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THE WORKS
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
POPULAR EDITION.
VOLUME VII.
ESSAYS IN ANCIENT HISTORY
AND ANTIQUITIES.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
BSF^K^i^
i
mJ^^^Bm^
BOSTON AND NEW YORK :
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by
TiCKNOR AND FIELDS, ^
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts
Copyright, 1876,
By HURD and HOUGHTON.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
Colleg*
LSbnxj,
PUBLISHERS' ADVERTISEMENT.
The present edition is a reissue of the Works of
Thomas De Quincey. The series is based upon the
American Edition of De Quincey's Works, pub-
lished originally in twenty-two volumes. After
that edition was issued, a complete English edition
was .published in Edinburgh and was edited and
revised in part by the author. This edition con-
tained changes and additions, and the opportunity
has been taken, in reissuing the American edition,
to incorporate the new material which appeared
in the English edition. At the same time, the
arrangement of the several productions is more
systematic and orderly than was possible when the
collection was first made, at different intervals,
under difficulties which render the work of the
first editor especially praiseworthy. In the final
volume, an introduction to the series sets forth the
plan carried out in this new arrangement, and that
volume also contains a very full index to the entire
series. Throughout the series, the notes of the
editor are distinguished from those of the author
by being inclosed in brackets [ ].
seyoiG
PROM THE AUTHOR, TO THE AMERICAN EDITOR
OP HIS WORKS. *
These papers I am anxious to put into the hands of your
house, and, so far as regards the U. S., of your house exclu-
sively ; not with any view to further emolument, but as an
acknowledgment of the services which ^-ou have already ren-
dered me : namely, first, in having brought together so widely
scattered a collection, — a difficulty which in my own hands
by too painful an experience I had found from nervous de-
pression to be absolutely insurmountable ; secondly, in hav-
ing made me a participator in the pecuniary profits of the
American edition, without solicitation or the shadow of any
expectation on my part, without any legal claim that I could
plead, or equitable warrant in established usage, solely and
merely upon your own spontaneous motion. Some of thesfe
new papers, I hope, will not be without their value in the
eyes of those who have taken an interest in the original
series. But at all events, good or bad, they are now ten-
dered to the appropriation of your individual house, the
Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, according to the amplest
extent of any power to make such a transfer that I may be
found to possess by law or custom in America.
I wish this transfer were likely to be of more value. But
the veriest trifle, interpreted by the spirit in which I offer it,
may express my sense of the liberality manifested thi'oughout
this transaction by yoiu* honorable house.
Ever beUeve me, my dear sir,
Your faithful and obliged,
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
* The stereotype plates of De Quincej-'s Works and the right of
publication have passed, by direct succession, from Ticknok and
Fields to Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
PEEFAOE.
[The following are brief general notes with w^cb
Mr. De Quincey introduced " The Caesars," and Plato's
*^ Republic " when revising the latest edition of hia
works.]
*• The C-a:sARS," 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 penciled
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 ; an<?
in that proportion so much the greater is the tempta
tion which they offer to free and skeptical speculation
To this temptation I have yielded interraittingly ; but
from a fear (perhaps a cowardly fear) of being classed
as a dealer in licentious paradox, I checked myself
exactly where the largest license 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 probability, I
should, for instance, have summarily exploded the
most revolting among the crimes imputed to Nero.
d PREFACB.
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
who record the French " Reign of Terror," become
angrily credulous, and impatient of the slightest hesita-
tion in going along with the maniacal excesses recorded.
Apparently Suetonius suffered from that morbid appe-
tite. Else would he have countenanced the hyperboli
cal extravagances current about the murder of Agrip-
pina ? What motive had Nero for murdering his
mother ? or, assuming the slightest motive, what diffi-
culty in accomplishing this murder by secret agencies ?
What need for the elaborate contrivance (as in some
costly pantomime) of self-dissolving ships ? But waiv-
ing all this superfluity of useless mechanism, which by
requiring many hands in working it must have multi-
plied 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 ?
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 provo-
cation, so objectless as regarded purpose, and so revolt-
ing to the primal impulses of nature, would, unless
popularly viewed as the crime of a maniac, have alien-
ated 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 hia
grave with flowers, and by inflicting such vindictive in
«ult8 as they could upon the corpse of his antagonist^
Galba.
PREFACK. lil
Meantime that he might be insane, and entitled to
'.he 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 it,
yet sat with tranquillity to hear his musical perform-
ances ! But a taint of insanity certainly did prevail
m 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 Tmperator — a situation un-
known before or since ; in which situation the license
allowed to the individual, after the popular coynitia had
virtually become extinct, hid too often from his eye
this perilous fact, that in one solitary direction, viz.,
in regard to the representative functions which he dis-
charged as embodying the Roman majesty, he, the
supreme of men upon earth, had a narrower license or
discretionary power of action than any slave upoa
whose neck he trode. Better for him, for his own com-
fort in living, and for his chance of quiet in dying, that
he should violate the moral sense by every act of
bloody violence or of brutal appetite, than that he
should trifle with the heraldic sanctity of his Impera-
torial robe.
The readers of Plato, if such a class anywhere ex-
ists, must be aware of his profound failure in an at-
tempt to explore the etymology of a few Grecian
words. Such a failure, considering the etymologioJ
►■esources then at the command of Greek philology, wjm
•uevitable. It is no subject for blame. But not tb*"
V PREFACE..
less it suggests, as its own direct consequence, what it
B, subject for the heaviest, viz., the obstinate vassalage
to purely verbal fancies, which is continually a fruitful
lource of erring and misleading speculation to Plato.
In the last book of " The Republic " we have a lively
instance of this. Plato there argues two separate ques-
tions : first, the Immortality of the Soul (more elabo-
rately treated in the " Phaedo ") ; secondly, the grounds
upon which he expelled the Poets, and Homer beyond
all others, from his immaculate Commonwealth. Oi
this ideal Commonwealth it is sufficient to say, that the
one capital vice which has ruined Asia, and laid her
(speaking generally) a contemptible and helpless victim
at the feet of Christendom, viz., polygamy and sexual
effeminacy, carried to the last conceivable excesses, is
by Plato laid down deliberately as the basis of his
social system. And, as if this were not enough, in-
fanticide is superadded as the crown and glorifying
aureola of the whole diabolical economy. After this,
the reader will feel some curiosity to learn what it is
by which the Poets could signalize their immortality in
Plato's eyes. The Platonic reason assigned for taboo-
ing the " Iliad " and " Odyssey," and the whole of the
Tragic drama, is this : and it will be seen that the first
manifestation of the evil redressed lies in the scenic
poets, but the fountain of the offence lies in Homer.
Tragedy, says Plato, seeks as its main object to extort
tears and groans from the audience in sympathy with
the distress on the stage. "Well, why not ? Because
*here is some obligation (where seated, or by whom
fcnacted, Plato is careful to conceal) which makes such
lympathy, or such expressions of sympathy, improper
PREFACE. ▼
But in what way improper ? The insinuation is — as
being effeminate, and such as men rightly seek to hide.
Here, then, we have, as the main legislatorial sanction
and rule of conduct, a sensitive horror of indecorum.
And the supposed law, or rule, to which Plato appeals
for his justification, is a pure verbal chimera, without
even a plausible ground. And for such a reason the
sole noble revelation of moral feeling in Grecian poetry
is laid under an interdict. But why is Homer com-
promised by this interdict ? Simply on the ground (a
most false one) that he is originally answerable for the
dramatic stories employed by the scenic poets. Now,
in order to show the careless reading of Plato, it is
sufficient to remark briefly, that a large proportion of
the Greek tragedies move by terror, by horror, by
sympathy with the unknown mysteries surrounding
human nature, and are of a nature to repel tears ; and
that for three out of four such ground-works of the
tragic poetry Homer is noways responsible. It is also
altogether overlooked by Plato that in the grandeur
of the choral music, in the mazes of the symbolic
dances, and in the awful magnitude of the spectacle
(spectacle and spectators taken as a whole), a provision
»s made for elevating the mind far above the region of
effeminate sensibilities. Milton, with his Christian
standard of purity and holiness, found that beyond
measure noble which Plato, the organizer of polygamy
»nd wholesale infanticide, rejects as immoral !
COl^TENTS.
tkn
FhB CiBSARS 9
Chapter 1 30
Chapter II 65
Chapter III 86
Chapter IV 131
Chapter V 179
Chapter VI 217
Cicero 257
Philosophy of Roi^an History 313
Greece under the Romans: with a Reference to Mr.
George Finlay's work upon that Subject . . 337
PniirOsopHY OP Herodotus 377
Plato's Republic 431
Dinner, Real and Reputed 483
Toilette of the Hebrew Lady 5i5
The Sphinx's Riddle 553
A.BLIU8 Lamia. r . 579
iforu t»l
THE cj:sars.
The majesty of the Roman Caesar Semper Au-
gustus 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 ri-
valled this astonishing metropolis in the grandeur of
magnitude ; and not many — perhaps if we except
the cities buUt 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 grandeur of architectural dis-
play. Speaking even of London, we ought in bll
reason to say — the Nation of London, and not the
City of London ; but of Rome in her palmy days,
nothing less could be said in the naked severity of
logic. A million and a half of souls^ — that popu-
lation, apart from any other distinctions, is per $e
for London, a justifying ground for such a classifi-
tation ; d 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
*t the very least, as we resolutely maintain aftei
reviewing all that has been written on that much
10 THE CiESAKS.
rexed theme, and very probably half as many more.
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,
Military, unique. Each was to the other an adequate
counterpart, each reciprocally that perfect mirror
which reflected as it were in alia materia, those in-
communicable 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 maxim of Roman jurisprudence. And the
same maxim may be translated into a wider mean-
ing ; in which it becomes true also for our historical
experience. Caesar and Rome have flourished and
expired together. The illimitable attributes of the
Roman prince, boundless and comprehensive as the
universal air, — like that also bright and apprehen-
sible to the most vagrant eye, yet in parts (and those
not far removed) unfathomable as outer 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
.mpressive to the imagination, and which all the
lubtlety of the Roman ^ wit could as little fathom as
tee fleets of Caesar could traverse the Polar basin,
w unlock the gates of ':he Pacific, are best sym-
bolized, and find their most appropriate exponent, in
THE C^SAB3. H
the illimitable city itself — that Rome, whose centre,
the Capitol, was immovable as Teneriffe or Atlas,
but whose circiunference 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 Koman 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, de-
flowered 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 who deflowered Rome, if under him she
forfeited her dowery of ci\iic purity, if to him she
first unloosed her maiden zone, then be it affirmed
boldly — that she reserved her greatest favors for
the noblest of her wooers, and we may plead the
justification of Falconbridge for his mother's trans-
gressions 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 func-
tions of her nature ; he compelled her lo exchange the
imperfect and inchoate condition of a mere fcemina for
the perfections of a mulier. And metaphor apart,
▼e maintain that Rome lost no liberties by the mighty
Julius. That which in tendency, and by the spirit of
aer institutions ; that which, by her very corruptions
md abuses co-operating with her laws, Rome promised
12 THE CiESAKS.
and involved in the germ ; even that, and nothing
less or different, did Home unfold and accomplish
under this Julian violence. The rape [if such it weiSj
of Caesar, her final Romulus, completed for Rome that
which the rape under Romulus, her earliest Caesar,
had prosperously begun. And thus by one godlike
man was a nation-city matured ; and from the ever-
lasting and nameless ^ 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 afiirm 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 out secundum of the
poet, was as true of one as of the other. Fcr, if by
comparison with Rome other cities were but villages,
with even more propriety it may be asserted, that after
the Roman Caesars all modem kings, kesars, or empc'
tors, 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 greatesx
«f princes,, simply because there was no other but hini'
THE C.S8ARS. 18
<olf. There were doubtless a few outlying rulers, of
unknown names and titles upon the margins of hii
empire, tnere were tributary lieutenants and barbarous
reguli, the obscure vassals of his sceptre, whose hom-
age 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 iixefitvii — the total
habitable world as then known to geography, or recog-
nized 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 indepen-
dence of the British trident, or should even offer a
transient outrage to her sovereign flag. Such a tem-
pestas in matula 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 susurrtis 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, (6 paatlevt,) were no longer the rulers
of a vast and polished nation. They were regarded as
barbarians — potent only oy their standing army, not
upon the larger basis of civic strength ; and, even under
ihis limitation, they were supposed to owe more to the
lireumstances of their position — their climate, theii
■emoteness, and their 'uaccessibility except through
14 THE CiESABS.
*rid 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 kiugi
of Parthia, therefore, were far enough from being
regarded in the light of antagonistic forces to tie
majesty of Rome. And, these withdrawn from tne
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 lakea^
the sacred footsteps of the Caesarean 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 grandeur beyond what mortal eyea
were supposed able to sustain.
These fastidious, and sometimes fantastic ceremo-
nies, originally devised as the very extremities of
Mxti-barbarism, were often themselves but too nearly
allied in spirit to the barbaresque in taste. In reality,
lome parts of the Byzantine court ritual were arranged
in the same spirit as that of China or the Burman em-
pire ; or fashioned by anticipation, as one might think,
on the practice of that Oriental Cham, who daily
proclaims by sound of trumpet to the kings in the
four corners of the earth — that they, having dutifully
fcwaited the close of his dinner, may now with hit
*oyal license go to their own.
THE CJESA.B8. IC
From «uch vestiges of derivative grandeur, propa-
gated to ages so remote from itself, and sustained by
manners so different from the spirit of her own, —
we may faintly measure the strength of the original
impulse given to the feelings of men by the sacred
majesty of the Roman thi'one. How potent must that
splendor have been, whose mere reflection shot rays
upon a distant crown, under another heaven, and
across the wilderness of fourteen centuries ! Splen-
dor, thus transmitted, thus sustained, and thus imper-
ishable, argues a transcendent 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 suf-
ficed 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 has yet 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 — de-
nominated Universal Empires, or Monarchies. These
tro noticed in the Holy Scriptures : and it is upoB
10 THB CiBSABS.
tAeir warrant that men have supposed no fifth mon-
Kchy or universal empire possible in an earthly sense ;
but that, whenever such an empire arises, it wUl have
Christ for its head ; in other words, that no fifth
monorchia can take place untO. 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 fa-
natics of 1650, who proclaimed Jesus for their king,
and who did sincerely anticipate his near advent in
great power, and imder some personal manifestation,
were usually styled Fifth- Monarchists.
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 ourselveq to the comparison of
those four monarchies which actually have existed, - -
of the Assyrian or earliest, we may remark, that it
found men in no state of cohesion. This cause, which
came in aid of its first foundation, would probably con-
tinue ; and would diminish the intensity of the power
in the same proportion as it promoted its extension-
This monai'chy 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
THS CASABS. 17
experiment. More by the weakness inherent in suck
a constitution, than by its own strength, did the
Persian spear prevail against the Assyrian. Two
centuries revolved, seven or eight generations, when
Alexander found himself in the same position as Cyru»
for building a third monarchy, and aided by the self*
same vices of luxurious effeminacy in his enemy, con-
fronted 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 As-
Byrian 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
g^eat 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 have begun to knit ; the cohesion was far
closer, the development of their resources more com-
plete ; the resistance therefore by many hundred de-
grees more formidable : consequently, by the fairest
inference, the power in that proportion greater which
laid the foundation of this last great monarchy. It is
18 THE C^SARS.
probable, indeed, both a priori, and upon the eridence
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
ly and through that very superiority in the arts and
policy of civilization.
Rome, therefore, which came last in the succession,
and swallowed up the three great powers that had
seriatim cast the himian race into one mould, and had
brought them under the 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 modem empires, doubtless, the
Spanish of the sixteenth century, and the British o,
the present, cannot but be admired as prodigions
growths out of so small a stem. In that view they
i^ill be endless monuments in attestation of the mar-
vels which are lodged in civilization. But considered
in and for itself, and with no reference to the propor-
tion of the creating forces, each of these empires has
the great defect of being disjointed, and even insus-
ceptible of perfect union. It is in fact no vinculum of
social organization 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 man*
THE C^SABS. 19
aers, operative even where it is not perceived, but like
the distinctions of geography — existing to-day, for-
gotten to-morrow — and abolished by a stroke of the
pen, or a tiick of diplomacy. Russia, again, a might j
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 confederates of her
strength. She is strong by her very weakness. But
Home laid a belt about the Mediterranean of a thou-
sand miles in breadth ; and within that zone she com-
prehended 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, \vithin her own ring-fence, that since that era
no land, no 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 natxire. So entirely had Rome en-
groBsed whatsoever was rich by the mere bounty of
native endowment.
Vast, therefore, unexampled, immeasurable, was the
oasis of natural power upon which the Roman throne
reposed. The military force which put Rome in poe-
uession of this inordinate power, was certainly in soma
•aspects artificial; but the power itself was natural,
&nd not subject to tlic ebbs and flows whicli attend the
20 THE C^SARS,
commercial empires of our days, (for all are in part
commercial.) The depression, the reverses, of K(»me,
were confined to one shape — famine; terrific shape,
doubtless, but one which levies its penalty of suffering
not. by elaborate processes that do not exhaust their
iotal cycla in less than long periods of years. Fortu-
nately for thosy who survive, no arrears of misery are
allowed by this scourge of ancient days ; ^ 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 genera-
tion she only of aU the monarchies has feared no
mortal hand,^
• God and his Son except.
Created thing naught valued she nor shunned.'
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 restrain it, or endander 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 eilher
been extensive, but wanting in intensity — or intense,
but wanting in extent — or, thirdly, liable to perma-
nent control and hazard from some antagonist power
^mmenf urate with itself. But the Roman power, in
its centuries of grandeur, involved every mode o'
THE CJESARS. 21
itrength, with absolute immunity from all kinds and
degrees of weakness. It ought not, therefore, to surprise
as that the emperor, as tne depositary of this charmed
power, should have been looked upon as a sacred per-
son, and the imperial family considered as a ' divina
domus.' It is an error to regard this as excess of
adulation, or as built originally upon hypocrisy. Un-
doubtedly 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 can-
onization of his patron, and his snstalment amongst
the heavenly hosts, begging him tD keep his distance
warily from this or that constellation, and to be cau-
tious of throwing his weight into either hemisphere,
■until the scale of proportions were accurately adjusted.
These doubtless are passages degrading alike to the
poet and his subiect. But why ? Not because they
Mcribe to the emperor a sanctity which he had not in
'he minds of men universally, or which even to the
writer's feeling was exaggerated, but because it was ex-
pressed coarsely, and as a. physical power : now, every-
thing physical is measurable by weight, motion, and
resistance ; and is therefore definite. But the very es-
lence of whatsoever is supernatural lies in the indefinite.
Thxt power, therefore, with which the minds of mei
invested the emperor, was vulgarized by this coarse
b'anfllation into the region of j)hy8ic8. Else it is evi-
22 THE C^SA.RS.
dent, that any power whicli, by standing above aL
human control, occupies the next relation to superhu-
man modes of authority, must be invested by all
minds alike with some dim and undefined relation to
the sanctities of the next world. Thus, for instance,
the Pope, as the father of Catholic Christendom, could
Dot hut be viewed with awe by any Christian of deep
feeling, as standing 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 ves-
tige of 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 o\
admitting no more perfect shape of truth ; even the
heads of such superstitions (the Dalai Lama, for in-
stance) may not unreasonably be presumed as within
the cognizance and special protection of Heaven.
Mudi 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
ihe motions of whose will, the very prophets of Judea
»cok cognizance. No nation, and no king, was utterly
iJivorced from the councils of God. Palestine, as a
central chamber of God's administration, stood in
•ome I elation to all. It has been remarked, as a mys-
terious and significant fact, that the founders of th*
THE CJESJlRS 23
peat empires all had some connection, more or less,
with the temple of Jerusalem. Melancthon even ob-
serves 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
uot suppose that Paganism, or Pagan nations, were
therefore excluded from the concern and tender inter-
est of Heaven. The'y also had their place allowed.
And we may be sure that, amongst them, the Roman
emperor, as the great accountant 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 mysterious relation to the secret
counsels of Heaven.
Even we, therefore, may lawfully attribute some
sanctity to the Roman emperor. That the Romans
did so with absolute sincerity is certain. The altars
of the emperor had a twofold consecration ; to violate
them, was the double crime of treason and heresy. la
us appearances of state and ceremony, the fire, the
uacred fire inonntvt, was carried in ceremonial solemnity
before him ; and every other circumstance of divine
Worship attended the emperor in his lifetime.'^
To this view of the imperial character and relations
must be added one single circumstance, which in some
.'tteasure altered the whole for the individual who
happened to fill the ;ffice. The emperor de facto
■flight be viewed under two aspects ; there was the
24 THE CiESARS.
ir..\n, and there was the office. In his office he was
immortal and sacred : but as a c^utsticn 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
chai-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 situation of a subject in the Roman
empire who should attempt to fly from the wrath of
the crown. Such was the ubiquity of the emperor
that this was absolutely hopeless. Except amongst
pathless deserts or barbarous nomads, it was impossi-
ble to find even a transient sanctuary from the imperial
pursuit. If he 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 waa
the emperor or his lieutenants. But the same omni-
presence of imperial anger and retribution which with-
ered the hopes of the poor humble prisoner, met and
confounded the emperor himself, when hurled from his
giddy elevation by some fortunate rival. All the king-
doms of the earth, to one in that situation, became but
so many wards of the same infinite prison. Flight, if
it were evsn successful for the moment, did but a little
retard his inevitable doom. And so evident was this,
khat hardly in one instance did the fallen prince attempt
THE CJSSARS. 2ft
to fly, but passively met tae death whicli was inevitable,
in the very spot where ruin had overtaken him. Nei-
ther was it possible even for a merciful conqueror to
ihow mercy ; for, .'n the presence of an army so mer-
cenary 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 tenare of the individual.
Nor did his dangers 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
Btory is narrated by Herodian, and the circumstances
*re these : — A slave of noble qualities, and of mag-
Lificent person, having liberated himself from the
degradations of bondage, determined to avenge his
own wrongs by inflicting continual terror upon the
town and neighborhood which had witnessed his hu-
miliation. For this purpose he resorted to the woody
recesses of the province, (somewhere in the modem
Transylvania,) and, attracting to his wild encampment
%B many fugitives as he could, by degrees he succeeded
«i forming and training a very formidable troop of fre©«
1^ TMK C^SABS,
hooters. Partly from the energy of his own naturei^
End partly from the neglect and remissness of the pro-
vincial magistrates, the robber captain rose from leris to
more, until he had formed a little army, equal to the
task of assaulting fortified cities. In this stage of his
idventures, he encountered and defeated several oi
the imperial officers commanding large detachments of
troops ; and at length grew of consequence sufficient to
draw upon himself the emperor's eye, and the honor of
Lis personal displeasure. In high wrath and disdain &t
the insults ofiered 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.
Public vengeance was now awakened ; the imperial
troops were marching from every quarter upon the
same centre ; and the slave became sensible that in r
very short space of time he must be surrounded and
destroyed. In this desperate situation he took a des-
perate 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'f
eampB. According to this man's gigantic enterprise
in which the means were as audacious as the pm'pose
THE C^SAKS. 27
liie conspirators were to rendezvous, and arat to recog-
nize each other at the gates of Rome. From the Danul^e
to the Tiber did this band of robbers severally pursuo
theii* perilous routes through all the difficulties of the
road and the jealousies of the military stations, sus-
tained by the mere thirst of vengeance — vengeance
against that mighty foe whom they knew only by his
proclamations against themselves. Everything con-
tinued to prosper ; the conspirators met under the walla
of Rome ; the final details were arranged ; and those
also would have prospered but for a trifling accident.
The season was one of general carnival at Rome ; and,
)jy the help of those disguises which the license of thia
festal time allowed, the murderers were to have pene-
trated 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 uncertainty of the moment he made much ampler
discoveries than were expected of him ; the other
accomplices were secured : and Commodus was deliv-
ered from the uplifted daggers of those who had sought
\iim by months of patient wanderings, pursued through
%11 the depths of the Illyrian forests, and the difficulties
of the Alpine passes. It is not easy to find words com-
mensurate to the energetic hardihood of a slave — who,
$j way of answer and reprisal to an edict which con
ligned him to persecutioi and death, determines to
trobs Europe in quest of its author, though no less a
28 THE C^SAUS.
person than the master of the world — to seek tiim out
in the inner recesses of his ca'^^'-^J, city and his private
palace — and there to lodge a dagger in his heart, as
the adequate reply to the imperial sentence of proscrip-
tion against himself.
Such, amidst his superhuman grandeur and conse-
crated powers of the Roman emperor's office, were the
extraordinary perils which menaced the individual, and
the peculiar frailties of his condition. Nor is it possi-
ble that these circumstances of violent opposition can
be better illustrated than in this tale of Herodi2>
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 purpose of winning his way as a
murderer to the imperial bedchamber ; Caesar is watch-
ing some mighty rebel of the Orient, at a distance of
two thousand leagues, and he overlooks the dagger
which is at his own heart. In short, all the heights
and the depths which belong to man as aspirers, all the
contrasts of glory and meanness, the extremities of
what is highest and lowest in human possibility, — all
met in the situation of the Roman Caesars, and have
oombined to make them the most interesting studies
^hich history has furnished.
This, as a general proposition, will be readily ad-
mitted. But meantime, it is remarkable that no fielc
b&9 been less trodden than the private memorials o.
THE, J^dAKS. 39
dioac very Caesars ; whilst at the same time it is equally
remarkable, in concurrence with that subject for won-
ier, that precisely with the first of the Caesars cora-
mences the first page of what in modern times wo
understand by anecdotes. Suetonius is the earliest
writer in that department of biography ; so far as we
know, he may be held first to have devised it &3 t.
mo'le of history. The six writers, whose sketches
ore collectrd under the general title of the Augustan
History, followed in the same track. Though full of
entertainment, and of the most curious researches,
they are all of them entirely unknown, except : a
few elaborate scholars. We purpose to collect from
these obscure but most interesting memorialists, a few
ok etches and biographical portraits of these great
princes, whose public life is sometimes known, but
very rarely any part of their private and personal
history. 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 con-
fine ourselves as much as possible to those which are
susceptible of new aspects. For the whole gallery of
the 36 who follow, we can undertake that the memorials
which we shall bring forward, may be looked upon at
oelonging pretty mucr to wnat has hitherto been •
acaled book.
10 TH£ C^SA.KS.
CHAPTER I.
The character of the first Caesar h^ perhaps never
been worse appreciated than hy him who in one sense
described it best — that is, with most force and elo-
quence wherever he really did comprehend it. Thia
was Lucan, who has nowhere exhibited more brilliant
rhetoric, nor wandered more from the truth, than in
the contrasted portraits of Csesar and Pompey. The
famous line, ' Nil actum reputans si quid superessei
agendum,' is a fine feature of the real character, finely
3xpressed. 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 mind.' 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, ' Sifractus illahatur orhis, impavidum ferieJt
THE C.ESARS. St
•uina,) had, however, a ferocity in his character, and a
touch of the devil in him, very rarely united with the
tame tranquil intrepidity. But for Caesar, the all*
accomplished statesman, the splendid orator, the man
of elegant habits and polished taste, the patron of '.he
fine arts in a degree transcending all examples 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 themselves the
scourges of God, and the special instruments of hia
wrath, have no one feature of affinity to the polished
and humane Caesar, and would as little have compre*
hended 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 iustance,
by a celebrated remark which he made on the charac-
isristic distinction of Caesar, in comparison with other
revolutionary disturbers ; for, whereas others had at-
tempted the overthrow of the state in a continued
pcroxysm of fury, and in a s'^ate of mind resembling
ihe lunacy of intoxication, that Caesar, on the contrary,
among that whole class of ci^'il disturbers, was the only
ine who had oime to the task in a temper of sobriety
52 THE C^SARS.
and moderation, (unum accessisse sohrium ad rempubli'
cam delendam.)
In reality, Lucan did not think as lie wrote. He
had a purpose to serve ; and in an age when to act
like a freeman was no longer possible, he determined
at least to write in that character. It is probable,
also, that he wrote with a vindictive or malicious feel-
ing towards Nero ; and, as the single means he had foi
gratifying that, resolved upon sacrificing the grandeui
of Caesar's character wherever it should be found pos-
sible. Meantime, in spite of himself, Lucan for evei
betrays his lurking consciousness of the truth. Nor
are there any testimonies to Caesar's vast superiority
more memorably pointed, than those which are indi-
rectly and involuntarily extorted from this Catonic
poet, by the course of his narration. Never, for ex-
aitiple, was there within the same compass of words, a
more emphatic expression of Caesar's essential and
inseparable grandeur of thought, which could not be
disguised or be laid aside for an instant, than is found
in the three casual words — Indocilis privata loqui.
The very mould, it seems, by Lucan's confession, of
ois trivial conversation was regal; nor could he, even
to serve a purpose, abjure it for so much as a casual
purpose. The acts of Caesar speak also the same lan-
guage ; and as these are less susceptible of a false
coloring than the features of a general character, w«
find this poet of liberty, in the midst of one continr*
THE CJESARS. 3S
au9 effort to distort the truth, and to dress up two
•cenical heroes, forced by the mere necessities of his*
tory into a reluLtant homage to Caesar's supremacy of
moral grandeur.
Of so great a man it must be interesting to know
ail the well attested opinions which bear upon topvoi
of universal interest to human nature : as indeed uo
others stood much chance of preservation, unless it
were from as minute and curious a collector of anec-
dotage as Suetonius. And, first, it would be gratifying
to know the opinion of Caesar, if he had any peculiar
to himself, on the great theme of Religion. 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 auguries. 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 by the highest bidder,
manifested itself in the increasing disdain for the
tastes and ruling sympathies of the lowest vulgar.
No mob could be more abjectly servile than was that
of Rome to the superstition of jx^rtcnts, prodigies, and
34 THE CXSARS.
omens. Thus far, in common with his order, and in
this sense, Julius Caesar was naturally a despisor of
superstition. Mere strength of understanding would,
perhaps, have made him so in any age, and apart from
the circumstances of his personal history. This nat*
ural tendency in him would doubtless receive •
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 aa
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 con-
tradistinguished from those which tend to contem-
plative purposes, under any circumstances, to have
become a profound believer, or a steadfast reposer of
his fears and anxieties, in religious influences. A man
3f the world is but another designation for a man
indispoaed to religious awe or contemplative enthu-
liasm. Still it is a doctrine which we cherish — that
grandeur of mind in any one department whatsoever,
(apposing only that it exists in excess, disposes a mai
THE C^SARS. S5
10 Bome 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 Dictf tor
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 spe-
cial quality of that mind, which did certainly, to the
whole extent of its characteristics, tend entirely to
estrange him from such themes. We find, accord-
ingly, that though sincerely a despiser of superstition,
and with a frankness which must sometimes have been
hazardous in that age, Caesar was himself also super-
stitious. No man could have been otherwise who lived
and conversed Avith that generation of 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 licait populis parvum te, Nile, videre.'
That ha placed some confidence in dreams, for in-
•tance, is certain : because, had he slighted them
unreservedly, he would not have dwelt upon them
afterwards, or have troubled himself to recall their
circumstances. Here we trace his human weakness.
Yet again we are reminded that it was the weakness of
Caesar ; for the dreams were noble in their imagery,
t.\A Cseearean (so to speak) in their tone of moral
feeling. Thus, for example, the night before he wai
usassinatod, he dreamt at intervals that he was soar-
• I THE C,«5ARS.
i I,.; ab vt the clouds on wings, and that he placed Lis
i I id within the right hand of Jove. It would seem
clii.t perhaps aome obscure and half-formed image
floated in his mind, of the eagle, as the king of birds ;
secondly, as the tutelary emblem under which bis
conquering legions had so often obeyed his voice ; and,
thirdly, as the bird of Jove. To this triple relation ci
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 ac-
tually occurred in Rome about twenty-four hours
before his death. A little bird, which by some is rep-
resented 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 am-
bitious courage which at times prompted it to attack
the eagle), was observed to direct its flight towards
the senate-house, consecrated by Pompey, whilst f
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 '^f
laurel which he bore in his mouth, could not be deter-
mined. The whole train, pursuers and pursued, con-
tinued 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
u 80 nony ccnspirators, and tore him limb fron
limb.
THE C.ESARS. 37
If this anecdote were reported to Caesar, Avhict ia
act tt all improbable, considering tbe earnestness with
which his friends labored 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 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 to-
gether, Caesar would have been more or less than
human had he continued utterly undepressed by them.
A.nd 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
conairring prefigurations of impending destruction ;
toncurring, we say, amongst themselves — and con-
curring also with a prophecy of older d&tr , which
was totally independent of them all.
B8 THE C^SARS.
There is anothei and somewhat sublime story of the
tame class, which belongs to the most interesting
moment of Caesar's life ; and those Avho 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 whici
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 his 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
proceeded through the woods to the point of the river
at which he designed to cross. The night ^ was stormy,
and by the violence of the wind all the torches of hia
escort were blown out, so that the whole party lost
their road, having probably at first intentionally devi-
ated 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 gray and
uncertain, as Caesar and his retinue rode down upon
fee banks of the fatal river — to cross which with arm*
THE C^SARS. 39
in his hands, since the further bank lay within the ter-
ritory of the Republic, ipso facto, proclaimed any
Roman a rebel and a traitor. No man, the firmest or
the mos*. obtuse, could be otherwise than deeply agi-
tated, w hen looking down upon this little brook — so
insignificant in itself, but invested by law with a sano
tity so awful, and so dire a consecration. 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 conse-
quences consciously for the last time that could axfow
him a retreat, — impressed also by the solemnity and
deep tranquillity of the silent dawn, whilst the exhaus-
tion of his night wanderings predisposed him to
nerfous irritation, — Csesar, 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
BO much efiect: the little quiet brook presenting a
direct antithesis to its grand political character ; and
the innocent dawn, with its pure, untroubled repose,
contrasting potently, to a man of any intellectual sen-
sibility, 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 pre-
pared, we need not much wonder at what followed
10 THE C^SARS.
Caesar was yet lingering on the hither bank, when
Buddenly, at a point not far distant from himself, an
apparition was descried in a sitting posture, and hold-
ing in its hand what seemed a flute. This phanton^
was of unusual size, and of beauty more than human,
BO 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 laborers, (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 trumpeters.
From one of these, the phantom, rising as they ad-
vanced nearer, suddenly caught a trumpet, and blow-
ing through it a blast of superhuman strength, plunged
into the Rubicon, passed to the other bank, and disap-
peared in the dusky twilight of the dawn. Upon
which Caesar exclaimed : — 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 im-
petuosity ; and, in a sudden rapture of passionate and
rindictive ambition, placed himself and his retinu*
THE C^SAES. 41
apon tbe Italian soil ; nnd, as if by inspiration from
Heaven, in one moment involved himself and his fol'
lowers 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 hali"
a thousand years. In what manner this spectral ap-
pearance was managed — whether Caesar were its
author, or its dupe — will remain unknown for ever.
But undoubtedly this was the first time that the
advan»,ed ruard of a victorious army was headed by
an apparition; and we may conjecture that it ^vill
be the last.^
In tht mingled yai-n of human life, tragedy is never
far asundwf from farce ; and it is amusing to retrace in
immediate succession to this incident of epic dignity,
which has ts only parallel by the way in the case of
Vasco de cJama, (according to the narrative of Ca-
moens,) wh^a met and confronted 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 Rome could have
furnished. In our own experience, we once witnessed
% blunder about as gross, The present Chancellor, in
his first electioneering contest with the Lowthers, upon
lome occasion where he was recriminating upon the
other party, and complaining that stratagems, whick
j2 the c^saks.
they might practise with impunity, were demed to hiia
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 mis-hearing in the outermost ring
of the audience, it became generally reported that
Lord Lowther had once been engaged in an afiair 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, be-
cause it was notorious and past denying that hia
lordship was a capital horseman, fond of horses, and
much connected with the turf. To this hour, there-
fore, amongst some worthy shepherds and others, it ia
a received article of their creed, and (as they justly
observe in northern pronunciation) a shamiul 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 hope-
ful looks. Not less was the blunder, which, on the
banks of the Rubicon, befriended Cspsar. Imme-
diately after crossing, he harangued the troops whom
he had sent forward, and others who there met him
from the neighboring garrison of Ariminium. The
tribunes of the people, those great officers of the
democracy, corresponding by some of their function*
THE C^SABS. 48
ja our House of Commons, men personally, and by
their position in the state, entii'ely in his 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 per-
haps 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 citizens 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 off 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 accom-
panying 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 for-
tunes, he would be content to part with his own
birthright, and to forego his dearest claims. This
was what he really said ; but the outermost circles
of his auditors, who rather saw his gestures than
distinctly heard his words, earned off the notion,
'which they were carefil everywhere to disperse
44 TH£ C^SABS.
unongst the legions afterwards associated with them
in the same camps,) that Csesar had vowed never to
lay down his arms until he had obtained for every
man, the very meanest of those who heard him, tha
rank, privileges and appointments of a Roman knight
Here was a piece of sovereign good luck. Had he
really made such a promise, Csesar might have found
that he had laid himself under very embarrassing
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 penalties of responsibility which it imposed, by
appealing to the evidence of those who ^appened 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 subtilties of all the schools could have accom-
plished, 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 favorable to the pre-
mature development of great self-dependence, we
must reckon the early death of his father. It is, or
t is not, according to the nature of men, an advan-
tage to be orphaned at an early age. Perhaps uttei
srphanage is rarely or never such : but to lose a fathet
TH£ C^SARS. 4fi
Detimes profits 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 ad-
vantage also to his father that he died thus early.
Had he stayed a year longer, he would have seen
nimself 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 Shakspcare,
• The foremost man of all this world ? '
And, in this fine and Cresarean line, ' this world ' is
to be understood not of the order of co-existences
merely, but also of the order of successions ; he waa
the foremost man not only of his contemporaries, but
also of men generally — of all that ever should come
after him, or should sit on thrones under the denomi-
nations 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 quali-
ties analogous to his. Of this infinite superiority
some part must be ascribed to his early emancipation
."rom paternal control. There are very many cases in
which, simply from considerations of sex, a female
rannot stand forward as the head of a family, or as its
luitable representative. If there are even ladies para-
mount, and in situations of command, they are also
16 THE C-ESARS.
»romen. The staff of authority does not annihilata
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 repre-
sent 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 inci-
dentally, this much, at least, we learn — that, if she
looked down upon him with maternaP pride and de-
light, she looked up to him with female ambition as
the re-edifier of her husband's honors, 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 honor. One slight and evanescent sketch
of the relations which subsisted between Caesar and
his mother, caught from the wrecks of time, is pre-
served both by Plutarch and Suetonius. We see in
the eai-ly dawn the young patrician standing upon the
Jteps of his paternal 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 prematurely magnifi-
cent. That she had' something of her son's aspiring
character, or that he presumed so much in a mothei
af his, we learn from the few words which survive o.
THE C^SABS. 47
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 connection with the known determination of hia
character, were of a nature to consummate her de-
pression, as they tended to confirm the very worst of
her fears. He was then going to stand his chance in
a popular election for an office of dignity, and to
launch himself upon the storms of the Campus Mar-
tins. At that period, besides other and more ordinary
dangers, the bands of gladiators, kept in the pay of
the more ambitious 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 assas-
sination. For this danger, however, he had no leisure
in his thoughts of consolation ; the sole danger which
he contemplated, or supposed his mother to contem-
plate, was the danger of defeat, and for that he re-
served his consolations. He bade her fear nothing ;
for that without doubt he would return with victory,
and with the ensigns of 'he dignity he sought, or
would rfturn a corpse.
Early, indeed, did Caesar** orials commence ; and it
ifl probable, that, had not the death of his fathei,
by throwing him prematurely upon his own resources,
18 THE C-KSARS,
prematurely developed the masculine features of hiM
character, forcing him whilst yet a boy under the
discipline of civil conflict and the yoke of practical life,
even his enero^ies would have been insufficient tn
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 oflSce with the license
and the severity which history has made so memorable.
He had neither any distinct grounds of hope, nor anj
eminent example at that time, to countenance him
in this struggle — which yet he pushed on in the most
uncompromising style, and to the utmost verge of
defiance. The subject of the contrast gives it a fur-
ther interest. It was the youthful wife of the youthful
CsBsar who stood under the shadow of the great
Dictator's displeasure ; not personally, but politically,
on account of her connections ; and her it was, Cor-
nelia, the daughter of a man who had been four times
consul, that Caesar was required to divorce ; but he
spurned the haughty mandate, and carried his deter-
mination to a triumphant issue, notwithstanding his
life was at stake, and at one time saved only by
shifting his place of concealment every nigut ; and
this young lady it was who afterwards became the
mother of his only daughter. Both mother and
daughter, it is remarkable, perished prematurely, au(f
THE C^SAKS. 49
fct critical periods of Caesar's life ; for it is probable
enough that these irreparable wounds to Caesar's do-
mestic 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 connections 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 his indulgence was due. In fact, according
to some accounts, it was not Sylla, but the creatures of
Sylla {adjutores'), who pursued Ceesar. 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 his famous
prophecy of his future destiny ; bidding his friends
beware of that slipshod boy, ' for that in him lay
couchant many a Mirius.' A grander testimony to
<he awe which Caesar inspired, or from )ne who knew
50 THE CiESA.RS.
better the qualities of that man by whom he measured
him, cannot be imagined.
It is not our intention, or consistent with our plan,
to pursue this great man through the whole circum-
Btances 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 easily be placed in a new light. Indeed,
the whole of this most momentous section of ancient
history ought to be recomposed with the critical scep-
ticism of a Niebuhr, and the same comprehensive
collation 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 culti-
vated with the zeal which belongs to a personal con-
cern. In general, the anecdotes which express most
vividly the splendid character of the first Caesar, are
those which illustrate his defiance of danger in ex-
tremity ; the prodigious energy and rapidity of his
Jecisions and motions in the field ; the skill with
ivhich he penetrated the designs of his enemies, and
.he exemplary speed with which he provided a remedy
for disasters ; the extraordinary presence of mind
which he showed in turning adverse omens to his own
advantage, as when, upon stumbling in coming on
■here, (which was esteemed a capital omen of evil,^
\ie transfigured as it were in one instant its wholt
THE C^SARS. 61
neaning by exclaiming, ' Thus do I take posses-
sion of thee, oh Africa ! ' in that way giving to an
accident the semblance of a symbolic purpose ; 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 efiect :
' 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 conjectures 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
yhat shore.' Finally, we might seek for the char-
acteristic anecdotes of Caesar in his unexampled liber-
alities and contempt of money. ^^
Upon this last topic it is the just remark of
Casaubon, that some instances of (/sesar's munificence
Bave been thought apocryphal, or to rest upon false
leadings, simply from ignorance of th*" heroic scale
ipon which the Roman splendors of that age pro-
S2 THE C^SABS.
teeded. A forum which Caesar bull t out of the pro-
ducts of his last campaign, by way cf a present to the
Roman people, cost him — for the gi'ound merely on
which it stood — nearly eight • hundred thousand
pounds. To the citizens of Rome (perhaps 300,000
persons) 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 infanti-y, 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 cen-
turions of every legion severally maintain a horsr
soldier, but even the privates volunteered to serve
without pay — £md (what might seem impossible) with-
out their daily rations. This was accomplished by
subscriptions amongst themselves, the more opulent
undertaking for the maintenance of the needy. Theii
disinterested love for Caesar appeared in another and
more difficult illustration ; it was a traditionary anec-
dote in Rome, that the majority of those amongs*
Caesar's troops, who had the misfortune to fall into th«
TH£ C^SABS. 58
•neniy's hands, refused to accept their lives under the
condition of serving against him.
In connection with this subject of his extraordinary
munificence, there is one aspect of Caesar's life which
has suffered much from the misrepresentations of his-
torians, and that is — the vast pecuniary embarrass-
ments under which he labored, until the profits of war
had turned the scale even more prodigiously in hiH
favor. 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 hia
public duties, had not Crassus come forward with
assistance in money, or by promises, 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 afiairs had sug-
gested a civil war to his calculations as the best oi
only mode of redressing it. But, on the contrary, his
debts were the product of his ambition, and contracted
from first to last in the service of his political intrigues,
lor raising and maintaimng a powerful body of par-
tisans, both in Rome and elsewhere. Whosoever
54 THE C^SARS.
indeed, will take the trouble to investigate the progress
of CsBsai-'s ambition, from such materials as even yet
remain, may satisfy himself that the scheme of rev-
olutionizing 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 an occasion as that of his debts ; but that
his debts were in their very first origin purely min-
isterial to his ambition ; and that his revolutionary
plans were at all periods of his life a direct and fore-
most object. In this there was in reality no want of
patriotism ; it had become evident to every-body that
Rome, 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 say-
ing, ' Sylla potuit, ego non potero ? ' And the fact
was, that if, from the death of Sylla, Rome recovered
some transient show of constitutional integrity, that
happened not by any lingering virtue that remained in
her republican forms, but entirely through the equi-
'ibrium and mechanical counterpoise of rival factions.
in a case, therefore, where no benefit of choice was
allowed to Rome as to the thing, but only as to the
oerson — where a revolution was certain, and the point
».eft open to doubt simply by whom that revolutiop
ihould be accomplished — Caesar had (to say the least
THE CJESJlRS. ^ 55
rhe same nght to enter the arena in the character of
candidate as could belong to any one of his rivals
And that he did enter that ai'ena 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 participation. It is familiarly
known that he was engaged pretty deeply in the con-
«piracy of Catiline, ^' and that he incurred considerable
risk on that occasion ; but it is less known, and has
indeed escaped the notice of historians generjilly, that
ne was a party to at least two other conspiracies.
There was even a fourth meditated by Crassus, which
Caesar so far encouraged as to undertake a journey to
Rome 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
Caesar, 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
lustaining the fir >t collision with the regular forces of
ihe existing government. He relied, it seems, on his
»wn personal superiority for raising him to the head of
56 THE CiBSARS.
affairs eventually, let who would take the nominal leac
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 feex Romvli, 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 are known to have taken his pay. And it \»
remarkable that even in his character of commander-in-
chief, where the number of legions allowed to him for
the accomplishment of his mission raised him for a
number of years above all fear of coercion or control,
he persevered steadily in the same plan of providing
for the 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 re-
searches made into his history after his death, was
this — that, soon after his first entrance upon his gov-
ernment in Gaul, he had raised, equipped, disciplined,
and maintained from his own private funds, a legion
amounting, perhaps, 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
;hose of Caesar. This legion, from the fashion of their
tTCSted helmets, which resembled the crested heads of
ft small bird of the lark species, received the populai
aame of the Alauda (or Lark) legion. And veiy sin*
THE CJESARS. 67
gulai it -was that Cato, or Marcellus, or some a-mongst
those enemies of Caesar, who watched his conduct
during the period of his Gaulish command with the
vigilance of rancorous malice, should not have come to
the knowledge of this fact ; in which case we may be
Bure 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 sim-
ply with a reference to the splendid forms which it
often assumed, this munificence would furnish the
materials for a volume. The public entertainments of
Caesar, his spectacles and shows, his naumachise, and
the pomps of his unrivalled triumphs, (the closing tri-
umphs of the Republic,) were severally the finest of
their kind which had then been brought forward.
Sea-fights were exhibited upon the grandest scale, ac-
cording to every known variety of nautical equipment
and mode of confiict, upon a vast lake formed artifici-
ally for that express purpose. Mimic land-fights were
conducted, in which all the circumstances of real war
were so faithfully reheai'sed, that even elephants ' in-
dorsed with towers,' twenty on each side, took part in
the combat. Dramas were represented in every known
language, {per omnium ling^iarum histriones.) And
hence [that is, from the conciliatory feeling thus ex-
pressed towards the various tribea of foreigners resi-
dent in Rome] some have derived an explanation of
58 THE C^SARb.
what is else a mysterious circumstance amongst the
ceremonial observances at Caesar's funeral — that al*
people of foreign nations then residing at Rome, <lis-
tinguished themselves by the conspicuous share which
they took in the public mourning; and that, beyond
»11 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 spectacles exhibited
by Caesar.
In our days, the greatest occasional gatherings of
the human race are in India, especially at the great
fair of the Hurdwar, in the northern part of Hindos-
tan ; a confluence of many millions is sometimes seen
at that spot, brought together under the mixed influ-
ences of devotion and commercial business, and dis-
persed as rapidly as they had been convoked. Some
such "spectacle of nations crowding upon nations, and
Bome such Babylonian confusion of dresses, complex-
ions, languages, and jargons, was then witnessed at
Rome. Accommodations within doors, and under
roofs of houses, or of temples, was altogether impos-
Bible. Myriads encamped along the streets, and along
the high-roads in the vicinity of Rome. Myriads of
Hyriads lay stretched on the ground, without even th«
THE CjESABS. 59
•light 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 wl ole family of man seemed at that
time gathered together at the bidding of the great
Dictafor. 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
.•epresented by historians. Let us now, in conclusion,
bring forward, from the obscurity in which they have
hitherto lurked, the anecdotes which describe the
habits of his private life, his tastes, and personal
peculiarities.
In person, he was tall,'^ fair, and of limbs distin-
guished for their elegant proportions and gracility.
His eyes were black and piercing. These circum-
stances continued to be long remembered, and no
doubt were constantly recalled to the eyes of all per-
sons in the imperial palaces, by pictures, busts, and
statues; for we find the same description of his per-
sonal appearance three centuries afterwards, in a work
of the Emperor Julian's. He was a most accomplished
Norseman, and a master {peritissimus) in the use of
arms. But notwithstanding his skill and horseman-
ihip, it seems that, when he accompanied his army on
marches, he walked oftener than he rode ; no doubt,
with, a view to the benefi'' of his example, and to
•xpress that sympathy with his soldiers which gained
60 THE C^SAKS.
him their hearts so entirely. On other occasions
when travelling apart from his army, he seems more
frequently to have rode in a carriage than on horse-
back. His purpose, in making this preference, must
have been with a view to the transport of luggage.
The carriage which he generally used was a rheda, a
Bort 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 con-
veyance of about half a ton. The mere personal
baggage which Caesar carried with him, was probably
considerable, for he was a man of the most 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 there-
fore 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 elegant were his habits, and so con-
stant 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 luzenges and squares
of ivory, and other costly materials, which were want-
ed for the tessellated flooring of his tent Habits such
AS these will easily account for his travelling in a car
riage rather than on horseback.
THE C^SABS. 61
The courtesy and obliging disposition of Caesar were
notorious, and both, were illustrated in some anecdotes
which survived for generations in Rome. Dining on
one occasion at a table, where the servants had inad-
vertently, for salad-oil furnished some sort of coarse
lamp-oil, Caesar would not allow the rest of the com-
pany tc point out the mistake to their host, for fear of
shocking him too much by exposing the mistake. At
another time, whilst halting at a little cabaret, when
one of his retinue was suddenly taken ill, 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 more
surprised to find the alienation of the senate charged,
in no trifling degree, upon a failure in point of coxir-
tesy. Csesar neglected to rise from his seat on their
approaching him in a body with an address of congrat-
ulation. It is said, and we can believe it, that he gave
deeper offence by this one defect in a matter of cere-
monial observance, than by all his substantial attacks
upon their privileges. What we find it difficult to
believe, however, is not that result from the offence,
but the possibility of the offence itself, from one so
little arrogant as Caesar, and so entirely a man of the
world. He was told of the disgust which he had
given, and we are bound tc believe his apology, in
which he charged it upon sirkncss, whict would not
t tJic moment allow him to maintain u standing: atti
62 THE CJBSARS.
tude. Certainly the whole tenor of his life was not
courteous only, but kind ; and, to his enemies, merci-
ful in a degree which implied so much more magnani-
mity 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 Caesar :
and, that there might be none, it was fortunate that
conspiracy should have cut him off in the full vigor of
his faculties, in the very meridian of his glory, and on
the brink of completing a series of gigantic achieve-
ments. Amongst these are numbered — a digest of
the entire body of the laws, even then become un-
wieldy and oppressive ; the establishment of vast and
comprehensive public libraries, Greek as well as Latin ;
the chastisement of Dacia ; 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 pur-
pose, and colossal in their proportions.
As an orator, Caesar's merit was so eminent, that,
according to the general belief, had he found time to
cultivate this department of civil exertion, the precise
supremacy of Cicero would have been made question-
able, or the honors would have been divided. Cicero
himself was of that opinion ; and on different occasions
applied the epithet Splendidus to Caesar, as though in
aome exclusive sense, or with a peculiar emphasis, due
THE CJESABS. 69
to him. His taste was much simpler, chaster, and
disinclined to the Jlorid and ornamental, than that of
Cicero. So far he would, in that condition of the
Roman 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 natu-
ral and Demosthenic fervor.
In literature, the merits of Caesar are familiar to
most readers. Under the modest title of Commen-
taries, 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 labors, 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 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
tnie patriotism to the task of purifying and ennobling
their mother tongue. Both were aware of the tran-
Bcendent quality of the Grecian literature ; but that
kplendor did not depress their hopes of raising their
vwn to something of the same level. As respected
the natural wealth of the two languages, it was the
64 THE C^SAES.
private opinion of Cicero, that the Latin had the ad-
vantage ; and if Caesar did not accompany him to that
length, he yet felt that it was but the more necessary
to draw forth any single advantage which it really
had."
Was Caesar , upon the whole, the greatest of men ?
Dr. Beattie once observed, that if that question were
left to be collected from the suffrages already express-
ed in books, and scattered throughout the literature
of all nations, the scale would be found to have turned
prodigiously in Caesar's favor, as against any single
competitor ; and there is no doubt whatsoever, that
even amongst his own countrymen, and his own con-
temporaries, the same verdict would have been re-
turned, 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 pro-
nounced the second.
THE C^SAKS. M
CHAPTER II.
The situation of the Second Caesar, at the crisis cf
the great Dictator's assassination, was so hazardoug
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
80 personal and deadly, as to refuse him his customary
titular honors 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 honors the very instruments of their
own vassalage, would not recognize this popular cre-
ation, and spoke of him always by his family name
of Octavius. The flattery of the populace, by the
way, must, in this instance, have been doubly accept-
able to the emperor, first, for what it gave, and
secondly, for what it concealed. Of his grand-uncle
the first Caesar, a tradition survives — that of all the
distinctions created in his favor, either by the senate
or the people, he put most value upon the laureJ
Bfi THE CMBASiS.
crown which was voted to him after his last campaigna
«— a beautiful and conspicuous 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 civic gran-
deur, and concealed his baldness, a defect which was
more mortifying to a Roman than it would be to
ourselves from the peculiar theory which then pre-
vailed 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, set apart and sequestrated to
public functions, had also the agreeable effect of with-
drawing from the general remembrance his obscure
descent. For the Octavian house \_gens'\ had in
neither of its branches risen to any great splendor
of civic distinction, and in his own, to little or none.
The same titular decoration, therefore, so offensive to
the celebrated Whig, was, in the eyes of Augustus, at
once a trophy of public merit, a monument of public
gratitude, and an effectual obliteration of his own natal
obscurity.
But, if merely odious to men of Sir William's prin-
ciples, to others the character of Augustus, in relation
to the circumstances which surrounded him, was not
without its appropriate interest. He was summoned
in early youth, and without warning, to face a crisit
THE C^SABS. 67
jf tremendous hazard, being at the same time himself
k man of no very great constitutional courage ; perhaps
be was even a coward. And this we say without
meaning to adopt as gospel truths all the party re-
proaches of Anthony. Certainly he was utterly unfur-
nished by nature with those endowments which seemed
to be indispensable in a successor to the power of the
gi'eat Dictator. But exactly in these deficiencies, and
in certain accidents unfavorable to his ambition, lay
his security. He had been adopted by his grand-
uncle, Julius. That adoption made him, to all intents
and purposes of law, the son" 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 favor.
From the inheritance of the Julian estates and family
honors, he would have been trained to mount, as from
a stepping-stone, to the inheritance of the Julian
power and political station ; and the Roman 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
ichemc of the conspirators, as a fellow-victim with hij
SS THE C^SAKS.
nominal father; and would have been cut off too sud-
denly to benefit by that re-ac rion of popular feeling
which saved the partisans of the Dictator, by separat-
ing 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 Caesar 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 ir.
which he was superior to his competitors. His place
in the favor of Caius Julius was of power sufiicient to
give him a share in any triumvirate which could be
formed ; but, wanting the formality of a regular intro-
duction to the people, and the ratification of theii
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 an-
tiquity, (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 upon the political scene.
No doubt his friends and enemies alike thought o*
aim, at the moment of Caesar's assassination, as we
now think of a young man heir-elect to some person
of immense wealth, cut oflf by a sudde q death before
THE C.ESA.BS. 69
te has nad iime to ratify a will in execution of hi»
purposes. Yet in fact the case was far otherwise.
Brought forward distinctly as the successor of Caesar's
power, had he even, by some favorable accident of
absence from Rome, or otherwise, escaped being in-
volved in that great man's fate, he would at all events
have been thrown upon the instant necessity of de-
fending his supreme station by arms. To have left it
unasserted, when once solemnly created in his favor
by a reversionai'y 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 dis-
simulation. Cultivating these, he was enabled to pre-
pare for a contest which, undertaken prematurely, must
have ruined him, and to raise himself to a station of
even military preeminence to those who naturally, and
by circumstances, 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 bad every
chance of prevailing in the long run, against the aaible
7& THE C.tSAUS.
carelessness and the impetuosity of the passionate
Anthony — and they did prevail. Always on the
watch to lay hold of those opportunities which the
geiiCrous negligence of his rival was but too frequentlj
throwing in his way — unless by the sudden reversal
of war and the accidents of battle, which as much aa
possible, and as long as possible, he declined - — there
could be little question 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
gained ; and in no case to miss an advantage, or sacri-
fice an opportunity, by any consideration of gene-
rosity. No modern insurance office but would have
guaranteed an event depending upon the final success
of Augustus, on terms far below those which they
must in prudence have exacted from the fiery and
adventurous Anthony. 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 Caesar, he was ' non tarn impar quam dispar,'
•lu^ly a most extravagant encomium, applied to whom-
loever. On the other hand, Anthony, amongst the
most signal misfortunes of his life, might number it
that Cicero, the great dispenser of immortality, ij
THE CASAR8. 7i
whose hands (more perhaps than in any one man's of
my age) were the vials of good and evil fame, should
happen to have heen his bitter and persevering enemy.
It is, however, some balance to this, that Shakspeare
had a just conception of the original grandeur which
l^y beneath that wild tempestuous nature presented by
Anthony to the eye of the undiscriminating world. It
is to the honor of Shakspeare that he should have been
able to discern the true coloring of this most original
character under the smoke and tarnish of antiquity.
It is no less to the honor of the great triumvir, that a
strength of coloring should survive in his character,
capable of baffling the wrongs and ravages of time.
Neither is it to be thought strange that a character
should have been misund' rstood and falsely appreciated
for nearly two thousand years. It happens not uncom-
monly, 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
or many thousands of years without having yet
reached our system ; and the eyes are yet unborn
upon which their earliest ravs will fall. Men like
Mark Anthony, with minds of chaotic composition —
light conflicting Nvith darkness, proportions of colossal
(grandeur disfigured by nnsymmetrical arrangement,
the angelic in close neighborhood with the brutal — ar«
i2 THE C^SABS.
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 anc*
domestic discipline, not less than by original constitu-
tion 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 peculiar 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 Anthony would be found wanting. As a citizen,
he was irretrievably licentious, and therefore there
needed not the bitter personal feud, which circum-
stances had generated between them, to account for
the achameme7it with which Cicero pursued him. Had
Anthony been his friend even, or his near kinsman,
Cicero must still have been his public en any. And
aot 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 ic
lis position, of a tendency dangerously uncivic.
THE C^SABS. 78
So remai-kable was the opposition, at all points, be-
Detween the second Caesai and his rival, that whereas,
Anthony even in his virtues seemed dangerous to the
state, Octavi as gave a civic coloring to his most indiffer-
ent actions, and, with a Machiavelian policy, obse2vrd
B scrupulous regard to the forms of the Republic, after
every fragment of the republican institutions, the privi-
leges of the republican magistrates, and the functions
of the great popular officers, had been absorbed into
his own autocracy. Even in the most prosperous
days of the Roman State, when the democratic forces
balanced, and were balanced by, those of the aristoc-
racy, it was far from being a general or common
praise, that a man was of 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 popu-
ar 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 irresponsible power in himself. Such a modera-
tion 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.
A.nd it is worthy of notice, that with the army he laid
Aside ^hose popular manners as soon as possible.
M THE C^SABS.
addressing them as milites, not {according to his ear-
lier practice) as commilitones. It concerned his own
security, to be jealous of encroachments on his power
But of his rank, and the honors 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
honor which was burdensome to all the parties con-
cerned in it. Sometimes, hovvever, we find that men,
careless of honors in th-eir own persons, are glad to
see them settling upon their family and immediate
connections. 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 dis-
charged the duties attached to them, in conjunction
wich colleagues who had been chosen with little regard
to his personal partialities. In the debates of the
senate, he showed the same equanimity ; sufiering
himself patiently to be contradicted, and even with
tircumstances of studied incivility. In the public
•lections, he gave his vote like any private citizen
THE C^SAKS. T5
und, when he happened to be a candidate himself he
canvassed the electors with the same earnestness ot
personal application, as any other candidate with the
least possible title to public favor from present power
or past services. But, perhaps by no expressions 'A
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
which could disturb the pure administration of justice.
The Roman juries {judices they were called), were
very corrupt ; and easily swayed to an unconscientious
verdict, by the appearance in court of any great man
oh behalf of one of the parties interested ; nor was
Buch an interference with the course of private justice
any ways 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 uprightness 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
f his name. And, as if it had been a trifle merely to
forbear, and to show his regard to justice in this nega-
live way, he even allowed himself to be summoned at
a witness on trials, and showed no anger when his own
•vidence was overborne by stronger on the other side
76 THE CMSA.RR
This disinterested love of justice, and an integrity, bo
rare in the great men of Rome, could not but com-
mand the reverence of the people. But their aflfection,
doubtless, was more conciliated by the freedom with
which the emperor accepted invitations from all quar-
ters, 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 eVery
thing, and account for every change by some definite
incident, charges this alteration in the emperor's con-
descensions upon one particular party at a wedding
feasst, 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 acknowledged, for some time escape
notice ; until some sudden shock reminds a man for-
cibly to do that which he has long meditated in an
ii resolute way. The marriage banquet may have been
the particular occasion from which Augustus stepped
uto 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 hi* kingly connec-
tions with considerable anxiety It may have bees
THE CiESABS. 77
apoa motives merely political that he kept at Rome the
tbildren of nearly all the kings then known as allies or
rassals of the Roman power : a curious fact, and not
generally known. In his own palace were reared a
flumber 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
Bpontaneously 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 clientum) to Augustus. It is
an anecdote of not less curiosity, that a whole ' college '
of kings subscribed money for a temple at Athens, to
t)e 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 occu-
pying 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 aa
hostages, ostensibly entertained for the sake of educa-
tion, but really as pledges for their parents' fidelity,
and also with a view to the large reversionary advan-
tages which might be expected to arise upon the basis
of so early and affiectionate a connection. But it is not
khe less true, that, at one pciioc' of his life, Augustus
did certainly meditate some closer personal connectio»
78 THE C^SAHS.
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 daugh-
ter Julia as a wife for Cotiso, the king of the Getae.
Superstition perhaps disturbed the one scheme, and
policy the other. He married, as is well known, for
his final wife, and the partner of his life through it»
whole triumphant stage, Livia Drusilla ; compelling her
husband, Tiberius Nero, to divorce her, notwithstand-
ing 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 in-
dependent writers, that this connection had an oracu-
lar 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
Consilium : nunquam melius nam csedere tsedas
Responsum 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 Anthony ;
secondly, to the barbarous king ; thirdly, to her first
cousin — that Marcellus, the son of Octavia, only siste*
to Augustus, whose early death, in the midst of great
vtpectations, Virgil has so beautifully introduced int«
THE CiESABS. 79
the vision of Roman grandeurs as yet unborn, which
iEneas beholds in the shades ; fourthly, she was pro-
mised (and this time the promise was kept) to the
fortunate soldier, Agrippa, whose low birth wa,s 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
favors 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
^eart and human laws have hallowed, she was prom-
ised, (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
3mperor. Upon the whole, as far as we can at thifl
lay make out the connection of a man's acts and
^rposes, which, even to his own age, were never
-ntirely rfleared up, it is probable that, so long as the
triumvirate survived, and so long as the condition of
Roman power or intrigues, and the distribution of Ro-
man influence, were such as to leave a possibility that
ny new triumvirate should arise — so long Augustus
<ras secreily meditating a retreat for himself at soma
barbarous court, against any sudden reverse of fortunt
so THE C^SABf).
by means of a domestic connection, which should give
him the claim of a kinsman. Such a court, howevei
unable to make head against the collective power of
Rome, might yet present a front of resistance to any
single partisan who should happen to acquire a brief
ascendancy ; or, at the worst, as a merely defensive
power, might offer a retreat, secure in distance, and
difficult of 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 inspiring insurgent. And it
must have often struck him as a remarkable circum-
stance, 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 as the prize, 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 demolished ; and no
resource was left to them but either in suicide, (which,
accordingly even Caesar had meditated at one stage
of the battle of Munda, when it seemed to be going
jgrainst him,) or in the mercy of the victor.
That a victor in a hundred fights should in his
ttundred-ar,d-first,^ as in his first, risk the loss of thtJ
THE C^SAKB. 81
paiiiculai battle, is inseparable from the condition of
man, and tlie uncertainty of human means ; but tha
the loss of this one battle should be equally fatal and
irrecoverable with the loss of his first, that it should
leave him with means no more cemented, and re-
sources no better matured for retarding his fall, and
throwing a long succession of hindrances in the way
of his conqueror, argues some essential defect of sys-
tem. 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 under-
lings 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 ho
played with Anthony, 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
Uruggl'^ carried on in suoh an empire. In this di*
6
82 THE CJESAES.
lemma, struck with the extreme necessity of apply hi|j
some palliation to the case, we have no doubt thai
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 prosperity.
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 ofi"er a breathing time and a
respite to his friends, were it only by his remoteness,
and if not the means of rallying, yet at least the time
for rallying, more especially as the escape to his fron-
tier 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 cemsnt and to knit together after the battle
of Actiura ; and that the memory and the prudentia.
tradition of this plan survived in the imperial family so
bng 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 firsi
THE CvESARS. 88
distractions, upon receiving the fatal tidings of th«
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 cham-
pion and protector in the King of the Parthians. Pos-
sibly, 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 cal-
culating 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, Anthony, with military honors,
acknowledging merit even in an enemy, but Augustus
they passed with scornful silence, or with loud re-
proaches. Too certainly no man has ever contended
lor empire with unsullied coEscieT?ce, or laid pure
64 THE C^SARS.
bands upon the ark of so magnificent a prize. Everj
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 the natural lenity of his temper.
That prosperity, in a public sense, has been rarely
equalled ; but far difierent was his fate, and memorable
was the contrast, within the circuit of his own family.
This lord of the universe groaned as often as the ladies
of his hoxise, 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 entertained 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 Phoebe ! ' It
must, however, be granted, that in this miserable affair
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 communication
of the whole to the senate. That body could do noth-
ing in such a matter, either by act or by suggestion :
and in a short time, as every-body could have foreseen,
he himself repented of his own want of self-command.
Upon the whole, it cannot be denied, that, according
u} the remark of Jeremj' Taylor, of all th(? men signally
TH£ CJU8ARS. 85
decorated by history, Augustus Caesar is that one wh«
exemplifies, in the most emphatic terms, 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 for-
midable competitors ; his power was absolute, from tbe
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 baifled, dishon-
ored, 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
jxpression of scenical applause, {vos plaudite !) in that
valedictory injunction he expressed inadvertently the
true value of his own long life, which, in strict candor,
may be pronounced one continued series of histrionic
efforts, and of excellent acting, adapted tc selfish
ends.
S6 THE c;esa.bs.
CHAPTER III.
The next three emperors, Caligula, Claudius, aad
Nero, were the last princes who had any connection
by blood '^ with the Julian house. In Nero, the sixth
emperor, expired the last of the Csesais, 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 Csesars, dishonored humanity 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 imagi-
nations to create combinations of mckedness 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
diabolical life of Caligula : — In what way did he treat
his nearest and tenderest female connections ? 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
THE C^SAKS. 87
ickn^ywledge any connection with the blood of so ob-
•cure a man as Agrippa, he publicly gave out th&i his
mother was indeed the daughter of Julia, but by an
incestuous commerce with her father Augustus. Hia
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 hai'd
to say whether they were first sought and won with
more circumstances of injury and outrage, or dismissed
with more insult and levity. The one whom he treat-
ed best, and with most profession of love, and who
commonly rode by his side, equipped with spear and
shield, to his military inspections and reviews of the
soldiery, though not particularly beautiful, was exhib-
ited 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
tc 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
^c 3wrd of '";ngcan«"> His palace happened to be
88 THE C^SAKS.
contiguous to the circus. Some seats, it seems, Aveie
open indiscriminately to the public ; consequently, the
3nly way in which they could be appropriated, was by
taking possession of them as eai-ly as the midnight pre-
seding 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 qrders so rig-
orous, as it appeared by the event, that in this singular
tumult, twenty Roman knights, and as many mothersi
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
Buch 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, and causing all the prisoners to pass in
review before him {custodiarum seriem recognoscens),
he pointed to two bald-headed men, and 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 prisoneis committed, not foi
THE C^SABS. 89
punishment, but trial. Nor, had it been otherwise,
were the charges against them equal, but running
through every gradation of guilt. But the elogia, o.
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 cod-
versation have deplored the tameness and insipidity of
his own times and reign, as likely to be marked b^ no
wide-spreading calamity. ' Augustus,' said he, 'was
happy ; 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 amphitheatre
at Fidenae. 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 executions in his
own halls and banqueting rooms ; nor was a dinner
teld to be complete without such a dessert. Artists
were sought out who had dexterity and strength enough
» do what Lucan somewhere calls ensem rotare, that
90 THE C^SAKS.
IB, to cut off a human head with one whirl of the
sword. Even this became insipid, as wanting on*
main element of misery to the sufferer, and an indis
pensable condiment to the jaded palate of the con-
noisseur, viz., a lingering duration. As a pleasant
rariety, therefore, the tormentors were introduced with
their various instruments of torture ; and many a
dismal tragedy in that mode of human suffering was
conducted in the sacred presence during the emperor's
hours of amiable relaxation.
The result of these horrid indulgences was exactly
what we might suppose, that even such scenes ceased
to irritate the languid appetite, and yet that without
them 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 XIV. 's 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
unconquerable desire of precipitating himself into the
difficulties and hazards of the murder, — Caligula
never failed to experience (and sometimes even to
acknowledge) a secret temptation to any murder whicl
seemed either more than usuallv abominable, or mor«»
THE C^SARS. 91
Aan usually difficult. Thus, wliten the two consuli
were seated at his table, he burst out into sudden and
profuse laughter ; and upon their courteously request-
ing 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 laugh-
ing, and that he could not hut 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 nuto,) he could have
both their throats cut. No doubt he was continually
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 ati'ocity, were
but the more likely to make its fascinations irresistible.
Hence he dallied with the thoughts of murdering her
>vhom he loved best, and indeed exclusively — his wife
C'sesonia ; 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,
"^vliich could be gratified but once.
Nero (for as to Claudius, he catr^o too late to the"
H TH£ CJESXRS.
throne to indulge any propensities of tliis nature with
BO little discretion) was but a variety of the same
Bpecies. 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 consid-
eration 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 thf tools. Naturally enough, according to the
custom then prevalent in Rome, he first attempted the
thing by poison. The poison faUed ; for Agrippina,
anticipating tricks of this kind, had armed her consti-
tution against them, like Mithridates ; and daily took
potent antidotes and prophylactics. Or else (which is
more probable) the emperor's agent in such purpose*
fearing his sudden repentance and remorse on fira*
THE CiESARS. 93
hearing of his mother's death, or possibly even witness-
ing her agonies, had composed a poison of inferior
strength. This had certainly occurred in the case of
Britannicus, who had thrown oflF with ease the first
dose administered to him by Nero. Upon which he
had summoned to his' presence the woman employed
in the affair, 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 satis-
fied with its effects ; after which, immediately inviting
Britannicus to a banquet, he had finally dispatched
him. On Agrippina, however, no changes in the
poison, whether of kind or strength, had any effect :
80 that, after various trials, this mode of murder was
abandoned, and the emperor addressed himself to other
plans. The first of these was some curious mechanical
device, by which a false ceiling was to have been sus-
pended by bolts above her bed ; and in the middle of
the night, the bolt being suddenly drawn, a vast weight
would have descended with a ruinous destruction to all
below. This scheme, however, taking air from the
indiscretion of some amongst the accomplices, reached
the ears of Agrippina ; upon which the old lady looked
about her too sharply to leave much hope in that
■cheme : so that also was abandoned. Next, he con-
ceived the idea of an artificial ship, which, at the touch
of a few springs, mignt fall to pieces in deep water.
Such a ship was prepared, and stationed at a suitable
94 THE CXSAKS.
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 humor 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
throwing Agrippina off her guard, and seduced her to
Baise for the purpose of joining the emperor's party at
a great 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 commander of her vessel, and pre-
vailed 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 empe-
ror's, new and properly equipped, was moored at a
neighboring station. This was readily accepted by
A-grippina : the emperor accompanied her to the place
of embarkation, took a most tender leave of her, and
saw her set saU. It was necessary that the vessel
fhould get into deep water before the experiment could
be made ; and \vith the utmost agitation this pious son
twaited news of the result. Suddenly a messenger
THK C^SARS. 9b
mshed breatUuss into his presence, and horiified him
by the joyful information that his august mother had
met with an alarming accident ; but, by the blessing of
Heaven, had escaped saft and sound, and was now on
her road to mingle congratulations with her affectionate
bOii. The ship, it seems, had done its office ; the
mechanism nad played admirably ; but who can pro-
vide 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, wasted upon one old
woman, who absolutely would not, upon any terms, bo
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 con-
gratulating friend, swore that he had come to murder
him, and as nobody could have suborned him but
Agrippina, he ordered her off to instant execution
And, unquestionably, if people will not be murdered
|uietly and in a civil way, they must expect that such
forbearance is not to continue for ever ; and obviously
liave 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
»ention, that, for this utrocity Nero did absolutely
98 THE CiBSARS.
receive solemn congratvJations from all orders of men.
With such evidences of base servility in the public
mind, and of the utter corruption which they had sus-
tained in their elementary feelings, it is the less aston-
ishing that he should have made other experiments
upon the public patience, which seem expressly de-
signed to try how much it would support. Whethei
he were really the author of the desolating fire which
consumed Rome for six days ^^ and seven nights, and
drove the mass of the people into the tombs and sep-
ulchres for shelter, is yet a matter of some doubt.
But one great presumption against it, founded on ita
desperate imprudence, as attacking the people in their
primary comforts, is considerably weakened by the
enormous servility of the Romans in the case just
stated : they who could volunteer congratulations to a
son for butchering his mother, (no matter on what
pretended suspicions,) might reasonably be supposed
incapable of any resistance which required courage
even in a case of self-defence, or of just revenge.
The direct reasons, however, for implicating him in
this aifair, seem at present insufficient. He was dis-
pleased, it seems, with the irregularity and unsightli-
uess of the antique buildings, and also with the streets,
as too narrow and winding, (angustiis Jlexurisque
vicorum.) But in this he did but express what was no
doubt the common judgment of all his contemporaries
who h*d seen the beautiful cities of Greece and Asii
THE C^SABS. 97
Minor. The Rome of that time was in many parta
built of wood ; and there is much probability 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 lite-
rature, 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 ap-
pearance, which must have been a pretty general
sentiment, argued, therefore, no necessary purpose of
destroying it. Certainly it would be 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
tnany of the humble Roman coenacula ?
The great loss on this memorable occasion was io
98 THE C^SARS.
the heraldic and ancestral honors of the city. Hi(»«
toric Eome then went to wreck for ever. Then per-
ished the domus priscorum ducum hoslilibus adhuc
spoliis adornatcB ; the ' rostral ' palace ; the mansion of
the Pompeys ; the Blenheims and the Strathfieldsays
of the Scipios, the Marcelli, the Paulli, and the Ceesare ;
then perished the aged trophies from Carthage and
from Gaul ; and, in short, as the historian sums up
the lamentable desolation, ' quidquid visendum atque
memorabile ex antiquitate duraverat.' And this of
itself might lead one to suspect the emperor's hand
as the original agent ; for by no one act was it possible
so entirely and so suddenly to wean the people from
their old republican recollections, and in one week to
obliterate the memorials of their popular forces, and
the 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
» Romanus rerum dominos gentemque iogatam. '
Why then, after all the constituents of Roman
i^jtandeur had passed away, should their historical
trophies survive, recalling to them the scenes of
departed heroism, in which they had no personam
property, and suggesting to them vain hopes, which
for them were never to be other than chimeras
Even in that sense, therefore, and as a great deposit
THE C^SARS. 99
Jory of heart-stirring historical remembrances, ^{ome
hras profitably destroyed ; and in any other sense,
whether for health or for the conveniences of pjlished
life, or for architectural magnificence, there never
was a doubt that the Roman people gained infinitely
by this confiagration. For, like London, it arose from
its ashes with a splendor proportioned to its vast ex-
pansion 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 en-
durance and timidity of the popular temper, and to
what extent it might be provoked with impunity, that
in this state of general irritation and efiervescence,
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 anti-
cipated from sifting the rubbish. And, as if that mode
of plunder were not sufiicient, he exacted compulsory
contributions to the rebuilding of the city so indis-
criminately, as to press heavily upon all men's finan-
ces ; 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 inflic-
"on of another and a greater.
The monotony of wickedness and outrage becomes
■« length fatiguing io the couscst and most calloui
icfises ; and the historian, even, who caters professedly
TOO THE CjESARS.
for the taste wliicn feeds upon the monstrous and thti
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 liistory contains no more impressive scenes
than those in which the justice of Providence 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 Propraetor 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 pro-
claimed a rebel, as because he was described uncer
the slighting denomination of ' one Henry Tidder or
Tudor,' he complained bitterly that Vindex had men-
tioned him by his family name of -^nobarbus, 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 oflFering to stake
the truth of all the other charges against himself upon
the accuracy of this in particular. So little even in
Ihis 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
•haracter of a harper, but only if he should happcF
THE C^SABS. 101
lo be a bad one. Even in these days, however, im*
perfect as were the means of travelling, rebellion
moved somewhat too rapidly to allow any long inter-
val of security so light-minded as this. One couriei
followed upon the heels of another, until he felt the
aecessity 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 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 capitol. 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 musi-
cal instruments of recent invention, in which the
ieys were moved by hydraulic contnvances. He had
come to Rome, it appeared, merely from a sense of
decorum.
Suddenly, however, arrived news, which fell upon
uim with the force of a thunderbolt, that the revolt
liad extended to the Spanish provinces, and was head-
ed by Galba. He fainted upon hearing this; and
Wling to the ground, lav for a long time lifeless, afl
102 THE CJESAES.
it seemed, and speechless. Upon coming to Uimsell
again, he tore his robe, struck his forehead, and ex-
claimed 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 mo-
ments ; 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, how-
ever, that, according to the general course of violent
emotions, the rebound of high spirits was in proportion
to his first despondency. He omitted nothing of his
usual luxury or self-indulgence, and he even found
spirits for going incognito to the theatre, where he took
suflBcient interest in the public performances, to send
a message to a favorite actor. At times, even in this
"iopeless situation, his native ferocity returned upon
him, and he was believed to have framed plans for
••emoving all his enemies at once — the leaders of the
rebellion, by appointing successors to their offices.
tnd secretly sending assassins to dispatch their per-
Bone ; the senate, by poison at a great banquet ; the
Gaulish provinces, by delivering them up for pillage
to the army ; the city, by again setting it on fire
THE C-i:SARS. 103
(vhiist, at the same time, a vast number of vild beasta
Has to have been turned loose upon tbe 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, hut after a luxurious din-
ner, the imperial monster grew bland and pathetic in
his ideas ; he would proceed to the rebellious army ;
he would present himself unai'med 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 favorite 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
•hese vascillating purposes fresh tidings surprised him
— other armies had revolted, and the rebellion was
ipreading contagiously. This consummation of his
alarms reached hirn at dinner ; and the expressions of
DJ9 angry fears took even a scenical air; he tore the
104 THE C^SABS.
dispatches, upset the table, and dashed to pieces upon
the ground two crystal beakers — which had a high
value as works of art, even in the Aurea Domus, from
the sculptures which adorned them.
He now prepared for flight; and sending forward
commissioners to prepare the fleet at Ostia for his
reception, he tampered with such oflicers 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 meditating s
flight to the King of Parthia, or even to throw himseli
on the mercy of Galba ; sometimes inclining rathei
to the plan of venturing into the forum in mourning
apparel, begging pardon for his past oft'ences, and, as
a last resource, entreating that he might receive the
appointment of Egyptian prefect. This plan, however,
|.e hesitated to adopt, from some apprehension that
^e should be torn to pieces in his road to the forum ;
und, at all events, he concluded to postpone it to the
following day. Meantime events were now hurrying
to their catastrophe, which for ever anticipated that
ntention. His hours were numbered, and the closing
Bcene was at hand.
In the middle of thu night he was aroused from
clumber with the intelligence that the military guard,
yho did duty at the palace, had all quitted their posts
*7j>on this the unhappy prince leaped from his couch.
THE C^SARS. 105
never again to taste the luxury of s^eep, and dispatched
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 bedchamber ; but there again he found fresh
instances of desertion, which had occurred during his
short absence ; the pages of his bedchamber had fled,
carrying with them the coverlids of the imperial bed,
which were probably inwrought with gold, 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 desertion, and
perhaps by some special case of ingratitude, such as
would probably enough be signalized in the flight of
his personal favorites, he called for a gladiator of the
household to come and dispatch him. But none ap
pearing — 'What ! ' said he, ' have I neither friend noi
foe ? ' And so saying, he ran towards the Tiber, with
the purpose of drowning himself. But that paroxysm,
like all the rest, proved transient ; and he expressed a
wish for some hiding-place, or momentary asylum,
m which he might collect his unsettled spirits, and
fortify nis wandering resf^lution. Such a retreat wa?
offered him by his Ubertus Phaon, in his own rural
villa, about four miles distant from Rome. The ofiei
was accepted ; and the emperor, without further pre
106 THE C^SARR.
paration than that of throwing over his person a sht^rl,
tnantle of a dusky hue, and enveloping his head and
face in a handkerchief, mounted his horse, and left
Eome with four attendants. It was still night, hut
probably verging towards the early dawn; and even
at that hour the imperial party met some travellera
on their way to Rome (coming up no doubt,^^ on law
business) — who said, as they passed, ' These men are
certainly 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 neighbor-
ing encampment of Galba. They were probably thee
getting under arms" for their final march to take pos-
session of the palace. At another point, an accident
occurred of a more unfortunate kind, but so natural
and so well circumstantiated, that it serves to verify
f-he 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, and under the diffi-
culty of the moment compelled him to withdraw the
!a«nd which held up the handkerchief, and suddenly to
expose his features. Precisely at this critical moment
t happened that an old half-pay officer passed, recog-
nized the emperor, and saluted him. Perhaps it was
with, some pur])ose of applying a remedy to this unfor-
tunate rencontre, that the party dismounted at a poin*
»rhere several roads met, and turned their horses adrift
THE C-ESAK3. 107
fcj graze at will amongst the furze and brambles.
Their own purpose was, to make their way to the back
of the villa; but, to accomplish that, it was necessary
that they should first cross a plantation of reeds, from
the peculiar state of which they found themselves
ob.iged 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 it in no more dignified posture, than
by creeping through the hole on his hands and feet,
{quadrupes per angustias receptus.)
Now, then, after such anxiety, alarm, and hardship,
Nero had reached a quiet rural asylum. But for the
unfortunate occurrence of his horse's alarm with the
passing of the soldier, he might perhaps have counted
on a 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
le^reted himself, was &. eel' a, or little sleeping closet
ai a slave, furnished jnly with a miserable pallet and
a -oarsq rug. Here lay the lb under and possessor of
108 THE CJESAKS.
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. A rival
pretender to the empire was like the plague of fiie — as
dangerous in the shape of a single spark left unextin-
guished, 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 speak by every expression
which came home to his understanding, or was intelli-
gible to his senses, even in these few moments he was
attacked by hunger and thirst. No other bread could
be obtained (or, perhaps, if the emperor's 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 accord-
ingly he rejected; but a litle tepid water he drank.
After which, with the haste of one who fears that he
may be prematurely interrupted, but otherwise, with
all the reluctance which we may imagine, and which
his streaming tears proclaimed, he addressed himself
to the last labor in which he supposed himself to have
uny interest on this earth — that of digging a grave
pleasuring a space adjusted to the proportions of hit
THE cjEsxas. 109
person, he inquired anxiously for any loose fragments
of mai'ble, such as might suffice to line it. He re-
quested also to be furnished with wood ai^d water, as
the materials for the last sepulchral rites. And these
labors were accompanied, or continually interrupted by
tears and lamentations, or by passionate ejaculations on
the blindness of fortune, iji suffering so divine an artist
to be thus violently snatched away, and on the calami-
tous 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 mean-
ing 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
that miserable shape to which it had now sunk ; and
like the poor malefactor, with whose last struggles
Prior has so atrociously amused himself, ' he often took
leave, but was loath to depart.' Yet, on the other
hand, to resign his life very speedily, deemed his only
chance for escaping the contumelies, perhaps the
tortures of his enemies ; and, above all other consid-
erations, for making sure of a burial, and possibly of
burial rites ; to want which, in the judgment of the
fcucients, was the last consummation of miseiy. Thus
Dccupied, and thus distracted — sternly attracted to the
|rave by his creed, hideously repelled by infirmity of
oature — he was suddenly interrupted by a co irieT
wi^i letters for the mas^^er of tne house ; letters, and
110 THE CASAB8.
from Rome ! What was their import ? That was
Boon told —■ briefly that Nero was adjudged to be a
public enemy by the senate, and that official orders
were issued for apprehending him, in order that he
might be brought to condign punishment according to
the method of ancient precedent. Ancient precedent 1
more majorem ! And how was that r eagerly de-
manded 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 pitch-
fork, 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 apos-
trophized himself in words reproachful or animating,
now taxing his nature with infirmity of purpose, now
calling on himself by name, with adjurations to re-
member his dignity, and to act worthy of his supreme
station : o»' noinei NtQwYL, cried he, ov tiqLici • vi'jipur Set h
loT? Tiinrrotg • ays, VynQi ntavTov I. C. 'Fie, fie, then,
Nero ! such a season calls for perfect self-possessiniu
Up, then, and rouse thyself to action.'
THE C^SAitS- 111
Thus, and in similar eflforts to master the weakness
of his reluctant nature — weakness which would ex-
tort pity from the severest minds, were it not from the
r.dious connection which in him it had with cruelty the
most merciless — did this unhappy prince, jam non
iaJutis spem sed exitii solatium queer ens, 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 burthen of igno-
minious life, and from a lingering torture. He paused
from his restless motions, listened attentively, then
repeated a line from Homer —
' Itttt u)i' /a' cokuttoScov d/xt^i ktuttos ovara ^dXXet •
(The resoundinij tread of swift-footed horses rever-
berates upon my ears) ; — then under some momentary
impulse of courage, gained perhaps by figuring to him-
self the bloody populace rioting upon his mangled
body, yet even then needing the auxiliary hand and
vicarious courage cf 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
^w hollow words of encouragemeni, he was still able
112 THE C^SABS.
to make a brief reply. But in the very effort of
speaking he expired, and with an expression of horroi
impressed upon his stiffened features, waich communi-
cated 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 Csesar from its original
purpose as a proper name to that of an official desig-
nation. It is the most striking instance upon record
of a dramatic and extreme vengeance overtaking ex-
treme guUt : 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 there ever been crowded
equal extremities of gorgeous prosperity and abject
infamy. It may be added, as another striking illustra-
tion of the rapid mutability and revolutionary excesses
which belonged to what has been properly called the
Roman stratocracy then disposing of the world, that
within no very great succession of weeks that same
victorious rebel, the Emperor Galba, at whose feet
ro had been self-immolated, was laid a murdered
-orpse in the same identical cell which had witnessed
sue 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
THE C^SARS. lis
irorld away ! ' And in this striking way is retribu-
tion sometimes dispensed.
In the sixth Caesar terminated the Julian line. The
three next princes in the succession were personally
uninteresting ; and with a slight reserve in favor of
Otho, whose motives for committing suicide (if truly
reported) argue great nohility of mind/^ were even
brutal in the tenor of their lives and monstrous ;
besides that the extreme brevity of their several reigns
(all three, taken conjunctly, having held the supreme
power for no more than twelve months and twenty
days) dismisses them from all effectual station or right
to a separate notice in the line of Caesars. Coming
to the tenth in the succession, Vespasian, and his two
sons, Titus and Domitian, who make up the list of
the twelve Caesars, as they are usually called, we find
matter for deeper political meditation and subjects of
curious research. But these emperors would be more
properly classed with the five who succeeded them —
Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Anto nines ; after
whom comes the young ruffian, Commodus, another
Caligula or Nero, from whose short and infamous
reign Gibbon takes up his tale of the decline of the
empire. And this classification would probably have
prevailed, had not the very curious work of Suetonius,
▼hose own life and period of observation determined
the feries and cycle of his subjects, led lo a difiereat
iistribution. But as it is evident that, m the sue-
114 THJE C^SARS.
cession of the first twelve Caesars, the six latter have
no connection whatever by descent, collaterally, or
otherwise, with the six first, it would he 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 splendor,
declension, revival, and final decay. Under this ar-
rangement, 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 Juvian 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 Caisars, to spend a few lines in
examining their origin, and the circumstances which
favored their growth. For a mere hunter after hidden
or forgotten singularities ; a lover on their own ac-
count of all strange perversities and freaks of nature,
whether in action, taste, or opinion ; for a collector
ftnd amateur of misgrowths and abortions ; for a Sue-
tonius, in short, it may be quite enough to state and
to arrange his cabinet of specimens from the marvel-
lous in human nature. But certainly in modern times,
any historian, however little afipcting the praise of a
philosophic investigator, would feel himself called
upon to remove a little the taint of the miraculous
and preternatural which adheres to such anecdote*
by wintering into the psychological grounds of theiy
TUB CJESARS. 116
possibility ; whether lying in any peculiarly viciouB
education, early familiarity with bad models, corrupt-
ing associations, or other plausible key to effects, which,
taken separately, and out of their natural connection
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 Calig-
ula and Nero ; nor indeed was Tiberius much (if at
all) behind them, though otherwise so wary and cau-
tious in his conduct. The same tenor of licentiousness
beyond the needs of the individual, the same craving
tfter the marvellous and the stupendous in guilt, is
continually emerging in succeeding emperors — in
Vitellius, in Domitian, in Commodus, in Caracalla —
3verywhere, 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 seduc-
tions, (and in some cases removed from their influence
by an early apprenticeship to camps,) or by the terrors
of an exemplary ruin immediately preceding. For
uuch a determinate tendency to the enormous and the
anomalous, sufficient causes must exist. What were
ttiey?
In the first place, we may observe '•hat the people
«»f Rome in that age were generally more corrupt by
116 THE C^SABS.
many degrees ttan has been usually supposed possi*
ble. The eflfect of revolutionary times, to relax all
modes of moral obligation, and to unsettle the mora*
gense, has been well and philosophically stated by Mr.
Coleridge ; but that would hardly account for the utter
lisentiousness and depravity of Imperial Rome. Look-
ing back to Republican Rome, and considering the
state of public morals but fifty years before the em-
perors, we can vnth. diiBculty believe that the descend-
ants of a people so severe in their habits could thus
i"apidly degenerate, and that a populace, once so hardy
and masculine, should assume the manners which we
might expect in the debauchees of Daphne (the in-
famous suburb of Antiochj or of Canopus, into which
settled the very lees and dregs of the vicious Alexan-
dria. 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 favor, or of acquiring influence, slaves
had been emancipated in such great multitudes, ana
afterwards invested with all the rights of citizens
1B£ C^SARS. 117
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
chiefly from Cappadocia, Pontus, &c., and the other
populous regions of Asia Minor ; and hence the taint
of Asiatic luxury and depravity, which was so con-
spicuous to all the Romans of the old republican
severity. 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
its impure waters with those of the Tiber. And a
little before him, Lucan speaks with mere historic
gravity when he says —
—^ ' Vivant Galatseque Syrique
Cappadoces, Gallique, extremique orbis Iberi,
Armenii, Cilices : nam post civilia bella
Hie Populus Romanus erit.'-^
Probably in the time of Nero, not one man in six
was of pure Roman descent.^i And the consequences
were suitable. Scarcely a family has come down to
our knowledge that could not in one generation enu-
merate a long catalogue of divorces within its own
contracted circle. Every man had married a series
• wives , every woman a series of husbands. Even
Ui the palace of Augustus, who wished to be viewed
M an exemplai or ideal mode? of domestic purity,
ll8 THE C-ESAR3.
every principal member of his family was tainted in
that way ; himself in a manner and a degree infamous
even at that time.^ For the first 400 years of Rome,
not one 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 ^vithin
the year, especially if the lady had a large fortune,
which always went 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 matri-
monial faith all the three months ? ' Thus the very
fountain of all the ' household charities ' and house-
hold virtues was polluted. And after that we need
little wonder at the assassinations, poisonings, 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
irose from its disproportion and inadequacy to the
;itellectual advances of the nation. Religion, in its
very etymology, has been held to imply a religatio,
that is, a reiterated or secondary obligation of morals ;
ft sanction supplementary to that of the conscience.
Now, for a rude and uncultivated prople, the Pagav
THE CJE8AKS. 119
mythology might not be too gross to discharge the
main functions of a useful religion. So long as the
iMiderstanding 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 punish-
ments, which were, in fact, as laughable, and as
obviously 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 dispro-
portions between the two were at length become mon-
strous ; 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
vhich to rest the burden of our final hopes and fears,
of our moral obligations, 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 c." having outgrown its religious faith,
oas never been sufficiently considered. It is probable
that such a condition has never existed before or sincv
l20 TEE C^SABS.
that era of the world. The consequences to Rome
were — that the resisonins: and disputatious purt Oi
her population took refuge from the painful state o£
doubt in Atheism ; amongst the thoughtless and irre-
flective 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 litera-
ture in Rome, had by this time matured its disastrous
tendencies towards the extinction of the moral sensibil-
'ties. This was the circus, and the whole machinery,
form and substance, of the Circensian shows. Why
had tragedy no existence as a part of the Roman
literature ? Because — and that 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 exhibi-
tion 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 ayes
and the noes, or atA the penalty for any trifiing instance
of awkwardness in the performer himself? Even the
more innocent exhibitions, in which brutes only werf
THE Cjr.SABS. 121
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 natuiej
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 favor, in the way most conspicuously
open to him, issued orders that all, without 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 ; buft
these would soon cease to stimulate the pampered
and exhausted sense. From the combats of tigers or
.eopards, in which the passions 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 intelligible language of the
eye, to human spectators ; and from the frequent con-
templation of these authorized murders, in which a
•rhole people, women ^ as much as men, and children
Intermingled with both, looked on with leisurely ir.dif-
122 THE CiESARS.
ference, with anxious expectation, or with rapture as
delight, whilst below them were passing the direct
Bufferings of humanity, 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 simultane-
ously upon the two pillars of morality, (which are
otherwise not often assailed together,) of natural sen-
sibility in the first place, and in the second, of consci-
entious 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 ancient reverence for the immediate witnesses
of his actions, and for the people and senate who
would under other circumstances have exercised 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 purely a government
by the sword, or permanent stratocracy, having a
movable head. Never was there a people who inquired
10 impertinently as the Romans into the domestic
conduct of each private citizen. No rank escaped
this jealous vigilance ; and private liberty, even in the
THE C£SARS. 123
most indifferent circumstances of taste or expense,
was sacrificed to this inquisitorial rigor of surveillance,
exercised on behalf of the state, sometimes by errone-
ous 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 vir-
tually and effectively all the irresponsibility which the
law assigned, and the origin of his office presumed.
Satisfied to know that he possessed such power, Au-
gustus, 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 foreign
control, too feelingly to provoke unnecessarily any
•bleeping 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 alio wee" to operate ; and
the natural results were seen — he was the first abso'
124 THE CJESABS.
lute monster. He must early have seen the reali
ties of his position, and from what quai'ter 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 heen 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 of 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 resistance, as an
original movement, was so wholly without hope, that
they were never 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 necessarily subdivided, as the shifting cir-
cumstances 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 the other by an imperator standing
in the centre of the whole. The rigor of the military
tacramentum, 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
THE CM8A.Ra. 12fi
lometimes turned against the emperor, was also
liable to be sequestrated in bis favor. There were
then, in fact, two great forces in the government
acting in and by each other — the Stratocracy, ani
iJLc 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
Benatorial, neither had anything to fear. Under any
ordinary circumstances, therefore, considering the
hazards of a rebellion, the emperor was substantially
liberated from all control. "Vexations or outragea
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 of one
part of his subjects, and the indifference of the other,
until he was tempted onwards to atrocities, which
armed against him the common feelings of human
nature, and al\ mankind, as it were, rose in a body
with one voice, and apparently with one heart, united
by mere force of indignant sympathj, to put him
lown, and 'abate' him as a monster. But, until he
brought matters to this extremity, Csesar had no cause
Vo fear. Nor was u at all certain, in any one
lastance, where this exemplary chastisement overtook
lim, that the apparent unanimity of the actors wenf
fiirther than the practical conclusion of 'abating
126 THK C-ESARS.
the inn/erial 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
3very case, not so much bocause he had violated his
duties, as because he had dishonored his office.
It is, therefore, in the total absence of the checks
which 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
CsBsar, 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 des-
potisms 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, w^hen
we state the case considerately. Surrounded by a
population which had not only gone through a most
vicious and corrupting discipline, and had been utterly
mined by the license of revolutionary times, and tht
THE CiBSARS. 121
bloodiest proscriptions, but had even been extensively
changed in its very elements, and from the descend-
ants 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 civilization, to a certain intellectual
altitude, which the popular religion had not strength
to ascend — but from inherent disproportion remained
&t the base of the general civilization, incapable of
fcccompanying 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 gladiatorial 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 circus ; — combining these con-
Biderations, we have already a key to the enormitie?
and hideous excesses of the Roman Imperator. The
ot blood which excites, and the adventurous courage
which accompanies, the excesses of sanguinary warfare,
presuppose a condition of the moral nature not to be
tompared for malignity and baleful tendency to the
lool and cowardly spu\t of amatcrship, in which thf
128 THE C^SARS.
Roman (perhaps 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 disci-
plined 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
extra-judicial tribunal, not easily irritated, and noto-
riously to be propitiated by other means than those of
upright or impartial conduct, we lay together the
elements of a situation too trying for poor human
nature, and fitted only to the faculties of an angel or
a demon ; of an angel, if we suppose him to resist its
full temptations ; of a demon, if we suppose him to use
its total opportunities. Thus interpreted and solved,
Caligula and Nero become ordinary men.
But, finally, what if, after all, the worst of the
Caesars, and those in particular, were entitled to the
benefit of a still shorter and more conclusive apology ?
Vhat if, in a true medical sense, they were insane?
.t is certain that a vein of madness ran in the family ;
tnd anecdotes are recorded of the three worst, which
go far to establish it as a fact, and others which would
.mply it as symptoms — preceding or accompanying.
As belonging to the former class, take the following
itory : At midnight an elderly gentleman suddenly
•ends round a message to a select party of noblemen,
rouBcs them out of bed, and sunmxons them instanth
THE C.£SARS. 129
to his palace. Trembling for their lives from the
BUddenness of the summons, and from the unsea*
Bonable hour, and scarcely doubting that by some
anonymous delator they have been implicated 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 in everywhere else) the sUence 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 suspicions settle
— on whom their pity? All are silent — almost
speechless — and even the current of their thoughts is
frost-bound by fear. Suddenly the sound of a fiddle
or a viol is caught from a distance — it swells upon
the ear — steps approach — and in another moment
in rushes the elderly gentleman, grave and gloomy
RS 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 gues*s, 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
u dismissed: they retire resume their couches: —
130 THE C^SABB.
the nocturnal pageant has ' dislimned ' and vanished ;
and on the following morning, were it not for theii
concurring testimonies, all would be disposed to take
this interruption of their sleep for one of its most
fantastic dreams. The elderly gentleman who fig-
ured in this delirious pas seul — whu ,vas he ? He
w^as Tiberius Caesar, king of kings, and lord of the
terraqueous globe. Would a British jury demand
better evidence than this of a disturbed intellect in
any formal process de lunalico ivquirendo ? For
Caligula, again, the evidence of symptoms is still
plainer. He knew his own defect; and proposed
going through a course of hellebore. Sleeplessness,
one of the commonest indications of lunacy, haunted
him in an excess rarely recorded.-^ The same, or
similar facts, might be brought forward on behalf of
Nero. And thus these unfortunate princes, who have
80 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 abhor-
rence, would be reconciled to our indulgent feelings
fcnd, at the same time, made intelligible to our under
standings.
THE C^SARS. iSl
CHAPTER IV.
The five Caesars^ who sixcceeded immediately o the
first twelve, were, in as high a sense as their offica
allowed, patriots. Hadrian is perhaps the first of all
whom circumstances permitted to show his patiotisra
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
occasion,' says one of his memorialists (Dio), 'neither
in summer heat nor in winter's cold, did he cover his
head ; but, as well in the Celtic snows as in Egyptian
beats, 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. His aston-
ishment on the occasion is thus expressed : ' Tantura
iSt, »/ uaxtjoii : ' such and so mighty is the force of habit
aad daily use. And then he goes on to ask — ' Quia
hodie nudum caput radiis solis, aut omnia perurenti
(rigori, ausit exponere ? ' Yet we ourselves and our
illustrious friend, Christopher North, have walked foi
^irenty years amongst our British lakes and mountains
132 THE C.£SAR3.
hatless, and amidst botli snow and rain, such as Ro-
mans did not often experience. We were naked, and
yet not ashamed. Nor in this are we altogether singu-
lar. But, says Casaubon, the Romans went farther ;
for they walked about the streets of Rome^ bard-
headed, and never assumed a hat or a cap, a petasus &i
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
Masinissa and Julius Caesar, who declined even on
such an occasion to cover their heads. Perhaps in
imitation of these celebrated leaders, 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 ex-
emplary lives (in a public sense) of some who had
preceded him, and the singular 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 regu-
lations to meet abuses as they arose, and strenuously
maintaining the old ones in vigorous operation. A
respected the army, this was matter of peculiar praise
because peculiarly disinterested ; for his foreign polic
THE C£SA.B8. 133
was pacific ; ^ he made no new conquests : and he
retired from the old ones of Trojan, where they could
not have been maintained without disproportionate
bloodshed, or a jealousy beyond the value of the stake.
In this point of his administration he took Augustus
for his model ; as again in his care of the army, in hia
occasional bounties, and in his paternal solicitude foi
their comforts, he looked rather to the example of Julius.
Him also he imitated in his affability and in his ambi-
tious 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 was a fiction of republican etiquette,
that every man participating in the political privileges
of the State must be personally known to public aspi-
rants. But, as this was supposed to be, in a literal
sense, impossible to all men with the ordinary endow-
ments of memory, in order to reconcile the pretensions
of republican hauteur with the necessities of human
weakness, a custom had grown up of relying upon
ti class of men called nomenrlalors, whose express
business and profession it was to make themselves
tcquainted with the person and name of every citizen.
One of these p'^ople accompanied every candidate, and
quietly whispered into hi'' ear tne name of each votei
«s he came in sight. Few, .ndeed, "vere they who
i34 THE C^SABS.
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 exceed one quarter of a million.
The very same trial of memory he undertook with
respect to his own army, in this instance recalling the
well known 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
difference of circumstances. Wonderful is the effect
upon soldiers of such enduring and separate remem-
brance, 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 Bona-
Darte, by elaborate mimicries of pantomimic art.^
Other modes he had of winning affection from the
army ; in particular that, so often practised before and
iince. of accommodating himself to the strictest ritual
of martial discipline and castrensian life. He slept in
the open air, or, if he used a tent (papilio), it waa
open at the sides. He ate the ordinary rations o
cheese, bacon, &c. ; he used no other drink than thai
THE CiESABS. 135
composition of viiiegar and water, known by the nam*
of posca, which formed the sole beverage allowed 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 armor and completely
accoutred. Luxury of every kind he not only inter-
dicted to the soldier by severe ordinances, himself
enforcing theii- 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
di'aperies, so little in accordance with the severe char-
acter of ' war in procinct.' ^ Hardly would he allow
himself an ivory hilt to his sabre. The same severe
proscription he extended to every sort of furniture, or
decorations of art, which sheltered even in the bosom
of camps those habits of efieminate 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 subal-
terns highly connected. There was at that time a
practice prevailing, in the great standing camps on the
•everal frontiers and at all tLe military stations, of re-
tewing as much as possible the image of distant Rome
by the erection of long colonnades and piazzas —
136 THE CXSAE8.
single, double, or triple ; of crypts, or subterranean *
saloons, (and sometimes subterranean galleries and
corridors,) 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, which in those days (like the needlework
of Miss Linwood^^ in ours), though no more than a
mechanic craft, in some measure realized the effects of
a fine art by the perfect skill of its execution. Ali
these modes of luxury, with a policy that had the more
merit as it thwarted his own private inclinations, did
Hadrian peremptorily abolish ; perhaps amongst other
more obvious purposes, seeking to intercept the earliest
buddings of those local attachments which are as inju-
rious to the martial character and the proper pui'suita
of men whose vocation obliges them to consider them-
selves eternally under marching orders, as they ara
propitious to all the best interests of society in connec-
tion with the feelings of civic life.
We dwell upon this prince not without reason i^
this particular ; for, amongst the Caesars, Hadrian
stands forward in high relief as a reformer of the army.
Well and truly might it be said of him — that, post
CcBsarem Octavianum lahantem disciplinam, incurid
tuperiorum principum, ipse retinuii. Not conten*
writh the cleansing and purgations we have mentioned.
THE C^SABS. 18)
he placed upon a new footing the wnole tenure, datiea,
and pledges of nulitary offices.^ It cannot much sur
prise 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 eyea of man, except
upon Belshazzar's wall — S. P. Q. E.., the officers of
the Roman army had been kept true to their duties,
and vigilant by 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 republic,
by aid of its democratic elements then suddenly vic-
torious, 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 favor — and by consequence into a mercenary
disposal. Each successive emperor had been too
anxious for his own immediate security, to find leisure
for the remoter interests of the empire : all looked to
the army, as it were, 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
tultivate the public welfare at tne hazard of their own*
1 38 THE CESARS.
contented with obtaining that, they left the internal
arrangements of so formidable a body in the state 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 was decaying,
its vis inertice was for ages enormous, and could stand
up against assaults repeated for many ages : whilst the
emperor was 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 favor had
Mubstantially supported himself. Hadrian was the first
who turned his attention effectually in that 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 favor and election, or
tpon the express recommendation of the soldiery. This
I us torn had prevailed 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 was selected for his mili*
THE CiESABS. 139
lary qualities and experience : none was appointed tc
this important office, ^ nisi barbd plena.' The cen-
turion's truncheon,^ again, was given to no man,
^nisi robusto et bona famce.' The arms and military
appointments {supellectilis) were revised ; the register
of names was duly called over ; and none sufiered 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 reposi-
tories 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 ser-
vice, it could by no possibility find Hadrian unprepared.
And he first, in fact, of all the Caesars, restored to its
ancient republican standard, as reformed and perfected
by Narius, 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
lourting favor from the troops, as much as was possible
of the hardships incident to actual service, and as much
•8 he dared of the once rigorous discipline. Hadrian
irst found himself ii\ cl-cums\anccs, or was the first
l40 THE C^SAKS.
who had courage enough to decline a mcmeutary
interest in favor of a greater in reversion ; and a per-
sonal object which was transient, in favor of a State
one continually revolving.
For a prince, with no children of his own, it is in
any case a task of peculiar delicacy to select a suc-
cessor. In the Roman empire the difficulties were
much aggravated. The interests of the State were, in
the first place, to he 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 govern-
ment, and from circumstances rooted in the very origin
of the imperatorial office, could not be devolved upon
a council. Council there was none, nor could be
recognized as such in the State machinery. The em-
peror, 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 bis edicts, apart even from any celes-
tial or supernatural inspiration, simply as emanations
of his own divine character, had a value and a conse-
cration which could never belong to those of a
30uncil — or to those even which bad been sullied by
ftie breath of any less august reviser. The emperot
therefore, or — as with a view to his solitary and
fcnique character we ought to call him — in the origintw
THE CiSAKS. 141
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 honor — 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,
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 thti
West, and the unfathomed depths of the mysterious
Scandinavia. He was the universal guardian of the
public and private interests which composed the grea^
edifice of ths 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 dishonored 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
BO much the more were they linked to him in a
connection of absolute dependence. Caesar it was who
provided their daily food, Caesar who provided their
pleasures and relaxations. He chartered the fleeta
which brought grain to the Tiber — he bespoke the
Sardinian granaries while yet unformed — and the
142 THE cj:saiis.
harvests of the Nile while yet unsown. Not the con«
nection between a mother and her unborn infant ii
more intimate and vital, than that which subsisted
between the mighty populace of the Roman capitol
and their paternal emperor They drew their nutri-
ment from him ; they lived and were happy by sym-
pathy with the motions of his will ; to him also the
arts, the knowledge, and the literature of the empire
looked for support. To him the armies looked for
their laurels, and the eagles in every clime turned
their aspiring eyes, waiting to bend their flight accord-
ing 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 ser-
vices so exalted, because he also was held a god, and
had his own altars, his own incense, his own worship
and priests. And that was the cause, and that was the
result of his bearing, on his own shoulders, a burthen
BO 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, as Caesar, or Crown
Prince, flung into his hands a power of fomenting
lonspiracies, and of concealing them until the very
moment of explosion, which made him an object o
dmost exclusive terror to his principal, the Caesar
THE C^SARS. 143
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 suspect
ing, 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 Cejonius 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
iElius Verus. The scandal of those times imputed his
adoption to the worst motives. ' Adriajio,' says one
author, ' {ut malevoli loquuntur) 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 a»
illustrate his excessive luxury and effeminate dedica-
tion 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, pulchriludinis regicB] — a
plausible pretext that should be sufficient to explain
%nd to countenance his preference, whilst under his
()rovisional adoption he was enabled to postpone the
definitive choice of an imperator elect, until his own
More advanced age might diminish the motives for
aatriguing against himself. It was, therefore, a mere
Md interim adoption ; for it is certain, however we
144 THE C^SABS.
tnay choose to explain that fact, that Hadrian foresaT»
and calculated on the early death of ^lius. This
prophetic knowledge may have been grounded on a
private familiarity with some constitutional infirmity
affecting his daily health, or with some habits of life
incompatible with longevity, or with both combined.
It is pretended that this distinguished mark of favoi
was conferred in fulfilment of a direct contract on the
emperor's part, as the price of favors, 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 the readiest
and most intelligible justification to the multitude, of a
choice which thus ofi"ered to their homage a public
favorite — and to the nobility, of so invidious a prefer-
ence, which placed oiie of their own number far above
the level of his natural rivals. 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 tha'
be had been disappointed, he would affect to sigh,
THE C^SARS. 145
txclaiming — ' Ah ! that I should thus fruitlessly have
iquandered a sum of three ^ millions sterling ! ' for go
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 pop-
ularity ; for, in addition to his extreme and statuesque
beauty of person, he was (in the report of one who did
not wish to color his character advantageously) ' tnemor
familicE su(b, comptus, decorus, oris venerandi, eloquen-
ticB celsiorisy versu facilis, in repuhlicd etiam non
inutilis.^ Even as a military officer, he had a respect-
able * character ; as an orator he was more than
respectable ; and in other qualifications 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 ^vith 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 crueltj- ; but there
is reason to think that it was merely bv accident, and
%s an indirect result of o*tier purposes, that he ever
lllowed himself in su:h manifestations of irresponsible
power — not as gratifying any harsh impulses of hit
10
146 THE C^SABS.
Dative character. The most remarkable neglect of
aumanity with which he has been taxed, occurred in
the treatment of his couriers ; these were the bearers
of news and official dispatches, at that time fulfilling
the functions of the modern post; and it must be
remembered that as yet they were not slaves, (as after-
wards 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 Caesar 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 four cardinal winds, (Boreas,
A.quilo, Notus, &c.) and others as levanters or hurri-
.tanes, (Circius, &c.) Thus far he did no more than
indulge a blameless fancy ; 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.^
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 — ex-
cessive in degree, extravagant and even ludicrous in
its forms. For example, he constructed a sort of bed
ox sofa — protected from insects by an awning of net.
THE CiESAKS. 147
nrork composed ot lilies, delicately fabricated into the
proper meshes, &c., and the couches composed wholly
»>f rose-leaves ; and even of these, not without an ex-
quisite preparation; 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 favorite 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 mate-
rials, and in their mode of preparation. 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 extrava-
gances in one so young and so exalted ; ' quae, etsi
Qon decora,' as the historian observes, 'non tamen ad
perniciem publicam prompta sunt.' A graver mode
jf licentiousness appeared in his connections with
women. He made no secret of his lawless amours ;
tnd to his own wife, on her expostulating with him on
uis aberrations in this respect, he replied — that ' wife '
was a designation of rank and official dignity, not of
148 THE CJESAKS.
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 pur-
ine such as he might himself be involved ir by hia
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, am'
leaving no remembrance of himself more durable than
his own beds of rose-leaves, and his reticulated cano-
pies 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 Caesar, 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 honors 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 Aure-
lius Antoninus. This fact, and the certainty that to
the second ^Elius Verus he gave his own daughter in
marriage, rather than to his associate Caesar Marcui
Aurelius, make it evident that his regret for the elder
Verus was unaffected and deep ; and they overthrow
eflfectually tho common report of historians — that h»
THE CJBSA.BS. 149
repented of his earliest choice, as of one that had been
disappointed not by the decrees of fate, but by the
violent defect of merit in its object. On the contrary,
H? prefaced his inauguration of this junior Caesar by
the following tender words — Let us confound the
rapine of the grave, and let the empire possess amongst
her rulers a second -lElius Verus.
' Diis aliter visum est : ' the blood of the iElian
family was not privileged to ascend or aspire : it gra-
vitated violently to extinction ; and this junior Verus
is supposed to have been as much indebted to his as-
sessor 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 grand-
father 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 efiect of a sudden redemption for his memory,
when we learn — that this solitary quality, in virtue oi
which he claimed a natural affinity to the sacred house,
and challenged a natural interest in the purple, was the
rery princely one of — a merciful disposition.
The two Antonines fix an era in the imperial history;
lor they were both eminent models of wise and good
rxilers ; and some would say, that they fixed a crisis ;
fcr with their successor commenced, in the populai
J 50 THE C^SARS.
belief, the decline of the empire. That at least is th«
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
.n 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 position.
The elder of the two, who is usually distinguished
by the title of Pius, is thus described by one of hie
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, pos-
sessing an elegant style of eloquence, distinguished for
his literature, generally temperate, an earnest lover of
agricultural pursuits, mild in his deportment, bountiful
n the use of his own, but a stern respecter of the rights
of others ; and, finally, he was all this without osten-
Ation, 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
jaentioning, as at once illustrating the age, and the
pradence with which he controlled the most generous
of ills impulses: — ' Fccnus tricntarium,''^ says thi
XHB C.ESAR3. 1 5l
historian, ' hoc est minimis usuris exercuit, ut patri'
monio suo plurimos adjuvaret.^ The meaning of
which, is this : — In Rome, the customary interest for
money was what was called centesimcB usurer ; 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 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 pro-
digious 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
ivere 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 car-
riages on an extensive scale, besides infinite other
nventions or establishments not yet created — which
1A2 THE C^SAKS
luppcrt and powerfully re-act upon that ^anjc progress
of society which originally gave birth to themselves.
All things considered, in the Rome of that day, where
all munificence confined itself to the direct largesses of
a few leading necessaries of life, — a great step wf»8
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, embez-
zlement or misapplication of the public funds, were
universally corrected ; provincial oppressors were ex-
posed and defeated : the taxes and tributes were dimin-
ished ; and the public expenses were thrown as much
as possible upon the public estates, and in some in-
stances upon his own 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 burdens which must eise havt
fclighted upon them ; ' for,' said he, ' even the slen-
derest retinue of a Roman emperor is burthensome to
the whole line of its progress.' His tenderness anu
toiuideration, indeed, were extended to all classes, anc"
THK C-ESARS. 153
all relations of his subjects ; even to those who siood
in the shadow of his public displeasure as State delin-
quents, 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 repair the public loss. And so resolutely did
he refuse to shed the blood of any in the senatoriaJ
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 shows
and exhibitions in the arena of suitable magnificence.
Luckily for his reputation, he exceeded the general
standard of imperial splendor not less as the patron of
the amphitheatre than in his more important functions.
It is recorded of him — that in one missio he sent for-
ward 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, taere were hippopotami at OTie
time upon the stage : there was also the rhinoceros, and
the still rarer crocula or coro:otta, with a few slrej)sik-
""otea. Some of these were matched in duel?, some in
154 THK c-a;sAKs.
general battles Avith tigers ; in fact, theie was no speciei
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,'^ nc
species known to natural history, (and some even of
which naturalists have lost sight,) which the Emperor
Pius did not produce to his Roman subjects on his cere-
monious pomps. And in another point he carried hia
splendors 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 reserv?.* It was the
custom, in ordinary cases, so far to consider the enor-
mous 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 reserva-
tions. All were given up unreservedly to the savage
purposes of the spectators; land and sea were rar-
sacked; the sanctuaries of the torrid zone were vio-
lated; columns of the army were put in motion — ard
all for the transient effect of crowning an extra hour
with hecatombs of forest blood, each separate minute
of which had cost a king's ransom.
Yet these displays were alien to the nature of Pius :
uid even through the tyranny of custom, he had been
»o little changed, that to the last he continued to turi
THE C^SAUS. 155
aside, as often as the public ritual of his duty allowed
him, from these fierce spectacles to the gontler amuse-
ments of fishing and hunting. His taste and his affec-
tions 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 fr»end or
two, pleased him better than all the court festivals ;
and among festivals or anniversary celebrations, ha
preferred those which, like the harvest-home or feast
of the vintagers, whilst they sanctioned a total care-
lessness and dismissal of public anxieties, were at the
same time colored by the innocent gayety which be-
longs to rural and to primitive manners. In person,
this emperor was tall and dignified {staturd elevatd
decorus) ; but latterly he stooped ; to remedy which
defect, that he might discharge his public part with
the more decorum, he wore stays.''*' Of his other per-
sonal habits little is recorded, except that, early in the
morning and just before receiving the compliments of
liis friends and dependents [salutatores), or what in
modem phrase would be called his levee, he took a
little plain bread {paiiem siccuvi coviedit), that is,
bread without condiments or accompaniments of any
kind, by way of breakfast. In no meal has luxury
advanced more upon the model of the ancients than
in this; the dinners (coma:) of the Romans were even
bore luxurious, and a thousand times more costly,
Qian our own ; but their breakfasts were scandalo lalj
156 THE C^SARS.
meagre, and, with many men, breakfast was no pro
fessed meal at all. Galen tells us that a little breads
and at most a little seasoning of oil, honey, or diied
fruits, was the utmost breakfast which men generally
allowed themselves : some indeed drank wine after it,
but this was far from being a common practice.'*^
The Emporor 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 im-
moderately ; but that night he was seized with indiges-
tion. Delirium followed ; during which it is singular
that his mind teemed with a class of imagery and of pas-
sions 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 em-
phatically said to be bloodless. Finding his fever
increase, he became sensible that he was dying; and ho
ordered the golden statue of Prosperity, a household
symbol of empire, to be transferred from his own bed-
room to that of his successor. Once again, however,
for the last time, he gave the word to the officer of the
guard ; and, soon after, turning away his face to thf
THE C^SARS. 167
»vall aj,'ainst which his bed was placed, he passed oul
of life in the very gentlest sleep, ' quasi dormiret^
spiritum reddidit ; ' or, as a Greek author expresses it,
KQT IcTov vTTvw TO) fiaXaKtiyroiTto. He was one of those few
Roman Emperors whom posterity truly honored with
the title of Ai/aLfxaKTo^ (or bloodless) ; solusque omnium
prope 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 Bvaej3i']^ (or Pius), upon the
meaning and origin of which there are several different
hypotheses, closes with this memorable tribute to his pa-
ternal qualities — So^rj 8e €//.tj, koi to oi'o/xa to tov Kvpov
<f)ipoLTO av TOV Trpea^vTcpov, HaTTjp avOp^TroiV KaXovfxivo'i '.
hut, in my opinion, he should also hear the name of Cyrus
the elder — heinc) hailed as Father of the Hiiman Race.
A thoughtful Roman would have been apt to ex-
claim, TJiis is too good to last, upon finding so
admirable a ruler succeeded by one still more admira-
ble 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
b.t eleven years of age he professed himself a formal
devotee of philosophy in its strictest form, — assuming
the garb, and submitting to its most ascetic ordinances.
Ir particular, he slept upon the ground, and in other
lespects he practised a style of living the most simple
Mid remote from the habits of rich men [or, in hi*
158 THE CiESARS.
DWn words, t6 Xirbv xar'a T<,v diauar, xvti nooow n^inhrvai-
tixi]g uyw//;s] ; 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 DId mentions that in his boyish days he was re-
iuced 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 philosophers of his
own time, whether Stoic or Peripatetic, and amongst
them Sextus of Cheronaea, 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.^^ 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 (jpila), he admii-ed
and patronized by personal participation. He tried his
powers even as a runner. But with these tasks, and
entering so critically, both as a connoisseur and as a
practising amateur, into such trials of skill, so little did
ae relish the very same spectacles when connected
with the cruel exhibitions of the circus and amphithe-
atre, that it was not without some friendly violence ov
THE CiESARS. 159
the pan of those who could venture on such a liberty,
nor even thus, perhaps, mthout the necessities of hia
official station, that he would be persuaded to visit eithei
one or the other.^^ In this he 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 Avhich, as the prescriptive test of
n.unificence in the popular estimate, it was necessary
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 which they lived together, he is recorded to have
slept out of his father's palace only for two nights.
This rigor 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
-o his duties, did not protect Marcus from the injurious
insinuations of whisperers. There were not wanting
persons who endeavored to tu-n to account the general
circumstances in the situation of the Ca\sar, which
pointed him out to the jealousy of the emperor. But
these being no more thin what adhere necessarily to
he case of every heir as such, and meeting fortunate]/
160 THE C^SARS.
with no more proneness to suspicion in the temper oi
the Augustus than they did with countenance in the
conduct of the Caesar, made so little impression, that at
length these malicious efforts died away, from mere
defect of encouragement.
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, aa
since under corresponding 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 hia
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, how-
ever, had been a dreadful one, and had excited such
just fears in the most experienced heads of the State,
that, happening in its outbreak to coincide with a Par-
thian wai', it was skilfully protracted until the entire
thunders of Rome, and the undivided energies of her
supreme captains, could be concentrated upon this
lingle point. Both*'' emperors left Rome, and crossed
the Alps ; the war was thrown back upon its nativ«
THE CiESASS. 161
seats — Austria and the modern Hungary : greay
battles were fought and won ; and peace, with conse-
quent relief and restoration to liberty, was reconquered
for many friendly nations, who had suffered under the
ravages of the Marcomanni, the Sarmatians, the Quadi,
and the Vandals ; whilst some of the hostile people
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 exhausted ; 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 color''^ 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 teing first
granted to the bidders, whoever tbey might le, to use.
11
162 THE C^SAKS.
or otherwise to exercise the fullest rights of property
upon all they bought. The auction lasted for two
months. Every man was guaranteed in the peaceable
ownership of his purchases. And afterwards, when
the public distress had passed over, a still further in-
li'ilgence was extended to the purchasers. Notice was
given — that all who were dissatisfied with theii* pur-
chases, or who for other means might wish to recover
their cost, would receive back the purchase money,
upon returning the articles. Dinner services of gold
and crystal, murrhine vases,^" and even his wife's ward-
robe of silken robes interwoven with gold, all these,
and countless other articles, were accordingly returned,
and the full auction prices paid back ; or were not
returned, and no displeasure shown to those who pub-
licly 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 pecu-
liar 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 eff'ect 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
tha^ a license to use any one article of the sacrea
^«ttem, became necessarily a general license for aL
others which resembled them. And thus, withoif
THE C^SABS. 163
ibrogating the prejudices which protected ttie imperial
j.recedency, a body of sumptuary laws — the most
ruiuous to the progress of manufacturing skill,^'^ which
has ever been devised — were silently suspended. One
or two aspiring families might be offended by thea*
innovations, which meantime gave the pleasures of
enjoyment to thousands, and of hope to millions.
But these, though very noticeable relaxations of the
existing prerogative, were, as respected the temper
which dictated them, no more than every-day manifes-
tations of the emperor's perpetual benignity. Fortu-
nately for Marcus, the indestructible privilege of the
divina domus exalted it so unapproachably beyond all
competition, that no possible remissions of aulic rigor
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
iiharmed and consecrated, 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 expressing the
cikHie affable spirit. Such, indeed, was the effect of
this uninterrupted benevolence in the emperor, that at
length all men, according to their several ages, hailed
him as their father, son, or brother. And when he
died, in the sixty-first year of hi. life (the 18th of hii
eign), he wa? lamented with a corresponding pe-
164 THE CJBSAB8.
euliarity in the public ceremonial, such, for instance,
us tlie studied interfusion of the senatorial body with
l,lie populace, expressive of the levelling power of a
true and comprehensive grief; a peculiarity for which
no precedent was found, and which never afterwaixis
became a precedent for similar honors 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 fallen in love ; and again, upon his associate
in the empire, who died in reality of an apopletic
Beizure, 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 doAvn by the 'prima 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
thoee 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 indul-
gence to his wife's vices to an access which drew upon
him the satirical notice of the stage.
The gladiators, and still more the sailors of that age
were constantly to be seen plying naked, and Faustint
THE CiESAKS. 165
was shameless enough to take her station in places
which gave her the advantages of a leisurely review ;
fcnd she actually selected favorites 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 Tertul-
lus, at dinner.*^ But to all remonstrances on this sub-
ject, Marcus is reported to have replied, ' Si uxorem
dimittimus, reddamtis et dotem ; ' meaning that, having
received 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
dishonors emanating from his wife's conduct as joint
legacies with the splendors inherited from their com-
mon father ; in short, that he was not at liberty to
separate the rose from its thorns. However, the facts
are not sufficiently known to warrant us in criticizing
very severely his behavior on so trying an occasion.
It would be too much for human frailty, that absolutely
no stain should remain upon his memory. Possibly
the best use which can be made of such a fact is, in
the way of consolation to any unhappy man, whom his
wife may too liberally have endowed with honors of
;his kind, by reminding him that he shares this dis-
tinction with the great philosophic emperor. The re-
Qcction upon this story by one of his biographers is
thia — • ' Such is the force of diily life in a good ruler,
10 great the power of his sanctity, gentleness, and
i66 THE CJiSAliS.
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 manifestations of
his own moral temper, and who was not by possibility
liable to any impulse or " shadow of turning " from
another man's suggestion, it was not eventually an
injury that he was dishonored by some of his connec-
tions ; on him, invulnerable in his own character,
neither a harlot for his wife, nor a gladiator for his
son, could inflict a wound. Then as now, oh sacred
lord Dioclesian, he was reputed a God ; not as others
are reputed, but specially and in a peculiar sense, and
with a privilege to such worship from all men as you
yourself addressed to him — 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 honors, or
canonized^" (as in Christian phrase we might express
it). That was a matter of course. ; and, considering
with whom he shared such honors, they are of little
account in expressing the grief and veneration which
followed him. A circumstance 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, wa«
looked upon as a profane and irreligious man. Finally
THE CiES^BS 187
to do him honor not by testimonies of men's opinions
in his favor, but by facts of his own life and conduct,
one memorable trophy there is amongst the moral dis-
tinctions of the philosophic Caesar, utterly unnoticed
hitherto by historians, but which will hereafter obtain
a conspicuous place in any perfect record of the steps
by which civilization has advanced, and human nature
has been exalted. It is this : Marcus Aurelius was the
first great military leader (and his civil office as su-
preme interpreter and creator of law consecrated his
example) who allowed rights indefeasible — rights un-
cancelled by his misfortune in the field, to the prisoner
of war. Others had been merciful and variously indul-
gent, 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. But Marcus
Aurelius first resolutely maintained that certain inde-
Btructible 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 dimin-
ish. We have noticed other instances in which Marcus
A-urelius labored, at the risk of his popularity, to ele-
*ate the condition of human nature. But those,
though equally expressing the goodness and loftiness
rfhis nature, were by accident d'rected to a perishable
i68 THE C.SSABS.
institution, which time has swept away, and along will
t therefore his reformations. Here, however, is an
immortal act of goodness built upon an immortal basis ;
for 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, as 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,* whose attention
Christianity was by that time powerful to attract, some
reflex images of Christian doctrines — some half-con-
scious 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 How-
ards and the Wilberforces, who have since then in a
practical sense hearkened to the sighs of 'all prisoners
and captives' — we are ready io suppose him addressed
oy the great Founder of Christianity, in the words ol
Scripture, ^Verily, I say unto thee, Thou art not fan
from the kingdom of heaven.^
As a supplement to the re^gn of Marcus Aureliua
THE C^.SABS. 169
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 con-
spirator against the great Dictator, Julius) seems to
have suggested to him a wandering idea, and at length
a formal purpose of restoring the ancient 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 neighboring Daphne gave
nim ample opportunities for the exercise of his harsh
propensities in reforming the dissolute soldiery. He
amputated heads, arms, feet, and hams : he turned out
his mutilated victims, as walking spectacles of warn-
ing ; 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, unauthor-
ized, gained a splendid victory, and captured a large
ooty on the Danube. Upon this the soldiers mutinied
against him, in mere indignation at his tyranny.
However, he prosecuted his purpose, and prevailed, by
tiis bold contempt of the danger which menaced him.
From the abuses in the army, he proceeded to attack
vhe abuses of the civil administration. But as these
were protected by the exairple of the great procon-
»ular lieutenants and prov'C^ial governors, policy
170 THE CJSSABS.
Dbliged him to confine himself to verbal expressions ol
linger ; until at length sensible that this impotent rail-
ing did but expose him to contempt, he resolved to arnj
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 interesting letter which yet survives,) 'Mi in anti-
quum statum puhlica 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, multia
gladiis, multis elogiis,^ (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 philosophizing old woman,
>nd 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 1
think it more scrupulously timid than becomes u
THE C^SABS. 171
imperur, and timid in a way unsuited to the spirit ol
our times. Consider 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 had marked out as his successor.
On the other hand, if providence opposes him, then,
without any cruelty on our part, he will spontaneously
fall into some snare spread for him by destiny. Be-
sides, 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 persons contending against the powerful, and
matched against those who are armed with the whole
authority of the State, seems to suffer some wrong.
You remember what your grandfather said : Wretched,
mdeed, 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
kgainst the plotters, by falling martyrs to the plot.
iJomitian it was, in fact, who first uttered this truth ;
but I choose rather to place it under the authority of
Hadrian, because '^he sayings of tyrants even when
\hey are true and happy, carry less weight with them
172 THE C^SARS.
than naturally they ought. For Cassius, then, let him
keep his present temper and inclinations ; and the more
BO — 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 pro\'ide for my children's interests, by putting thia
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 salu-
tary to the State that Cassius should live rather than
the children of Marcus.'
This letter affords a singular illustration of fatalism,
such certainly as we might expect in a Stoic, but car-
ried 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 in vain for a prince to put
conspkators to death, because, by the very possibility
of doing so, a demonstration is obtained that such
Lonspirators had never been destined to prosper, is aa
condensed and striking an expression of fatalism as
tver has been devised. The rest of the letter is truly
noble, and breathes the very soul of careless magna-
nimity reposing upon conscious innocence. Meantime
Cassius increased in power and influence : his army
had become a most formidable 'mgine of his ambition
Jirough its restored discipline ; axid his own authority
was sevenfold greater, becaust lie had himself createf
THE CJESABS. 173
that discipline in the face of unequalled temptations
hourly renewed and rooted in the very centre of his
head-quarters. ' Daphne, by Orontes,' a suburb ol
Antioch, was infamous for its seductions ; and Daphnic
luxury had become proverbial for expressing an excesp
of voluptuousness, such as other places could not rival
Ly 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 odor they inhaled.
Thus provided with the means, and improved instru-
ments, for executing his purposes, 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 honor, which had co-existed with the severest
terms of republicanism. Imperalor, 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 80 unbecoming to a Roman emperor. But
igain Marcus would have said, ' Let us wait for the
«equel of the sequel,' and that would have justified
h.im. It i& often found by experience that men, who
1 74 THE C^SARS
Kave learned to reverence a person in authority chiefly
by his officcK of correction applied to their own aberra-
tions, — who have known and feared him, in short, in
bis character of reformer, — wUl 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, too potent, — a meritorious
disobedience too novel a temptation, — to have a
chance of being rejected. Never, indeed, does eiTing
human nature look more abject than in the person of
a severe exactor of duty, who has immolated thousands
to the wrath of ofiended law, suddenly himself becom-
ing a capital offender, a glozing tempter in search of
accomplices, and in that character at once standing
before the meanest of his own dependents as a self-
deposed officer, liable to any man's arrest, and, ipso
facto, a suppliant for his own mercy. The stern and
haughty Cassius, who had so often tightened the cordg
of discipline until they threatened to snap asur.der,
now found, experimentally, the bitterness of these
obvious truths. The trembling sentinel now looked
insolently in his face ; the cowering legionary, with
wrhom ' to hear was to obey,' now mused or even
bandied words upon his orders ; the great lieutenanti
i>f his office, who stood next to his own person if
TH£ C£SAB8. I7ff
kuthorify, wera preparing for revolt, open or secret,
3W circumstances should prescribe ; not the accusei
only, but the very avenger, was upon his steps ; Neme-
sis, that Nemesis who once so closely adhered to the
name and fortunes of the lawful Caesar, turning agains**
every one of his assassins^^ thv? edge of his own assassi-
nating 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 Ro-
man 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, v And the very
hands, which dressed his altars and crowned his Praeto-
rian 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 Anto-
ninus. Meantime, to give a color of patriotism to hig
treason, Cassius alleged public motives ; in a letter,
which he ^vrote after assuming the purple, he says :
Wretched empire, miserable state, which endures
these hungry blood-suckers battening on her vitals ! —
\. worthy man, doubtless, is Marcus ; who, in his eager-
less to be reputed clement, suffers those to live whose
conduct he himself abhors. Where is that L. Cassius,
whose name I vain'y inherit ? "Where is t'^at Marcus,
- - not Aurelius, mark you, but Catc Jensorius
176 THE C2ESABS.
Where the good old discipline of ancestral tinges, lou^
since indeed disused, but now not so much as looked
after in our aspirations ? Marcus Antoninus is a
scholar ; he enacts the philosopher ; and he tries con-
clusions upon the four elements, and upon the nature
of the soul ; and he discours ?s most learnedly upon the
llonestum ; and concerning the Summum Bonum he la
unanswerable. Meanwhile, is he learned in the inter-
ests of the State ? Can he argue a point upon the public
3Conomy ? You see what a host of sabres is required,
tvhat a host of impeachments, sentences, executions,
before the commonwealth can reassume its ancient
ntegrity!^ What! shall I esteem as proconsuls, as
governors, those who for that end only deem themselves
invested with lieutenancies or great senatorial appoint-
ments, that they may gorge themselves with the provin-
cial luxuries and wealth? No doubt you heard in
what way our friend the philosopher gave the place of
praetorian prefect to one who but thi'ee days before
was a bankrupt, — insolvent, by G — , and a beggar.
Be not you content : that same gentlemen is now as
rich as a prefect should be ; and has been so, I tell
Vou, 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
to matter, let them be rich ; let them be blood -suckers ;
BO much, God willing, shall they regorge into the
treasury of the empire. Let but Heaven smile \ipoB
THE C^SAKS. 177
>ur party, and tlie Cassiani shall ret\irn to the republic
its old impersonal supremacy.'
But Heaven did not smile ; nor did man. Rome
neard with bitter indignation of this old traitor's in-
gratitude, and his false mask of republican civism.
Excepting Marcus Aurelius himself, not one man ^ut
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 tho
ofl&cers who continued true to their 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 par-
don, 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 parries interested gave
utterance to the passions which possessed them. Faus-
tina, the Empress, urged her husband with feminine
riolence to adopt against his prisoners comprehensive
kcts of vengeance. ' Noli parcere hominibiis,' says
Boe, ' qui tibi non pepercerunt ; et nee mihi nee filiis
uostris parcerent,''^ 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.' W ^ may be sure of the result. After
commending her zeal fjr her own family, he says,
12
178 THE C^SAKS.
Ego vero et ejus liberis parcam, et genero, et uxori ,
2t ad senatum scribam ne aut proscriptio gravior sit,
aut poena crudelior ; ' adding that, had his counsels
prevailed, not even Cassius himself should have per-
ished. 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 ? ' Accord-
ingly, his 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 consideration of
his philosophy, of his long-suffering, of his learning
and accomplishments, of his nobility, of his innocence.'
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 honors and public distinctions by favor of him,
whose life and empire that memorable traitor hai
Bought to undermine under the favor of his guileless
master's top confiding magnanimity.
THE CJESAR8. 179
CHAPTER V.
The Roman empire, and the Roman emperors, it
might naturally be supposed by one who had not u
fet traversed that tremendous chapter in the histoi^
af 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 revolution of that unrivalled monarchy
over which the Roman eagle brooded, to follow the
dilapidations of that aerial arch, which silently and
steadily through seven centuries ascended under the
colossal architecture of the children of Romulus, to
watch the unweaving of the golden arras, and step by
step to see paralysis stealing over the once perfect
cohesion of the republican creations, — cannot but in-
sure a severe, though melancholy delight. On its own
separate account, the decline of this throne-shattering
power must and will engage the foremost pla^.e
tmongst all historical rev ewers. The ' dislimning *
tnd unmoulding of some mighty pageantry in tha
160 THE CJESABS.
Iieavens 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 any thing portentous in it?
g;rowth, 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 inex-
perienced reader. But it is not so. The Caesars,
throughout their long line, are not interesting, neither
personally in themselves, nor derivatively from the
tragic events to which their history is attached. Their
whole interest lies in their situation — in the unap-
proachable altitude of their thrones. But considered
with a reference to their human qualities, scarcely one
in the whole series can be viewed with a human
interest apart from the circumstances of his position.
' Pass like shadows, so depart ! ' The reason for this
defect of all personal variety of interest in these enor-
mous 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 C'onstantine and
THE C^SABS. 181
Theodosius, were not great, for they were not mag-
nanimous ; nor could they be so under their tenure of
power, which made it a duty to be suspicious, and, by
fastening upon all varieties of original temper one dire
necessity of bloodshed, extinguished under this monot-
onous cloud of cruel jealousy and everlasting panic
every characteristic feature of genial human nature,
that would else have emerged through so long a train
of princes. There is a remarkable story told of Aprip-
pina,' that, upon some occasions, when a wizard an-
nounced 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.
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 admire — the aspiring
princess, or the loving mother. 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 the
mother of Nero as the impersonation of that monstrous
condition.'
This is true : Occidat dum imperH, was the watcL-
i^ord and very cognizance of the Roman iraperator,
But almost equally it was his watchword — Occidatw
iSS THE C^SABS.
ium imperet. Doing or suffering, the Caesars were
ilmost equally involved in bloodshed ; very few that
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 respect to the empire, the first question which
presents itself is, — Whence, that is, from what causes
and from what era, we are to date its decline ? Gib-
bon, as we all know, dates it from the reign of Com-
modus ; 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 con-
solidated by the all-conquering instincts of a republic^
cradled and nursed in wars, and essentially warlike by
means of all its institutions ^ and by the habits of the
people. This monarchy had been of too slovva 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 cohe-
sion of its parte was intense ; seven centuries of growth
demand one or two 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 asuudei
ander the instant re-action of a few false moves ir
. THE C^SABS. 183
politics, or a single unfortunate campaign. Hence it
was, and from the prudence of Augustus acting through
% very long reign, sustained at no very distant interval
by the personal inspection and revisions of Hadrian,
that for some time the Roman power seemed to be
stationary. What else could be expected ? The mere
strength of the impetus derived from the republican
institutions could not but propagate itself, and caus3
even a motion in advance, for some time after those
institutions had themselves given way. And, besides,
th'e 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 in-
stitutions had bent before an utter revolution. It was
very possible even that emperors should have arisen
with martial propensities, and talents capable of mask-
ing, for many years, by specious but ti-ansitory con-
quests, the causes that were silently sapping the foun-
dations of Roman supremacy ; 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 shrink-
ing within narrower limits, and travelling downwards
\o dissolution. In reality one such emperor there was.
Trajan, whether by martial inclinations, or (as is
supposed by some) by dissatisfaction with his own
pcsition at Rome, when brought into more immediate
Nnnection with the senate, was driven into needlesa
184 THE C^SARS.
war ; and he achieved conquests in the directiou 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 they were aban-
doned. In the next reign, the empire had already
recoiled 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 ener-
gies 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 Caesar of the empire, we cannot fail to see
the immense effect which that difference must have
had upon the permanent spirit of conquest. 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
preventing others from fighting ; since in that way only
\.e could raise up competitors to himself, and dangerous
aeducers 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. Thosa
Caesars who fought whilst the empire was or seemed tt
THE cMSA.na. 185
be stationary, as Trajan, did so from personal taste.
Those who fought in after centuries, when the decay
became apparent, and dangers drew nearer, as Aure-
lian, did so from the necessities of fear ; and undei
aeither 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 heyond the
frontier, — it was a matter of necessity that -svith 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 estab-
lishment 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 ifhad inherited from the repub-
lic. In a philosophical sense, therefore, it may be
affirmed, that the empire of the Caesars was always in
decline ; ceasing to go forward, it could not do other
than retrograde ; and even the first appearances of de-
cline can, with no propriety, be referred to the reign oi
Commodus. His vices exposed him to public contempt
tnd assassination ; but neither one nor the other had
my effect upon the strength of the empire. Here,
therefore, is one just subject of oomplaint against
Bibbon, that he has dated the declension of the RcnaD
(86 THE C^SABS.
power from a commencement arbitrarily assumed ;
anottier, and a heavier, is, that lie 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, we
should have a right to insist on, — that Gibbon brings
forward only such facts as allow of a scenical treatment,
and seems everywhere, by the glancing style of Lis
allusions, to presuppose an acquaintance with that very
history which he undertakes to deliver. Our immedi«
ate 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 Caesars or their empire. As the best means of
realizing it, we shall rapidly review the history of both,
premising that we confine ourselves to the true Caesars,
and the true empire of the West.
The first overt act of weakness — the first expres-
sion 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 con-
quests, and to renounce them when made. It is
possible, however, that the cession then made of
Mesopotamia and Armenia, however sure to be inter-
preted into the language of fear by the enemy, die
THE CXSARS. 187
aol imply any such principle in this emperor. He
was of a civic and paternal spirit, and anxious foi
the substantial welfare of the empire rather than ite
ustentalious glory. The internal administration of
affairs had very much gone into neglect since the
times of Augustus ; and Hadrian was perhaps right in
supposing that he could effect more public good by an
extensive progress through the empire, and by a per-
sonal correction of abuses, than by any military enter-
prise. 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 retrograde motion ;
and this emperor became naturally an object of public
obloquy at Rome, and his name fell under the super-
stitious ban of a fatal tradition connected with the
foundation of the capital. 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
DUiintained in its integrity, and at the expense of some
severe fighting under Marcus, who was a strenuous
general al 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 firsf
ominous precedent in favor of those Gothic, Vandal,
188 THE C^SABS.
and Frankish hives, who were as yet hidden behind a
cloud of years. Homes had been obtained by Trana-
Danubian barbarians upon the sacred territory of Rome
and Caesar : 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, together with
Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines,
making seventeen emperors, compose the first of four
nearly equal groups, who occupied the throne in suc-
cession 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 succeeding princes,
if we except Alexander Severus, do we meet with any
goodness of heart, or even amiableness of manners.
The best of the future emperors, in a public sense,
were harsh and repulsive in private character.
The second group, as we have classed them, termi-
nating with Philip the Arab, commences with Commo-
dus. This unworthy prince, although the son of the
excellent Marcus Antoninus, turned out a monster of
debtuchery. At the moment of his father's death, he
was present in person at the head- quarters of the army
an the Danube, and of necessity partook in many of
their hardships. This it was which furnis'ied his evU
counsellors with their sole argument for urging hit
THE C^SAKS. 189
ieparture to the capital. A council having been con-
rened, 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?
Commodus, ashamed to found his objections to the
station upon grounds so unsoldierly as these, afi'ected
to be moved by political reasons : some great senatorial
house might take advantage 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 Pompeianus, who,
besides his personal weight as an officer, had married
the eldest sister of the young emperor. Shame pre-
vailed for the present with Commodus, and he dis-
vnissed the council with an assurance that he would
tiink 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 del>3gated to lieutenants. The system upon
which these officers executed their commission was •
mixed one of terror and persuasion. Some they defeat-
ed in battle; and these were the majority ; for Herodinn
190 THE CitSAUS.
»ays, TrXctoTOus toiv ftapfiapwv ottXois i)(upu)(TavTO : others
they bribed into peace by large sums of money. And
no doubt this last article in the policy of Commodua
was that which led Gibbon to assign to this 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 temper-
aments of any sort or degree showed that the Pannonian
frontier was in too formidable a condition to be treated
with uncompromising rigor. To afjiepifxi'oy wvov/xcvos,
purchasing an immunity from all further anxiety, Corn-
modus (as the historian expresses it) iravra kSiSov ra
aiTovfjceia — conceded all demands whatever. His jour-
ney to Rome was one continued festival : and the whole
population of Rome turned out to welcome him. At
this period he was undoubtedly the darling of the
people : his personal beauty was splendid ; and he was
connected by blood with some of the greatest nobility.
Over this flattering scene of hope and triumph clouds
Boon gathered ; with the mob, indeed, there is reason
to think that he continued a favorite 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 aliena
ion of heart which inevitably followed any great am
THE C^SARS. 191
tontinaed on rages upon his own majesty, committed
by their emperor. Cruelties the most atrocious, acts of
Vengeance the most bloody, fatricide, parricide, all were
viewed with more toleration than oblivion of his own
inviolable sanctity. Hence we imagine the wrath with
which Rome would behold Commodus, under the eyes
of four hundred thousand spectators, making himself
a party to the contests of gladiators. In his earlier
exhibition as an archer, it is possible that his matchlesw
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 com-
bat with such antagonists, having previously submitted
to their training and discipline — the public indigna-
tion rose to a height, which spoke aloud the language
of encouragement 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 romantic circumstances,'''
Ik^hich we have narrated in an earlier paper of this
Beries. 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 con
192 THE CXSARS.
linually in the ears of Commodus, and poisoned his
Deace of mind for ever. His vengeance, perhaps, wai
thus more effectually accomplished than if he had at
once dismissed his victim from life. ' 1'he senate,' hfl
had said, ' send thee this through me : ' and hence-
forward the senate was the object of unslumberiug
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 been previously blind to his
danger.
On a day of great solemnity, when Rome had as-
sembled her myriads in the amphitheatre, just at the
very moment when the nobles, the magistrates, the
priests, all, in short, that was venerable or conse-
crated in the State, with the 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 pro-
fessional ensign*^ of a philosopher,) stepped forward,
and, by the waving of his hand, challenged the atten-
tion 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 Pe-
rennius. What personal purpose of benefit to himself
this stranger might have connected with his pablic
THE C^SAKS. 193
uraming, or by whom he might have been suborned,
ivas never discovered ; for he was instantly arrested
by the agents of the great officer whom he had de-
nounced, 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 Peren-
nius, 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 dreadful massacre of the unarmed
mob — by shocks of earthquake — and, finally, by a
fire which consumed the national bank,"* and the most
sumptuous buildings of the city. To these horrors,
with a rapidity characterist'c of the Roman depravity,
fcjid possibly only under the most extensive demorali-
Bation of the public mind, succeeded festivals of gor-
g^eous pomp, and amphi theatrical exhibitions, upon a
13
194 IHJS C-a;SARS>
Bcale 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.'^ Invitations (and the invitations of
kings are commands) had been scattered on this occa-
sion 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 [^eacra/ievot a fir] irporepov jxi'jTt
eo)paKi<jav iitr]rf. aKTjKoeiaav — things that eye had not
seen nor ear heard of] the specious miracles of nature
brought together from arctic and from tropic deserts,
Dutting forth their strength, their speed, or their beauty,
vind glorifying by their deaths the matchless hand of
the Roman king. There was beheld the lion from
Bilidulgerid, and the leopard from Hindostan — the
rein-deer 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 Northmnberland and Galloway, the ixnicorn from
the regions of Nepaul or Thibet, the rhinoceros and
flic river-horse from Senegal, w'th the elephant o.
THE C^SABS. 199
Ceylon or Slam. The ostrich and the cameleopard,
the wild ass and the zebra, the chamois and the ibex
of Angora, — all brought their tributes of beauty oi
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 statu-
esque figure — the imperial sagittary, beautiful as an
Antinous, and majestic as a Jupiter, whose hand wai
BO steady and whose eye so true, that he was never
known to miss, and who, in this accomplishment 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 Mau-
ritanian lancers [Ilap^vaiwv oi to^iktjv a.KpL(3uvi'T€<;, koI
"Mavpovcriityv oi aKoiTL^elv aptcrroi] were not able to con-
tend with him. Juvenal, in a well known passage upon
the disproportionate endings of illustrious careers, draw-
ing one of his examples from Marius, says that he ought,
for his own glory, and to make his end correspondent
;o his life, to have died at the moment when he de-
scended from his triumphal chariot at the portals of
the capitol. And of Commodus, in like manner, it
aiay be affirmed, that, had he died in the exercise of
his peculiar art, with a hecatomb of victims rendering
lomage to his miraculous skill, by the regularity of
6xe files which they presented, as they lay stretched
»ut dymg or dead upon be arena. — he would hare
196 THE C^SAES.
left a splendid and characteristic impression of him-
ielf upon that nation of spectators who had witn essed
his performance. He was the noblest artist in his
own profession that the world had 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
tnan of his own times [twv KaG" kavrov avOponrwv KaWu
KvTrpeTre'cTTaTos]. 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
otherwise ; 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 cir-
cumstances are reported with unusual minuteness of
detail. One thing is evident, that the public and
patriotic motives assigned by the perpetrators as the
remote causes of their conspiracy, cannot have been
the true ones.
The grave historian may sum up his character of
Comruodus by saying that, however richly endowed
vyith natural gifts, he abused them all to bad purposes ;
that he derogated from his noble ancestors, and dis-
avowed the obligations of his illustrious name ; and,
Rs the climax of his offences, that he dishonored the
purple — ai(rxpot<i i-mTrjSevixaaiv — by the baseness of
his pursuits. All that is true, and more than that. But
ihese considerations were not of a nature to affect his
parasitical attendants very nearly or keenly. Yet thi
THE C^SAKS. 19T
itory runs — that Marcia, his privileged mistress, deeply
Effected by tlie 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 sus-
pected 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 conveyed 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
ttid, 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, prb-
sented him with a goblet of wine medicated with
poison. Of this winb, having just returned from the
fatigues of the chase, Commodus drank freely, and
almost immediately fell into heavy slumbers ; from
iFhich, however, he was soon aroused by deadly sick-
ness. That was a case which the conspirators had not
taken into their calculatior.s ; and they now began to
Sear that the violent vomiting which succeeded might
198 THE C^SARS.
throw oif the poison. There was no time to be lofet :
and the barbarous Marcia, who had so often slept in
the arras of the young emperor, was the person tc
propose thai he should now be strangled. A ycung
gladiator, named Narcissus, was therefore introduced
into the room; what passed is not known circumstan-
tially : but, as the emperor was young aud athletic,
though off his guard at the moment, and under the
disadvantage of sickness, and as he had himself 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.®'
So perished the eldest and sole surviving son of the
great Marcus Antoninus ; and the crown 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,
but more so for himself. Lsetus, 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. Needing a protector at
this moment, he naturally fixed his eyes upon Pertinax
— as then holding the powerful command of city pra
fett (or governor of Rome). Him therefore he recom
THE C^SAKS. 199
aended to the soldiery — that is, to the prietoriixn
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 only demur arose with Pertinax himself: he
had been leader of the troops in Britain, then superin-
tendent of the police in Rome, thirdly proconsul in
Africa, and finally consul and governor of Rome. In
these great oflicial stations he stood near enough to the
throne to observe the dangers with which it was sur-
rounded ; and it is asserted that he declined the ofibred
dignity. But it is added, that, finding the choice
allowed him lay between immediate death ^^ and ac-
ceptance, he closed with the proposals of the prsetorian
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 Caesar in such cases was
— lest he shoiJd not be able to fulfil his contract.
But in the case of Pertinax the danger began from the
moment when he had fulfilled \\. Conceiving himself
to be now released from his dependency, he com-
menced his reforms, civil as well as military, with 8
geal which alarmed all those who had an interest in
maintaining the old abuses. To two great factions he
<hu8 made himself espncially obnoxious — to the praf
EOO THE CJESXlEiS.
torian cohorts, and to the courtiers under the last
reign. The connecting link between these two parties
was Listus, who belonged personally to the last, and
Btill retained his influence with the first. Possibly his
fears were alarmed ; but, at all events, his cupidity
was not satisfied. 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 empe-
ror. 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 dispatched.
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 Rome, lay under a
weight of suspicion, being the father-in-law of Per- ^
tinax, and likely enough to exact vengeance for hig
murder. He was besides outbid by Julianus. Sulpi-
cian oflFered about one hundred and sixty pounds a
man to the guards ; his rival offered two hundred, and
assured them besides of immediate payment ; ' for,
laid he, ' I have the money at home, without need
'ng to raise it from the possessions of the crown.
iTpon this the empii-e was knocked down to the
THE C^SARS. 201
highest bidder. So shocking, however, was this ar-
rangement to the Roman pride, that the guards durst
not leave their new creation ^vithout military piotec-
tion. The resentment of an unarmed mob, however,
soon ceased to be of foremost importance ; this resent-
ment extended rapidly to all the frontiers of the em-
pire, 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 therefore
started forward — Septimius Severus, who commanded
the armies in Illyria, Pescennius Niger in Syria, and
Albinus in Britain. Severus, as the nearest to Rome,
marched and possessed himself of that city. Ven-
geance followed upon all parties concerned 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 Lsetus, and dismissed the praetorian cohorts.
Thence marching against his Syrian rival, Niger, who
had formerly been his friend, and who was not want-
ing in military skill, he overthrew him in three great
battles. Niger fled to Antioch, the seat of his lat*
government, and was there decapitated. Meantime
»\lbinu8, the • British commander-in-chief, had already
been won over by the title of Ctesar, or adopted heii
to the new Augustus. But the hnllowness of this bribe
202 THE C^SAES.
Boon became apparent, and the two competitors met
to decide their pretensions at Lyons. In the greav,
battle which followed, Severus fell from his horse, and
was at first supposed to be dea'd. 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 expres-
sions of his natural character soon followed : he sus-
pected strongly that Albinus had been favored by the
senate ; forty of that body, with their wives and chil-
dren, were immediately sacrificed to his wrath : but
he never forgave the rest, nor endured to live upon
terms of amity amongst them. Quitting Rome in dis-
gust, 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 ia
the subsistence of the soldier made more insecure,
than by diminishing the general security of rights ana
oroperty to those who are not soldiers, from whom
THE CJESAHS. 203
after all, the funds must be sought, by which the
goldier himself is to be paid and nourished. The
Avo sons of Se»"irus, whose bitter enmity is so memo-
rably put on record by their actions, travelled simul-
taneously to Rome ; but so mistrustful of each other,
that at every stage the two princes took up theii
quai-ters at different houses. Geta has obtained the
Bympathy of historians, because he happened to be
the victim ; but there is reason to think, that each of
the brothers was conspiring against the other. The
weak credulity, rather than the conscious innocence,
of Geta, led to the catastrophe ; he presented himself
at a meeting with his brother in the presence of their
common mother, and was murdered by Caracalla in
his mother's arms. He was, however, avenged ; the
horrors of that tragedy, and remorse for the twenty
thousand murders which had followed, never forsool'
the guilty Caracalla. Quitting Rome, 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 illus-
tration of the poet's maxim that
♦ Remorse is as the mind in which it grows :
If that be gentle,' &c.
For the remorse of Caracalla put on no shape of
repentance. Ou the contrary, he carried anger and
oppression wherever he moved ; R.nd protected him-
self from plots only by living in ;he very centre of a
204 THE CJESARS.
nomadic camp. Six years had passed away in this
manner, when a mere accident led to his assassination.
For the sake of security, the office of praetorian prefect
had been divided between two commissioners, one foi
military affairs, the other for civil. The latter of these
two officers was Opilius Macrinus. This man has, by
Bome historians, been supposed to have harbored no
bad intentions ; but, unfortunately, an astrologer had
foretold that he was destined to the throne. The
prophet was laid in irons at Rome, and letters were
dispatched to Caracalla, apprising him of the case.
These letters, as yet unopened, were transferred 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 Carrhae. The attempt
was successful : the emperor perished ; but Martialis
paid the penalty of his crime in the same hcnr, being
«hot by a Scythian archer of the boay-guard.
Macrinus, after three days' interregnum, beirj
THE CJESABS. 205
riected emperor, began his reign by purchasing a
peace from the Parthians What the empire chiefly
needed at this moment, is evident from the next step
taken by this emperor. He labored to restore the
ancient discipline of the armies in all its rigor. He
was aware of tlie risk he ran in this attempt ; and that
he was so, is the best evidence of the strong necessity
Jvhich 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 Donina, a native of
Syria, offered him this dowry, and she became the
mother of Geta. A sister of this Julia, called Mcesa,
had, through two different daughters, two grandsons —
Heliogabalus and Alexander Severus. The mutineers
of the army rallied around the first of these ; a battle
was fought ; and Macrinus, with his son Diadumeni-
anus, whom he had adopted to the succession, were
captured and put to death. Heliogabalus succeeded,
and reigned in the monstro "s manner which has ren-
dered his name infamous in history. In what way,
lowever, he lost the affections of the army, has nevei
206 THE C£SABS.
been explained. His motiier. Socpmias, the eldest
daughter of Mcesa, had represented herself as the
concubine of Caracalla ; and Heliogabalus, being thus
accredited as the son of that emperor, whose memory
•vas dear to the soldiery, had enjoyed the full benefit
<>f that descent, nor can it be readily explained how he
came to lose it.
Here, in fact, we meet with an instance of that
dilemma which is so constantly occurring in the history
of the Caesars. If a prince is by temperament dis-
posed to severity of manners, and naturally seeks to
impress his own spirit upon the composition and disci-
pline of the army, we are sure to find that he was cut
ofi" in his attempts by private assassination or by public
rebellion. On the other hand, if he wallows in sen-
suality, and is careless about all discipline, civil or
military, we then find as commonly that he loses the
esteem and aS'ections of the army to some rival of
severer habits. And in the midst of such oscillations
and with examples of such contradictory interpretation
we cannot wonder that the Roman princes did no
)ftener take warning by the misfortunes of their pre
decessors. 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 hla 3onduct, had alienated the afiections of the army
from the reigning prince. Either jealousy or prudence
Had led Heliogabalus to make an attempt upon hiz
THE C-E8AKS. 207
rival's life , and this attempt had nearly cost him hig
Dwu through the mutiny which it caused. In a second
aproai', produced by some fresh intrigues of the em-
peror against his cousin, the soldiers became unman-
ageable, and they refused to pause until they had
massacred Heliogabalus, together with his mother, and
raised his cousin Alexander to the throne.
The reforms of this prince, who reigned under the
name of Alexander Severus, were extensive and search-
ing ; not only in his court, which he purged of all
notorious abuses, but throughout the economy of the
army. He cashiered, upon one occasion, an entiie
legion ; he restored, as far as he was able, the ancient
discipline ; and, above all, he liberated the provinces
from military spoliation. 'Let the soldier,' said he,
' be contented with his pay ; and whatever more he
wants, let him obtain it by \'ictory 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
binding the praetorian guards to his yoke. Under the
guardianship of his mother Mammaea, the conduct of
Btate affair' yad been submitted to a council of sixteen
persons, at the head of which stood the celebrated
Ulpian. To this minister tbe praetorians imputed the
reforms, and perhaps the whole spirit of reform; for
Aey pursued him with a vengeance which is else hardly
«o be explained. Many days was Ulpian protected by
iOB THE 0-ESAItS.
the citizens of Rome, until the whole city was threat-
ened with conflagration ; he then fled to the palace of
I he young emperor, who in vain attempted to save him
ficm 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 some-
thing like treachery to a remote government.
Meantime, a great revolution and change of dynasty
had been effected in Parthia; the line of the Arsacidap
was terminated ; 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 race, sent an embassy of four hundred select
knights, enjoining the Roman emperor to content him-
self with Europe, and to leave Asia to the Persians.
In the event of a refusal, the ambassadors were in-
structed to offer a defiance to the Roman prince. Upon
such an insult, Alexander could not do less, with either
safety or dignity, than to prepare for war. It is prob-
able, indeed, that, by this expedition, which drew off
the mmds of the soldiery from brooding upon the re-
forms which offended them, the life of Alexander was
prolonged. But the expedition itself was mismanaged,
or was unfortunate. This result, however, does not
Beem chargeable upon Alexander. All the preparations
were admirable on the mai'ch, and up to the enemy'i
frontier. The invasion it was, which, in a strategic
THE CJESAfiS. 209
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 Persisin 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 ^vith-
drawn to Antioch, re infectd. It has been observed
that great mystery hangs over the operations and issue
of this short war. 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 ground for claiming a vic-
tory (as most historians do) to the Roman arms. Any
termination of the Persian war, however, whether
glorious or not, was likely to be personally injurious
to Alexander, by allowing leisure to the soldiery foi
recurring to their grievances. Sensible, no doubt, of
this, Alexander was gratified by the occasion which
4ien arose for repressing the hostile movements of the
14
810 THE CJESARS.
Germdns. He led his army off upon this expeditioii ;
but tlieii- 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 anny
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
seems to have offended them, but the having led them
at all upon an enterprise of danger and hardship.
Maximin succeeded, 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 peasant; 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
U said that he anticipated a rejection. But, on the
ather ha ad, it seems probable that the senate suppo3 3d
THE CJESABS. 211
its sanction to be despised. Nothing, appai'ently, but
this reciprocal reserve in making approaches to each
other, was the cause of all the bloodshed which fol-
lowed. The two Gordians, who commanded in Africa,
were set up by the senate against the new emperor t
and the consternation of that body must have been
great, when these champions were immediately over-
thrown and killed. They did not, however, despair :
substituting the two governors of Rome, Pupienus and
Balbinus, and associating to them the younger Gor-
dian, they resolved to make a stand ; for the severities
of Maximin had by this time manifested that it was a
contest of extermination. Meantime, Maximin had
broken up from Sirmium, the capital of Pannonia, and
had advanced to Aquileia, — that famous fortress,
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
trivmiphed, had he not disgusted his army by immod-
erate severities. It was, however, but reasonable that
ihose, who would not support the strict but equitable
discipline of the mild Alexander, should suffer under
the barbarous and capricious rigor of Maximin. That
rigor 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 when
lupported oy the frenzy of its opponent. Whatevei
Blight be the real weakness if this body, the rude
212 THE C£SAB8.
Boldiers yet felt a blind traditionary veneration for itt
sanction, when prompting tkem as patriots to an act
which their own multiplied provocations had but too
much recommended to their passions. A party entered
the tent of Masimin, and dispatched him with tjie same
unpitying haste which he had shown under similar
circumstances to the gentle-minded Alexander. Aqui-
leia opened her gates immediately, and thus made it
evident that the war had been personal to Maximin.
A scene followed \vithin a short time which is in
the highest degree interesting. The senate, in creating
two emperors at once (for the boy Gordian was prob-
ably associated to them only by way of masking their
experiment), had made it evident that their purpose
was to restore the republic 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 conse-
quence, 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 this revolution, watched
their opportunity, and attacked the two emperors in
Ihe palace. The deadly feud, which had already
urisen between them, led each to suppose himself under
ftssault from the other. The mistake was not of long
duration Carried into the streets of Rome, they were
THE C^SAKS. 218
Doth put to death, and treated with monstrous indigni-
ties. The young Gordian was adopted by the soldiery.
It seems odd that even thus far the guards should
lanction the choice of the senate, having the purposes
which they had ; but perhaps Gordian Lad recom-
mended himself to their favor in a degree which might
outweigh what they considered the original vice of hia
appointment, and his youth promised them an imme-
diate 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 great scale for the energetic 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 oiRcer, called Philip.
The innocent boy, left without friends, was soon re-
moved 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 termi-
nated.
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 comple«
tion of a thousand years'^'' from the foundation of Rome.
Pvt Nemesis was already on his steps. An insurreo*
214 THB C^SAKH.
tion Had broken out amongst the legions stationed in
Moesia ; and they had raised to the purple some oflBcei
of low rank. Philip, having occasion to notice thia
atFair in the senate, received for answer from Dectus,
hat probably, the pseudo-imperator would prove a
mere evanescent phantom. This conjecture was con-
firmed ; and Philip in consequence conceived a high
opinion of Decius, whom (as the insurrection still con-
tinued) he judged to be the fittest man for appeasing
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
vereran army into Italy, he fought the battle of
Verona, where Philip was defeated and killed, whilst
the son of Philip was murdered at Rome by the praeto-
rian guards.
With Philip, ends, according to our distribution,
the second series of the Caesars, comprehending
Commodus, Pertinax, Didius Julianus, Septimius,
Beverus, 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 ar»
borror-struck at the blood-stained picture. Well might
a foreign writer, in reviewing the same succession.
THE CA8AB8. 21 fi
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, spread through
a space of fifty-nine years, assign to each Caesar a
reign of less than four years. And Casaubon remarks,
that, in one period of 160 years, there were seventy
persons who assumed the Roman 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 nine-
teen years. This vast difierence in security is due to
two great principles, — that of primogeniture as be-
tween 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
a small succession of princes, but the whole rights and
interests of social man : since the contests for the
rights of belligerent rivals do not respect themselves
cnly, but very often spread ruin and proscription
nmongst all orders of men. The principle of hered-
tary succession, says one writer, had it beea a dis-
jovery of any one individual, would deserve to be
216 THE C^SAKS.
considered as the very greatest ever made; a ad he
adds acutely, in answer to the obvious, but shallow
objection to it (viz., its apparent assumption of equal
ability for reigning in father and son for ever), that it
is like the Copernican system of the heavenly bodies,
— contradictory to our sense and first impressions, hut
true notwithstanding.
THE C^SABS.
217
CHAPTER VI.
To return, however, to our sketch of the Cassars.
A.t the head of the third series we place Decius. He
came to the throne at a moment of great public embar-
rassment. 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 short-sightedness of the Emperor Trajan.
Had he left the Dacians in possession of their indepen-
dence, 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 Moesia ; and, passing the Danube,
they laid siege to Marcianopolis, a city bmlt by Trajan
in honor of his sister. Tlie 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 Moesia, 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
12 IS THE CJESABS.
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 its whole
population, reputed at more than a hundred thousand
Bouls, destroyed.
iSuch 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 condition.
For the moment he had some partial successes. Hf
cut oS" several detachments of Goths, on their road to
reinforce the enemy ; and he strengthened the for-
tresses and garrisons of the Danube. But his las<
success was the means of his total ruin. He came up
with the Goths at Forum Terebronii, and, having sur-
rounded their position, their destruction seemed inevi-
table. A great battle ensued, and a mighty victory to
the Goths. Nothing is now known of the circum-
stances, except that the third line of the Romans waa
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
bis dead body. This great defeat naturally raised the
liuthority 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 th»
THE C.£SAKS. > 219
•mpire ; and ostensibly on account of his youth, but
really with a view to their standing policy of restoring
the consulate, and the whole machinery of the republic,
Gallus, an experienced commander, was associated in
the empire. But no skill or experience could avail to
retrieve the sinking power of Rome upon the Illyriaii
fi Dntier. The Rt>man army Wcis disorganized, panic-
stricken, reduced to skeleton battalions. Without an
aimy, wha* could be done r And thus it may really
have been no blame to Gallus, that he made a treaty
.vith the Goths more degrading than any previous act
in the long annals of Rome. By the terms of this
infamous bargain, they were allowed to carry off an
immense booty, amongst which was a long roll of
distinguished prisoners ; and Caesar himself it was —
not any lieutenant or agent that might have been after-
wai"ds 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
be offended with this natural result of their own failures.
Qallus was already ruined in public opinion, when fur-
ther accumulations arose to his disgrace. It was now
supposed to have been discovered, that the late dread-
ful defeat of Forum Terebronii was due to his bad
advice ; and, as the young' Hostilianus happened to die
»bout this time of a contagious disorder, Gallus \^al
iharged vnth his murder. Even a ray of prosperity,
220 ' THE CiESABS.
which just now gleamed upon the Roman aims, aggra-
vated the disgrace of Gallus, and was instantly made
the handle of his ruin, ^milianus, the governor of
Moesia and Pannonia, inflicted some check or defeat
upon the Goths ; and in the enthusiasm of sudden
pride, upon an occasion which contrasted so advan-
tageously for himself with the military conduct of
Decius and Gallus, the soldiers of his own legion raised
^railianus to the purple. No time was to be lost.
Summoned by the troops, iEmilianus marched into
Italy ; and no sooner had he made his appearance
there, than the praetorian 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 in 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 par-
ticular he addressed a message, which forcibly illus-
trates the political position of that body in those times.
JEmilianus proposed to resign the whole civil adminis-
tration into the hands of the senate^ reserving to himself
the only 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, w^hiLsi <ae entire military
administration going on under his own eyes, exclusively
direct^*? ^o that one object, would give him some chauc*
TH£ C^SABS. 221
ii defeating the liasty and tumultuary competitions so
fcpt to arise amongst the legions upon the frontier. We
notice the transaction chiefly as indicating the anoma-
lous situation of the senate. Without power in a
proper sense, or no more, however, than the indirect
power of wealth, that ancient body retained an immense
auctoritas — that is, an influence biiilt upon ancient
reputation, which, in their case, had the strength of a
religious superstition in all Italian minds. This influ-
ence the senators exerted ^vith efiect, whenever the
course of events had happened to reduce the power of
the army. And never did they make a more continu-
ous and sustained efibrt for retrieving their ancient
power and place, together with the whole system of
the republic, than during the period at which we are
now arrived. From the time of Maximin, in fact, to
the accession of Aurelian, the senate perpetually inter-
posed their credit and authority, like some Deus ex
machind in the dramatic art. 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
ther parties in the empire — the array and the impe-
rator ; the weakness and precarious tenure of the one,
*nd the anarchy of the other. And hence it is that
we can explain the hatred borne to the senate by
rigorous emperors, such as Aurelian, succeeding to a
iong course of weak and troubled reigns. Such an
emperor presumed in the senate, and not withoat
222 THE C^SARn.
reason, the same spirit jf domineering interference &»
ready to manifest itself, upon any opportunity oflfered,
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 — that is to say, of
that great centre of civilization, which, running round
the Mediterranean in one continuous belt of great
breadth, still composed the Roman Empire, was at this
time most 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 of age, and which, at any
rate, by losing its unity, must have lost its vigor as an
offensive power. Parthia was languishing and droop-
ing as an anti-Roman state, when the last of the Arsa-
cidae expired. A perfect Palingenesis was wrought
by the restorer of the Persian empire, which pretty
nearly re-occupied (and gloried in re-occupying) the
rery area that had once composed the empire of Cyrus.
Even this Palingenesis might have terminated in a
divided empire : vigor might have been restored, but
in the shape of a polyarchy (such as the Saxons estab-
lished in England), rather than a monarchy ; and in
reality, at one moment that appeared to be a probabU
event. Now, had this been the course of the revolu
tion, an alliance with one of these kingdoms would
THE C^SASS. 22S
aav 3 tended to balance the hostility of another (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 themselves into severe unity :
and thus was Rome, upon her eastern frontier, laid
open to a new power of juvenile activity and vigor,
just at the period when the languor of the decaying
Parthian had allowed the Roman discipline to fall into
a corresponding declension. Such was the condition of
Rome upon her oriental frontier.^ On the 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 threat-
:;ned to demand it for ages to come, did the Goths,
under their earliest denomination of GetcB, with many
other associate tribes, begin to push with their horns
against the northern gates of the empire ; the whola-
line of the Danube, and, pretty nearly about the
same time, of the Rhine, (upon which the tribes
from Swabia, Bavaria, and Franconia, were beginning
10 descend,) now became insecure ; and these two
rivers ceased in effect to be the barriers of Rome.
Taking a middle point of time between the Parthian
revolution and the fatal overthrow of Forum Tere-
bronii, we may fix upon the reign of Philip the Arab
[who naturalized himself in Rome by tha appellation
»f Marcus Julius] as the epoch from which the Reman
224 THE C^SABS.
empire, already sapped and undermined by changes
from within, began to give way, and to dilapidate from
without. And this reign dates itself in the series by
those ever-memorable secular or jubilee games, which
celebrated the completion of the thousandth year froni
the foundation of Rome.''^
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 tkem^
and their deliberate choice, as the best foundation for
a valid election. Scarcely had the ground been cleared
for uiEmilianus by the murder of Gallus and his son,
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 com-
prehensive functions of a Censor,^ that Decius had
revived 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
ai'riving too late for his support, he determined to
avenge him. Both ^milianus and Valerian recognized
the authority of the senate, and professed to act under
thai sanction ; but it was the soldiery who cut the knot,
as usual, by the sword, ^milianus was encamped a
Spoleto ; but as the enemy drew neai", his soldiers,
ghrinking no doubt from a contest with veteran trDop^
made their peace by -nurdering the new emperor, anti
THE C^SABS. 225
Valerian was, elected in his stead. The prince waa
already an old man at the time of his election ; hut he
lived long enough to look hack upon the day of his
inauguration as the hlackest 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, party 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 German frontier, Valerian
to the eastern. Under Gallienus, the Franks began
first to make themselves heard of. Breaking into Gaul,
they passed through that country and Spain ; captured
Tarragona in their route ; crossed over to Africa, and
conquered Mauritania. At the same time, the Ale-
manni, who had been in motion since the time of Cara-
calla, broke into Lombardy, across the Rhaetian Alps.
The senate, left without aid from either emperors, were
obliged to make preparations 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 fight-
ing ; and the degraded senate, hanging upon the traces
of their retiring footsteps, without fighting, or daring
to fight, claimed the honors of a victory. Even then,
however, they did more than was agreeable to the
'ealousies of Gallienus, who, by an edict, publicly
326 THE CiESAKS.
rebuked their presumption, and forbade them in future
to appear amongst the legions, or to exercise anj
military functions. He himself, meanwhile, could
devise no better way of providing for the public se-
curity, than by mai'rying the daughter of his chief
enemy, the king of tie Marcomanni. On this side of
Europe, the barbarians were thus quieted for the pres-
ent ; 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 Archipelago : and at length, under the guidance
of deserters, landed in the port of the Pyraeus. Ad-
vancing from this point, after sacking Athens and the
chief cities of Greece, they marched upon 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 Moesia
. listened eagerly to their offers : and it set the seal to
the dishonors of the State, that, after having traversed
BO vast a range of territory almost without resistance,
these blood-stained brigands were now suffered to re-
tire under the very guardianship of those whom they
had just visited with military execution.
Such were the terms upon which the Emperor
GJallienus purchased a brief respite from his haughty
enemies. For the moment, however, he did enjoy
lecurity Far otherwise was the destiny of his un-
THE C^SABS. 227
nappy father. Sapor now ruled in Persia ; the throne
of Armenia had vainly striven to maintain its inde*
pendency against his armies, and the daggers of his
hired assassins. This revolution, which so much en
feebled the Roman means of war, exactly in tha*
proportion increased the necessity for it. War. and
that instantly, seemed to offer the only chance ^r
maintaining the Roman name or existence in Asia.
Carrhae and Nisibis, the two potent fortresses in Meso-
potamia, had fallen ; and the Persian arms were now
triumphant on both banks of the Euphrates. Valerian
was not of a character to look with indifference upon
such a scene, terminated by such a prospect ; prudence
and temerity, fear and confidence, all spoke a common
language in this great emergency ; and Valerian
marched towards 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 was entangled in marshy
grounds ; partial actions followed and skirmishes of
cavalry, in which the Romans became direfully aware
of their situation ; retreat was cut off, to advance was
impossible ; and to fight was now found to be without
lope. In these circumstances, they offered to capitvv
Ute But the haughtv Sapor would hear of nothing
&2S THE C.£8AB8.
but nnconditional surrender ; and to that course th«
unhappy emperor submitted. Various traditions ^
have been preserved by history concerning the fate of
Valerian ; all agree that he died in misery and captiv-
ity ; but some have circumstantiated this general state-
ment by features of excessive misery and degradation,
which possibly were added afterwards by scenical ro-
mancers, in order to heighten the interest of the tale, or
by ethical writers, in order to point and strengthen the
moral. Gallienus now ruled alone, except as regarded
the restless efforts of insurgents, thirty of whom are
said to have arisen in his single reign. This, however
is probably an exaggeration. Nineteen such rebels
are mentioned by name : of whom the chief were Cal-
purnius Piso, a Roman senator ; Tetricus, a man of
rank who claimed a descent from Pompey, Crassus,
and even from Numa Pompilius, and maintained him-
self some time in Gaul and Spain ; Trebellianus, who
founded a republic of robbers in Isauria which survived
himself by centuries ; and Odenathus, the Syrian.
Others were mere Terrm Jilii, or adventurers, who
flourished and decayed in a few days or weeks, of
whom the most remarkable was a working armorer
named Marius. Not one of the whole number event-
ually prospered, except Odenathus ; and he, though
originally a rebel, yet, in consideration of services
performed against Persia, was suffered to retain his
power, and to transmit his kingdom of Palmyra** to h«
THE C^SABS. 229
widow Zenobia. He was even complimented with the
title of Augustus. 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 insun-ection than
the general consciousness, so fatally warranted, of the
debility which had emasculated the government, and
its incompetency to deal vigorously with the public
enemies.*^ The very granaries of Rome, Sicily and
Egypt, were the seats of continued distractions ; in.
Alexandria, the second city of the empire, there was
even a civil war which lasted for twelve years. Weak-
ness, dissension and misery, wer6 spread like a cloud
over the whole face of the empire.
The last of the rebels who directed his rebellion
personally against Gallienus was Aureolus. Passing
the Rhaetian Alps, this leader sought out and defied the
emperor. He was defeated, and retreated upon Milan ;
but Gallienus, in pursuing him, was lured into an am-
buscade, and perished from the wound inflicted by an
archer. With his dying breath he is said to have
recommended Claudius to the favor 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 tne enemy. The Goths of the
230 THE C^SA.RS.
Ukraine, in a new armament of six thousand vessels,
had again descended by the Bosphorus into the south,
and had sat down before Thessalonica, the capital of
Macedonia. Claudius marched against them with the
determination to vindicate the Roman name and honor :
' KnoK?/ 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 suc-
ceeded ; and that the republic is exhausted.' No sooner
did the Goths hear of his approach, than, with trans-
ports 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, and their defeat was total. According to most
accounts they left 50,000 dead upon the field. 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 ; ™
and there the greater part of them died of hunger and
•estilence. These great services performed, within
two years from his accession to the throne, by the
rarest of fates, the Emperor Claudius die.l in his becj
K*. Sirmium, the capital of Panuonia. His brother
THE C^SABS. 231
ftuiutilius, who had a great command at Aquileia, im-
mediately resumed 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 appointment ; and Quintilius committed
Buicide. Aurelian was of the same harsh and forbid-
ding character as the Emperor Severus : he had, hove-
ever, the qualities demanded by the times ; energetic
and not amiable princes were required by the exi-
gencies of the state. The hydra-headed Goths were
again in the field on the Ulyrian quarter : Italy itself
was invaded by the Alemanni ; and Tetricus, the rebel,
BtUl survived as a monument of the weakness of Gal-
lienus. All these enemies were speedily repressed,
or vanquished, by Aurelian, But it marks the real
declension of the empire, a declension which no per-
sonal vigor in the emperor was now sufficient to dis-
(^fuise, 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
revolution had occurred. The little oasis of Palmyra,
from a Romau colony, nad grown into the leading
S32 THE C-SSAKS.
province of a great empire. This island of the desert^
together with Syria and Egypt, formed an independent
mojiarchy under the sceptre of Zenobia.^ After two
battles lost in Syria, Zenobia retreated to Palmyra.
With great difficulty '^ Aurelian pursued her ; and with
Btill greater difficulty he pressed the siege of Palmyra.
Zenobia 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 unfortu-
nately, with a folly which marks the haughty spirit of
the place unfitted to brook submission, scarcely had
the conquering army retired when a tumult arose, and
the Roman gaiTison 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 over-
took the emperor on the Hellespont. 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 risen. The energetic admin-
istration of Aurelian had now restored the empire —
not to its lost vigor, that was impossible — but to a
condition of repose. That was a condition more agree-
able to the empire than to the emperor. Peace wa»
fateful to Aurelian; and he sought for war, where i
could seldom be sought in vain, upon the Persian
THB C^SABS. 23d
frontier. But lie was not destined to reach the Eu-
phrates ; and it is worthy of notice, as a providentia*
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 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 re-
version 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 assassina-
tion, that in a course of two centuries there are hardly
to be found three or four cases of exception, the im-
peratorial 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 sur-
rounded with assassins, he might at least make hig
l\irone, so long as he enjoyed it, the couch of a
voluptuary. The ' ave imperator ! ' was then the
lummons, if to the supremacy in passive danger eo
234 THE C^SABS.
also to the supremacy in power, and honoi, anj
enjoyment. But now it Avas a summons to never-
ending tumults and alarms ; an injunction to that sort
of vigilance without intermission, which, even from
tho 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 Caesar as Caesar, than by the same indi-
vidual 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 be-
yond the range of his trumpet's blare, his sceptre was
« broken reed. The office of Csesar at this time re-
sembled the situation (as it is sometimes described in
romances) of a knight who had achieved the favor 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 wan-
dering strangers, and also of jousting at any moment
with each and all amongst the inmates of the castle.
%s often as a wish may arise to benefit by the chancer
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 evils wc arc now considering, applied
THE CjESARS. 23f
to this pai'ticular age of the empire beyond all other*.
as being an age of transition from a greater to an
inferior power. Had the power been either greater or
conspicuously less, in that proportion would the pres-
sure have been easier, 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 parties, as it did at an after period, to regular and
formal compromises in the shape of fixed annual trib-
utes. 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 prudentially unwilling, to dismember. Yet, as
(he almost annual irruptions were at every instant
ready to be converted into coup-de-mains upon AquUeia
— upon Verona — or even upon Rome itself, 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 fron-
tier 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 occasionally pro-
ject themselves upon the 'livilizcd portion of the globet
236 THE CMSXR9.
but who made it their steady regular occupation to da
to, and lived for no other purpose. For seven hundred
years the Roman Republic might be styled a republic
militant; 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 mere existence. War was again the trade of
Rome, as it had been once before ; but in that earlier
period war had been its highest glory ; now it was its
dire necessity.
Under this analysis of the Roman condition, need we
wonder, with the crowd of unreflecting historians, that
the senate, at the era of Aurelian's death, should dis-
pute amongst each other — not as once, for the pos-
session of the sacred purple, but for the luxury and
safety of declining it? The sad pre-eminence waa
finally imposed upon Tacitus, a senator who traced
his descent from the historian of that name, who had
reached an age of seventy-five years, and who pos-
sessed a fortune of three millions sterling.^ Vainly did
the agitated old senator open his lips to decline the
perilous honor ; five hundred voices insisted upon the
necessity of his compliance ; and thus, as a foreign
writer observes, was the descendant of him, whose
glory it had been to signalize himself as the hater o*
despotism, under the absolute necessity of becoming
«n his own person, a despot.
THE CJESABS. 237
The aged senator then was compelled to be emperor,
fcnd forced, in spite of his vehement reluctance, to quit
the comforts of a palace, which, he was never to revisit,
for the hardships of a distant camp. His first act waa
etrikingly illustrative of the Roman condition, as we
have just described it. Aurelian had attempted to
disarm one set of enemies by turning the current .if
their fury upon another. The Alani were in search
of plunder, and strongly disposed to obtain it from
Roman provinces. ' But 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 Alani
had accordingly held themselves in readiness to accom-
pany Aurelian from Europe to his meditated Persian
campaign. Meantime, that emperor had perished by
treason ; and the Alani were still waiting for his suc-
cessor on the throne to complete his engagements with
themselves, as being of necessity the successor also
to his wars and to his responsibilities. It happened,
from the state of the empire, as we have sketched it
above, that Tacitus rtally did succeed to the military
plans of Aurelian. The Persian expedition was or-
£38 THE CJiSARS.
dalned to go forward; and Tacilas began, as a pre*
liminary step in that expedition, to look about for his
good allies the barbarians. Where might they be, and
how employed ? Naturally, they had long been weary
of waiting. The Persian booty might be good aftei
its kind ; but it was far away ; and, en attendant,
Roman booty was doubtless good after its kind. And
BO, throughout the provinces of Cappadocia, Pontus,
&c., as far as the eye could stretch, nothing was to be
seen but cities and villages in flames. The Koman
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 punc-
tually fulfilling all the terms of Aurelian's contract, —
a measure which barbarians inevitably construed into
the language of fear. But then came the retribution.
Having satisfied public justice, the emperor now
thought of vengeance ; he unchained his legions ; 8
brief space of time sufiiced for a long course of ven-
geance : and through every outlet of Asia Minor the
Alani fled from the wrath of the Roman soldier. Here,
Lowever, terminated the military labors of Tacitus :
he died at Tyana in Cappadocia, as some say, from
ehe efiects of the climate of the Caucasus, co-operating
with irritations from the insolence of the soldiery : but,
AS Zosimus and Zonoras expressly assure us, under the
murderous hands of his own troops. His brother
Florianus at first usurped the purple, by the aid of th*
THE C^SABS 289
lUyrian army ; but the cnoice of other armies, after-
wards confirmed by the senate, settled upon Probug,
a general already celebrated under Aurelian. The
two competitors drew near to each other for the usual
decision by the sword, when the dastardly supporters
of Florian offered up their chosen prince as a sacrifice
to his antagonist. Probus, settled in his seat, 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 com-
plied mth his requisitions of tribute in horses and pro-
visions. This, however, is a delusive gleam of Roman
energy, little corresponding with the true condition of
the Roman power, and entirely due to the personal
qualities of Probus. Probus himself showed his sense
of the true state of affairs, by carrying a stone wall,
of considerable height, from the Danube to the Neckar.
He made various attempts also to effect a better distri-
bution of barbarous tribes, by dislocating their settle-
ments, and making extensive translations of their clans,
tccordinn; to the circumstances of those times. T^esa
240 THE CJiSAKS.
arrangements, however, suggested often b/ sliort*
sighted views, and carried into effect by mere violence,
were sometimes defeated visibly at the time, *ad,
doubtless, in very few cases accomplished the ends
proposed. In one instance, where a party of Franki
had been transported into the Asiatic province of Pon-
tus, as a column of defence against the intrusive Alani,
being determined to revisit their own country, they
swam the Hellespont, landed on the coasts of Asia
Minc>r and of Greece, plundered Syracuse, 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 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
't is now felt, that, amidst so continued a series of brief
•signs, interrupted by murders, scarcely an idea
;ould arise answering to our modern ideas of treason
and usurpation. For the ideas of fealty and allegiance,
as to a sacred and anointed monarch, could have no
time to take root. Candidates for the purple must
have been viewed rather as military rivals than m
traitors to the reigning Caesar. And hence the reason
fur the right resistance which was often experienced
by the seducers of armies. Probus, however, as acci
THE C^SABS. 241
lent 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, vhich he
brought back from elder days, was, to suffer no idle-
ness in his camps. He it was who, by military labor,
transferred to Gaul and to Hungary the Italian vine, to
the great indignation of the Italian monopolist. The
culture of vineyards, the laying of military roads, the
draining of marshes, and similar labors, perpetually
employed the hands of his stubborn and contumacious
troops. On some work of this nature the army hap-
pened 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. "We are told by some
writers that the army was immediately seized with re-
norse for its own act ; which, if truly reported, rather
tends to confirm the image, otherwise impressed upon ub
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
^gilant as an argus, is continually liable to fall a
gacrifice to the wild instincts of the b'-ute, mastering
tt intervals the reverence and fear under which it haa
been habitually trained. In this case, both the murder*
242 THE C^SASS.
ing impulse and the remorse seem alike the effects of
ft brute instinct, and to have arisen under no guidance
of rational purpose or reflection. The person whc
profited by this murder was Cams, the captain of the
guard, a man of advanced years, and a soldier, both
by experience and by his propensities. He was pro-
claimed 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. Troub-
ling 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 prepara-
tions for pursuing the Persian expedition, — so long
promised, and so often interrupted. Having provided
for the security of the lUyriah frontier by a bloody
victory over the Sarmatians, of whom we now hear
for the first time, Carus advanced towards the Eu-
phrates ; and from the summit of a mountain he point-
ed the eyes of his eager army upon the rich provinceg
of the Persian empire. Varanes, the successor of
Artaxerxes, vainly endeavored 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
▼ith littie resistance. He insisted on having the Roman
■upremacy acknowledged as a preliminary to anj
^ THE C^SARS. 243
ireaty ; and, having threatened to make Persia as bare
R8 his own skull, he is supposed to have kept his word
with regard to Mesopotamia. The great cities of
Ctesiphon and Seleucia he took ; and vast expectations
were formed at Rome of the events which stood nex*
in succession, when, on Christmas day, 283, a sudden
and mysterious end overtook Carus and his victorious
advance. The story transmitted to Rome was, that
a great storpi, and a sudden darkness, had surprised
the camp of Carus ; that the emperor, previously ill,
and reposing in his tent, was obscured from sight ; that
at length a cry had arisen, — ' The emperor io 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 murdet
committed on the emperor by corrupted servants, and
an attempt aftsrwai'ds to conceal the indications of
murder by the ravages of fire. The report propagated
through the army, and at that time received with credit,
was, that Carus had been struck by lightning : and that
omen, according to the Roman interpretation, implied
t necessity of retiring from the expedition. So that,
apparently, the whole was a bloody intrigue, set on
foot for the purpose of counteracting the emperor's
resolution to prosecute tne war. His son Numerian
vucceeded to the rank of emperor by the choice of the
?44 THE C-a;SA.RS.
ftimy. But the mysterious faction of murderers vfei%i
Btill at work. After eight months' march from the
Tigris to the Thracian Bosphorus, the army halted at
Chalcedon. At this point of time a report arose sud-
denly, 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 gur-rd, committed him to custody,
and assigned to Dioclesian, whom at the same time
they invested v/ith the supreme power, the duty of
investigating the case. Dioclesian acquitted himself
of this task in a very summary way, by passing his
sword through the captain before he could say a word
in his defence. It seems that Dioclesian, 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,
Hrst, Aper, as the captain of the guard, was answer-
able for the emperor's safety ; secondly , that hia
»nxiety to profit by the emperor's murder was a sure
iJign that he had participated in that act ; and, thirdly,
that the assent of the soldiery to the open and public
act of Dioclesian, implies a conviction on their part
if Aper's guilt. Here let us pause, having now
%.n"ved at the fourth and last group of the Caesars, Xi
THE C^SA3S. 245
notice the changes which had been wrought by time,
co-operating with political events, iu the very nature
U)d constitution of the imperial office.
If it should unfortunately happen, that the palace of
the Vatican, with its thirteen thousand^* chambers,
were to take fire — for a considerable space of time
the fire would be retarded 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 thence-
forward assist the flames in the rapidity of their pro-
gress. Such was the effect upon the declension of the
Roman empire from the vast extent of its territory.
For a very long period that very extent, which finally
became the overwhelming cause of its ruin, served to
retard and to disguise it, A small encroachment,
made at any one point upon the integrity of the em-
pire was neither much regarded at Rome, nor perhaps
iu and for itself much deserved to be regarded. But a
very narrow belt of enchroachments, made upon almost
ecery part of so enormous a circumference, was suffi-
cient, of itself to compose something of an antagonist
force. And to these external dilapidations, we must
«dd the far more important dilapidations from within,
effecting all the institutions o^' the State, and all the
forces, whether moral or political, which had originally
raised it or maintained it. Causes which had been
246 THE C^SABS.
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 (he
anarchy of a superannuated empire, strong only to
punish and impotent to defend, were at this time con-
vulsing the provinces in every point of the compass
Rome herself had been menaced repeatedly. And a
Btill more awful indication of the coming storm had
been felt far to the south of Rome. One long Avave
of the great German deluge had stretched beyond the
Pyrenees and the Pillars of Hercules, to the xeij
soil of Ancient Carthage. Victorious banners were
already floating on the margin of the Great Desert,
and they were not the banners of Caesar. Some vig-
orous 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
imbecile Carinus (the brother of Numerian) succeed-
ed to the command of the Roman armies at thij
time, or any other than Dioclesian, the Empire of the
West would have fallen to pieces within the next ten
fears.
Dioclesian was doubtless that man of iron whom
ine times demanded ; and a foreign writer has gone S6
^r as to class him amongst the greatest of men, if he
THE CiESABS. 247
irere nof even himself the greatest. But the position
of Dioclesian 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 Ci3esar. If the
condition of the empire were such that 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 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 assas-
sination was now become as much a matter of certain
calculation, as seed time or harvest, summer or winter,
or any other revolution of the seasons. The problem,
therefore, for Dioclesian was a double one, — so to
provide for the defence and maintenance of the em-
^»ire, as simultaneously (and, if possible, through the
very same institution) to provide for the personal
lecurity 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 ia
remarkable, that, by the revolution which he effected,
.he office •f Roman Imperator was completely altered,
uid Caesar became nenceforwards an Oriental Sultan
ir Padishah. Augustus, when moulding for his future
B48 THE C^SASS.
purposes the form and constitution of that supremacy
which he had obtained by inheritance and by arms,
proceeded with so much caution and prudence, thai
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 high offices which conferred any real power to bal-
ance or to control his own. For this reason he appro-
priated the tribunitian power ; because 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.^^ And in
all the rest of his arrangements, Augustus had pro-
ceeded on the principle of leaving as many openings
^o civic influences, and impressing npon all his insti-
tutions as much of the old Roman character, as was
compatible with the real and substantial supremacy
established 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
<«o much as the wish, to annihilate all collateral power,
ind to invest the chief magistrate with absolute irre-
iponsitility. For himself, as called upon to restore s
ikattered government, and out of the anarchy of civil
wars to reoombine the elements of power into som»
THE CjESAUS. 249
ihape l>etter fitted for duration (and, by consequence,
for insuring peace and protection to the world) than
the extinct republic, it might be reasonable to seek
such an irresponsibility. But. as regarded his succes-
sors, considering the great pains he took to discourag*
all manifestations of princely arrogance, and to devel-
ope, 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 Diocle-
Bian, 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. Ho
hated them precisely because he feared them, or be-
cause 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 ovei the .ninds of men. But, before Dio-
clesian, the undervaluing of the senate, or the harshest
Treatment of that body, had arisen from views which
were personal to the individual Cdesar. It was no^
Kiadc to arise from the very cons itution of the office
250 THE C^SAKS.
and the mode of the appointment. To defend th«
empire, it was the opinion of Diociesian that a single
emperor was not sufficient. And it struck him, at the
same time, that by the very institution of a plurality oi
ffmperors, which was now destined to secure the integ-
rity of the empire, ample provision might be made foi
the personal security of each emperor. He carried hi«
plan into immediate execution, by appointing an asso-
ciate 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 author-
ity, 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 Dioclesian as the simplest engine for over-
'.hrowing finally the power of either senate or army to
n^terfere Avith the elective privilege. This he endeav-
ored 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
bis own assassination, an avenger in the person of his
•urviving associate, as also in the persons of the two
S^sesars, or adopted heirs and lieutenants. The asso-
tiate emperor, Maximian, together with the two Csesarj
~ Galerius appointed by himself, and Constantiui
THE CiESAKS. 251
Chlorus by Maximian — were all bound to himself by
ties of gratitude ; all owing their stations ultimately
to his own favor. And these ties he endeavored to
strengthen by other ties of affinity ; each of the
Augusti having given his daughter in marriage to his
own adopted Caesar. And thus it seemed scarcely
possible that an usurpation should be successful against
Fo firm a league of friends and relations.
The direct purposes of Dioclesian were but imper-
fectly 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
has desolated the world since the contests of the great
triumvirate. But the collateral blow, which he medi-
tated against the authority of the senate, was entirely
successful. Never again had the senate any real influ-
ence on the fate of the world. And with the power
of the senate expired concurrently the weight and
influence of Rome. Dioclesian 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 purpose it ceased to be a city of resort ;
for Dioclesian's was the final triumph. And, lastly,
tven as the chief city of the empire for business oi
for pleasure, it ceased to claim .the homage of man-
Kind ; the Caesar was already born whose destiny it
was to cashier th» metropolis of the world, and to
tppoint her successor. This also may be regarded in
252 THE C^SABS.
effect as the ordinance of Dioclesian ; for he, by hia
long residence at 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
BO visible in the forces of the State ; and that some
city, not very far from the Hellespont or the ^gean
Sea, would be a capital better adapted by position to
the exigencies of the times.
But the revolutions effected by Dioclesian did not
stop here. The simplicity of its republican origin had
BO far affected the external character and expression
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, char-
acteristic 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 Per-
sian manners. A diadem, or tiara besot with pearls,
now encircled the temples of the Roman Augustus ;
his sandals were studded with pearls, as in the Persian
court ; and tlie other parts of his dress were in har-
mony with these. The prince was instructed no longer
to make himself familiar to the eyes of men. He
lequfestered himself from his subjects in the recessei
of his palace. None, who sought him, could anj
THE C^SABS. 263
Longer gain easy admission to liis presence. It was a
point of his new duties to be difficult of access ; and
tliey who were at length admitted to an audience,
ound 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
Dioclesian. This, however, is in part explained by his
education and long residence in Eastern countries.
But the same eastern training fell to the lot of Con-
Btantine, who was in effect his successor ; '^ and the
Oriental tone and standai-d established by these two
emperors, though disturbed a little by the plain and
military bearing of Julian, and one or two more em-
perors of the same breeding, finally re-established itself
with undisputed sway in the Byzantine court.
Meantime the institutions of Dioclesia.n, 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 imperii, murders, Travelling
through the brief list of the remaining Ca^sfirs, we
perceive a little more sccurit}- for life ; and hence the
luccessions are less rapid. Constantine, who (lik«
254 THE C.^SARS.
Aarun's rod) Lad swallowed up all his competitora
teriatim, left the empire to his three sons ; and the
last of these most unwillingly 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 las.ed only seven months. Upon his death
succeeded the house of Valentinian,"'^ in whose de-
scendant, of the third generation, the empire, properly
speaking, i^expired. For the seven shadows who suc-
ceeded, 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.
Valentiniaa the Third was, as we have said, the last
emperor of the West.
But, in a fuller and ampler sense, recurring to what
we have said of Dioclesian and the tenor of his great
revolutions, we may affirm that Probus and Carus were
the final representatives 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
Eome. That, which had offended Dioclesian in the
condition of the Roman emperors, was the grandes
THE C£SARS. 25i
feature of their dignity. It is true that the peril of
the office had become iLtolerable ; each Caesar sub-
mitted 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 em-
pire 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 emperor.
But this dire impossibility of escape was in the end
dreadfully retaliated upon the emperor ; persecutors
and traitors were found everywhere : and the vindic-
tive or the ambitious subject found himself as omni-
present as the jealous or the offended emperor.
The crown of the Caesars was therefore a crown of
thoma; and it must be admitted, that never in this
ivorld 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 in-
exorable was that murderous fate which overhung that
iloomy eminence, that at length it demanded the spirit
L f martyrdom in him who ventured to ascend it. In
tliese circumstances, some change was imperatively
demanded. Human nature was no longer equal to
the terrors which it was summoned to face. But the
ehanges of Dioclesian transmuted that golden sceptre
256 THE C^SARS.
into a base oriental alley. 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 wai
in the antagonism between the. merely human and ap-
proachable 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 per-
ished utterly under the reforming hands of Dioclesian.
Caesar only it was that could be permitted to extinguish
Caesar : and a Roman imperator it was who, by re-
modelling, did in aflfect abolish, by exorcising from its
foul terrors, did in eflfect 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 monument
the mightiest of greatness built by human hands, which
upon this planet has been suffered to appear.
CICERO.
In drawing attention to a great question of whatso-
ever nature connected with Cicero, there is no clanger
of missing our 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 essen-
tially Ciceronian, by the quality of the interest which
they excite. For the age, it was fruitful in great
men ; bat amongst them all, if we except the sublime
Julian leader, none as regards splendor of endow-
ments stood upon the same level as Cicero. For tho
revolution, it was that unique event which brought
ancient civilization into contact and commerce with
modern ; since if we figure the two worlds of Pagan-
ism and Christianity under the idea of two great
continents, it is through the isthmus of Rome impe-
rialized that the one was virtually communicated with
the other. Civil law and Christianity, the two central
forces of modern civilization, 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
258 CICERO.
tnctempsychosis, did the pagan world pass onwards,
whatever portion of its own life was fitted for sur-
viving its own peculiar forms. Yet. in a revolution
thus unexampled for grandeur of results, the only
great actor who stood upon the authority of ni? char-
acter was Cicero. All others, from Pompey, Curio,
Domitius, Cato, down to lue final partisans at j^ctium,
moved by the authority of arms ; ' tantum auctoHtata
valebant, quantum milite : ' and they could have
moved by no other. Lastly, as regards the persona,
biography, although the same series of trials, perils,
and calamities, would have been in any case inter-
esting- for themselves, yet undeniably they derive a
separate power of afiecting 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 our subject from which we are likely to suff'er. It
is of this very splendor that we complain, as having
long ago defeated the simplicities of truth, and pre-
occupied the minds of all readers with ideas politi-
cally romantic. All tutors, schoolmasters, academic
authorities, together with the collective corps of edi-
tors, critics, commentators, have a natural bias in
behalf of a literary man, who did so much honor to
literature, and who, in all the storms of this diflicult
life, manifested so much attachment to the pure lit-
erary interest. Readers of sensibility acknowledge
the efiect from any large influence of deep halcyon
tepose, when relieving the agitations of history ; as.
for example, that which arises in our domestic annals
iom interposing bfci,weeu two bloody reigm. like
CICERO. 25y
those of Henry VIII. and his daughter Mary, the
serene morning of a childlike king, destined to an
early grave, yet in the meantime occupied with
benign counsels for propagating religion or for pro-
tecting 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, viz. the Ciceronian epistolary correspondence.
Upon coming suddenly into deep lulls of angry pas-
sions — 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 philoso-
phy— literary men are already prejudiced in favor of
one who, in the midst of belligerent partisans, was
the patron of intellectual interest. But amongst
Christian nations this prejudice 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 honored perhaps extravagantly, and has re-
peatedly been pronounced the best practical theory to
vh'ch pagan principles were equal. Were it only
upon this impulse, it was natural that men should
leceive a clinainen, or silent bias, towards Cicero, as
a moral authority amongst disputants whose argu-
ments were legions. The author of a moral code
cannot be supposed indifferent to the moral relations
of his own party views. If he erred, it could not be
through want of meditation upcn the ground of judg-
ment, or want of in'^crest in the results So far
2C0
Cicero has an advantage. But he has more livelj
advantage in the comparison by which he benefits, at
toery stage of his life, with antagonists whom the
reader is taught to believe dissolute, incendiary,
almost desperate citizens. Verres in the youth of
Cicero, Catiline and Clodius in his middle age, Mark
A.ntony in his old age, have all been left to operate
on the modern reader's feelings precisely through that
masquerade of misrepresentation which invariably ac-
companied 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 gen-
erally 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
and 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 yet be available for
the rectification 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 suflicient to fracture a skull.'
Too true : they certainly might do so. But, for all
that, our British experience of electioneering ' rough-
^nd-tumbling ' has long blunted the edge of our moral
anger. Contested elections are unknown to the conti-
nent — hitherto even to those nat ons of the continent
which boast of representative governments. And with
no experience of their inconveniences, they have aa
yet none of the popular forces in which sucl contests
261
Dliginate. "\Vo, on the other hand, are familiar with
Buch scenes. What Rome saw upon one sole hust-
ings, Ave 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
undoubtedly 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 exaggerations 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 there was really no discretion
allowed. Not are they true ? but will they tell ? was
the question. Insolvency and monstrous debauchery
were the two ordinary reproaches on the Roman hust-
ings. No man escaped them who was rich enough,
or had expectations notorious enough, to win for such
charges any colorable plausibility. Those only were
unmolested in this way who stood in no man's path
^i ambition ; or who had been obscure (that is to say,
poor) in youth ; or who, being splendid by birth o^
c mnections, had been notoriously occupied in distant
campaigns. The object in such calumnies was, to
oroduce a momentary effect upon the populace : and
sometimes, as happened to '^oesar, the merest false-
floods of a partisan orator were adopted subsequent'?
for truths by the simple-minded soldiery. But the
»ni8appvehension of these libels in me '.em times origi
262
nates in erroneous appreciation of Roman oiatory
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 to notice tbein 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. Caesar, 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 dis-
persed over Rome 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 labor
110 hopeless as any effort towards the refutation of an
mlimited scandal, was childishly to collude with his
enemies. He treated the story, therefore, as if i*
had been true ; and showed that, even under tlia*
CICERO. 2ftJ
Msumption, it would not avail foi the purpose before
the house. Subsequently, Suetonius, as an express
collector of anecdotage and pointed personalities
against great men, has revived many of these scur-
rilous jests; but his authority, at the distance of two
generations, can add nothing to the credit of calum-
nies originally founded on plebeian envy, or the
jealousy of rivals. We may possibly find ourselves
obliged to come back upon this subject. And at this
point, therefore, we 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 license, or of nannr^ma
electioneering. Libels, whose very point and jest lay
m their extravagance, have been received for his-
torical truth with respect to many amongst Cicero's
enemies. And the reaction upon Cicero's own char-
acter has been naturally to exaggerate that imputed
purity of morals, which has availed to raise him into
uhat is called a ' pattern man.'
The injurious effect upon biographic literature of
all such wrenches to the truth, is diff'used everywhere.
Fenelon, or Howard the philanthropist, may serve to
illustrate the effect we mean, when viewed in relation
to the stern simplicity 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 circumstantial merits, quite as much
AS their human frailties, have faded away in this blaze
of fabling idolatry. Sir Isaac Newton, again, for
ibout one entire century since his death in 1727, was
2G4 CICERO.
painted by all biographers as a man so saintly in
temper — so meek — so detached from worldly interest,
that by mere strength of patent falsehood, the portrait
had ceased to be human, and a great man's life fur-
nished no interest to posterity. At length came the
odious truth, exhibiting Sir Isaac in a character painful
to contemplate, as a fretfiil, 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 the publication of the Commercium 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.
We 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 has 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 representa-
tion 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
necessities of ambition, or by the coercion of self-con-
sistency ; and often, as he himself admits, biased
finally in a public question by the partialities of friend-
ship. The violence of that crisis was overwhelming
to all moral sensibilities ; no sense, no organ, remaineof
265
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 the senate
Btruggling for interests and the democracy struggling
for rights. •
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 contradictory 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 or the doubtfulness 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 cause have been predetermined and ad-
judged 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 Roman civil war would have been essen-
tially different from that which we find in history. Ai
present the error is an extreme one ; and we call it
such without hesitation, because it has maintained
itself by imperfect reading, even of such documents as
survive, and by too general an oblivion of the impor-
tant fact, that these surviving documents (meaning the
y'onirm.'porary documents) are pre ty nearly all ex
porte.''^
To j'ldge of the general equity in the treatment of
Uieero, considered as a political partisan, let us turn U
266
the most current of the regular biographies. Amongst
the infinity of slighter sketches, which naturally draw
for their materials upon those which are most elaborate,
it would be useless to confer a special notice upon any.
We will cite the two which at this moment stand fore-
most in European literature — that of Conyers Middle-
ton, now about one century old, as the memoir most
generally read ; that of Bernhardt Abeken,'^'* (amongst
that limited class of memoirs which build upon any
political principles,) accidentally the latest.
Conyers Middleton is a name that cannot be men-
tioned without an expression of disgust. We sit down
in perfect charity, at the same table, with sceptics in
every degree. To us, 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-
Bentham-cock, 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
jbey the ordinary laws of good faith. No sneering
in the first place, because, though it is untrue that ' a
sneer cannot be answered,' the answer too often im-
y poses circumlocution. And upon a subject which
• makes -wise men grave, a sneer argues so much pei-
version of heart, that it cannot be thought uncandid to
infer some corresponding perversion of intellect. Per-
- feet sincerity never existed in a professional siieerer ;
jecondly, no treachery, no betrayal of the cause which
the man is sworn and paid to support. Conyers Mid«
dleton held considerable preferment in the church of
England. Long after he had become an enemy to
that church, (not separately for itself, but generally a«
CICERO. 267
a strong form of Christianity,) he continued to receivo
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
Btrength.' 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 labor of
his life was to bring the church into contempt. He
hated Bentley, he hated Warburton, he hated Water-
land ; 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 bye-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 cast, but for the bigotry of his church. It was
i. fine thing, he fancied, to have the credit of infidelity,
without paying for a license ; to sport over those
manors without a qualification. As a scholar, mean-
time, he was trivial and incapable of labor. Even tho
Roman antiquities, political or juristic, he had studied
neither by research and erudition, nor by meditation
on their value and analogies. Lastly, his English
ityle, for which at one time he obtained some credit
chrough the caprice of a fashionable critic, is such^
that by weeding away from it whatever is colloquial,
<ou would strip it of all tnat is characteristic : remov-
its CICEKO.
ing its idiomatic vulgarisms, you would remove its
principle of animation.
That man misapprehends the case, who fanciei
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
hati'ed** than any aversion of the intellect, it operated
as a false bias universally ; and in default of any suffi-
cient 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 preconcep-
tion, laying a restraint over all freedom in the execu-
tion. No man could start from the assumption of
Cicero's uniform uprightness, and afterwards retain
any latitude of free judgment upon the most mcnien-
tous transaction of Cicero's life : because, unlesr some
plausible hypothesis could be framed for giving body
and consistency to the pretences of the Pompean
cause, it must, upon any examination, turn out to have
been as merely a selfish cabal, for the benefit of a few
ordly families, as ever yet has prompted a conspiracy.
The slang words ' respublica ' and ' causa,' are caught
up by Middleton from the letters of Cicero ; but never,
m any one instance, has either Cicero or a modern
commentator, been able to explain what general inter
est of the Roman people was represented by thesa
ciCEBO. 269
rague abstractions. The strife, at that era, was not
between the conservative instinct as organiiLed in tbfl
upper classes, and the destroying instinct as concen-
trated in the lowest. The strife was not between the
property of the nation and its rapacious pauperism —
the strife was not between the honors, titles, institu-
tions, created by the state and the plebeian malice of
levellers, seeking for a commencement de novo, with
the benefits of a general scramble — it was a strife
between a small faction 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 constitu-
tional functions, as should harmonize the necessities
of the public service with the working of the republi-
can machinery. Whereas, under the existing condi-
tion of Rome, through the sUent 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 re-
serve of anarchy in the rear, were become the regular
counters for conducting the desperate game of the
more ordinary civil administration. Not the dema-
gogue only, but the peaceful or patriotic citizen, and
the constitutional magistrate, could now move and
exercise their public functions only through the dead-
liest combinations of violence and fraud. Thia dread-
*ul condition of things, which no longer acted through
that salutary opposition of parties, essential to the
tnergy of free countries, but involved all Rome in a
pcnnanent panic, was acceptable to the senate only-
270 CICEKO.
and of the senate, in sincerity, to a very small se( ti<jn
Some score of great houses there . was, that by vigi-
lance of intrigues, by far-sighted arrangements foi
armed force or for critical retreat, and by overwhelm-
ing command of money, could always guarantee their
own domination. 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,
himself rich**^ in a degree sufficient for the indefinite
aggrandizement 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 ;
forms for the sake of substances : this already gave
some verbal ])ower of delusion to the senatorial faction.
And a prospect still more startling to them all, waa
the necessity towards any restoration of the old re-
public, that some one eminent grandee should hold
provisionally a dictatorial power during the period of
transition.
Abeken — and it is honorable to him as a scholar
of a section not conversant with politics — saw enougli
into the situation of Rome at that time, to be sure thai
Cicero was profoundly in error upon the capital poin
271
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 bad found none. He
had seen the necessity towards any regeneration of
Rome, that Caesar, 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. We give Abeken's express words
that we 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 Caesar der einzige war,
der ohne weitere stuerme, Rom zu dem ziele zu fueh-
ren vermochte, welchem es seit einem jahrhundert
sich zuwendete ; ' that Caesar was the sole man who
had it in his power, without further convulsions, to
lead Rome onwards to that final mark, towards which,
in tendency, she had been travelling throughout one
whole century. Neither oould it be of much conse-
quence whether Caesar should personally find it safe
to imitate the example of Sylla in laying down his
kuthority, provided he so matured the safeguards of the
reformed constitution, that, on the withdrawal of this
temporary scafi'olding, the great arch was found ca-
llable of self-support. Thus far, as an ingenious
student of Cicero's correspondence, Abeken gains «
Iflimpse of the truth which has been so constantly ob^
loured by historians, but, with the natural incapacity
•or practical politics which besieges all Germans, h»
fails in most of the subordinate cases to decipher the
intrigues at work, and ofttimes 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 ex-
pressed itself in the acts or opinions of Pcmpey, we
will pursue it through the chief stages of the con-
tost. Where was it that Cicero first heard the appalling
news of a civil war 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, Ab Urb. Cond.,
Ke had formally entered on that office. On the last
day but one of the same month in 704, he laid it
down. The conduct of Cicero in this command was
meritorious. And, if our purpose had been generally
to examine his merits, we could show cause for making
a higher estimate of those merits than has been offered
by his professional eulogists. The circumstances,
however, in the opposite scale, ought not to be over-
looked. He knew himself to be under a jealous super-
vision 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 disinter-
ested merit. The other is, that, after all, he did
undeniably pocket a large sum of money (more thai,
twenty thousand pounds) upon his year's administra-
4on ; whilst, on the other hand, the utmost extent o'
that sum by which he refused to profit was not large
This at least we are entitled to say with regard to tne
only specific sum brought under our notice, as cerlainl^
Hwaitins his nrivate disnosal.
CICEKO. 27o
Here occurs a very important error of Middlctoii's.
The question of money very much will turn upon the
specific amount. An abstinence which is exemplary
may be shown in resisting an enormous gain ; Avhereas
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 in-
creased facilities for travelling in England, had begun
to operate powerfully upon the character of our Eng-
lish universities. Rectors and students, childishly
ignorant of the world, (such as Parson Adams and the
Vicar of Wakefield,) became a rare class. Possibly
Middleton was the last clergyman of that order ;
though, in any good sense, having little enough of
guileless simplicity. In our own experience we have
met wth but one similar case of heroic ignorance.
This occurred near Caernarvon. A poor Welsh woman,
leaving home to attend an annual meeting of the Meth-
odists, replied to us who had questioned her as to the
numerical amount of members likely to assemble ? —
' That perhaps there -would be a matter of four mil-
lions ! ' This in little Caernarvon, that by no possi-
bility could accommodate as many thousands ! Yet, in
iustiie to the poor cottager, it should be said that
she spoke doubtingly, and with an anxious look,
whereas Middleton announces this little bonus of eight
hundred thousand pounds with a glib fluency that de-
monstrates him to have seen nothing in the amount
worth a comment. Let the reader take with nim these
little adjuncts of the case. First of all, the m( ney
18
274 CICERO.
was a mere surplus arising on the public expendihire,
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. Sec-
ondly, it was the surplus of a single year's expcndi-
ture. Thirdly, the province itself was chiefly Grecian
in the composition 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 application 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 procon-
sul summed up his public duties. To us the marvel
is, how there could arise a surplus even equal to eight
thousand pounds, which some copies countenance.
. Eight pounds we 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 estab-
lish : and words are little better, since they may
always have been derived from a previous authority
in figures. Meantime, simply as a blunder in accurate
scholarship, we should think it unfair to have pressed
it. But it is in the light of an evidence against Mid-
dleton's good sense and thoughtfulness that we regaro
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, as a little bagatelle of office, a pot-
ie-viriy mere customary fees, payable to the discretionaj
lUotment of one who held the most fleeting relation to
ciCEEO. 275
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 transac-
tion, as they are reported by Cicero, indicating that
the sum ■w^as 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 estab-
lished 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 fluctuations in the amount, most cer-
tainly 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 disposable in mere perquisites, proh deum atqve
hominum Jidem ! the honorable gentlemen of the suite
would have taken unpleasant liberties with the procon-
sular throat. They would have been entitled to divide
on the average forty thousand pounds a man : end they
would have married into sena.orian houses. Because
% score or so of monstrous fortunes existed in Home,
we must not forget that in any age of the Republic a
gum of twenty-five thousand pounds would have cod«
276 ciCEKo.
Btituted a most respectable fortune for a man not
embarked upon a public career ; and with sufficient
connections it would furnish the early cosjts even foi
Buch a career.
We have noticed this affair with some minuteness,
both from its importance to the accuser of Verres, and
because we 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, we may re-
mark, that, although his whole life had been adapted
to purposes of ostentation, and a fortiori this particu-
lar provincial interlude was sure to challenge from his
enemies a vindictive scrutiny, still we 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 pain-
ful circumstances of offence to intimate friends. In-
directly we may find in these cases a pretty ample
violation of the Roman morals. Pretended philoso-
phers 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 abvises of military
license ; some, as the ' virtuous ' Marcus Brutus, not
stopping short of murder — a foul case of this descrip-
tion had occurred in the previous year under the sanc-
tion of Brutus, and Cicero had to stand his friend ia
nobly refusing to abet the further prosecution of the
very same atrocity. Even in the case of the perqiii*
Bites, 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
cicEEo. 277
men with whom he lived, as a modern prince oi
ambassador lives amongst the members of his official
' family.' Naturally it could be no trifle to a gentle-
hearted man, that he was creating for himself a neces-
Bity of encountering frowns from those who surrounded
him, and who might think, with some reason, that in
bringing them to a distant land, he had authorized
Ihem to look for all such remunerations as precedent
had established. Right or wrong in the casuistical
point — we believe him to have been wrong — Cicero
was eminently right w'hen once satisfied by arguments,
sound or not sound as to the point of duty, in pursuing
that duty through all the vexations which it entailed.
This justice we 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 profound-
ly after the vanished peace of mind which he had
enjoyed in his wild mountainous province. ' Quaefivit
lucem — ingemuitque repertam.' 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
wfcs met, at every port where he touched for a few
days' repose, by reports, more and more gloomy, of
*he impending rupture between the great partisan
leaders. These reports ran along, like the undulations
of an earthquake, to the last recesses of the east
278 cicEKo.
Every king and every people had been canvassed foi
the coming conflict ; and many had been already associ-
ated by pledges to the one side or the other. The fancy
faded away from Cicero's thoughts as he drew nearei
CO Italy, that any effect could now be anticipated for
mediatorial counsels. The controversy, indeed, was
still pursued through diplomacy ; and the negotiations
had not reached an ultimatum from either side. But
Cicero Avas still distant from the parties ; and, before
it was possible that any general congress representing
both interests, could assemble, it was certain that re-
ciprocal distrust would coerce 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 forward from Rome to meet him, entered the
public square of that town at the same moment with
himself. Without delay he moved forward towards
Rome ; but he could not gratify his ardor for a per-
sonal interference in the great crisis of the hour, with-
out entering Rome ; and that he was not at liberty to
do, without surrendering his pretensions to the honor
of a triumph.
Many writers have amused themselves with the idle
vanity of Cicero, in standing upon a claim so windy,
under circumstances so awful. But, on the one hand,
it should be remembered \io\y eloquent a monument i*
was of civil grandeur, for a 7iovus homo to have estab-
lished his own amongst the few surviving triumphal
families of Rome ; and, on the other hand, he could
bave effected nothing by his presence in the seiiate.
No man could at this moment ; Cicero least of all ;
because his policy had been thus arranged — ultimately
279
to support Pompiy ; but in the meantime, as strength-
eninnj the chances against war, to exhibit a perfect
neutrality. Bringing, therefore, nothing in his coun-
sels, 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 literally fixed on the
walls of Rome, so near had he approached. Cicero
warned his friend Atticus, that a dreadful and per-
fectly unexampled war — a struggle ' of life anu
death ' — was awaiting them ; and that in his opinion
nothing could avert it, short of a great Parthian in-
vasion, deluging the Eastern provinces — Greece,
Asia Minor, Syria — such as might force the two
chieftains into an instant distraction 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 scries 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 Caesar by his personal rancor
— a feeling which he shared with his twin-brother
Marcus. In the first day of this month, the senate
n-as to decide upon Caesar's proposals, as a basis for
•'iiture arrangement. They did so ; they voted tho
proposals, by a large majority, unsatisfactory — in-
stantly assumed a fierce martial attitude — fulminated
the most hostile of all decrees, and authorized ehock-
ing o jtragcs upon those who, in official situation!
280 . CICEEO.
represented Caesar's interest. TLese mtn fled for their
'ives. Caesar, on receiving their report, gave the signal
for advance ; and in forty-eight hours had crossed tne
little hrook called the Rubicon, which determined the
marches or frontier line of his province. Earlier by
a month than this great event, Cicero had travelled
southward. 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,
flying 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,
lather than abide any compromise with Caesar. And,
as these were chiefly the rich and potent in the aris-
tocracy, naturally they drew along with themselves
many humble dependents, both in a pecuniary and a
political sense. A strange rumor prevailed at this
moment, to which even Cicero showed himself mali-
ciously 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 misconcep-
tions. For already, in March, multitudes of refugees
had returned to Caesar. By the first week of April,
that ' monster of energy,' (that TiQa? of superhuman
despatch,) as Cicero repeatedly styles Caesar, had
marched through Italy — had re-^eived the submission
of every strong fortress — had driven Pompey into his
last Calabrian retreat of Brundusium, (at which poin
CICERO. 281
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, victorious from Spain,
addressed himself to the task of overthrowing Pompey
in person ; and, on the 9th of August in that year,
took place the ever-memorable battle on the river
Pharsalus in Thessaly.
During all this period of about one year and a half,
Cicero's letters, at intermitting periods, hold the same
language. They fluctuate, indeed, strangely in tem-
per ; for they run through all the changes incident to
hoping, trusting, and disappointed friendship. Noth-
ing 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 Lad
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 in-
tended 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
ikuy explanation.
Towards the middle of February, Cicero ackaowl
282 CICERO.
edges the receipt of letters from Rome, which in one
Bense are vahiable, as exposing the system cf self-
delusion prevailing. Domitius, it seems, who soon
after laid down his arms at Corfinium, and with Cor-
finium, parading his forces only to make a more
solemn surrender, had, as the despatches from Rome
asserted, an army on Avhich he could rely ; as to
Csesar, 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 con-
sternation. 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 controlled by other men of consular rank,
was at present an autocrat for the management of the
war. What was his policy ? Cicero had now dis-
covered, 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,
i.rom the first, a policy of despair.
The position of Pompey, as an old invalid, from
whom his party exacted the "services of youth, is
rsrorthy of separate notice. Th< "^ is not, perhaps, a
more pitiable situation than that o\ a veteran reposing
upon his past laurels, who is summoned from beds of
down, and from the elaborate system of comfort!
CICERO. . 283
engrafted upon a princely establishment, suddenly to
re-assume his armor — to prepare for personal hard-
Bhips 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 honors —
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,''^
as all but so many stakes provisionally resumed, which
must be redeemed by services tenfold more difficult
than those by which originally titiey had been earned.
Here was a trial painful, unexpected, sudden ; such
as any man, at any age, might have honorably de-
clined. 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 esti-
mate of his countrymen, Pompey could not become,
for his honors 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
ireadful an antagonist as Caesar, he could not hope to
come off unscorched ; and, whatever might bo the
'inal event, one result must have struck him as inevita-
ble, viz. that a new generation of men, who had come
forward into the arena of life within the last twenty
years, would watch the approaching collision with
Cccsar as putting to the test & question much canvassed
of late, with regard to the sovmdness and legitimacy of
^ompey's military exploits. Vs a commandei -in-chief
284 ciCEEo.
Pompey wus known to have been unusually fortunate.
The bloody contests of Marius, Cinna, Sylla, and theii
vindictive, but, perhaps, unavoidable, proscription, had
thinned the ranks of natural competitors, at the very
opening of Pompey's career. That interval of abouj
eight years, by which he was senior to Caesar, hap-
pened 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 splendor of external show, but im-
pose small exertion and less risk. In the war with
Mithridates he succeeded to great captains who had
sapped the whole stamina and resistance of the con-
test ; besides that, after all the varnishings of Cicero,
when speaking for the Manilian law, the enemy was
too notoriously effeminate. The bye-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 hia
predecessors in the same effort at cleansing the Levant
from a nuisance, something like the unfair superiority
above their brethren enjoyed by some of Charlemagne's
paladins, in the possession of enchanted weapons. The
success was already ensured by the great armament
placed at Pompey's disposal ; and still more by hia
unlimited commission, which enabled him to force
tliese water-rats out of their holes, and to bring thera
rII into one focus ; whilst the pompous name of Bellun.
Piraticum, exaggerated to all after years a succesj
which had been at the moment too partially facilitated
Finally, in his triumph over Sertorius, where only he
285
*rould liave found a great Roman enemy capable
of appljdng some measure of power to himself, by
the energies of resistance, although the transaction is
circumstantially involved in much darkness, enough
remains to show that Pompey shrank from open con-
test — passively, how far co-operatively it is hard to
Bay, 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 the moment iiad gone by, as a hollow
Bcenical pageant. But what had produced this enthu-
siasm at the moment ? 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, indis-
posing 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 advan-
tages were misinterpreted. A man who could resist
Sylla, Lucullus, and others, approved himself to the
raw judgments of the multitude as a dangerous enemy.
Wheace a very disproportionate appreciation of Pom-
pey — as of a second Scipio who had destroyed a
second Hannibal. If Hannibal had transferred the
war to the gates of Rome, why not ^lithridates, who
286 CICERO.
had come westwards as far as Greece? And, u^on
that argument, the panic-struck people of Rome fan-
cied that Mithridates might repeat the experiment.
They overlooked the changes which nearly one hun-
dred and fifty years had wrought. As possible it
would have been for Scindia and Holkar forty years
ago, as possible for Tharawaddie* at this moment, 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 literature, 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 6he Goths and Vandals, his sup-
posed descendants: just as the blood of Dido, the
Cai'thaginian queen, after mounting to the heavens —
under her dying imprecation,
* Exoriare aliquis nostro 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 an historical
possibility, any Mithridatic invasion of Italy would be
extravagant. Having ocen swallowed, however, by
Roman credulity as a dangei, 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, be-
tame more available for Pompey's immoderate glorifi.
* The Burmese Emperor invaded by us tlien [1842.]
CTC£BO. 287
»tion 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
aeries against Mithridates, stepped into the inheritance
of merit belonging to the entire series in that service ;
and as the laborer who easily 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 the moral in his
catastrophe. It is perilous to be dishonorably prosper-
ous ; and equally so, as the ancients imagined, whether
by direct perfidies, (of Avhich Pompey is deeply sus-
pected,) or by silent acquiescence in unjust honors.
Seared as Pompey's sensibilities might be through long
self-indulgence, and latterly by annual fits of illness,
founded on dyspepsy, he must have had, at this great
era, a dim misgiving that his good genius was forsaking
him. No Shakspeare, with his unusual warnings, had
then proclaimed the dark retribution which awaited his
final year : but the sentiment of Shakspeare (see his
Bonnets) is eternal ; and must have whispered itself to
**ompey's heart, as he saw the billowy war advancing
wpon him in his old age —
• The painful warrior, famoused for fight.
After a thousand victories — once fcil'd,
Is from the book of honor razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd.'
To say the truth, in this instvince as in so many
'thers, the great n-oral of the retribution <>.scapes us —
because we do not connect the scattered phencmena
288 ciC£:ao.
into their rigorous unity. Most readers pursue the
early steps of this mightiest amongst all ciril wars
with the hopes and shifting sympathies natural to those
who accompanied its motions. Cicero must ever Le
the great authority for the daily fluctuations of piiblic
opinion in the one party, as Caesar, with a few later
authors, for those in the other. But inevitably these
coeval authorities, shifting their own positions as eTents
advanced, break the uniformity of the lesson. They
did not see, as we may if we will, to the end. Some-
times the Pompeian partisans are cheerful ; sometimes
even they are sanguine ; once or twice there is abso-
lutely a slight success to color 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 heai'tily hoped from the hour when
he first ascertained 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 Divina-
tione, 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
I'ompey'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 efiect
— - ' Leave your palaces ; come back to camps — never
moie to know a quiet hour ! ' What if he could have
heai d arriere pensee of the silent call I ' Live througlr
it brief season of calamity ; live long enough for total
ruin ; live for a morning on which it will be said — All
ig lost; as a panic-stiicken fugitive, sue to the meiciet
CICERO. 289
ftf 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 cir-
cumstantially, 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,
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 mdely
spread, would cause blame or dishonor to himself;
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 deser •
tion 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. We
know of but one .case which resembles it, in one re-
markable 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 tii-
umph of Naseby in June, 1645. The ground was now
cleared ; no work remained for Fairfax but to advance
to Northampton, and to sweep away the last relics of
opposition. In every case this would have proved no
trying task. But what was ti.e condition of the hostile
forces? Lord Clarendon, who had personally presided
at their head-quarters whilst in attendance upon the
19
290 CICERO
prince of Wales, describes them in these emphatic
terms as ' a wicked beaten army.' Rarely 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 recording his opinion, 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 anticipated
by Cicero, under the very same circumstances, with
regard to the same 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 likelihood contingent upon the result froir.
this — were Pompey prosperous, Ihey would be pros-
perous ; if not, not. Knowing, therefore, the fatal
emphasis which belonged to his words, not blind to the
inference which they involved, Cicero did, notwith-
standing, pronounce confidentially that same judgment
of despair upon the army soon to perish at Pharsalia,
which, from its strange identity of tenor and circum-
stances, we have quoted from Lord Clarendon. Both
statesmen spoke confessedly of a last sheet anchor ;
both spoke of an army vicious in its military composi-
tion : but also, which is the peculiarity of the case, both
charged the onus of their own despair upon the non-
professional qualities of the soldiers ; upon their licen-
tious un civic temper ; upon their open anticipations oi
plunder ; and upon their tiger-training towards a grea»
festival of coming revenge.
CICEBO. 291
Lord Clarendon, however, it may be said, did not
Include the commander of the Devonshire army in hia
denunciation. No : and there it is that the two reports
differ, Cicero did include the commander. It was
the commander whom he had chiefly in his eye
Others, indeed, were parties to the horrid conspiraiij
against the country which he charged upon Pompey
for non datur conjuratio aliter quain per plures ; but
tJiese ' others ' were not the private soldiers — they
were the leadiug 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 ruffian foreigners 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 utterly
neglected by historians. It is notorious that Cicero,
on first joining the faction of Pompey after the decla-
ration of hostilities, had for some months justified his
conduct on the doctrine — that the ' causa,' the con-
stitutional 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 Caesar made his appeal, was radically
Illegal ; 2, That the certain tendency of this redress
was to a civil revolution. Such had been the consistent
lepresentation of Cicero, until the course of events made
him better acquainted with Pompey's real temper and
policy. It is also notorious — and here lies the key to
the ?rror of all biog'-aphers — ♦^hat about two yeara
iailer, when the miserable death of Pompey had indis-
posed Cicero to rememt^i his wicked unaccomplished
292 ciCKBO.
purposes, and when the assassination of Caesar had
made it safe to resume his ancient mysterious animosity
tc the very name of the great man, Cicero did undoubt-
edly 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 communion with the real Pompey of the year
Ab Urbe Cond. 705, and which extorted from his in-
dignant patriotism revelations to his confidential friend
Bo 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 you might have a motive,
subsequently to your friend's death, for dissembling
the evil you had once imputed to him. But it is im-
possible that, as an unwilling witness, you could have
had any motive at all for counterfeiting or exaggerat-
ing on your friend an evil purpose that did not exist.
The dissimulation might be natural — the stimulation
was inconceivable. To suppress a true scandal was
the office of a sorrowing friend — to propagate a false
one was the office of a knave: not, therefore, that
.ater testimony which to have garbled was amiable
Sut that coeval testimony which to have invented wa»
-usanity — this it is which we must abide by. Besidei
ciCEEo. 293
&at, there is another explanation of Cicero's la,ter lan-
guage 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 dura-
tion, its suddenness, and its astonishing contradiction
to all he had previously believed of Pompey, such u
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 an evil
that he knew of Pompey. It was a mere necessity of
logic, that, if Pompey had meditated the utter de-
struction of his country by fire and sword — if, more
atrociously still, he had cherished a resolution of un-
chaining upon Italy the most ferocious barbarians he
could gather about his eagles, Getae for instance, Col-
chians, 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 from Rome, and of inflicting the slow tor-
ments of famine upon that vast yet non-belligerent
city — then, in opposing such a monster, Caesar was
undeniably a public benefactor. Not only would the
magnanimity and the gracious spirit of forgiveness in
Csesar, be recalled with advantage into men's thoughts,
by any confession of this hideous malignity in his
antagonist ; but it really became impossible to sustain
»ny theory of am'oitious violence in Caesar, when
■cgarded under his relations to such a body of parri-
' •'ial conspirators. Fighting for public objects that
we difficult of explaining to a mob, easily may any
rhieftain of a party be misrepresented as a child of
idi CICEKO.
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 acclama-
tion from every house in Rome, 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.
We insist inexorably upon this state of relations, as
existing between Cicero and the two combatants. We
refuse to quit this position. We affirm that, at a time
when Cicero argued upon the purposes of Caesar in a
manner confessedly conjectural, on the other hand,
with regard to Pompey, from confidential communica-
tions, he reported it as a dreadful discovery, that mere
destruction to Rome was, upon Pompey's policy, the
catastrophe of the war. Caesar, he might persuade
himself, would revolutionize Rome ; but Pompey, he
knew in confidence, meant to leave no Rome in exist-
ence. Does any reader fail to condemn the selfishness
of the constable Bourbon — ranging himself at Pavia
in a pitched battle against his sovereign, on an argu-
ment of private wrong ? Yet the constable's treason
nad perhaps identified itself with his self-preservation ;
and he had no reason to anticipate a lasting 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
mdeed returned to Athens in company with the in«
rading hosts of Darius. But he had probably beea
ixpelled from Athens by violent injustice ; and, though
ciCEKo. 295
attending a hostile invasion, he could not have caused
It. Hardiy 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 1o
ravage Spain, and to overthrow the altars of Christian-
ity, on the provocation of one outrage to his own
house ; early in the eighth century invoking a scox^rge
that was not entirely to be withdrawn until the six-
teenth. But then for Count Julian it may be pleaded
— that the whole tradition is doubtful ; that if true
to the letter, his own provocation Avas enormous ; and
that we must not take the measure of what he medi-
tated by the frightful consequences which actually
ensued. Count Julian might have relied on the weak-
ness of the sovereign for giving a present effect to bis
vengeance, but might stUl 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 false fanaticism itself.
For the worst traitor whom history has recorded, there
remains some plea of mitigation ; something in aggra-
vation of the wTougs which he had sustained, some-
thing in abatement of the retaliation which he de-
signed. Only for Pompey there is none. Rome had
given him no subject of complaint. It was true that
the strength of Caesar lay there ; because immediate
hopes from revolution belonged to democracy, to the
oppressed, to the multitudes in debt, for whom the law
ijBid neglected to provide anv prospect or degree of
relief ; and these were exactly the class of persons that
tould not find funds for emigrating. But still there
was no overt act, no official act, no representative act,
jy which Rome had declared herself for either party
206 CICEHO.
Cicero was now aghast at the discoveriei he made
with regard to Pompey. Imbecility of purpose — dis-
traction of counsels — feebleness in their dilatory
execution — all tended to one dilemma, either that
Pompey, as a mere favorite of luck, never had pos-
sessed any military talents, or that, by age and con-
scious 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 any-
thing but a statesman, [anoXinxwraTug,) Cicero came at
length to pronounce him aarQuTtj/txwTaTov — anything
but a general. But all this was nothing in the way of
degradation to Pompey'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, there-
fore, from Cicero's confidential confessions is — that
he abandoned the cause as untenable ; that he aban-
doned the sppposed party of ' good men,' as found
upon trial to be odious intriguers — and that he aban-
doned Pompey in any privileged character of a patri-
otic leader. If he still adhered to Pompey as an
hidividual, it was in memory of his personal obliga-
tions to that oligarch, but, secondly, for the very
^^enerous reason — that Pompey's fortunes were de-
clining ; and because Cicero would not be thought to
have shunned that man in his misfortunes, whom iv
"eality he had felt tempted to despise only for hii
normous errors.
297
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 lYm-
pey secretly, had entered more largely into his decis-
ion than he had ever acknowledged to himself. For
he had at first exerted himself anxiously to mediate
between the two pai-ties. Now, if he really fancied
the views of Caesar to proceed on principles of destruc-
tion to the Roman constitution, all mediation was a
hopeless attempt. Compromise between extremes
lying so \videly 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 prac-
tice, even upon our own theory of the opposite requi-
sitions ? 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 functions of the people,
in their electoral capacity, in their powers of patron-
age, 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,
»nd how severe a struggle was required to adjust the
true temperament ! To say nothing of the fermenting
lisaffection towards the government throuffhout the
298 cicEEO.
reign of James 1., and the first fifteen years jf his son,
,he great civil war grew out of the sheer contradic-
tions arising between the necessities of the j ublic ser-
vice and the letter of superannuated prerogatives. The
simple history of that great strife was, that the democ-
racy, the popular elements in the commonwealth, had
outgrown the provisions of :)ld usages and statutes.
The king, a most conscientious man, 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 confirmed by
lawyers, the most dangerous of all advisers in political
struggles ; for they naturally seek the solution of all
contested claims, either in the position and determina-
tion of ancient usage, or in the constructive view of ite
analogies. Whereas, here the very question was con-
cerning 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. For
instance, the whole management of our foreign policy
had always been reserved to the crown, as one of its
most sacred mysteries, or u7ro^()»;Ta ; yet, if the people
could obtain no indirect control of this policy, through
the amplest control of the public purse, even their do-
mestic rights might easily be made nugatory. Again,
it was indispensable that the crown purse, free from
all direct responsibility, should be checked by some
responsibility, operating in a way to preserve the sove-
reign in his constitutional sanctity. This was finalU
effected by the admirable compromise — of lodging
ciC££0. 299
the responsibility in the persons of aL servants by or
through whom the sovereign could act Put this was
BO little understood by Charles I. as any constituticna)
priAilege 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 pro-
posal he \dewed 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 liim 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 dishonor him.
The absolute to el Rey of Spanish kings, in the last
resort, seemed in Charles's eye indispensable to the
dignity of the crown. And his legal counsellors as-
sured him that, in conceding this point, he would de-
grade himself into a sort of upper constable, having
some disagreeable functions, but none which could sur-
round him with majestic attributes in the eyes of his
subjects. Feeling thus, and thus advised, and relig-
iously persuaded that he held his powers for the ben-
efit of his people, so as to be under a deep moral
incapacity to surrender ' one dowle ' from his royal
plumage, he did right to struggle with that energy and
that cost of blood which marked his own personal Avar
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 constitu-
tional law, and solemnly established forever, about
.'orty years later, by the Rovolution of 1 688— 89. And
this great event was in t)ie nature of a comprorrise.
^or the patriots of lb42 had been betrayed intn some
300 CICEKO.
capital errors, claims both irreconcilable with the dig-
nity of the crown, and useless to the people. This
ought not to surprise us, and does not extinguish our
debt of gratitude to those great men. Where has been
the man, much less the party of men, that did net, in
a first essay upon so difficult an adjustment as that oi
an equilibration between the limits of political forces,
travel into some excesses ? But forty years' experi-
ence — 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
something of what is most essential in the Roman con-
flict. 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 natu-
ral nisus, working secretly throughout two or three
generations. It was a tendency that would 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 peo-
ple, ebullient with juvenile energies, and passing, at
every decennium, into new stages of development,
could have been gainsayed or much retarded. Had
the nation embodied less of that stern political temper-
ament, which Icado eventually to extremities iii action,
it is possible that the upright and thoughtful character o1
the sovereign might have reconcihid the Commons to
expedients of present redress, and for twenty years the
301
crisis might have been evaded. But the licentious
character of Charles II. would inevitably have chal-
lenged the resumption of the struggle in a more em-
bittered shape; for in the actual war of 1642, -the
teparate 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 abso-
lutely impossible that the aristocracy might have corae
into the project of a republic. Whenever this body
stood aloof, and by alliance with the church, as well
as with a 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 inevitable ; that the collision could
in no way have been evaded ; and for the same reason
as spoken so loudly in Rome — because the grievances
to be redressed, and the incapacities to be removed,
and the organs to be renewed, were absolute and
argent ; 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,
Btood upon the letter of usage and precedent, where
the secret truth was — that nature herself, that natuie
which works in political by change, by growth, by de-
Btruction, not less certainly that in physical organiza-
tions, had long been silently superannuating these
Drecedents, and preparing the transition into formi
Viore in harmony with public safety.
The capital fault in the operative constitution of
502
Rome, had long been in the antinomies, 5f we may be
pardoned for so learned a term, of the public ser\T[ce.
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 par-
ticular man militant for the moment ; next, the variable
mterest which such a party might have staked upon
the contest ; and lastly, the variable means at his dis-
posal 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 calcu-
lated : 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 enor-
mously increasing. 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 own, were now used
purely as the tenures by which they held a vested in-
terest 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 uniesa
w the creature of some party in the background, could
it length face the ruin of a political career. We do
act speak of men anticipating a special resistance, bu
»i those who stood in ordinary circumstances. Atticua
jB not a man whom we should cite for any authority in
303
I question of principle, for we believe Lim to have
been a dissembling knave, and the most perfect vicar
of Bray extant ; but in a question of prudence, bis
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 — probably twelve thousand
families — with a year's consumption for two individu-
als of excellent wheat ; and he had been distinguisheii
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 costa
of an aedileship, to which he would 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 capi
possent, conservatis legibus, in tam effusis largitioni-
bus ; neque geri sine periculo, corruptis civitatis mori-
bus.' But this argument 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 for-
ward without a princely fortune, and the courage of a
martyr. Milo, Curio, Decimus, Brutus, and many per-
Bons besides, in a lapse of twentv-five years, spent for-
tunes of four and five hundred thousand pounds, and
without accomplishing, after alt much of what they
proposed. In other shapes, the e'il was still more
malignant ; and, as these circumstantial cases are the
most impressive, we will bring forward a few.
504 CICERO.
/. — Provisional administrations. The Honriaus
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 Greeks so contemptible to the gravei
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, bufibons, dancers,
tumblers — they were a nation of swindlers. P'or the
art of fidelity in peculation, 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 un-
doubtedly 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 chan-
nels 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 muni-
cipal 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 pro-
vincial government. The abuses we need not state :
the prolongation of these lieutenancies beyond the
legitimate year, was one source of enormous evil ;
md it was the more rooted an abuse, because very
often it was undeniable that other evils arose in th«
CICEKO. 305
appubite scale from too hasty a succession of gov-
ernors, upon which principle no consistency of local
improvements could be ensured, nor any harmony
even in the administration of justice, since each suc-
cessive governor brought his own system of legal
rules.
As to the other and more flagrant abuses in ex-
tortion from the province, in garbling the accounts
and defeating all scrutiny at Rome, in embezzlement
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 ^ooked for in the indirect revelations of Cicero
when himself a governor, as well as the incidental
relations by special facts and cases. We, on our
parts, 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 condemnation must be sought, first, in
the proximity of Rome of that Sicilian province where
many of his alleged oppressions had occurred — the
fluent intercourse with his island, and the multiplied
inter-connections of individual towns with Roman
grandees, aggravated the facilities of making charges ;
whilst the proofs w?re 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 poition from the
•polls in the shape of bribes to the jury {judices) in
order to redeem the other portions, could not be
applied in this case. The spoils were chiefly workf
"20
BOG CICERO.
of Art ; Verres was the very first man who formed a
gallery of art in Rome ; and a French writer in the
Academie des Inscriptions has written a most elabo-
rate catalogue raisonnee to his gallery — drawn fiom
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 pan 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 we will not conceal the truth which Cicero indi-
rectly 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 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 admin-
istration altogether blameless ; but, when the original
rule had been so wide and lax, the final resource must
Se in the mercj' of the tribunals.
II, — The Roman judicial system. This would re-
ijTiire a separate volume, and chiefly upon this ground
• — that in no country upon earth, except Rome, has ,
the ordinary administration of justice been aj)pLied as
a. gref.t political engine. Men, who could not othei*
CICEBO.
307
wise be removed, were constantly assailed by im-
peachments ; 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 ol trial was the most corrupt that has
ever prevailed under European civilization. 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 rumor, 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 mind that there was no pre-
siding judge, in our sense of the word, to sum up —
to mitigate the effect of arts of falsehood in the advo-
cate — 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 we
do not scruple to say — that so triumphant a machinery
of oppression has never existed, no, not in the dungeons
of the inquisition.
III. — The license of public lihelling. Upon this we
had proposed to enlarge. But we must forbear. One
only caution we must impress upon the reader ; he
may fancy that Cicero, would not practise or defend
in others the absolut*^ abuse of confiience tn the part
i)f the jury and audience by employing direct falso*
308 ClOEKO.
hoods. But this is a mistake. Cicero, in his justifi-
cation of the artifices used at the bar, evidently goes
the whole length of advising the emj)loyment of aL
misstatements 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 Insinua-
tion. And he holds also — that a barrister is not
accoimtable for the frequent self-contradictions in
which he must be thus involved at different periods of
tmie. Th6 immediate purpose is paramount to all
extra-judicial consequences whatever, and to all subse-
quent exposures of the very grossest inconsistency in
the most calumnious falsehoods.
IV. — The morality of expediency employed by Roman
statesman. The regular relief, furnished to Kome
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 em-
ployed to murder him. Never was there a viler or
better established murder than that of Clodius 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 villanous act — that circumstances had made it
expedient. Such a man is massacred, and Cicero
appeals to all your natural feelings of honor against
the murderers. Such another is massacred on the op*
jjosite side, and Cicero thinks it quite sufficient to repl»
sou
— ♦ Oh, but I assure you he was a bad man — I knew
him to be a bad man. And it was his duty to bp
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 propensities to anr
public antagonist ; never asking himself any questioi
but this — "Will it look probable ? He personallj
^8^aped such slanders, because as a young man he wai
known to be rather poor, and very studious. But in
later life a horrible calumny of that class settled upon
himself, and 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 we lend a moment's credit to the foul insinuation ?
No. But we see the equity of this retribution revolv-
ing upon one who had so often slandered others in the
same malicious way. At last the poisoned chalice
vsLiae round to his own lips, and at a moment when it
wounded the most acutely.
V. — The continued repetition of convulsions in the
itate. Under the last head we have noticed a conse-
quence of the long Roman 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
1 the recurrence of those conspiracies which the public
■*aarchy promoted. We have all been deluded upon
^is point. The conspiracy of Catiline, to those who
810 CICEHO.
weigh well th3 mystery still enveloping the names of
Caesar, of the Consiil C. Antonius, and others suspected
as partial accomplices in this plot, and who considei
also what parties were the exposers or mercilesa
avengers of this plot, was but a reiteration of the
attempts made within the previous fifty years by Ma-
rius, 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 wa^
offered by way of evidence 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 most
easily. And the shocking defect of the case is — that
the accused party were never put on their defence,
never confronted with the base tools of the accusers,
and the senators amongst them were overwhelmed
with clamors if they attempted their defence in the
senate. The motive to this dreadful injustice is mani-
fest. There was a conspiracy ; that we do not doubt ?
and of the same nature as Caesar's. Else why shoiild
tjminent men, too dangerous for Cicero to touch, have
Veen implicated in the obscurer charges ? How had
they any interest in the ruin of Rome ? How had
Catiline any interest in such a tragedy ? 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
ihe administration of public affairs en another footing
CICEBO. 311
nany from merely selfish purposes, like Cethegus oi
Lentulus — some, we doubt not, from purer motives
of enlarged patriotism. One charge against Catiline
we may quote from many, as having tainted the most
plausible part of the pretended evidence with damna-
tory suspicions. The reader may not have remarked
— bat the fact is such — that one of the standing arti-
Qces for injuring a man with the populace of Rome,
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 conspiracy against a system which they
held in no reverence or affection. 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
Buch a calamity ?
But, in reality, this conspiracy was that effort con-
tinually 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
.^y the senate, viz. Octavius, Plancus, Asinius PoUio,
Lepidus, every one of whom fell away almost instantly
lo 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 introduc-
tion to a patriotic reformation, ranged too notoriously
512 CICERO.
ai^aiiist a narrow scheme of selfishness, which intereattd
hardly forty families. It does not follow that all men,
simply as enemies of an olio^archy, would have after-
wards exhibited a pure patriotism. Caesar, however,
did. His reforms, even before his Pompeian struggle,
svere the greatest ever made by an individual ; and
those which he carried through after that struggle, and
durng that brief term which his murderers allowed
him, transcended by much all that in any one centorj
had been accomplished by the collective patriotism of
Borne.
PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.
It would be thought strange indeed, if there should
txist 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 misunderstood ; erroneously appre-
ciated ; its tendencies mistaken, and its whole mean-
ing, import, value, not so much inadequately — aa
falsely, ignorantly, perversely — deciphered. Prima
facie, one would pronounce this impossible. Never-
theless it is a truth ; and it is a solemn truth ; and
what gives to it this solemnity, is the mysterious mean-
ing, 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 splendor, so much
depth of interest, as the great period — the systole and
iiastole 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 colos-
lal republic : its foundations were laid by that sublime
314 PHILOSOPHY OF KOMAX HISTORY.
dictator, ' the foremost man of all this world/ who was
anquestionably for comprehensive talents the Lucifer,
the Protagonist of all antiquity. Its range, the com-
pass of its extent, Avas appalling to the imagination.
Coming last amongst what are called the great mon-
archies of Prophecy, it was the only one which realized
in perfection the idea of a monarcTiia, being (excep*,
for Parthia and the great fable of India beyond it)
strictly coincident with »/ oixovfurri, or the civilize^]
world. Civilization and this empire w»re commensu-
rate : they were interchangeable ideas, and co-exten-
sive. Finally, the path of this great Empire, through
its arch of progress, synchronized with that of Chris-
tianity : 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 sta-
tion 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. Preliba-
tions, as of some heavenly Adntage, Avere inhaled by
the VirgUs 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 Avas prefigured :
« wilderness of thorns was found.
Even this fact has been missed — even the bare
tact has been overlooked ; much more the causes. tb«
principles, the philosophy of this fact. The rapi'i
barbarism which closed in behind Csesar's chariot
wheels, has been hid by the pomp and equipage of
the imperial court. The vast power and domination
PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY. 315
>f the Roman empire, for the three centuries which
followed the battle of Actium, have dazzled the his-
toric eye, and have had the usual reaction on the
power of vision ; a dazzled eye is always left in a
condition of darkness. The battle of Actium was
followed by the final conquest of Egypt. That con-
quest 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 empire : it was at a dream-like dis-
tance ; 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 politi-
cal ^visdom — the ultimate object of all strife — the
very euthanasy of war. Except on 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
Buperb Aurelian,'*-'' from his far-off pavilion in the
leserts of the Euphrates — Hush, fluttering heart of
the eternal city ! Fall bark into slumber, ye wars,
tnd rumors of wars ! Turn vinon your couches of
down, ve children of Romulus — sink back into your
316 PHILOSOPHY OF BOMAN HISTOKT.
roluptuous repose : We, your almighty armies, have
phased 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 sil
aliqua solicitudo Romana. Vacate ludis — vacate cir-
censibus. Nos publico, necessitates teneant : vos occU'
pent voluptates.' Did ever Siren warble so dulcet a
Bong to ears already prepossessed and medicated with
spells of Circean effeminacy ?
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
(m the words of Shakspeare) 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 ' 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 tor-
nadoes. 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
oeace, and, by way of attesting his own martial supre-
macy, had commanded ' that the brazen throat of war
should cease to roar,' when the trumpets of the foui
windo proclaimed his own death by murder. Not as
inything extraordinary ; for, in fact, violent death —
death by assassination — was the regular portal (th»
PHILOSOPHY OF KOMAN HISTOEY. 317
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 that stem rule of
fate. Not, therefore, as in itself at ill noticeable, but
because this particular murder of Probus stands sceni-
cally contrasted with the great vision of Peace, whicli
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 Satur-
nian ages to succeed : — ' Brevi,' said he, ' milites
non necessarios habebimus. Romanus jam miles erit
nullus. Omnia possidebimus. Respublica orbis ier-
rarum, ubiqiie secura, non arma fabricabit. Boves
habebuntur aratro : equus nascetur ad pacem. Nulla
irunt bella : nulla captivitas. TIbique pax : ubique
Romana leges: ubique jud ices nostri.' The historian
himself, tame and creeping as he is in his ordinary
^tyle, warms in sympathy with the Emperor: his
diction blazes up into a sudden explosion of prophetic
grandeur: and he adopts all the views of Ceesar.
'Nonne omnes barbaras nationes subjecerat pedibus?'
he demands with lyrical tumult : and then, while coq-
fcssing the immediate disappointment of his hopes,
thus repeats the great elements of the public felicity
whenever they should be realized by a Ca?sar equally
martial for others, but more fortunate for himself: —
^ternos thesauros habere t Romana respublica. Nihit
■■cpenderetur a principe ; nihil a possessore redderztur.
Aureum profeclo seculum proviittebat. Nulla futuro
318 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.
trant castra : misquam lituus audiendus : arma nan
erant fabricanda. Populus iste mililantium, qui nunc
hellis civilihus Remfuhlicam vexat ' — aye ! how was
that to be absorbed ? How would that vast crowd of
half-pay emeriti employ itself ? ^Araret : studiis in-
cumheret : erudiretur artihas : navigaret.' And he
closes his prophetic raptures thus : ' Adde qux)d nullum
occideretur in bello. Dii boni ! quid tandem vos offen-
deret Respublicd Romand, cut talein principem sustu-
listis?'
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 desti-
nies, might happen to draw the rare prize of a pros-
perous reign not prematurely blighted by the assassin ;
with whose purple alourgis might mingle no fascice 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 bless-
ing, 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,
»r too prematurely ; yet, after all, the very enormity
of what they promised must be held to argue the enor-
mity of what had been accomplished. To give any
plausibility to a scheme of perpetual peace, war must
«Iready have become rare, and must have been bai>
PHILOSOPHY OF KOMAN HISTOKY. 319
Ished 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 com-
merce, of navigation. This is what the historian indi-
cates, in promising his brother Romans that ' omnia
possidebimus : ' by which, 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 possidebi-
mus) meant to say, with regard to property already
their own — ' We shall no longer hold it as joint pro-
prietors with the state, and as liable to fluctuating
taxation, but shall henceforwards possess it in absolute
«xclusive property.' This is what he indicates in
4aying — Boves habehuntur aratro : that is, the oxen,
one and all available for the plough, shall no longer
be open to the everlasting claims of the 'pvibWc frumen-
tarii 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 henceforth ' araret,' or ' navigaret.'
V.11 these passages, by pointing the expectations em-
hatically to benefits of purse exonerated, and industry
emancipated, sufficiently argue the class of interests
vhich then suffered by war : that it was the interests
f private property, of agricultural improvement, of
._mmercial industry, upon which exclusively fell the
evils of a belligerent state under the Roman empire : and
.here already lies a mighty blessing achieved for social
320 PHILOSOPHY OF EOMAN HISTOKY.
Bxistence — when sleep is made sacred, and thresnolda
Bijcure ; when the temple of human life is safe, and the
temple of female honor is hallowed. These great
interests, it is admitted, were sheltered under the
mighty dome of the Reman empire : that is ahead}
an advance made towards the highest civilization : and
this is not shaken because a particular emperor should
bo extravagant, or a particular historian romantic.
No, certainly : but stop a moment at this point.
Civilization, to the extent of security for life, and tbe
primal rights of man, necessarily grows out of every
strong government. And it follows also — that, as
this government widens its sphere — as it pushes back
its frontiers, ultra et Garamantas et Indos, in that pro-
portion will the danger diminish (for in fact the possi-
bility 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 Romf
was beyond the 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 Roman 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 pub-
lic enemies, and have deepened the sense of secnnij
be}ond calculation. Thus far we have the benefits of
police ; and those are amongst the earliest blessingb
of civilization ; and they are one indispensable con-
ditio a — what in logic is called the conditio sine qua
non for all the othei blessings. But that, in othe*
PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAX HISTOKY. 321
words, is a negative cause^ (a cause which, being absent,
the effect is absent;) but not the positive cause, (or
caiisa sitfficiens,) which, being present, the effect will
be present. The security of the Roman empire was
the indispensable 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 Britt»in west-
wards, but not of a high civilization.
On the contrary, what we maintain is — that the
Roman civilization was imperfect ah intra — imperfect
in its central principle ; was a piece of watchwork 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 reac-
tion and antagonism : that it fell into torpor from the
moment when this antagonism ceased to operate ; that
thenceforwards it oscillated backwards violently to bar-
arisra : that, left to its own principles of civilization,
e Roman empire was barbarizing rapidly from the
time of Trajan : that abstracting from all alien agen-
cies whatever, whether accelerating or retarding, and
supposing Western Rome to have been thrown exclu-
sively 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 favorable accidents co-operating with alien
V)rce3. could not, by any great term, have retarded thai
doom which was written on her drooping energies, pre-
scribed by internal decay, and not at all (as is univer-
laily imagined) by external assault.
21
322 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISIORY.
III. — ' Barbarizing rapidly ! ' the reader murmiirg
— ' Barbarism ! Oh, yes, I remember the Barbariana
broke in upon the Western Empire — the Ostrogoths,
Visigotlis, Vandals, Burgundians, Huns, Heruli, and
Bwarms 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 inflvs of barbarism Avas
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 Rome. 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 sensi-
bility 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 herself; that
these pretended barbarians — Gothic, Vandalish,*** Lom-
bard — or by whatever name known to modern history
— were in reality the restorers and regenerators of the
»fFete Roman intellect ; that, but for them, the indige-
nous Italian would probably have died out in scrofula,
madness, leprosy ; that the sixth or seventh century
would have seen the utter extinction of these Italian
^iruTbrugs ; for which opinion, if it were important, we
?ould show cause. But it is much less important tc
ihow cause in behalf of this negative proposition —
PHILOSOPHY OF KOMAN HISTOKT. 323
that the Goths and Vandals were not the barbarians of
khe western empire ' — than in behalf of this affirma-
tive proposition, ' that the Romans 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 barbar-
izing 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 Marcel-
linus, 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 Dioclesian.
The composition of this work has been usually distri-
buted amongst six authors, viz., Spartian, Capitolinus,
Lampridius, Volcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio,
and Vopiscus. 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
imongst them. Bu* all this is irrelevant to our present
purpose, which applies to the work, but not at all to
khe writers, excepting in sc far as they (by whatever
oaincs k'^own) were notoriously and demonst'-ably per-
324 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HI8T0KT.
Bc»ns belonging to that era, trained in Roman habits of
thinking, connected with the court, intimate with the
great Palatina 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 notices ; 2dly, Upon the remarkable
uncertainty which hangs over all lives a little removed
from the personal cognizance or immediate era of the
writer. But as respects, not the history, but the sub-
jects of the history, we rely, 3dly, Upon the peculiar
traits of feeling which gradually began to disfigure 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 barbaiism
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,
\iigustan, imperatorial — they pursue Caesar not only
«j 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 Palatin
PHILOSOPHY 01 BJMAN HISTORY. 325
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 orna-
ments. So again, with respect to the meals of Caesar;
— 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-hall,
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 ^vife ^
How were they fringed ? At what cost per chemise ?
In this strain — how truly worthy of the childi-en of
Romulus — how becoming to the descendants from
Scipio Africanus, from Paulus ^mUius, from the co-
lossal 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 Pauli ingentem stare miraberis umbram ! '
What a horror would have seized this Augustan scrib-
Her, this Rom&,n Tims, if he could have seen thia
' mighty phantom ' at his elbow looking over his inani-
ties ; ind what a horror would have seized the phan-
tom ! Once, in the course of his aulic memorabilia,
the writer is struck with a sudJcn glimpse of such an
326 "HiLosopiiy of uoman history.
idea ; and he reproaches himself for recording sucb
infinite littleness. After reporting some anecdotes, in
the usual Augustan style, about an Imperial rebel, aa
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 ;^ 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 re-
corded, he goes on to say — ' Sed hcec scire quid pro-
dest ? Cum et Liinus et Salhistiv^ taceant res leves
de iis quorum vitas scribendas arripuerint. Non enim
scimus quales mulos Clodiu^s habuerit ; nee utrum Tusco
equo sederit Catilina an Sardo ; vel quali chlamyde
Pompeius usus fuerit^ an purpura.' No : we do not
know. Livy would have died 'in the high Roman
J^shion' before he would have degraded himself, by
such babble of nursery-maids, or of palace pimps and
eaves-droppers.
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 after it had ceased to be excited by op-
position in foreign nations. It was not merely tho
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 resistaof*'" u«
rniLOSOPHY OF EOMAN HISTORY. 327
his wiogs. The first Roman of note wlic began this
Bystem 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 bm'ning Avith
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 em-
balms 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
rircumstances of the empire, viz. from the total col-
lapse 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 eaves-dropping
biography — prevailed so as to strangle authentic his-
tory. The parasitical plant absolutely killed the sup-
porting 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 sub-
stituted for the statesman's, the ambassador's, ihe
§o'dier's, the politican's, would have extinguished all
other historic composition, as in fact they nearly did,
;)ut for the insulation of France amongst nations with
tooro masculine habits of thought. That saved France
328 PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTOKT-
Rome had no such advantage ; and Rome gave way
The props, the buttresses, of the Roman mteilect, were
all cancered and honeycombed by this dry-rot in hei
political energies. One excuse there is ; storms yield
tragedies for the historian ; the dead calms of a uni-
versal monarchy leave him little but personal memo-
randa. In such a case he is nothing, if he is not
anecdotical.
V. — Secondly, we infer the barbarism of Rome,
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 every-
thing was forgotten about e^'erybody. Within a few
years after the death of Aurelian, though a kind of
«aint amongst the armies and the populace of Rome,
(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
&t some temple unknown. 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 exterminators,
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
>)ften varied, and the circumstances varied ; and the
PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTOBY. 321;
reader would be glad to know, in Shakspeare's lan-
guage, ' 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
uames, and their recompense — whether a halter or a
palace. But nothing of all this can be learned. And
why ? All had been forgotten.^ ' Lethe had sent all
her waves over the whole transaction ; and the man
who wrote within thirty years, found no vestige recov-
erable 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 remarkable,
and cardinal to the movement of history, viz., Dio-
clesian and Constantine, many of the weightiest trans-
actions in their lives are Avashed out as by a sponge.
Did Dioclesian hang himself in his garters ? or did he
die in his bed ? Nobody knows. And if Dioclesian
hanged himself, why did Dioclesian 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 hia
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
80 much as allude to it ; but, on the other hand,
Susebius had his golden reasons for favoring Constan-
tine, and this was a matter to be hushed up rathei
nan blazoned. Tell it not in Gath ; Publish it not
B30 PHILOSOPHf OF ROMAN HISTOET.
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
\<nth forgery. Yet again, on the other hand, such a
duplicate did hondjide 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 (Avithout 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 first gave an establishment and an earthly
throne to Christianity, because history had slept the
sleep of death before that Caesar's time, and because
the great muse of history had descended from Parnas-
sus, and was running about Caesar's palace in the bed-
gown and slippers of a chambermaid.
Many hundred 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
5n the history of the empire, and their utter extinction
after even the lapse of twenty years, the extreme cir-
cumstantiality 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
PHILOSOPHY OF ROAIAX HISTORY. 331
Moloch sort of character, and functions with which
they gradually invested their great Sultan, the Caesar.
One of the hallisteia, 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 triumplal dis-
play, has been preserved, in so far as relates to the
words which accompanied the performance ; for there
was always a verbal accompaniment to the choral parts
of the hallisteia. These words ran thus : —
* Mille, mille, inillc, mille, mille, millu, [six times repeated] deco.lavimas
Unue homo mille, mille, mille, mil!e, [four times] decollavit
Mille, milli!, mille, vivat annos, qui mille, mille occidit
Tantum vini habet nemo, quaiituin Ccesuc fudit sanguinis.*
And again, a part of a ballisteion runs thus : —
' Mille Francos, mille Sarmatas, semel occidimis :
Mille, mille, mille, mille, mille, Persas querimus.'
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
v/ith steadiness the fearful scene of Turkish murder
and bloodshed going on forever in high places. The
palace floors in Rome actually rocked and quaked with
assassination : snakes were sleeping forever beneath
the flowers and palms of empire : the throne was
built upon coflins : and any Christian who had read
the A pocalypse, whenever he looked at the altar conse-
crated to Caesar, on which the sacred fire was burning
forever in the Augustan halls, must have seen below
Jhem ' the souls of those who had been martyred,' and
faave fancied that he heard them crying out to the
ingel of retribution — How long ? O Lord I ho^
long > '
832 PHIIiOSOPHY OF KOMAN HISTOKT.
Gibbon has left us a description, not very powerful,
af a case wbich is all-powerful of itself, and needs no
expansion, — the case of a state criminal vainly at-
tempting to escape or liide 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 track-
less seas, nor a four months' flight, nor perfect inno-
cence 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 Avail-
ing 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 msxkes the con-
dition of a criminal under the Western Empire terriflc,
and the condition even of a subject perilous. But how
strange it is, or would be so, had Gibbon been a man
of more sensibility, 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 Cae-
sar'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 their
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
deep. Other men's houses, other men's bedchambers,
PHILOSOPHY OF ROMAX HISTORT. 333
were generally asylums ; but for Caesar, tis own j/alace
had not the privileges of a home. His own aiinies
were no guards — his own pavilion, rising in the very
centre of his armies sleeping 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
' sacramentum 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 mtnessed nothing
BO 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 evU, and the necessity of the evil. Can any man
measure the sickening fear which must have possessed
he hearts of the ladies and the children composing
the imperial family ? To them the mere terror, en-
tailed 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 —
«uch in its inevitability. It was what Pagan language
venominated ' a sacred danger ; ' a danger charmed
tad consecrated against human alleviation.
At length, but not until about three hundred and
twenty years of murder had elapsed from the inaugu-
534 PHILOSOPHY OF EOJIA.N HISTORY.
rai murder of the great imperial founder, Dioclesiai
rose, and as a last resource of despair, said, let ut
multiply our image, and try if that will discourage om
murderers. Like Kehama, entering 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 Caesar,
there were in fact four coeval emperors. Caesar
enjoyed a perfect alibi : like the royal ghost in Ham-
let, Caesar was hie et ubique. And unless treason
enjoyed the same ubiquity, now, at least, one would
have expected that Caesar might sleep in security.
But murder — imperial murder — is a Briareus. There
was a curse upon the throne of Western Rome : it
rocked like the sea, and for some mysterious reason
could not find rest ; and few princes were more mem-
orably afflicted than the immediate successors to this
arrangement.
A nation living in the bosom of these funereal con-
vulsions, this endless billowy oscillation of prosperous
murder and thrones overturned, could not have been
moral ; and therefore could not have reached a high
civilization, had other influences favored. No causes
act so fatally on public morality as convulsions in the
state. And against Rome, all other influences com-
bined. It was a period of awful transition. It was a
period of tremendous conflict between all false relig-
ions in the world, (for thirty thousand gods were
worshipped in Rome,) and a religion too pure to be
comprehended. That light could not be compre-
hended by that darkness. And, in strict philosophic
truth, Christianity did not reach its mature period.
even of infancy, until the days of the Protestant
PHIJ.060PHT OP HOMAN HISTOEY. 335
Reformation. In Rome it has always blended with
Paganism : it does so to this day. But then, i. e. up to
Dioclesian, (or the period of the Augustan history,)
even that sort of Christianity, even this foul adultera-
tion of Christianity, had no national influence. Even
a pure and holy religion, therefore, by arraying demo-
niac 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 contemptible than the literature of Western (or
indeed of Eastern) Rome after Trajan, it is not possi-
ble to conceive. Claudian, and two or three others,
about the times of Carinus, are the sole writers in verse
through a period of four centuries. 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, he
woidd have been ' a decent priest where monkeys are
the gods ; ' and he was worthy to fumigate with his
leaden censer, and with inronse 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
Derceive on which side rests the 07ius of proof. Here,
because on our allegation the proposition to be proved
would be negative, the onus probandi must lie with oui
opponents. For we peremptorily affirm, that from
Trajan downwards, there was no literature in Rome.
To prove a negative is impossible. But any opponent.
836
PUILOSOPHY OF ROMAN HISTORY.
who takes the affirmative side, and says there was, will
find it easy to refute us. Only be it remembered, that
cue swallow does not make a summer. 2dly, (Which,
if true, ought to make all writers on general literature
ashamed,) we maintain — that in any one period of
sixty years, in any one of those centuries which we c:ill
60 familiarly the Dark Ages, (yes, even in the lOth or
11th,) we engage to name more and better books as
the product of the pei'iod given, than were produced in
the whole three hundred and fifty years froi^ Trajan
to Ilonorius 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 Em-
pire before either Goth or Vandal had gained a settle-
ment in tbe ^.and. The quality of their history, the
tenure of the Caesars, the total abolition of literature,
and the eonvulaion of public morals, — these were the
true kv^^y to Ui.e fioman decay.
GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.
IlEFERENCE TO MR. GEORGE FINLAY'S WORK DPON
THAT SUBJECT
Wha.t is called Philosophical History I believe to
be yet in its infancy. It is the profound remark of
Mr. Finlay — profound as I myself understand it —
t. e., in relation to this philosophical treatment, "That
history will ever remain inexhaustible." How inex-
haustible ? Are the facts of history inexhaustible ?
In regard to the ancient division of history with which
he is there dealing, this would be in no sense true ;
and in any case it would be a lifeless truth. So en-
tirely have the mere facts of Pagan history been dis-
interred, ransacked, sifted, that except by means of
borae chance medal that may be unearthed in the illit-
erate East (as of late towards Bokhara), or by means
of, some mysterious inscription, such as those which
still mock the learned traveller in Persia, northwards
. ear Hamadan (Ecbatana), and southwards at Perse-
polis, or those which distract him amongst the shadowy
ruins of Yucatan (Uxmal, suppose, and Palenque) —
once for all, barring these pure godsends, it is hardly
♦'ill the dice" that any downright novelty of fact
ki^ruld remain in rexarsion for this nineteenth century.
22
338 GREECE UNDEB THE EOMANS.
The merest possibility exists, that in Armenia, or in
% Graeco-Russian monastery on Mount Athos, or in
Pompeii, &c., some authors hitherto avsxSoroi may yet
be concealed ; and by a channel in that degree im-
probable, it is possible that certain new facts of his-
tory may still reach us. But else, and failing these
cryptical or subterraneous currents of communication,
for us the record is closed. History in that sense has
come to an end, and is sealed up as by the angel ir,
the Apocalypse. What then ? The facts so under-
stood are but the dry bones of the mighty past.
And the question arises here also, not less than in
that sublimest of prophetic visions, " Can these dry
bones live ? " Not only can they live, but by an infi-
nite variety of life. The same historic facts, viewed
in different lights, or brought into connection with
other facts, according to endless diversities of permu-
tation and combination, furnish grounds for such eter-
nal successions of new speculations as make the facts
themselves virtually new, and virtually endless. The
same Hebrew words are read by different sets of vowel
points, and the same hieroglyphics are deciphered by
keys everlastingly varied.
To me, I repeat that oftentimes it seems as though
the science of history were yet scarcely founded. There
will be such a science, if at present there is not ; and
in one feature of its capacities it will resemble chemis-
try. What is so familiar to the perceptions of man as
the common chemical agents of water, air, and the soil
on which we tread ? Yet each one of these elements
18 a mystery to this day ; handled, used, tried, searched
experimentally, combined in ten thousand ways — it if
GBKECB TTNDEB THE BOMANS. 339
•till unknown ; fathomed by recent science down to a
certain depth, it is still probably by its destiny unfath-
omable. Even to the end of days, it is pretty certain
that the minutest particle of earth — that a dew-drop
scarcely distinguishable as a separate object — that the
Blend erest filament of a plant — will include withip
itself secrets inaccessible to man. And yet, compareu
with the mystery of man himself, these physical worlds
of mystery are but as a radix of infinity. Chemistry
is in this view mysterious and spinosistically sublime —
that it is the science of the latent in all things, of all
things as lurking in all. Within the lifeless flint,
within the silent pyrites, slumbers an agony of poten-
tial combustion. Iron is imprisoned in blood. With
cold water (as every child is now-a-days aware) you
may lash a fluid into angry ebullitions of heat ; with
hot water, as with the rod of Amram's son, you may
freeze a fluid down to the temperature of the Sarsar
wind, provided only that you regulate the pressure of
the air. The sultry and dissolving fluid shall bake
into a solid, the petrific fluid shall melt into a liquid.
Heat shall freeze, frost shall thaw ; and wherefore ?
Simply because old things are brought together in
new modes of combination. And in endless instances
beside, we see in all elements the same Panlike latency
»f forms and powers, which gives cO the externa]
world a capacity of self-transformation, and of poly-
morphosis absolutely inexhaustible.
But the same capacity belongs to the facts of his-
tory. And I do not mean merely that, from subjective
iifiierences in the minds reviewing them, such facta
ftssurae endless varieties of interpretation and estimate.
340 GBEECE TTXDER THE BOMANS.
but that objectively, from lights stiU increasing in Iha
science of government and of social philosophy, all
the primary facts of history become liable continually
to new presentations, to new combinations, and to
new valuations of their moral relations. I have seen
some kinds of marble, where the veinings happened
to be unusually multiplied, in which human faces,
figures, processions, or fragments of natural scenery,
seemed absolutely illimitable, under the endless valua-
tions or inversions of the order, according to which
they might be combined and grouped. Something
analogous takes effect in reviewing the remote parts of
history. Rome, for instance, has been the object ol
historic pens for twenty centuries (dating from Polybi-
us) ; and yet hardly so much as twenty years have
elapsed since Niebuhr opened upon us almost a new
revelation, by re-combining the same eternal facts, ac-
cording to a different set of principles. The same thing
may be said, though not with the same degree of em-
phasis, upon the Grecian researches of the late Ottfried
Mueller. Egyptian history again, even at this moment,
is seen stealing upon us through the dusky twilight
in its first distinct lineaments. Before Young, Cham-
poUion, Lepsius, and the others who have followed on
their traces in this field of history, all was outer dark-
ness ; and whatsoever we do know or shall know of
.Egyptian Thebes will now be recovered as if from the
unswathing of a mummy. Not until a fhght of three
thousand years has left Thebes the Hekatompylos a
iusky speck in the far distance, have we even begun
to read her annals, or to understand her revolution b.
Another instance I have now before me of this ne^
GREECE UNDEB THE BOMANS. S41
aistoric faculty for resuscitating the buried, and foi
calling back the breath to the frozen features of death,
in Mr. Finlay's work upon the Greeks as related to
the Roman Empire. He presents us with old facts,
but under the purpose of clothing them with a new
iife. He rehearses ancient stories, not with the humble
ambition of better adorning them, of more perspicu-
ously narrating, or even of more forcibly pointing theii
moral, but of extracting from them some new meaning,
and thus forcing them to arrange themselves, under
some latent connection, with other phenomena now
first detected, as illustrations of some great principle
or agency now first revealing its importance. Mr.
Finlay's style of intellect is appropriate to such a task ;
for it is subtle and Machiavelian. But there is this
difficulty in doing justice to the novelty, and at times
I may say with truth to the profundity of his views,
that they are by necessity thrown out in continued
successions of details, are insulated, and, in one word,
sporadic. This follows from the very nature of his
work ; for it is a perpetual commentary on the inci-
dents of Grecian history, from the era of the Roman
conquest to the commencement of what Mr. Finlay,
in a peculiar sense, calls the Byzantine Empire. These
incidents have nowhere been systematically or contin-
uously recorded ; they come forward by casual flashes
m the annals, perhaps, of some church historian, as
,hey happen to connect themselves with his momentary
theme ; or they betray themselves in the embarrassments
of the central government, whether at Rome or at
Constantinople, when arguing at cne time a pestilence,
\t another an insurrection, or at a third an inroad of
342 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.
barbarians. It is not the fault of Mr. Finlay, but hia
great disadvantage, that the affairs of Gree(!e have
been thus discontinuously exhibited, and that its in-
ternal changes of condition have been never treated
except indirectly, and by men aliud agentibus. The
Grecian race had a primary importance on our planet ;
but the Grecian name, represented by Greece consid-
ered as a territory, or as the political seat of the Hel-
lenic people, ceased to have much importance, in tho
eyes of historians, from the time when it became a
conquered province ; and it declined into absolute
insignificance after the conquest of so many otlier
provinces had degraded Hellas into an arithmetical
unit, standing amongst a total amount of figures,
so vast and so much more dazzling to the ordinary
mind. Hence it was that in ancient times no com-
plete history of Greece, through all her phases and
stages, was conspicuously attempted. The greatness
of her later revolutions, simply as changes, would have
attracted the historian ; but, as changes associated
with calamity and loss of power, they repelled his
curiosity, and alienated his interest. It is the very
necessity, therefore, of Mr. Finlay's position, when
coming into such an inheritance, that he must splinter
his philosophy into separate individual notices ; for
the records of history furnish no grounds for more.
Spartam, quam nactus est, ornavit. That ungenial
province, which he has obtained by lot, he has beauti-
fied by his culture and treatment. Bat this does no*
remedy the difficulty for ourselves, in attempting t(
give a representative view of his philosophy. Genera,
ibstractions he had no opportunity for presenting ,
GBKKCE UNDEB THE EOMANS, 343
tonsequently we have no opportunity for valuing ; and,
an the other nand, single cases selected from a sue
session of hundreds, would not justify any representa-
tive criticism, more than the single brick, in the old
anecdote of Hierocles, would serve representatively to
appraise the house.
Under this difficulty as to the possible for myself,
and the just for Mr. Finlay, I shall adopt the follow-
ing course. So far as the Greek people collected
themselves in any splendid manner with the Roman
Empire, they did so with the eastern horn of that
empire, and in point of time from the foundation Oa
Constantinople as an eastern Rome, in the fourth cen-
tury, to a period not fully agreed on ; but for the
moment I will say with Mr. Finlay, up to the early
part of the eighth century. A reason given by Mr.
Finlay for this latter date is, that about that time the
Grecian blood, so widely diffused in Asia, and even in
Africa, became finally detached by the progress of
Mahometanism and Mahometan systems of power,
from all further concurrence or coalition with the viewa
of the Byzantine Caesar. Constantinople was from
that date thrown back more upon its own peculiar
heritage and jurisdiction, of which the main resources
for war and peace lay in Europe, and (speaking by the
narrowest terms) in Thrace. Henceforth, therefore,
for the city and throne of Constantine, resuming its
^Id Grecian name of Byzantium, there succeeded a
theatre less diffusive, a population more concentrated,
% character of action more determinate and jealous, a
<tyle of courtly ccemonial more elaborate as well as
(tit e haughtily repulsive, and universally a systetn o(
344 GREECE TTNBEB THE BOMANS.
interests, as much more definite and selfish, as nught
naturally be looked for in a nation now everywhere
surrounded by new thrones gloomy with malice, and
swelling with the consciousness of youthful power.
This new and final state of the eastern Rome, Mr.
Finlay denominates the Byzantine Empire. Possibly
this use of the term thus limited may be capable of
justification ; but more questions would arise in the
discussion than Mr. Finlay has thought it of importance
to notice. And for the present 1 shall take the word
Byzantine in its most ordinary acceptation, as denoting
the local empire founded by Constantine in Byzantium,
early in the fourth century, under the idea of a trans-
lation from the old western Rome, and overthrown by
the Ottoman Turks in the year 1453. In the fortunes
and main stages of this empire, what are the chief ar-
resting phenomena, aspects, or relations to the greatest
of modern interests ? I select by preference these : —
I. First, this was the earliest among the kingdoms
of our planet which connected itself with Christianity
In Armenia, there had been a previous state recog-
nition of Christianity. But that was neither splendid
nor distinct. Whereas the Byzantine Rome built
avowedly upon Christianity as its own basis, and con-
secrated its own nativity by the sublime act of founding
the first provision ever attempted for the poor, consid-
ered simply as poor (i. e., as objects of pity, not as
instruments of ambition).
II. Secondly, as the great CRgis of western Christen-
dom, nay, the barrier which made it possible that any
Christendom should ever exist, this Byzantine Empire
is entitled to a very different station ir the enlightened
eBEECE UNDEK THE ROMANS. 845
gratitude of us Western Europeans from any which it
has yet held. I do not scruple to say, that, by com-
parison with the services of the Byzantine people to
Europe, no nation on record has ever stood in the
same relation to any other single nation, much less to a
whole family of nations, whether as regards the oppor--
tunity and means of conferring benefits, or as regards the
astonishing perseverance in supporting the succession of
these benefits, or as regards the ultimate event of these
benefits. A great wrong has been done for ages ; for
we have all been accustomed to speak of the Byzantine
Empire with scorn,* as chiefly known by its eff'eminacy ;
and the greater is the call for a fervent palinode.
III. Thirdly, in a reflex way, as the one great danger
which overshadowed Europe for generations, and
against which the Byzantine Empire proved the capital
bulwark, Mahometanism may rank as one of the By-
zantine aspects or counterforces. And if there is any
popular error applying to the history of that great
convulsion, as a political efi"ort for revolutionizing the
world, some notice of it will find a natural place in
connection with these present trains of speculation.
*" With scorn :^' — This has arisen from two causes; one
is the habit of regarding the whole Roman Empire as in its
" decline" from so early a period as thut of Coraraodus ; agree-
ably to which conceit, it would naturally follow that, during
Us latter stages, the Eastern Empire must have been absolutely
lU its dotage. If already declining in the second century, then,
from the tenth to the fifteenth, it must have been paralytic and
iedridden. The other cause may be found in the accidental but
Reasonable hostility of the Byzantine court to the first Crusadera,
K8 also in the disadvantageous comparison with respect to nianlj
rirtues between the simplicity of these western children, audtha
wfined dissimulation of the By zau tinea
346 GKEECE UNDER THE H0MAK8.
Let me, therefore, have permission to throw togethei
a few remarks on these three subjects — 1. On the
remarkable distinction by which the eldest of Christian
rulers proclaimed and inaugurated the Christian basis
of his empire; 2. On the true but forgotten relation
of this great empire to our modern Christendom, under
which idea I comprehend Europe, and reversionally
the whole continent of America ; 3. On the false pre-
tensions of Mahometanism, whether advanced by itself
or by inconsiderate Christian speculators on its behalf.
I shall thus obtain this advantage, that some sort of
unity will be given to my own glances at Mr. Finlay's
theme ; and, at the same time, by gathering under
these general heads any dispersed comments of Mr.
Finlay, whether for confirmation of my own views, or
for any purpose of objection to his, I shall give to
those comments also that kind of unity, by means of
a reference to a common purpose, which I could not
have given them by citing each independently for it-
self.
I. First, then, as to that memorable act by which
Constantinople (i. e., the Eastern Empire) connected
herself forever with Christianity — viz., the recognition
of pauperism as an element in the state entitled to the
maternal guardianship of the state. In this new
principle, introduced by Christianity, we behold a far-
seeing or proleptic wisdom, making provision for evils
before they had arisen ; for it is certain that great
expansions of pauperism did not exist in the ancient
world. A pauper population is a disease peculiar to
vhe modern or Christian world. Various causes latent
m the social systems of the ancients prevented suci
OBEECE UNDEB THE BOMANS. 347
ievelopments of surplus people. But does not this
Mgue a superiority in the social arrangementf of these
ancients ? Not at all ; they were atrociously worse.
They evaded this one morbid affection by means of
others far more injurious to the moral advance of man.
The case was then everywhere as at this day it is in
Persia. A Persian ambassador to London or Paris
might boast that, in his native Iran, no such spectacles
existed of hunger-bitten myriads as may be seen every-
where during seasons of distress in the crowded cities
of Christian Europe. " No," would be the answer,
" most certainly not ; but why ? The reason is, that
your accursed form of society and government inter-
cepts such surplus people, does not suffer them to be
born. What is the result ? You ought, in Persia, to
have three hundred millions of people ; your vast ter-
ritory is easily capacious of that number. You have —
how many have you ? Something less than eight
millions." Think of this, startled reader. But, if
that be a good state of things, then any barbarous
soldier who makes a wilderness is entitled to call
himself a great philosopher and public benefactor.
This is to cure the headache by amputating the head.
Now, the same principle of limitation to population
a parte ante, though not in the same savage excess as
in Mahometan Persia, operated upon Greece and Rome.
The whole Pagan world escaped the evils of redundant
population by vicious repressions of it beforehand.
But under Christianity a new state of things was des-
tined to take eff&>^. Many protections and excitementa
to population were laid in '^he framework of this ne^
'eligion, which, by its new '"ode of rules and impulsea
548 GREECE UNDEB THE HOMANS.
in SO many ways extended the free agency of human
beings. Manufacturing industry was destined first to
arise on any great scale under Christianitj', Except
in Tyre and Alexandria (see the Emperor Hadrian's
account of this last), there was no town or district in
the ancient world where the populace could be said
properly to work. The rural laborers worked a little
-—not much ; and sailors worked a little ; nobody else
worked at all. Even slaves had little more work dis-
tributed amongst each ten than now settles upon one.
And in many other ways, by protecting the principle
of life, as a mysterious sanctity, Christianity has fa-
vored the development of an excessive population,
Tnere it is that Christianity, being answerable for the
mischief, is answerable for its redress. Therefore it
is that, breeding the disease, Christianity breeds the
cure. Extending the vast lines of poverty, Christianity
it was that first laid down the principle of a relief for
poverty. Constantine, the first Christian potentate,
laid the first stone of the mighty overshadowing insti-
tution since reared in Christian lands to poverty, dis-
ease, orphanage, and mutilation. Christian instincts,
moving and speaking through that Caesar, first carried
out that great idea of Christianity. Six years was
Christianity in building Constantinople, and in the
seventh she rested from her labors, saying, " Hence-
forward let the poor man have a haven of rest forever ;
a rest from his work for one day in seven ; a rest from
his anxieties by a legal and fixed relief." Being legal,
it could not be open to disturbances of caprice in the
giver ; being fixed, it was not open to disturbances ol
miscalculation in the receiver. Now, first, whea first
GKEECE TINDER THE K0MAN8. 349
Christianity was installed as a public organ of govern-
ment (and first owned a distinct political responsibility),
did it become the duty of a religion which assumed,
as it were, the official tutelage of poverty, to proclaim
and consecrate that function by some great memorial
precedent. And, accordingly, in testimony of that
obligation, the first Christian Csesar, on behalf of
Christianity, founded the first system of relief for
pauperism. It is true, that largesses from the public
treasury, gratuitous corn, or corn sold at diminished
rates, not to mention the sporlulcB or stated doles of
private Roman nobles, had been distributed amongst
the indigent citizens of Western E,ome for centuries
before Constantine ; but all these bad been the selfish
bounties of factious ambition or intrigue.
To Christianity was reserved the inaugural act of
public charity in the spirit of charity. . We m.ust re-
member that no charitable or beneficent institutions of
any kind, grounded on disinterested kindness, existed
among the Pagan Romans, and still less amongst the
Pagan Greeks. Mr. Coleridge, in one of his lay ser-
mons, advanced the novel doctrine, that in the Scrip-
ture is contained all genuine and profound statesman-
ship. Of course he must be understood to mean, in
its capital principles ; for, as to subordinate and execu-
tive rules for applying such principles, these, doubtless,
are in part suggested by the local circumstances iii
each separate case. Now, amongst the political the-
ories of the Biole is this, that pauperism is ncit aii
fcccident in the constitution of states, but an indefea-
lible necessity ; or, in the Scriptural words, that " th«
Door shall never cease out of the land." This theory,
350 GREECE UNDER IHE ROMANS.
or great canon of social philosophy during many cen-
turies drew no especial attention from philosophers.
It passed for a truism, bearing no particular emphasis
or meaning beyond some general purpose of sanction
to the impulses of charity. But there is good reason
to believe that it slumbered, and was meant to slum-
ber, until Christianity arising and moving forwards
should call it into a new life, as a principle suited to a
new order of things. Accordingly, we have seen of
late that this Scriptural dictum — " The poor shall
never cease out of the land " — has terminated its
career as a truism (that is, as a truth, either obvious
on one hand, or inert on the other), and has Avakened
into a polemic or controversial life. People arose who
took upon them utterly to deny the Scriptural doctrine.
Peremptorily they challenged the assertion, that poverty
must always exist. The Bible said, that it was an af-
fection of human society which could not be extermi-
nated; the economist of 1800 said that it was a foul
disease which must and should be exterminated. The
Scriptural philosophy said, that pauperism was inalien-
able from man's social condition, in the same way that
decay was inalienable from his flesh. " I shall soon see
fAaf," said the economist of 1800, " for as sure as my
name is Malthus, I will have this poverty put down by
law within one generation, if there's a law to be had
in the courts of Westminster." The Scriptures have
left word, that, if any man should come to the national
•anquet, declaring himself iinable to pay nis contribu-
iom, that man should be accounted the guest of Chris-
sanity, and should be privileged to sit at the table its
thankful remembrance of what Christianity had done
GBEECE TTNDEE THE ROMANS. 351
for man But Mr. Malthus left word with all the ser-
vants, that, if any man should present himself undeJ
those circumstances, he was to be told, " the table is
full " {his words, not mine) ; " go away, good man.'*
Go away ! Mr. Malthus ? Whither ? In what direc-
tion?— "Why, if you come to that,'' said the man cf
1800, " to any ditch that he prefers : surely there's
good choice of ditches for the most fastidious taste."
During twenty years — viz., from 1800 to 1820 — ■
this new philosophy, which substituted a ditch for a
dinner, and a paving-stone for a loaf, prevailed and
prospered. At one time it seemed likely enough to
prove a snare to our own aristocracy — the noblest of
all ages. But that peril was averted, and the further
history of the case was this : By the year 1820, much
discussion having passed to and fro, serious doubts
had arisen in many quarters ; scepticism had begun to
arm itself against the sceptic; the economist of 1800
was no longer quite sure of his ground. He was now
suspected of being fallible ; and what seemed of worse
augury, he was beginning himself to suspect as much.
To one capital blunder he was obliged publicly to
plead guilty. What it Avas I shall have occasion to
mention immediately. Meantime it was justly thought
that, in a dispute loaded with such prodigious practical
consequences, good sense and prudence demanded a
more extended inquiry than had yet been instituted.
Whether poverty would e-er cease from the land,
might be doubted by those who balanced their faith in
Scripture against their faiih in the man of 1800. But
this at least could not be dpubted — that as yet pov-
wty had not ceased, nor indeed had made any sensible
852 QEEECE UNDER THE BOMANS.
preparations for ceasing, from any land in Europe. Ii
was a clear case, therefore, that, howsoever Europe
might please to dream upon the matter, when pauper-
ism should have reached that glorious euthanasy pre-
dicted by the alchemist of old and the economist ol
1800, for the present she must deal actively with her
own pauperism on some avowed plan and principle,
good or evil — gentle or harsh. Accordingly, along
the line of years between 1820 and 1830, inquiries
were made through our consuls of every state in Eu-
rope, what were those plans and principles. For it
was justly said — " As one step towards judging
rightly of our own system, now that it has been so
clamorously challenged for a bad sj'stem, let us learn
what it is that other nations think upon the subject,
but above all what it is that they do." The answers to
our many inquiries varied considerably ; and some
amongst the most enlightened nations appear to have
adopted the good old plan of laissez faire, giving
nothing from any public fund to the pauper, but au-
thorizing him to levy contributions on that gracious
allegoric lady, Private Charity, wherever he could meet
her taking the air with her babes. This reference ap-
peared to be the main one in reply to any application
of the pauper ; and for all the rest they referred him
generally to the " ditch," or to his own unlimited
choice of ditches, according to the approved method
f public benevolence published in 4to and in 8vo by
the man of 1800. But there were other and humbler
states in Europe, whose very pettiness had brought
more tully within their vision the whole machinery
Vi^ watciwork of pauperism, as it acted and leactei
GREECE TTNDEB THE KOKAKS, 353
on the industrious poverty of the land, and on other
interests, by means of the system adopted in relieving
it. From these states came many interesting reports,
all tending to some good purpose. But at last, and
before the year 1830, amongst other results of more
or less value, three capital points were established, not
more decisive for the justification of the English sys-
tem in administering national relief to paupers, and of
all systems that reverenced the authority of Scripture,
than they were for the overthrow of Mr. Malthus, the
man of 1800. These three points are worthy of being
ased as buoys in mapping out the true channels, or
indicating the breakers on this difficult line of navi-
gation ; and I now rehearse them. They may seem
plain almost to obviousness ; but it is enough that
they involve all the disputed questions of the case.
First, that, in spite of the assurances from econo-
mists, no progress whatever had been made by Eng-
land, or by any state in this world, which lent any
sanction to the hope of ever eradicating poverty from
society.
Secondly, that, in absolute contradiction to the
whole hypothesis relied on by Malthus and his breth-
ren, in its most fundamental doctrine, a legal provision
for poverty did not act as a bounty on marriage. There
went to Avreck the oasis of the Malthus philosophy.
The experience of England, where the trial had been
made on the largest scale, was decisive on this point ;
and the opposite experience (^f Ireland, under the op-
Dosite circumstances, was equally decisive. And this
result had made itself so clear by 1820, that even
Malthus (as I have already noticed by anticipation":
23
S54 GKEECB ITITSEB THE BOMAXS.
was compelled to publish a recantation as to this par-
ticular error, which in effect was a recantation of hit
entire theory.
Thirdly, that, according to the concurring experience
of all the most enlightened states in Christendom,
the public suffered least (not merely in molestation,
but in money), pauperism benefited most, and the
growth of pauperism was retarded most, precisely as
the provision for the poor had been legalized as to its
obligation, and fixed as to its amount. Left to indi-
vidual discretion, the burden was found to press most
unequally ; and, on the other hand, the evil itself ol
pauperism, whilst much less effectually relieved, never-
theless, through the irregular action of this relief, was
much more powerfully stimulated.
Such is the abstract of our latest public warfare on
this great question through a period of nearly fifty
years. And the issue is this : starting from the con-
temptuous defiance of the Scriptural doctrine upon the
necessity of making provision for poverty as an indis-
pensable element in civU communities {the poor shall
never cease out of the land), the economy of the age
has lowered its tone by graduated descents, in each
one successively of the four last decennia. The phi-
losophy of the day, as to this point at least, is at length
in coincidence with Scripture. And thus the very ex-
tensive researches of this nineteenth century, as to
pauperism, have reacted with the effect of a full justi-
fication upon Constantino's attempt to connect the
tbundation of his empire with that new theory o
Christianity upon the imperishableness of poverty
And upon the duties corresponding to it.
GBEECE UNDER THE ROMANS, 355
Meantime, Mr. Finlay denies that Christianity had
been raised by Constantine into the religion of the
state , and others have denied that, in the extensive
money privileges conceded to Constantinople, he con-
templated any but political principles. As to the first
point, I apprehend that Constantine will be found not
so much to have shrunk back from fear of installing
Christianity in the seat of supremacy, as to have di-
verged in policy from our modern methods of such an
installation. My own belief is, that, according to hi>
notion of a state religion, he supposed himself to have
conferred that distinction upon Christianity. With
respect to the endowments and privileges of Constan-
tinople, they were various ; some lay in positive dona-
tions, others in immunities and exemptions ; some,
again, %vere designed to attract strangers, others to
attract nobles from old Rome. But, with fuller oppor-
tunities for pursuing that discussion, I think it might
be possible to show, that, in more than one of his
institutions and his decrees, he had contemplated the
special advantage of the poor considered as poor ; and
that, next after the august distinction of having found-
ed the Christian throne, he had meant to challenge
and fix the gaze of future ages upon this glorious pre-
tension— viz., that he first had executed the Scriptural
injunction to make a provision for the poor, as an
order of society that by laws immutable should "never
cease out of the land."
II. Let me advert to the value and functions of
Constantinople as the tutelary genius of western or
Jawnirg Christianity.
The history of Constantinople, or more generally
856 GREECE TTNDEB THE ROMANS.
of the eastern Roman Empire, wears a peciliar in-
terest to the children of Christendom ; and for two
separate reasons — first, as being the narrow isthmus
or bridge which connects the two continents of ancient
and modern history, and that is a philosophic interest ;
but, secondly, which in the very highest degree is a
practical interest, as the record of our earthly salvation
from Mahometanism. On two horns was Europe as-
saulted by the Moslems : first, last, and through the
largest tract of time, on the horn of Constantinople ;
there the contest raged for more than eight hundred
years ; and by the time that the mighty bulwark fell
(1453), Vienna and other cities near the Danube had
found leisure for growing up ; Hungary had grown
up ; Poland had grown up ; so that, if one range of
Alps had slowly been surmounted, another had now
embattled itself against the westward progress of the
Crescent. On the westward horn, in France, but hy
Germans, once for all Charles Martel had arrested the
progress of the fanatical Moslem almost in a single bat-
tle ; certainly a single generation saw the whole danger
dispersed, inasmuch as within that space the Saracens
were effectually forced back into their Spanish lair.
This demonstrates pretty forcibly the diflFerence of the
Mahometan resources as applied to the western and
the eastern struggle. To throw the whole weight of
that difference, a difference in the result as between
eight centuries and thirty years, upon the mere differ-
ence of energy in German and Byzantine forces, as
though the first did, by a rapturous fervor, in a few
revolutions of summer, what the other had protracted
through nearly a millennium, is a representation whick
OBEECE irXBEB THX BOHANS. 357
iefeats itself by its own extravagance. To prove too
much, is more dangerous than to prove too little.
The fact is, that vast armies and mighty nations were
continually disposable for the war upon the city of
Constantino; nations had time to arise in juvenile
vigor, to grow old and superannuated, to melt away,
and totally to disappear, in that long struggle on the
Hellespont and Propontis. It was a struggle which
might often intermit and slumber ; armistices there
might be, truces, or unproclaimed suspensions of war
out of mutual exhaustion ; but peace there could not
be, because any resting from the duty of hatred between
races that reciprocally seemed to lay the foundations
of their creed in a dishonoring of God, was impossible
to aspiring human nature. Malice and mutual hatred,
I repeat, became a duty in those circumstances. Why
had they begun to fight ? Personal feuds there had
been none between the parties. For the early caliphs
did not conquer Syria and other vast provinces of the
Roman Empire, because they had a quarrel with the
Caesars who represented Christendom ; but, on the
contrary, they had a quarrel with the Csesars because
they had conquered Syria ; or, at the most, the con-
quest and the feud (if not always lying in that exact
succession as cause and effect) were joint effects from
a common cause, which cause was imperishable as
death or the ocean, and as deep as are the fountains of
life. Could the ocean be altered by a sea-fight, or
the atmosphere be tainted forever by an earthquake ?
As little could any single reign or its events affect the
feud of the Moslem and the Christian ; a feud which
tould not cease unless God could change, or unlcM
358 GREECE iriTDEK THE ROMANS.
man (becoming careless of spiritual things) should sins
to the level of a brute.
These are considerations of great importance in
weighing the value of the Eastern Empire. If the
cause and interest of Islamism, as against Christianity,
were undying, then we may be assured that the Moor-
ish infidels of Spain did not reiterate their trans-
Pyrenean expeditions after one generation — simply
because they could not. But we know that on the
south-eastern horn of Europe they could, upon the
plain argument that for many centuries they did.
Over and above this, I am of opinion that the Sara-
cens were unequal to the sort of hardships bred by
cold climates ; and there lay another repulsion for
Saracens from France, &c., and not merely the Carlo-
vingian sword. We children of Christendom show
our innate superiority to the children of the Orient
upon this scale or tariff of acclimatizing powers. We
travel as wheat travels, through all reasonable ranges
jf temperature ; they, like rice, can migrate only to
warm latitudes. They cannot support our cold, but
we can support the countervailing hardships of their
heat. This cause alone would have weatherbound the
Mussulmans forever within the Pyrenean cloisters.
Mussulmans in cold latitudes look as much out of their
element as sailors on horseback. Apart from which
cause, we see that the fine old Visigothic races in
Spain found their full employment up to the reign of
Ferdinand and Isabella, which reign first created a
kingdom of Spain ; in that reign the whole fabric of
their power thawed away, and. was confounded with
forgotten things. Columbus, according to a local tra>
QBEECE TTKDEB THE B0MAN8. 359
lition, was personally present at some of the latter
campaigns in Grenada : he saw the last of them. So
that the discovery of America may be used as a con-
vertible date with that of extinction for the Saracen
power in western Europe. True, that the overthrow
of Constantinople had forerun this event by nearly
half-a-century. But then I insist upon the different
proportions of the struggle. Whilst in Spain a
province had fought against a province, all Asia mili-
tant had fought against the eastern Roman Empire.
Amongst the many races whom dimly we descry in
those shadowy hosts, tilting for ages in the vast plains
of Angora, are seen latterly pressing on to the van
two mighty powers, the children of Persia and the
Ottoman family of the Turks. Upon these nations —
the one heretical, the other orthodox, and more accu-
rately Mahometan than Mahomet, both now rapidly
decaying — the faith of Mahomet has ever leaned as
upon her eldest sons ; and these powers, both the
right and the wrong, the Byzantine Caesars had to face
in every phasis of Moslem energy, as it revolved from
perfect barbarism, through semi-barbarism, to that
crude form of civilization which Mahometans can sup-
port. And through all these transmigrations of their
power, we must remember that they were under a
martial training and discipline, never suffered to be-
come effeminate. One set of warriors after another
did, it is true, become effeminate in Persia : but, upon
that advantage opening, always ano.her set stepped in
from Torkistan or from the Imaus> The nation, aa
individ tals, melted away ; the Moslem armies •were
knmortai.
560 OBEECE TTKDEB THE BOMANS.
Here, therefore, it is, and standing at this point of
my review, that I complain of Mr. Finlay's too facile
compliance with historians far beneath himself. He
throws away his own advantages : oftentimes his com-
mentaries on the past are ebullient with subtlety ; and
his fault strikes me as lying even in the excess of his
sagacity applying itself too often to a basis of facts,
quite insufficient for supporting the superincumbent
weight of his speculations. But in the instance before
us he surrenders himself too readily to the ordinary
current of history. How would he like it, if he hap-
pened to be a Turk himself, finding his nation thus
implicitly undervalued ? For clearly, in undervaluing
the Byzantine resistance, he does undervalue the Ma-
hometan assault. Advantages of local situation cannot
eternally make good the deficiencies of man. If the
Byzantines (being as weak as historians would represent
them) yet for ages resisted the whole impetus of Ma-
hometan Asia, then it follows, either that the Crescent
was correspondingly weak, or that, not being weak, she
must have found the Cross pretty strong. The fecit
of history does not here correspond with the numerical
items.
Nothing has ever surprised me more, I will frankly
own, than this coincidence of authors in treating the
Byzantine Empire as feeble and crazy. On the con-
trary, to me it is clear that some secret and preter-
natural strength it must have had, lurking where the
eye of man did not in those days penetrate, or by what
miracle did it undertake our universal Christian cause
fight for us all, keep the waters open from freezing xu
ttp, and through nine centuries prevent the ice of Ma»
0&££CE I^KDEB THE BOMAKS. 361
Bometanism from closing over our heads forever ? Yet
does Mr. Finlay describe this empire as laboring, in
A.. D. 623, equally with Persia, under " internal weak-
ness," and as " equally incapable of offering any popu-
lar or national resistance to an active or enterprising
enemy." In this Mr. Finlay does but agree with other
able writers ; but he and they shoxild have recollected,
that hardly had that very year 623 departed, even yet
the knell of its last hour was sounding upon the winds,
when this effeminate empire had occasion to show that
she could clothe herself with consuming terrors, as a
belligerent both defensive and aggressive. In the ab-
sence of her great emperor,* and of the main imperial
forces, the golden capital herself, by her own resources,
routed and persecuted into wrecks a Persian army that
had come down upon her by stealth and a fraudulent
circuit. Even at that same period, she advanced into
Persia mo^e than a thousand miles from her own me-
tropolis in Europe, under the blazing ensigns of the
Cross, kicked the crown of Persia to and fro like a
tennis-ball, upset the throne of Artaxerxes, counter-
signed haughtily the elevation of a new Basileus more
friendly to herself, and then recrossed the Tigris home-
vards, after having torn forcibly out of the heart and
palpitating entrails of Persia whatever trophies that
empire had formerly, in her fire-worshipping stage,
wrested from herself. These were not the acts of an
effeminate kingdom. In the language of Wordsworth
we may say —
" All pcwer was given her m the dreadful trance;
Infidel kings she wither 'd like a flame."
• Heracltus ; which name ought not to have the stress laid oo
tfie antepenultimate i^rac), but on the penultimate (i)
362 GREECE UNDEE THE ROMANS.
Indeed, no image that I remember can do justice to
the first of these acts, except that Spanish legend oi
the Cid, which tells us that, long after the death of the
mighty cavalier, when the children of those Moors who
had fled from his face whilst living were insulting the
marble statue above his grave, suddenly the statue
raised its right arm, stretched out its marble lance, and
drifted the heathen dogs like snow. The mere sanc-
tity of the Christian champion's sepulchre was its own
protection ; and so we must suppose that, when the
Persian hosts came by surprise upon Constantinople — •
her natural protector being absent by three months'
march — simply the golden statues of the mighty
Caesars, half rising on their thrones, must have caused
that sudden panic which dissipated the danger. Hardly
fifty years later, Mr. Finlay well knows that Con.'»tanti-
nople again stood an assault — not from a Persian
hourrah or tempestuous surprise, but from a vast expe-
dition, armaments by land and sea, fitted out elaborately
in the early noontide of Mahometan vigor — and that
assault also, in the presence of the caliph and the cres-
cent, was gloriously discomfited. Now if, in the mo-
ment of triumph, some voice in the innumerable crowd
had cried out, " How long shall this great Chri?tian
breakwater, against which are shattered into surge and
foam all the mountainous billows of idolaters and mis-
believers, stand up on behalf of infant Christendom ? "
Rnd if from the clouds some trumpet of prophecy had
■eplied, " Even yet for eight hundred years ! " could
fcny man have persuaded himself that such a fortress
%gaiust such antagonists — such a monument agains*
»uch a millennium of fury — was to be classec
OBEECE UNDER THK ROMANS. 363
unongst the weak things of the earth ? This oriental
Rome, it is true, equally with Persia, was liable to
sudden inroads and incursions. But the difference was
this — Persia was strongly protected in all ages by the
»vilderness on her main western frontier ; if this were
passed, and a hand-to-hand conflict succeeded, where
light cavalry or fugitive archers could be of little value,
the essential weakness of the Persian Empire then be-
trayed itself. Her sovereign was then assassinated,
and peace was obtained from the condescension of the
invader. But the enemies of Constantinople — Goths,
Avars, Bulgarians, or even Persians — were strong
only by their weakness. Being contemptible, they
were neglected ; being chased, tuey made no stand ;
being prostrate, they capitulated ; and thus only they
escaped. They entered like thieves by means of dark-
ness, and escaped like sheep by means of dispersion.
But, if caught, they were annihilated. No ; 1 resume
ray thesis ; I close this head by reiterating my cor-
rection of history ; I re-affirm my position, that in
Eastern Home lay the salvation of western and central
f^urope ; in Constantinople and the Propontis lay the
tine qua non condition of any future Christendom.
Emperor and people must have done their duty ; the
result, the vast extent of generations surmounted,
furnish the triumphant demonstration. Finally, in-
deed, they fell, king and people, shepherd and flock ;
Sut by that time their mission was fulflllcd. And
doubtless, as the noble Pa,lieologus lay on heaps of
tarnage, with his noble people, as life was ebbing
way, a voice from heaver, sounded iu his ears the
^reat words of the Hebrew prophet, "Behold! yofb
WORK IS done; your warfare is accomplished.''
364 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.
III. Such, then, being the unmerited disparagemeat
Df the Byzantine government, and so great the ingrati-
tude of later Christendom to that sheltering power
ander which themselves enjoyed the leisure of a
thousand years for knitting and expanding into strong
nations ; on the other hand, what is to be thought of
the Saracen anti- Byzantines ? Everywhere it has
passed for a lawful postulate, that the Saracen con-
quests prevailed, half by the feebleness of the Roman
government at Constantinople, and half by the preter-
natural energy infused into the Arabs :y their false
prophet and legislator. In either of its faces, this
theory is falsified by a steady review of facts. With
regard to the Saracens, Mr. Finlay thinks, as I do,
and argues, that they prevailed through the local, or
sometimes the casual, weakness of their immediate
enemies, and rarely through any strength of their own.
We must remember one fatal weakness of the imperial
administration in those days, not due to men or to
principles, but entirely to nature and the slow growth
of scientific improvements — viz., the difficulties of
locomotion. As respected Syria, Egypt, Cyrenaica,
and so on to the most western provinces of Africa,
the Saracens had advantages for moving rapidly which
.he Caesar had not. But is not a water movement
speedier than a land movement, which for an army
Dever has much exceeded fourteen miles a-day ?
Certainly it is ; but in this case there were two des-
perate defects in tlie imperial control over that water
service. To use a fleet, you must have a fleet ; but
their whole naval interest had been starved by the
Intolerable costs of the Persian war. Immense ha<?
GREECE TTNDEE THE BOMAKS. 305
been the expenses of Heradius. and annually decaying
had been his Asiatic revenues. Secondly, the original
position of the Arabs had been better than that of the
emperor in every stage of the warfare which so sud-
denly arose. In Arabia the Arabs stood nearest to
Syria, in Syria nearest to Egypt, in Egypt nearest to
Cyrenaica. What reason had there been for expecting
a martial legislator at that moment in Arabia, who
should fuse and sternly combine her distracted tribes ?
What blame, therefore, to Heraclius, that Syria — the
first object of assault, being also by much the weakest
part of the empire, and immediately after the close of
a desolating war — should in four campaigns be found
indefensible ? We must remember the unexampled
abruptness of the Arabian revolution. The year sis
hundred and twenty-two, by its very name of Hegira,
does not record a triumph, but a humiliation. In that
year, therefore, and at the very moment when Hera
clius was entering upon his long Persian struggle,
Mahomet was yet prostrate, and his destiny was
doubtful. Eleven years after — viz., in six hundred
and thirty-three — the prophet was dead and gone;
but his Jirst successor was already in Syria as a con-
queror. Such had been the velocity of events. The
.Persian war had then been finished by three years,
but the exhaustion of the empire had perhaps, at
that moment, reached its maximum. I am satisfied
►hat ten years' repose from this extreme state of col-
apse would have shown us another result. Even as
t was, and caught at *his enormous disadvantage,
Heraclius taught the robbers to tremble, and would
nave exterminated them, if not bafiled by two irremedi-
i}66 GREECE XTNDER THE ROMANS.
able calamities, neither of them due to any act or
neglect of his own. The first lay in the treason of
his lieutenants. The governors of Damascus, of
Aleppo, of Emesa, of Bostra, of Kinnisrin, all proved
traitors. The root of this evil lay, probably, in the
disorders following the Persian invasion, which had
made it the perilous interest of the emperor to appoint
great oiRcers from amongst those who had a local
influence. Such persons it might have been ruinous
too suddenly to set aside ; as, in the event, it proved
ruinous to employ them. A dilemma of this kind,
offering but a choice of evils, belonged to the nature
of any Persian war ; and that particular war was be-
queathed to Heraclius by the management of his prede-
cessors. The second calamity was even more fatal;
't lay in the composition of the Syrian population, and
its original want of vital cohesion. For no purpose:
could this population be united ; they formed a rope
of sand. There was the distraction of religion — Jaco-
bites, Nestorians, &c. ; there was the distraction of
races — slaves and masters, conquered and conquerors,
modern intruders mixed, but not blended with, aborig-
inal mountaineers. Property became the one principle
and ground of choice between the two governments.
Where was protection to be had for that ? Barbarous
as were the Arabs, they saw their present advantage.
Often it would happen from the position of the armies,
that they could, whilst the emperor could not, guaran-
tee the instant security of land or of personal treas-
ures ; the Arabs could also promise, sometimes, even e
total immunity from taxes ; generally a diminished
»cale of taxation ; always a remission of arrears ; none
GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.
367
if which accessions conld be listened to by the em-
peror, partly on account of the public necessities,
partly from jealousy of establishing operative prece-
dents. For religion, again, protection was more easily
obtained in that day from the Arab, who made war on
Christianity, than from the Byzantine emperor, who
was its champion. What were the different sects
and subdivisions of Christianity to the barbarian ?
Monophysite, Monothelite, Eutychian, or Jacobite, all
were to him as the scholastic disputes of noble and in-
tellectual P2urope to the camps of gipsies. The Arab
felt himself to be the depositary of one sublime truth,
the unity of God. His mission, therefore, was prin-
cipally against idolaters. Yet even to them his policy
was to sell toleration of idolatry and Polytheism for
tribute. Clearly, as Mr. Finlay hints, this was merely
a provisional moderation, meant to be laid aside when
sufficient power was obtained ; and it was laid aside,
in after ages, by many a wretch like Timor or Nadir
Shah. Keligion, therefore, and property once secured,
what more had the Syrians to seek ? And if to these
advantages for the Saracens we add the fact, that a
considerable Arab population was dispersed through
Syria, who became so many emissaries, spies, and
decoys in the service of their countrymen, it does
great honor to the emperor, that through so many
campaigns he should at all have maintained his ground ;
and this at last he resigned only under the despon-
dency caused by almost universal treachery.
'Die vSaracens, therefore, had no great merit even in
It.sir earliest exploits ; and the impetus of their move-
oaent forwards, that principle of proselytism which
868 GEEECE UNDER THE K0MAN8.
carried them so strongly " ahead " through a few gen«
erations, was very soon brought to a stop. Mr. Finlay,
in my mind, does right to class these harbarians aa
" socially and politically little better than the Gothic,
Hunnish, and Avar monarchies." But, on considera-
tion, the Gothic monarchy embosomed the germs of a
noble civilization ; whereas the Saracens have never
propagated great principles :{ any kind, nor attained
even a momentary grandeur in their institutions, ex-
cept where coalescing with a higher or more ancient
civilization .
Meantime, ascending from the earliest Mahometans
to their prophet, what are we to think of hi?>i 7 Was
Mahomet a great man ? I think not. The case was
thus : the Arabian tribes had long stood ready, like
dogs held in a leash, for a start after distant game.
It was not Mahomet who gave them that impulse.
But next, what was it that hindered the Arab tribes
from obeying the impulse? Simply this, that they
were always in feud with each other ; so that their
expeditions, beginning in harmony, were sure to break
up in anger on the road. What they needed was
Bome one grand compressing and unifying principle,
Buch as the Roman found in the destinies of his city.
True ; but this, you say, they found in the sublime
principle that God was one, and had appointed them
to be the scourges of all who denied it. Their mission
was to cleanse the earth from Polytheism ; and, a*
ambassadors from God, to tell the nations — " Ye
shall have no other Gods but me." That was grand;
and thai surely they had from Mahomet? Perhaps so •
but where did he get it ? He stole it from the Jewisl
GKEECE TTXDER THE KOMANS. 36S
Scriptures, and from the Scriptures no less than from
the traditions of the Christians. Assuredly, then, the
first projecting impetus was not impressed upon Islam-
ism by Mahomet. This lay in a revealed truth ; and
by Mahomet it was furtively translated to his own use
from those oracles which held it in keeping. But
possibly, if not the principle of motion, yet at least
the steady conservation of this motion was secured to
Isl&mism by jMahomet. Granting (you will say) that
the launch of this religion might be due to an alien
inspiration, yet still the steady movement onwards of
this religion, through some centuries, might be due
exclusively to the code of laws bequeathed by Mahomet
in the Koran. And this has been the opinion of many
European scholars. They fancy that Mahomet, how-
ever worldly and sensual as the founder of a pretended
revelation, was wise in the wisdom of this world ; and
that, if ridiculous as a prophet (which word,* how-
ever, did not mean foreteller, but simply revealer of
truth), he was worthy of veneration as a statesman.
He legislated well and presciently, they imagine, for
the interests of a remote posterity. Now, upon that
question let us hear Mr. Finlay. He, when comment-
ing upon the steady resistance offered to the Saracens
* I have already (viz , in the paper on " Oracles ") had oc-
casion to notice the erroneous limitation of the word Prophecy.
a.s if it meant only, or chiefly, that revelation ■which draws away
the veil of futurity. But in the great cardinal proposition of
Islamism this correction is broadly enunciated — There is one
frod, and Mahomet is his Prophet. Now, in tlie narrow sense
»f prediction, Mahomet disclaimed tiie gift of proph«H;y as mudr
la of miracles.
B70 GBEECE UNDER IHK ROMANS.
by the African Christians of the seventh and eighth
centuries — a resistance which terminated disastrouslj
for both sides - - the poor Christians being extermi-
nated, and the Moslem invaders being robbed of an
indigenous working population, naturally inquires
what it was that led to so tragical a result. The
Christian natives of these provinces were, in a political
condition, little favorable to belligerent efforts ; and
there cannot be much doubt that, with any -wisdom oi
any forbearance on the part of the intruders, both
parties might soon have settled down into a pacific
compromise of their feuds. Instead of this, the scim-
itar was invoked and worshipped as the sole possible
arbitrator ; and truce there was none, until the silence
of desolation brooded over those once fertile fields.
How savage was the fanaticism, and how blind the
wordly wisdom, which could have co-operated to such
a result ! The cause must have lain in the unaccom-
modating nature of the Mahometan institutions, in the
bigotry of the Mahometan leaders, and in the defect
of expansive views on the part of their legislator.
He had not provided even for other climates than
that of his own sweltering sty in the Hedjas, or for
manners more polished, or for institutions more philo-
sophic, than those of his own sun-baked Ishmaelites.
" The construction of the political government of the
Saracen Empire," says Mr. Finlay, " was imperfect,
and shows that Mahomet had neither contemplatcv:
extensive foreign conquests, nor devoted the energies
of his powerful mind to the consideration of the ques
tions of administration which would arise out of the
iifficul't task of ruling a numerous and wealthy popnla
GKEECE TTNDEB THE ROMANS. 371
tion, possessed of property, but deprived of equal rights."
Hu then shows how the whole power of the state settled
into the hands of a chief priest — systematically irre-
sponsible. When, therefore, that mcmentary state of
responsibility had passed away from the Mahometans,
which was created (like the state of martial law) " by
national feelings, military companionship, anJ exalted
enthusiasm," the administration of the caliphs became
" far more oppressive than that of the Koman empire."
It is in fact an insult to the majestic Romans, if we
should place them seriously in the balance with savages
like the Saracens. The Romans were essentially the
leaders of civilization, according to the possibilities
then existing ; for their earliest usages and social
forms involved a high civilization, whilst promising a
higher : whereas all Moslem nations have described
a petty arch of national civility — soon reaching its
apex, and rapidly barbarizing backwards. This fatal
gravitation towards decay and decomposition in Ma-
hometan institutions, which at this day exhibit to the
gaze of mankind one uniform spectacle of Mahometan
ruins, all the great Moslem nations being already in a
Strulhrug* state, and held erect only by the colossal
support of Christian powers, could not, as a reversion-
* To any reader who happens to be illiterate, or not extensivelj
Informed, it may be proper to explain, that Strulbruf/s were a
ereation of Dean Swift. They were people in an imaginary
world, who were afraid of dying ; and who had the privilege of
ingering on through centuries when they ought to Jiave been
lead and buried, but suffering al. the evils of utter superan-
nuation and decay ; having a bare glimmering of semi-con-
leiousness, but otherwise in the condition of mere vegetables.
372 OBEECE UNDER THE BOICANS.
ary evil, have been healed by the Arabian prophet.
His own religious principles would have prevented
that, for they offer a permanent bounty on sensuality ;
BO that every man who serves a Mahometan state
faithfully and brilliantly at twenty-five, is incapacitated
at thirty-five for any further service, by the very na-
ture of the rewards which he receives from the state.
Within a very few years, every public servant is usu-
ally emasculated by that unlimited voluptuousness
which equally the Moslem princes and the common
Prophet of all Moslems countenance as the proper
object, and indeed the sole object, of human pursuit,
not on earth only, but in the future of paradise.
Here is the mortal ulcer of Islamism, which can never
cleanse itself from death and the odor of death. A
political ulcer would or might have found restora-
tion for itself ; but this ulcer is higher and deeper : —
it lies in the religion, which is incapable of reform : it
is an ulcer reaching as high as the paradise which
Islamism promises, and deep as the hell which it
creates. I repeat, that Mahomet could not effectually
have neutralized a poison which he himself had intro-
duced into the circulation and life-blood of his Moslem
economy. The false prophet was forced to reap as he
had sown. But an evil, which is certain, may be
retarded ; and ravages, which tend finally to confusion
may be limited for many generations. Now, in the
case of the African provincials which I have noticed,
<ve observe an original incapacity in Islamism, even at
its meridian altitude, for amalgamating with any supe-
rior (and therefore any Christian) culture. And the
ipeciflc action of Mahometanism in the African case
OBEECE T7NDEK THE K0MAX8. 373
»8 contrasted with the Roman economy wMch it sup-
planted, is thus exhibited by Mr. Finlay in a most
instructive passage, where every negation on the Ma-
hometan side is made to suggest the countervailing
positive usage on the side of the Romans. O children
of Romulus ! how noble do you appear, when thus
abruptly contrasted with the wild boars that desolated
your vineyards ! " No local magistrates elected by
the people, and no parish priests connected by their
feelings and interests both with their superiors and
inferiors, bound society together by common ties ; and
no system of legal administration, independent of the
military and financial authorities, preserved the prop-
erty of the people from the rapacity of the govern-
ment."
Such, we are to understand, was not the Mahometan
system ; such had been the system of Rome. " So-
cially and politically," proceeds the passage, " the
Saracen empire was little better than the Gothic,
Hunnish, and Avar monarchies ; and that it proved
more durable, with almost equal oppression, is to be
attributed to the powerful enthusiasm of Mahomet's
religion, which tempered for some time its avarice and
tyranny." The same sentiment is repeated still more
emphatically at p. 468 : — " The political policy of the
Saracens was of itself utterly barbarous ; and it only
taught a passing gleam of justice from the religious
feeling of their prophet's doctrines."
Thus far, therefore, it appears that Mahometanisia
is not much indebted to its too famous founder ; it
owes to him a principle — viz., the unity of God —
vhich, merely through a capital blurder, it fancies yy
874 GREECE UNDER THE ROMANS.
culiar to itself. Nothing but the grossest ignorance in
Mahomet, nothing but the grossest non-acquaintance
with Greek authors on the part of the Arabs, could
have created or sustained the delusion current amongst
that illiterate people — that it was themselves only
who rejected Polytheism. Had but one amongst the
personal enemies of Mahomet been acquainted with
Greek, there was an end of the new religion in the
first moon of its existence. Once open the eyes of
the Arabs to the fact, that Christians had anticipated
them in this great truth of the divine unity, and Ma-
hometanism could only have ranked as a subdivision
of Christianity. Mahomet would have ranked only as
a Christian heresiarch or schismatic ; such as Nestorius
or Marcian at one time, such as Arius or Pelagius at
another. In his character of theologian, therefore,
Mahomet was simply the most memorable of blunder-
ers, supported in his blunders by the most unlettered *
of nations. In his other character of legislator, we
have seen that already the earliest stages of Mahometan
experience exposed decisively his ruinous imbecility.
Where a rude tribe offered no resistance to his system,
for the simple reason that their barbarism suggested
no motive for resistance, it could be no honor to pre-
vail. And where, on the other hand, a higher civiliza-
* "Most unlettered: " — Viz., at the era of Mahomet. Siib-
»equently, under the encouragement of great caliphs, thoy De-
came confessedly a learned people. But this cannot disturb th«
Bublime character of their ignorance, at that earliest period when
this ignorance was an indispensable co-operating element witk
the plagiarisms of Mahomet, or the generation of a new reli
GREECE TTNDEK THE E0MAN8. 37o
lion had furnished strong points of repulsion to hia
system, it appears plainly that this pretended apostle
of social improvements had devised or hinted no readier
mode of conciliation, than by putting to the sword all
dissentients. He starts as a theological reformer, with
a fancied defiance to the world which was no defianco
at all, being exactly what Christians had believed for
six centuries, and Jews for six-and-twenty. He startg
as a political reformer, with a fancied conciliation to the
world, which was no conciliation at all, but was sure
to provoke imperishable hostility wheresoever it had
any effect at all.
I have thus reviewed some of the more spleivC
aspects connected with Mr. Finlay's theme ; hv..^ ^
theme, in its entire compass, is worthy of a far . . ^^
extended investigation than my own limits will allo^
or than the historical curiosity of the world (misdirected
here, as in so many other cases) has hitherto demanded.
Ttie Greek race, suffering a long occultation under the
blaze of the Roman Empire, into which for a time i;
had been absorbed, but again emerging from this blaze
and re-assuming a distinct Greek agency and influence,
offers a subject great by its own inherent attractions.
and separately interesting by the unaccountable neg-
lect which it has suffered. To have overlooked this
Bubject, is one amongst the capital oversights of Gib-
bon. To have rescued it from utter oblivion, and to
have traced an outline for its better illumination, is the
peculiar merit of Mr. Finlay. His greatest fault is —
kt have been careless or slovenly in the nicetie? of
■dassical and philological precision. IJis greatest yraise,
»nd a very great one indeed, is — to have thrqwn the
376 GREECE XTNDEK IHE ROMANS.
light of an original philosophic sagacity upon a neg-
lected province of history, indispensable to the arrott'
dissement of Paganism in its latest stages, and of anti-
[ Paganism in its earliest.
of ^
a Chri^
or M
BUl
this 1^
the piaj.
jion.
PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
Few, even amongst literary people, are aware lI
the true place occupied by Herodotus in universal
literature ; secondly, 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
civilization. We endeavor in these words to catch,
as in a net, the gross prominent faults of his appre-
ciation ; 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 col-
lisions 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 specu-
lated 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 wc look up to, the pavilion of the sky, the sun,
178 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
he moon, the atmospliere. with its climates and Its
Rrinds ; or in this home which we inherit, the earth,
,vith its hills and rivers — Herodotus ought least of
ill to be classed amongst historians : that is but a sec-
ondary title for him ; he deserves to be rated as the
leader amongst philosophical polyphistors, which is
the nearest designation to that of encyclopaedist cur-
rent in the Greek literature. And yet is not this word
incyclopcedist much lower than his ancient name —
father of history? Doubtless it is no great distinction
U present to be an encyclopaedist, which is often but
mother name for bookmaker, craftsman, mechanic,
journeyman, in his meanest degeneration ; yet in those
jarly days, when the timid muse of science had scarce-
ly ventured sandal deep into waters so unfathomable,
it seems to us a great thing indeed, that one young
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, »/ olxov^ivi], 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
Lmds 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 con-
sequent upon the foundation of the Persian Enpire,
had approximated the whole world of civiliiiation,
First came the conquest of Kgypt by the secc id o
rmi.osorHY of hekodoius. 379
the new emperors. This event, had it stood alone,
was immeasurable in its effects for meeting curiosity,
and in its limmediate excitement for prompting it. It
Drought the whole vast chain of Persian dependencies,
from the river Indus eastwards to the Nile westwards,
or even through Cyren-; 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 tho
feet of the merchant, or neutralized the exploring
instincts of the philosophic traveller. Next came the
restoration of the Jewish people. Judea, no longer
weeping 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, 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 wandeiing infancy.
Whilst the swell from this great storm was yet angry,
and hardly subsiding, (a metaphor used by Herodotus
niraself. In oiSeoi/ruv TTpqyaTwv,) whilst the scars of
Greece were yet raw from the Persian scymitar, her
'owns and temples to the east of the Corinthian isth-
mus smouldering ruins yet reeking from the Persian
torch, the young Herodotus had wandered forth in a
rapture of impassioned cuiiosity, to see, to touch, to
measure, all those great objects, whose names had
been so recently rife in men's mouthb. The luxurious
Sardis, the nation of Babylon, the Nile, the oldest of
rivers, Memphis, and Thebes the hundred-gated, that
were but amongst his youngest daughters, with the
pyramids inscrutable *s the heavens — all these he
880 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
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 presum-
ably 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,
afi 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 it by the great moral name of
Hellas, regions that geographically 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
so familiarly, that Pausanias in after ages does not
describe more minutely the local features to Avhich
he had dedicated a life, than this extraordinary trav-
eller, for whom they did but point a period or cir-
cumstantiate a parenthesis. As a geographer, often as
a hydrographer — witness his soundings thirty miles
off the mouths of the Nile — Herodotus 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 ring-fence
through daily use and experience, or had received
oy ancestral tradition, that he published to all other
nations. He was the first central interpreter, the
common dragoman to the general college of civili-
Eation that now belted the Mediterranean, holding
up, in a language already laying the foundations of
universality, one comprehensive mirror, reflectinjit U
them all the separate chorography, habits, instituti' is
PHILOSOPHY OF HEROnOTUS. 381
ftnd 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 mys-
terious, 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 ; whatsoever seemed
contradictory, for that he brought a reconciling hypo-
thesis. 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 capricious 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. Anti-
quities or mythology, martial institutions or pastoral,
the secret motives to a falsehood which he exposes, or
the hidden nature of some truth Avhich he deciphers —
ell 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 bettor thoughts — no,
not as a fabling annalist, but as a great scenical-histo-
. ian — 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 interest
\ng. What is everybody's business, the proverb in-
structs us to view as no'^-ody's by duty ; but under the
•ame rule it is an^bodv s l)y rig'nt ; and what belongs
382 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
lo all hours alike, may, for tliat reason, belong, ^vithout
ulame, 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 tell him that Mr. Hermann Bobrik has
furnished us with such an invitation, by a recent re-
riew of Herodotus as a geographer,^'^ and thus furnished
even a technical plea for calling up the great man
before our bar.
We have already said something towards reconsider-
ing the thoughtless classification of a writer whose
works do actually, in their major proportion, not essen-
tially concern that subject to which, by their translated
title, they are exclusively referred ; for even that part
Avhich is historical, often moves by mere anecdotes oi
personal sketches. And the uniform object of these is
not the history, but the political condition of the par-
ticular 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 irre-
flectiveness.
I. — For with respect to the first oversight on the
claim of Herodotus, as an earliest archetype of composi-
tion, so much is evident — that, if prose were simply
the negation of verse, were it the fact that prose had no
geparate laws of its own, but that, to be a composer in
prose meant only his privilege of being inartificial —
tkis dispensation from the restraints of metre — then,
.ndeed, it would be a slight nominal honor to hav»
been the Father of Prose. But this is ignorance, thougj
PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 383
pretty co.nmon ignorance. To walk well, it is not
enough that a man abstains frcm dancing. Walking
Qas rules of its own, the more difficult to perceive or
to practise as they are less broadly prono?ices. To
forbear singing is not, therefore, to speak well or to
read well : eacli of which offices rests upon a separate
art of its own. Numerous laws of transition, connec-
tion, preparation, are different for a writer in verse and
a writer in prose. Each mode of composition is a
great art ; well executed, is the highest and most diffi-
cult of arts. And we are satisfied that, one century
Defore the age of Herodotus, the effort must have teen
greater to wean the feelings from a key of poetic com-
position to which all minds had long been attuned and
prepared, than 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 im-
passioned 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 ! And if it
is objected that Herodotus was not the eldest of prose
^vriters, doubtless, in an absolute sense, no man was.
Vhere must always have been short public inscriptions,
iiot admitting of metre, as where numbers, quantities,
dimensions were concerned. It is enough that all fee-
b's tentative explorers of the art had been too meagre
in matter, too rude in manner, like Fabius Pictor
ftinongst the Romans, to captivate the ears of men,
And thus to ensure their oii'n propagation. Without
winoying the reader by the cheap erudition of parading
efuiict names before nim, it is certain that Scylax, a»
384 PHILOSOPHY OF HEE0D0IU8.
author still surviving, was nearly contemporary with
Herodotus ; and not very wide of him by his subject.
In Ids case it is probable that the mere practical bene-
fits of his book to the navigators of the Mediterranean
in that early period, had multiplied his book so aa
eventually to preserve it. Yet, as Major Rennell re-
marks, ' Geog. Syst. of Herod.,' p. 610 — ' Scylax
must be regarded as a seaman or pUot, and the author
of a coasting directory ; ' as a mechanic artisan, rank-
ing 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 comparison with Herodotus,
such doubtless were his rivals or predecessors in his-
tory, in antiquities, and in the other provinces which
he occupied. And, generally, the fragments of these
authors, surviving in Pagan as well as Christian collec-
tions, show that they were such. So that, in a high,
\ irtual sense, Herodotus was to prose composition what
liomer, six hundred years earlier, had been to verse.
n. — But whence ai'ose the other mistake about Her-
odotus — the fancy that his great work was exclusively
(or even chiefly) a history? 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
Hisloire^ [why we cannot say, since the Germans
liave the self-grown word Geschichte for that idea,''
deduces it, of course, from the Greek ' loiooia. This
brings him to an occasion for defining the term. And
how? It is laughable to imagine the anxious reade/
bending his ear to catch the Kantean whisper, an«
PHILOSOPHY OF HEiiOBOXLTS. 335
finally solemnly hearing that 'laroqla 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 — ' accommo-
dated — that whereby a man is, or may be thought to
be ' — what ? ' accommodated.' Kant was an excellent
Latin scholar, 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 remind a Greek scholar, that the
verb io-To/3€a> or the noun iaropia never bears, in this
writer, the latter sense of recording and memorializing.
The substantative 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,
the conservation running overhead through these nine
sections to the nine muses. Had the work been de-
ligned 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
*hat it is not chiefly historical, that it is so partially, that
'C rehearses the acts of men, [ra yci^o/xeVa,] together with
khe monumental structures of human labor, [to. epya]
— for the true sense of which word, in this position,
gee the first sentence in section thirty-five of Euterpe,
and other things besides, [rd re dXAa,] because, in short
nnt any limited annals, Tecause the mighty revelation
of the world to its scattered inhabitants, because —
• Quicquid agunt homines, votutt timor, ira, volaptas,
Qaudia, discursns, nostri est farrago libeUi — '
25
386 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTTJS.
therefore it was that a running title, or super&criptioQ
BO 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 tiath, this
legend of dedication is but an expansion cf 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
the very misconception which has since, notwithstand-
ing, prevailed.**
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 aware 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 conversation,) the
following extravagant idea — that to Homer, as its
original author, may be traced back, at least in out-
line, every tale or complication of incidents, now mov-
ing in modern 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
oe impossible. In the first place, the motive to such
»n assertion was — to emblazon the inventive faculty
^f Homer ; but it happens that Homer '.ould not
oavent anything, small or great, under the very prin-
ciples of Grecian art. To be a fiction, as to matters
of action, (for 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 critics) by our
9wn dolorous disappointment when we opened thi
PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTUS. 387
ADtambra of Mr. Washington Irving. We had sup-
posed it to be some real Spanish or Moorish legend
eonnected with that romantic edifice ; and, behold ! it
was a mere Sadler's Wells travesty, (we speak of its
plan, not of its execution,) applied to some slender
fragments from past days. Such, but far stronger
would have been the disappointment to Grecian feel-
ings, in finding any poetic (a fortiori, any prose)
legend to be a fiction of the writers — 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 version,
though now and then it might be the least popular
version. It was capital as an ofience of the intellect,
it was lunatic to do otherwise. This is a most impor-
tant characteristic of ancient taste ; and most interest-
ing in its philosophic value for any comparative esti-
mate of modern art, as against ancient. In particular,
no just commentary can ever be written on the poetics
of Aristotle, which leaves it out of sight. Secondly,
it is evident that the whole character, the very princi-
ple of movement, in many modern stories, depends
upon sentiments derived remotely from Christianity ;
and others upon usages or manners peculiar to modern
civilization ; so as in either case to involve a moral
anachronism if viewed as Pagan. Not the coloring
"»nly of the fable, but the very incidents, one and all,
and the situations, and the perplexities, are conutantly
«he product of something characteristically modern in
ihe circumstances, sometimes, for instance, in the
climate ; for the ancients had no experimeiital know-
'edge of severe climates. With these double impossi
bilities before us, of any absolute fictions in a Pagao
888 PHILOSOPHY OF HEK0D0XU8.
author that could be generally fitted to anticipate
modern tales, we shall not transfer to Herodotus the
hnpracticable 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 work. One of the best of the Ara-
bian Nights, the very best as regards the structure
of the plot — viz., the tale oi Ali 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 successfully generate each other,
caused it to be transplanted by the Greeks to their
own country. Vossius, in his work on the Greek his-
torians, and a hundred years later, Valckenaer, Avith
many other scholars, had pointed out the singular con-
formity of this memorable Egyptian story witn several
that afterwards circulated in Greece. The eldest of
these transfers was undoubtedly the Boeotian tale (but
.n days before the name Boeotia existed) of Agamedes
and Trophonius, architects, and sons to the King of
Orchomenos, who built a treasure-house at HjTia.
(noticed by Homer in his ship catalogue,) followed
by tragical cuxumstances, 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 discovering the
robber at the price of his daughter's honor, and the fina,'
rewai'd of the robber for his petty ingenuity, (which
after all, belonged chiefly to the deceased architect,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEB0D0TU8. 389
ruin the tale as a whole. But these latter incidents
are obviously forgeries of another age ; ' angeschlosssn '
fastened on by fraud, ' an den eisten 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 reve-
rential) suggested an interference of superior natures,
and to doubt wherever his excellent judgment detected
marks of incoherency. He records the entire series
of incidents as ra Aeyo/xeVa a.Korj, reports of events which
had reached him by hearsay, e'/xot 8e ou TriaTo. — ' but
to me,' he says pointedly, ' not credible.'
In this view, as a thesaurus fabularum, a great re-
pository of anecdotes and legends, tragic or romantic,
Herodotus is so far beyond all Pagan competition, that
we are thrown upon Christian literatures for any cor-
responding form of merit. The case has often been
imagined playfully, that a man were restricted to one
book ; and, supposing all books so solemn as those of
a religious interest to be laid out of the questicn.
many are the answers which have been pronounced,
according to the difi"erence of men's minds. Rousseau,
»s is well known, on such an assumption made his
election for Plutarch. But shall we tell the reader
«Aj/ ? It was not altogether his taste, or his judicious
'*ioice, which decided him ; for choice there can be
U >ne amongst elements unexamined — it was his lim-
ted readmg. Except a few papers in the French
Encyclopedia during his maturer years, and some
•lozen of works presented to him by their authors, hi»
390 PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODoXUS.
own friends, Rousseau had read little or nothing be-
yond 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 Catc, 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 hia
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
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
viiost varied in the quality of that interest, and they
are touched %vith the most flying and least lingering
pen ; Lv, of all writ'^rs, 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 hurrying
curiosity ; and his narrations or descriptions are thj
most animated by the generality of their abstractions
whilst they are the most faithfull} individual by lh«
felicity of their minute circumstances.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTUS. 39?
Once, and in a public situation, we ourselvea de-
nominated Herodotus the Froissart of antiquity. But
we were then speaking of hira eyclusively as an
historian ; and even so, we did him injustice. Thus
far it is true the two men agree, that both are less
political, or reflecting, or moralizing, as historians,
than they are scenical and splendidly picturesque.
But Froissart is little else than an historian. 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 speculator 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 civi-
lization : — 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, Babylonian, 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 re-
spects 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 uni-
versal armament against the second and greatest of
♦.he Persian invasions. Twc such documents, such
wchives of political economy, do not exist elsewhere
392 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
in history. Egypt had now ceased, and we may say
that (according to the Scriptural prophecy) it had
ceased forever 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 he-goat^ of Mac(.-
don was destined to butt it down into hopeless prostra-
tion. But so far as Egypt, from her vast antiquity, oi
from her great resources, was entitled to a more cir-
cumstantial notice than any other satrapy of the great
empire, such a notice it has ; and we 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 gath-
ered, than from all the writers of Greece for the cities
of their native land.
But take him as an exploratory traveller and as a
naturalist, who had to break ground for the earliest
entrenchments in these new functions of knowledge ;
we do not scruple to. say that mutatis mutandis, and
^vncessis concedendis, Herodotus has the separata
qualifications of the two men whom we would select
by preference as the most distinguished amongst
Christian traveller-naturalists ; he has the universality
of the Prussian Humboldt ; and he has the picturesque
fidelity to nature of the English Dampier — of whom
the last was a simple self-educated seaman, but stiong-
minded by nature, austerely accurate through hia
moral reverence for truth, and zealous in pursuit of
knowledge, to an excess which raises him to a leve
»rith the noble Greek. Dampier, when in the las
FHILOSOIiiY OF HERODOTUS. 393
stage of exhaustion from a malignant dysentery, unable
to stand upright, and surrounded by perils in a land
of infidel fanatics, crawled on bis hands and feet to
verify some fact of 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 diffi-
culty 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 an historian and a
geographer — that Herodotus levies the heaviest tribute
on our reverence ; and precisely in those charac-
ters 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 Mandeville ; and lastly, as if he had been a
Mendez Pinto or a Munchausen, he was saluted as the
'father of lies.''^ Now, on these calumnies, it ia
oleasant 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 hira
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 prixmte authority. His chronology is better to
ills daf than any single svntem opposed to it. His
dimensions and distances are so far superior to those
"if later travellers, whose hands were strengthened hj
394 THILOSOrHV OF HERODOTUS.
all tlie powers of military command and regal au-
tocracy, that Major Rennell, upon a deliberate retro-
Bpect 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 late authority of those who had
conquered those conquerors. It is gratifying that a
judge, so just and thoughtful as the Major, should
declare the reports of Alexander's officers on the dis-
tances and stations in the Asiatic part of his empire,
less trustworthy by much than the reports of Herodo-
tus : 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 benefitted by any
Roman machinery,) coming five and six centuries
later. We indeed hold the accuracy of Herodotus to
\>e all but marvellous, considering the wretched appa-
ratus which he could then command in the popular
measures. The stadium, it is true, was more accu-
rate, 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 schoRnus, the Persian parasang, or the
military stathmzis, were only less vague than the cost
of Hindostan in their ideal standards, and as fluctua-
ting practically as are all computed distances at al.
PHILOSOrHY OF HERODOTUS. 395
times and places. The close approximations of Herod-
otus to tlie returns of distances upon caravan routed
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, we explain it out of hasty reading
and slight acquaintance with Greek. The sensibility
of Herodotus to his own future character in this re-
spect, under a deep consciousness of his upright for-
bearance on the one side, and of the extreme liability
on the other side to uncharitable construction for any
man moving amongst Egyptian thaumaturgical tradi-
tions, comes forward continually in his anxious dis-
tinctions between what he gives on his own ocular
experience (6\pL<;) — what upon his own inquiries, or
combination of inquiries with previous knowledge
(to-Topt'a) — what upon hearsay (aKor'i) — what upon
current tradition (Aoyos). And the evidences are mul-
tiplied over and above these distinctions, of the irrita-
tion which beseiged his mind as to the future wrongs
he might sustain from the careless and the unprinci-
pled. Had truth been less precious in his 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 supei'b
intellectual resources for taking captive the imagina-
tions of his half-polished countrymen, disdained such
base artifices, which belong more properly to an
effeminate and over-stimulated stage of civilization.
A.nd, once for all, he had annunccd at an early
point as the principle of his work, as what ran along
4ie whole line of his statements by way of basis ol
S'JG I'UILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
Bubsumption, (^Trapa TrdvTa tov Xoyov VTro/ceirat) — that
he wrote upon the faith of hearsay from the Egyptians
severally: meaning by 'severally,' (iKaarwv) — that he
did not adopt any chance hearsay, but such as wm
guarantied by the men who presided over each several
department of Egyptian official or ceremonial life.
Having thus said something towards re- vindicating
for Herodotus his proper station — first, as a power in
literature ; next, as a geographer, economist, mytholo-
gist, antiquary, historian — we shall draw the reader's
attention to the remarkable ' set of the current ' to-
wards that very consummation and result of justice
amongst the learned within the last two generations.
There is no such 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 gradually given way to better scholarship, and to
two generations of travellers, starting with far superior
preparation for their difficult labors. 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 other?
for his facts, with only an occasional interposition of
his own opinion, comes \\'ith 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 bsen precisely in the inverse
direction, Poor was the condition of Greek learning
ui England, when Dr. Cooke (one of the five wretched
old boys who operated upon Gray's Elegy in tij«
FHILOSOrUT OF HEKODOXUS. 3;>7
character of Greek translators) presided at Cambridge
us their Greek professor. See, or rather touch with
the tongs, his edition^^ of Aristotle's Poetics. Equally
poor was its condition in Germany ; for, if one swal-
low could make a summer, we had that in England.
Poorer by far was its condition (as generally 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 —
' HpoSoTos Koi Id^wv.* He had never heard that kul
means even almost as often as it means and: thus he in-
troduced 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 Eng-
land. 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 knowl-
edge, equal for the last seventy or eighty years to the
accumulated product of the entire previous interval
from Herodotus to 1760, in every one of tliose par-
ticular fields which this author was led by his situation
to cultivate.
Meantime the work of cleansing this great tank or
depository of archaeology (the one sole reservoir, so
placed in point of time as to coilect and draw all the
lontributions from the frontier ground between th*
• Herodotus even whilst lonici/'ng.
398 PUILOSOPHY OF UEKODOTUS.
mythical and the historical period) is still proceeding
Every fresh laborer, by new accessions of direct aid,
or by new combinations of old suggestions, finds him-
self able to purify the interpretation of Herodotus by
wider analogies, or to account for his mistakes by more
accurately developing the situation of the speaker.
We also bring our own unborrowed contributions. We
also would wish to promote this great labor, which, be
it remembered, concerns no secondary section of hu-
man 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 civilization is concerned.
The commencement — the solemn inauguration — of
history, is placed no doubt in the commencement of
the Olympiads, 777 years before Christ. The doora
of the great theatre were then thrown open. That is
undeniable. 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 im-
portant suggestions of others not yet popularly known
— shaping and pointing, if possible, their application
— brightening their justice, or strengthening their out-
.incs. And with these we propose to intermingle ona
or two suggestions, more exclusively our own.
pniliOSOPHY OF HERODOrUS. 399
I. — The Non-Planetary Earth of Herodotus in its
relation to the Planetary Sun.
Mr. Hennann Bobrik is the first torch-bearer to He-
rodotus, who has thrown a strong light on his theory of
^he earth's relation to the solar system. This is one of
the prcBcognita, literally indispensable to the compre-
hension of the geographical basis assumed by Herodo-
tus. 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 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 phe-
nomena of summer and winter. Prejudications, hav-
ing the force of a necessity, had blinded generation
after generation of students to the very admission iw
limine of such a theory as could go the length of de-
throning 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
teas, what lay broadly below their eyes, in Herodotus,
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 in-
Btances in which we actually see — not that which in
eally there to be seen — but that which we believe c
friori ought to be there. And in cases so palpable as
that of an external sense, it is not difficult to set the
iOO PHILOSOrHT OF HEKODOTUS
student on his guard. But in cases more intellecfnal
or moral, like several in Herodotus, it is difficult for the
teacher himself to be effectually ^dgilant. It was not
anything actually seen by Herodotus which led him
into denying the solar functions ; it was his own inde-
pendent speculation. This suggested to him a plausi-
ble 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 Addison'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 lenehrijic stars) might have the office of ' ray-
ing out positive darkness.' In the infancy of science,
the idea is natural to the human mind ; and we re-
member hearing a great m-an 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
discovered that his own shadow, which he had often
angrily hunted, was no real existence, but a mere hin-
dering of the sun's light from filling uj) the space
screened by his own body. The old grudge, which he
cherished against this coy fugitive shadow, melted
iway in the rapture if this great discovery. To him
the discovery had dot btless been originally half- sug-
PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 401
gested by explanations of liis elders imperfectly com«
prehended. But in itself the distinction between the
affirmative and the negative is a step perhaps the mcs*
costly in effort of any that the human mind is sum-
moned to take ; and the greatest indulgence is due to
those early stages of civilization when this step had
not been taken. For Herodotus, there existed two
great counter-forces in absolute hostility — heat and
cold ; and these forces were incarnated in the_ winds.
It was the north and north-east wind, not any distance
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 He-
rodotus stand with his ample Grecian forehead exposed
to the noonday sun, and suspect no pai't 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 recog-
nize an electrical aurora, a zodiacal light, &c., as sub-
stitutes not palpably dependent. "We that regard the
Bun as upon the whole our fountain of heat, yet recog-
nize many co-operative, many modifying forces having
the same office — such as the local configuration of
ground — such as sea neighborhoods or land neighbor-
hoods, 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
lllow an agency to the sun upon the daily range of
heat, though he allowed none to the same luminary in
egulating the annual range. What caused the spring
%nd autumn, the summer and winter, (though geuoraily
26
PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
m those ages there were but two seasons recognized,)
was the action of the winds. The diurnal arch of hea
(as we may call it) ascending from sunrise to some
hour, (say two P. M.,) when the sum of the two heats
(the funded annual heat and the fresh increments of
aaily heat) reaches its maximum, and the descending
limb of the same arch from this hour to sunset — this
♦le 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 break fast- 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
80 many stages away from India, that the poor crea-
tures 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 observe ; but not
quite right ahead, Avhen the sun is racing away over
the boiling brains of the Ethiopians, Libyans, &c., and
driving Jupiter-Ammon perfectly distracted Avith hia
Turuace. 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 greai
reason to complain. All civilized people are now cool
and happy for the rest of the day. But, as to the
ivoolly-headed rascals on the west coast of Africa, they
catch it' towards sunset, and ' no mistake.' Yet whj
troublo our heads about inconsiderable black fellow!
PHILOSOPHY OF HEEODOXUS. 403
like them, who have been cool all day whilst bettei
men were melting away by pailfuls ? And such is the
history of a summer's day in the heavens above and
on the earth beneath. As to little Greece, she is but
skirted by the sun, who keeps away far to the south ;
thus she is maintained in a charming state of equilib-
rium by her fortunate position on the very frontier line
cf the fierce Boreas and the too voluptuous Notos.
Meantime one effect follows from this transfer of the
golar functions to the winds, which has not been re-
marked, — 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
ai:d tlie constellation do not coincide 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 indeterminate from a
difi"erent cause. Had Herodotus lived in a high north-
ern latitude, there is no doubt that the ample range of
iifference between the northerly points of rising in the
summer and the southerly in winter, would have forced
nis 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;
und thus a more indeterminate east would arise —
never rigorously corrected, because requiring so mode-
rate a correction. Now, a vagu^ unsettled east, would
support a vague unsettled north. And of course,
through whatever arch of variations cither of these
404 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
points vibrated, precisely upon that scale the west and
Mie south would follow them.
Thus arises, upon a simple and easy genesis, that
condition of the compass (to use the word by anticij)a-
tion) which must have tended to confuse the geograph-
ical 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 vnll have a sepa-
rate value of illustrated proofs in relation to the present
article, No. I.
II. — The Danube of Herodotus considered as a coun-
terpole to the Nile.
There is nothing more perplexing to some of the
many commentators on Herodotus than all which he
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 ix naQaUtjXov, by which
we ijiust understand corresponding rigorously, but
antistrophically, (as the Greeks express it,) similar
angles, similar dimensions, but in an inverse order, to
the Egyptian Nile. The Nile, in its monstrous section,
ilows from south to north. Consequently the Danube,
by the rule of parallelism, ought to flow through a
corresponding section from north to south. But, s&y
the commentators, it does not. Now, verbally thej
might seem -svrong ; but substantially, as regards the
'ustification of Herodotus, they are right. Our business
lowover, is not to justify Herodotus, but to explain him.
Undoubtedly there is a point about one hundred ana
PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTUS. 405
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 lieF
between itself, (this Danube section,) and a direct
parallel section equally long, of the Hungarian rivei
Theiss, once lay, in the fifth century, the royal city ox
encampment of Attila. Gibbon placed the city in the
northern part of this corridor, (or, strictly speaking,
this Mesopotamia,) consequently about two hundred
miles to the east of Vienna : but others, and especially
Hungarian writers, better acquainted by personal ex-
Rmination 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 enclosed 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 Herodotus. Generally
speaking, the Danube holds a headlong course to the
east. Undoubtedly this must be granted ; and so fat
it might seem hopeless to seek for that kind of parallel-
ism to the Nile which Herodotus asserts. Bat 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 serviceably, 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
Kile, (north and south, therefore, as the antistrophe to
>)uth and north,) would place beyond a doubt the creed
%f Herodotus — which is the question that concerns
406 PHILOSOPHY OF HEK0D0TU8.
Hs. And, vice versa, this creed of Herodotus as to the
course of the Danube, in its main latter section when
approaching the Euxine Sea, re-acts to confirm all we
have said, propria marte, on the indeterminate articu-
lation 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 ; second-
ly, many separate instances confirming this probability ;.
thirdly, the particular instance of the Danube, as antis-
trophizing with the Nile, not reconcilable -with any
other principle ; and fourthly, the following indepen-
dent 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 aflJirming that this mighty river enters
the Euxine — at what point? Opposite, says he, to
Sinope. Could that have been imagined? Sinope,
being a Greek settlement in a region where such settle-
ments were rare, was notorious to all the world as the
flourishing emporium, on the south shore of the Black
Sea, of a civilized people, literally hustled by barba-
rians. Consequently — and tliis is a point to which all
commentators alike are blind — the Danube descends
rpon the Euxine in a long line running due south
Else, we demand, how could it antistrophize with the
Nile ? Elt.«, we demand, how could it lie right over
against the Sinope ? Else, we demand, how could it
make that right-angle bend to the west in the earlier
lection of its course, which is presupposed in its perfect
analogy to the Nile of Herodotus ? If already it were
'ying east and west in that lower part of its course
which approaches the Euxine, what occasion could it
liffer for a right-angle turn, or for any turn at all —
PHIIiOSOPHY OF HEKODOTUS. 4U7
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 He-
rodotus had evidently met in Upper Egypt slaves ox
captives in war from the regions of Soudon, Tombuc-
too, &c. This is the opinion of Rennell, of Browne,
the visiter 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 Herodotus 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 not primarily hence,
out hence in combination 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, (possibly in
Charlotte Square, Edinburt,h,) whence he travelled
willi the arrow's flight due cast in search of his wife
ihc Euxinc ; but somewhere in the middle of his
408 PHILOSOPHY OF HEKODOTirS.
course, hearing that her dwelling lay far to the soutb,
and haA'ing 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 perceive the completion of that analogy between
the two rivers, its absolute perfection, which already
he had partially suspected. Their very figurations
now appeared to reflect and repeat each other in
solemn mimicry, as previously he had discovered the
mimical correspondence of their functions ; for this
latter doctrine had been revealed to him by the Egyp-
tian priests, then the chief depositaries of Egyptian
learning. They had informed him, and evidently had
persuaded 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 consequently 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
housands of years had seemed the peculiar heirloonj
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 thera
to shake their earn in some astonishment for % fevi
PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 409
rentvuies, until they got used to it. Whereas ♦ the
Bweet south wind ' of the ancient mariner, leaving
A-frica, pursued ' the mariuer's holloa, all over the
Euxine and the Palus McBotis. The Danuhe, in short,
became the Nile ; and the same deadly curiosity
haunted its fountains. So that many a long-legged
Bruce would strike off in those days towards Charlotte
Square. But all in vain : ♦ Nee licuit populis ' — or
Btop, to save the metre —
• Nee poteras, Charlotte, pcpulis turn parva videri.'
Nohody woiild reach the fountains ; particularly as
there would be another arm, El-Abiad or white river,
perhaps at Stockbridge. However, the explorers must
have ' burned ' strongly (as children say at hide-and-
seek) when they attained a point so near to the foun-
tains as Blackwood's Magazine, which doubtless was
i;oing on pretty well in those days.
We are sorry that Herodotus should have been so
lilgue 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, [else-
where he himself calls that valley du)Qov rov A'eiXov — n
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
revolution in favor of Egypt, at any rate of the one
record — which could have transmitted the memory of
^Mch an astonishing transfer. Meantime the reader ii
(10 PHILOSOPHY OF HER0D3TUS.
now in possession of the whole theory contemplated
by Herodotus. It was no mere lusus natures that the
one river repeated the 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 himself with the
idea — that he was the NUe ' elect ; ' the other, oi
provisional Nile, only ' continuing to hold the seals
until his successor should \e 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 ^\ith annual conceit. Father
NUe, 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 moro
BO 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,
k less concerns us to deduce the harmony of their
lunctions from the harmony of their geographical
courses, than to abide by the inverse argument — that,
where the former harmony was so loudly inferred
Prom the latter, at any rate, that fact will demonstrate
ihe existence of the latter harmony in the judgment
,ind faith of Herodotus. He could not possibly have
'nsisted 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
PHILOSOPHY OF HEEODOTTTS. 411
In the first of these analogies — as already existing and
open to the vsrification of the human eye. The second
or ulterior analogy might be false, and yet affect only
its owTi separate credit, whilst the falsehood of the first
was ruinous to the credit of both. Whence it is evi-
dent that of the two resemblances in form and function,
^he resemblance in form was the least disputable of the
two for Herodotus.
This argument, and the others which we have indi-
cated, and amongst those others, above all, the position
of the Danube's mouths right over against a city situ-
ated as was Sinope, — i. e. not doubtfully emerging
from either flank of the Euxine, west or east, but
broadly and almost centrally planted on the southern
basis of that sea, — we offer as a body of demonstra-
tive 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
)et been justly conceived or figured by his geographi-
cal commentators.
in. — On the Africa of Jlerodohis.
There is an amusing blunder on this subject com-
mitted by Major Rennell. How often do we hear
people commenting on the Scriptures, and raising up
aerial edifices of argument, in which every iota of the
ogic rests, unconsciously to themselves, upon the acci-
dental words of the English version, and melts away
ivhen applied to the original text ; so tnat, in fact, the
»(rhole has no more strength than if it were buiJt upon
» nun or an equivoque, b'uch is the blunder of the
112 PHILOSOPHY OP HEK0D0IU8.
excellent Major. And it is not timidly expressed. At
p. 410, Geog. Hist, of Herodotus, tie tlius delivers
himself : — ' Although the term Lybia ' (so thus doet
Rennell always spell it, instead of Libya) ' is occa-
Bionally used by Herodotus as synonymous to Africa,
(especially in Melpom., &c. &c.) yet it is almost ex-
clusively applied to that part bordering on the Mediter-
tanean Sea between the Greater Syrtis and Egypt ; '
*nd he concludes the paragraph thus : — 'So that
Africa, and not Lybia, is the term generally employed
oy Herodotus.' We stared on reading these 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 grey-
hound, 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 sober truth ; and our modesty, our
Bobriety 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 'E^-jiw, lying in
dome 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 Eng-
ish mile in diameter, and yet no man could see it until
ft fugitive king, happening to be hard pressed in the
tear, dived into the water, and ca,me up to the light ir
PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTTJS. 413
th(i good little island ; where lie 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 of Elbo, at least, 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
Bitting 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 — jiifQixt) ? Did any man ever see such a word ?
However, let not the reader believe that, we are tri-
umphing 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
ianguage which really he did not understand. But so
far was Major Rennell from doing this, that, when no
call upon him existed for saying one word upon the
Bubjcct, 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 colors 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. Yes, mark the excellence of
upright dealing. Had Major Rennell pretended to
Greek, were it but as much as went to the spelling of
She word Africa, here was he a lost man. Blackwood's
Magazine would now have exposed him. "\A'her6a8,
things being as they are, we respect him and admir«
114 PHILOSOrHT OF HEROPOTUS.
him sincarely. And, as to his wanting this one accom-
plish.ment, every man wants some. We ourselves can
neither dance a hornpipe nor whistle Jim Crow, without
driving the whole musical world into black despair.
Africa, meantime, is a word imported into Herod-
otus 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. Strange that nearly all the classics,
Roman as well as Greek, should be so meanly repre-
sented 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 respecta-
ble translator. Larcher read Greek sufficiently ; and
was as much master of his author's peculiar learning
as any one general commentator that can be men-
tioned.
But Africa the thing, not Africa the name, is that
which puzzles all students of Herodotus, as, mdeed,
no little it puzzled Herodotus himself. Rennell makes
one difficulty where in fact there is none ; viz. that
sometimes Herodotus refers Egypt to Libya, and
sometimes refuses to do so. But in this there is no
Vnconsistency, and no forgetfulness. Herodotus wisely
fcdopted the excellent rule of ' thinking with the
learned, and talking Avith the people.' Having once
6rmly explained his reasons for holding Egypt to be
neither an Asiatic nor an African, but the neutra.
frontier artificially created by the Nile, as a long cor-
ridor of separation between Asia and Africa, after
rUILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS, , 415
wards, and generally, lie is too little of a pedant to
taake war upon current forms of speech. What is the
use of drawing off men's attention, in questions about
things, by impertinent provisions of diction or by alien
theories ? Some people have made it a question —
Whether Great Britain were not extra European ? and!
the Island of Crete is generally assumed to be so.
Some lawyers also, nay, some courts of justice, have
entertained the question — Whether a man could be
neld related to his own mother ? Not as though too
remotely related, but as too nearly, and in fact absorbed
within the lunar beams. 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 Avoman 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 com-
prehended Egypt ; and Herodotus, like the wise man
that he was, having once or twice lodged his protest
ugainst that idea, then replies to the world — ' Very
well, if you say so, it is so ; ' precisely as Petrucliio'a
wife, to soothe her mad husband, agrees that the sun ia
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 Macedou (both Mace-
ionis the original germ, and Macedonia the exiianded
416 , PHILOSOPHY OF HEK0D0TU6.
kingdom) as a claimant of co -membership in the house-
hold of Greece ; or on the disputes, more angry if less
Bcornful, between Carthage and Cyrene as to the true
limits between the daughter of Tyre and the daughtei
of Greece. The very color of the soil in Egypt —
the rich black loam, precipitated by the creative rivei
— already symbolized to Herodotus the deep repiilsion
lying between Egypt on the one side, and Libya, where
all was red ; between Egypt on the one side, and Asia,
wliere 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 com-
mon — 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 ac-
complished under the orders of Pharaoh Necho. Dis-
allomng this earliest recorded Periplus, then no man
I ould say of Africa whether it were a large island or
i. boundless continent having no outline traceable by
man, or (which, doubtless, would have been the
favorite creed) whether it were not a technical akte
»uch as Asia Minor ; that is, not a peninsula like the
Peloponnesus, or the tongues of land near Mouni
Athos — because in that case tJie idea required
PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOXUS. 417
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
gay) having three sides washed by some sea, but a
fourth side absolutely untouched by any sea whitever.
On this word akte, as a term but recently drawn out
of obscurity, we shall say a word or two further on ;
at present we proceed with the great African Periplus.
We, like the rest of this world, held this to be a pure
fable, so long as we had never anxiously studied the
ancient geography, and consequently had never medi-
tated 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
Rennell dissenting, undoubtedly it much strengthened
our opinion to find so cautious a judge concurring.
Perhaps the very strongest argument in favor of the
voyage, if we speak of any single argument, is that
which Rennell insists on — namely, the sole circum-
stance reported by the voyagers which Herodotus
pronounced incredible, 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 readers and
\adies, 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 alwayt
o a soldier the German bank, the ' left ' always the
V'rench bank, in contempt of the traveller's position f
118 PHILOSOPHY OF HEEODOTTTS.
BO, in speaking of the sun, you are presumed tc 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 oui latitudes to bring the sun on his right
shoulder, since the sun never even rises to be verti-
cally over his head. First, when he goes south so far
as to enter the northern tropic, would such a phe-
nomenon 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
tiis 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 mer? necessity, this
inexplicable phenomenon (for to them it was inexpli-
cable) would pursue them for months in succession.
Here is the point in this argument which we would
press on the reader's consideration ; and, inadver-
tently, Rennell has omitted this aspect of the argu-
ment altogether. To Herodotus, as we have seen, it
was so absolutely incredible a romance, that he re-
jected it summarily. And why not, therefore, ' go the
whole hog,' and reject the total voyage, when thus in
his vie w partially discredited ? That question recalls
ta to the certainty that there must have been other
proofs, independent of this striking allegation, too
strong io #ilow 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 prov-
lice of equal tropics on either hand of that limits
?onld he have done otherwise than fancy r'^ that Jack,
PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS. 419
tftCT his long voyage, having then no tobacco for Ija
recreation, and no grog, took out his allowance in the
shape of wonder-making. He ' bounced ' a little, he
' Cretized ; ' and who could be angry ? And laugha-
ble it is to reflect, that, like the poor credulous mother,
who listened complacently to her sea-fearing son whilst
using a Sinbad's license of romancing, but gravely
reproved him for the sin of untruth when he told her
of flying fish, or some other simple zoological fact —
BO 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
voj'age 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 erroaecusly as a section of the
Vile,) might simultaneously have reported the phenom-
i-?a of the sun's course. Lut we reply to that possible
H'lggestion — that in fact it con d scarcely have hap-
oened. Many other remarkable phenomena of Nigri-
tia had not been reported : or had been dropped out of
'he record at idle or worthless. Secondly, as slaves
420 PHILOSOniY OF HEEODOTITS.
they would have obtained little credit, excepf whea
falling in loith a previoi^ idea or belief. Thirdly,
acne of these men would be derived from any place
to the south of the line, still less south of the 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 waa
directly vertical, sometimes on the left hand, some-
times on the right, ' What, ye black villains ! The
Bun, that never was known to change, unless when he
reeled a little at seeing the anthropophagous banquet
of Thyestes, — he to dance cotillions in this absurd
way up and down the heavens, — why, hamstringing
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 thin
reason it must be received as unanswerable evidence,
as an argument that never can be surmounted on be-
half 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 Herodotus] for
explaining the solar motions. Upon this logic we will
take our stand. Here is the strong-hold, the citadel, of
the truth. Many a thing has been fabled, many a ^-hing
carefully passed do\vn by tradition as a fact of abso-
Hite experience, simply because it fell in with some
Die^ious fancy or prejudice c f men. And even Baron
PHII.OSOFHY OF HEK0D0TTT8. 421
Munchausen's amusing falsehoods, if examined by a
logician, will uniformly be found squared or adjusted;
not indeed to a belief, but to a whimsical sort of plausi-
bility, 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 mon-
strous 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 baron, that we remember to have
seen, arises from the neglect of those smooth plausi-
bilities. We are there summoned to believe blank
impossibilities, Avithout 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 fact 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 founda-
tion of specious physical possibility. Whereas ^he fic-
tion, if it had been a fiction, recorded by Herodi tus,
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 whi 'h Avould have
pursued it. This powerful reason for believing the
wain fact of the circumnavigation — let the reader,
courteous or not, if he is but the logical reader, conde«
Bcend to balance in his judgment.
Other arguments, only less strong on behalf of the
^o^Tige, we will not here notice — except this one,
♦22 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
most reasonably urged by Rennell, from his peculiw
familiarity, even in that day, (1799,) with the current!
»nd 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,) 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 \Testern shore of Africa in
the first place. Under that order, which was peculiarly
tempting for two reasons to the Carthaginian sailor or
a Phoenician, Rennell has shown how all the cXirrents,
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' phrase) he could say
dumpling. Accordingly, a Persian nobleman of high
rank, having been allowed to commute his sentence
of capital punishment for that of sailing round Africa,
did actually fail from the cause developed by Rennell.
Naturally he had a Phoenician crew, as the king's best
nautical subjects. Naturally they preferred the false
route. Naturally they failed. And the nobleman,
returning from transportation before his time, as well
as re infectd, was executed.
But (ah, villanous word !) some ugly objector puts
in his oar, and demands to know — why, if so vast an
evf'nt had actually occurred, it could have ever been
forgotten, or at all have faded ? To this we answer
';riefly, what properly ought to form a separate section
in our notice of Herodotus. The event was not »q
vast as we, with our present knowledge of Africi^
•hould regard it.
PHILOSOPHY OV HEHODOXUS. 423
This is a very interesting aspect of the subject. We
*ugh long and loud when we hear Des Cartes (great
man as he was) laying it down amongst the golden
lules for guiding his studies, that he would guard him-
lelf against all ' prejudices ; ' because we know that
when a prejudice of any class whatever is seen as such,
when it is recognized 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 preju-
dices. How widely, from the truisms of experience,
could we illustrate this truth ! But we abstain. We
content ourselves with this case. Even Major Rennell,
starting semi-consciously from his own previous know-
ledge, (the fruit of researches a thousand years later
than Herodotus,) lays down an Africa at least ten
times too great for meeting the Greek idea. Unavoid-
ably 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 indica-
tions, that the Libya of Herodotus, after all, did not
exceed the total bulk of Asia Minor carried eastwards
to the Tigris. But there is not such an awful corrupter
of truth in the whole world — there is not such an
unconquerable enslaver of men's minds — as the blind
instinct by which they yield to the ancient root-bound,
trebly-anchored prejudications of their childhood and
original belief. Misconceive us not, reader. We do
not mean that, having learned such and such doctrines,
afterwards they cling tc 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
*r y partiality to them, but because this pre-occupation
t24 PHILOSOPHY OF HEEODOIITS.
intercepts the very earliest dawn of a possible coucep*
tion or conjecture in the opposite direction. The moat
tremendous error in human annals is of that order. It
has existed for seventeen centuries in strength ; and
la 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 hemis-
pheres, unconsciously 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 pre-
sumed 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
&om one side. In this blind submission to a preju-
dice of words and clustering associations, Rennell also
'hares.
It will be retorted, however, that the long time
idlowed by Herodotus for the voyage argues a corres-
ponding 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 : h«
allowed nothing for these accelerating forces, whicl:
FHILOSOPHT OF HEKODOTITS. 425
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 com-
pass ; ahove 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 ^dolently sweep them past these objects. Then
we are to allow for a long stay on the shore of Western
Africa, for the sake of reaping, or having reaped by
natives, a wheat harvest — a fact which strengthens
the probability of the voyage, but diminishes the dis-
posable time which Herodotus would use as the expo-
nent of the space. We must remember the want of
tails 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, as utterly
unsuspected 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
— consequently for the measure of the virtual time,
consequently of the African space, as only to be col-
lected from the time so collected — a very small pro-
portion 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
•t of its power over the world's mind, in the pompous
.lame of Africa) was not biggei than the true Arabi*
ta known to ourselves.
And hence, also, by a natural result, the obliteration
»f this Peripltis from the minds of men. It accom-
i26 PHILOSOPHY OF HEUODOTUB.
nlished no great service, as men judged. It put a zone
about a large region, undoubtedly ; but what sort of a
region ? A mere worthless wilderness, now 6>iQiw9t](
dedicated by the gods to wild beasts, now anfidjdtjt
trackless from sands, and everywhere fountainless,
arid, scorched (as they believed) in the interior. Sub-
tract Egypt, as not being part, and to the world of
civilization at that time Africa must have seemed a
worthless desert, except for Cyrene and Carthage, its
two choice gardens, already occupied by Phoenicians
and Greeks. This, by the way, suggests a new con-
sideration, 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
circumnavigations at the present day did virtually and
could not but perish as a vivid record. It measured a
region which touched no man's prosperity. It recorded
a discovery, for which there was no permanent appre-
ciator. A case exists at this moment, in London, pre-
cisely parallel. There is a chart of New Holland still
preserved among the xtiutjlia 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 labors in
that section had been anticipated at a time when it was
aot wanted. Nobody cared about it : value it had none
or interest ; and it was utterly forgotten. That it die
not also perish in the literal sense, as well as in spirit
was owing to an accident.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEE0D0TTT8. 427
rV. — The Geographical Akt£ of Greece.
"We had intended to transfer, for the use of our
l-eaders, the diagram imagined by Niebuhr in illus-
tration of this idea. But o\ir growing exorbitance
from our limits warns us to desist. Two points only
we shall notice : — 1 . That Niebuhr — not the travel-
ler, as might have been expected, but his son, the phi-
losophic historian — first threw light on this idea, which
had puzzled multitudes of honest men. Here we see
the same similarity as in the case of Rennell ; in that
instance, a man without a particle of Greek, ' whip-
ped ' (to speak Kentuckice) whole crowds of sleeping
drones who had more 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 bedroom, doing the work that properly belong-
ed to active travellers. 2. Though we have already
given one illustration of an Atke in Asia Minor, it may
be well to mention as another, the vast region of Ara-
bia. In fact, to Herodotus the tract of Arabia and
Syria on the one hand, made up one akte (the south-
ern) 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
■])ntting on imaginary lines drawn from different points
of the Euphrates.
V. — Chronology of Herodotus
ITie commentator of Herodotus, who enjoys the
rCjfUtation of having best unfolded his chronology, ia
Ihe French President Buhier. We cannot say that
this opinion coincides with our own. There is a la-
128 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
mentable imbecility in all the chronological commenta-
tors, of two opposite tendendes. Either they fall into
that folly of drivelling infidelity, which shivers at everj
fresh revelation of geology, and every fresh romance
of fabulous chronology, as fatal to religious truths ; or,
with wiser feelings but equal sUliness, 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 Astronomic,) or from Egypt, (see the
whole series of chronological commentators on Herod-
otus,) became immeasurably extravagant, and exactly
in proportion to that extravagance. Amongst these
latter chronologers, perhaps Larcher 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-1^, 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
aflfects to menace with her hand some favorite 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
ill the rest of our discussion.
1. The three hundred and thirty kings of Egypt
vho were interposed by the Egyptian priests, betweej
PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS 429
the endless dynasty of tte gods, and the pretty long
iynasty of real kings, (the Shepherds, the Pharaohs,
fee.) are upon this argument to be objected us mere
unmeaning fictions, \'iz. that they did nothing. This
argument is reported as a fact, {iiot as an argument of
rejection,) by Herodotus himself, and reported from
the volunteer testimony of the priests themselves ; so
that the authority for the number of kings, is also their
inertia. Can there be better proof needed, than that
they were men of straw, got up to color 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
extravagant genealogy. Meantime, the whole three
hundred and thirty are such absolute faineans, that,
confessedly, not one act — not one monument of art
or labor — 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 memorable for some warlike act,
some munificent institution, or some almost imperish-
■ble monument of architectural power.
2. But weaker even than the fabling spirit of these
genealogical inanities, is the idle attempt to explode
hem, by turning the years into days. In this way, it
13 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 moon-
less 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 rec*
430 PHILOSOPHY OF HERODOTUS.
oncile 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 kinga
are made to tally with as many yeVeai, or generations of
men ? Herodotus, and doubtless the priests, under-
stood a generation in the sense then universally cur-
rent, agreeably to which, three generations were valued
to a century.
But the questions are endless which grow out of
Herodotus. Pliny's Natural History has been usually
thought the greatest treasure-house of ancient learning.
But we hold that Herodotus furnishes by much the
largest basis for vast commentaries revealing the ar-
chaeologies 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.
PLATO'S REPUBLIC.
Theee is no reader who has not heard of Solon's
apologetic distinction between the actual system of
laws, framed by himself for the Athenian people,
under his personal knowledge of the Athenian temper,
and that better system which he would have framed
in a case where either the docility of the national
character had been greater, or the temptations to
insubordination had been less. Something of the
same distinction must be taken on behalf of Plato,
between the ideal form of Civil Polity which he con-
templated in the ten books of his Republic, and the
practical form which he contemplated in the thirteen
books of his Legislative System.* In the former
work he supposes himself to be instituting an inde-
pendent state, on such principles as were philosophi-
cally best ; in the latter, upon the assumption that
what might be the best as an abstraction, was not
always the best as adapted to a perverse human
* Thirteen books. — There are twelve books of the Ijuwi ; but
the closing book, entitled the Epinomos, or Supplement to the
Laws, adds a thirteenth. We have thought it convenient to
design-kte the entire work by the collective name of the Legit
^ative System
432
PLATO 8 REPUBLIC.
nature, nor under ordinary circumstances the most
likely to be durable. He professes to make a com-
promise between his sense of duty as a philosopher,
and his sense of expedience as a man of the world.
Like Solon, he quits the normal for the attainable ;
and from the ideal man, flexible to all the purposes of
a haughty philosophy, he descends in his subsequent
speculations to the refractory Athenian as he reallj
existed in the generation of Pericles. And this fact
gives a great value to the more abstract work; since
no inferences against Greek sentiment or Greek prin-
ciples could have been drawn from a work applying
itself to Grecian habits as he found them, which it
would not be easy to evade. ' This,' it would have
been said, ' is not what Plato approved — but what
Plato conceived to be the best compromise with the
difficulties of the case under the given civilization.'
Now, on the contrary, we have Plato's view of abso-
lute optimism, the true maximum perfeclionis for
social man, in a condition openly assumed to be
modelled after a philosopher's ideal. There is no
work, therefore, from which profounder draughts can
be derived of human frailty and degradation, under
"ts highest intellectual expansion, previously to the
rise of Christianity. Just one century dated from
the birth of Plato, which, by the most plausible
chronology, very little preceded the death of Pericles
the great Macedonian expedition under Alexander
was proceeding against Persia. By that time the
bloom of Greek civility had suffered. That war,
taken in connection with the bloody feuds that sue*
ceeded it amongst the great captains of Alexander
gave a shock to the civilization of Greece ; so that
Plato's republic. 433
upon the N\hole, until the dawn of the (Christian era,
more than four centuries later, it would not be pos-
sible to fix on any epoch more illustrative of Greek
Intellect, or Greek refinement, than precisely that
youth of Plato, which united itself by immediate
consecutive succession to the most brilliant section
in the administration of Pericles. It was, in fact,
throughout the course of the Peloponnesian war —
the one sole war that divided the whole household of
Greece against itself, giving motive to efibrts, and
dignity to personal competitions — contemporary with
Xenophon and the younger Cyrus, during the man-
hood of Alcibiades, and the declining years of So-
crates — amongst such coevals and such circumstances
of war and revolutionary truce — that Plato passed
his fervent youth. The bright sunset of Pericles stUl
burned in the Athenian heavens ; the gorgeous trag-
edy and the luxuriant comedy, so recently created,
were now in full possession of the Athenian stage ;
the city was yet fresh from the hands of its creators
— Pericles and Phidias ; the fine arts were towering
into their meridian altitude ; and about the period
when Plato might be considered an adult sui juris,
that is, just four hundred and ten years before the
<)irth of Christ, the Grecian intellect might be said to
culminate in Athens. Any more favorable era for
estimating the Greek character, cannot, we presume,
be suggested. For, although personally there might
be a brighter constellation gathered about Pericles, at
a date twenty-five years antecedent to this era of
Plato's maturity, stiL, as regarded the results upon
the collective populace of Athens, that must have
uecome most conspiruous and palpable in tho gene-
28
134 PLATO'S EEPUBLIC.
ration immediately succeeding. The thoughtfulnesi
impressed by the new theatre, the patriotic fervor
generated by the administration of Pericles, must
have revealed themselves most effectually after both
causes had been operating through one entire geneia-
tion. And Plato, who might have been kissed as an
infant by Pericles, but never could have looked at
hat great man with an eye of intelligent admiration
— to whose ear the name of Pericles must have
sounded with the same effect as that of Pitt to the
young men of our British Reform Bill — could yet
better appreciate the elevation which he had impressed
upon the Athenian character, than those who, as direct
coevals of Pericles, could not gain a sufficient ' elonga-
tion ' from his beams to appreciate his lustre. Our
inference is — that Plato, more even than Pericles,
saw the consummation of the Athenian intellect, and
witnessed more than Pericles himself the civilization
effected by Pericles.
This consideration gives a value to every sentiment
expressed by Plato. The Greek mind was then more
intensely Greek than at any subsequent period. After
the period of Alexander, it fell under exotic influences
— alien and Asiatic in some cases, regal and despotic
in others. One hundred and fifty years more brought
the country under the Roman yoke ; after which the
true Grecian intellect never spoke a natural or genial
language again. The originality of the Athenian
mind had exhaled under the sense of constraint. But
as yet, and throughout the life of Plato, Greece wap
essentially Grecian, and Athens radically Athenian.
With respect to those particular works of Plata
which qpncern the constitution of governments, thete
Plato's republic. 435
e this special reason for building upon thtm any
inferences as to the culture of Athenian society —
that probably these are the most direct emanations
from the Platonic intellect, the most purely represen-
tative of Plato individually, and the most prolonged
or sustained eflfort of his peculiar mind. It is cus-
comary to talk of a Platonic philosophy as a coherent
whole, that may be gathered by concentration from
his disjointed dialogues. Our belief is, that no such
systematic whole exists. Fragmentary notices are all
that remain in his works. The four minds, from
\fhom we ha\ e received the nearest approximation to
nn orbicular system, or total body of philosophy, are
those of Aristotle, of Des Cartes, of Leibnitz, and
lastly, of Immanuel Kant. All these men have mani-
fested an ambition to complete the cycle of their
philosophic speculations ; but, for all that, not one of
them has come near to his object. How much less
can any such cycle or systematic whole be ascribed
to Plato ! His dialogues are a succession of insulated
essays, upon problems just then engaging the atten-
tion of thoughtful men in Greece. But we know not
how much of these speculations may really belong to
Socrates, into whose mouth so large a proportion is
ihrown ; nor have we any means of discriminating
between such doctrines as were put forward occa-
sionally by way of tentative explorations, or trials of
dialetic address, and on the other hand, such as Plato
adopted in sincerity of heart, whether originated by
nis master or by himself. There is, besides, a very
iwkward argument for suspending our faith in any
me doctrine as rigorously Platonic. We are assured
veforehand, that the intolerance of the Athenian peo-
436 PLAIO'S REPUBLIC.
pie in the affair of Socrates, must have damped the
speculating spirit in all philosophers who were not
prepared to fly from Athens. It is no time to he
prating as a philosophical free-thinker, when bigotry
takes the shape of judicial persecution. That one
cup of poison administered to Socrates, must have
stifled the bold spirit of philosophy for a century to
come. This is a reasonable presumption. But the
same argument takes another and a more self-con-
fessing form in another feature of Plato's writings ;
viz., in his aff"ectation of a double doctrine — esoteric,
the private and confidential form authorized by his
final ratification — and exoteric, which was but another
name for impostures with which he duped those who
might else have been calumniators. But what a world
of falsehoods is wi-apped up in this pretence ! Firsc
of all, what unreflecting levity to talk of this twofold
doctrine as at all open to the human mind on ques-
tions taken generally ! How many problems of a
philosophic nature can be mentioned, in which it
would be at all possible to maintain this double cur-
rent, flowing collaterally, of truth absolute and truth
plausible ? No such double view would be often
available under any possible sacrifice of truth. Sec-
:)ndly, if it were, how thoroughly would that be to
adopt and renew those theatrical pretences of the
itinerant Sophistce, or encyclopsedic hawkers of know-
ledge, whom elsewhere and so repeatedly, Plato, in
the assumed person of Socrates, had contemptuously
exposed. Thirdly, in a philosophy by no means
remarkable for its opulence in ideas, which moves at
til only by its cumbrous superfluity of words, (partly
In disguise of which, under the forms of conversatioiv
PLATO S KEPUBLIC.
437
we believe the mode of dialogue to have been first
adopted,) how was this double expenditure to be
maintained ? What tenfold contempt it impresses
upon a man's poverty, where he himself forces it
into public exposure by insisting on keeping up a
double establishment in the town and in the country,
at the very moment that his utmost means are below
the decent maintenance of one very humble house-
li Id ! Or let the reader represent to himself the
miserable charJatanerie of a gasconading secretary
affecting to place himself upon a level with Caesar,
by dictating to three amanuenses at once, when the
blender result makes it painfully evident, that to have
kept one moving in any respectable manner, would
have bankrupted his resources. But, lastly, when thia
affectation is maintained of a double doctrine, by what
test is the future student to distinguish the one from
another ? Never was there an instance in which
vanity was more short-sighted. It would not be pos
Bible by any art or invention more effectually to
extinguish our interest in a scheme of philosophy —
by summarUy extinguishing all hope of our separating
he true from the false, the authentic from the spuri-
i us — than by sending down to posterity this claim to
a secret meaning lurking behind a mask. If the key
to the distinction between true and false is set down
with the philosophy, then what purpose of conceal-
•nent is attained r Who is it tliat is duped ? On the
other hand, if it is not sent down, what purpose of
trattt is attained ? Who is it then that is not duped ?
And if Plato relied upon a confidential s-ucceesor u
Jie oral expounder of his secret meaning, how blind
must he have been to the coarse of human contiiigen-
li}8 Plato's r^vublic.
cies, wLo should not see that this tradition of explana-
tion could not flow onwards through foui successive
generations Avithout inevitably suffering some fatal in-
terruption ; after which, once let the chain be dropped,
the links would never be recoverable, as, in effect, we
now see to be the result. No man can venture to say,
amidst many blank contradictions and startling incon-
sistencies, which it is that represents the genuine
opinion of Plato ; which the ostensible opinion foi
evading a momentary objection, or for provoking
opposition, or perhaps simply for prolonging the con-
versation. And upon the whole, this one explosion
of vanity, of hunger — bitter penury affecting the
riotous superfluity of wealth — has done more to
check the interest in Plato's opinions than all his
mysticism and all his vagueness of purpose. In other
philosophers, even in him who professedly adopted
the rule of ' axonaov,' ' darken your meaning,^ thei e
is some chance of arriving at the real doctrine, be-
cause, though hidden, it is one. But with a man wjio
avows a purpose of double-dealing, to understand is,
after all, the smallest part of your task. Havin^;'
perhaps with difficulty framed a coherent construction
for the passage, having with much pains entitled
yourself to say, — ' Now I comprehend,' — next comes
the question, WJiat is it you comprehend ? Whj ,
perhaps a doctrine which the author secretly abjured ;
n which he was misleading the world : in which he
j.>ut forward a false opinion for the benefit of other
passages, and for the sake of securing safety to those
n which he revealed what he supposed to be the
rruth.
There is, however, in the following political hypotb
Plato's republic. 439
esis of Plato, less real danger from this conflict of
two meanings, than in those sases where he treated a
great pre-existing problem of speculation. Here,
from the practical nature of the problem, and its more
ad libitum choice of topics, he was not forced upon
those questions, which, in a more formal theorera, he
could not uniformly evade. But one difficulty m\l
always remain for the perplexity of the student — viz.
in what point it was that Socrates had found it dan-
gerous to tamper with the religion of Greece, if Plato
could safely publish the free-thinking objections which
are here avowed. In other respects, the Ideal Republic
of Plato wUl surprise those who have connected with
' the very name of Plato a sort of starry elevation, and
a visionary dedication to what is pure. Of purity, in
any relation, there will be found no traces : of vision-
ariness, more than enough.
The First book of the Polity, or general form of
Commonwealths, is occupied with a natural, but very
immethodical discussion of justice. Justice — as one
of those original problems unattainable in solitary life,
which drove men into social union, that by a common
application of their forces that might be obtained which
else was at the mercy of accident — should naturally
occupy the preliminary place in a speculation upon
the possible varieties of government. Accordingly,
Bome later authors, like Mr. Godwin, in his Political
Justice, have transmuted the whole question as to forma
of social organization into a transcendent question of
'u3tice ; and how it can be fairly distributed in recon-
t lement with the necessities of a practical adminis-
tration or the general prejudices of men. A state, a
wmmonwealth, for example, is not simply a head ot
140 Plato's kepublic.
Buprcsmacy in relation to the other members of a polit-
ical union ; it is also itself a body amongst other co
equal bodies — one republic amongst other co-ordinate
republics. "War may happen to arise ; taxation ; and
many other burdens. How are these to be distributed
BO as not to wound the fundamental principle of justice ?
They may be apportioned unequally. That would be
injustice without a question. There may be scruples
of conscience as to war, or contributions to war.
That would be a more questionable case ; but it
would demand a consideration, and must be brought
into harmony with the general theory of justice. For
the supreme problem in such a speculation seems to
be this — how to draw the greatest amount of strength
from civil union ; how to carry the powers of man to
the greatest height of improvement, or to place him in
the way of such improvement ; and lastly, to do all
this in reconciliation with the least possible infringe-
ment or suspension of man's individual rights. Under
any view, therefore, of a commonwealth, nobody will
object to the investigation of justice — as a proper
basis for the whole edifice. But the student is dissat-
isfied with this Platonic introduction — 1 st, as being
too casual and occasional, consequently as not pre-
figuring in its course the order of those speculations
which are to follow ; 2dly, as too verbal and hair-
Bplitting ; 3dly, that it does not connect itself with
wliat follows. It stands inertly and uselessly befort
the main disquisition as a sort of vestibule, but we are
not made to see any transition from one to the other.
Meantime, the outline of this nominal introduction
IB what follows : — Socrates has received an invitation
to a dinner party ISt'uivov] from the son of Cephalus, •
Plato's republic. 44]
respectable citizen of Athens. This citizen^ whose
sons are grown up, is naturally himself advanced in
years ; and is led, therefore, reasonably to speak of old
age. This he does in the tone of Cicero's Cato ; con-
tending that, upon the whole, it is made burdensome
only by men's vices. But the value of his testimony
is somewhat lowered by the fact, that he is moderately
%?ealthy ; and secondly, (which is more important,)
that ho is constitutionally moderate in his desires.
Towards the close of his remarks, he says something
on the use of riches in protecting us from injurious
treatment — whether of our own towards others, or of
others towards us.
This calls up Socrates, "who takes occasion to put a
general question as to the nature and definition of injus-
tice. Cephalus declines the further prosecution of the
dialogue for himself, but devolves it on his son. Some
of the usual Attic word-sparring follows — of which
this may be taken as a specimen : — a definition hav-
ing been given of justice in a tentative way by Socrates
himself, as though it might be that quality which re-
stores to every one what we know to be his own ; and
the eldest son having adopted this definition as true,
Socrates then opposes the cases in which, having bor-
rowed a sword from a man, we should be required
deliberately to replace it in the hands of the owner,
knowing him to be mad. An angry interruption takes
place from one of the company called Thrasymachus.
This is appeased by the obliging behavior of Socrates.
But it produces this effect upon what follows, that in
Tact from one illustration adduced by this Tlirasy-
Oiachus, the whole subsequent discipline arises. He,
»inongst other ai-ts whirh he allciies in evidence of hii
t4:2 Plato's republic.
news, cites that of government; and by a confiisior.
between mere municipal law and the moial law of
aniversal obligation, he contends that in every land
that is just which promotes the interest or wishes of
the governing power — be it king , nobles, or people as
a body. Socrates opposes him by illustrations, such
as Xenophon's Memorabilia, here made familiar to all
the world, drawn from the arts of cooks, shepherds,
pilots, &c. ; and the book closes with a general de-
fence of justice as requisite to the very existence of
political states ; since without some trust reposed in
each other, wars would be endless, it is also presuma-
ble, that man, if generally unjust, would be less pros-
perous — as enjoying less of favor from the gods ; and
finally, that the mind in a temper of injustice, may be
regarded as diseased ; that it is less qualified for dis-
charging its natural functions ; and that thus, whether
looking at bodies politic or individuals, the sum of
happiness would be greatly diminished, if injustice
were allowed to prevail.
BOOK THE SECOND.
In the beginning of this Book, two brothers. Glance
and Adeimantus, undertake the defence of injustice ;
but upon such arguments as have not even a colorable
plausibility. They suppose the case that a man were
possessed of the ring which conferred the privilege of
invisibility ; a fiction so multiplied in modern fairy
tales, but which in the barren legends of the Pagan
(vorld was confined to the ring of Gyges. Armed witi
this advantage, they contend that every man would ba
unjust But this is change ')nly of fact Neyt, how-
^ Plato's republic. 443
3ver, they suppose a case still more monstroua ; viz
that moral distinctions should be so far confounded, as
that a man practising all injustice, should pass for a
man exquisitely just, and that a corresponding transfer
of reputation should take place with regard to the just
man : under such circumstances, they contend that
every man would hasten to be unjust ; and that the
unjust would reap all the honors together with all the
advantages of life. From all which they iafer two
things — First, that injustice is not valued for anything
in its own nature or essence, but for its consequences ;
and secondly, that it is a combination of the Aveak many
against the few who happen to be strong, which has
invested justice with so much splendor by means of
written laws. It seems strange that even for a mo-
mentary effect in conversation, such trivial sophistry
as this could avail. Because, if in order to represent
justice and injustice as masquerading amongst men,
and losing their customary effects, or losing their
corresponding impressions upon men's feelings, it is
necessary first of all to suppose the whole realities
of life confounded, and fantastic impossibilities estab-
lished, no result at all from such premises could be
worthy of attention ; and, after all, the particular result
supposed does not militate in any respect against the
received notions as to moral distinctions. Injustice
might certainly pass for justice ; and as a second case,
injustice having a bribe attached to it, might blind the
moral sense to its true proportions of evil. But that
will not prove that injustice can ever fascinate as in.
justice, or again, that it will ever prosper as regards ita
effects in that undisguised manifestation. ]f, to win
^on men's esteem, it must onvately wear the mask of
444 PLAIO'S fiKPUBLIC. #
justice; or if, to win upon men's practice, it must pre-
viously connect itself with artificial bounties of honoi
and preferment — all this is but another way of pro-
nouncing an eulogy on justice. It is agreeable, how-
ever, to find, that these barren speculations are soon
made to lead into questions more directly pertinent t"*
the constitution of bodies politic. Socrates observea
that large models are best fitted to exhibit the course
of any action or process ; and therefore he shifts the
field of obstruction from the individual man, armed
or not with the ring of Gyges, to regular common-
wealths ; in which it is, and in their relations to other
commonwealths or to their own internal parts, that he
proposes to answer these wild sophisms on the subject
of justice as a moral obligation.
Socrates lays the original foundation of all political
states in want or reciprocal necessity. And of human
necessity the very primal shape is that which regards
our livelihood. Here it is interesting to notice what
is the minimum which Plato assumes for the ' outfit '
(according to our parliamentary term) of social life.
We moderns, for the mounting a colony or other social
establishment, are obliged to assume at least five heads
of expenditure; viz., 1, food; 2, shelter, or housing;
3, clothing ; 4, warmth (or fuel) ; 5, light. But the
two last we owe to our colder climate, and (which is a
consequence of that) to our far more unequal distribu-
tion of daylight. Ab the ancients knew nothing of our
very short days, so on the other hand they knew noth-
ing, it is true, of our very long ones ; and at first sight
it might seem as if the one balanced the other. Bu*
it is not so ; sunrise and sunset were far more nearlj
for the ancients, than they ever can be for nations ii
Plato's kepublic. 445
ftigher latitudes, coincident with the periods of retiring
to rest and rising ; and thus it was that they obtained
another advantage — that of evading much call for
fuel. Neitht-r artificial light, nor artificial heat, were
much needed in ancient times. Hot climates, often
more than cold ones, require (it is true) artificial heat
after sunset. But the ancient Greeks and Romans, a
fortiori all nations less refined, were in bed by that
time during the periods of their early simplicity, that
IS, during the periods of their poverty. The total
expense in fuel amongst the Greeks, was upon a scale
suited to ages in which fossil coal was an unknown staff
of life : it was no more than met the simple demands
of cookers, and of severe winters ; these, it is true,
even in Spain, nay in Syria, are sometimes accompa-
nied with heavy storms of snow.* But, on the other
hand, the winters are short ; and even so far north in
Italy as Milan, the season of geniial spring, and of
luxuriant flowers, often commences in February. In
contrast with our five requisitions of northern latitudes,
which, as implying a higher (because a more provi-
dent) scale of existence, have a philosophic value, it is
interesting to find Plato, under the person of Socrates,
requiring only three ; viz. food, clothes, and lodging.
The arts, therefore, which he presumes requisite for
establishing a city, ai-e four : one occupied with the
culture of the ground ; one with the building of habita-
tions ; and two, ministerial to the udorning, or at leasi
to the protecting of the person. The ploughman
before all others for our food — in the second rank,
• ' Storms of $now.' — For an instance of a very critical fall of
mow near Jerusalem iiot long before our Saviour's time, set
Jotfephus.
446 Plato's republic.
Jhe mason for raising dwelling-houses — and in th«
»ast place, the weaver combined with the shoemakex
for the manufacturing our dress ; these four artista.
Bays Plato, are the very minimum establishment on
which a city or a colony can begin to move. But a
very few steps wiU bring us, he remarks, to a call for
further arts ; in particular, it will soon be found that it
is a sad waste of time for any of the four already
mentioned to be interrupted by the necessity of making
their several tools and implements. A fifth artist will
therefore be found necessary, in the character of tool-
maker, in common with all the rest. A sixth and a
seventh will be soon called for, in the character of
shepherds and herdsmen ; for if sheep and oxen are
not indispensable as food, they are so as furnishing the
leather required by the shoemaker. And lastly, mer-
chants, for the purpose of exporting the surplus pro-
ducts, and of importing such as are defective, together
with resident dealers in all articles of household use
are contemplated as completing the establishment. The
gradual accession of luxuries in every class is next
presumed as what would follow in general, but would
not be allowed in Plato's republic ; and, as the increase
of population will require additional territory, (though
it is an oversight not to have assigned from the first
the quantity of soil occupied, and the circumstances of
position in regard to neighbors,) this will make an
opening for war ; and that again for a regular class of
men dedicated to the arts of attack and defence. It is
singular that Plato should thus arbitrarily lay his
ground of war in aggressive principles — becaise, if
be assumed his territory spacious enough, and tha
3^>ansion of population as slow as it really was ii
Plato's republic. 447
Greece, the case in which he finally plants his neces-
wty for war might not occur until the new state should
be rich enough to find, in the difficulty supposed, a cause
for throwing ofi" colonies, rather than for unprovoked
attacks on neighboring states. It is remarkable, how-
ever, that Plato, a pagan writer, makes war a subse-
quent and ministerial phenomenon in civil societies ;
whereas Hobbes, nominally a Christian, makes the
belligerent condition to be that transcendent and
original condition of man, out of which society itself
arose.
War, however, has begun ; and soldiers, as a merce-
nary class, are henceforwards required. Upon which
Plato unfolds his ideas as to the proper qualifications
of a soldier. Of course he insists upon courage,
athletic powers of body in general, (qualifications so
pre-eminently required before the invention of fire-
arms,*) and especially upon the power of speed and
agility. But it is singular that in describing the tem-
perament likely to argue coiu:age, he insists upon
irascibility ; whereas, with far more truth of philoso-
phy, his pupU Aristotle, in after years, speaks con-
temptuously of all courage founded upon anger, as
generally spurious in its nature, and liable to the same
suspicion as that which is founded upon intoxication.
It is upon this occasion, and in connection with the
* * Fire-arms.' — It is very true that the essential principle dis-
tingiiishlng fire-arms, viz., their application to distant warfare
making men independent of personal strength, was found in
llingers and archers. But tnese arms of the martial service
were always in some disrepute in Greece ; even Hercules (in
the Here. Furens) is described by Euripides as subject to
ridicule and reproach from Lycus, his enemy, on account of
\is having resorted to archery.
448 Plato's republic.
eduoation of this state soldiery, as a professional class
needing to be trained expressly for a life of adventur-
ous service, and of hardship, that Plato introduces his
celebrated doctrine imputing mischievous falsehood to
the poets. The mythology of paganism, it is needless
to say, represented the gods under characters the most
hideous and disgusting. But the main circumstances
in these representations, according to Plato, are mere
fictions of Hesiod and of Homer. Strange, indeed,
that Plato should ascribe to any poets whatever, so
prodigious a power as that of having created a national
religion. For the religion of paganism was not some-
thing independent of the mythology. It was wholly
involved in the mythology. Take away the mytho-
logic legends, and you take away all the objects of
worship. The characteristics by which Latona is dis-
tinguished from Ceres, Apollo from Mercury, Diana
'"rom Minerva, Hebe from Aurora, all vanish, and
leave mere nonentities, if the traditional circumstance
of their theogony and history is laid aside as fabulous.
Besides, if this could be surmounted, and if Plato
could account for all the tribes of Hellas having adopt-
td what he supposes to be the reveries of two solitary
poets, how could he account for the general argument
in these traditions of other distant nations, who never
heard so much as the names of the two Greek poets,
aor could have read them if they had? The whole
speculation is like too many in Plato — without a
shadow of coherency ; and at every angle presenting
some fresh incongruity. The fact really was, that the
human intellect had been for some time outgrowing ita
foul religions ; clamorously it began to demand som*
change ; but how little it was tble to effect that change
PLATO S REPUBLIC. 449
for itself, is evident from no example more than tliat of
Plato ; for he, whilst dismissing as fables some of the
grosser monstrosities which the Pagan pantheon offered,
loaded in effect that deity, whom he made a concurrent
party to his own schemes for man, with vile qualities,
"juite as degrading as any which he removed ; and in
effect so much the worse, as regarded the result, be-
cause, wanting the childish monstrosities of the mytho-
logic legends, they had no benefit from any allegoric
interpretations in the background. Thus cruelty and
sensuality, if they happen to fall in with a pagan phi-
losopher's notions of state utility, instantly assume a
place in his theories; and thence is transferred upon
the deities, who are supposed to sanction this system,
a far deeper taint of moral pollution than that which,
being connected with extravagant or ludicrous tales,
might provoke an enlightened mind to reject it with
incredulity, or receive it as symbolic. Meantime, it is
remarkable that Plato should connect this reform in
education specially with his soldiers ; and still more so,
when we understand his reason. It was apparently on
two grounds that he fancied the pagan superstitions
injurious to a class of men whom it was important to
keep clear of panics. First, on an argument derived
from the Hades of the poets, Plato believed the modes
of punishment exhibited by these poets to be too alarm-
ing, and likely to check by intimidation that career of
violence which apparently he thinks requisite in a
B^.iier. Surely he might have spared his anxiety ; for
if, in any quarter of its ba'-'cn superstitions, paganism
betrayed its impoverished fdpcy, it was in its pictures
»f Tartarus, where, besides that the several cases are,
at, so scanty, and applied only lO monstrous offences .•
•29
450 Plato's republic.
4nd 2d, sc ludicrous, they are, 3d, all of ttem ineiFec-
tual for terror, were it only by the general impression
conveyed that they are allegoric, and meant to be
allegoric. Secondly, Plato seems to have had in his
tlioughts those panic terrors which sometimes arose
from the belief that superior beings suddenly revealed
themselves in strange shapes ; — both in Roman and
Grecian experience, these fancied revelations had pro-
duced unexpected victories, but also unexpected flights.
He argues, accordingly, against the possibility of a
god adopting any metamorphosis ; but upon the weak
scholastic argument, weaker than a cobweb to any
superstitious heart, that a celestial being would not
leave a better state for a worse. How visionary to
suppose that any mind previously inclined to shadowy
terrors, and under the operation of solitude, of awful
silence, and of wild grotesque scenery in forests or
mountains, would be charmed into sudden courage by
an a priori little conundrum of the logic school ! Oh !
philosopher, laid by the side of a simple-hearted primi-
tive Christian, what a fool dost thou appear ! And
•ifter all, if such evils arose from familiarity with the
poets, and on that account the soldiery was to be se-
cluded from all such reading — how were they to be
preserved from contagion of general conversation with
their fellow-citizens? Or, again, on foreign expedi-
tions, how v^ere they to be sequestered from such tra-
ditions as were generally current, and were everywhere
made the subject of dinner recitations, or prelections
or of national music ?
In the midst of these impracticable solicitudes foi
the welfare of his soldiers, Plato does not overlook th»
probability that men trained to violence may mutiny
PLATO S BEPX7BLIC.
451
and (being consciously the sole depositaries* of the
public weapons and skill, as well as originally selected
for superior promise of strength) may happen to com-
bine, and to turn their arms against their fellow-citi-
zens. It is painful to see so grave a danger dismissed
BO carelessly — tantamne rem tarn negligenter ? The
Bole pro\'i8ion which Plato makes against the for-
midable danger, is by moral precepts, impressing on
the soldier kindness and affability to those whom it
was his professional mission to protect. But such
mere sanctions of decorum or usage — how weak
must they be found to protect any institution merely
human, against a strong interest mo\*ing in an adverse
direction ! The institutions of Romulus, in a simple
and credulous age, had the consecration (perhaps not
imaginary, but, beyond a doubt, universally believed)
of heaven itself — a real sanctity guarded the insti-
tutions of Rome, which yet rocked and quaked for
centuries under the conflicting interests of the citizens.
But a philosopher's republic, in an age of philosophy
and free-thinking, must repose upon human securities.
Show any order of men a strong change setting in
upon the current of their civil interests, and they will
soon be led to see a corresponding change in their
duties. Not to mention that the sense of duty must
be weak at all times amongst men whom Plato sup-
poses expressly trained to acts of violence, Avhom he
Boeks to wean from the compunction of religion, and
whose very service and profession had its first origin
in acknowledged rapacity. Thus, by express institu-
tion of Plato, and bv his own forecasting, had the
•ol.licry arisen. Thus had the storm been called up ;
»nd it would be too late to bid it wheel this way oi
452
TLATO S REPUBllC.
that, after its power had been consciously developed,
Rnd the principles which should control this powei
were found to be nothing more than the ancient inten-
tions of a theoretic founder, or the pai'ticular interests
of a favored class. ' Besides, it will be seen further on,
that the soldiers are placed under peculiar disadvan-
tages — they are to possess nothing ; and thus, in
addition to the strong temptation of conscious power,
they are furnished with a second temptation in their
painful poverty, contrasted with the comparative
wealth of the cowardly citizens whom they protect;
and finally, with a third, (which also furnished an ex-
cuse,) in the feeling that they are an injured class.
BOOK THE THIKD.
Plato is neither methodic nor systematic ; he has
neither that sort of order which respects the connec-
tion of what he teaches as a thing to be understood,
nor that which respects its connection as a thing which
is to be realized — neither that which concerns the
ratio cognoscendi, (to adopt a great distinction revived
by Leibnitz from the schoolmen,) nor that, on the
other hand, which regards the ratio essendi. This
last neglect he could not have designed ; the other
perhaps he did. And the very form of dialogue or
conversations was probably adopted to intimate as
much. Be that as it may, we look in vain for any
Buch distribution of the subject as should justify the
modern division into separate books. The loose order
of colloquial discussion, sometimes going back, some-
times leaping forward with impatient anticipation, and
then again thoughtfully resuming a topic insuflficiently
examined — such is the law of succession by whict
Plato's kepublic. 453
the general theme is slowly advanced, and its partic.
ular heads are casually unfolded.
Accordingly, in this third hook the subject of the
Boldiery is resumed ; and the proper education for that
main column of the state, on which its very existence
is openly founded, engages the more circumstantial
attention of Plato. The leading object kept in view,
as regards the mental discipline, is to brace the mind
against fear. And here, again, Plato comes bact
upon the poets, whom he taxes with arts of emascula-
tion, in reference to the hardy courage which his
system demands. He distributes the poets into the
two great classes of narrative and dramatic ; those
who speak directly in their own person, like Homer ;^'
and those who utter their sentiments as ventriloquists,
throwing their voice first upon this character of a
drama, next upon that. It is difficult to see what pur-
pose Plato had in this distribution ; but it is highly
interesting to us of this day, because we might other-
wise have supposed that, upoji a point of delicacy,
Plato had forborne to involve in his censure of the
poets that body of great dramatists, so recently drawn
into existence, and of whom two at least (Euripides
and Aristophanes) were in part of their lives contem-
porary with himself. He does, however, expressly
notice them ; and, what is more to the purpose, he
applies to them his heaviest censure : though on what
principle, is somewhat obscure. The nominal rea-
son for his anger is — that they proceed by means of
imitation ; and that e^en mimetically to represent
woman, lias the effect of transfusing effeminacy, by
Borae unexplained process, in^o the manners of the
Imitator. Now, really, tlu.-, at the best would bo too
454
PLArO S REPUBLIC.
fantastic. But when we reflect on the great tragic
poets of Greece, and consider that in the midst of
pagan darkness the only rays of moral light are to
be found in them, and that Milton, almost a bigot,
as being a Puritan, yet with that exalted standard of
scriptural truth which he carried forever in his mind,
refers to these poets, and the great theatre which they
founded, for the next best thing to Christian teach-
ing— we feel our hearts alienated from Plato. But
when we also contrast with this Greek scenical moral-
ity and its occasional elevation, the brutal, sensual,
and cruel principles which we sometimes find in Plato
himself, (more frequently indeed, and more outra-
geously, than in any other pagan author of eminence,)
— it cannot be thought unreasonable that our aliena-
tion should amount to disgust. Euripides was truly a
great man, struggling for a higher light than he could
find. Plato was a thorough Greek, satisfied, so far as
ethics were concerned, with the light which existed,
nor dreaming of anything higher. And, with respect
to the Greek religion, Euripides forestalled, by twenty
years, all that Plato has said ; we have his words to
this day, and they are much more impressive than
Plato's ; and probably^"* these very words of Euripides
first suggested to Plato the doctrine which he so mali-
ciously directs in this place against the very poets as a
body, who, through one of their number, first gave
currency to such a bold speculation, and first tried as
enfans perdus, (or the leaders of a forlorn hope.)
whether the timid superstition of the Athenians^ and
the fanaticism founded on their fear, would tolerate
such innovations.
After this second sentence of exile against the poet*
PLAXO'S REPUBLIC. 455
— whicli we caxinot but secretly trace to the jealousy
of Plato, armed against that section of the Athenian
literati most in the public favor — we are carried
forward tc the music of the Greeks. The soldiery
are excluded from all acquaintance with any but thn
austerer modes. But as this is a subject still mysteri-
ous even to those who come armed with the knowledge
of music as a science, and as no more than a general
caution is given, this topic is not one of those which
we are called on to discuss.
So slight was the Grecian circuit of education,
and especially where mathematics happened to be
excluded, that poetry and music apparently bound
the practical encyclopaedia of Plato. From the mind,
therefore, he passes to the physical education. And
here we find two leading cautions, of which one, ai
least, is built on more accurate observation of medical
truths than we should have expected in the age of
Plato. The first will, perhaps, not much strike the
reader, for it expresses only the stern injunction upon
every soldier of that temperance as to strong liquors,
which in our days has descended (with what perma
nence we fear to ask) amongst the very lowest and
most sufiering of human beings. It is, however,
creditable to Plato, that he should have perceived the
mischievous operation of inebriation upon the health
iind strength ; for in his age, the evil of such a
practice was chiefly thrown upon its moral effects^ —
the indecorums which it caused, the quarrels, the
murderous contests, the lasting alienations, and the
perilous breaches of confidence. There was little
general sense of any evil in wine as a relaxer of the
bodily system ; as, on tne other hand, neither then
456 PLATO'S KEPUBLIC.
nor in our (lays is there any just appreciation of tbb
lubsidiary benefits which sometimes arise from strong
liquors, or at least the clamorous call for such liquors,
in cold climates where the diet is cold and watery.
Edmund Burke, as we remember, in his enlarged
wisdom did not overlook this case ; we individually
have seen too large a series of cases to doubt the fact
— that in vast cities, wherever the diet of poor families
bappens to be thrown too much upon mere watery
broths, it is a pure instinct of nature, and often a very
salutary instinct, which forces them into a compen-
satory stimulus of alcohol. The same natural instinct
for strong liquor as a partial relief, is said to be
prompted by scrofula. In a Grecian climate, and
with a limited population, this anomalous use of wine
was not requisite ; and for the soldiery, enjoying a
select diet, it could least of all be needful. Plato shows
his good sense, therefore, as well as the accuracy of
his observation, in forbidding it. For he notices one
effect which invariably follows from the addiction to
strong liquors, even where as yet they have not mas-
tered the constitutional vigor ; A^iz. their tendency to
produce a morbid sensibility to cold. We ourselves
nave seen a large party of stout men travelling on a
tnorning of intense severity. Amongst the whole
number, nine or ten, there were two only who did
not occasionally shiver, or express some unpleasant
feeling connected with the cold ; and these two were
the sole water-drinkers of the party. The othei
Daution of Plato shows even more accuracy of at-
tention ; and it is completely verified by modem
experience. He is naturally anxious that the diet of
the soldiery should be simple and wholesome. Now
Plato's eepublic. 457
it was almost certain that those who reflected on the
final object he had in view, would at once interpret
his meaning as pointing to the diet of professional
athletes. These men for Greece were the forerunners
of the ]loman gladiators ; as the Greek hippodrome
bisected itself into the Roman circus and amphitheatre.
And as Plato's object was to secure the means of
unusual strength, what more natural than to consult
the experience of those who, having long had the very
same end, must by this time have accumulated a large
science of the appropriate means ? Now, on closer
examination, Plato perceived that the end was not the
same. The gladiatorial schools had before them some
day, well known and immutable, of public festivities
and games, against which they were to prepare their
maximum of bodily power. By the modern and by
the ancient system of training, it is notorious that this
preparatory . discipline can be calculated to a nicety.
When the ' fancy ' was in favor amongst ourselves,
the pagUist, after entering into any legal engagement,
under strong penalties, to fight on a day assigned,
went into training about six weeks previously ; and by
the appointed time he had, through diet, exercise,
sleep, all nicely adjusted to the rules of this discipline,
brought up his muscular strength and his wind to the
summit of what his constitution allowed. Now, cer-
tainly, in a general view, the purpose of the Platonic
soldier was the same, but with this important differ-
ence— that his fighting condition was needed not on
one or two days consecutively, but on many days, and
Hot against a day punctually assignable, but against a
reason or period perhaps of months, quite indeter-
ninate as to its beginning, end, or duration. This one
458
PLATO S REPUBLIC.
difierence made the whole diflference ; for both ancient
fcud modem training concur in these two remarkable
facts — 1st. That a condition of physical power thus
preternaturally produced cannot be maintained, but
that uniformly a very rapid relapse follows to a con-
dition of debility. Like the stone of Sisyphus, the
more painfully and with unnatural effort a resisting
object has been rolled up to a high summit, with so
much the more thundering violence does it run back.
The state was too intense not to be succeeded by
Budden recoil. 2dly. It has been found that these
spasms of preternatural tension are not without dan-
ger : apoplexes, ruptures of large blood-vessels, and
other modes of sudden death, are apt to follow from
the perilous tampering with the exquisite machinery of
nature. This also had been the experience of Greece.
Time, as a great element in all powerful changes,
must be allowed in order to secure their safety. Plato,
therefore, lays down as a great law for the physical
discipline, that in no part of its elements, whether diet,
exercise, abstinence, or gymnastic feats of strength anc'
address, shall the ritual for the soldiers borrow any-
thing from the schools of the athJetcB.
In the remaining part of this Book, we have some
organic arrangements proposed. First, as to the local
situation — a strong military position is requisite for
the soldiery, and ground must therefore be selected
originally which offers this advantage. The position
is to be such as may at once resist a foreign enemy
and command the other orders in the state. Upon this
ground, a body of lodgings is to be built ; and in these
lodgings a single regard is prescribed to the purpose
in view. Direct utility and convenience, without 03teiir
PliATO's KEPCBLIC. 459
iation, are to preside in the distribution of the parts
%nd in the architectural style ; the buildings are, in
fact, to unite at once the uses of a barrack and a
fortress.
Next, as this fortress, distinct from the other part*
of the city, when connected with arms, and the use ol
arms, and regular discipline, and select qualities of
body, cannot but throw vast power into the hands of
the soldiery, so that from being guardians of the city,
(as by direct tUle they are,) they might easily become
its oppressors and pUlagers, universally the soldiers are
to be incapable by law of holding any property what-
ever, without regard to quality, without regard to tenure.
They can inherit nothing ; they can possess nothing ;
neither gold nor silver, metals which must not even
find an entrance into their dwellings under pretence of
custody ; nor land ; nor any other article ; nor, finally,
must they exercise a trade.
Thirdly, the administration of affairs, the executive
power, and the supreme rank, are vested in the persona
of the highest military officers — those who rise to that
station by seniority and by extraordinary merit. This
is very vaguely developed ; but enough exists to show
that the form of polity would be a martial aristocracy,
a qualified ' stratocracy.' In this state, it is not so
much true that an opening or a temptation is offered
to a martial tyranny, as that, in fact, such a tyranny ia
planted and rooted from tne first with all the organs
of administration at its disposal.
Lastly, in what way is the succession to be regulated
tnrough the several ranks and functions of the state?
Vot exactly, or under positive settlement, by castes, or
kn Egyptian succession of a son to his father's trade.
i60 t'LATO S KEPUBLIC.
&c. This is denounced in tlie sense of an ancon-
ditional or unbending system ; for it is admitted tha*
fathers of talent may have incompetent sons, and stupid
fathers may have sons of brilliant promise. But, on
the whole, it seems to be assumed that, amongst ths
highest, or martial order, the care dedicated to the
Belection of the parents will ensure children of similai
excellence,
* Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,*
and that amongst the artisans one average level of
mediocrity will usually prevail ; in which case, the
advantage of personal training to the art, under a
domestic tutor who never leaves him, must give such
a bias to the children of the citizens for their several
pursuits, as will justify the principle of hereditary suc-
cession. Still, in any case where this expectation fails,
a door is constantly kept open for meeting any unusual
indication of nature, by corresponding changes in the
destiny of the young people. Nature, therefore, in
t\ie last resort, will regulate the succession, since the
law interposes no further than in confirmation of that
order in the succession which it is presumed that nature
will have settled by clear expressions of fitness. But
in whatever case nature indicates determinately some
different predisposition in the individual, then the law
gives way ; for, says Plato, with emphasis, ' the para-
mount object in my commonwealth is — that every
human creature should find his proper level, and everj
man settle into that place for which his natural quali-
lies have fitted him.'
PLATO S KEPUBLIG. 461
BOOK THE FOXTBTH.
These last words are not a mere flourisli of rhetoric.
It is, according to Plato's view, the very distinguishing
feature in his polity, that each man occupies his own
natural place. Accordingly, it is the business of this
Book to favor that view by a sort of fanciful analogy
between what we in modern times call the four cardinal
virtues, and the four capital varieties of state polity, and
also between these virtues and the constituent order ia
ft community. This, however, may be looked upon aa
no step in advance towards the development of his own
Republic, but rather as a halt for the purpose of look-
ing back upon what has been already developed.
The cardinal virtues, as we see them adopted nearly
four hundred years after Plato by Cicero, are prudence,
fortitude, temperance and justice. The first will find
its illustration according to Plato, in the governing pari
of a state ; the second in the defending part, or the
military ; the third in the relation between all the parts ;
but the fourth has its essence in assigning to every
individual, and to every order, the appropriate right,
whether that be property, duty, function, or rank.
Other states, therefore, present some analogy to the
t.iree first virtues, according to the predominant object
which they pursue. But his own, as Plato contends,
is a model analogous to the very highest of the virtues,
Dr justice ; for that in this state only the object is kept
up, as a transcendent object, of suffering no man to
Msume functions by mere inheritance, but to every
mdividual assigning that office and station for which
nature seems to have prepared his qualifications.
This principle, so broadly expressed, would seem to
462 Plato's kepublic.
require more frequent disturbances in the stries of
hereditary employments than Plato had contemplated
in his last Book. Accordingly, he again acknowledges
the importance of vigilantly reviewing the several quali-
fications of the citizens. The rest of the Book is chiefly
occupied with a psychological inquiry into a problem
sometimes discussed in modern times, (but thoroughly
alien to the political problem of Plato ;) viz. whether,
upon dividing the internal constitution of man into
three elements — the irascible passions, the appetites
of desire, and the rational principle — we are warranted
in supposing three separate substances or hypostases in
the human system, or merely three separate offices of
some common substance : whether, in short, these
differences are organic or simply functional. But, be-
sides that the discussion is both obscure and conducted
by scholastic hair-splitting, it has too slight a relation
to the main theme before us, to justify our digressing
for what is so little interesting.
BOOK THE FIFTH.
At this point of the conversation, Adeimantus, at the
suggestion of another person, recalls Socrates to the
consideration of that foul blot upon his theory which
concerns the matrimonial connections of the army.
Not only were these to commence in a principle of
unmitigated sensuality — selection of Avives by public,
not by individual choice, and with a single reference
*o physical qualities of strength, size, agility — but,
wliich riveted the brutal tendencies of such a law, the
wives, if wives they could be called, and the children
that might arise from such promiscuous connections
♦rere to be held the common property of the ordnr
Plato's kepuulic. 463
Ties of any separate kindness, or affection for this
woman or for that child, were forbidden as a specica
of treason ; and if (as in rare cases might happen)
after all they should arise, the parties to such holy,
but, Platonically speaking, such criminal feelings, must
conceal them from all the world — must cherish them
as a secret cancer at the heart, or as a martyrdom re-
peated in every hour. We represent mairiages under
the beautiful idea of unions. But these Platonic mar-
riages would be the foulest dispersions of the nuptial
sanctities. We call them self-dedications of one
human creature to another, through the one sole means
by which nature has made it possible for any exclusive
dedication to be effected. But these Platonic marriages
would be a daily renovation of disloyalty, revolt, and
mutual abjuration. We, from human society, transfer
a reflex of human charities upon inferior natures, when
we see the roe-deer, for instance, gathering not into
herds and communities like their larger brethren, the
fallow-deer or the gigantic red-deer, but into families
— two parents everywhere followed by their own
fawns, loving and beloved. Plato, from the brutal
world, and from that aspect of the brutal world in
R'hich it is most brutal, transfers a feature of savage
gregariousness which would ultimately disorganize as
much as it would immediately degrade. In fact, the
mere feuds of jealousy, frantic hatred, and competi-
tions cf authority, growing out of such an institution,
would break up the cohesion of Plato's republic within
seven years. We all know of such institutions as
%(:tually realized ; one case of former ages is recorded
by Ceesar, Strabo, &c. ; another ot the present day
^xiits amongst the ranges of the Himalaya, and ha*
(104 Plato's kepublic.
been brought by the course of our growing empire
within British control. But they are, and have been,
connected with the most abject condition in other
respects ; and probably it would be found, if such
societies were not merely traversed by the glasses of
philosophers in one stage of their existence, but steadily
watched through a succession of generations, that it is
their very necessity rapidly to decay, either by absorp-
tion into more powerful societies, built on sounder
principles, or by inevitable self-extinction. Certain it
is, that a society so constituted through all its orders,
could breed no conservative or renovating impulses,
since all motives of shame, glory, emulation, would
operate upon a system untuned, or pitched in a far
lower key, wherever sexual love and the tenderness of
exclusive preferences were forbidden by law.
Adeimantus, by thus calling for a revision of a prin-
ciple so revolting, impersonates to the reader his own
feelings. He, like the young Athenian, is anxious to
find himself in sympathy with one reputed to be so
great a philosopher ; or at least, he is unwilling to
suppose himself so immeasurably removed from sym-
pathy. Still less can he concede, or even suspend, his
own principles in a point which does not concern
taste, or refinement of feeling, or transitory modes of
decorum, or even the deduction of logic ; in all these
points, however rudely shocked, he would, in modest
submission to a great name, have consented to suppose
himself wrong. But this scruple belongs to no such
faculty of taste, or judgment, or reasoning; it belongs
to thij primary conscience. It belongs to a region in
which no hypothetic assumptions for the sake of argu-
lient, no provisional concessions, no neutralizing com
Plato's kepublic. 463
promises, are ever possible. By two tests is man
raxsed above the brutes ; 1st, As a being capable of
religion, (whicb presupposes him a being endowed
with reason;) 2dly, As a being capable of marriage.
And effectually both capacities are thus far defeated
by Plato — that both have a worm, a principle of cor-
rosion, introduced into their several tenures. He does
not, indeed, formally destroy religion ; he supposes
himself even to purify it ; but by tearing away as
impostures those legends in which, for a pagan, the
effectual truth of the pagan mythology, as a revelation
of power, had its origin and its residence, he would
have shattered it as an agency or a sanction operating
on men's oaths, &c. He does not absolutely abolish
mairiage, but by limiting its possibility, (and how ?
Under two restrictions, the most insidious that can be
imEigined, totally abolishing it for the most honored
order of his citizens, viz. — the military order ; and
abolishing it for those men and women whom nature
had previously most adorned \vith her external gifts,)
he does his utmost to degrade marriage, even so far as
it is tolerated. Whether he designed it or not, mar-
riage is now no longer a privilege, a reward, a decora-
tion. On the contrary, not to be married, is a silent
proclamation that you are amongst the select children
of the state — honored by your fellow-citizens as one
of their defenders — admired by the female half of the
society as dedicated to a service of danger — marked
*ut universally by the public zeal as one who possesses
b physical superiority to other men — lastly, pointed
Dut to foreigners for dis'inction, as belonging to a
privileged class. Ar( you married ? would be a
question from which every man travelling abroad v\ ould
30
466 Plato's republic.
sfthnk, unless lie could say — No. It would be asking,
in effect — Are you of the in-ferior classes, a subaltern
commanded by others, or a noble ? Ana the result
would be, that, like poverty (not pauperism, but indi-
gence or scanty means) at this day, marriage would
still have its true, peculiar and secret blessings, but,
like poverty again, it would not flourish in the world's
esteem ; and, like that, it would prompt a system of
efforts and of opinions tending universally in the very
opposite direction.
Feeliug — but, as a pagan, feeling not very pro-
foundly — these truths, Adeimantus calls for explana-
tions (secretly expecting modifications) of this offen-
sive doctrine. Socrates, however, (that is, Plato,)
offers noue but such as are re-affirmations of the
doctrine in other words, and with some little expan-
sion of its details. The women selected as wives in
these military marriages, are to be partners with the
men in martial labors. This unsexual distinction will
require an imsexual training. It is, therefore, one
derivative law in Plato's Republic, that a certain
proportion of the young girls are to receive a mascu-
line education, not merely assimilated to that of the
men, but by personal association of both sexes in the
same palczstra, identical with that, and going on con-
ciirrently.
To this there are two objections anticipated.
Ist. That, as the gymnastic exercises of the an-
cients were performed in a state of nudity, (to which
feet, combined with the vast variety of marbles easilj
veorked by Grecian tools, some people have ascribeii
flis premature excellence in Greece of the plastic
PLATO S KEPUBLIC. 467
urts,) such a personal exposure would oe very trjing
to female modesty, and revolting to masculine sensi-
bilities. Perhaps no one passage in the whole works
of Plato so powerfully reveals his visionary state of
disregard to the actual in human nature, and his con-
tempt of human instincts, as this horiible transitior.
(so abrupt and so total) from the superstitious resf!rve *
of Grecian society, combined, as in this place it is,
with levity so perfect. Plato repudiates this scruple
with something like contempt. He contends that it
is all custom and use which regulate such feelings,
and that a new training made operative, will soon
generate a new standard of propriety. Now, with
our better views on such points, a plain man would
tell the philosopher, that although use, no doubt, will
reconcile us to much, still, after all, a better and a
worse in such things does exist, previously to any
use at all, one way or the other ; and that it is the
* • Superstitious reserve of Greece.' The possibility, however,
of this Platonic reverie as an idealism, together with the known
practice of Sparta as a reality, are interesting as a commentary
on the real tendencies of that Oriental seclusion and spurious
delicacy imposed upon women, which finally died away in the
Roman system of manners; by what steps, it would be vei-y
instructive to trace. Meantime, this much is evident — that
precisely in a land where this morbid delicacy was enfoi'ced
upon women, precisely in that land (the only one in such cir-
cumstances that ever reached an intellectual civilization) where
vromen were abridged in their liberty, men in their social refine-
ment, the human race in i*s dignity, by the false requisitiona
as to seclusion, and by a delicacy spurious, hollow, and sensual,
precisely there the other extreme was possible, of forcing upon
women the most profligate exposure, and compelling them,
amidst tears and shame, to trample on the very instincts of
female dignity. So reconcilable are extremes, when the eariiesi
ixtreme is laid in the unnatural.
468 Plato's republic.
business of pliilosopiiy to ascertain this better and
worse, per se, so as afterwards to apply the best
gravitation of this moral agency, called custom, in h
way to uphold a known benefit, not to waste it upon a
doubtful one, still less upon one which, to the first
guiding sensibilities of man, appears dangerous and
shocking. If, hereafter, in these martial women,
Plato should, under any dilemma, have to rely upon
feminine qualities of delicacy or tenderness, he might
happen to find that, mth the characteristic and sexual
qualities of his women, he has uprooted all the rest of
their distinguishing graces ; that for a single purpose,
arbitrary even in his system, iie had sacrificed a power
that could not be replaced. All this, however, is dis-
missed as a trivial scruple.
2dly. There is another scruple, however, which
weighs more heavily with Plato, and receives a more
pointed answer. The objection to a female soldier or
a gladiatrix might be applied on a far different prin-
ciple — not to what seems, but to what actually is —
not by moral sentiment, but by physiology. Habit
might make us callous to the spectacle of unfeminine
exposures ; but habit cannot create qualities of mus-
cular strength, hardihood, or patient endurance, where
nature has denied them. These qualities may be
improved, certainly in women, as they may in men ;
but still, as the improved woman in her athletic char-
ficter must still be compared with the improved man^
the scale, the proportions of diff'erence, will be kepi
at the old level. And thus- the old prejudice — that*
women are not meant (because not fitted by nature)
for warlike tasks — will revolve upon us in the shapt
of 8 philosophic truth.
Plato's repitblic. 409
To a certain extent, Plato ir directly admits this, for
(as will be seen) practically he allows for it in his
subsequent institutions. But he restricts the piinciplp
of female inaptitude for war by the following sugges
tion : — The present broad distribution of the human
Bpecies, according to which courage and the want of
courage — muscular strength and weakness — are
made to coincide with mere sexual distinctions, he
rejects as false — not groundless — for there is a
perceptible tendency to that difference — but still false
for ordinary purposes. It may have a popular truth.
But here, when the question is about philosophic pos-
sibilities and extreme ideals, he insists upon sub-
stituting for this popular generality a more severe
valuation of the known facte. He proposes, there-
fore, to di\'ide the human race upon another principle.
Men, though it is the characteristic tendency of their
sex to be courageous, are not all courageous ; men,
though sexually it is their tendency to be strong, are
not all strong : many are so ; but some, in the other
extreme, are both timid and feeble : others, again,
present us with a compromise between both extremes.
By a parity of logic, women, though sexually and
constitutionally unwarlike, pass through the same
graduated range ; upon which scale, the middle quali-
ties in them may answer to the lower qualities in the
tither sex — the higher to the middle. It is possible,
therefore, to make a selection amongst the entire
female population, of such as are fitted to take their
(ihare in garrison duty, in the duty of military poste
or of sentries, ana even, to a certain extent, in the
extreme labors of the field. Plato countenances the
Belief that, allowing for the difference in muscular
470 Plato's republic.
power of women, considered as animals, (a mere
difference of degree,) there is no essential difference,
as to power and capacities, between the human male
and thd female. Considering the splendor of his
name, (weighty we cannot call a man's authority
whom so few profess to have read, but imposing at the
least,) it is astonishing that in the agitation stirred by
the modern brawlers, from Mary Wollstonecraft down-
wards, in behalf of female pretensions to power, no
more use should have been drawn from the disinter-
ested sanction of Plato to these wild innovations.
However, it will strike many, that even out of that
one inferiority conceded by Plato, taken in connection
with the frequent dependencies of wives and mothers
upon human forbearance and human aids, in a way
irreconcilable with war, those inferences might be
forced one after one, which would soon restore (as a
direct logical consequence) that state of female de-
pendency, which at present nature and providence so
beautifully accomplish through the gentlest of human
feelings. Even Plato is obliged in practice to allow
rather more on account of his one sole concession
than his promises would have warranted ; for he
stipulates that these young gladiatrices and other figu-
rantes in the palcestra, shall not be put upon difficult
or dangeroiis trials ; living in our day, he would have
introduced into H. M.'s navy a class of midship-
women ; but would have exempted them, we presume,
from all the night watches, and from going aloft
This, however, might have been mere consideration
for the tenderness of youth. But again, in mature
life, though he orders that the wives and the children
•hall march with the armed force to the seat of thf
PLATO S REPUBLIC. 471
sampaign, and on the day of battle shall make their
jppearance in the rear, (an unpleasant arrangemeni
m our day of flying artillery and rocket brigade,) he
Joes not insist on their mixing in the melee. Their
influence with the fighting division of the army, is to
lie in their visible presence. But surely at this point,
Piato overlooked the elaborate depression of that influ-
ence which his own system had been nursing. Per-
sonal presence of near female relations, whether in
Btorms at sea, or in battles, has always been supposed
to work more mischief by distracting the commander's
attention, than good by reminding him of his domestic
ties. And since the loss of an East Indiaman, (the
Halsewell,) about sixty years ago, in part ascribed to
the presence of the captain's daughter, the rules of
the British service, we believe, have circumscribed the
possibility of such very doubtful influences. But, in
Plato's Republic, the influences must have been much
more equivocal. A number of women and a number
of children are supposed to be ranged on an eminence
in the background. The women were undoubtedly,
or had been, mothers : but to which of the children
individually, and whether to any living child, was
beyond their power to guess. Giving the fact thet
any child to which, in former years, they might give
birth, were still in existence, then probably that child
would be found amongst the yourf^ column of battle-
gazers on the ground. But, as to the men, even thij.
conditional knowledge is impossible.*' Multiplied pre-
c.iiitions have been taken, that it way oe impossible.
From the moment of birth the child has been removed
k) an establishment where the sternest measures are
inforced to confound it beyond all power of rcccgni-
472 Plato's eepublic.
lion with the crowd of previous children. The object
is to place a bar between this recognition and every-
body ; the mother and all others alike. Can a cup of
water be recovered when poured off into the Danube?
Equally impossible, if Plato's intentions are fulfilled,
to recover traces of identification with respect to any
one of the public children. The public family, there-
fore, of wives and children are present, but with what
Drobable result upon the sensibilities of the men, we
leave the reader to determine, when we have put him
in possession of Plato's motive to all this unnatural
interference with human affections. Why had he
from the first applied so large a body of power
(wasted power, if not requisite) to the suppression of
what most legislators would look to for their highest
resources ? It seems bad mechanics — to convert
that into a resistance, requiring vast expense of engi-
neering to overcome it, which might obviously have
Deen treated as a power of the first magnitude for
overcoming other and inevitable resistance. Strong
reasons must be brought for such an inversion of the
ordinary procedure. "What are they in Plato's sys-
tem ? Simply this — that from individual marriages
and separate children, not only many feuds arise
between man and man, family and family ; a private
interest is established as against other private inter-
ests ,• but also a private parental interest is established
m another sense, namely, against the public ; a paren-
tal or family interest, difiering from the public state
•nterest. and often enough in mortal hostility to that
interest.
IJe it 90 : a danger, a pressure, is exposed by Plate
m one direction — confronted by what we Chris jam
PLATO S REPUBLIC.
473
mould think a far heavier in another ; or, to expreaa It
more strictly, a gain is sought in one direction —
which gain seems to us fatally compensated by loss in
Buother. But that is part of Plato's theory — that he
confronts with his eyes open — and we are not to op-
pose them in mere logic, because it is one of the pos-
tulates in effect on which his system rests. But we
havft a right to demand consistency : and, when Plate
brings the wives and children on the field of battle :zi
order to sustain the general sentiment of patriotism, he
is virtually depending upon that power which he had
previously renounced ; he is throwing the weight of his
reliaDce upon a providential arrangement which he had
tossed aside not as useless merely, but as vicious ; he
is clinging in his distress to those sanctities, conjugal
and parental, of which he had said in his self-confi-
dence— 'Behold! I will give you something better.'
And tolerably sure we are, that, had Plato prosecuted
the details of his theory into more of their circumstan-
tialities, or had he been placed under the torture of a
close polemic review, he would have been found reviv-
ing for its uses, and for its solution of many perplexi-
ties in practice, that very basis of female honor and
modesty, which by his practice and by his professions
he has so labored earnestly to destroy.
The reader will arrive probably at a pretty fixed
opinion as to the service for state purposes likely to
arise from this exhibition of a clamorous nursery, chil-
dren and nurses, upon the field of battle. As a flag,
banner, or ensign, if Pla'o coula in any way contrive
that the army should regard the nursery militant as the
Bacred depository of their martial honor, then it is
. probable that men would fight desperately for tha)
PLATO S REPUBLIC.
considered as a trophy, wliich they regarded but lightly
as a household memorial. But this would be unattain-
able. Even with us, and our profounder Christian
feelings, the women attendant upon an army (who, in
the Thirty Years' War, on the Catholic side often
amounted to another army) have never been elevated
into a ' pignus sanctum militiae.' The privates and
subaltern officers might readily have come into such a
view ; but the commander-in-chief with his staff would
have set their faces against so dangerous a principle —
it would have fettered the movements of an army too
much ; and in most cases would defeat any sudden
manoeuvres in the presence of an enemy. Mere jus-
tice to human powers demands that the point of honor
for armies, or for sections of armies, (such as regi-
ments, &c.) should be placed in that which can move
concurrently with the main body, no matter for roads,
weather, want of provisions, or any other circum-
stances. Even artillery, therefore, though a subject of
martial jealousy, is not made absolutely coincident with
the point of martial honor. And another consideration
is this — that not only no object ever can be raised
into that mode of dignity when all members of the
army are not parties to the consecration, but even the
enemy must be a party to this act. Accordingly, the
lanctity of the flag, as the national honor in a sym-
bolic form confided to a particular regiment, is an
inheritance transmitted downwards through many
generations of every nation in Christendom. Now,
if Plato's republic were even able to translate the point
•ttf honor (which for the Greeks consisted in a ritual
celebration of the battle by sacrifices, together with •
choral chant, and also in the right to erect a frail m^
Plato's republic 475
tnonal of the victory*) to the capture or preservation
of the women and children, — still this change could
not be accomplished ; for the neighboring states would
not be persuaded to terms of ' reciprocity,' as the
modern economists phrase it. What ! not if they also
were Platonic states ? Ay, but that is impossible ; for
Plato himself lays the foundation of hope, and the
prospect of conquest, for his own state, in the weak-
ness (growing out of luxury, together with the conju-
gal and parental relations) presumable throughout the
neighboring states.
These ambulatory nurseries, therefore, never could
be made to interest the honor even of a Platonic army,
since no man would consent to embark his own honor
upon a stake to which the enemy afforded no corres-
ponding stake : always to expose your own honor to
loss with no reversionary gain under any contingency ;
always to suffer anxiety in your own person with no
possibility of retaliating this anxiety upon the enemy
— would have been too much for the temper of Socra-
tes ; and we fear that he would have left even Xan-
tippe herself, with all her utensils of every kind, as a
derelict for the benefit of the enemy in dry weather,
fvhen a deluge from upper windows might not have
been unwelcome. But if no honor were pledged upon
* ♦ Frail,' not from any indisposition to gasconade : but tliere
Wis a dark superstition which frightened the Greeks from
raising any durable monuments to a triumph over Greeks :
judicial calamities would descend upon the victors, A''emesis
would be upon their haunches, if they exulted too loudly.
Ptone, therefore, marble, and brass, were forbidden materials
for the troptta ! they were anvays made of wood. If not» look
out for sijualls ahead !
476 Plato's KiiPUBLic.
the narseiy in the rear, the next step would certainly
be, that under difficult circumstances, stress of weather,
short provisions, or active light cavalry in the rear, the
n^arsery would become the capital nuisance of the
army. Ambulatory hospitals, though so evidently
personal interest of the nearest kind, are trying
to soldiers when overworked ; but ambulatory nurse-
ries, with no intelligible motive for their presence,
continual detachments and extra guards on their
axscount, with an enemy laughing at the nursery up-
roars, would cause a mutiny if Plato were there in
person. Sentiment but ill accords with the gross real-
ities of business, as Charles Lamb illustrated (rather
beyond the truth in that case) with regard to Lord
Camelford's corpse, when clearing the custom-house
for interment under an aged tree in Switzerland ; and
to hawk along with an army a menagerie of spectators,
against a day of battle, would be an arrangement so
little applicable to any but select expeditions, that the
general overturn of caravans once a day, and the con-
tinual fracture of skulls, would be the least tragical
issue within reasonable expectation. Not being
' sacied,' as the depositaries of honor, they would soon
become ' profane.' And speaking gravely, when we
reflect on the frequency, even in Christian lands, with
which, under the trials of extreme poverty, the parental
tie gives way — what other result than open insubordi-
nation could be expected from a plan which was
adapted to a mere melodramatic effect, at the price of
universal comfort for months ? Not being associated
with patriotic honor, as we have endeavored to show
ind the parental tie being so aerial in any case where
ueither mother nor child belonged to the individual.
PLATO S REPUBLIC.
477
but also so exceedingly questionable in tlie case of
Plato's artifices for concealment having succeeded to
tlie lettei — what visionary statesmanship would it
prove to build for so much as a day's service, or for
an extra effort, upon the pretence of those who could
have little othei value in the soldier's eye than that
they were natives of the same city with himself !
Even this, however, is not the worst : pursuing to
the last *Le regulations of Plato, the reader is more and
more surprised by the unconscious inconsistency which
emerges : for whilst recollecting the weight of service
— the stress which Plato has thrown upon the parental
affection in this case — he finds still farther proof of
the excessive degradation to which Plato has reduced
the rank of that affection as a moral principle : in
short, he finds him loading it with responsibility as a
duty, whilst he is destroying it as an honor, and pol-
luting it as an elevated enjoyment. Let us follow the
regulations to their end : — The guardians of the state,
as they are called in their civil relation, the soldiers,
as they are called with respect to foreign states and to
enemies in general, have been originally selected for
their superior qualities of body. Thus the most natural
(because the most obvious) grounds of personal vanity,
4re bore at once concentrated by state preference and
j^-eculiar rank. In civilized states, these advantages
being met and thwarted at every turning by so many
liigher modes of personal distinction — knowledge,
special accomplishments applicable to special difficul-
ties, intellect generally, experience large and com-
prehensive, or local and peculiar — riches, popular
influence, high birth, splendid connections ; the con-
sequence is, that mere physical advantages rank as the
478 PLATO S EEPUBLIC.
lowest class of pretensions, and practically are not of
much avail, except as regards beauty when eminent
in women, though even for that the sphere is narrow •
since what woman, by mere beauty, ever drew after
her such a train of admirers as a few of our modem
female writers in verse ? Consequently the arrogance
in these soldiers of Plato, finding themselves at once
ncknowledged as the best models of physical excel-
lence in the state, and also, in the second place, raised
to the rank of an aristocracy on account of this excel-
lence, would be unlimited. It would be crossed by no
other mode of excellence — since no other would be
recognized and countenanced by the state.
With this view of their own vast superiority, natur-
ally — and excusably in a state conformed to that
mode of thinking — looking upon their own rank as a
mere concession of justice to their claims of birth, the
soldiers would review their condition in other respects.
They would then find that, under the Platonic laws,
they enjoyed two advantages : viz. first, a harem fui-
nished with the select females of the state, having pre-
cisely the sort of personal pre-eminence corresponding
to their own ; a modern Mahometan polygamy, in fact,
out without the appropriation which constitutes the
his ury of Mahometan principles ; secondly, a general
pre :!edency. On the other hand, to balance these privi-
leges, and even with the most dissolute men greatly to
outweigh them, they would find —
1 . That they had, and could have, no property ; not
B fragment : even their arms would be the property of
the state ; even the dress of mail, in which the oTriTrat
or men-at-arms, (heavy-armed cuirassiers, or cata-
pKrsctoi,) must be arrayed, would return to the
Plato's bepublic. 479
j/7^o('i,/ri,, 3r arsenal, in time of peace : not a chattel,
article cf furniture, or personal ornament, but would
have a public stamp as it were, upon it, making it fel-
ony to sell, or give, or exchange it. It is true that, to
reconcile the honorable men, the worshipful paupers,
to this austere system, Plato tells us — that the other
orders of citizens will not be rich : nobody, in fact, will
be allowed to possess any great wealth. But there ia
still a difference between something and nothing. And
then, as to this supposed maximum of riches which is to
be adopted, no specific arrangements are shown, by
which, in consistency with any freedom of action,
further accumulation can be intercepted, or actual pos-
session ascertained.
2. ' But,' says Plato, ' what would the fellows want
with property ? Food, is it ? Have they not that food
at the public cost ; and better for their health than any
which they would choose ? Drink — is there not the
liver ? And if by ill luck it should happen to be a
<(€t/>idppovs, rather dependent upon winter floods and
upon snows melting in early summer, is there not the
rain at all times in cisterns and tanks, for those who
prefer it? Shoemakers and weavers — (if it is shoea
and tunics they want) — are they not working through-
out the year for their benefit ? ' — All this is true : but
still they are awai-e that their own labors and hardships
u-ould earn food and clothes upon regular wages : and
that, on the general scale of remuneration for merce-
nary soldiership in Greece, adding their dangers to
heir daily work, they might obtain enough to purclmso
even such immoral superfluities as wine.
3. At present, again, this honored class have many
Vives ; none of their fellow-citizens more than one.
«80 I'LATO'S REPUBLIC.
Bat here, again, what a mockery of tlie truth ! thai
Due is really and exclusively the wife of him whom
she has married ; dedicates her love and attentions and
her confidential secrecy to that man only ; knows and
retains her own children in her own keeping ; and
these children regard their own parents as their owr,
sole benefactors. How gladly would the majority of
the guardians, after two years' experience of the disso-
lute barrack, accept in exchange the quiet privacy of
the artisan's cottage !
4. The soldiers again, it is urged, enjoy something
of that which sweetens a sailor's life, and keeps it
from homely insipidity — viz. the prospect of adven-
ture, and of foreign excursions : even danger is a
mode of stimulation. But how ? Under what restric-
tion do they enjoy these prospects of peril and adven-
ture ? Never but on a service of peculiar hardship.
For it is a badge of their slavery to public uses, that
for them only there exists no liberty of foreign travel.
Ail the rest throughout the city, may visit foreign
lands ; the honorable class only is confined to the
heartless tumult of its dissolute barracks.
Plato evidently felt these bitter limitations of free
affoncy to be, at the same time, oppressive and de-
grading. Still he did not think himself at libeity to
relax them. His theory he conceived to be a sort of
watch- work, which would keep moving if all the parts
were Icept in their places, but would stop on any dis-
t'lrbance of their relations. Not 1 eing able to give
any relief, the next thing was — to find compensation.
And accordingly, in addition to the sensual bait of
polygamy already introduced as the basis of his j.lan,
he now proceeds to give a stUl wider license to app©
Vite. It takes the shape of a dispensation in practice,
PLAIO'S REPUBLIC. 481
from a previous special restriction in one particular
direction : the whole body of guardians and their fe-
Jnale associates, or ' wives,' are excluded from conju-
gal intercourse except within strict limits as to age ;
from the age of twenty to forty for the women, of
thirty to fifty for the men, is the range within which
they are supposed to be capable of producing a healthy
race of children. Within those limits they are li-
censed : not further. But, by way of compensation,
unlimited concubinage is tolerated for the seniors ;
with this one dreadful proviso — that any children bom
from such connections, as presumably not possessing
the physical stamina, or other personal advantages
looked for from more carefully selected parents, must
be exposed. Born of fathers who possess no personal
property, these children could have no patrimony ; nor
succeed to any place as a tradesman, artisan, or la-
borer. Succeeding to a state father, they succeed to
nothing ; they are thrown as waifs or strays on ttie
state bounty : and for that they are not eligible, as not
having been born within the privilege of the state reg-
ulations. No party, therefore, known to the state
being responsible for their maintenance, they must die.
And because the ancients had a scruple, (no scruple of
mercy, but of selfish superstition,) as to taking the life
by violence from any creature not condemned under
some law, the mode of death must be by exposure on
the opeu hills ; when either the night air, or the fangs
f a wolf, oftentimes of the great dogs, still preserved
vn many parts of Greece, usuallj put an end to the
unoffending creature's life.
Now, witli this sensual bounty on infanticide, and
this regular machinery for calling into existence such
31
1:82 PLATO S BiPUBLIC.
■al-fated blossoms on the tree of life, and for immedi-
ately strewing tliem on the ground by the icy wind of
death, cutting adrift the little boat to go down the
Niagara of violent death, in the very next night aftcf
its launching on its unknown river of life — could
Plato misconceive the result ? could he wish to mis-
conceive it, as regarded the pieties of parental love ?
To make human life cheaper and more valueless than
that of the brutes — is that the way to cherish the sanc-
tity of parental affection ; upon which affection, how-
ever, elsewhere, Plato throws so heavy a burden of
duty ?
Plato would have been surprised, had he anticipated
the discoveries of modern experience as to the effect
of mairiages so assorted in point of age as he has sup-
posed. This one arrangement, by mere disproportion
of the sexes, would have introduced strange disturb-
ances into his system. But for general purpose, it is
more important to remark — that the very indulgences
of Plato are sensual : from a system in itself sensual
in the most cruel degree, Plato grauts a dispensation
only to effect a Otaheitian carnival of licentious appe-
tite, connected with a contempt of human life, which
is excessive even for paganism ; since in that the ex-
j^K)Sure of children is allowed as a relief from supposed
evils of nature ; or (as we now * see in Oude, and here-
tofore in Cutch) was practised by way of relief from
what were regarded as social evils, viz., the necessity,
in the absence of infanticide, which arose for giving
daughters in marriage to men that were their inferiors
in bir^h ; whereas here, under the system of Plato, the
che evil is self-created by the cruel and merciless phU
osopher with the view of meeting and counteracting
minous results which nobody had caused but himself.
* [Written duriDj; the Indian revolt ]
DINNER, REAL, AND REPUTED.
Greai misconceptions have always prevailed about
the Roman dinner. Dinner \^ccp.?ia] was the only meal
which the Romans as a nation took. It was no acci-
dent, but arose out of their whole social economy.
This I shall endeavor to show, by running through the
history of a Roman day. Ridentem dicere verum quid
httat ? And the course of this review will expose one
or two important truths in ancient political economy,
which have been too much overlooked.
"With the lark it was that the Roman rose. Not
that the earliest lark rises so early in Latium as the
earliest lark in England ; that, is, during summer : but
then, on the other hand, neither does it ever rise so
late. The Roman citizen was stirring with the dawn
— which, allowing for the shorter longest-day and
longer shortest-day of Rome, you may call about four
in summer — about seven in winter. Why did he do
this ? Because he went to bed at a very early hour.
But why did he do that? By backing in this way.
We shall surely back into the very well of truth : al-
ways, where it is possible, let us have the pourquoi ol
the pourquoi. The Roman went to bed early for two
•emarkable reasons. 1st, Because in Rome, built for
I martial destiny, every habit of life nad reference to
484 DINNER, KEAI,, AND KEPUTED.
the usages of war. Every citizen, if he were not a
mere proletarian animal kept at the public cost, with a
view to his proles or offspring, held himself a soldier-
elect : the more noble he was, the more was bis lia-
bility to military service ; in short, all Rome, and at
all times, was consciously ' in procinct.'*' Now it waf
a principle of ancient warfare, that every hour of day-
light had a triple worth, as valued against hours of
darkness. That was one reason — a reason suggested
by the understanding. But there was a second reason
far moi-e remarkable ; and this was a reason suggested
by a blind necessity. It is an important fact, that this
planet on which we live, this little industrious earth of
ours, has developed her wealth by slow stages of in-
crease. She was far from being the rich little globe in
Caesar's days that she is at present. The earth in our
days is incalculably richer, as a whole, than in the
time of Charlemagne ; and at that time she was richer,
by many a million of acres, than in the era of Augus-
tus. In that Augustan era we descry a clear belt of
cultivation, averaging perhaps six hundred miles in
depth, running in a ring-fence about the Mediterra-
nean, This belt, and no more, was in decent cultiva-
tion. Beyond that belt, there was only a mid Indian
cultivation ; generally not so much. At present, what
a difference ! We have that very belt, but much rich-
er, all things considered, cequatis cequandis, than in the
Roman era and much beside. The reader must not
look to single cases, as that of Egypt or other parts of
Africa, but take the whole collectively. On that
icheme of valuation, we have the old Roman belt, the
circum Mediterranean girdle not much tarnished, and
We have all the rest of Europe to boot. Such being
CTNNEB, KEAI,, AND KEPUTED. 485
Jbe case, the earth, being (as a whole) in that Pagac
era so incomparably poorer, could not in the Pagan
era support the expense of maintaining great empirea
in cold latitudes. Her purse would not reach that
cost. Wherever she undertook in those early ages to
t ear man in great abundance, it must be where natui'e
would consent to work in partnership with herself;
where warmth was to be had for nothing ; where
clothes were not so entirely indispensable, but that a
ragged fellow might still keep himself warm ; where
slight shelter might serve ; and where the soil, if not
absolutely richer in reversionary wealth, was more
easily cultured. Nature, in those days of infancy,
must come forward liberally, and take a number of
shares in every new joint-stock concern before it could
move. Man, therefore, went to bed early in those
ages, simply because his worthy mother earth could not
afford him candles. She, good old lady (or good
young lady, for geologists know not*^ whether she is
in that stage of her progress which corresponds to
gray hairs, or to infancy, or to ' a certain age ') — she,
good lady, would certainly have shuddered to hear any
of her nations asking for candles. ' Candles, indeed ! '
she would have said, ' who ever heard of such a thing ?
and with so much excellent daylight running to waste,
as I have provided gratis ! What will the wretches
want next ? '
The daylight, furnished gratis, was certainly ' unde-
niable ' in its quality, and quite sufficient for all pur-
poses that were honest. Seneca, even in his own
luxurious period, called those men ' lucifugce,^ and by
»ther ugly names, who lived chiefly by candle-light
None but rich and Luxunous men, nay, even amongst
486 DINNER, BEAL, AND REIUTED.
these, none btit idlers, did live or could live by candle"
liglit. An immense majority of men in Rome nevei
lighted a candle, unless sometimes in the early dawn.
And this custom of Rome was the custom also of ali
nations that lived round the great lake of the Mediter-
ranean. In Athens, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor
everywhere, the ancients went to bed, like good boys,
from seven to nine o'clock.^ The Turks and other
people, who have succeeded to the stations and the
habits of the ancients, do so at this day.
The Roman, therefore, who saw no joke in sitting
round a table in the dark, went off to bed as the dark-
ness began. Everybody did so. Old Numa Pom-
pilius himself was obliged to trundle off in the dusk.
Tarquinius might be a very superb fellow ; but I doubt
whether he ever saw a farthing rushlight. And,
though it may be thought that plots and conspiracies
would flourish in such a city of darkness, it is to be
considered, that the conspirators themselves had no more
candles than honest men : both parties were in the dark.
Being up, then, and stirring not long after the lark,
what mischief did the Roman go about first ? Now-a-
days, he would have taken a pipe or a cigar. But,
alas for the ignorance of the poor heathen creatures !
they had neither the one nor the other. In this point,
I must tax our mother earth with being really too
stingy. In the case of the candles, I approve of her
parsimony. Much mischief is brewed by candle-
light. But it was coming it too strong to allow no
*obacco. Many a wild fellow in Rome, your Gracchi,
Syllas, Catilines, would not have played ' h — and
Tommj ' in the way they did, if they could have
toothed their angry stomachs with a cigar •. a pipe
BINKEB, EEA.L, AKD KEPUTKD. 487
aas intercepted many an evil scheme. But the thing
Is past helping now. At Rome, you must do as ' they
does ' at Rome. So, af^er shaving (supposing the age
of the Barhati to be past), what is the first business
that our Roman will undertake? Forty to one he is a
poor man, born to look upwards to his fellow-men — •
and not to look down upon anybody but slaves. He
goes, therefore, to the palace of some grandee, some
top-sawyer of the senatorian order. This great man, for
all his greatness, has turned out even sooner than him-
self. For he also has had no candles and no cigars ; and
he well knows, that before the sun looks into his portals,
all his halls will be overflowing and buzzing with the
matin susurrus of courtiers — the ' mane salutantes.''^
It is as much as his popularity is worth to absent himself,
or to keep people waiting. But surely, the reader may
think, this poor man he might keep waiting. No, he
might not ; for, though poor, being a citizen, the man
is a gentleman. That was the consequence of keeping
slaves. Wherever there is a class of slaves, he that
enjoys the/ws suffragii (no matter how poor) is a gen-
tleman. The true Latin word for a gentleman is in-
genuus — a freeman and the son of a freeman.
Yet even here there were distinctions. Under the
emperors, the courtiers were divided into two classes :
with respect to the superior class, it was said of the
iovereign — that he saw them {'■ videbat ') ; with re-
kpect to the other — that he was seen {^ '•idehaiur ').
Even Plutarch mentions it as a common boast in his
Umes, rjna/; eiSev 6 yStto-iAeus — C<esar is in the habit of
xeeinff me ; or, as a common plea for evading a suit,
ircpovs bpa fxaXXov — I am SOT^ to say he is more iu'
tlined to look upon others. And this usage derived itself
488 DINNEJa, REAL, AND EBPUTED.
fm&rk that \?ell !) from the republican era. The aulic
ipirit was propagated by the empire, but from a repub-
lican root.
Having paid his court, you will suppose that oui
friend comes home to breakfast. Not at all : no such
discovery as ' breakfast ' had then been made : breakfast
was not invented for many centuries after tbat. I have
always admired, and always shall admire, as the very
best of all human stories, Charles Lamb's account of
roast-pork, and its traditional origin in China. Ching
Ping, it seems, had suffered his father's house to be
burned down: the outhouses were burned along with
the house : and in one of these the pigs, by accident,
were roasted to a turn. Memorable were the results
for all future China and future civilization. Ping, who
(like all China beside) had hitherto eaten his pig raw,
now for the first time tasted it in a state of torrefac-
tion. Of course he made his peace with his father bj
a part (tradition says a leg) of the new dish. The
father was so astounded with the discovery, tbat he
burned his house down once a-year for the sake of
coming at an annual banquet of a roast pig. A curi-
ous prying sort of a fellow, one Chang Pang, got to
know of this. He also burned down a house with a
pig in it, and had his eyes opened. The secret waa
Ql kept — the discovery spread — many great conver-
sions were made — houses were blazihg in every part
of the Celestial Empire. The insurance ofl^ces tool
the matter up. One Chong Pong, detected in the ver)
act of shutting up a pig in his drawing-room, and ther
firing a train, was indicted on a charge of arson
The chief justice of Pekin, on that occasion, re-
iju^sted an officer of the court to hand him up a piec*
DIN NEB, KEAL, AND REPUTED. 489
df the roast pig, the corpus delicti: pure curiosity it
was, liberal curiosity, that led him to taste ; hut within
two days after, it was observed, says Lamb, that his
lordship's town-house was on fire. In short, all China
apostatized to the new faith ; and it was not until
some centuries had passed, that a man of prodigious
genius arose, Adz., Chung Pung, who, established the
second era in the history of roast pig by showing thai
it could be had "without burning down a house.
No such genius had yet arisen in Rome. Breakfast
was not suspected. No prophecy, no type of break-
fast, had been published. In fact, it took as much
time and research to arrive at that great discovery as
at the Copernican system. True it is, reader, that
you have hoard of such a word as jentaculum ; and
your dictionary translates that old heathen word by
the Christian word breakfast. But dictionaries are
dull deceivers. Between jentaculum and breakfast the
differences are as wide as between a horse-chestnut
and a chestnut horse ; differences in the time when, in
the place where, in the manner hoic, but pre-eminently
in the thing which.
Galen is a good authority upon such a subject, since,
if (like other Pagans) he ate no breakfast himself, in
*ome sense he may be called the cause of breukfast to
other men, by treating of those things which could
lafely be taken upon an empty stomach. As to the
time, he (like many other autliors) says, Trepl TptT-qr, rj
(to fxaKporepov) rrepl TCTOLpTqi', about the third, or at far-
thest about the fourth hour : and so exact is he, that
He assumes the day to lie exactly between six and sis
o'clock, and to be divided into thirteen equal portions.
Bo the time will be a few minn^es before nine, or i
IDO DINNER, EEAL, AND BEPTJTED.
few minutes before ten, in the forenoon. That seems
fair enough. But it is not time in respect to its location
that we are concerned with, so much as time in respect
to its duration. Now, heaps of authorities take it
for granted, that you are not to sit down — you are to
stand; and, as to the place, that any place will do —
'any corner of the forum,' says Galen, 'any coiT.er
that you fancy : ' which is like referring a man for his
talle a manger to Westminster Hall or Fleet Street.
Augustus, in a letter still sur\'iving, tells us that he
jentabat, or took his jentaculu?n, in his carriage ; some-
times in a wheel carriage {in essedo), sometimes in a
litter or palanquin {in lecticd). This careless and dis-
orderly way as to time and place, and other circum-
stances of haste, sufficiently indicate the quality of the
meal you are to expect. Already you are ' sagacious
of your quarry from so far.' Not that we would pre-
sume, excellent reader, to liken you to Death, or to
insinuate that you are a ' grim feature' But would
it not make a saint ' grim ' to hear of such prepara-
tions for the morning meal ? And then to hear of
such consummations as panis siccus, dry bread ; or (if
the learned reader thinks it will taste better in Greek),
KfiTog ^tjQoi ! And what may this word dry happen
to mean? 'Does it mean stale J' says Salmasius.
' Shall we suppose,' says he, in querulous words,
' molli el recenti opponi,' that it is placed in antithesis
to soft and new bread, what English sailers call 'soft
tommy 7 ' and from that antithesis conclude it to be,
' durum et non recens coctum, eoque sicciorem ? ' Hard
\nd stale, and in that proportion more arid? Nut
quite so bad as that, we hope. Or again — ' siccum
pro biscpcto, ut hodie vocamus, sumemus ? ''"" By hodit
DINNEE, EEAL, AND EEPUTED. 491
8almasius means, amongst liis countrymen of France,
where hiscoctus is yerl!)atim reproduced ic the word hii
(twice), cuit (baked) ; whence our own biscuit. Bis-
cuit might do very well, could we be sure that it was
cabin biscuit ; but Salmasius argues that — in this case
he takes it to mean ' huccellatum, qui est pants nauti'
cus ; ' that is, the ship company's biscuit, broken with
a sledge-hammer. In Greek, for the benefit again oi
the learned reader, it is termed Sittvqo?, indicating that
it has passed twice under the action of fire.
' Well,' you say, ' no matter if it had passed
through the fires of Moloch; only let us have this
biscuit, such as it is.' In good faith, then, fasting
reader, you are not likely to see much more than you
have seen. It is a very Barmecide feast, we do assure
you — this same ' jentaculum ; ' at which abstinence
and patience are much more exercised than the teeth :
faith and hope are the chief graces cultivated, together
with that species of the magnificum which is founded
on the ignotum. Even this biscuit was allowed in the
most limited quantities ; for which reason it is that
the Greeks called this apology for a meal by the name
oflSowxtauog, a word formed (as many words were in
the Post- Augustan ages) from a Latin word — viz.,
huccea, a mouthful ; not literally such, but so much as
a polished man could allow himself to put into his
mouth at once. ' We took a mouthful,' says Sir
William Waller, the parliamentary general — ' took
I mouthful ; paid our reckoning ; mounted ; and were
»ff.' But there Sir William means, by his plausible
mouthful,' something very much beyond either nine
V nineteen ordinary quantities of that denomination,
nrhercM the Roman 'jentaculum' was literally such ;
492 DINNER, KEAL, AND EEPUTEB.
and, accordingly, one of the varieties under which the
ancient vocabularies express this model of evanescent
quantities is gustatio, a mere tasting ; and again, it
is called by another variety gustus, a mere taste
[whence comes the old French word gouster for a
refection or luncheon, and then (by the usual suppres-
sion of the s) gouter'\. Speaking of his uncle, Pliny
the Younger says : ' Post solem plerumque lavabatur :
deinde gustabat ; dormiebat minimum ; mox, quasi
alio die, studebat in ccenae tempus.' ' After taking
the air, generally speaking, he bathed ; after that he
broke his fast on a morsel of biscuit, and took a very
slight siesta : which done, as if awaking to a new day,
he set in regularly to his studies, and pursued them to
dinner-time.' Gustabat here meant that nondescript
meal which arose at Rome when jentaculum and pran-
dium were fused into one, and that only a taste or
mouthful of biscuit, as we shall show farther on.
Possibly, however, most excellent reader, like somt
epicurean traveller, who, in crossing the Alps, finds
himself weather-bound at St. Bernard's on Ash- Wed-
nesday, you surmise a remedy : you descry some open-
ing from ' the loopholes of retreat,' through which a
few delicacies might be insinuated to spread verdure
on this arid wilderness of biscuit. Casuistry can do
much. A dead hand at casuistry has often proved
more than a match for Lent %vith all his quarantines.
But sorry I am to say that, in this case, no relief is
hinted at in any ancient author, A grape or two (not
a bunch of grapes), a raisin or two, a date, an olive —
these are the whole amount of relief^*'^ which the
tnancery of the Roman kitchen granted in such cases.
All things here hang together, and prove each otbe
DIXNER, REAL, AND KEPUTED. 493
— the time, the place, the mode, the thing. WeD
might man eat standing, or eat in public, such a trifle
as this. Go home, indeed, to such a breakfast ? You
would as soon think of ordering a cloth to be laid in
order to eat a peach, or of asking a friend to join you
in an orange. No man in his senses makes ' two bitea
of a cherry.' So let us pass on to the other stages of
the day. Only, in taking leave of this morning's
stage, throw your eyes back with me. Christian reader,
upon this truly heathen meal, fit for idolatrous dogs
like your Greeks and your Romans ; survey, through
the vista of ages, that thrice-accursed biscuit, with
half a fig, perhaps, by way of garnish, and a huge
hammer by its side, to secure the certainty of mastica-
tion, by previous comminution. Then turn your eyes
to a Christian breakfast — hot rolls, eggs, cofiee, beef;
but down, down, rebellious visions ; we need say no
more ! You, reader, like myself, will breathe a male-
diction on the Classical era, and thank your stars for
making you a Romanticist. Every morning I thank
mine for keeping me back from the Augustan age, and
reserving me to a period in which breakfast had been
already invented. In the words of Ovid, I say : —
* Prisca juvent alios : ego me nunc deniqae natum
Gratulor. Haec aetas moribus apta meia.'
Our friend, the Roman cit, has therefore thus far, in
hi, progress through life, obtained no breakfast, if he
ever contemplated an idea so frantic. But it occurs to
you, my faithful reader, that perhaps he will not
always be thus unhappy. I could bring wagon-loads
»f sentiments, Greek as well as Roman, which prove,
Tiore clearly than tne most eminent pikestaff", thnt, av
*94 DINNER, BEAIi, AND REPUTED.
the wheel of fortune revolves, simply out of the fact
that it has carried a man downwards, it must subse-
quently carry him upwards, no matter what dislike
that wheel, or any of its spokes, may bear to that
man : ' non si male nunc sit, et olim sic erit : ' and
that if a man, through the madness of his nation,
misses coffee and hot rolls at nine, he may easily run
into a leg of mutton at twelve. True it is he may do
so : truth is commendable ; and I will not deny that a
man may sometimes, by losing a breakfast, gain a
dinner. Such things have been in various ages, and
will be again, but not at Rome. There were reasons
against it. We have heard of men who consider life
under the idea of a wilderness — dry as a ' remainder
biscuit after a voyage : ' and who consider a day under
the idea of a little life. Life is the macrocosm, oi
world at large ; day is the microcosm, or world in min-
*>ature. Consequently, if life is a wilderness, then day,
as a little life, is a little wilderness. And this wilder-
ness can be safely traversed only by having relays of
fountains, or stages for refreshment. Such stages,
they conceive, are found in the several meals which
Providence has stationed at due intervals through the
day, whenever the perverseness of man does not break
the chain, or derange the order of succession.
These are the anchors by which man rides in that
billowy ocean between morning and night. The first
anchor, viz., breakfast, having given way in Rome, the
more need there is that he should pull up by the
second ; and that is often reputed to be dinner. And
as your dictionary, good reader, translated breakfast bj
that vain -word jentaculum, so doubtless it will translate
dinner by that still vainer word prandium. Sincerely
DINNEK, KEAL, AND EEPUXED. 495
I hope that your own dinner on this day, and through
all time coming, may have a better root in fact and
substance than this most visionary of all baseless things
— the Roman prandium, of which I shall presently
show you that the most approved translation is moon'
shine.
Reader, I am anything but jesting here. In the
very spirit of serious truth, I assure you that the delu-
sion about ' jentaculum ' is even exceeded by this other
delusion about ' prandium.' Salmasius himself, for
whom a natural prejudice of place and time partially
obscured the truth, admits, however, that prandium
was a meal which the ancients rarely took ; his very
words are — '■ raro prandehant veteres.' Now, judge
for yourself of tlie good sense which is shown in trans-
lating by the word dinner, which must of necessity
mean the chief meal, a Roman word which represents
a fancy meal, a meal of caprice, a meal which few peo-
ple took. At this moment, what is the single point of
agreement between the noon meal of the English la-
borer and the evening meal of the English gentleman ?
What is the single circumstance common to both,
which causes us to denominate them by the common
name of dinner ? It is, that in both we recognize the
principal meal of the day, the meal upon which is
thrown the 07ius of the day's support. In everything
else they are as wide asunder as the poles ; but they
agree in this one point of their function. Is it credible
now, that, to represent such a meal amongst ourselves,
we select a Roman word so notoriously expressing a
mere shadow, a pur^j apology, that very few people ever
tasted it — nobody sat down to it — not many washed
«Aeir hands after it, and gradually the very name of it
^96 DIXN£K, BEAL, AND BEPUTED.
became interchangeable with another name, implying
Ae slightest possible act of tentative tasting or sip-
ping ? ' Post lavationem sine mensd prandium,' saya
Seneca, ' post quod non sunt lavandcB manus ; ' that is,
' after bathing, I take a prandium without sitting down
to table, and such a prandium as brings after itself no
need of washing the hands.' No ; moonshine as little
Boils the hands as it oppresses the stomach.
Reader ! I, as well as Pliny, had an uncle, an East
Indian uncle ; doubtless you have such an uncle ;
'jverybody has an Indian uncle. Generally such a
person is ' rather yellow, rather yellow ' (to quote
Canning versus Lord Durham), that is the chief fault
with his physics ; but, as to his morals, he is univer-
sally a man of princely aspirations and habits. He is
not always so orientally rich as he is reputed ; but he
is always orientally munificent. Call upon him at any
hour from two to five, he insists on your taking tiffin :
and such a tifiin ! The English corresponding term is
luncheon ; but how meagre a shadow is the European
meal to its glowing Asiatic cousin ! Still, gloriously aa
tiffin shines, does anybody imagine that it is a vicarious
dinner, or ever meant to be the substitute and locum
tenens of dinner ? Wait till eight, and you will have
your eyes opened on that subject. So of the Roman
yrandium : had it been as luxurious as it was simple,
still it was always viewed as something meant only to
stay the stomach, as a prologue to something beyond.
^"he prandium was far enough from gi'ving the feeblest
idea even of the English luncheon ; yet it stood in the
»ame relation to the Roman day. Now to English-
nen that meal scarcely exists ; and were it not foT
women, "hose ielicacr of organization does not allo\*
DINNER, BEAX, AND BEPTJTED. 497
them to fast so long as men, would probably be aboJ-
ished. It is singular in this, as in other points, how
nearly England and ancient Rome approximate. We
all know how hard it is to tempt a man generally into
spoiling his appetite, by eating before dinner. The
same dislike of violating what they called the integrity
of the appetite {integram famern), existed at Rome.
Integer means what is intact, unviolated by touch.
Cicero, when protesting against spoiling his appetite
for dinner, by tasting anything beforehand, says, inte'
gram famem ad ccenam afferam ; I intend bringing to
dinner an appetite untampered with. Nay, so much
stress did the Romans lay on maintaining this primi-
tive state of the appetite undisturbed, that any prelu-
sions with either jentaculum or prandiiim were said,
uy a very strong phrase' indeed, polluere famem, to
pollute the sanctity of the appetite. The appetite was
regarded as a holy vestal flame, soaring upwards to-
wards dinner throughout the day : if undebauched, it
tended to its natural consummation in ccena : expiring
like a phoenix, to rise again out of its own ashes. On
this theory, to which language had accommodated
itself, the two prelusive meals of nine or ten o'clock
A. M., and of one p. ii., so far from being ratified by
the public sense, and adopted into the economy of the
day, were regarded gloomily as gross irregularities,
enormities, debauchers of the natural instinct ; and, in
so far as they thwarted that instinct, lessened it, or
depraved it, were almost imiformly held to be full of
pollution ; and, finally, to profane a sacred motion of
nature. Such was the language.
But we guess what is passing m the reader's mind.
He thinks that all this proves tne prandium to have
32
198 DINNER, BEAL, LSD BEPTTTED.
been a meal of little account ; and in very many casei
absolutely unknown. But still lie thinks all thia
might happen to the English dinner — that also might
be neglected ; supper might be generally preferred ;
and, nevertheless, dinner would be as truly entitled to
the name of dinner as hefore. Many a student
neglects his dinner ; enthusiasm in any pursuit must
often have extinguished appetite for all of us. Many
& time and oft did this happen to Sir Isaac Newton.
Evidence is on record, that such a deponent at eight
o'clock A. M. found Sir Isaac with one stocking on, one
off; at two, said deponent called him to dinner.
Being interrogated whether Sir Isaac had pulled on
the minus stocking, or gartered the plus stocking, wit-
ness replied that he had not. Being asked if Sir
Isaac came to dinner, replied that he did not. Being
again asked, ' At sunset, did you look in on Sir
Isaac?' witness replied, 'I did.' 'And now, upon
your conscience, sir, by the virtue of your oath, in what
state were the stockings ? ' Ans. — ' In statu quo ante ■
bellum.' It seems Sir Isaac had fought through that
whole battle of a long day, so trying a campaign to
many people — he had traversed that whole sandy
Zaarah, without calling, or needing to call, at one of
those fountains, stages, or mansiones^''^ by which (ac-
cording to our former explanation) Providence has re-
lieved the continuity of arid soil, which else disfigurea
that long dreary level. This happens to all ; but was
dinner not dinner, and did supper become dinner,
because Sir Isaac Newton ate nothing at the first, and
lirew the whole day's support upon the last .-^ No,
you vvfll say, a rule is not defeated by one casua<
deviation, nor by one person's constant deviation
SINNEB, BEAL, AND KEPITTED. 499
Everybody else was still dining at two, though Sir
Isaac might not ; and Sir Isaac himself on most daya
to more deferred his dinner beyond two, than he sat in
public with one stocking off. But what if everybody,
Sir Isaac included, had deferred his substantial meal
untn night, and taken a slight refection only at two ?
The question put does really represent the very case
which has happened with us in England. In 1700, a
large part of London took a meal at two p. M., and
another at seven or eight p. m. At present, a large
part of London is still doing the very same thing, tak-
ing one meal at two, and another at seven or eight.
But the names are entirely changed : the two o'clock
meal used to be called dinner, whereas at present it is
called luncheon ; the seven o'clock meal used to be
called supper, whereas at present it is called dinner ,
and in both cases the difference is anything but
verbal : it expresses a translation of that main mealj
on which the day's support rested, from mid-day to
evening.
Upon reviewing the idea of dinner, we soon perceive
that time has little or no connection with it : since,
both in England and France, dinner has travelled, like
the hand of a clock, through every hour between ten
A.. M. and ten p. m. We have a list, well attested, of
every successive hour between these limits having
been the known established hour for the royal dinner-
able within the last three hundred and fifty years,
rime, therefore, vanishes from the problem ; it is a
quantity regularly exterminated. The true elements
■)f the idea are evidently these : — 1. That dinner Ls
hat meal, no matter when taKcn, which is the princi-
pal meal ; i. e., the meal on which the day's support is
500 DINNEB, BEAIi, AND REPUTED.
throMii. 2. That it is therefore tlie meal of hospitality
3. That it is the meal (with reference to both Nos. 1
and 2) in which animal food predominate. 4. That it
is that meal which, upon a necessity arising for the
abolition of all hut one, would naturally offer itself as
that one. Apply these four tests to prandium : —
How could that meal prandium answer to the first
test, as the day's support, Avhich few people touched ?
How could that meal prandium answer to the second
test, as the meal of hospitality, at which nobody sat
down ? How could that meal prandium answer to the
third test, as the meal of animal food, which consisted
exclusively and notoriously of bread ? Or answer to
the fourth test, as the privileged meal entitled to sur-
vive the abolition of the rest, which was itself abolished
at all times in practice ?
Tried, therefore, by every test, prandium vanishes.
But I have something further to communicate about
this same prandium.
1. It came to pass, by a very natural association of
feeling, that prandium and jentaculum, in the latter
centuries of Rome, were generally confounded. This
result was inevitable. Both professed the same basis.
Both came in the morning. Both were fictions. Hence
they melted and collapsed into each other.
That fact speaks for itself — the modern breakfast
fiud luncheon never could have been confounded ; but
who would be at the pains of distinguishing two
shadows ? In a gambling-house of that class, where
you are at liberty to sit down to a splendid banquet,
anxiety probably prevents your sitting down at all
but, if you do, the same cause prevents you noticingf
what you eat. So of the two pseudo meals of Rome;
BIKNEK, KEAX, AND REPUTED. 501
ftiey came in the very midst of tKe Roman business —
nz., from nine a. m. to two p. m. Nobody could give
his mind to tbem, had they been of better quality.
There lay one cause of their vagueness — viz., in theii
positicm. Another cause was, the common basis of
both. Bread was so notoriously the predominating
' feature ' in each of these prelusive banquets, that all
foreigners at Rome, who communicated with Romans
through the Greek language, knew both the one and
the other by the name of unTonirog, or the bread repast.
Originally, this name had been restricted to the earlier
meal. But a distinction without a difference could not
sustain itself; and both alike disguised their emptiness
under this pompous quadrisyllable. All words are
suspicious, there is an odor of fraud about them, which
— being concerned with common things — are so base
as to stretch out to four syllables. What does an honest
word want with more than two ? In the identity of
substance, therefore, lay a second ground of confusion
And then, thirdly, even as to the time, which had eve i
been the sole real distinction, there arose from accident
a tendency to converge. For it happened that, while
some had jentaculum but no prandium, others had
prandium but no jentaculum ; a third party had both ;
a fourth party, by much the largest, had neither. Out
of which four varieties (who would think that a non-
entity could cut up into so many somethings :) arose a
fifth party of compromisers, who, because they could
4ot afford a regular cana, and yet were hospitably dis-
X)8ed, fused the two ideas into one ; and so, because
the usual time for the idea of a breakfast was nine to
ten, and for the idea of a luncheon twelve fo one, com-
promised the rival pretensions by whAt diplomatiuta
502 DINNER, BEAt, AND REPUTED.
call a me'izo termine ; bisecting the time at eleven, and
melting tlie two ideas into one. But, by thus merg*
ing the separate times of each, they abolished the sole
real difference that had ever divided them. Losing
that, they lost all.
Perhaps, as two negatives make one affirmative, it
may be thought that two layers of moonshine might
coalesce into one pancake ; and two Barmecide ban-
quets might be the square root of one poached egg.
Of that the company were the best judges. But,
probably, as a rump and dozen, in our land of wagers,
is construed with a very liberal latitude as to the
materials, so Martial's invitation, ' to take bread with
him at eleven,' might be understood by the nvnro! (the
knowing ones) as significant of something better than
oQTonnCc. Otherwise, in good truth, ' moonshine and
turn-out ' at eleven a. m. would be even worse than
' tea and turn-out * at eight p. m., which the ' fervida
juventus ' of Young England so loudly deprecates.
But, however that might be, in this convergement of
the several frontiers, and the confusion that ensued,
I ne cannot wonder that, whilst the two bladders col-
lapsed into one idea, they actually expanded into four
names — two Latin and two Greek, gustus and guS'
latio, ysvaig and yeva^a — which all alike express the
merely tentative or exploratory act of a prcEgiLstator
or professional ' taster ' in a king's household : what,
if applied to a fluid, we should denominate sipping.
At last, by so many steps all in one direction, things
nad come to such a pass — the two prelusive meals of
Aie Roman morning, each for itself separately vague
fxoTci the beginning, had so communicated and inter-
filed their several and joint vaguenesses, that at las*
DINNEB, REAL, AND KEPTJTED. 508
no man knew or cared to know what any other man
included in his idea of either ; how much or how little.
And you might as well have hunted in the woods of
Ethiopia for Prester John, or fixed the parish of the
Everlasting Jew,^''^ as have attempted to say what 'jen-
taculum ' certainly was, or what ' prandium ' certainly
was not. Only one thing was clear, that neither was
anything that people cared for. They were both
empty shadows ; but shadows as they were, we find
from Cicero that they had a power of polluting and
profaning better things than themselves.
We presume that no rational man will heceforth
look for ' dinner ' — that great idea according to Dr.
Johnson — that sacred idea according to Cicero — in
a bag of moonshine on one side, or a bag of pollution
on the other. Prandium, so far from being what our
foolish dictionaries pretend — dinner itself — never in
its palmiest days was more or other than a miser-
able attempt at being luncheon. It was a conatus,
what physiologists call a nisus, a struggle in a very
ambitious spark, or scintilla, to kindle into a fire.
This nisus went on for some centuries ; but finally
ivaporated in smoke. If prandium had worked out
.ts ambition, had ' the great stream of tendency ' ac-
complished all its purposes, prandium never could
have been more than a very indifferent luncheon. But
now,
2. I have to offer another fact, ruinous to our dic-
tionaries on another ground. Various circumstancea
have disguised the truth, but a truth it is, that ' pran-
lium,' in its very origin and incunabula, never was a
meal known to the Roman ctilina. In that court it
was never recognized except as an alien. It had no
504 DINNER, REAL, AND KEPTTTED.
original domicile in the city of Rome. It was a vox
castrensis, a word and an idea purely martial, and
pointing to martial necessities. Amongst the new
ideas proclaimed to the recruit, this was one — ' Look
for no " ccma,'' no regular dinner, with us. Resign
these unwarlike notions. It is true that even war has
its respites ; in these it would he possible to have our
Roman cmia vnth all its equipage of ministrations.
But luxury untunes the mind for doing and suffering.
Let us voluntarily renounce it ; that, when a necessity
of renouncing it arrives, we may not feel it among the
hardships of war. From the day when you enter the
gates of the camp, reconcile yourself, tiro, to a new
fashion of meal, to what in camp dialect we call pran-
dium.' This prandium, this essentially military meal,
was taken standing, by way of symbolizing the ne-
cessity of being always ready for the enemy. Hence
the posture in which it was taken at Rome, the very
counter-pole to the luxurious posture of dinner. A
writer of the third century, a period from which the
Romans naturally looked back upon everything con-
nected with their own early habits, with much the
same kind of interest as we extend to our Alfred (sep-
arated from us, as Romulus from them, by just a thou-
sand years), in speaking of prandium, says, ' Quod
liictum est parandium, ab eo quod milites ad bellum
oaret.' Isidorus again says, ' Proprie apud veceres
prandium vocatum fuisse omnem militum cibum ante
Dugnam : ' *. e., ' that, properly speaking, amongst oui
iiacestors every military meal taken before battle wts
termed prandium.^ According to Isidore, the propo
Bition is reciprocating ; viz., that, as every prandiwn
was a railitary meal, so every military meal was calleo
DINNER, REAL, AND REPUTED. 505
tirandium. But, in fact, tlie reason of that is apparent.
Whether in the camp or the city, the early Romans
had probably but one meal in a day That is true of
many a man amongst ourselves by choice ; it is true
also, to our knowledge, of some horse regiments in our
Bervice, and may be of all. This meal was called coena,
or dinner in the city — prandium in cenmps. In the
city, it would always be tending to one fixed hour.
In the camp, innumerable accidents of war would
make it very uncertain. On this account it woxild be
an established rule to celebrate the daily meal at noon,
if nothing hindered ; not that a later hour would not
have been preferred, had the choice been free ; but it
was better to have a certainty at a bad hour, than by
waiting for a better hour to make it an uncertainty.
For it was a camp proverb — Pransus, paratus ; armed
with his daily meal, the soldier is ready for service.
It was not, however, that all meals, as Isidore imagined,
were indiscriminately called prandium; but that the
one sole meal of the day, by accidents of war, might,
and did, revolve through all hours of the day.
The first introduction of this military meal into
Rome itself would be through the honorable pedantry
f old centurions, &c., delighting (like the Commodore
Trunnions of our navy) to keep up in peaceful life
Bome image or memorial of their past experience, so
wild, so full of peril, excitement, and romance, as
Roman warfare must have been in those ages. Many
non-military people for healta's sake, many as an
••xcuse for eating early, manj by way cf interposing
bome refreshment between the stages of forensic busi-
ness, would adopt this hurried and informal meaL
Many would wish to see theii* sona adopting such a
506 DINNEK, EEAL, AND REPUTED.
tneal, as a training for foreign service in particular, and
for temperance in general. It would also be main-
tained by a solemn and very interesting commemora-
tion of this camp repast in Rome.
This commemoration, beca^ise it has been grossly
mipunderstood by Salmasiuf (whose error arose from
not marking the true point of a particular antithesis),
and still more, because it is a distinct confirmation of
all I have said as to the military nature of prandium^
I shall detach from the series of my illustrations, by
placing it in a separate paragraph.
On a set day the officers of the army were invited
by Csesar to a banquet; it was a circumstance ex-
pressly noticed in the invitation, that the banquet was
not a ' ccena,' but a ' prandium.' What did that imply ?
Why, that all the guests must present themselves
in full military accoutrement ; whereas, observes the
historian, had it been a ccena, the officers would have
unbelted their swords ; for he adds, even in Caesar's
presence the officers are allowed to lay aside their
Bwords. The word prandium, in short, converted the
palace into the imperial tent ; and Caesar was no
longer a civil emperor and princeps sendtus, but
became a commander-in-chief amongst a council of
"lis staff, all belted and plumed, and in full military fig.
On this principle we come to understand why it is,
hat, whenever the Latin poets speak of an army as
taking food, the word used is always prandeub and
vransus ; and when the word Tised is prandens, thei;
jjways it is an army that is concerned. Thus Juvenal
in a well-known passage : —
* Credimus alloa
Desiccasse amnes, epotaque flumlna, Medo
Prandente ' —
DINNEE, SEAL, AND KEPXJTED. 5U7
that rivers were drunk up, when the Mede [i. e., the
Median army under Xerxes] took his daily meal :
vrandente, observe, not ccenante : you might as well
talk of an army taking tea and buttered toast, as taking
ccena. Nor is that word ever applied to' armies. It 'S
true that the converse is not so rigorously observed »
nor ought it, from the explanations already given.
Though no soldier dined {ccenahat), yet the citizen
sometimes adopted the camp usage, and took a pran-
dium. But generally the poets use the word merely
to mark the time of day. In that most humorous ap-
peal of Perseus — ' Cur quis non prandeat, hoc est ? ' —
is this a sufficient reason for losing one's prandium ?
— he was obliged to say prandium, because no exhibi-
tions ever could cause a man to lose his coma, since
none were displayed at a time of day when nobody in
Rome would have attended. Just as, in alluding to a
parliamentary speech notoriously delivered at midnight,
an English satirist might have said. Is this a speech to
furnish an argument for leaving one's bed ? — not as
what stood foremost in his regard, but as the only
thing that could be lost at that time of night.
On this principle, also — viz. by going back to the
»iilitary origin of prandium — we gain the interpreta-
tion of all the peculiarities attached to it : viz. —
1, its early hour ; 2, its being taken in a standing
posture ; 3, in the open air ; 4, the humble quality of
its materials — bread and biscuit (the main articles of
military fare). In all these circumstances of the meal,
re read most legibly written, the exotic (or non-civic)
•haracter of the meal, and its martial character.
Thus I have brought down our Roman friend to
noonday, or even one hour later than noon, and to
508 DINNEK, KEA.L, AND BEPUTED.
this moment the poor man has had nothing to eat.
For supposing him to be not impransiis, and supposing
bim jentdsse beside ; yet it is evident (I hope) that
neither one nor the other means more than what it was
often called — viz., psxxiofiog, or, in plain English, a
mouthful. How long do we intend to keep him wait-
ing ? Reader, he will dine at three, or (supposing
dinner put off to the latest) at four. Dinner was
never known to be later than the tenth hour at Rome,
which in summer would be past five ; but for a far
greater proportion of dajs would be near four in Rome.
And so entirely was a Roman the creature of ceremo-
nial usage, that a national mourning would probably
have been celebrated, and the ' sad augurs ' would
have been called in to expiate the prodigy, had the
general dinner lingered beyond four.
But, meantime, what has our friend been aoout since
perhaps six or seven in the morning ? After paying
his little homage to his patronus, in what way has he
fought with the great enemy Time since then ? Why,
reader, this illustrates one of the most interesting
features in the Roman character. The Roman was the
'dlest of men. ' Man and boy,' he was ' an idler in
the land.' He called himself and his pals, ' rerum
iominos, gentemque togatam' — ' the gentry that wore
the toga.' Yes, a pretty set of gentrxj they were, and
» pretty affair that ' toga ' was. Just figure to your-
self, reader, the picture of a hard-working man, with
horny hands, like our hedgers, ditchers, porters, &c.,
Betting to work on the high road in that vast sweeping
toga, filling with a strong gale like the mainsail of a
*rigate. Conceive the roars with which this magnifi-
cent figure would be received into the bosom of
SINNEB, BEAL, AXD BEFUTED. 50*J
modern poor-house detachment sent out to attack the
Btones on some line of road, or a fatigue party of dust-
men sent upon secret service. Had there been nothing
left as a memorial of the Romans but that one relic —
their immeasurable toga^*** — I should have known that
thej were born and bred to idleness. In fact, except
in war, the Roman never did anything at all but sun
himself. Uti se apricaret was the final cause of peace
in his opinion ; in literal truth, that he might make an
apricot of himself. The public rations at all times
supported the poorest inhabitant of Rome if he were a
citizen. Hence it was that Hadrian was sn astonished
with the spectacle of Alexandria, ' civitas opul-nta,
fcecunda, in qua nemo vivat otiosus.^ Here first he
saw the spectacle of a vast city, second only to Rome,
where every man had something to do ; podagrosi
quod agant habent ; habent cceci quodfaciant; ne chi-
ragrici ' (those with gout in the fingers) ' apud eos
otiosi vivunt.* No poor rates levied upon the rest of
the world for the benefit of their own paupers were
there distributed gratis. The prodigious spectacle
(such it seemed to Hadrian) was exhibited in Alexan-
dria, of all men earning their bread in the sweat of
their brow. In Rome only (and at one time in som<"
of the Grecian states), it was the very meaning of citi-
zen that he should vote and be idle. Precisely tho8«
were the two things which the Roman, theycBo; Romuli
Lad to do — viz., sometimes to vote, and always to b*
die
In these circumstances, where the whole sum of
lue's duties amounted to voting, all the business »
hum could have was to attend the public assembliea,
electioneering or factious. These, and any judicial
510 DINNER, KEAL, AND KEPUTED.
trial (public or private) that might happen to interest
him for the persons concerned, or for the questions at
stake, amused him through the morning ; that is, from
eight till one. He might also extract some diversion
from the columnce, or pillars of certain porticoes to
which they pasted advertisements. These ajfickes must
have been numerous ; for all the girls in Rome who
lost a trinket, or a pet bird, or a lap-dog, took this
mode of angling in the great ocean of the public for
the missing articles.
But all this time I take for granted that there were
no shows in a course of exhibition, either the dreadful
ones of the amphitheatre, or the bloodless ones of the
circus. If there were, then that became the business
of all Romans ; and it was a business which would
have occupied him from daylight until the light began
to fail. Here we see another effect from the scarcity
of artificial light amongst the ancients. These magni-
ficent shows went on by daylight. But how incom-
parably more gorgeous would have been the splendor
by lamp-light ! What a gigantic conception ! Two
hundred and fifty thousand human faces all revealed
under one blaze of lamp-light ! Lord Bacon saw the
mighty advantage of candle-light for the pomps and
glories of this world. But the poverty of the earth
was the original cause that the Pagan shows proceeded
by day. Not that the masters of the world, who
rained Arabian odors and perfumed waters of the
Tiost costly description from a thousand fountains,
kimply to cool the summer heats, would, in the latter
centuries of Roman civilization, have regarded the ex-
pense of light ; cedar and other odorous woods burning
apou vast altai's, together with every variety of fragran
DINNEB, KEAL, AND REPUTED. 511
lorjh, would have created light enough to shed a ne\v
iay stretching over to the distant Adriatic. But pre-
cedents derived from early ages of poverty, ancient
traditions, overruled the practical usage.
However, as there may happen to be no public spec-
tacles, and the courts of political meetings (if not
closed altogether bv superstition) would at any rate be
closed in the ordinary course by twelve or one o'clock,
nothing remains for him to do, before returning home,
excfept perhaps to attend the palcestra, or some public
recitation of a poem written by a friend, but in any
case to attend the public baths. For these the time
varied ; and many people have thought it tyrannical in
some of the Caesars that they imposed restraints on
the time open for the baths ; some, for instance, would
not suffer them to open at all before two ; and in any
case, if you were later than four or five in summer,
you would have to pay a fine, Avhich most effectually
cleaned out the baths of all raff, since it was a sum
that John Quires could not have produced to save his
life. But it should be considered that the emperoi
was the steward of the public resources for maintain-
ing the baths in fuel, oil, attendance, repairs. And
certain it is, that during the long peace of the firsi
Cajsars, and after the annonarici provisio (that great
pledge of popularity to a Roman j^rince) had been in-
creased by the corn tribute from the Nile, the Roman
population took a vast expansion ahead. The subse-
quent increase of baths, whilst no old ones were
neglected, proves that decisively. And as citizenship
•xpanded by means of the easy terms on which it
ould be had, so did the bathers multiply. The poou-
lation of Rome in the entury after Augustus, wa.s fai
512 DINNEE, KEAL, AKD REP0TBD.
greater than during that era ; and this, stUl acting «.
a vortex to the rest of the world, may have been one
great motive with Constantine for translating the capi-
tal eastwards ; in realitj', for breaking up one monstei
capital into two of more manageable dimensions. Two
o'clock was sometimes the earliest hour at which the
public baths were opened. But ?n Martial's time a
man could go without blushing {salvd fronte) at eleven ;
though even then two o'clock was the meridian hour
for the great uproar of splashing, and swimming, and
' larking ' in the endless baths of endless Rome.
And now, at last, bathing finished, and the exercises
of the pal(Bstra, at half-past two, or three, our friend
finds his way home — not again to leave it for that
day. He is now a new man ; refreshed, oiled with
perfumes, his dust washed ofi" by hot water, and ready
for enjoyment. These were the things that deter-
mined the time for dinner. Had there been no other
proof that ccena was the Roman dinner, this is an am-
ple one. Now first the Roman was fit for dinner, in a
condition of luxurious ease ; business over — that day's
oad of anxiety laid aside — his cuticle, as he delighted
to talk, cleansed and polished — nothing more to do
or to think of until the next morning : he might now
go and dine, and get drunk with a safe conscience,
Besides, if he does not get dinner now, when will he
^et it ? For most demonstrably he has taken nothing
yet which comes near in value to that basin of soup
which many of ourselves take at the Roman hour of
bathing. No; we have kept our man fasting as yet.
It is to be hoped, that something is coming at last.
Yes, something is coming; dinner is coming, the
l^eat meal of ' caena ; ' the meal sacred to hospitalit'p
DINNEK, REAL, AND REPUTED. Ltl3
and genial pleasure cimes now to fiU ip the rest of
the day, until light fails altogether.
Many people are of opinion that the Romans cnly
anderstood what the capabilities of dinner were. It is
certain that they were the first great people that dis-
covered the true secret and meaning of dinner, the
great office which it fulfils, and which we in England
are now so generally acting on. Barbarous nations —
and none were, in that respect, more barbarous than
our own ancestors — made this capital blunder : the
brutes, if you asked them what was the use of dinner,
what it Avas meant for, stared at you, and replied — as
a horse would reply, if you put the same question
about his provender — that it was to give him strength
for finishing his work ! Therefore, if you point your
telescope back to antiquity about twelve or one o'clock
in the daytime, you will descry our most Avorthy an-
cestors all eating for their very lives, eating as dogs
eat — viz., in bodily fear that some other dog will
come and take their dinner away. What swelling of
the veins in the temples (see Boswell's natural history
of Dr. Johnson at dinner) ! what intense and rapid
deglutition ! what odious clatter of knives and plates !
what silence of the human voice ! what gravity ! what
fury in the libidinous eyes with which they contem-
plate the dishes ! Positively it was an indecent spec-
tacle to see Dr. Johnson at dinner. But, above all,
tv'hat maniacal haste and hurry, as if the fiend were
«-aiting with red-hot pincers to lay hold of the hind-
"jrmost !
Oh, reader, do you recognize in this abominable
.icture your respected ancestors and ours ? Excuse
ne for saying, • What moisters ! ' T have a right to
33
514 DINNER, REAL, AND REPtlTED.
cjall my own ancestors monsters ; and, if so, I must
have the same ngnt over yours. For Soutliey has shown
plainly in the ' Doctor,' that every man having foiii
grandparents in the second stage of ascent, conse-
quently (since each of those four will have had four
grandparents) sixteen in the third stage, consequently
sixty-four in the fourth, consequently two hundred
and fifty-six in the fifth, and so on, it follows that,
long before you get to the Conquest, every man and
woman then living in England will be wanted to make
up the sum of my separate ancestors ; consequently
you must take your ancestors out of the very same
fund, or (if you are too proud for that) you must go
without ancestors. So that, your ancestors being
clearly mine, I have a right in law to call the whole
' kit ' of them monsters. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Really and upon my honor, it makes one, for the mo-
ment, ashamed of one's descent ; one would wish to
disinherit one's-self backwards, and (as Sheridan says
in the ' Rivals ') to ' cut the connection.' Wordsworth^
has an admirable picture in ' Peter Bell ' of ' a snug
party in a parlor ' removed into limbus patrum for therr
offences in the flesh : —
♦ Cramming aa they on earth were cramm'd
All sipping wine, all sipping tea ;
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent, and all d d.'
How well does that one word silent describe those
Venerable ancestral dinners — ' All silent ! ' Contrast
this infernal silence of voice, and fury of eye, with tho
risus amhilis,^ the festivity, the social kindness, the
lausic, the wine, the ' dulcis insania,^ of a Roman
CiBna.' I mentioned four tests for determining what
* [By a wicked slip for Shelley.]
DINNEK, REAL, AND EEPUTED. 515
meal is, and what is not, dinner : we may no w add a
fifth — viz., the spirit of festal joy and elegant enjoy-
ment, of anxiety laid aside, and of honorable social
pleasure put on like a marriage garment.
And what caused the difference between our ances-
tors and the Romans ? Simply this — the erroi of 'n-
terposing dinner in the middle of business, thus court-
ing all the breezes of angry feeling that may happen to
blow from the business yet to come, instead of finish-
ing, absolutely closing, the account with this world's
troubles before you sit down. That unhappy in-
terpolation ruined all. Dinner was an ugly little
parenthesis between two still uglier clauses of a tee-
totally ugly sentence. Whereas, with us, their enlight-
ened posterity, to whom they have the honor to be
ancestors, dinner is a great re-action. There lies my
conception of the matter. It grew out of the very ex-
cess of the evil. When business was moderate, dinner
«'as allowed to divide and bisect it. When it swelled
into that vast strife and agony, as one may call it, that
boils along the tortured streets of modern London or
other capitals, men begin to see the necessity of an
adequate counter-force to push against this overwhelm-
ing torrent, and thus maintain the equilibrium. Were
it not for the soft relief of a six o'clock dinner, the
gentle demeanor succeeding to the boisterous hubbub
of the day, the soft glowing lights, the wine, the Intel •
lectual conversation, life in London is now come to
luch a pass, that in two years all nerves would sink
oefore it. But for this periodic re-action, the m( dcra
Dueiness which draws so cruelly on the brain, and so
fittle on the hands, would overthrow that organ in alj
but those of coarse or";aniza'i,:n. Dinner it iii
516 DINNER, REAL, AND REPUTBD.
meaning by dinner the whole complexity, of attendant
circumstances — which saves the modern brain-work-
ing man from going mad.
This revolution as to dinner was the greatest in
virtue and value ever accomplished. In fact, those
axe always the most operative revolutions which are
brought about through social or domestic changes. A
nation must be barbarous, neither could it have much
intellectual business, which dined in the morning.
They could not be at ease in the morning. So much
must be granted : every day has its separate quantum,
its dose of anxiety, that could not be digested as soon
noon. No man will say it. He, therefore, who dined
at noon, showed himself willing to sit down squalid
as he was, with his dress unchanged, his cares not
washed off. And what follows from that r Why, that
to him, to such a canine or cynical specimen of the
genus homo, dinner existed only as a physical event, a
mere animal relief, a purely carnal enjoyment. For in
what, I demand, did this fleshly creature differ from
the carrion crow, or the kite, or the vulture, or the
cormorant ? A French judge, in an action upon a wa-
ger, laid it down as law, that man only had a bouche,
all other animals a gueule : only with regard to the
horse, in consideration of his beauty, nobility, use,
and in honor of the respect with which man regarded
him, by the courtesy of Christendom, he might be
nllowed to have a louche, and his reproach of brutality,
'f not taken away, might thus be hidden. But purely,
pf the rabid animal who is caught dining at noonday;
4he homo ferns, who affronts the meridian sun like
I'hysstes and Atreus, by his inhuman meals, wo are
by parity of reason , entitled to say, that he has a ' nvaw
BINNEK, BEAL, A.ND KEPVTED. 5l7
[80 has Milton's Death), but nothing rfiserabling a
stomach. And to this vile man a philosopher would
say — ' Go away, sir, and come back to me two or
three centuries hence, when you have learned to be a
reasonable creature, and to make that physico-intellec-
tual thing out of dinner which it was meant to be, and
is capable of becoming.' In Henry VII. 's time the
court dined at eleven in the forenoon. But even that
hour was considered so shockingly late in the French
court, that Louis XII. actually had his gray hairs
brought down with sorrow to the grave, by changing
his regular hour of half-past nine for eleven, in gallan-
try to his young English bride. ^"^ He fell a victim to
late hours in the forenoon. In Cromwell's time they
dined at one p. m. One century and a half had car-
ried them on by two hours. Doubtless, old cooks and
scullions wondered what the world would come to
next. Our French neighbors were in the same pre-
dicament. But they far surpassed us in veneration
for the meal. They actually dated from it. Dinner
constituted the great era of the day. h'apres diner is
almost the sole date which you find in Cardinal De
Retz's memoirs of the Fronde. Dinner was their Hc'
gira — dinner was their line in traversing the ocean of
day : they crossed the equator when they dined. Our
English Revolution came next ; it made some little
difference, I have heard people say, in church and
btate ; I dare-say it did, like enough, but its great
effects were perceived in dinner. People now dine al
two. So dined Addison for his last thirty years ; so,
through his entire life, dined P'>pe. whose birth waa
|oe\al with the Revolution. Preusely as the Rcbel-
io'^ of 1 745 arose, did people (but observe, very great
518 DINNER, REAL, AND REPITTED.
people) advance to four p.m. Philosophers, who watcb
the ' semina rerum,' and the first symptoms of change,
had perceived this alteration singing in the upper aii
like a coming storm some little time before. About
the year 1740, Pope complains of Lady Suffolk's
dining so late as four. Young people may bear those
things, he observed ; but as to himself, now turned of
fifty, if such things went on, if Lady Suflblk Avould
adopt such strange hours, he must really absent him-
self from Marble Hill. Lady Suffolk had a right to
please herself; he himself loved her. But, if she
would persist, all which remained for a decayed poet
was respectfully to cut his stick, and retire. Whether
Pope ever put up with four o'clock dinners again, I
have vainly sought to fathom. Some things advance
continuously, like a flood or afire, which always make
an end of A, eat and digest it, before they go on to
B. Other things advance per saltum — they do not
silently cancer their way onwards, but lie as still as a
snake after they have made some notable conquest,
then, when unobserved, they make themselves up ' for
mischief,' and take a flying bound onwards. Thus
advanced Dinner, and by these fits got into the terri-
tory of evening. And ever as it made a motion on-
wards, it found the nation more civilized (else the
change could not have been effected), and co-operated
'n raising them to a still higher civilization. The next
relay on that line of road, the next repeating frigate,
is Cowper in his poem on ' Conversation.' He speaks
of four o'clock as still the elegant hour for dinner —
the hour for the lautiores and the lepidi homines
Now this might be written about 1780, or a little
eaxliet ; perhaps, therefore, just one generation aftei
DINNJEH, REAL, AND BEPUTED, 519
Pope's Lady Suffolk. But then Cowper was living
imongst the rural gentry, not in high life ; yet, again,
Cowper was nearly connected by blood with the emi-
nent Whig house of Cowper, and acknowledged as a
kinsman. About twenty-five years after this, we may
take Oxford as a good exponent of the national ad-
vance. As a magnificent body of ' foundations,' en-
dowed by kings, nursed by queens, and resorted to by
the flower of the national youth, Oxford ought to be
elegant and even splendid in her habits. Yet, on the
other hand, as a grave seat of learning, and feeling the
weight of her position in the commonwealth, she is
slow to move ; she is inert as she should be, having
the functions of resistance assigned to her against the
popular instinct (surely active enough) of movement.
Now, in Oxford, about 1804-5, there was a general
move in the dinner hour. Those colleges who dined
Bt three, of which there were still several, now began to
dine at four : those who had dined at four, now trans-
lated their hour to five. These continued good general
hours till about Waterloo. After that era, six, which
had been somewhat of a gala hour, was promoted to the
fixed station of dinner-time in ordinary ; and there
perhaps it will rest through centuries. For a more
festal dinner, seven, eight, nine, ten, have all been in
requisition since then ; but I am not aware of any
man's habitually dining later than ten p. m., except
In that classical case recorded by Mr. Joseph Miller,
of an Irishman who must have dined much later than
ten, because his servant protested, when others were
tnforcing the dignity of their masters by the lateness
»f their dinner hours, that his master invariably dined
!o morrow.'
520 DINNER, KEAL, AND REPUTED.
Were the Romans not as barbarous as our own an-
cestors at one time ? Most certainly they were ; in
their primitive ages they took their ccena at noon,^*"
that was before they had laid aside their barbarism ;
before they shaved; it was during their barbarism,
and in consequence of their barbarism, that they timed
their coma thus unseasonably. And this is made evi-
dent by the fact, that, so long as they erred in the
hour, they erred in the attending circumstances. At
this period they had no music at dinner, no festal
graces, and no reposing on sofas. They sat bolt up-
right in chairs, and were as grave as our ancestors, as
rabid, as libidinous in ogling the dishes, and doubtless
as furiously in haste.
With us the revolution has been equally complex.
We do not, indeed, adopt the luxurious attitude of
semi-recumbency ; our climate makes that less requi-
site ; and, moreover, the Romans had no knives and
forks, which could scarcely be used in that recumbent
posture ; they ate with their fingers from dishes already
cut up — whence the peculiar force of Seneca's ' post
quod non sunt lavandae manus.' But, exactly in propor-
tion as our dinner has advanced towards evening, have
we and has that advanced in circumstances of elegance,
of taste, of intellectual value. This by itself would be
much. Infinite would be the gain for any people, that
it had ceas<^d to be brutal, animal, fleshly ; ceased to
regard the chief meal of the day as a ministration only
o an animal necessity ; that they had raised it to a
higher office ; associated it mth social and humanizing
feelings, with manners, with graces moral and intel-
lectual : moral ip. the self-restraint ; intellectual in the
fact, notorious to all men, that the chief arenas for the
DINNEH, BEAL, AND REPUTED. 521
sa$y display of intellectual power are at our dinner ta-
bles. But dinner has now even a greater function than
this ; as the fervor of our day's business increases,
dinner is continually more needed in its office of a
great re-action. I repeat that, at this moment, but for
the daily relief of dinner, the brain of all men Mho
mix in the strife of capitals would be unhinged and
thrown off its centre.
If we should suppose the case of a nation taking
three equidistant meals, all of the same material and
the same quantity — all milk, for instance, all bread,
or all rice — it would be impossible for Thomas
Aquinas himself to say which was or was not dinner.
The case would be that of the Roman ancile which
dropped from the skies ; to prevent its ever being
stolen, the priests made eleven facsimiles of it, in
order that a thief, seeing the hopelessness of distin-
guishing the true one, might let all alone. And the
result was, that, in the next generation, nobody could
point to the true one. But our dinner, the Roman
coma, is distinguished from the rest by far more than
the hour ; it is distinguished by great functions, and
by still greater capacities. It is already most benefi-
cial ; if it saves (as I say it does) the nation from
madness, it may become more so.
In saying this, I point to the lighter graces of music,
and conversation more varied, by which the Roman
coena was chiefly distinguished from our dinner. I am
far from agreeing with Mr. Croly, that the Roman
meal was more ' intellectual ' tiian ours. On the con-
trary, ours is the more intellec*^^ual by much ; we have
Ear greater knowledge, far greater means for making it
4ucb. In fact, the fault of our meal is— that it is to*
622 DINNEB, HEAL, AND BEPUIED.
intellectudl ; of too severe a character ; too political ;
lOO much tending, in many hands, to disquisition.
Reciprocation of question and answer, variety of topics,
shifting of topics, are points not sufficiently cultivated.
In all else I assent to the following passage from Mi,
Croly'g eloquent ' Salathiel : ' —
' If an ancient Roman could start from his slumbei
into the midst of European life, he must look with
Bcorn on its absence of grace, elegance, and fancy.
But it is in its festivity, and most of all in its banquets,
that he would feel the incurable barbarism of the
Gothic blood. Contrasted with the fine displays that
made the table of the Roman noble a picture, and
threw over the indulgence of appetite the colors of the
imagination, with what eyes must he contemplate the
tasteless and commonplace dress, the coarse attendants,
the meagre ornament, the want of mirth, music, and
intellectual interest — the whole heavy machinery that
converts the feast into the mere drudgery of devour-
ing! '
Thus far the reader knoAvs already that I dissent
violently ; and by looking back he will see a picture
of our ancestors at dinner, in which they rehearse the
very part in relation to ourselves, that Mr. Croly sup-
poses all moderns to rehearse in relation to the Ro-
mans ; but in the rest of the beautiful description, the
positive, though not the comparative part, we must all
concur : —
' The guests before me were fifty or sixty splendidly
dressed men' (they were in fact Titus and his staff,
then occupied with the siege of Jerusalem), ' attended
by a crowd of domestics, attired with scarcely lesj
splendor ; for no man thought of coming to the bai>
BINXJEH, B£AL, AND REPUIBD. 523
ijiiet in the robes of ordinary life. The embroidered
couches, themselves striking objects, allowed the ease
of position at once delightful in the relaxing climates
of the south, and capable of combining with every
grace of the human figure. At a slight distance, the
table loaded with plate glittering under a profusion of
lamps, and surrounded by couches thus covered by
rich draperies, was like a central source of light radiat-
ing in broad shafts of every brilliant hue. The wealth
of the patricians, and their intercourse with the Greeks,
made them masters of the first performances of the
arts. Copies of the most famous statues, and groups
of sculpture in the precious metals ; trophies of victo-
ries ; models of temples, were mingled with vases of
flowers and lighted perfumes. Finally, covering and
closing all, was a vast scarlet canopy, which combined
the groups beneath to the eye, and threw the whole
into the form that a painter would love.'
Mr. Croly then goes on to insist on the intellectual
embellishments of the Roman dinner ; their variety,
their grace, their adaptation to a festive purpose. The
truth is, our English imagination, more profound than
the Roman, is also more gloomy, less gay, less riante.
That accounts for our want of the gorgeous triclinium,
with its scarlet draperies, and for many other differ-
(. ices both to the eye and to the understanding. But
both we and the Romans agree in the main point :
we both discovered the true purpose which dinner
•night serve — 1, to throw the grace of intellectual
enjoyment over an animal necessity ; 2, to relieve and
-o meet by a benign antagonism the toil of brain inci-
Jent to high forms of social life.
My object has been to point the eye to this fact ; tc
524 JDINNEE, BEAL, AND BEPTJTED.
Bhow uses imperfectly suspected in a recurring accident
of life ; to show a steady tendency to that consumma-
tion, by holding up, as in a mirror, a series of changes,
corresponding to our own series with regard to the
same chief meal, silently going on in a great people of
tntiquity
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY.
EXHIBITED IN SIX SCENEa
To the Editor of a great Literary Journal.
SiK, — Some years ago you published a translatior
of Bottiger's Sabina, 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 wordiness which has made the original
unreadable, and therefore unread] from a similar dis-
sertation by Hartmann on the toilette and the ward-
robe of the ladies of ancient Palestine. Hartmaiui
was a respectable Oriental scholar, and he published
his researches, which occupy three thick octavos, mak-
ing in all one thousand four hundred and eighty-eight
pages, under the title of Die Hehrderin am Putztische
und ah 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 exceed-
ingly tedious, and to repeat the same thing ten times
over, or even, upon occasion, fifteen times, provided
that his own upright heart should incline him to think
that course the most advisable. Certainly Mr. Hart-
mann has the most excellent gifts at verbal expansion,
»nd talents the most splendid for tautology, that eve?
526 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADT.
came within my 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 one-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 Pal-
estine is yet to be illustrated ; but for the female, it is
probable that little could be added to what Hartmann
has collected ; * and that any clever dress-maker
would, with the indications here given, enable any
lady at the next great masquerade in London to sup-
* It is one great advantage to the illustrator of ancient cos-
tume, 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
ftuperstition and by settled climate (as with both) ; and when
there was no stimulation to vanity in the love of change from
un. 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
•iges, both as to materials and fashion; Rebecca, the Bedouin,
was dressed pretty nearly as Mariamne, the wife of Ilerod, in th«
age of the Cassars. And thus the labors of a learned investi-
gator for one age are valid for many which follow and precede
TOILETTE OF THE nEBREW LADY. 527
port the part of one of the ancient daughters of Pales-
tine, 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
fc-masf[uing, 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 He-
brews, 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 chemise, if
managed properly (and either you or I, Mr. Editor,
will be most proud to communicate our private advice
on that subject without tee 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
recognized ; 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 forehead, and dropping
from each extremity of the polished temples a rouleau
pf pearls, which, after traversing the cheeks, unite
below the chin, — are all so unique and exclusively
Hebraic, that each and all would have thp same ad-
vantageous effect ; prorlaiming and notifying the char-
vcter, without putting the fair supporter to any dis-
agreeable expense of Hebrew or Chaldee. The silver
bells alone would " bear the bell " from evrry compet
528 iOlLETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY.
tor in the room ; and she miglit, besides, curry a
r-ymbal, a diilcimer, or a timbrel in ber bands.
In conclusion, my dear sir, let. me congratulate you
that Mr. Hartmann is now in Hades (as I said before)
rather than in ; for, bad be been in this iattei
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 hia
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. y^TtSQavzoXoyia, 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 Jiot ad-
vancing 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 communicated 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 years. He dates, you see, from Amsterdam ;
jmd, 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, fo
sweating: him down to such slender dimensions. Ana
TOILETTE or THE HEBREW LADY. 529
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 forever brood over Judea —
by letting in upon it the " common light of day ; " and
this effect would infallibly take place, if any one de-
partment 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,
a. 0
SCENE THE FIRST.
1. That simple body-cloth, framed of leaves, skins,
flax, wool, &c., which modesty had first introduced,
for many centuries perhaps sufficed as the common at-
tire of both sexes amongst the Hebrew Bedouins. It
extended downwards 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 favorite dishabille of the Arabian women
when they are behind the curtains of the tent.
From this early rudiment was denved, by gradual
elongation, that well-knov a under habiliment, which
34
530 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADf.
in Hebrew is called CKtonet, and in Greek and Latin
by words of similar sound.* In this stage of its pro-
gress, 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 proba-
bly worn as the sole under-garment by women of all
ranks, both amongst the Bedouin-Hebrews and tho«9
who lived in cities. A very little further extension to
the elbows and the calves of the legs, and it takes a
shape which survives 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 efi"eminacy.
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. Splendor of coloring was not neg-
lected ; and the opening at the throat was eagerly
turned to account as an occasion for displaying 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
* Chiton (Xiro)i), in Greek, and, by inversion of the sylla-
bles, 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
asalso (5.) Whjnot Tun-i-ca. — Q. E. D. Such I believe, ifi
the received derivation.
TOILEITE OF THE HEBREW LADY. 531
rlose, 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,* 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 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-
Bcribed ; and in this she dressed herself the very mo-
ment 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
'lose to the shape, whilst the outer one remained full
tnd free as before.
II. No fashion of the female toilette is of higher
antiquity than that of dyeing the margin of the eye-
lids and the eyebrows with a black pigment. It is
mentioned or alluded to, 2 Kings ix. 30, Jeremiah iv.
SO, Ezekiel xxiii. 40 ; to which may be added, Isaiah
iii. 16. The practice had its origin in a discovery made
ccidentally in Egypt. For it happens that the sub-
* When the little Scottish king, about 1566, was taken ill ia
he night at Holyrood, Pinkerton mentions that all his attend-
ants, male and female, rushed out into the adjacent galleiy,
naked as they were born, and thence comes the phrase so often
used in the contemporary ballads — " Even aa I left my nakH
led."
532 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY.
stance used for this purpose in ancient times is i
powerful remedy in cases of ophthalmia and inflamma-
tion of the eyes, complaints to which Egypt is, from
local causes, peculiarly exposed. This endemic in-
firmity, in connection with the medical science for
which Egypt was so distinguished, easily accounts foi
their discovering the uses of antimony, which is tha
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 curiosi-
ties illustrating the Egyptian toilette, which were dis-
covered in the catacombs of Sahara in Middle Egypt,
there was a single joint of a common reed containing
an ounce or more of the coloring powder, and one oi
the needles for applying it. The entire process was as
follows : — The mineral powder, finely prepai'ed, waa
nixed 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.* And perhaps, as Sonnini describes the
practice among the Mussulman women at present, the
whole mass thus compounded was dried and again re-
duced to an impalpable powder, and consistency then
given to it by the vapors of some odorous and unctuous
* Cheaper materials were used by the poorer Hebrews, es-
Decially of the Bedouin tribes — burnt almonds, lamp-black,
loot, the ashes of particular woods, the gall-apple boiled and
pulverized, or any dark powder made into an unguent by suit-
nble liquors. The modern Grecian women, in some districts, as
Sonnini tells us, use the spine of the sea-polypus, calcined and
finely pulverized for this purpose. Boxes of horn were useii
for keeping the pigment by the poorer Hebrews — of onyx oi
alabaster by the richer.
TOILETTE OF THE HEBKEW LADY. 533
lubstance. 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 de-
bcribed 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 colored 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
ea'ch other.
in. 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 king-
dom, 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 be-
comingly 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
Rge, as we collect from the Thalmud, Part vi. 43, the
Jewish ladies wore gold or silver pendants, of which
the upper part was shaped ''ke a lentil, and the lower
hollowed like a little cup or pipkin. It is probable
»lso that, even in the oldest ages, it was a practice
amongst them to suspend gold and silver rings, no'
534 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY.
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.
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-KiNGS at an early period became a uni-
versal 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 at-
tached 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 thg
age succeeding to Solomon's reign, we hear of ring*
which were not less than three inches in diameter
Hebrew ladies of distinction had sometimes a clustef
TOI].£TTE OF THE HEBREW LADY. 535
of nose-rings, as well for the tinkling sound which
they were contrived to emit, as for the shining light
which they threw oflf 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 circumstances, 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 its tinkling
sound : this we might presume, even without the
authority of the Bible ; but, in fact, both Isaiah and
Ezekiel expressly mention it amongst their artifices of
attraction.
Judith, when she appeared before the tent of Holo-
fernes in the whole pomp of her charms, and appar-
elled with the most elaborate attention to splendor of
effect, for the purpose of captivating the hostile gen-
eral, did not omit its ornament. Even the Jewish
Proverbs show how highly it was valued ; and that it
continued to be valued in latter times, appears from
the ordinances of the Thalmud (ii. 21), in respect to
the parts of the female wardrobe which were allowed
U) be worn on the Sabbath.
V. The Hebrew women of high rank, in the flour-
ishing period of their state, wore xecklaces composed
•)f multiple rows of pearls. The thread on which the
536 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY.
pearls were strung was of flax or woollen, — and some
times colored, 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,
f)n 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 ol
of Palestine, there is reason to believe that some He-
brew ladies possessed pearls which had cost at least
five times that sum.* So much may be affirmed,
without meaning^ to compare the most lavish of the
ladies of Jerusalem with those of Rome, where it ia
recorded of some elegantes, 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 com-
•,"»osed of pearls, or of pearls only — sometimes it was
he custom to interchange the pearls with little golden
bulbs or berries : sometimes they were blended with
* Cleopatra had a couple at that value; and Julius CaBsat
tad one, which he gave to Servilia, the beautiful mother oi
Brutus, valued by knaves who wished to buy (empturiebant) at
forty-eight thousand pounds English, but by the envious femaU
-vorlJ of Rome, at sixty-three thousand.
TOILETTE OF THE HEBKEW LADY. 537
the precious stones ; and at other times, the pearls
were strung two and two, and their beautiful white-
ness 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 enam-
elled clasp of elaborate workmanship. These bracelets
were also occasionally 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
'Qvitation to a lover.
VII. This bijouterie for the arms naturally re-
minded the Hebrew lady of the axkle bells, and
>ther similar ornaments 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,
.nade an accompaniment so agreeable to female vanity,
that the stately daughters of Jerusalem, with their
bweeping trains flowing after them, appear to have
iidopted a sort of measured tread, by way of impress-
ing a regular cadence upon the music of their feet.
The chains of gold were exchanged, as luxury ad-
538 TOIIiEXTE OF THE HEBREW LADY.
vanced, for strings of pearls and jewels, whicli swept
m 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 disposed 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 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 movements very difficult in women ; and
by giving notice of their approach, it had the effect of
oreparing men for their presence, and keeping the
-tad 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 th^
westernmost parts of Africa early in the Christian
times, we learn from Tertullian, who [foolish mat) I
cannot suppress his astonishment, that the foolish
»romen of his time should bear to inflict such com-
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADT. 0'3'J
pression upon their tender feet. Even as early as tho
times of Herodotus, 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 pre-
ferred to bury themselves in the loneliest apartments
of the harem.
Finally, the fashion spread partially into Europe ; *o
Greece even, and to polished Rome, in so far ae re-
garded the ankle-belts, and the other ornamental ap-
pendages, with the single exception of the silver bells ;
these were too entirely in the barbaresque taste, to
support themselves under the frown of European cul-
ture.
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,
Btill betrays itself to an attentive 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, dec. ; this, alter being accurately
tut 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 manj* circumvolutions round about
the ankles, so that both finally met and tied just abjve
♦le instep.
TOILETTE OF THE HEBKEW LADY.
The laced sole or sandal, of this form, continued in
Palestine 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
eandals 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 perspiration.*
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, waa
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 inven-
tive 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
lappiest form, by which means a reticulation, or trellis-
Nfork, was accomplished, of the most brilliant coloring,
which brought into powerful relief the dazzling color
of the skin.
* Washing the feet was a ceremony of ancient times, adopted
not merely with a view, 1st, to personal comfort, in hotter cli-
mates; or, 2d, to decorum of appearance where people walked
about barefooted; but also, Sd, to the reclining posture in use at
meals, which necessarily brought the feet into immediate contacJ
with the snowy swan-down cushions, squabs, &c. of couches.
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY 541
It IS possible that, in the general rage for ornamenta
»f gold which possessed the people of Palestine,
during the ages of excessive luxury, the beauties of
Jerusalem may have adopted gilt sandals with gilt
I'astenings, 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 color, embroidery, and
infinite combinations of jewellery and pearls, an un-
ceasing stimulation of novelty applied to the caste
of the gorgeous, but still sensual and barbar^sque
Asiatic.
IX. The VEIL of various texture — coarse or fine —
according to circumstances, was thrown over the b^^ad
by the Hebrew lady, when she was unexpectedly sur-
prised, 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 hold-
ing an indispensable place in the wardrobe of his
haughty countrywomen ; and m this it was tliat the
enamored Hebrew woraar aougnt the beloved of he*
[ifOXt.
542 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY.
ADDENDA TO SCENE THE FIRST.
I. Of the Hebrew ornaments for the throat, some
were true necklaces, in the modern sense, of severa
rows, the outermost of which descended to the breast,
and had little pendulous cylinders of gold (in the
poorer claoaes, 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 wc 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 favorite ornament of the male sex in the
East ; and expressed the dignity of the wearer, as we
see in the instances of Joseph, of Daniel, &c. ; indeed
the gold chain of ofiice, still the badge of civic (and,
until lately, of military) dignities, is no more than the
outermost row of the Oriental necklace. Philo of
A.lexandria, 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
10 doubt that it was the neighboring land of Phoenicia
from which the Hebrew women obtained their neck
laces, and the practice of wearing them.
II. The fashion, however, of adorning the necklace
with golden Suns and Moons, so agreeable to the He-
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY. 543
jrew ladies of Isaiali's time (chap. iii. 18), was not
ierived from Phoenicia, but from Arabia. At an eaiiier
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 Sa-
bean 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 set-
tlement 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
* Chemistry had its first origin in Arabia: and it is not impos-
eible that the chemical nomenclatvi'*e for gold and silver, viz.,
^1/ and luna, were derived from this early superstition of the
Viedouin dreaa
544 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LA.DT.
this idolatrous ornament upon the bosoms of their coun-
try-women.
The crescents, or half-raoouB of silver, in connection
with the golden suns,* were sometimes set in a brilliant
I'rame that represented a halo nnd still keep their
ground on the Persian and T ..rkish toilette, as a fa-
vorite ornament.
III. The GOLDEN SNAKES, wom as one of the He-
brew appendages to the necklace, had the same idola-
trous derivation, and originally were applied to the
same superstitious use — as an amulet, or prophylactic
ornament. For minds predisposed to this sort of su-
perstition, 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, sacri-
fices, and formal rites of worship. This mode of
idolatry 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 re-
gard them as fit subjects for divine honors. Sonnini
(ii. 388) tells us, that a serpent's skin is still looked
upon in Egypt as a prophylactic against complaints o
* Chemistry had its first origin in Arabia: and it is not inv
possible that the chemical nomenclature for gold and silver, viz..
tol and luna, were derived from this early superstition of th«
rfodouin dress.
TOIXBTXE OF THE HEBREW LADY. 5 i5
the head, and also as a certain cure for them. And of
the same origin, no doubt, was the general belief of
untiquity (according to Pliny, 30, 12), that the ser-
pent'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 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 favorite essences preserved in this beautiful append-
age to the female costume of Palestine it is not possi-
ble at this distance of time to determine with certainty
— Issdah 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 particularizes musk, and the delightful oil
distilled from the leaf of the aromatic malabathrum of
Hindostan. To these we may venture to add oil of
spikenard, myrrh, balsams, attar of roses, and rose-
water, as the perfumes usually contained in the He-
brew scent-pendants.
Rose-water, which I am tne first to mention as a
Hebrew perfume, had, as I presume, a foremost place
on the toilette of a Hebrew belle. Express Scriptural
fcuttgrity for it undoubtedly there is none ; but it is
35
54 6 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADT.
notorious that Palestine availed itself of all the ad-
vantages of Egypt, amongst which the rose in every
variety was one. Fium, a province of Central Egypt,
which the ancients called 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 citea
(ii. 41) a peculiar rose-water aa so costly an essence,
that from its high price alone it became impossible to
introduce the use of it into the ordinary medical prac-
tice. Indeed, this last consideration, and the fact that
the highly-prized quintessence cannot be obtained ex-
cept from an extraordinary multitude of the larest
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 tho
Hebrew ladies were not acquainted with it. This pre-
paration can be obtained only from the balsamic rosea
of Fium, of Shiras, of Kerman, and of Kashmire, which
surpass all the roses of the earth in power and delicacy
of odor ; and it Is matter of absolute certainty, and
incontrovertibly 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 dis-
covered by mere accident, on occasion of some festiva
lolemn.ity in the year 1612.
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY. 5i7
V. To what I said in the first scene of my exhibition
gibout the Hebrew ear-ornaments. I may add,
1. That sometimes, as Best remarked of the Hindoo
dancing girls, their ears were swollen from the innu-
merable 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 preference to jewels, or in alternation with
je^yels, they particularly 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, accord-
ing 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 ornaments of this
class.
Mutatis mutandis, these four remarks apply also and
equally to the case of the nose ornaments.
SCENE THE SECOND.
I. The Haie. — 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 'a
548 TOILETTE OF THE HEBKETV LADTf.
imte a treatise on the mode of dressing hair amongst
Hebrew ladies. Samson's hair, and the dressing it got
from the Philistines, is the 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 pos-
sessed of — for he altogether overlooks (which surely
m 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 ooce
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 satis-
factory dissertation on the particular sort of combs
which the Hebrew ladies ^ere pleased to patronize : —
" 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 ma-
terial, all these are questions upon which I am
not able, upon my honor, to communicate the least in-
formation. But from the general silence of antiquity,
prophets and all,* upon the subject of Hebrew combs,
* The Thalmud is the only Jewish authority which mentions
Buch 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
ail mired in Palestine, and the Jewish hair being naturally black
t is probable that the Jewish ladies did not color their hair, aa
:hc Paomans did.
TOIX.ETTE OF THE HEBREA\ LADT. ")49
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 ;
but 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 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 cin-
namon, &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 per-
"umes, essences, precious ointments, &c. All these
articles were preserved either in golden boxes or in
little oval narrow-necked phials of dazzling white ala-
baster, which bore the name of onyx, from its resem-
blance to the precious stone of that name, but was in
fact a very costly sort of marKe, obtained in the quar-
ries of Upper Kgypt or those of the Libanus in Syria.
Indeed, long before the birth of Christ, alabaster was
550 TOILETTE OF THE HKRREW LADT.
in such general use for purposes of this kind in Pales-
tine, 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 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 Sec-
ond Book of Moses (xxxviii. 8), that in that age cop-
per must have been the metal employed throughout
the harems of Palestine. For a general contribution
of mirrors being made upon one occasion by the Israel-
itish women, they were melted down and recast into
washing vessels for the priestly service. N~w the
sacred utensils, as we know from other sources, were
undeniably of copper. There is reason to think, how-
ever, 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 precious stones, which were used
for this purpose in the ages of European luxury, wer
ever so used in Palestine, or in any part of Asia.
As to shape, the Hebrew mirrora were alway*
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW I.AJ)Y. 551
either circular or oval, and cast indifferently flat oi
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 THIBD.
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
coloring, 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 monu-
ments of Egyptian and Persepolitan art, was fastened
<ound 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 ; an 1, in
liny 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
awn resembling rur cambric ; and to conceal the
joinings, a silky substance wab carried in folds, which
pursued the opposite direction, and crossed the tiffany
652 TOILETTE OF THE HEBEEW LADY.
ftt riglit angles. For tlie purpose of calling out and
relieving the dazzling whiteness of the ground, colors
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
j...jrwoven with their texture.
Thirdly, the helmet, adorned pretty nearly as the
turban ; and, in imitation of the helmets worn by the
Chaldean generals, having long tails or tassels depend-
ing 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 hel-
mets and turbans were previously steeped in perfumes.
Finally, in connection with the turban, and often
with the veil, was a beautiful ornament for the fore-
head 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 fingers'-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 FOXJKTH.
I. The reader has been already niade acquainted
vith the chemise, or innermost under-dress. The
Hebrew ladies, however, 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) o
Cos ; in t> 8 later ages it was no doubt of silk.
The chemise sate close up to the throat ; and w
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY. 553
bave 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, de-
scended in ample draperies to the feet, scarcely allow-
ing 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 at-
tached 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
most elegant objects from the animal or vegetable
kingdoms. To that part which fell immediately be-
hind 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
f its draperies, and to prevent their interfering with
the free motions of the limbs, a superb girdle was
bound about the hips. Here, if anywhere, the Hebrew
ladies endeavored to pour out the whole pomp of
their splendor, both as to materials and workmanship.
Belts from three to four inches broad, 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
554 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY.
und in their native colors, either woven in the loom,
or by the needle of the embroiderer. The be^'a 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 03
number of folds at pleasure to rise up more or less to
view, just as fans or the colored edges of books with
us are made to exhibit landscapes, &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 sculp-
tures 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 jew-
ellery 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
tlsewhere, the girdle was sometimes used as a purse ;
whether it were that the girdle itself was madr uollow
(as is expressly affirmed of the high priest's girdle)
or that, without being hollow, its numerous foldingi
afforded a secure depository for articles of small size
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY. 555
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 PUKSE made either of metal (usually goxa
or silver), or of the softest leather, &c., which was at-
tached by a lace to the girdle, or kept amongst its
folds, and which, even in the eyes of Isaiah, was im-
portant enough to merit a distinct mention. It was
of a conical shape ; and at the broader end was usually
enriched with ornaments of the most elaborate and
exquisite workmanship. No long time after the Chris-
tian era, the cost of these purses had risen to sucb a
height, that Tertullian complains, with great dis-
pleasure, 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 ap-
propriate depository for the napkin (to use the old
English word) or sudatory — i. e., handkerchief for
clearing the forehead of perspiration. As to pocket-
handkerchiefs, in our northern use of them, it has
oeen satisfactorily shown by Bottiger, in a German
Journal, that the Greek and Roman ladies knew noth-
ing of that modern appendage to the pocket,* how-
* Or rather it was required only in a catarrh, or other case of
cnecked perBpiration, which in those climates was a case of very
rare occurrence. It has often struck me — that without needing
the elaborate aid .f Bcittiger's researches, simply from one clause
ill Javenal's picture of old age and its infirmities we might de-
556 TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADf.
ever indispensable it may appear to us ; and the samt
arguments apply with equal foice to the climate of
Palestine.
IV. The glittering rikgs, with which (according to
Isaiah iii. 21) the Hebrew ladies adorned their hands,
seem to me 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 favorite 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 ex-
quisite 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 timea
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,
unier all varieties and modifications, the Hebrews ex-
pressed by the comprehensive denomination of simlah,
iuce the Roman habit of dispensing with a pocket-handkerch'ef.
Amongst these infirmities he notices the madidi infantia nasi—-
the second childhood of a nose that needs wiping. But, if thia
kind of defluxion was peculiar to infancy and extreme old agf, i
was obviously no affection of middle age.
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADY DO <
Jiare in every age, and througli all parts of the hoi
climates, in Asia and Africa alike, been of such volu-
minous compass as not only to envelope the whole per-
son, but to be fitted for a wide range of miscellaneous
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 coverlid or counterpane ; at other
times as sacks for carrying articles of value ; or finally,
as curtains, hangings of parlors, occasional tapestry, or
even as sails for boats.
From these illustrations of the uses to which it was
applicable, we may collect the form of this robe ; that
it was nothing more than a shawl of large dimen-
sions, or long square of cloth, just as it came from the
veaver'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, 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 color, and more especially in Palestine, where the
'indigenous soaps, and other cleaning materials, gave
them peculiar advantages for adopting a dress of that
delicate and perishable lustre.
With the advance of luxury, howe"er, came a love
•f variety ; and this, added to th? desire for more
stimulating impressions than could be derived from
ib^ TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW LADT.
blank unadorned white, gradually introduced all sorts
of innovations both in form and color ; though, with
respect to the first, amidst all the changes through
which it travelled, the old original outline still mani-
festly predominated. An account of the leading
varieties we find in the celebrated third chapter o/
Isaiah.
The most opulent women of Palestine, beyond all
other colors for the upper robe, preferred purple ; or,
if not purple throughout the entire robe, at any rate
purple flowers upon a white ground. The wint'^r
clothing of the very richest families in Palestine was
manufactured in their own houses ; and for winter
clothing, more especially the Hebrew <^aste, no less
than the Grecian and the Roman, pref«irred the warm
and sunny scarlet, the puce color, the violet, and the
regal purple.*
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 suf-
fered to flow in free draperies down the back ; this
was an occasional and supernumerary garment flung
over the regular upper robe — properly so called.
There was also a longer mantle, reaching to the
ankles, usually of a violet color, which, having r.o
sleeves, was meant to expose to view the beauty,
not only of the upper robe, but even of the outer tunic
formerly described.
Py the way, it should be mentioned that, in order to
^ By which was probably meant a color nearer to crimsoi
than to the blue or violet class of purples.
rOILETTK OF THE HEBREW LADY. 559
iteep them in fine odor, all parts of the wardrobe were
stretched on a reticulated or grated vessel — called by
the Thalmud (vi. 77) Kanklin — from which the steams
of rich perfumes were made to ascend.
In what way the upper robe was worn and fastenfid
may be collected perhaps with sufficient probability
from the modern Oriental practice, as described b/
travellers ; but as we have no direct authority on the
subject, I shall not detain the reader with any conjec-
tural speculations.
SCENE THE SIXTH.
Dress of Ceremony.
One magr.ificent dress remains yet to be .mentioned
— viz., the dress of honor or festival dress, which an-
swers in every respect to the modern caftan. This
was used on all occasions of ceremony, as splendid
weddings, presentations at the courts of kings, sump-
tuous entertainments, &c. ; and all persons who stood
in close connection with the throne, as favorites, crown-
officers, distinguished military commanders, &c., re-
ceived 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 rai\ of
the wearer ; whence it is that the robes of the high-
priest were adorned with a train of superb dimensions ;
►nd even Jehovah is represented (Isaiah vi. 1) as filling
the heavenly palace with the length of his train.*
• It has b«en doubted whether these trains were supp->rted
7 train-bear«T8; but one argument makes it probaole that tfae^
5()0 TOILETXB OF THE HEBEEW lADT.
Another distinction of this festival robe was the
extraordinary fulness and length of t^ie sleeves ; those
descended to the knee, and often ran to the ankle oi
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
transparent substance, like our tiffany, and in point of money
value was fully on a level with the caftan ; but whether imported
from Egypt or imitated in the looms of the Hebrews and Phoeni-
Dians, is doubtful. It was T*orn next to the skin, and conse-
quently, 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 used as a night
chemise.
n. The Caftan is the Kalaat of the East, or Kelaat so often
mentioned by modern travellers; thus, for example, Thevenot
(tom. iii. p. 852) says — '* Le Roi fait assez souvent des pr sens
{i ses Khans, &c., L'on appelle ces pr.'sens JTaZaai." Chardin.
(iii. 101), " On appelle Calaat les habits que le Roi donne par
bonneur." And lately, in Lord Amherst's progress through the
uorthem provinces of our Indian empire, &c., we read continu-"
illy of the Khelawt, or robe of state, as a present made by the
native princes to distinguished ofi&cers.
The Caftan, or festival robe of the Hebrews, was, in my opin-
ion, the UinXoQ 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
were not — viz., that they were particularly favorable to the
peacock walk or strut, which was an express object of imitatios
bi the gait of the Hebrew women.
TOILETTE OF THE HEBREW EADY. 561
uppermost robe. " Ad talos stola deniissa et circundata
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 equalljr
distinguished for its splendor.
4. Like the Hebrew festival garment, the palla was a vestit
seposita, and reserved for rare solemnities.
With respect to the Tleir\os, Eustathius describes it as ixeyav
Kol irfpiKaWta Kal TTotKtKhv inpi^oKaiov, a large and very beau-
tiful and variegated envelo])ing 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
Pallio, is quite wrong where he says — "Palla nunquam de virili
palliodicitur." Tibullus (torn. iii. It. S5) sufficiently contradioit
that opimon
S«
THE SPHINXES EIDDLE.
The most ancient* story in the Pagan records,
older by two generations than the story of Troy, is
that of (Edipus and his mysterious fate, which wrapt
in ruin both himself and all his kindred. No story
whatever continued so long to impress the Greek
Bensibilities with religious awe, or was felt by the
great tragic poets to be so supi'emely fitted for seen-
ical representation. In one of its stages, this story
is clothed with the majesty of darkness ; in another
stage, it is radiant with burning lights of female
love, the most faithful and heroic, offering a beautifiil
relief to the preternatural malice dividing the two
sons of (Edipus. This malice was so intense, that
when the corpses of both brothers were burned
* That is, amongst stories not wearing a mythologic character, such
R,s those of Prometheus, Hercules, Ac. The era of Troy and its siega
is doubtless by some centuries older than its usual chronologic dat«
i»f nine centuries before Christ. And considering the mature age of
Eteocles and Polynices, the two sons of Qidipus, at the period of the
" Seven agaitist Thebes,'' which seven were contemporary with the
fathers of the heroes engaged in the Trojan war, it becomes necessarj
M add sixty or seventy years to the Trojan date, in order to obtain
that of CEdipus and the Sphinx. Out of the Hebrew Scriptures, ther*
e nothing purely historic so old as this.
THE sphinx's kiddle. 5^3
together on the same funeral pyre (as by one tracii
tion they were), the flames from each parted asunder,
and refused to mingle. 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 solenmity, 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 sub-
limest stage), where a pure taste is likely to pause,
and to revolt as from something not perfectly recon-
ciled with the general depth of the coloring. This
lies in the Sphinx's riddle, which, as hitherto ex-
plained, 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
mile-stone than (Edipus, the king, in the year b. c.
twelve or thirteen hundred. The long interval be-
tween the enigma and its answer may remind the
reader of an old story in Joe Miller, where a travel-
ler, apparently an inquisitive person, in passing
through a toll-bar, said to the keeper, " How do you
ike your eggs dressed ? " Without waiting for the
wiswdr. he rode off; but twenty-five years later,
5b4 THE sphinx's riddle.
riding thi'ough the same bar, kept by tlie same man,
the traveller looked steadfastly at him, and received
the monosyllabic answer, "Poached.'' A long pa-
renthesis is twenty-five years ; and we, gazing back
over a far wider gulf of time, shall endeavor 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, for making themselves
acquainted with classical legends. And in this
present case, besides the indispensableness of the
story to the proper comprehension of our own im-
proved answer to the Sphinx, the story has a sepa-
rate and independent value of its own ; for it illus-
trates 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 piacularily. The reader must
understand upon our authority, nostro peHculo, and
in defiance of all the false translations spread through
books, that tlie ancients (meaning the Greeks and
Romans before the time of Christianity^) had no idea,
not by the faintest vestige, of what in the scriptura
THE SPfflNx's RIDDLE 565
Bystem 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, \^^len baptized into new
meaning by the adoption of 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, four hundred years before Christ, or Cicero,
more than three hundred 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
BuflSce 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 —
Ihat is the distinction ; or a taint in the individual,
not through any local disease of his own but through
» scrofula equally difiused through the infinite family
•,f man. We are not speaking controversially, either
Rs teachers of theology or of philosophy ; and we are
careless oi the particular coustruction by which the
5GC THE sphinx's riddle.
reader interprets to himself this profound idea.
What we affirm is, that this idea was utterly and
exquisitely inappreciable by Pagan Greece and Rome ;
that various translations from Pindar,* from Aris-
tophanes, and from the Greek tragedians, embodying
at intervals this word sin, are more extravagant than
would be the word category introduced into the ha-
rangue 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 conscioiisly
concurred ; which is thus far not like hereditary sin,
that it expresses an evil personal to the individual
and not extending itself to the race.
This was the evil exemplified in (Edipus. He was
loaded with an insupportable burthen of pariah par,
ticipation 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
• And when we are speaking of this subject, it may be proper t»
U)ention (as the very extreme anachronism which the <tse 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
%!i tne key to the whole 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,
lifter all, that prince was a Christian, and a Christian amongst Mn*
lulmans. But what are we to think of Achilles and PatrooluB^ when
described as being (or not being) " under oonvictions of sin"?
THE sphinx's KIDDLB 567
a parricide, he was doubly incestuous, and yet how f
In the case where he might be thought a murderer,
he had stood upon his self-defence, not 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 ? Incestuous 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 (Edipus 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 noonday in midsummer is conscious
of the stars that lie far behind the daylight. Let us
review rapidly the incidents of his life.
Laius, King of Thebes, the descendant of Labdacus,
and representing the illustrious house of the Labda-
cidae, about the time when his wife, Jocasta, prom-
ised to present him with a child, had learned from
various prophetic voices that this unborn child was
destined to be his murderer. It is siugular that ni
all such cases, which are many, spread through
classical literature, the parties menaced by fate
believe the menace ; else why do tliey seek to evado
it? and yet believe it net; else why do they fancy
Jhemselves able to evade it ? This fatal child, who
was the ffidipus of tragedy, being at length boni;
V.aiu« committed the infant to a slave, with orders tc
568 THE sphinx's mddle,
expose it en Mount Cithaeron. This was d )ne ; 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, Eang 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, ffidipus was
not slow of finding from the insults of his schoolfel-
lows ; and at length, with the determination of learn-
ing his origin and his fate, being now a full-grown
young man, he strode ofi" 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 his journey thither, he met, in a nan'ow
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 ; upou
which, under the impulse of his youthful blood,
ffidipus slew him on the spot. The haughty gran-
dee who occupied the chariot rose up in fury to
avenge this outrage, fought with the young stranger,
and was himself killed. One attendant upcn the
chariot remained ; but he, warned by the fate of his
jiaster and his fellow-servant, withdrew quietly into
the forest tliat skirted the road, revealing no word of
what had happened, but reserved, by the dark destiny
of (Edipus, to that evil day on which his evidence
concurring with other circumstantial exposures, should
fonvict th J young Corinthian emigiant of parricide
THE sphinx's riddle. o69
For the preseut, (Edipus viewed himself as no crimiual,
but much rather as an injured man, who had simply
used his natural powers of self-defence against an in-
solent aggressor. This aggressor, as the reader will
suppose, was Laius. The throne therefore was empty,
on the arrival of (Edipus in Thebes : the king's death
was known, 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 ffidipus him-
self. 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 mys-
serious monster, called the Sphinx, half woman and
half lion, was at that time on the coast of Boectia,
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 author-
ities of Thebes offered the throne and the hand of
the widowed Jocasta as the prize of success ; ana
ffidipus, either on public or on selGsh motives, entered
the lists as a competitor.
The riddle proposed by the Sphinx ran in the&o
terms : " VV^hat creature is that which moves on four
feet in the morning, on two feet at noonday, and on
three towards the going down of the sun r* " Oedipus,
After some consideration, answered that the creature
was Man, who creeps on tne ground with hands and
feet when an infant, waiks upright in the vigor of
Diauhood, and leans upon a staff in old age. Jmme-
570
THK SPHINX S RIDDLE
diately tlie dreadful Sphinx confessed tUe truth of his
Bolution 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 recompensed. He was
suluted King of Thebes, and married to the royal
widow Jocasta. In this way it happened, but with-
out 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 propitiating that wrath.
The embassy returned to Thebes armed with a
knowledge of the fatal secrets connected with
CEdipus, but under some restraints of prudence in
making a publication 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, con-
nects (Edipus with the death of Laius. That discov-
ery 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 tlie reasons for regret. The affair re
THE sphinx's riddle. 571
mained as it was. It was simply a case of personal
strife on the iiigh road; and one which had really
grown out of aristocratic violence in the adverse
party. CEdipus 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 identifica-
tion of himself as the slayer of Laius — drew after it
two others, namely, that it was the throne of his
victim on which he had seated himself, and that it
was his widow whom he had married. But these
were no ofiences ; and, on the contrary, 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, all towered into colos-
sal crimes, illimitable, and opening no avenues to
atonement, ffidipus, in the agonies of his horror,
inflicts blindness upon himself; Jocasta commits
uuicide ; 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 reads, aged, blind, and a helpless
vagrant, but for the sublime piety of his two daugh-
ters, but especially of Antigone, the elder. They
dhare with their unKippy father the hardships and
572 THE SPfflNx's RIDDLE.
perils of the road, and do not leave h m until the
moment of his mysterious summons to seme ineffable
death in the woods of Colonus. 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 rights 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 ove^-
throw accomplished through the dark destiny of
(Edipus.
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 ; 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, lilveu
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 high-roads for the con-
veyance of commodities, as permanent sources of
agricultural fertility, &c. In like manner, a mystery
of any sort, having a public reference, may be pre
THE SPHIKX'S RIDDLE. 573
Bumed to couch within it a secondary and a pro-
founder interpretation. The reader may think that
the Sphinx ought to have understood her own riddle
best ; and that, if «/ie 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 ffidipus 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 ; for, in our opinion, the full nw^ final answei
to the Sphinx's riddle lay in the word Qldipus.
(Edipus himself it was that fulfilled the conditions
of the enigma. He it was, in the most pathetic
sense, that went upon fuur feet when an infant ; for
the general condition of helplessness attached to all
mankind in the period of infancy, and which is ex-
pressed symbolically by this image of creeping, ap-
plied to (Edipus in a far more significant manner, as
one abandoned by all his natural protectors, thrown
upon the chances of a wilderness, and upon the
mercies of a slave. The allusion to this general
helplessness had, besides, a special propriety in the
case of (Edipus, who drew his very name (Swollnti'
fool) from the injury done to his infant feet. lie,
again, it was that, in a more emphatic sense than
usual, asserted that majestic sell-sufficientness and
independence of all alien aid, which is typified by
the act of walking upright at noonday npou his own
natural basis Thruwi/g oil all the power aod
574 THE sphinx's riddle.
uplendor borrowed from his royal protectors at
Corinth, trusting exclusively to his native powers
as a man, he had fought his way through insult to
the presence of the di-eadful 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
himself, 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 up-
right by his own masculine vigor, and relied upon
no gifts but those of nature. Lastly, by a sad but a
pitying image, (Edipus is described as supporting
himself at nightfall on three feet ; for CEdipus it was
that by his cruel sons would have been rejected from
Thebes, with no auxiliary means of motion or sup-
port 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 CEdipus 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
liddle more commensurate and symmetrical with
tJie other features of the story, which are all clothed
mih the grandeur of mystery. The Sphinx herself
Is a mystery. AVhence came her monstrous nature
THB SPHINX'S RIDDLE.
575
ghat 80 often renewed its remembrance amongst men
Df distant lands, in Egyptian or Ethiopian marble ?
Wlience came her wrath against Thebes ? This
wrath, how durst it tower so higli as to measure
itself against tlie enmity of a nation ? This wrath,
how came it to sink so low as to collapse at the echo
of a word from a fi-iendless stranger ? 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 td 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 coefficients for ratifying his
destruction are waiting and lying in ambush. Heaven
and earth are silent for a generation ; one might
fancy that they are treacherously silent, in order that
ffidipus may have time for building up to the clouds
the pyramid of his mysterious oflences. His four
children, incestuously born, sons that are his broth-
ers, 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 coming
jp from the sea, which is to sweep away himself
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 will scourge her, that is
appointed to usher in, like some great ceremonial
herald, that sad drama of Nemesis, — that vast pro*
576 THE sphinx's riddle.
session of revelation and retribution which the earth,
and the graves of the earth, must finish. Myste-
rious also is the pomp of ruin with which this revela-
tion 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 do
mestic 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 witliin a
darkness, withdraws itself into a secrecy unap-
proachable by eyesight, or by filial love, or by
guesses of the brain — and that is the death of (Edi-
pus. 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 peaceful 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
oath of anguish which I am called to tread ; but i*
bas teen trodden by others." For (Edipus there
wras no such comfort. What language of man oi
THE sphinx's riddle. 577
trumpet of angel could deoiphex' the woe of that un«
fathomable call, when, from the depth of ancient
woods, a voice that drew like gravitation, that
Bucked in like a vortex, far off yet near, in some
distant world yet close at hand, cried, "Hark, (Ed\-
pus 1 King (Edipus ! come hither ! thou art wanted ! "
Wanted I for what ? 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 re
ceive the king ; clouds and vapor settled over the
penal abyss ; and of him only, though the neighbor-
hood 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
Bay, "I, the daughter of mystery, am called; I am
wanted. But, amidst the uproar of the sea, and the
clangor of sea-birds, high over all I hear another
though a distant summons. I can hear that thou,
(Edipus, the son of mystery, art called from afar :
thou also wilt be wanted." Did the wicked Sphinx
labor 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
nyr.teries, and may have faced each 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
37
578 THE sphinx's riddle.
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 conjee-
turally after thousands of years — possibly unknown
to the Sphinx, and certainly unknown to Oedipus ;
that this second riddle is hid within the first ; that
the one riddle is the secret commentary upon the
3ther ; and that the earliest is the hieroglyphic of
the last. Thus far as regards the riddle itself ; and,
as regards CEdipus in particular, it exalts the mys-
tery 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, uncon-
Bciously he was tracing the dreadful vicissitudes
t-ttached specially and separately to his own.
AELIUS LAMIA.*
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, iu
a mood of revolting arrogance, Joseph Scaliger ;
Ernesti ; Gronovius ; many others ; and all without a
gleam of success. Had the tread-mill 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.
* In this 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 emenda-
tion stands facile princeps among them all. I must repeat,
however, that this preeminence 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 —
namely, entirely lose sight of the main incident in the legend
of Orpheus and Eurydice. ^'ever perhaps on this earth was so
threatening a whisper, a whisper so portentously significant,
ittered between man and man in a single word, as in that secret
taggestion of an Orpheutic voice where a tvife was concerned.
i'-'^" AEUUS LAHIA.
The passage in Suetonius which so excruciatingly
(but so unprofitably) has tormented the wits ot such
scholars as have sat in judgment upon it through a
period of three hundred and fifty years, arises in the
tenth section of lu'e: Pomitian. That prince, it seems,
had displayed in his outset considerable promise of
moral excellence ; in particular, neither rapacity nor
cnielty was then apparently any feature in his char-
acter. Both qualities, however, found a pretty large
and eai-ly development in his advancing career, but
cruelty the largest and earliest. By way of illustra-
tion, Suetonius rehearses a list of distinguished men,
clothed with senatorian or even consular rank, whom
he had put to death upon allegations the most friv-
olous ; amongst them, Aelius Lamia, a nobleman
whose wife he had torn from him by open and in-
sulting violence. It may be as well to cite the
exact words of Suetonius : * " Aelium Lamiam (inter-
emit) ob suspiciosos quidem, verum et veteres et in-
uoxios jocos ; quod post abductam uxorem laudanti
vocem suam — dixerat, Heu taceo ; quodque Tito
hortanti se ad alterum matrimonium, responderat
fi-^ x.M< av yujxviaut OHeh;^' — Anglice, Aelius Lamia
he put to death on account of certain jests ; jests
* The original Latin seems singularly careless. Every (even
though inattentive) reader says — Jnnoxios, harmless? But if
these jests were harmless, how could he call them suspiciosos
jalculated to rouse suspicion ? 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 e^rent had shown to be practically harmless, what
Bver had been the intention, and which were now obsolete.
ABLIUS LAMIA. 581
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 sup-
pose you are looking out for a wife ? "
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 con-
templating 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 fi'iend, it became evident
that the preliminary step towards a Flavian wedding
was, to persuade some incautious friend into marry-
ing, and thus putting himself into a capacity of
being robbed. Such, at least in the stinging jest of
Lamia, was the Flavian rule of conduct. And his
friend Titus, therefore, simply as the brother of
Domitian, simply as a Flavian, he affected to regard
as indirectly and provisionally extending his own
conjugal fund, whenever he prevailed on a friend tc
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 with
5b2 AEMUS LAMIA.
out advancing by one step nearer to solution. Isaac
Casaubon, who about two hundred and fifty yearij
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 overhang-
ing the passage. What he says is this : " Parum satis-
fa^iunt mihi iuterpretes in explicatione hujus Lamiae
dicti. Nam quod putant Heu taceo suspirium esse
ejus — indicem doloris ob abductam uxorem magni sed
latentis, nobis non ita videtur ; sed notatam potius
fuisse tyrannidem principis, qui omnia in suo genere
pulchra et excelleutia possessoribus eriperet, unde
necessitas incurabebat sua bona dissimulandi celan-
dique." In English thus : Not at all satisfactory to
me are the commentators in the explanation of the
dictum (here equivalent to dicleriuvi) 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 piince, who tore away from their pos-
sessors all objects whatsoever marked by beauty or
distinguished merit in their own peculiar class ;
whence arose a pressure of necessity for dissembhng
and hiding their. own advantages. "Sic esse ex-
pone7idum," that such is the true interpretation (con-
tinues Casaubon,) " decent ilia verba [laudanti voceii
suam] " (we are instructed by these words), [to one
who praised his singing voice, &c j
AEUUS LAMIA. 583
This commentary was obscure enough, and did no
particular honor to the native good sense of Isaac
Oasaubon, usually so conspicuous. For, whilst pro
claiming a settlement, in reality it settled nothing.
Naturally, it made but a feeble impression upon the
scholars of the day ; and not long after the publica-
tion of the book, Casaubon received from Joseph
Scaliger a friendly but gasconading letter, in which
th%t great scholar brought forward a new reading —
namely, ct/rux-iw, to which he assigned a profound
technical value as a musical term. No person even
affected to understand 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 conced-
ing 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
[uestion at issue — namely, the extrication of the
passage from that thick darkness which overshad-
iiwed 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 un-
solved or insoluble perplexity cf Roman literature.
The darkness had for a few moments seemed to be
unsettling itself in preparation for flight ; but imme-
diately it rolled back again ; and through seven gen-
erations of men this darkness was heavier, becaus*'
584 AELIUS LAMIA.
now loaded with disappointment, and in that degree
■ess hopeful than before.
At length then, I believe, all things are ready for
the explosion of a catastrophe : " Which catas-
trophe," 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 ribbon, nor cross of any known order, is disposa-
ble for the most brilliant successes in dealing with
desperate (or what may be called condemned) pas-
sages in pagan literature, — mere sloughs of despond
that yawn across the pages of many a heathen dog,
poet and orator, that 1 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 govern-
ments have neglected to proclaim. The Scaligers,
both father and son, I believe, acted upon this doc-
trine ; and drew largely by anticipation upon that
leversionary bank which they conceived to be an-
swerable for such drafts. Joseph Scaliger, it strikes
me, was drunk when he wrote his letter on the pres-
ent occasion, and in that way failed to see (what
Casaubon saw clearly enough) that he had com-
menced shouting 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 remembei
that the idea of " covering" is of most variable ex
tent. The glory may envelop one in a voluminous
robe, a princely mantle that may require a long suite
AELIUS LAMIA. 585
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 everybody but myself has retired from the con-
test), let it be clearly understood what it is that the
contest turns upon. Supposing that one had been
called, like (Edipus 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 3'oung wife, to whom he was
most tenderly attached. But by whom ? the indig-
nant reader demands. By a younger son* of the
* But holding what rank, and what precise station, at the time
of the outrage? At this point I acknowledge a difficulty. The
sriminal was Li this case Domitian, the younger son of the tenth
Caesar, namely, of Vespasian ; 2dly, younger brother of Titus,
■he eleventh Caesar ; and himself, 3dly, under the name of Domi-
tian, 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 Doniitian's assumption of the purple?
i{ after, how, then, could the injured husband have received that
fcdvice from Titus (as to repairing his loss by a second marriage),
which suggested the earliest bon-mot between Titua and Lamia ,
1)86 aeuus lamia.
Roman Emperor "Vespasian. For some years the
wrong has been borne in silence. The sufferer knew
himself to be powerless as against such an oppres-
sor ; and that to show symptoms of impotent hatred
was but to call down thunderbolts upon his own
head. Generally, therefore, prudence had guided
him. Patience had been the word ; silence, and be-
low all, the deep, deep word, watch and wait! It is,
however, an awful aggravation of such afflictions,
that the lady herself might have cooperated 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
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 mod-
eration ? By the way, another bon~mot arose out of this brutal
Domitian's evil reputation. He had a taste for petty cruelties ;
especially upon the common house-fly, which, in the Syrian my-
thology, 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 noto-
rious ; and one day a man, wishing for a private audience, in-
quired in the antechambers if Caesar were alone? Quite alone,
wsw the reply. "Are you sure? Is nobody with him ? ' JVb
kody ; not so muck us ajly {ne musca quidam).
AEUUS LAMIA. 587
kts 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 unex-
hausted 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 an-
guish, the bitterest that liad 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 ofiering no benefit
to her husband. There is besides this dreadful fact,
placed ten thousand times 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 tei'ms of eternal hostility.
What it was circumstantially that passed, long since
aas been overtaken and swallowed up by the vast
oblivions of time. This only survives — namely,
Aat what Lamia had said gave signal offence in the
nighest quarter, was 'lot forgotten, and that his death
followed eventually. But what was it that he did
588
AELIUS LAMIA.
Bay ? 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 pi'esent form, with submission to cer
tain grandees of classic literature, more particularly
to the scoundrelJoe Scaliger (son of the old original
ruflSan, 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
irrecoverably ; secondly, it must glance at a gloomy
tyrant who bars him from rejoining her ; thirdly, it
must reply to the compliment 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 suspi-
cious ? 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 Shakspeare's clown,* when challenged to fur
aish a catholic answer applicable to all conceivable
•See All 'i Well that Ends Well, Act ii., Scene 2
ABLIUS LAMIA. 539
occasions, cannot do it in less than nine letters,
namely, 0 lord, sir I I, for my part, satisfied that
the existing form of Heu taceo was mere indict-
able and punishable nonsense, but j'et that this non-
sense 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 im-
pregnable letters, viewing them sometimes as a for-
tress that I was called upon to escalade, sometimes
as an anagram that I was called upon to reorganize
into the life which it had lost through some disloca-
tion of arrangement. One day I looked at it through
a microscope ; next day 1 looked at it from a dis-
tance 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 sur-
vived. I suppose, therefore, that Lamia had ;eplied
to the friend who praised the sweetness of his voice,
" Sweet, is it ? Ah, would to Heaven it might prove
*o sweet as to be even Orphoutic I '* Ominous in
this case would be the word Orphoutic to the ears
of Domitian ; for every schoolboy knows that this
means a wife-revoking voice. Let me remark that
there is such a legitimate word as Orpheutaceam ;
590 AELIUS r.AMIA.
and in that case the Latin repartee of Lamif would
stand thus : Suavem dixisti ? Quam ve.llem et < "pheu-
taceam. But, perhaps, reader, you fail to rr agnize
in this form our old friend Hea taceo. But hi o he is
to a certainty, in spite of the rat ; and in a > fferent
form of letters the compositor will show hi/*, up to
you, as vellem et Orp [IlEU TACEAM]. Here,
then, shines out at once, (1) Eurydice */io lovely
wife ; (2) detained by the gloomy tyrant ''luto ; (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
alarming threat, showing' that the hope of rf covering
the lady still survived; (5) we now finl ia^ olved
in the restoration all the eight, or perhaf-> 'ni^-, let-
ters of the erroneous (and for so long a tJ ; \ tiaiO'^
ligible) form.
NOTES.
NoTB 1. Page 9.
*' A million and a half," which was the true numerical retnrJi
»f population from the English capital about twenty years back,
when this paper was written. At present, 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 correc-
tions 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 as.sert, then, that the ancient Rome of the Cffisars, that
mighty ancestral foreninner of the Papal Rome, which, in this
year 18.59, counts about 180,000 citizens (or, in fact, above Edin-
burgh by a trifle ; by 200,000 below Glasgow ; by 150,000 below
Manchester), did in reality ever surmount numerically the now
awful Loudon 1 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 iusisted on by the rhetor-
ician Aristides), in which the ancient Rome resembled the an-
cient Edinburgh, and so far greatly eclipsed London, viz., the
vast ascending series of stories, laying stratum upon stratum,
tier upon tier, of men and women, as ir some mighty theatre of
human hives Not that London is deficient in thousands of
lofty streets; but the stories rarely ascend beyond the fourth,
or, at most, the fifth ; whereas the old Rome and the old Edin-
burgh counted at intervals by sevens or even tens. This dement
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 wiU take the Jirst place,
592 NOTES-
London (as it now is) the second, Paris (of to-day) the third.
New York (800,000), and probably the ancient Alexandria, the
fourth places on the world's register of mighty metropolitan
cities. Babylon and Nineveh are too entirely within the ex-
aggerating 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 repeat-
ing this reality so often, through endless self-multiplication, by
means of optical reflection and refraction, that the final result
is little better 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 : —
\st, 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 per
fection 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.
3rf, 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 south-
ern climate, Schiller, in his " Wallenstein,", sketches such a
light canvas town as the hurried extempore creation of soldiers*
Bchill^'s description is a sketch ; and such a military creatioB
NOTES. 593
is itself but a sketch of a regular and finished town. Military
by its first outline and suggestion, 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 trav-
ellers, 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 south-
cm regions of Asia.
NoTB 2. Page 10.
Or even of modem wit; witness the vain attempt of so many
eminent JCn, and illustrioas Antecessors, to explain in self-con-
listency the differing functions of the Roman Caesar, and in what
lense he was legibus soluttu.
Note 3. Page 12.
• JVamelest city.' — The true name of Rome it was a point of
religion to conceal; and, in fact, it was never revealed.
Note 4. Page 16.
This we mention, because a great error has been sometimea
eommitted in exposing their error, that consisted, not in suppos-
ing that for a fifth time men were to be gathered under one
Bceptre, and that sceptre wielded by Jesus Christ, but in sup-
posing that this great era had then arrived, or that with no
deeper moral revolution men could be fitted for that yoke.
Note 5. Page 20.
• 0/ ancient days.' — For it is remarkable, and it serves to
mark an indubitable progress of mankind, that, before the Chris-
tian era, famines were of frequent occurrence in countries th«
most civilized.' afterwards they became rare, and latterly hav«
■itirely altered their character into occasional dearths.
594 MOTHS.
Note 6. Page 20.
Unless that hand were her own armed against herself ; upon
which topic there is a burst of noble eloquence in one of the an*
cient Panegyrici, when haranguing the Emperor Theodosius : —
• Thou, Borne ! that, having once suffered by the madness of Ginna,
and of the cruel Marius raging from banishment, and of Sylla,
that won his wreath of prosperity from thy disasters, and cf
Cassar, 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 spectacles 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 Cicerones), and unburied Pompeya,
— to whom the party madness of thy own children had wrought
in every age heavier woe than the Carthaginian thundering at thy
gates, or the Gaul admitted within thy walls; on whom (Emathia,
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 valor, no enemy was to thee so
formidable as thyself; — thou, Rome ! didst now for the first time
Dehold a civil war issuing in a hallowed prosperity, a 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 honors of a civic triumph.'
Note 7. Page 23.
The fact is, that the emperor was more of a sacred and divint
creature in his lifetime than after his death. His consecrated
character as a living ruler was a truth; his canonization, a
6otir a of tenderness to his memory.
NoTK 8. Page 88.
It is aa interesting circumstance in the habits of the ancient
Romans, that their journeys were pursued very much in th«
night-time, and by torch-light. Cicero, in one of his letters.
■peaks of passing through the towns of Italy by night, as a ser
H0TS8. 595
9iueah1e scheme for some political purpose, either of avoiding too
Kiach to publish his motions, or of evading the necessity (else
perhaps not avoidable), of drawing out the party sentiments of
the magistrates in the circumstances of honor or neglect witk
which they might choose to receive 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 dis-
cinction, but was familiar to a class of travellers so low in rank
K8 to be capable of abusing their opportunities of concealment for
the infliction of wanton iujui-y 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 applying his torch to the withered boughs of woods, or to arti-
ficial hedges; and extensive ravages by fire, such as now happen
not unfrequently in the American woods, (but generally from
earelessnesa 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 accordingly notices, as one amongst
the familiar images of daybreak, the half-burnt torch of the trav-
eller; and, apparently, from the position which it holds in hia
description, where it is ranked with the most familiar of all cir-
cumstances in all countries, — that of the rural laborer going cut
to his morning tasks, — it must have been common indeed :
• Semiustamque facem vigilata nocte viator
Ponet; et ad solitum rusticus ibit opua.'
This occurs in the Fasti ; — elsewhere he notices it for its
danger :
' Ut ftusibus sepes ardent, cum forte viator
Vel nimis admovit, vel jam sub luce reliquit.'
He, however, we sec, 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-fixct observer,
•oes not disguise the plain truth, that these disasters were often
he product of pure malicious frolic. For instance, in recom-
taending a certain kind of quickset fence, he insists upon it, ai
•ne of its advantages, that it will not readily ignite under tb«
596
NOTES.
torch of the mischievous wayfarer; • Naturale seplmentum, says
Iw, 'quod obseri solet virgultis aut spinis, prcEtereuntis lascivi
non metuet facem' It is not easy to see the origin or advantaga
of this practice of nocturnal travelling (which must have consid-
erably 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 introduced 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
public. 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 pos-
Bible 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 insutferable 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 northern way of expressing effeminacy is de-
rived chiefly from the hardships 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 umbracticus, or seeking the cool shade, and shrinking
from the heat. Thus, an umbracticus doctor is one who has no
practical solidity in his teaching. The fatigue and hardship of
real life, in short, is represented by the ancients under the uni-
form image of heat, and by the moderns under that of cold.
Note 9. Page 41.
According to Suetonius, the circumstances of this memorable
night were as follows : — As soon as the decisive intelligence was
received, that the intrigues of his enemies had prevailed at Rome
and that the interposition of the popular magistrates (the trib-
•nes) was set aside, Csesai sent forward the troops, who wert
W0TK3. 597
Aen at his head-quarters, but in as private a manner es possible.
fle himself, by way of masque {per dissimulaiionem) , attended
% public spectacle, gave an audience to an architect who wrished
to lay before him a plan for a school of gladiators which C«Bsar
designed to build, and finally presented 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 {occulttssimu7n), he quitted his carriage
and proceeded on foot. At dawn he met with a guide; after
which followed the above incidents.
Note 10. Page 51.
Middleton's Life of Cicero, which still continues to be the most
readable digest of these aifairs, is feeble and contradictory. He
discovers that Caesar was no general ! And the single merit
which his work 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.
Note 11. Page 65.
Suetonius, speaking of this conspiracy, says, that Cwsar waa
nominatos inter socios Catilinee, 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 fcr^
vally denounced.
Note 12. Page 59.
'' Tall: " — Whereas, to show the lawless caprices upon which
French writers have endeavoured to found a brief notoriety,
>me contributor to the memoirs of L'Acad€mie des Inscriptions,
expressly asserts, without a vestige of countenance from any
authority whatsoever, that Caesar was " several feet high," but
being " invited " to circumstantiate, replied, " five feet noth-
uig;" but this being French measure, would give him (if we
ri},-htly remember the French scale), about five times three-
fourths of an inch morft. Nonsense. Suetonius, who stood so
aear to the Julian fjrt'ncration, i.s L-uurantee for hia proceritas.
B98
NOTES.
Note 13. Page 64
Caesar had the merit of being the first person to propose thi
daily pul)lication of the acts and votes of the senate. In the form
of public and official despatches, he made also some useful innova-
tions; and it may be mentioned, for the curiosity of the incident,
that the cipher which he used in his correspondence, v?as the
fbllovring very simple one : — For every letter of the alphabet h«
iubstituted that which stood fourth removed from it in the order
pf suocession. Thus, for A, he used D; for D. G. and so on.
Note 14. Page 67.
" The son:" — This is a fact which we should do well to re-
member more seriously tlian we have ever done in the cases of
Indian princes claiming under tliis title. The miscreant Nana
Sahib to all appearance was really ill-used originally by us. was
he not really and truly the child by adoption of the Peishwah 1
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.
Note 15. Page 80.
* The painful warrior, famoused for figlit.
After a thousand victories once foil'd.
Is from the book of honor razed quite.
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd.'
Shakspeare'$ SonneU
Note 16. Page 86.
And this was entirely by the female side. The family descent
Ol the first six Caesars is so intricate, that it is rarely understood
accurately; so that it may be well to state it briefly. Augustus
was grand nephew to Julius Caesar, being the son of his sister's
daughter. He 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
ft was that the three princes, who succeeded to Tiberius, claimed
relationship to Augustus. On that emperor's last marriage witk
{iivia, he adopted the two sous whom she had borne to her di»
NOTES.
599
forced husband. These two noblemen, who stood in no degree
if consanguinity whatever to Augustus, were Tiberius and Drusus.
riberius left no children; but Drusus, the younger of the two
brothers, by his marriage with the younger Autonia (daughter
of Mark Anthony) , had the celebrated Germanicus, and Claudius
(afterwards emperor). (Jermanicus, though adopted by hia
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. 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 Anthony 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 Anthony by
Octavia, sister to Augustus.
Note 17. Page 96.
But a memorial stone, in its inscription, makes the time longer
• Quando urbs per novem dies arsit Neronianis temporibus.'
Note 18. Page 106.
At this early hour, witnesses, sureties, &c., and all concerned
in the law courts, came up to Rome from villas, country towns,
Vc. But no ordinary call existed to summon travellers in tha
apposite direction; which accounts for the comment of the traT*
ellers on the errand of Nero and his attendants.
Note 19. Page 113.
^e may add that the unexampled public grief which followed
the death of Otho, exceeding even that which followed the death
600 NOTES.
of Gennanicus, and causing several officers to commit suicide,
implies some remarkable goodness in this Prince, and a very
unusual power of conciliating attachment.
Note 20. Page 117.
Blackwell, in his Court of Augustus, vol. i. p. 882, when no-
ticing these lines, upon occasion of the murder of Cicero, in th«
final proscription 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, Cap-
padocians, 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
itervitutem naios, men born to be slaves.'
NoTK 21. Page 117.
Suetonius indeed pretends that Augustus, personally at least,
struggled against this ruinous practice — thinking it a matter of
the highest moment, • Sincerum atque ab onmi colluvione pere-
grini 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 liberahty was an-
nounced, 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 emancipators what-
soever they should receive; Iru tor dii^iooiwg didu^isyof airov Xufi-
SurovTiQ xuTa fttiva — ijfijwai roig dtdvjxaai Ttjv i?.ev6fQiav, saya
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in order that after receiving the corn
given publicly in every month, they might carry it to those who
bad bestowed upon them their freedom. In a case, then, where
an extensive practice of this kind was exposed to Augustus, and
■ublicly reproved by him, how did he proceed ? Did he reject
the new-made citizens ? No; he contented himself with diminish-
ing the proportion originally destined, for each, so that the sam«
NOTES. 601
kbsolule sum being distributed among a number increased by the
(rhole amount of the new enrolments, of necessity the relative
sum for each separately was so much kss. But this was a rem-
edy applied only to the pecuniary fraud as it would have affected
himself. The permanent mischief to the state went unredressed.
Note 22. Page 118.
Part of the story is well known, but not the whole. Tiberias
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 Anthony, he allowed hia
young wife, then about eighteen, to attend upon the bride. Au-
gustus 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 twelve
legions, obeyed the requisition. Upon some motive, now un-
known, he was persuaded even to degrade himself farther; for he
actually officiated at the man-iage in character of father, and
gave away the young beauty to his rival, although at that time
eix months advanced in pregnancy by himself. These humiliat-
ing 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 com-
pany into confusion : A little boy, roving from couch to couch
among the guests, came at length to that in whicli Livia (the
bride) was lying by the side of Augustus, on which he cried out
ftloud, — • Lady, what are vou doing here ? You are mistaken —
this is not your husband — he is theie,' (pointing to Tiberius,)
go, go — rise, lady, and recline beside hijii.'
Note 23. Page 121.
Augustus, in(lf>^- strove to exclude the women from one part
•r the jii<:ension spectacles; and what was that ? Simply from
the sight of the JiVdeta, as being naked. But that they should
witness the pangs of the dying gladiators, he deemed quite alio w-
602 NOTES.
kble. The smooth barbarian considered, that a license of the
first sort offended against decorum, whilst the other violated only
the sanctities of the human heart, and the whole sexual charactei
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 generally the inferiority of Rome to
Greece in every department of the fine arts. The fine temper cf
Boman sensibility, which no culture could have brought to tba
level of the Grecian, was thus dulled for every application.
NoTB 24. Page 130.
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 tu-
multuous dreams — his baffled sleep — and his sleepless nights —
compose the picture of an ^schylus. What a master's sketch
lies in these few lines: 'Incitabatur insomnio maxime; neque
enim plus tribus horis nocturnis quiescebat; ac ne his placida
quiete, at pavida miris rerum imaginibus; ut qui inter ceteras
pelagi quondam speciem coUoquentem secnm videre visus sit.
Ideoque magna parte noctis, vigilae cubandique taedio, nunc tore
residens, nunc per longissimas portions vagus, invocare identi-
dem atque exspectare lucem consueverat : ' — i. e. ' But, above
all, he was tormented with nervous irritation, by sleeplessness ;
for he enjoyed not more than three hours of nocturnal repose ;
nor these even in pure untroubled rest, but agitated by phantas-
mata of portentous augury; as, for example, upon one occasion
he fancied that he saw the sea, under some definite impersona-
tion, conversing with himself. Hence it was, and from this in-
eapacity 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 wan*
daring along the vast corridors, watching for the earliest dawiv
vad anxiously invoking its approach.
irOT£8.
Note 25. Page 131.
"The Jive Ccesars:" — Namely, Nerva, Trajan, Hadriau, and
ihe two Antonines, Pius, and his adopted son, Marcus Aurelius.
Note 26. Page 132
And hence we may the better estimate the trial to a Roman*!
feelings in the personal deformity of baldness, connected with the
Boman theory of its cause, for the exposure of it was perpetuaL
Note 27. Page 133.
• Expeditiones sub eo,' says Spartian, ' graves nuUae fuerunt.
BeUa etiam silentio pene transacta.' But he does not the lesa
add, ' A militibus, propter curam exercitus nimiam, multum
amatus est.'
Note 28. Page 134.
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 investi-
gated,) alluding circumstantially 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
ihe eflect of every such letter, it was not dcubted, would diffuse
Itself through ten thousand other men.
Note 29. Page 135.
• War in procinct ' — a phrase of Milton's in Paradise R«.
piined, which strikingly illustrates his love of Latin phraseology;
•or unless to a scholar, previously acquainted with the Latin
jihrase of in procinctu, it is so absolutely unintelligible as t*
feiterrapt the current of tlie feeling.
304 N0TB8.
Note 30. Page 136.
' Crypts ' — these, which Spartian, in his life of Hadrian,
denominates simply cryptce, are the same which, in the Roman
jurispi'udence, and in the architectural works of the Bomans,
yet surviving, are termed hypogeea deambulationes, i. t. subter-
ranean parades. Vitruvius treats of this luxurious class of
apartments in connection with the Apotheca, and other reposi-
tories or store-rooms, which were also in many cases under-
ground, (for the same reason as our ice-houses, wme-cellars, &c.
He (and from him Pliny and ApoUonaris 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 hypogeea and umbrosa penetralia, as the
resorts of voluptuaries : Luxuriosorum est, says he, hypogaa
queerere — captantium frigus astivum; and again he speaks of
detidiosi qui ignava sub terris agant otia.
Note 31. Page '136.
' The topiary art ' — so called, as Salmasius thinks, from
TOTiijiov, a rope; because the process of construction was con-
ducted chiefly by means of cords and strings. This art waa
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 fall proportion.
Note 32. Page 136.
" Miss Linwood : '" — Alas! Fuit Ilium; and it has actually
become necessary, in a generation that knew not Joseph, that
we should tell the reader who was Miss Linwood. For many a
long year between 1800 and perhaps 1835 or 1840, she had m
Leicester Square, London, a most gorgeous exhibition of needle-
work— arras that by its exquisite effects rivalled the works of
mighty painters.
Note 33. Page 137.
Very remarkable it is, and a fact which speaks volumes as ti
^ deuwcratio constitution of the Roman army, in the midst ot
vroiEs. 60
Jiat aristocracy "»hich enveloped its parent state in a civil sense,
that although there was a name for a common soldier (or senti-
net, as he was termed by our ancestors) — viz. 7niles 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 no
generalization to express the idea of an officer abstracted from
its several species or classes.
NoTK 34. Page 189.
Vitis: and it deserves to be mentioned, that this staff, or
eadgel, which was the official engine and cognizance of the Cen-
turion's dignity, was meant expressly to be used in caning or
cudgelling the inferior soldiers * Propterea vitis in mauom
data,' says Salmasius, ' verberando scilicet militi qui deliquisset.'
We are no patrons of corporal chastisement, which, on the con-
trary, as the vUest of degradations, we abominate. The soldier,
who does not feel himself dishonored by it, is already dishonored
beyond hope or redemption. But still let this degradation not
be imputed to the English army exclusively.
Note 3.5. Page 145.
In the original ter millies, which is not much above two mil-
lions 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.
Note 36. Page 145.
'nam bene gesti rebus, vel potius feliciter, etsi non
summi — medii tamen obtinuit ducis famam.' For by the able,
or rather by tiie fortunate, couduct of affairs, he won the repu-
tation— though not of a supreme — yet of a tolerable or sec-
ond class strategist.
Note 37. Page 146.
This, however, is a point in which royal personages claim ao
•Id prescriptive right \o be unreasonable in their exactions ; and
iome, even amongst the most humane of Christian princes, have
•rred as flagrantly as JEliaa Yerus. George IV. we have nndcF
606 NOTES.
itood, was generally escorted from Dalkeith to Holyrood at %
rate of twenty-two miles an hour. And of his father, the truly
kind and paternal king, it is recorded by Miss Hawkins, (daugb*
ter of Sir J. Hawkins, the biographer of Johnson, &c.) that
families who happened to have a son, brother, lover, &c. in tht
particular regiment of cavalry which furnished the escort for the
day, used to suffer as much anxiety for the result as on the eve
of a great battle.
Note 38. Page 150.
" 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."
NoTB 39. Page 154.
And not impossibly of America ; for it must be remembered
that, when we speak of this quarter of the earth as yet undiscov-
ered, we mean — to ourselves of the western climates ; since aa
respects the eastern quarters of Asia, doubtless America waa
known there familiarly enough; and the high bounties of imperial
Borne on rare animals, would sometimes perhaps propagate their
influence even to those regions.
Note 40. Page 156.
In default of whalebone, one is curious to know of what they
were made : — thin tablets of the linden-tree, it appears, were
the best materials which the Augustus of that day could com-
mand.
Note 41. Page 156.
There is, however, a good deal of delusion prevalent on such
subjects. In some English cavalry regiments, the custom is for
the privates to take only one meal a day, which of course is din-
ner; and by some curious experiments it has appeared that such
k mode of life is the healthiest. But at the same time we have
Iflcertained that the quantity of porter or substantial ale drunk
in these regiments does virtually allow many meals, by compar
»on with the washy tea breakfasts of most Englishmen.
K0TE8. G07
IHOTB 42. Page 158.
We should all have been much indebted to the philosophic
impeior, had he found it convenient to tell us with what result
to the public interests, as also to the despatch of bu.sines3. Na-
poleon 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 coun-
cil by the brief absence in Edinburgh of the king and the Duke
of Buckingham.
Note 43. Page 159.
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 spectaclos
of the amphitheatre, that Maecenas summoned him reproachfully
to leave them, saying, ' Surge tandem, carnifex.'
It is the remark of Capitoline, that ' gladiatoria spectacula
imnifariam temperavit; temperavit etiam scenicas donationes ; '
— he controlled in every possible way the gladiatorial specta-
cles ; he controlled also the rates of allowance to the stage per-
formers. 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 farther
view than that which is usually connected with sumptuary laws.
But in the restraints upon the gladiators, it is impossible to
believe that his highest purpose was not 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
»f a degradation entailed upon human nature itself, in the spec-
tacle of human beings matched against each other like brut«
beasts, and pouring out their blood upon the arena as a libation
o the caprices of a mob, could have been derived from any other
«oarce than the contagion of Christian standards and Christian
lentiments, then beginning to pervade and ventilate tht
ktmosphere of society is Its higher and philosophic regions
608 woTw.
Christianity, without expressly affirming, everywhere indirectly
supposes and presumes the infinite value and dignity of man as a
creature, exclusively concerned in a vast and mysterious economy
of restoi'ation to a state of moral beauty and power in some
former age mysteriously forfeited. Equally interested in its ben-
efits, joint heirs of its promises, all men, of every color, language,
and rank, Gentile or Jew, were here first represented as in one
sense (and that the most important) equal; in the eye of thi«
religion, they were, by necessity of logic, equal, as equal partioi-
pators in the ruin and the restoration. Here first, in any avail-
able sense, was communicated to the standard of human nature
a vast and sudden elevation; and reasonable enough it is to
suppose, that soine 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 already taken a solitary step in the improvemeilt
of human nature, and not, we may believe, without some sntv
conscious influence received directly or indirectly from Christian-
ity. 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 primary impulse 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 introduced into these * cru-
delissima spectacula,' all having the common purpose of limiting
their extent, were three. First, he set bounds to the extreme
cost of these exhibitions; and this restriction of the cost covertly
operated as a restriction of the practice. Secondly, — and this
ordinance took eflect whenever he was personally present, if not
Bftener, — he commanded, on great occasions, that these displays
should be bloodless. Dion Cassius notices this fact in the fol-
lowing 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 h«
fcever allowed them the use of sharpened weapons, but univei:
NOTES. 609
sally they fought befoie him with weapons previously blunted.'
Thirdly, he repealed the old and uniform regulation, which
secured to tne gladiators a perpetual immunity from military
service. This necessarily diminished theii* available amount.
Being now liable to serve their country usefully in the field of
battle, whilst the concurrent limitation of the expenses in thia
direction prevented any proportionate increase of their numbers,
they were so much the less disposable in aid of the public luxury.
His fatherly care of all classes, and the universal benignity with
which he attempted to raise the abject estimate and condition of
even tlie lowest Pariahs in his vast empire, appears in another
little anecdote, relating to a class of men equally with the gladia-
tora given up to the service of luxvxy in a haughty and cruel
populace. Attending one day at ar 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, tc
mitigate the violence of their falls.
Note 44. Page 160
Marcus had been associated, as Caesar, and as emperor, witij
the son of the late beautiful Verus, who is usually mentioned by
the same name
Note 45. Page 161.
"Bif color:" — It must be remembered that the true purple
(about which the controversy has been endless, and is yet un-
settled — possibly it was our cmiison, though this seems properly
expressed by the word punictus ; possibly it was our cotnnion
violet ; but of whatever tint, this color of purple) was iiUL'rdicted
to the Konian people, and consecrated to the sole personal use
of tiie iniperatorial liouse. Uncollecting the early "taboo" iu
this point aniouc^st the children of Komulus, and that thus far it
nad not been suspended under the two gentlest and most philo-
sophic princes uf tne divina doiiius, we feel that some injustic*
Bas, jjerhaps, been done to Diocletian in representing him as th»
Importer of Oriental degradations.
39
GIO
NOTES.
Note 46. Page 162
" Murrhine vases : " — What might these Pagan articles oe
Unlearned reader, if any such is amongst the flock of our au
dience, the question you sisk has been asked by four or five cen
furies that have fleeted away, and hitherto has had no answer
They were not porcelain from China ; they could not be Vene-
tian glass, into which, when poison was poured, suddenly the
venom fermented, bubbled, boiled, and finally shivered the giass
into fragments (so at least saith the pretty fable of our ances-
tors) ; this it could not be : why 1 Because 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 porcelain much
superior to any now produced in China. And by Chinese con-
fession, a far superior order of porcelain was long ago manufac-
tured in China itself, of which the art is now wholly lost. Per-
haps the murrhine vase might belong to this forgotten class of
vertu.
Note 47. Page 163.
Because the most effectual extinguishers of all ambition applied
in that direction; since the very excellence of any particular
&bric was the surest pledge of its virtual suppression by means
of its legal restriction (which followed inevitably) to the use of
the imperial house.
Note 48. Page 165.
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 adulterou*
paramour ? ' receives for answer, Tullus. Who ? he asks
»gain ; and again for three times running he is answered,
7\tllus. But asking a fourth time, the rejoinder is. Jam dixi
ler Tullus.
NoTB 49. Page 166.
In reality, if by divus and divine honors we understand a eaint
:>r spiritualiied being having a right of intercession with the So.
K0TE8. 611
preme Deity, and by hia 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 ap-
pears. The fault is purely in the names : divus and templum are
words too undistinguishing and generic.
Note 50. Page 168.
Not long after this Alexander Severus meditated a temple to
Christ; upon which design Lampridius observes, — Quod et
Hadrianus cogitasse 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 him-
self. 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 vexa-
rent et privates.' The philosophi, here mentioned by Capitoline,
ire by some supposed to be the Christians ; and for many reasons
e believe it; and we understand the molestations of the public
•ervices and of private individuals, here charged upon them, a»
a very natural reference to the Christian doctrines felsely under-
stood. 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 philospher used to observe, two schemes
of thinking amongst the ancients, which severally fulfilled the
two functions of a sound philosophy as respected the moral nature
of man. One of these schemes presented us with a just ideal of
(Qoral excellence, a standard sufficiently exalted ; this was the
Btoic philosophy; and thus far its pretensions were unexception-
kble and perfect. But unfortunately, whilst contemplating thL>
pure ideal of man as he ought to be , the Stoic totally forgot the
IrtuI nature of man as he is ; and by refusing all compromised
i NOTKa
and all condescensions to human infirmity, this philosophy of th«
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 philosophj at
the very antagonist pole, — not blinding 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. There was the philosophy of Epicurus ;
and undoubtedly, as a beginning, and for the elementary pur-
pose of conciliating the affections of the pupil, it was well devised;
but here the misfortune was, that the ideal, or maximum pet'
fectionis, attainable by human nature, was pitched so low, that
the humility of its condescensions and the excellence of its means
were all to no pui-pose, as leading to nothing further One
mode presented a splendid end, but insulated, and with no meana
fitted to a human aspirant for communicating with its splendors;
the other, an excellent road, but leading to no worthy or propoi-
tionate end. Yet these, as regarded morals, 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 moral-
ity; 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 appropriating this ideal perfection
should be sueh 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 oflers the Stoic human-
ized in his scheme of means, and the Epicurean exalted in his
final objects. Nor is it possible to conceive a practicable scheme
if morals which should not rest upon such a synthesis of the two
elements as the Christian scheme presents; 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 perfec-
tions, to the human nature by his participation in the same
animal frailties and capacities of fleshly temptation. No otheJ
VOTES. 613
rinoalum could bind the two postulates together, of an absoluM
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 Aureliua
was by profession a Stoic ; and that generally, as a theoretical
philosopher, but still more as a Stoic philosopher, he might be
■apposed incapable of descending from these airy altitudes of
speculation to the true needs, infirmities, and capacities of hu-
man 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 Cassara
executed in the existing laws. To all the exigencies of the times,
and to all the new necessities developed by the prog/ess of
society, he adjusted the old laws, or supplied new ones. The
same praise, therefore, belongs to him, which the German phi-
losopher conceded to Christianity, of reconciling the austereet
ideal with the practical; and honce another argument for prfr.
laming him half baptized into the new faith.
Note 51. Page 170.
" Elogiis : " — The elogium was the public record or titulus of
a malefactor's crime inscribed upon his cross or scaffold.
Note 52. Page 175.
"Turning against every one of his assassins:" — It was a
general belief at the time that each individual among the mur-
derers of Csesar had died by his own sword.
Note 53. Pago 176.
In these words we hear the very spirit of Robespierre.
Note 54. Page 177.
" Parcerent : " — She means pepTcis-^ent. " Don't," she says,
"show mercy to man that showed none to you, nor would have
ihown any to me or my sous in case thev nad gained the victory.'
614 NOTES.
Note 55. Page 182.
Amongst these institutions, none appear to us so remarkable^
;r fitted to accomplish so prodigious a circle of purposes belong,
lag to the highest state policy, as the Roman method of coloniza-
tion. Colonies were, in effect, the great engine of Roman con-
quest; 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 comrades in arms.
These lands were already, perhaps, in high cultivation, being
often taken from conquered tribes; but, if not, the new occu-
pants could rely for aid of every sort, for social intercourse, and
for all the offices of good neighborhood upon the surrounding
proprietors — who were sure to be persons in the same circum-
Btances as themselves, and draughted from the same legion.
For be it remembered, that in the primitive ages of Rome, con-
cerning 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
int«gr8B 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 fortu-
nate campaign not seldom dismissed the young recruit to a life
of ease and honor. ' Multis legionibus,' says Hyginus, ' contigit
bellum feliciter transigere, et ad laboriosam agriculturse requiem
prima tyrocinii gradu pu>'venire. Nam cum signis et aquila el
primis ordinibus et tribunis deducebantur.' Tacitus also notices
this organization of the early colonies, and adds the reason of it,
BJid its happy effect, when contrasting it with the vicious ar-
Tangements of the colonizing system in his own days. ' Olim,'
lays he, ' universae legiones deducebantur cum tribunis et cea-
»ui-ionibus, et sui cujusque ordinis militibus, ut consensu et
tharitate republicam eficereni.' Secondly, not only were th«
MOTKS. 615
iroopa in this way at a time when the public purse was unequal
lo the expenditure of war — but this pay, being contingent on
the successful issue of the war, added the sti-ength of self-interest
to that of patriotism in stimulating the soldier to extraordinary
efforts. Thirdly, not only did the soldier in this way rtap his
pay, but also he reaped a reward (and that besides a trophy and
perpetual monument of his public services), so munificent as to
constitute a permanent provision for a family; and accordingly
he was now encouraged, nay, enjoined, to marry. For here waa
an hereditary landed estate equal to the libei*al maintenance of
a family. And thus did a simple people, obeying its instinct of
conquest, not only discover, in its earliest days, the subtle prin-
ciple of Machiavel — Let war support war ; but (which is far
more than Machiavel' s view) they made each present war sup-
port many future wars — by making it support a new offset from
the population, bound to the mother city by indissoluble 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, man-
aged 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. Prosperous and well-governed, the Roman
citizens of each generation outnumbered those of the generation
preceding. But the colonies provided outlets for these continual
accessions of people, and absorbed them faster than they could
arise.* And thus the great original sin of modern States, that
heel of Achilles in which they are all vulnerable, and which
(generally speaking) becomes more oppressive to the public pros-
perity as that prosperity happens to be greater, (for iii poor
* And in this way we must explain the fact — that, in the
nany successive numerations of the people cdntinually noticcil tn
Livy and ' hers, 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 trouble
•ome.
616 KOTES.
States and under despotic govemmenia this evil does not exist,)
that flagrant infirmity of our own country, for which no state*"
man has devised any commensurate remedy, was to ancient Rom*
a perpetual foundation and well-head of public strength and en-
larged resources. With us of modern times, when population
greatly outruns the demand for labor, whether it be under the
stimulus of upright government, and just laws justly adminis.
teied, 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 comfort — we think it
much if we can keep down insurrection by the bayonet and the
sabre. Lucro ponamus is our cry, if we can efiect even thus
much; whereas Rome, in her simplest and pastoral days, con-
verted 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 their 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 traditions to their pos-
terity; and, at all events, a more robust population was always
at hand in agricultural colonies than could be had in the metrop-
olis. Cato the elder, and all the early writers, notice the quality
of such levies as being far superior to those drawn from a popu-
lation of sedentary habits. 2dly, The Italian colonies, one and
»11, performed the functions which in our day are assigned to
garrisoned towns and frontier fortresses. In the earliest times
they discharged a still more critical service, by sometimes en-
tii'ely displacing a hostile population, and more often by dividing
it, and breaking its unity. In cases of desperate resistance lo
the Roman arms, marked by frequent infraction of treaties, it
was usual to remove the ofiending population to a safer situa-
tion, separated from Rome by the Tiber; sometimes entirely to
disperse and scatter it. But, where these extremities were not
tailed for by expediency or the Roman maxims of justice, it WM
'udged sufficient to interpolate, as it were, the hostile people b^
617
(olonizations from Rome, which were completely organized * for
mutual aid, having officers of all ranks dispersed amongst them,
and for overawing the growth of insurrectionary movements
amongst their neighbors. Acting on this system, the Roman
colonies in some measure resembled the English Pale, as exist-
ing at one era in Ireland. This mode of service, it is true, be-
came 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 condition
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 interposing between a foreign enemy and the gates of Rome,
they continued to perform long after their earlier uses had
passed away; and Cicero himself notices their value in this view.
' Colonias,' says he [0?«<. in Rulluin'], 'sic idoneis in locia
contra suspicionem periculi collacarunt, ut esse non oppida
ItalisB sed propugnacula imperii videreutur.' Finally, the
colonies were the best means of promoting tillage, and the cul-
ture 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 eflected by universal
luxury, it is not the less true that, left to themselves and their
natural tendency, the Roman colonies would have yielded thia
last benefit as certainly as any other. Large volumes exist,
illustrated by the learning of Rigaltius, Salmasius, and Goesius,
upon the mere technical arrangements of the Roman colonies;
and whole libraries might be written on these same colonies,
oonsidered as engines of exquisite state policy.
* That is indeed involved in the technical term of Deductio j
for unless the ceremonies, religious and political, of inauguration
tnd organization, were duly complied with, the colony was not
entitled to be considered as deducta — that is, solemnly and cere
vonially transplanted from the metropolis.
618 vornt.
Note 56. Page 191.
On this occasion we may notice that the final execution of tha
vengeance projected by Maternus, was reserved for a public fes-
tival, exactly corresponding to the modern carnival ; and from
ftn expression used by Herodian, it is plain that meuqueradi'tg
had been an ancient practice in Rome.
Note 57. Page 192.
See Casaubon's notes upon Theophrastus.
Note 58. Page 193.
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 thia function they
we'^e admirably fitted by their inviolable sanctity.
Note 59. Page 194.
What a prodigious opportunity for the zoologist ! — And con-
Bidering that these shows prevailed for five hundred 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 — no rival tc
the immortal tutor of Alexander.
Note 60. Page 198.
It is worthy of notice, that, under any suspension of the im-
peratorial power or oflfice, the senate was the body to whom the
Roman mind even yet continued to turn. In this case, both to
eolor their crime with a show of public motives, and to interest
this great body in their own favor by associating them in thei?
619
awL. dangers, the conspirators pretended to have found a long
roll of senatorial names included in the same page of condemns
Hon with their own. A manifest fabrication.
Note 61. Page 199.
Historians have failed to remark the contradiction between
this statement and the allegation that Latus selected Pertinai
for the throne on a consideration of his ability to protect tk«
Mflaasins of C!ommodu8.
Note 62. Page 200.
[" Didius : " — The reader will tiud au amusing reference to
this imperial bidder in " Orthographic Mutineers," Vol. IV.
p. 489, of the present series of De Quincey's writings.]
Note 63. Page 213,
" The completion of a thousand years," — t. c, of a thousand
years since the foundation of Rome, and not (let the reader ob-
serve) 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, supiK)se him
23 years old at that era, and his birth will faU in the year 776
before Christ. And this is the year generally assigned. But it
must be remembered that there are dissentient schemes of chro-
nt logy.
Note 64. Page 223.
And it is a striking illustration of the extent to which the reT-
Dlution had gone, that, previously to the Persian expedition of
khe last Gordian, Antioch, the Roman capital of Syria, had been
locapied by the enemy.
Note 65. Page 224.
This Arab emperor reigned about five years; and the jubilee
•elebration occurred in his second year Anotner circumstano*
620
NOTES.
pfives importance to the Arabian that, according to one traditioii<
he was the first Christian emperor. If so, it is singular that on«
of the bitterest persecutors of Christianity should have been his
immediate successor — Decius.
Note 66. Page 224.
It has proved a most difficult problem, in be hands of al]
speculators upon the imperial history, to fathom the purposes,
or throw any light upon the purposes, of the Emperor Decius, in
attempting the revival of the ancient but necessarily obsolet*
office of a public censorship. Either it was an act of pure verbal
pedantry, or a mere titular decoration of honor, (as if a modern
prince should create a person Arch-Grand-Elector, with no ob-
jects 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 com-
mitted. We mean by an anachronism, in common usage, that
sort of blunder when a man ascribes to one age the habits, cus-
toms, or generally the characteristics of another. This, however,
may be a mere lapse of memory, as to a matter of fact, and
implying nothing at all discreditable 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 Agincourt, or of artillery
as existing in the first Crusade, here would be an error, but a
venial one. A far worse kind of anachronism, though rarely
noticed as such, is where a writer ascribes sentiments and model
of thought incapable of co-existing with the sort or the degree of
civilization then attained, or otherwise incompatible with th«
structure of society in the age or the country assigned. For in-
etance, in Southey's Don Roderick there is a cast of sentiment in
the Gothic king's remorse and contrition of heart, which hut
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 wish-
ing to hazard an opinion upon the justice of that criticism. But
"even such an anachronism is less startling and extravagant
HOTES. 621
irhen it is confined to an ideal representation 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
ihould attempt, in 1833, to revive the ancient ofiBce of Fool, as it
existed down to the reign, suppose, of our Henry VIII. in Eng-
land ? Yet the error of the Emperor Decius was far greater, if h«
did in sin .erity and good faith believe that the Rome of his timet
was amenable to that license of unlimited correction, and of inter-
ference with private affairs, which republican freedom and sim-
plicity had once conceded to the censor. In reality, the ancient
eensor, in some parts of his office, was neither more nor less than
a compendious legislator. Acts of attainder, divorce bills, &0..,
illustrates the case in England ; they are oases 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 7iata, whatever in the
private life of a Roman citizen seemed, to his experienced eye,
alien to the simplicity of an austere republic; whatever seemed
vicious or capable of becoming vicious, according to their rude
notions of political economj'; and, generally, whatever touched
the interests of the commonwealth, though not falling within th«
general province of legislation, either because it might appear
undignified in its circumstances, or too narrow in its range of
operation for a public anxiety, or because considerations of deli-
cacy and prudence might render it unfit for a public scrutiny.
Take one case, drawn from actual experience, as an illustration :
A Roman nobleman, under one of the early emperors, hswl
thought fit, by way of increjising 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
lacticlave, (which in practical effect of splendor 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 scan-
lal to the whole nobility.* Yet what could be done ? To have
• This feeling still exists in France. ' One winter,' says the
%qthor of Tht English Army iv France, vol. ii. p. 106-7,
' onr commanding officer's wife formed the project of hiring tht
622 yoxES.
Interfered with his conduct by an express law, would be to
Infringe the sacred rights of property, and to say, in effect, that
ft man should not do what he would with his own. This would
have been a remedy far worse than the evil to which it waa
applied ; nor could it have been possible so to shape the principle
of a law, as not to make it far more comprehensible than was
iesired. The senator's trespass was in a matter of decorum,
bal the law would have trespassed on the first principles of
justice. Here, then, was a case within the proper jurisdiction
•f the censor; he took notice, in his public report, of the seni^
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 i
They ought to be ashamed of themselves. He could never respect
an Englishman again.' ' And yet,' adds the writer, ' this gen-
tleman (had an officer been billeted there) would have sold him
a bottle of wine out of his cellar, or a billet of wood from his
Btack, 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
ilemand an account of his cellar, as well as the price of the wine
we selected ! ' This feeling existed, and perhaps to the same
extent, two centuries ago, in England. Not only did the aris-
tocracy think it a degradation 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), writing to inform his next neighbor, a woman
of rank, that the house she occupied had been purchased by a
London citizen, confesses his fears that he shall in consequence
losa so valuable a neighbor; for, doubtless he adds, your lady-
ship will not remain as tenant to ' such a fellow.' And yet the
man had notoriously held the office of Lord Mayor, which made
bim, for the time. Right Honorable. The lulians of this iay
make no scruple to let off the whole, or even part, of their fint
mansions to strangers.
623
tor's error; or probably, before coming to that extremity, lie
admonished him privately on the subject. Just as, in England,
had there been such an officer, he would have reproved those
men of rank who mounted the coach-box, who extended a public
patronage to the ' fancy,' or who rode their own horses at •
race. Such a reproof, however, unless it were made practically
operative, and were powerfully supported by the whole body of
the aristocracy, would recoil upon its author as a piece of imper-
tinence, and would soon be resented as an unwarrantable liberty
taken with private life ; 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 fright-
fully irresponsible; if, on the other hand, he is left to such sup-
port as he can find in the prevailing spirit of manners, and the
old traditionary veneration for his sacred 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 prim-
itive state of manners. How, then, with any rational prospect
of success , could Decius attempt the revival of an office depend-
ing so entirely on moral supports, in an age when all those sup-
ports were withdrawn ? The prevailing spirit of manners was
hardly fitted to sustain even a toleration of such an office ; and
as to the traditionary veneration for the sacred character, from
long disuse of its practical functions, that probably was altogether
fcxtinct. 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 leave no room for doubt or speculatiou
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 plausible, solutions of this
-lifficulty, we shall state our own theory of the matter. Decius,
fts is evident from his fierce persecution of the Christians, was
not disposed to treat Chrbtianity with indifference, under any
form which it might assume, or however masked. Yet there
were quarters in which it lurked not liaole to the ordinary
nodes of attack. Christianity was creeping up with inaudible
624
WOTE8.
iteps into high places — nay, into the very highest. The im-
mediate predecessor of Decius upon the throne, Philip the Arab,
was known to be a disciple of the new faith; and amongst the
nobles of Borne, through the females and the slaves, that faith
had spread its roots in every direction. Some secrecy, however,
attached to the profession of a religion so often proscribed.
Who should presume 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 illus-
trious, the descendants of the Marcelli and the Gracchi, thera
most be nothing less than a great state officer, supported by tha
censor and the sena«:e, having an unlimited privilege of scrutin y
and censure, authorized to inflict the brand of infamy for oftenoes
not challenged by express law, and yet emanating from an elder
institution, familiar to the days of reputed liberty. Such an
officer was the censor; and such were the antichristian purposes
of Decius in his revival.
Note 67. Page 228.
Some of these traditions have been preserved, which repre-
sent Sapor as using his imperial captive for his stepping-stone,
or anabathruin, in mounting his horse. Others go farther, and
pretend 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 Val»-
rum's life.
Note 68. Page 228.
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
t»ith a train such as that of sultans or of Roman pro-consuls.
NOTES. 62i
Note 69. Page 229
And this incompetency was permanently increased by rebel-
Bons that were brief and fugitive : for each insurgent almost
necessarily maintained himself for the moment by spoliationi
and robberies which left lasting effects behind them ; and too
often ne was tempted to ally himself with some foreign enemy
uiiongst the barbarians ; and perhaps to introduce him into tba
heart of the empire.
Note 70. Page 230,
" Balkan .• " — A Russian general in our own day, for cross-
ing this diflScult range of mouutains 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.
Note 71. Page 232.
Zenobia is complimented by all historians for her magna-
nimity; but with no foundation in truth. Her first salutation
to Aurelian was a specimen of abject flattery; and her last
'jublic words were evidences of the basest treachery in giving up
her generals, and her chief counsellor Longinus, to the vengeance
pf the ungenerous enemy.
Note 72. Page 232.
"Difficulty!" — Difficulty from what? "We presume from
scarcity of provision.'!, and (as regarded the siege) scarcity of
woodi But mark how these vaunted and vaunting Romans, so
often as they found themselves in our modem 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 ?
Note 73 Page 236.
" A fortune of three millions sterling : " — Whence came these
enormous fortunes 1 Several sources might be indicated ; but
amongst tliem perhaps the conimones'v was this — everj citizen
Df marked distinction made it a practice, if circumstances
tivored, to leave a lesracy to others of the same class whom he
40
626 NOTES.
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 ovni merits.
Note 74. Page 245.
* Thirteen thousand chambers.^ — The number of the chamber
In this prodigious palace is usually estimated at that amount. Bnt
Lady Miller, who made particular inquiries on this subject,
ascertained that the total amount, including cellars and closets,
capable of receiving a bed, was fifteen thousand.
Note 75. Page 248.
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, as
Spain and Gaul, were subdivided into many smaller ones. Thifl
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 f'^rce, he
assigned to himself. In virtue of this arrangement fiie senate
possessed in Africa those provinces which had been formed oi>t
of Carthage, Cyrene, and the kingdom of Numidia; in Europe,
the richest and most quiet part of Spain {Hispania Batica,)
with the large islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and Crete,
and some districts of Greece; in Asia, the kingdoms of Pontua
and Bithynia, with that part of Asia Minor technically called
^sia; whilst, for his own share, Augustus retained Gaul, Syria,
ihe chief part of Spain, and Egypt, the granary of Rome
finally, all the military posts on the Euphrates, on the Danube,
ir the Rhine.
Yet even the showy concessions here made to the senate wert
627
iefeated by another political institution, settled at the same time.
It had been agreed that the governors of provinces should b«
appointed by the emperor and the senate jointly. But within
the senatorial jurisdiction, 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
Propreetor, there was provision made for a military establislj-
ment; and as to duration, the office was regulated entirely by
the emperor's pleasui^. 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, aU taxea
were immediately paid into the cerarium, or treasury of the State;
whilst the whole revenues of the propraetorian (or imperatorial)
provinces, from this time forward, flowed into the fiscus, or
private treasure of the individual emperor.
Note 76. Page 253.
On the abdication of Dioclesian and of Maximian, Galerius and
Constantius succeeded as the new Augusti. But Galerius, &»
the more immediate representative of Dioclesian, thought him-
self entitled to appoint both Caesars, — the Daza (or Maximus)
in Syria, Severus in Italy. Meantime, Constantine, the son of
Constantius, with difficulty obtaining permission 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. Galerius submitted with a bad
grace; but Maxentius, a reputed son of Maxim ian, 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 Rome ; but being compelled to a disastrous
Iretrcat, he resorted to the measure of associating another empe-
ror with himself, as a balance to his new enemies. This waa
Ucinius^ and thus, at one time, there were six emperors, either
628 NOTES.
%a August! or as Caesars. Galerius, however, dying, all the real
were in succession destroyed by Constantine.
Note 77. Page 254
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 he had Val-
entinian 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
in the east, and Honorius, whose western reign was so much
illustrated by Stilicho. By a second wife, daughter to Valen-
tinian the First, Theodosius had a daughter, (half-sister, there-
fore, to Honorius, whose son was Valentinian the Third ; and
through this alliance it was that the two last emperors of con-
spicuous mark united their two houses, and entwined their sep-
arate ciphers, so that more gracefully, and with the commen-
surate grandeur of a doubleheaded 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 pa-
thetic but lofty words of the departing gladiators, Morituri, we
that are now to die, vos salutamus, make our farewell salutation
to you!
Note 78. Page 265.
Even here there is a risk of being misunderstood. Some will
read this term ex pane in the sense, that now there are no neu-
tral statements surviving But such statements there never
were. The controversy moving for a whole century in Borne
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
»f the parties ; compromise, or intermediate temperament, was
inapplicable. What we complam of as overlooked is, not tha/
the surviving records of the quarrel are partisan records
'that being a mere necessity,) but in the forensic use of th«
NOTES. 629
term ex parte, that they are such without benefit of eqnilibrioia
»r modification from the partisan statements in the opposite
Uiterest
Note 79. Page 266.
Cicero in Semen Briefen, Von Bernhabd Rouolf A££K£i«
Professor am Raths-Gymnas, zu Osnabruch. Hanover, 1835.
Note 80. Page 268.
• Hatred.^ — It exemplifies the pertinacity of this hatred to
mention, that Middleton was one of the men who sought, for
twenty years, some historical facts that might conform to Leslie's
four conditions, {Short Melliod with the Deists,) and yet evade
Leslie's logic. We think little of Leslie's argument, which never
could have been valued by a sincerely religious man. But the
rage of Middleton, and his perseve^-ance, illustrate his temper of
warfare.
Note 81. Page 270.
• Rich.' — We may consider Cicero as worth, in a case of ne-
cessity, at least £400,000. Upon that part of this property whicC'
lay in money, there was always a very high interest to be ob-
tained ; but not so readily a good security for the principal. The
means of increasing this fortune by marriage was continually
oft'ering to a leading senator, such as Cicero, and the facility
of divorce aided this resource.
Note 82. Page 2-3.
' Laurel crown.'' — /\jnongst the honors granted to Pompey a'.
% very early period, was the liberty to wear a diadem or corona
on ceremonial occasions. The common reading was ' aureain
'oronam ' until Lipsius suggested lauream ; which correction
has since been generally adopted uito the text. This distinction
*« remarkable when contrasted wHh the same tropJiy as after-
630 yoTES.
wards conceded to Cassar, in relation to the popular feelings, so
iitferent in the two cases.
Note 83. Page 315.
• Of the superb Aurelian : ' — The particular occasion was the
inaurrection 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 ignoium pro magnifico. In one sentence of
his despatch, Aurelian aimed at a contest with the groiit Julian
gasconade of Veni, vidi, vici. His words are — Fugavimtu,
obtedimus, cruciavimus, occidimus.
Note 84. Page 322.
• Pretended barbarians, Gothic, Vandalish,'' S^c. — Had it
been true that these tramontane people were as ferocious in man-
ners 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 repre-
Bcntations to have been a prince of peculiarly mild demeanor,
and apparently upright character.
Note 85. Page 326.
• Eaten a dish of boiled hippopotamus : ' — We once thought
that some error might exist in the text — edisse for edidisse —
»nd that a man exposed a hippopotamus at the games of the
amphitheatre ; but we are now satisfied that he ate the hippo-
potamua
Note 86. Page 329.
• All had been forgotten/ — It is true that the Augustan
fTJter, rather than appear to know nothing at all, tells a most
NOTES. 631
Idle fable about a scurra having intruded into Caesar's t«nt, and
upon finding the young Emperor awake, had excited his '■oni-
rades 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 Hlask the
truth. The writer did not believe it himself. By the way, a
icurra does not retain its classical sense of a buffoon in the
Augustan History ; it means a aiuuruiiv?.ul, or body-guard ;
ut 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.
Note 87. Page 382.
Geographic des Herodot — dargestellt von Hermann Bobrik
Koenigsberg, 1838.
Note 83. Page 386.
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 verbal
scholar, than Valckenaer. Whence we conclude that inevitably
this error has been remarked somewhere. And as to the erro-
neous Latin version still keeping its ground, partly that may be
due tfl 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
i'lTopta by Herodotus.
Note 89. Page 392.
* 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
rtrong he-goat who butted against the ram of Persia, have
»1 ways called him the ' two-homed,' with a covert allusion \a
632
NOTES.
lis European and his Asiatic kingdom. And it is equally singu-
lar, that unintentionally this symbol falls in with Alexaoder's
own assumption of a descent from Libyan Jupiter-Ammon, t«
whom the double horns were an indispensable and characterietio
lymboL
Note 90. Page 393.
Viz. (as I believe), by Vicessimus Knox — a writer now
entirely forgotten. "Father of History yon call him'' Much
rather the Father of Lies."
Note 91. Page 397.
Which edition the arrogant Mathias Ln his Pursuits of Liiero'
lure, (by far the most popular of books from 1797 to 1802,)
highly praised ; though otherwise amusing himself with the
folly of the other gray-headed men contending for a school-
boy's prize. It W£is the loss of dignity, however, in the transla-
tor, not their worthless Greek, which he saw cause to ridicule.
Note 92. Page 402.
Which word India, it must be remembered, was liable to no
Buch 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, ap-
plying 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 thu<i
been introduced into the acceptation of the word Indian ; a con-
fasion corresponding to that which besieged the ancient use oi
the term Scythian, and, in a minor degree, the term Ethiopian
Note 93. Page 453.
But how like Homer ? Homer, and most other classical nar
rative poets, move indifferently (and perhaps equally) by in^ei
635
cLange of speeches, sometimes colloquial and gossiping, some
times stately and haranguing. Plato forgets his Homer.
Note 94. Page 454.
Probably: — more than probably, I fear: Plato, it may be
inspected, cultivated the arts of petty larceny to an extent that
was far from philosophic. I said nothing, but winked at his
dishonesty, when some pages back he thought proper to charge
upon Homer and Hesiod the monstrous forgery of Jupiter Op-
timus Maximus and all Olympus, nothing less (if the reader
will believe me) than the whole Pautheon. But in fact that
i^harge was fraudulently appropriated by Plato from a better
man, viz., Herodotus, who must have been fifty years older
ihan the philosopher. And now at this point again we find
the philosopher filching from Euripides !
Note 95. Page 471.
What I mean is — that eacli individual amongst the women
iould know for certain whether she ever had been a parent,
though not whether she still continued such : but to the men
even this limited knowledge was denied. Their own hypothetic
interest in the young rear-guard who were snatching a holiday
..pectacle from the bloody conflict of their possible papas, would
therefore reasonably siuk below zero. It is to be hoped that
Plato would not forbid the soldiers to distribute an occasional
kicking amongst these young scoundrels, who would doubtless
be engaged in betting on the several events as at a main of
game cocks — an amusement so extensively patronized by Plato
himself.
Note 96. Page 484.
' In procinct : * — Milton's translation ( somewhere m tat
• Paradise Regained ') of the technical phrase ' in procinctu.'
Note 97. Page 485.
• Geologists know not : ' — Tn man the sixtieth part of six thou-
»and years is a very venerable age. But as to a planet, as to ou»
gttle earth, instead of arguing dotage, six thousand years maj
have scarcely carried her beyond babyhood. Some people think
ibe is cutting her first teeth; some think her in her teens. But,
684
NOTES.
Beriously, it is a very interesting problem. Do the sixty cents
ries of our earth imply youth, maturity, or dotage ?
Note 98. Page 486.
• Everywhere the ancients wejit to bed, like good boys, from,
seven to nine o'clock : ' — As I am perfectly serious, I must beg
v\e reader, who fancies any joke in all this, to consider what an
in-mense difference it must have made to the earth, considered aa
a steward of her own resources — whether great nations, in a pe-
riod when their resources were so feebly developed, did, or did
not, for many centuries, require candles; and, I may add, fire.
The five heads of human expenditure are — 1. Food; 2. Shelter;
8. Clothing; 4. Fuel; 5. Light. All were pitched on a lower scale
in the Pagan era; and the two last were almost banished from
ancient housekeeping. What a great relief this must have been
to our good mother the earth ! who a,t first was obliged to request
of her children that they would settle round the Mediterranean.
Bhe could not even afford them water, unless they would come
BJid fetch it themselves out of a common tank or cistern.
Note 99. Page 487.
' The mane salutantes : ' — There can be no doubt that the
levees of modern princes and ministers have been inherited from
this ancient usage of Rome; one which belonged to Rome repub-
lican, as well as Rome imperial. The fiction in our modern
practice is — that we wait upon the lever, or rising of the prince,
in France, at one era, this fiction waa realized : the courtiers
did really attend the king's dressing. And, as to the queen,
even up to the Revolution, Marie Antoinette gave audience at her
toilette.
Note 100. Page 490.
• Or again, " siccum pro biscocto, ut hodie vocamus, sume-
musl"' — It is odd enough that a scholar so complete aa
Balmasius, whom nothing ever escapes, should have overlooked
BO obvious an alternative as that of siccus in the sense of bcinf|
•ithout opso.iium — Scotice, without 'kitchen.'
NOTES. 635
NoTElOl. Page 492.
* The whole amount of relief: ' — From which it appears hon
grossly Locke (see his * Education ') was deceived in fancying
that Augustus practised any remarkable abstinence in taking
cnly a bit of bread and a raisin or two, by way of luncheon.
Augustus did no more than most people did ; secondly, he ab-
stained only upon principles of luxury with a view to dinner ;
fcnd thirdly, for this dinner he never waited longer than up to
four o'clock.
Note 102. Page 498.
* Mansiones : ' — The halts of the Roman legions, the station-
ary places of repose which divided the marches, were so called.
Note 103. Page 503.
' The Everlasting Jew : ' — The German name for what we
English call the Wandering Jew. The German imagination has
been most struck by the duration of the man's life, and his un-
happy sanctity from death; the English, by the unrestingness of
the man's life, his incapacity of repose.
Note 104. Page 509.
* Immeasurable toga :' — It is very true that in the tmie of
Augustus the toga had disappeared amongst the lowest plebs,
and greatly Augustus was shocked at that spectacle. It is a very
eurious fiict in itself, especially as expounding the main cause of
Ihe civil wars. Mere poverty, and the absence of bribery from
Rome, whilst all popular competition for oflSces drooped, cao
»loae explain this remarkable revolution of dress.
Note 105. Page 517.
' His young English Bride : ' — The case of an old man, or
one reputed old, marrying a very girlish wife, is always too much
'or the gravity of history; and, rather than 'ose the joke, the
tiist()rian prudently disguises the age, whicli, after all, in this
sa.se w;us not al)ove iifty-four. And the very persons who insist
636 KTOTES.
on the late dinner as the proximate cause of death, elsewhere in-
sinuate something more plausible, but not so decorously expressed.
It is odd that this amiable prince, so memorable as having been
a martyr to late dining at eleven a. m., was the same person who
is so equally memorable for the noble, almost the sublime, answer
about a King of France not remembering the wrongs of a Duke
of Orleans.
Note 106. Page 520
* Took their caena at noon : ' — And, by the way, in order to
show how little cana had to do with any evening hour (though,
in any age but that of our fathers, four in the afternoon would
never have been thought an evening hour), the Roman gour-
mands and bons vivants continued through the very last ages of
Rome to take their cana, when more than usually sumptuous, at
noon. This, indeed, all people did occasionally, just as we some-
times give a dinner even now so early as four p. m., under the
name of a breakfast. Those who took their ccBna so early aa
this, were said de die ccenare — to begin dining from high day.
That line in Horace — * Ut jugulent homines, surgunt de node
latrones ' — does not mean that the robbers rise when others
are going to bed, viz., at nightfall, but at midnight. For, says
one of the three best scholars of this earth, de die, de node,
mean from that hour which was most fully, most intensely day
or night, viz., the centre, the meridian. This one fact is surely
ft clincher &b to the question whether cana meant dinner or
tpper.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES
COLLEGE LIBRARY
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