Of the Constitution of the Roman Empire in the Age of the Antonines
Idea of a monarchy.
THE obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a
state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may
be distinguished, is entrusted with the execution of the
laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the
army. But, unless public liberty is protected by intrepid
and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a
magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The
influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be
usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so
intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar,
that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on
the side of the people. A martial nobility and stubborn
commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and
collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only
balance capable of preserving a free constitution against
enterprises of an aspiring prince.
Situation of Augustus.
Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been levelled by
the vast ambition of the dictator; every fence had been
extirpated by the cruel hand of the Triumvir. After the
victory of Actium, the fate of the Roman world depended on
the will of Octavianus, surnamed Caesar, by his uncle's
adoption, and afterwards Augustus, by the flattery of the
senate. The conqueror was at the head of forty-four veteran
legions, (1) conscious of their own strength, and of the
weakness of the constitution, habituated, during twenty
years civil war, to every act of blood and violence, and
passionately devoted to the house of Caesar, from whence
alone they had received, and expected, the most lavish
rewards. The provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of
the republic, sighed for the government of a single person,
who would be the master, not the accomplice, of those petty
tyrants. The people of Rome, viewing, with a secret
pleasure, the humiliation of the aristocracy, demanded only
bread and public shows; and were supplied with both by the
liberal hand of Augustus. The rich and polite Italians, who
had almost universally embraced the philosophy of Epicurus,
enjoyed the present blessings of ease and tranquillity, and
suffered not the pleasing dream to be interrupted by the
memory of their old tumultuous freedom. With its power, the
senate had lost its dignity; many of the most noble families
were extinct. The republicans of spirit and ability had
perished in the field of battle, or in the proscription. The
door of the assembly had been designedly left open, for a
mixed multitude of more than a thousand persons, who
reflected disgrace upon their rank, instead of deriving
honour from it. (2)
He reforms the senate.
The reformation of the senate was one of the first steps in
which Augustus laid aside the tyrant, and professed himself
the father of his country. He was elected censor; and, in
concert with his faithful Agrippa, he examined the list of
the senators, expelled a few members, whose vices or whose
obstinacy required a public example, persuaded near two
hundred to prevent the shame of an expulsion by a voluntary
retreat, raised the qualification of a senator to about ten
thousand pounds, created a sufficient number of Patrician
families, and accepted for himself the honourable title of
Prince of the Senate, which had always been bestowed, by the
censors, on the citizen the most eminent for his honours and
services. (3) But whilst he thus restored the dignity, he destroyed the independence of the senate. The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.
Resigns his usurped powers.
Before an assembly thus modelled and prepared, Augustus
pronounced a studied oration, which displayed his
patriotism, and disguised his ambition.
"He lamented, yet excused, his past conduct. Filial piety had required at his hands the revenge of his father's murder; the humanity of his own nature had sometimes given way to the stern laws of necessity, and to a forced connection with two unworthy colleagues: as long as Antony lived, the republic forbade him to abandon her to a degenerate Roman, and a barbarian queen. He was now at liberty to satisfy his duty and his inclination. He solemnly restored the senate and people to all their ancient rights; and wished only to mingle with the crowd of his fellow-citizens, and to share the blessings which he had obtained for his country." (4)
Is prevailed upon to resume it under the title of Emperor or General.
It would require the pen of Tacitus (if Tacitus had assisted
at this assembly) to describe the various emotions of the
senate; those that were suppressed, and those that were
affected. It was dangerous to trust the sincerity of
Augustus; to seem to distrust it was still more dangerous.
The respective advantages of monarchy and a republic have
often divided speculative inquirers; the present greatness
of the Roman state, the corruption of manners, and the
licence of the soldiers, supplied new arguments to the
advocates of monarchy; and these general views of government
were again warped by the hopes and fears of each individual.
Amidst this confusion of sentiments, the answer of the
senate was unanimous and decisive. They refused to accept
the resignation of Augustus; they conjured him not to desert
the republic, which he had saved. After a decent resistance,
the crafty tyrant submitted to the orders of the senate; and
consented to receive the government of the provinces, and
the general command of the Roman armies, under the
well-known names of PROCONSUL and IMPERATOR. (5) But he would
receive them only for ten years. Even before the expiration
of that period, he hoped that the wounds of civil discord
would be completely healed, and that the republic, restored
to its pristine health and vigour, would no longer require
the dangerous interposition of so extraordinary a
magistrate. The memory of this comedy, repeated several
times during the life of Augustus, was preserved to the last
ages of the empire, by the peculiar pomp with which the
perpetual monarchs of Rome always solemnised the tenth years
of their reign. (6)
Power of the Roman generals.
Without any violation of the principles of the constitution,
the general of the Roman armies might receive and exercise
an authority almost despotic over the soldiers, the enemies,
and the subjects of the republic. With regard to the
soldiers, the jealousy of freedom had, even from the
earliest ages of Rome, given way to the hopes of conquest,
and a just sense of military discipline. The dictator, or
consul, had a right to command the service of the Roman
youth; and to punish an obstinate or cowardly disobedience
by the most severe and ignominious penalties, by striking
the offender out of the list of citizens, by confiscating
his property, and by selling his person into slavery. (7) The
most sacred rights of freedom, confirmed by the Porcian and
Sempronian laws, were suspended by the military engagement.
In his camp the general exercised an absolute power of life
and death; his jurisdiction was not confined by any forms of
trial or rules of proceeding, and the execution of the
sentence was immediate and without appeal. (8) The choice of
the enemies of Rome was regularly decided by the legislative
authority. The most important resolutions of peace and war
were seriously debated in the senate, and solemnly ratified
by the people. But when the arms of the legions were carried
to a great distance from Italy, the generals assumed the
liberty of directing them against whatever people, and in
whatever manner, they judged most advantageous for the
public service. It was from the success, not from the
justice, of their enterprises, that they expected the
honours of a triumph. In the use of victory, especially
after they were no longer controlled by the commissioners of
the senate, they exercised the most unbounded despotism.
When Pompey commanded in the East, he rewarded his soldiers
and allies, dethroned princes, divided kingdoms, founded
colonies, and distributed the treasures of Mithridates. On
his return to Rome, he obtained, by a single act of the
senate and people, the universal ratification of all his
proceedings. (9) Such was the power over the soldiers, and
over the enemies of Rome, which was either granted to, or
assumed by, the generals of the republic. They were, at the
same time, the governors, or rather monarchs, of the
conquered provinces, united the civil with the military
character, administered justice as well as the finances, and
exercised both the executive and legislative power of the
state.
Lieutenants of the emperor.
From what has been already observed in the first chapter of
this work, some notion may be formed of the armies and
provinces thus intrusted to the ruling hand of Augustus. But
as it was impossible that he could personally command the
legions of so many distant frontiers, he was indulged by the
senate, as Pompey had already been, in the permission of
devolving the execution of his great office on a sufficient
number of lieutenants. In rank and authority these officers
seemed not inferior to the ancient pro-consuls; but their
station was dependent and precarious. They received and held
their commissions at the will of a superior, to whose
auspicious influence the merit of their action was legally
attributed. (10) They were the representatives of the emperor.
The emperor alone was the general of the republic, and his
jurisdiction, civil as well as military, extended over all
the conquests of Rome. It was some satisfaction, however, to
the senate, that he always delegated his power to the
members of their body. The Imperial lieutenants were of
consular or praetorian dignity; the legions were commanded
by senators, and the praefecture of Egypt was the only
important trust committed to a Roman knight.
Division of the provinces between the emperor and the senate.
Within six days after Augustus had been compelled to accept
so very liberal a grant, he resolved to gratify the pride of
the senate by an easy sacrifice. He represented to them,
that they had enlarged his powers, even beyond that degree
which might be required by the melancholy condition of the
times. They had not permitted him to refuse the laborious
command of the armies and the frontiers; but he must insist
on being allowed to restore the more peaceful and secure
provinces, to the mild administration of the civil
magistrate. In the division of the provinces, Augustus
provided for his own power, and for the dignity of the
republic. The proconsuls of the senate, particularly those
of Asia, Greece, and Africa, enjoyed a more honourable
character than the lieutenants of the emperor, who commanded
in Gaul or Syria. The former were attended by lictors, the
latter by soldiers. A law was passed that wherever the
emperor was present, his extraordinary commission should
supersede the ordinary jurisdiction of the governor; a
custom was introduced, that the new conquest belonged to the
Imperial portion; and it was soon discovered that the
authority of the Prince, the favourite epithet of Augustus,
was the same in every part of the empire.
The former preserves his military command, and guards Rome itself .
In return for this imaginary concession, Augustus obtained
an important privilege, which rendered him master of Rome
and Italy. By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims,
he was authorised to preserve his military command,
supported by a numerous body of guards, even in time of
peace, and in the heart of the capital. His command, indeed,
was confined to those citizens who were engaged in the
service by the military oath; but such was the propensity of
the Romans to servitude, that the oath was voluntarily taken
by the magistrates, the senators, and the equestrian order,
till the homage of flattery was insensibly converted into an
annual and solemn protestation of fidelity.
Consular and tribunitian powers.
Although Augustus considered a military force as the firmest
foundation, he wisely rejected it, as a very odious
instrument of government. It was more agreeable to his
temper, as well as to his policy, to reign under the
venerable names of ancient magistracy, and artfully to
collect, in his own person, all the scattered rays of civil
jurisdiction. With this view, he permitted the senate to
confer upon him, for his life, the powers of the consular (11)
and tribunitian offices, (12) which were, in the same manner,
continued to all his successors. The consuls had succeeded
to the kings of Rome, and represented the dignity of the
state. They superintended the ceremonies of religion, levied
and commanded the legions, gave audience to foreign
ambassadors, and presided in the assemblies both of the
senate and people. The general control of the finances was
intrusted to their care; and though they seldom had leisure
to administer justice in person, they were considered as the
supreme guardians of law, equity, and the public peace. Such
was their ordinary jurisdiction; but whenever the senate
empowered the first magistrate to consult the safety of the
commonwealth, he was raised by that decree above the laws,
and exercised, in the defence of liberty, a temporary
despotism (13).
The character of the tribunes was, in every respect,
different from that of the consuls. The appearance of the
former was modest and humble but their persons were sacred
and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition
than for action. They were instituted to defend the
oppressed, to pardon offences, to arraign the enemies of the
people, and, when they judged it necessary, to stop, by a
single word, the whole machine of government. As long as the
republic subsisted, the dangerous influence, which either
the consul or the tribune might derive from their respective
jurisdiction, was diminished by several important
restrictions. Their authority expired with the year in which
they were elected; the former office was divided between
two, the latter among ten persons; and, as both in their
private and public interest they were averse to each other,
their mutual conflicts contributed, for the most part, to
strengthen rather than to destroy the balance of the
constitution. But when the consular and tribunitian powers
were united, when they were vested for life in a single
person, when the general of the army was, at the same time,
the minister of the senate, and the representative of the
Roman people, it was impossible to resist the exercise, nor
was it easy to define the limits, of his Imperial
prerogative.
Imperial prerogatives.
To these accumulated honours, the policy of Augustus soon
added the splendid as well as important dignities of supreme
pontiff, and of censor. By the former he acquired the
management of the religion, and by the latter a legal
inspection over the manners and fortunes, of the Roman
people. If so many distinct and independent powers did not
exactly unite with each other, the complaisance of the
senate was prepared to supply every deficiency by the most
ample and extraordinary concessions. The emperors, as the
first ministers of the republic, were exempted from the
obligation and penalty of many inconvenient laws: they were
authorised to convoke the senate, to make several motions in
the same day, to recommend candidates for the honours of the
state, to enlarge the bounds of the city, to employ the
revenue at their discretion, to declare peace and war, to
ratify treaties; and by a most comprehensive clause, they
were empowered to execute whatsoever they should judge
advantageous to the empire, and agreeable to the majesty of
things private or public, human or divine. (14)
The magistrates.
When all the various powers of executive government were
committed to the Imperial magistrate, the ordinary
magistrates of the commonwealth languished in obscurity,
without vigour, and almost without business. The names and
forms of the ancient administration were preserved by
Augustus with the most anxious care. The usual number of
consuls, praetors, tribunes, (15) were annually invested with
their respective ensigns of office, and continued to
discharge some of their least important functions. Those
honours still attracted the vain ambition of the Romans; and
the emperors themselves, though invested for life with the
powers of the consulship, frequently aspired to the title of
that annual dignity, which they condescended to share with
the most illustrious of their fellow-citizens. (16) In the
election of these magistrates, the people, during the reign
of Augustus, were permitted to expose all the inconveniences
of a wild democracy. That artful prince, instead of
discovering the least symptom of impatience, humbly
solicited their suffrages for himself or his friends, and
scrupulously practised all the duties of an ordinary
candidate (17). But we may venture to ascribe to his councils,
the first measure of the succeeding reign, by which the
elections were transferred to the senate. (18) The assemblies
of the people were for ever abolished, and the emperors were
delivered from a dangerous multitude, who, without restoring
liberty, might have disturbed, and perhaps endangered, the
established government.
The senate.
By declaring themselves the protectors of the people, Marius
and Caesar had subverted the constitution of their country.
But as soon as the senate had been humbled and disarmed,
such an assembly, consisting of five or six hundred persons,
was found a much more tractable and useful instrument of
dominion. It was on the dignity of the senate, that Augustus
and his successors founded their new empire; and they
affected, on every occasion, to adopt the language and
principles of Patricians. In the administration of their own
powers they frequently consulted the great national council,
and seemed to refer to its decision the most important
concerns of peace and war. Rome, Italy, and the internal
provinces, were subject to the immediate jurisdiction of the
senate. With regard to civil objects, it was the supreme
court of appeal; with regard to criminal matters, a tribunal
constituted for the trial of all offences that were
committed by men in any public station, or that affected the
peace and majesty of the Roman people. The exercise of the
judicial power became the most frequent and serious
occupation of the senate; and the important causes that were
pleaded before them afforded a last refuge to the spirit of
ancient eloquence. As a council of state, and as a court of
justice, the senate possessed very considerable
prerogatives; but in its legislative capacity, in which it
was supposed virtually to represent the people, the rights
of sovereignty were acknowledged to reside in that assembly.
Every power was derived from their authority, every law was
ratified by their sanction. Their regular meetings were held
on three stated days in every month, the Calends, the Nones,
and the Ides. The debates were conducted with decent
freedom; and the emperors themselves, who glorified in the
name of senators, sat, voted, and divided with their equals.
General idea of the Imperial system.
To resume, in a few words, the system of the Imperial
government, as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained
by those princes who understood their own interest and that
of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy
disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the
Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed
their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves
the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme
decrees they dictated and obeyed. (19)
Court of the emperors.
The face of the court corresponded with the forms of the
administration. The emperors, if we except those tyrants
whose capricious folly violated every law of nature and
decency, disdained that pomp and ceremony which might offend
their countrymen, but could add nothing to their real power.
In all the offices of life they affected to confound
themselves with their subjects, and maintained with them an
equal intercourse of visits and entertainments. Their habit,
their palace, their table, were suited only to the rank of
an opulent senator. Their family, however numerous or
splendid, was composed entirely of their domestic slaves and
freedmen. (20) Augustus or Trajan would have blushed at
employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial offices,
which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch,
are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain.
Deification.
The deification of the emperor (21) is the only instance in
which they departed from their accustomed prudence and
modesty. The Asiatic Greeks were the first inventors, the
successors of Alexander the first objects, of this servile
and impious mode of adulation. It was easily transferred
from the kings to the governors of Asia; and the Roman
magistrates very frequently were adored as provincial
deities, with the pomp of altars and temples, of festivals
and sacrifices. (22) It was natural that the emperors should
not refuse what the proconsuls had accepted; and the divine
honours which both the one and the other received from the
provinces, attested rather the despotism than the servitude
of Rome. But the conquerors soon imitated the vanquished
nations in the arts of flattery; and the imperious spirit of
the first Caesar too easily consented to assume, during his
lifetime, a place among the tutelar deities of Rome. The
milder temper of his successor declined so dangerous an
ambition, which was never afterwards revived, except by the
madness of Caligula and Domitian. Augustus permitted indeed
some of the provincial cities to erect temples to his
honour, on condition that they should associate the worship
of Rome with that of the sovereign; he tolerated private
superstition, of which he might be the object; (23) but he
contented himself with being revered by the senate and
people in his human character, and wisely left to his
successor the care of his public deification. A regular
custom was introduced, that on the decease of every emperor
who had neither lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate by
a solemn decree should place him in the number of the gods:
and the ceremonies of his Apotheosis were blended with those
of his funeral. This legal, and, as it should seem,
injudicious profanation, so abhorrent to our stricter
principles, was received with a faint murmur, (24) by the easy
nature of polytheism; but it was received as an institution,
not of religion, but of policy. We should disgrace the
virtues of the Antonines, by comparing them with the vices
of Hercules or Jupiter. Even the character of Caesar or
Augustus were far superior to those of the popular deities.
But it was the misfortune of the former to live in an
enlightened age, and their actions were too faithfully
recorded to admit of such a mixture of fable and mystery, as
the devotion of the vulgar requires. As soon as their
divinity was established by law, it sunk into oblivion,
without contributing either to their own fame, or to the
dignity of succeeding princes.
Titles of Augustus and Caesar.
In the consideration of the Imperial government, we have
frequently mentioned the artful founder, under his
well-known title of Augustus, which was not however
conferred upon him till the edifice was almost completed.
The obscure name of Octavianus he derived from a mean family
in the little town of Aricia. It was stained with the blood
of the proscription; and he was desirous, had it been
possible, to erase all memory of his former life. The
illustrious surname of Caesar he had assumed as the adopted
son of the dictator; but he had too much good sense, either
to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared, with
that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate, to
dignify their minister with a new appellation: and after a
very serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among
several others, as being the most expressive of the
character of peace and sanctity, which he uniformly
affected. (25) Augustus was therefore a personal, Caesar a
family distinction. The former should naturally have expired
with the prince on whom it was bestowed; and however the
latter was diffused by adoption and female alliance, Nero
was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to
the honours of the Julian line. But, at the time of his
death, the practice of a century had inseparably connected
those appellations with the Imperial dignity, and they have
been preserved by a long succession of emperors, Romans,
Greeks, Franks, and Germans, from the fall of the republic
to the present time. A distinction was, however, soon
introduced. The sacred title of Augustus was always reserved
for the monarch, whilst the name of Caesar was more freely
communicated to his relations; and, from the reign of
Hadrian, at least, was appropriated to the second person in
the state, who was considered as the presumptive heir of the
empire.
Character and policy of Augustus.
The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which
he had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive
consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool
head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition,
prompted him, at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of
hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside. With the
same hand, and probably with the same temper, he signed the
proscription of Cicero, and the pardon of Cinna. His
virtues, and even his vices, were artificial; and according
to the various dictates of his interest, he was at first the
enemy, and at last the father, of the Roman world. (26) When
he framed the artful system of the Imperial authority his
moderation was inspired by his fears. He wished to deceive
the people by an image of civil liberty, and the armies by
an image of civil government.
Image of liberty for the people.
I. The death of Caesar was ever before his eyes. He had
lavished wealth and honours on his adherents; but the most
favoured friends of his uncle were in the number of the
conspirators. The fidelity of the legions might defend his
authority against open rebellion; but their vigilance could
not secure his person from the dagger of a determined
republican; and the Romans, who revered the memory of
Brutus, (27) would applaud the imitation of his virtue. Caesar
had provoked his fate, as much by the ostentation of his
power as by his power itself. The consul or the tribune
might have reigned in peace. The title of king had armed the
Romans against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind
is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his
expectation, that the senate and people would submit to
slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they
still enjoyed their ancient freedom. A feeble senate and
enervated people cheerfully acquiesced in the pleasing
illusion, as long as it was supported by the virtue, or even
by the prudence, of the successors of Augustus. It was a
motive of self-preservation, not a principle of liberty,
that animated the conspirators against Caligula, Nero, and
Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant, without
aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor.
Attempt of the senate after the death of Caligula.
There appears, indeed, one memorable occasion, in which the
senate, after seventy years of patience, made an ineffectual
attempt to reassume its long-forgotten rights. When the
throne was vacant by the murder of Caligula, the consuls
convoked that assembly in the Capitol, condemned the memory
of the Caesars, gave the watchword liberty to the few
cohorts who faintly adhered to their standard, and during
eight and forty hours acted as the independent chiefs of a
free commonwealth. But while they deliberated, the
Praetorian Guards had resolved. The stupid Claudius, brother
of Germanicus, was already in their camp, invested with the
Imperial purple, and prepared to support his election by
arms. The dream of liberty was at an end; and the senate
awoke to all the horrors of inevitable servitude. Deserted
by the people, and threatened by a military force, that
feeble assembly was compelled to ratify the choice of the
Praetorians, and to embrace the benefit of an amnesty, which
Claudius had the prudence to offer, and the generosity to
observe (28).
Image of government for the armies.
II. The insolence of the armies inspired Augustus with fears
of a still more alarming nature. The despair of the citizens
could only attempt what the power of the soldiers was, at
any time, able to execute. How precarious was his own
authority over men whom he had taught to violate every
social duty! He had heard their seditious clamours; he
dreaded their calmer moments of reflection. One revolution
had been purchased by immense rewards; but a second
revolution might double those rewards. The troops professed
the fondest attachment to the house of Caesar; but the
attachments of the multitude are capricious and inconstant.
Augustus summoned to his aid whatever remained in those
fierce minds of Roman prejudices; enforced the rigour of
discipline by the sanction of law; and interposing the
majesty of the senate between the emperor and the army,
boldly claimed their allegiance, as the first magistrate of
the republic. (29)
Their obedience.
During a long period of two hundred and twenty years, from
the establishment of this artful system to the death of
Commodus, the dangers inherent to a military government
were, in a great measure, suspended. The soldiers were
seldom roused to that fatal sense of their own strength, and
of the weakness of the civil authority, which was, before
and afterwards, productive of such dreadful calamities.
Caligula and Domitian were assassinated in their palace by
their own domestics; the convulsions which agitated Rome on
the death of the former, were confined to the walls of the
city. But Nero involved the whole empire in his ruin. In the
space of eighteen months, four princes perished by the
sword; and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the
contending armies. Excepting only this short, though
violent, eruption of military licence, the two centuries
from Augustus to Commodus passed away unstained with civil
blood, and undisturbed by revolutions. The emperor was
elected by the authority of the senate, and the consent of
the soldiers. (30) The legions respected their oath of
fidelity; and it requires a minute inspection of the Roman
annals to discover three inconsiderable rebellions, which
were all suppressed in a few months, and without even the
hazard of a battle. (31)
Designation of a successor.
In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a
moment big with danger and mischief The Roman emperors,
desirous to spare the legions that interval of suspense, and
the temptation of an irregular choice, invested their
designed successor with so large a share of present power,
as should enable him, after their decease, to assume the
remainder, without suffering the empire to perceive the
Of Tiberius change of masters. Thus Augustus, after all his fairer prospects had been snatched from him by untimely deaths rested his last hopes on Tiberius, obtained for his adopted
son the censorial and tribunitian powers, and dictated a law
by which the future prince was invested with an authority
equal to his own, over the provinces and the armies. (32) Thus
Of Titus Vespasian subdued the generous mind of his eldest son. Titus was adored by the eastern legions, which, under his command, had recently achieved the conquest of Judaea. His power was
dreaded, and, as his virtues were clouded by the
intemperance of youth, his designs were suspected. Instead
of listening to such unworthy suspicions, the prudent
monarch associated Titus to the full powers of the Imperial
dignity and the grateful son ever approved himself the
humble and faithful minister of so indulgent a father. (33)
The race of Caesars and the Flavian family.
The good sense of Vespasian engaged him indeed to embrace
every measure that might confirm his recent and precarious
elevation. The military oath, and the fidelity of the
troops, had been consecrated by the habits of an hundred
years, to the name and family of the Caesars; and although
that family had been continued only by the fictitious rite
of adoption, the Romans still revered, in the person of
Nero, the grandson of Germanicus, and the lineal successor
of Augustus. It was not without reluctance and remorse that
the Praetorian Guards had been persuaded to abandon the
cause of the tyrant. (34) The rapid downfall of Galba, Otho,
and Vitellius, taught the armies to consider the emperors as
the creatures of their will, and the instruments of their
licence. The birth of Vespasian was mean; his grand-father
had been a private soldier, his father a petty officer of
the revenue; (35) his own merit had raised him, in an advanced
age, to the empire; but his merit was rather useful, than
shining, and his virtues were disgraced by a strict and even
sordid parsimony. Such a prince consulted his true interest
by the association of a son, whose more splendid and amiable
character might turn the public attention from the obscure
origin to the future glories of the Flavian house. Under the
mild administration of Titus, the Roman world enjoyed a
transient felicity, and his beloved memory served to
protect, above fifteen years, the vices of his brother
Domitian.
Adoption and character of Trajan.
Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of
Domitian before he discovered that his feeble age was unable
to stem the torrent of public disorders, which had
multiplied under the long tyranny of his predecessor. His
mild disposition was respected by the good; but the
degenerate Romans required a more vigorous character, whose
justice should strike terror into the guilty. Though he had
several relations, he fixed his choice on a stranger. He
adopted Trajan, then about forty years of age, and who
commanded a powerful army in the Lower Germany; and
immediately, by a decree of the senate, declared him his
colleague and successor in the empire. (36) It is sincerely to
be lamented, that whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful
relation of Nero's crimes and follies, we are reduced to
collect the actions of Trajan from the glimmerings of an
abridgment, or the doubtful light of a panegyric. There
remains, however, one panegyric far removed beyond the
suspicion of flattery. Above two hundred and fifty years
after the death of Trajan, the senate, in pouring out the
customary acclamations on the accession of a new emperor,
wished that he might surpass the felicity of Augustus, and
the virtue of Trajan. (37)
Of Hadrian.
We may readily believe, that the father of his country
hesitated whether he ought to intrust the various and
doubtful character of his kinsman Hadrian with sovereign
power. In his last moments, the arts of the empress Plotina
either fixed the irresolution of Trajan, or boldly supposed
a fictitious adoption; (38) the truth of which could not be
safely disputed, and Hadrian was peaceably acknowledged as
his lawful successor. Under his reign, as has been already
mentioned, the empire flourished in peace and prosperity. He
encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted military
discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His
vast and active genius was equally suited to the most
enlarged views and the minute details of civil policy. But
the ruling passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity.
As they prevailed, and as they were attracted by different
objects, Hadrian was, by turns, an excellent prince, a
ridiculous sophist, and a jealous tyrant. The general tenor
of his conduct deserved praise for its equity and
moderation. Yet in the first days of his reign, he put to
death four consular senators, his personal enemies and men
who had been judged worthy of empire; and the tediousness of
a painful illness rendered him, at last, peevish and cruel.
The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a god
or a tyrant; and the honours decreed to his memory were
granted to the prayers of the pious Antoninus. (39)
Adoption of the elder and younger Verus.
The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor.
After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished
merit, whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Aelius Verus,
a gay and voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon
beauty to the lover of Antinous. (40) But while Hadrian was
delighting himself with his own applause, and the
acclamations of the soldiers, whose consent had been secured
by an immense donative, the new Caesar (41) was ravished from
his embraces by an untimely death. He left only one son.
Hadrian commended the boy to the gratitude of the Antonines.
He was adopted by Pius; and, on the accession of Marcus, was
invested with an equal share of sovereign power. Among the
many vices of this younger Verus he possessed one virtue; a
dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he
willingly abandoned the ruder cares of empire. The
philosophic emperor dissembled his follies, lamented his
early death, and cast a decent veil over his memory.
Adoption of the two Antonines.
As soon as Hadrian's passion was either gratified or
disappointed, he resolved to deserve the thanks of
posterity, by placing the most exalted merit on the Roman
throne. His discerning eye easily discovered a senator about
fifty years of age, blameless in all the offices of life,
and a youth of about seventeen, whose riper years opened the
fair prospect of every virtue: the elder of these was
declared the son and successor of Hadrian, on condition,
however, that he himself should immediately adopt the
younger. The two Antonines (for it is of them that we are
now speaking) governed the Roman world forty-two years, with
the same invariable spirit of wisdom and virtue. Although
Pius had two sons, (42) he preferred the welfare of Rome to
the interest of his family, gave his daughter Faustina in
marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate the
tribunitian and proconsular powers, and with a noble
disdain, or rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to
all the labours of government. Marcus, on the other hand,
revered the character of his benefactor, loved him as a
parent, obeyed him as his sovereign, (43) and, after he was no
more, regulated his own administration by the example and
maxims of his predecessor. Their united reigns are possibly
the only period of history in which the happiness of a great
people was the sole object of government.
Character and reign of Pius.
Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second
Numa. The same love of religion, justice, and peace, was the
distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the
situation of the latter opened a much larger field for the
exercise of those virtues. Numa could only prevent a few
neighbouring villages from plundering each other's harvests.
Antoninus diffused order and tranquillity over the greatest
part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage
of furnishing very few materials for history; which is,
indeed, little more than the register of the crimes,
follies, and misfortunes of mankind. In private life, he was
an amiable as well as a good man. The native simplicity of
his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He
enjoyed with moderation the conveniences of his fortune, and
the innocent pleasures of society: (44) and the benevolence of
his soul displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.
Of Marcus.
The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of a severer and
more laborious kind. (45) It was the well-earned harvest of
many a learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and
many a midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years he
embraced the rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to
submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to
consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all
things external as things indifferent. (46) His meditations,
composed in the tumult of a camp, are still extant; and he
even condescended to give lessons of philosophy in a more
public manner than was perhaps consistent with the modesty
of a sage, or the dignity of an emperor. (47) But his life was
the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeno. He was
severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others,
just and beneficent to all mankind. He regretted that
Avidius Cassius, who excited a rebellion in Syria, had
disappointed him, by a voluntary death, of the pleasure of
converting an enemy into a friend; and he justified the
sincerity of that sentiment, by moderating the zeal of the
senate against the adherents of the traitor. (48) War he
detested, as the disgrace and calamity of human nature; but
when the necessity of a just defence called upon him to take
up arms, he readily exposed his person to eight winter
campaigns on the frozen banks of the Danube, the severity of
which was at last fatal to the weakness of his constitution.
His memory was revered by a grateful posterity, and above a
century after his death, many persons preserved the image of
Marcus Antoninus, among those of their household gods. (49)
Happiness of the Romans.
If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the
world, during which the condition of the human race was most
happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name
that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the
accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire
was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue
and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but
gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters
and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of
the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva,
Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who delighted in the
image of liberty, and were pleased with considering
themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws. Such
princes deserved the honour of restoring the republic had
the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational
freedom.
Its precarious nature.
The labours of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense
reward that inseparably waited on their success; by the
honest pride of virtue, and by the exquisite delight of
beholding the general happiness of which they were the
authors. A just, but melancholy reflection embittered,
however, the noblest of human enjoyments. They must often
have recollected the instability of a happiness which
depended on the character of a single man. The fatal moment
was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some
jealous tyrant, would abuse, to the destruction, that
absolute power which they had exerted for the benefit of
their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the
laws might serve to display the virtues, but could never
correct the vices, of the emperor. The military force was a
blind and irresistible instrument of oppression; and the
corruption of Roman manners would always supply flatterers
eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve the fear
or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their masters.
Memory of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian.
These gloomy apprehensions had been already justified by the
experience of the Romans. The annals of the emperors exhibit
a strong and various picture of human nature, which we
should vainly seek among the mixed and doubtful characters
of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs we may
trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted
perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species.
The golden age of Trajan and the Antonines had been preceded
by an age of iron. It is almost superfluous to enumerate the
unworthy successors of Augustus. Their unparalleled vices,
and the splendid theatre on which they were acted, have
saved them from oblivion. The dark unrelenting Tiberius, the
furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and
cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, (50) and the timid inhuman
Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy. During
four-score years (excepting only the short and doubtful
respite of Vespasian's reign (51)) Rome groaned beneath an
unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families
of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue, and
every talent, that arose in that unhappy period.
Peculiar misery of the Romans under their tyrants.
Under the reign of these monsters the slavery of the Romans
was accompanied with two peculiar circumstances, the one
occasioned by their former liberty, the other by their
extensive conquests, which rendered their condition more
completely wretched than that of the victims of tyranny in
any other age or country. From these causes were derived,
1 The exquisite sensibility of the sufferers; and, 2, the
impossibility of escaping from the hand of the oppressor.
Insensibility of the orientals.
I. When Persia was governed by the descendants of Sefi, a
race of princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their
divan, their table, and their bed, with the blood of their
favourites, there is a saying recorded of a young nobleman,
that he never departed from the sultan's presence without
satisfying himself whether his head was still on his
shoulders. The experience of every day might almost justify
the scepticism of Rustan. (52) Yet the fatal sword, suspended
above him by a single thread, seems not to have disturbed
the slumbers, or interrupted the tranquillity, of the
Persian. The monarch's frown, he well knew, could level him
with the dust; but the stroke of lightning or apoplexy might
be equally fatal; and it was the part of a wise man to
forget the inevitable calamities of human life in the
enjoyment of the fleeting hour. He was dignified with the
appellation of the king's slave; had, perhaps, been
purchased from obscure parents in a country which he had
never known; and was trained up from his infancy in the
severe discipline of the seraglio. (53) His name, his wealth,
his honours, were the gift of a master, who might, without
injustice, resume what he had bestowed. Rustan's knowledge,
if he possessed any, could only serve to confirm his habits
by prejudices. His language afforded not words for any form
of government, except absolute monarchy. The history of the
East informed him, that such had ever been the condition of
mankind. (54) The Koran, and the interpreters of that divine
book, inculcated to him, that the sultan was the descendant
of the prophet, and the vice-regent of heaven; that patience
was the first virtue of a Mussulman, and unlimited obedience
the great duty of a subject.
Knowledge and free spirit of the Romans.
The minds of the Romans were very differently prepared for
slavery. Oppressed beneath the weight of their own
corruption and of military violence, they for a long while
preserved the sentiments, or at least the ideas, of their
freeborn ancestors. The education of Helvidius and Thrasea,
of Tacitus and Pliny, was the same as that of Cato and
Cicero. From Grecian philosophy they had imbibed the justest
and most liberal notions of the dignity of human nature, and
the origin of civil society. The history of their own
country had taught them to revere a free, a virtuous, and a
victorious commonwealth; to abhor the successful crimes of
Caesar and Augustus; and inwardly to despise those tyrants
whom they adored with the most abject flattery. As
magistrates and senators, they were admitted into the great
council which had once dictated laws to the earth, whose
name still gave a sanction to the acts of the monarch, and
whose authority was so often prostituted to the vilest
purposes of tyranny. Tiberius, and those emperors who
adopted his maxims, attempted to disguise their murders by
the formalities of justice, and perhaps enjoyed a secret
pleasure in rendering the senate their accomplice as well as
their victim. By this assembly the last of the Romans were
condemned for imaginary crimes and real virtues. Their
infamous accusers assumed the language of independent
patriots, who arraigned a dangerous citizen before the
tribunal of his country; and the public service was rewarded
by riches and honours. (55) The servile judges professed to
assert the majesty of the commonwealth, violated in the
person of its first magistrate; (56) whose clemency they most
applauded when they trembled the most at his inexorable and
impending cruelty (57) The tyrant beheld their baseness with
just contempt, and encountered their secret sentiments of
detestation with sincere and avowed hatred for the whole
body of the senate.
Extent of their empire left them no place of refuge.
II. The division of Europe into a number of independent
states, connected, however, with each other, by the general
resemblance of religion, language, and manners, is
productive of the most beneficial consequences to the
liberty of mankind. A modern tyrant who should find no
resistance either in his own breast, or in his people, would
soon experience a gentle restraint from the example of his
equals, the dread of present censure, the advice of allies,
and the apprehension of his enemies. The object of his
displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his
dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a
secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the
freedom of complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But
the empire of the Romans filled the world, and when that
empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world
became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave
of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned to drag his
gilded chain in Rome and the senate, or to wear out a life
of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or the frozen banks
of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. (58) To
resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every
side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land,
which he could never hope to traverse without being
discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master.
Beyond the frontiers, his anxious view could discover
nothing, except the ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile
tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners and unknown
language, or dependent kings, who would gladly purchase the
emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious
fugitive. (59)
"Wherever you are," said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, "remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror." (60)
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