. ; he used no other
drink than that composition of vinegar and water, known by
the name of posca, which formed the sole beverage allowed
through a thousand years in the Roman camps. He joined
personally in the periodical exercises of the army — those
even which were trying to the most vigorous youth and
health : marching, for example, on stated occasions, twenty
English miles without intermission, in full armour and com-
pletely accoutred. Luxury of every kind he not only inter-
dicted to the soldier by severe ordinances, himself enforcing
their execution, but discountenanced it (though elsewhere
splendid and even gorgeous in his personal habits) by his
own continual example. In dress, for instance, he sternly
banished the purple and gold embroideries, the jewelled
arms, and the floating draperies, so little in accordance with
the severe character of "war in product" 2 Hardly would he

1 In the true spirit of Parisian mummery, Bonaparte caused letters
to be written from the War Office, in his own name, to particular
soldiers of high military reputation in every brigade (whose private
history he had previously caused to be investigated), alluding circum-
stantially to the leading facts in their personal or family career. A
furlough accompanied this letter ; and they were requested to repair
to Paris, where the Emperor anxiously desired to see them. Thus
was the paternal interest expressed which their leader took in each
man's fortunes ; and the effect of every such letter, it was not doubted,
would diffuse itself through ten thousand other men.

2 " War inprocinct " : — A phrase of Milton's in Paradise Regained
which strikingly illustrates his love of Latin phraseology ; for, unless
to a scholar, previously acquainted with the Latin phrase of in pro-

THE C.ESARS 319

allow himself an ivory hilt to his sabre. The same severe
proscription he extended to every sort of furniture, or decora-
tions of art, which sheltered even in the bosom of camps
those habits of effeminate luxury — so apt in all great empires
to steal by imperceptible steps from the voluptuous palace
to the soldier's tent — following in the equipage of great
leading officers, or of subalterns highly connected. There
was at that time a practice prevailing, in the great standing
camps on the several frontiers, and at all the military
stations, of renewing as much as possible the image of
distant Rome by the erection of long colonnades and pia/zas
— single, double, or triple ; of crypts, or subterranean
saloons 1 (and sometimes subterranean galleries and cor-
ridors), for evading the sultry noontides of July and
August ; of verdant cloisters or arcades, with roofs high
over-arched, constructed entirely out of flexile shrubs, box,
myrtle, and others, trained and trimmed in regular forms ;
besides endless other applications of the topiary art,2 which
in those days (like the needlework of Miss Linwood 3 in our

cinctu, it is so absolutely unintelligible as to interrupt the current of
tlie feeling.

1 " (jrypts " :— These, which Spartian, in his life of Hadrian, denom-
inates simply cryptce, are the same which, in the Roman jurisprud-
ence, and in the architectural works of the Romans yet surviving,
are termed hypogcecR deambulationes, i.e. subterranean parades.
Vitruvius treats of this luxurious class of apartments in connexion
with the Apothecce, and other repositories or store-rooms, which were
also in many cases under ground, for the same reason as our ice-
houses, wine-cellars, &c. He (and from him Pliny and Apollinaris
Sidonius) calls them crypto-porticus (cloistral colonnades) ; and Ulpian
calls them refugia (sanctuaries, or places of refuge). St. Ambrose
notices them, under the name of hypogcea and umbrosa penetralia, as
the resorts of voluptuaries : Luxuriosorum est, says he, hypogcea quee-
rer captantium frigus cestivum ; and again he speaks of desidiosi qui
ignava sub terris agant otia.

2 " The topiary art " : — So called, as Salmasius thinks, from TOTT-
vj'i'ov, a rope; because the process of construction was conducted
chiefly by means of cords and strings. This art was much practised
in the 17th century ; and Casaubon describes one which existed in his
early days, somewhere in the suburbs of Paris, on so elaborate a scale
that it represented Troy besieged, with the two hosts, their several
leaders, and all other objects in their full proportion.

3 "Miss Linwood" : — Alas ! Fuit Ilium ; and it has actually be-
come necessary, in a generation that knew not Joseph, that we should

320 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

own), though no more than a mechanic craft, in some measure
realized the effects of a fine art by the perfect skill of its
execution. All these modes of luxury, with a policy that
had the more merit as it thwarted his own private inclina-
tions, did Hadrian peremptorily abolish ; perhaps, amongst
other more obvious purposes, seeking to intercept the earliest
buddings of those local attachments which are as injurious
to the martial character (for the soldier's vocation obliges
him to consider himself eternally under marching orders) as
they are propitious to all the best interests of society in
connexion with the feelings of civic life.

We dwell upon this prince not without reason in con-
nexion with this particular distinction, i.e. the discipline of
the Army. This, which since the period of Augustus had
been drooping through the neglect of preceding Emperors,
Hadrian by personal efforts re-established ; for, amongst the
Csosars, Hadrian stands forward in high relief as a reformer
of the Army. "Well and truly it might be said of him that
post Ccesarern Octavianum labantem disciplinam incurid
superiorum principum ipse retinuit. Not content with the
cleansings and purgations we have mentioned, he placed
upon a new footing the whole tenure, duties, and pledges, of
military offices.1 It cannot much surprise us that this
department of the public service should gradually have gone
to ruin or decay. Under the Senate and People, — under the
auspices of those awful symbols (letters more significant and
ominous than ever before had troubled the eyes of man,
except upon Belshazzar's wall) " S. P. Q. R," — the officers of
the Eoman army had been kept true to their duties by

tell the reader who was Miss Linwood. For many a long year be-
tween 1800 and perhaps 1835 or 1840, she had in Leicester Square,
London, a most gorgeous exhibition of needlework — arras that by its
exquisite effects rivalled the works of the mighty painters.

1 Very remarkable it is, and a fact which speaks volumes as to
the democratic constitution of the Roman Army, in the midst of that
aristocracy which enveloped its parent state in a civil sense, that,
although there was a name for a common soldier (or sentinel, as he
was termed by our ancestors) — viz. miles gregarius, or miles manipularis
— there was none for an officer : that is to say, each several rank of
officers had a name ; but there was 110 generalization to express the
idea of an officer abstracted from its several species or classes : a fact
almost incredible !

THE CAESARS 321

emulation and a healthy ambition. But, when the ripeness
of corruption had, by dissolving the body of the State, brought
out of its ashes a new mode of life, and had recast the
Aristocratic Kepublic, by aid of its democratic elements then
suddenly victorious, into a pure Autocracy, whatever might
be the advantages in other respects of this great change, in
one point it had certainly injured the public service, by
throwing the higher military appointments, all in fact which
conferred any authority, into the channels of court favour^
and by consequence into a mercenary disposal. Each suc-
cessive Emperor had been too anxious for his own immediate
security to find leisure for the remoter interests of the
Empire ; the Imperium was lost sight of in the Imperator ;
all looked to the Army, as it wrere, for their own immediate
security against competitors, without venturing to tamper
with its constitution, to risk popularity by reforming abuses,
to balance present interest against a remote one, or to
cultivate the public welfare at the hazard of their own :
contented with obtaining this last, they left the internal
arrangements of so formidable a body in that condition to
which circumstances had brought it, and to which naturally
the views of all existing beneficiaries had gradually adjusted
themselves. What these might be, and to what further
results they might tend, was a matter of moment doubtless
to the Empire. But the Empire was strong ; if its motive
energy for going ahead was decaying, its vis inertia for
resistance was for ages enormous : whilst the Emperor was
always in the beginning of his authority weak, and pledged
by instant interest, no less than by express promises, to the
support of that body whose favour had substantially supported
himself. Hadrian was the first who turned his attention
effectually in the counter direction : whether it were that
he first was struck with the tendency of the abuses, or that
he valued the hazard less which he incurred in correcting
them, or that, having no successor of his own blood, he had
a less personal and affecting interest at stake in setting this
hazard at defiance. Hitherto, the highest regimental rank,
that of tribune, had been disposed of in two ways, — either
civilly upon popular favour and election, or upon the express
recommendation of the soldiery. This custom had prevailed

VOL. VI Y

322 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

under the Republic, and the force of habit had availed to
propagate that practice under a new mode of government.
But now were introduced new regulations : the tribune (or
colonel commandant) was selected for his military qualities
and experience : none was appointed to this important office
" nisi barM plena." The centurion's truncheon (his vitis or
vine-tree cane or cudgel with which he cudgelled the five or
six hundred men under his command 1), again, was given to
no man "nisi rdbusto et bonce famce." The arms and military
appointments (supellectilis) were revised j the register of
names was duly called over ; and none suffered to remain in
the camps who was either above or below the military age.
The same vigilance and jealousy were extended to the great
stationary stores and repositories of biscuit, vinegar, and other
equipments for the soldiery. All things were in constant
readiness in the capital and the provinces, in the garrisons and
camps, abroad and at home, to meet the outbreak of a
foreign war or a domestic sedition. Whatever were the
service, it could by no possibility find Hadrian unprepared.
And he first, in fact, of all the Csesars, restored to its ancient
Republican standard, as reformed and perfected by Marius,
the old martial discipline of the Scipios and the Paulli —
that discipline to which, more than to any physical superiority
of her soldiery, Rome had been indebted for her conquest of
the earth, and which had inevitably decayed in the long
series of wars growing out of personal ambition. From the
days of Marius, every great leader had sacrificed to the
necessities of courting favour from the troops as much as was
possible of the hardships incident to actual service, and as

1 Vitis : and it deserves to be mentioned that this staff, or cudgel,
which was the official engine and cognizance of the centurion's
dignity, was meant expressly to be used in caning or cudgelling the
inferior soldiers : "propterea vitis in manum data," says Salmasius,
" verberando scilicet militi gui deliquisset " — " For that very reason a
vine-tree cane or wand was furnished to the head, viz. for the purpose
of cudgelling any soldier trespassing." We are no patrons of corporal
chastisement ; which, on the contrary, as the vilest of degradations to
all nobility of feeling, we abominate more vehemently, as the Homeric
Achilles says of lying, than the gates of hell. The soldier who does
not feel himself dishonoured by it is already dishonoured beyond hope
or redemption. But still let this degradation not be mendaciously
imputed to the English Army exclusively.

THE OESARS 323

much as he dared of the once rigorous discipline. Hadrian
first found himself in circumstances, or was the first who had
courage enough, to decline a momentary interest in favour of
a greater in reversion, and a personal object which was but
transient in exchange for a State one that was continually
revolving.

For a prince with no children of his own it is in any case
a task of peculiar delicacy to select a successor. In the
Roman Empire the difficulties were much aggravated. The
interests of the State were, in the first place, to be consulted ;
for a mighty burthen of responsibility rested upon the
Emperor in the most personal sense. Duties of every kind
fell to his station which, from the peculiar constitution of
the government, and from circumstances rooted in the
very origin of the imperatorial office, could not be devolved
upon a council. Council there was none that could be
recognised as such in the State machinery. The Emperor,
himself a sacred and sequestered creature, might be supposed
to enjoy the secret tutelage of the Supreme Deity ; but a
Council, composed of subordinate and responsible agents,
could not. Again, the auspices of the Emperor, and his
edicts, apart even from any celestial or supernatural in-
spiration, simply as emanations of his own consecrated
character, had a value and a sanctity which could never
belong to those of a Council, or to those even which had been
sullied by the breath of any less august reviser. The
Emperor, therefore, or (as with a view to his solitary and
unique character we ought to call him), in the original
irrepresentable term, the Imperator, could not delegate his
duties, or execute them in any avowed form by proxies or
representatives. He was himself the great fountain of law,
of honour, of preferment, of civil and political regulations.
He was the fountain also of good and evil fame. He was
the great chancellor, or supreme dispenser of equity to all
climates, nations, and languages of his mighty dominions ;
which connected the turbaned races of the Orient, and those
who sat in the gates of the rising sun, with the islands of the
West and the unfathomed depths of the mysterious Scan-
dinavia. He was the universal guardian of the public and
private interests which composed the great edifice of the

324 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND EESEAECHES

social system as then existing amongst his subjects. Above all,
and out of his own private purse, he supported the heraldries
of his dominions — the peerage, Senatorial or Praetorian, and
the great gentry or chivalry of the Equites. These were
classes who would have been dishonoured by the censorship
of a less august comptroller. And, for the classes below
these, by how much they were lower and more remote from
his ocular superintendence, by so much the more were they
linked to him in a connexion of absolute dependence. Csesar
it was who provided their daily food, Csesar who provided
their pleasures and relaxations. He chartered the fleets which
brought grain to the Tiber ; he bespoke the Sardinian
granaries whilst yet unformed, and the harvests of the Nile
whilst yet unsown. Not the connexion between a mother
and her unborn infant is more intimate and vital than that
which subsisted between the mighty populace of the Eoman
capital and their paternal Emperor. They drew their nutri-
ment from him ; they lived and were happy by sympathy
with the motions of his will ; to him also the arts, the
knowledge, and the literature of the Empire looked for
support, and stood frozen like ice-bound rivers until Caesar's
hand had indicated the channels in which they should flow.
To him the armies looked for their laurels, and the eagles
in every clime turned their aspiring eyes, waiting to bend
their flight according to the signal of his Jovian nod. And
all these vast functions and ministrations arose partly as a
natural effect, but partly also they were a cause of the
Emperor's own divinity. He was capable of services so
exalted because he also, even whilst yet on earth, was held a
god, and had his own altars, his own incense, his own
worship, and his separate priests. Such was the cause, and
such was the result, of his bearing on his own shoulders a
burthen so mighty and Atlantean.

Yet, if in this view it was needful to have a man of talent,
on the other hand there was reason to dread a man of talents
too adventurous, too aspiring, or too intriguing. His situation,
not as Augustus, but as Ccesar or Crown Prince after the
title of Csesar had come to denote the secondary office, flung
into his hands a power of fomenting conspiracies, and of
concealing them until the very moment of explosion, which

THE CLESAKS 325

made him an object of almost exclusive terror to liis principal,
the Caesar Augustus. His situation, again, as an heir
voluntarily adopted made him the proper object of public
affection and caresses, which became peculiarly embarrassing
to one who had, perhaps, soon found reasons for suspecting,
fearing, and hating him beyond all other men.

The young nobleman whom Hadrian adopted by his
earliest choice was Lucius Aurelius Verus, the son of
Ceionius Commodus. These names were borne also by the
son ; but, after his adoption into the ^lian family, he was
generally known by the appellation of ^Elius Verus. The
scandal of those times imputed his adoption to the worst
motives. " Adriano" says one author, (" ut malevoli lo-
quunter), acceptior forma quam moribus." And thus much
undoubtedly there is to countenance so shocking an insinuation
that very little is recorded of the young prince but such
anecdotes as illustrate his excessive luxury and effeminate
dedication to pleasure. Still, it is our private opinion that
Hadrian's real motives have been misrepresented ; that he
sought in the young man's extraordinary beauty — for he was,
says Spartian, pulchritudinis regice — a plausible pretext that
should be sufficient to explain and to countenance his pre-
ference, whilst under this provisional adoption he was
enabled to postpone the definitive choice of an imperator elect
until his own more advanced age might diminish the motives
for intriguing against himself. It was, therefore, a mere
ad interim adoption ; for it is certain, however we may choose
to explain the fact, that Hadrian foresaw and calculated on
the early death of Julius. This prophetic knowledge may
have been grounded on a private familiarity with some con-
stitutional infirmity affecting his daily health, or with some
habits of life incompatible with longevity, or with both com-
bined. It is pretended that this distinguished mark of favour
was conferred in fulfilment of a direct contract on the
Emperor's part, as the price of favours such as the Latin
reader will easily understand from the strong expression of
Spartian above cited. But it is far more probable that
Hadrian relied on this admirable beauty, and allowed it so
much weight, as being for the multitude the most intelligible
explanation of his choice, and for the nobility the least

326 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

invidious solution of a preference which raised one of their
own number so far above the level of his natural peers.
The necessities of the moment were thus satisfied without
present or future danger ; — as respected the future, he knew
or believed that Verus was marked out for early death, and
would often say, in a strain of compliment somewhat dispro-
portionate, applying to him the Virgilian lines on the hopeful
and lamented Marcellus,

" Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra
Esse sinent."

And, at the same time, to countenance the belief that he had
been disappointed, he would affect to sigh, exclaiming —
" Ah ! that I should thus fruitlessly have squandered a sum
of three millions sterling l ! " for so much had been distributed
in largesses to the people and the army on the occasion of
his inauguration. Meantime, as respected the present, the
qualities of the young man were amply fitted to sustain a
Roman popularity : for, in addition to his extreme and
statuesque beauty of person, already, as a military officer, he
had a respectable character 2 ; as an orator he was more
than respectable ; and in other qualifications that might be
less interesting to the populace he had that happy mediocrity
of merit which was best fitted for his delicate and difficult
situation, — sufficient to do credit to the Emperor's preference,
sufficient to sustain the popular regard, but not brilliant
enough to throw his patron into the shade. For the rest, his
vices were of a nature not greatly or necessarily to interfere
with his public duties, and emphatically such as met with
the readiest indulgence from the Roman laxity of morals.
Some few instances, indeed, are noticed of cruelty ; but there
is reason to think that it was merely by accident, and as an
indirect result of other purposes, that he ever allowed him-

1 In the original ter millies, which is not much above two millions
and one hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling ; but it must be
remembered that one-third as much, in addition to this popular largess,
had been given to the Army.

2 " Nam bene gestis rebus, vel potius feliciter, etsi non summi,

medii tamen obtinuit ducis faniam " — " For by the able, or rather by
the fortunate, conduct of affairs, he won the reputation — though not
of a supreme — yet of a tolerable or second-class strategist."

THE CLESARS 327

Belf in such manifestations of irresponsible power — not as
gratifying any harsh impulses of his native character. The
most remarkable neglect of humanity with which he has been
taxed occurred in the treatment of his couriers. These were
the bearers of news and official despatches, at that time
fulfilling the functions of the modern post ; and it must be
borne in mind that as yet they were not slaves (as afterwards
by the reformation of Alexander Severus), but free citizens.
They had been already dressed in a particular livery or
uniform, and possibly they might wear some symbolical
badges of their profession ; but the new Cassar chose to dress
them altogether in character as winged Cupids, affixing literal
wings to their shoulders, and facetiously distinguishing them
by the names of the cardinal winds (Boreas, Notus, &c.), and
others as levanters or hurricanes (Circius, &c.) Thus far he
did no more than indulge a blameless fancy, and such, in fact,
as our own solemn Admiralty indulge allowably in christen-
ing their little saucy gun-boats — for instance, the Spitfire,
the Boxer, the Blazer, the Vixen l ; but in his anxiety that
his runners should emulate their patron winds, and do credit
to the names which he had assigned them, he is said to have
exacted a degree of speed inconsistent with any merciful
regard for their bodily powers.2 But these were, after all,
perhaps, mere improvements of malice upon some solitary
incident. The true stain upon his memory, and one which
is open to no doubt whatever, is excessive and extravagant
luxury — excessive in degree, extravagant and even ludi-
crous in its forms. For example, he constructed a sort of

1 And, as it is not absolutely impossible that we may see Mr.
Roebuck a Lord of the Admiralty, in that case we shall, of course, have
a Tear'em. — See his famous speech on Cherbourg, &c.

2 This, however, is a point in which royal personages claim an old
prescriptive right to be unreasonable in their exactions ; and some
even amongst the most humane of Christian princes have erred as
flagrantly as ^Elius Verus. George IV, we have understood, was
generally escorted from Dalkeith to Holyrood at a rate of twenty-two
miles an hour. And of his father, the truly kind and paternal king,
it is recorded by Miss Hawkins (daughter of Sir J. Hawkins, the
biographer of Johnson, &c. ) that families who happened to have a
son, brother, lover, &c., in the particular regiment of cavalry which
furnished the escort to Windsor for the day used to suffer as much
anxiety for the result as on the eve of a great battle.

328 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

bed or sofa, protected from insects by an awning of
network composed of lilies, delicately fabricated into the
proper meshes, &c., and the couches composed wholly of rose-
leaves, but even of these not without an exquisite pre-
paration ; for the white parts of the leaves, as coarser and
harsher to the touch (possibly, also, as less odorous), were
scrupulously rejected. Here he lay indolently stretched
amongst favourite ladies,

" And like a naked Indian slept himself away."

He had also tables composed of the same delicate material —
prepared and purified in the same elaborate way ; and to
these were adapted seats in the fashion of sofas (accubationes),
corresponding in their material, and in their mode of pre-
paration. He was also an expert performer, and even an
original inventor, in the art of cookery ; and one dish of his
discovery, which, from its four component parts, obtained
the name of tetrapharmacum, was so far from owing its
celebrity to its royal birth that it maintained its place on
Hadrian's table to the time of his death. These, however,
were mere fopperies or pardonable extravagancies in one so
young and so exalted, traits not becoming to the state
character with which he had been clothed, yet still noways
tending to public mischief ; " quse, etsi non decora," as the
historian observes, "non tarn en ad perniciem publicam
prompta sunt." A graver mode of licentiousness appeared
in his connexions with women. He made no secret of his
lawless amours ; and to his own wife, on her expostulating
with him on his aberrations in this respect, he replied that
" wife " was a designation of rank and official dignity, not of
tenderness and affection, or implying any claim of love on
either side ; upon which distinction he begged that she
would mind her own affairs, and leave him to pursue such
as he might himself be involved in by his sensibility to
female charms.

However, he and all his errors, his " regal beauty," his
princely pomps, and his authorized hopes, were suddenly
swallowed up by the inexorable grave ; and he would have
passed away like an exhalation, and leaving no remembrance
of himself more durable than his own beds of rose-leaves

THE CAESARS 329

and his reticulated canopies of lilies, had it not been that
Hadrian filled the world with images of his perfect fawn-
like beauty in the shape of colossal statues, and raised
temples even to his memory in various cities. This Csesar,
therefore, dying thus prematurely, never tasted of empire ;
and his name would have had but a doubtful title to a place
in the imperatorial roll, had it not been recalled to a second
chance for the sacred honours in the person of his son —
whom it was the pleasure of Hadrian, by way of testifying
his affection for the father, to associate in the order of
succession with the philosophic Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
This fact, and the certainty that to the second ^Elius Verus
he gave his own daughter in marriage, rather than to his
associate Csesar Marcus Aurelius, make it evident that his
regret for the elder Verus was unaffected and deep; and
they overthrow effectually the common report of historians,
that he repented of Ms earliest choice, as of one that had
been disappointed not by the decrees of fate, but by the
violent defect of merits in its object. On the contrary, he
prefaced his inauguration of this junior Caesar by the follow-
ing tender words : " Let us confound the rapine of the grave,
and let the Empire possess amongst her rulers a second
^Elius Yerus. Rise again, therefore, departed JSlius, incarna-
tion of heavenly beauty ; rise a second time for the homage
of Rome and of her subject Earth ! "

" Diis aliter visum est " : the blood of the ^Elian family
was not privileged to ascend or aspire : it gravitated violently
to extinction ; and this junior Verus is supposed to have
been as much indebted to his assessor on the throne for
shielding his obscure vices, and drawing over his defects the
ample draperies of the imperatorial robe, as he was to Hadrian,
his grandfather by fiction of law, for his adoption into the
reigning family, and his consecration as one of the Caesars.
He, says one historian, shed no ray of light or illustration
upon the imperial house, except by one solitary quality.
This bears a harsh sound : but it has the effect of a sudden
redemption for his memory when we learn that this solitary
quality, in virtue of which he claimed a natural affinity to
the sacred house, and challenged a natural interest in the
purple, was the very princely one of a merciful disposition.

330 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

The two Antoniries fix an era in the Imperial History ;
for they were both eminent models of wise and good rulers :
and some would say that they fixed a crisis ; for with their
successor commenced, in the popular belief, the decline of
the Empire. That at least is the doctrine of Gibbon ; but
perhaps it would not be found altogether able to sustain
itself against a closer and philosophic examination of the
true elements involved in the idea of declension as applied to
political bodies. Be that as it may, however, and waiving
any interest which might happen to invest the Antonines as
the last princes who kept up the Empire to its original
level, both of them had enough of merit to challenge a
separate notice in their personal characters, and apart from
the accidents of their great official station.

The elder of the two, who is usually distinguished by the
title of Pius, is thus described by one of his biographers :
" He was externally of remarkable beauty ; eminent for his
" moral character, full of benign dispositions, noble, with
" a countenance of a most gentle expression, intellectually of
" singular endowments, possessing an elegant style of eloquence,
" distinguished for his literature, generally temperate, an
" earnest lover of agricultural pursuits, mild in his deport-
" ment, bountiful in the use of his own, but a stern respecter
" of the rights of others ; and, finally, he was all this without
" ostentation, and with a constant regard to the proportions
" of cases, and to the demands of time and place." His
bounty displayed itself in a way which may be worth men-
tioning, as at once illustrating the age, and the prudence
with which he controlled the most generous of his impulses :
u Fo&nus trientarium"1 says the historian, "hoc et minimis
usuris exercuit, ut patrimonio suo plurimos adjuvaret." The
meaning of which is this : — In Rome the customary interest
for money was technically called centesimce usurce ; that is, the
hundredth part, or one per cent. But, as this expressed not
the annual, but the monthly, interest, the true rate was, in
fact, twelve per cent ; and that is the meaning of centesimce

1 " He practised a mode of usury at the very lowest rates, viz.
under a discount of two-thirds from the ordinary terms, so as that,
from his own private patrimonial funds, he might thus relieve the
greatest number possible of clients."

THE OESARS 331

usurce. Nor could money be obtained anywhere on better
terms than these ; and, moreover, this one per cent was
exacted rigorously as the monthly day came round, no arrears
being suffered to lie over. Under these circumstances, it was
a prodigious service to lend money at a diminished rate, and
one which furnished many men with the means of saving
themselves from ruin. Pius, then, by way of extending his
aid as far as possible, reduced the monthly rate of his loans
to one-third per cent, which made the annual interest the
very moderate one of four per cent. The channels which
public spirit had as yet opened to the beneficence of the
opulent were few indeed ; charity and munificence languished,
or they were abused, or they were inefficiently directed,
simply through defects in the structure of society. Social
organization, for its large development, demanded the agency
of newspapers (together with many other forms of assistance
from the press), of banks, of public carriages on an extensive
scale, besides infinite other inventions or establishments not
yet created — which support and powerfully react upon that
same progress of society which originally gave birth to
themselves. All things considered, in the Rome of that
day, where the utmost munificence confined itself to direct
largesses of a few leading viands or condiments, a great step
was taken, and the best step, in this lending of money at a
low interest, towards a more refined and beneficial mode of
charity.

In his public character, he was perhaps the most patriotic
of Roman Emperors, and the purest from all taint of corrupt
or indirect ends. Peculation, embezzlement, or misapplica-
tion of the public funds, were universally corrected ; pro-
vincial oppressors were exposed and defeated : the taxes and
tributes were diminished ; and the public expenses were
thrown as much as possible upon the public estates, and in
some instances upon private estates. So far, indeed, did
Pius stretch his sympathy with the poorer classes of his
subjects that on this account chiefly he resided permanently
in the capital ; alleging in excuse partly that he thus stationed
himself in the very centre of his mighty empire, to which all
couriers could come by the shortest radii, but chiefly that he
thus spared the provincialists those burthens which must

332 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

else have alighted upon them : " For," said he, " even the
slenderest retinue of a Roman Emperor is burthensome to
the whole line of its progress." His tenderness and con-
sideration, indeed, were extended to all classes, and all
relations of his subjects, even to those who stood within the
shadow of his public displeasure as State delinquents, or as
the most atrocious criminals. To the children of great
treasury defaulters he returned the confiscated estates of their
fathers, deducting only what might indemnify the exchequer.
And so resolutely did he refuse to shed the blood of any in
the senatorial order, to whom he conceived himself more
especially bound in paternal ties, that even a parricide, whom
the laws would not suffer to live, was simply exposed upon
a desert island.

Little indeed did Pius want of being a perfect Christian
in heart and in practice. Yet all this display of goodness
and merciful indulgence, — nay, all his munificence, — would
have availed him little with the people at large, had he
neglected to furnish on the arena shows and exhibitions of
suitable magnificence. Luckily for his reputation, he exceeded
the general standard of imperial splendour not less as the
patron of the amphitheatre than as the benign Pater Patrice.
It is recorded of him that in one missio he sent forward on
the arena a hundred lions. Nor was he less distinguished by
the rarity of the wild animals which he exhibited than by
their number. There were elephants, there were crocodiles,
there were hippopotami, at one time upon the stage : there
was also the rhinoceros, and the still rarer crocuta or corocotta,
with a few strepsikerotes. Some of these were matched in
duels, some in general battles with tigers ; in fact, there was
no species of wild animal throughout the deserts and sandy
Zaarras of Africa, the infinite steppes of Asia, or the lawny
recesses and dim forests of then sylvan Europe,1 — no species
known to natural history (and some even of which naturalists

1 And not impossibly of America ; for it must be remembered that,
when we speak of America as a quarter of the earth yet unknown, we
mean unknown to ourselves of the western climates ; since, as respects
the eastern quarters of Asia, doubtless America was known there
familiarly enough before Christ, or even before Romulus ; and the
high bounties of imperial Rome on rare animals would sometimes per-
haps propagate tlieir influence even t'"> those regions.

THE C^SARS 333

have lost sight), — which the Emperor Pius did not produce
to his Roman subjects on his ceremonious pomps. And in
another point he carried his splendours to a point which set
the seal to his liberality. In the phrase of modern auctioneers,
he gave up the wild beasts to slaughter " without reserve."
It was the custom, in ordinary cases, so far to consider the
enormous cost of these far-fetched rarities as to preserve
for future occasions those which escaped the arrows of the
populace, or survived the bloody combats in which they
were engaged. Thus, out of the overflowings of one great
exhibition, would be found materials for another. But Pius
would not allow of these reservations. All were given up
unreservedly to the savage purposes of the spectators ; land
and §ea were ransacked ; the sanctuaries of the torrid zone
were violated ; columns of the army were put in motion :
and all for the transient effect of crowning an extra hour
with hecatombs of forest blood, each separate minute of which
hour had cost a king's ransom.

Yet these displays were alien to the nature of Pius ; and
even through the tyranny of custom he had been so little
changed that to the last he continued to turn aside, as often
as the public ritual of his duty allowed him, from these
fierce spectacles to the gentler amusements of fishing and
hunting. His taste and his affections naturally carried him
to all domestic pleasures of a quiet nature. A walk in a
shrubbery or along a piazza, enlivened with the conversation
of a literary friend, pleased him better than all the court
festivals ; and among festivals, or anniversary celebrations,
he preferred those which, like the harvest-home or like the
feast of the vintagers, whilst they sanctioned a total careless-
ness and dismissal of public anxieties, were at the same time
coloured by the innocent gaiety which belongs to rural and
to patriarchal manners.

In person this Emperor was tall and dignified (statura
elevata decorus) ; but latterly he stooped ; to remedy which
defect, that he might discharge his public part with the
more decorum, he wore stays.1 Of his other personal habits

1 In default of whalebone, one is curious to know of what these
stays were made : thin tablets of the linden-tree, it appears, were the
best materials which the Augustus of that day could command.

334 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

little is recorded, except that, early in the morning, and just
before receiving the compliments of his friends and dependants
(salutatores), or what in modern phrase would be called his
levde, he ate a little plain bread (panem siccum comedit}, — that
is, bread without condiments or accompaniments of any kind,
— by way of breakfast. In no meal has rational luxury
improved more upon the model of the ancients than in this :
the dinners (coence) of the Eomans were even more luxurious,
and a thousand times more costly, than our own '} but their
breakfasts were scandalously meagre, and with many men
breakfast was no acknowledged meal at all. Galen tells us
that a little bread, and at most a little seasoning of oil,
honey, or dried fruits, was the utmost breakfast which men
generally allowed themselves : some indeed drank wine after
it, but this was an unusual practice.1

The Emperor Pius died in his seventieth year. The
immediate occasion of his death was — not breakfast nor ccena,
but something of the kind. He had received a present of
Alpine cheese, and he ordered some for supper. The trap
for his life was baited with toasted cheese. There is no
reason to think that he ate immoderately ; but that night he
was seized with indigestion. Delirium followed ; during
which it is singular that his mind teemed with a class of
imagery and of passions the most remote (as it might have
been thought) from the voluntary occupations of his thoughts.
He raved about the State, and about those Kings with whom
he was displeased \ nor were his thoughts one moment removed
from the public service. Yet he was the least ambitious of
princes, and his reign was emphatically said to be bloodless.
Finding his fever increase, he became sensible that he was
dying ; and he ordered the golden statue of Prosperity, a
household symbol of Empire, to be transferred from his own
bedroom to that of his successor. Once, again, however, for

1 There is, however, a good deal of delusion prevalent on such sub-
jects. In some English cavalry regiments, the custom is [1825] for the
privates to take only one meal a day, which of course is dinner ; and
by some curious experiments it has appeared that such a mode of life
is the healthiest. But, at the same time, we have ascertained that the
quantity of porter or substantial ale drunk in these regiments does
virtually allow several meals by comparison with the washy tea break-
fasts of most Englishmen.

THE OESARS 335

the last time, he gave the word to the officer of the guard ;
and, soon after, turning away his face to the wall against
which his bed was placed, he passed out of life in the very
gentlest sleep : " quasi dormiret, spiritum reddidit " \ or, as
a Greek author expresses it, KOT' larov VTTVW TO) /xaAa/cwrarw,
showing an exact conformity in all respects to sleep the very
gentlest. He was one of those few Roman Emperors whom
posterity truly honoured with the title of avcuyu,o,KTos (or
bloodless) : solusque omnium propb principum prorsus sine
civili sanguine et hostili vixit. In the whole tenor of his
life and character he was thought to resemble Numa. And
Pausanias, after remarking on his title of Ei5a-e/:?7Js (or Pius),
— upon the meaning and origin of which there are several
different hypotheses, — closes with this memorable tribute
to his paternal qualities : $o£fj Se €fj,fj KOU TO ovo/xa TO
TOV Kv/oov (f>€pot,TO dv Tov^ TtpecrfivTepov, TiaTrjp 3A.vOp(*>7T(DV
KaXovfJL€vos : but, in my opinion, he should also bear the
designation of Cyrus the Elder, being hailed as the Father
of the Human Race.

A thoughtful Roman would have been apt to exclaim
This is too good to last upon finding so admirable a ruler
succeeded by one still more admirable, in the person of
Marcus Aurelius. From the first dawn of his infancy this
prince indicated, by his grave deportment, the philosophic
character of his mind ; and at eleven years of age he pro-
fessed himself a formal devotee of philosophy in its strictest
form, — assuming the garb, and submitting to its most ascetic
ordinances. In particular, he slept upon the ground, and in
other respects he practised a style of living the most simple
and remote from the habits of rich men (or, in his own
words, TO Xirov Kara rrjv Si'aiTav, KOL Troppo) TYJS 7rX.ovariaKTJ<s
ctywyTJs : the simple as regards diet, and far removed from
the training of opulence) ; though it is true that he himself
ascribes this simplicity of life to the influence of his mother,
'and not to the premature assumption of the stoical character.
He pushed his austerities indeed to excess ; for Dio mentions
that in his boyish days he was reduced to great weakness by
exercises too severe and a diet of too little nutriment. In
fact, his whole heart was set upon philosophic attainments,
and perhaps upon philosophic glory. All the great philo-

336 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

sophers of his own time, whether Stoic or Peripatetic, and
amongst them Sextus of Cheronsea, a nephew of Plutarch,
were retained as his instructors. There was none whom he
did not enrich ; and as many as were fitted by birth and
manners to fill important situations he raised to the highest
offices in the State.1 Philosophy, however, did not so much
absorb his affections but that he found time to cultivate the
fine arts (painting he both studied and practised) and such
gymnastic exercises as he held consistent with his public
dignity. "Wrestling, hunting, fowling, playing at cricket
(pila), he admired and patronized by personal participation.
He tried his powers even as a runner. But, with these tasks,
and entering t critically, both as a connoisseur and as a prac-
tising amateur, into such trials of skill, so little did he relish
the very same spectacles when connected with the cruel
exhibitions of the circus and amphitheatre that it was not
without some friendly violence on the part of those who
could venture on such a liberty, nor even thus perhaps with-
out the coercion of his official station, that he would be
persuaded to visit either one or the other.2 In this he

1 We should all have been much indebted to the philosophic Ein-
peror had he found it convenient to tell us with what result to the
public interests, as also to the despatch of business. Napoleon made
La Place a Secretary of State, but had reason to rue his appointment.
Our own Addison suffered a kind of locked jaw in dictating despatches
as Foreign Secretary. And about a hundred years earlier Lord Bacon
played "H — and Tommy" when casually raised to the supreme
seat in the Council by the brief absence in Edinburgh of the King and
the Duke of Buckingham [in 1617, when King James revisited Scot-
land, after he had been fourteen years King of England. — M.]

2 So much improvement had Christianity already accomplished in
the feelings of men since the time of Augustus. That prince, in
whose reign the Founder of this ennobling religion was born, had
delighted so much and indulged so freely in the spectacles of the
amphitheatre that Mecsenas summoned him reproachfully to leave
them by saying, "Surge tandem, carnifex " : "Rise, headsman ; rise,
hangman, at last." — It is the remark of Capitoline [respecting Mar-
cus Aurelius] that " gladiatoria spectacula omnifariam temperavit ;
tempera vit etiam scenicas donationes " ; — "he controlled in every
possible way the gladiatorial spectacles ; he controlled also the rates
of allowance to the stage performers." In these latter reforms, which
simply restrained the exorbitant salaries of a class dedicated to the
public pleasures, and unprofitable to the state, Marcus may have had
no further view than that which is usually connected with sumptuary

THE C^SARS 337

meditated no reflection upon his father by adoption, the
Emperor Pius (who also, for aught we know, might secretly
revolt from a species of amusement which, as the prescrip-
tive test of munificence in the popular estimate, he found it
unavoidable to support) : on the contrary, he obeyed him
with the punctiliousness of a Roman obedience ; he watched
the very motions of his countenance ; and he waited so
continually upon his pleasure that, for three-and-twenty years

laws. But in the restraints upon the gladiators it is not impossible to
believe that his highest purpose was that of elevating human nature,
and preparing the way for still higher regulations. As little can it be
believed that this lofty conception, and the sense of a degradation
entailed upon human nature itself in the spectacle of human beings
matched against each other like brute beasts, and pouring out their
blood upon the arena as a libation to the caprices of a mob, could have
been derived from any other source than the contagion of Christian
standards and Christian sentiments, then beginning to pervade and
ventilate the atmosphere of society in its higher and philosophic
regions. Christianity, without expressly affirming, everywhere in-
directly supposes and presumes the infinite value and dignity of man
as a creature exclusively concerned in a vast and mysterious economy
of restoration to a state of moral beauty and power in some former
age mysteriously forfeited. Equally interested in its benefits, joint-
heirs of its promises, all men, of every colour, language, and rank, Gentile
or Jew, were here first represented as in one sense (and that the most
important) equal ; in the eye of this religion, they were by necessity of
logic equal, as equal participators in the ruin, equal in the restoration.
Here first, in any available sense, was communicated to the standard
of human nature a vast and sudden elevation ; and reasonable enough,
it is to suppose that some obscure sense of this, some sympathy with
the great changes for man then beginning to operate, would first of
all reach the inquisitive students of philosophy, and chiefly those
in high stations who cultivated an intercourse with all the men of
original genius throughout the civilized world. The Emperor Hadrian
had taken one solitary step (already noticed) in the elevation of
human nature, and not, we may believe, without some sub-conscious
influence received directly or indirectly from Christianity. So again,
with respect to Marcus, it is hardly conceivable that he, a prince so
indulgent and popular, could have thwarted, and violently gainsaid,
a passionate taste of the Roman populace without some adequate
motive ; and none could be adequate which was not built upon some
new and exalted views of human nature with which these gladiatorial
sacrifices were altogether at war. The reforms which Marcus intro-
duced into these " crudelissima spectacula," all having the common
purpose of limiting their extent, were three. First, he set bounds to
the extreme cost of these exhibitions : no man was any longer at
liberty to lavish an unlimited sum upon the amphitheatre ; and this
VOL. VI Z

338 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

which they lived together, he is recorded to have slept out
of his father's palace only for two nights. This rigour of
filial duty illustrates a feature of Roman life ; for such was
the sanctity of law that a father created by legal fiction was
in all respects treated with the same veneration and affection
as a father who claimed upon the most unquestioned footing
of natural right. Such, however, is the universal baseness
of courts that even this scrupulous and minute attention to

restriction of the cost covertly operated as a restriction of the practice.
The limitation operated as a withdrawal of State Bounties, as
refrigerations of enthusiasm, as curbs upon aristocratic rivalships.
Secondly (and this ordinance took effect whenever he was personally
present, if not often er), he commanded, on great occasions, that these
displays should be bloodless. Dion Cassius notices this fact in the
following words: — "The Emperor Marcus was so far from taking
' delight in spectacles of bloodshed that even the gladiators in Rome
' could not obtain his inspection of their contests, unless, like the
' wrestlers, they contended without imminent risk ; for he never
' allowed them the use of sharpened weapons, but universally they
' fought before him with weapons previously blunted " (or perhaps
buttoned^fibuleited, as in the case of our own foils}. Thirdly, he repealed
the old and uniform regulation which secured to the gladiators a per-
petual immunity from military service. This necessarily diminished
their available amount. Being now liable to serve their country
usefully in the field of battle, whilst the concurrent limitation of the
expenses in this direction prevented any commensurate increase of
their numbers, they were so much the less disposable in aid of the
public luxury. Thus, by the drains of the military service, when
turning round to look for adequate supplementary accessions from
abroad, they found the requisite supplies cut off by the action of the
new sumptuary law. HabetJ ejaculated the neutral philosophic
looker-on, simply regarding the gladiatorial interest.1 His fatherly
care of all classes, and the universal benignity with which he attempted
to raise the abject estimate and condition of even the lowest pariahf
in his vast empire, appear in another little anecdote, relating to a
class of men equally with the gladiators given up to the service of
luxury in a haughty and cruel populace. Attending one day at aw
exhibition of rope-dancing, one of the performers (a boy) fell and hurt
himself ; from which time the Paternal Emperor would never allow
the rope-dancers to perform without mattresses or feather-beds spread
below to mitigate the violence of their falls.

i " Habet" :— He has it, he has got it— i.e. has got his death-warrant,— was
the cruel ejaculation of triumph from the Roman mob of spectators whenever
a poor gladiator was (or seemed to be) reached by some mortal blow. The self-
same yell of triumph we are supposing to have ascended from the miso-gladia-
torial party on witnessing the unparriecl blow of the philosophic Emperor

THE CLESARS 339

his duties did not protect Marcus from the injurious insinua-
tions of whisperers. There were not wanting persons who
endeavoured to turn to account the general circumstances in
the situation of the Caesar which pointed him out to the
jealousy of the Emperor. But these, being no more than
what adhere necessarily to the case of every heir as such,
and meeting fortunately with as little of encouragement in
the unsuspicious nature of the father as they did of counte-
nance in the habitual conduct of the son, prospered so ill
that, from pure defect of all natural root on either side, the
very attempts of court malice died away.

The most interesting political crisis in the reign of Marcus
was the war in Germany with the Marcomanni, concurrently
with pestilence in Rome. The agitation of the public mind
was intense ; and prophets arose, as since under correspond-
ing circumstances in Christian countries, who announced the
approaching dissolution of the world. The purse of Marcus
was open, as usual, to the distresses of his subjects. But it
was chiefly for the expense of funerals that his aid was
claimed. In this way he alleviated the domestic calamities
of his capital, or expressed his sympathy with the sufferers
where alleviation was beyond his power ; whilst, by the
energy of his movements and his personal presence on the
Danube, he soon dissipated those anxieties of Rome which
pointed in a foreign direction. The war, however, had been
a dreadful one ; and it had excited such just fears in the
most experienced heads of the State that, happening in its
outbreak to coincide with a Parthian attack, it was skilfully
protracted until the entire thunders of Rome, and the un-
divided energies of her supreme captains, could be concentrated
upon this single point. Both Emperors l left Rome, and
crossed the Alps ; the war was thrown back upon its native
seats — Austria and the modern Hungary : great battles were
fought and won; and peace, with consequent relief and
restoration to liberty, was reconquered for many friendly
nations who had suffered under the ravages of the Marco-
manni, the Sarmatians, the Quadi, and the Vandals ; whilst

1 Marcus had been associated, as Caesar and as Emperor, with the
son of the late beautiful Verus, who is usually mentioned by the same

340 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

some of the hostile peoples were nearly obliterated from the
map, and their names blotted out from the memory of
men.

Since the days of Gaul as an independent power, no war
had so much alarmed the people of Rome ; and their fear
was justified by the difficulties and prodigious efforts which
accompanied its suppression. The public treasury was ex-
hausted ; loans were an engine of fiscal policy not then
understood or perhaps practicable ; and great distress was at
hand for the State. In these circumstances, Marcus adopted
a wise (though it was then esteemed a violent or desperate)
remedy. Time and excessive luxury had accumulated in the
imperial palaces and villas vast repositories of apparel,
furniture, jewels, pictures, and household utensils, valuable
alike for the materials and the workmanship. Many of
these articles were consecrated, by colour l or otherwise, to
the use of the sacred household ; and to have been found in
possession of them, or with the materials for making them,
would have entailed the penalties of treason. All these stores
were now brought out to open day, and put up to public
sale by auction, — free license being first granted to the
bidders, whoever they might be, to use, and otherwise to
exercise the fullest rights of ownership upon all they bought.
The auction lasted for two months. Every man was guaran-
teed in the peaceable possession of his purchases. And
afterwards, when the public distress had passed over, a still
further indulgence was extended to the purchasers. Notice
was given that all who were dissatisfied with their purchases,
or who for other reasons might wish to recover their cost,
would receive back the purchase-money upon returning the

1 " By colour " : — It must be remembered that the true purple
(about which the controversy has been endless, and is yet unsettled :
possibly it was our crimson, though this seems properly expressed
by the word puniceus ; possibly it was our common violet ; but, of
whatever tint, this colour of purple) was interdicted to the Roman
people, and consecrated to the sole personal use of the imperatorial
house. Recollecting the early "taboo" in this point amongst the
children of Romulus, and that thus far it had not been suspended
under the two gentlest and most philosophic princes of the divina
domus, we feel that some injustice has perhaps been done to Dio-
clesian in representing him as the importer of oriental degradations.

THE CAESARS 341

articles. Dinner-services of gold and crystal, murrhine vases,1
and even his wife's wardrobe of silken robes interwoven
with gold, — all these, and countless other articles, were
under this offer returned, and the full auction prices paid
back ; or were not returned, and no displeasure shown to
those who publicly displayed them as their own. Having
gone so far, overruled by the necessities of the public service,
in breaking down those legal barriers by which a peculiar
dress, furniture, equipage, &c., were appropriated to the
imperial house, as distinguished from the very highest of the
noble houses, Marcus had a sufficient pretext for extending
indefinitely the effect of the dispensation then granted.
Articles purchased at the auction bore no characteristic
marks to distinguish them from others of the same form and
texture : so that a licence to use any one article of the sacred
pattern became necessarily a general licence for all others
which resembled them. And thus, without abrogating the
prejudices which protected the imperial precedency, a body of
sumptuary laws — the most ruinous to the progress of manu-
facturing skill which has ever been devised 2 — were silently
suspended. One or two aspiring families might be offended
by these innovations, which meantime gave the pleasures of
enjoyment to thousands, and of hope to millions.

But these, though very noticeable relaxations of the exist-

1 " Murrhine vases " : — What might these Pagan articles be ?
Unlearned reader, if any such is amongst the flock of our audience,
the question you ask has been asked by four or five centuries that
have fleeted away, and hitherto has had no answer. They were not
porcelain from China , they could not be Venetian glass, into which,
when poison was poured, suddenly the venom fermented, bubbled,
boiled, and finally shivered the glass into fragments (so at least saith
the pretty fable of our ancestors) ; this it could not be : why ? Be-
cause Venice herself did not arise until two and a half centuries after
Marcus Aurelius. They were, however, like diaphanous china, but
did not break on falling. The Japanese still possess a sort of porce-
lain much superior to any now produced in China. And, by Chinese
confession, a far superior order of porcelain was long ago manufac-
tured in China itself, of which the art is now wholly lost. Perhaps
the murrhine vase might belong to this forgotten class of vertu.

2 Because the most effectual extinguishers of all ambition applied in
that direction ; since the very excellence of any particular fabric was
the surest pledge of its virtual suppression by means of its legal re-
striction (which followed inevitably) to the use of the imperial house.

342 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

ing prerogative, were, as respected the temper which dictated
them, no more than everyday manifestations of the Emperor's
perpetual benignity. Fortunately for Marcus, the indestruc-
tible privilege of the divina domus exalted it so unapproachably
beyond all competition that no possible remissions of aulic
rigour could ever be misinterpreted ; fear there could be
none lest such paternal indulgences should lose their effect
and acceptation as pure condescensions. They could neither
injure their author, who was otherwise charmed and conse-
crated from disrespect ; nor could they suffer injury themselves
by misconstruction, or seem other than sincere, coming from
a prince whose entire life was one long series of acts express-
ing the same affable spirit. Such, indeed, was the effect of
this uninterrupted benevolence in the Emperor that at length
all men, according to their several years, hailed him as their
father, son, or brother. And, when he died, in the sixty-first
year of his life (the eighteenth of his reign), he was lamented
with a corresponding peculiarity in the public ceremonial, —
such, for instance, as the studied interfusion of the senatorial
body with the populace, expressive of the levelling power of
a true and comprehensive grief ; a peculiarity for which no
precedent was found, and which never afterwards became itself
a precedent for similar honours to the best of his successors.

But malice has the divine privilege of ubiquity ; and
therefore it was that even this great model of private and
public virtue did not escape the foulest libels. He was twice
accused of murder : once on the person of a gladiator with
whom the Empress is said to have intrigued ; and, again,
upon his associate in the empire, who died in reality of an
apoplectic seizure on his return from the German campaign.
Neither of these atrocious fictions ever gained the least hold
of the public attention, so entirely were they put down by the
primd facie evidence of facts, and of the Emperor's notorious
character. In fact, his faults, if he had any in his public
life, were entirely those of too much indulgence. In a few
cases of enormous guilt it is recorded that he showed himself
inexorable. But, generally speaking, he was far otherwise ;
and, in particular, he carried his indulgence to his wife's
vices so far beyond the allowance of prudence or public de-
corum as to draw upon himself the satirical notice of the stage.

THE CAESARS 343

Tlie gladiators, and still more the sailors of that age, were
constantly to be seen plying naked ; and Faustina was shame-
less enough to take her station in places which gave her the
advantages of a leisurely review, and she actually selected
favourites from both classes on the ground of a personal
inspection. With others of greater rank she is said even to
have been surprised by her husband ; in particular with one
called Tertullus, at dinner.1 But to all remonstrances on
this subject Marcus is reported to have replied " Si uxorem
dimittimus, reddamus et dotem " ; meaning that, having re-
ceived his right of succession to the Empire simply by his
adoption into the family of Pius, his wife's father, gratitude
and filial duty obliged him to view any dishonours emanating
from his wife's conduct as joint legacies with the splendours
inherited from their common father ; in short, that he was
not at liberty to separate the rose from its thorns. Faustina
had, in fact, brought him the empire as her bridal dowry \
and, according to the notorious law of divorce in Rome, the
repudiated wife carried back all that she had brought. How-
ever, the facts are not sufficiently known to warrant us in
criticising very severely his behaviour on so trying an occa-
sion. It would be too much for human frailty that absolutely
no stain should remain upon his memory. The reflection
upon this story by one of his biographers is this — " Such is
" the force of daily life in a good ruler, so great the power of
" his sanctity, gentleness, and piety, that no breath of slander
" or invidious suggestion from an acquaintance can avail to
" sully his memory. In short, to Antonine, immutable as
" the heavens in the tenor of his own life, and in the mani-
" festations of his own moral temper, and who was not by
" possibility liable to any impulse or movement of change on
" any alien suggestion, it was not eventually an injury that
" he was dishonoured by some of his connexions ; on him,
" invulnerable in his own character, neither a harlot for his
" wife, nor a gladiator for his son, could inflict a wound.

1 Upon which some mimographus built an occasional notice of the
scandal then floating on the public breath in the following terms :
One of the actors having asked " Who was the adulterous paramour ? "
receives for answer, " Tullus." "Who?" he asks again; and again
for three times running he is answered, " Tullus." But, asking a fourth
time, the rejoinder is, "Jam dixi ter Tullus (i.e. Tertullus).

344 HISTOKICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

" Then as now, 0 sacred Lord Dioclesian ! he was reputed a
" god ; not as others are reputed, but specially and in a
" separate sense, and with a privilege to such worship from
" all men as is addressed to his memory by yourself, who
" often breathe a wish to heaven that you were or could be
" such in life and merciful disposition as was Marcus Aurelius."
What this encomiast says in a rhetorical tone was literally
true. Marcus was raised to divine honours, or canonized1
(as in Christian phrase we might express it). That was a
matter of course for a Ca3sar ; and, considering with whom
he shared such honours, they are of little account in express-
ing the grief and veneration which followed him. A circum-
stance more characteristic in the record of those observances
which attested the public feeling is this ; — that he who at
that time had no bust, picture, or statue of Marcus in his
house, was looked upon as a profane and irreligious man.
Finally, to do him honour not by testimonies of men's opinions
in his favour, but by facts of his own life and conduct, one
memorable trophy there is amongst the moral distinctions of
the philosophic Csesar, utterly unnoticed hitherto by historians,
but which will hereafter obtain a conspicuous place in any
perfect record of the steps by which civilisation has advanced
and human nature has been exalted. It is this : Marcus
Aurelius was the first great military leader (and his civil
office as supreme interpreter and creator of law consecrated
his example) who allowed rights indefeasible, rights uncan-
celled by his misfortune in the field, to the prisoner of war.
Others had been merciful and variously indulgent, upon their
own discretion, and upon a random impulse to some, or
possibly to all of their prisoners ; but this was either in
submission to the usage of that particular war, or to special self-
interest, or at most to individual good feeling. None had
allowed a prisoner to challenge any forbearance as of right.

1 In reality, if by divus and divine honours we understand a saint
or spiritualized being having a right of intercession with the Supreme
Deity, — and by his temple, &c., if we understand a shrine attended by
a priest to direct the prayers of his devotees, — there is no such wide
chasm between this pagan superstition and the adoration of saints in
the Romish Church as at first sight appears. The fault is purely in
the names : divus and templum are words too undistinguishing and
generic.

THE (LESARS 345

But Marcus Aurelius first resolutely maintained that certain
indestructible rights adhered to every soldier, simply as a man ;
which rights capture by the sword, or any other accident of war,
could do nothing to shake or to diminish. We have noticed
other instances in which Marcus Aurelius laboured, at the
risk of his popularity, to elevate the condition of human nature.
But those, though equally expressing the goodness and loftiness
of his nature, were by accident directed to a perishable insti-
tution, which time has swept away, and along with it there-
fore his reformations. Here, however, is an immortal act of
goodness built upon an immortal basis : so long as armies
congregate, and the sword is the arbiter of international
quarrels, so long it will deserve to be had in remembrance that
the first man who set limits to the empire of wrong, and first
translated within the jurisdiction of man's moral nature that
state of war which had heretofore been consigned, by principle
no less than by practice, to anarchy, animal violence, and brute
force, was also the first philosopher who sat upon a throne.

In this, and in his universal spirit of forgiveness, we cannot
but acknowledge a Christian by anticipation ; nor can we
hesitate to believe that, through one or other of his many
philosophic friends,1 whose attention Christianity was by that

1 Not long after this, Alexander Severus meditated a temple to
Christ ; upon which design Lampridius observes, — Quod et Hadrianus
cogitdsse fertur ; and, as Lampridius was himself a pagan, we believe
him to have been right in his report, in spite of all which has been
written by Casaubon and others, who maintain that these imperfect
temples of Hadrian were left void of all images or idols, — not in respect
to the Christian practice, but because he designed them eventually to
be dedicated to himself. However, be this as it may, thus much
appears on the face of the story, — that Christ and Christianity had by
that time begun to challenge the imperial attention ; and of this there
is an indirect indication, as it has been interpreted, even in the memoir
of Marcus himself. The passage is this : "Fama fuit sane quod sub
philosophorum specie quidam rempublicam vexarent et privates. " The
philosophi here mentioned by Capitoline are by some supposed to be
the Christians ; and for many reasons we believe it ; and we under-
stand the molestations of the public services and of private individuals,
here charged upon them, as a very natural reference to the Christian
doctrines falsely understood. There is, by the way, a fine remark upon
Christianity, made by an infidel philosopher of Germany, which suggests
a remarkable feature in the merits of Marcus Aurelius. There were,
as this German philosopher used to observe, two schemes of thinking
amongst the ancients, which severally fulfilled the two functions of a

346 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

time powerful to attract, some reflex images of Christian
doctrines — some half-conscious perception of its perfect beauty
— had flashed upon his mind. And, when we view him from
this distant age, as heading that shining array, the Howards
and the Clarksons, who have since then in a practical sense
hearkened to the sighs of "all prisoners and captives," we
are ready to suppose him addressed by the great Founder of
Christianity in the words of Scripture, " Verily, I say unto
thee, Thou art not far from the kingdom of heaven"

As a supplement to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, we
ought to notice the rise of one great rebel, the sole civil
disturber of his time, in Syria. This was Avidius Cassius,
whose descent from Cassius (the noted conspirator against the
Dictator Julius) seems to have suggested to him a wandering
idea, and at length a formal purpose, of restoring the ancient

sound philosophy, as respected the moral nature of man. One of these
schemes presented us with a just ideal of moral excellence, a standard
sufficiently exalted : this was the Stoic philosophy ; and thus far its
pretensions were unexceptionable and perfect. But, unfortunately,
whilst contemplating this pure ideal of man as he ought to be, the
Stoic totally forgot the frail nature of man as he is ; and, by refusing
all compromises and all condescensions to human infirmity, this philo-
sophy of the Porch presented to us a brilliant prize and object for our
efforts, but placed on an inaccessible height. On the other hand, there
was a very different philosophy at the very antagonist pole, — not bind-
ing itself by abstractions too elevated, submitting to what it finds,
bending to the absolute facts and realities of man's nature, and affably
adapting itself to human imperfections. This was the philosophy of
Epicurus ; and, undoubtedly, as a beginning, and for the elementary
purpose of conciliating the affections of the pupil, it was well devised :
but here the misfortune was that the ideal or maximum perfectionis
attainable by human nature was pitched so low that the humility of
its condescensions and the excellence of its means were all to no
purpose, as leading to nothing further. One mode presented a splendid
end, but insulated, and with no means fitted to a human aspirant for
communicating with its splendours ; the other, an excellent road, but
leading to no worthy or proportionate end. Yet these, as regarded
models, were the best and ultimate achievements of the Pagan World.
Now, Christianity, said he, is the synthesis of whatever is separately
excellent in either. It will abate as little as the haughtiest Stoicism
of the ideal which it contemplates as the first postulate of true morality ;
the absolute holiness and purity which it demands are as much raised
above the poor performances of actual man as the absolute wisdom and
impeccability of the Stoic. Yet, unlike the Stoic scheme, Christianity
is aware of the necessity, and provides for it, that the means of appro-

THE (LESARS 347

Republic. Avidius was the commander -in -chief of the
Oriental army, whose head -quarters were then fixed at
Antioch. His native disposition, which inclined him to
cruelty, and his political views, made him, from his first
entrance upon office, a severe disciplinarian. The well-
known enormities of the neighbouring Daphne gave him
ample opportunities for the exercise of his harsh propensities
in reforming the dissolute soldiery. He amputated heads,
arms, feet, and hands : he turned out his mutilated victims,
as walking spectacles of warning ; he burned them ; he
smoked them to death ; and, in one instance, he crucified a
detachment of his army, together with their centurions, for
having, unauthorized, gained a decisive victory, and captured
a large booty on the Danube. Upon this the soldiers
mutinied against him, in mere indignation at his tyranny.

priating this ideal perfection should be such as are consistent with the
nature of a most erring and imperfect creature. Its motion is towards
the divine, but by and through the human. In fact, it offers the Stoic
humanized in his scheme of means, and the Epicurean exalted in his
final objects. Nor is it possible to conceive a practicable scheme
of morals which should not rest upon such a synthesis of the two
elements as the Christian scheme presents : a mighty ideal ; nor any
other mode of fulfilling that demand than such a one as is there first
brought forward, viz. a double or Janus nature, which stands in an
equivocal relation, — to the Divine nature by his actual perfections, to
the human nature by his participation in the same animal frailties and
capacities of fleshly temptation. No other vinculum could bind the
two postulates together, of an absolute perfection in the end proposed,
and yet of utter imperfection in the means for attaining it. Such was
the outline of this famous tribute by an unbelieving philosopher to the
merits of Christianity as a scheme of moral discipline. Now, it must
be remembered that Marcus Aurelius was by profession a Stoic, and
that generally, as a theoretical philosopher, but still more as a Stoic
philosopher, he might be supposed incapable of descending from these
airy altitudes of speculation to the true needs, infirmities, and capaci-
ties of human nature. Yet strange it is that he, of all the good
Emperors, was the most thoroughly human and practical. In evidence
of which, one body of records is amply sufficient, — which is the very
extensive and wise reforms which he, beyond all the Caesars, executed
in the existing laws. To all the exigencies of the times, and to all the
new necessities developed by the progress of society, he adjusted the
old laws, or supplied new ones. The same praise, therefore, belongs
to him which the German philosopher conceded to Christianity, of
reconciling the austerest ideal with the practical ; and hence another
argument for presuming him half baptized into the new faith.

348 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

However, he prosecuted his purpose, and prevailed, by his
bold contempt of the danger which menaced him. From the
abuses in the Army, he proceeded to attack the abuses of the
Civil Administration. But, as these were protected by the
example of the great proconsular lieutenants and provincial
governors, policy obliged him to confine himself to verbal
expressions of anger ; until at length, sensible that this
impotent railing did but expose him to contempt, he resolved
to arm himself with the powers of radical reform by open
rebellion. His ultimate purpose was the restoration of the
ancient Republic, or (as he himself expresses it in an inter-
esting letter, which yet survives) " ut in antiquum statum
publica forma reddatur," — i.e. that the constitution should be
restored to its original condition. And this must be effected
by military violence and the aid of the executioner, or, in his
own words, multis gladiis, multis elogiis1 (by innumerable
sabres, by innumerable records of condemnation). Against
this man Marcus was warned by his imperial colleague Lucius
Verus, in a very remarkable letter. After expressing his
suspicions of him generally, the writer goes on to say — " I
" would you had him closely watched. For he is a general
" disliker of us and of our doings ; he is gathering together
" an enormous treasure, and he makes an open jest of our
" literary pursuits. You, for instance, he calls a philosophiz-
" ing old woman, and me a dissolute buffoon and scamp.
" Consider what you would have done. For my part, I bear
" the fellow no ill-will ; but again I say, Take care that he
" does not do a mischief to yourself or your children."

The answer of Marcus is noble and characteristic : " I
" have read your letter, and I will confess to you I think it
" more scrupulously timid than becomes an Emperor, and
" timid in a way unsuited to the spirit of our times. Con-
" sider this : if the Empire is destined to Cassius by the
" decrees of Providence, in that case it will not be in our
" power to put him to death, however much we may
" desire to do so. You know your great-grandfather's
" saying, ' No prince ever killed his own heir ' ; no man,
" that is, ever yet prevailed against one whom Providence

1 " Elogiis" : — The elogium was the public record or titulus of a
malefactor's crime inscribed upon his cross or scaffold.

THE CAESARS 349

" had marked out as his successor. On the other hand, if
" Providence opposes him, then, without any cruelty on our
a part, he will spontaneously fall into some snare spread for
" him by destiny. Besides, we cannot treat a man as under
" impeachment whom nobody impeaches, and whom, by your
" own confession, the soldiers love. Then again, in cases of
" high treason, even those criminals who are convicted upon
" the clearest evidence, yet, as friendless and deserted per-
" sons contending against the powerful, and matched against
" men armed with the whole authority of the State, seem to
" suffer some wrong. You remember what your grandfather
" said — 'Wretched, indeed, is the fate of princes, who then
" first obtain credit in any charges of conspiracy which they
" allege, when they happen to seal the validity of their
" charges against the plotters by falling martyrs to the plot.'
" Domitian it was, in fact, who first uttered this truth ; but
" I choose rather to place it under the authority of Hadrian,
" because the sayings of tyrants, even when they are true
" and happy, carry less weight with them than naturally
" they ought. For Cassius, then, let him keep his present
" temper and inclinations ; and the more so, being (as he is)
" a good general, austere in his discipline, brave, and one
" whom the State cannot afford to lose. For, as to what
" you insinuate, that I ought to provide for my children's
" interests by putting this man judicially out of the way,
" very frankly I say to you — { Perish my children, if
" Avidius shall deserve more attachment than they, and
" if it shall prove salutary to the State that Cassius should
" triumph rather than the children of Marcus should sur-
«vive.'"

This letter affords a singular illustration of fatalism, such
certainly as we might expect in a Stoic, but carried even to
a Turkish excess ; and not theoretically professed only, but
practically acted upon in a case of capital hazard. That no
prince ever killed his own successor, — i.e. that it was vain for
a prince to put conspirators to death, because, by the very
possibility of doing so, a demonstration is obtained that such
conspirators had never been destined to prosper, — is as
pungent an expression of fatalism as ever has been devised.
The rest of the letter, where not imbecile, is noble, and

350 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

breathes the very soul of careless magnanimity reposing uj on
conscious innocence.

Meantime, Cassius increased in power and influence : his
army had become a most formidable engine of his ambition
through its restored discipline ; and his own authority was
sevenfold greater because he had himself created that discip-
line in the face of unequalled temptations hourly renewed
and rooted in the very centre of his head - quarters.
" Daphne, by Orontes," a suburb of Antioch, was infamous
for its seductions; and Daphnic luxury had become pro-
verbial for expressing an excess of voluptuousness, such as
other places could not rival, by mere defect of means and
preparations elaborate enough to sustain it in all its varieties
of mode, or to conceal it from public notice. In the very
purlieus of this great nest, or sty of sensuality, within sight
and touch of its pollutions, did he keep his army fiercely
reined up, daring and defying them, as it were, to taste of
the banquet whose very odour they inhaled.

Thus provided with the means, and improved instruments
for executing his purpose, he broke out into open rebellion ;
and, though hostile to the principatus, or personal supremacy
of one man, he did not feel his republican purism at all
wounded by the style and title of Imperator, — that being a
military term, and a mere titular honour, which had co-
existed with the severest forms of Eepublicanism. Impemtor,
then, he was saluted and proclaimed ; and doubtless the writer
of the warning letter from Syria would now declare that the
sequel had justified the fears which Marcus had thought so
unbecoming to a Roman Emperor. But again Marcus would
have said, " Let us wait for the sequel of the sequel " ;
and that would have justified him. It is often found by
experience that men who have learned to reverence a per-
son in authority chiefly by his offices of correction applied
to their own aberrations — who have known and feared him,
in short, in his character of reformer — will be more than
usually inclined to desert him on his first movement in the
direction of wrong. Their obedience being founded on fear,
and fear being never wholly disconnected from hatred, they
naturally seize with eagerness upon the first lawful pretext
for disobedience ; the luxury of revenge is, in such a case,

THE C^ESAKS 351

too potent — a meritorious disobedience too novel a tempta-
tion— to have a chance of being rejected. Never, indeed,
does erring human nature look more abject than in the
person of a severe exactor of duty, who has immolated
thousands to the wrath of offended law, suddenly himself
becoming a capital offender, a glozing tempter in search of
accomplices, and in that character at once standing before
the meanest of his own dependants as a self-deposed officer,
liable to any man's arrest. The stern and haughty Cassius,
who had so often tightened the cords of discipline until they
threatened to snap asunder, now found, experimentally, the
bitterness of these obvious truths. The trembling sentinel
now looked insolently in his face \ the cowering legionary,
with whom " to hear was to obey," now mused or even
bandied words upon his orders ; the great lieutenants of his
office, who stood next to his own person in authority, were
preparing for revolt, open or secret, as circumstances should
prescribe ; not the accuser only, but the very avenger, was
upon his steps ; Nemesis, that Nemesis who once so closely
adhered to the name and fortunes of the lawful Caesar, turn-
ing against every one of his assassins J the edge of his own
assassinating sword, was already at his heels ; and, in the
midst of a sudden prosperity and its accompanying shouts of
gratulation, he heard the sullen knells of approaching death.
Antioch, it was true, the great Roman capital of the Orient,
bore him, for certain motives of self-interest, peculiar good-
will. But there was no city of the world in which the
Roman Csesar did not reckon many liege-men and partisans.
And the very hands which dressed his altars and crowned
his Praetorian pavilion might not improbably in that same
hour put an edge upon the sabre which was to avenge the
injuries of the too indulgent and long-suffering Antoninus.
Meantime, to give a colour of patriotism to his treason,
Cassius alleged public motives. In a letter which he wrote
after assuming the purple, he says: " Wretched Empire,
" miserable state, which endures these hungry blood-suckers
" battening on her vitals ! — A worthy man, doubtless, is

1 " Turning against every one of his assassins " : — It was a general
belief at the time that each individual among the murderers of Caesar
had died by his own sword.

352 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

" Marcus ; who, in his eagerness to be reputed clement,
" suffers those to live whose conduct he himself abhors.
" Where is that L. Cassius whose name I vainly inherit ?
" Where is that Marcus — not Aurelius, mark you, but Cato
" Censorius ? Where the good old discipline of ancestral
" times, long since indeed disused, but now not so much as
" yearned for in our aspirations ? Marcus Antoninus is a
" scholar ; he enacts the philosopher ; and he tries conclu-
" sions upon the four elements, and upon the nature of the
" soul ; and he discourses learnedly upon the Honestum ;
11 and concerning the Summum Bonum he is unanswerable.
" Meanwhile, is he learned in the interests of the State ?
" Can he argue a point upon the public economy ? You see
" what a host of sabres is required, what a host of impeach -
" ments, sentences, executions, before the Commonwealth
" can reassume its ancient integrity ! l What ! shall I
" esteem as proconsuls, as governors, those who for that end
" only deem themselves invested with lieutenancies or great
" senatorial appointments, that they may gorge themselves
" with the provincial luxuries and wealth ? No doubt, you
" heard in what way our friend the philosopher gave the
" place of praetorian prefect to one who but three days
" before was a bankrupt- — insolvent, by G — ! and a beggar.
" But be you content : that same gentleman is now as rich as
" a prefect should be ; and has been so, I tell you, any time
" these three days. And how, I pray you, how ; how, my
" good sir ? How but out of the bowels of the provinces,
" and the marrow of their bones ? But no matter : let them
" be rich ; let them be blood-suckers ; so much, God willing !
" shall they regorge into the treasury of the Empire. Let
" but Heaven smile upon our party, and the Cassiani shall
" restore to the Eepublic its old impersonal supremacy."

But Heaven did not smile ; nor did man. Kome heard
with bitter indignation of this old traitor's ingratitude, and
his false mask of republican civism. Excepting Marcus
Aurelius himself, not one man but thirsted for revenge.
And that was soon obtained. He and all his supporters,
one after the other, rapidly fell (as Marcus had predicted)
into snares laid by the officers who continued true to their
1 In these words we hear the very spirit of Robespierre.

THE CLESARS 353

allegiance. Except the family and household of Cassius,
there remained in a short time none for the vengeance of
the Senate, or for the mercy of the Emperor. In them
centred the last arrears of hope and fear, of chastisement or
pardon, depending upon this memorable revolt. And about
the disposal of their persons arose the final question to which
the case gave birth. The letters yet remain in which the
several parties interested gave utterance to the passions which
possessed them. Faustina, the Empress, urged her husband
with feminine violence to adopt against his prisoners com-
prehensive acts of vengeance. "Noli parcere hominibus,"
says she, "qui tibi non pepercerunt ; et nee mini nee filiis
nostris parcerent l si vicissent." And elsewhere she irritates
his wrath against the Army as accomplices for the time, and
as a body of men " qui, nisi opprimuntur, opprimunt." We
may be sure of the result. After commending her zeal for
her own family, he says, " Ego vero et ejus liberis parcam,
et genero, et uxori ; et ad senatum scribam ne aut proscriptio
gravior sit aut poana crudelior" ; adding that, had his coun-
sels prevailed, not even Cassius himself should have perished.
As to his relatives, " Why," he asks, " should I speak of
pardon to them, who indeed have done no wrong, and are
blameless even in purpose ? " Accordingly, nis letter of
intercession to the Senate protests that, so far from asking
for further victims to the crime of Avidius Cassius, would to
God he could call back from the dead many of those who
had fallen ! With immense applause, and with turbulent
acclamations, the Senate granted all his requests " in con-
sideration of his philosophy, of his long-suffering, of his
learning and accomplishments, of his nobility, of his inno-
cence." And, until a monster arose who delighted in the
blood of the guiltless, it is recorded that the posterity of
Avidius Cassius lived in security, and were admitted to
honours and public distinctions by favour of him whose life
and empire that memorable traitor had sought to undermine
under the favour of his guileless master's too confiding
magnanimity.

1 "Parcerent": — She means pepercissent. "Don't," she says,
" show mercy to men that showed none to you, nor would have shown
any to me or my sons in case they had gained the victory."

VOL. VI 2 A

CHAPTER V

FROM COMMODU8 TO PHILIP THE ARAB1
(A.D. 180— A. D. 249)

THE Roman Empire and the Roman Emperors, it might
naturally be supposed by one who had not as yet traversed
that tremendous chapter in the history of man, would be
likely to present a separate and almost equal interest. The
Empire, in the first place, as the most magnificent monument
of human power which our planet has beheld, must for that
single reason, even though its records were otherwise of
little interest, fix upon itself the very keenest gaze from all
succeeding ages to the end of time. To trace the fortunes
and revolutions of that unrivalled monarchy over which the
Roman eagle brooded ; to follow the dilapidations of that
aerial arch which silently and steadily through seven cen-
turies ascended under the colossal architecture of the children
of Romulus ; to watch the collapse of the Cyclopean masonry,
and step by step to see paralysis stealing over the once per-
fect cohesion of the republican creations : cannot but insure a
severe, though melancholy delight. On its own separate
account, the decline of this throne-shattering power must
and will engage the foremost place amongst all historical
reviews. The " dislimning " and unmoulding of some
mighty pageantry in the heavens has its own appropriate
grandeurs, no less than the gathering of its cloudy pomps.
The going down of the sun is contemplated with no less awe
than his rising. Nor is anything portentous in its growth

1 In Blackwood for July 1834,

THE CAESARS 355

which is not also portentous in the steps and " moments " of
its decay. Hence, in the second place, we might presume a
commensurate interest in the characters and fortunes of the
successive Emperors. If the Empire challenged our first
survey, the next would seem due to the Caesars who guided
its course, — to the great ones who retarded, and to the bad
ones who precipitated, its ruin.

Such might be the natural expectation of an inexperienced
reader. But it is not so. The Csesars, throughout their
long line, are not interesting ; neither personally in them-
selves, nor derivatively from the tragic events to which their
history is attached. Their whole interest lies in their situa-
tion— in the unapproachable altitude of their thrones. But,
considered with a reference to their human qualities, scarcely
one in the whole series, except the first, can be viewed with
a human interest apart from the circumstances of his position.
" Come like shadows, so depart ! " The reason for this
defect of all personal variety of interest in these enormous
potentates must be sought in the constitution of their power
and the very necessities of their office. Even the greatest
among them, those who by way of distinction were called
the Great, as Constantine and Theodosius, were not great, for
they were not magnanimous ; nor could they be so under
their tenure of power, which made it a duty to be suspicious,
and, by fastening on all varieties of original temper one dire
necessity of bloodshed, extinguished under this monotonous
cloud of cruel jealousy and everlasting panic every charac-
teristic feature of genial human nature that would else have
emerged through so long a train of princes. There is a
remarkable story told of Agrippina, that, upon some occa-
sion, when a wizard announced to her, as truths which he
had read in the heavens, the two fatal necessities impending
over her son, — one that he should ascend to empire, the
other that he should murder herself, — she replied in these
stern and memorable words : — Occidat dum imperet ; let him
murder me, provided he rises to empire. Upon which a
continental writer comments thus : — " Never before or since
" have three such words issued from the lips of woman ;
" and in truth, one knows not which most to abominate or
" to admire — the aspiring princess or the loving mother.

356 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

" Meantime, in these few words lies naked to the day, in its
" whole hideous deformity, the very essence of Romanism
" and the Imperatorial Power, and one might here consider
a the mother of Nero as the impersonation of that monstrous
" condition."

This is true : Occidat dum imperet was the watchword and
very cognisance of the Roman Imperator. But almost
equally it was his watchword — Occidatur dum imperet. Doing
or suffering, the Caesars were almost 'equally involved in
bloodshed ; few indeed of the Caesars were not murderers,
and nearly all were themselves murdered.

The Empire, then, must be regarded as the primary
object of our interest \ and it is in this way only that any
secondary interest arises for the Emperors. Now, with re-
spect to the Empire, the first question which presents itself
is — Whence, that is from what causes and from what era,
are we to date its decline ? Gibbon, as we all know, dates
it from the reign of Commodus, the son of that merciful
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus whom we have just quitted, —
but certainly upon no sufficient or even plausible grounds.
Our own opinion we shall state boldly : the Empire itself,
from the very era of its establishment, was one long decline
of the Roman Power. A vast monarchy had been created
and consolidated by the all-conquering instincts of a Re-
public cradled and nursed in wars, and essentially warlike
by means of all its institutions 1 and by the habits of the

1 Amongst these institutions none appear to us so remarkable, or
fitted to accomplish so prodigious a circle of purposes belonging to the
highest state policy, as the Roman method of COLONISATION. Colo-
nies were, in effect, the great engine of Roman conquest ; and the
following are among a few of the great ends to which they were
applied : — First of all, how came it that the early armies of Rome
served, and served cheerfully, without pay ? Simply because all who
were victorious knew that they would receive their arrears in the
fullest and amplest form upon their final discharge, viz. in the shape
of a colonial estate — large enough to rear a family in comfort, and
seated in the midst of similar allotments distributed to their old com-
rades in arms. These lands were already, perhaps, in high cultiva-
tion, being often taken from conquered tribes ; but, if not, the new
occupants could rely for aid of every sort, for social intercourse, and
for all the offices of good neighbourhood, upon the surrounding pro-
prietors, who were sure to be persons in the same circumstances as
themselves, and draughted from the same legion. For be it remem-

THE OESARS 357

people. This monarchy had been of too slow a growth, too
gradual, and too much according to the regular stages of
nature herself in its development, to have any chance of
being other than well cemented. The cohesion of its parts
was intense ; seven centuries of growth demand one or two

bered that in the primitive ages of Home, concerning which it is that
we are now speaking, entire legions — privates and officers — were
transferred in one body to the new colony. " Antiquitus," says the
learned Goesius, "deducebantur integrae legiones, quibus parta
victoria. " Neither was there much waiting for this honorary gift. In
later ages, it is true, when such resources were less plentiful, and
when regular pay was given to the soldiery, it was the veteran only
who obtained this splendid provision ; but in the earlier times a single
fortunate campaign not seldom dismissed the young recruit to a life of
ease and honour. " Multis legionibus," says Hyginus, "contigit
bellum feliciter transigere, et ad laboriosam agricultures requiem
primo tyrocinii gradu pervenire. Nam cum signis et aquila et primis
ordinibus et tribunis deducebantur. " Tacitus also notices this organiz-
ation of the early colonies, and adds the reason of it and its happy
effect, when contrasting it with the vicious arrangements of the colo-
nizing system in his own days. " Olim," says he, " universae legiones
deducebantur cum tribunis et centurionibus, et sui cujusque ordinis
militibus, ut consensu et charitate rempublicam efficerent. " Secondly,
not only were the troops in this way paid at a time when the public
purse was unequal to the expenditure of war, but this pay, being con-
tingent on the successful issue of the war, added the strength of
self-interest to that of patriotism in stimulating the soldier to extra-
ordinary efforts. Thirdly, not only did the soldier in this way reap
his pay, but also he reaped a reward (and that besides a trophy and
perpetual monument of his public services) so munificent as to con-
stitute a permanent provision for a family ; and, accordingly, he was
now encouraged, nay enjoined, to marry. For here was a hereditary
landed estate equal to the liberal maintenance of a family. And thus
did a simple people, obeying its instinct of conquest, not only dis-
cover, in its earliest days, the subtle principle of Machiavel — Let war
support war ; but (which is far more than Machiavel's view) they made
each present war support many future wars, by making it support a
new offset from the population, bound to the mother city by indis-
soluble ties of privilege and civic duties ; and in many other ways
they made every war, by and through the colonizing system to which
it gave occasion, serviceable to future aggrandizement. War, managed
in this way, and with these results, became to Rome what commerce
or rural industry is to other countries, viz. the only hopeful and
general way for making a fortune. Fourthly, by means of colonies it
was that Rome delivered herself from her surplus population. Pros-
perous and well governed, the Roman citizens of each generation out-
numbered those of the generation preceding. But the colonies
provided outlets for these continual accessions of people, and absorbed

358 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

at least for palpable decay ; and it is only for harlequin
empires like that of Napoleon, run up with the rapidity of
pantomime, to fall asunder under the instant reaction of a
few false moves in politics, or a single disastrous campaign.
Hence it was, and from the prudence of Augustus acting
through a very long reign, sustained at no very distant
interval by the personal inspection and revisions of Hadrian,
that for some time the Eoman Power seemed to be stationary.

them faster than they could arise.1 And thus the great original sin
of modern states, that heel of Achilles in which they are all vulner-
able, and which (generally speaking) becomes more oppressive to the
public prosperity as that prosperity happens to be greater (for in poor
states and under despotic governments this evil does not exist), that
flagrant infirmity of our own country, for which no statesman has
devised any commensurate remedy, was to ancient Rome a perpetual
foundation and well-head of public strength and enlarged resources.
With us of modern times, when population greatly outruns the
demand for labour — whether it be under the stimulus of upright
government, and just laws justly administered, in combination with
the manufacturing system (as in England), or (as in Ireland) under the
stimulus of idle habits, cheap subsistence, and a low standard of com-
fort— we think it much if we can keep down insurrection by the
bayonet and the sabre. Lucro ponamus is our cry if we can effect
even thus much ; whereas Rome, in her simplest and pastoral days,
converted this menacing danger and standing opprobrium of modern
statesmanship to her own immense benefit. Not satisfied merely to
have neutralized it, she drew from it the vital resources of her martial
aggrandizement. For, Fifthly, these colonies were in two ways made
the corner-stones of her martial policy : 1st, They were looked to as
nurseries of her armies. During one generation the original colonists,
already trained to military habits, were themselves disposable for this
purpose on any great emergency ; these men transmitted heroic tradi-
tions to their posterity ; and, at all events, a more robust population
was always at hand in agricultural colonies than could be had in the
metropolis. Cato the elder, and all the early writers, notice the
quality of such levies as being far superior to those drawn from a
population of sedentary habits. 2dly, The Italian colonies, one and
all, performed the functions which in our day are assigned to garri-
soned towns and frontier fortresses. In the earliest times they dis-
charged a still more critical service, by sometimes entirely displacing a
hostile population, and more often by dividing it and breaking its
unity. In cases of desperate resistance to the Roman arms, marked

i And in this way we must explain the fact that, in the many successive
numerations of the people continually noticed by Livy and others, we do not
find that sort of multiplication which we might have looked for in a state so
ably governed. The truth is that the continual surpluses had been carried off
by the colonizing drain before they could become noticeable or troublesome.

THE CAESARS 359

What else could be expected ? The mere strength of the
impetus derived from the Republican institutions could not
but propagate itself, and cause even a motion in advance, for
some time after those institutions had themselves begun to
give way. And, besides, the military institutions survived
all others ; and the Army continued very much the same in
its discipline and composition long after Rome and all its
civic institutions had bent before an utter revolution. It

by frequent infraction of treaties, it was usual to remove the offending
population to a safer situation, separated from Rome by the Tiber ;
sometimes entirely to disperse and scatter it. But, where these
extremities were not called for by expediency or the Roman maxims of
justice, it was judged sufficient to interpolate, as it were, the hostile
people by colonizations from Rome, which were completely organized J
for mutual aid, having officers of all ranks dispersed amongst them,
and for overawing the growth of insurrectionary movements amongst
their neighbours. Acting on this system, the Roman colonies in some
measure resembled the English Pale as existing at one era in Ireland.
This mode of service, it is true, became obsolete in process of time,
concurrently with the dangers which it was shaped to meet ; for the
whole of Italy proper, together with that part of Italy called Cisalpine
Gaul, was at length reduced to unity and obedience by the almighty
Republic. But, in forwarding that great end and indispensable con-
dition towards all foreign warfare, no one military engine in the whole
armory of Rome availed so much as her Italian colonies. The other
use of these colonies, as frontier garrisons, or, at any rate, as inter-
posing between a foreign enemy and the gates of Rome, they con-
tinued to perform long after their earlier uses had passed away ; and
Cicero himself notices their value in this view. " Colonias," says he
(Orat. in Rullum), "sic idoneis in locis contra suspicionem periculi
collocarunt, ut esse non oppida Italise sed propugnacula Imperii vide-
rentur." Finally, the colonies were the best means of promoting
tillage, and the culture of vineyards. And, though this service, as
regarded the Italian colonies, was greatly defeated in succeeding times
by the ruinous largesses of corn (frumentationes) and other vices of
the Roman policy after the vast revolution effected by universal
luxury, it is not the less true that, left to themselves and their natural
tendency, the Roman colonies would have yielded this last benefit as
certainly as any other. Large volumes exist, illustrated by the learn-
ing of Rigaltius, Salmasius, and Goesius, upon the mere technical
arrangements of the Roman colonies ; and whole libraries might be
written on these same colonies, considered as engines of exquisite
state policy.

i That is indeed involved in the technical term of deductio ; for, unless the
ceremonies, religious and political, of inauguration and organization, were duly
complied with, the colony was not entitled to be considered as deducta, — that
is, solemnly and ceremonially transplanted from the metropolis.

360 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

was very possible even that Emperors should have arisen
with martial propensities, and talents capable of masking for
many years, by specious but transitory conquests, the causes
that were silently sapping the foundations of Eoman supre-
macy ; and thus, by accidents of personal character and taste,
an Empire might even have expanded itself in appearance
which, by all its permanent and real tendencies, was even
then shrinking within narrower limits, and travelling down-
wards to dissolution. In reality, one such Emperor there
was. Trajan, whether by martial inclinations, or (as some
suppose) by dissatisfaction with his own position at Rome,
when brought into more immediate connexion with the
Senate, was driven into needless war ; and he achieved
conquests in the direction of Dacia as well as Parthia. But
that these conquests were not substantial, — that they were
connected by no true cement of cohesion with the existing
Empire, — is evident from the rapidity with which the Roman
grasp was relaxed, and the provinces recoiled into the hands
of their old masters. In the next reign the Empire had
already rolled back within its former limits ; and in two
reigns further on, under Marcus Antoninus, though a prince
of elevated character and warlike in his policy, we find such
concessions of territory made to the Marcomanni and others
as indicate too plainly the shrinking energies of a waning
Empire. In reality, if we consider the polar opposition, in
point of interest and situation, between the great officers of
the Republic and the Augustus or Ceesar of the Empire, we
cannot fail to see the immense effect which that difference
must have had upon the permanent spirit of conquest. The
Caesar was either adopted or elected to a situation of infinite
luxury and enjoyment. He had no interests to secure by
fighting in person : and he had a powerful interest in pre-
venting others from fighting ; since in that way only he could
raise up competitors to himself, and dangerous seducers of
the Army. A consul, on the other hand, or great lieutenant
of the senate, had nothing to enjoy or to hope for when his
term of office should have expired, unless according to his
success in creating military fame and influence for himself.
Those Caesars who fought whilst the Empire was or seemed
to be stationary, as Trajan, did so from personal taste ;

THE CAESARS 361

those who fought in after centuries, when the decay became
apparent and dangers drew nearer, as Aurelian, did so from
the necessities of fear ; and under neither impulse were they
likely to make durable conquests. The spirit of conquest
having therefore departed at the very time when conquest
would have become more difficult even to the Republican
energies, both from remoteness of ground and from the
martial character of the chief nations which stood beyond
the frontier, it was a matter of necessity that with the
Republican institutions should expire the whole principle of
territorial aggrandizement, and that, if the Empire seemed
to be stationary for some time after its establishment by
Julius and its final settlement by Augustus, this was through
no strength of its own, or inherent in its own constitution,
but through the continued action of that strength which it
had inherited from the Republic. In a philosophical sense,
therefore, it may be affirmed that the Empire of the Csesars
was always in decline : ceasing to go forward, it could not
do other than retrograde ; and even the first appearances of
decline can with no propriety be referred to the reign of
Commodus. His vices exposed him to public contempt and
assassination ; but neither one nor the other had any effect
upon the strength of the Empire.

Here, therefore, is one just subject of complaint against
Gibbon, that he has dated the declension of the Roman
Power from a commencement arbitrarily assumed. Another,
and a heavier, is, that he has failed to notice the steps and
separate indications of decline as they arose — the moments
(to speak in the language of dynamics) through which the
decline travelled onwards to its consummation. It is also a
grievous offence, as regards the true purposes of History — and
one which, in a complete exposition of the Imperial History,
all readers would have a right to denounce — that Gibbon
brings forward only such facts as allow of a scenical treat-
ment, and seems everywhere, by the glancing style of his
allusions, to presuppose an acquaintance the most familiar
with that very history which he undertakes to deliver. Our
immediate purpose, however, is simply to characterize the
office of Emperor, and to notice such events and changes as
operated for evil, and for a final effect of decay, upon the

362 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Csesars or upon their Empire. As the best means of realizing
this purpose, we shall rapidly review the history of both,
premising that we confine ourselves to the true Osesars, and
the true Empire, — of the West.

The first overt act of weakness — the first expression of
conscious declension, as regarded the foreign enemies of
Rome — occurred in the reign of Hadrian ] for it is a very
different thing to forbear making conquests and to renounce
them when made. It is possible, however, that the cession
then made of Mesopotamia and Armenia, however sure to be
interpreted into the language of fear by the enemy, did not
imply any such principle in this Emperor. He was of a
civic and paternal spirit, and anxious for the substantial wel-
fare of the Empire rather than its ostentatious glory. But
such a distinction in practice depends for its prudence alto-
gether on the quality of your antagonist. With a wretched
Asiatic enemy to lose an atom of lustre is to lose the sub-
stance of victory. The internal administration of affairs had
very much gone into neglect since the times of Augustus ;
and Hadrian supposed that he could effect more public good
by an extensive progress through the Empire, and by a personal
correction of abuses, than by any military enterprise. It is,
besides, asserted that he received an indemnity in money for
the provinces beyond the Euphrates. But still it remains
true that in his reign the God Terminus made his first retro-
grade motion ; and this Emperor became naturally an object
of public obloquy at Rome, and his name fell under the
superstitious ban of a fatal tradition connected with the
foundation of the capitol. The two Antonines, Titus and
Marcus, who came next in succession, were truly good and
patriotic princes, — perhaps the only princes in the whole
series who combined the virtues of private and of public life.
In their reigns the frontier line was maintained in its integ-
rity, and at the expense of some severe fighting under
Marcus, who was a strenuous general at the same time that
he was a severe student. It is, however, true, as we observed
above, that, by allowing a settlement within the Roman
frontier to a barbarous people, Marcus Aurelius raised the
first ominous precedent in favour of those Gothic, Vandal,

THE C^SARS 363

and Frankish hives who were as yet hidden behind a cloud
of years. Homes had been obtained by Trans-Danubian
barbarians upon the Cis-Danubian territory of Kome : that
fact remained upon tradition : whilst the terms upon which
they had been obtained, how much or how little connected
with fear, necessarily became liable to doubt and to oblivion.

Here we pause to remark that the first twelve Caesars, to-
gether with Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines,
making seventeen Emperors, compose the first of four nearly
equal groups, who occupied the throne in succession until the
extinction of the Western Empire. And at this point, be it
observed — that is, at the termination of the first group — we
take leave of all genuine virtue. In no one of the succeed-
ing princes, if we except Alexander Severus, do we meet with
any goodness of heart, or even amiableness of manners. The
best, in a public sense, of the future Emperors were harsh and
repulsive in private character.

The second group, as we have classed them, terminating
with Philip the Arab, commences with Commodus. This
unworthy prince, although the son of the excellent Marcus
Antoninus, turned out a monster of debauchery. At the
moment of his father's death, he was present in person at the
head-quarters of the Army on the Danube, and of necessity par-
took in many of their hardships. This it was which furnished
his evil counsellors with their sole argument for urging his
departure to the capital. A council having been convened,
the faction of court sycophants pressed upon his attention the
inclemency of the climate, contrasting it with the genial skies
and sunny fields of Italy ; and the season, which happened
to be winter, gave strength to their representations. What !
would the Emperor be content for ever to hew out the frozen
water with an axe before he could assuage his thirst ? And,
again, the total want of fruit-trees — did that recommend their
present station as a fit one for the Imperial Court ? Com-
modus, ashamed to found his objections to the station upon
grounds so unsoldierly as these, affected to be moved by poli-
tical reasons : some great senatorial house might take advan-
tage of his distance from home, might seize the palace, fortify
it, and raise levies in Italy capable of sustaining its pretensions
to the throne. These arguments were combated by Pom-

364 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

peianus ; who, besides his personal weight as an officer, had
married the eldest sister of the young Emperor. Shame
prevailed for the present with Commodus, and he dismissed
the council with an assurance that he would think farther of
it. The sequel was easy to foresee. Orders were soon issued
for the departure of the court to Rome ; and the task of
managing the barbarians of Dacia was delegated to lieutenants.
The system upon which these officers executed their commis-
sion was a mixed one of terror and persuasion. Some they
defeated in battle ; and these were the majority ; for Herodian
says, TrAetarovs TWV /3a/)/3apc3v oTrAois e^etpwcravTo * : others
they bribed into peace by large sums of money. And no
doubt this last article in the policy of Commodus was that which
led Gibbon to assign to his reign the first rudiments of the Roman
declension. But it should be remembered that, virtually,
this policy was but the further prosecution of that which had
already been adopted by Marcus Aurelius. Concessions and
temperaments of any sort or degree showed that the Panno-
nian frontier was in too formidable a condition to be treated
with uncompromising rigour. To afjiepipvov wi/ou/xei/os, pur-
chasing an immunity from all further anxiety, Commodus
(as the historian expresses it) Trai/ra ISt'Sov TO, airovpeva —
conceded all demands whatever. His journey to Rome was
one continued festival : and the whole population of Rome
turned out to welcome him. At this period he was un-
doubtedly the darling of the people : his personal beauty was
splendid ; and he was connected by blood with some of the
greatest nobility. Over this nattering scene of hope and
triumph clouds soon gathered : with the mob, indeed, there is
reason to think that he continued a favourite to the last ; but
the respectable part of the citizens were speedily disgusted
with his self-degradation, and came to hate him even more
than ever or by any class he had been loved.

The Roman pride never shows itself more conspicuously
throughout all history than in the alienation of heart which
inevitably followed any great and continued outrages upon his
own majesty committed by their Emperor. Cruelties the most
atrocious, acts of vengeance the most bloody, fratricide, parricide,
all were viewed with more toleration than oblivion of his own
1 i.e. " Most of the barbarians they subdued by arms."

THE C.ESARS 365

inviolable sanctity. Hence we imagine the wrath with which
Rome would behold Commodus, under the eyes of four hun-
dred thousand spectators, making himself a party to the con-
tests of gladiators. In his earlier exhibitions as an archer, it
is possible that his matchless dexterity, and his unerring eye,
would avail to mitigate the censures : but, when the Roman
Imperator actually descended to the arena in the garb and
equipments of a servile prize-fighter, and personally engaged
in combat with such antagonists, having previously sub-
mitted to their training and discipline, the public indignation
rose to a height which spoke aloud the language of encourage-
ment to conspiracy and treason. These were not wanting :
three memorable plots against his life were defeated ; one of
them (that of Maternus, the robber) accompanied with roman-
tic circumstances,1 which we have narrated in an earlier
paper of this series. Another was set on foot by his eldest
sister, Lucilla ; nor did her close relationship protect her from
capital punishment. In that instance, the immediate agent
of her purposes, Quintianus, a young man of signal resolution
and daring, who had attempted to stab the Emperor at the
entrance of the amphitheatre, though baffled in his purpose,
uttered a word which rang continually in the ears of Com-
inodus, and poisoned his peace of mind for ever. His ven-
geance, perhaps, was thus more effectually accomplished than
if he had at once dismissed his victim from life. " The
Senate," Quintianus had said, " sends thee this through me " :
and henceforward the Senate was the object of unslumbering
suspicions to the Emperor. Yet the public suspicions settled
upon a different quarter ; and a very memorable scene must
have pointed his own in the same direction, supposing that
he had previously been blind to his danger.

On a day of great solemnity, when Rome had assembled
her myriads in the amphitheatre, just at the very moment
when the nobles, the magistrates, the priests, — all, in short,
that was venerable or consecrated in the State, with the

1 [Ante, pp. 238-240. ] On this occasion we may notice that the final
execution of the vengeance projected by Maternus was reserved for a
public festival exactly corresponding to the modern carnival ; and,
from an expression used by Herodian, it is plain that masquerading^
under gay and dramatic disguises, had been an ancient practice in
Kome.

366 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Imperator in their centre, — had taken their seats, and were
waiting for the opening of the shows, a stranger, in the robe
of a philosopher, bearing a staff in his hand (which also was
the professional ensign of a philosopher *), stepped forward,
and, by the waving of his hand, challenged the attention of
Commodus. Deep silence ensued : upon which, in a few
words, ominous to the ear as the handwriting on the wall to
the eye of Belshazzar, the stranger unfolded to Commodus
the instant peril which menaced both his life and his throne
from his great servant Perennius. What personal purpose
of benefit to himself this stranger might have connected with
his public warning, or by whom he might have been suborned,
was never discovered ; for he was instantly arrested by the
agents of the great officer whom he had denounced, dragged
away to punishment, and put to a cruel death. Commodus
dissembled his panic for the present : but soon after, having
received undeniable proofs (as is alleged) of the treason
imputed to Perennius, in the shape of a coin which had been
struck by his son, he caused the father to be assassinated ;
and, on the same day, by means of forged letters, before this
news could reach the son, who commanded the Illyrian
armies, he lured him also to destruction, under the belief
that he was obeying the summons of his father to a private
interview on the Italian frontier. So perished those enemies,
if enemies they really were. But to these tragedies succeeded
others far more comprehensive in their mischief, and in more
continuous succession than is recorded upon any other page
of Universal History. Rome was ravaged by a pestilence —
by a famine — by riots amounting to a civil war — by a dread-
ful massacre of the unarmed mob — by shocks of earthquake
— and, finally, by a fire which consumed the national bank,2
and the most sumptuous buildings of the city. To these
horrors, with a rapidity characteristic of the Roman depravity,
and possible only under the most extensive demoralization
of the public mind, succeeded festivals of gorgeous pomp, and

1 See Casaubon's notes upon Theophrastus.

2 Viz. the Temple of Peace, at that time the most magnificent
edifice in Rome. Temples, it is well known, were the places used in
ancient times as banks of deposit. For this function they were
admirably fitted by their inviolable sanctity.

THE C^SARS 367

amphitheatrical exhibitions upon a scale of grandeur absolutely
unparalleled by all former attempts. Then were beheld, and
familiarized to the eyes of the Roman mob, to children, and
to women, animals as yet known to us, says Herodian, only in
pictures. Whatever strange or rare animal could be drawn
from the depths of India, from Siam and Pegu, or from the
unvisited nooks of Ethiopia, were now brought together as
subjects for the archery of the universal lord.1 Invitations
(and the invitations of kings are commands) had been scattered
on this occasion profusely : not, as heretofore, to individuals
or to families, but, as was in proportion to the occasion where
an Emperor was the chief performer, to nations. People
were summoned by circles of longitude and latitude to come
and see things that eye had not seen, nor ear heard of — the
specious miracles of nature brought together from arctic and
from tropic deserts, putting forth their strength, their speed,
or their beauty, and glorifying by their deaths the matchless
hand of the Koman King. There was beheld the lion from
Bilidulgerid, and the leopard from Hindustan — the reindeer
from polar latitudes — the antelope from the Zaara — and the
leigh, or gigantic stag, from Britain. Thither came the
buffalo and the bison, the white bull of Northumberland and
Galloway, the unicorn from the regions of Nepaul or Thibet,
the rhinoceros and the river-horse from Senegal, with the
elephant of Ceylon or Siam. The ostrich and the camelo-
pard, the wild ass and the zebra, the chamois from Alpine

1 What a prodigious opportunity for the zoologist ! And, consider-
ing that these shows prevailed for 500 years, during all which period
the amphitheatre gave bounties, as it were, to the hunter and the
fowler of every climate, and that, by means of a stimulus so constantly
applied, scarcely any animal, the shyest, rarest, fiercest, escaped the
demands of the arena, — no one fact so much illustrates the inertia of
the public mind in those days, and the indifference to all scientific
pursuits, as that no annotator should have risen to Pliny the Elder,2
no rival to the immortal tutor of Alexander.

2 Whose great work is the earliest prophetic sketch, descending .from
classic times, of an encyclopaedia. Yet had not Greece, three centuries and
more before Pliny, shown us sketches the most magnificent of such an en
cyclopaedia in the various essays of Aristotle ? Certainly. But the result is
unsatisfactory, and doubly so. Known works of Aristotle are wanting ; and,
inversely, others which offer themselves as his are either spurious beyond all
question, or, upon internal evidence, are doubtful.

368 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

of ice, the wild goat from Crete, and the ibex from the
eternal sunshine of Angora, — all brought their tributes of
beauty or deformity to these vast aceldamas of Rome : their
savage voices ascended in tumultuous uproar to the chambers
of the capitol : a million of spectators sat round them :
standing in the centre was a single statuesque figure — the
Imperial Sagittary, beautiful as an Antinous and majestic as
a Jupiter, whose hand was so steady and whose eye so true
that he was never known to miss, and who, in this accomplish-
ment at least, was so absolute in his excellence that, as we
are assured by a writer not disposed to flatter him, the very
foremost of the Parthian archers and of the Mauritanian
lancers (TlapOvatuv ot TO^LKYJV a,Kfnf3ovvT€S, KOL MavpoTxriwv
01 a/covTifetv a/no-rot) were not able to contend with him.
Juvenal, in a well-known passage upon the disproportionate
endings of illustrious careers, drawing one of his examples
from Marius, says that he ought, for his own glory, and to
make his end correspondent to his life, to have died at the
moment when he descended from his triumphal chariot at
the portals of the Capitol. And of Commodus, in like
manner, it may be affirmed that, had he died in the exercise
of his peculiar art, — with a hecatomb of victims rendering
homage to his miraculous skill by the regularity of the files
which they presented as they lay stretched out dying or
dead upon the arena, — he would have left a splendid and a
characteristic impression of himself upon that nation of
spectators who had witnessed his performance. He was the
noblest artist in his own profession that the world had ever
seen — in archery he was the Robin Hood of Rome ; he was
in the very meridian of his youth ; and he was the most
beautiful man of his own times (rwv KaO' tavrov ai/0/)(07ra>i>
KaAAet evTr/oeTrecrraTos). He would therefore have looked
the part admirably of the dying gladiator ; and he would
have died in his natural vocation. But it was ordered other-
wise ; his death was destined to private malice, and to an
ignoble hand. And much obscurity still rests upon the
motives of the assassins, though its circumstances are re-
ported possibly with truth, and certainly with unusual
minuteness of detail. One thing is evident, that the public
and patriotic motives assigned by the perpetrators as the

THE (LESARS 369

remote grounds of their conspiracy cannot have been the
true ones.

The grave historian may sum up his character of Coin-
modus by saying that, however richly endowed with natural
gifts, he abused them all to bad purposes ; that he derogated
from his noble ancestors, and disavowed the obligations of
his illustrious name ; and, as the climax of his offences, that
he dishonoured the purple cutrx/oot? eTriT^Set'^ao-iv — by
the baseness of his pursuits. All that is true, and more than
that. But these considerations were not of a nature to
affect his parasitical attendants very nearly or keenly. Yet
the story runs that Marcia, his privileged mistress, deeply
affected by the anticipation of some further outrages upon
his high dignity which he was then meditating, had carried
the importunity of her deprecations too far ; that the irritated
Emperor had consequently inscribed her name, in company
with others (whom he had reason to tax with the same
offence, or whom he suspected of similar sentiments), in his
little black book, or pocket souvenir of death ; that this
book, being left under the cushion of a sofa, had been con-
veyed into the hands of Marcia by a little pet boy, called
Philo-Commodus, who was caressed equally by the Emperor
and by Marcia ; that she had immediately called to her aid,
and to the participation of her plot, those who participated
in her danger ; and that the proximity of their own intended
fate had prescribed to them an immediate attempt, the
circumstances of which were these : — At mid-day the Emperor
was accustomed to bathe, and at the same time to take
refreshments. On this occasion, Marcia, agreeably to her
custom, presented him with a goblet of wine, medicated with
poison. Of this wine, having just returned from the fatigues
of the chase, Commodus drank freely, and almost immediately
fell into heavy slumbers ; from which, however, he was soon
aroused by deadly sickness. That was a case which the
conspirators had not taken into their calculations ; and they
now began to fear that the violent vomiting which succeeded
might throw off the poison. There was no time to be lost ;
and the barbarous Marcia, who had so often slept in the
arms of the young Emperor, was the person to propose that
he should now be strangled. A young gladiator named

VOL. vi 2 B

370 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Narcissus was therefore introduced into the room ; what
passed is not known circumstantially ; but, as the Emperor
was young and athletic, though off his guard at the moment,
and under the disadvantage of sickness, and as he had him-
self been regularly trained in the gladiatorial discipline, there
can be little doubt that the vile assassin would meet with a
desperate resistance. And thus, after all, there is good
reason to think that the Emperor resigned his life in the
character of a dying gladiator.1

So perished the eldest and sole surviving son of the great
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ; and the throne passed into
the momentary possession of two old men, who reigned in
succession each for a few weeks. The first of these was
Pertinax, an upright man, a good officer, and an unseasonable
reformer : unseasonable for those times, and, therefore, more
so for himself. Laetus, the ringleader in the assassination of
Commodus, had been at that time the praetorian prefect, an
office which a German writer considers as best represented
to modern ideas by the Turkish post of grand vizier. Need-
ing a protector at this moment, he naturally fixed his eyes
upon Pertinax, as then holding the powerful command of
city prefect (or governor of Rome). Him therefore he
recommended to the soldiery, — that is, to the praetorian
cohorts. The soldiery had no particular objection to the old
general, if he and they could agree upon terms, — his age being
doubtless appreciated as a first-rate recommendation in a case
where it insured a speedy renewal of the lucrative bargain :
the bargain was good in proportion as it promised a speedy
repetition.

The only demur arose with Pertinax himself. He had

1 It is worthy of notice that, under any suspension of the impera-
torial power or office, the Senate was the body to whom the Roman
mind even yet continued to turn. In this case, both to colour their
crime with a show of public motives, and to interest this great body
in their own favour by associating them in their own dangers, the
conspirators pretended to have found a long roll of senatorial names
included in the same page of condemnation with their own. Shallow
fabrication ! The story of the little black memorandum book is
childish. Courtezans are not anxious for the maintenance of public
dignity ; and princes who are meditating vindictive murders do not
need any written mementoes of their angry purposes.

THE C^SARS 371

been leader of the troops in Britain, subsequently superin-
tendent of the police in Eome, thirdly proconsul in Africa,
and finally consul and governor of Rome. In these great
official stations he stood so near to the throne as to observe
the dangers with which it was surrounded ; and it is asserted
that he declined the offered dignity. But it is added that,
finding the choice allowed him lay between immediate death
and acceptance,1 he closed with the proposals of the praetorian
cohorts, at the rate of about ninety-six pounds per man ;
which largess he paid by bringing to sale the rich furniture
of the last Emperor. The danger which usually threatened
a Roman Csesar in such cases was lest he should not be able
to fulfil his contract. But in the case of Pertinax the danger
began from the moment when he had fulfilled it. As a
debtor he was safe ; but, when the bill against him had been
receipted, he became ripe for death. Conceiving himself to
be now released from his dependency, on the reasonable
assumption that his official authority was at length settled
upon a sure foundation when the last arrears of the purchase
money had been paid down, he commenced his reforms, civil
as well as military, with a zeal which alarmed all those who
had an interest in maintaining old abuses. To two great
factions he thus made himself especially obnoxious, — to the
praetorian cohorts, and to the courtiers under the last reign.
The connecting link between these two parties was Lsetus,
who belonged personally to the last, but still retained his
influence with the first. Possibly his fears were alarmed ;
but, at all events, his cupidity was dissatisfied. He conceived
himself to have been ill rewarded ; and, immediately resorting
to the same weapons which he had used against Commodus,
he stimulated the praetorian guards to murder the Emperor.
Three hundred of them pressed into the palace : Pertinax
attempted to harangue them, and to vindicate himself ; but,
not being able to obtain a hearing, he folded his robe about
his head, called upon Jove the Avenger, and was immediately
despatched.

1 Historians have failed to remark the contradiction between this
statement and the allegation that Lsetus selected Pertinax for the
throne on a consideration of his ability to protect the assassins of
Commodus.

372 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

The throne was again empty after a reign of about eighty
days ; and now came the memorable scandal of putting up
the Empire to auction. There were two bidders, Sulpicianus
and Didius Julianus. The first, however, at that time
governor of Kome, lay under a weight of suspicion, being
the father-in-law of Pertinax, and likely enough to exact
vengeance for his murder. He was besides outbid by Julianus.
Sulpician offered about one hundred and sixty pounds a man
to the guards ; his rival offered two hundred, and assured
them besides of immediate payment ; " for," said he, " I have
the money at home, without needing to raise it from the
possessions of the crown." Upon this the empire was knocked
down to Didius as the highest bidder. So shocking, how-
ever, was this transaction to the Koman pride that the guards
durst not leave their own creation without military protection.
The resentment of an unarmed mob, however, soon ceased to
be of foremost importance ; for this resentment extended
rapidly to all the frontiers of the Empire, — where the armies
felt that the praetorian cohorts had no exclusive title to give
away the throne, and their leaders felt that, in a contest of
this nature, their own claims were incomparably superior to
those of the present occupant. Three great candidates there-
fore started forward : Septimius Severus, who commanded
the armies in Illyria ; Pescennius Niger in Syria ; and
Albinus in Britain. Severus, as the nearest to Kome,
marched and possessed himself of that city. Vengeance
followed upon all the accomplices in the late murder.
Julianus, unable to complete his bargain, had already been
put to death, as a deprecatory offering to the approaching
army. Severus himself inflicted death upon Lastus, and
dismissed the prastorian cohorts. Thence marching against
his Syrian rival, Niger, who had formerly been his friend,
and who was not wanting in military skill, he over-
threw him in three great battles. Niger fled to Antioch,
the seat of his late government, and was there decapitated.
Meantime Albinus, the British commander -in -chief, had
already been won over by the title of Caesar or adopted heir
to the new Augustus. But the hollowness of this bribe soon
became apparent ; and the two competitors met to decide their
pretensions at Lyons. In the great battle which followed,

THE CAESARS 373

Severus fell from his horse, and was at first supposed to be
dead. But, recovering, he defeated his rival, who immediately
committed suicide. Severus displayed his ferocious temper
sufficiently by sending the head of Albinus to Rome. Other
expressions of his natural character soon followed : he sus-
pected strongly that Albinus had been favoured by the
Senate ; forty of that body, with their wives and children,
were immediately sacrificed to his wrath (is this credible ?) ;
but he never forgave the rest, nor endured to live upon terms
of amity amongst them. Quitting Rome in disgust, he
employed himself first in making war upon the Parthians,
who had naturally, from situation, befriended his Syrian rival.
Their capital cities he overthrew, and afterwards, by way of
employing his armies, made war in Britain. At the city of
York he died ; and to his two sons, Geta and Caracalla, he
bequeathed, as his dying advice, a maxim of policy which
sufficiently indicates the situation of the Empire at that
period. It was this — " to enrich the soldiery at any price,
and to regard the rest of their subjects as so many ciphers."
But, as a critical historian remarks, this was a short-sighted
and self-destroying policy ; since in no way is the subsistence
of the soldier made more insecure than by diminishing the
general security of rights and property to those who are not
soldiers, from whom, after all, the funds must be sought
upon which the soldier himself must draw for pay and for
supplies.

The two sons of Severus, whose bitter enmity is so
memorably put on record by their actions, travelled simul-
taneously from York to Rome, but so mistrustful of each
other that at every stage the rancorous brothers took up their
quarters at different houses. Geta has obtained the sympathy
of historians, because he happened to be the victim ; but
there is reason to think that each of the princes was laying
murderous snares for the other. The weak credulity, rather
than the conscious innocence, of Geta led to the catastrophe.
He presented himself at a preconcerted meeting with his
brother in the presence of their common mother, and was
murdered by Caracalla in his mother's arms. He was, how-
ever, avenged : the horrors of that tragedy, and remorse for
the twenty thousand murders which had followed, never

374 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

forsook the guilty Caracalla. Quitting Kome, but pursued
into every region by the bloody image of his brother, the
Emperor henceforward led a wandering life at the head of
his legions ; but never was there a better illustration of the
poet's maxim that

" Remorse is as the mind in which it grows " :

gloomy, in short, and fretful in a nature of ferocious instincts,
but softening into gentle penitential issues only under gracious
affections of love and pity and self-renunciation. Certainly
Caracalla's remorse put on no shape of repentance. On the
contrary, he carried anger and oppression wherever he
moved, and protected himself from plots only by living in
the very centre of a nomadic camp. Six years had passed
away in this manner, when a mere accident led to his assas-
sination. For the sake of security, the office of prsBtorian
prefect had been divided between two commissioners, — one
for military affairs, the other for civil. The latter of these
two officers was Opilius Macrinus. This man has, by some
historians, been supposed to have harboured no bad intentions ;
but, unfortunately, an astrologer had foretold that he was
destined to the throne. The prophet was laid in irons at
Eome, and letters were despatched to Caracalla, apprising
him of the case. These letters, as yet unopened, were trans-
ferred by the Emperor, then occupied in witnessing a race,
to Macrinus, who thus became acquainted with the whole
grounds of suspicion against himself, — grounds which to
the jealousy of the Emperor he well knew would appear
substantial proofs. Upon this he resolved to anticipate the
Emperor in the work of murder. The head- quarters were
then at Edessa ; and, upon his instigation, a disappointed
centurion, named Martialis, animated also by revenge for
the death of his brother, undertook to assassinate Caracalla.
An opportunity soon offered, on a visit which the prince
made to the celebrated temple of the moon at Carrhas. The
attempt was successful : the Emperor perished ; but Martialis
paid the penalty of his crime in the same hour, being shot by
a Scythian archer of the body-guard.

Macrinus, after three days' interregnum, being elected
Emperor, began his reign by purchasing a peace from the

THE CLESARS . 375

Partisans. What the Empire chiefly needed at this moment
is evident from the next step taken by the new Emperor.
He laboured to restore the ancient discipline of the armies
in all its rigour. He was aware of the risk he ran in this
attempt ; and that he was so is the best evidence of the
strong necessity which existed for reform. Perhaps, however,
he might have surmounted his difficulties and dangers had he
met with no competitor round whose person the military
malcontents could rally. But such a competitor soon arose ;
and, to the astonishment of all the world, in the person of a
Syrian. The Emperor Severus, on losing his first wife, had
resolved to strengthen the pretensions of his family by a
second marriage with some lady having a regal " genesis,"-
that is, whose horoscope promised a regal destiny. Julia
Domna, a native of Syria, offered him this dowry, and she
became the mother of Geta. A sister of this Julia, called
Mo3sa, had, through different daughters, two grandsons —
Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus. The mutineers of the
Army rallied round the first of these ; a battle was fought ;
and Macrinus, with his son Diadumenianus, whom he had
adopted to the succession, was captured and put to death.
Heliogabalus succeeded, and reigned in the monstrous manner
which has rendered his name infamous in History. In what
way, however, he lost the affections of the Army, has never
been explained.1 His mother, Socemias, the eldest daughter
of Massa, had represented herself as the concubine of Caracalla ;
and Heliogabalus, being thus accredited as the son of that
Emperor, whose memory was dear to the soldiery, had
enjoyed the full benefit of that descent ; nor can it be readily
explained how he came to lose it.

Here, in fact, we meet with an eminent instance of that
dilemma which is so constantly recurring in the history of
the Caesars. If a prince is by temperament disposed to
severity of manners, and naturally seeks to impress his own
spirit upon the composition and discipline of the Army, we
are sure to find that he was cut off in his attempts by private
assassination or by public rebellion. On the other I/and, if

1 Elsewhere we have explained that Heliogabalus was simply a
foolish boy, perhaps a lunatic, and left too early without natural
guardians.

376 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

he wallows in sensuality, and is careless about all discipline,
civil or military, we then find as certainly that he loses the
esteem and affections of the Army to some rival of severer
habits. That very defect of sternness, viz. defect of a quality
which would assuredly have entailed a murderous fate, is
pleaded as a reciprocating or alternate ground of violent
death by those brawling scoundrels, who know not even their
own minds for six days in succession. And in the midst of
such oscillations, and with examples of such contradictory
interpretation, we cannot wonder that the Koman princes
did not oftener take warning by the misfortunes of their
predecessors. In the present instance, Alexander, the cousin
of Heliogabalus, without intrigues of his own, and simply
(as it appears) by the purity and sobriety of his conduct,
had alienated the affections of the Army from the reigning
prince. Either jealousy or prudence had led Heliogabalus
to make an attempt upon his rival's life ; and this attempt
had nearly cost him his own through the mutiny which it
caused. In a second uproar, produced by some fresh intrigues
of the Emperor against his cousin, the soldiers became un-
manageable. They were maddened by reports, true or false ;
and they refused to pause until they had massacred Helioga-
balus, together with his mother, and had raised his cousin
Alexander to the throne.

The reforms of this prince, who reigned under the name
of Alexander Severus, were extensive and searching, — not
only in his court, which he purged of all notorious abuses,
but throughout the whole machinery and framework of the
army. He cashiered, upon one occasion, an entire legion :
and the legion of Rome, it must be remembered, though
fluctuating (as might be expected) through a course of one
thousand years, never amounted to less than five modern
battalions of the last 150 years, i.e. five times 600 men.
Three thousand men you may count on at the least. But
at some periods the legion numbered as much as five, or even
six, thousand men, and, in fact, with its complementary
wings of auxiliar cavalry, was virtually what in France (and
since the Crimean War at home) is called a Division. He
restored, as far as he was able, the ancient discipline ; and,
above all, he liberated the provinces from military spoliatioa

THE CAESARS 377

" Let the soldier," said lie, " be contented with his pay ; and,
" whatever more he wants, let him obtain it by victory from
" the enemy, not by pillage from his fellow-subject." But,
whatever might be the value or extent of his reforms in the
marching regiments, Alexander could not succeed in bending
the praetorian guards to his yoke. Under the guardianship
of his mother Mammaea, the conduct of state affairs had been
submitted to a council of sixteen persons ; at the head of
which stood the celebrated lawyer Ulpian. To this minister
the praetorians imputed the reforms, and perhaps the whole
principle and inspiration which breathed throughout the
actual reforms ; for they pursued him with a vengeance
which is else hardly to be explained. Many days was Ulpian
protected by the citizens of Rome, until the whole city was
threatened with conflagration ; he then fled to the palace of
the young Emperor, who in vain attempted to save him from
his pursuers under the shelter of the imperial purple. Ulpian
was murdered before his eyes ; nor was it found possible to
punish the ringleader in this foul conspiracy until he had
been removed by something like treachery to a remote govern-
ment. So dreadful is the empire of triumphant wrong : out-
rage breeds outrage ; treachery necessitates treachery ; and
crimes, or criminals, that tower up to licentious heights,
disowning all responsibility, are reached by secret acts of
vengeance that destroy all sense of honour. Even extra-legal
powers, such as the Roman Dictatorship, or our own Sus-
pension of the Habeas Corpus, or Proclamation of Martial
Law (where instant execution follows the most hurried of
trials), are viewed with grief and jealousy by those even that
resort to such fearful instruments of public wrath. But, in
cases like those so often arising in imperial Rome, where an
insolent soldiery intercepted all action of law, regular or
irregular, and in a manner forced the rulers into secret or
circuitous acts of retribution that too much wore an air
vindictive or even perfidious, the tendency lay not towards
ultra-legal, but absolutely towards anti-social, results ; not
towards extremities of rigour wounding to all human sensi-
bilities, but towards mere anarchy that uprooted the basis of
all social security.

Meantime, a great revolution and change of dynasty had

378 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

been effected in Parthia. The line of the Arsaciclse was ter-
minated ; the Parthian Empire was at an end ; and the
sceptre of Persia was restored under the new race of the
Sassanides. Artaxerxes, the first prince of this resurgent
race, sent an embassy of four hundred select knights, enjoin-
ing the Roman Emperor to content himself with Europe, and
to leave Asia to the Persians. In the event of a refusal, the
ambassadors were instructed to offer a defiance to the Roman
Prince. Upon such an insult, Alexander could not do less,
with either safety or dignity, than prepare for war. It is
probable, indeed, that by this expedition, which drew off the
minds of the soldiery from brooding upon the reforms which
offended them, the life of Alexander was prolonged. But
the expedition itself was mismanaged, or, from some cause,
was unfortunate. This result, however, does not seem charge-
able upon Alexander. All the preparations were admirable
on the march, and up to the enemy's frontier. The invasion
it was which, in a strategic sense, seems to have been ill
combined. Three armies were to have entered Persia
simultaneously. One of these, which was destined to act on
a flank of the general line, entangled itself in the marshy
grounds near Babylon, and was cut off by the archery of an
enemy whom it could not reach. The other wing, acting
upon ground impracticable for the manoeuvres of the Persian
cavalry, and supported by Chosroes the king of Armenia,
gave great trouble to Artaxerxes, and, with adequate support
from the other armies, would doubtless have been victorious.
But the central army, under the conduct of Alexander in
person, discouraged by the destruction of one entire wing,
remained stationary in Mesopotamia throughout the summer,
and, at the close of the campaign, was withdrawn to Antioch,
re infectd. It has been observed that great mystery hangs
over the operations and issue of this short war. We, how-
ever, would beg to ask what Roman campaign, in any quarter
beyond the Euphrates, was other than mysterious in its
means or ends, its manoeuvres or its results, from the days
of Crassus and of Antony to those of Julian or Valerian ?
Thus much, however, is evident, — that nothing but the
previous exhaustion of the Persian king saved the Roman
armies from signal discomfiture ; and even thus there is no

THE CLESARS 379

ground for claiming a victory (as most historians do) to the
Eoman arms.

Any termination of the Persian war, however, advan-
tageous or not, was likely to be personally injurious to
Alexander, by allowing leisure to the soldiery for recurring
to their grievances. Sensible, no doubt, of this, Alexander
was gratified by the occasion which then arose for repressing
the hostile movements of the Germans. He led his army off
upon this expedition ; but their temper was gloomy and
threatening • and at length, after reaching the seat of war at
Mentz, an open mutiny broke out under the guidance of
Maximin, which terminated in the murder of the Emperor
and his mother. By Herodian the discontents of the army
are referred to the ill management of the Persian campaign,
and the unpromising commencement of the new war in
Germany. But it seems probable that a dissolute and wicked
army, like that of Alexander, had not murmured under the
too little, but the too much, of military service. Not the
buying a truce with gold was so likely to have offended
them as the having led them at all upon an enterprise of
danger and hardship.

To the high-principled Alexander, the first of the Caesars
that expressed a nascent disposition to favour Christianity (a
disposition, by the way, which may secretly have precipitated
his destruction), succeeded the brutal Maximin, originally a
big-boned peasant, whose feats of strength, when he first
courted the notice of the Emperor Severus, have been
described by Gibbon. He was at that period a Thracian
rustic ; since then he had risen gradually to high offices ;
but, according to historians, he retained his Thracian brutality
to the last. That may have been true ; but one remark must
be made upon this occasion, — Maximin was especially opposed
to the Senate, and, wherever that was the case, no justice was
done to an Emperor. Why it was that Maximin would not
ask for the confirmation of his election from the Senate has
never been explained ; it is said that he anticipated a rejec-
tion. But, on the other hand, it seems probable that the
Senate supposed its sanction to be despised. Nothing,
apparently, but this reciprocal reserve in making approaches
to each other was the cause of all the bloodshed which

380 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

followed. The two Gordians, who commanded in Africa,
were set up by the Senate against the new Emperor ; and
the consternation of that body must have been great when
these champions were immediately overthrown and killed.
They did not, however, despair : substituting the two
governors of Rome, Pupienus and Balbinus, and associating
to them the younger Gordian, they resolved to make a
stand ; for the severities of Maximin had by this time
manifested that it was a contest of extermination — a duel
of life and death. Meantime Maximin had broken up from
Sirmium, the capital of Pannonia, and had advanced to
Aquileia, — that famous fortress on the Adriatic which in
every invasion of Italy was the first object of attack. The
Senate had set a price upon his head ; but there was every
probability that he would have triumphed had he not dis-
gusted his army by immoderate severities. It was, however,
but reasonable that those who would not support the strict
though equitable discipline of the mild Alexander should
suffer under the barbarous and capricious rigour of Maximin.
That rigour was his ruin. Sunk and degraded as the Senate
was, and now but the shadow of a mighty name, it was
found on this occasion to have long arms and dreadful digits
for grappling with monsters even now in its closing stages of
decay. Whatever might be the real weakness of this body,
the rude soldiers yet felt a blind traditionary veneration for
its sanction, when prompting them as patriots to an act
which their own multiplied provocations had but too much
recommended to their passions. The gigantic ploughman,
whom they were invited by their august Senate to kill, was
now become hateful to themselves from many past severities,
and no less dreadful than hateful in regard to the many
similar favours in reversion which Big-Bones promised to
pay at sight. Up to this time Thrace had been content to
export gladiators for the use of Rome ; but now she was
beginning to export Emperors. Could there be a happier
windfall of luck than that him whom beyond all men known
it would be a luxury to kill suddenly by the Senate's order
it had become a duty to kill ? It was patriotism, it was
virtue, by Senates Gonsultum or Act of Parliament, to kill
this man. For the first time in their lives the soldiers found

THE CAESARS 381

themselves on the highroad to be virtuous. They all agreed
to be intensely virtuous, and for that purpose marched off in
a body to the imperial tent. A select party, sword in hand,
deputed themselves to wait upon the huge hulk within :
their words were not many : but in two minutes they had
settled the long arrear between the parties. A deputation
entered the tent of Maximin, and despatched the big old
ruffian with the same unpitying haste which he had shown
under similar circumstances to the gentle-minded Alexander.
Aquileia opened her gates immediately, and thus made it
evident that the war had been personal to Maximin.

A scene followed within a short time which is in the
highest degree interesting. The Senate, in creating two
Emperors at once (for the boy Gordian was probably asso-
ciated to them only by way of masking their experiment),
had made it evident that their purpose was to restore the
old defunct Eepublic and its two Consuls. This was their
meaning ; and the experiment had now been twice repeated.
The Army saw through it : as to the double number of
Emperors, that was of little consequence, farther than as it
expressed their intention, viz. by bringing back the consular
government to restore the power of the Senate, and to
abrogate that of the Army. The praetorian troops, who
were the most deeply interested in preventing any such
revolution, watched their opportunity, and attacked the two
Emperors in the palace. The deadly feud which had already
arisen between these rival Caesars led each to suppose himself
under assault from the other. The mistake was not of long
duration. Carried into the streets of Koine, they were both
put to death, and treated with monstrous indignities. The
young Gordian was adopted by the soldiery. It seems odd
that even thus far the guards should sanction the choice of
the Senate, having the purposes which they had ; but perhaps
Gordian had recommended himself to their favour in a degree
which might outweigh what they considered the original vice
of his appointment ; and his youth promised them at least an
immediate impunity. This prince, however, like so many of
his predecessors, soon came to an unhappy end. Under the
guardianship of the upright Misitheus, for a time he prospered ;
and preparations were made upon a grand scale for the ener-

382 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

getic administration of a Persian War. But Misitheus died,
perhaps by poison, in the course of the campaign ; and to
him succeeded, as praetorian prefect, an Arabian officer called
Philip. The innocent boy, left without friends, was soon
removed by murder ; and a monument was afterwards
erected to his memory at the junction of the Aboras and
the Euphrates. Great obscurity, however, clouds this part
of History ; nor is it so much as known in what way the
Persian War was conducted or terminated.

Philip, having made himself Emperor, celebrated, upon
his arrival in Rome, the secular games, in the year 247 of
the Christian era, — that being the completion of a thousand
years1 from the foundation of Rome. But Nemesis was
already on his steps. An insurrection had broken out
amongst the legions stationed in Moesia ; and they had
raised to the purple some officer of low rank. Philip, having
occasion to notice this affair in the Senate, received for
answer from Decius that probably the pseudo - imperator
would prove a mere evanescent phantom. This conjecture
was confirmed • and Philip in consequence conceived a high
opinion of Decius, whom (as the insurrection still continued)
he judged to be the fittest man for suppressing it. Decius
accordingly went, armed with the proper authority. But,
on his arrival, he found himself compelled by the insurgent
army to choose between empire and death. Thus constrained,
he yielded to the wishes of the troops ; and then, hastening
with a veteran army into Italy, he fought the battle of
Verona, where Philip was defeated and killed, whilst the
son of Philip — need it be said ? — was murdered at Rome by
the praetorian guards.

1 " The completion of a thousand years ": — i.e. of a thousand years
since the foundation of Rome, and not (let the reader observe) since
the birth of Romulus. Subtract from 1000 (as the total lapse of years
since the natal day of Rome) the number 247, as representing that
part of the 1000 which had accumulated since the era of Christ at the
epoch of the Secular Games, and there will remain 753 for the sum of
the years between Rome's nativity and the year of our Lord. But, as
Romulus must have reached manhood when he founded the robber
city, suppose him 23 years old at that era, and his birth will fall in
the year 776 before Christ. And this is the year generally assigned.
But it must be remembered that there are dissentient schemes of
chronology.

THE OESARS 383

With Philip ends, according to our distribution, the second
series of the Caesars, comprehending Commodus, Pertinax,
Didius Julianus, Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Geta,
Macrinus, Heliogabalus, Alexander Severus, Maximin, the two
Gordians, Pupienus and Balbinus, the third Gordian, and
Philip the Arab.

In looking back at this series of Caesars, we are horror-
struck at the blood-stained picture. Well might a foreign
writer, in reviewing the same succession, declare that it is
like passing into a new world when the transition is made
from this chapter of the human history to that of Modern
Europe. From Commodus to Decius are sixteen names,
which, spreading through a space of fifty-nine years, assign
to each Caasar a reign of less than four years. And Casaubon
remarks that in one period of 160 years there were seventy
persons who assumed the Eoman purple; which gives to
each not much more than two years. On the other hand,
in the history of France we find that through a period of
1200 years there have been no more than sixty-four kings :
upon an average, therefore, each king appears to have enjoyed
a reign of nearly nineteen years. This vast difference in
security is due to two great principles, — that of primogeni-
ture as between son and son, and of hereditary succession as
between a son and every other pretender. Well may we hail
the principle of hereditary right as realizing the praise of
Burke applied to chivalry, viz. that it is " the cheap defence
of nations " ; for the security which is thus obtained, be it
recollected, does not regard a small succession of princes, but
the whole rights and interests of social man : since the con-
tests for the rights of belligerent rivals do not respect them-
selves only, but very often spread ruin and proscription
amongst all orders of men. The principle of hereditary
succession, says one writer, had it been a discovery of any
one individual, would deserve to be considered as the very
greatest ever made ; and he adds acutely, in answer to the
obvious but shallow objection to it (viz. its apparent assump-
tion of equal ability in father and son for ever), that it
is like the Copernican system of the heavenly bodies, so
contradictory to our sense and first impressions, but true
notwithstanding.

CHAPTER VI

FROM DECIUS TO DIOCLETIAN1
(A.D. 249— A.D. 305)

RETURNING to our sketch of the Caesars, at the head of the
third series we place Decius. He came to the throne at a
moment of great public embarrassment. The Goths were now
beginning to press southwards upon the Empire. Dacia they
had ravaged for some time. "And here," says a German
writer, " observe the shortsightedness of the Emperor Trajan.
" Had he left the Dacians in possession of their independence,
" they would, under their native kings, have made head
" against the Goths. But, being compelled to assume the
" character of Roman citizens, they had lost their warlike
" qualities." From Dacia the Goths had descended upon
Mcesia ; and, passing the Danube, they laid siege to Marcian-
opolis, a city built by Trajan in honour of his sister. The
inhabitants paid a heavy ransom for their town ; and the
Goths were persuaded for the present to return home. But,
sooner than was expected, they returned to Mcesia, under
their king, Kniva ; and they were already engaged in the
siege of Nicopolis when Decius came in sight at the head of
the Roman Army. The Goths retired, but it was to Thrace ;
and, in the conquest of Philippopolis, they found an ample
indemnity for their forced retreat and disappointment.
Decius pursued, but the King of the Goths turned suddenly
upon him ; the Emperor was obliged to fly ; the Roman
camp was plundered ; Philippopolis was taken by storm, and

1 In Blackwood for August 1834.

THE CLESARS 385

its whole population, reputed at more than a hundred
thousand souls, perished.

Such was the first great irruption of the Barbarians into
the Roman territory ; and panic was diffused on the wings
of the wind over the whole Empire. Decius, however, was
firm, and made prodigious efforts to restore the balance of
power to its ancient settlement. For the moment he had
some partial successes. He cut off several detachments of
Goths, on their road to reinforce the enemy ; and he strength-
ened the fortresses and garrisons of the Danube. But his
last success was the means of his total ruin. He came up
with the Goths at Forum Terebronii ; and, having surrounded
their position, he had good reason to think their destruction
inevitable. A great battle ensued, and a mighty victory to
the Goths. Nothing is now known of the circumstances,
except that the third line of the Romans was entangled
inextricably in a morass (as had happened in the Persian
expedition of Alexander). Decius perished on this occasion ;
nor was it possible to find his dead body.1

This great defeat naturally raised the authority of the
Senate, in the same proportion as it depressed that of the
Army ; and by the will of that body Hostilianus, a son of
Decius, was raised to the Empire ; with Gallus, however, an
experienced commander, for his associate. Ostensibly, the
reason assigned for this measure was the youth of Hostili-
anus ; but, in reality, the whole arrangement was governed
by the secret policy of the Senate for restoring the Consulate
and the ancient machinery of the Republic. But no skill or
experience could avail to retrieve the sinking power of Rome
upon the Illyrian frontier. The Roman Army was dis-
organized, panic-stricken, reduced to skeleton battalions.

1 It does not absolutely follow from the mere fact, uncircumstanti-
ated, of Decius having been a persecuting anti-Christian, that he must
have been a bad man. But this is an inference too probable from the
rancorous fury of his persecution. To his reign belongs the legend of
the Seven Sleepers, a septemvirate of Christian youths who sought an
asylum from the imperial wrath in the recesses of a cavern ; fell asleep,
and first of all awakened from their slumbers some four generations
later ; found their persecutor utterly forgotten ; and themselves
restored to an inheritance of hopes no longer irreconcilable with the
demands of their religious conscience.

VOL. VI 2 C

386 HISTOBICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Without an army, what could be done ? And thus it may
really have been no blame to Gallus that he made a treaty
with the Goths more degrading than any parallel act in the
long annals of Home. By the terms of this infamous bargain,
the enemy were allowed to carry off an immense booty,
amongst which was a long roll of distinguished prisoners ;
and Cassar himself it was — not any lieutenant or agent that
might have been afterwards disavowed — who volunteered to
purchase their future absence by an annual tribute. The
very army which had brought their Emperor into the
necessity of submitting to such abject concessions were the
first to take offence at this natural result of their own
failures. Gallus was already ruined in public opinion when
further revelations deepened the shadows of his disgrace. It
was now supposed to have been discovered that the late
dreadful overthrow of Forum Terebronii was due to his
individual false counsels, however much of the disaster must,
according to rule and custom, be laid at the door of Decius,
who could not be divested of his supreme responsibility ; and,
as the young Hostilianus happened to die about this time of
a contagious disorder, Gallus was charged with his murder.

Even a ray of prosperity which just now gleamed upon
the Eoman arms aggravated the disgrace of Gallus, and was
instantly made the handle of his ruin. J^milianus, the
governor of Moesia and Pannonia, inflicted some loss, whether
damage or disgrace, upon the Goths ; and, in the enthusiasm
of sudden pride, upon an occasion which contrasted so advan-
tageously for him with the military conduct of Decius and
Gallus, the soldiers of his own legion raised ^Emilianus to
the purple. No time was to be lost. Summoned by the
troops, .ZEmilianus marched into Italy ; and no sooner had
he made his appearance there than the prastorian guards
murdered the Emperor Gallus and his son Volusianus, by
way of confirming the election of ^milianus.

The new Emperor offered to secure the frontiers, both on
the east and on the Danube, from the incursions of the
Barbarians. This offer may be regarded as thrown out for
the conciliation of all classes in the Empire. But to the
Senate, in particular, he addressed a message which forcibly
illustrates the political position of that body in those times.

THE OESARS 387

/Emilianus proposed to resign the whole civil administration
into the hands of the Senate, reserving to himself only the
unenviable burthen of the military interests. His hope was
that, in this way making himself in part the creation of the
Senate, he might strengthen his title against competitors at
Rome, whilst the entire military administration, going on
under his own eyes, exclusively directed to that one object,
would give him some chance of defeating the hasty and
tumultuary competitions so apt to arise amongst the legions
upon the frontier. In these calculations of J^milianus the
reader will notice — as one most impressive and ominous
phenomenon — that all his anxiety is directed to intrigues and
the balancing of parties at home, and no particle of his care
pointed to the enemy outside. Such a policy might really
be required • but in this necessity lay the deepest argument
and gloomiest pledge of public ruin. We notice the transac-
tion chiefly as indicating the anomalous situation of the
Senate. Without power in a proper sense, or no more, how-
ever, than the indirect power of wealth, that ancient body
retained an immense auctoritas : that is, an influence built
upon ancient reputation, which, in their case, had the strength
of a religious superstition in all Italian minds. This influence
the Senators exerted with effect whenever the course of events
had happened to cripple the Army or to prostrate the moment-
ary Cassar. And never did they make a more continuous and
sustained effort for retrieving their ancient power and place,
together with the whole system of the Republic, than during
the period at which we have now arrived. From the time
of Maximin, in fact, to the accession of Aurelian, the Senate
perpetually interposed their credit and authority, like some
Deus ex machind in dramatic catastrophes. And, if this one
fact were all that had survived of the public annals at this
period, we might sufficiently collect the situation of the two
other parties in the Empire — the Army and the Imperator ;
the weakness and precarious tenure of the one, and the
anarchy of the other. And hence it is that we can explain
the hatred borne to the Senate by vigorous Emperors, such
as Aurelian, succeeding to a long course of weak and troubled
reigns. Such an Emperor presumed in the Senate, and not
without reason, that same spirit of domineering interference

388 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

as ready to manifest itself, upon any opportunity offered,
against himself, which in his earlier days he had witnessed so
repeatedly in successful operation upon the fates and prospects
of others.

The situation indeed of the World — meaning by " the
World" (or, in the phrase then current, ^ oi/cov/xei/??) that
great centre of civilisation which, running round the Mediter-
ranean in one continuous belt of great breadth, still composed
the Eoman Empire — was at this time profoundly interesting.
The crisis had arrived. In the East a new dynasty (the
Sassanides) had remoulded ancient elements into a new form,
and breathed a new life into an empire which else was
gradually becoming crazy, or even palsied, from age, and
which, at any rate, by losing its unity, must have lost its
vigour as an offending power. Parthia was languishing and
drooping as an anti- Eoman state when the last of the
Arsacidae expired. A perfect palingenesis was wrought by
the restorer of the Persian Empire, which pretty nearly re-
occupied (and gloried in re-occupying) the very area that had
once composed the Empire of Cyrus. Even this palingenesis
might have terminated in a divided Empire : vigour might
have been restored, but in the shape of a polyarchy (such as
the Saxons established in England), rather than a monarchy'
and, in reality, at one moment, that appeared to be a probable
event. Now, had this been the course of the revolution, an
alliance with one of these kingdoms would have tended to
balance the hostility of any other (as was in fact the case
when Alexander Severus saved himself from the Persian
power by a momentary alliance with Armenia). But all the
elements of disorder had in that quarter re-combined them-
selves into severe unity; and thus was Kome, upon her
eastern frontier, laid open to a new power ebullient with
juvenile activity and vigour, just at the period when the
languor of the decaying Parthian had allowed the Eoman
discipline to fall into a corresponding declension. Such was
the condition of Eome upon her oriental frontier.1 On the

1 And it is a striking illustration of the extent to which the revo-
lution had gone that, previously to the Persian expedition of the last
Gordian, Antioch, the Roman capital of Syria, had been occupied by
the enemy.

THE OESARS 389

northern it was much worse. Precisely at the crisis of a
great revolution in Asia, which demanded in that quarter
more than the total strength of the Empire, and threatened
to demand it for ages to come, did the Goths, under their
earliest denomination of Getce, with many other associate
tribes, begin to push with their horns against the northern
gates of the Empire. The whole line of the Danube, and,
pretty nearly about the same time, of rivers more western
(upon which tribes from Swabia and Fraiiconia were begin-
ning to gather in terrific masses), now became insecure ; and
the great rivers ceased in effect to be the barriers of Rome.
Taking a middle point of time between the Parthian revolu-
tion and the fatal overthrow of Forum Terebronii, we may
fix upon the reign of Philip the Arab (who naturalized him-
self in Rome by the appellation of Marcus Julius) as the
epoch from which the Roman Empire, already sapped and
undermined by changes from within, began steadily to give
way from without. And this reign dates itself in the series
by those ever-memorable secular or jubilee games which cele-
brated the thousandth year from the foundation of Rome.1

Resuming our sketch of the Imperial History, we may
remark the natural embarrassment which must have possessed
the Senate when two candidates for the purple were equally
earnest in appealing to them, and their deliberate choice, as
the best foundation for a valid election. Scarcely had the
ground been cleared for ^Emilianus by the murder of Gallus
and his son (the invariable clearance of the stage in the
succession of Caesars !) when Valerian, a Roman Senator (of
such eminent merit, and confessedly so much the foremost
noble in all the qualities essential to the very delicate and
comprehensive functions of a Censor,2 that Decius had revived

1 This Arab Emperor reigned about five years ; and the jubilee
celebration occurred in his second year. Another circumstance gives
importance to the Arabian, — that, according to one tradition, he was
the first Christian Emperor. If so, it is singular that one of the
bitterest persecutors of Christianity should have been his immediate
successor — viz. Decius.

2 It has proved a most difficult problem, in the hands of all specu-
lators upon the Imperial History, to tLrow any light upon the purposes
of the Emperor Decius in attempting the revival of the ancient but
necessarily obsolete office of a public censorship. Either it was an act

390 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

that office expressly in his behalf), entered Italy at the head
of the army from Gaul. He had been summoned to his aid
by the late Emperor, Gallus ; but, arriving too late for his
support, he determined to avenge him. Both .ZEmilianus

of pure verbal pedantry or a mere titular decoration of honour (as if a
modern prince should create a person Arch-Grand-Elector, with no
objects assigned to his electing faculty) ; or else, if it really meant to
revive the old duties of the censorship, and to assign the very same
field for the exercise of those duties, it must be viewed as the very
grossest practical anachronism that has ever been committed. We
mean by an anachronism, in common usage, that sort of blunder when
a man ascribes to one age the habits, customs, or the inalienable
characteristics of another. This, however, may be a mere lapse of
memory as to a matter of fact, and implying nothing at all discredit-
able to the understanding, but only that a man has shifted the
boundaries of chronology a little this way or that ; as if, for example,
a writer should speak of printed books as existing at the day of Agin-
court, whereas that battle [A.D. 1415] preceded the invention of printing
by nearly thirty years, or of artillery as existing in the first Crusade.
Here would be an error, but a very venial one. A far worse kind of
anachronism, though rarely noticed as such, is where a writer ascribes
sentiments and modes of thought incapable of co-existing with the sort
or the degree of civilisation then attained, or otherwise incompatible
with the structure of society in the age or the country assigned. For
instance, in Southey's Don Roderick there is a cast of sentiment in the
Gothic King's remorse and contrition of heart which has struck many
readers as utterly unsuitable to the social and moral development of
that age, and redolent of modern Methodism. This, however, we
mention only as an illustration, without wishing to hazard an opinion
upon the justice of that criticism. But even such an anachronism is
less startling and extravagant when it is confined to an ideal repre-
sentation of things than where it is practically embodied and brought
into play amongst the realities of life. What would be thought of a
man who should attempt, in 1833, to revive the ancient office of Fool,
as it existed down to the reign of Henry VIII in England ? Yet the
error of the Emperor Decius was far greater, if he did in sincerity and
good faith believe that the Rome of his times was amenable to that
licence of unlimited correction, and of interference with private affairs,
which Republican freedom and simplicity had once conceded to the
Censor. In reality the ancient Censor, in some parts of his office, was
neither more nor less than a compendious legislator. Acts of attainder,
divorce bills, &c. , illustrate the case in England ; they are cases of
law, modified to meet the case of an individual ; and the Censor,
having a sort of equity jurisdiction, was intrusted with discretionary
powers for reviewing, revising, and amending, pro re nata, whatever
in the private life of a Roman citizen seemed, to his experienced eye,
alien to the simplicity of an austere Republic ; whatever tended to
excess in household expenditure, according to their rude notions of

THE CAESARS 391

and Valerian recognised the authority of the Senate, and
professed to act under that sanction ; but it was the soldiery
that cut the knot, as usual, by the sword. ^Emilianus was
encamped at Spoleto ; but, as the enemy drew near, his

political economy ; and, generally, whatever touched the interests of
the Commonwealth, though not falling within the general province of
legislation, either because it might appear undignified in its circum-
stances, or too narrow in its range of operation for a public anxiety,
or because considerations of delicacy and prudence might render it
unfit for a public scrutiny. Take one case, drawn from actual experi-
ence, as an illustration : — A Roman nobleman, under one of the early
Emperors, had thought fit, by way of increasing his income, to retire
into rural lodgings, or into some small villa, whilst his splendid
mansion in Rome was let to a rich tenant. That a man who wore the
latidave (which in practical effect of splendour we may consider equal
to the ribbon and star of a modern order) should descend to such a
degrading method of raising money, was felt as a scandal to the whole
nobility.1 Yet what could be done? To have interfered with his
conduct by an express law would be to infringe the sacred rights of
property, and to say, in effect, that a man should not do what he
would with his own. This would have been a remedy far worse than
the evil to which it was applied ; nor could it have been possible so to
shape the principle of a law as not to make it far more comprehensive
than the momentary occasion demanded. The Senator's trespass was
in a matter of decorum : but the law would have trespassed on the

1 Tliis feeling still exists in France. " One winter," says the author of The
English Army in France, vol. ii. pp. 106-107, " our commanding officer's wife
formed the project of hiring the chateau during the absence of the owner ; but
a more profound insult could not have been offered to a Chevalier de St. Louis.
Hire his house ! What could these people take him for ? A sordid wretch who
would stoop to make money by such means? They ought to be ashamed of
themselves. He could never respect an Englishman again." " And yet," adds
the writer, " this gentleman (had an officer been billeted there) would have
sold him a bottle of wine out of his cellar, or a cwt. of wood from his stack,
or an egg from his hen-house, at a profit of fifty per cent, not only without
scruple, but upon no other terms. It was as common as ordering wine at a
tavern to call the servant of any man's establishment where we happened
to be quartered, and demand an account of the cellar, as well as the price of
the wine selected !" This feeling existed, and perhaps to the same extent,
two centuries ago, in England. Not only did the aristocracy think it a degra-
dation to act the part of landlord with respect to their own houses, but also,
except in select cases, to act that of tenant. Thus, the first Lord Brooke (the
famous Fulke Greville), — who wished it to be inscribed on his tomb Here lies
the Friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and left writings (both prose and verse),
obscure, it is true, but often full of profound thinking, — writing to inform his
next neighbour, a woman of rank, that the house she occupied had been pur-
chased by a London citizen, confesses his fears that he shall in consequence
lose so valuable a neighbour ; for doubtless, he adds, your ladyship will not
remain a tenant to " such a fellow." And yet this " fellow," whom it would be
infamy to accept for a landlord, had notoriously held the office of Lord Mayor ;
which made him for the time a privy councillor, and consequently Right Honour-
able. The Italians of this day make no scruple to let off the whole, or even
part, of their fine mansions to strangers.

392 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

soldiers, shrinking no doubt from a contest with veteran
troops, made their peace by murdering the new Emperor,
and Valerian was elected in his stead. This prince was
already an old man at the time of his election ; but he lived
long enough to look back upon the day of his inauguration
as the blackest in his life. Memorable were the calamities
which fell upon himself, and upon the Empire, during his
reign. He began by associating to himself his son Gallienus,
— partly, perhaps, for his own relief in public business, partly
to indulge the Senate in their steady plan of dividing the
Imperial authority. The two Emperors undertook the
military defence of the Empire, — Gallienus proceeding to
the northern frontier, Valerian to the eastern. Under
Gallienus, the Franks — otherwise Franci, who gave the name
to France, otherwise 3>pdyyoi (in pronunciation Franghoi),

first principles of justice. Here, then, was a case within the jurisdic-
tion of the Censor : he took notice, in his public report, of the
senator's error ; or probably, before coming to that extremity, he
admonished him privately. Just as, in England, had there been such
an officer, he would have reproved those men of rank about the era of
Waterloo who patronized the Whip Club or the pugilistic Fancy, or
rode their own horses in a match on a public racecourse. Such a
reproof, however, unless practically operative, and powerfully sup-
ported by the whole body of the aristocracy, would recoil upon its
author as a piece of impertinence, and would soon be resented as an
unwarrantable liberty taken with private rights ; the Censor would be
kicked, or challenged to private combat, according to the taste of the
parties aggrieved. The office is clearly in this dilemma : if the Censor
is supported by the state, then he combines in his own person both
legislative and executive functions, and possesses a power which is
frightfully irresponsible ; if, on the other hand, he is left to such
support as he can find in the prevailing spirit of manners, and the old
traditionary veneration for his own official character, he stands very
much in the situation of a priesthood, which has great power or none
at all according to the condition of a country in moral and religious
feeling, coupled with the more or less primitive state of manners.
How, then, with any rational prospect of success, could Decius attempt
the revival of an office depending so entirely on moral supports, in an
age when all those supports were withdrawn ? The prevailing spirit
of manners was hardly fitted to sustain even a toleration of such an
office, so far from promising to it a conniving indulgence ; and, as to
the traditionary veneration for its sacred character, that, probably
from long disuse of its practical functions, was altogether extinct. If
these considerations are plain and intelligible even to us, by the men
of that day they must have been felt with a degree of force that could

THE CAESARS 393

otherwise (as in Persia and Hindostan) Feringhees, or, as by
the Ottoman Turks they were called, Varangians (see Sir
Walter Scott's Count Robert of Paris) — began first to make
themselves heard of. Breaking into Gaul, they passed
through that country into Spain; captured Tarragona in
their route ; crossed over to Africa ; and conquered Mauri-
tania or Morocco. At the same time, the Alemanni, who
had been in motion since the time of Caracalla, broke into
Lombardy, across the Rhsetian Alps. The Senate, left with-
out aid from either Emperor, were obliged to make prepara-
tions for the common defence against this host of Barbarians.
Luckily, the very magnitude of the enemy's success, by
overloading him with booty, made it his interest to retire
without fighting ; and the degraded Senate, hanging upon
the traces of their retiring footsteps, without fighting or daring

leave no room for doubt or speculation on the matter. How was it,
then, that the Emperor only should have been blind to such general
light ? In the absence of all other, even conjectural, solutions of this
difficulty, we will state our own theory of the matter. Decius, as is
evident from his fierce persecution of the Christians, was not disposed
to treat Christianity with indifference, under any form which it might
assume, or however masked. Yet there were quarters in which it
lurked, not liable to the ordinary modes of attack. Christianity was
creeping up with inaudible steps into high places, — nay, into the very
highest. The immediate predecessor of Decius upon the throne, Philip
the Arab, was supposed (some said was known) to be a disciple of the
new faith ; and amongst the nobles of Eome, through the females and
the slaves (two orders of society often far asunder in rank, but agree-
ing in this, that to them exclusively the nurseries, from cottage upwards
to the most superb of palaces, were unavoidably open), that faith had
spread its roots in every direction. Some secrecy, however, attached
to the profession of a religion so often proscribed. Who should pre-
sume to tear away the mask which prudence or timidity had taken
up ? A delator, or professional informer, was an infamous character.
To deal with the noble and illustrious, the descendants of the Marcelli
and the Gracchi, there must be nothing less than a great state officer,
supported . by the Imperator and the Senate, having an unlimited
privilege of scrutiny and censure, authorized to inflict the brand of
infamy for offences not challenged by the letter of the law — an office
emanating from an elder institution, familiar to the days of reputed
liberty. Such an officer was the Censor; and such, according to our
solution of the case, were the antichristian purposes of Decius in his
revival. Not the prestige, nor the auctoritas, of the Censor was what
Decius coveted, but his power of sneaking and wriggling into house-
holds. The Censor was a Right Hon. Sneak.

394 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

to fight, claimed the honours of a victory. Even then, how-
ever, they did more than was agreeable to the jealousies of
Gallienus ; who by an edict publicly rebuked their presump-
tion, and forbade them in future to appear amongst the
legions, or to exercise any military functions : for, in the
eternal conflict of Senate and Caesar, this late apparition of
the Senate formed a bad precedent. Gallienus himself,
meanwhile, could devise no better way of providing for the
public security than by marrying the daughter of his chief
enemy, the king of the Marcomanni. On this side of
Europe the Barbarians were thus quieted for the present ;
but the Goths of the Ukraine, in three marauding expeditions
of unprecedented violence, ravaged the wealthy regions of
Asia Minor, as well as the islands of the ^Egean Archipelago,
and at length, under the guidance of deserters, landed in the
port of the Peirseus, which bears the same maritime relation
to Athens that Leith does to Edinburgh. Advancing from
this point, after sacking Athens and the chief cities of Greece,
they marched on Epirus, and began to threaten Italy. But
the defection at this crisis of a conspicuous chieftain, and the
burden of their booty, made these wild marauders anxious to
provide for a safe retreat ; the Imperial commanders in Mossia
listened eagerly to their offers : and it set the seal to the
public dishonours that, after having traversed so vast a
territory almost without resistance, these ruffians were now
suffered to retire under the very guardianship of those whom
they had visited with military execution.

Such were the terms upon which the Emperor Gallienus
purchased a brief respite from his haughty enemies. For
the moment, however, he did enjoy security. Far otherwise
was the destiny of his unhappy father. Sapor now ruled in
Persia ; the throne of Armenia had vainly striven to maintain
its independency against his armies, and the daggers of his
hired assassins. This revolution, which so much enfeebled
the Koman means of war, exactly in that proportion increased
the necessity for it. War, and that instantly, seemed to
offer the only chance for maintaining the Koman name or
existence in Asia. Carrhye and Nisibis, the two potent
fortresses in Mesopotamia, had fallen ; and the Persian arms
were now triumphant on the right bank, not less than on

THE CLESARS 395

the left bank, of the Euphrates. Valerian was not of a
character to look with indifference upon such a scene, ter-
minated by such a prospect. Prudence and temerity, fear
and confidence, all spoke a common language in this great
emergency ; and Valerian marched toward the Euphrates
with a fixed purpose of driving the enemy beyond that river.
By whose mismanagement the records of history do not
enable us to say, — some think of Macrianus, the praetorian
prefect, some of Valerian himself, but doubtless by the
treachery of guides co-operating with errors in the general,
— the Roman army, according to a fate which had now
become as periodically recurrent as any tertian or quartan
fever, was entangled in marshy ground ; partial actions
followed, and skirmishes of cavalry, in which the Romans
suddenly awoke to a ghastly consciousness of their situation :
retreat was cut off, advance was barred, and to fight was now
found to be without hope. In these circumstances they
offered to capitulate. But the haughty Sapor would listen
to nothing short of unconditional surrender ; and to that
course the unhappy Emperor submitted. Various traditions
have been preserved by history concerning the fate of
Valerian l : all agree that he died in misery and captivity ;
but some have circumstantiated this general statement by
features of excessive misery and special degradation. But
these were perhaps added afterwards as picturesque improve-
ments of the scenical interest, or by ethical writers, in order
to point and strengthen the moral. Gallienus now ruled
alone, except as regarded the restless efforts of insurgent
pretenders to the purple, thirty of whom are said to have
arisen in his single reign. This, however, is probably an
exaggeration. Nineteen such ambitious rebels are mentioned
by name : of whom the chief were Calpurnius Piso, a Roman
senator ; Tetricus, a man of rank who claimed a descent
from Pompey, from Crassus, and even from Numa Pompilius,

1 Some of these traditions have been preserved, which represent
Sapor as using his imperial captive for his horse-block or anabathrum
in mounting his horse. Others, — which is irreconcilable with this
tale, — allege that Sapor actually flayed his unhappy prisoner while
yet alive. The temptation to these stories was perhaps found in the
craving for the marvellous, and in the desire to make the contrast more
striking between the two extremes in Valerian's life.

396 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

and maintained himself some time in Gaul and Spain ; Tre-
bellianus, who founded a republic of robbers in Isauria which
survived himself by centuries; and Odenathus, the Syrian.
Others were mere Terrce fiUi, or adventurers, who flourished
and decayed in a few days or weeks ; and of these the most
remarkable was a working armourer named Marius. Not
one of the whole number eventually prospered, except Odena-
thus ; and he, though originally a rebel, yet, in consideration
of services against Persia, was suffered to retain, and to
transmit his pretty kingdom of Palmyra1 to his widow
Zenobia. He was even complimented with the absurd title
of Augustus (i.e. of Sebastus, as in a Greek city). All the
rest perished. Their rise, however, and local prosperity at
so many different points of the empire, showed the distracted
condition of the state, and its internal weakness. That again
proclaimed its external peril. No other cause had called
forth this diffusive spirit of insurrection than the general
consciousness, so fatally warranted, of the debility which had
now emasculated the government, and its incompetency to
deal vigorously with the public enemies.2 The very granaries
of Rome, Sicily and Egypt, were the seats of continued
emeutes, or (in language more commensurate) of convulsions ;
in Alexandria, the second city of the Empire, there was even
a civil war which lasted for twelve years. Dissension, misery,
and morbid symptoms and frenzied movements of ambition,
expressed themselves by sullen mutterings or whispers over
the whole face of the Empire.

1 Palmyra, the Scriptural Tadmor in the Wilderness, to which in
our days Lady Hester Stanhope (niece to the great minister Pitt, and
seventy times seven more orientally proud, .though daughter of the
freeborn nation, than ever was Zenobia, that from infancy trode on
the necks of slaves) made her way from Damascus, at some risk,
amongst clouds of Arabs, she riding the whole way on horseback in
the centre of robber tribes, and with a train such as that of Sultans or
of Roman Proconsuls.

2 And this incompetency was permanently increased by rebellions
that might be brief and fugitive in all other effects. In this particular
effect the most trivial and fleeting insurrections left durable scars,
since each separate insurgent almost necessarily maintained himself
for the moment by spoliations and robberies which left lasting effects
behind them ; and too often he was tempted to ally himself with some
foreign enemy amongst the Barbarians, who perhaps in this way gained
an introduction into the heart of the Empire.

THE CAESARS 397

The last of the rebels who directed his rebellion personally
against Gallienus was Aureolus. Passing the Rhsetian Alps,
this leader sought out and defied the Emperor. He was
defeated, and retreated upon Milan ; but Gallienus, in pur-
suing him, was lured into an ambuscade, and perished from
the wound inflicted by an archer. With his dying breath he
is said to have recommended Claudius to the favour of the
Senate ; and at all events Claudius it was who succeeded.
Scarcely was the new Emperor installed before he was sum-
moned to a trial not only arduous in itself, but terrific by
the very name of the enemy. The Goths of the Ukraine, in
a new armament of six thousand vessels, had again descended
by the Bosporus into the south, and had sat down before
Thessalonica, the capital at that time of Macedonia. Claudius
marched against them with the determination to vindicate
the Eoman name and honour : " Know," said he, writing to
the Senate, "that 320,000 Goths have set foot upon the
" Roman soil. Should I conquer them, your gratitude will
" be my reward. Should I fall, do not forget who it is that
" I have succeeded, and that the commonwealth is exhausted."
No sooner did the Goths hear of his approach than, with
transports of ferocious joy, they gave up the siege, and
hurried to annihilate the last pillar of the Empire. The
mighty battle which ensued, neither party seeking to evade
it, took place at Naissus. At one time the legions were
giving way, when suddenly, by some happy manoeuvre of
the Emperor, a Roman corps found its way to the rear of the
enemy. The Goths gave way in their turn, and their defeat
was total. According to most accounts they left 50,000
dead upon the field : probably a plausible guess from some
great arithmetician. The campaign still lingered, however,
at other points, until at last the Emperor succeeded in driving
back the relics of the Gothic host into the fastnesses of the
Balkan 1 ; and there the greater part of them died of hunger
and pestilence.

1 "Balkan" : — A Russian general in our own day, for crossing this
difficult range of mountains as a victor, was by the Czar Nicholas
raised to the title of Balkanski. But it seems there should rightfully
have been an elder creation. Claudius might have pre-occupied the
ground as the original Balkanski.

398 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

These great services performed within two years from his
accession to the throne, Claudius, by the rarest of fates, died
in his bed at Sirmium, the capital of Pannonia. His brother
Quintilius, who had a great command in Aquileia, imme-
diately assumed the purple ; but his usurpation lasted only
seventeen days ; for the last Emperor, with a single eye to
the public good, had recommended Aurelian as his successor,
guided by his personal knowledge of that general's strategic
qualities. The army of the Danube confirmed the appoint-
ment ; and Quintilius upon that decision committed suicide.
Aurelian was of the same harsh and forbidding character,
but with the same qualities of energy and decision, as the
Emperor Severus : he had, however, the qualities demanded
by the times ; stern and resolute, not amiable princes, were
needed by the exigencies of the state. The hydra-headed
Goths were again in the field on the Illyrian quarter : Italy
itself was invaded by the Alemanni ; and Tetricus, the rebel,
still survived as a monument exemplifying the weakness of
Gallienus. All these enemies were speedily repressed or
vanquished by Aurelian. But it marks the real declension
of the Empire, a declension which no personal vigour in the
Emperor was any longer sufficient to disguise, that, even in
the midst of victory, Aurelian found it necessary to make a
formal surrender, by treaty, of that Dacia which Trajan had
united with so much ostentation to the Empire. Europe
was now again in repose ; and Aurelian found himself at
liberty to apply his powers as a re-organizer and restorer to
the East. In that quarter of the world a marvellous revolu-
tion had occurred. The little oasis of Palmyra, from a Koman
colony, had grown into the leading province of a great empire.
This verdant island of the desert, together with Syria and
Egypt, formed an independent and most insolent monarchy
under the sceptre of Zenobia.1 After two battles lost in
Syria, Zenobia retreated to Palmyra. With great difficulty 2

1 Zenobia is complimented by all historians for her magnanimity ;
but with no foundation in truth. Her first salutation to Aurelian was
a specimen of abject flattery ; and her last public words were evidences
of the basest treachery in giving up her generals, and her chief coun-
sellor Longinus, to the vengeance of the ungenerous enemy.

2 ' ' Difficulty " ! — Difficulty from what ? We presume from scarcity
of provisions, and (as regarded the siege) scarcity of wood. But mark

THE OESARS 399

Aurelian pursued her; and with still greater difficulty he
pressed the siege of Palmyra. Zenohia looked for relief
from Persia ; but at that moment Sapor died, and the Queen
of Palmyra fled upon a dromedary, but was pursued and
captured. Palmyra surrendered and was spared ; but, un-
fortunately, with a folly which marks the haughty spirit of
the place, untrained to face the chances of ordinary experi-
ences, scarcely had the conquering army retired when a
tumult arose and the Roman garrison (of 600 men) was
slaughtered. Little knowledge could those have had of
Aurelian's character who tempted him to acts but too
welcome to his cruel nature by such an outrage as this.
The news overtook the Emperor on the Hellespont. Earth
has witnessed no such jubilant explosion of vindictive hatred,
unless it were in the retaliation (too probably just, as we
now, 1859, can guess) by Nadir Shah1 on the perfidious
citizens of Delhi for a similar massacre of the garrison which
he had left behind. Instantly, without pause, "like Ate
hot from hell," Aurelian retraced his steps, reached the
guilty city, and consigned it, with all its population, to that
utter destruction from which it has never since arisen.

The energetic administration of Aurelian had now restored
the Empire, not to its lost vigour — that was impossible — but
to a condition of repose. This was a condition more agree-
able to the Empire than to the Emperor. Peace was hateful
to Aurelian ; and he sought for war, where it could seldom
be sought in vain, upon the Persian frontier. But he was
not destined to reach the Euphrates ; and it is worthy of
notice, as a providential ordinance, that his own unmerciful
nature was the ultimate cause of his fate. Anticipating the
Emperor's severity in punishing some errors of his own,
Mucassor, a general officer in whom Aurelian placed especial
confidence, assassinated him between Byzantium and Heraclea.
An interregnum of eight months succeeded, during which
there occurred a contest of a memorable nature. Some

how these vaunted and vaunting Eoraans, so often as they found
themselves in our modern straits, sat down to cry. Heavier by far
have been our British perplexities upon many an Oriental field ; but
did we sit down to cry ?

1 Otherwise known as Kouli Khan.

400 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

historians have described it as strange and surprising. To
us, on the contrary, it seems that no contest could be more
natural. Heretofore the great strife had been in what way
to secure the reversion or possession of that great dignity ;
whereas now the rivalship lay in declining it. But surely
such a competition had in it, under the circumstances of the
Empire, little that can justly surprise us. Always a post of
danger, and so regularly closed by assassination that in a
course of two centuries there are hardly to be found three
or four cases of exception, the imperatorial dignity had now
become burdened with a public responsibility which exacted
great military talents, and imposed a perpetual and personal
activity. Formerly, if the Emperor knew himself to be
surrounded with assassins, he might at least make his throne,
so long as he enjoyed it, the couch of a voluptuary. The
" Ave Imperator ! " was then the summons, if to the supremacy
in passive danger, so also to the supremacy in power, and
honour, and enjoyment. But now it was a summons to
never-ending tumults and alarms, an injunction to that sort
of vigilance without intermission which even from the poor
sentinel is exacted only when on duty. Not Rome, but the
frontier ; not the aurea domus, but a camp, was the imperial
residence. Power and rank, whilst in that residence, could
be had in no larger measure by Csesar as Csesar than by the
same individual as a military commander-in-chief ; and, as
to enjoyment, that for the Roman Imperator was now extinct.
Rest there could be none for him. Battle was the tenure by
which he held his office ; and beyond the range of his
trumpet's blare his sceptre was a broken reed. The office of
CaBsar at this time resembled the situation (as it is sometimes
described in romances) of a knight who has achieved the
favour of some capricious lady, with the present possession
of her castle and ample domains, but which he holds under
the known and accepted condition of meeting all challenges
whatsoever offered at the gate by wandering strangers, and
also of jousting at any moment with each and all amongst
the inmates of the castle, as often as a wish might arise to
benefit by the chances in disputing his supremacy.

It is a circumstance, moreover, to be noticed in the aspect
of the Roman Monarchy at this period, that the pressure of

THE C.ESARS 401

the evils we are now considering applieil to this particular
age of the Empire beyond all others, as being an age of
transition from a greater to an inferior power. Had the
power been either greater or conspicuously less, in that pro-
portion would the pressure have been easfi^r-or none at all.
Being greater, for example, the danger would have been
repelled to a distance so great that mere remoteness would
have disarmed its terrors, or otherwise it would have been
violently overawed. Being less, on the other hand, and
less in an eminent degree, it would have disposed all par-
ties, as it did at an after period, to regular and formal com-
promises in the shape of fixed annual tributes. At present
the policy of the Barbarians along the vast line of the
northern frontier was to tease and irritate the provinces
which they were not entirely able, or were prudentially un-
willing, to dismember. Yet, as the almost annual irruptions
were at every instant ready to be converted into coup-de-mains
upon Aquileia, upon Verona, or even upon Home herself,
unless vigorously curbed at the outset, each Emperor at this
period found himself under the necessity of standing in the
attitude of a champion or propugnator on the frontier line of
his territory, ready for all comers, and with a pretty certain
prospect of having one pitched battle at the least to fight in
every successive summer. There were nations abroad at this
epoch in Europe who did not migrate occasionally, or occa-
sionally project themselves upon the civilised portion of the
globe, but who made it their steady, regular occupation to do
so, and lived for no other purpose. Through seven hundred
years the Roman Republic might be styled a Republic mili-
tant : for about one century further it was an Empire
triumphant ; and now, long retrograde, it had reached that
point at which again, but in a different sense, it might be
styled an Empire militant. Originally it had militated for
glory and power ; now its militancy was for a free move-
ment of aspiring and hopeful existence. War was again the
trade of Rome, as it had been once before ; but in that
earlier period war had been its highest ambition ; now it
was its dire necessity.

Under this analysis of the Roman condition, need we
wonder, with the crowd of unreflecting historians, that the
VOL. vi 2 D

402 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Senate, at the era of Aurelian's death, should dispute amongst
each other, — not, as once, for the possession of the sacred
purple, but for the luxury and safety of declining it ? The
sad pre-eminence was finally imposed upon Tacitus, a senator
who traced his descent from the historian of that name.
He had reached an age of seventy-five years, and possessed a
fortune of three millions sterling.1 Vainly did the agitated
old senator open his lips to decline the perilous honour ; five
hundred voices insisted upon the necessity of his compliance ;
he was actually hustled into empire ; and thus, as a foreign
writer observes, was the descendant of him whose glory it
had been to signalize himself as the hater of despotism under
the absolute necessity of becoming, in his own person, an
unrelenting despot.

This aged senator was thus compelled to be Emperor, and
to exchange the voluptuous repose of a palace, which he was
never to revisit, for the hardships of a distant camp. His
first act was strikingly illustrative of the Roman condition,
as we have just described it. Aurelian had attempted to
disarm one set of enemies by turning the current of their
fury upon another. The Alani were in search of plunder,
and strongly disposed to obtain it from Roman provinces.
"No, no," said Aurelian ; "if you do that, I shall unchain
my legions upon you. Be better advised : keep those
excellent dispositions of mind, and that admirable taste for
plunder, until you come whither I will conduct you. Then
discharge your fury, and welcome ; besides which, I will pay
you wages for your immediate abstinence ; and on the other
side the Euphrates you shall pay yourselves." Such was the
outline of the contract ; and the Alans had accordingly held
themselves in readiness to accompany Aurelian from Europe
to his meditated Persian campaign. Meantime, that
Emperor had perished by treason ; and the Alani were still

1 "A fortune of three millions sterling": — Whence came these
enormous fortunes ? Several sources might be indicated ; but amongst
them perhaps the commonest was this : every citizen of marked dis-
tinction made it a practice, if circumstances favoured, to leave a legacy
to others of the same class whom he happened to esteem, or wished to
acknowledge as special friends. A very good custom, more honoured
in the observance than the breach, and particularly well suited to our
own merits !

THE OESARS 403

waiting for his successor on the throne to complete his
engagements with themselves : that successor — if inheriting
his throne — inheriting also in their judgment his total
responsibilities. It happened, from the state of the Empire,
as we have sketched it above, that Tacitus really did succeed
to the military plans of Aurelian. The Persian expedition
was ordained to go forward ; and Tacitus began, as a pre-
liminary step in that expedition, to look about for his good
allies the Barbarians. Where might they be, and — what
doing ? Naturally, they had long been weary of waiting.
The Persian booty might be good after its kind ; but it was
far away ; and, en attendant, Koman booty was doubtless
good after its kind. And so, throughout the provinces of
Cappadocia, Pontus, &c., far as the eye could stretch, nothing
was to be seen but cities and villages in flames. The Roman
Army hungered and thirsted to be unmuzzled and slipped
upon these false friends. But this, for the present, Tacitus
would not allow. He began by punctually fulfilling to the
letter Aurelian's contract, — a measure which Barbarians
inevitably construed into the language of fear. But then
came the retribution. Once having satisfied public justice,
the Emperor was now free for vengeance : he unchained his
legions : a brief space of time sufficed for the settlement of a
long reckoning : and through every outlet of Asia Minor the
Alani fled from the wrath of the Roman soldier. Here, how-
ever, terminated the military labours of Tacitus : he died at
Tyana in Cappadocia,1 as some say, from the effects of the
climate, co-operating with irritations from the insolence of
the soldiery : but, as Zosimus and Zonaras expressly assure
us, under the murderous hands of his own troops. It was
certainly disagreeable to be murdered ; but else the old
senator had not much to complain of, as seventy-five to
seventy-six years make a fair allowance of life.

His brother Florianus at first usurped the purple, by the
aid of the Illyrian army ; but the choice of other armies,
afterwards confirmed by the Senate, settled upon Probus, a

1 " Tyana" : — A city rendered famous as the birthplace and resi-
dence of that Apollonius whose conjurings and magical exploits were
paraded, in the early stages of Christianity, as eclipsing the miracles
of the New Testament.

404 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

general already celebrated under Aurelian. The two com-
petitors drew near to each other for the usual decision by the
sword, when the dastardly supporters of Florian offered up
their chosen prince as the purchase-money of a compromise
with his antagonist. Probus, settled in his seat by the
usual quantity of murder and perfidy, addressed himself to
the regular business of those times, — to the reduction of
insurgent provinces, and the liberation of others from hostile
molestations. Isauria and Egypt he visited in the character
of a conqueror ; Gaul in the character of a deliverer. From
the Gaulish provinces he chased in succession the Franks,
the Burgundians, and the Lygians. He pursued the
intruders far into their German thickets ; and nine of the
native German princes came spontaneously into his camp,
subscribed such conditions as he thought fit to dictate, and
complied with his requisitions of tribute in horses and pro-
visions. This, however, is a delusive gleam of Roman
energy, little corresponding with the true prevailing condition
of the Roman power, and entirely due to the personal quali-
ties of Probus. This prince himself put on record the sense
which he entertained of the political prospects opening before
them, by carrying a stone wall, of considerable height, from
the Danube to the Neckar. Once this important gallery of
land had been defended by human intrepidity ; now by
brute Chinese arts of masonry. He made various attempts
also to effect a better distribution of barbarous tribes, by dis-
locating their settlements, and making extensive translations
of their clans, according to the circumstances of those times.
These arrangements, however, suggested often by short-
sighted views, and carried into effect by mere violence,
were sometimes defeated visibly at the time ; and, doubtless,
in very few cases accomplished the ends proposed. In one
instance, where a party of Franks had been transported into
the Asiatic province of Pontus, as a column of defence
against the intrusive Alans, they, being determined to revisit
their own country, swam the Hellespont, landed on the
coasts of Asia Minor, of Greece, and Sicily, plundered Syra-
cuse, steered for the Straits of Gibraltar, sailed along the
shores of Spain and Gaul, passing finally through the
English Channel and the German Ocean, right onwards to

THE OESARS 405

the Frisic and Batavian coasts, where they exultingly
rejoined their exulting friends. Meantime, all the energy
and military skill of Probus could not save him from the
competition of various rivals. Indeed, it must then have
been felt, as by us who look back on those times it is now
felt, that, amidst so continued a series of brief reigns,
violently interrupted by murders, scarcely any idea could
arise answering to our modern ideas of treason and usurpa-
tion. For the ideas of fealty and of allegiance, as to an
anointed monarch, could have no time to take root. Candi-
dates for the purple must have been viewed rather as mili-
tary rivals than as traitors to the reigning Caesar. And
hence one reason for the slight resistance which was often
experienced by the seducers of armies. Probus, however, as
accident in his case ordered it, subdued all his personal
opponents — Saturninus in the East, Proculus and Bonoses in
Gaul. For these victories he triumphed in the year 281.
But his last hour was even then at hand. One point of his
military discipline, which he called back from elder days,
was to suffer no idleness in his camps. He it was who, by
military labour, translated into Gaul and Hungary the
Italian vine, to the great indignation of the Italian monopo-
list. The culture of vineyards, the laying of military roads,
the draining of marshes, and similar labours, perpetually
employed the hands of his stubborn and contumacious troops.
On some work of this nature the Army happened to be
employed near Sirmium, and Probus was looking on from a
tower, when a sudden frenzy of disobedience seized upon the
men : a party of the mutineers ran up to the Emperor, and
with a hundred wounds laid him instantly dead. That they
laid him dead we do not at all doubt ; but the how and the
why remain, as usual, perfectly in the dark. The unmean-
ing tale serves only to remind us that in this, as in all other
imperial murders, we are left without any vestige of a
rational inquisition into the circumstances. Hardly one of
these many murders has received any solution. The man
was murdered : that we understand : it is all regular. But
to tell us that a party of soldiers ran up to the top of a
tower, and there murdered him, as though the altitude of the
building, or its toilsome ascent, furnished a sort of key to an

406 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

atrocity else inexplicable, is to insult us with sheer non-
sense. We are told by some writers that the Army was
immediately seized with remorse for its own act ; which, if
truly reported, rather tends to confirm the image otherwise
impressed upon us of the relations between the Army and
Caesar as pretty closely corresponding with those between
some fierce wild beast and its keeper : the keeper, if not
uniformly vigilant as an Argus, is continually liable to fall a
sacrifice to the wild instincts of the brute, mastering at inter-
vals the reverence and fear under which it has been habitu-
ally trained. In this case both the murdering impulse and
the remorse seem alike the effects of a brute instinct, and to
have arisen under no guidance of rational purpose or
reflection.

The person who profited by this murder was Carus, the
captain of the guard, a man of advanced years. He was
proclaimed Emperor by the Army ; and on this occasion
there was no further reference to the Senate than by a dry
statement of the facts for its information. Troubling himself
little about the approbation of a body not likely in any way
to affect his purposes (which were purely martial, and
adapted to the tumultuous state of the empire), Carus made
immediate preparations for pursuing the Persian expedition,
— so long promised and so often interrupted. Having pro-
vided for the security of the Illyrian frontier by a bloody
victory over the Sarmatians, of whom we now hear for the
first time, Carus advanced towards the Euphrates ; and from
the summit of a mountain he pointed the eyes of his eager
army upon the rich provinces of the Persian Empire.
Varanes, the successor of Artaxerxes, vainly endeavoured to
negotiate a peace. From some unknown cause, the Persian
armies were not at this juncture disposable against Carus: it
has been conjectured by some writers that they were engaged
in an Indian war. Carus, it is certain, met with little
resistance. He insisted on having the Roman supremacy
acknowledged as a preliminary to any treaty ; and, having
threatened to make Persia as bare as his own skull — which,
luckily for the effect of his rhetoric, happened to be bald, —
he is supposed to have kept his word with regard to Mesopo-
tamia. The great cities of Ctesiphon and Seleucia he took ;

THE CAESARS 407

and vast expectations were formed at Rome of the events
which stood next in succession, when, on Christmas-day, 283,
a sudden and mysterious end overtook Cams and his vic-
torious advance. "We are all prepared of course for the
customary murder, and the customary lie for disguising its
incidents. The story transmitted to Rome was that a great
storm and a sudden darkness had surprised the camp of
Cams ; that the Emperor, previously ill and reposing in his
tent, was obscured from sight ; that at length a cry had
arisen, " The Emperor is dead ! " and that, at the same
moment, the imperial tent had taken fire. The fire was
traced to the confusion of his attendants \ and this confusion
was imputed by themselves to grief for their master's death.
In all this it is easy to read pretty circumstantially a murder
committed on the Emperer by corrupted servants, and an
attempt afterwards to conceal the traces of this murder by
the ravages of fire. The report propagated through the
army, and at that time received with credit, was that Cams
had been struck by lightning ; and that omen, according to
the Roman interpretation, implied a necessity of retiring from
the expedition. So that, apparently, the whole was a bloody
Roman intrigue, set on foot for the purpose of baffling the
Emperor's resolution to prosecute the war ; or else it was a
Persian intrigue, buying off with money the army which
they had no means or preparations for meeting on the field
of battle.

His son Numerian succeeded to the rank of Emperor by
the choice of the Army. But the mysterious faction of
murderers were still at work. After eight months' march
from the Tigris to the Thracian Bosporus, the Army halted
at Chalcedon. At this point of time a report arose suddenly
that the Emperor Numerian was dead. The impatience of
the soldiery would brook no uncertainty : they rushed to the
spot ; satisfied themselves of the fact, and, loudly denouncing
as the murderer Aper, the captain of the guard, committed
him to custody, and assigned to Diocletian, whom at the
same time they invested with the supreme power, the duty
of investigating the case. Diocletian acquitted himself of
this task in a very summary way, by passing his sword
through Aper before he could say a word in his defence.

408 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Let us all hope that the worthy captain had no defence, sc
that his having no time for words is an advantage on all
sides ; least said, observes the respectable old proverb, is
soonest mended. As to mending, however, poor Numerian
was far past it ; so a new Csesar is wanted, the old one being
cracked, — and who better than Diocletian ? It seems that
Diocletian, having been promised the Empire by a prophetess
as soon as he should have killed a wild boar (Aper), was
anxious to realize the omen. The whole proceeding has
been taxed with injustice so manifest as not even to seek a
disguise. Meantime, it should be remembered that, first,
Aper, as the captain of the guard, was answerable for the
Emperor's safety, secondly, that his anxiety to profit by the
Emperor's murder was a sure sign that he had participated
in that act, and, thirdly, that the assent of the soldiery to
the open and public act of Diocletian implies a conviction on
their part of Aper's guilt.

Here let us pause, having now arrived at the fourth and
last group of the Csesars, to notice the changes which had
been wrought by time, co-operating with political events, in
the very nature and constitution of the imperial office.

If it should unfortunately happen that the palace of the
Vatican, with its thirteen thousand chambers,1 were to take
fire, for a considerable space of time the fire would be re-
tarded by the mere enormity of extent which it would have
to traverse. But there would come at length a critical
moment at which, the maximum of the retarding effect
having been attained, the bulk and volume of the flaming
mass would thenceforward assist the flames in the rapidity
of their progress. Such was the effect upon the declension
of the Eoman Empire from the vast extent of its territory.
For a very long period that very extent, which finally
became the overwhelming caues of its ruin, served to retard
and to disguise it. A small encroachment, made at any one
point upon the integrity of the Empire, was neither much

1 " Thirteen thousand chambers" : — The number of the chambers
in this prodigious palace is sometimes estimated at that amount. But
Lady Miller, who made particular inquiries on this subject, supposed
herself to have ascertained that the total amount, including cellars and
closets capable of receiving a bed, was fifteen thousand.

THE CAESARS 409

regarded at Rome, nor perhaps in and for itself much deserved
to be regarded. But a very narrow belt of encroachments,
made upon almost every part of so enormous a circumference,
was sufficient of itself to compose something of an antagonist
force. And to these external dilapidations we must add the
far more important dilapidations from within, affecting all
the institutions of the State, and all the forces, whether
moral or political, which had originally raised it or main-
tained it. Causes which had been latent in the public
arrangements ever since the time of Augustus, and had been
silently preying upon its vitals, had now reached a height
which would no longer brook concealment. The fire which
had smouldered through generations had broken out at
length into an open conflagration. Uproar and disorder,
and the anarchy of a superannuated Empire, strong only to
punish and impotent to defend, were at this time convulsing
the provinces in every point of the compass. Rome herself,
the eternal city, had been menaced repeatedly ; and a still
more awful indication of the coming storm had been felt far
to the south of Rome. One long wave of the great German
Deluge had stretched beyond the Pyrenees and the Pillars
of Hercules, to the very homesteads of ancient Carthage.
Victorious banners were already floating on the margin of
the Great Desert, and they were not the banners of Csesar.
Some vigorous hand was demanded at this moment, or else
the funeral knell of Rome was on the point of sounding.
Indeed, there is every reason to believe that, had the imbe-
cile Carinus (the brother of Numerian) succeeded to the
command of the Roman armies at this time, or any other
leader than Diocletian, the Empire of the West would have
fallen to pieces within the next ten years.

Diocletian was doubtless that man of iron whom the
times demanded ; and a foreign writer has gone so far as to
class him amongst the greatest of men, if he were not even
himself the greatest. But the position of Diocletian was
remarkable beyond all precedent, and was alone sufficient
to prevent his being the greatest of men, by making it
necessary that he should be the most selfish. For the case
stood thus : — If Rome were in danger, much more so was
Cassar. If the condition of the Empire were such that

410 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

hardly any energy or any foresight was adequate to its
defence, for the Emperor, on the other hand, there was
scarcely a possibility that he should escape destruction.
The chances were in an overbalance against the Empire ;
but for the Emperor, considered as the representative officer
embodying the state, there was no chance at all. He shared
in all the hazards of the Empire, and had others so peculiarly
pointed at himself that his assassination was now become as
much a matter of certain calculation as seed-time and har-
vest, summer and winter, or any other periodic revolution of
nature. The problem, therefore, for Diocletian was a double
one, — so to provide for the defence and maintenance of the
Empire as simultaneously (and, if possible, through the very
same institution) to provide for the personal security of Caesar.
This problem he solved, in some imperfect degree, by the
only expedient perhaps open to him in that despotism, and
in those times. But it is remarkable that, by the revolution
which he effected, the office of Roman Imperator was com-
pletely altered, and Cassar became henceforward s an Oriental
Sultan or Padishah. Augustus, when moulding for his
future purposes the form and constitution of that supremacy
which he had obtained by inheritance and by arms, pro-
ceeded with so much caution and prudence that even the
style and title of his office was discussed in council as a
matter of the first moment. The principle of his policy
was to absorb into his own functions all those offices which
conferred any real power to balance or to control his own.
For this reason he appropriated the tribunitian power ; be-
cause that was a popular and representative office, which, as
occasions arose, would have given some opening to democratic
influences. But the consular office he left untouched ; because
all its power was transferred to the Imperator, by the entire
command of -the army, and by the new organization of the
provincial governments.1 And in all the rest of his arrange-

1 In no point of his policy was the cunning or the sagacity of
Augustus so much displayed as in his treaty of partition with the
Senate, which settled the distribution of the provinces and their
future administration. Seeming to take upon himself all the trouble
and hazard, he did in effect appropriate all the power, and left to the
Senate little more than trophies of show and ornament. As a first
step, all the greater provinces, Spain and Gaul, were subdivided into

THE C^SARS 411

ments Augustus had proceeded on the principle of leaving as
many openings to civic influences, and impressing upon all
his institutions as much of the old Roman character, as was
compatible with the real and substantial supremacy estab-
lished in the person of the Emperor. Neither is it at all
certain, as regarded even this aspect of the imperatorial
office, that Augustus had the purpose, or so much as the
wish, to annihilate all collateral power, and to invest the
chief magistrate with absolute irresponsibility. For himself
individually, as called upon to restore a shattered govern-
ment, and out of the anarchy of civil wars to recombine the
elements of power into some shape better fitted for duration
(and, by consequence, for insuring peace and protection to

many smaller ones. This done, Augustus proposed that the Senate
should preside over the administration of those amongst them which
were peaceably settled, and which paid a regular tribute ; whilst all
those which were the seats of danger, either as being exposed to
hostile inroads, or to internal commotions, — all, therefore, in fact,
which could justify the keeping up of a military force, — he assigned to
himself. In virtue of this arrangement, the Senate possessed in Africa
those provinces which had been formed out of Carthage, Gyrene, and
the kingdom of Numidia ; in Europe, the richest and most quiet part
of Spain (Hispania Boetica), with the large islands of Sicily, Sardinia,
Corsica, and Crete, and some districts of Greece ; in Asia, the king-
doms of Pontus and Bithynia, with that part of Asia Minor technically
called Asia ; whilst, for his own share, Augustus retained Gaul, Syria,
the chief part of Spain, and Egypt, the granary of Borne ; finally, all
the military posts on the Euphrates, on the Danube, or the Rhine. —
Yet even the showy concessions here made to the Senate were defeated
by another political institution, settled at the same time. It had
been agreed that the governors of provinces should be appointed by
the Emperor and the Senate jointly. But within the senatorian juris-
diction these governors, with the title of Proconsuls, were to have no
military power whatsoever ; and the appointments were good only for
a single year. Whereas, in the imperatorial provinces, where the
governor bore the title of Proprcetor, there was provision made for a
military establishment ; and, as to duration, the office was regulated
entirely by the Emperor's pleasure. One other ordinance, on the
same head, riveted the vassalage of the Senate. Hitherto, a great
source of the Senate's power had been found in the uncontrolled
management of the provincial revenues ; but, at this time, Augustus
so arranged that branch of the administration that, throughout the
senatorian or proconsular provinces, all taxes were immediately paid
into the cerarium, or treasury of the state ; whilst the whole revenues
of the proprsetorian (or imperatorial) provinces from this time forward
flowed into the fiscus, or private treasure of the individual Emperor.

412 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

the world) than the extinct Eepublic, it might be reasonable
to seek such irresponsibility. But, as regarded his suc-
cessors, considering the great pains he took to discourage all
manifestations of princely arrogance, and to develop by
education and example the civic virtues of patriotism and
affability in their whole bearing towards the People of Rome,
there is reason to presume that he wished to remove them
from popular control, without therefore removing them from
popular influence.

Hence it was, and from this original precedent of Augustus,
aided by the constitution which he had given to the office of
Imperator, that up to the era of Diocletian no prince had
dared utterly to neglect the Senate or the People of Rome.
He might hate the Senate, like Severus or Aurelian ; he
might even meditate their extermination, like the brutal
Maximin. But this arose from any cause rather than from
contempt. He hated them precisely because he feared them,
or because he paid them an involuntary tribute of supersti-
tious reverence, or because the malice of a tyrant interpreted
into a sort of treason the rival influence of the Senate over
the minds of men. But, before Diocletian, the undervaluing
of the Senate, or the harshest treatment of that body, had
arisen from views which were personal to the individual
Cassar. It was now made to arise from the very constitution
of the office and the mode of the appointment. To defend
the Empire, it was the opinion of Diocletian that a single
Emperor was not sufficient. And it struck him, at the same
time, that by the very institution of a plurality of Emperors,
which was now destined to secure the integrity of the Empire,
ample provision might be made for the personal security of
each Emperor. He carried his plan into immediate execution
by appointing an associate to his own rank of Augustus in
the person of Maximian — an experienced general ; whilst
each of them in effect multiplied his own office still farther
by severally appointing a Caesar, or hereditary prince. And
thus the very same partition of the public authority by means
of a duality of Emperors, to which the Senate had often
resorted of late as the best means of restoring their own
Republican Aristocracy, was now adopted by Diocletian as
the simplest engine for overthrowing finally the power of

THE CAESARS 413

either Senate or Army to interfere with the elective privilege.
This he endeavoured to centre in the existing Emperors, and
at the same moment to discourage treason or usurpation
generally, whether in the party choosing or the party chosen,
by securing to each Emperor, in the case of his own assassina-
tion, an avenger in the person of his surviving associate, as
also in the persons of the two Caesars, or adopted heirs and
lieutenants. The Associate Emperor, Maxiniian, together
with the two Caesars — Galerius appointed by himself, and
Constantius Chlorus by Maxiniian — were all bound to him-
self by ties of gratitude : all owing their stations ultimately
to his own favour. And these ties he endeavoured to strengthen
by other ties of affinity, each of the Augusti having given his
daughter in marriage to his own adopted Ceesar. And thus
it seemed scarcely possible that a usurpation should be suc-
cessful against so firm a league of friends and relatives.

The direct purposes of Diocletian were but imperfectly
attained. The internal peace of the Empire lasted only
during his own reign ; and with his abdication of the Empire
commenced the bloodiest civil wars which had desolated the
world since the contests of the great triumvirate. But the
collateral blow which he meditated against the authority of
the Senate was entirely successful. Never again had the
Senate any real influence on the fate of the world. And
with the power of the Senate expired concurrently the weight
and influence of Rome. Diocletian is supposed never to have
seen Rome, except on the single occasion when he entered it
for the ceremonial purpose of a triumph. Even for that pur-
pose it ceased to be a city of resort ; for Diocletian's was the
final triumph. And, lastly, even as the chief city of the
Empire for business or for pleasure, it ceased to claim the
homage of mankind : the Caesar was already born whose
destiny it was to cashier the metropolis of the world, and to
appoint her overshadowing substitute. This also may be
regarded in effect as the ordinance of Diocletian ; for he, by
his long residence in Nicomedia, expressed his opinion pretty
plainly that Rome was not central enough to perform the
functions of a capital to so vast an Empire, that this was one
cause of the declension now become so visible in the forces of
the State, and that some city not very far from the Helles-

414 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

pont or the ^Egean Sea would be a capital better adapted by
position to the exigencies of the times.

But the revolutions effected by Diocletian did not stop
here. The simplicity of its Republican origin had so far
affected the external character and entourage of the Imperial
office that in the midst of luxury the most unbounded, and
spite of all other corruptions, a majestic plainness of manners,
deportment, and dress, had still continued from generation
to generation characteristic of the Roman Imperator in his
intercourse with his subjects. All this was now changed ;
and for the Roman was substituted the Persian dress, the
Persian style of household, a Persian court, and Persian
manners. A diadem, or tiara beset with pearls, now en-
circled the temples of the Roman Augustus ; his sandals
were studded with pearls, as in the Persian court \ and the
other parts of his dress were in harmony with these. The
prince was instructed no longer to make himself familiar to
the eyes of men. He sequestered himself from his subjects
in the recesses of his palace. None who sought him could
any longer gain easy admission to his presence. It was a
point of his new duties to be difficult of access ; and they who
were at length admitted to an audience found him surrounded
by eunuchs, and were expected to make their approaches by
genuflexions, by servile " adorations," and by real acts of
worship as to a visible god.

It is strange that a ritual of court ceremonies so elaborate
and artificial as this should first have been introduced by a
soldier, and a warlike soldier, like Diocletian. This, how-
ever, is in part explained by his education and long residence
in Eastern countries. But the same eastern training fell to
the lot of Constantine, who was in effect his successor * ; and

1 On the abdication of Diocletian and of Maximian, Galerius and
Constautius succeeded as the new August!. The terms of that original
family compact under which either of the two had any rights at all
were, doubtless, drawn up with precision enough for honest men.
But, interpreted by ambitious knaves, no treaty that ever swindler
dictated, or hair-splitting lawyer improved by interlineations, but is
found to be sown with ambiguities as thickly as the heavens are sown
with stars. Drive a coach-and-six through it ! why, ten legions could
find a broad ingress through page 1. Galerius, as the more immediate
representative of Diocletian, thought himself entitled to appoint both
Csesars, — Daza (Maximinus) in Syria, Severus in Italy. Meantime,

THE (LESARS 415

the Oriental tone and standard established by these two
Emperors, though disturbed a little by the plain and military
bearing of Julian, and one or two more Emperors of the
same breeding, finally re-established itself with undisputed
sway in the Court when finally it became Byzantine.

Meantime, the institutions of Diocletian, if they had
destroyed Rome and the Senate as influences upon the course
of public affairs, and if they had destroyed the Roman features
of the Caesars, do, notwithstanding, appear to have attained
one of their purposes, in limiting the extent of imperial
murders. Travelling through the brief list of the remaining
Caesars, we perceive a little more security for life ; and hence
the successions are less rapid. Constantine, who (like Aaron's
rod) had swallowed up all his competitors seriatim, left the
Empire to his three sons ; and the last of these most unwill-
ingly to Julian. That prince's Persian expedition, so much
resembling in rashness and presumption the Russian campaign
of Napoleon, though so much below it in the scale of its
tragic results, led to the short reign of Jovian (or Jovinian),
which lasted only seven months. Upon his death succeeded
the house of Valentinian l ; in whose descendant of the third

Constantine, the son of Constautius, with difficulty obtaining per-
mission from Galerius, paid a visit to his father ; upon whose death,
which followed soon after, Constantine came forward as a Caesar, under
the appointment of his father. To this Avith a bad grace Galerius sub-
mitted ; but immediately, byway of retaliating counterpoise, Maxentius,
a reputed son of Maximian, was roused by emulation with Constantine
to assume the purple ; and, being joined by his father, they jointly
attacked and destroyed Severus. Galerius, to revenge the death of his
own Caesar, advanced towards Eome ; but, being compelled to a
disastrous retreat, he resorted to the measure of associating another
Emperor with himself, as a balance to his new enemies. This was
Licinius ; and thus, at one time, there were six Emperors in the field,
either as August! or (with a mere titular inferiority of rank) as Caesars.
Galerius dying, however, all the rest were in succession destroyed by
Constantine.

1 Valentinian the First, who admitted his brother Valens to a
partnership in the Empire, had, by his first wife, an elder son, Gratian,
who reigned and associated with himself Theodosius, commonly called
the Great. By his second wife this First Valentinian had Valen-
tinian the Second ; who, upon the death of his brother Gratian, was
allowed to share the Empire by Theodosius. Theodosius, by his first
wife, had two sons : Arcadius, who afterwards reigned as the Eastern
or Byzantine Emperor, and Honorius, whose Western Reign was so much

416 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

generation the Empire, properly speaking, expired : for the
seven shadows who succeeded, from Avitus and Majorian to
Julius Nepos and Romulus Augustulus, were in no proper
sense Roman Emperors : they were not even Emperors of the
West, but had a limited kingdom in the Italian Peninsula.
Valentinian the Third was, in any adequate sense, the last
Emperor of the West.

But, in a fuller and ampler sense, recurring to what we
have said of Diocletian and the tenor of his great revolution,
we may affirm that Probus and Cams were the final repre-
sentatives of the majesty of Rome ; for they reigned over
the whole Empire, not yet incapable of sustaining its own
unity ; and in them were still preserved, not yet obliterated
by oriental effeminacy, those majestic features which reflected
Republican Consuls, and, through them, the Senate and
People of Rome. That which had offended Diocletian in
the condition of the Roman Emperors was the grandest
feature of their dignity. It is true that the peril of the
office had become intolerable : each Cassar submitted to his
sad inauguration with a certainty, liable even to hardly any
disguise from the delusions of youthful hope, that for him,
within the boundless Empire which he governed, there was
no coast of safety, no shelter from the storm, no retreat,
except the grave, from the dagger of the assassin. Gibbon
has described the hopeless condition of one who should
attempt to fly from the wrath of the almost omnipresent
Imperator. But this dire impossibility of escape was in the
end dreadfully retaliated upon that Imperator. Persecutors
and traitors were found everywhere ; and the vindictive or
the ambitious subject found himself as omnipresent as the
jealous or the offended Emperor. There was no escape open,

illustrated by Stilicho, and glorified by the poet Claudian in the
farewell music of the Roman harp. By a second wife, daughter to
Valentinian the First, Theodosius had a daughter (half-sister, therefore,
to Honorius), whose son was Valentinian the Third ; and through this
alliance it was that the two last Emperors of conspicuous mark united
their two houses, and entwined their separate ciphers, so that more grace-
fully, and with the commensurate grandeur of a double-headed eagle
— looking east and west to the rising, but also, alas ! to the setting sun
— the brother Caesars might take leave of the children of Romulus in the
pathetic but lofty words of the departing gladiators, " Morituri, we that
are now to die, vos salutamus, make our farewell salutation to you " !

THE CAESARS 417

says Gibbon, from Caesar : true ; but neither was there any
escape for Caesar. The crown of the Caesars was therefore a
crown of thorns ; and it must be admitted that never in this
world have rank and power been purchased at so awful a
cost in tranquillity and peace of mind. The steps of Caesar's
throne were absolutely saturated with the blood of those who
had possessed it ; and so inexorable was that murderous fate
which overhung that gloomy eminence that at length it
demanded the spirit of martyrdom in him who ventured to
ascend it. In these circumstances some change was impera-
tively demanded. Human nature was no longer equal to the
terrors which it was summoned to face. But the changes of
Diocletian transmuted that golden sceptre into a base oriental
alloy. They left nothing behind of what had so much
challenged the veneration of man : for it was in the union
of republican simplicity with the irresponsibility of illimitable
power, it was in the antagonism between the merely human
and approachable condition of Caesar as a man and his divine
supremacy as a potentate and king of kings, that the secret
lay of his unrivalled grandeur. This perished utterly under
the reforming hands of Diocletian. Caesar only it was that
could be permitted to extinguish Ceesar : and a Koman Im-
perator it was who, by remodelling, did in effect abolish, —
by exorcising from its foul terrors, did in effect disenchant
of its sanctity, — that imperatorial dignity which, having once
perished, could have no second existence, and which was
undoubtedly the sublimest incarnation of power, and a monu-
ment the mightiest of greatness built by human hands, which
upon this planet has been suffered to appear.

VOL. vi 2 E

POSTSCRIPT IN 18591

The Ccesars, it may be right to mention, was written in
a situation which denied me the use of books ; so that, with
the exception of a few pencilled extracts in a pocket-book
from the Augustan History, I was obliged to depend upon my
memory for materials, in so far as respected facts. These
materials for the Western Empire are not more scanty than
meagre ; and in that proportion so much the greater is the
temptation which they offer to free and sceptical speculation.
To this temptation I have yielded intermittingly ; but, from
a fear (perhaps a cowardly fear) of being classed as a dealer
in licentious paradox, I checked myself exactly where the
largest licence might have been properly allowed to a bold
spirit of incredulity. In particular, I cannot bring myself to
believe, nor ought therefore to have assumed the tone of a
believer, in the inhuman atrocities charged upon the earlier
Caesars. Guided by my own instincts of truth and prob-
ability, I should, for instance, have summarily exploded the
most revolting among the crimes imputed to Nero. But too
often writers who have been compelled to deal in ghastly
horrors form a taste for such scenes, and sometimes, as may
be seen exemplified in those wrho record the French " Eeign
of Terror," become angrily credulous, and impatient of the
slightest hesitation in going along with the maniacal excesses
recorded. Apparently Suetonius suffered from that morbid

1 This appeared originally as part of De Quincey's Preface to vol. x
of his Collected Writings ; which volume contained the reprint of his
Ccesars. — M.

POSTSCRIPT 419

appetite. Else would he have countenanced the hyperbolical
extravagances current about the murder of Agrippina ?
What motive had Nero for murdering his mother ? or,
assuming the slightest motive, what difficulty in accomplish-
ing this murder by secret agencies? What need for the
elaborate contrivance (as in some costly pantomime) of
self-dissolving ships ? But, waiving all this superfluity of
useless mechanism, which by requiring many hands in work-
ing it must have multiplied the accomplices in the crime,
and have published his intentions to all Rome, how do these
statements tally with the instant resort of the lady herself,
upon reaching land, to the affectionate sympathy of her son 1
Upon this sympathy she counted : but how, if all Rome knew
that, like a hunted hare, she was then running on the traces
of her last double before receiving her death-blow ? Such a
crime, so causeless as regarded provocation, so objectless as
regarded purpose, and so revolting to the primal impulses of
nature, would, unless properly viewed as the crime of a maniac,
have alienated from Nero even his poor simple nurse and
other dependants, who showed for many years after his
death the strength of their attachment by adorning his grave
with flowers, and by inflicting such vindictive insults as they
could upon the corpse of his antagonist, Galba.

Meantime, that he might be insane, and entitled to the
excuse of insanity, is possible. If not, what a monstrous
part in the drama is played by the Roman People, who, after
this alleged crime, and believing in it, yet sat with tranquillity
to hear his musical performances ! But a taint of insanity
certainly did prevail in the blood of the earlier Caesars, i.e.
down to Nero.

Over and above this taint of physical insanity, we should
do well to allow for the preternatural tendency towards moral
insanity generated and nursed by the anomalous situation of
the Imperator, — a situation unknown before or since; in
which situation the licence allowed to the individual, after
the popular comitia had virtually become extinct, hid too
often from his eyes the perilous fact that in one solitary
direction, — viz. in regard to the representative functions
which he discharged as embodying the Roman Majesty, — he,
the supreme of men upon Earth, had a narrower licence or

420 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

discretionary power of action than any slave upon whose
neck he trocle. Better for him, for his own comfort in living,
and for his chance of quiet in dying, that he should violate
the moral sense by every act of bloody violence or brutal
appetite than that he should trifle with the heraldic sanctity
of his Imperatorial robe.

AELIUS LAMIA1

FOR a period of centuries there has existed an enigma, dark
and insoluble as that of the Sphinx, in the text of Suetonius.
Isaac Casaubon, as modest as he was learned, had vainly
besieged it ; then, in a mood of revolting arrogance, Joseph
Scaliger ; Ernesti, Gronovius, many others ; and all without
a gleam of success. Had the treadmill been awarded (as
might have been wished) to failure of attempts at solution,
under the construction of having traded in false hopes, — in
smoke-selling, as the Roman law entitled it, — one and all of
these big-wigs must have mounted that aspiring machine of
Tantalus, nolentes volentes.

The passage in Suetonius which so excruciatingly (but so
unprofitably) has tormented the wits of such scholars as have
sat in judgment upon it through a period of three hundred
and fifty years arises in the tenth section of his Domitian.
That prince, it seems, had displayed in his outset considerable
promise of moral excellence ; in particular, neither rapacity
nor cruelty was then apparently any feature in his character.
Both qualities, however, found a pretty large and early
development in his advancing career, but cruelty the largest

1 Date of original publication has eluded my search : reprinted by
De Quincey in 1859 in vol. x of his Collected Writings. — In the
Preface to that volume, after admitting that there might be room for
doubt as to some of his other historical conjectures in the volume, he
added : — "But no such licence extends to the case of jElius Lamia.
" In that case I acknowledge no shadow of doubt. I have a list of
" conjectural decipherings applied by classical doctors to desperate
" lesions and abscesses in the text of famous classic authors ; and I am
" really ashamed to say that my own emendation stands facile princeps
" among them all. I must repeat, however, that this pre-eminence
" is only that of luck ; and I must remind the critic that, in judging
" of this case, he must not do as one writer did on the first publication
" of this little paper : viz. entirely lose sight of the main incident in
" the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. Never perhaps on this earth
" was so threatening a whisper, a whisper so portentously significant,
" uttered between man and man in a single word, as in that secret
" suggestion of an Orpheutic voice where a wife was concerned." — M.

422 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

and earliest. By way of illustration, Suetonius rehearses a
list of distinguished men, clothed with senatorial! or even
consular rank, whom he had put to death upon allegations
the most frivolous ; amongst them, Aelius Lamia, a noble-
man whose wife he had torn from him by open and insulting
violence. It may be as well to cite the exact words of
Suetonius l : " Aelium Lamiam (interemit) ob suspiciosos
quidem, verum et veteres et innoxios, jocos ; quod post
abductam uxorem laudanti vocem suam dixerat, Heu taceo,
quodque Tito hortanti se ad alterum matrimonium re-
sponderat ///») xat crv yapjcrai 0eAei? " : — Anglicd, " Aelius
Lamia he put to death on account of certain jests ; jests liable
to some jealousy, but, on the other hand, of old standing, and
that had in fact proved harmless as regarded practical
consequences, — namely, that to one who praised his voice as
a singer he had replied Heu taceo, and that, on another
occasion, in reply to the Emperor Titus, when urging him to
a second marriage, he had said, " What now, I suppose you are
looking out for a wife 1 "

The latter jest is intelligible enough, stinging, and in a
high degree witty. As if the young men of the Flavian
family could fancy no wives but such as they had won by
violence from other men, he affects in a bitter sarcasm to take
for granted that Titus, in counselling his friends to marry,
was simply contemplating the first step towards creating a
fund of eligible wives. The primal qualification of any lady
as a consort being in Flavian eyes that she had been torn
away violently from a friend, it became evident that the
preliminary step towards a Flavian wedding was to persuade
some incautious friend into marrying, and thus putting him-
self into a capacity of being robbed. Such, at least in the
stinging jest of Lamia, was the Flavian rule of conduct.

1 The original Latin seems singularly careless : every (even though
inattentive) reader says — Innoxios, harmless ? But, if these jests were
harmless, how could he call them suspiciosos, calculated to rouse sus-
picion ? The way to justify the drift of Suetonius in reconcilement
with his precise words is thus : on account of certain repartees which
undeniably had borne a sense justifying some uneasiness and jealousy
at the time of utterance, but which the event had shown to be practi-
cally harmless, whatever had been the intention, and which were now
obsolete.

AELIUS LAMIA 423

And his friend Titus, therefore, simply as the brother of
Doraitian, simply as a Flavian, he affected to regard as in-
directly and provisionally extending his own conjugal fund
whenever he prevailed on a friend to select a wife.

The latter jest, therefore, when once apprehended, speaks
broadly and bitingly for itself. But the other ! what can
it possibly mean ? For centuries has that question been
reiterated ; and hitherto without advancing by one step
nearer to solution. Isaac Casaubon, who about 250 years
since was the leading oracle in this field of literature, writing
an elaborate and continuous commentary upon Suetonius,
found himself unable to suggest any real aids for dispersing
the thick darkness overhanging the passage. What he says
is this : " Parum satisfaciunt mihi interpretes in explicatione
hujus Lamlso dicti. Nam, quod putant Heu taceo suspiriuin
esse ejus, — indicem doloris ob abductam uxoreni magni sed
latentis, — nobis non ita videtur ; sed notatam potius fuisse
tyrannidem principis, qui omnia in suo genere pulchra et
excellentia possessoribus eriperet, unde necessitas incumbebat
sua bona dissimulandi celandique." In English thus : —
" Not at all satisfactory to me are the commentators in the
explanation of the dictum (here equivalent to dicterium) of
Lamia. For, whereas they imagine Heu taceo to be a sigh
of his — the record and indication of a sorrow, great though
concealed, on behalf of the wife that had been violently torn
away from him — me, I confess, the case does not strike in
that light ; but rather that a satiric blow was aimed at the
despotism of the sovereign prince, who tore away from their
possessors all objects whatsoever marked by beauty or dis-
tinguished merit in their own peculiar class : whence arose a
pressure of necessity for dissembling and hiding their own
advantages"-—" Sic esse exponevdum" that such is the true
interpretation (continues Casaubon), " docent ilia verba,
LAUDANTI VOCEM SHAM : " (we are instructed by these words :

TO ONE WHO PRAISED HIS SINGING VOICE).

This commentary was obscure enough, and did no parti-
cular honour to the native good sense of Isaac Casaubon,
usually so conspicuous. For, whilst proclaiming a settle-
ment, in reality it settled nothing. Naturally, it made but
a feeble impression upon the scholars of the day ; and, not

424 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

long after the publication of the book, Casaubon received
from Joseph Scaliger a friendly but gasconading letter, in
which that great scholar brought forward a new reading —
namely, CVTCIKTW, to which he assigned a profound technical
value as a musical term. No person even affected to un-
derstand Scaliger. Casaubon himself, while treating so
celebrated a man with kind and considerate deference, yet
frankly owned that, in all his vast reading, he had never met
with this Greek word in such a sense. But, without entering
into any dispute upon that verbal question, and conceding to
Scaliger the word and his own interpretation of the word, no
man could understand in what way this new resource was
meant to affect the ultimate question at issue : namely, the
extrication of the passage from that thick darkness which
overshadowed it.

" As you were " (to speak in the phraseology of military
drill) was in effect the word of command. All things reverted
to their original condition. And two centuries of darkness
again enveloped this unsolved or insoluble perplexity of Roman
Literature. The darkness had for a few moments seemed to
be unsettling itself in preparation for flight : but immediately
it rolled back again ; and through seven generations of men
this darkness was heavier, because now loaded with disap-
pointment, and in that degree less hopeful than before.

At length, then, I believe, all things are ready for the
explosion of a catastrophe. "Which catastrophe," I hear
some malicious reader whispering, " is doubtless destined to
glorify himself" (meaning the unworthy writer of this little
paper). I cannot deny it. A truth is a truth. And, since no
medal, nor riband, nor cross of any known order, is disposable
for the most brilliant successes in dealing with desperate (or
what may be called condemned) passages in pagan literature, —
mere sloughs of despond that yawn across the pages of many
a heathen dog, poet and orator, that I could mention, — so
much the more reasonable it is that a large allowance should
be served out of boasting and self-glorification to all those
whose merits upon this field national governments have
neglected to proclaim. The Scaligers, both father and son,
I believe, acted upon this doctrine ; and drew largely by
anticipation upon that reversionary bank which they con-

AELIUS LAMIA 425

ceived to be answerable for such drafts. Joseph Scaliger,
it strikes me, was drunk when he wrote his letter on the
present occasion, and in that way failed to see (what
Casaubon saw clearly enough) that he had commenced shout-
ing before he was out of the wood. For my own part, if I
go so far as to say that the result promises, in the Frenchman's
phrase, " to cover me with glory," I beg the reader to re-
member that the idea of " covering " is of most variable extent :
the glory may envelop one in a voluminous robe, a princely
mantle that may require a long suite of train-bearers, or may
pinch and vice one's arms into that succinct garment (now
superannuated) which some eighty years ago drew its name
from the distinguished Whig family in England of Spencer.

All being now ready, and the arena being cleared of
competitors (for I suppose it is fully understood that every-
body but myself has retired from the contest), let it be clearly
understood what it is that the contest turns upon. Supposing
that one had been called, like CEdipus of old, to a turn-up
with that venerable girl the Sphinx, most essential it would
have been that the clerk of the course (or however you
designate the judge, the umpire, &c.) should have read the
riddle propounded : how else judge of the solution ? At
present the elements of the case to be decided stand thus : —

A Roman noble — a man, in fact, of senatorial rank, — has
been robbed, robbed with violence, and with cruel scorn, of
a lovely young wife, to whom he was most tenderly attached.
But by whom ? the indignant reader demands. By a
younger son J of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. For some

1 But holding what rank, and what precise station, at the time of
the outrage ? At this point I acknowledge a difficulty. The criminal
was in this case Domitian, the younger son of the tenth Caesar, viz. of
Vespasian : 2,dly, younger brother of Titus, the eleventh Caesar ; and
himself, 3dly, under the name of Domitian, the twelfth of the Caesars.
Now the difficulty lies here, which yet I have never seen noticed in
any book : was this violence perpetrated before or after Domitian's
assumption of the purple ? If after, how, then, could the injured
husband have received that advice from Titus (as to repairing his loss
by a second marriage) which suggested the earliest bon-inot between
Titus and Lamia ? Yet, again, if not after but before, how was it that
Lamia had not invoked the protection of Vespasian, or of Titus — the
latter of whom enjoyed a theatrically fine reputation for equity and
moderation ? By the way, another bon-mot arose out of this brutal

426 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

years the wrong has been borne in silence : the sufferer
knew himself to be powerless as against such an oppressor ;
and that to show symptoms of impotent hatred was but to
call down thunderbolts upon his own head. Generally, there-
fore, prudence had guided him. Patience had been the word ;
silence, and below all the deep, deep word, watch and wait !
It is, however, an awful aggravation of such afflictions that
the lady herself might have co-operated in the later stages of
the tragedy with the purposes of the imperial ruffian. Lamia
had been suffered to live, because as a living man he yielded
up into the hands of his tormentor his whole capacity of
suffering ; no part of it escaped the hellish range of his
enemy's eye. But this advantage for the torturer had also
its weak and doubtful side. Use and monotony might secretly
be wearing away the edge of the organs on and through which
the corrosion of the inner heart proceeded. And, when that
point was reached — a callousness which neutralized the
further powers of the tormentor, — it then became the true
policy of such a fiend (as being his one sole unexhausted
resource) to inflict death. On the whole, therefore, putting
together the facts of the case, it seems to have been resolved
that he should die, but previously that he should drink
off a final cup of anguish, the bitterest that had yet been
offered. The lady herself, again, had she also suffered in
sympathy with her martyred husband ? That must have
been known to a certainty in the outset of the case by him
that knew too profoundly on what terms of love they had
lived. Possibly to resist indefinitely might have menaced
herself with ruin, whilst offering no benefit to her husband.
There is besides this dreadful fact, placed ten thousand times

Domitian's evil reputation. He had a taste for petty cruelties ;
especially upon the common house-fly, which in the Syrian mythology
enjoys the condescending patronage of the god Belzebub. Flies did
Caesar massacre in spite of Belzebub by bushels ; and the carnage was
the greater because this Apollyon of flies was always armed ; since the
metallic stylus, with which the Roman ploughed his waxen tablets in
writing memoranda, was the best of weapons in a pitched battle with
a fly ; in fact, Caesar had an unfair advantage. Meantime this habit
of his had become notorious : and one day a man, wishing for a private
audience, inquired in the antechambers if Caesar were alone. Quite
alone, was the reply. " Are you sure ? Is nobody with him ? "
Nobody : not so much as a fly (ne musca quidem).

ABLIUS LAMIA 427

on record, that the very goodness of the human heart in such
a case ministers fuel to the moral degradation of a female
combatant. Any woman, and exactly in proportion to the
moral sensibility of her nature, finds it painful to live in the
same house with a man not odiously repulsive in manners or
in person on terms of eternal hostility. What it was circum-
stantially that passed long since has been overtaken and
swallowed up by the vast oblivions of time. This only
survives — namely, that what Lamia had said gave signal
offence in the highest quarter, was not forgotten, and that
his death followed eventually. But what was it that he did
say ? That is precisely the question, and the whole question,
which we have to answer. At present we know, and we do
not know, what it was that he said. We find bequeathed to
us by history the munificent legacy of two words, involving
eight letters, which in their present form, — with submission
to certain grandees of classic literature, more particularly to
the scoundrel Joe Scaliger (son of the old original ruffian
J. C. Scaliger), — mean exactly nothing. These two words
must be regarded as the raw material upon which we have
to work ; and out of these we are required to turn out a
rational, but also, be it observed, a memorably caustic, saying
for Aelius Lamia, under the following five conditions : First,
it must allude to his wife, as one that is lost to him irrecover-
ably ; secondly, it must glance at a gloomy tyrant who bars
him from rejoining her ; thirdly, it must reply to the com-
pliment which had been paid to the sweetness of his own
voice ; fourthly, it should in strictness contain some allusion
calculated not only to irritate, but even to alarm or threaten
his jealous and vigilant enemy, — else how was it suspicious ?
fifthly, doing all these things, it ought also to absorb, as its
own main elements, the eight letters contained in the present
senseless words — " Heu taceo"

Here is a monstrous quantity of work to throw upon any
two words in any possible language. Even Shakspere's
clown,1 when challenged to furnish a catholic answer appli-
cable to all conceivable occasions, cannot do it in less than
nine letters, namely, Oh lord, sir ! I, for my part, satisfied
that the existing form of Heu taceo was mere indictable and
1 See All's Well that Ends Well, Act ii. Scene 2.

428 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

punishable nonsense, but yet that this nonsense must enter
as chief element into the stinging sense of Lamia, gazed for
I cannot tell how many weeks (weeks, indeed ! say years),
at these impregnable letters, viewing them sometimes as a
fortress that I was called upon to escalade, sometimes as an
anagram that I was called upon to re-organize into the life
which it had lost through some dislocation of arrangement.
One day I . looked at it through a microscope ; next day I
looked at it from a distance through a telescope. Then I
reconnoitred it downwards from the top round of a ladder ;
then upwards, in partnership with Truth, from the bottom of
a well. Finally, the result in which I landed, and which
fulfilled all the conditions laid down, was this : — Let me
premise, however, what at any rate the existing darkness
attests, that some disturbance of the text must in some way
have arisen ; whether from the gnawing of a rat, or the
spilling of some obliterating fluid at this point of some
unique MS. It is sufficient for us that the vital word has
survived. I suppose, therefore, that Lamia had replied to
the friend who praised the sweetness of his voice, " Sweet, is
it ? Ah, would to Heaven it might prove so sweet as to be
even Orpheutic !" Ominous in this case would be the word
Orpheutic to the ears of Domitian; for every schoolboy
knows that this means a wife-revolting voice. Let me remark
that there is such a legitimate word as Orpheutaceam ; and in
that case the Latin repartee of Lamia would stand thus :
Suavem dixisti ? Quam vellem et Orpheutaceam. But, perhaps,
reader, you fail to recognise in this form our old friend Heu
taceo. But here he is to a certainty, in spite of the rat : and
in a different form of letters the compositor will show him
to you as — vellem et Orp [HEU TACEAM]. Here, then,
shines out at once — (1) Eurydice the lovely wife ; (2) detained
by the gloomy tyrant Pluto ; (3) who, however, is forced into
surrendering her to her husband, whose voice (the sweetest
ever known) drew stocks and stones to follow him, and finally
his wife ; (4) the word Orpheutic involves, therefore, an alarm-
ing threat, showing that the hope of recovering the lady still
survived ; (5) we now find involved in the restoration all the
eight, or perhaps nine, letters of the erroneous (and for so
long a time unintelligible) form.

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY1

IT would be thought strange indeed if there should exist a
large, a memorable, section of History, traversed by many a
scholar with various objects, reviewed by many a reader in a
spirit of anxious scrutiny, and yet to this hour misunder-
stood ; erroneously appreciated ; its tendencies mistaken, and
its whole meaning, import, value, not so much inadequately
as falsely, ignorantly, perversely, deciphered. Primd facie,
one would pronounce this impossible. Nevertheless it is a
truth • and it is a solemn truth ; and what gives to it this
solemnity is the mysterious meaning, the obscure hint of a
still profounder meaning in the background, which begins to
dawn upon the eye when first piercing the darkness now
resting on the subject.

Perhaps no one arc or segment detached from the total
cycle of human records promises so much beforehand, so
much instruction, so much gratification to curiosity, so much
splendour, so much depth of interest, as the great period —
the systole and diastole, flux and reflux — of the Western
Roman Empire. Its parentage was magnificent and Titanic.
It was a birth out of the death-struggles of the colossal
Republic : its foundations were laid by that sublime dictator,
" the foremost man of all this world," who was unquestionably
for comprehensive talents the Lucifer, the Protagonist, of all

1 In Blackwood for November 1839, with the sub-title "On the
True Eelations to Civilization and Barbarism of the Roman Western
Empire" : not reprinted by De Quincey in his edition of his Collective
Writings, probably because it \vas one of the papers he had not over-
taken in his task of revision. — M.

430 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Antiquity. Its range, the compass of its extent, was appal-
ling to the imagination. Coming last amongst what are
called the Great Monarchies of Prophecy, it was the only one
which realized in perfection the idea of a monarchia, being
(except for Parthia and the great fable of India beyond it)
strictly coincident with fj ot/cov/xev?;, or the Civilized "World.
Civilization and this Empire were commensurate : they were
interchangeable ideas, and co-extensive. Finally, the path
of this great Empire, through its arch of progress, synchronized
with that of Christianity : the ascending orbit of each was
pretty nearly the same, and traversed the same series of
generations. These elements, in combination, seemed to
promise a succession of golden harvests : from the specular
station of the Augustan age, the eye caught glimpses by
anticipation of some glorious El Dorado for human hopes.
What was the practical result for our historic experience ?
Answer — A sterile Zaarrah. Prelibations, as of some
heavenly vintage, were inhaled by the Virgils of the day,
looking forward in the spirit of prophetic rapture ; whilst, in
the very sadness of truth, from that age forwards the Roman
World drank from stagnant marshes. A paradise of roses was
prefigured : a wilderness of thorns was found.

Even this fact has been missed — even the bare fact has
been overlooked ; much more the causes, the principles, the
philosophy of this fact. The rapid barbarism which closed
in behind Cresar's chariot wheels has been hid by the pomp
and equipage of the imperial court. The vast power and
domination of the Roman Empire, for the three centuries
which followed the battle of Actium, have dazzled the
historic eye, and have had the usual reaction on the power of
vision : a dazzled eye is always left in a condition of dark-
ness. The Battle of Actium was followed by the final
conquest of Egypt. That conquest rounded and integrated
the glorious Empire ; it was now circular as a shield —
orbicular as the disk of a planet : the great Julian arch was
now locked into the cohesion of granite by its last key-stone.
From that day forward, for three hundred years, there was
silence in the world : no muttering was heard : no eye
winked beneath the wing. Winds of hostility might still
rave at intervals : but it was on the outside of the mighty

PHILOSOPHY OF EOMAN HISTORY 431

Empire : it was at a dream-like distance ; and, like the
storms that beat against some monumental castle, " and at
the doors and windows seem to call," they rather irritated
and vivified the sense of security than at all disturbed its
luxurious lull.

That seemed to all men the consummation of political
wisdom, the ultimate object of all strife, the very euthanasy
of war. Except 011 some fabulous frontier, armies seemed
gay pageants of the Roman rank rather than necessary
bulwarks of the Roman power : spear and shield were idle
trophies of the past : the trumpet spoke not to the alarmed
throng. " Hush, ye palpitations of Rome ! " was the cry of
the superb Aurelian,1 from his far-off pavilion in the deserts
of the Euphrates — " Hush, fluttering heart of the Eternal
City ! Fall back into slumber, ye wars, and rumours of
wars ! Turn upon your couches of down, ye Children of
Romulus — sink back into your voluptuous repose ! We, your
almighty Armies, have chased into darkness those phantoms
that had broken your dreams. We have chased, we have
besieged, we have crucified, we have slain." — " Nihil est,
Romulei Quirites, quod timere possitis. Ego efficiam ne sit
aliqua solicitudo Romana. Vacate ludis, vacate circensibus.
Nos publicce necessitates teneant : vos occupent voluptates" —
Did ever Siren warble so dulcet a song to ears already
prepossessed and medicated with spells of Circean effeminacy 1

But in this world all things re-act ; and the very extremity
of any force is the seed and nucleus of a counter-agency.
You might have thought it as easy (in the words of Shak-
spere) to

"Wound the loud winds, or with be-mock'd-at stabs
Kill the still -closing waters, "

as to violate the majesty of the imperial eagle, or to ruffle

"Of the superb Aurelian" : — The particular occasion was the
insurrection in the East of which the ostensible leaders were the great
lieutenants of Palmyra — Odenathus, and his widow, Zenobia. The
alarm at Rome was out of all proportion to the danger, and well
illustrated the force of the great historian's aphorism, Omne ignotum
pro magnifico. In one sentence of his despatch, Aurelian aimed at a
contest with the great Julian gasconade of Veni, vidi, vici. His words
are — Fugavimus, obscdimus, cruciavimus, occidimus.

432 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

" one dowle that's in his plume." But luxurious ease is the
surest harbinger of pain ; and the dead lulls of tropical seas
are the immediate forerunners of tornadoes. The more
absolute was the security obtained by Caesar for his people,
the more inevitable was his own ruin. Scarcely had Aurelian
sung his requiem to the agitations of Rome before a
requiem was sung by his assassins to his own warlike
spirit. Scarcely had Probus, another Aurelian, proclaimed
the eternity of peace, and, by way of attesting his own
martial supremacy, had commanded " that the brazen throat
of war should cease to roar," when the trumpets of the four
winds proclaimed his own death by murder. Not as any-
thing extraordinary ; for, in fact, violent death — death by
assassination — was the regular portal (the porta Libitina, or
funeral gate) through which the Caesars passed out of this
world ; and to die in their beds was the very rare exception
to the stern rule of fate. Not, therefore, as in itself at all
noticeable, but because this particular murder of Probus
stands scenically contrasted with the great vision of Peace
which he fancied as lying in clear revelation before him,
permit us, before we proceed with our argument, to rehearse
his golden promises. The sabres were already unsheathed,
the shirt-sleeves were already pushed up from those murderous
hands which were to lacerate his throat and to pierce his
heart, when he ascended the Pisgah from which he descried
the Saturnian ages to succeed : — "Brevi," said he, "milites
non necessaries habebimus. Romanus jam, miles erit nullus.
Omnia possidebimus. Eespublica orbis terrarum, ubique secura,
non arma fabricabit. Boves habebuntur aratro : equus nascetur
ad pacem. Nulla erunt bella, nulla captivitas. Ubique pax :
ubique Romance leges : ubique judices nostri" The historian
himself, tame and creeping as he is in his ordinary style,
warms in sympathy with the Emperor : his diction blazes up
into a sudden explosion of prophetic grandeur : and he
adopts all the views of Caesar. " Nonne omnes barbaras
nationes subjecerat pedibus?" he demands with lyrical
tumult, and then, while confessing the immediate dis-
appointment of his hopes, thus repeats the great elements of
the public felicity whenever they should be realized by a
Caesar equally martial for others, but more fortunate for him-

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY 433

self : — " jfitcrnos ihesauros haberet Romano, Respublica. Nihil
expenderetur a principe : nihil a possessore redder etur. Aureum
profedo seculum promittebat. Nulla futura erant castra :
nusquam lituus audiendus : arma non erant fabricanda.
Populus iste militantium, qui nunc bellis civilibus Rempublicam
vexat " — ay ! how was that to be absorbed ? How would that
vast crowd of half-pay emeriti employ itself ? " Araret :
studiis incumberet : erudiretur artibus : navigaret." And he
closes his prophetic raptures thus : " Adde quod nullus
occideretur in bello. Dii boni ! quid tandem vos offenderet
Respublica Romana, cui talem principem sustulistis ? "

Even in his lamentations, it is clear that he mourns as for
a blessing delayed — not finally denied. The land of promise
still lay, as before, in steady vision below his feet ; only that
it waited for some happier Augustus, who, in the great lottery
of Caesarian destinies, might happen to draw the rare prize
of a prosperous reign not prematurely blighted by the
assassin ; with whose purple alourgis might mingle no fasciae
of crape, with whose imperial laurels might entwine no
ominous cypress. The hope of a millennial armistice, of an
eternal rest for the earth, was not dead : once again only,
and for a time, it was sleeping in abeyance and expectation.
That blessing, that millennial blessing, it seems, might be
the gift of Imperial Rome.

II. — Well : and why not ? the reader demands. What
have we to say against it ? This Caesar, or that historian,
may have carried his views a little too far, or too pre-
maturely '} yet, after all, the very enormity of what they
promised must be held to argue the enormity of what had
been accomplished. To give any plausibility to a scheme of
perpetual peace, war must already have become rare, and
must have been banished to a prodigious distance. It was
no longer the hearths and the altars, home and religious
worship, which quaked under the tumults of war. It was
the purse which suffered : the exchequer of the state ;
secondly, the exchequer of each individual ; thirdly, and in
the end, the interests of agriculture, of commerce, of navi-
gation. This is what the historian indicates in promising
his brother Romans that " omnia possidebimus " : by which,

VOL. vi 2 F

434 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

perhaps, he did not mean to lay the stress on " omnia" as if,
in addition to their own property, they were to have that of
alien or frontier nations, but (laying the stress on the word
possidebimus) meant to say, with regard to property already
their own — " We shall no longer hold it as joint proprietors
with the state, and as liable to fluctuating taxation, but shall
henceforwards • possess it in absolute exclusive property."
This is what he indicates in saying " Boves habebuntur aratro " :
that is, the oxen, one and all available for the plough, shall
no longer be open to the everlasting claims of the public
frumentarii for conveying supplies to the frontier armies.
This is what he indicates in saying, of the individual liable
to military service, that he should no longer live to slay or
to be slain, for barren bloodshed or violence, but that hence-
forth " araret " or " navigaret" All these passages, by pointing
the expectations emphatically to benefits of purse exonerated,
and industry emancipated, sufficiently argue the class of
interests which then suffered by war : that it was the
interests of private property, of agricultural improvement, of
commercial industry, upon which exclusively fell the evils of
a belligerent state under the Konian Empire : and there
already lies a mighty blessing achieved for social existence
when sleep is made sacred and thresholds secure, when the
temple of human life is safe, and the temple of female
honour is hallowed. These great interests, it is admitted,
were sheltered under the mighty dome of the Roman Empire :
that is already an advance made towards the highest civil-
ization ; and this is not shaken because a particular
Emperor should be extravagant, or a particular Historian
romantic.

No, certainly : but stop a moment at this point ! Civil-
ization, to the extent of security for life and the primal
rights of man, necessarily grows out of every strong govern-
ment. And it follows also that, as this government widens
its sphere, as it pushes back its frontiers ultra et Garamantas et
Indos, in that proportion will the danger diminish (for in fact
the possibility diminishes) of foreign incursions. The sense
of permanent security from conquest, or from the inroad of
marauders, must of course have been prodigiously increased
when the nearest standing army of Rome was beyond the

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY 435

Tigris and the Inn, as compared with those times when
Carthage, Spain, Gaul, Macedon, presented a ring-fence of
venomous rivals, and when every little nook in the Eastern
Mediterranean swarmed with pirates. Thus far, inevitably,
the Koman police, planting one foot of his golden compasses
in the same eternal centre, and with the other describing an
arch continually wider, must have banished all idea of public
enemies, and have deepened the sense of security beyond
calculation. Thus far we have the benefits of police ; and
those are amongst the earliest blessings of civilization ; and
they are one indispensable condition — what in logic is called
the conditio sine qua non — for all the other blessings. But
that, in other words, is a negative cause, — a cause which being
absent, the effect is absent ; but not the positive cause, or
causa sufficiens, which being present, the effect will be
present. The security of the Roman Empire was the indis-
pensable condition, but not in itself a sufficient cause, of
those other elements which compose a true civilization.
Rome was the centre of a high police, which radiated to
Parthia eastwards, to Britain westwards, but not of a high
civilization.

On the contrary, what we maintain is that the Roman
Civilization was imperfect ab intra — imperfect in its central
principle ; was a piece of watch work that began to go down
— to lose its spring — and was slowly retrograding to a dead
stop from the very moment that it had completed its task of
foreign conquest : that it was kept going from the very first
by strong reaction and antagonism ; that it fell into torpor
from the moment when this antagonism ceased to operate ;
that thenceforwards it oscillated backwards violently to bar-
barism : that, left to its own principles of civilization, the
Roman Empire was barbarizing rapidly from the time of
Trajan : that, abstracting from all alien agencies whatever,
whether accelerating or retarding, and supposing Western
Rome to have been thrown exclusively upon the resources
and elasticity of her own proper civilization, she was crazy
and superannuated by the time of Commodus — must soon
have gone to pieces — must have foundered ; and, under any
possible benefit from favourable accidents co-operating with
alien forces, could not, by any great term, have retarded that

436 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

doom which was written on her drooping energies, prescribed
by internal decay, and not at all (as is universally imagined)
by external assault.

III. — " Barbarizing rapidly ! " the reader murmurs —
" Barbarism ! Oh yes, I remember the Barbarians broke
in upon the Western Empire — the Ostrogoths, Visigoths,
Vandals, Burgundians, Huns, Heruli, and swarms beside.
These wretches had no taste — no literature, probably very
few ideas ; and naturally they barbarized and rebarbarized
wherever they moved. But surely the writer errs : this
influx of barbarism was not in Trajan's time, at the very
opening of the second century from Christ, but throughout
the fifth century." No, reader; it is not we who err, but
you. These were not the barbarians of Koine. That is the
miserable fiction of Italian vanity, always stigmatizing better
men than themselves by the name of Barbarians ; and in fact
we all know, that to be an Ultramontane is with them to be
a Barbarian. The horrible charge against the Greeks of old,
viz. that sua tantum mirantur, a charge implying in its
objects the last descent of narrow sensibility and of illiterate
bigotry, in modern times has been true only of two nations ;
and those two are the French and the Italians. But, waiving
the topic, we affirm — and it is the purpose of our essay to
affirm — that the barbarism of Rome grew out of Rome her-
self; that those pretended barbarians — Gothic, Vandalish,1
Lombard, or by whatever name known to Modern History —
were in reality the restorers and regenerators of the effete
Roman intellect ; that, but for them, the indigenous Italian
would probably have died out in scrofula, madness, leprosy ;
that the sixth or seventh century would have seen the utter

1 "Pretended barbarians, Gothic, Vandalish," &c. — Had it been
true that these tramontane people were as ferocious in manners or
appearance as was alleged, it would not therefore have followed that
they were barbarous in their modes of thinking and feeling ; or, if that
also had been true, surely it became the Romans to recollect what very
barbarians, both in mind, and manners, and appearance, were some of
their own Caesars. Meantime it appears that not only Alaric the
Goth, but even Attila the Hun, in popular repute the most absolute
Ogre of all the Transalpine invaders, turns out in more thoughtful
representations to have been a prince of peculiarly mild demeanour,
and apparently upright character.

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY 437

extinction of these Italian strulbrugs : for which opinion, if
it were important, we could show cause. But it is much
less important to show cause in behalf of this negative pro-
position " that the Goths and Vandals were not the harbarians
of the western empire," than in behalf of this affirmative
proposition, "that the Komans were!' We do not wish to
overlay the subject, but simply to indicate a few of the many
evidences which it is in our power to adduce. We mean to
rely, for the present, upon four arguments, as exponents of
the barbarous and barbarizing tone of feeling which, like so
much moss or lichens, had gradually overgrown the Roman
mind, and by the third century had strangled all healthy
vegetation of natural and manly thought. During this third
century it was, in its latter half, that most of the Augustan
History was probably composed. Laying aside the two
Victors, Dion Cassius, Ammianus Marcellinus, and a few
more indirect notices of History during this period, there is
little other authority for the annals of the Western Empire
than this Augustan History; and at all events, this is the
chief well-head of that History. Hither we must resort for
most of the personal biography and the portraiture of
characters connected with that period ; and here only we
find the regular series of princes — the whole gallery of
Caesars, from Trajan to the immediate predecessor of Dio-
cletian. The composition of this work has been usually
distributed amongst six authors, viz. Spartian, Capitolinus,
Lampridius, Volcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio, and
Vopiscus.1 Their several shares, it is true, have been much
disputed to and fro ; and other questions have been raised,
affecting the very existence of some amongst them. But all
this is irrelevant to our present purpose ; which applies to
the work, but not at all to the writers, excepting in so far
as they (by whatever names known) were notoriously and
demonstrably persons belonging to that era, trained in Roman
habits of thinking, connected with the Court, intimate with
the great Palatine officers, and therefore presumably men of
rank and education. We rely, in so far as we rely at all
upon this work, upon these two among its characteristic
features : 1st, Upon the quality and style of its biographic
1 See footnote, ante, p. 241. — M.

438 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

notices ; 2dly, Upon the remarkable uncertainty which hangs
over all lives a little removed from the personal cognisance
or immediate era of the writer. But, as respects, not the
History, but the subjects of the History, we rely, 3dly, Upon
the peculiar traits of feeling which gradually began to dis-
figure the ideal conception of the Roman Caesar in the minds
of his subjects ; 4thly, Without reference to the Augustan
History, or to the subjects of that History, we rely generally,
for establishing the growing barbarism of Rome, upon the
condition of the Roman Literature after the period of the
first twelve Caesars.

IV. — First of all, we infer the increasing barbarism of the
Roman mind from the quality of the personal notices and
portraitures exhibited throughout these ^biographical records.
The whole may be described by one word — Anecdotage. It is
impossible to conceive the dignity of History more degraded
than by the petty nature of the anecdotes which compose the
bulk of the communications about every Caesar, good or bad,
great or little. They are not merely domestic and purely
personal, when they ought to have been Caesarian, Augustan,
Imperatorial : they pursue Caesar not only to his fireside, but
into his bed-chamber, into his bath, into his cabinet, nay,
even (sit honor auribus /) into his cabinet d'aisance ; not merely
into the Palatine closet, but into the Palatine water-closet.
Thus of Heliogabalus we are told — " onus ventris auro excepit
— minxit myrrhinis et onychinis " ; that is, Caesar's lasanum
was made of gold, and his matula was made of onyx, or of
the undetermined myrrhine material. And so on with
respect to the dresses of Caesar ; — how many of every kind
he wore in a week — of what material they were made — with
what ornaments. So, again, with respect to the meals of
Csesar ; — what dishes, what condiments, what fruits, what
confection prevailed at each course ; what wines he preferred ;
how many glasses (cyathos) he usually drank ; whether he
drank more when he was angry ; whether he diluted his
wine with water ; half-and-half, or how ? Did he get drunk
often ? How many times a week ? What did he generally do
when he was drunk ? How many chemises did he allow to his
wife ? How were they fringed ? At what cost per chemise ?

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY 439

In this strain — how truly worthy of the children of
Romulus — how becoming to the descendants from Scipio
Africanus, from Paulus ./Emilias, from the colossal Marius
and the godlike Julius — the whole of the Augustan History
moves. There is a superb line in Lucan which represents
the mighty phantom of Paulus standing at a banquet to
reproach or to alarm —

" Et Paul! ingentera stare miraberis umbram ! "

What a horror would have seized this Augustan scribbler,
this Roman Tims, if he could have seen this "mighty
phantom " at his elbow looking over his inanities ; and what
a horror would have seized the phantom ! Once, in the
course of his aulic memorabilia, the writer is struck with a
sudden glimpse of such an idea ; and he reproaches himself
for recording such infinite littleness. After reporting some
anecdotes, in the usual Augustan style, about an Imperial
rebel, — as, for instance, that he had ridden upon ostriches
(which he says was the next thing to flying) ; that he had
eaten a dish of boiled hippopotamus l ; and that, having a
fancy for tickling the catastrophes of crocodiles, he had
anointed himself with crocodile fat, by which means he
humbugged the crocodiles, ceasing to be Caesar, and passing
for a crocodile, swimming and playing amongst them : these
glorious facts being recorded, he goes on to say — " Sed hcec
scire quid prodest ? cum et Limns et Sallustius taceant res leves
de Us quorum vitas scribendas arripuerint. Non enim scimus
quales mulos Clodius habuerit ; nee utrum Tusco equo sederit
Catilina an Sardo ; ml quali chlamyde Pompeius usus fuerit,
an purpurd" No : we do not know. Livy would have
died in the high Roman fashion before he would have
degraded himself by such babble of nursery - maids or of
palace pimps and eavesdroppers.

But it is too evident that babble of this kind grew up not
by any accident, but as a natural growth, and by a sort of
physical necessity, from the condition of the Roman mind

1 "Eaten a dish of boiled hippopotamus" : — We once thought that
some error might exist in the text — edisse for edidisse — and that a man
exposed a hippopotamus at the games of the amphitheatre ; but we are
now satisfied that he ate the hippopotamus.

440 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

after it had ceased to be excited by opposition in foreign
nations. It was not merely the extinction of Republican
institutions which operated ; that might operate as a co-cause ;
but, had these institutions even survived, the unresisted
energies of the Roman mind, having no purchase, nothing to
push against, would have collapsed. The eagle, of all birds,
would be the first to flutter and sink plumb down if the
atmosphere should make no resistance to his wings. The
first Roman of note who began this system of anecdotage
was Suetonius. In him the poison of the degradation was
much diluted by the strong remembrances, still surviving, of
the mighty Republic. The glorious sunset was still burning
with gold and orange lights in the west. True, the disease
had commenced; but the habits of health were still strong
for restraint and for conflict with its power. Besides that,
Suetonius graces his minutiae, and embalms them in amber,
by the exquisite finish of his rhetoric. But his case, coming
so early among the Caesarian annals, is sufficient to show
that the growth of such History was a spontaneous growth
from the circumstances of the empire, viz. from the total
collapse of all public antagonism.

The next Literature in which the spirit of anecdotage
arose was that of France. From the age of Louis Treize, or
perhaps of Henri Quatre, to the Revolution, this species of
chamber memoirs — this eavesdropping biography — prevailed
so as to strangle authentic History. The parasitical plant
absolutely killed the supporting tree. And one remark we
will venture to make on that fact : the French Literature
would have been killed, and the national mind reduced to
the strulbrug condition, had it not been for the situation of
France amongst other great kingdoms, making her liable to
potent reactions from them. The Memoirs of France, — that
is, the valet-de-chambre's archives substituted for the states-
man's, the ambassador's, the soldier's, the politician's, — would
have extinguished all other historic composition, as in fact
they nearly did, but for the insulation of France amongst
nations with more masculine habits of thought. That saved
France. Rome had no such advantage ; and Rome gave
way. The props, the buttresses, of the Roman intellect were
all cancered and honeycombed by this dry-rot in her political

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY 441

energies. One excuse there is : storms yield tragedies for
the historian ; the dead calms of a universal monarchy leave
him little but personal memoranda. In such a case he is
nothing if he is not anecdotical.

V. — Secondly, we infer the barbarism of Home, and the
increasing barbarism, from the inconceivable ignorance which
prevailed throughout the Western Empire as to the most
interesting public facts that were not taken down on the
spot by a tachygraphus or short-hand reporter. Let a few
years pass, and everything was forgotten about everybody.
Within a few years after the death of Aurelian, though a
kind of saint amongst the Armies and the Populace of Eome
(for to the Senate he was odious), no person could tell who
was the Emperor's mother, or where she lived ; though she
must have been a woman of station and notoriety in her
lifetime, having been a high priestess at some temple un-
known. Alexander Severus, a very interesting Caesar, who
recalls to an Englishman the idea of his own Edward the
Sixth, — both as a prince equally amiable, equally disposed
to piety, equally to reforms, and because, like Edward, he
was so placed with respect to the succession and position of
his reign, between unnatural monsters and bloody exter-
minators, as to reap all the benefit of contrast and soft
relief ; — this Alexander was assassinated. That was of
course. But still, though the fact was of course, the motives
often varied, and the circumstances varied ; and the reader
would be glad to know, in Shakspere's language, " for which
of his virtues " it was deemed requisite to murder him ; as
also, if it would not be too much trouble to the historian,
who might be the murderers, and what might be their
rank, and their names, and their recompense — whether a
halter or a palace. But nothing of all this can be learned.
And why ? All had been forgotten.1 Lethe had sent all

1 "All had been forgotten " : — It is true that the Augustan writer,
rather than appear to know nothing at all, tells a most idle fable about
a scurra having intruded into Caesar's tent, and, upon finding the
young Emperor awake, excited his comrades to the murder for fear of
being punished for his insolent intrusion. But the whole story is
nonsense : a camp legend, or at the best a fable put forth by the real
conspirators to mask the truth. The writer did not believe it himself.

442 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

her waves over the whole transaction ; and the man who
wrote within thirty years found no vestige recoverable of the
imperial murder more than you or we, reader, would find at
this day, if we should search for fragments of that imperial
tent in which the murder happened. Again, with respect to
the princes who succeeded immediately to their part of the
Augustan History now surviving, — princes the most remark-
able, and cardinal to the movement of History, viz. Diocletian
and Constantine, — many of the weightiest transactions in
their lives are washed out as by a sponge. Did Diocletian
hang himself in his garters 1 or did he die in his bed ?
Nobody knows. And, if Diocletian hanged himself, why
did Diocletian hang himself? Nobody can guess. Did
Constantine, again, marry a second wife ? — did this second
wife fall in love with her step-son Crispus ? — did she, in
resentment of his scorn, bear false witness against him to his
father ? — did his father, in consequence, put him to death ?
What an awful domestic tragedy ! — was it true ? Nobody
knows. On the one hand, Eusebius does not so much as
allude to it ; but, on the other hand, Eusebius had his golden
reasons for favouring Constantine, and this was a matter to
be hushed up rather than blazoned. Tell it not in Gath !
Publish it not in Askelon ! Then again, on the one hand,
the tale seems absolutely a leaf torn out of the Hippolytus of
Euripides. It is the identical story, only the name is changed :
Constantine is Theseus, his new wife is Phaedra, Crispus is
Hippolytus. So far it seems rank with forgery. Yet again,
on the other hand, such a duplicate did bond fide occur in
Modern History. Such a domestic tragedy was actually
rehearsed, with one unimportant change ; such a leaf was
positively torn out of Euripides. Philip II played the part
of Theseus, Don Carlos the part of Hippolytus, and the
Queen filled the situation (without the animus) of Phaedra.
Again, therefore, one is reduced to blank ignorance, and the
world will never know the true history of the Caesar who

— By the way, a scurra does not retain its classical sense of a buffoon
in the Augustan History ; it means a <rw/iaTo0iAa£, or body-guard ;
but why, is yet undiscovered. Our own belief is that the word is a
Thracian or a Gothic word ; the body-guards being derived from those
nations.

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY 443

first gave an establishment and an earthly throne to Christ-
ianity, because History had slept the sleep of death before
that Caesar's time, and because the great Muse of History
had descended from Parnassus, and was running about Caesar's
palace in the bed-gown and slippers of a chambermaid.

Many hundreds of similar lacunce we could assign with
regard to facts the most indispensable to be known ; but
we must hurry onwards. Meantime, let the reader contrast
with this dearth of primary facts in the History of the
Empire, and their utter extinction after even the lapse of
twenty years, the extreme circumstantiality of the Republican
History through many centuries back.

VI. — Thirdly, we infer the growing barbarism of Rome,
that is, of the Roman people, as well as the Roman Armies,
from the brutal, bloody, and Tartar style of their festal
exultations after victory, and the Moloch sort of character
and functions with which they gradually invested their great
Sultan, the Caesar. One of the ballisteia, that is, the ballets
or dances carried through scenes and representative changes,
which were performed by the soldiery and by the mobs of
Rome upon occasion of any triumphal display, has been pre-
served, in so far as relates to the words which accompanied
the performance • for there was always a verbal accompani-
ment to the choral parts of the ballisteia. These words ran
thus : —

" Mille, mille, mille, mille, mille, mille, [six times repeated] decolla-
vimus.

Unus homo mille, mille, mille, mille, [four times] decollavit :
Mille, mille, mille, vivat annos, qui mille, mille occidit.
Tantum vini habet nemo quantum Caesar fudit sanguinis.'

And, again, a part of a ballisteion runs thus : —

" Mille Francos, mille Sarmatas, semel occidimus :
Mille, mille, mille, mille, mille, Persas quasrimus."

But, in reality, the national mind was convulsed and
revolutionized by many causes ; and we may be assured that
it must have been so, both as a cause and as an effect, before
that mind could have contemplated with steadiness the fear-
ful scene of Turkish murder and bloodshed going on for ever

444 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

in high places. The palace floors in Koine actually rocked
and quaked with assassination ; snakes were sleeping for ever
beneath the flowers and palms of empire : the throne was
built upon coffins : and any Christian who had read the
Apocalypse, whenever he looked at the altar consecrated to
Caesar, on which the sacred fire was burning for ever in the
Augustan halls, must have seen below them " the souls of
those who had been martyred," and have fancied that he
heard them crying out to the angel of retribution — " How
long ? 0 Lord ! how long ? "

Gibbon has left us a description, not very powerful, of a
case which is all-powerful of itself, and needs no expansion :
the case of a state criminal vainly attempting to escape or
hide himself from Caesar — from the arm wrapped in clouds,
and stretching over kingdoms alike, or oceans, that arrested
and drew back the wretch to judgment — from the inevitable
eye that slept not nor slumbered, and from which, neither
Alps interposing, nor immeasurable deserts, nor trackless
seas, nor a four months' flight, nor perfect innocence, could
screen him. The world, the world of civilization, was
Caesar's ; and he who fled from the wrath of Caesar said to
himself, of necessity — " If I go down to the sea, there is
Caesar on the shore ; if I go into the sands of Bilidulgerid,
there is Caesar waiting for me in the desert ; if I take the
wings of the morning, and go to the utmost recesses of wild
beasts, there is Caesar before me." All this makes the con-
dition of a criminal under the Western Empire terrific, and
the condition even of a subject perilous. But how strange
it is, — or would be so, had Gibbon been a man of more sen-
sibility,— that he should have overlooked the converse of the
case : viz. the terrific condition of Caesar amidst the terror
which he caused to others. In fact, both conditions were
full of despair. But Caesar's was the worst, by a great pre-
eminence ; for the state criminal could not be made such
without his own concurrence : for one moment, at least, it
had been within his choice to be no criminal at all ; and
then for him the thunderbolts of Caesar slept. But Caesar
had rarely any choice as to his own election ; and for him,
therefore, the dagger of the assassin never could sleep.
Other men's houses, other men's bedchambers, were gener-

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY 445

ally asylums; but for Caesar his own palace had not the
privileges of a home. His own armies were 110 guar*ds ; his
own pavilion, rising in the very centre of his armies sleep-
ing around him, was no sanctuary. In all these places had
Csesar many times been murdered. All these pledges and
sanctities — his household gods, the majesty of the empire,
the " sacrameiitum militare," — all had given way, all had
yawned beneath his feet.

The imagination of man can frame nothing so awful —
the experience of man has witnessed nothing so awful — as the
situation and tenure of the Western Csesar. The danger
which threatened him was like the pestilence which walketh
in darkness, but which also walketh in noon-day. Morning
and evening, summer and winter, brought no change or
shadow of turning to this particular evil. In that respect it
enjoyed the immunities of God : it was the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever. After three centuries it had lost nothing
of its virulence ; it was growing worse continually : the
heart of man ached under the evil, and the necessity of the
evil. Can any man measure the sickening fear which must
have possessed the hearts of the ladies and the children com-
posing the imperial family ? To them the mere terror,
entailed like an inheritance of leprosy upon their family
above all others, must have made it a woe like one of the
evils in the Revelations, — such in its infliction, such in its
inevitability. It was what Pagan language denominated " a
sacred danger," a danger charmed and consecrated against
human alleviation.

At length, but not until about three hundred and twenty
years of murder had elapsed from the inaugural murder of
the great imperial founder, Diocletian rose, and, as a last
resource of despair, said, Let us multiply our image, and try
if that will discourage our murderers. Like Kehama, enter-
ing the eight gates of Padalon at once, and facing himself
eight times over, he appointed an assessor for himself ; and,
each of these co-ordinate Augusti having a subordinate
Csesar, there were in fact four coeval Emperors. Csesar
enjoyed a perfect alibi: like the royal ghost in Hamlet,
Csesar was hie et ubique. And, unless treason enjoyed the
same ubiquity, now, at least, one would have expected that

446 HISTORICAL ESSAYS AND RESEARCHES

Csesar might sleep in security. But murder — imperial
murder — is a Briareus. There was a curse upon the throne
of Western Koine : it rocked like the sea, and for some
mysterious reason could not find rest ; and few princes were
more memorably afflicted than the immediate successors to
this arrangement.

A nation living in the bosom of these funereal convulsions,
this endless billowy oscillation of prosperous murder and
thrones overturned, could not have been moral ; and there-
fore could not have reached a high civilization, had other
influences favoured. No causes act so fatally on public
morality as convulsions in the state. And against Koine all
other influences combined. It was a period of awful transi-
tion. It was a period of tremendous conflict between all
false religions in the world (for thirty thousand gods were
worshipped in Rome) and a religion too pure to be compre-
hended. That light could not be comprehended by that
darkness. And, in strict philosophic truth, Christianity did
not reach its mature period, even of infancy, until the days
of the Protestant Reformation. In Rome it has always
blended with Paganism : it does so to this day. But then,
i.e. up to Diocletian (or the period of the Augustan History)
even that sort of Christianity, even this foul adulteration of
Christianity, had no national influence. Even a pure and holy
religion, therefore, by arraying demoniac passions on the side
of Paganism, contributed to the barbarizing of Western Rome.

VII. — Finally, we infer the barbarism of Rome from the
condition of her current Literature. Anything more con-
temptible than the literature of Western (or indeed of
Eastern) Rome after Trajan it is not possible to conceive.
Claudian, and two or three others, about the times of Carinus,
are the sole writers in verse through a period of four cen-
turies.1 Writers in prose there are none after Tacitus and
the younger Pliny. Nor in Greek Literature is there one
man of genius after Plutarch, excepting Lucian. As to
Libanius,2 he would have been "a decent priest where

1 Claudian, reputed tlie last of the Roman poets, lived about
A.D. 380-420.— M.

2 Libanius, from A.D. 314 to about A.D. 390. — M.

PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY 447

monkeys are the gods " j and he was worthy to fumigate
with his leaden censer, and with incense from such dull
weeds as root themselves in Lethe, that earthly idol of
modern infidels, the shallow but at the same time stupid
Julian. Upon this subject, however, we may have two
summary observations to make : — 1st, It is a fatal ignorance
in disputing, and has lost many a good cause, not to perceive
on which side rests the onus of proof. Here, because on our
allegation the proposition to be proved would be negative,
the onus probandi must lie with our opponents. For we
peremptorily affirm that from Trajan downwards there was
no literature in Eome. To prove a negative is impossible.
But any opponent who takes the affirmative side and says
there was will find it easy to refute us. Only be it remem-
bered that one swallow does not make a summer. 2dly
(which, if true, ought to make all writers on general litera-
ture ashamed), we maintain that in any one period of sixty
years, in any one of those centuries which we call so
familiarly the Dark Ages (yes, even in the 10th or llth), we
engage to name more and better books as the product of the
period given than were produced in the whole three hundred
and fifty years from Trajan to Honorius and Attila. Here,
therefore, is at once a great cause, a great effect, and a great
exponent of the barbarism which had overshadowed the
Western Empire before either Goth or Vandal had gained a
settlement in the land. The quality of their History, the
tenure of the CtEsars, the total abolition of Literature, and
the convulsion of public morals, — these were the true key to
the Roman decay.

END OF VOL. VI

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.

De Quincey, T.

The collected writings of
Thomas De Quincey.

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