^^^'^V.i./S-t/^y y^^ HISTORY OP THE ROMAN EMPIRE, FROM THE ACCESSION OF AUGUSTUS TO THE END OF THE EMPIRE OF THE WEST; BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF ROME. BY THOMAS KEIGHTLEY, AUTHOR OF "history OF GREECE," " HISTORY OF ROME," "history of ENGLAND," &C. EDITED JOSHUA TOULMIN SMITH, AUTHOR OF "progress OF PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE ANCIENTS," "COMPARATIVE VIEW OF ANCIENT HISTORY," " NORTHMEN IN NEW ENGLAND," &C. BOSTON HILLIARD, GRAY, AND COMPANY 1841.' -^H'-^- ■•" '• )^^^V%i»iV»VVVViV»%»%»»i%'»%'VV»%^i'»VV^»^i'*^'^i'VV>^^V*'^*^^''^**^'^ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840, By Harrison Gray, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. / 7 STEREOTYPEI* AT THE BOSTON TYPE AND SrEIlEOTYPE FOUNDRY. / "- y PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. S^ »*»» The present valuable addition to the " History of Rome " was not published in England when that work was prepared for the press in this country. It is, therefore, thought better to publish it, as it was published in England, as a separate work, than as a second volume of that work, although none can feel the history of Rome to be complete without tracing it, not only from its rise to its highest pitch of greatness, but through the gradual steps of its decline and fall. The present volume is peculiarly valuable on many accounts. It embraces a period, the history of which exists in no accessible form, while its facts are of a most interest- ing and important nature, as connected with the rise, and spread, and influence, and corruptions of the Christian church. It forms a connecting link between the times and nations properly called ancient, and those properly called modern, inasmuch as it displays the first inroads of the peoples and races destined gradually to mould the latter, upon the strength, and power, and sway of the former, and their final rise upon their ruins. The same impartiality marks this History, both in its treatment of civil and ecclesiastical affairs, as marks Mr. Keightley's other histories. IV PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. The labor of the editor has been somewhat more called for in this volume than in the " History of Rome." More points seemed to need note and illustration, it being a period less familiar. In some places, too, owing to the confusion of authorities, errors of dates, he, had crept in, all of which have been carefully altered. In this case, the alterations have been made without any distinctive mark. In all other cases, the same marks of addition or alteration as have been used in the other volumes of this series of historical works have been here used. That series, comprising the Histories of Greece, Rome, and England, is completed with this volume. J. T. S. Boston, December 1, 1840. PREFACE . The present work completes my History of Rome. In- stead, however, of entitling it a second volume, I have made it a distinct work ; for, having been induced to depart from ray original plan, and write a History of England after the completion of that of the Roman Republic, and fearing lest some event might occur to prevent my completing my de- sign, I was desirous that a work on which I had employed so much time and thought should not present an imperfect appearance. A further motive was, that some persons were of opinion that the History of the Empire would not be read so generally in schools as that of the Republic ; and I wished to shun the imputation of forcing any one to buy a volume that he might not want. This last opinion I am disposed to regard as erroneous. There is no part of the Roman history more necessary to be read in classical schools than the reio;ns of Augustus and his successors to the end of that of Domitian ; for, without a knowledge of the history of that period, the writers of the Augustan age, and Juvenal, cannot be fully understood. Of this period we have actually no history, at least none adapted to schools ; and hence arises the imperfect acquaint- ance with the historic allusions in Horace and the other poets which most readers possess, in consequence of being obliged to derive their information piecemeal from annota- tions. I have, therefore, taken especial care, in the present volume, to obviate this inconvenience ; and I believe that scarcely any historic allusion in those poets will be found unnoticed. Another feature of this work is, the sketch of the history of the church, its persecutions, sects, and heresies, during the first four centuries, with brief notices of the principal VI PREFACE. Fathers and their writings. To write a history of the Ro- man Empire without including that of the church, would have been absurd ; but, as readers might not have sufficient confidence in me as an ecclesiastical guide, and as my works are chiefly designed for youth, I have deemed it the safer course to take as my usual authority the learned and candid Mosheim, whose works have stood the test of nearly a century, and are always included in the list of those recommended to students in divinity. It is the work De Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, in the excellent translation of Mr. Vidal, that I have chiefly used. At the same time, I must declare that I am by no means a stran- ger to the Fathers. Many years ago, I had occasion to read them a good deal ; and the opinions which I then formed of them as writers and teachers have been con- firmed by my renewed acquaintance with their works. The advantages, therefore, to be derived by students from this volume are, illustrations of the Latin poets, some knowledge of the early history of the church, and tolerably correct ideas of the causes and course of the decline and fall of the mighty empire whose rise and progress have been traced in the History of Rome. Nearly one half of it, it will be observed, is devoted to the history anterior to the commencement of Gibbon's work, which begins with the reign of Commodus. As I have already said, that part of the history is not generally accessible ; and with respect to the remainder, few, I believe, would willingly put Gibbon into the hands of youth. The same attention has been directed to chronology and geography as in my other histories. The Roman proper names had become so confused in this period, that it was not possible for me to mark the prcenomina, and arrange names under their gentes, as I have so carefully done in the History of Rome. I have further employed the modern forms of the names, as it would have seemed mere affecta- tion to use Vespasianus, Constantinus, etc. T. K. London, August 26, 1840. CONTENTS. PART I. THE CiESARIAN FAMILY. CHAPTER 1. C. JULIUS CiESAR OCTAVIANUS AUGUSTUS. A. u. 725—746. B. c. 29—8. page. The Roman empire. — Regulation of it by Augustus. — Augus- tus in Spain — in Asia. — Laws. — Family of Augustus.-^ Death of Agrippa. — German wars. — Death of Drusus, and of Maecenas. — Literature 1 CHAPTER H. AUGUSTUS, (continued.) A. tj. 746—767. B. c. 8— A. d. 14. Tiberius. — Banishment of Julia. — German wars of Tiberius. — Defeat of Varus. — Death and character of Augustus. — Form and condition of the Roman empire 20 CHAPTER HI. TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO CiESAR. A. u. 767—790. A. D. 14—37. Funeral of Augustus. — Mutiny of the legions. — Victories of Ger- manicus. — His death. — Civil government of Tiberius. — Rise and fall of Sejanus. — Death of Agrippina and her children, — Death of Tiberius 39 CHAPTER IV. CAIUS JULIUS CaeSAR CALIGULA. A. u. 790—794. A. D. 37—41. Accession of Cams. — His vices and cruelty. — Bridge over the Bay of Baiae. — His expedition to Germany. — His mad ca- prices. — His death _. 67 Vin CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CSBSAR. A. u. 794—807. A. D. 41—55. page. Accession of Claudius. — His character. — His useful measures. — Messalina and the freedmen. — Her lust and cruelty. — Claudi- us in Britain. — Vicious conduct of Messalina. — Her death. — Claudius marries Agrippina. — Is poisoned by her 77 CHAPTER VI. NERO CLAUDIUS CAESAR. A. u. 808—821. A. D. 55—68. Decline of Agrippina's power. — Poisoning of Britannicus. — Murder of Agrippina. — Nero appears on the stage. — Murder of Octavia. — Excesses of Nero. — Burning of Rome. — Conspir- acy against Nero. — Death of Seneca. — Deaths of Petronius, Thraseas, and Soranus. — Nero visits Greece. — Galba pro- claimed emperor. — Death of Nero 90 CHAPTER VII. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. The Jewish Messiah. — Jesus Christ.- — His religion. — Its propa- gation. — Causes of its success. — Church government 116 PART II. EMPERORS CHOSEN BY THE ARMY. CHAPTER I. GALBA, OTHO, VITELLIUS. A. u. 821—823. A. D. 68—70. Galba. — Adoption of Piso. — Murder of Galba. — Otho. — Civil war. — Battle of Bedriacum. — Death of Otho. — Vitellius. — Vespasian proclaimed emperor. — Advance of the Flavians. — Storming of Cremona. — Burning of the Capitol. — Capture of Rome. — Death of Vitellius 124 CHAPTER II. THE FLAVIAN FAMILY. A. u. 823—849. A. D. 70—96. State of affairs at Rome. — German war. — Capture and destruc- tion of Jerusalem. — Return of Titus. — Vespasian. — Character CONTENTS. IX PAGE. of his government. — His death. — Character and reign of Ti- tus. — rublic calamities. — Death of Titus. — Character of Do- mitian. — Conquest of Britain. — Dacian war. — Other wars. — Cruelty of Domitian. — His death. — Literature of this period. . 145 CHAPTER in. NERVA, TRAJAN, HADRIAN, ANTONINUS, AURELIUS. A. u. 849—933. A. D. 96—180. Nerva. — Adoption of Trajan. — His origin and character. — Da- cian wars. — Parthian wars. — Death of Trajan. — Observations. — Succession of Hadrian. — His character. — Aifairs at Rome. — Hadrian in Gaul and Britain — in Asia and Greece — in Egypt. — Antinous. — Adoptions. — Death of Hadrian. — His character as an emperor. — Rebellion of the Jews. — Reign ot Antoninus Pius. — M. Aurelius. — Parthian war. — German wars. — Revolt of Cassius. — Death of Aurelius. — His character. . . . 167 CHAPTER HI. COMMODUS, PERTINAX, JULIANUS, SEVERUS. A. u. 933—964. A. D. 180—211. Commodus, — Conspiracy against him. — Perennis. — Cleander. — Maternus and the deserters. — Death of Cleander. — Vices of Commodus. — His death, — Elevation and murder of Perti- nax. — Empire put to auction. — Pescennius Niger. — Septimius Severus. — Clodius Albinus. — March of Severus. — Death of Julian. — Praetorians disbanded. — Severus at Rome. — War with Niger — with Albinus. — Parthian war. — Family of Se- verus. — Plautianus. — Severus in Britain. — His death. — Max- ims of government 189 CHAPTER IV. CARACALLA, MACRINUS, ELAGABALUS, ALEXANDER. A. u. 964—988. A. D. 211—235. Caracalla and Geta. — Murder of Geta. — Cruelty of Caracalla. — German war. — Parthian war. — Massacre at Alexandria. — Murder of Caracalla. — Elevation of Macrinus. — His origin and character. — Conspiracy against him. — His defeat and death. — Elagabalus. — His superstition and cruelty. — Adop- tion of Alexander. — Death of Elagabalus. — Mamaea. — Alex- ander's character and mode of hfe. — Murder of Ulpian. — Revolution in Persia. — Persian war. — Alexander in Gaul. — His murder. — The Roman army 207 CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. MAXIMIN, PUPIENUS, BALBINUS, AND GORDIAN, PHILIP, DECIUS, GALLUS, ^MILIAN, VALERIAN, GALLIENUS. A. u. 988—1021. A. D. 235—268. page. The empire. — Maximin. — His tyranny. — Insurrection in Africa. — The Gordians. — Pupienus and Balbinus. — Death of Maxi- min. — Murder of the emperors. — Gordian. — Persian war. — Murder of Gordian. — Philip. — Secular Games. — Decius. — Death of Philip. — The Goths. — Gothic war. — Death of Decius. — Gallus. — .^milian. — Valerian. — The Franks. — The Ale- mans. — Gothic invasions. — Persian war. — Defeat and captiv- ity of Valerian. — Gallienus. — The Thirty Tyrants. — Death of Gallienus 223 CHAPTER VI. CLAUDIUS, AURELIAN, TACITUS, PROBUS, CARUS, CARINUS, AND NUMERIAN. A. u. 1021—1038. A. D. 268—285. Claudius. — Invasions of the Goths. — Aurelian. — Alemannic war. — War against Zenobia. — Tetricus. — Death of Aurelian. — Tacitus. — His death. — Probus. — His military successes. — His death. — Cams. — Persian war. — His death. — Death of Numerian. — Election of Diocletian. — Battle of Margus 240 CHAPTER VII. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Persecutions of the church. — Corruption of religion. — The Ebionites. — Gnostic heresies. — Montanus. — The Paschal Question. — Councils. — The hierarchy. — Platonic philoso- phy, its effects. — Rites and ceremonies. — Christian writers. . 259 PART III. THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS. CHAPTER I. DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMIAN. A. u. 1038—1056. A, D. 285—303. State of the empire. — Character of Diocletian. — Imperial power divided. — The Bagauds. — Carausius. — Rebellion in Egypt. — Persian war. — Triumph of the emperors. — Their resigna- tion. — Persecution of the church 286 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER 11. GALERIUS, CONSTANTIUS, SEVERUS, MAXENTIUS, MAXIMIAN, LICINIUS, MAXIMIN, CONSTANTINE. A. u. 1057—1090. A. D. 304—337. page. The emperors and Csesars. — Constantine. — Maxentius. — Fate of Maximian. — War between Constantine and Maxentius. — Constantine and Licinius. — Constantine sole emperor. — Con- stantinople founded. — Hierarchy of the state. — The army. — ^The great officers. — Conversion of Constantine. — Deaths of Crispus and Fausta. — The imperial family. — War with the Goths. — Death and character of Constantine 299 CHAPTER HI. CONSTANTINE II., CONSTANTIUS, CONSTANS. A. u. 1090—1114. A. D. 337—361. Slaughter of the imperial family. — Persian war. — Deaths of Con- stantine and Constans. — Magnentius. — Gallus. — Julian. — Silvanus. — Court of Constantius. — War with the Limigantes. — Persian war. — Julian in Gaul. — Battle of Strasburg. — Ju- lian proclaimed emperor. — His march from Gaul. — Death of Constantius 318 CHAPTER IV. JULIAN, JOVIAN. A. u. 1114—1117. A. D. 361—364. Reformations of Julian. — His religion. — His tolerance. — Julian at Antioch. — Attempt to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. — The Persian war. — Death of Julian. — Election of Jovian. — Sur- render of territory to the Persians. — Retreat of the Roman ar- my. — Death of Jovian 337 CHAPTER V. VALENTINIAN, VALENS, GRATIAN, VALENTINIAN 11., AND THEODOSIUS. A. u. 1117—1148. A. D. 364—395. Elevation of Valentinian and of Valens. — Procopius. — German wars. — Recovery of Britain. — Rebellion in Africa. — Quadan war. — Death of Valentinian. — His character. — Gratian. — The Goths. — The Huns. — The Gothic war. — Battle of Ha- drianople and death of Valens. — Ravages of the Goths. — The- odosius. — Settlements of the Goths. — Maximus. — Death of Gratian. — Defeat of Maximus. — Massacre at Thessalonica. — Clemency of Theodosius. — Death of Valentinian II. — Defeat and death of Eugenius. — Death and character of Theodosius. — State of the empire 358 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER Vi. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. PAGi:. Suppression of paganism. — Religion of the fourth century. — State of morals. — The Donatists. — The Arians. — Other her- etics. — Ecclesiastical constitution. — Fathers of the church. — The Manichseans 387 CHAPTER Vn. HONORIUS, VALENTINIAN III., ETC. A. u. 1148—1229. A. D. 395—476. Division of the empire. — Rufinus. — The Goths in Greece. — Gildo. — Invasion of Italy by Alaric — by Radagaisus. — Mur- der of Stilicho. — Claudian. — Alaric's second invasion. — Sack of Rome. — Death of Alaric. — Barbarians in the empire. — Val- entinian III. — Boniface and ^tius. — Genseric. — His con- quest of Africa. — Attila. — Theodoric. — Battle of Chalons. — Attila's invasion of Italy. — Murder of^tius — and ofValen- tinian. — Maximus. — Sack of Rome by Genseric. — Avitus. — Majorian. — Severus. — Anthemius. — Nepos and Glycerius. — Romulus Augustus. — End of the empire. — Conclusion 409 HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE PART I. THE C^SARIAN FAMILY. CHAPTER L* C. JULIUS C^SAR OCTAVIANUS AUGUSTUS. A. u. 725—746. B. c. 29—8. THE ROMAN EMPIRE. REGULATION OF IT BY AUGUSTUS. AUGUSTUS IN SPAIN IN ASIA. LAWS. FAMILY OF AUGUSTUS. DEATH OF AGRIPPA. GERMAN WARS. DEATH OF DRUSUS, AND OF MAECENAS. LITERATURE. The battle of Actium, fought between M. Antonius and C. CsBsar Octavianus, in the 723d t year of Rome, termina- * Authorities : Velleius Paterculus, Suetonius, Dion Cassius. For a fall account of the authorities for this History, see Appendix (A.) t We shall use the Varronian chronology in this volume, as it is the one followed by Tacitus, Dion, and other historians. [In the former part of this work, Mr. K. made use of the Catonian computation. It is immaterial which is used, though the Varronian is undoubtedly the more correct, and was employed by the editor in the " Chronological Table," at the end of that work. The difference is only two years — a difference of little importance with respect to the history of the Re- public, but of more in reference to the history of the Empire. See the editor's " Comparative View of Ancient History, and Explanation of Chronological Eras," p. 92, title, Era of the Foundation of Rome. — J.T. S.] > 1- > J J CONTIN. 1 A 2 AUGUSTUS. ted the contest for. the supreme power in the Roman state, which had continued for so many years. After the death of his rival, Caesar, now in the thirty-fourth year of his age, saw himself the undoubted master of the Roman world. An army of forty-four legions* regarded him as its chief; the civil wars and the proscription had cut off all the men of em- inence at Rome ; the senate and people vied with each other in their willingness to accept a sovereign ; and though we may despise their servility, reason will evince that they were right in their determination ; for he must be strangely inthralled by sounds, who, charmed by the mere words liberty and repub- lic, looks back through the last century of the history of Rome, and prefers the turbulent anarchy, which then prevailed, to the steady, firm rule of a single hand. We will add, though the assertion may appear paradoxical, that their knowledge of Caesar's character may have given them fair hopes of his proving an equitable sovereign. But, independently of all other considerations, the enor- mous magnitude of the Roman empire was incompatible with any other form of government than the monarchic, if the happiness of the subjects was to be a matter of moment. The formation of this empire is perhaps the most striking phenomenon in the annals of the world. Fabulous as is the early history of Rome, the fact of its having been in its commencement nothing more than a single town, or rather village, with a territory of a very few miles in compass, may be regarded as certain. Step by step it thence advanced in extent ; under its kings it became respectable among the Italian states : when the supreme magistracy was made an- nual, the consuls were anxious to distinguish their year by some military achievement; their ambition was sustained by the valor and discipline of the legions, and the wisdom of the senate cemented together into one strong and firm mass the various territories reduced by the arms of Rome. In the East, empires of huge extent are at times formed with rapidity, but their decay is in general equally rapid ; modern Europe has seen great empires formed by a Charlemagne and a Napoleon, but they fell to pieces almost as soon as erected : the Roman empire, on the contrary, endured for centuries. Perhaps the nearest parallel is that of Russia; but of this the stability remains to be proved : watched by * Orosius, vi. 18. These legions, however, were far from complete, some of them being mere skeletons. B. C. 29.] RETURN OF AUGUSTUS. 3 jealous and powerful rivals, its step is stealthy, artful, and treacherous, while that of Rome was comparatively open, bold, and daring. The Roman empire, at the time of which we write, em- braced all the countries contained between the Ocean, the Rhine, and Euphrates, on the west and east, and the moun- tain ranges of the Alps and Hasmus on the north, and that of Atlas and the African sandy desert on the south. With respect to the condition of the various nations and peoples contained within its limits, it may be compared to that acquired with such rapidity by England in India. A portion were under the immediate government of the sovereign state, while others, under the name of allies, possessed a certain degree of independence in their internal relations, but their external policy was under the control of Rome.* As aristocracy and democracy are equally tyrannic to subjects, the oppres- sions of the proconsuls and propraetors, set over the provinces by the republic, had been such as to make the provincials look forward with hope to the establishment of a monarchy at Rome. Such, then, was the condition of the Roman world at the time when our narrative commences. When intelligence of the death of Antonius reached Rome, the senate hastened to decree to Csesar the tribunitian power for life, a casting-voice in all the tribunals, the power of nominating to all the priesthoods, and various other hon- ors. They ordered that he should be named in all the pub- lic prayers, and libations be poured to him at both public and private entertainments. It was directed that the gates of Janus should be closed, as war was now at an end.f Caesar, meantime, having regulated the affairs of Egypt, over which he placed Cn. Cornelius Gallus as governor, set out on his return for Rome. He spent the winter in the province of Asia, adjusting the affairs of the surrounding countries; and during his abode, there the Parthian king Phraates sent his son to him to be conducted as a hostage to Rome. In the summer (725) he proceeded to Italy, and on coming to Rome he celebrated a triumph of three days' du- ration for his own victories at Actium and Alexandria, and * These allies were either kings or republics. The former were those of Judaea, of the Arabs, the Nabathasans, Comagene, Cilicia, Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Armenia, Thrace, Numidia ; the latter, Cydonia and Lampeea in Crete, Cyzicus, Rhodes, Athens, Tyre and Sidon, Lycia, and the Ligurians of the Maritime Alps. t Dion, li. 19, 20. Suet. Oct. 31. 4 AUGUSTUS. [b. c. 29. those of his lieutenants in Dalmatia and Pannonia. He dis- tributed money to the people ; he paid all his debts and for- gave his debtors ; and the abundance of money became so great in Rome, that the rate of interest fell two thirds.* We are told that at this time Caesar had serious thoughts of laying down his power and restoring the republic, and that he consulted with his friends Agrippa and Msecenas on the subject. The historian Dion Cassius has composed speeches for these two eminent men, the former of whom he makes advocate, though with but feeble reasons, the cause of the republic, while the latter lays down the whole system of the future monarchy. It is almost needless to state that these cannot be genuine speeches; yet the consultation may have been held. Ceesar was of a cautious temper ; he had the fate of his uncle, the dictator, before his eyes, and the ex- amples of Sulla and Pompeius showed that power might be resigned with safety. A conspiracy of young Lepidus, the son of the triumvir and nephew of Brutus, to assassinate him on his return to the city, had lately been discovered, and the author put to death by Msecenas, who had the charge of the city.f Still it is difficult to believe that Caesar could have really intended to divest himself of his authority. The counsel of Msecenas having prevailed, or such being his previous resolution, Csesar prepared to establish his pow- er on a firm basis. The object which he proposed was to frame a constitution which, under the forms of the republic, should be in reality a disguised military monarchy. With this view he conceived it necessary that the senate should be limited in number and respectable in character ; where- as it was at this time in a state of the utmost degradation ; for the dictator, out of hatred to the aristocracy, had in- troduced all kinds of rabble into it, and after his death M. Antonius had, for money or out of favor, admitted any one that chose to seek the dignity, | so that the senators were now upwards of a thousand in number. Csesar adopted the following course of reformation. Having caused himself and Agrippa to be chosen censors, instead of arbitrarily ejecting unworthy persons from the senate, he made them judges of their own qualifications. Fifty were thus induced to resign voluntarily ; he then compelled one hundred and forty more to follow their example, and, having thus got rid * Dion, li. 21. Suet. Oct. 41. t Veil. Pat. ii. 88. Suet. Oct. 19. t Suet. Oct. 35. B. C. 28-27.] REGULATION OF THE STATE. 5 of the most disreputable portion, he went no farther in his reformation for the present. As the patrician families had been greatly reduced by the civil wars, he augmented their number. In order to obviate the danger of civil commotions, he renewed the regulation of his uncle for preventing the senators from visiting the provinces without permission, ex- cepting Sicily and Narbonese Gaul. To quiet their appre- hensions on account of the late troubles, and prevent their forming any designs against himself in consequence of them, he assured them that he had burned all the papers of M. Antonius ; and he had in fact burned some, but he retained the greater part, to use, if he found it necessary. The title of Imperator {^general) had been already con- ferred on Caesar, as on his uncle ; * and in his sixth consulate, (726,) when he formed the list of the senators, he received the denomination of Princeps Senatus, {First-of-the Senate,) according to the old republican custom ; and this he always used as his favorite title. Having forgiven all debts due to the state, and burnt the securities, gratified the people with shows, and done other popular acts, Caesar (727) addressed the senate, requesting them to take the government now into their own hands, and to permit him to retire to the enjoy- ment of a private station. He was heard with various emo- tions; a few only were in the secret, and knew his object; there were some who were willing to take him at his word, but the greater number had a horror of the anarchy and turbulence of a republic ; all therefore united, from different motives, in calling on him not to resign his authority. He yielded with well-feigned reluctance. The supreme power was conferred on him by a decree of the senate and people, and double pay was voted to his guards, to increase their vigilance and fidelity. Caesar thus attained his object, the legal establishment of his power ; but he refused to receive it for more than a pe- riod of ten years, alleging that by that time the state would be brought to a condition of order and tranquillity. He, further, though accepting the charge of superintendence over the whole empire, would not assume the direct govern- ment of all the provinces ; but, making a division of them into two classes, committed the more peaceful and orderly, * Hence our word Emperor. It was usually bestowed by the soldiers on their general after a victory. It now became the constant title of the monarch, being prefixed instead of postfixed (as in the ordinary way) to his name. 1* 6 AUGUSTUS. [b. c. 27-24. such as Africa, Asia, Baetic Spain, to the senate and people ; while he reserved to himself the administration of the more warlike and turbulent, such as Gaul, northern Spain, and Egypt. The governors of the former were to be selected by the senate out of their own body by lot ; they were to hold their office for the space of a year, under the title of Procon- sul, whether they had been consuls or not ; their jurisdiction was to be purely civil, and they were therefore neither to carry swords nor wear the military habit. Csesar himself was to appoint directly the governors of the remaining prov- inces; they were to be named Legates and Propraetors, to continue in office as long as he pleased, and to wear a sword and the military habit, as having the power of life and death over the soldiery. A proconsul was to be preceded by twelve, a proprcBtor, by six lictors. Quaestors appointed by Csesar were to be sent into all the provinces to collect and regulate the revenue, and all the governors and inferior officers were to receive fixed salaries, and not be allowed to pay them- selves, as under the republic. The senate decreed at this time that laurels should be placed before the doors of Caesar's house on the Palatium, and an oak-leaf-crown be suspended over them, to indicate that he was perpetual victor over the enemies of the state, and perpetual preserver of the citizens. It was also pro- posed to confer on him some peculiar appellation. He him- self would have preferred that of Romulus, as being a second founder of the state ; but finding that it would excite suspi- cion of his aiming at royalty, he acquiesced in that of Augus- tus, which was proposed by L. Munatius Plancus, and which indicated a certain degree of sanctity.* Augustus, (as we shall henceforth name him,) having thus laid the foundations of his power, quitted Rome under the pretext of completing the conquest of Britain.! Finding Gaul in an unsettled state, he remained some time there, to reduce it to order. The incursions of the Asturians and Cantabrians into the Roman provinces in Spain then induced him to assume the conduct of the war against them. He, however, found them a foe in contending with whom little glory was to be acquired ; for they would not descend from their mountains and give battle in the plain, and they har- * The Tiber overflowed on the night following the decree. Dion, liii. 20. This is thought to be the inundation noticed by Horace, Carm. i. 2. t Hor. Carm. i. 35, 29. B. C. 24-33.] ILLNESS OF AUGUSTUS. 7 assed his troops by ambushes in the woody glens. Vexa- tion and fatigue causing him to fall sick, he retired to Tarraco, leaving the command with C. Antistius, by whorp and T. Carisius some advantages were gained over these mountaineers. Augustus then discharged such of the sol- diers as had served out their leojal time, and founded for them in Lusitania a town named Augusta Emerita, (Merida.) He then returned to Rome, (730,) having been absent during the better part of three years.* He had hardly, however, quitted Spain, when the Cantabrians and Asturians again took arms ; and though the propraetor L. ^Emilius chastised them, these hardy mountaineers were never, properly speak- ing, conquered, and they always retained their rude inde- pendence. At this time also (730) avarice or the lust of conquest in- duced Augustus to order ^lius Gallus, the governor of Egypt, to undertake an expedition against the Happy Arabia.! In the attempt, however, to cross the sandy desert, his troops suf- fered so severely from the heat of the sun, the bad quality of the waters, and a novel kind of disease, and they were so harassed by the native tribes, that, after losing the greater part of them, Gallus was obliged to give up his design ; and the conquest of Arabia was never again attempted by the Romans,| Augustus, it would seem, long continued to be affected by the disease with which he had been first attacked in Spain. The year after his return to Rome, (731,) he had a fit so severe as to leave little hopes of his life ; and believing him- self to be near his end, he gave to Cn. Calpurnius Piso, his colleague in the consulate, in presence of the principal sen- ators and knights, a book containing an account of the forces and the revenues of the state ; he at the same time placed his ring on the finger of Agrippa, but said not a word of who should be his successor, though every one had ex- pected him to appoint his nephew Marcellus, the son of his sister Octavia, to whom he had given in marriage his only daughter Julia. A physician named Antonius Musa, how- * Hor. Carm. iii. 14 ; 8,21. t Dion, lii. 29. Strabo, xvi. p. 780 ; xvii. p. 819. Plin. H. N. vi. 28. Horace seems to refer to this expedition, Carra. i. 29. t [The chief cause of the failure of this expedition seems to have been the treachery of Syllasus, chief minister to Obodas, king of the Nabathsean Arabs, through whose country the Romans had to pass. See Strabo, lib. xvi. — J. T. S.] 8 AUGUSTUS. [b. c. 22-21 . ever, restored him to health by a system of cold bathing and cold drinking. When he recovered, he wished to have his will read out in the senate, to prove that he had not named a successor ; but the senators would not permit it to be done. It is doubtful whether it was his intention to restore the re- public, or if he wished his place in the state to be occupied by Agrippa : the latter, which is more consonant to his char- acter, seems to be the more probable supposition. The sen- ate now conferred on him the tribunitian power for life,* gave him the power of bringing before them any matter he pleased, even when not consul, and granted him a perpetual proconsular authority. Whatever the designs of Augustus might have been with respect to Marcellus, they were frustrated at this time by the death of that promising youth in the twentieth year of his age — an event which caused a general grief, as he had in- herited the amiable qualities of his mother Octavia, and was beloved of all people.t Augustus had now been consul for nine successive years ; and, feeling his power sufficiently established, he regarded that dignity as no longer needful to him. The consuls there- fore for the year 732 were M. Claudius Marcellus and L. Aruntius ; but the year proving to be one of disease and scarcity, the superstitious people fancied that their calamities arose from Augustus's not being consul, and surrounded the senate-house, threatening to burn the senate in it if they did not proclaim him dictator ; then, seizing the rods of the twenty-four lictors, they brought them to him, imploring him to assume that office, and also that of overseer of the corn- market. The latter be accepted ; but, satisfied with possess- ing all the power of the dictatorship, he declined the invidi- ous title, and even rent his garments when the people would have forced him to accept it. He in like manner declined the censorship for life when it was proffered to him, but he always used a censorian authority. Beloved as Augustus was by the people in general, there were still some unquiet spirits at Rome, who could not sub- mit to the rule of a single person, how moderate soever it * The former decree of this power (above, p. 3) had not, it would seem, been carried into effect. Tacitus (Ann. iii. 56) says that Augus- tus devised the term tribunitia potesias ; while Dion (xlii. 20) asserts that it was conferred on Caesar the dictator. Lipsius reconciles them by showing that Caesar did not use it publicly. t Propert. iii. 18. See Virg. Mn. vi. 861, seq. B. C. 20-19.] AUGUSTUS IN ASIA. 9 might be. A conspiracy against Augustus was detected at this time, at the head of which was Fannius Caspio, and in which L. Mureena, the brother-in-law of Maecenas, was said to be implicated. They made no defence on their trial, and being found guilty by their judges, they were put to death. Augustus now resolved to visit and regulate the eastern parts of the empire, and leaving Rome, he first proceeded to Sicily, (733.) While he was there, the consular elections at Rome gave occasion to so much tumult and disturbance, that his return was eagerly desired and urged by the more prudent citizens. He would not, however, comply with tlieir wishes ; but in order to keep the city in order, he summoned Agrippa from Asia, where he was then residing ; and having made him divorce his wife, (though she was his own niece,) and marry Julia, the widow of Marcellus,* he committed to him the government of Rome, where his able administration speedily restored order and tranquillity. From Sicily, Augustus, attended by his stepson Tiberius, proceeded to Greece ; and having regulated the affairs of that now insignificant country, he passed over to Samos, where he spent the winter. In the spring (734) he proceeded to Asia, and thence to Syria. He arranged all matters con- cerning the petty monarchies which were in alliance with or under the protection of Rome,t and then returned to Samos for the winter. Here he received numerous embassies from various nations, among whom was one from the Indians, to ratify the treaty of peace and amity which had been already concerted. Among the presents which they brought was a man without arms, who bent a bow and shot arrows, and held a trumpet to his mouth, with his feet. They also pre- sented him with some tigers, being the first of this species ever brought to Europe. | While Augustus was in Asia, Phraates, the Parthian king, who had hitherto eluded the fulfilment of his engagement to restore the standards and prisoners taken from Crassus an-d Antonius, fearing a war, hastened to perform it. We are not * Maecenas, when consulted, on this occasion, is reported to have said to him, " You have made him (Agrippa) so great that he must either be your son-in-law or be put to death." t It was at this time that he sent Tiberius with an army to settle a disputed claim to the throne of Armenia. Some of the Epistles of Horace (i. 3. 8, and perhaps 9. and ii. 2) were written at this time. See also Ep. i. ]2, 26 seq. I Dion, liv. 9. Pliny, N. H. viii. 17, B 10 AUGUSTUS. [b.c. 19-18. informed of the number of soldiers thus restored to their country, but they probably bore only a small proportion to the number originally captured ; for many were dead, and many more preferred remaining in a country to which they had now become habituated. By Augustus himself this was always regarded as the most glorious event in his life, and to commemorate it he built a temple on the Capitol to Mars the Avenger, ( Ultor,) while the poets who adorned his reign poured forth their strains in commemoration of the peaceful triumph.* A new sedition, on account of the consular elections, which proceeded even to bloodshed, recalled Augustus to Rome, (735.) The senate, as usual, would have lavished honors on him, but he would only allow of the erection of an altar to Fortuna Redux, and the insertion of the day of his return among the public holidays, under the title of Augustalia. He was appointed inspector of manners for five years, and given the censorian power for the same period, and the consular for life. Agrippa was at this time in Spain; for after he had established order at Rome, he found it necessary to proceed to Gaul, which was suffering from se- dition and from the incursions of the Germans, whence he was called to Spain by a new insurrection of the Canta- brians. Having, not without much difficulty, reduced this restless people, he returned to Rome, declining, with his usual moderation, the triumphal honors which had been de- creed him on the proposal of Augustus himself The senate was still too numerous a body for the place in the state which Augustus wished it to occupy. He thought he might now venture to make a further reduction in it ; but the difficulties which he encountered were such, that, instead of bringing it down, as he proposed, to three hundred, he was obliged to be content with a house consisting of six hundred members. Even this moderate reduction gave oc- casion to several real or imputed conspiracies against him and Agrippa. To keep up a respectable aristocracy in the state was a favorite object with this prudent prince, who was well aware of the evils of oligarchy and [an ignorant] democracy. It was with this view that he labored to render the senate lim- * Hor. Epist. i. 18, 56 ; Carm. iv. 15, 6. Propert. ii. 10 ; iii. 4, 9 ; 5, 48 ; iv. 6, 79. Ovid, Fast. vi. 647 ; Trist. ii. 1, 228. See also Virg. ^n. vii. 606. Hor. Carm. iii. 5. B.C. 17-12.] FAMILY OF AUGUSTUS. 11 ited in number and respectable in character. As a further means, he most anxiously, both by law and precept, en- couraged marriage among the members of the senatorian and equestrian orders, (736.) * But the profligacy of man- ners which then prevailed was such that all the honors, and rewards, and immunities, which he proposed were of but little avail. A practice was even introduced by which the inten- tion of the laws might be eluded, while the benefits pro- posed by them were attained : it was that of betrothal with infants, to obviate which he enjoined that no betrothal should be valid except in cases where the marriage might be con- summated within the space of two years; that is, with no child under ten years of age. It was unfortunate for Augus- tus that his own character and conduct gave but little weight to his regulations on the subject of matrimony, for he was notoriously unfaithful to his wife Livia. It may be of use to give here some account of the family of Augustus. By his first wife, Scribonia, he had one child, a daughter, named of course Julia; he had no children by Livia, and we hear nothing of any natural children. He first married Julia to his nephew Marcellus, the son of his sister Octavia by her first husband, Claudius Marcellus ; and on his death he obliged Agrippa to divorce his wife, who was the sister of Marcellus, and espouse the widow, by whom he had two sons, named Caius and Lucius, both of whom Augustus adopted. By her first husband, Tib. Claudius Nero, Livia had two sons, Tiberius and Drusus, the latter of whom was born after her marriage with Augustus. The former was married to Agrippina, the daughter of Agrippa by his first wife, a daughter of Cicero's friend Atticus. In the 737th year of Rome, Augustus and Agrippa cele- brated with great magnificence the Saecular Games.t Au- gustus then deemed it advisable to absent himself for some time from Rome, and having sent Agrippa to Asia, he pro- ceeded to Gaul on the pretext of the invasions of the Ger- mans requiring his presence ; but some said that his secret motive was the desire of enjoying more freely the society of Terentia, the wife of Maecenas, with whom he had long car- ried on an intrigue. He took with him his stepson Tiberius, and after an absence of about three years, spent in regulating * See Hor. Carm. iii. 6, 17, seq.; iv. 5, 12, seq. ; 15, 9, seq.; Carm. Ssec. 17 seq, t They were the fifth that had been celebrated. Dion, liv. 18. Cen- sorin. 17. Horace composed the hymn sung on the occasion. 1^ AUGUSTUS. [b. C. 12* the concerns of Gaul, Spain, and the German provinces, he returned to Rome, (741,) and in the following year (742) he assumed the dignity of Pontifex Maximus, now vacant by the death of Lepidus, his former colleague in the triumvirate, whom (though he at all times treated him with studied indig- nity) he allowed to hold that honorable office as long as he lived. Agrippa, who had been all this time in Asia, returned to Rome likewise in 741 ; and Augustus, whose confidence in him never abated, had the tribunitian power conferred on him for another period of five years. He also committed to him the charge of suppressing an expected invasion of the Pannonians. This people, however, when they heard of the approach of Agrippa, laid aside all thoughts of war. He therefore led back his troops, and in the following spring (742) he fell dangerously ill in Campania. Augustus, who was then celebrating the festival of the Q,uinquatrus at Rome, hastened to him, but found him dead. He caused the corpse to be conveyed to Rome, where he himself pronounced the funera!l oration over it in the Forum, and then laid his ashes in his own monument, though the deceased had prepared one for himself in the Field of Mars. Agrippa had not completed his fifty-first year when he was thus prematurely carried off,* There are few characters in history more pleasing to con- template than that of M. Vipsanius Agrippa. Born in a humble station, he raised himself entirely by his own merit, and by the honorable fidelity which he always exhibited to the man to whose fortunes he was attached. To prince and people he was equally acceptable : the former viewed in him a sincere friend and an able minister and general ; the latter regarded him as a patron and a benefactor. His wealth, which was immense,! he devoted to the public service, ben- efiting the people and adorning the city. He thus raised at a great expense several aqueducts, particularly that which conveyed the Aqua Virgo to the Field of Mars, (735.) He adorned (728) the porticoes built round the Septa, in the same place, by Lepidus, with marble plates and with paint- ings, naming them Julian in honor of Augustus. He also built a beautiful portico to the temple of Neptune, and erected the circular temple named the Pantheon, | which still exists. * Plin. N. H. vii. 8. t He owned the entire Chersonese, (Dion, liv. 29 ;) he had also large estates in Sicily (Hor. Ep. i. 12) and elsewhere. t Pliny (N. H. xxxvi. 15) says it was dedicated to Jupiter Ultor. B.C. 11.] FOREIGN AFFAIRS. 13 By his will he left his gardens and the baths named after him to the Roman people. Augustus, who was his principal heir, gave in his name a donation of one hundred drachmas a man to the plebeians. The place of Agrippa was not to be supplied ; but as some one in his station was absolutely necessary to Augustus, he, much against his inclination, made choice of his stepson Tiberius. As he seems to have made it a rule that the per- son next to himself should be the husband of his daughter Julia, he obliged Tiberius to divorce Agrippina, the daughter of Agrippa, to whom he was most sincerely attached, and who had borne him one child and was bearing another, and espouse Julia. He then sent him against the Pannonians, who had resumed their arms when they heard of the death of Agrippa. We will now for some time direct our attention to the foreign relations and military affairs of the empire. Within the limits of the empire the only people who ven- tured to resist the arms of Rome was the Basque population of the mountains in the north of Spain, who, secured by the nature of their country, though often defeated and reduced, were never completely conquered. On the southern frontier in Africa the native tribes gave occasional employment to the governors of the adjoining provinces. In the year 732,, the ^Ethiopians, led by their queen Candace, invaded Upper Egypt, and advanced as far as the city of Elephantina; but they were speedily repelled by the governor C. Petronius, who invaded their country in return, and forced them to sue for peace. On the side of Parthia all was quiet during the reign of Augustus ; but the tribes in the vicinity of the Danube and Rhine, who were destined to be Rome's most dangerous foes, even now required the employment of large armies to repel or subdue them, and more than once they sent alarm, even into the city. The reduction of Thrace to a province gave occasion to some warfare ; for the native tribes, unused to submission, and defended by the ranges of Rhodope and Hasmus, were prone to rebellion. A general rising among them took place in 743; and, after lasting three years, it was at length sup- Dion (liii. 27) would seem to intimate that it was consecrated to Mars and Venus. He thinks that it was named from its resemblance in form to the heaven. The supposition of its being dedicated to all the gods. is a modern error. 2 14 AUGUSTUS. [b. C. 11. pressed by the governor L. Piso, who thereby obtained the triumphal honors. The Roman frontier had, in the latter times of the repub- lic, been gradually advanced into Illyricum, the region lying to the north of the Adriatic, and commercial relations vi^ere formed with the nations who dwelt farther inland. Their own unquiet spirit, and the arrogance and oppression of the Romans, naturally gave occasion to hostilities. In 738 two of the Alpine tribes, named Cammunians and Venians, took arms ; but they were speedily reduced by P. Silius, the pro- praetor. Immediately after, the Pannonians, aided by the Noricans, invaded Istria ; but they were repelled also by Silius, who then carried his arms into Noricum and reduced it. Shortly after, the Rgetians of the Alps, and the Vindeli- cans* who dwelt between them and the Danube, began to make incursions into Gaul and Italy, and they seized and put to death such of the Romans or allies whom they found travel- ling through their country. Augustus committed the task of reducing them to his stepson Drusus, who gave them a de- feat in the hills of Tridentum, ( Trent ;) and, as they still plun- dered Gaul, he caused Drusus's brother Tiberius to attack them on that side; and by the united efforts of the two broth- ers and their lieutenants, the mountaineers were completely brought under subjection.! The more vigorous portion of their male population was carried away, and only those left who were too feeble for insurrection. The Pannoflic war already alluded to broke out in 743. It was conducted and successfully terminated by Tiberius, who was decreed for it a triumph by the senate ; but Augustus would only allow him to receive the triumphal ornaments. Drusus was meantime carrying on war in Germany. The Roman dominion having been extended by CsBsar, the dictator, to the Rhine, the Ubians, Vangionians, and some other Ger- man tribes, | had been induced to cross that river and settle on its left bank, under the protection and authority of the Romans, whose manners they gradually adopted. The ter- ritory in which they dwelt was hence named the Upper and * Dion (liv. 22) mentions only the RsBtians, but he appears to include the Vindelicans in that name. The Vindelicans are expressly men- tioned by Suetonius, (Tib. 9,) Velleius, (ii. 95,) and Horace, (Carm. iv. 4, 18.) t See Horace, Carm. iv. 4 and 14, t See Appendix (C.) for an account of the German tribes. B.C. 13-11.] GERMAN WARS. 15 Lower Germany; it extended from the modern town of Schlettstadt into the district of Cleves. The Romans had several fortified posts along the Rhine, but they had as yet no footing beyond that river. They had, however, the usual relations of trade and intercourse with the peoples of the op- posite bank. In 729 the Germans murdered some Romans who had gone over in the usual manner into their country. To punish them, M. Vinicius, who commanded on the left bank of the river, led his troops against them, and his successes gained him the honor of the triumphal ornaments. Nothing further occurred till the year 738, when the tribes named Sicambrians, Usipe- tans, and Tencterans, seized and crucified the Roman traders in their country, and then, crossing the Rhine, ravaged Gaul and the Germanics. M. Lollius, the legate, led his troops to engage them ; but they laid an ambush for the cavalry, which was in advance, and routed it. In the pursuit they came un- expectedly on Lollius himself, and defeated him, taking the eagle of the fifth legion. The intelligence of this disgrace caused, as we have seen, Augustus to set out for Gaul ; but the Germans did not wait for his arrival, and when he came, they obtained a truce on giving hostages. Augustus remained nearly three years in Gaul. When leaving it, (741,) he committed the defence of the German frontier to his stepson Drusus. His departure imboldened the Sicambrians and their allies to resume hostilities ; and as disaffection appeared likely to spread among the Gauls, Dru- sus took care to secure their leading men by inviting them to Lugdunum, {Lyons,) under pretext of the festival which was to be celebrated at the altar raised there in honor of Augus- tus : then watching the Germans when they passed the Rhine, he fell on and cut them to pieces, and crossing that river himself, he entered the country of the Usipetans, and thence advanced into that of the Sicambrians, laying both waste, (742.) He embarked his troops on the Rhine and entered the ocean, and sailing along the coast, formed an alliance with the Frisians who inhabited it. His slight vessels, however, being stranded by the ebb of the tide on the coast of the Chaucans, he was indebted for safety to his Frisian allies. He then led his troops back, and put them into winter-quar- ters. In the spring (743) he again crossed the Rhine, and completed the subjection of the Usipetans ; and taking advan- tage of the absence of the Sicambrian warriors, who had 1^ AUGUSTUS. [b. C. 10-9. marched against the Chattans on account of their refusal to join their league, he threw a bridge over the Lippe, (Lupia,) and marching rapidly through the Sicambrian country, and entering that of the Cheruscans, advanced as far as the Weser, (Visurgis.) Want of supplies, however, forced the Romans to return without passing that river. In their retreat they were harassed by the Germans, and on one occasion they fell into an ambush, where they were only saved from destruction by the excessive confidence of the enemy, who, regarding them as already conquered, attacked them in disorder, and were therefore easily repelled by the disciplined legionaries. Drusus built a fort at the confluence of the Elison and the Lippe, and another in the Chattan country on the Rhine, and then returned to Gaul for the winter. The following year (744) Augustus, on account of the German war, went and took up his abode at Lugdunum, while Drusus again crossed the Rhine, and carried on the war against the Sicambrian league, which had now been joined by the Chattans, who became in consequence the principal sufferers. At the end of the cam- paign, Augustus and his stepsons returned to Rome. The next year (745) Drusus passed the Rhine for the fourth time. He laid waste the Chattan territory, whence he advanced into Suevia, which he treated in a similar manner, routing all that resisted him ; then entering the Cheruscan country, he crossed the Weser, and advanced till he reached the Elbe, (Albis,) wasting all on his way. Having made a fruitless effort to pass this river, he led back his troops to the Rhine ; but his horse having fallen with him on the way, he received so much injury by the fall, that he died before he reached the banks of that stream.* His body was conveyed to Rome, where the funeral orations were pronounced by Augustus and Tiberius, and his ashes were deposited in the Julian monument. The title of Germanicus was decreed to him and his children, and, among other honors, a cenotaph was raised by the army on the bank of the Rhine. Drusus was only in his thirtieth year when he thus met with his untimely fate. He was married to the younger daughter of Octavia by M. Antonius, the triumvir, by whom he had several children ; but only three, Germanicus, Clau^ dins, and Livilla, survived their father. The character of Drusus stood hio-h both as a soldier and a citizen ; and it * Livy, Epit. 140. B. C. 8.] LATIN LITERATURE. 17 was generally believed that he intended to restore the repub- lic, if ever he should possess the requisite power.* It is even said that at one time he wrote to his brother proposing to compel Augustus to reestablish the popular freedom, but that Tiberius showed the letter to his stepfather.t Some even, in the usual spirit of calumniating Augustus, went so far as to hint that he caused Drusus to be taken off by poison when he neglected to give instant obedience to his mandate of recall, issued in consequence of that information-! Death had already (743) deprived Augustus of his sister Octavia, and within two years after the loss of Drusus, he had to lament that of Maecenas, his early friend, adviser, and minister, who died toward the end of the year 746, leaving him his heir, notwithstanding the affair of Terentia. Maecenas was a man in whom were united the apparently opposite characters of the refined voluptuary and the able and judicious statesman. When called on to exert himself in public affairs, no man displayed more foresight, vigor, and activity ; but the moment he could withdraw from them, he hastened to relax into an ease and luxury almost more than feminine. Satisfied with the abundance of wealth which he derived from the bounty of Augustus, and content with hav- ing the power to bestow honors and offices on others, he sought them not for himself, and to the end of his life he re- mained a simple member of the equestrian order in which he had been born. It does not appear, that, like Agrippa, he devoted his wealth to the improvement or ornament of the city ; but he was the patron, and in some cases the benefac- tor, of men of letters ; and while the poetry of Virgil and Horace shall be read, (and when shall it not?) the name of Maecenas will be pronounced with honor by thousands to whom that of the nobler Agrippa will be comparatively un- known. Such is the power of literature to confer everlast- ing renown ! This was in effect the most splendid period of Rome's literary history. Though we cannot concede that literary genius is the creation of political circumstances, yet we may observe that it usually appears synchronously with great po- litical events. It was during the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, that the everlasting monuments of the Grecian muse * Suet. Claud. 1. Tac. Ann. i. 33. f Suet. Tib. 50. t Suet. Claud. 1. Tac. Ann. ii. 82. 18 AUGUSTUS. [b. c. 8. were produced ; and it was while the fierce wars excited by religion agitated modern Europe, that the most noble works of poetic genius appeared in Italy, Spain, and England. So also the first band of Roman poets were coexistent with the Punic wars, and the second and more glorious, though per- haps less vigorous, display of Italian genius rose amid the ca- lamities of the civil wars. The first of these poets in name, as in genius, is P. Vir- gilius Maro, who was born at Andes, a village near Mantua, in 684, and died at Brundisium, in 735. Residing in the country, and fond of rural life, his first poetic essays were pastorals in the manner of Theocritus. In this attempt, how- ever, his success was not eminent ; for though his verse is sweet and harmonious, and his descriptions are lovely, he at- tains not to the nature and simplicity of his Grecian master. He next wrote his Georgics, a didactic poem on agriculture ; and here his success was beyond doubt ; for it is the most perfect piece of didactic poetry that the world possesses. He then made the daring attempt of competing with Homer in the fields of epic poetry ; and though the ^neis is inferior in fire and spirit to the Ilias, and possesses not the romance and the domestic charms of the Odyssey, and as an epic must even perhaps yield to the Jerusalem Delivered of modern Italy, it is a poem of a very high order, and one which will never cease to yield delight to the cultivated mind. In thus select- ing Roman subjects, Virgil proved his superior judgment; and he assumed the place which had been occupied by En- nius, and became the national poet. CI. Horatius Flaccus, born at Venusium in Apulia, in 689, is distinguished for the graceful ease, mild, philosophic spirit, and knowledge of men and the world,* displayed in his satires and epistles. He had also the merit of transferring the lyric measures of Alcseus, Sappho, and other Grecian poets, to the Latin language. His odes of a gay and lively, or of a bland, philosophic tone, are inimitable ; in those of a higher flight he has less success, and the appearance of effort may at times be discerned. Horace died in 746, in the same year with his friend and patron Msecenas. Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico Tangit, et admissus circum prsecordia ludit, Callidus excusso populum suspendere naso. Persius, Sat. i. 116. B.C. 8.] LATIN LITERATURE. 19 Albius Tibullus and Sex. Aurelius Propertius wrote love elegies addressed to their courtesan-mistresses under feigned names, such as Neaera and Cynthia. The former approaches nearer than any of the ancient poets to modern sentimental- ity ; the latter shows extensive mythologic learning, correct taste, and a degree of delicacy and purity hardly to be ex- pected from an amatory poet of that age. Varius, Valgius, Cornelius Gallus, Plotius Tucca, Varro Atacinus, and a number of other poets, wrote at this period. They are praised by their surviving contemporaries, but their works have perished. — a proof, perhaps, that their merit was not considerable. They were all imitators of the Greeks. P. Ovidius Naso belongs to the second period of the reign of Augustus, whom, he survived. He was born in 711, at Salmo, in the Pelignian country, and died in 771, in exile, at Tomi, on the Euxine. Ovid was a poet of original genius, which he tried on a variety of subjects. He wrote Heroic Epistles in the names and characters of the heroes and her- oines of Grecian antiquity ; love elegies ; a didactic poem called the Art of Love ; Metamorphoses ; and a poem on the Roman Fasti. He also composed a tragedy, named Medea, which was much praised by the ancient critics. Grace, ease, and gayety, prevail throughout the compositions of this poet ; but he was deficient in vigor, and was too prone to trifle on serious subjects ; and in his amatory poetry he was very far from imitating the delicacy of Tibullus and Propertius. Yet, with all his defects, he is a delightful poet. The origin of his exile to Tomi in 762 is a mystery which can never be un- veiled. He ascribes it himself to two causes, his Art of Love, and his having seen somethincr which he should not see. The epistles written after his exile evince a spirit quite broken, and exhibit little trace of the poet's former powers. The reign of Augustus was also the period of the appear- ance of the eloquent and picturesque history of the Roman republic by T. Livius. This great historian was born at Pa- dua (Patavium) in 695, and he died in 771, the same year with Ovid. His history (of which the larger and more valu- able part is lost) extended from the landing of JEneas to the death of Drusus in 745. 20 AUGUSTUS. [b. c. 8-6. CHAPTER II.* AUGUSTUS. (CONTINUED.) A. u. 746-767. B. c. 8-a. d. 14. TIBERIUS. BANISHMENT OF JULIA. GERMAN WARS OF TI- BERIUS. DEFEAT OF VARUS. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF AUGUSTUS. FORM AND CONDITION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Twenty-one years had now elapsed since the return of Augustus, victorious over Antonius, and his assumption of the sole supreme authority in the state. In that period, death had deprived him of his nephew, his nobler stepson, and his two ablest and most attached friends. His hopes now rested on his two grandsons and adopted sons Caius and Lucius, and their posthumous brother, named Agrippa after their father ; on Tiberius, and on the children of Drusus. Caius was now (746) in his thirteenth year ; his brother was three years younger. As they grew up, the characters which they displayed were such as caused pain to their grandfather. They were in fact porphyrogeniti, (the first that Rome had seen,t) and therefore were spoiled by public and private flattery, and displayed insolence and presumption in their conduct. Though Augustus was fully aware of the defects in the character of Tiberius, he could not avoid as- signing him the place in the state for which his age, and his abilities and experience, qualified him. He had, therefore, on the death of Drusus, committed to him the conduct of the war in Germany; and, in 746 and the following year, the Roman legions were led by him over the Rhine, but no re- sistance was offered by the Germans. The next year, (748,) Augustus conferred on him the tribunitian power for a period of five years, and appointed him to go to regulate Armenia, where affairs were now in some disorder. | Tiberius, however, had resolved on retiring for a time from public life. The pretext under which he sought permission from Augustus, was a satiety of honors and a longing for * Authorities same as for the preceding chapter, t [That is, the first princes-horn; having been born since the as- sumption of supreme authority by Augustus. — J. T. S.] t Zonaras, x. 35. B.C. l.-A.D. 2.] TIBERIUS. ^ 21 quiet and repose. What he afterwards assigned as the real cause was his wish not to appear to stand in the way of Caius and his brother, who were now growing up to man's estate.* The improper conduct of his wife, Julia, was also given as a reason for his retirement, or his expectation by absence to increase his authority in the state in case his presence should be again required : it was even said that he was banished by Augustus for conspiring against his sons. It was with great difficulty that he obtained permission from his mother and stepfather to put his design into execution. We are told that, to extort it, he menaced to starve himself, and actually abstained from food for four days. When he had thus drawn from them a reluctant consent, he went down privately with a very few attendants to Ostia, and, getting on board a vessel, proceeded along the coast of Campania. Hearing that Augustus was taken ill, he halted ; but, finding that his so doing was imputed to a design of aiming at the empire in case of his death, he set sail, though the weather was not very favorable, and proceeded on his voyage to Rhodes. He had selected this island for his retreat, having been pleased with its amenity and salubrity, when he visited it on his return from Armenia, in the year 735. He adopted a pri- vate mode of life, dwelling in a moderately-sized house, and living on terms of equality with the respectable inhabitants. He was visited in his retreat by all those who were going out as proconsuls or legates to Asia. When Caius Caesar was sent out to regulate the affairs of Armenia, (753,) Tiberius passed over to Chios to wait on him. The young man showed him all marks of respect as his stepbrother and elder ; but the insinuations of M. Lollius, whom Augustus had given him as a director, soon alienated his mind from Tiberius. The period of his tribunitian power being now expired, Tiberius sought permission to return to Rome, avowing that his motive for quitting it had been the wish to avoid the sus- picion of emulation with Caius and Lucius. As they were now grown up, and were able to maintain their station as the second persons in the state, his absence was no longer requi- site, and he wished to be permitted to revisit his friends and relatives. He, however, received a positive refusal ; and all his mother could obtain was his being named a legate, in order to cover his disgrace. He remained at Rhodes two years longer, when Caius, without whose approbation Augus- * Suet. Tib. 10. Veil. Pat. ii. 99, 52 AUGUSTUS. [a.d. 2-5. tus had determined to do nothing in his case, having quar- relled with Lollius, gave his consent to his recall. He was therefore permitted to return, but on the express condition of abstaining from public affairs, (755.) During the absence of Tiberius from Rome, the dissolute conduct of his wife, Julia, after having long been generally known, had at length (752) reached the ears of her father. Julia had been unchaste even when the wife of the excellent Agrippa ; some of the noblest men of Rome were among her paramours ; and she had at length become so devoid of shame and prudence as to carouse and revel openly at night in the Forum, and even on the Rostra. Augustus had al- ready had a suspicion that her mode of life was not quite cor- rect ; when now convinced of the full extent of her depravity, his anger knew no bounds. He communicated his domestic misfortune to the senate ; he banished his dissolute daughter to the isle of Pandateria, on the coast of Campania, whither she was accompanied by her mother, Scribonia. He forbade her there the use of wine and of all delicacies in food or dress, and prohibited any person to visit her without his special permission. He caused a bill of divorce to be sent her in the name of her husband, Tiberius, of whose letters of interces- sion for her he took no heed. He constantly rejected all the solicitations of the people for her recall ; and, when one time they were extremely urgent, he openly prayed that they might have wives and daughters like her.* At length, after a period of five years, he allowed her to remove to the town of Rhegium, on the continent, and made her treatment some- what milder. Among the adulterers of Julia was Julus Antonius, the son of the triumvir by Fulvia.t Augustus had treated him with the greatest kindness ; he had given him in marriage the daughter of his sister Octavia, and had conferred on him all the honors and dignities of the state. His ingratitude was therefore without excuse, and he expiated his offence by a voluntary death.:|: Of the rest, such as Sempronius Grac- chus, Q,uinctius Crispinus, and Appius Claudius, some were executed and others banished. * Her freedwoman and confidant Phcfibe having hung herself when the discovery was made, Augustus declared that he would sooner have been the father of Phoebe than of Julia. t It was to him that Horace addressed the second ode of the 4th book of his Odes, probably in the year 739. t Veil. Pat. ii. 100. A. D. 6.] GERMAN WARS. 23 It was in his family and his domestic relations that Augus- tus was destined to feel the adverse strokes of fortune. In 755, his grandson Lucius fell sick on his way to Spain, and died at Massalia; and, eighteen months later, (757,) Caius breathed his last in Lycia, as he was on his return to Italy. Augustus had now only one grandson remaining, the posthu- mous child of Agrippa, of the same name with his father. He therefore adopted him and Tiberius on the same day, saying with regard to the latter, " This I do for the sake of the republic." He at the same time made Tiberius adopt Germanicus, the eldest son of his brother Drusus, although he had a son of his own by his first wife, also named Drusus. Tiberius was invested with the tribunitian power for another period of five years, and was immediately despatched to assume the conduct of the German war, which had been going on for the last three years.* In his first campaign, he passed the Weser, and, having kept the field till the month of December, he placed his troops in winter quarters at the head of the Lippe, and returned himself to Rome. In the following campaign, (758,) having received the submission of the Chaucans and broken the power of the Langobards, who were regarded as the fiercest of the German tribes, he advanced to the banks of the Elbe; while his fleet, having safely circumnavigated the coast from the mouth of the Rhine to that of the Elbe, joined the land army in this river, and aided its operations. The plan of the campaign for the ensuing year (759) was a very extensive one. The people named Marcomans had quitted their original seats, and occupied the country named Bohemum, {Bohemia,) which lay in the heart of the great Hercynian forest. Their prince, named Maroboduus, was one of those men of superior talent, who have so often, amo^^g barbarous tribes, evinced the power of mental over corporeal qualities. He had established an undisputed authority over his own nation, and reduced all his neighbors to submission by arms or by persuasion. He maintained a disciplined army of 70,000 foot and 4000 horse ; and, as his southern frontier was little more than two hundred miles from the Alps, it was in his power suddenly to pour a large army even into Italy ; and he was always ready to support revolt in the German or Illyrian provinces. Tiberius, a far-seeing statesman, re- solved to anticipate the danger, and prepared to make a com- bined attack on the Marcoman prince. He therefore sent * Veil. Pat. ii. 104. 24 AUGUSTUS. [a. d. 6-9. , orders to C. Sentius Saturninus to invade Bohemia in the north from the country of the Cattans, while he himself should enter it from the south with the army of Illyricum, which he had assembled for the purpose at Carnuntum, in Noricum. But this extensive plan was frustrated by a formidable in- surrection of the Dalmatians ; for this people, who ill bore the weight of tribute imposed on them by the Romans, when they saw the troops that were in their country drawn away for the German war, and at the same time, in consequence of orders given them to prepare an auxiliary force, became aware of their own numbers and strength, at the impulsion of a Dalmatian named Bato, resolved to assert their inde- pendence, The Breucans, a Pannonian tribe, led by another Bato, joined them, and speedily all Pannonia shared in the revolt. We should only weary the reader were we to enter into the details of this war, which lasted for the space of three years, employed fifteen legions and an equal number of aux- iliaries, and was regarded as the most dangerous foreign war that had occurred since the days of Hannibal ; for the seat of it was the confine of Italy ; so that Augustus declared openly in the senate, that, if proper measures were not adopt- ed, the enemy might come within view of the city on the tenth day. The Pannonians were also remarkably familiar with the language, arts, and knowledge of the Romans. The forces of the confederates were estimated at 200,000 foot and 9000 horse, under able and active leaders. In order to raise a force sufficient for the war, Augustus was obliged to call out all the veterans, to employ freedmen as soldiers, and to purchase for this purpose able-bodied slaves from their masters and mistresses. To add to his difficulties, Rome was at this time suffering severely from famine. In the conduct of the war, Tiberius certainly proved him- self to be an able general, and his adopted son Germanicus, to whom Augustus had given a command, laid the founda- tion of his future fame. The success of the war was com- plete, the whole country, from the Adriatic to the Danube, and from Noricum to Thrace and Macedonia, being reduced to complete submission, (762.)* * When Bato surrendered and appeared before the tribunal of Tibe- rius, the latter asked him why they had revolted. " Yourselves," re- plied he, " are the cause, for you send to your flocks, wolves, and not dogs or herdsmen." Dion, Iv. 33; Ivi. 16. A.D. 9.] VARUS. 25 This dangerous war was hardly brought to a close, when intelligence arrived of a dreadful disaster which had be- fallen the Roman arms in Germany. Since the reduction of a part of the country beyond the Rhine, a military force had been maintained in it, and some forts were erected ; the Germans were gradually adopting Roman manners, and ac- customing themselves to Roman institutions. Had they been prudently managed, they might have been civilized and made useful subjects; but the present commander in Germany, P. duinctilius Varus, who had been governor of Syria, and was therefore in the habit of meeting with a prompt obedience to all his commands, forgetting the difference between un- warlike Syrians and barbarous Germans, began to treat them with rigor, and to impose heavy taxes. Their native spirit was roused, and they secretly formed a plan for delivering themselves from the foreign yoke. Their principal leader was Arminius, [Hermann,) son of Sigimer, a Cheruscan prince who had long served with the Roman armies, and had ob- tained the freedom of the city and the equestrian rank. The plan adopted being to lull Varus into security, they made a show of yielding the most cheerful obedience to all his com- mands, and thus induced him to quit th^ Rhine, and advance toward the Weser. Sigimer and Arminius were continually with him ; and so completely had they won his confidence,, that when Segestes, prince of the Chattans, had given him- information of the plot, and advised him to seize himself Arminius and the other leaders. Varus refused to believe in it. When all the necessary preparations had been made, some of the more distant tribes were directed to take up arms, in order that Varus might be attacked with more advantage when on his march to reduce them. Arminius and the others remained behind, under the pretext of raising troops with which they vi^ere to join him ; and, as soon as he was- gone, they fell on and slaughtered the various detachments, which, at their own particular desire, he had stationed in their country ; then, collecting a large force, they followed' and came up with the legions when in a place suited to their purpose. The Roman army, consisting of three legions, with their requisite cavalry and auxiliaries, in all of upwards of 24,000 men, accompanied by women and children, by wagons and beasts of burden, was advancing without regular order, as in a friendly country. They had reached a place surround- CONTIN. 3 D 26 AUGUSTCJS. ' [a. D. 10-12. ed by hills, and covered with marshes, and with trees, which they were obliged to cut down in order to effect a passage. The weather was tempestuous, and, in the midst of the wind and rain, while they were floundering in the mire, and im- peded by the standing stumps and fallen trunks of the trees^ they found themselves assailed on all sides by the Germans. After suffering much from their desultory assaults, they seized a dry spot, where they encamped for the night, having burnt or abandoned the greater part of their baggage. Next day they attempted to march through the woods; but the wind and rain still continued, and the persevering enemy gave them no rest. At length Varus and his principal officers, seeing no chance of escape, rather than be taken or slain by the barbarians, terminated their lives with their own hands. The soldiers now lost all couracre : some imitated the act of their officers, others ceased to resist, and suffered themselves to be slain or taken ; and, had not the barbarians fallen to plunder, not a man had escaped captivity or death. The legate Numonius Vala* broke away with the greater part of the horse, and made for the Rhine. When intelligence of this calamity arrived at Rome, the consternation which prevailed was extreme. Since the days of Crassus, no such misfortune had befallen the Roman arms. It was feared that the victorious Germans would in- vade Gaul, and even push on for Italy and Rome itself, and there was no army of either citizens or allies on foot to re- sist them. Augustus shared in the general alarm. He rent his raiment in grief; he vowed (what had only been done in the Cimbric and Mar.sic wars) great games to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, if the state should return to a safer con- dition;! he doubled the guards in the city, and prolonged the command of the governors of the provinces. Finding that none of the men of the military age came forward to enroll themselves, he made them cast lots: and of those under five-and-thirty every fifth, of those over that age every tenth man, was to lose his property and to be infamous. Yet so degenerate were the Romans become, that even this * This is probably the person to whom the fifteenth epistle of the 1st book of Horace's Epistles is addressed. t Any one acquainted with the character of Augustus will not easily believe, that, according to the report (ferunt) mentioned by Suetonius, (Oct. 23,) and Dion, (Ivi. 23,) he let his hair and beard grow for several months, and used to dash his head against the doors, crying, " Quinctilius Varus, give back the legions." Augustus, we — -.» ohcprve. was at this time upwards of seventy years of age. A. D. 13, 14.] LAST ILLNESS OF AUGUSTUS. 21 severe measure failed to fill the ranks, and Augustus found it necessary to put some of them to death. He finally took the veterans by lot, and as many freedmen as he could col- lect, and, having thus formed an army, he sent Tiberius in all haste with it to Germany. At the same time, he ordered all the Gauls and Germans at Rome to quit the city, and he removed his German guards to some of the islands off the coast, lest they should revolt.* Tiberius led his army over the Rhine, (763,) but met with no enemies. In the follow- ing year, he and Germanicus again appeared in Germany, but, as before, no opportunity was given for fighting. In 765, Tiberius, with the permission of Augustus, triumphed in the usual manner for the Pannonian war. The domestic events of late years had not been numerous. Augustus still was doomed to suffer in his own family. His granddaughter Julia, whom he had married to L. iErailius Paulus, imitated the profligacy of her mother, and he found it necessary to banish her. Her brother, the young Agrippa, proved of so violent and dangerous a temper, that Augustus, having at first renounced him and placed him in retirement at Surrentum, at length, finding him growing worse every day, had him removed to the isle of Planesia, near Corsica, and a guard of soldiers set over him. The life of Augustus still continued to be menaced by conspiracies. In 757, one was discovered, in which the person chiefly concerned was L. Cornelius Cinna, the grandson of Pompeius Magnus, and of the dictator Sulla. Augustus was long in doubt how to act, for experience had shown him that the execution of those engaged in one plot did not prevent the formation of another. He was finally induced by the arguments of his wife, Livia, to try the effects of lenity. He called the conspirators before him, and, after remonstrating with them, pardoned and dismissed them ; and he even made Cinna consul for the following year. The effect of such generosity on the minds of them and others was such, that no plots were formed against him during the remaining years of his life.t * He had had Spanish guards till after the battle of Actiura : he then employed Germans. Suet. Oct. 49. t Dion, Iv. 14—22. Seneca de Clem. i. 9. Suetonius (Oct. 19) mentions various persons who had conspired against Augustus, but without giving the dates of their attempts. Such were those of M. Egnatius Rufus, (see Dion, liii. 24,) of Plautius Rufus, and L. Paulus, of Asinius, and of Audasius, a forger, Epicadius, a Parthinian hybrid, 28 AUGUSTUS. [a. d. t4. The year after the triumph of Tiberius, Augustus received the supreme power for a fifth period of ten years. He then invested Tiberius anew with the tribunitian power, and he took a census of the people for the third time. In the fol- lowing year, (767,) having sent Germanicus to command in Germany, he proposed sending Tiberius to regulate the affairs of Illyricum, intending to dismiss him at Beneventum, after they should have assisted at the gymnic games, cele- brated every fifth year in his honor by the people of Neapo- lis. He proceeded by land as far as Astura, and, contrary to his usual habit, he left that place in his litter by night for the sake of the cool air. He was, in consequence, attacked by a complaint in his bowels; but he did not heed it. He went on shipboard, and sailed leisurely along the coast of Campania. He spent four days in the isle of Caprea3, passed then over to Neapolis, and viewed the games. He thence proceeded to Beneventum, where he dismissed Tiberius, and then returned to Nola, growing every day worse and worse. Messengers were sent to recall Tiberius, with whom he is said to have held a long private conference, after which he spoke no more of public affairs.* On the day of his death, he called for a mirror, and had his hair arranged and his cheeks plumped out. He asked those present if they thought that he had played his part well in the drama of life, adding the formula in which actors at the conclusion besought the applause of the audience. He then dismissed them ; and, as he was inquiring, of some who were jiist come from Rome, after the health of one of Drusus's daugh- ters who was sick, he breathed his last in the arms of Livia, saying, " Livia, live mindful of our marriage, and fare- well ! " f The chamber in which he expired, it may be ob- and of Teleplius, a slave. It was the plan of Audasius and Epicadius to release Julia and Agrippa, and take them to the armies, and to attack Augustus and the senate. * Veil. Pat. ii. 123. Suet. Oct. 98. Tib. 21. Dion (Ivi. 31) says that the more general and credible account was, that he died before the arrival of Tiberius, but that Livia kept his death secret. Tacitus (Ann. i. 5) leaves the matter uncertain. t Livia was accused of poisoning him (Dion, Ivi. 30; Tac. Ann. i. 5) by means of some fresh figs which he gathered with his own hand off the tree, but which she had previously anointed. This, by the way, was odd diet for a man with a bowel complaint. The reason assigned was, that Augustus had some months before gone secretly to Planesia to see Agrippa. We consider charges of this nature to be entitled to little credit. CHARACTER OF AUGUSTUS. 29 served, was that in which his father had died seventy-two years before. Augustus died on the afternoon of the 19th of August He wanted little more than a month of completing his seventy-sixth year. Computing from the battle of Actiura, he had exercised the supreme authority in the Roman world for a space of forty-four years.* In person Augus- tus was below the middle size ; his countenance was at all times remarkably serene and tranquil, and his eyes had a peculiar brilliancy. He was careless of his appearance, and plain and simple in his mode of living, using only the most ordinary food, and wearing no clothes but what were M'oven and made by his wife, sister, and daughters. In all his do- mestic relations he was kind and affectionate ; he was a mild and indulgent master, and an attached and constant friend. He was fond of witnessing the sports of the Circus and other public shows, though it may be that he only sought thus to increase his popularity. He also took pleasure in playing at dice, but not for gain, as he did not exact his winnings. The heaviest charge made against him is his in- continence ; but, as we have above observed, this is evident- ly greatly exaggerated. In his public character, as the sovereign of the Roman empire, few princes will be found more deserving of praise than Augustus. He cannot be justly charged with a single cruel, or even harsh action, in the course of a period of forty-four years. On the contrary, he seems in every act to have had the welfare of the people at heart. In return, never was prince more entirely beloved by all orders of his subjects ; and the title, Father of his Country, so spontane- ously bestowed on him, is but one among many proofs of the sincerity of their aifection. Nothing, however, is more common with modern writers, than to treat Augustus as a tyrant t who had destroyed lib- * Exactly 44 years minus 14 days. The reign of Augustus is also computed by some from the death of Caesar in 710, = 57^ 5™ 4^ ; by others from his first consulate in 711, = 56y ; or from the triumvirate in 712, = 55y 8"^ 23^ ; or, finally, from his entrance into Alexandria in 724, = 437 10^^. See Clinton ad A. D. 14. t Montesquieu (Considerations, &c. ch. 13) terms him a rus6 tyran. In a note he says that he uses the word tyran in its Greek and Latin sense, signifying one who had overturned a democracy. The employ- ment of the term, when thus explained, is not very objectionable. Gibbon (ch. iii.) calls Augustus a crafty tyrant, without any limitation of the terra. 3* 30 AUGUSTUS. erty, and had raised his own power on the servitude of his country. But liberty had vanished from Rome long before his time, and surely no friend of mankind would prefer the preceding anarchy to the peace and tranquillity which he introduced and maintained. It was the evil destiny of Rome, not the fault of Augustus, that his successors did .not resemble himself; it was necessity, not choice, that made him raise Tiberius to the second place in the state, and his evident desire that his own place should be filled by the noble Agrippa, vouches for his love of his country. In fine, we recognize in Augustus a man of consummate pru- dence,* and of a temperament naturally mild and moderate^ raised by the force of circumstances to supreme power, and exercising it for the advantage of those over whom he ruled. The Roman empire, as modelled by Augustus, presented the following appearance : — Augustus himself was at its head, but not in the manner of emperors and kings of ancient or modern times. He was surrounded by no pomp ; no guards attended him ; no offi- cers of the household were to be seen in his modest dwell- ing ; he lived on terms of familiarity with his friends ; he appeared, like any other citizen, as a witness in courts of justice, and in the senate gave his vote as an ordinary mem- ber. His power arose from the union in his person of all the high and important offices of the state. As High Pon- tiff, he had the greatest authority in affairs of religion, and as Censor, the right to rea;ulate the morals of all orders of the people. By possessing the consular power for life, he enjoyed the supreme authority, civil, judicial, and military ; and the tribunitian power, with which he was also invested, being in its nature the constitutional check on that of the consuls, his authority was thus without legal control. His titles were. First of the Senate, [Princeps Senatus^f) which was his favorite one; Augustus and General, (Imperator :^ that of Master, {Dominus,) when oflfered to him, he always rejected with indignation. Caesar was merely his family name. It may have been that Augustus saw the importance of a respectable aristocracy in a monarchy ; but it is more prob- * As a general, too, he was extremely cautious. A battle, he said, should never be fought, unless the hope of advantage was visibly greater than the fear of loss. The contrary conduct he compared to that of a man who should angle with gold hooks. Suet. Oct. 25. t Hence the modern terra prince. SENATE AND PEOPLE. 31 able that he was under the influence of the love of con- servation of ancient institutions, so strong in the character of every Roman. At all events, he knew that, if a senate was to remain a part of the constitution, it was necessary that its members should possess both character and property. Hence, as we have seen, he twice purged the senate,* and, though he did not reduce it as low as he designed, he brought it down to little more than one half of its number at the time when he obtained the sole power, and he raised the qualification for a seat in the house to 1200 sestertia.t He required the senate to meet only on the Kalends and Ides of each month, and he excused their attendance entirely in the sickly months of September and October, excepting a committee chosen by lot, in order to make the requisite de- crees. To give greater solemnity to their acts, he directed that each member, before taking his place, should offer wine and incense on the altar of the deity in whose temple the senate sat. The first row of seats at every public show was ordered to be reserved for the senators. Their sons were also allowed to wear the laticlave, or senatorian dress, and to be present at the sittings of the senate ; and when they entered the army, they were made at once, not merely tribunes of the legions, but colonels of horse, {prcBfecti alarum.) The sena- torian order thus assumed the form of a body of nobility, in the modern sense of the term ; the senate formed a council of state, a high court of justice, and a legislative assembly, in some points resembling the British house of lords, in others the French chamber of peers. In order to give a share of the honors and emoluments of the state to as many of the two higher orders as possible, he devised a great num- ber of new offices ; he increased the number of the praetors, and he introduced the practi-ce of making suffect consuls, i. e. consuls in addition to the ordinary ones of the year. | The populace at Rome, in consequence of the civil wars, * He made a trifling purgation in 757, (Dion, Iv. 13.) Perhaps this was tlie occasion of the conspiracy of Cinna in that year. When se- lecting the senate in 736, he wore, it was said, his sword, and had a corselet under his tunic, and ten of the most able-bodied of his friends stood round his seat, and, according to Cremutius Cordus, no senator was admitted until he had been searched, (Suet. 35.) At this time many plots were said to be formed against him and Agrippa. Dion, liv. 15. 1 Suet. Oct. 41. I This was afterwards carried to so great an extent, that in the reign of Commodus there were 25 consuls in one year. 32 AUGUSTUS. and of its degradation by the enfranchisement of numerous slaves, no longer bore a resemblance to the commonalty of the better days of the republic. It was factious and turbu- lent, and at the same time mean and servile. A body of disciplined troops vv^as therefore always at hand to repress its excesses, and Augustus sought at the same time to keep it in good temper by gifts and entertainments. The greatest care was taken that the supply of corn from the provinces should be regular and abundant. In times of scarcity Au- gustus gave corn gratis, or at a very low price, to the peo- ple; he also frequently made distributions of money [con- giarid) among them ; and in the Forum, the Circus, the Amphitheatre, the Septa, and other public places, he enter- tained them with shows of all kinds. Sometimes they were assembled to witness the bloody combats of gladiators, or the less cruel contests of wrestlers ; at others they were amused with chariot or foot races, or the hunting and slaughter of wild beasts fetched from various parts of the empire — even the crocodiles of the Nile being brought to Rome to gratify the populace with the sight of their expiring agonies. On one occasion, a large lake was dug in the Field of Mars, for the exhibition of a naval combat. At the same time, Augustus endeavored to purify and elevate the character of the people of Rome, by throwing difficulties in the way of manumission, and by granting citizenship very sparingly to strangers.* To adorn and improve the city was another great object with Augustus, and he effected so much by his own exer- tions and the cooperation of his friends, that when dying he could boast that he had found the city built of brick, and left it built of marble. t Thus he built (726) a temple of Apollo on the Palatine, with a portico and a library, and a temple of Jupiter Tonans on the capitol. He also made a new Forum with a temple in it of Mars Ultor. Others of his works bore the names of his wife and the other members of his family. Such were the portico of Livia and that of Octavia, the theatre of Marcellus, and the portico and basili- * Suet. Oct. 40. [The idea of " purifying and elevating their char- acter " by such exclusive and ungenerous means as these, while their lowest propensities were daily fed and nourished by brutal combats such as have been named, savors somewhat of a satire on all that is truly pure, and lofty, and noble, in the character of a people. — J. T. S.] t Id. ih. 28. Dion, Ivi. 30. [This was a somewhat more effectual means of elevating their character. It was, at any rate, refining their taste, which is a great step towards elevating character. — J. T. S.] IMPROVEMENTS OF THE CITY. S3 ca of Caius and Lucius. Tiberius built the temples of Con- cord and of Castor and Pollux; Marcius Philippus that of Hercules of the Muses ; Munatius Plancus that of Saturn ; L. Cornificius that of Diana. Asinius Pollio built the hall or court (atrium) of Liberty, and Statilius Taurus a mag- nificent amphitheatre. The works of Agrippa have been already enumerated. To secure the city against inundations, Augustus cleared out and widened the bed of the Tiber. He first divided the city into wards or quarters, (regiones,) fourteen in number, and subdivided into streets, (vici,) with ofiicers over them, chosen out of the inhabitants by lot. He established a body of watchmen and firemen to prevent the conflagrations which were so frequent. He caused all the great public roads to be repaired and kept in order. As the confusion and license of the civil wars had, as is usually the case, given origin to illegal associations, and to the formation of bands of rob- bers, (grassatores,) he took every care to suppress them. He therefore, as his uncle had done, dissolved all guilds but the ancient ones, and he disposed guards in proper stations for the prevention of highway robbery. He caused all the slave- houses (ergastula) throughout Italy to be visited and exam- ined, it having been the practice to kidnap travellers, (free- men and slaves alike,) and shut them up and make them work in these prisons. In order to facilitate the administration of justice, he added upwards of thirty days to the ordinary court-days, and he increased the number of the decuries of jurors, and reduced the legal age of jurymen from five-and- twenty to twenty years. He himself sat constantly to hear causes and administer justice. Every wise sovereign will be desirous to see a proper sense of religion prevalent among his subjects. Augustus accordingly turned his serious attention to this important subject. He rebuilt or repaired the temples which had been burnt or had fallen ; he reestablished and reformed various ancient institutions which had gone out of use, such as the augury of health, the jlamen dialis, the secular games, the Lupercal rites, &c. He increased the number and the hon- ors and privileges of the priesthoods, particularly that of the Vestal Virgins ; he caused all the soothsaying books which were current, to the number of upwards of two thousand, to be collected and burnt, only retaining the Sibylline oracles,* * [For an excellent account of the Sibylline oracles, see Prideaux's Connection of the Old and New Testament, under the year 13. — J. T. S.] E 34 AUGUSTUS. which he had carefully revised and placed in two cases under the statue of the Palatine Apollo. His efforts, however, re- mained without effect; infidelity and its constant concomi- tant, immorality, were spread too widely for him or any human legislator to be able to check them, and the polythe- ism of Greece and Rome was destined to fall before a far purer system of faith and doctrine. We have already spoken of the exertions made by Augus- tus to overcome the prevalent aversion to marriage. The principal cause of this was the extreme dissoluteness of man- ners at the time, exceeding any thing known in modern days ; but poverty prevented many a man of noble birth from un- dertaking the charge of supporting a wife and family, and the court which was paid by greedy legacy-hunters to the rich and childless * had charms for many of both sexes. The promotion of marriage had always been an object of attention with the Roman government. One of the questions invaria- bly put to each person by the censors was, whether he was married or not; and there was a fine, named uxorium, laid on old bachelors. Caesar the dictator had sought to encourage marriage by offering rewards ; but the first law on the sub- ject was the Julian De maritandis ordinibus of 736, and, this having proved ineffectual, a new and more comprehensive law, embracing all the provisions of the Julian, and named the " Papia-Poppsean," (from the consuls M. Papius and Q,. PoppsBus,) w^as passed in the year 762.t The principal heads of this law were, 1. All persons ex- cept senators might marry freedwomen. 2. No maiden was to be betrothed under the age of ten years. 3. Widows were allowed to remain siugle two years, divorced women a year and a half, before contracting a second marriage. 4, Those who had children were to have various honors and advan- tages, such as better seats at the public spectacles, the pref- erence when candidates for honors and in the allotment of the provinces, immunity from guardianship and other per- sonal burdens, etc. etc. 5. Bachelors could receive no legacies except from their nearest relations, and the child- less only the half of what was left them. 6. A woman whose guilt was the cause of a divorce was to lose her dower. The evil, however, was too deeply seated to be eradicated by law, and it still remained a subject of complaint. Of as * See Horace, Sat. ii. 5. t See Dion, Ivi. 1 — 10. He remarks that neither of the consuls had wife or child. THE AKMT. Sb little avail was the sumptuary law which he caused to be enacted ; he even failed in his desire to bring the toga again into general use.* Such were the principal civil regulations made during the reign of Augustus. The changes in the military system were also considerable. In Rome, as in all the ancient republics, the army had been nothing more than a burgher militia, in which every freeman of the military age was required to serve when called on. The long foreign wars, however, in which Rome was afterwards engaged, gradually converted the original militia into a standing army, and war became a profession, as in modern times. The character of the soldier had also deteri- orated since the change in the mode of enlistment made by C, Marius ; and the Roman soldiery, further demoralized by the various civil wars, stood no higher in moral worth than the mercenary troops of modern Europe. The extent of the Roman empire, with warlike nations on its frontiers, coi;ld only be guarded by a regular standing army, disciplined and always in readiness to take the field. Accordingly, in the speech which Dion ascribes to Maecenas, we find that states- man thus advising Augustus : t " The soldiers must be kept up, immortal, citizens, subjects, and allies, in some places more, in some less, through each nation as need may require, and be always in arms, and always engaged in military exer- cises ; having their winter quarters in the most suitable places, and serving for a limited period, so as to have some part of their life to themselves before old age. For, living so far away from the frontiers of the empire, and having ene- mies dwelling on every side of us, we could not have troops ready for any sudden emergency ; but if we allow all who are of the suitable age, to possess arms and to practise mili- tary exercises, they will be always raising factions and civil wars; and again, if we prohibit them to do so,, and then call upon them to serve on any occasion, we shall run the risk of having none but raw and undisciplined troops. I there- * The lacerna, a kind of military great-coat of a dark color and with a hood to it, was generally worn instead of the toga. Augustus one day seeing, as he sat on his tribunal in the Forum, a number of the people thus habited, cried out in indignation : "En Romanos rerum dominos, gentemque togatam," and gave orders to the sediles henceforth not to admit any one without a toga mto the Forum or Circus. Suet. Oct. 40. t Dion, lii. 27. 36 AUGUSTUS. fore give it as my opinion that all the rest should live with- out arms or camps, while the most able-bodied and neces- sitous should be selected and disciplined ; for these will fight the better, having nothing else to occupy them ; and the others can devote themselves more entirely to agricul- ture, navigation, and the other arts of peace, not being called on to serve personally, and having others to protect them ; and that portion of the population which is the strongest and most vigorous, and the most likely to live by robbery, will be supported at its ease, and all the rest will live free from danger." ^ It was therefore determined that the legions should be immortal, i. e. that the army should henceforth be a stand- ing one. The legions were to be twenty-five in number, which we find thus stationed at the time of Augustus's death:* — On the Rhenish frontier eight ; in Spain three; in Africa one; in Egypt two; in Syria four; in Pannonia three ; in Moesia two, and two more in Dalmatia for the protection of Italy. Attached to each of these divisions was a body of troops termed auxiliaries, furnished by the different states subject to, or in alliance with the empire ; and, as in the old days of the republic, their number nearly equalled that of the legions. f The legion at this time con- tained 6100 infantry and 726 horse ; the twenty-five legions, therefore, mustered, when complete, 170,000 men; to which adding as many more for the auxiliaries, we have a sum total of 340,000 men. These, however, did not form the whole military force of the empire ; there was a body of 10,000 guards, divided into nine cohorts, named Prsetorian, and three Urban cohorts, containing 6000 men.i; These two last bodies were always recruited in Etruria, Umbria, La- tium, and the ancient Roman colonies. They had double pay, and their period of service was shorter than that of the legionaries. Augustus allowed only three of the cohorts to remain in the city; the rest were distributed through the towns in the vicinity.^ There were two commanders of the * Dion, Iv. 23. Tac. Ann. iv. 5. It is for the ninth year of Tiberius that this last furnishes us with the distribution of the legions given in the text; but there had been no alteration of any account since the time of Augustus. t " Neque n,,ulto secus in lis virium." Tac. Ann. iv. 5. % Tac. ut supra. Dion (Iv. 24) says 10 Prsetorian and 4 Urban co- horts. § Suet. Oct. 49 ; the three would seem to be the Urban cohorts, thus confirming the numbers given by Tacitus. THE ARMY. 37 Praetorian guards named prefects; they were always to be taken from the equestrian order. At Ravenna in the Up- per, and Misenum in the Lower Sea, were stationed fleets- of galleys, with their due complement of rowers, and each; with its legion of marines attached to it; there also lay at Forum Julii, (Frejus,) on the coast of Gaul, a fleet composed of the ships taken at Actium.* The pay of the legionary soldier was ten asses a day; that of the praetorian was double ; the former had to serve twenty, the latter sixteen years before he could claim his discharge. The former then received a gratuity of 3000, the latter of 5000 denars, answering to the pension of mod- ern times. The pay and rewards of so large an army, the salaries of the numerous public officers, and the other indispensable expenses of government, required a considerable revenue. From the time when ^Emilius Paulus broucrht the treasures of Perseus to Rome, the citizens had been free from the payment of the annual tributes or direct taxes hitherto lev- ied, and so often, in the early days of the republic, the cause of seditions. An annual tribute was imposed on every con- quered state; and as the tide of conquest rolled eastwards and westwards, a larger amount of revenue flowed annually to Rome. In the time of Augustus, the annual tributes of Asia, Egypt, Africa, Spain, and Gaul, produced a sum which has been estimated at from fifteen to twenty millions ster- ling.t Yet even this large revenue did not suffice for the exigencies of the state, and Augustus found it necessary not merely to continue the port duties, {portoria,) or customs which had been imposed by the dictator, but to establish an excise, and to lay on some direct taxes. In all commercial states, at all ages of the world, duties have been levied on imported foreign commodities; they originated, probably, in the mistaken idea, that it was on the foreign merchant, and not on the domestic consumer, that they fell. They were levied at Rome as elsewhere till the * Tac. Ann. iv. 5. Suet. Oct. 49. Vegetius, v. 1. t Gibbon, i. ch. vi. [This sum is just equal to the annual ex- penditure of the British government at present, though the British dominions are far more extensive than those of Rome in her most powerful days, and though that expenditure is commonly, and not unjustly, considered to be on a very lavish scale. How wasteful, then, must have been the expenditure of Rome, for which even this sum did not suffice! — J. T. S.] CONTIN. 4 BS AUGUSTUS.- end of the Mithridatic war, when they were abolished ; but Julius Ceesar caused them to be again collected,* They were levied ad valorem by Augustus, and varied from twelve and a half to two and a half per cent. ; articles of luxury, such as the precious stones, silks, and spices, of the Easty being, of course, the most highly taxed. The excise was imposed by Augustus chiefly with the view of providing a fund for the payment of the troops ; it was a duty of one per cent, (centesima) levied on all articles, great and small, sold in the markets or by auction at Rome or throughout Italy. This not proving sufficient, he imposed (759) a duty of five per cent, on all legacies and inheritances, except in the case of the poor, or of very near relations.! This equitable tax, however, proving very odious to the legacy-hunting nobility of Rome, in order to stop their murmurSj he sent (766) to the senate, requesting them to suggest some less onerous imposition to the same amount; and when they could not, yet declared that they would pay any thing rather than it, he substituted a property tax, and sent out officers to make an estimate of the property in lands, houses, etc., throughout Italy. This brought them to reason, and there was no fur- ther opposition to the legacy duty.| The treasury of the prince, whence the pay of the army was to issue, was named the Fisc, {Fiscus,) and was distinct from the public treasury, {yErarium,) and managed by dif- ferent officers ; but the distinction was more apparent than real, as both were equally at the devotion of the master of the legions. Such was the form of the Roman empire, as reduced into order, and regulated by the wisdom and prudence of Augus- tus. While the civilized world thus formed one body, ruled by one mind, it pleased the Ruler of the universe to send his Son into it, as the teacher of a religion unrivalled in sublimity, purity, and beneficence, and which was gradually to spread to the remotest ends of the earth. In the year of Rome 752 by the Catonian, 754 by the Varronian computa- tion, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judsea.^ * Cic. Alt. ii, 16. Dion, xxxvii. 51. Suet. Jul. 43. t Dion, Iv. 25. t Dion, Ivi. 28. § We shall henceforth reckon by the Christian era. A. D. 14.] FUNERAL OF AUGUSTUS. 39 CHAPTER III.* TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS NERO CiESAR. A. u. 767—790. A. D. 14—37. FUNERAL OF AUGUSTUS. MUTINY OF THE LEGIONS. VICTO- RIES OF GERMANICUS. - — HIS DEATH. CIVIL GOVERNMENT OF TIBERIUS. RISE AND FALL OF SEJANUS. DEATH OF AGRIPPINA AND HER CHILDREN. DEATH OF TIBERIUS. The death of Augustus was kept secret by Livia and Tiberius till the danger of a disputed succession should be removed by the death of Agrippa Posthumus. Orders in the name of Augustus were therefore sent to the officer who had him in charge, to put him to death. The orders were forth- with executed ; but when the centurion, who was the agent, made his report to Tiberius, according to the usual custom, the latter made answer that he had not ordered it, and that the centurion must account to the senate for it. The mat- ter,' however, ended there, for no inquiry was ever instituted. When the death of Augustus was at length made known at Rome, the senate, the knights, the army, and the people, hastened to swear obedience to Tiberius, who had already assumed the command of the army as Imperator. The body of Augustus was conveyed by night from town to town by the decurions or councilmen of each. At Bovillae it was met by the Roman knights, who carried it into the city, and deposited it in the vestibule of his house on the Palatine. Tiberius, by virtue of his tribunitian authority, convoked the senate to consult about the funeral and the honors to be decreed to the deceased. These, had the real or pretended wishes of the senate prevailed, would have been excessive; but Tiberius set a limit to their adulation, and only con- sented that the senators should carry the body to the pyre. The will of Augustus, which was in the custody of the Ves- tals, was then produced and read. The funeral orations were pronounced by Tiberius himself and his son Drusus. The body was borne on the shoulders of the senate to the Campus Martius, and there burnt ; the ashes were collected * Authorities : Tacitus^ Suetonius, and Dion. 40 TIBERIUS. [a. D. 14. by the principal men of the equestrian order, and deposited in the Mausoleum, which he had built in his sixth consulate, (728,) between the Flaminian road and the Tiber, and sur- rounded with plantations and public walks. An eagle had been let to ascend from the flaming pyre, as the bearer of the soul of the deceased to heaven ; and Numinius Atticus, a man of pra3torian rank, swore publicly that he saw Augus- tus mounting to the skies ; for which falsehood Livia gratified him with a gift of 25,000 denars. A Heroum was therefore decreed to be raised to Augustus, as to one who had not shared the fate of ordinary mortals, but, like Hercules or Romulus, was become a god. By his last will, Augustus had made Tiberius and Livia (whom he had placed in the Julian family, and named Au- gusta) his heirs, the former of two thirds, the latter of one third, of the property which would remain after payment of the numerous legacies which he left. He bequeathed a sum of 43,500,000 sesterces to the Roman people; to the Prae- torians 1000 sesterces each ; half that sum to each of the Urbans, and 300 to each of the legionaries. He also be- queathed various sums to his friends. He expressly forbade either of the Julias to be laid in his monument when they died. Beside his will, Augustus left three pieces in writing, the one containing the directions about his funeral, another an account of his actions, which he directed to be cut on brazen tables, and set up before his Mausoleum, and a third giving a view of the condition of the whole empire, the number of soldiers under arms, the quantity of money in the treasury and fisc, or elsewhere, adding the names of the freed- men and slaves who raio-ht be called on to account for it. The man into whose hands the supreme power was now transferred, was in character diametrically opposite to Au- gustus. Tiberius Claudius Nero, who was by adoption a member of the Julian house, was nearly fifty-four years of age. He had exercised all the principal offices in the state, and had commanded armies with reputation. He was fond of literature and science, and of the society of learned men ; but he had all the innate haughtiness of the Claudian family; he was suspected of an inclination to cruelty ; yet so profound was his power of dissimulation, that he had attained to that mature age without his character being generally understood.* * In his first campaigns, the soldiers, noticing his love of wine, called him Biberius Caldius Mero. Suet. Tib. 42. A. D. 14.] MUTINY OF THE LEGIONS. 41 His manners and carriage were repulsive and forbidding ; he was generally silent, and did not unbend and decline into familiarity. When all due honors had been decreed to Augustus, the senate turned to Tiberius, imploring him to assume the su- preme power ; but he feigned reluctance, spoke of the diffi- culty of the task, and his own incompetence, saying that, in a state possessing so many illustrious men, such power should not be committed to any single person. This only caused them to urge him the more^ they called on the gods and on the statue of Augustus : Tiberius marked the words of each, and for some incautious speakers he laid up future vengeance. At length, yielding as it were to compulsion, he accepted the wretched and onerous servitude, as be termed it, until the senate should see fit to grant some repose to his old age. In this affected reluctance, Tiberius, no doubt, was act^ ing according to his natural character of dissimulation, and seeking to learn the real sentiments of the leading senators ; but he had other reasons and causes of apprehension. He was uncertain how the two great armies, which were stationed in Pannonia and Germany, would act when they heard of the death of Augustus ; and he feared lest Germanicus, who commanded the latter, and who was universally beloved, might choose to grasp the supreme power when within his reach, rather than wait for it to come to him by the more tedious course of succession. He did, however, the noble Germanicus injustice ; but his suspicions of the legions were not unfounded, for they broke out into mutiny when intelli- gence reached them of the late events. The mutiny commenced in the Pannonian army of three legions under the command of Junius BlaBsus. The soldiers complained of the smallness of their pay and the length of their service, and demanded to be placed on an equality in both these points with the Praetorians. Blaesus having suc- ceeded, in some measure, in calming them, they selected his own son as their deputy, to lay their grievances before Ti- berius ; but when he was gone, the mutiny broke out anew, and they killed one of their officers, drove the rest out of the camp, and plundered their baggage. When Tiberius heard of the mutiny, he sent off his son Drusus with a guard of the Praetorians, and bearing letters to the troops, in which he promised to lay their grievances before the senate, adding that Drusus was authorized to concede at once all that could be granted without a decree of the senate. 42 TEBERIUS. [a. D. 14. The soldiers received and listened to Drusus with re- spect ; but when they found that he had not in fact the power to grant any of tlieir demands, they quitted his tribu- nal in anger. The greatest apprehensions were entertained that they would break out iuto violence during tlie night; but an unexpected event altered the whole course of atfliirs. The moon, which was shining at the full in an unclouded sky, was suddenly observed to grow dim. The ignorant, superstitious soldiers, viewing this as ominous of their own condition, clashed their arms and sounded their horns and trumpets, to relieve the labor of the goddess of the night; and as she still grew darker, they gave way to despair, saying that the gods had declared againsl them, and that their toils were to have no end. The otficers, who had intiuence with them, took advantage of this disposition, and went about all the night long reasoning with and persuading them. In the morning, Drusus again addressed them, and Bla^sus and two other deputies were sent to Tiberius. Meantime Drusus caused some of the most mutinous to be executed. A pre- mature winter, with violent rain and storm, increased the superstitious terrors of the soldiery, and the legions gradually returned to their obedience without even waiting for the answer of Tiberius. The mutiny which broke out at the same time in the Ger- man army was still more formidable. This army, consisting of two divisions of four legions each, was quartered in the Upper and Lower Germany; the former commanded by C. Silius, the latter by A. Coecina. The commander-in-chief was Germanicus, who was at this time absent, being engaged in taking a census of Gaul. The mutiny commenced in the camp of Ciecina; the complaints were the same as those of the Pannonian legions, but the soldiers showed themselves more determined and ferocious. They seized their centu- rions, threw them on the ground, beat them nearly to death, and then cast them out of the camp or into the Rhine; they refused all obedience to their superior officers ; they set the guards themselves, and performed all the necessary military duties. Germanicus hastened to the camp ; the soldiers came forth to meet him with all tokens of respect. He entered and ascended his tribunal : they stood round in their companies. He addressed them ; they listened in silence, while he spoke in praise of Augustus and Tiberius, and extolled their own exploits. But, when he began to touch on their late con- A. D. 14.] MUTINY OF THE LEGIONS. 43 duct, they stripped their bodies, showing the scars of wounds and the marks of blows ; they enumerated the laborious tasks they had to perform; the veterans counted up the thirty and more campaigns that they had served. Some called for the money bequeathed to them by Augustus, and expressed their wishes for Germanicus himself to assume the supreme power. At these words, he sprang down from the tribunal ; they opposed his departure with menaces ; he drew his sword, and was about to plunge it into his bosom, but those near him caught his hand. Some of the more distant, however, called out to him to strike ; and one soldier had the audacity to offer him his sword, saying that it was sharper than his own. The rest were appalled at this daring act, and paused ; and his friends then got Germanicus into his tent. He there deliberated on the state of affairs; and, as it was known that the mutineers were about to send deputies to solicit the legions in Upper Germany, and that the Germans would probably take advantage of the mutiny to cross the Rhine, it was resolved to try to appease them. A letter was therefore written, in the name of Tiberius, giving a total discharge to those who had served twenty, and a partial one to those who had served sixteen campaigns; and adding, that they should receive double the sum left them by Augustus. As two of the legions insisted on being paid their money down, Germanicus and his friends had to supply it from their own private funds. Germanicus then proceeded to the army of Upper Ger- many, in which the spirit of mutiny had been very slight ; and, though the soldiers did not ask for them, he gave dis- charges and money as to the other army. On his return to the place named The Ubians' Altar, (Bonn,) where two of the lately mutinous legions were quartered, he met a deputation from the senate, headed by Munatius Plancus. The soldiers, conscious of guilt, began to fear that they were the bearers of a decree for annulling the concessions which they had extorted by their mutiny ; they again broke into a tumult ; they assailed the gate of Germanicus's dwelling in the night, and forced him to get up and deliver to them a standard which they demanded.* The deputies (especially Plancus, whom they fancied to have been the proposer of the ob- noxious decree) narrowly escaped with their lives. In the * Tac. Ann. i. 39. Lipsius thinks it was the red flag which used to be hung out over the general's tent as the signal for battle. 44 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 14. morning, Germanicus remonstrated with them on their con- duct, but they listened in sullen silence. He then dismissed the deputies with an escort of horse of the allies ; and, on his friends representing to him the imprudence of allow- ing his wife and young son to remain in a place of so much danger, he resolved to send them to the Trevirians for security. Agrippina, the wife of Germanicus, was the daughter of Agrippa and Julia ; she was a woman of a high spirit, de- votedly attached to her husband, and of unsullied chastity; and she was now far advanced in pregnancy. Her young son, Caius, had been reared in the camp, and been given by the soldiers the name of Caligula, from his being made to wear the military shoes, which were so called. When, there- fore, the soldiers saw the wife and child of their general, accompanied by the wives of his friends, all weeping and lamenting, about to quit a Roman camp in order to seek the protection of provincials, they were filled with grief and shame, and more especially with envy of the Trevirians. Some stopped them, and insisted on their remaining, while others crowded round Germanicus, who now rebuked them severely for their conduct. They acknowledged their fault, besought him to punish the guilty, to forgive the misguided, to lead them against the enemy, but to bring back his wife and child, and not deliver the nursling of the legions as a hostage to Gauls. He consented to the return of his son, but excused that of his wife, on account of her pregnancy and the approach of the winter. The soldiers were con- tented : they forthwith seized the ringleaders of the mutiny, and dragged them, bound, before C. Cetronius, the legate of the first legion. They then stood with their swords drawn : each of the prisoners was placed on a bank of earth before the tribunal : if the soldiers cried out, *' Guilty," he was thrown down, and they despatched him. Germanicus finally made an inquiry into the conduct of the centurions, and dismissed the service all who were proved guilty of avarice or cruelty. Order being thus restored in these two legions, Germanicus made preparations for conducting a body of the allies against the other two legions, who had begun the mutiny, and were now lying at the Old Camp, (Vetera Castra 'Santen.') He wrote, however, previously, to Caecina, to say that, if not prevented by the punishment of the guilty, he would come and make a promiscuous slaughter. Caecina secretly com- A. D. 15.] GERMANICUS. 45 municated this letter to the officers and the sound part of the army, and it was resolved to fall unawares on the mutineers, and slaughter them. The plan was carried into effect, and numbers were thus butchered. Germanicus, on coming to the camp, shed copious tears, calling it a massacre, and not a medicine, and ordered the bodies of the slain to be burnt. The soldiers clamored to be led against the enemy, in order, by receiving honorable wounds, to appease the Manes of their comrades. A bridge was hastily thrown over the river, and they advanced some way into Germany, where, falling on the unsuspecting barbarians on the night of one of their solemn festivals, they slaughtered all ages and sexes promis- cuously ; they laid the country waste for a space of fifty miles, levelling all edifices, sacred and profane, alike. Ger- raanicus then led them back to winter quarters. Tiberius received the account of the suppression of the mutiny with mingled feelings. He rejoiced that it was at an end, while he was uneasy at the popularity which Germanicus must have acquired by his able and vigorous conduct. He, however, praised him to the senate; but it was observed that his praises of Drusus, at the same time, though more brief, were more sincere. He gave the Pannonian legions all the advantages which Germanicus had granted to the German army. Early in the spring, (15,) Germanicus led his whole army over the Rhine, and invaded the country of the Chattans, where he wasted the land and slaughtered the inhabitants in the usual manner. Segestes, the Chattan prince, who, as we have seen, through enmity to Arminius, was in favor of the Romans, having sent to apprize Germanicus that he was sur- rounded by his hostile countrymen, who were under the in- fluence of Arminius, the Roman army was instantly marched to his relief, and he and his family, (among whom was his daughter, the wife of Arminius,) and a large body of his clients, were received under the protection of the Romans, and given a settlement on the left bank of the Rhine. Germanicus led back his army ; but Arminius, maddened at the captivity of his wife, went from place to place, rousing the Cheruscans and the conterminous tribes to arms against the Romans. He was joined by his uncle, Inguiomer, a man whose talents the Romans held in the highest respect; and Germanicus, therefore, judging that the war would be very serious, resolved to prevent, if possible, the whole weight of it from falling on one place. With this view, he despatched 46 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 15. Csecina, with forty cohorts, through the Bructerian country, to the River Ems, ^Amisia,) while the prefect Pedo led the cavalry through the country of the Frisians ; and he himself, putting four legions on shipboard, sailed through the lakes. The whole force rendezvoused on the Ems, and all the coun- try between it and the Lippe was laid waste. As the Teutoburg forest, in which Varus and his legions had been slaughtered, was at hand, Germanicus resolved to proceed thither, and render the last honors to the slain. On arriving at the fatal spot, the Romans found the camp of Varus bearing evidence of the fate of the army : around lay whitening the bones of men and horses; broken weapons strewed the ground ; human heads were fixed on trunks of trees ; the altars, at which the officers had been sacrificed, stood in the adjoining woods. The soldiers mournfully col- lected the bones of their comrades, and raised a mound over them, Germanicus himself laying the first sod. The jealousy of Tiberius was offended at this popular act, which, he said, tended to damp the spirit of the soldiers. The Romans, on their return to the Ems, were fallen on, in their march through the woods and marshes, by Arminius, and narrowly escaped a defeat. Germanicus then reembarked his legions, sending the cavalry, as before, round the coast. He charged Caecina to make all the speed he could to get beyond the Long Bridges, as a causeway was named which the Romans had some years before constructed in the exten- sive marshes which lay not far from the Ems. Caecina ac- cordingly advanced with rapidity, but the speed of Arminius exceeded his ; and, on arriving at the Bridges, he found the woods all occupied by the Germans. He also, to his mor- tification, saw that the causeway had become so decayed with time, that it must be repaired before the army could pass it; he therefore resolved to encamp on the spot. The Germans assailed the Romans as they were engaged in forming their camp, and the legions were saved from de- struction only by the intervention of night. As there was now little chance of their being able to pass by the Bridges, Csecina saw that his only course was to- endeavor to force his way through a narrow plain, which lay between the marshes and the hills occupied by the enemy. After passing a miserable night, the army set out at dawn ; but the two le- gions, which were appointed to Cover the flank of the line of march, disobeyed orders, and pushed on for the dry ground; and Arminius, waiting till he saw the Romans completely en- A. D. 16.] VICTORIES OF GERMANICUS. 47 gaged in the marshes, charged the unprotected line, and broke it. The horses were the chief object of attack : and, pierced by the lo.ng spears of the Germans, they fell, and flung their riders, or, rushing on, trampled on those before them ; Cceci- na's own horse was killed under him, and he was near being taken by the enemy. Fortunately for the Romans, the bar- barians, in their usual manner, fell to plundering, and, at the approach of evening, they succeeded in reaching the dry ground. Here they were obliged to encamp, but most of their implements were lost; they were without tents, they had no dressings for their wounded, and their provisions were all spoiled ; they, however, succeeded in securing them- selves for the night. A horse having got loose in the night, the soldiers fancied that the Germans had broken into the camp ; and they were preparing to fly for their lives, when Caecina, having ascer- tained that the alarm was groundless, called them together, and showed them that their only chance of safety was to re- main within their ramparts till the enemy should assail them, and then to break out and push on for the Rhine. The horses, not excepting his own, were then given to the bravest men, who were to be the first to charge the enemy. The Germans, on their part, were also deliberating how to pro- ceed ; Arminius was for letting the Romans quit their camp unmolested, and assailing, as before, their line of march ; but Inguiomer insisted on storming the ramparts, as there would then be more captives made, and the plunder would be in better condition. His opinion prevailed, and a general assault was made at daybreak. But, while the Germans were scaling the ramparts, the signal was given to the co- horts, the trumpets sounded, and the assailants found them- selves attacked in the rear. They made but a feeble resist- ance; they were slaughtered in heaps all through the day by the legionaries, who next morning pursued their march unmolested for the Rhine. Germanicus resolved to conduct the next campaign (16) on different principles from the preceding ones. He had observed that, in consequence of the nature of the country, abounding in forests and morasses, the loss of men and horses in an invasion of Germany was immense ; whereas, if the in- fantry were conveyed thither by sea, and the horse led round the coast, the campaign might be begun earlier, and the troops be exposed to less toil and danger. He therefore caused a multitude of vessels of all descriptions to be built 48 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 16. in various places, and appointed the isle of the Batavians as the place of rendezvous and embarkation. When all was ready, he put the Roman army of eight legions and their at- tendant auxiliaries on board of a fleet of about 1000 vessels, of all forms and sizes, and, sailing up the Rhine, through the lake, and along the coast of the ocean, entered the mouth of the Ems, where having landed his troops, he advanced to the Weser. On reaching that river, he found its opposite bank occupied by Arminius and the Cheruscan warriors. He, however, forced the passage, and, the Germans having given him battle in a plain encompassed by hills on one side, on the other by the river, they were routed with great slaughter, the ground for a space of ten miles being covered with their arms and bodies. Undismayed by their reverses, they fell once more on the Romans, as they were marching through a narrow, marshy plain, hemmed in by woods and the river ; but success was once more on the side of discipline and supe- rior arms, and Germanicus, in the inscription which he put on a pile of the armor of the vanquished Germans, could boast of having conquered all the nations between the Rhine and the Elbe. As the summer was now far advanced, he sent a part of his army to their winter quarters by land ; he himself embarked with the remainder in the Ems ; but, when they got into the open sea, they were assailed by a furious tempest ; some of the vessels were driven on the German coast, others on the adjacent islands, others even to Britain ; and the loss of horses and baao-ao-e was immense. When the storm was over, the ships which had escaped were repaired without de- lay, and sent to search the islands, and bring off the men who had been cast away on them. Germanicus and his officers were decidedly of opinion that one campaign more would end the war, and complete the subjugation of Germany ; but the jealousy of Tiberius would not let him permit Germanicus to remain longer at the head of so large an army; and he urged him to return to Rome to celebrate the triumph which had been decreed him, offering him, as an inducement, a second consulate. Germanicus, though he saw through his motives, yielded obedience to his wishes ; and thus finally terminated the projects of the Romans for conquest in northern Germany.* * The gallant Arminius afterwards engaged in war with and defeat- ed Maroboduus. He finally perished by the treachery of his relations, being charged with aiming at royalty. Tacitus (ii. 88) gives him the following encomium : " Liberator hand dubie Germaniae, et qui non A. D. 17-19.] DEATH OF GERMANICUS. 49 On his return to Rome, (17,) Germanicus celebrated his triumph over the Chattans, Cheruscans, and Angivarians, Tiberius gave in his name a donation to the people of 300 sesterces a man, and nominated him his colleao;ue in the consulate for the ensuing year. As, about this time, the kings of Cappadocia, Commagene, and Cilicia, were dead, and the affairs of Armenia were in their usual disorder, and Syria and Judaea were applying for a diminution of their burdens, Tiberius, who did not wish to let Germanicus re- main at Rome, or who, as some suspected, had designs on him which could best be accomplished at a distance, took advantage of this occasion for removing him ; by a decree of the senate, he was therefore assigned the provinces beyond the sea, with an authority, when in any of them, paramount to that of its actual governor. Tiberius at the same time removed Silanus, the governor of Syria, whose daughter was affianced to Germanicus's son, and appointed in his place Cn. Piso, a man of a fierce and violent temper, and whose wife, Plancina, a haughty and arrogant woman, was the intimate friend of Livia. It was suspected that they were selected as fit agents for the execution of some secret design against Germanicus. After visiting his brother Drusus, who held the command in Illyricum, and with whom he was always on the most cordial terms, Germanicus proceeded to Greece, (18,) whence he passed over to Asia, where he invested Zeno, son of the king of Pontus, with the diadem, and reduced Commagene and Cappadocia to the form of provinces. He thence (19) proceeded to Egypt, urged chiefly by the laudable curiosity of viewing the wonders of that land of mystery. On his return to Syria, he fell sick, and it was suspected that the cause of his disease was poison, privily administered by Piso and Plancina, with whom he was now at open enmity : Germanicus himself was of this opinion, and he therefore sent Piso orders to quit the province. The disease, however, proved fatal, and he died shortly after, with his last breath charging his friends to appeal to his father, brother, and the senate, for punishment on Piso and Plancina, as the author^ of his death. primordia Pop. Rom. sicut alii reges ducesque, sed florentissimum im- perium lacessierit ; praeliis ambiguus, bello non victus; xxxvii. annos vitae, xii. potentiEe explevit; canitur adhuc barbaras apud gentes ; Grsecorum annalibus ignotus, qui suatantum mirantur ; Romanis baud perinde Celebris, dum vetera extoUimus recentium incuriosi." CONTIN. 5 G 50 TIBERIUS. . [a. d. 20. Such was the end of the noble Germanicus, in the thirty- fourth year of his age. Unlike the Claudian family, from which he sprang, he was mild, affable, and clement in tem- per. Not content with military glory, he sought fame also in the peaceful fields of literature.* He was a faithful husband, an affectionate parent, a constant friend ; in fine, both in public and private virtues, he has few superiors in the pages of history. After the death of Germanicus, a consultation was held, by such of the senators as were present, on the subject of the government of the province of Syria, now vacant, and it was resolved to commit it to Cn. Sentius. Meantime Piso, who was at Cos when the news of the death of Germanicus reached him, consulted as to what he should do. His son urged him to pursue his journey to Rome without a mo- ment's delay ; but one of his friends, Domitius Celer, advised him to return to Syria, and wrest the government of it from Sentius. Piso adopted this last course ; but, failing in his attempts to seduce the legions, he was besieged by Sentius in a castle on the coast of Cilicia, and surrendered on con- dition of being allowed to proceed to Rome. Agrippina had already (20) reached the city with the urn which contained the ashes of her illustrious husband. The mourning of the people was universal and sincere ; but the honors of the dead were limited by the jealousy of Tiberius. When Drusus, after the funeral, returned to Dalmatia, he was visited by Piso, who hoped to gain his protection ; but, failing in his object, he had to proceed to Rome, where the friends of Germanicus made no delay in exhibiting articles of accusation against him. The cause was referred by Ti- berius to the senate. All the charges but that of poisoning were proved ; and Piso, seeing Tiberius, the senate, and the people, equally hostile to him, sought a refuge from ignominy in a voluntary death. Plancina was acquitted through the influence of Augusta, at whose desire Tiberius himself be- came her intercessor. Before we proceed to notice the internal affairs of the empire during the early part of the reign of Tiberius, we will mention briefly the slight military movements on the frontiers. In Africa a Numidian named Tacfarinas, who had served in the Roman army, and had then become a freebooter, and * The Fasti of Ovid are dedicated to this prince. A.. D. 21.] MILITARY MOVEMENTS. 51 gradually collected a good body of men, being joined by a Moorish chief named Mazippa, began to lay waste and plunder the province, (17.) The proconsul Furius Camillus led the Roman troops out against them; Tacfarinas had the courage to give liim battle, but his Numidians were easily routed; the triumphal insignia were decreed to Camillus, who, as the historian observes, was the first of his family, since the time of the great Camillus and his son, who had acquired military glory. Tacfarinas continued to harass the province by his incursions for some years ; at length (24) he was defeated and slain by the proconsul P. Dolabella. The trifling commotions which took place in Thrace, and were easily repressed, are not deserving of particular notice; but an insurrection which broke out in Gaul (21) threatened to be of serious consequence. The origin of it was the heavy weight of debt caused by the excessive amount of the tributes, to meet which the states were obliged to borrow money from the wealthy men at Rome on enormous interest ; to which were added the pride and severity of the Roman governors. The heads of the revolt were Julius Florus, a Trevirian, and Julius Sacrovir, an JEduan, both men of great influence, and whose ancestors had been honored with the Roman right of citizenship. The people of Anjou and Touraine were the first to rise, but they were easily put down; Sacrovir, who had not yet declared himself, fighting on the occasion in the Roman ranks. Florus, with his Tre- virians, occupied the forest of Ardenne, {Arduenna ;) but his unorganized rabble was easily dispersed by a party under Julius Indus, another Trevirian, who was at enmity with him ; and he slew himself to escape captivity, Sacrovir meantime seized on Autun, {Augustodunu7n,) the capital of the ^Eduans, where most of the young nobility of Gaul were placed for the purpose of education, in order that he might thus draw their parents and relations in to share in the war. He collected 40,000 men, only a fifth of whom were completely armed : with these he gave battle to the Roman, legions ; and, being defeated, he fled with a few companions to a country-house near Autun, where he put an end to himself. The Gallic war was thus terminated, and the em- pire remained at peace during the remainder of the reign of Tiberius. It is now time that we should trace the conduct of this wily prince during the period of which we have related the military transactions. 52 TIBERIUS. [a. D. 21. All the historians are agreed that he both disliked and feared Germanicus, and that it was the awe in which he stood of that favorite of the soldiery and the people that caused him to act with so much moderation in his first years, in which there is really little to reprehend. His plan was to possess the reality of power without ex- citing hatred or envy by the useless display of the show of it. He therefore rejected the titles that were offered him, such as that of Imperator, as a prcsnomen, and that of Father of his Country ; even that of Augustus, though hereditary, he would only use in his letters to kings and dynasts : above all, he rejected that of Master, [Dominus ;) he would only be called Cgesar, or First of the Senate. This last (which we shall henceforth term Prince) was his favorite title : he used to say, *' I am the Master of my slaves, the Imperator of the soldiers, and the Prince of the rest." He would not allow any thing peculiar to be done in honor of his birthday, nor suffer any one to swear by his fortune ; neither would he permit the senate to swear to his acts on new year's day, or temples, or any other divine honors, to be decreed him. He was affable and easy of approach; he took no notice of libels and evil reports of which he was the object, while he re- pelled flattery of every kind. To the senate and the magistrates he preserved (at least in appearance) all their pristine dignity and power. Every matter, great or small, public or private, was laid before the senate. The debates were apparently free, and the prince was often in the minority. He always entered the senate- house without any attendants, like an ordinary senator ; he reproved consulars in the command of armies for writing to him instead of the senate ; he treated the consuls with the utmost respect, rising to them and making way for them. Ambassadors and deputies were directed to apply to them, as in the time of the republic. It was only by his tribunitian right of interceding that he exercised his power in the sen- ate. He used also to take his seat with the magistrates as they were administering justice, and by his presence and authority gave a check to the influence of the great in pro- tecting the accused ; by which conduct of his, while justice gained, liberty, it was observed, suffered.* The public morals and the tranquillity of the city were * " Sed dum veritati consulitur libertas corrumpebatur." Tac. Ann. i. 75. A.. D. 21.] CONDUCT OF TIBEBIUS. 53 also attended to. A limit was set to the expenses of plays and public shows, and to the salaries of the players, to whom the senators and knights were forbidden to show marks of respect, by visiting them or attending them in public. Profligacy had become so bold and shameless, that ladies were known to have entered themselves in the list of professed courtesans in order to escape the penalties of the law, and young men of family to have voluntarily submitted to the mark of infamy in order to appear with safety on tne stage or the arena; both these infamous classes were now subjected to the pen- alty of exile. Astrologers and fortune-tellers were expelled the city ; the rites and ceremonies of the Egyptian and Judaic religions were suppressed. Guards were placed throughout Italy to prevent highway robbery ; and those refuges of villany of all kinds, the sanctuaries, were regu- lated in Greece and Asia. Yet people were not deceived by all this apparent regard for liberty and justice ; for they saw, as they thought, from the very commencement, the germs of tyranny, especially in the renewal of the law of treason, {majestas.) In the time of the republic, there was a law under this name, by which any one who had diminished the greatness (majestas) of the Roman people by betraying an army, exciting the plebs to sedition, or acting wrong in command, was subject to pun- ishment. It applied to actions alone ; but Sulla extended it to speeches,* and Augustus to writings against not merely the state, but private individuals, on the occasion of Cassius Severus having libelled several illustrious persons of both sexes. Tiberius, who was angered by anonymous verses made on himself, directed the praetor, when consulted by him on the subject, to give judgment on the law of treason. As this law extended to words as well as actions, it opened a wide field for mischief, and gave birth to the vile brood of Delators, or public informers, answering to the sycophants, those pests of Athens in the days of her democratic despot- ism. This evil commenced almost with the reign of Ti- berius, in whose second year two knights, Falonius and Rubrius, were accused, the one of associating a player of infamous character with the worshippers of Augustus, and of having sold with his gardens a statue of that prince, the other of having sworn falsely by his divinity. Tiberius, however, would not allow these absurd charges to be en- * Cic. ad Fam. iii. 11. 54 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 22. tertained. Soon after, Granius Marcellus, the praetor of Bithynia, was charged with treason by his quaestor, Caepio Crispinus, for having spoken evil of Tiberius, having placed his own statue on a higher site than that of the Caesars, and having cut the head of Augustus off a statue, to make room for that of Tiberius. This last charge exasperated Tiberius, who declared that he would vote himself on the matter; but a bold expression used by Cn. Piso brought him to reason, and Marcellus was acquitted. After the death of Germanicus, Tiberius acted with less restraint ; for his son Drusus did not possess the qualities suited to gain popularity, and thus to control him. In fact, except his affection for his noble adoptive brother, there was nothing in the character of Drusus to esteem. He was addicted to intemperance, devoted to the sports of the am- phitheatre, and of so cruel a temper, that a peculiarly sharp kind of swords were named from him Drusians. Tiberius made him his colleague in the consulate,* and then obtained for him the tribunitian power, (22;) but Drusus was fated to no long enjoyment of the dignity and power thus con- ferred on him. A fatal change was also to take place in the conduct and government of Tiberius himself, of which we must how trace the origin. Seius Strabo, who had been made one of the praefects of the preetorian cohorts by Augustus, had a son, who, having been adopted by one of the ^lian family, was named, in the usual manner, L. JElius Sejanus. This young man, who was born at Vulsinii in Tuscany, was at first attached to the service of Caius Caesar, after whose death he devoted himself to Tiberius; and such was his consummate art, that this wily prince, dark and mysterious to all others, was open and unreserved to him. Sejanus equalled his master in the power of concealing his thoughts and designs ; he was daring and ambitious, and he possessed the requisite qualities for attaining the eminence to which he aspired; for, though proud, he could play the flatterer; he could, and did, assume a modest exterior, and he had vigilance and industry, and a body capable of enduring any fatigue. When Drusus was sent to quell the mutiny of the Panno- nian legions, Sejanus, whom Tiberius had made colleague * Dion (Ivii. 20) says that people forthwith prophesied the ruin of Drusus ; for it was observed that every one who had been Tiberius's colleague in the consulate came to a violent end, as Quinctilius Varus, Cn. Piso, Germanicus, and afterwards Drusus aud Sejanus. A. D. 23.] RISE OF SEJANUS. 55 with his father, Strabo, in the command of the praBtorians, accompanied him as his governor and director. Strabo was afterwards sent out to Egypt, and Sejanus was continued in the sole command of the guards; he then represented to Tiberius how much better it would be to have them col- lected into one camp, instead of being dispersed through the city and towns, as they would be less liable to be corrupted, would be more orderly, and of greater efficiency if any in- surrection should occur. A fortified camp was therefore formed for them near the Viminal gate ; and Sejanus then began to court the men, and he appointed those on whom he could rely to be tribunes and centurions. While thus securing the guards, he was equally assiduous to gain parti- sans in the senate ; and honors and provinces only came to those who had acquired his favor by obsequiousness. In all these projects he was unwittingly aided by Tiberius, who used publicly to style him *' the associate of his labors; " and even allowed his statues to be placed and worshipped in tem- ples and theatres, and among the ensigns of the legions. Sejanus had, in fact, formed the daring project of destroy- ing Tiberius and his family, and seizing the supreme power. As, beside Tiberius and Drusus, who had two sons, there were a brother and three sons of Germanicus living, he re- solved, as the safer course, to remove them gradually by art and treachery. He began with Drusus, against Avhom he had a personal spite, as that violent youth had one time pub- licly given him a blow in the face. In order to effect his purpose, he seduced his wife, Livia, or Livilla, the sister of Germanicus; and then, by holding out to her the prospect of a share in the imperial power, he induced her to engage in the plan for the murder of her husband.* Her physician, Eudemus, was also taken into the plot; but it was some time before the associates could finally determine what mode to adopt. At length a slow poison was fixed on, which was administered to Drusus by a eunuch named Lygdus ; and he died apparently of disease, (23.) Tiberius, who, while his son was lying dead, had entered the senate-house, and ad- dressed the members with his usual composure, pronounced the funeral oration himself, and then turned to business for consolation. So far, all had succeeded with Sejanus, and death carried off the younger son of Drusus soon after his father ; but * "Neque femina, amissa pudicitia, alia abnuerit," observes Tacitus. 56 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 25. Nero and Drusus, the two elder sons of Germanicus, were ' now growing up ; and the chastity of their mother, and the fidelity of those about them, put poison out of the question. He therefore adopted another course ; and, taking advantage of the high spirit of Agrippina, and working on the jealousy of her which Augusta was known to entertain, he managed so that both she and Livia should labor to prejudice Tibe- rius against Agrippina by talking of the pride which she took in her progeny, and the ambitious designs which she entertained. At the same time, he induced some of those about her to stimulate her haughty spirit by their treacher- ous language. He further proposed to deprive her of sup- port, by destroying those persons of influence who were attached to her family, or the memory of her husband. With this view, he selected for his first victims C. Silius and Titius Sabinus, the friends of Germanicus, and Silius's wife, Sosia Galla, to whom Agrippina was strongly attached, and who was therefore an object of dislike to Tiberius. Omitting, however, Sabinus for the present, he caused the consul Visellius Varro to accuse Silius of treason, for having dissembled his knowledge of the designs of Sacrovir, having disgraced his victory by his avarice, and countenanced the acts of his wife. Having vainly asked for a delay till his accuser should go out of office, and seeing that Tiberius was determinedly hostile to him,* Silius avoided a condem- nation by a voluntary death. His wife was banished j a portion of his property was confiscated, but the remainder was left to his children. Urged by his own ambition, and by the importunity of Livia, Sejanus had soon (25) the boldness to present a pe- tition to Tiberius, praying to be chosen by him for her hus- band. Tiberius took no offence ; his reply was kind, only stating the difficulties of the matter with respect to Sejanus himself, but at the same time expressing the warmest friend- ship for and confidence in him. Sejanus, however, was suspicious ; and he began to reflect that, while Tiberius re- mained at Rome, many occasions might present themselves to those who desired to undermine him in the mind of that jealous prince; whereas, could he induce him to quit the * " Adversatus est Csesar, solitum quippe magistratibus diem priva- tis dicere ; nee infringendum consulis jas, cujus vigiliis nitiretur ne quod respublica detrimentuin caperet. Proprium id Tiberio fuit sce- lera nuper reperta priscis verbis obtegere." Tac. A. D. 25.] SPEECH OF CREMUTIUS. 57 city, all access to him would be only through himself, all letters would be conveyed by soldiers who were under his orders, and gradually, as the prince advanced in years, all the affairs of the state would pass into his hands. He there- fore, by contrasting the noise and turbulence of Rome with the solitude and tranquillity of the country, gradually sought to bend him to his purpose, which he effected in the follow- ing year. During this time, the deadly charge of treason was brought against various persons. The most remarkable case was that of A. Cremutius Cordus, the historian. He had made a free remark on the conduct of Sejanus; and, accordingly, two of that favorite's clients were directed to accuse him of treason, for having in his history called Cassius the last of the Ro- mans.* Cremutius, when before the senate, observing the sternness of Tiberius's countenance, took at once the resolu- tion of abandoning life, and therefore spoke as follows : — *' Fathers, my words are accused, so guiltless am I of acts ; but not even these are against the prince or the prince's parent, whom the law of treason embraces. I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose deeds, while several have written, no one has mentioned without honor. Titus Livius, who is preeminent for eloquence and fidelity, extolled Pompeius with such praises, that Augustus used to call him a Pompeian ; nor was that any hinderance of their friendship. He nowhere calls Scipio, Afranius, this very Cassius, this Brutus, robbers and parricides, which names are now given them ; he often speaks of them as distin- guished men. The writings of Asinius Pollio transmit an illustrious record of them ; Messala Corvinus used to call Cassius his general ; and both of them flourished in wealth and honors. To the book of Marcus Cicero, which extolled Cato to the skies, what did the dictator CsBsar but reply in a written speech, as if before judges 1 The letters of Anto- nius, the speeches of Brutus, contain imputations on Augus- tus which are false, and written with great bitterness. The verses of Bibaculus and Catullus, which are full of abuse of the Caesars, are read; nay, the divine Julius himself, the divine Augustus himself, both bore with them and let them remain ; I cannot well say whether more through modera- tion or wisdom ; for what are despised go out of mind ; if * He probably only used the words of Brutus, who spoke thus of Cassius. See Hist, of Rome, p. 459. 58 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 26. you are angry with them, their truth seems to be acknowl- edged. I speak not of the Greeks, among whom not only liberty but license was unpunished ; or if any one did take notice, he avenged himself on words by words. But there was the greatest freedom, and no reproach, when speaking of those whom death had removed from enmity or favor. Do I, in the cause of civil war, inflame the people by my harangues, while Brutus and Cassius are in arms, and occu- pying the plains of Philippi ? Or do they, who are now dead these seventy years, as they are known by their images, which the conqueror did not destroy, retain in like manner their share of memory in literary works? Posterity allots his meed to every one ; nor, should a condemnation fall on me, will there be wanting those who will remember not only Brutus and Cassius, but also me" Having thus spoken, Cordus left the senate-house, and, returning to his own abode, starved himself to death. The senate decreed that the copies of his work should be col- lected and burnt by the aediles ; but some were saved by his daughter Marcia, and were republished in the succeeding reign.* At length, (26,) Tiberius quitted Rome, and went into Cam- pania, under the pretext of dedicating a temple to Jupiter at Capua, and one to Augustus at Nola ; but with the secret intention of never returning to the city. Various causes, all perhaps true, are assigned for this resolution. The sug- gestions of Sejanus were not without effect; he was grown thin, and stooped ; he was quite bald, and his face was full of blotches and ulcers, to which he was obliged to have plasters constantly applied; and he may therefore have sought, on this account, to retire from the public view. It is further said that he wished to escape from the authority of his mother, who seemed to consider herself entitled to share the power which he had obtained through her exer- tions ; but perhaps the most prevalent motive was the wish to be able to give free course to his innate cruelty and lusts when in solitude and secrecy. He was accompanied only by one senator, Cocceius Ner- * See Sen. Cons, ad Marciam; Suet. Cal. 16. "Quo magis socor- diam [i. e. vecordiam] eorum inridere licet," observes Tacitus, "qui praesenti potentia credunt extingui posse etiam sequentis sevi memori- am ; nam contra, punitis ingeniis gliscit auctoritas ; neque aliud ex- tern! reges, aut qui eadem ssevitia usi sunt, nisi dedecus sibi atque illis gloriam peperere." A. D. 27.] TIBERIUS IN CAMPANIA. 59 va, who was deeply skilled in the laws, by Sejanus and another knight, and by some persons, chiefly Greeks, who were versed in literature. A few days after he set out, an accident occurred, which was near being fatal to him, but proved fortunate for Sejanus. As, at one of his country- seats, near Fundi, named the Caverns, [Spcluncce,) he was, for the sake of the coolness, dining in one of the natural caverns, whence the villa derived its appellation, a great quantity of the stones, which formed its roof, fell down and crushed some of the attendants to death. Sejanus threw himself over Tiberius, to protect him with his own body, and was found in that position by the soldiers who came to their relief. This apparent proof of generous self-devotion raised him higher than ever in the estimation of the prince. While Tiberius was rambling from place to place in Campania, (27,) a dreadful calamity occurred at Fidenae, in consequence of the fall of a temporary amphitheatre erected by a freedman named Atilius, for giving a show of gladia- tors; the number of the killed and maimed is said to have been fifty thousand. The conduct of the nobility at Rome, on this melancholy occasion, showed that all virtue had not departed from them ; they threw open their houses for the sufferers, and supplied them with medical attendance and remedies; so that, as the great historian observes, the city wore the appearance of the Rome of the olden time, when, after battles, the wounded were thus humanely treated. This calamity was immediately followed by a tremendous fire on the Caelian Hill ; but Tiberius alleviated the evil, by giving the inhabitants the amount of their losses in money. Having dedicated the temples, and rambled for some time through the towns of Campania, Tiberius finally fixed on the islet of CapreoB, in the Bay of Naples, as his permanent abode. This isle, which lay at the short distance of three miles from the promontory of Surrentum, was accessible only in one place; it enjoyed a mild temperature, and commanded a most magnificent view of the Bay of Naples and the lovely region which encompassed it.* But the delicious retreat was speedily converted by the aged prince into a den of infamy — such as has never perhaps found its equal ; his vi- cious practices, however, were covered by the veil of secre- cy, for he still lay under some restraint. * Augustus was so taken with the charms of this island, that he gave lands in exchange for it to the people of Naples, to whom it be- longed. Dion, lii. 43. 60 TIBERIUS. [a. D. 28-29. When Tiberius left Rome, Sejanus renewed his machina-' tions against Agrippina and her children and friends. He directed his first efforts against her eldest son, Nero, whom he surrounded with spies; and as this youth was married to a daughter of Livia's, his wife was instructed by her aban- doned mother to note and report all his most secret words and actions. Sejanus kept a faithful register of all he could learn in these various ways, and regularly transmitted it to Tiberius. He also drew to his side Nero's younger brother Drusus, a youth of a fiery, turbulent temper, and who hated him because he was his mother's favorite. It was, however, Sejanus's intention to destroy him also, when he should have served his purpose against Nero. At this time also he made his final and fatal attack on Titius Sabinus, whose crime was his attachment to the fam- ily of Germanicus. The bait of the consulate, of which Sejanus alone could dispose, induced four men of praetorian dignity to conspire his ruin. The plan proposed was, that one of them, named Latinius Latiaris, who had some knowl- edge of Sabinus, should draw him into conversation, out of which a charge of treason might be manufactured. The plot succeeded : Latiaris, by praising the constancy of Sabi- nus in friendship, led him gradually on to speak as he thought of Sejanus, and even of Tiberius. At length, un- der pretence of having something of great importance to reveal, he brought him into a chamber where the other three were concealed between the ceiling and the roof A charge of treason was therefore speedily concocted and for- warded to Tiberius, from whom a letter came on new year's day, (28,) plainly intimating to the senate his desire of vengeance. This sufficed for that obsequious body, and Sabinus was dragged forth and executed without delay. In his letter of thanks to the senate, Tiberius talked of the danger he was in, and of the plots of his enemies, evi- dently alluding to Agrippina and Nero. These unfortunate persons lost their only remaining refuge, the following year, (29,) by the death of the prince's mother, Julia Augusta,* whose influence over her son, and regard for her own de- scendants, had held Sejanus in restraint. This soon ap- peared by the arrival of a letter from Tiberius, accusing * Writers differ as to her age. Tacitus merely says extrema cetate. Pliny (xiv. 8) makes her 82, Dion (Iviii. 1) 86 years old. This last seems to be the more correct, as her son Tiberius was now 70 years of age. A. D. 31.] ARTS OF SE JANUS. 61 Nero of unnatural practices, and speaking of the arrogance^ of Agrippina; but, while the senate were in debate, the- people surrounded the house, carrying the images of Agrip- pina and Nero, and crying out that the letter was forged,. and the prince deceived. Nothing therefore was done on that day, and Sejanus took the opportunity of irritating the mind of Tiberius, who wrote again to the senate ; but, as in the letter he forbade their proceeding to extremes, they passed a decree, declaring themselves prepared to avenge the prince, were they not hindered by himself Most unfortunately the admirable narrative of Tacitus fails us at this point; and for the space of more than two years, and those the most important of the reign of Tiberius,, we are obliged to derive our knowledge of events from the far inferior notices of Dion Cassius and Suetonius. We are therefore unable to display the arts by which Sejanus effected the ruin of Agrippina and her children, and can only learn that she was relegated to the isle of Pandateria, where, while she gave vent to her indignation, her eye was struck out by a centurion; and that Nero was placed in the isle of Pontia, and forced to terminate his own life. The further fate of Agrippina and Drusus we shall have to relate. Sejanus now revelled in the enjoyment of power; every one feared him, every one courted and flattered him. " In a word," says Dion, " he seemed to be emperor, Tiberius merely the ruler of an island; " for, while the latter dwelt in solitude, and apparently unthought of, the doors of the former were thronged every morning with saluting crowds, and the first men of Rome attended him on his way to the senate. His pride and insolence, as is always the case with those who rise otherwise than by merit, kept pace with his power, and men hated while they feared and flattered him. He had thus ruled for more than three years at Rome, with power nearly absolute, when (31) Tiberius made him his colleague in the consulate — an honor observed to be fatal to every one who had enjoyed it. In fact, the jealous tyrant, who had been fully informed of all his actions and designs,* had secretly resolved on his death ; but fear, on account of Se- janus's influence with the guards, and his uncertainty of how the people might stand affected, prevented him from pro- * According to Josephus, (Antiq. xviii. 6,) Antonia, the widow of his brother Drusus, wrote him a full account of Sejanus's proceedings, and sent it by a trusty slave named Pallas. CONTIN. 6 62 TIBERIUS. [a. D. 31, Geeding openly against him. He therefore had recourse ta artifice, in which he so much delighted. At one time, he would write to the senate, and describe himself as so ill thai his recovery was nearly hopeless ; again, that he was in per-, feet health, and was about to return to Rome. He wouldi now praise Sejanus to the skies, and then speak most disparagingly of him ; he would honor some and disgrace others of his friends solely as such. In this way both Seja-. nus himself and all others were kept in a state of the utmost uncertainty. Tiberius further bestowed priesthoods on Se- janus and his son, and proposed to marry his daughter to Drusus, the son of Claudius, the brother of Germanicus; yet,^ at the same time, when Sejanus asked permission to go to Campania, on the pretext of her being unwell, he desired him to remain where he was, as he himself would be coming to Rome immediately. All this tended to keep Sejanus in a state of great per- turbation ; and this was increased by the circumstance of Tiberius, when appointing the young Caius to a priesthood, having not merely praised him, but spoken of him in som€> sort as his successor in the monarchy. He would have pro- ceeded at once to action, were it not that the joy manifested by the people on this occasion proved to him that he had only the soldiers to rely on ; and he hesitated to act with them alone. Tiberius then showed favor to some of those to whom he was hostile ; and, wheu writing to the senate on the occasion of the death of Nero, he merely called hinx Sejanus, and directed them not to offer sacrifice to any man, nor to decree any honors to himself, and of consequence tp no one else. The senators easily saw whither all this tend- ed ; and their neglect of Sejanus was now pretty ppeolj? displayed. Tiberius, having thus made trial of the senate and the people, and finding he could rely on both, resolved to strike the loncp-meditated blow. In order to take his victim more* completely at unawares, he gave out that it was his intention to confer on him the tribunitian power. Meantime he gave to Naevius Sertorius Macro a secret commission to take the command of the guards, made him the bearer of a letter to the senate, and instructed him fully how to act. Macro entered Rome at night, and communicated his instructions to the consul, C. Memmius Regulus, (for his colleague was a creature of Sejanus,) and to Grsecinus Laco, the com- mander of the watchmen^ and arranged with them the plan A. D. 31.] FALL OF SE JANUS. 6S of action. Early in the morning, he went up to the temple of the Palatine Apollo, where the senate was to sit that day, and, meeting Sejanus, and finding him disturbed at Tiberius's having sent him no message, he whispered him that he had the grant of the tribunitian power for him. Sejanus then went in highly elated; and Macro, showing his commission to the guards on duty, and telling them that he had letters promising them a largess, sent them down to their camp, and put the watchmen about the temple in their stead. He then entered the temple, and, having delivered the letter to the consuls, immediately went out again, and, leaving Laco to watch the progress of events there, hastened down to the camp, lest there should be a mutiny of the guards. The letter was long and ambiguous ; it contained nothing direct against Sejanus, but first treated of something else, then came to a little complaint of him, then to some other matter, then it returned to him again, and so on; it conclu- ded by saying that two senators, who were most devoted to Sejanus, ought to be punished, and himself be cast into prison ; for, though Tiberius wished most ardently to have him executed, he did not venture to order his death, fearing a rebellion. He even implored them in the letter to send one of the consuls with a guard to conduct him, now an old man and desolate, into their presence. We are further told that such were his apprehensions, that he had given orders, in case of a tumult, to release his grandson Drusus, who was in chains at Rome, and put him at the head of those who remained faithful to his family ; and that he took his station on a lofty rock, watching for the signals that were to be made, having ships ready to carry him to some of the legions, in case any thing adverse should occur. His precautions, however, were needless. Before the letter was read, the senators, expecting to hear nothing but the praises of Sejanus and the grant of the tribunitian power, were loud in testifying their zeal toward him ; but, as the reading proceeded, their conduct sensibly altered ; their looks were no longer the same ; even some of those who were sitting near him rose and left their seats ; the prsetors and tribunes closed round him, lest he should rush out and try to raise the guards, as he certainly would have done, had not the letter been composed with such consummate artifice- He was in fact so thunderstruck, that it was not till the consul had called him the third time that he was able to reply. AH then joined in reviling and insulting him : he 64 TIBERIUS. [a. D. 31. v/as conducted to the prison by the consul and the oth- er magistrates. As he passed along, the populace poured curses and abuse on him ; they cast down his statues, cut the heads off of them, and dragged them about the streets. The senate, seeing this disposition of the people, and finding that the guards remained quiet, met in the afternoon in the tem- ple of Concord, close to the prison, and condemned him to death. He was executed without delay; his lifeless body was flung down the Gemonian steps, and for three days it was exposed to every insult from the populace; it was then cast into the Tiber.* His children also were put to death : his little daughter, who was to have been the bride of the prince's grand-nephew, was so young and innocent, that, as they carried her to prison, she kept asking what she had done, and whither they were dragging her, adding that she would do so no more, and that she might be whipped if naughty. Nay, by one of those odious refinements of bar- barity which trample on justice and humanity while adhering to the letter of the law, because it was a thino^ unheard of for a virgin to be capitally punished, the executioner was made to deflower the child before he strangled her. Apica- ta, the divorced wife of Sejanus, on hearing of the death of her children, and seeing afterwards their lifeless bodies on the steps, went home ; and, having written to Tiberius a full account of the true manner of the death of Drusus, and of the guilt of Livilla, put an end to herself. In conse- quence of this discovery, Livilla, and all who were concerned in that murder, were put to death. The rage of the populace was also vented on the friends of Sejanus, and many of them were slaughtered. The praeto- rian guards, too, enraged at being suspected, and at the watchmen being preferred to them, began to burn and plun- der houses. The senators were in a state of the utmost per- turbation, some trembling on account of their having paid court to Sejanus, others, who had been accusers or witnesses, from not knowing how their conduct might be taken. All, however, conspired in heaping insult on the memory of the fallen favorite. Tiberius, now free from all apprehension, gave loose to his vencjeance. From his island retreat he issued his orders, and the prison was filled with the friends and creatures of " * See the graphic picture of the fall of Sejanus in Juvenal, Sat. x. 56, seq. A. D. 32-33.] SEJANUS'S FRIENDS. ^ Sejanus; the baleful pack of informers was unkennelled, and their victims of both sexes were hunted to death. Some were executed in prison ; others were flung from the Capitol ; the lifeless remains were exposed to every kind of indignity, and then cast into the river. Most, however, chose a volun- tary death ; for they tlius not only escaped insult and pain, but preserved their property for their children. In the following year, (32,) Tiberius ventured to leave his island, and sail up the Tiber as far as Caesar's gardens ; but suddenly, no one knew why, he retreated again to his soli- tude, whence by letters he directed the course of cruelty at Rome. The commencement of one was so remarkable that historians have thought it deserving of a place in their works ; it ran thus : ** What I shall write to you, P. C, or how I shall write, or what I shall not write, at this time, may the gods and goddesses destroy me worse than I daily feel myself perishing, if I know."* A knight named M. Terentius, at this time, when accused of the new crime of Sejanus's friendship, had the courage to adopt a novel course of defence. He boldly acknowledged the charge, but justified his conduct by saying that he had only followed the example of the prince, whom it was their duty to imitate. The senate acquitted him, and punished his accusers with exile or death, and Tiberius ex- pressed himself well pleased at the decision. But, in the suc- ceeding year, (33,) his cruelty, joined with avarice, (a vice new to him,) broke out with redoubled violence. Tired of murdering in detail, he ordered a general massacre of all who lay in prison on account of their connection with Sejanus. Without distinction of age, sex, or rank, they were slaugh- tered ; their friends dared not to approach, or even be seen to shed tears ; and as their putrefying remains floated along the Tiber, no on« might venture to touch or to burn them. The deaths ofihis grandson Drusus, and his daughter-inr law Agrippina, were added to the atrocities of this year. The former perished by the famine to which he was destined, after he had sustained life till the ninth day by eating the stufiing of his bed. The tyrant then had the shamelessness * Suet. Tib. 67. Tac. Ann. vi. 6. " Adeo," adds Tacitus, " facinora atque flagitia sua ipsi quoque in supplicium verterant. Neque frustra prasstantissimus sapientias [Plato] firmare solitus est, si recludantur tyrannorum mentes posse aspici laniatus et ictus ; quando ut corpora verberibus, ita ssevitia, libidine, mails consultis animus dilaceretur,: quippe Tiberium non fortuna non solitudines protegebant quin tor- menta pectoris suasque ipse poenas fateretur." 6* I 66 TIBERIUS. [a. d. 33-37. to cause to be read in the senate the diary which had been kept of every thing the unhappy youth had said or done for a course of years, and of the indignities which he had endured from the slaves and guards who were set about him. Agrip- pina had cherished hopes of meeting with justice after the fall of Sejanus; but, finding them frustrated, she resolved to starve herself to death. Tiberius, when informed, ordered food to be forced down her throat; but she finally accom- plished her purpose : he then endeavored to defame her mem- ory by charging her with unchastity. As her death occurred on the same day as that of Sejanus, two years before, he di- rected it to be noted ; and he took to himself as a merit that he had not caused her to be strangled or cast down the Ge- monian steps. The obsequious senate returned him thanks for his clemency, and decreed that, on the 18th of October, the day of both their deaths, an offering in gold should be made to Jupiter. The Caesarian family was now reduced to Claudius, the brother, and Caius, the son of Germanicus, and his three daughters, Agrippina, Drusilla, and Livilla, (whom Tiberius had given in marriage respectively to Cn. Domitius, L. Cas- -sius, and M. Vinicius,) and Tiberius and Julia, the children of Drusus, which last had been married to her cousin Nero, and now was given in marriage to Rubellius Blandus. From his very outset in life, Tiberius had been obliged more or less to conceal his natural character. Auorustus, Germanicus, Drusus, his mother, had successively been a check on him ; and even Sejanus, though the agent of his cruelty, had been the cause of his lusts being restrained.* But now all barriers were removed ; for Caius was so abject a slave to him, that he modelled himself on his character and his words, only seeking to conceal his own vices. t He therefore now at length gave free course to all his vicious propensities ; and it almost chills the blood to read the details of the horrid practices in which he indulged amidst the rocks of CapresB. Meantime there was no relaxation of his cruelty ; Macro was as bad as Sejanus, only more covertly ; there was no lack of delators, and men of rank perished daily. Nature, however, at last began to give way. He had quit- ted his island, and approached to within seven miles of Rome, (37 ;) but terrified, it is said, by a prodigy, he did not ven- ture to enter the city. As he was on his way back to Cam- * Tac. Ann. vi. 51. t U. ib. 20. A.D. 33.] LAST ILLNESS OF TIBERIUS. 67 pania, he fell sick at Astura ; having recovered a little, he went on to Circeii, where, to conceal his condition, he ap- peared at the public games, and even flung darts at a wild boar which was turned out into the arena. The effort, how- ever, exhausted him, and he became worse ; still he went on, and reached the former abode of Lucullus at Misenum. Each day he lay at table and indulged as usual. A physi- cian named Charicles, under pretence of tcking leave, one evening contrived to feel his pulse. Tiberius perceived his object, and, ordering more dishes up, lay longer than usual, under the pretext of doing honor to his departing friend ; but Charicles was not to be deceived; he told Macro that he could not last two days, and measures were forthwith taken for securing the succession of Caius. On the 16th of March, he swooned away, and appeared to be dead. Caius was con- gratulated by most of those present, and was preparing to assume the imperial power, when word was brought that Tiberius had revived and called for food. All slank avt^ay, feigning grief or ignorance : Caius remained in silence, ex- pecting his fate, when Macro boldly ordered clothes to be heaped on him ; and Tiberius thus was smothered to death, in the 78th year of his age. CHAPTER IV.* CAIUS JULIUS C^SAR CALIGULA. A.u. 790— 794. A.D. 37— 41. ACCESSION OF CAIUS. HIS VICES AND CRUELTY. BRIDGE OVER THE BAY OF BAIiE. HIS EXPEDITION TO GERMANY. HIS MAD CAPRICES. HIS DEATH. The intelligence of the death of Tiberius diffused univer- sal joy. The memory of Germanicus, and the hard fate of his family, recurred to men's minds, and led them to think favorably of his son, and to conceive hopes of happiness * Authorities : Suetonius and Dion. 68 CAIU&. [a. D. 37. under his dominiGn. As Caius,* therefore, in a mourning habit, and in attendance on the corpse of his grandfather, moved from Misenum to Rome, joyful crowds poured forth to meet him, altars were raised and victims slain on the way, and the most endearing epithets greeted him as he passed along.t When he reached Rome, he proceeded to the senate-house, and the will of the late prince was opened and read. It ap- peared that he had left Caius and Tiberius the son of Drusus joint heirs ; but the will was at once set aside, under the pre- text of the testator not having been in his right mind, and the sole power was conferred on Caius, so entirely with the public approbation, that it was computed that in less than three months upwards of 169,000 victims were slain in testi- mony of the general joy. Caius, in return, was lavish of pro- fessions, assuring the senate that he would share his power with them, and do every thing that pleased them, calling himself their son and foster-child. He then released all who were in prison on charges of treason, and he burned (or rather pretended to do so) all the papers relating to them which Tiberius had left behind him, saying that he did so in order that, if he should feel ill disposed toward any one on account of his mother and brothers, he might not have it in his power to gratify his vengeance. As soon as he had celebrated the obsequies of his grand- father, whose funeral oration he pronounced himself, he got on shipboard, and, though the weather was tempestuous, passed over to the isles of Pandateria and Pontia; and, hav- ing collected, and with his own hand inurned the ashes of his mother and brother, he brought them to Rome, and deposited them in the Mausoleum of Augustus. He appointed annual religious rites in their honor ; he directed the month of Sep- tember to be called Germanicus, after his father ; he caused all the honors, which had ever been bestowed on Livia Au- gusta, to be conferred, by one decree, on his grandmother Antonia; he made his uncle Claudius, who had hitherto been in the equestrian order, his colleague in the consulate ; he adopted his cousin Tiberius the day he took the virile toga, and named him Prince of the Youth ; he caused his sisters' ■'' So he is called by all the historians. For the origin of his soubri- quet "Calififula," see above, p. 44. t " Fausta omina sidus et pullum et puppum et alumnum appellan- tium." Suet. Cal. 13. A. D. 38*] FIRST ACTS OF CAIUS. 69 names to be associated with his own in oaths and other so- lemnities.* He drove from the city all the ministers of the monstrous lusts of Tiberius, being with difficulty withheld from drown- ing them. He permitted the works of Cremutius Cordus and others to be made public. He gave the people abundance of public shows, and he distributed to them and the soldiers all the money that had been left them by Tiberius and Livia Augusta. Such was Caius in the first months of his reign. He then had a severe fit of illness, in consequence of which his intel- lect, it would seem, became disordered, for his remaining acts were those of a madman ; and the world witnessed the dreadful sight of a monster, devoid of reason, possessed of unlimited power. There, however, seems to have been no reason to expect that, under any circumstances, Caius would have made a good prince ; he was already stained with every vice. While yet a boy, he was, it was said, guilty of incest with his sister Drusilla. On the death of his wife, Junia Claudilla, the daughter of M. Silanus, he formed an adulter- ous connection with Ennia, the wife of Macro, and gave her an engagement to marry her if he should attain the empire. Though he conducted himself with the most consummate dissimulation, and manifested such obsequiousness to Tibe- rius as gave occasion to the well-known saying of Passienus, that " there never was a better slave nor a worse master," yet the sagacious old prince saw his real character ; and, as Caius was one day in his presence speaking with contempt of Sulla, he told him that he would have all Sulla's vices and none of his virtues ; he also said at times that Caius lived for his own destruction and that of all others, and that in him he was rearing a serpent for the Roman people and a Phae- thon for the earth. One of the first acts of Caius, after his restoration to health, was to put his cousin Tiberius to death, under the pretext of his having prayed that be might not recover. He also forced his father-in-law, Silanus, to terminate his own life, because he had not accompanied him on his late voyage, pretending that he intended to occupy the empire if any thing adverse had befallen him, though Silanus's only reason * " Auctor fuit ut omnibus sacramentis adjiceretur, Neque me libe- rosque meos cariores habebo quam Caium sororesque ejus. Item rela- tionibus consulum. Q;uod bonum felixque sit C. Ccesai'i sororibusque ejus.'' Suet. Cal. 15. 70 CAius. [a. D. 38. had been dislike of the sea. A knight had vowed to fight as a gladiator, and another person to die, if Caius should re- cover ; and, instead of rewarding them as they expected, he forced them to perform their vows. Thus passed the first nine months of Caius's rule. He be- gan the next year (38) auspiciously, by directing that the accounts of the receipts and expenditure of the revenue should be made public, according to the practice adopted by Augus- tus, but intermitted by Tiberius. He also revised the eques- trian order, removing unworthy members, and introducing men of birth and property. He restored to the people the right of election, and abolished the excise duty of one per cent. — measures, however, both, it is said, condemned by men of sense, who deemed that no good could arise from giving power to those who knew not how to exercise it, and from diminishing without cause the regular revenue of the state. On the other hand, he showed the natural ferocity of his disposition by the delight with which he regarded the mas- sacres of the amphitheatre, where, on one occasion, the num- ber of condemned persons who were to be exposed to the wild beasts proving short, he ordered some of the spectators to be seized and cast to them, having previously cut out their tongues, to prevent their crying out or reproaching him. He made Macro and his wife, Ennia, be their own execu- tioners, and he put to death numbers of persons on the charge of having been the enemies of his parents or his brothers, producing against them the very papers which he jiretended to have burnt. It was in fact the desire to gain possession of their properties that wa.s his motive ; for the vast treasures accumulated by Tiberius had already been dissipated. Caius had renewed his incestuous commerce with his sis- ter Drusilla, whom he took from her husband, L. Cassius, and then married to M. Lepidus, also the partaker in his vices. She died, however, in the course of the year ; and nothing could exceed the grief which he manifested. He gave her a magnificent public funeral, and proclaimed so strict a Justiiium, that it was a capital offence to laugh, bathe, or dine with one's own family or relations. Ail the honors which had been conferred on Livia were decreed to her ; her statue was placed in the senate-house and forum. A temple was built and priests appointed in her honor ; women, in giving testimony, were to swear by her divinity ; a festival like that of the Mother of the Gods was to be cele- A. D. 39.] CAIUS'S PROFLIGACY. Tl brated on her birthday, and under the name of Panthea she received divine honors in all the cities of the empire. A senator named Livius Geminius obtained a large reward by swearing, imprecating destruction on himself and his chil- dren if he lied, that he saw her ascending into heaven and mingling with the gods. Caius, in the first vehemence of his grief, fled from Rome in the night, and never stopped till he reached Syracuse, whence he returned with his hair and beard grown to a great length. His oath ever after, when addressing the people or the soldiers, was by the deity of Drusilla. He lived in an incestuous commerce with his other sisters also, and at meals they used to lie by turns be- low him in the triclinium, while his wife lay above ; yet he used to prostitute them to the ministers of his lusts. His first wife, after he came to the empire, was Livia Orestilla; this lady was married to C. Piso ; but Caius, when invited to the nuptial feast, took a fancy to her, and saying to Piso, " Do not touch my wife," carried her off; and next day he issued an edict, saying " that he had purveyed him a wife after the fashion of Romulus and Augustus." Within a few days, however, he divorced her ; and, two years after, he banished her for having resumed her intimacy with her first husband. Hearing the beauty of the grandmother of Lollia Paullina praised, he summoned that lady from the province where her husband, Memmius Regulus, was in the command of the troops, and, having obliged Regulus to divorce her, he made her his wife. The following year (39) witnessed the same scenes of cruelty and of reckless extravagance ; it was distinguished by the novel caprice of bridging over the sea from Baiae to Puteoli, a space of more than three miles and a half All kinds of craft were collected, so that, in consequence of the want of foreign corn, a great scarcity prevailed throughout Italy ; and, these not proving sufficient, a large number were built for the purpose : they were anchored in two lines, and timber laid across them, and a way thus formed similar to the Appian road. Places for rest and refreshment were erected at regular distances, and pipes laid for conveying fresh water. When all was completed, Caius, putting on the breastplate (as it was said to be) of Alexander the Great, a military cloak of purple silk adorned with gold and precious stones, and girding on a sword, and grasping a shield, his brows crowned with oak, and having previously sacrificed to Neptune and some other gods, (particularly to Envy, to 72 CAius. [a. d. 39. escape her influence,) entered the bridge from Baiae, mount- ed on a stately horse, and followed by horse and foot in warlike array, and, passing along rapidly, entered Puteoli as a captured city. Having rested there as after a battle, he returned the next day along the bridge in a two-horsed chariot, drawn by the most famous winning horses of the circus. Spoils and captives (among whom was Darius, an Arsacid, one of the Parthian hostages then at Rome) pre- ceded the sham conqueror ; his friends followed in chariots, and the troops brought up the rear. The glorious victor ascended a tribunal erected on a ship about the centre of the bridge, and harangued and extolled his triumphant warriors. He then caused a banquet to be spread on the bridge as if it were an island, and, all who were to partake of it crowding round it in vessels of every kind, the rest of the day and the whole of the night were spent in feasting and revelry. Lights shone from the bridge and the vessels; the hills which enclose the bay were illumined with fires and torches ; the whole seemed one vast theatre, and night converted into day, as sea was into land. But the monster, for whose gratification all these effects had been produced, could not refrain from indulging his innate ferocity. When his spirits were elevated with meat and wine, he caused several of those who were with him on the bridge to be flung into the sea, and then, getting into a beaked ship, he sailed to and fro, striking and sinking the vessels which lay about the bridge, filled with revellers. Some were drowned; but, owing to the calmness of the sea, the greater part, though they were drunk, escaped. Various causes were assigned for this mtid freak of bridg- ing over the sea. Some ascribed it, and probably with rea- son, to the wish to surpass Xerxes ; others said that his object was to strike with awe of his power the Germans and Britons, whose countries he meditated to invade. Suetonius says that, when a boy, he heard from his grandfather that the reason assigned by the people of the palace was a desire to give the lie to a declaration of the astrologer Trasyllus, who, on being consulted by Tiberius about the succession, had said that " Caius would no more reign than he would drive horses through the Bay of Baise." Whatever was the cause, the effect was the destruction of an additional number of the Roman nobility, for the sake of confiscating their properties, in order to replace the enor- mous sums which the bridgre had absorbed. When Rome A. D. 39.] GERMAN EXPEDITION. 73 and Italy had been thus tolerably well exhausted of their wealth, the tyrant resolved to pillage in like manner the opulent provinces of Gaul, and then those of Spain. Under the pretext of repelling the Germans, he suddenly collected an army, and set out for Gaul, going sometimes so rapidly that the praetorian cohorts were obliged to put their stand- ards on the beasts of burden, at other times having himself carried in a litter, and the people of the towns on the way being ordered to sweep and water the roads before him. He was attended by a large train of women, gladiators, dancers, running-horses, and the other instruments of his luxury. When he reached the camp of the legions, he affected the character of a strict commander, dismissing with ignominy such of the legates as brought up the auxiliary contingents slowly. He then turned to robbing both officers and men, by dismissing th-em a little before they were entitled to their discharge, and cutting down the pensions of the rest to 6000 sesterces. The son of Cinobellinus, a British prince, who was ban- ished by his father, having come and made his submission to him, he wrote most magniloquent letters to Rome, as if the whole island had submitted. He crossed the Rhine as if in quest of the German foes ; but some one happening to say, as the troops were engaged in a narrow way, that there would be no little consternation if the enemy should then ap- pear, he sprang from his chariot in a fright, mounted his horse, and gallopped back to the bridge, and, finding it filled with the men and beasts of the baggage-train, he scrambled over their heads to get beyond the river. On another occa- sion, he ordered some of his German guards to conceal them- selves on the other side of the Rhine, and intelligence to be brought to him, as he sat at dinner, that the enemy was at hand ; he sprang up, mounted his horse, and, followed by his friends and part of the guards, rode into the adjoining wood, and, cutting the trees and forming a trophy, returned with it to the camp by torch-light. He then reproached the cow- ardice of those who had not shared his toils and dangers, and rewarded with what he called exploratory croivns those who had accompanied him. Again, he took the young German hostages from their school, and, having secretly sent them on, he jumped up from a banquet, pursued them, as if they were running away, with a body of cavalry, and brought them back in chains. In an edict he severely rebuked the senate and people of Rome for holding banquets, and frequenting CONTIN. 7 J 74 CAius. [a. d. 39. theatres and delicious retreats, while Caesar was carrying on war, and exposed to such dangers. His invasion of Britain was, if possible, still more ridicu- lous. He marched his troops to the coast, and drew them up with all their artillery on the strand. He then got aboard of a galley, and, going a little way out to sea, returned, and, ascending a lofty tribunal, gave the signal for battle, and, at the sound of trumpets, ordered them to charge the ocean, and gather its shells as spoils due to the Capitol and Pala- tiura. He bestowed a large donative on his victorious troops, and built a lighthouse to commemorate the conquest of ocean. Meantime he was not neglectful of the purpose for which he came. He pillaged indiscriminately, and put to death numbers whose only crime was their wealth. One day, when he was playing at dice, he discovered that his money was out ; he retired, and, calling for the census of the Gauls, selected the names of the richest men in it, ordering them to be put to death ; then, returning to his company, he said, '^ You are playing for a few denars, but I have collected a hundred and fifty millions." He afterwards caused the most precious jewels and other possessions of the monarchy to be sent to him, and put them up to auction, saying, " This was my father's ; this was my mother's ; this Egyptian jewel be- longed to Antonius ; this to Augustus ; " and so on, at the same time declaring that distress alone caused him to sell them. The buyers were of course obliged to give far beyond the real value of the articles. Among those put to death while he was in Gaul was M. Lepidus, the husband of his beloved Drusilla, and the sharer in all his vices and debaucheries. The pretext was a con- spiracy of Lepidus with Livilla and Agrippina against his life. He wrote to the senate in the most opprobrious terms of his sisters, whom he banished to the Pontian isles. As he was sending them back to Italy for this purpose, he obliged Agrippina to carjy the whole way in her bosom the lirn which contained the ashes of Lepidus. To commemorate his escape, he sent three daggers to be consecrated to Mars the Avenger. At this time also he put away Lollia Paullina, under the pretext of her infecundity, and married Milonia Caesonia, a woman neither handsome nor young, and of the most disso- lute habits, and the mother already of three daughters. She was at the time so far gone with child by him that she was A. D. 40.] CAIUS IN GAUL. 75 delivered of a daughter immediately after her marriage. He loved her ardently as long as he lived ; he used to exhibit her naked to his friends, and take her riding about w^ith him through the ranks of the soldiery, arrayed in a cloak, helmet, and light buckler. Yet he would at times, in his fondness, protest that he would put her to the rack to make her tell why he loved her so much. Before he left Gaul, (40,) he proposed to massacre the legions which had mutinied against his father. He was dis- suaded from this course; but nothing would withhold him from decimating them, at the least. He therefore called them together unarmed, and surrounded them with his cavalry ; but, when he observed that they suspected his design, and were gradually slipping away to resume their arms, he lost courage, and, flying from the camp, hastened back to Rome, breathing vengeance against the senate. To the deputies, sent to entreat him to hasten his return, his words were, " I will come — I will come ; and this with me," striking the hilt of his sword ; and he declared that the senate would find him in future neither a citizen nor a prince. He entered Rome in ovation instead of triumph on his birthday, (Aug. 31,) the last he was to witness ; for the measure of his guilt was full, and the patience of mankind nearly exhausted. It may be worth while to notice some of the acts of which a madman possessed of absolute power was capable. Caius declared himself to be a god, and had a temple erected to his deity, in which stood a golden statue of him, habited each day as he was himself Peacocks, pheasants, and other rare birds, were oifered in sacrifice every day : his wife Caesonia, his uncle Claudius, and some persons of great wealth, (who had to purchase the office at a high rate,) were the priests. He added himself and his horse Incitatus to the college. He appeared in the habit and with the insignia sometimes of one, sometimes of another god or goddess. He used to invite the moon, when shining full and bright, to de- scend to his embraces. He would enter the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, and engage in confidential discourse, as it were, with the god, sometimes even chiding or threatening him. Being invited, he said, to share the abode of that deity, he threw a bridge, for the purpose, over the Forum, from the Palatium to the Capitol. It would be endless to relate all his freaks of thi& kind. He devised new and extraordinary taxes. He laid an im- post on all kinds of eatables, he demanded two and a half 76 CAius. [a. d. 40. per cent, on all lawsuits, and severely punished all those who compounded their actions. Porters were required to pay an eighth of their daily earnings ; prostitutes were taxed in a similar manner. He even opened a brothel in his palace, which he filled with respectable women, and sent persons through the Forum inviting people to resort to it. When his daughter was born, he complained bitterly of his pov- erty, and received presents for her support and dower. On new year's day, he used to stand at the porch to receive the gifts which were brought to him. He would often walk barefoot on heaps of gold coin, or lie down and roll himself on them. His natural cruelty made him delight in the combats of gladiators : he was equally fond of chariot-races; and, as he chose to favor the sea-colored faction, he used to cause the best drivers and horses of their rivals (the green) to be poi- soned. He was so fond of one of his own horses named Incitatus, that he used to invite him to dinner, give him gilded barley and wine out of golden cups, and swear by his safety and his fortune ; and he was only prevented by death from raising him to the consulate. One day, at a show of gladiators, he ordered the awning, which screened the spectators from the burning rays of the sun, to be withdrawn, and forbade any one to be let go out. Another time, when the people applauded contrary to his wishes, he cried out, " O that the Roman people had but one neck ! " A conspiracy at length delivered the world from the mon- ster who thus oppressed it. The principal freedmen and officers of the guards were concerned in it ; they were actu- ated by a principle of self-preservation, and not by any patri- otic views or generous aspirations after the liberty and happiness of the Roman people. It was, in effect, such a conspiracy as most usually occurs in absolute and despotic governments.* The most active agents were Cassius Chae- rea and Cornelius Sabinus, two tribunes of the guards, who had private motives of revenge, in particular Cas- sius, whom, though advanced in years, and a man of great strength and courage, Caius used to term effeminate, and to give Venus or Priapus, or some such lascivious term, when he came to him for the watchword. * A very circumstantial account of the murder of Caius, and the suc- cession of Claudius, is given by Josephus, Antiq. xix. 1 — 4. A, D. 41.] DEATH OF CAIUS. 77 On the 24th of January, (41,) a little after noon, though his stomach was suffering from the effects of the previous day's excess, Caius yielded to the instances of his friends, and was proceeding from the theatre, where he had passed the morning, to the dining-room. As he was going along the vaulted passage leading to it, he stopped to inspect some boys of noble birth from Ionia, whom he had caused to come to Rome to sing in public a hymn made in his honor. While thus engaged, he was fallen on and slain by Chserea, Sabinus, and other officers of the guards. A centurion, by the order of Chserea, killed, in the course of the night, his wife, Caesonia, and the brains of their infant daughter were dashed out against a wall. Such was the end of this execra- ble tyrant, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, after a reign of somewhat less than four years. After his death, there were found in his cabinet two books, the one having for its title the Sword, the other the Dagger, and containing the names of those whom he intended to put to death. There was also discovered a large chest full of all kinds of poisons. CHAPTER v.* TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CiESAR. A. u. 794—807. A. D. 41—55. ACCESSION OF CLAUDIUS. HIS CHARACTER. HIS USEFUL MEASURES. MESSALINA AND THE FREEDMEN. HER LUST AND CRUELTY. CLAUDIUS IN BRITAIN. VICIOUS CONDUCT OF MESSALINA. HER DEATH. CLAUDIUS MAR- RIES AGRIPPINA. — IS POISONED BY HER. As soon as the death of Caius was known, the consuls set guards throughout the city, and assembled the senate on the Capitol, where the remainder of the day and all the night were spent in deliberation ; some wishing to reestablish the republic, others to continue the monarchy. But while they were deliberating, the question had been already determined in the camp of the praetorian cohorts. * Authorities : Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dion. 78 CLAUDIUS. [a. d. 41 When Caius was slain, his uncle Claudius, in his terror, hid himself behind the door curtains of one of the rooms. A common soldier, who was running through the palace in quest of plunder, happening to see his feet under the cur- tain, dragged him out. Claudius fell on his knees, suing for mercy; but the soldier, recognizing him, saluted him em- peror, and led him to his comrades, who placed him in a litter, and carried him, trembling for his life, to their camp. The consuls sent the tribunes of the people to summon him as a senator to come and give his presence at their delibera- tions ; but he replied that he was detained by force. In the morning, however, finding the troops unanimous in their design of conferring the supreme power on him, he con- sented to accept it, promising them a gratuity of 15,000 sesterces a man — thus introducing the pernicious practice of bargaining for the support of the guards. The senate, •unable to agree among themselves, finding the people indif- ferent, and being deserted by the urban cohorts, abandoned the futile project of restoring the republic, and quietly yield- ed submission to the behest of the soldiery. . Tiberius Claudius Drusus Caesar, who was thus unexpect- edly raised to empire, was the younger brother of Germani- cus. He was from infancy of a sickly, delicate constitu- tion, and the disease of his body affected his mind. His mother, Antonia, used to call him a portent of a man begun but not completed by nature ; and when she would describe any one as particularly stupid, she would say he was a great- er fool than her son Claudius. His grandmother Livia held him in the most supreme contempt. Augustus had so mean an opinion of him, that he would not confer on him any of the honors of the state. Tiberius treated him in a similar manner. Caius, in the first days of his reign, made him his colleague in the consulate; but it was only his con- tempt for his folly (which Claudius cunningly affected be- yond nature) that saved him from sharing the fate of so many better men. Mental ability is very distinct from good sense and wis- dom. It need not therefore surprise us to learn that this prince, whose name in his own family was synonymous with stupidity, was learned, and wrote with ease and elegance in both the Greek and Latin languages.* He also, as is usual- ly the case with such persons, exhibited occasional glimpses * Suetonius (Claud. 41) speaks rather favorably of his historical writings. He seems to have been honest and impartial. A. D. 42] ACTS OF CLAUDIUS. W of shrewdness and sagacity, and made just observations, and conceived or proposed judicious plans. In fact, in examin- ing the history and character of Claudius, one is often re- minded of James I. of England, though the advantage, it must be allow^ed, is greatly on the side of the British mon- arch. The first act of Claudius was to declare a full and com- plete amnesty (to which he faithfully adhered) of all that had been said and done in the last two days. He executed, however, Chaerea, and some of the other assassins of Caius, not out of regard to him, but to deter others from attempt- ing the life of an emperor ; Sabinus died by his own hand. Claudius exhibited no enmity against those who had injured or insulted him in the two last reigns, of whom the number was necessarily not small. He entirely abolished the law of treason ; and, taking the Sword and Dagger, and all the papers which Caius had pretended to burn, he showed them to the senate, and, letting them see the names of the writers, and of the persons against whom they were written, burned them in good earnest. While he sedulously abolished all the wild innovations of Caius, he was anxious to have all kinds of honors bestowed on the memory of his family. He re- called his nieces Agrippina and Livilla from their exile, and restored to them their property. Claudius, who was fifty years of age, and whose life had been passed chiefly in the study of antiquity, understood and wished to conform as much as possible to the forms of the ancient constitution. He declined to use the prsenomen emperor ; he refused excessive honors ; he celebrated the weddings of his two daughters as if he had been a simple citi- zen ; he did nothing of public import without the authority of the senate ; he showed all due marks of respect to the consuls and the other magistrates. By this conduct, he so won the popular favor, that, when one time he went to Ostia, and a rumor was spread that he had been assassinated, the people assembled and poured their maledictions on the sen- ate and the guards, as murderers and traitors, and were not pacified till they were assured by the magistrates of his safety. In the second year of his reign, (42,) Claudius commenced a work of great utility, but of enormous expense. For many years past, tillage had been so completely abandoned in Ita- ly, that nearly all the corn that was used in Rome was im- ported from Africa and Sicily. But, as there were no secure 80 CLAUDIUS. [a. d. 42. ports or landing-places at the mouth of the Tiber, the sup- plies could only be brought in during the fine season ; and, if a sufficient quantity was not then warehoused for the winter's consumption, a famine was the sure consequence. To rem- edy this evil, Claudius, undeterred by the magnitude of the estimate given in by the surveyors, resolved to construct a port at Ostia. It was formed in the following manner : A large basin was dug in the land, on the right bank of the river, and the sea let into it ; two extensive moles were then run out into the sea, including another large basin, at the entrance to which, on an artificial island, stood a Pharos or lighthouse to direct vessels into it.* By means of this port, corn could be brought in at all times of the year, and the danger of famine in the city was greatly diminished. An- other public work, effected by Claudius, was the bringing the stream named the New Anio to Rome, and distributing it there into a number of handsome reservoirs. He attempted a still greater work, namely, the draining of the Fucine lake, in the Marsian country, of which we shall hereafter have occasion to speak. Another of his public works was the rebuilding of the theatre of Pompeius, which had been de- stroyed by fire. The conduct of Claudius had been so far commendable ; but constancy was not to be expected in a man of his feeble character. It was observed that he took immoderate delight in the barbarous sports of the amphitheatre, and hence it was inferred that he would shed blood without any repugnance ; but what caused greater apprehension was his absolute sub- mission to his wife and freedmen, of whose will he was merely the agent. His wife was Valeria Messalina, the daughter of his cousin Barbatus Messala, a woman whose name has become proverbial for infamy. His most distin- guished freedmen were the eunuch Posidus ; Felix, whom he made governor of JudsBa, and who had the fortune to be the husband of three queens ; and Callistus, who retained the power which he had acquired under Caius. But far supe- rior in point of influence to these were the three secretaries, (as we may term them,) Polybius, Narcissus, and Pallas. The first was the assistant of his studies, (« studiis,) and ranked so high that he might be often seen walking between the two consuls ; Narcissus was his private secretary, {ah * Dion, Ix. 11. Suet. Claud. 20. Juvenal (Sat, xii. l^,seq.) also de- scribes this port. A. D. 42.] MESSALINA AND THE FREEDMEN. 61 epistolis ;) and Pallas (the brother of Felix) was treasurer, (a rationihus.) The two last were in strict league with Messalina ; she only sought to gratify her lusts ; they longed for honors, power, and wealth; and such were the riches they acquired, that when Claudius was one time complain- ing of the poverty of his exchequer, some one told him that he would be rich enough if he could induce his two freed- men to take him into partnership. Their plan, when they would have any one put to death, was to terrify Claudius (who, like w^eak people in general, was a consummate coward) by tales of plots against his life. They commenced in his very second year, by assailing C. Annaeus Silanus, whom Claudius had summoned from Spain, where he was governor, given him in marriage the mother of Messalina, and treated him as one of his most intimate friends. The abandoned Messalina soon cast an eye of lust on her stepfather ; and, on his rejecting her advances, she plotted with Pallas to destroy him. Accordingly, Pallas came, early one morning, into Claudius's chamber, and told him that he had had a dream, in which he saw him slain by Silanus. Messalina helped to increase his alarm, and an order was obtained for the execution of the innocent no- bleman. This wanton murder caused general alarm, and was thfe occasion of a conspiracy against Claudius, in which the principal person engaged was Annaeus Vinicianus, a man of - high rank. As he had no force to oppose to the guards, he sent to Furius Camillus Scribonianus, who commanded in Dalmatia, inviting him to join in the conspiracy, and holding out to him a prospect of the empire. Camillus assented ; many senators and knights repaired to him ; he took the title of emperor, and wrote to Claudius, desiring him to re- tire into a private station — a command which the feeble prince had thoughts of obeying. But the legions of Ca- millus, though at first inclined to second him, when they heard him speak of the people, and of ancient liberty, began to think that a revolution would not be for their advantage. They therefore refused to obey him, and he fled to an island off the coast, and put an end to his life. Messalina and the freedmen now gave a loose to their passion for blood and for plunder. Slaves and freedmen were admitted as witnesses against their masters; and, though Claudius had sworn, at his accession, that no freeman should be put to the torture, knights and senators, citizens and strangers, were tortured 82 CLAUDIUS. [a. d. 43. alike. Vinicianus and some others anticipated the execu- tioner. Men and women perished alike, and their bodies were indiscriminately flung down the Gemonian Steps. Yet some, and those of the most guilty, escaped, partly by favor, partly by money given to the freedmen ; and the chil- dren, without exception, of those who perished remained uninjured ; some even obtained part of the property of their family. Among those who suffered, there were two whose cases are deserving of notice. Galaisus, a freedman of Camillus, when brought before Claudius and the senate, exhibited great constancy and courage. Pallas, stepping forward presumptuously, said to him, " What would you have done, GalaBsus, if Camillus had become the monarch? " " I would have stood behind him and held my tongue ! " was the reply of the undaunted freedman. The other case was that of CaBcina Psetus and his wife, Arria. When Paetus, who was engaged with Camillus, was put on board a ship to be con- veyed to Rome, Arria besought the soldiers to allow her to go in the vessel with him, saying that surely they would let a man of consular rank have some slaves to dress him and to attend him at table, and that she would discharge these offices. They, however, refused, and she then hired a small fishing-boat, and followed the ship.* When Paetus was con- demned to die, this high-minded woman, though she might have lived in honor by the favor of Messalina, who had much regard for her, disdained to survive him ; and not merely so, but when she saw him hesitating to die, she took the sword, and, having stabbed herself, handed it to him, saying, "See! Paetus; I am in no pain." "They were praised," adds the historian Dion ; for, from the continuance of evil, matters were come to that state that nothing but dying courageously was counted virtue. At length, when no more victims remained, the persecu- tion ceased, (43.) Claudius then, as usual, made some use- ful acts of legislation, such as diminishing the number of holidays, and obliging governors to repair betimes to their provinces, and not to remain in the city. He also deprived many unworthy persons of the right of citizenship, and con- ferred it on others. In this Messalina and the freedmen carried on a most extensive trade; and, in their eagerness to catch at all that could be obtained, they brought down so * Plin. Ep. iii. 16. A. D. 44.] CRUELTY OF MESSALINA. 83 much the price, (which used to be very high,) that it became a common saying that one had only to give a parcel of bro- ken glass to be made a citizen. Messalina now set no bounds to her vicious courses. Not content with being infamous herself, she would have others so; and she actually used to compel ladies to prostitute themselves even in the palace, and before the eyes of their husbands, whom she rewarded with honors and commands, while she contrived to destroy those who would not acquiesce in their wives' dishonor. Her cruelty extended also to her own sex, and to her husband's kindred; she had already (41) caused Livilla to be put to death, on a charge of adultery, (in which the philosopher Seneca was implicated, and in consequence exiled to Corsica;) but the real ground of of- fence was Livilla's beauty, and her intimacy with her uncle. She now became jealous of Julia, the granddaughter of Ti- berius, whom she soon contrived to deprive of life. Mean- time her own excesses were unknown to her husband, for she generally caused one of her maids to occupy her place in his bed ; and she bought off by benefits, or anticipated by punishments, those who could give him information.* The wars on the frontiers had been of late against the Germans in Europe, and the Moors in Africa, and Ser. Sulpicius Galba, the future emperor, had vanquished the Chattans, and C. Suetonius Paulinus had carried the Roman arms to the foot of Atlas. The plan of conquering Britain was now resumed, and partly effected. t An exiled British prince having applied to Claudius, orders were sent to A. Plautius, who commanded in Gaul, to lead his troops into the island. Plautius obeyed, and subdued a part of the country south of the Thames. At his desire, Claudius him- self proceeded to Britain ; and, having crossed that river, and defeated an army of the natives, he returned to Rome (after a stay of only sixteen days in the island) and celebrated a triumph, (44.) The title of Britannicus was decreed by the senate to himself and to his young son, and honors were conferred on Messalina similar to those enjoyed by Livia Augusta. Little of importance occurred for the next two or three years. As the 800th year of the city arrived in his reign, * The picture of the depravity of this abandoned woman given by Juvenal (vi. 114, seq.) is not overcharged. t For the affairs of Britain, the reader is referred to the author's History of England. 8i# CLAUDIUS. [a. d. 47. (47,) Claudius celebrated the srecular games, alleging (it would seem with truth, though he had asserted the contrary in his own historical works) that Augustus had anticipated the proper time. The proclamation being made in the usual form, caused a good deal of merriment ; for the crier invited the people to games " which no one had seen before nor would ever see again," whereas there were many who well remembered those of Augustus in the year 737, and even some of the actors who had then performed appeared now on the stage.* While Claudius was celebrating his games, and regula- ting, often advantageously, the affairs of the empire, Messali- na still ran her mad career of vice, often making her stupid husband the broker, as it were, of her pleasures. Thus, when Mnester, a celebrated dancer, with whom she fell violently in love, could be seduced neither by her promises nor her threats, she obtained from Claudius (pretending some other purpose) an order to him to do whatever she should require of him. Mnester therefore, thinking that she had full license from her husband, complied with her desires. The same was the case with many others, who deemed that they were acting in obedience to the wishes of the prince when intriguing with his wife. The chief object of her affection at this time was C. Sil- ius, the handsomest man in Rome, and then consul elect. She drove away his wife, Junia Silana, that she might have the sole possession of him ; and Silius, knowing that to re- fuse would be his destruction, while by compliance he might possibly escape, yielded to his fate. The adulteress had now become so secure, that she disdained concealment ; she went openly to his house ; she heaped wealth and honors on him ; the slaves, the freedmen, the whole property, as it were, of the prince, were transferred to the house of her paramour. Messalina thought not of danger; but Silius saw that he was so deep in guilt, that he or Claudius must fall. He therefore proposed to his mistress the murder of her husband, and the seizure of the supreme power, offering then to marry her, and to adopt her son. She hesitated, not from affection to her husband, but from fear lest Silius should, when in power, cast her off. The prospect of a more eminent degree of infamy finally prevailed with her, * [Both these statements are highly improbable, not to say impossi- ble, no less than 63 years having passed between the times. — J. T. S.j A. D. 48.] CONDUCT OF MESSALINA. 85 and she even resolved to become the wife of Silius at once. What followed, Tacitus thought would be regarded as so utterly beyond belief, that he deemed it necessary to assure his readers, that he faithfully recorded the accounts trans- mitted by contemporary writers. Taking advantage of the absence of Claudius, who was gone to celebrate a sacrifice at Ostia, (48,) Messalina and Silius had their marriage pub- licly performed, with all the requisite forms and ceremonies; and, as it was now the season of the vintage, they and their friends, habited as Bacchanals, acted all kinds of extrav- agances in the gardens of Silius's house. The freedmen, meantime, consulted how they should act. The confidence between them and Messalina was at an end, for she had caused Polybius to be put to death, and they saw that no reliance could be placed on her. The others hesitated, but Narcissus resolved to run all risks, and inform Claudius of her conduct. Having made the rest promise not to give Messalina any warning, he hastened down to Ostia, and there prevailed on Calpurnia and Cleopatra, two mistresses of the prince, to communicate to him the intelligence. Accordingly, when they were alone with him, Calpurnia, throwing herself at his knees, exclaimed that Messalina wa& married to Silius ; Cleopatra confirmed her words ; Narcissus was then called in. He craved pardon for having concealed her former transgressions, but said that this was a more se- rious case, and that the empire itself was at stake. Claudius then consulted with his friends, and it was their unanimous opinion that he should hasten at once to the camp of the praetorians, and secure their fidelity. As, however, Geta, their commander, could not be relied on. Narcissus, seconded by those who stood in equal peril with himself, declared that it was absolutely necessary that the command of the guards should for that one day be transferred to one of the freed- men, and offered to take the charge on himself Then, fear- ing lest L. Vitellius and P. Largus Csecina, who were the creatures of Messalina, should succeed in moving Claudius to pity on his way to Rome, he asked and obtained a seat in the same carriage with him and them. Intelligence of what was going on at Ostia soon reached Rome. The guilty pair were struck with consternation. Messalina retired to the gardens of Lucullus, for the sake of which (a Roman Jezebel) she had, by means of her creature L. Vitellius, lately caused their owner, Valerius Asiaticus, CONTIN. 8 SQ CLAUDIUS. [a. d. 48. to be judicially murdered. Silius, to conceal his fears, went about his public duties ; but some centurions soon arrived, who put him and many others in bonds. Messalina resolved to try the effect of her presence on her weak husband. She ordered his children Britannicus and Octavia to be brought to her ; she implored Vibidia, the eldest of the Vestals, to come and intercede for her. She then, with only three com- panions, crossed the city on foot, and, getting into a gar- dener's cart, set out on the road to Ostia. When she met her husband, she cried out to him from afar to hear the mother of Octavia and Britannicus ; but Narcis- sus reiterated Silius and her marriage, and gave Claudius the records of her infamy to read. As he was entering the city, his children were presented to him ; but Narcissus desired them to be removed. Vibidia then appeared, and required that he would not condemn his wife unheard. Nar- cissus replied that she should have an opportunity of defend- ing herself, and bade the Vestal meantime to go and attend to her sacred duties. Narcissus conducted Claudius to the house of Silius, that he might have ocular proof of his guilt. He thence took him to the camp, where Claudius, at his dictation, addressed a few words to the soldiers, who replied with a shout, calling for judgment on the guilty. Silius was brought before the tribunal ; he made no defence, and only prayed for a speedy death. His example was followed by several illustrious knights. The only case that caused any delay was that of the dancer Mnester, who pleaded the prince's command for what he had done. Claudius was dubious how to act ; but the freedmen urged that it would be folly to think of a player when so many noblemen were put to death, and that it mat- tered not whether he acted voluntarily or not in committing such a crime. Mnester also was therefore put to death. Messalina had returned to the gardens of Lucullus. She did not yet despair, if she could but get access to her husband. As Claudius, when he grew warm with wine at his dinner, desired some one to go tell that wretched woman (so he termed her) to be prepared to make her defence the next day, Narcissus saw that all was again at stake. He there- fore ran out, and told the tribune and centurions on guard that the emperor had ordered his wife to be put to death. They proceeded to the gardens of Lucullus, where they found her lymg on the ground, her mother Lepida, who in her prosperity had avoided her, sitting beside her, and persuading A, D. 48.] DEATH OF MESSALINA. 87 her to take refuge in a voluntary death. The unfortunate woman's mind, however, was too much enervated by luxury for her to possess sufficient courage for such an act. The freedman who accompanied the officers having loaded her with abuse, she took a sword and made some ineffectual at- tempts to stab herself," the tribune then ran her through. Claudius, when informed of her fate, testified neither joy nor grief. By a decree of the senate, all memorials of Messalina were abolished, and the quaestorian ensigns were voted to Narcissus. The freedmen now had the task of selecting another wife for their feeble prince, who was not capable of leading a single life, and who was sure to be governed by the successful candidate. The principal women in Rome were ambitious of the honor of sharing the bed of the imperial idiot ; but the claims of all were forced to yield to those of Lollia Paulina, the former wife of Caius, Julia Agrippina, the daughter of Germanicus, and JElia Petina, Claudius's own divorced wife. The first was patronized by Callistus, the second by Pallas, the last by Narcissus. Agrippina, how- ever, in consequence of her frequent access to her uncle, easily triumphed over her rivals ; the only difficulty that pre- sented itself was that of a marriage between uncle and niece being contrary to Roman manners, and being even regarded as incestuous. This difficulty, however, the compliant L. Vitellius, who was then censor, undertook to remove. He addressed the senate, stating the necessity of a domestic partner to a prince who had on him such weighty public cares. He then launched forth in praise of Agrippina ; as to the objection of the nearness of kindred, such unions, he said, were practised among other nations, and, at one time, first cousins did not use to marry, which now they did so commonly. The servile assembly outran the speaker in zeal ; they rushed out of the house, and a promiscuous rab- ble collected, shouting that such was the wish of the Roman people. Claudius repaired to the senate-house, and caused a decree to be made legalizing marriages between uncles and nieces; and he then formally espoused Agrippina. Yet such was the light in which the incestuous union was viewed, that, corrupt as the Roman character was become, only two persons were found to follow the imperial example.* * The Church of Rome forbids both these marriages, but grants dis- pensations for them. In Popish countries, the marriages of uncle and 88 CLAUDIUS. [a. d. 48-52. Agrippina also proposed to unite her son Domitius with Octavia, the daughter of Claudius; but here there was a difficulty also, for Octavia was betrothed to L. Silanus. Again, however, she found a ready tool in the base Vitellius, to whose son Junia Calvina, the sister of Silanus, had been married. As the brother and sister indulged their affection imprudently, though not improperly, the worthy censor took the occasion to make a charge of incest against Silanus, and to strike him out of the list of senators. Claudius then broke off the match, and Silanus put an end to himself on the very day of Agrippina's marriage. His sister was ban- ished, and Claudius ordered some ancient rites expiatory of incest to be performed, unconscious of the application of them which would be made to himself. The woman who had now obtained the government of Claudius and the Roman empire, was of a very different character from the abandoned Messalina. The latter had nothing noble about her ; she was the mere bondslave of lust, and cruel and avaricious only for its gratification ; but Agrip- pina was a woman of superior mind, though utterly devoid of principle. In her, lust was subservient to ambition ; it was the desire of power, or the fear of death, and not wanton- ness, that made her submit to the incestuous embraces of her brutal brother Caius, and to be prostituted to the companions of his vices. It was ambition and parental love that made her now form an incestuous union with her uncle. To neither of her husbands, Cn. Domitius or Crispus Passienus, does she appear to have been voluntarily unfaithful ; the bed of Claudius was, however, not fated to be unpolluted; for, as a means of advancing her views, Agrippina formed an illicit connection with Pallas, The great object of Agrippina was to exclude Britannicus, and obtain the succession for her own son, Nero Domitius, now a boy of twelve years of age. She therefore caused Octavia to be betrothed to him, and she had the philosopher Seneca recalled from Corsica, whither he had been exiled by the arts of Messalina, and committed to him the education of her son, that he might be fitted for empire. In the following year, (51,) Claudius, yielding to her influence, adopted him. In order to bring Nero forward, Agrippina caused him to assume the virile toga before the usual age, (52;) and the niece are common. The late queen of Portugal was married to her uncle ; the present has married two brothers in succession. A. D. 52-55.] AGRIPPINA. 89 servile senate desired of Claudius that he might be consul at the age of twenty, and meantime be elect with proconsular power without the city. A donative was given to the sol- diers, and a congiary (congiarium) to the people, in his name. At the Circensian games, given to gain the people, Nero appeared in the triumphal habit; Britannicus, in a simple prcBtexta. Every one who showed any attachment to this poor youth, was removed, on one pretence or another, and he was surrounded with the creatures of Agrippina. Finally, as the two commanders of the guards were supposed to be attached to the interests of the children of Messalina, she persuaded Claudius that their discipline would be much improved if they were placed under one commander. Ac- cordingly, those officers were removed, and the command was given to Burrus Afranius, a man of high character for probity, and of great military reputation, and who knew to whom he was indebted for his elevation. The pride and haughtiness of Agrippina far transcended any thing that Rome had as yet witnessed in a woman. When (51) the British prince Caractacus and his family, whom P. Ostorius had sent captives to the emperor, were led before him, as he sat on his tribunal in the plain under the praetorian camp, with all the troops drawn out, Agrippina appeared, seated on another tribunal, as the partner of his power. And again, when (53) the letting off of the Fucine lake was celebrated with a naval combat, she presided with him, habited in a military cloak of cloth of gold. Agrippina at length (55) grew weary of delay, or fearful of discovery. Narcissus, who saw at what she was aiming, appeared resolved to exert all his influence in favor of Bri- tannicus ; and Claudius himself, one day, when he was drunk, was heard to say, that it was his fate to bear with the infamy of his wives, and then to punish it. He had also begun to show peculiar marks of affection for Britannicus. She therefore resolved to act without delay ; and, as Clau- dius, having become unwell, had retired to Sinuessa for change of air and the benefit of the waters, she proposed to take advantage of the opportunity thus presented. She pro- cured, from a woman named Locusta, infamous for her skill in poisoning, a poison of the most active nature. The eu- nuch Halotus, who was his taster, then infused it in a dish of mushrooms, a kind of food in which he delighted. The poison, however, acted violently on his bowels, and Agrippi- na, in dismay lest he should recover, made a physician who 8* L 90 NERO. was at hand introduce a poisoned feather into his throat, by way of making him discharge his stomach ; and in this man- ner the nefarious deed was completed. The death of Clau- dius was concealed till all the preparations for the succession of Nero should be made, and the fortunate hour marked by the astrologers be arrived. He then (Oct. 13) issued from the palace, accompanied by Burrus ; and, being cheered by the cohort which was on guard, he mounted a litter, and proceeded to the camp. He addressed the soldiers, prom- ising them a donative, and was saluted emperor. The senate and provinces acquiesced without a murmur in the will of the guards. Claudius was in his sixty-fourth year when he was poi- soned ; and he had reigned thirteen years and nine months, wanting a few days. CHAPTER VI.* NERO CLAUDIUS CiESAR. A. u. 808—821. A. D. 55—68. DECLINE OP AGRIPPINA's POWER. POISONING OF BRITANNICUS. — MURDER OF AGRIPPINA. NERO APPEARS ON THE STAGE. MURDER OF OCTAVIA. EXCESSES OF NERO. BURNING OF ROME. CONSPIRACY AGAINST NERO. DEATH OF SEN- ECA. DEATHS OF PETRONIUS, THRASEAS, AND SORANUS. NERO VISITS GREECE. GALEA PROCLAIMED EMPEROR. DEATH OF NERO. The new emperor t was only seventeen years of age. On account of his youth and his obligations to her, Agrippina hoped to enjoy the power of the state ; but Nero was not feeble-minded, like Claudius, and Seneca and Burrus were resolved to keep in check the influence of a haughty, unprin- cipled woman. All outward honors, however, were shown her. When the tribune, according to custom, asked the emperor for the word, he gave, ' My best Mother ; ' the sen- * Authorities : Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dion. t We shall henceforth employ thislerm. Its original meaning must be familiar to the reader. A. D. 56.J DECLINE OF AGRIPPINa's POWER. 91 ate decreed her sundry privileges, but Burrus and Seneca checked her lust of blood. She had, however, caused Junius Silanus, the proconsul of Asia, to be poisoned for being of the imperial family, and she forced Narcissus to be his own exe- cutioner. When the senators were summoned to the palace on any affair of state, she used to stand behind the door cur- tain, that she might be present and share in the debate with- out being seen ; and when ambassadors came from Armenia, she was about to ascend the tribunal with her son, had not Seneca bidden the emperor to go and meet his mother ; and thus, by the show of filial duty, the disgrace to the majesty of Rome was avoided. All now was full of promise. The young emperor made speeches, the compositions of Seneca, replete with sentiments of clemency and justice. He declared that Augustus should be his model in government. He diminished the taxes, and reduced the rewards of informers to a fourth. When re- quired to sign the warrant for the execution of a criminal, "How I could wish," said he, "that I were ignorant of let- ters ! " He practised many popular arts, and acted in a char- acter easy to assume, but difficult to maintain if not prompted by nature. The power of Agrippina received its first shock (56) by the passion of her son for a freedwoman named Acte, a native of Asia, and, as he fain would have it. a descendant of the kings of Pergamus. His graver friends were willing to wink at this attachment, for, as he testified an aversion for his chaste and modest wife, Octavia, they thought it would be a means of keeping him from debauching women of rank. But the violent Agrippina at first set no bounds to her rage ; then, passing to the other extremes, she offered him her purse and her apartments for the gratification of his wishes. Nero and his friends, however, saw through her arts, and the plan for reducing her power was steadily pursued. Accordingly Pallas was now deprived of his office of treasurer. This again drove her furious; she menaced her son with setting up Bri- tannicus against him, declaring that she would take him to the camp, and, as the daughter of Germanicus, appeal to the sol- diers against her unworthy son. Nero now became alarmed; he knew of what his mother was capable, and a late incident * had shown him that Britan- * In the Saturnalia, when boys were, as usual, giving the kingdom by lot, it fell to Nero. As all were then bound to obey his commands, 92 NERO. [a.d. 56. nicus was not without spirit, and was possessed of friends. He therefore resolved to remove him, and for this purpose had a poison procured from Locusta, and administered by those about the youth. It proved, however, too weak ; and the em- peror, sending for Locusta, beat her with his own hands, and made her prepare a stronger dose, of which he made trial on a kid and a pig, till he was satisfied of its efficacy. He then had it brought into the dining-room, and given in some cold water to Britannicus, as he sat at dinner. The unhappy youth dropped suddenly dead ; Nero said carelessly, that he had been subject to epilepsy from his infancy, and that he would soon recover, Agrippina was struck with terror and conster- nation, but did not venture to express them. Octavia, young as she was, had learned to conceal her feelings. So, after a brief interval of silence, the entertainment was resumed. The body of Britannicus was burnt that very night, the arrange- ments for it having been previously made. To stifle the memory of this atrocious deed, Nero be- stowed large gifts on the persons about him of most influ- ence. By many Seneca and Burrus were much blamed for accepting them, while others excused them by the plea of ne- cessity. Nothing, however, could soften Agrippina ; she em- braced Octavia; she held secret meetings with her friends; she collected money; she courted the officers of the guards; she treated the remaining nobility with great respect. Nero, in return, deprived her of the guard of honor which had been hitherto assigned her, appointed a different part of the palace for her residence, and never visited her without a party of centurions. The enemies of Agrippina were now imboldened to attack her life. Junia Silana,* who had been her intimate friend, irritated by her having been the means of depriving her of an advantageous match, caused two of her clients, named Iturius and Calvitius, to accuse her of a design to marry Rubellius Plaatus, who was related to Augustus in the same degree that Nero was, and to set him up as his rival for the empire. This information was communicated to Atimetus, a freed- man of Domitia, Nero's aunt, who also was at enmity with he ordered Britannicus to stand in the middle and sing a song. Bri- tannicus obeyed ; but the song he sang was one expressive of his own fate in being cast out from empire and his paternal seat. Tac. An. xiii. 15. It is probably to this play that Horace alludes, Ep. i. 1, 59. It is also the original of our Twelfth-day kings. * See above, p. 84. A. D. 56-59.] ATTACK ON AGRIPPINA. 93 Agrippina ; and he urged Paris the actor, another of her freed- men, to go at once and inform the emperor of the danger that menaced him. Paris hastened to the palace. It was late at night when he arrived. Nero, who had been drinking freely, was dreadfully alarmed at this intelligence. In the first ac- cess of his terror, he would have had both his mother and Plautus put to death immediately ; but he was withheld for the present by the instances of Burrus. In the morning, Burrus, Seneca, and some of the freedmen, waited on Agrippina. She treated the charge with disdain, exposed its absurdity, and assigned the motives of its inventors. She insisted on being admitted to an audience of her son; and, when she saw him, she demanded, and she obtained, rewards for her friends, and venoreance on her enemies. Silana was exiled, Calvitius and Iturius were relegated, Atimetus was put to death; but Paris was too necessary to the pleasures of the prince to allow of his being punished; Pallas and Burrus were now accused of a design to set up Cornelius Sulla, the son-in-law of Claudius. But the charge was so manifestly absurd, that the accuser was sent into exile. A remarkable instance of the pride and insolence of Pallas appeared on this occasion; when the freedmen who were his confidants were named, he replied that in his house he always indicated his wishes by a nod or by a sign of his hand, or, if many things were to be expressed, he wrote them down, that he might not mingle his voice with those of his servants. Little of importance occurred at Rome during the three succeeding years. The matter of most note was the connec- tion which Nero formed (59) with a lady named Poppaea Sabina. This woman, who, as Tacitus remarks, possessed every thing but virtue, was at this time married to M. Salvius Otho, for whom she had quitted her former husband, Rufius Crispinus. Otho, who was one of Nero's greatest intimates, could not refrain from boasting frequently before him of the- beauty and elegance of his wife. Nero's desires were in- flamed ; he soon managed to become acquainted with Pop- paea ; and this artful woman pretended to be captivated with his beauty, but at the same time declared that she was strong- ly attached to Otho, on account of the noble and splendid life which he led, while Nero, the associate of the freedwoman Acte, could not be expected to be any thing but mean and servile. This line of conduct succeeded completely ; Nero 94 NERO. [a. d. 59-60. became all her own, and Otho, that he might not be in the way of their amours, was sent out as governor of Lusitania. It was now that Agrippina was in real danger. Poppsea, whose power over her lover continually increased, knew that, as long as his mother lived, she could not hope to succeed in making him divorce Octavia and marry herself She there- fore had recourse to her usual arts, calling him a ward, tell- ing him that he did not possess freedom, much less empire ; and tauntingly asking him, was it on account of her noble an- cestors, or her beauty, or her fecundity, or her spirit, that he delayed espousing her, and so forth. Tacitus relates, on the authority of several writers, and of common fame, that Agrippina's desire for the retention of power was such, that she actually sought to seduce her son to the commission of incest ; and her design was only prevent- ed by Seneca's making Acte tell the prince that the fame of it was gone abroad, and that the soldiers would not submit to the rule of a profane prince. Others said that the guilty party was Nero himself, but that he was diverted from his de- sign by Acte, as just related. Nothing, we fear, is too bad to be believed of either mother or son. Be the truth as it may, Nero henceforth avoided all occa- sions of being alone with his mother ; and he secretly resolved on her death. The difficulty was how to accomplish it ; poi- son was out of the question against a woman of such cau- tion ; a violent death could not be concealed, and he also feared that he could get no one to attempt her life. At length Anicetus, a freedman who commanded the fleet at Misenum, proposed the expedient of a ship which should go to pieces. The prince embraced the idea,, and, as he was spending the festival of the Quinquatrus at Baise, (60,) he invited his mother, who was at Artium, to visit him there, saying that children should bear with the temper of their parents. He met her on the way, and conducted her to a villa named Bauli, on the sea-coast. Among the vessels lying there was one superior to the others, as if to do her honor. She was invited to proceed in it to Baiae ; but it is said that she had gotten warning, and therefore declined, and proceeded thither in her litter. The caresses of her son, however, dispelled her suspicions, if she had any; the banquet was prolonged into the night, and, when she rose to depart, the emperor attended her to the shore where she was to embark, and, as he was taking leave of her, he kissed her eyes and bosom repeatedly. A. D. 60.] MURDER OF AGRIPPINA. 95 either the more completely to veil his purpose, or possibly from some remnants of the feelings of nature. The night was starlight — the sea was calm : Agrippina, attended only by Creperius Gallus and her maid Acerronia, went on board. The vessel had proceeded but a little way, when, as Creperius was standing near the helm, and Acerronia was reclining over the feet of her mistress, and congratulating her on the recent reconciliation, the deck, which was laden with lead, at a given signal came down on them : Creperius was killed on the spot ; the strength of the sides of the bed saved Agrippina and Acerronia ; the ship did not go to pieces, as intended. The rowers then attempted to sink it, by inclining it to one side, but did not succeed. Acerronia foolishly crying out that she was Agrippina, and calling to them to aid the mother of the prince, was despatched with blows of boat-hooks and oars. Agrippina, who preserved silence, only received a wound in the shoulder ; and she floated along till she was picked up by some small boats, and conveyed to her villa on the Lucrine lake. She now saw through the whole design of her impious son ; but, deem- ing it her wisest course to dissemble, she sent Agerinus, one of her freedmen, to inform him of the escape which the goodness of the gods had vouchsafed her, begging him not to come to visit her, as she required repose, Nero's consternation was extreme when he heard of her escape. He deemed that she would now set no bounds to her vengeance ; that she would arm her slaves, and appeal to the soldiers, the senate, and the people, against her parricidal son. He summoned Burrus and Seneca to advise him. They both maintained a long silence : at length Seneca, seeing that either Nero or Agrippina now must fall, looked at Bur- rus, and asked if a soldier should be ordered to slay her ? Burrus replied that the soldiers would not touch the issue of Germanicus, and added that it would be better for Anicetus to go through with what he had commenced. Nero was overjoyed when Anicetus declared his willingness. Just then Agerinus arrived ; and, as he was delivering his message, Nero cast a sword at his feet, and then caused him to be put in chains, that he might be able to say that his mother had sent her freedman to assassinate him, and had killed herself out of shame when she had failed in her design. When Anicetus arrived at Agrippina's villa, he dispersed the crowds which had assembled to congratulate her on her escape. He set a guard round the house, and then, with a 96 NERO. [a. d. 60. captain of a galley and a centurion of the marines, entered her chamber, where she was waiting with extreme anxiety for intelligence. The only maid about her was leaving her : " Do you also desert me ? " said she ; and, looking around, she beheld Anicetus. She told him, if he came to see her, to say that she was recovered ; if to perform a crime, she would not believe that her son would command the murder of his mother. The captain struck her with a stick on the head ; as the centurion was drawing his sword, she showed her womb, crying out, '' Strike here : " she was then despatched with several wounds. Such was the termination of the guilty ambition of the highly-gifted daughter of Germanicus. It was said that she had long foreknown her fate ; for, having one time consulted the astrologers on the future fortunes of her son, they replied that he would reign, but that he would kill his mother. '' Let him kill me," cried she, " provided that he reigns." Some writers related that Nero came to view the dead body of his mother, and that he criticised the various parts, observing, on the whole, that he did not think she had been so handsome. Yet conscience asserted its rights : terrific dreams scared him from his couch ; the aspect of the smiling shores of the Bay of Baiae became gloomy to his view; imagination heard the wailing of trumpets from the place where the unhonored ashes of Agrippina lay. Though the officers of the guards, at the impulsion of Burrus, came to congratulate him on his escape from the treachery of his mother ; though his friends and the adjacent towns of Campania wearied heaven with thanksgivings, and the ob- sequious senate decreed supplications and honors of all kinds, his mind could not find rest, and for years he was haunted by the memory of his murdered parent. Nero went first to Naples, and, having remained sometime in Campania, dubious of the reception he might meet with at Rome, he was at length impelled by his flatterers to enter the city boldly. He did so, and found that he had had no just cause for alarm ; for senate and people alike, all ages and sexes, vied in servility and adulation. His entrance was like a triumph, and he ascended the Capitol and returned thanks to the gods. The restraint of his mother being removed, Nero now gave a free course to his idle or vicious propensities. He had always been fond of driving a chariot, and of singing to the lyre after his dinner, justifying it by the example of ancient A. D. 60-63.] NERO ON THE STAGE. 97 kings and heroes, such as the Homeric Achilles. Seneca and Burrus thought it advisable to humor him in the former propensity, and a space was enclosed in the Vatican valley for his chariot driving. But he vi^as not contented till the people were admitted to witness and to applaud his skill. In order that the infamy of his exhibitions might be dimin- ished by diffusion, he obliged some of the noblest of both sexes to appear on the stage, the arena, and the circus. He also instituted games called Juvenalia, (from his then first shaving,) in which, in theatres erected in his gardens, he himself sang and danced ; and he forced the nobility of all ages and sexes, without any regard to the honors they had borne, to do the same. A lady, for example, named ^Elia Catella, rich and noble, and eighty years of age, was thus obliged to dance in public ! He finally appeared on the pub- lic stage; and the lord of the Roman world was seen to come forward, lyre in hand, wearing a long, trailing robe, and, hav- ing addressed the audience in the usual form, ("Gentlemen, hear me with favor," ) sing to his chords the story of Attis or the Bacchae. The officers of the guards stood around, Burrus grieving and applauding. He further selected five thousand young men, named Augustans, who were divided into companies, whose task was to applaud him when he was singing. The death of Burrus, (63,) which some ascribed to poison, removed another check from the vices of Nero. The com- mand of the guards was again divided ; Fenius Rufus, an honest but inactive officer, being joined in it with Sofonius Tigellinus, a man polluted by every vice, but whom similarity of manners had recommended to the favor of the prince. Seneca, finding his influence reduced by the death of Burrus, and himself marked as the object of attack by the base minions of the court, craved an. audience of the prince, and requested to be allowed to restore all the possessions which he had bestowed on him, and permitted to retire into the shades of private life. But Nero, accomplished in hypocrisy, made the most affectionate objections, would not hear of his retire- ment, and lavished caresses on him. Seneca returned thanks and retired ; but he altered his mode of life, and henceforth avoided publicity as much as possible. Cornelius Sulla and Rubellius Plautus, being both de- scended in the female line from Augustus, were objects of alarm to Nero ; he had therefore removed them from the city : the former resided in Gaul, the latter in Asia. But CONTIN. 9 M 98 NEKo. [a. d. 63, Tigellinus, now pretending extreme solicitude for the safety of the prince^ and exaggerating the dangers to be apprehend- ed from those noblemen, obtained permission to murder them. Sulla therefore was slain as he was sitting at dinner at Marseilles, and Plautus as he was engaged in gymnic ex- ercises. Their heads were brought to Nero, who mocked at the first as gray before his time, and observed of the sec- ond, that he was not aware of his having had so large a nose. He, moreover, when he saw the head of Plautus, cried out, that now he might venture to put away Octavia, blameless and loved of the people as she was, and espouse his dear Poppsea. Accordingly, having informed the senate of the deaths of Sulla and Plautus, and finding that supplications and so forth were decreed without hesitation, he judged that he had nothing to apprehend from that spiritless as- sembly ; he therefore at once put away Octavia, on the pre- tence of sterility, and married Poppsea, who then attempted to convict Octavia of an intrigue with a flute-player named Eucerus. But the noble constancy of the greater part of that lady's female slaves, whom all the tortures of the rack could not induce to testify falsely against their mistress, de- feated the iniquitous project. The murmurs of the populace soon obliged Nero to take back Octavia, and the public joy was manifested in the most signal manner; the statues of Poppgea were flung down, and those of Octavia were carried about covered with flowers, and placed in the temples. Poppaea, now seriously alarmed for her safety, exerted all her influence over Nero ; and he obliged the notorious Anicetus to confess a criminal intercourse with Octavia. Pretending, then, that her object had been to gain over the fleet, he caused her to be confined in the fatal isle of Pan- dataria ; and a few days after, orders were sent for her death. The poor young woman, to whom, though only in her twenty-second year, life had ceased to yield any pleasure, still feared to die ; but she was bound, her veins were opened, and she was placed in a warm bath. When life was extinct, her head was cut off* and brought to Poppsea. Thanks to the gods were of course decreed by the senate.* The murder of Octavia was succeeded by the deaths (by * " Quod ad eum finem memoravimus," says Tacitus, " utquicumque casus temporum illorum, nobis vel aliis auctoribus, noscent, prsesump- tum habeant, quotiens fugas et coedes jussit princeps, totiens grates deis actas, quseque rerum secundarum dim turn publicae cladis insignia iuisse." A. D. 64-65.] NERO AT NAPLES. 99 poison, as was believed) of Pallas and some of the other freed- men. The crime of Pallas was his detaining, by living too long, his immense wealth from the covetous prince. At length, (64,) to his excessive joy, Nero became a father, Poppsea being delivered of a daughter at Antium, the place of his own birth. The senate, who had already commended the womb of Poppaea to the gods, now decreed to her and the in- fant the title of Augusta ; supplications, temples, games, and all other honors, were voted ; and when the baby died, in its fourth month, it was deified by the obsequious and impious assembly, and a temple and priest were voted to it. Hitherto Nero had confined the exercise of his scenic pow- ers to his palace and gardens ; but he longed for a more am- ple field of display. He would not yet, however, venture to insult the prejudices and feelings of the people by appearing on the stage openly at Rome; and he therefore selected Naples, as a Grecian city, for the place in which he would make his dehut in public, intending then to pass over to Greece, and contend at all the great games of that country, and thus overcome the prejudices of the Romans. He ac- cordingly appeared, (65,) before a large audience, in the theatre of Naples ; and even the shock of an earthquake, which rocked the building, did not prevent him from finish- ing his piece. Instead, however, of proceeding directly to Greece, he returned to Rome, and there, declaring that his absence would not be long, he ascended the Capitol to pray to the gods for the success of his journey ; but when he en- tered the temple of Vesta, he was seized with a violent tremor in all his limbs, (the effect probably of the stings of con- science ;) and he gave up his design for the present, to the great joy of the populace, who feared a scarcity of corn in his absence . to the senate and nobles it was uncertain wheth- er his absence or his presence was the more to be dreaded. To prove to the people that he preferred Rome to all other places, he made the whole city, as it were, his house, and held his banquets in the public places. Historians have deemed one of these, given by Tigellinus, deserving of memory; [but the details are far too disgusting to be repeated. The in- famy to which Nero reduced himself was of the lowest and vilest kind,] Rome was at this time visited by a calamity worse than any that had befallen her since she was a city. On the 19th of July, a fire broke out in a part of the circus which was full of shops containing inflammable substances. The 100 NERO. [a.d. 65. flames spread rapidly, the wind accelerating their career. It was not till the sixth day, that, by pulling down houses, the course of the conflagration was stopped at the foot of the Esquiline. The loss of lives and property was immense : of the fourteen quarters into which the city was divided, four only escaped ; three were totally destroyed, and of the other seven but little remained standing. Nero, who was at Antium, did not return till he heard that the flames were spreading to his palace; but when he arrived, he was unable to save it. He threw open his gardens, the Campus Martius, and the monuments of Agrippa to the sufferers ; he caused supplies of all kinds to be fetched from Antium and other places, and he reduced the price of corn considerably. All he could do, however, would not remove the suspicion that the city had been fired by his own orders. It was said that he longed for an opportunity of rebuilding it with more of regularity and beauty ; and it was asserted that, while the fire was raging, he ascended a tower in the gardens of Maecenas in his scenic dress, and, charmed with what he termed "the beauty of the flame," sang to his lyre The Taking of Ilium. He caused the Sibylline books to be con- sulted, and, in obedience to them, supplications to be made to various deities ; he spared no expense in the rebuilding of the city ; and when all would not avail to clear him, he laid the guilt on the innocent. The members of the society named Christians, which had arisen some years before in Judsea, were now numerous at Rome, From causes which we will hereafter assign, they were objects of general aver- sion, and any charge against them was likely to gain credit. Some of them were seized and forced to confess : on their evidence, a great multitude of others were taken and con- demned. They were put to death with torture and insult, some being sewed up in the skins of wild beasts, and then torn to pieces by dogs, some crucified, and others wrapped in pitch and other inflammable materials, and set on fire to serve for lamps in the night. The scene of their agonies was Ne- ro's gardens; and he, at the same time, to please the populace, gave Circensian games, driving about at Rome in the dress of a charioteer. Still the sufferers, though believed to be guilty of crimes, were pitied, as the victims of the real criminal. The city was rebuilt (at the heavy cost of Italy and the provinces) with more of regularity and beauty than it had ever before possessed. Many, however, complained of the width A. D. 66.1 CONSPIRACY AGAINST NERO. 101 of the streets, as, when narrow, they had enjoyed more of shade and coolness. But the great object of Nero's ambition was to rebuild his palace on a scale of unexampled magnifi- cence. He had already extended it from the Palatine to the Esquiline ; and it was thence called the Transitory-house : the new one was named the Golden-house, from the quantity of gold and precious stones employed in it. It covered an im- mense extent of ground on the Palatine and Esquiline, con- taining within its bounds woods, plains, vineyards, ponds, with animals both wild and tame, and a great variety of buildings. The numerous dining-rooms were ceiled with ivory plates, which were movable, to shower down flowers, and perforated, to sprinkle odors on the guests. The prin- cipal one was round, and made to revolve day and night, in imitation of the world. The baths were supplied with water from the sea and from the river Albula. When the whole was completed, Nero observed that ctt length he had begun to dwell like a man. Men, however, were grown weary of being the objects of the tyrannic caprice of a profligate youth, and a widely-extended conspiracy to remove him and give the supreme power to C. Piso, a nobleman of many popular qualities, was organized, (66.) Men of all ranks, civil and military, were engaged in it, — senators, knights, tribunes, and centurions, — some, as is usual, on public, some on private grounds. While they were yet undecided where it were best to fall on Nero, a cour- tesan named Epicharis, who had a knowledge (it is not known how obtained) of the plot, wearied of their indecision, attempted to gain over the officers of the fleet at Misenum. She made the first trial of an officer named Volusius Proc- ulus, who had been one of the agents in the murder of Agrippina, and who complained of the ill return he had met with, and menaced revenge. She communicated to him the fact of there being a conspiracy, and proposed to him to join in it ; but Proculus, hoping to gain a reward by this new service, went and gave information to Nero. Epicharis was seized ; but as she had mentioned no names, and Proculus had no witnesses, nothing could be inade of the matter. She was, however, kept in prison. The conspirators became alarmed ; and, lest they should be betrayed, they resolved to delay acting no longer, but to fall on the tyrant at the Circensian games. The plan ar- ranged was, that Plautius Lateranus, the consul elect, a man of great courage and bodily strength, should sue to the em- 9* ]€2 NERO. [a. d. 66. peror for relief to his family affairs, and in so doing should grasp his knees and throw him down, and that then the of- ficers should despatch him with their swords. Meantime Piso should be waiting at the adjacent temple of Ceres ; and, when Nero was no more, the prsefect Fenius Rufus and others should come and convey him to the camp. Notwithstanding the number and variety of persons en- gaged in the plot, the secret had been kept with wonderful fidelity. Accident, however, revealed it as it was on the very eve of execution. Among the conspirators was a senator named Flavius Scevinus, who, though dissolved in luxury, was one of the most eager. He had insisted on having the first part in the assassination, for which purpose he had provided a dagger taken from a temple. The night before the attack was to be made, he gave this dagger to one of his freedmen, named Milichus, to grind and sharpen. He at the same time sealed his will, giving freedom to some, gifts to others of his slaves. He supped more luxuriously than usual; and, though he affected great cheerfulness, it was manifest from his air that he had something of importance on his mind. He also directed his freedman to prepare bandages for wounds. The freedman, who was either already in the secret, or had his suspicions now excited, consulted with his wife, and at her impulsion set off at daylight, and revealed his suspicions to Epaphroditus, one of Nero's freedmen, by whom he was conducted to the emperor. On his information, Scevinus was arrested ; but he gave a plausible explanation of every thing but the bandages, which he positively denied. He might have escaped, were it not that Milichus's wife suggested that Antonius Natalis had conversed a great deal with him in secret of late, and that they were both intimate with Piso. Natalis was then sent for, and, as he and Scevinus did not agree in their accounts of the conversation which they had, they were menaced with torture. Natalis's courage gave way; he named Piso and Seneca. Scevinus, either through weakness, or thinking that all was known, named several others, among whom were AnngBUS Lucanus, the poet, the nephew of Seneca, Tullius Senecio, and Afranius duinc- tianus. These at first denied every thing ; at length, on the promise of pardon, they discovered some of their nearest friends, Lucan even naming his own mother, Atilla. Nero now called to mind the information of Proculus, and he ordered Epicharis to be put to the torture. But no pain could overcome the constancy of the heroic woman ; and A. D. 66.] CONSPIRACY AGAINST NERO. 103 next day, as, from her weak state, she was carried in a chair to undergo the torture anew, she contrived to fasten her belt to the arched back of the chair, and thus to strangle herself. When the discovery was first made, some of the bolder spirits urged Piso to hasten to the camp or to ascend the Rostra, and endeavor to excite the soldiers or the people to rise against Nero. But he had not energy for such a course, and he lingered at home till his house was surrounded by the soldiers sent to take him. He then opened his veins, leaving a will filled, for the sake of his wife, a profligate woman, with the grossest adulation of Nero. Lateranus died like a hero, with profound silence; and though the tribune who presided at the execution was one of the conspirators, he never reproached him. But the object of Nero's most deadly enmity was Seneca. All that was against this illustrious man was, that Natalis said that Piso had one time sent him to Seneca, who was ill, to see how he was, and to complain of his not admitting him, and that Seneca replied that " it was for the good of neither that they should meet frequently, but that his health depended on Piso's safety." The tribune Granius Silvanus (also one of the conspirators) was sent to Seneca, who was now at his villa, four miles from Rome, to examine him respecting the conversation with Natalis. He found him at table with his wife, Pompeia Paulina, and two of his friends. Seneca's account agreed with that of Natalis ; his meaning, he said, had been perfectly innocent. When the tribune made his report to Nero and his privy council, Poppsea and Tigellinus, he was asked if Seneca meditated a voluntary death. On his reply, that he showed no signs of fear or perturbation, he was ordered to go back and bid him die. Silvanus, it is said, called on Fenius on his way, and asked him if he should obey the orders ; but Fenius, with that want of spirit which was the ruin of them all, bade him obey. Silvanus, when he arrived, sent in a centurion with the fatal mandate. Seneca calmly called for his will, but the centurion would not suffer him to have it. He then told his friends that, as he could not express his sense of their merits in the way that he wished, he would leave them the image of his life, to which if they attended, they would obtain the fame of virtue and of constancy in friendship. He checked their tears, showing that nothing had occurred but what was to have been ex- pected. Then, embracing his wife, he began to console and fortify her ; but she declared her resolution to die with him. 104 NERO. [a. D. 66» Not displeased at her generous devotion, and happy that one so dear to him should not remain exposed to injury and mis- fortune, he gave a ready consent, and the veins in the arms of both were opened. As Seneca, on account of his age, bled slovi^ly, he caused those of his legs and thighs to be opened also; and as he suffered very much, he persuaded his wife to go into another room; and then, calling for amanuen- ses, he dictated a discourse which was afterwards published. Finding himself going very slowly, he asked his friend, the physician. Statins Annocus, for the hemlock-juice which he had provided, and took it ; but it had no effect. He finally went into a warm bath, sprinkling, as he entered it, the ser- vants who were about him, and saying, " I pour this liquor to Jove the Liberator." The heat caused the blood to flow freely ; and his sufferings at length terminated. His body was burnt without any ceremony, according to the directions which he had given when at the height of his prosperity. Paulina did not die at this time ; for Nero, who had no en- mity against her, and wished to avoid the imputation of gratui- tous cruelty, sent orders to have her saved. She survived her husband a few years, her face and skin remaining of a deadly paleness, in consequence of her great loss of blood. The military men did not remain undiscovered. Fenius Rufus died like a coward; the tribunes and centurions, like soldiers. When one of them, named Subrius Flavius, was asked by Nero what caused him to forget his military oath, — " I hated you," said he ; " and there was none of the soldiers more faithful while you deserved to be loved. I began to hate you when you became the murderer of your mother and wife, a chariot-driver, a player, and an incendiary." Nothing in the whole affair cut Nero to the soul like this reply of the galhint soklier. The consul Vestinus was not implicated by any in the conspiracy ; but Nero hated him ; and, as he was sitting at dinner with his friends, some soldiers entered to say that their tribune wanted him. He arose, went into a chamber, had his veins opened, entered a warm bath, and died. Lucan, when or- dered to die, had his veins also opened ; when he felt his ex- tremities growinor cold, he called to mind some verses of his Pharsalia which were applicable to his case, and died re- peating them.* Senecio Quinctianus, and Scevinus, and * They are supposed by Lipsius to be iii. 638 — 646, by Vertianius, ix. 806 — 814. Lipsius is in our opinion right. A. D. 67.] DEATH OF POPPiEA. 105 many others, died ; several were banished. Natalis, Milichus, and others, were rewarded ; offerings, thanksgivings, and so forth, were voted in abundantie by the senate. This obsequious body, however, sought to avert the dis- grace of the lord of the Roman world appearing on the stage at the approaching Quinquennial games, by offering him the victory of song and the crown of eloquence. But Nero said that there needed not the power nor the influence of the senate ; that he feared not his rivals, and relied on the equity of the judges. He therefore sang on the stage, and, when the people pressed him to display all his acquirements, he came forth in the theatre, strictly conforming to all the rules of his art, not sitting down when weary, wiping his face in his robe, neither spitting nor blowing his nose, and finally, with bended knee, and moving his hand, waited in counterfeit terror for the sentence of the judges. At the end of the games, he in a fit of anger gave Poppaea, who was pregnant, a kick in the stomach, which caused her death. Instead of burning her body, as was now the general custom, he had it embalmed with the most costly spices, and deposited in the monument of the Julian family. He him- self pronounced the funeral oration, in which he praised her for her beauty,* and for being the mother of a divine infant. The remainder of the year was marked by the deaths or exile of several illustrious persons, and by a pestilence which carried off great num.bers of all ranks and ages. " Of the knights and senators," observes Tacitus, " the deaths were less to be lamented ; they anticipated, as it were, by the com- mon fate, the cruelty of the prince." The first deaths of the succeeding year (67) were those of P. Anteius, whose crime was his wealth and the friend- ship of Agrippina; Ostorius Scapula, who had distinguished himself in Britain ; Annaeus Mella, the father of Lucan ; Anicius Cerealis, Rufius Crispinus, and others. They all died in the same manner, by opening their veins. The most remarkable death was that of C. Petronius, a man whose elegance and taste in luxury had recommended him to the special favor of Nero, who, regarding him as his * arbiter of elegance,' valued only that of which Petronius approved. The envy of Tigellinus being thus excited, he bribed one of * Poppasa was so solicitous about her beauty, that she used to bathe every day in the milk of 500 she-asses, which she kept for the purpose. Dion, Ixii. 28. lOB NERO. [a. d. 67. Petronius's slaves to charge his master with being the friend of Scevinus. His death followed, of course; the mode of it, however, was peculiar. He caused his veins to be opened, then closed, then opened again, and so on. He meantime went on conversing with his friends, not, like a Socrates or a Seneca, on the immortality of the soul or the opinions of the wise, but listening to light and wanton verses. He re- warded some of his slaves, he had others flogged, he dined, he slept ; he made, in short, his compulsive death as like a natural one as possible. He did not, like others, pay court to Nero or Tigellinus, or the men in power, in his will ; but he wrote an account of the vices and crimes of the prince and court, under the names of flagitious men and women, and sent it sealed up to the emperor. He broke his seal-ring, lest it might be used to the destruction of innocent persons. " After the slaughter of so many illustrious men," says Tacitus, "Nero at length sought to destroy virtue itself, by killing Thraseas Pgetus and Bareas Soranus." The former, a man of primitive Roman virtue, was hated by him not merely for his worth, but because he had, on various occa- sions, given public proof of his disapproval of his acts. Such were his going out of the senate-house when the decrees were made on account of the murder of Agrippina, and his absence from the deification and funeral of Poppaea. Further than his virtue, we know of no cause of enmity that Nero could have against Soranus. The accusers of Thraseas were Capito Cossutianus, whom he had made his enemy by supporting the Cilician deputies who came to accuse him of extortion, and Marcellus Eprius, a profligate man of eloquence. A Roman knight named Ostorius Sabinus appeared as the accuser of Soranus. The time selected for the destruction of these eminent men was that of the arrival of the Parthian prince Tiridates, who was coming to Rome to receive the diadem of Armenia, either in hopes that the domestic crime would be shrouded by the foreign glory, or, more probably, to give the Oriental an idea of the imperial power. Thraseas received an order not to appear among those who went to meet the king ; he wrote to Nero, requiring to know with what he was charged, and as- serting his ability to clear himself if he got an opportunity. Nero in reply said that he would convoke the senate. Thra- seas then consulted with his friends, whether he should go to the senate-house, or expect his doom at home. Opinions were, as usual, divided ; he, however, did not go to the senate. A. D. 67.] THRASEAS AND SORANUS. 107 Next morning the temple in which the senate sat. was sur- rounded with soldiery. Cossutianus and Eprius appeared as the accusers of Thraseas, his son-in-law Helvidius Priscus, Paconius Agrippinus, and Curtius Montanus. The general charge against them was passive rather than active disloyalty, Thraseas being held forth as the seducer and encourager of the others. Ostorius then came forward and accused Sora- nus, who was present, of friendship with Rubellius Plautus, and of mal-conduct in the government of Asia. He added, that Servilia, the daughter of the accused, had given money to fortune-tellers. Servilia was summoned. She owned the truth — that she had sold her ornaments and given the money to the soothsayers, but for no impious purpose, only to learn if her father would escape. Witnesses were then called, and among them, to the indignation of every virtuous man, ap- peared P. Egnatius, the client and friend of Soranus, and a professor of the Stoic philosophy, who now had sold himself to destroy his benefactor by false testimony. The accused were all condemned, of course — Thraseas, Soranus, and Servilia, to death ; the others to exile. Of the circumstances of the end of Soranus and his daughter, we are not informed. Thraseas having prevented his wife, Arria, from following the example of her mother, of the same name, by entreating her not to deprive their daughter of her only remaining support, caused his veins to be opened in the usual manner ; and, as the blood spouted forth, he said to the quaestor who was present, " Let us pour out to Jove the Liberator. Regard this, young man. May the gods avert the omen ; but you have been born in times when it is ex- pedient to fortify the mind by examples of constancy." He died after suffering much pain. These sanguinary deeds were succeeded by the splendid ceremony of giving the diadem of Armenia to Tiridates. The scene was the Forum, which was filled during the night by the people arranged in order, wearing white togas and bearing laurel, while one part of it was occupied by the sol- diers brilliantly armed. The roofs of the houses also were thronged with spectators. At daybreak, Nero, in a triumphal robe, followed by the senate and his guards, entered the Forum, and took his seat on his tribunal. Tiridates and his attendants then advanced through the lines of soldiery. An immense shout was raised when he appeared ; he was filled with terror ; but, when silence was restored, he went forward 108 NERO. [a. d. 61. and addressed the prince. Nero made a suitable reply, and, inviting him up, and making him sit at his foot, placed the diadem on his head, while the shouts of the multitude filled the air. This Tiridates was the brother of the Parthian king Volo- geses. In the first year of Nero's reign, as this prince had occupied the throne of Armenia, the conduct of the war, which it was resolved to undertake against him, was com- mitted to Domitius Corbulo, a man of great military talent and experience. The war, which was of the usual kind be- tween Europeans and Asiatics, in which the advantage of skill and discipline is on the side of the former, that of num- bers and knowledge of the country on that of the latter, had been carried on with various success, till at length an ar- rangement was effected by Corbulo's agreeing that Tiridates should be king of Armenia on condition of his acknowledaino- ... o o the supremacy of Rome, and receiving his diadem from the hands of the emperor. Nothing of importance occurred in the time of Nero on the frontiers of the Rhine and Danube. In Britain, Sue- tonius Paulinus conquered the isle of Mona, the great seat of the Druidic religion ; and a war headed by Boadicea, queen of the Icenians, which commenced by the massacre of two Roman colonies, was terminated, with a prodigious slaughter of the Britons. At length Nero put his long-cherished design of visiting Greece into execution. Leaving his freedman Helius with unlimited power in Rome, he crossed the Adriatic at the head of a body of men, numerous enough, as to mere num- bers, it was said, to conquer the Parthians; but of whom the greater part were armed with lyres, masks, and theatric bus- kins. He contended at all the games of Greece; for he made them all be celebrated in the one year. When contending, he rigidly followed all the rules and practices of the citharoe- dic art ; he addressed the judges with fear and reverence ; he openly abused or secretly maligned his rivals. The Greeks, adepts in flattery, bestowed on him all the prizes ; and even when, at the Olympic games, he attempted to drive ten-in- hand, and was thrown from the chariot, he still was pro- claimed victor. In return, he bestowed liberty on the whole province, and gave the judges the rights of citizenship and a large sum of money. This, in imitation of Flamininus, he himself proclaimed aloud from the middle of the stadium at A. D. 67.] NERO IN GREECE. 109 the Isthmian games. These amusements, however, gave no check to the cruehy and rapacity of himself and Tigellinus. Greece was plundered as by an enemy ; numbers were put to death for their property ; many persons were even summoned thither from Italy and other parts for the sole purpose of be- ing executed. Among these was the gallant Corbulo, whom Nero lured thither by the most hypocritical expressions of affection, and ordered to be slain as soon as he landed. Corbulo took a sword, and plunged it into his body, crying, " I deserve it." While in Greece, Nero celebrated another marriage. The bride, on this occasion, was a youth named Sporus, who, it is said, bore some resemblance to Poppaea. Having emascu- lated him, and essayed all the powers of art to convert him into a woman, he espoused him with the most solemn forms, Tigellinus actincr as the bride's father on the occasion. He henceforth had him dressed as his empress, and carried about with him in a litter. Some one observed that " it had been well for the world if his father Domitius had had such a wife." He also, while in Greece, attempted to dig a canal through the Isthmus, for which purpose he assembled a great number of workmen from all parts. When, from supersti- tious motives, they hesitated to touch the ground which was sacred to the sea-god, he took a spade, and set them the ex- ample himself. The project, however, owing to subsequent events, came to nothing. Helius had for some time been urging the emperor by letters to return to Rome, on account of the aspect of affairs there. Finding his letters unheeded, he came over in per- son ; and, on his representations, Nero saw the necessity of leaving Greece. When he landed in Italy, he proceeded to Naples, the scene of his first musical glory. He entered it in a chariot drawn by white horses, and through a breach in the walls, as was the custom of victors in the public games. He did the same at Antium, Albanum, and Rome itself. He entered this last city in the triumphal car of Augustus, in a purple robe studded with silver stars, the Olympic wreath of wild olive on his head, the Pythian laurel in his hand. The crowns which he had won, and boards showing the names and forms of the places where he had gained them, preceded his chariot ; the senate, knights, and soldiers, followed, shout- ing, " Olympic victor ! Pythian victor ! Augustus ! Nero Her- cules ! Nero Apollo ! " and such like. In this manner he CONTIN. 10 no NERO. [a.d. 68. proceeded to the Capitol, and thence to the palace. The crowns, eighteen hundred in number, were hung round an Egyptian obelisk. Nero then resumed his former occupa- tions as a player and charioteer. The Roman world had thus long submitted to be the sport of a monster in human form ; but the day of vengeance was at hand. We are ill-informed of the circumstances and na- ture of the revolt against him, (68;) we are only told that its author was C. Julius Vindex, a man of high birth in Aquitanian Gaul, whose father had been a Roman senator, and who was himself at this time propraetor of Gaul. As the people were harassed beyond endurance by exactions, he proposed to them to have recourse to arms, and deprive the unworthy wretch, under whose tyranny they groaned, of the power to oppress the Roman world any longer. Vindex was too prudent a man to set himself up as the rival of Nero; he proposed that the empire should be offered to Ser. Sulpicius Galba, the governor of Tarragonian Spain, a man of high character, of much military experience, and who was at the head of a large army. Deputies w^ere accordingly sent to Galba, to whom Vindex also wrote, strongly urging him to become the deliverer and leader of the human race. Galba, who had discovered that Nero had resolved on his death, and whom favorable signs and omens encouraged, called his sol- diers together, and, placing before his tribunal the images of a great number of persons whom Nero had put to death, de- plored the condition of the times. The soldiers instantly saluted him emperor ; he, however, cautiously professed him- self to be merely the legate of the Roman senate and peo- ple, and forthwith commenced his levies. He formed a kind of senate of the leading persons in the country, and selected a body of youths of the equestrian order to act as his body- guard. Meantime Verginius Rufus, who commanded m Germany, when he heard of the insurrection in Gaul, advanced and laid siege to Besancon. Vindex came to its relief, and, having encamped at a little distance, he and Verginius had a private meeting, in which it was suspected that they agreed to unite against Nero; but, shortly after, as Vindex was lead- ing his forces toward the town, the Roman legions, attack- ing them without orders, as was said, slew 20,000 of them. Vindex also fell by their swords, or, as was more gener- ally believed, by his own hand. The soldiers would fain A. D. 68.] INSURRECTION OF VINDEX. Ill have saluted Verginius emperor; but that noble-minded man steadfastly refused the honor, affirming that the senate and people alone had a right to confer it.* Nero was at Naples when intelligence reached him of the insurrection in Gaul. He made so light of it, that some thought he was rejoiced at the occasion which it was likely to offer for plundering . those wealthy provinces. During eight days he took his ordinary amusements. At length, stung by the contumelious edicts of Vindex, he wrote to the senate, excusing his absence on account of the soreness of his throat, as if, observes the historian, he was to have sung for them; and when he came to Rome, he assembled the principal men of both orders, but, instead of deliberating with them on the affairs of Gaul, he spent the time in ex- plaining some improvements which he had made in the hy- draulic organ, adding that he would shortly produce it in the theatre, if Vindex would allow him. When, however, he heard of the revolt of Galba and the Spains, his consternation was extreme. He revolved, it is said, the wildest and most nefarious projects, such as sending persons to kill all the governors of provinces, massacring the exiles and all the Gauls that were at Rome, poisoning the senate, setting fire to the city, and letting the wild beasts loose on the people. He began to levy troops ; but his first care was to provide carriages to convey his theatric proper- ties, and to dress and arm a party of his concubines as Ama- zons to form his guard. The urban cohorts having refused to serve, he called on all masters to furnish a certain number of their slaves, and he took care to select the most valuable, not even excepting the stewards or amanuenses. He likewise required all persons to give him a part of their property. Intelligence of further revolts having reached him as he was at dinner, he overturned, in his terror, the table, and broke his two precious Homeric cups, as they were named, from the scenes from Homer which were carved on them. Taking then with him in a golden box some poison prepared for him by Locusta, he went to the Servilian gardens, and sent some of his most faithful freedmen to Ostia to get shipping ready. He then tried to prevail on the officers of the guards to ac- company his flight ; but some excused themselves, others re- * Verginius caused the following lines to be placed on his tomb, (Plin, Ep, yi. 10. :) " Hie situs est Rufus, pulso qui Vindice quondam, Imperium asseruit non sibi, sed patriae," 112 NERQ. [a. D. 68. fused, and one even repeated the line of Virgil, Usque adeo- iie mori miserum est 1 One time he thought of flying to the Parthians, another time to Galba, then of ascending the Rostra, and asking public pardon for his transgressions, and praj'ing for even the government of Egypt. He retired to rest; but, awaking in the middle of the night, and finding that his guards had left him, he sprang up and sent for some of his friends. When none came, he arose, and went to some of their houses ; but every door was closed against him. On his return, he found his bed-chamber pillaged, and his box of poison gone. He sought in vain for some one to kill him, "Have I neither a friend nor an enemy?" cried he, and rushed to the Tiber, to throw himself into it. His courage, however, failed him ; and his freedman Phaon having oifered a country-house which he had four miles from the city for a retreat, he mounted a horse, and set out with Sporus and three others, concealed in a dark cloak, with his head covered and a handkerchief before his face. As he was quitting the city, the ground seemed to rock beneath him, and a broad flash of lightning struck terror to his heart ; and, as he passed the praetorian camp, his ears were assailed by the shouts of the soldiers execratinor him and wishinor success to Gal- ba. *' There they go in pursuit of Nero," observed one of those whom they met; another inquired of them if there was any news of Nero in the city. His horse starting in the road, his handkerchief fell, and he was recognized and salu- ted by a prtetorian soldier. They had to quit their horses and scramble throuo;h a thicket to get to the rear of Phaon's villa, and then to wait till an aperture was made in the wall to admit them. Phaon urged him to conceal himself, mean- time, in a sand hole ; but he replied that he would not bury himself alive, and, taking some water up in his hand from a pool to quench his thirst, he said, " This is Nero's prepared water." * He then picked the thorns out of his cloak, and, when the aperture was completed, he crept through it, and lay down on a miserable pallet in a slave's cell. Though suffer- ing from hunger, he would not eat the coarse bread that was offered him ; but he drank some warm water. Every one now urged him to lose no time in saving him- self from the impending insults. He directed them to dig a * Dccocta. Nero is said to have introduced the practice of boihng water and then cooling it in snow to give it a greater degree of cold. Fhn. xN. H. xxxi. 3. A. D. 68.] DEATH OF NERO. 113 grave on the spot, and to prepare the requisite water and wood for his funeral : meantime he continued weeping and saying, " What an artist is lost ! " A messenger coming with letters to Phaon, he took them, and, reading that he was declared an enemy by the senate, and sentenced to be pun- ished more majorum, he inquired what that meant. Being told that it was to be stripped naked, have the head placed in a fork, and be scourged to death, he took two daggers he had with him, and tried their edge, then sheathed them again, saying that the fatal hour was not yet come. One moment he desired Sporus to begin the funeral wail, then he called on some one to set him an example of dying, then he upbraided his own cowardice. At length, hearing the trampling of the horses of those sent to take him, he hur- riedly repeated an appropriate line of Homer, and, placing a dagger at his throat, with the aid of his secretary Epaphro- ditus, drove it in, A centurion, entering before he was dead, put his cloak to the wound, pretending that he was come to his aid. " 'Tis too late! Is this your fidelity?" said the bleeding tyrant, and expired. Such was the well-merited end of the emperor Nero, in the 3lst year of his age and the 14th of his reign. We have not ventured to pollute our pages with the appalling details of his lusts and vices, which historians have transmitted to us; for by so doing we should injure rather than serve the cause of moral purity and of virtue. Monster as he was, the pop- ulace and the praetorian soldiery, missing the gifts and the shows which he used to bestow on them, soon began to re- gret him ; and for many years his tomb continued to be vis- ited and his memory to be held in honor. No more con- vincing proof could be given of the utter degradation of the Roman people. On looking through the reigns of the four immediate suc- cessors of Augustus, one cannot fail to be struck with the singular failure of all the projects of that prince for securing the happiness of the Roman world. It can hardly be regard- ed as fortuitous that such monsters should have attained to unlimited power ; and those should not be regarded as super- stitious who see in this event a fulfilment of that great law of the moral world, the visitation on the children of the sins 10* o 114 NERO. and errors of the parents. The Roman nobles had, in the last century of the republic, robbed and oppressed the people of the provinces in the most nefarious manner, and by their civil contentions at home they had demoralized the people and caused the downfall of public liberty ; their descendants were therefore the victims of the most capricious and mer- ciless tyranny, against which virtue or innocence was no se- curity. For we may observe that, with slight exceptions, it was solely against the noble and wealthy that the cruelties of the emperors were directed. The whole of the people of Rome, nobles and plebeians alike, were debased and degraded. Though we may not place implicit faith in the exaggerated statements of the de- claimers and satirists of the time, we must yet recognize the foundation of truth on which their exaggerations rest. The nobles were sunk in luxury and sensuality to a degree rarely equalled. Vice, unrestrained by that regard to appearance and public opinion which acts as so salutary a check in modern times, reigned in their splendid mansions, and boldly affronted the public view. But all were not equally debased. In the history of the time, we meet with many splendid ex- amples of virtue ; and, had we the records of private life, we should probably find much to flatter our more exalted views of human nature. They, in general, cultivated literature. The rigid precepts of the Stoic doctrine were adopted by those of more lofty aspirations, while the votaries of sensual enjoyment professed the degenerated system of Epicurus. The common people, now degenerated into mere lazza- roni, living on the bounty or charity of the sovereign, and utterly destitute of even the semblance of political power, thought only of the public games,* and contended with more passion for the success of the blue or green faction of the Circus than their forefathers had shown for the elevation of a Scipio or a Marius to the highest dignities of the state. They were also completely brutalized by the constant view of the slaughter of gladiators, the combats of men with the wild beasts to which they were exposed, and the massacre of animals, many brought for the purpose from the most distant regions, in the amphitheatre. For such were the amuse- * " Ex quo siifFragia nulli Vendimus efFudit curas; nam qui dabatolim Imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se Continet, atque duas tantuni res anxius optat^ Panem et Circenses." Juv. Sat. x. 77. STATE OF THE EMPIRE. 115 ments with which the emperors, continuing in truth only the usage of the commonwealth, sought to gratify the populace of Rome. The fine rural population of Italy, the hardy yeomanry and stout farm laborers, whose vigor and courage had won the victories which gave Rome her empire, had been greatly di- minished. Tillage had ceased in a great measure ; and Italy, divided into huge estates, the latifundia of the nobles, con- tained only vineyards, oliveyards, pastures, and forests, in which all the labor was performed by gangs of slaves. The corn which was to relieve the wants of the imperial city was all supplied by Africa and Egypt; the existence of the Ro- man people was at the mercy of the winds, and any one who could obtain the possession of Egypt could starve the capi- tal. In every point of view, this policy was bad; it should be the object of every prudent government to maintain a sound agricultural population. Literature had greatly declined after the time of Augustus. The only historian of any note remaining from this period is C. Velleius Paterculus, an agreeable and ingenious writer, but the abject flatterer of the tyrant Tiberius. The philo- sophic writings of Seneca display a pure morality, conveyed in a style affected and epigrammatic, which, attractive from its very faults, operated very injuriously on the literature of the age. Of the actions of Seneca we have had occasion to speak in the preceding pages; and it is clear that his life did not strictly correspond with the high-strained principles of the Stoic philosophy which he professed. He is accused by Dion of having caused the insurrection of the Britons, in the reign of Nero, by his avarice; and that historian hints that the charge of adultery against him was not without foundation. On the other hand, Tacitus always speaks of him with great respect. Seneca, in effect, as he himself fre- quently confesses, had the failings of a man : he was rich ; he increased his wealth in the ordinary Roman manner, by put- ting his money out at interest in the provinces ; he lived in a splendid manner; but he was moderate and temperate in his habits, and kind and amiable in all the relations of private life, and we should not hesitate to regard him as a good man. The unfortunate circumstances under which he was placed with respect to his imperial pupil, may plead his excuse for such of his public acts as are morally objectionable. Of the poets of this period we possess only two, M. Annaeus Lucanus, the nephew of Seneca, and A. Persius 116 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. Flaccus. Both of these poets embraced the Stoic philoso- phy, and both died young. Lucan, following the example of Ennius, sought the materials of a narrative poem in the his- tory of Rome. But his subject, the war between CjBsar and Pompeius, was too recent an event, and the poet was there- fore impeded in his efforts by the restrictions of truth. The Pharsalia, consequently, though full of vigor and spirit, is rhetorical rather than poetical ; and we meet in it the severe truths of history, and the strict precepts of philosophy, instead of the beguiling illusions of fiction, the proper ornaments of poetry. Persius has left six satires, written in a tone of pure and elevated morality, but in a harsh, rugged style. Horace was the great object of his admiration ; but no contrast can be greater than that which the style and manner of their respec- tive compositions present. CHAPTER VII. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. THE JEWISH MESSIAH. JESUS CHRIST. HIS RELIGION. ITS PROPAGATION. CAUSES OF ITS SUCCESS. CHURCH GOV- ERNMENT. While such was the condition of the Roman empire under the successors of Augustus, the religion which was to super- sede the various systems of polytheism in Europe and a part of Asia, was secretly and noiselessly progressing, and making converts in all parts of the Roman dominions. The inspired books of the Jews in many places spoke of a mighty prince of that nation, named the Messiah, i. e. the Anointed-one, who would rule over all mankind in justice and equity, and exalt his own peculiar people to an extraor- dinary degree of power and preeminence. He was to be born of the line of their ancient sovereigns of the house of David ; and the interpreters of the prophetic writings had fixed the time of his advent to a period coinciding with the reign of Augustus. Interpreting their prophecies in a literal sense, they viewed the promised Deliverer as a great temporal JESIJS CHRIST. 117 prince, who would wrest the supremacy of the world from Rome, and confer it on Judsea ; and the whole Jewish people were looking forward with hope and exultation to the predes- tined triumph of their arms and their creed. The promised Saviour came at the appointed time, but under a widely different character from what the expounders of the Law and the Prophets had announced. His mother, an humble maiden of the house of David, the wife of a car- penter in one of the towns of Galilee, brought him forth at Bethlehem, the city of David. He grew up in privacy and obscurity; at the age of thirty he entered on his destined of- fice as a teacher of mankind ; by many wonderful works, he proved his mission to be from on high, and himself to be the promised Messiah, whose triumph was to be over sin and the powers of darkness, and not over the arms of Rome. Many, struck by his miraculous powers, and won by the beauty and sublimity of his doctrines, and their accordance with the writings of the prophets of Israel, became his followers; but a mild and beneficent system of religion was distasteful to the nation in general ; the heads of the Jewish religion grew alarmed for their own power and influence ; they therefore resolved on his destruction ; and they forced the Roman gov- ernor to condemn him to death as a spreader of sedition against the Roman authority. The death which the Son of God endured was that of the cross, (the usual mode at the time ;) but, as he had foretold to his disciples, he rose from the dead on the third day, and, after an abode of forty days on the earth, he ascended, in their view, to heaven, leaving them a charge to disseminate his religion throughout the whole world. None, we should suppose, require to be told what is the religion of Jesus Christ. All must know that its essence is the love of God and the love of man, that it inculcates every virtue, teaches to shun all evil, promises to the good eternal bliss, and menaces the wicked with eternal misery, in a future state of existence. So lovely is it, so mild, peaceful, and beneficent is its character, that, were its precepts gener- ally, though but imperfectly, obeyed, even the present world would become a paradise. We speak of the religion which is contained in the sacred books of the New Testament, in the words of Christ himself and his apostles, and not of the corrupted system which grew up and usurped its place, the progress of which it will be our task to relate. There is perhaps no moral phenomenon so extraordinary as the 118 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. change of the purity and simplicity of the gospel into the polytheism and idolatry which afterwards assumed the name and office of Christianity ; yet, as will appear, it is a phe- nomenon not difficult of explanation. The religion of Christ was founded on that of Moses ; but while the latter was limited to one people and one country, and burdened with a wearisome ceremonial, and many peculi- arities about meats and drinks, and such like, the former, un- limited and unencumbered, was adapted to all parts of the earth, and suited to all those who had capacity to understand and follow its precepts. Its Divine Author therefore directed his disciples to preach it to all nations; and so bold and ener- getic were they in the performance of their commission, and so powerfully were they aided by the Divine Spirit which was promised them, that the religion was in the space of a few years diffused throughout the greater part of the Roman empire. The first societies of the Christians (named churches *) were necessarily in Judsea, and the principal one at Jeru- salem, where the apostles or original companions of Christ chiefly resided. Gradually, by means of missionaries, the doc- trine was spread beyond the limits of Judaea, and churches were established at Damascus, Antioch, and other towns. The most powerful and effective of these missionaries was Saul, (or, as he was afterwards named, Paul,) who had been originally a persecutor of the church, but, being converted by miracle, as he was on his road to Damascus, became a most zealous preacher of the truth which he had opposed. To zeal and ardor he united the advantages of learning and eloquence ; he was versed in the literature of his own nation and of the Greeks, and was thus eminently qualified for the office assigned him, of being the apostle of the Gentiles. By means chiefly of this eminent man, within the space of five- and-twenty years from the death of Christ, churches had been formed in the principal towns of Syria, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and even in the city of Rome. The mode in which Paul and the other missionaries pro- ceeded was as follows : The Jews were now (for the pur- poses of traffic, it would appear) established in most of the great towns of the Roman empire ; and wherever they were, * The term employed in the New Testament is IxxXriaia^ " assem- bly," Church is usual!)' derived from the phrase 6 rov xvqiov oixog., " the Lord's House," which was also employed to designate the be- lievers in Christ. ITS PROPAGATION. 119 they had their synagogues or places of worship. On arriving at any town, therefore, Paul, (to take him for an example,) as being a Jew, used to enter the synagogue on the Sabbath day, where, taking advantage of the custom which prevailed in the synagogues, of inviting any persons who seemed inclined to address the congregation,* he undertook to prove to them that Jesus was the long-promised Messiah. If the Jews were convinced and believed, they became the nucleus of a church; if they did not, (as was more generally the case,) the apostle " turned to the Gentiles," that is, preached the gospel to the heathen, or the followers of the worship of false gods. The church of each town was usually composed of converts from among both Jews and Gentiles, but chiefly of the latter, the Jews being in general the implacable enemies of the religion which was to supersede their own, and which disappointed all their lofty anticipations. In the moral as in the natural world, there is no effect without a preceding cause; no change is produced without a due preparation of circumstances. We may therefore in- quire, without presumption, what were the circumstances that favored the rapid progress of the Christian religion. The able historian of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire assigns five causes for this great effect, namely, the zeal of the Christians — the doctrine of a future life — the miraculous powers ascribed to the church — the pure and aus- tere morals of the Christians — and the union and discipline of the Christian republic. In his examination of each of these causes and its effects, he exerts all his powers of sneer and irony to throw discredit on the early Christians, to repre- sent them as weak dupes or artful impostors, and their reli- gion as no more divine than those of Greece and Italy. We shall endeavor to examine them in a different spirit. The first of the causes assigned by the historian is doubt- less a true one. Without zeal, no system of philosophy, far less of religion, will ever make rapid progress in the world. The second cause is also true. The doctrine of a future state, as taught by the apostles, had in it a degree of purity, determinateness, and certainty, unattainable by the polytheism of the heathen, and which foimed no part of the law given to the Jews by Moses. But we must not suppose, as the his- * " And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them, saying : Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on." Acts xiii. 15. 120 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. torian would have us, that a future state was not believed generally at that time by the Greeks and Romans. The philosophers and men of education, doubtless, disgusted by the absurd details of the future world, furnished by poets and adopted in the popular creed, and finding no demonstrative arguments for a future existence, had reasoned themselves into skepticism on the subject, and the doctrine therefore had little or no effect on their lives and conduct ; but the vulgar still clung pertinaciously to the faith transmitted to them by their forefathers, and believed the poetic creed of the future world with all its incongruities.* The religious aspect of the Roman world at that time in fact very much resembled that of Catholic Europe at the present day; the popular re- ligion was a mass of absurdities revolting to the understand- ing ; the men of education rejected it, and were skeptics or infidels ; while the vulgar lay grovelling in idolatry and super- stition. The historian's third cause — the miraculous powers of the church — is the one liable to most dispute. The infidel to- tally denies their reality; the believer is convinced of their truth. On this point no a priori arguments should be ad- mitted ; the inquirer should, for example, give no heed to reasonings from the steadiness and regularity of the course of nature, for we know not what that course is, and whether the effects which, as beinor unusual, we denominate miracu- lous or wonderful, may not form a part of it, and have been arranged so as to coincide in point of time with the promul- gation of certain moral principles. The whole is in effect a question of evidence, and those who find the proofs offered for the authenticity of the New Testament convincing, must acknowledge that the promise of divine aid made by Jesus to his disciples was fulfilled, and that the Holy Spirit enabled them to perform many wonderful works.t At the same time, * In Lucian (De Luctu 2) will be found a proof of the tenacity with which the vulgar adhered to the traditional creed. The chief cause of Gibbon's error seems to have been his ignorance of the difference be- tween the religious systems of Greece and Italy. Caesar and Cicero might deride the poetic under-world ; Juvenal might say, (ii. 149,) " Esse aliquid Manes et subterranea regna, Et contum, et Stygio ranas in gurgite nigras, Atque una transire vadum tot millia cymba, Nee pueri credunt nisi qui nondum oere lavantur." But these are all Grecian, not Roman, ideas on the subject, and the vulgar at Rome might make light of them, and yet believe (as the vul- gar every where do) in a future state. f The most convincing work on the evidences of Christianity, in CAUSES OF ITS SUCCESS. 121 there are no safe grounds for supposing that this aid was continued beyond the age of the apostles. The Deity does nothing in vain ; and, when once the Christian religion was firmly rooted in the world, supernatural assistance was with- drawn. In fact, the accounts of all subsequent miracles ex- hibit the marks of error or imposition. The fourth cause was, beyond all question, a most effica- cious one. The virtues of the early Christians (to which we may add the purity of their system of morals) must have shone forth with preeminent lustre amid the moral darkness which then obscured the world. Not that virtue was totally extinct ; for God never suffers it to become so among any people; but from the language used by the apostle Paul, and from the history of the times, and the writings which have come down to us, we may infer that morality was never at a lower ebb than at that period of the Roman empire. There certainly was then no sect nor society which showed the phi- lanthropy and spirit of mutual love displayed by the early Christians. " Behold how these Christians love one another ! " was the language of the admiring heathens. The last cause assigned by the historian — the government of the church — could hardly have had much efficacy in the period of which we now treat. What the original form of church government was, is a question which was once agitated with a degree of violence and animosity which testified little for the acquaintance of the combatants with the true nature and spirit of the gospel. It is now, we believe, pretty gen- erally agreed among rational and moderate divines, that nei- ther Christ nor his apostles intended to institute any particu- lar form ; leaving it to the members of the church to regulate it according to their ideas of what would best accord with the political constitution under which they lived. And, in fact, if we are to judge by the effects, we might say that forms of ecclesiastical government are indifferent, and that •' whate'er is best administered is best; " for equal degrees of piety and holiness seem to be attainable under all. True re- ligion is seated in the heart ; it depends not on outward forms : it is the pride, the ambition, the vanity of man, that has introduced schism and dissension into the church of Christ. The first churches, as we have seen, were founded by mis- our opinion, is Paley's " Horae Paulinas," the perusal of which we strongly recommend. CONTIN. II P 122 THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. sionaries, who travelled from place to place. While they were present with any church, they necessarily exercised an authority over it; but every society requires a permanent government; and, therefore, the churches seem almost im- mediately to have appointed some persons to preside in their assemblies, and to execute other offices of supervision or ministration. The presidents were named Overseers or Elders ; * they were chosen by the members of the church, and confirmed and appointed to their office by the founder, or one authorized by him.t There is also a class of persons spoken of who were termed Prophets, and seem to have been men endowed with a ready eloquence, able to expound the Scriptures, and to exhort and admonish the congrega- tion. | A third class of officers were named Deacons, i. e. Ministers,^ who attended to the poor, and discharged some other duties. Such seems to have been the external form of the churches during the lifetime of the apostles. Each con- gregation was independent of all others, governed by officers chosen by its members, living in harmony and friendly com- munication with the other churches; those which were more wealthy contributing to the comforts of those, which, like the parent one at Jerusalem, were more exposed to affliction and poverty. It was not perhaps, in general, till after the death of the apostles, that, the congregations having become very numer- ous, a change was made in their form of government, and the office of Bishop or Overseer was separated from that of Elder, and restricted to one person in each society. His office was for life; he was the recognized organ and head of the church; he had the management of its funds, and the appointment to the offices of the ministry. He also ad- ministered the rite of baptism, and he pronounced the blessing over the bread and wine used at the Lord's Supper. The presbyters were his council or assistants ; for he was only regarded as the first among equals. Such, then, was the church of Christ in its early days. It was composed of converts from among the Jews and * 'EnloxoTToi and nQsa^vTsQOL. That they were synonymous, is evi- dent from the following passages : Acts xx. 18 and 28; Tit. i. 5 and 7. From the former are derived the modern Vescovo, (Ital.,) Obispo, (Sp.,) Eveque, (Fr.,) Bishop, (Eng.;) from the latter, Prete, (Ital.,) Pr^re, (Fr.,) Priest, (Eng.) t Tit. i. 5. t 1 Cor. xiv. 3 — 5. § Jiaxovoi. THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 123 Gentiles, chiefly of the middle and lower ranks, for it did not exclude even slaves.* It was, in general, disregarded or despised by the learned and the great, by whom it was con- founded with Judaism, which, from its unsocial character, was the object of universal dislike, and was treated as a baneful superstition. That the early Christians were not perfect, is evinced by the Epistles of Paul himself, which, at the same time, prove how pure and holy were the precepts delivered to them; and, if Tacitus and Suetonius speak of the Christians as the worst of men, their friend, the younger Pliny, who, in his office of governor of a province, had oc- casion to become acquainted with that persecuted sect, bears testimony to the purity of their morals and the innocence of their lives.t * It must not, however, be inferred, as is sometimes done by the enemies of our religion, that there were hardly any of the better classes among the early converts. The mention in the apostolic writings of masters and servants ; the directions given to women not to adorn themselves with gold and silver, pearls and costly array j the sums raised for the relief of the poorer churches; — all testify the con- trary. St. Paul's remark, that there were not many of the noble or the mighty in the church of Corinth, would seem to prove that there were some; and the injunction to beware of the philosophy of the Greeks, and the Oriental Gnosis, would hardly have been necessary if the Christians were all ignorant and illiterate. t "They affirmed," says Pliny, "that the whole of their fault or error lay in this — that they were wont to meet together on a stated day before it was light, and sing among themselves alternately a hymn, to Christ as to God, and bind themselves by an oath, not to the com- mission of any wickedness, but not to be guilty of theft, or robbery, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor to deny a pledge committed to them when called on to return it." HISTORY THE ROMAN EMPIRE. PART II. EMPERORS CHOSEN BY THE ARMY. CHAPTER I* GALEA. OTHO. VITELLIUS. A.u. 821—823. A.D. 68—70. GALBA. ADOPTION OF PISO. MURDER OF GALBA. OTHO. CIVIL WAR. —BATTLE OF BEDRIACUM. DEATH OF OTHO. VITELLIUS. VESPASIAN PROCLAIMED EMPEROR. ADVANCE OF THE FLAVIANS. STORMING OF CREMONA. BURNING OF THE CAPITOL. CAPTURE OF ROME. DEATH OF VITELLIUS. The supreme power in the Roman world had now been held for a century by the family which, in accordance with the Roman practice of adoption, we may regard as, and term, the Julian or Caesarian. It had also been transmitted in lineal succession, except in the case of Claudius, when the guards proved to the senate and the people that the power of giving a master to the Roman world lay with them. We are now to see this power claimed and exercised by the * Authorities : Tacitus, Suetonius, Dion, and Plutarch. A. D. 68.] CHARACTER OF GALEA. 125 legions, and the pretensions of rival candidates asserted by the arms of their supporters.* Ser. Sulpicius Galba. A.U. 821—822. A.D. 68—69. Servius Sulpicius Galba, a member of one of the most ancient and honorable patrician families at Rome, was now in the seventy-third year of his age. He had borne the high offices of the state, had governed both Africa and Spain, and had displayed military talents in the former province and in Germany, which had procured him the triumphal ornaments. Both as a general and as a governor, he had shown himself to be rigidly severe, and even harsh. He was infected with the usual vice of age — avarice, and he was entirely under the influence of those by whom he was sur- rounded. The praetorian guards had been induced by their prefect, Nymphidius Sabinus, (the colleague of Tigellinus,) to abaa- don Nero, and declare for Galba, in whose name he prom- ised them the enormous donative of 7,500 denars a man, while the soldiers of the legions he engaged should each receive 1,250 denars. The troops which Nero had col- lected in Italy being thus gained over, the senate followed their example, and the usual titles and power were decreed to Galba. When Galba was certified of the death of Nero, he as- sumed the title of Cgesar, and set out for Rome. In that city there had been some disturbance, for Nymphidius had tried to induce the praetorian cohorts to declare for himselfj; but he had been overpowered and slain. On his route, Gal- ba put to death a consular and a consul elect, without even the form of a trial ; and when, as he drew near to the city, the rowers of the fleet, whom Nero had converted into sol- diers, met him, and, refusing to return to their former con- dition, demanded an eagle and standards, be ordered hjs horse to charge them; and, not content with the slaughter thus made, he decimated the remainder. When the praeto- * Hence we term this the period of emperors elected by the armjr, though such was not strictly the case in all parts of it, as from Nerva to Commodus. 11* V2G CALUA. [a. D. 69. rians doinanded the donative promised in liis name, ho rc- ])li(Ml that it was his way to levy, not to purchase his sokliers. He hr(>Iv(^ and sent home the CJerman ouards of tlie Caesars, without *;iviiio- them any irratuity. Jle ollended the peopk^, hy refusiiio- to [)iinish, at their earnest desire, Tigellinns and some otliers ol" tlu^ ministers of Nero's cruelty, lie, how- ever, j)ut to (h^alli llelius, l^ocusta, and otliers. It a(hkul nmch to th(; imi)opuhuity of (lalba, that h(^ was almost in a state of pupilage to three persons, namely, T. Vinius, his legate when in Spain, ("ornelius Laco, whom he had ma(l(» prtifect ofllu^ praetorians, and his iVecMhnan Iceius, to wliom he had given the ecpiestrian ring, and the surname of Martiainis. These persons had all their own ends in view; and, as tlusy knew that, imdcu' any circumstaiu-.es, the lili^ of the empinor couhl not he long, (hey thought oidy oi" providing for their future interests. The provinces and tlie armies in general submitted to the emperor appointed hy tht; siMiate. It was not so, liowever, with the legions in tht^ (Jermanies. (ilalba had most unwise- ly recaMed the noble Verginius under the show of friendship, but in r(>ality out of f(;ar and jealousy, and sent A. Vitellius to conunand the army of I^ovver Ciermany, vvliose general, Fonteius C'apito, had bium slain by his h^gates Cormrlius Acpiinus and Fabius Valens; while llordeonius Flaccus, who conuuanded the army of Upper Germany, enfeebled by age and the gout, had lost all authority over his troops. It was with this last army that the disturbance began. On new year's day, (<>i^) (laiba entered on the consulate, with Vinius for his C()lleague; and a few days after, word came that the legions of Upper Germany insisted on having another empcMor, leaving the choice to the senate and people. This intelligence madi^ (Jalba liasten the execution of a design ho. had already forujed t)f adopting some j)erson, as he was himself cliildless; and he held consultations with his three friends on the subject. Tiiey were divided in tiieir sentinuMits. IM. Salvius Otho, from whom, it nuiy be recollected, Nero had taken Toppiea, had early joined Galba, whom he hoped to succeed ; there was a great intimacy between him and Vinius, whose daughter, it was believed, he was engaged to marry, and Vinius therefore now strongly urged his claim to the adoption. Laco and Iceius had no particular favorite, but they were resolved to oppose the candidate of Vinius. Galba, partly, as was thought, moved by a regard for the state, which would have been to no pur- A.D. 69.] ADOPTION OF PISO. 127 pose delivered from Nero if transmitted to Otho, and partly, as was supposed, influenced by Laco, fixed on Piso Licinia- nus, a young man of the noblest birth and . the strictest morals. Having adopted him with the usual forms, he took him into the camp, and informed the soldiers of what he had done ; but, influenced by his parsimony and his regard for ancient usages, he unfortunately said not a word of a donative, and the troops listened to him with silence and disgust. Otho, who, from the state of his affairs, saw ruin impend- ing over him, now resolved to make a desperate effort, and be emperor or perish. He had for some time been secretly tampering with the soldiery. By means of his freedman Onomastus, he gained over two soldiers, who undertook to make trial of the fidelity of their comrades; and, on the fifth day after the adoption of Piso, (Jan. 15,) as Galba was sacrificing at the temple of the Palatine Apollo, Onomastus came to Otho, who was standing by him, and said that the architect and builders were waiting for him, that being the signal agreed on. Otho, pretending that he had bought some houses which required to be examined, went away ; and, at the golden mile-stone in the Forum, he was met by three-and-twenty soldiers, who saluted him emperor, and, placing him in a sedan, hurried him away to the camp, being joined by about as many more on the way. Galba was still engaged sacrificing, when the report came, first, that some senator, and then that Otho, was carried away to the camp. It was resolved to make trial at once of the fidelity of the cohort which was on guard at the pal- ace, and Piso went and stood on the steps and addressed them. But, though he promised a donative, they did not declare themselves. All the other troops joined the praeto- rians, with the exception of those whom Nero had drafted from the German army to serve in Egypt, and whom Galba had lately treated with much kindness. The populace hastened to the palace with loud and noisy loyalty; and, while Galba was consulting with his friends, word came that Otho was slain in the camp : the senators and knights, then taking courage, vied with the populace in clamorous loyalty, and Galba was put into a chair to pro- ceed to the camp. Just as he was setting out, a guardsman, showing his bloody sword, cried out that he had slain Otho : Galba, ever mindful of discipline, replied, " Fellow-soldier, who ordered you 1 " Piso, who had been sent to the camp, 128 OTHO. [a. d. 69. met the emperor on his way with the assurance that all was lost, the soldiers having declared for Otho. While they were deliberating on what were best to be done, the soldiers, horse and foot, rushed into the Forum, and dispersed the senators and the people. At the sight of them, the standard- bearer of the cohort which was with Galba threw down his ensign. The aged emperor was flung from his chair at the place called the Lake of Curtius. He desired the soldiers to slay him, if it seemed for the good of the state; and he was instantly despatched. Vinius was the next victim. Piso fled to the temple of Vesta, where he was concealed by a public slave attached to it; but he was soon discovered, dragged out and slain, and his head brought to Otho. Laco, Icelus, and several others, were put to death. The body of Galba, after being exposed to the insults of the soldiery and rabble, was indebted for sepulture to his steward, Argius, who interred it in his own garden. M. Salvius Otho, A. u. 822. A. D. 69. The soldiers now did every thing they pleased ; for Otho, even if inclined, had not the power to restrain them ; the senate and people rushed into servitude as usual. The trib- unitian power, the name of Augustus, and all the other honors, were decreed to Otho ; and, as far as Rome was con- cerned, his power was supreme. But he had hardly entered on his new dignity when he received intelligence that the German legions, joined by several of the Gallic states, had declared A. Vitellius emperor, and that two armies, under his legates, Fabius Valens and Alienus Caecina, were in full march for Italy. The legions of Britain and of Rsetia had also declared for Vitellius. Those of Spain at first gave in their adhesion to Otho ; but they speedily turned to his rival. The troops of the East and of Africa took the oath to Otho, when they learned his elevation by the senate. The army of Illyricura also took the enoragement to him, and adhered to it. His chief reliance, however, was on the guards and the other troops which had revolted in his favor against Galba. Dur- ing the time that Otho remained in the city, preparing A. p. 69.] CIVIL WAR. 129 for the war, he displayed a degree of prudence and vigor not expected from his general character. He gained popularity by giving up to the public vengeance the infamous Tigelli- nus, and by bestowing pardon and his confidence on Marius Celsus, a consul elect, who had exhibited the most exempla- ry fidelity toward Galba, and who afterwards proved equally faithful to Otho himself On the eve of the Ides of March, (14th,) Otho, having commended the state to the care of the senate, set out to take the command of his army ; for Valens, at the head of 40,000 men, was now approaching Italy by the Cottian Alps, while Caecina, with 30,000, was entering it by the Pennine Alps, and a part of the troops in Cisalpine Gaul had declared for Vitellius, and seized Milan, Novarra, and some other municipal towns. The whole of Italy to the Po was thus in the hands of the Vitellians. As Otho had the entire com- mand of the sea, he had put troops on board of the fleet from Misenum, and sent them to make a diversion on the southern coast of Gaul ; and they had some success against the troops despatched by Valens to oppose them. The Pannonian le- gions were on their march for Italy, and they had sent their cavalry and light troops on before. Five praetorian cohorts, with the first legion, and some cavalry, and a band of two thousand gladiators, were despatched from the city, under the command of Annius Gallus and Vestricius Spurinna, to oc- cupy the banks of the Po ; and Otho himself followed with the remainder of the praetorian cohorts, a body of veteran praetorians, and a large number of the rowers of the fleet. Csecina had crossed the Po, unopposed ; he moved along the stream of that river, and sat down before Placentia, into which Spurinna had thrown himself On the very first day of the siege, the splendid amphitheatre, the largest in Italy, which lay without the walls, was burnt, by accident or de- sign. Having failed in all his attempts to storm the town, Caecina put his troops over the river, and marched against Cremona. Gallus, who was leading the first legion to the relief of Placentia, being informed by letters from Spurinna of the route taken by Caecina, halted at a village named Bedriacum, between Verona and Cremona. Meantime Mar- tins Macro had suddenly crossed the Po with the gladiators, and routed a body of the Vitellian auxiliaries. The Otho- nians were now elate with success, and eager for battle, and they wrote to Otho, accusing their generals of treachery in restraining their ardor. The Othonian generals wished to avoid engaging the vet- 130 oTiio. [a. d. 60. crnns of Vitcllius with their holiday troops, wliich liad never seen any service, aiul to wait for the arrival of tlu^ Paiinoniaii lejrions. On the other hand, Caxina, maddened hy the re- jxilses which he had reccnved at l*lac(M»tia, and anxious to brino- matters to u conclusion before the arriv.d of Vahnis, was iin|)ati(Mit of delay, lie therefore wished to provoke a battle; and, placintjj the best of his auxiliary troops in am- bush, in tlui woods on (;ach si(l(^ of the road, at a place called 'VUv Teu4)le of the Castors, about twelve ruiles IVoui (/re- niona, he sent a party of horse along the road, witli directions to fall on the encMuy, and then retir(^ and draw them into tlu> aud)uscauude(l ;i recall, Ca;cina's army might have been annihilated. Tho reason which Paulinus assigned for doing so, was his fear lest his wearied meu should be attacked by fresh troops from the camp of the Vitellians, in which case he should have no reserve to support theui; his arguments, however, did not prove geiuually satisfactory. This check abated vt^y nuich the confidence of botli Ciu- eina and his men ; it had a similar eliect on those of Va- lens, who had now readied Ticinum. Tlu^y had lately been very mutinous, and their giMieral had narrowly escaped tleath at tlunr hands; and when they heard of the recent disaster of their couuades, they were near breaking out into nmtiny again. They would brook no delay; they urged on the standard-bearers, and they speedily joined the army of Ciecina. A.D.'GO.] CIVIL WAR. 131 Otlio now JidviHod with liis gen(3ral.s wlicthcr it would be better to protruct the war, or to bring mutters to a speedy decision. SiietoniuH ;irirued Htrongly in liivor of the foriner course. Tiie VitellianH, lie siiid, were all tiiere ; lliey could calculate on no additions to their force; they would soon be in want of corn ; tli(i surrnncr was corning on, and the (ier- inans, it was well known, could not stand the heat of Italy. On the other jjand, Otlio had Pannonia, Mcnsia, and the East, with their large aniii(!s; he had Italy and the city with him, and tlu; name of the senate and j)eo|)le, which was always of importance ; lie had ])lenty of money, and his men were inured to the climate. The line of the Fo, as Placen- tia had j)roved, could be easily defend(!d ; he wouhl s])eedily ])v. joiM(;d by the letrions from lllyricnm. All tluircfore con- spired to reconnnend delay. The oj)inions of Celsus and AnniuH (i alius coincided with that of Suetonius. On the olhcr hand, Otlio himself was inclincjd to a, speedy decision, and his brother Tilianus, to whom he had given the chief command, and the praetorian prefect, Licinius Proculus, men utterly devoid of <;x|)erienc(;, flatter(;d his wishes. TIm.' gen- erals ceased to opi)ose. Jt was then asked, should the em- peror himself appear in the field or not. Suetonius and Celsus gave Jio o|)inion, and the others decided that he should retire to IJrcscia, (/i/ur///////,,) and reserve himself for the empire. Nothing could be more pernicious than this course, for he took with him sonje of tlie best trooj)s; and, moreover, as the soldiers distrusted their generals, and had confidence in himself alone, it diminished tlie moral force of the army. Valens and Ca3cina, who, by means of scouts and desert- ers, knew all that was going on in the eiUMiiy's camp, now b(5gan to throw a bridge; ol" boats over the Po, as if with the intention of driving olf the gladiators. While they were tlius engag(;d, the Othoniaiis advanced four miles from Be- driacum, and encamped, displaying so little skill in the se- lection of the site, that, though it was spring-time, and there was a number of streams all about them, the soldiers actually sulfered for want of water. Celsus and Paulinus were gen- erals only in name, and their oj)inions had never been taken. The troops were then set in motion, to march for the con- fluence of the Po and the Adda, sixteen miles off", in spite of the rciinonstrances of the g(!nerals, Titianus and Proculus, being confnined by an express from Otlio, ordering matters to be broujrht to a decision at once. 132 oTHo. [a. d. 69. Caecina was viewing the progress of the bridge, when word came that the enemy was at hand. He hurried back to the camp, where he found that Valens had got the troops under arms. The horse issued forth, and charged the Otho- nians, but were driven back; the legions, favored by the denseness of the trees, which concealed them from view, formed without disorder. The Othonians were advancing without any order ; the baggage and the followers mingled with the soldiers, along a road with deep ditches on each side. A report being spread that his own troops had re- volted from Vitellius, the Othonians, when they came in view, saluted the Vitellians as friends ; but they were soon made to perceive their error. A severe conflict ensued ; but the Othonians were finally routed and driven to their camp, and the Vitellians took up their position for the night within a mile of it. The praetorians alone were unbroken in spirit; they asserted that they were betrayed, not conquered, and insisted on continuing the war. Morning, however, brought cooler thoughts, and a deputation was sent to sue for peace, which was readily granted, and the two armies then united. When the news of the defeat at Bedriacum reached Bres- cia, the troops there, instead of being dejected, sought to in- spirit their emperor to continue the war; and envoys from the Moesian legions, who were now at Aquileia, assured him of their resolution to adhere to his cause. But Otho had already formed his determination to end the contest for empire by a voluntary death. He addressed those about him in manly terms, declaring that he would not be the cause of ruin to such brave and worthy men. He insisted on their providing for their own safety ; and, having distrib- uted money among them, and burnt all letters reflecting on Vitellius, he retired, in the evening, to his bed-chamber, and taking two daggers, and trying their edge, he placed one under his pillow. He passed the night in tranquillity, and at daybreak he thrust the dagger into his bosom. At the groan which he gave, his freedmen and friends came in; but they found him already dead. The funeral was hurried ; for so he had earnestly desired, lest his head should be cut ofl* and insulted. Some of the soldiers slew themselves at the pyre, and their example was followed by many at Bedriacum, Pla- centia, and other places.* * Verginius, at this time, ran the risk of his life for again refusing the empire.. He had afterwards a narrow escape from the soldiers of A. 1). 09.] CIIARACTEll OF VITELLIUS. 133 A. VitcUius. A. u. H2'2— 823. A. D. 69—70. The news of the death of Otho reiichcjd Rome durnij^ the celohration of tli(; (J(!rcal panics. Tlie event, joiiKui with that of l-'laviuH Sahiiiii.s, the city prclei^t, liavinj* causcuJ the Holdiers there to take the oath to VitelliuH, bein^ umiouuced in the tlictitrt!, the wpectators shouted for Vitelliiis, and they then carruid th(i iniiijrea of (jalha,, arni!d vvitli J.iurc;! and Ihjwers, round to the temples. The usual honors and titles w(!re, without hesitation, decreed to VitcUius hy the senate, and thaidts w(;re voted to th(! armies of Ciermany. Aulus Vitellins, who was thus sudd<'nly raised to (unpiro, was the son of L, Vilellius, who, as we have seen above, was one of the basest of flatterers in the times of Caius and Claudius. He himsctlf had, in early youth, been an inmate of the Capraian sty of 'J'ib(;rius; he gained tlu; favor of Caius by his loudness for chariot races; that of Claudius by his love of dice, and thai of Nero by a0,000 men, attended by a still greater number of camp followers, Senators and knights, and crowds of the most profligate of the populace, poured forth to meet him. lie was about to enter the city as a conqueror in the mili- tary habit ; but, at the suggestion of his friends, he as- sumed the magisterial ^/'rt^/rrfr?. The eagles of four legions were borne before him ; ensigns and standards were around him; the troops — foot, horse, and allies — followed, all in their most splendid array. Re thus ascended the Cnpitol, where he embraced his excellent mother, and saluted her by the title of Augusta. It was remarked, as a matter of ill omen, that Vitellius took the otlice of chief pontitf on the iStli of July — a day rendered memorable in the annals of Rome by the disasters at the Cremera and the Allia.* He atVocted a civil deport- ment, refusing the title of Augustus, and attending the meet- * [The former was tlio dostruotion of the Fabian family by tJie Ve- jentes, A. U. C '370; the latter was the defeat of the Roman axmv by Bronuus and the Gauls, A. U. C. 3t>4. — J. T. S.] A. D. G9.] LUXURIOUS HAIilTS OF VITELLIUS. 135 irig.s of the senate as a simple rnemhor of their body, and accornpariying his friends and soliciting votes for them in their canvass for the consulate. These popular arts, how- ever, did not blind men to his vices. His gluttony passed all bounds of moderation ; he hud three or fonr huge meals every day, for which he prepared himself by emetics ; and tlie lowest cost of each was 400,000 sesterces. One ban- (juet, given liim by fiis brother, is said to have connprised, in its bill' of fare, 2,000 of the choicest fishes, and 7,000 of the rarest birds. IJe was also immoderately given to the sports of tlie circus, theatre, and amphitheatre; and he alarmed men's minds by offering [)ub!ic sacrifices to the Manes of Nero, as if he proposed that prince for his example. Like his predecessors, he was governed by a freedman, named Asiaticus, who in cruelty, rapacity, and every other vice, fully e ' more desirous of power, the latter of money, also acted as th(iy pleased; and, altogether, Tacitus observes, *' no one in that court attempted to distinguish himself by worth or ap- plication to })usincss, the only road to power being to satiate tlie insatiable ap[)etites of Vitellius, by extravagant banquets, and expense and debauchery of every kind." The historian adds, that, in the few months that he reigned, Vitellius .spent nine hundred millions of sesterces. 'J'he soldiers, meantime, were held under little restraint ; but their strength was melting away, from their riotous liv- ing, and from the insalubrity of the air and soil about Rome. Tiie strength of the legions was also reduced, by the forma- tion of sixteen new praetorian and four urban cohorts, into which any legionary who pleased miglit volunteer. The luxurious enjoyments of Vitellius were soon disturbed by tidings that the legions of the East would not submit to have a head imposed on the empire by those of Germany. There were four legions in vSyria, under the command of Licinius Mucianus, the governor of that province; and T. Flavius Vespasianus had, at the head of three other legions, been for the last three years carrying on the war against the rebellious Jews, which he had now nearly brought to a con- chision; and Ti. Alexander, the prefect of Egypt, command- ed two other legions. Vespasian had sent his son Titus to Rome, with his adhesion to Galba ; but, hearing on his way of the murder of that emperor, Titus had stopped, lest he 136 viTELLius. [a. D. 69. might be made a hostage by either of the rival parties. The armies of the East had taken the oath of fidelity to Otho, without making any objection ; but when Vespasian would set them the example of taking it to Vitellius, they listened to him in profound silence. He then began to meditate on his own chances of empire; both Mucianus and Alexander, he had abundant reason to believe, would aid him in attain- ing it ; the third legion, which was now in Mcesia, had been drawn thither from Syria, and he was certain of its attach- ment to him, and it might be able to gain over the other legions of Illyricum. On the other hand, he reflected on the strength of the German legions, with which he was well acquainted, and tTieir superiority over those of the East, and also on the risk of his being assassinated, like Scribonianus in the time of Claudius. The legates and other officers tried to encourage him, and Mucianus, both in private and public, urged every topic like- ly to prevail with him. His mind was also affected by sun- dry omens and prophecies which he recollected ; and he at length resolved to run the risk, and win the empire, or perish in the attempt. To make the necessary preparations, he repaired to Cassarea, while Mucianus hastened to Anti- och, the capitals of their respective provinces. It was, however, at Alexandria, that he was first proclaimed empe- ror ; where, on the first of July, Alexander made the legions take the oath of fidelity to Vespasian; and two days later, as he was coming out of his chamber, at Csesarea, some sol- diers, who were at hand, saluted him emperor ; the rest then shouted out Caesar, Augustus, and the other imperial titles, and he no longer refused them. Mucianus had, meantime, brought over the Syrian legions, chiefly by assuring them that it was the intention of Vitellius to replace them by those of Germany, and remove them to the snows and cold of the north. The neighboring kings, Sohemus, Antiochus, and Agrippa, joined in the league, and a meeting was held at Berytus to deliberate on the best mode of proceeding. It was there resolved that every eflbrt should be made to obtain money and supplies of all kinds; that embassies should be sent to the Parthians and Armenians, to engage them to remain at peace ; that Titus should carry on the war in Judaea ; and Vespasian himself secure Egypt ; while Mucianus should set out, with a part of the army, against Vitellius ; and letters be written to all the armies and le- A. D. 69.] TROOPS DECLARE FOR VESPASIAN 137 gates ; and every means be employed to induce the disband- ed praetorian cohorts to resume their arms in the cause of Vespasian. Accordingly, Mucianus set forth at once with a body of light troops, a much larger force following at a slower pace. He ordered the fleet from the Pontus to meet him at Byzan- tium, not being yet determined whether he should march through Moesia, or pass direct from Dyrrhachium to Brundi- sium or Tarentum. His course, however, was decided by the news of what had occurred in the army of Illyricum, For three legions from Moesia, (one of which was the third,) having reached Aquileia, on their march to join Otho, there learned the death of that prince. While they halted, officers arrived, inviting them to submit to Vitellius ; but they tore the banners which were sent to them bearing his name, and seized and divided among them the public money. The third then setting the example, they declared for Vespasian; and they wrote to the Pannonian army, inviting them to join them, under the penalty of being treated as enemies. This army, consisting of two legions, which had fought at Be- driacum, eager to efface the disgrace of defeat, was easily induced, chiefly by means of Antonius Primus, the com- mander of one of the legions, to accept the invitation ; and, the two armies being united, they easily induced that of Dalmatia to join them. The revolt of the Moesian legions was communicated to Vitellius by Aponius Saturninus, the governor of Moesia. He affected to make light of it, but he sent to summon aid from Germany, Spain, and Britain. At length, when the extent of the defection became known, he ordered Csecina and Valens to make ready for war. As Valens was then unwell, Caecina took the sole command, and the German army marched from Rome, but no longer the same, a few weeks' abode there having sufficed to relax its discipline and destroy its energy. The troops were directed to repair to Cremona and Hostilia; Caecina himself proceeded to Ra- venna, to confer with Lucilius Bassus, the commander of the fleet, and thence to Padua, to watch the course of events. The Flavian generals, meantime, held a consultation as to the best mode of proceeding. Some were for merely se- curing the Pannonian Alps, and waiting for reenforcements ; but Antonius Primus declared vehemently in favor of advan- cing into Italy at once, lest the Vitellians should have time 12* R 138 VITELLIUS. [a. d. 69. to recover their discipline, and be joined by troops from Gaul, Spain, and Britain. His opinion prevailed. Letters were written to Aponius, who had declared for the Flavian cause, urging him to come quickly with the Mcesian army. To secure the provinces from the attacks of the barbarians in the absence of the legions, the princes of the Sarmatian Jazyges, and Sido and Italicus, the kings of the Suevians, were taken into alliance. The army then descended into the plain of the Po, and the generals again debated what place should be fixed on for the seat of the war. Vespasian had sent orders for the army to halt at Aquileia, and wait for Mucianus, as, by his own occupation of Egypt, whence It- aly was chiefly supplied with corn, he hoped that want of food and pay would oblige the Vitellians to submit without the hazard of a battle. Mucianus, also, fearing lest the glory of terminating the conquest should be snatched from him- self, wrote several letters to the same effect. But the army had already determined on the attack of Verona, and had occupied Vicenza ( Vicetia) on its way to that town. CaBcina had taken a strong position near Hostilia, a Vero- nese village, having a river in his rear, and marshes on his flanks. Though his troops far outnumbered those of the Flavians, which as yet consisted of only two legions, and when joined within a few days by Aponius with another le- gion, were yet inferior, — he negotiated instead of fighting. The Flavians were soon after joined by two other legions, and they then prepared to assault Verona. But a sedition speedily broke out among them. They accused Aponius and Ampins Flavianus, the legate of Pannonia, of treachery ; and these officers had to fly for their lives, and the sole com- mand remained with Antonius, who was suspected of having excited the mutiny with this very view. Lucilius Bassus now made an attempt to induce the fleet at Ravenna to declare for Vespasian ; but he was seized by his own men, and sent a prisoner to Hadria. Caecina, who had made a secret agreement with the Flavian party, at first succeeded in inducing his men to declare for Vespasian ; but they soon, however, repented, seized him, and put him in bonds, and marched back to join the legions that were at Cremona. Antonius, judging that Valens, who was an able officer, and faithful to Vitellius, would soon arrive to take the com- mand, resolved to bring matters to a speedy decision. He therefore quitted Verona, and, advancing toward Cremona, A. D. 69.] ADVANCE OF THE FLAVIANS. 139 encamped at Bedriacum. While the legionaries v/ere forti- fying the camp, he sent the auxiliary cohorts to plunder the lands of Cremona, and he himself, with a body of 4,000 horse, advanced for eight miles along the road leading to that city. Toward noon the enemy was announced to be on his march. An officer named Arrius Varus dashed forward, and charged and drove back, with some slight loss, the Vitellian horse, who were in advance ; but, fresh troops coming to their aid, the Flavians were repulsed in their turn. Antonius, however, checked their flight, and routed the Vitellians, who were in pursuit, and drove them back on two of their legions, which had advanced to the fourth mile-stone from Cremona; and, Vipstanus Messala coming up with the MoBsic auxiliaries, the Vitellian legions were driven back to the town. In the evening, the whole Flavian array came up on the ground w^here the engagement had taken place. Seeing the heaps of slain, they looked on the war as terminated ; and they were proposing to themselves the storm and plunder of Cremona, from which probably neither the arguments nor the authority of Antonius would have withheld them, had not some horsemen, who had been sent forward to reconnoi- tre, reported that the troops from Hostilia had joined, and that the whole strength of the Vitellian army now lay at Cre- mona. This intelligence rendered them obedient to their general ; and, though night was closing in, Antonius placed them in order of battle on the road itself and the lands on each side of it. The Vitellians, who were now without any general officers, were so confident of their own strength, that they would not remain in the town ; and they set forth with the intention of falling on and routing the Flavians, whom they supposed to be exhausted with cold and want of food. It was about nine o'clock when they suddenly fell in with them, drawn up as we have described, A desultory, irregular conflict was maintained through the night. The Vitellians had drawn their artillery all up on the road, whence it was doing great execution, especially a huge halista belonging to the fifteenth legion ; when two gallant soldiers of the Flavians, taking up the shields of the Vitellians, that they might not be known, rushed forwards, and, though they lost their lives in the at- tempt, they succeeded in cutting the cords of the engines, and thus rendering them useless. At length the moon rose behind the Flavians, lengthening their shadows, and giving them a clear view of the enemy, who now fought under a 140 VITELLIUS. [a. d. 69. manifest disadvantage. When the sun appeared, the third (as was the usage in Syria) saluted that lord of day. A re- port ran through both armies, that it was the troops of Muci- anus, who had just arrived, that they were thus greeting. Antonius, taking advantage of the effect of this report, made a steady charge on the loosely-formed Vitellians, who speed- ily broke and fled to Cremona, whither the victorious Fla- vians lost no time in following them. But when they ap- proached the town, they saw a labor before them which they had not expected. In the beginning of the war, the German army, when it entered Italy, had fixed a strongly-fortified camp under the walls of Cremona; and its strength had been lately augmented very considerably. The Flavians saw that they must either attack and carry this camp, or return to Bedriacum, or adopt the hazardous course of encamping in view of a numerous army. They chose the first course, perilous as it was; the gates and ramparts were assailed: when their efforts slackened, one of their leaders (Antonius, as some said) pointed to Cremona as their reward, and their exertions were renewed. At length the tenth burst open one of the gates and rushed in ; the camp was speedily carried, and the Vitellians were slaughtered in vast numbers as they made their escape to the town. Their loss in this and the preceding actions is said to have exceeded 30,000 men, while that of the Flavians amounted only to 4,500.* The city of Cremona was defended by lofty walls, and towers, and massive gates. Its population was numerous, and, this being the time of one of its fairs, it was full of peo- ple from the rest of Italy, This last circumstance, however, acted as an incentive on the Flavians, who reckoned that the plunder would be by so much the greater. The assault was therefore commenced : at first the resistance was vigorous, but gradually it slackened, as the Vitellian officers began to reflect that, if Cremona were taken by storm, they had no further place of refuge, and that it was on them that the ven- geance of the victors would fall. They therefore set Csecina at liberty, and prayed him to be their mediator ; they threw aside the standards of Vitellius, and displayed tokens of sup plication from the walls. Antonius then ordered his men to cease, and the Vitellians marched out with the honors of war. The Flavians at first insulted them; but, when they marked their humble demeanor, and called to mind that these * Josephus, Jewish War, iv. 11. Hegesippus, iv. 30. A. D. 69.] STORMING OF CREMONA. 141 were the men who had used their victory at Bedriacum with such moderation, they felt compassion. But when Caecina appeared with the consular ensigns, they could not control their indignation, and Antonius had difficulty to save him. Antonius either could not or would not save the town ; 40,000 soldiers, and a still greater number of camp followers, the more terrible of the two on such an occasion, rushed in. The usual series of atrocities, murder, rape, robbery, torture, enacted in towns taken by storm, ensued. The town was fired in various parts; it burned for four days j at the end of which time a solitary temple without the gates alone re- mained to testify the former existerice of Cremona. Vitellius, meantime, was thinking only of his sensual enjoy- ments.* Valens, with a train of women and eunuchs, was moving leisurely onwards, when he heard of the treachery of CsBcina and Lucilius Bassus. Instead of hastening by forced marches to Cremona, or making some daring effort, he still loitered, and thought only of seducing the wives and daughters of his hosts. He fell back into Umbria, and thence into Etruria, where, hearing of the loss of the battle at Cremona, he seized some shipping and made sail for Nar- bonese Gaul, with the intention of exciting the Gauls and Germans to arms. But his project failed; and, being driven by a storm to Bomo islets near Marseilles, he was there taken by the ships sent by the Flavians in pursuit of him. The whole of Italy north and east of the Apennines was now in the hands of the Flavians. As the winter was ap- proaching, and the Po was beginning to overflow, Antonius resolved to make no further delay; and, leaving the sick and wounded, and a part of the legionaries, at Verona, he ad- vanced with the remainder to Fano, {Fanum Fortunce.) Vi- tellius had sent fourteen praetorian cohorts and all his cavalry to defend the passage of the Apennines, committing the defence of the city to his brother L. Vitellius and the remain- ing preetorian cohorts. He occupied himself with remitting tributes, granting immunities, appointing consuls for a series of years, anl^ such like useless or pernicious acts, never in- termitting the pleasures of the table till he learned that the army insisted on his presence with it. He then set out with a great number of the senators, and joined it at Mevania ; but the total ignorance of war which he displayed, and his * " Umbraculis hortorum abditus, (ut ignava animalia, quibus si ci- bum suggeras, jacent torpentque,) prseterita, instantia, futura pari obli- vione dimiserat." Tacitus. 142 VITELLIUS. [a. d. 69. continual drunkenness, proved how unqualified he was for empire. Instead of crossing the Apennines and attacking ^he enemy, who was suffering from the weather, and from want of supplies in an exhausted country, he frittered away the strength of his army, and exposed it to be cut up in de- tail. Tidings of the revolt of the fleet at Misenum gave him a pretext for returning to Rome ; he there learned fur- ther, that the people of Puteoli and other towns had joined in the revolt, and the officer, whom he sent to recall the sol- diers to their duty, declared for Vespasian, and occupied Tarracina. The disgraceful departure of Vitellms imboldened the people of the Sabellian race to manifest their inclination to the Flavian cause. Antonius, also, though the weather was foul and the snow deep, crossed the Apennines, which he never, perhaps, could have achieved, had Vitellius been other than he was. As he was advancing, he was met by Petillius Cerialis, an able officer, and a connection of Vespasian's, who had escaped from confinement in the garb of a peasant. Ce- rialis was forthwith associated in the command of the army, which encamped at Carsulae, within ten miles of the Vitel- lians. Here the Flavians were joined by the troops from Verona. Desertion soon spread among the Vitellians ; and, when the head of Valcna, -who had been put to death at Ur- bino, was brought and shown to them, they gave up all hopes, and consented to declare for Vespasian. Frequent messages were at this time sent by the Flavian generals to Vitellius, offering him a large income and a retreat in Campania, if he would give over the contest. Mucianus wrote to the same effect ; and Vitellius was begmnmg to speak of the number of slaves he should require and the place he should select; for, as Tacitus says, *' such a torpor had seized his mind, that, if others had not remembered that he was an emperor, he would have forgotten it himself" The prefect of the city at this time was Flavius Sabinus, the elder brother of Vespasian ; for a generous or prudent policy of sparing the relatives of each other, of which Otho had set the example, prevailed among the rival candidates for empire. Vespasian's younger son, Domitianus, was also at Rome and in safety. Sabinus was strongly urged, by the principal persons in the city, to put himself at the head of the urban cohorts and the watchmen, with their own slaves, and seize the city for his brother ; but he was a man of mild temper, and averse from civil bloodshed ; he therefore pre- A. D. 69.] AFFAIRS AT ROME. 143 ferred the way of negotiation * he had several private meet- ings with Vitellius, and they finally came to an arrangement in the temple of Apollo, it was said, in the presence of two witnesses. Vitellius's friends, when they heard of it, did all in their power to make him break the agreement, but to no purpose. On the 18th of December, when news came of the defection of the troops at Narnia, he came down from the palace, clad in black, having his young son in a litter with him, and addressed the people and soldiery in the Forum, telling them that he retired for the sake of peace and the re- public; and commending to them his family. He then, in token of his resignation, handed his dagger to the consul, who declined to receive it. He moved toward the temple of Concord, to deposit his ensigns there, and then retire to the adjoining house of his brother; but the people and the German soldiers opposed his passage, and forced him to re- turn to the palace. The principal persons of both orders, hearing that Vitel- lius had abdicated, had repaired to the house of Sabinus, where the urban cohorts and the watchmen were also assem- bled. When they heard of the conduct of the populace and the German cohorts, feeling that they had gone too far to recede, they resolved to have recourse to arms. A skirmish Speedily took place with some of the Vitellians, in which they were worsted; and Sabinus then retired to the Capitol, with his soldiers and some of the knights and senators. Dur- ing the night, as the guard of the Vitellians was slack, he caused his children and nephew to be brought thither ; and at the same time he sent to apprize the Flavian generals of his situation. As soon as it was light, Sabinus sent a centurion to remon- strate with Vitellius on his breach of faith. Vitellius at- tempted to excuse himself, by declaring his want of power to restrain his soldiers. The centurion was obliged to retire by the rear of the house to elude them; and he had hardly returned to the Capitol when they advanced to the assault. They assailed the portico of the temple with flaming brands; Sabinus caused the statues to be all pulled down and piled up behind the doors, to serve as a barrier. They then made their attacks at all the approaches, especially that by the Asylum. The edifice at length burst into flames, whether fired by the besieged or the besiegers was uncertain ; and thus was the temple of the tutelar deities of Rome destroyed for the second time, in the midst of civil commotions. Un- daunted by the flames, the Vitellians rushed in : few of the 144 VITELLIUS. ■ [a. D. 69. defenders made resistance ; most sought to escape in various ways, and generally with success. Domitian was concealed by the keeper of the temple ; and next day he got away, dis- guised as one of the ministers of Isis. Sabinus and the con- sul Atticus were seized and dragged into the presence of Vitellius. In vain the powerless emperor wished to save the former ; he was murdered before his eyes. Atticus escaped by declaring that it was he himself that had fired the temple. The Flavians were keeping the Saturnalia, at Otriculum, when they heard of the late events at Rome. Cerialis ad- vanced immediately, with a body of a thousand horse, to enter the city by the Salarian road, while Antonius led the remainder of the army along the Flaminian. The night was advanced, when, at a place named the Red Rocks, [Saxa Rubra,) he was informed of the burning of the Capitol and the death of Sabinus. Cerialis was repulsed, when he ap- proached the city, and driven back to Fidena? ; and the popu- lace, elated at this success of their party, took up arms for Vitellius, and demanded to be led to l3attle. He thanked them for their zeal, but he preferred negotiation to arms. He sent deputies to both Cerialis and Antonius, and the Vestal Virgins were the bearers of a letter to the latter. The holy maidens were treated with all due respect ; but the answer returned to Vitellius was, that the murder of Sabi- nus and the burning of the Capitol had put an end to all hopes of peace. Antonius having made a fruitless effort to induce his troops to halt for one day at the Mulvian bridge, they ad- vanced to the assault, in three bodies, along the Tiber and the Salarian and Flaminian roads. The Vitellians opposed them vigorously at all points; success was various, but fortune mostly favored the Flavians. The people looked on, as if it had been the sports of the amphitheatre, cheering the vic- tors, and requiring those who sought refuge any where to be dragged out and slain. They also plundered the dead. In some parts of the city there were the flashing of arms and the sounds of combat ; while in others, the usual course of debauchery was going on, and the baths and the taverns were filled with their daily visitors. It was at the proetorian camp that the battle raged the loudest. Pride urged the old prae- torians to recover their camp ; their successors were de- termined to die rather than yield it up. Every kind of en- gine was employed against it ; at length an entrance was forced, and all its defenders were slain. When the city was taken, Vitellius had himself conveyed A. D. 70.] MURDER OF VITELLIUS. 145 in a sedan to the house of his wife, on the Aventine, intend- ing to steal away, during the night, to Tarracina, which his brother had recovered. But he changed his mind, and re- turned to the palace. He found it deserted ; and, as he roamed its empty halls, his spirit failed, and he concealed himself in the porter's lodge, hiding under the bed and bed- clothes. Here he was found and dragged out by a Flavian tribune. His hands were tied behind his back ; a rope was put about his neck; his robe was torn; a sword was set under his chin to make him hold up his head ; some reviled him, others pelted him with mud and dirt. He was thus led along the Sacred Way; and, at the Gemonian Stairs, he was hacked to death, and his body was then dragged away and flung into the Tiber. CHAPTER H.* THE FLAVIAN FAMILY. A. u. 823—849. A. D. 70—96. STATE OF AFFAIRS AT ROME. GERMAN WAR. CAPTURE AND' DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. RETURN OF TITUS. VES- PASIAN. CHARACTER OF HIS GOVERNMENT. HIS DEATH. CHARACTER AND REIGN OF TITUS. PUBLIC CALAMITIES. DEATH OF TITUS. CHARACTER OF DOMITIAN. CON- QUEST OF BRITAIN. DACIAN WAR. OTHER WARS. CRU- ELTY OF DOMITIAN. HIS DEATH. LITERATURE OF THIS PERIOD. T. Flavins Sahinus Vespasianus. A. u. 823—832. A. D. 70—79. The death of Vitellius terminated the civil war, but it did not yet restore tranquillity to the empire. Rome presented the appearance of a conquered city. The victorious Flavi- ans pursued and slaughtered the Vitellians in all quarters , * Authorities : Suetonius and Dion. CONTIN. 13 S 146 VESPASIAN. [a. D. 69. houses were broken open and robbed, and their owners, if they resisted, were murdered. Complaint and himcntation were heard on all sides. The generals were unable to re- strain their men, and the evil was left to exhaust itself The troops were soon, however, led as far as Bovilhc and Aricia, to oppose L. Vitellius, who was reported to be on his march against the city ; but he and his cohorts surrendered at dis- cretion, and he was led to Rome and put to death. The same was the fate of a few more of the friends of Vitellius ; among whom may be mentioned his freedman Asiaticus. Some persons were prosecuted and punished for their acts in the time of Nero ; among whom it is gratifying to mention the i)hilosoplier Egnatius Celcr, the friend and prosecutor of Soranus. The senate decreed all the usual imperial honors to Ves- pasian ; the consulship for the ensuing year to him ; to his eldest son, the pra^torship ; and the consular authority to Do- mitian. The consular ensigns we're decreed to Antonius Pri- mus ; the prictorian, to Cornelius Fuscus and Arrius Varus ; and the triumphal, to Mucianus, for his success against the Sarmatians. The supreme power lay nominally with Domi- tian ; but its reality was in the hands of Antonius, from whom, however, it passed to Mucianus, who speedily arrived. Mucianus acted in all things as if he were a partner of the empire; Domitian also exercised such imperial power, that his father, it is said, wrote to him one time, saying, " I thank you, son, for allowing me to reign, and for not having de- posed me." Vespasian did not arrive at Rome till toward the end of the year. As the Roman arms were at this time occupied by two distinct enemies in diiferent parts of the world, the Germans and the Jews, and both wars were concluded in this year, we will here briefly notice them. Tlie origin of the German war was as follows : The Bata- vians, a tribe of the Chattans, being expelled from their ori- ginal seats, had settled in the north-eastern extremity of Gaul, and in the island formed by the branches of the Rhine. They were in alliance with the Romans, on the usual terms, and therefore supplied them with troops; their cavalry, from its activity and the skill and boldness with which it was known to cross the deepest and most rapid rivers, was always greatly prized in the Roman service ; and the Batavian co- horts had very much distinguished themselves both in Britain and at Bedriacum. Two brothers, named Julius Paulus and A. D. 69.] INSURRECTION OF CIVILIS. 147 Claudius Civilis, had held of late the chief command of the Batavian troops. The former was put to death by Foiiteius Capito, on a false charge of disalFection in the time of Nero, and the latter was sent in chains to Rome. He was acquit- ted by Galba, but he ran fresh danger from Vitellius, as the army was clamorous for his execution. lie, however, escaped, and returned to his own country, where, under the pretence of acting for Vespasian, he prepared to' cast off the Roman yoke. He first induced the Batavians to refuse the levy or- dered by Vitellius, and then proposed to the Canninifates, a neighboring people, to join the league; he also sent to solicit the Batavian cohorts, that had been sent back from Bedria- cum, and were now at Mentz, {Magontiacuni.) The Cannin- ifates, choosing one of their nobles, named Brinno, for their leader, and having associated with them the trans-Rhenic Frisians, attacked and took the winter camp of two cohorts on the sea-coast. Civilis at first pretended great zeal for the Romans; but, when he found that his designs were seen through, he joined Brinno openly, and their united forces, aided by the treachery of a Tungrian cohort and of the Bata- vian rowers in the ships, succeeded in defeating a body of Roman troops, and capturing their fleet of four-and-twenty vessels. Hordeonius ordered Lupercus, one of his legates, to march against the rebels with two legions, Ubian and Tre- virian auxiliaries, and some Batavian cavalry, Lupercus therefore crossed the river; Civilis gave him battle; in the midst of the engagement, the Batavian horse went over to their countrymen; the auxiliaries fled in confusion, and the legionaries were obliged to take refuge in the Old Camp. Meantime a messenger from Civilis had overtaken the Ba- tavian cohorts that were on their march for Italy. They im- mediately began, as a pretext for defection, to demand a donative, double pay, and other advantages promised by Vi- tellius; and Hordeonius having tried in vain to satisfy them, they set out to join Civilis. Hordeonius then, resolving to have recourse to force, sent orders to Ilerennius Gallus, who commanded at Bonn, {Banna,) to stop them in front while he himself should press on their rear. He soon, however, changed his mind, and sent word to Ilerennius to let them pass. But the latter yielded to the instances of his men, and led out his forces of 3,000 legionaries, some Belgian cohorts, and a train of camp followers, against the Batavians. The latter, inferior in number, but superior in discipline, drove them back with great slaughter to their camp, and then. 148 VESPASIAN. [a. D. 69. continuing their route without further molestation, joined Civilis. The arrival of these veteran cohorts inspired Civilis with confidence; but, still aware of the power of Rome, he made all his men take the oath of fidelity to Vespasian. He sent to invite the two legions in the Old Camp to do the same ; but, meeting with a scornful refusal, he resolved to attack them without further delay. He had now been joined by some of the Germans, and his army was numerous. On the other hand, the Romans did not exceed 5,000 men, and they had to defend a camp made for two legions. A general assault was at first tried ; and, when it did not succeed, Civilis, aware that the supply of provisions in the camp was very short, re- solved to trust to the surer course of blockade. But vast numbers of Germans having now flocked to him, to gratify their ardor he tried another assault. It, however, also failed, and he then resumed the blockade. Meantime he ceased not to urge by letters the people of Gaul to insurrection ; and disaffection in consequence prevailed extensively throughout that country. Hordeonius, unable to control the mutinous spirit of his troops, gave the command of the force which he sent to raise the siege of the Old Camp to the legate Dillius Vocula. This oflicer advanced as far as Gelduba, and there encamped. Meantime, tidintT^s of the battle of Cremona arrived ; and, on the receipt of letters from Antonius Primus, with an edict of Caecina as consul, Hordeonius made his men take the oath to Vespasian. An envoy was then sent to Civilis, to inform him that he had now no further pretext for war, and to re- quire him to lay down his arms. He, however, refused, and he sent off the veteran cohorts with the Germans to attack the forces at Gelduba, while he himself remained to keep up the blockade of the Old Camp. These troops came so sud- denly on Vocula, that he had not time to draw out his men ; and, the cowardice or defection of some Nervian cohorts aid- ing the enemy, they were on the very point of obtaining a complete victory, when some Gascon cohorts came suddenly up, and fell on their rear. The Batavians, taking them for the entire Roman army, lost courage, and, being now assailed in front and rear, were put to flight with loss. Vocula then marched to the relief of the Old Camp. Civilis gave him battle in front of it ; but a sally of the besieged, and a fall of Civilis himself from his horse, and a report that he was slain or wounded, damped the spirit of his men, and Vocula forced A. D. 70.] INSURRECTION OF CIVILIS. 149 his way into the camp, which he secured with additional works. A convoy, which he sent to fetch corn from Nova- sium, being attacked on its return by Civilis, and forced to take refuge in the camp at Gelduba, he drew a good part of the troops out of the Old Camp, and went with them to their relief. Civilis then renewed the siege of the Old Camp; and when Vocula went on to Novasium, the Batavian general captured Gelduba, and then came off victorious in a cavalry action near Novasium. Mutiny now prevailed to a great ex- tent in the Roman army. Hordeonius was murdered by his own men, and Vocula had to make his escape disguised as a slave. The success of Civilis, and the intelligence of the taking of Rome, and the death of Vitellius, excited the Gauls to think of asserting their independence. Classicus, the com- mander of the Trevirian cavalry, opened a correspondence with Civilis. Julius Tutor, the prefect of the bank of the Rhine, and Julius Sabinus, a leading man among the Lingo- nians, joined with Classicus, and measures were taken to insure the cooperation of their countrymen. Vocula had information of their plans; but he felt himself too weak to oppose them, and he affected to give credit to their protesta- tions of fidelity. When, however, he marched to the relief of the Old Camp, Classicus and Tutor, having arranged mat- ters with Civilis, formed their camp apart from that of the legions. Vocula, having vainly essayed to reduce them to obedience, led, as we have seen, his army back to Novasium. The Gauls encamped two miles off, and (strange and novel event!) Classicus and Tutor succeeded in inducing the Ro- man soldiers to declare against their own country, and aban- don their general. Vocula was murdered by a deserter from the first legion ; his legates were confined : Classicus entered the camp with imperial ensigns, and the soldiers took the oath to the empire of the Gauls. The troops in the Old Camp, worn out with famine, now surrendered ; all the win- ter quarters beyond the Rhine, except those at Mentz and Windisch, {Vindonissa,) were burnt; Cologne and other towns submitted to the conquerors; the Gallic nations, how- ever, with the exception of the Trevirians and Lingonians, and a few others, remained faithful to Rome. Sabinus, causing himself to be proclaimed Caesar, invaded the terri- tory of the Sequanians; but his disorderly levies were totally routed ; and he himself, flying to one of his country-seats, 13* 150 VESPASIAN. [a. d. 70. burned it over his head, that it might be believed that he had perished, while he reserved himself for better times.* Such was the state of atfairs when Cerialis came from Home to conduct the German war. He fixed his head-quar- ters at Mentz, and the success of his first operations checked the progress of the rebellion. He thence advanced to Treves, where Civilis and Classicus, having in vain solicited him to assume the empire of the Gauls, resolved to give him battle. Early in the morning, a sudden attack was made on the Ro- man camp by a combined army of Gauls, Germans, and Ba- tavians. Cerialis, who had lain out of the camp, hastened to it, unarmed as he was, and found his men giving way on all sides. By great personal exertions he restored the battle, and the enemy was at length forced to retire. Civilis then, having received fresh troops from Germany, took his position at the Old Camp. Cerialis, w^ho had also been reenforced by two legions, followed him thither. Civilis gave him battle ; the contest was long doubtful ; at length, the treachery of a Batavian, who deserted, and conducted a body of Roman horse into the rear of Civilis's army, decided the fortune of the day. Civilis then retired with Classicus, Tutor, and some of the principal men of the Trevirians, into the Bata- vian island, whither Cerialis, for want of shipping, could not pursue them ; and issuing thence again, they attacked the Romans in various places, wdio, in turn, passed over to the island and ravaged it. The approach of winter, during which the toil of carrying on a war amidst bogs and marshes would be intolerable, disposed Cerialis to seek an accommo- dation, to which Civilis, who saw that his countrymen were weary of w^ar, was equally well inclined. The two leaders had an interview to arrange the terms. Civilis received a pardon; the confederates were released from all demands of tribute, and only required to supply troops as heretofore. While such was the state of affairs in the west, Titus had brought the Jewish war to a fortunate conclusion. The Jews, as we have seen, had been for some years under the government of a Roman president. Those selected for that office, such as Felix and Festus, had been usually tyran- * His plfice of refuge was a subterraneous cavern, where he remained concealed for nine years. His wife (who bore him two children in the cavern) and two of his freedmen alone knew of his retreat. He was at lengtli discovered, and led to Rome, where Vespasian, with a harsh- ness unusual to him, caused both him and his wife to be executed. Dion, Ixvi. 16. Plut. Amat. p. 1372. A.D. 63-64.] JEWISH WAR. 151 nic and avaricious men j and they oppressed the people be- yond measure. On the other hand, the Jews, in reliance on the words of their prophets, looked every day for the appear- ance of their conquering Messiah, who was not merely to deliver them from bondage, but to make them lords and rulers over all nations. They also believed that they were forbidden by their law to submit to the rule of a stranger. From all these causes, insurrections were frequent in Judaea, and they were punished with great severity in the usual Roman manner. Bands of robbers swarmed in the country, among whom were particularly remarkable those called Sica- rians, from the dagger (sica) which they carried concealed in their garments, and w^ith which they used secretly to stab their enemies even in the open day, in the streets, and chiefly at the time of the great festivals. In some points they seem to have resembled the Assassins of a far later period. False prophets were also continually appearing and leading the people into destruction. In the eleventh year of Nero, (63,) Gessius Florus was appointed procurator of Judaea. The tyranny which he exercised passed all endurance, and in the second year of his government (64) the whole Jewish nation took up arms against the dominion of Rome. The Roman garrison of Je- rusalem was massacred ; on the other hand, great numbers of Jews were slaughtered at Caesarea and Alexandria, and they, in their turn, destroyed Samaria, Askalon, and several other towns. Cestius Gallus, the governor of Syria, seeing that matters had assumed so serious a form, entered the country at the head of a large army, and advanced as far as Jerusalem ; but, being foiled in the first attempts which he made on that city, instead of persevering, when, according to the most competent authority, he could have taken the city and prevented all the future calamities, he drew off his army and retired with disgrace. The Jews forthwith began to prepare for the war, which they now saw to be inevitable. They appointed military governors for all the provinces, among whom was Josephus, the historian of the war, to whom was given the province of Galilee. When Nero was informed by Cestius of the state of affairs in Juda3a, he saw the necessity of committing the conduct of the war to a man of military talent and experience. The person on whom he fixed was Vespasian, who had already distinguished himself both in Germany and Britain. Ves- pasian set forth without delay, proceeding overland to Syria, 152 VESPASIAN. [a. d. 65-70. while he sent his son Titus to Egypt, to lead to him two legions from that province. At Antioch he received from Musianus, then president of Syria, one legion ; and, when joined by his son, he found himself at the head of an army of about 60,000 men, including the auxiliary troops of the different Asiatic princes and states. The Roman army rendezvoused at Ptolemais, (Acre,) whence it advanced into Galilee, (65.) The city of Gadara was taken at the first assault ; and Vespasian then laid siege to Jotopata, the strongest place in the province, and of which Josephus himself conducted the defence. The Jews, favored by the natural strength of the place, made a most gallant resistance ; but, on the forty-seventh day of the siege, a traitor revealed to Vespasian the secret of the actual weakness of the garrison, and showed how the town might be surprised. The city accordingly fell, and an indiscriminate massacre was made of all the male inhabitants. Josephus became a prisoner to the Roman general, by whom he was treated with much consideration ; and he thus had the excellent opportunity, of which he availed himself, for relating the events of the war. Few other places in Galilee offered resistance ; the towns on the coast were all in the hands of the Romans; Vespasian had advanced southwards and placed garrisons in Jericho and other towns round Jerusalem, and he was preparing to lay siege to that city, when he received intelligence of the death of Nero, (68.) He then put aside all thoughts of the siege for the present, waiting to see what course events would take in Italy, and retired to Csesarea for the winter. In the spring, (69,) he had resumed operations against the Jews, when news came of the battle of Bedriacum, and the elevation of Vitellius to the empire. We have already re- lated what thence resulted, and the consequent suspension of the Jewish war. Vespasian was at Alexandria when he heard of the death of Vitellius, and of himself being declared emperor by the senate. He resolved now to prosecute the Jewish war, and, Titus having left Egypt and proceeded to Caesarea early in the spring, (70,) and being there joined by the remainder of the army destined for the siege of Jerusalem, advanced against the devoted city, at the head of an army composed of four legions, with their due number of cohorts and auxil- iaries. As the festival of the Passover occurred about this time, the city was thronged with an immense number of A. D. to.] JEWISH WAR. 153 people from all parts of Judaea, and the Jewish nation was thus, as it were, enveloped in the net of destruction. Of no siege, in ancient times, have the events been trans- mitted with the same degree of minuteness as that of Jeru- salem ; for Josephus, the historian of them, was a Jew of noble birth, and he was present in the Roman camp, and on a footing of friendship with Titus. Versed in both the Greek and Hebrew languages, and acquainted, personally, with the principal persons on both sides, he had the oppor- tunity of learning the exact truth of every event ; and his ve- racity has never been called in question. As the destruction of Jerusalem was accurately foretold by the divine Author of our religion, the narrative of the siege possesses additional importance in the eyes of all Christians. The proper place, however, for the detailed narration of it is the History of the Jews ; in the limits to which the present work is neces- sarily restricted, we feel it impossible to give such an ac- count as would content the reasonable curiosity of the reader, and shall therefore only aim at a general view of this ruin of the Jewish nation. The great body of the people of Jerusalem were anxious to submit to the Romans ; and Titus, on his part, would most willingly have granted them favorable terms. But all the robbers and Sicarians had repaired to the city, and, under the name of Zealots, they seized on the whole power. They were divided into three hostile parties, having but one prin- ciple in common, namely, to oppose the Romans, and to oppress and murder the unhappy people. In their madness, they early destroyed the greater part of the magazines of corn, and famine soon began to spread its ravages. The sufferings of the people were beyond description ; if they remained in the city, they perished of hunger ; if they were caught attempting to escape from it, they were barbarously murdered by the Zealots ; if they succeeded in making their escape, they were murdered by the Syrians and Arabians in the Roman army, for the gold, which it was discovered they used to swallow. The siege lasted for nearly seven months. The Romans had to carry each of the three walls, and all the quarters of the city, successively. Titus was anxious to save the mag- nificent temple of the God of Israel ; but one of the Roman soldiers set fire to it, and the stately edifice became a prey to the flames. The IJpper City, as it was named, was still defended, but the Romans finally carried it ; and the whole 154 VESPASIAN. [a.d. 70. city, with the exception of three of the towers, left to show its former streniftli, was tlomolished. .losephiis computes the number of tlu)se w1k> })erishetl in the sioi>e and capture of the city at 1,100,000, and those who were made prisoners duiitiit- the war, at 1)7,000 pcM-sous. Of these, those uncUir seventeen years of age were sohl for shives ; of the rest, some were sent to the provinces to fiy,ht with each other, or with wild beasts, for tiie anuisement of the peoph> in the theatres J the greater part were condennied to work in tlie tpiarries of Egypt. On the occasion of the contpiest of Jerusak^n, Titus was sahited emperor by his army ; and, when he was abtmt to depart from the province, tliey insisted that he shouhl either remain or take them with him. Tliis, combined with tlie circumstance of his wearing a diadem, (though according to the established usage,) some time after, when consecra- ting the holy calf Apis at Memphis in Kgypt, gave occasion to a suspicion that he meditated to revolt from his father and establish a kingdom for himself in the I'^.ast. lie there- fore lost no tin>e in repairing to Italy, whither Vespasian had proceeded long before. When he arrived unexpected- ly at Rome, he addressed his father in these words : " I am come, fatlier, I am come," to show the absurdity of tlie re- ports respecting him, Vespasian, however, knew his noble son too well to have had any suspicion of him. lie cele- brated with him a joint triumph for the conquest of Jud;ea ; he made him his colleague in the censorship, the tribunate, and seven consulates, ami gave him the counnand of the pra3torian cohorts. He transferred to him most of the busi- ness of the state, authorizing him to write letters and issue edicts in his name, lie, in ellect, made him his colleague in the empire ; and he aever had occasion, for one moment, to regret his confidence. Titus Flavins Vespasianus, the present ruler of the Roman world, was somewhat past his sixtieth year when called to the empire, lie was born near Reate, in the Sabine country, of a family which was merely respectable. lie commenced his public life as a tribune in the army in Thrace; he rose to tlie rank of pnutor, and lie served as a legate in Germany and Britain, in which last country he distinguished himself greatly as a general, and was honored with the triumphal ensiiius : and he afterwards obtained the jiovernment of Atri- ca. Finally, as we have seen, he was selected for the con- duct of the Jewish war. In all the offices which he held, A.D. 70-79.] CHARACTER OF VESPASIAN. 155 Vespasian had behaved with justice, honor, and humanity; and tliere was, perhaps, no man at the time better calculated for tJje important post of head of the Roman empire. The first cares of Vespasian were directed to the restora- tion of discipline in the army, and of order in the finances. He dischar]>lieil, " No out; ought to retire dis- satisfied from the presence of the prince." At dinner, one time, recoUectini^ that he had done nothintr for any one that day, he cried, *' Friends, 1 have lost a day." When he took the ollice of chief pout ill", he declared that lie did it that he might keep his hands free from blood ; and during his reign not a single person was put to death. Though his brotluM' was constantly conspiring against him, lie could not he induced to treat him with rigor. When two patricians had been convicted of a conspiracy against him, he contenttHl himself with (vxhorting them to ilesist, for that the enn)ire was given by fate. He even tlespatched couriers to assure the mother of one of them of hor son's safety ; and he invited them to dinner, and treated them with the utmost confidence. \lc constantly said that he would rather die than cause the death of any one.t Titus would never allow any })rosecutions on the charge of treason. '' //' said he, '* cannot be injured or insulti^l, for 1 do nothing tleserviiig of reproach, ami I cart^ not for those who speak falsely ; and as for the departed emperors, if they are in reality demigods, and have power, they will avenge themsehes on those who injure them." He was very severer against the informers ; Ur causcul them to be beaten with rods and cudgels, led through the amphitheatre, and then to be sold for slaves, or confined in the most rugged islands. The reign of this excellent prince was marked by a series of public calamities. He had reigned only two months when a tremendous volcanic eruption, the lirst on record, * « IJerenicon statim ab urbo (fimisit invitns invitani." Sueton. i " IVritunim so pot'uis (luiini ptvnlilurmu." A. D. 80-81.] ERUPTION OF VKSUVIUS. 159 from Mount V(!Siiviiis, ,s|)r(iJi.(l dismay ihroiitrh Italy. This inoiint.'iin luid liitli'o^ot,) as they were called by the Greeks, or Councils, [Concilia,) as they were styled by the Latins, and the ancient Amphictyonies, and the Synods of the Achaean and JEtolian Leagues.* The laws and regulations made in these assemblies were termed Canons, [K^i.i'oveg,) i. e. rules. The introduction of these councils caused a great alter- ation in the constitution of the church. The original rights of the people became, in consequence of them, nearly eva- nescent, for every matter of importance was now determined by the councils. On the other hand, the dignity and au- thority of the prelates was proportionably enlarged. Their tone grew bolder, and they now spoke of themselves as the legitimate successors of the apostles, and empowered to im- pose laws by their own authority. The primitive equality among the bishops themselves also disappeared ; for, as it was necessary that a council should have a president, the office was bestowed on the bishop of the chief city of the * See History of Greece, pp. 24 and 440. GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH. 281 province, which city was naturally selected as the most ap- propriate place for holding the council. Hence arose the title and dignity of Metropolitan ; and further, as councils became more extensive, and began to include the prelates of more provinces than one, it was deemed expedient to have a chief for each division of the earth included in the Roman empire ; and a tacit superiority was therefore conceded to the bishops of Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, with prece- dence to the first, on account of the greater dignity of the city in which he resided. These three ecclesiastical poten- tates were afterwards named Patriarchs. In this manner, from the smallest beginnings, arose the Hierarchy of the church, which, in course of time, attained to such an as- tounding eminence. The high authority of the Hebrew Scriptures enabled the ministers of the church to enlarge their pretensions to au- thority. They conceived or represented themselves to have succeeded to all the rights of the Jewish priesthood. The bishop accordingly claimed the rights and authority of the high-priest; the presbyters those of the ordinary priests; the deacons those of the Levites. Hence followed the de- mand of tithes and first-fruits, which there is abundant rea- son to suppose was made even before the third century. It is not unlikely that it was also these Jewish notions that gave origin to the distinction of clergy and laity,* which very early prevailed in the church. In the third century we find among the clergy a variety of inferior officers, such as Sub-deacons, Acolyths, [attend- ants,) Ostiaries, {door-keepers,) Readers, and Exorcists. As these performed duties which had hitherto been discharged by the deacons, we see nothing improbable in the supposition that they were indebted for their origin to the pride of these last-named ministers, who now confined themselves to the more honorable functions of their office, devolving the more menial ones on an inferior class of persons. Perhaps, how- ever, the more simple solution will be found in the principle of the division of labor, which the great increase of the church may now have called into operation. Such, then, was the appearance presented by the Chris- tian church at the close of the third century. The distinc- tion was drawn clear and broad between the clergy and the laity; the former forming an order variously subdivided, * KXrimxoi, from xXfiqoq, lot or office; Xa'ixoi, from i,aogypeQpl6. J J 282 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. and claiming peculiar privileges. Were we to adopt the assertions of Cyprian, Eusebius, and other Christian writers, who find the causes of all the persecutions in the vices of the clergy, we should view them as utterly depraved ; but these writers indulged too much in rhetorical exaggeration to deserve implicit credit; and though it must be conce- ^ded, that pride, ambition, avarice, luxury, and other vices, defiled the purity of the Christian priesthood, the truth is probably contained in the assertion of Origen, that, though such was undoubtedly the case, the preeminence, in point of virtue, in the Christian ministers, as compared with the heathen magistrates and other persons in office, was incon- testable. They were, in fact, men, and, as such, of different degrees of moral worth; if some were eminently bad, others were as eminently good, and the great majority indifferent. Finally, to repeat an observation already made, the errors or vices of its professors cannot be laid to the charge of the Christian religion. The first Christians, mostly selected from the humbler walks of life, had been ignorant or careless of literature and phi- losophy ; but, in the course of time, philosophers were num- bered among the converts to Christianity, and their attempts at making it harmonize with their previous notions, were a principal c-ause of its corruption. We have already shown this in the case of the Gnostics ; and we shall now briefly exhibit the influence of the philosophy of Greece on the doctrines of the church. The first philosopher who appears to have joined the Christian society, was Justin, named the Martyr. He was a Platonist ; and such also were most of the other Christian philosophers, for the tenets of Plato were those which ap- peared most akin to the doctrines of the gospel. But it was the Eclectic Platonism of Alexandria that was chiefly fol- lowed by the Christians, who had a seminary in that city, named the Catechetic School, which was successively pre- sided over by Pantaenus, Athenagoras, and Clement, and in which the attempt was made to bring religion and philosophy into unison. A contest prevailed between the followers of this system and the advocates for gospel simplicity ; but the victory was on the side of the former, and the formation, toward the end of the second century, of the sect of the New Platonists, by the celebrated Ammonius Saccas, as- sured their triumph and the corruption of the gospel. The learned among the Christians now began, like the Gnostics, CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 283 to maintain, that in the Scriptures there was, beside the lite- ral sense, a latent and higher one ; for thus only could their narratives and precepts be made to accord with the new philosophic ideas. In this they followed the example of the Jewish Platonist, Philo, who had already employed this sys- tem to some extent ; and any one who peruses his writings, or those of Justin, Clement of Alexandria, and the other early Christian philosophers, will easily perceive how widely it departs from all the principles of sane interpretation. As, however, many saw the danger of making such high matters known to the simple and ignorant, the plan of the old Egyp- tian priesthood was adopted, and the principles of their re- ligion were taught to the people with all plainness and sim- plicity, while the philosophic interpretation was reserved for the more advanced in faith, and even to them only commu- nicated orally. Hence arose what has been termed the Se- cret Discipline, {Disciplina Arcani;) that is, in effect, mystic theology. Hence, too, followed a similar distinction in mor- als ; there was one rule for the multitude, another for the aspirants to higher sanctity and to perfection. These last were, on the Gnostic principles already explained, to seek retirement and mortify the flesh, avoiding marriage and all indulgence of the senses; while the former were left to live like other men, to engage in the affairs of the world, and become the fathers and mothers of families. This was the origin of hermits, monks, and coenobites, of whom we shall hereafter treat more largely. A twofold distinction in the discipline and ceremonies of the church speedily followed. These philosophizing Chris- tians, reflecting on the mysteries of the heathen religions, thought that it would be becoming to have something sim- ilar in the church. The laity was therefore divided into the Profane and the Initiated or Faithful ; the former, who had either not been yet baptized, (such being named Catechu- mens or learners,*) or those who for some offence had been expelled from the communion of the Faithful, were only ad- mitted to a portion of the divine service ; while the latter enjoyed all the rights and privileges of the full Christian, voting in the assemblies, being present at all parts of the service, and partaking of the Agapas or Love-feasts, and of the Lord's Supper. A holy silence toward the profane respecting these mysteries was required from them. The * Ot xartjxoviiisvoiy the being instructed. 284 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. terms belonging to the heathen mysteries were freely and fondly employed, and baptism and the Eucharist were re- garded as of the most awful import, and far removed from their original simplicity. In the former, which was publicly administered every year, at Easter and Whitsuntide, by the bishop or presbyters, the persons to be baptized, after they had repeated the creed and confessed, and renounced their sins, were immersed in water, signed with the cross, anoint- ed, and by prayer and imposition of hands dedicated to God. They then, in token of the nevi^ birth, received milk and honey, and the ceremony thus concluded. The Lord's Sup- per was administered every Sunday. A portion of the bread which formed a part of the ordinary oblations of the faithful, was separated, and was consecrated by the prayers of the bishop ; and it then was divided and distributed, as also was the wine when it had been previously mixed with water.* A portion of both the elements was sent to those who were sick or absent. This rite was regarded as absolutely neces- sary to salvation, and there appears reason to believe that even in the second century the superstition respecting it was such as to cause it to be administered to infants. It is manifest, that in form, in discipline, and in doctrine, the church was no longer what it had been in the days of the apostles. Some of the changes were the necessary conse- quence of the progress of time and the alteration of circum- stances ; but others, and by far the greater in number, and most pernicious in effect, had been introduced in imitation of the Jewish hierarchy, of the mysteries of the heathen re- ligion, and its rites and ceremonies, or from the desire to make Christianity correspond with the philosophy of the East, or with that of Plato. Though the effect was inju- rious, the motives of the authors of the changes were, in general, pure, and they acted more from ignorance than design. During this period, the church began to have a literature of its own. The apostolic Fathers, (as those are named who had been contemporaneous with any of the apostles,) Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, and Poly- carp, have left some writings, all, with the exception of a trifling allegory, the Shepherd of Hermas, in the epistolary form. But some are spurious, and others have suffered from * Blood and water having flowed from the side of Jesus when he was pierced with the spear. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. 385 interpolation ; and they are of little value, except as witnesses of the doctrine of the church in their time. Their immense inferiority to those of St. Paul is very striking. In the sec- ond century flourished Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, and Theophilus, who wrote Apologies or defences of the Chris- tian religion, beside treatises on various subjects. Irenseus, bishop of Lyons, in Gaul, has left a work, in five books, against heresies, whence we chiefly derive our knowledge of them. Clement of Alexandria, a man of great learning, but too eager to find the heathen philosophy in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, was the author of numerous works; three of which, namely, the Paedagogue, the Exhortation, and the Strom ata, or Patchwork, have come down to our times. The only Latin writer remaining from this century is Ter- tullian, bishop of Carthage, a man of vigorous capacity, but feeble in judgment, and morose and melancholy in temper. His style possesses strength, but wants elegance ; and his arguments are rather rhetorical, than correct and con- vincing. The principal Greek writers of the third century were Julius Africanus, Dionysius the Great, bishop of Alexandria, Gregory, bishop of New Caesarea, (named Thaumaturgus, i. e. Wonder-worker, from the miracles which he was said to have wrought,) Methodius, and Hippolytus; but their works, which were not of a high order, have mostly perished. Far superior to all of this or the preceding age was Origen, a presbyter of Alexandria, a man of most extensive learning, of profound piety, and of high talent ; but in whom, as in most of the Fathers, imagination largely preponderated over judgment. The Latin writers of this century were Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, and the two apologists, Arnobius and Minu- cius Felix. Cyprian was pious and eloquent ; but his style is too rhetorical, and his temper was too haughty and over- bearing. HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. PART III. THE CHRISTIAN RMPERORS. CHAPTER L* DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMIAN. A. u. 1038—1058, A. D. 285—305. STATE OF THE EMPIRE. CHARACTER OP DIOCLETIAN. IM- PERIAL POWER DIVIDED. THE BAGAUDS. CARAUSIUS. — - REBELLION IN EGYPT. PERSIAN WAR. TRIUMPH OP THE EMPERORS. THEIR RESIGNATION. PERSECUTION OP 'THE CHURCH. The Roman empire had now lasted for three centuries. During that period, the forms of the republic under which the policy of Augustus had concealed the despotism of the imperial rule, had been silently laid aside, and the people were become accustomed to the display of arbitrary power, upheld by the arms of the soldiery. Occasionally, a faint gleam of the ancient Roman spirit broke forth, as in the time of the emperor Tacitus ; but the general aspect pre- sented by the inhabitants of the Eternal City, as it now began to be called, was that of a sensual, enervated nobility, and a beggarly, turbulent populace. The provinces, enjoy- * Authorities : The Epitomators, the Panegyrists, and Lactantius. A.D. 285.] CHARACTER OF DIOCLETIAN. 287 ing the rights of which Rome had once been so jealous, exhibited more of virtue and of vigor; and nearly all the emperors, for the two last centuries, had been provincials by origin. While the civil condition of the empire was thus undergoing inevitable change, its ancient systems of religion were fast receding before that of the gospel, and an expe- rienced eye might easily discern that the final triumph of the latter was certain. We are now to witness that triumph, to behold, at the same time, the Roman emperors assuming the pomp and parade of the monarchs of the East, the irruptions of the barbarians becoming every day more formidable, and the empire of the West finally sinking beneath their attacks. Diocletian, into whose hands the empire had now fallen, was another of those able Illyrian peasants whom their own talents and merits had raised to the height of imperial pow- er. He is said to have been the freedman, or the son of a freedman, of a Roman senator named Anulinus. The place of his birth was a small town in Dalmatia.* He entered the army, and gradually rose to the post of commander of the body-guards, which he held when the votes of his com- panions in arms invested him with the purple. Good sense and prudence were the distinguishing features in the character of the new emperor. His courage was calm and collected, rather than impetuous ; and he never employed force where policy could avail. In this, as in some other points, he re- sembled Augustus ; and the personal courage of both has accordingly been called into question by malignant or super- ficial observers. The empire which Augustus had founded Diocletian remodelled, and his name stands at the head of a new order of things. Diocletian used his victory over Carinus with a modera- tion which had never hitherto been equalled. None of the adherents of his adversary suffered in life, fortune, or honor. Though unversed in letters, and ignorant of the philosophy of the schools, he appreciated the mild philosophy of M. Au- relius, and declared his intention of making him his model in the art of government. In imitation of that emperor, or, more probably, from the suggestion of his own sound judg- ment, he resolved to give himself a partner in the empire. The extensive frontiers of the Roman dominion were now * Its name is supposed to have been Doclia, from a tribe of Illyrians, and his own name was probably Docles, which he Hellenized to Dio- des, and then Latinized to Diocletianus. See Gibbon, ch, xiii. The Gentile name of his patron was apparently Valerius. 288 DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMIAN. [a. D. 286-287. SO constantly and so vigorously assailed by the Persians and Germans, that no single person could attend to their defence ; and experience had shown that generals intrusted with the command of large armies, might become the rivals of their sovereigns. The person whom Diocletian fixed on as his colleague was his ancient mate in arms, Maximianus, who, born a peasant in the district of Sirmium, had, like himself, risen solely by merit. A second Marius, Maximian was rude, brutal, and ferocious, a brave soldier, an able officer, but neither a general nor a statesman of any account. For the superior wisdom and knowledge of Diocletian, he had the utmost respect, and he always stood in awe of his genius. It is remarkable that Diocletian was able to exer- cise as much influence over the rude Maximian, as Aurelius had possessed over the luxurious Verus — a proof, perhaps, of his greater force of mind. Diocletian first conferred on his friend the dignity of a Csesar, and then raised him to the more elevated rank of an Augustus, (Apr. 1, 286.) On this occasion, the emperors assumed, the one the surname of Jovius, the other that of Herculius, in allusion to their different characters, and the parts they were to bear in the state. Diocletian retained for himself the administration of the provinces of the East, and fixed on Nicomedia as his place of residence ; to Max- imian he assigned those of the West, and Milan became his imperial abode. In the following year, (287,) Maximian found employment for his arms in suppressing an insurrection of the peasantry of Gaul, who, under the name of Bagauds, a term of dubious origin,* were spreading devastation through the country. It is remarkable that, at all periods of her history, France has presented the spectacle of a rural population reduced to the extreme of misery by the oppression of an aristocracy, or of the government. Predial servitude to a tyrannic nobility was the condition in which the Romans found the Gallic peasantry ; under their own dominion, the same system was continued, and the evil was aggravated by the weight of taxation, and the insolence of a haughty soldiery. The Franks and other German conquerors succeeded to this power, and transmitted it to the feudal lords of the middle ages, with whose descendants it continued to the close of the * It is derived by some from the Celtic Bugad^ a tumultuous as- sembly. A. D. 289.] THE BAGAUDS. 289 eighteenth century ; and, in consequence of the extreme di- vision of landed property which has since taken place, and the high direct taxes imposed on the proprietors, the govern- ment appears likely to become, ere long, the owner of the far greater part of the produce of the soil, and the cultiva- tors to sink gradually to the condition of the serfs, their ancestors. The jacquerie^ or insurrection of the French peasantry, in the fourteenth century, as narrated in the graphic and ani- mated pages of Froissart, will enable us to form a conception of the rising of the Bagauds, in the fourth century. In both cases, the insurgents were unable to make head against the fully-armed troops opposed to them ; in both, the vengeance taken on them was cruel and remorseless. The leaders of the Bagauds, named JElianus and Aman- dus, had assumed the imperial ensigns ; their coins may still be seen ; but their ambition was short-lived. A more fortu- nate usurper appeared in Britain. The Franks and other German tribes of the north coast having now begun to ad- dict themselves to piracy, a Roman fleet was stationed at Boulogne, {Bononia,) in order to protect the coasts of Gaul and Britain from their ravages. The command of this fleet was given to Carausius, a native of that country, {i. e. a Me- napian,) a man of very low origin, but skilled in navigation,, and of approved courage. It was soon discovered that the pirates used to pass down the channel unobserved or unmo- lested, but that they were apt to be intercepted on their re- turn, and that a considerable part of the booty gained from- them never found its way into the imperial treasury. Max- imian, convinced of the guilt of the admiral, gave orders for his death ; but the fleet was devoted to Carausius, and he passed with it over to Britain, and, having induced the legion^ and the auxiliaries stationed there to declare for him, he boldly assumed the purple ; and the emperors, after some fruitless attempts to reduce him, were obliged (289) to ac- knowledge his rank and title. It soon appeared that even two emperors would not suffice for the defence of the provinces, and Diocletian resolved to associate two other generals in the imperial power. Under the title of Caesars, they were to rank beneath the emperors, but their power was to be absolute in the parts of the empire assigned them. The persons selected were Galerius Max- imianus, a native of Dacia named Armentarius, from his CONTIN. 25 K K 290 DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMIAN. [a. D. 296. original employment of a herdsman, and Constantius,* a grand-nephew in the female line of the emperor Claudius. The former was, as might be expected, rude and martial ; the latter, though a soldier from his youth, was polished in manners, and mild and amiable in temper. Perhaps it was in imitation of the policy of Augustus, that Diocletian re- quired the Csesars to divorce their wives and marry the daughters of himself and his colleague. He bestowed the hand of his own daughter Valeria on Galerius, and Theo- dora, the stepdaughter of Maximian, became the wife of Constantius. For himself Diocletian reserved Thrace, Egypt, and the Asiatic provinces, while his CsBsar Galerius governed those on the Danube ; Maximian held Italy and Africa ; his Csesar Constantius had charge of Spain, Gaul, and Britain. The power of Carausius, the ruler of this last-named island, was now at its height ; by repressing the incursions of the Caledonians and the invasions of the Germans, he pre- served internal tranquillity; his fleets rode triumphant on the ocean, and he still retained Boulogne and its district on the continent. But the loss of a rich province was galling to the pride and the dignity of the empire, and Constantius undertook the task of reducing the British ruler, (292.) By running a mole across the harbor of Boulogne, he obliged that town and a great part of the usurper's fleet to surrender. While he was preparing a fleet for the invasion of the island, he received intelligence of the death of Carausius, who was assassinated (294) by Allectus, his principal minister. The murderer assumed the vacant power and dignity, and more than two years elapsed before Constantius had assembled a fleet and army sufficient to attempt the recovery of the island. At length, (296,) he prepared to invade it in three separate places. The first division, under the praetorian prefect As- clepiodotus, put to sea on a stormy day, and by the favor of a fog having escaped the fleet of Allectus, which lay off the Isle of Wight, effected a landing in the West. As soon as his troops had debarked, the prefect set fire to his ship- ping. Allectus, who had taken his station with a large army at London, to await the arrival of Constantius, hastened to the West ; but his troops were few and dispirited, and after a * He is usually named Chlorus, from his pallid hue, as it would appear, though the Panegyrist (v. 19) speaks of his rubor. Tillemont says that it is only in the later Greek writers that his name Chlorus appears. A. D. 296.] PERSIAN WAR. 291 brief conflict he was defeated and slain.* Constantius, when he landed, met with no opposition ; and this noble island vvas thus, after a separation of ten years, reunited to the empire. Africa and Egypt gave at this time occupation to the two emperors. In the former, a man named Julian assumed the purple at Carthage, and five confederated Moorish tribes in- vaded the province. But, on the appearance of Maximian, Julian stabbed himself, and the Moors were easily defeated, and forced to abandon their mountain fastnesses. In Egypt, one Achilleus had assumed the purple at Alexandria, and the Blemmyans were ravaging the valley of the Upper Nile. Diocletian sat down with a large army before Alexandria : he cut off the aqueducts which supplied it with water, and strongly secured his camp against the sallies of the besieged ; and after eight months the rebellious city was obliged to sur- render at discretion. A severe vengeance was taken, and many thousands of the inhabitants were slaughtered; the cities of Busiris and Coptos were totally destroyed, and all Egypt suffered by sentences of death or exile. To oppose an effectual barrier to the incursions of the Blernmyans, the emperor induced the Nobetse or Nubians to quit their abodes in the deserts, and settle in the country about Syene and the Cataracts, which he resigned to them on the condition of their guarding that frontier of the empire. While he re- mained in Egypt, Diocletian made many wise laws and regu- lations, calculated to promote the happiness and prosperity of the country.! A war ensued with Persia, on account of Armenia. We have seen that, from the time of Augustus, the Roman em- perors had claimed and exercised the right of bestowing the investiture of that kingdom. After the defeat, however, of Valerian, the Persian monarch, having caused the Armenian king Chosroes to be assassinated, had made himself master of the country. Tiridates, the infant son of the murdered monarch, was saved by his friends, and committed to the care of the Roman emperors. He grew up strong, active, dex- terous in the use of arms, and undauntedly courageous ; and * Compare the invasion of England by William the Norman. t Among others, he directed that a strict search should be made " for all the ancient books which treated of the admirable art of making gold and silver," and committed them to the flames. This is the earliest mention of the vain science of alchemy. See Gibbon, [chap, xiii.] This folly still prevails in the East. See Eraser's Travels in Koordis- tan, &c., for an instance at the present day. 292 DIOCLETIAN AND MAXIMiAN. [a. D. 296-297. he won the warm friendship of Licinius, the sworn mate and friend of Galerius. At the instance of this last, Diocletian declared Tiridates king of Armenia; and as soon as the new monarch appeared on the frontiers, (286,) the Armenians, weary of the insults and oppression of the Persians, received him with transports of joy. The Persian garrisons were speedily driven out of the country ; and, as a civil war was raging at the time among the Sassanian princes, Tiridates was able not only to recover Armenia, but to carry his arms into Assyria. When, however, the civil conflict terminated, and Narses was acknowledged king of Persia, the whole force of the empire was turned against the revolted Armenians, and Tiridates was once more obliged to seek the protection of the Roman emperors. As the language of Narses now became insolent and menacing, and prudence and honor alike demanded the restoration of Tiridates, Diocletian prepared for war, (296.) Fixing his own abode at Antioch, he committed the conduct of the war to Galerius, whom he had summoned for the purpose from the banks of the Danube. Galerius crossed the Euphrates, and entered on the plains of Mesopotamia, After some indecisive fighting, the clouds of Persian cavalry enveloped his army, which was far inferior in number, on the very ground which, more than three centuries before, had wit- nessed the defeat and death of Crassus. The Romans sus- tained a total overthrow; and Galerius, when he reached Antioch, had the mortification to be received with cold aus- terity by Diocletian, whose chariot he had to follow on foot, in his imperial purple, for the length of a mile. A new army, however, was soon formed from the troops of Illyricum and the Gothic auxiliaries; and Galerius, at the head of 25,000 gallant soldiers, was permitted again to try his fortune, (297.) Warned by experience, he now shunned the plains, and advanced through the mountains of Armenia. In person, attended by only two horsemen, he undertook the perilous task of exploring the strength and the dispositions of the hostile force. He then made a sudden attack on the Persian camp ; the rout of the enemy was instantaneous and complete. Narses, who was wounded in the action, fled to Media ; the Persian camp, replete with riches, became the prey of the victors ; * the monarch's own harem fell into the * A Roman soldier, it is said, meeting with a leathern bag full of pearls, threw away the latter, of which he could not conceive the use, A. D. 303.] PERSIAN WAR. ^93 hands of the Romans; and rude as was the nature of Gale- rius, his treatment of the royal ladies equalled that of Alex- ander the Great, on a similar occasion. Diocletian, when he heard of this great victory, set out from Antioch, and met the now elated Galerius at Nisibis. Here they were soon waited on by Apharban, a person high in the confidence of the Persian monarch, with proposals for a treaty of peace. After an interview with the emperors, the Persian was dis- missed with an assurance that Narses should speedily be informed of the terms on which peace might be obtained. The secretary, Sicorius Probus, accordingly soon after appeared in the Persian camp, and peace was concluded on the following conditions: All the northern Mesopotamia was to be resigned to the Romans, and the River Aboras* was to form the boundary of the two empires in that country ; five provinces beyond the Tigris t were also to be ceded to the Romans ; Tiridates was to be restored, and his dominions augmented; the kings of Iberia to be nominated by the Roman emperors. The empire was now externally at rest ; the revolted prov- inces had been recovered, and the frontiers extended ; Dio- cletian, therefore, took the occasion of the commencement of the twentieth year of his reign (303) for celebrating a triumph for the victories obtained by his arms and under his auspices. For this purpose, he repaired to Rome, which he had not yet honored with his presence, and he and Maximian triumphed jointly, (Nov. 20,) for Africa, Egypt, Britain, and other countries, but more especially for Persia. The cere- mony displayed the usual pomp and magnificence; one cir- cumstance, unknown at the time, distinguished it from all others — it was the last real triumph that Rome was to witness. The importance of the eternal city had suffered a serious diminution by the altered circumstances of the empire, which demanded the presence of the sovereigns nearer to the frontiers. The senate lost the consideration which it had heretofore enjoyed ; the once formidable praetorian guards were greatly reduced in number and influence ; they ceased and kept the bag. Am. Marc. xxii. 4. The same story is told of one of the followers of the first Khalifs ; but the Arab previously tried to chew the pearls, taking them for grains of millet. * This river rose near the Tigris, ran by Singara, and entered the Euphrates at Circesium. t Namely, Zabdicene, Arzinene, Corduene, Moxoene, and Intiline. 25* 294 DIOCLETIAN, MAXIMIAN. [a. D. 304-305. to be the protectors of the imperial person, their place as such being occupied by two legions of the army of Illyricum, which were named Jovians and Herculians, from the titles of the emperors. The stay of Diocletian, in this his first and last visit to the capital of the empire, did not exceed two months. The freedom and familiarity of the populace was harsh and un- pleasant to his ear, accustomed to the submissive adulation of Greeks and Orientals; motives of policy may also have concurred to give him a distaste for Rome. He quitted that capital, therefore, in the midst of the winter, and proceeded through Illyricum to the East. The fatigue of the journey and the severity of the weather brought on a lingering ill- ness. He was obliged to travel by short stages, and mostly in a close litter, and he did not reach Nicomedia till toward the end of the summer, (304.) His illness had then become serious ; and it was not till the March of the following year (305) that he was able to appear in public. During his long confinement, he had reflected on the incompatibility of the cares of empire with the attention and indulgence which his advanced age and declining health demanded; and he adopted the resolution of resigning his imperial power, and retiring into private life. He communicated his intention to Maximian ; and, however adverse that restless emperor might be to parting with his power, he had been too long in the habit of submitting implicitly to the dictates of his wiser colleague to refuse compliance. On the same day, (May 1,) as had been previously arranged, both the emperors, the one at Nicomedia, the other at Milan, performed the ceremony of their abdication, and the Ca3sars Galerius and Constantius became emperors in their stead.* Diocletian retired to his native province of Dalmatia, where, in the neighborhood of the city of Salona, he built a magnificent palace, and em- ployed his hours in gardening and planting.! Maximian fixed his abode at a villa in Lucania, but we are not informed how he passed his days. The abdication of Diocletian is the earliest instance which * If we may credit the author of the work De Mortihus PersecvZo- rum, Galerius forced Diocletian to resign. t Diocletian survived his abdication about eight years. He died in 313. When urged by the instances of Maximian and Galerius to re- sume his power, he replied, " I wish you could see the potherbs plant- ed by my own hands at Salona, and you would surely never think that power should be resumed." A. D. 305.] RESIGNATION OF EMPERORS, 295 history records of the voluntary relinquishment of supreme power. It is the only one to be found in the ancient world ; but examples, though rare, occur in modern times. That of the emperor Charles V. will present itself to the minds of most readers ; but that monarch's abdication was the result of disappointed ambition, and his leisure was less nobly oc- cupied than that of the Roman emperor. The Turkish sultan Moorad II. twice quitted his throne for the enjoy- ment of private life ; but he was each time recalled to it by the dangers of the state. The Spanish king Philip V. also abandoned the pomp of royalty for the practice of devotion ; but the death of his son and successor obliged him to re- sume the sceptre. Devotion and other causes had, in ear- lier times, produced resignations among the princes of the states founded on the ruins of the Roman empire. It is rather remarkable that a prince like Diocletian, born in the humbler walks of life, and trained up in arms, should have been the introducer of Oriental usages into the palace of the Roman emperors. But he seems to have been actua- ted by policy rather than pride or vanity ; he conceived that investing the emperor with the splendor of apparel, and rendering him difficult of access, would make him more venerable in the eyes of the multitude, and induce a more absolute submission to his will. He and his colleague, therefore, assumed the diadem, which ornament distin- guished them from the Csesars ; the purple robes of the em- perors were of silk and gold, and their shoes were adorned with precious stones. Numerous officers attended at the palace, and the care of the interior apartments was com- mitted to eunuchs. When any one appeared before the emperor, he was required to fall prostrate and worship him after the fashion of the East. This display of imperial pomp, and the maintenance of four separate courts, caused an enormous increase of taxation, and consequent oppression of the people. We shall presently explain the whole of the altered imperial system more at length. Toward the end of the reign of Diocletian and Maximian, the last and greatest persecution of the Christian church commenced. Its origin was as follows : Christianity, as has been already observed, was now most widely spread, and Christians were to be found in all the ranks and conditions of society. Diocletian, though he himself adhered to the ancient faith, was tolerant, if not 296 BIOCLETIAN, MAXIMIAN. [a. D. 302. even favorable to the new religion, which his wife and daughter are said to have secretly embraced, and which was openly professed by the imperial eunuchs Lucianus, Doro- theus, Gorgonius, and Andreas, and by most of the principal officers of the palace. The Christian bishops were treated with respect, and new and more stately churches were rising in all the cities of the empire. But amid this seem- ing prosperity, a close observer might discern the distant approach of a tempest. Maximian and Galerius were both inveterately hostile to the Christian faith, while the zeal and jealousy of the polytheists were alarmed at its rapid progress. They clung more closely to the religion of their ancestors when they saw it menaced with destruction, and the new philosophy, which had based itself on the ancient supersti- tion, inspired its professors with hatred for its enemies and opponents. The philosophers saw plainly that by reasoning and eloquence alone its sinking cause could not be main- tained, and that its only resource was the employment of violent measures. We therefore find that the philosophers were the directors of the subsequent persecution, and the chief suggestors of the means for giving it efficacy. Galerius passed the winter after the conclusion of the Persian war at Nicomedia ; and during that period he had frequent conferences with Diocletian on the subject of Chris- tianity. He represented to the emperor how utterly incom- patible it was with the ancient institutions of the state, forming, as it did, an empire within the empire, all whose members were regularly organized, and ready to act at any time as one man. Diocletian confessed that he saw the danger, and agreed to exclude the Christians from offices in the army and the palace; but he expressed his disinclination to shed their blood, as not merely cruel, but impolitic. Ga- lerius, not content, prevailed on him to summon a council of the principal civil and military officers, to take the impor- tant matter into consideration ; and the council, when it met, seconded the views of the Ctesar, into whose hands the reins of power were likely soon to fall. Diocletian, we may suppose, yielded to the arguments that were employed, as a man of superior mind does when he gives way to his inferi- ors in intellect, foreseeing the consequences, but unable to prevent them. A system of persecution was therefore pro- jected, and preparations were made for carrying it into effect. A. D. 303.] PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH. 397 From a motive probably of superstition, the day of the Terminalia, or festival of Terminus, the god of boundaries, (Feb. 23,) was fixed for that of commencing to set limits to the inroads made on the ancient faith of Rome. At davrn on that day, (303,) the praetorian prefect, accompanied by some of the higher officers of the army and the revenue, pro- ceeded to the principal church of Nicomedia. The doors were broken open, the holy book? were taken out and com- mitted to the flames, and the sacred edifice was demolished. Next day, (24th,) an edict was published, ordering the demolition of all the churches throughout the empire, and forbidding any secret religious assemblies to be held ; the bishops and presbyters were commanded to deliver up the sacred books to the magistrates, by whom they were to be burnt, and all the property of the church was declared to be confiscate. Christians were pronounced incapable of holding any office, and Christian slaves were excluded from the boon of manumission. The judges might determine any action brought against a Christian, but no legal remedy was granted to the Christian when the object of injury. The whole Christian body was thus degraded, robbed of its pub- lic property, and put without the pale of the law ; but the persecution still stopped short of blood. This edict was, in the usual manner, exposed to public view. But it had scarcely been displayed, when a zealous Christian tore it down, uttering invectives against its au- thors. His offence was treason ; and he expiated it with his life, being burnt at a slow fire. In the course of the fol- lowing fortnight, flames burst out twice in the palace ; and, as it was clear that they were not accidental, they were ascribed to the vengeance of the Christians, by whose wri- ters the guilt is transferred to Galerius, who thus, they say, sought to irritate Diocletian against them. Whatever was the truth, the effect which Galerius desired was produced on the emperor's mind. The imperial eunuchs were tortured and put to death with circumstances of the utmost barbarity. Anthemus, the bishop of Nicomedia, was beheaded, and several of his flock perished at the same time. A series of cruel edicts succeeded. By one, the gov- ernors of provinces were ordered to cast all the Christian ecclesiastics into prison ; by a second, they were enjoined to employ every kind of severity in order to make them aban- don their superstition, and sacrifice to the gods ; by a third, LL S98 DIOCLETIAN; MAXIMIAN. [a. D. 304 (304,) the magistrates were commanded to force all Chris- tianSj without distinction of age or sex, to sacrifice to the gods, and to employ every kind of torture for that purpose. The issuing of this edict was one of the last public acts of Diocletian, as his resignation took place in the course of the year. The efforts of Diocletian and Galerius were seconded by Maximian, who hated the Christians; and the persecution raged in Italy and Africa as in the East; but the mild Con- stantius protected the persons of his Christian subjects, though he found it necessary to consent to the demolition of their churches. The entire duration of the persecution was ten years, (303—313 ;) it was more or less violent in different times and places, and according to the characters and political circumstances of the princes. On the part of the persecutors, every refinement of barbarity was practised ; on that of the persecuted, there was an abundant display of zeal and courage, though in many cases adulterated with fanaticism. At the same time, there were many, even bish- ops and presbyters, who gained the opprobrious title of Tra- ditors, by delivering the sacred Scriptures into the hands of the heathen. From the vague language employed by the ecclesiastical writers, it is difficult to form any clear idea of the number of those who suffered martyrdom in the space of these ten years. Gibbon estimates it at two thousand per- sons ; but his prejudices would lead him to put it at the lowest possible amount. Supposing it, however, to be five, or even ten times that number, it would still be far short of that of the victims in any one of the religious massacres perpetrated by the church of Rome. A. D. 304-306.] GALERIUS, CONSTANTIUS. 299 CHAPTER II* GALERIUS, CONSTANTIUS, SEVERUS, MAX- ENTIUS, MAXIMIAN, LICINIUS, MAXIMIN, CONSTANTINE. A.U. 1057—1090. A.D. 304—337. THE EMPERORS AND C^SARS. CONSTANTINE. MAXENTIUS. FATE OF MAXIMIAN. WAR BETWEEN CONSTANTINE AND MAXENTIUS. CONSTANTINE AND LICINIUS. CONSTAN- TINE SOLE EMPEROR. CONSTANTINOPLE FOUNDED. HIE- RARCHY OF THE STATE. THE ARMY. THE GREAT OFFI- CERS. CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE. DEATHS OF CRIS- PUS AND FAUSTA. THE IMPERIAL FAMILY. WAR WITH THE GOTHS. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF CONSTANTINE. Galerius and Constantius. A. u. 1058—1059. A. D. 305—306. The task of appointing Ca3sars, in the place of himself and Constantius, was assumed by the haughty Galerius. For his own associate he selected his nephew Daza or Maximin, and an Illyrian, named Severus, was appointed to the same dignity under Constantius ; the government of Egypt and Syria was committed to Maximin ; that of Italy and Africa, to Severus. Little more than a year elapsed after the retirement of Diocletian, when events occurred which proved the futility of his plan for governing the Roman world by emperors, with subordinate Csesars. The first took place on the occa- sion of the death of Constantius, who expired at York, on the 25th of July, 306. According to the rule established by Diocletian, Severus should have become the Augustus, and a new Cflesar have been appointed ; but the soldiers of the army of Britain insisted that the eldest son of the de- ceased emperor should succeed to his rank and power. This son was Constantine, afterwards so renowned. His mother, * Authorities : Zosimus, the Epitomators and Panegyrists, Lactan- tius, Eusebius, and the Ecclesiastical Historians. GALERIUS, CONSTANTINE, ETC. [a. D. 306. named Helena, was the daughter of an innkeeper ; and Con- stantius had been obliored to divorce her on the occasion of his elevation to the rank of Caesar. Constantine, who was then about eighteen years of age, engaged in the service of Diocletian, and distinguished himself in the Egyptian and Persian wars. He rose to high rank in the army ; his ap- pearance, manners, and qualities were such as were sure to win the favor of the people and the soldiery, and Gale- rius, when emperor, marked him out as the object of his jealousy. Alarmed at the dangers to which he knew him to be exposed, Constantius earnestly besought of Galerius to allow his son to repair to him. After many delays, that em- peror gave a reluctant consent ; and Constantine, fearful of treachery, travelled with the utmost speed, and joined his father as he was embarking for Britain. There can be no doubt that the succession was not the mere spontaneous offer of the soldiery, and that Constantine had employed the usual artifices, and made the usual promises, on this occasion ; for, in fact, his only safety now lay in empire. He, howev- er, affected a decent degree of reluctance; and he wrote to Galerius, excusing himself for what had occurred. The first emotions of the emperor were those of surprise and fury ; but, on calm reflection, he saw the danger of a contest with the hardy legions of the West, and he consented to allow Constantine a share of the imperial power, giving him, how- ever, only the humbler title of Caesar, while he conferred the vacant dignity of Augustus on Severus. Satisfied with the substance of power, Constantine was careless of titles ; he de- voted himself to the improvement of his dominions, and he discharged the duties of an aflfectionate brother to his six half-brothers and sisters, whom his father, when dying, had committed to his care. Galerius, Constantine, Maxentius, Licinius* A. u. 1059—1066. A. D. 306—313. The next event which proved the instability of the new form of government, commenced with an insurrection at Rome. From the time of the conquest of Macedonia, a period of nearly five centuries, the people of Rome had been * We only mention here the principal emperors. A.D. 307.] GALERIUS, CONSTANTINE, ETC. 301 free from all direct taxes ; but now, in conformity with the new principles of government, Galerius prepared to impose a uniform property and capitation tax on the whole empire ; and, as no exemptions were to be allowed, the officers of the revenue began to make a list of the property and persons of the inhabitants of the capital. At the same time, directions were given for the removal of the praetorian cohorts from the city, and for the demolition of their camp. The pride of the soldiers, the self-interest of the citizens, caused them to unite in the determination of liberating Italy, and electing a native emperor. They cast their eyes on Maxentius, the son of Maximian, and son-in-law of Galerius, a young man of neither talents nor virtue, who was then residing in a villa near the city. He readily yielded to their desires ; the pre- fect of the city, and a few other officers, were massacred, and Maxentius was invested with the purple. Severus, who was at Milan, prepared to march against the rebels, who, on their part, invited Maximian to quit his retreat, and give theai the advantage of his name and his experience ; and the old emperor, who may have had a greater share in the pre- vious transactions than is commonly supposed, lost no time in repairing to Rome. He there reassumed the purple, and. his influence and authority caused numerous defections to^ take place in the army of Severus, when that prince appeared before the walls of the city. Severus found it, therefore, necessary to retire, and to shut himself up in Ravenna, where, as the works were strong, and his fleet commanded the sea, he might easily have maintained himself till Galerius should come to his relief Deceived, however, by the arti- fices of Maximian, he laid down his dignity, and surrendered himself on the promise of his life being secured. He was at first treated with respect; but when Galerius invaded Italy, the captive emperor was put to death. Constantine, at the head of the Gallic legions, had it evi- dently in his power to confirm or to overthrow the dominion of the new emperors. To win him over, Maximian under- took a journey to Gaul, and, by giving him in marriage his daughter Fausta, and conferring on him the dignity of Au- gustus, he secured his neutrality, if not his active coopera- tion. Galerius soon appeared in Italy, at the head of the troops of Illyricum and the East, and advanced to Narni, within sixty miles of Rome, whence he sent two of his prin- cipal officers to try to induce Maxentius to trust to his gen- erosity, rather than to risk the hazard of war. His offers CONTIN. 26 302 GALERIUS, CONST ANTINEj ETC. [a. D. 307-31 1. were spurned at ; and so large a number of his men were gained over by Maximian, that he was obliged to make a rapid retreat, and his troops, on their route, devastated the country in the most merciless manner. Some time after, (307,) Galerius conferred the dignity of Augustus on his early and constant friend Licinius ; and, when the account of this elevation reached Maximin, he caused himself to be saluted emperor by his troops. Galerius found it necessary to acquiesce in his assumption, and the Roman world thus was ruled by six emperors at the same time. A preeminence was, however, tacitly conceded to Maximian and Galerius by their respective coemperors. Maximian and his son were too opposite in character to remain long at unity. One or other, it was found, must re- sign the supreme power in Italy ; and, the praetorian guards having decided in favor of Maxentius, under whom they ex- pected to enjoy more license, the aged emperor was obliged to seek a refuge with his son-in-law in Gaul. By Constan- tine he was received with every mark of respect; and, as the restless temper of the Franks required his own frequent presence on the Lower Rhine, in the periods of his absence, he committed the government of southern Gaul to his father- in-law. The abode of Maximian was at the palace of Aries ; and, when one time (310) a report was spread of the death of Constantine, who was carrying on war beyond the Rhine, the restless old man seized the royal treasures and distributed them among the soldiers, in the hope of being saluted by them sole emperor. As soon as intelligence of his proceed- ings reached Constantine, he made a rapid march from the Rhine to Chalons, on the Saone, embarked his troops on that river, and thence entering the Rhone at Lyons, arrived at Aries before his departure from the Rhine was known. Maximian escaped from that city, and took refuge at Mar- seilles : he was pursued thither by Constantine, to whom he was delivered up by the garrison ; and he was either put to death or ordered to terminate his life by his own hand.* Galerius did not long survive Maximian. He died the following year, (311,) of the same odious disease as the great * Vict. Epit. xl. 5. Eutrop. x. 4. According to Lactantius, (De M. P. 29, 30,) his life was spared on this occasion ; but, having after- wards conspired against Constantine, and killed a chamberlain in his stead, he was secretly strangled. Eumenius, however, says,^ (Pane- gyr. ix. 20,) " sibi imputat quisquis uti noluit beneficio tuo [Constan- tine] nee se dignum vita judicavit cum per te liceat ut viveret," A. D. 312.] CIVIL WAR. 303 dictator Sulla. Licinius and Maximin immediately prepared to decide by arms the possession of his dominions; but they were finally induced to accommodate their dispute by treaty, and divide the disputed territories, and the Hellespont and Bosporus became the boundary of their respective domin- ions. A sense of common interest soon united Licinius and Constantine, and a secret alliance was formed between Maxi- min and Maxentius. The contrast between the administration of Constantine and that of Maxentius was of the most striking character. In Gaul and Britain justice was carefully administered, op- pressive taxes were abolished or lightened, the inroads of the barbarians were checked. In Italy and Africa the wealthy were plundered or put to death, the virtue of their wives and daughters was exposed to the lust of a brutal tyrant, the soldiers were indulged in every species of license. During six years Rome groaned beneath the tyranny of its emperor, when at length (312) his own folly gave occasion to its de- liverance. Though Maximian had been driven from Italy by his un- worthy son, his death was made the occasion of a display of filial piety, and the statues of Constantine in Italy and Africa were cast down by the orders of Maxentius. Constantine, who was adverse to war, tried the effect of negotiation ; but finding that Maxentius, who openly claimed the empire of the West, had assembled a large army for the invasion of Gaul, he resolved to anticipate him and enter Italy, whither he was secretly invited by the senate and people of Rome. At the head of about 40,000 veteran troops, he crossed the Alps* and descended into the plain of Piedmont, (312.) The troops of Maxentius numbered 170,000 foot and 18,000 horse; but they were chiefly raw levies, made in Africa, Italy, and Sicily, and Maxentius himself was utterly destitute of mili- tary talent or experience. The town of Susa, (Segusium,) at the foot of the Alps, closed its gates against Constantine ; but it was taken by assault, and the greater part of the gar- rison slaughtered. On the plain of Turin a strong division of the army of Maxentius opposed the invaders. Its strength consisted in a large body of cavalry arrayed in full armor, after the manner of the Persians.! But the force of this * The Cottian Alps, or Mount Cenis. t Called by the Greeks Cataphracts, by the Latins Clibanarians, from the Persian word. They resembled the heavy cavalry of the middle ages, both horse and man being covered with armor. 304 GALERIUS, CONSTANTINE, ETC. [a. D. 312. formidable mass was rendered of no avail by the skill of Constantine, who made his troops break their line and allow it to pass through when it charged, and then close and at- tack it when broken and divided. The troops of Maxentius soon turned and fled; and as the gates of Turin were closed against them, few of them escaped the sword of the victors. Constantine proceeded without delay to Milan ; and nearly all Italy north of the Po declared for his cause. A brave and skilful officer, named Ruricius Pompeianus, commanded at Verona for Maxentius. As Constantine was advancing against that city, he was encountered, near Bres- cia, by a large bx)dy of cavalry, detached from the army at Verona ; but he drove it back with loss, and then sat down before the city. Ruricius, having made all the dispositions necessary for defence, secretly quitted the town, and, having with great rapidity collected a sufficient force, advanced to its relief Constantine drew out his army to give him battle. The engagement commenced in the evening, and was con- tinued through the night Victory finally declared for the Gallic legions; Ruricius was among the slain, and Verona surrendered at discretion. After a short stay at that city, Constantine directed his march for Rome. At a place named Saxa Rubra, about nine miles from the city, close by the memorable Cremera, he found (Oct. 28) the army of Maxentius prepared to give him battle. In person, at the head of his Gallic horse, he charged the cavalry of the ene- my and routed it ; the greater part of the infantry then turned and fled, but the brave prsetorian cohorts fought and fell where they stood. In the flight, Maxentius fell from the Mulvian bridge into the Tiber, and was drowned. His body was found next day, and his head preceded the entrance of Constantine into the city. Constantine used his victory with sufficient moderation. The children of Maxentius and his most distinguished ad- herents were put to death ; but the demand of the people for a greater number of victims was steadily rejected. Inform- ers were punished; the exiles were recalled and restored to their estates ; a general amnesty was passed ; the senate was treated with respect and consideration. At the same time, Constantine carried into effect the very measures, the appre- hension of which had raised Maxentius to empire. The praetorian guards were broken and dispersed among the legions on the frontiers, gmd their fortified camp was demol- ished. The property tax, which Galerius had projected, and A.D. 313.] CONSTANTINE, LICINIUS. 305 which Maxentius had levied, under the odious name of a free-gift, was made perpetual on the senatorian order, whose number, apparently for this very purpose, was considerably augmented. Constantine and Licinius. A.u. 1066—1076. A.D. 313—323. Constantine remained only two months at Rome, being obliged to set out on his return for Gaul, where the Franks had renewed their incursions. On his way, he celebrated at Milan (313) the nuptials of his sister Constantia with Licin- ius, to whom he had betrothed her previous to the war with Maxentius. Immediately after the nuptial festival, the two emperors had to put themselves at the head of their troops ; the one to chastise the Germans, and the other to oppose Maximin, who had crossed the Bosporus, and taken the cities of Byzantium and Heraclea. When Licinius arrived, with 30,000 Illyrian veterans, within eighteen miles of this last town, he found his rival supported by 70,000 men of the dis- ciplined troops of the East. Each having vainly tried to seduce the soldiers of the other, they led their forces out to battle, (April 30.) The advantage was at first on the side of numbers ; but the European troops, directed by the military skill of their leader, soon asserted their wonted superiority, and a decisive victory crowned their efforts. Maximin fled with the utmost rapidity, never halting till he reached Nico- media, distant a hundred and sixty miles from the field of battle. He was on his way to Egypt about three months after ; when at Tarsus, he despaired of his affairs, and took poison, of which he died after much suffering. Licinius used his victory with barbarity. Resolved to remove all pos- sibility of rival claims to the empire of the East, he not only put to death the son and daughter of Maximin, the former of whom was only eight, the latter only seven years of age, but he involved in their fate Severianus, the son of the late emperor Severus, and Candidianus, the natural son of his friend and benefactor Galerius. But his treatment of the wife and daughter of Diocletian was still more conclusive of the innate inhumanity of his character. After the death of Galerius, Maximin had sought the hand of Valeria. Meeting with a firm refusal, the tyrant 26 * M M 306 CONST ANTINE, LICINIUS. [a. D. 314. gave a loose to his rage ; he confiscated her property ; he put to the torture her eunuchs and servants ; he executed some of her female friends, on false charges of adultery; and he condemned herself and her mother, Prisca, to exile in a Syr- ian village. Diocletian sought for permission for them to join him at Salona ; but he was now powerless, and his appli- cation met with contemptuous neglect. On the death of Maximin, the two royal ladies proceeded in disguise to the court of Licinius. They were at first treated with kindness; but the execution of her adopted son, Candidianus, who had accompanied her thither, soon convinced Valeria that the tyrant only was changed, and she and her mother fled in a plebeian habit. After wandering about for fifteen months, they were discovered at Thessalonica, and were instantly beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea. The number of the emperors was now reduced to two ; and it might be supposed that, connected as they had been, both publicly and privately, they would remain at unity. Yet the very year after their becoming brothers-in-law, (314,) we find them drawing the sword against each other. The oc- casion was as follows : Constantine gave one of his sisters in marriage to a man of rank named Bassianus, whom he raised, with Licinius's consent, to the dignity of a Caesar. Italy appears to have been destined for the new Csesar ; but, some delay occurring in the appointment, Licinius secretly induced him to believe that Constantine was merely making a tool of liim, and encouraged him to engage in a conspiracy against his benefactor. The plot was, however, speedily discovered; Bassianus was put to death; and as Licinius refused to give up one of the principal conspirators, who had fled to him, and as the statues of Constantine, in the town of JEmona, on the frontiers of Italy, had been thrown down, the empe- ror of the West entered Illyricura at the head of 20,000 men. Licinius, with 35,000 men, advanced to oppose him. The armies encountered (Oct. 8) near Cibalis on the Save, about fifty miles fi-om Sirmium. The engagement lasted from morning till night, when Licinius retired with a loss of 20,000 men. He hastened to Sirmium to secure his family and treasures, and then, breaking down the bridge over the Save at that town, he proceeded to Thrace to collect a new army; and he conferred the title of Csesar on Valens, the general of the Illyrian frontier. Constantine made no delay in following him, and the emperors again measured their strength on the plain of Mardia in Thrace. The battle A. D. 314-323.] CIVIL WAR. 307 Jasted all through the day, and was terminated by the night. The victory remained with Constantine, but with so much loss as inclined him to listen to proposals for peace. He made the deposition of Valens an absolute condition ; and, that luckless prince being deprived of his purple and his life, a treaty was concluded which gave Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece, to the Western empire. It was also agreed that two of the sons of the Western empe- ror, and the one son of the Eastern monarch, should be raised to the rank of Caesars. Peace now continued for above eight years. During that time, Constantine was engaged either in beneficial legislation or in defending the frontiers of his empire. His principal war, which he conducted in person, was against the Goths, who (321) invaded the countries south of the Danube. He forced them to purchase a retreat by the surrender of their booty and prisoners ; and then, repairing the bridge of Tra- jan, he crossed the river, and carried the war into their own country. No longer satisfied with the possession of the larger portion of the Roman empire, he now aimed at wrest- ing the remainder from Licinius. His preparations for war did not escape the observation of that emperor, who forth- with (323) assembled troops and shipping from all parts of his dominions. An army of 150,000 foot and 15,000 horse covered the plains of Hadrianople, and a fleet of three hundred and fifty triremes occupied the Hellespont. The troops of Constantine (120,000 horse and foot) rendezvoused at Thessalonica ; his fleet, which numbered only two hun- dred small vessels, was assembled in the port of the Piraeus. Licinius, who occupied a strong camp on a hill over Hadri- anople, did not oppose the passage of the Hebrus by the enemy. The accounts of the engagement which ensued (July 3) are scanty and confused ; but it would appear that the veteran troops of the West, evincing their wonted supe- riority, won their way up the hill, and routed the forces of the East, slaying 34,000 men, and taking their fortified camp. Constantine, who displayed the valor of a soldier and the conduct of a general, received a wound in the thigh : Licinius fled, and shut himself up in Byzantium, whither he was speedily followed by his victorious rival. Constantine directed that his fleet, which was commanded by his eldest son, the CsBsar Crispus, should advance and force the passage of the Hellespont. His admirals selected eighty of their best ships for the purpose : the opposite 308 CONSTANTINEj LICINIUS. [a. D. 323. admiral, Amandiis, opposed them with two hundred. As the narrow sea did not afford sufficient space for the evolu- tions of so large a number, the advantage, when night terminated the conflict, was on the side of Constantine. Next day, Amandus sailed over from the coast of Asia, the wind blowing strongly from the north ; but, finding the enemy, who lay at Eloeus, reenforced by thirty ships, he hesitated to attack. About noon, the wind changed, and blew so violently from the south, that it drove on the rocks or the shore a hundred and thirty ships of the fleet of Licinius, and caused a loss of 5,000 men. Amandus fled with only four ships ; and, the Hellespont being now open, provisions and supplies of all kinds flowed into the camp of Constantine before Byzantium, and Licinius, deeming that city no longer tenable, passed over with his friends and his treasures to Chalcedon. He there conferred the fatal dignity of Caesar on Martianus, the principal officer of his palace, and sent him to Lampsacus, to guard the passage of the Hellespont. He himself speedily assembled another ar- my, to oppose the landing of Constantine. That able prince, however, conveyed over a sufficient force in boats, and landed about two hundred stades (twenty-five miles) above Chalce- don. Licinius recalled Martianus with his troops, and an engagement was fought (Sept. 18) on the heights of Chry- sopolis, [Scutari,) which ended in the total defeat of Licinius, with a loss of 25,000 men. He fled to Nicomedia ; nego- tiations were entered into ; and Constantine, having given the assurance of his solemn oath to his sister for the security of her husband's life, Licinius laid his purple down at his feet, styling him his king and master. He was admitted to the royal table, and was then sent to Thessalonica, which was fixed on as the place of his residence ; Martianus was put to death, and two years after, on the charge of a con- spiracy, Licinius was strangled, in violation of the emperor's most solemn engagement. Constantine. A. u. 1076—1090. A. D. 323—337. The Roman empire was thus, after thirty-four years of divided dominion, reunited under one head. Two most im- portant changes immediately succeeded, namely, the founda- FOUNDATION OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 309 tion of a new capital, and the public establishment of Christianity as the religion of the state ; the form of govern- ment commenced by Diocletian was also completed. Of these we shall now proceed to treat. Rome, as we have seen, had long ceased to be an imperial residence. It lay too remote from the banks of the Dan- ube and Euphrates, where the presence of the emperor was most frequently required : Diocletian had therefore fixed his abode in Nicomedia ; but the ambition of being the founder of a capital which should bear his own name, and the supe- rior advantages of the site of Byzantium, determined Con- stantine to raise an imperial city on the peninsula occupied by that town ; and in the year following that of the over- throw of Licinius, (324,) he laid the foundation of Con- stantinople, as he named it from himself — a city which still exists, and in magnitude and population yields to few in Europe, while in beauty and advantage of situation it is rivalled by none. It is not necessary that we should describe the situation of this celebrated city, which, like Rome, built on seven hills, grew up from the condition of a colony, and became the capital of empire. In the space of ten years, the nu- merous workmen employed, by the wealth of the imperial treasury, covered the ground marked out by the founder with all the edifices, sacred, profane, and military, required by a magnificent capital ; and the new city was speedily filled with a numerous population. In imitation of Rome, it was divided into fourteen regions or wards, and the corn of Egypt was distributed among its poorer citizens; its Hip- podrome emulated the Circus, and statues of marble and bronze were brought from all parts to adorn it. The supe- rior rank of the ancient capital, however, was still acknowl- edged, and the new city was styled its colony. The civil and military administration of the empire had, as may have been observed, been gradually undergoing a change, and approximating to that of the East. That change was further accelerated by the removal of the seat of government to the new capital, and by the establishment of the prevalent corrupted form of Christianity as the religion of the state. The aspect of the empire under Constantine and his successors may be sketched as follows: * * We here shall follow Gibbon, who derived his materials from the Theodosian Code and the J^otitia Imperii. 310 CONSTANTINE. The court and palace were filled with officers, among whom the eunuchs were conspicuous; they were arranged in orders, the whole forming a sacred hierarchy, as it was often styled. All the various ranks were regulated with the most accurate minuteness, and the numerous titles and modes of address which have been the models of those of modern Europe, were then devised : such were. Your Emi- nence, Your Excellency , Your illustrious and magnijicent Highness. The great officers had various badges and em- blems of their dignities, and were known by their peculiar habits. The whole body of the higher officers and magis- trates were divided into three classes ; the first, which con- tained the very highest, being named the Illustrious, the second the Notable, {Spectabiles,) and the third the Most Distinguished, ( Clarissimi.)*' The title of Patrician, which had long been out of use, was revived by Constantine, but merely as a mark of per- sonal distinction. The dignity was not hereditary, and these new nobles bore no more resemblance to the patricians of ancient Rome than the actual peers of France do to the old noblesse. The patricians yielded in dignity to the con- suls alone ; they were superior to all the great officers of state, and had constant access to the person of the sovereign, whose favorites or ministers they had in general been ori- ginally. The consulate, now an empty dignity, was conferred by the emperor. On new year's day, the appointed consuls assumed the ensigns of their dignity at the place which was then the imperial residence. They moved in procession, attended by the principal officers of the state and army, from the palace to the Forum, or market-place : they there took their seat on the curule chairs, and manumitted a slave, according to ancient usage. Games were celebrated by them, or in their name, in the principal cities of the empire ; their names were inscribed in the Fasti, and their names and portraits were engraved on tablets of ivory, adorned with gold, and sent as presents to magistrates and persons of rank. They then retired into private life, for they had no public duties to discharge. Yet the vain and emp- ty honor still continued to be the object of highest am- bition. * An Italian, at the present day, will commence a letter with Chia- rissimo Sisnore. OFFICERS OF STATE. 311 The office of praetorian prefect had, as we have seen, gradually risen in importance. The prefect, uniting civil and military power, had been, in fact, what the mayor of the palace afterwards became in France. The suppres- sion of the guards having left him without military command, his office now became purely civil. As, by the regulation of Diocletian, each prince had his prefect, the number of these officers was four, which number was retained by Constantine. The prefects were named of the East, of Illyricum, of Gaul, and of Italy, each of which districts comprised the provinces contained under its title when ruled by the Augusti and the CtBsars. They were at the head of the administration of justice and the finances ; they had authority over the pro- vincial governors; there lay an appeal from all inferior tri- bunals to that of the prcetorian prefect ; but his decision was final. The city of Rome, and afterwards that of Constanti- nople, had its prefect, who was independent of the praetorian prefect. This officer, who was first appointed by Augustus, had gradually enlarged his power, and he now exercised the ordinary authority and functions of the consuls and praetors in the city, and a circuit of one hundred miles, and all mu- nicipal authority was derived from him. Beside these great prefectures, the empire, with respect to its civil government, was divided into thirteen great dio- ceses,* of which the first was administered by the Count {Comes) of the East; the governor of that of Egypt was still called the Augustal Prefect ; those of the remaining eleven were styled Vicars, or Vice-prefects. The rulers of the inferior provinces were in some Proconsuls, in others Con- sulars or Correctors, or Presidents. Like their superiors, they possessed the administration of justice and of the finances. The first separation of the civil and military authority of which we read, was that made by Augustus in the procon- sular provinces. The history of the last two centuries had shown the ill effects of their union in the rebellion of so many governors against the imperial authority, and Constan- tine was resolved to obviate these evils. For this purpose, the command of the troops was permanently separated from the government of the provinces. Two Masters-general (Magistri militum) were instituted ; one for the cavalry, the other for the infantry of the imperial array. Subordinate * jLoixijOiig. The word is now only used in an ecclesiastical sense. 312 CONSTANTINE. commanders, styled Counts [Comites) and Dukes, (Duces*) were placed at the head of the troops in the different prov- inces. A gold belt was the mark of their dignity borne by these officers. The natural consequence of this division of the civil and military power was, that, while mutual jeal- ousy prevented the general and the governor from uniting in rebellion, it operated to leave the province exposed to the ravages of the barbarians ; so that, while it secured the emperor, it injured the empire. The advantages which had been originally accorded to the praetorian guards, were very unwisely extended by Con- stantine to a large portion of the army. The troops were now distinguished into Palatines and Borderers, [Limitanei ;) the former had higher pay and peculiar privileges, and were quartered in the cities and toWns of the interior, being only required to take the field on occasions of emergency ; while the latter, with inferior pay, had the task of guarding the frontiers. The legions were increased in number, but con- tracted in their dimensions ; and they now bore more resem- blance to modern regiments than to the legions of ancient Rome.t The difficulty of procuring recruits in the prov- inces was nearly insuperable ; though a severe conscription, as it may perhaps be termed, was established. Barbarians were therefore constantly taken into the service, and even enrolled among the Palatines ; and they speedily attained the highest military and civil dignities of the empire. In the palace, there were seven principal officers, to whom the rank of Illustrious was conceded. 1. The Chamberlain, (JPrcspositus cuhiculi ;) this was always a favorite eunuch, who, beside his care of the imperial apartments, attended the emperor on all occasions of state. His influence, it may readily be supposed, was considerable. The Counts of the wardrobe and of the table were under the jurisdiction of this officer. 2. The Master of the Offices was the supreme magistrate of the palace. All its officers, civil and military, in all parts of the empire, were subject to his jurisdiction, and to it alone. He had four Scrinim or secretaries' offices, each with its master or chief, and a number of subordinate clerks for carrying on the correspondence of the state. Like our master-general of the ordnance, he had the charge of all * The Comes or companion of the emperor was the higher in rank ; the Dux or Duke was merely a military commander. t Gibbon, following Pancirolus, estimates the legion at from 1000 to 1500 men. OFFICERS OF STATE. 3ia the arsenals, and control over the workmen employed in the manufacture of arms. 3. The duaestor had the task of composing orations in the name of the emperor, which hav- ing the force of edicts, he gradually came to be regarded as the original source of jurisprudence. He answered in some sort to the modern chancellor. 4. The Count of the Lar- gesses (Largitionum) was at the head of the revenue depart- ment, with, of course, a numerous corps of various officers under him. 5. The Count of the Private Estate {rei priva- tes) had the management of the crown-lands, and the other sources of private income to the emperors. 6. 7. The two Counts of the Domestics, i. e. household troops, command- ed the cavalry and infantry of the body-guards, which con- sisted of three thousand five hundred men, divided into seven schools or companies of five hundred men each. Two of these, the one of horse, the other of foot, were named Pro- tectors. They mounted guard in the inner apartments, and they were employed to bear the imperial mandates to the provinces. While the civil and military departments of the state were thus modelled and regulated, a still more important change was effected by making the Christian religion that of the court and empire. We shall, however, defer our account of the condition and organization of the church under Con- stantine and his successors, and only at present notice the conversion of that emperor, and the motives in which it originated. Constantius, without being a Christian, had, from motives of justice and humanity, treated his subjects of that faith with indulgence. His example was followed by his son ; and the Christians, comparing his moderation with the per- secuting spirit of Galerius and his colleagues, were naturally disposed to favor him. Constantine, however, was still a polytheist; and his principal object of worship was the sun- god, Apollo. At the same time with the compliant spirit of polytheism, he held the God of the Christians and the author of their faith in respect and reverence. After the defeat and death of Maxentius, (313,) Constantine and Licinius is- sued at Milan an edict of general toleration ; restoring, at. the same time, to the Christians the lands and churches of which they had been deprived. To the terms of this edict Constantine firmly adhered ; and he was probably becoming daily more convinced of the superiority of the Christian religion, and of the advantage that might result from his CONTIN. 27 N N 314 CONSTANTINE. embracing it; while Licinius speedily violated it, and par- tially renewed the persecution. In the second war between these emperors, (324,) the cross appeared on the banner of Constantine ; and his victory was followed by the issue of circular letters announcing his own conversion, and inviting his subjects to follow his example. The call of a powerful monarch was not likely to be unheeded; the Christian faith rapidly spread ; offices of trust, profit, and honor, were be- stowed almost exclusively on Christians; bishops thronged the court; paganism was in every way discouraged, and Christianity finally triumphed over its ancient enemy. The conversion of Constantine may have been, and prob- ably was, sincere. But in all such cases, motives of policy are apt to concur with higher ones, and often to exercise a superior influence. Constantine must have seen that the Christians, if not the most numerous, were the best united and organized, and consequently the most powerful body in the empire. He could not be blind to the great superiority of the Christian morality over that of heathenism, and, as a wise sovereign, he must have seen that it was his interest to promote its diffusion. The doctrine of passive obedience, held by the Christians of that time, must have proved most grateful to the ears of a monarch ; and the zeal in his cause and the loyalty shown by the Christians cannot have been wholly without effect on his mind. These various motives may, then, have given force to the reasonings of the Christian divines ; but we are assured that the efficient cause of the conversion of the emperor was a miracle. According to the biographer of this emperor, the learned Bishop Eusebius, as Constantine was on his march against Maxentius, there appeared one day, in the sight of himself and his whole army, a luminous cross above the sun in the noon-day sky, bearing inscribed on it the words, " By this conquer," {Hac vince ;) and, in the following night, Christ himself stood in a dream before the emperor, bearing a simi- lar cross, and directed him to frame a standard of that form, vi'hich would assure him of victory against Maxentius. The standard was accordingly framed, and, under the name of Labarum, a word of unknown origin, it became the future banner of the empire. Its form was that of a long pike, with a transverse bar, from which hung a piece of silk adorned with the images of the monarch and his children. On the top of the pike was a wreath of gold, enclosing the mono- gram of the name of Christ, and the sign of the cross. The A.D. 326.] CRispus. 315 care of the Labarum was always committed to fifty soldiers of approved valor and fidelity. This legend is related by Eusebius, on the authority of Constantine himself; but his narrative did not appear till after the death of the emperor,- and, in his earlier work, the Ecclesiastical History, he is silent respecting it. Another contemporary mentions only a dream, in which Constantine was directed, on the night before the battle with Maxentius, to inscribe the sacred monogram on the shields of his sol- diers ; and adds, that his obedience was rewarded with vic- tory.* We take not on us to decide how much of fiction or of error there may be in the legend; but that no actual miracle was wrought, we venture to affirm without hesitation, in accordance with our fixed opinions on the subject. We now return to the course of our historic narrative. A dark transaction, which has fixed an indelible stain on the memory of Constantine, is the first that meets our view. We have already seen that, before his marriage with the daugh- ter of Maximian, he had had a son by his first wife. This youth, named Crispus, was reared under the charge of the pious, learned, and eloquent Lactantius. Christian writers and historians are unanimous in the testimony which they bear to the virtues of the heir-apparent to the empire. It is possible that, as is asserted, Crispus may have been jealous of the partiality shown by the emperor to the children of his second marriage, one of whom, Constantius, had been sent, with the title of Caesar, to administer the government of Gaul, while he himself was detained in inactivity at court. He may also, as is said, have given vent to his feelings in imprudent language; and any one at all acquainted with the texture of courts in general, can easily suppose that, in the palace of a despotic prince, there was no lack of wretches who would seek to advance their own interest by exciting enmity between the father and the son. An edict of Con- stantine's, issued toward the end of the year 325, shows that he believed or feigned that a secret conspiracy had been formed against him, and in favor of Crispus. Whatever his suspi- cions of his son, or his designs against him, may have been, they were closely concealed ; and Crispus, in the following year, (326,) accompanied his father to Rome, when he pro- ceeded thither to celebrate the twentieth year of his reign. In the midst of the festival, the prince was arrested ; after a short private examination, or possibly no examination at all, * The author of the treatise De Mortihus Persecutorum. 316 CONSTANTINE. [a. D. 326. he was sent, under a strong guard, to Pola in Istria, where, shortly after, he was put to death by poison, or by the hand of the executioner. His fate was shared by the son of the late emperor Licinius. When a biographer passes in silence over any important action of his hero, we may be certain that a minute and exact inquiry, and a sifting of all the circumstances, has convinced him that it is incapable of bearing exposure to the light, and that no ingenuity can avail to extenuate, much less excuse it. On this principle, we hold the profound silence of Eusebius on this mysterious transaction to be conclusive of the guilt of Constantino and the innocence of Crispus ; and, at the same time, destructive of that prelate's claim to truth and integrity as an historian. The later Greeks, however, have fabled that Constantine discovered his error, mourned and repented it, and erected a golden statue bearing the inscription. To my son, who?n I unjustly condemned. A more ancient account said, that the story of Phaedra and Hippolytus was renewed in the imperial palace, and that the death of Crispus was caused by the dis- appointed lust of Fausta. It is added, that the emperor's mother, Helena, enraged at the fate of her innocent grand- son, caused Fausta to be closely watched ; and, it being discovered that she carried on an adulterous intercourse with a slave belonging to the stables, she was suffocated, by order of her husband, in a bath, made more than usually hot for the purpose.* The deaths of Crispus, Licinius, and Fausta, were followed by those of many of the emperor's friends, on various charges By Fausta the emperor had had three sons, named Con- stantine, Constantius, and Constans ; his elder brother, Ju- lius Constantius, had, beside other children, two sons, named Gallus and Julian ; and Dalmatius, another brother, was the father of two princes, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. From some motive which has not been assigned, Constantine re- solved to associate the two last-named nephews with his own sons in the empire, placing the former, as a Caesar, on an equality with them, and giving the latter the new title of Nobilissimus, and even, as it would appear, that of King, which we find used of him alone. A war between the Goths and Sarmatians drew the atten- * Zosimus, Philostorgius, and others, assert that Fausta was put to death. Yet, as Gibbon observes, in a Monody on her son, the younger Constantine, she is said to have lived to deplore his fate. A.D. 331-337.] DEATH OF CONSTANTINE. 317 tion of Constantine, in the latter years of his reign. Policy causing him to take the part of the latter, the former crossed the Danube, and laid Moesia waste, (331.) The emperor took the field in person ; but his troops fled from before them, and he was obliged to retire. In the following year, (332,) however, the imperial troops, led by the Caesar Constantius, retrieved their fame. The Goths were forced to recross the Danube, and to sue for peace. The Sarmatians having shown the usual levity and ingratitude of barbarians, Con- stantine left them to their fate. Vanquished in battle by the Goths, they armed their slaves, and, by their aid, expelled the invaders from their territory ; but the slaves turned their arms against their masters, drove them out of the country, and held it under the name of Limigantes. Nothing occurred to disturb the tranquillity of the empire during the remaining years of the reign of Constantine. He breathed his last on the 22d of May, 337, in the palace of Aquirion, at Nicomedia, in the 65th year of his age, after a prosperous reign of thirty years and ten months. His corpse was removed to Constantinople, where it was placed on a golden bed, in an illuminated apartment of the palace; and each day, the principal officers of state approached it and offered their homage, as if to the living emperor. It was at length committed to the tomb, with all fitting ceremony and magnificence. The merits and virtues of the emperor Constantine were so numerous and conspicuous, that, were it not for the deaths of his son, and nephew, and friends, his name would be without any considerable blemish. It is, however, objected to him, that, in his latter years, he adopted a style of dress and manners which exhibited more of Asiatic effeminacy than of Roman dignity. He is also charged with lavishing on needless and expensive buildings the money wrung from his subjects by oppressive taxation, and of overlooking, if not encouraging, the rapacity of his friends and favorites. Like so many of those who have attained to empire by their own merits and talents, Constantine is more to be esteemed in the early than in the later years of his reign. It is remarkable, that Constantine (though he openly pro- fessed the Christian religion, convened and presided at a general council of the church, and enjoyed nearly all the privileges of the initiated order of the faithful) remained all through his reign in the humble rank of a catechumen, and deferred receiving the sacrament of baptism till he discerned 27* 318 CONSTANTINE II., ETC. [a. D. 337. the certain symptoms of the approach of his dissolution. The superstition in which this practice originated, has already been explained ; and it derogates from the wisdom or knowledge of the Nicene Fathers, to know that they tacitly, at least, sanctioned a usage so detrimental to true religion. CHAPTER III.* CONSTANTINE II., CONSTANTIUS, CONSTANS. A.U. 1090—1114. A.D. 337—361. SLAUGHTER OF THE IMPERIAL FAMILY. PERSIAN WAR. DEATHS OF CONSTANTINE AND CONSTANS. MAGNENTIUS. GALLUS. JULIAN. SILVANUS. COURT OF CONSTAN- TIUS. WAR WITH THE LIMIGANTES. PERSIAN WAR. JULIAN IN GAUL. BATTLE OF STRASBURG. JULIAN PROCLAIMED EMPEROR. HIS MARCH FROM GAUL. DEATH OF CONSTANTIUS. Constantine II., Constantius, Constcms. A.u. 1090—1103. A.D. 337—350. The tomb had not received the mortal remains of the great Constantine, when a plot was laid to destroy some of the objects of his regard. The troops were induced — we are not informed by whom or by what means — to declare that none but the sons of the late monarch should rule over his empire ; and Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were seized and placed under custody, till Constantius, to whom the charge of the funeral had been committed, should arrive in the cap- ital. When this prince came, he pledged his oath to his kinsmen for their safety ; but ere long a false charge was made against them, and the soldiers became clamorous for their death. A general massacre of the imperial family en- sued, in which two uncles and seven cousins of Constantius, and with them Optatus, the husband of his aunt, perished. * Authorities : ^osimus, Ammianus, Marcellinus, tiie Epitomators, and the Ecclesiastical Historians. A. D. 337-340.] CONSTANTINE II., ETC. 319 Their fate was shared by the prefect Ablavius, the minister and favorite of the late emperor. Of the whole imperial family, there only remained Gallus and Julian, the sons of Julius Constantius. In the following month of September, the three brothers had a personal interview, in which a new arrangement of the empire was concluded; by which Constantine, as the eldest, was conceded a superiority in rank, and the possession of the eastern capital. The eastern frontier gave Constantius occupation for some years. Sapor II., king of Persia, a prince of great energy and enterprise, burned to recover the provinces which had been ceded to Galerius; but dread of the power and genius of Constantine had held him in check. As soon, however, as the empire fell into the hands of inexperienced young princes, he poured his troops into Mesopotamia, and for some years the Roman annals had only to tell of armies defeated, and towns besieged or taken by the Persian monarch. In the battle of Singara, (348,) the Roman legions routed the troops of Persia, and drove them to their camp ; as the night was at hand, Constantius, who commanded in person, sought to restrain his men, and defer the attack till the light of morn. But, heedless of the commands of their prince, the soldiers, eager for prey, pressed on, and, forcing the camp, spread themselves all over it in search of plunder. In the dead of the night. Sapor, who had posted his troops on the adjacent hills, led them to the attack of the scattered and un- prepared enemies; and the Romans were routed with im- mense slaughter. The survivors escaped with the utmost difficulty, and endured intolerable hardships in their retreat. This is said to have been the ninth victory over the troops of Rome achieved by the arms of Sapor. But, though thus suc- cessful in the field, he was unable to carry the important city of Nisibis. Thrice did he lead his forces under its walls, and thrice did he employ in vain the valor of his soldiers and the arts of his engineers; the gallant city still remained unsubdued. While Constantius was thus occupied in the East, Con- stans had become sole ruler in the West; for Constantine, having required that Constans should resign Africa to him, and being irritated by the insincerity displayed by that prince in the negotiation, made a sudden irruption into his domin- ions, (340.) But in the neighborhood of Aquileia he came to an engagement with the generals of Constans, and, being 320 CONSTANTIUS. [a. d. 350. drawn into an ambush, himself and all those about him were slain. Constans then took possession of the whole of his do- minions, refusing to give any share to his remaining brother, who does not, however, appear to have claimed it. For about ten years Constans exercised every kind of op- pression over his subjects. His hours were devoted to the chase, and to other pleasures of a less innocent nature. At length (350) a conspiracy was formed against him by Mag- nentius, a Frank, but born in Gaul, who commanded the Jovian and Herculian guards. Marcellinus, the treasurer, shared in the conspiracy ; and when the court was at Autun, and the emperor was taking the pleasures of the chase in the adjoining forest, Magnentius gave, under the pretext of cele- brating his son's birthday, a magnificent entertainment, to which were invited the principal officers of the army. The festival was prolonged till after midnight, when Magnentius withdrew for a little time, and then reappeared clad in the imperial habit. Those in the secret instantly saluted him emperor, and the remainder, taken by surprise, were induced to join in the acclamation. Promises and money were liber- ally scattered, and both the soldiery and the people declared for Magnentius. It was hoped that they might be able to surprise Constans on his return from the chase ; but he got timely information, and fled for Spain. He was, however, overtaken by those despatched in pursuit of him, at a town named Helena, (Elne,) at the foot of the Pyrenees, dragged from a church to which he had fled for refuge, and put to death. Const antius. ^ A.u. 1103—1114. A. D. 350—361. The whole of the West, with the exception of Illyricum, yielded obedience to Magnentius. The troops of that country were commanded by Vetranio, an aged general of simple and upright manners, but so illiterate as to be ignorant of even reading and writing. At first he professed allegiance to the remaining son of Constantine; but at length he yielded to the desires of his legions and those of the princess Con- stantina, the daughter of Constantine, and widow of Hanni- balianus, who thus, perhaps, sought to obtain vengeance for her husband, and to recover her own power. He consented A. D. 350.] VETRANIO. 321 to accept of empire; and Constantina with her own hand placed the diadem on his head. Vetranio soon found it ex- pedient to accept of the proffered alliance of Magnentius. An opportune incursion of the Massagetans into the northern part of his dominions having just at this time called Sapor away from the third siege of Nisibis, Constan- tius found himself at leisure to attend to the affairs of the West. Leaving a sufficient force with his generals, he set out, for Europe, to avenge the murder of his brother. At Heraclea in Thrace, he was met by an embassy from the two emperors of the West, headed by Marcellinus. It was proposed that he should acknowledge them, marry the daughter of Magnentius, and give Constantina in marriage to that prince. Next day he gave his reply : the shade of the great Constantine, embracing the corpse of his murdered brother, had, he said, appeared to him in the night, bidden him not to despair of the republic, and assured him of vic- tory. He dismissed one of the ambassadors, put the others in irons as traitors, and then pursued his march. His conduct toward Vetranio was artful and politic. While he menaced Magnentius with veng'eance as a traitor, he acknowledged the Illyrian Augustus as a colleague, and finally induced him to unite with him against the usurper. It was agreed that the two emperors and their armies should meet at the town of Sardica. The troops of Vetranio were far superior both in number and strength to those of the em* peror of the East ; but the reliance of Constantius was on the promises that he had lavished on them, by which most of both officers and men had been secretly gained to his side. The united armies were assembled (Dec. 25) in a large plain near the city, and the two emperors ascended the tri- bunal to address them. Constantius spoke the first. He inveighed against Magnentius ; he spoke of the glories of Constantine, and of their oaths of fidelity to him. Those who were prepared for the purpose, and stood about the tri- bunal, then cried out that they would have no spurious em- perors, and would only serve under the son of Constantine; and the cry was repeated through all the ranks. Vetranio, thus abandoned by his own troops, took off his diadem, and fell at the feet of his imperial colleague. Constantius raised him, and promised him safety. The city of Prusa in Bithynia, with an ample revenue, was assigned for the place of his abode ; and he there passed the remaining six years of his life in ease and tranquillity. 322 coNSTANTius. [a. D. 351-352. Early in the spring, (351,) Magnentius took the field with a large army. The advantages were on his side throughout the summer, and Constantius, who shunned to meet him in the field, found it necessary to offer him terms of peace. But the haughtiness of the usurper, who required him to re- sign his purple, promising him life on that humiliating condi- tion, put an end to all hopes of accommodation; and Con- stantius resolved to trust to Heaven, and conquer or fall with honor. Magnentius then advanced, and made an attempt on the town of Mursa, {Esscic,) situated on the River Drave. Constantius led his troops to its defence, and the two armies encountered (Sept. 28) on the plain in which the city stands. Leaving the command with his generals, Constantius retired to an adjoining church, where he passed the day in prayer. The engagement lasted till night, and the victory of the im- perial troops, chiefly owing to the heavy cataphract cavalry, was complete. The number of men slain in the battle is said to have been 54,000, of whom more than one half fell on the side of the victors. Magnentius escaped with difiiculty from the emperor's light horse, who chased him to the foot of the Julian Alps. The winter passed away in inaction, and when spring came (352) Magnentius fixed his abode at Aquileia, in order to oppose the farther advance of the imperial troops; but he soon found it necessary, in consequence of the defection of the troops and people of Italy, to abandon that position, and retire into Gaul. The cause of this defection was the cruelty used by his ministers, on the occasion of the suppression of an insurrection at Rome, where a youth named Nepotianus, the son of Eutropia, the sister of Constantine, had armed a band of slaves and gladiators, and assumed the purple. Him- self, his mother, and all connected with the family of Con- stantine, were put to death ; all parts of the city were filled with blood, and terror every where prevailed. Communica- tions were, therefore, opened with Constantius after the bat- tle of Mursa, and all Italy finally declared in his favor. It was now, therefore, the turn of Magnentius to sue. He sent some bishops to Constantius, offering to resign the purple, and to serve him faithfully ; but the emperor would listen to no proposals on the part of the assassin, though he offered pardon to all who would abandon him. The imperial fleet had, meantime, acquired the possession of Africa and Spain, and landed an army in the latter country, which entered Gaul and advanced toward Lyons, where Magnentius was residing. A. D. 351-354.] DEFEAT OF MAGNENTIUS. 323 The oppressions exercised by this tyrant in order to obtain money and supplies from the cities of Gaul, at length drove the people to desperation ; and a revolt commenced at Treves, where the gates were shut against his brother Decentius, vi^hom he had made an Augustus. The Germans, with whom Constantius had formed an alliance, passed the Rhine, and besieged Decentius in Sens. The imperial troops at length forced the passage of the Cottian Alps, and a battle was fought at a place named Mount Seleucus, in which the usur- per was totally defeated. He fled to Lyons, where, finding that his soldiers were preparing to seize and surrender him, he anticipated their design by falling on his sword. Decen- tius strangled himself when he heard of his brother's death, and Constantius now remained sole master of the Roman world. Of the male line of Constantine there were now only the emperor himself and his cousins, Gallus and Julian, remaining. These youths, after the massacre of their family, had been placed in different cities of Asia, where they were surrounded and guarded by persons devoted to the emperor; but they were treated with care and respect, and their education was diligently attended to. At length, (351,) when the emperor was preparing to avenge the murder of his last remaining brother, he conferred on Gallus, then in his twenty-fifth year, the dignity of Caesar, committed to him the government of the East, and gave him in marriage the princess Constantina. The new Csesar fixed his abode at Antioch. Gallus was in every way unfit to rule. He had no experi- ence of the world, and his natural temper was violent and ty- rannic. Had he been united to a woman of mild and amiable manners, his innate ferocity might perhaps have been mit- igated; but Constantina was one who actually delighted in blood ; and, instead of restraining, she stimulated her husband to deeds of cruelty. The apartments of the palace were filled with the implements of death and torture; all places, both public and private, were beset with informers; no man's life was secure ; and a general gloom pervaded the city. While Constantius was engaged in the contest for his em- pire, he had not leisure to attend to the proceedings of his Caesar : at length, however, (354,) he came to the resolution of depriving him of his rank, or of removing him to Gaul; and, on the occasion of the massacre of a nobleman named Theophilus, by the populace of Antioch, in a time of scarci- ty, with the connivance of Gallus, he sent the prefect Domi- 324 CONSTANTIUS, [a. d. 354. tian, with directions to prevail, by gentle means, if possible, on Gall us to proceed to Italy ; for he feared to attack him openly, lest he should assert his independence. But Domi- tian, on arriving at Antioch, instead of waiting on Gallus, as he should have done, passed by the palace gate, and, on the pretext of illness, remained at his own house for some days. When, at last, he condescended to visit the Caesar, he roughly ordered him to set out for Italy at once, threatening, in case of his refusal, to stop the supply of provisions to the palace. He then rose and went away, and would not appear any more before the Csesar, though often summoned. This conduct would have provoked a much meeker temper than that of Gallus, who immediately set a guard on the house of the pre- fect. The quaestor, Montius, then called together the prin- cipal officers of the guards, and, dilating on what had occurred, hinted that Gallus was about to rebel. When this reached the ears of the Caesar, he assembled the soldiers, and called on them to protect him. They instantly seized Montius, who was an infirm old man, and, tying his legs with ropes, dragged him to the abode of Domitian, whom they likewise bound, and then dragged them both through the streets till they were dead, and, after insulting their bodies in a bar- barous manner, flung them into the river. The cruelty of Gallus now redoubled, and guilty and innocent suffered alike. Constantius and his council were perplexed how to act ; but they finally resolved to proceed with artifice, and draw the Caesar into their toils gently. The emperor wrote to him in most affectionate terms, entreating him to come and assist him in managing the arduous affairs of the West: in like manner, he wrote to his sister, expressing a most anxious de- sire to see her. Constantina accordingly set out for Europe ; but on the way she fell sick, and died at a town in Bithynia. As it was chiefly on her influence with her brother that Gal- lus relied for his safety, her death threw him into the utmost perplexity. While he was hesitating, Scudilo, a tribune of the guards, arrived, a man who under the guise of martial rough- ness and frankness concealed a most artful and insinuating character ; and by his representations he was induced to set out for Europe. At Constantinople he imprudently took on him to bestow a crown on the victor in a chariot race, which assumption of imperial power, as it was deemed, greatly con- tributed to exasperate the emperor against him. The soldiers were removed from all the towns through which he was to A. D. 355.] GAI^LUS. 325 pass, lest they should declare for him — a needful precaution, as it would appear ; for, when he reached Hadrianople, the Thebaean legions which lay in that neighborhood sent to offer him their services; but their deputies were unable to obtain access to him, for he was surrounded by persons de- voted to the court, who had been sent to occupy all the places in his establishment. Letters now reached him requiring his immediate presence at court ; and he was obliged to set out with only a few attendants, and to travel post with the utmost speed. On reaching the town of Petobio {Pettau) on the Drave, he was lodged in a palace without the walls ; and toward evening it was surrounded with soldiers, and their commander, Barbatio, entered and stripped the Ca3sar of his royal dress, putting common raiment upon him, and then, with oaths assuring him of safety, made him arise and enter a common carriage, in which he was conveyed to a place near Pola in Istria, which had been the scene of the last sufferings of the unhappy Crispus. After being kept a short time in suspense, and having undergone an examination respecting his conduct in the East, in which he confessed his criminal acts, but cast the entire blame of them on his wife, he was secretly beheaded in prison. The imperial family was thus reduced to the emperor him- self and his cousin Julian. The eunuchs, who were all-power- ful in the palace, labored hard for the destruction of this prince, who had been brought to the court of Milan, and charges of treason were devised against him ; but though he easily refuted all that his enemies could allege, his innocence would probably have availed him little against the arts and the influence of those who dreaded him as his brother's aven- ger, had he not found a powerful protectress in the empress Eusebia, a woman of considerable beauty and merit, who ex- ercised great power over the mind of her husband. Julian was at length (355) permitted to retire to Athens, to pursue the literary studies in which he delighted. His abode in that seat of learning was, however, but of brief duration ; for Con- stantius, finding himself totally unequal to the sole direction of the multitudinous affairs of the empire, menaced on all its frontiers by restless and powerful enemies, yielded to the ar- guments and entreaties of the empress, who represented to him that Gallus and Julian had differed in character as much as the sons of Vespasian, and that from the mild, gentle tem- per of the latter he might expect to meet with nothing but gratitude and obedience. She thus induced him to consent CONTIN. 28 326 CONSTANTIUS. [a. d. 355, to associate Julian in the empire ; and an order was despatched for that prince to return immediately to court. Julian quitted Athens with deep and unfeigned regret. He was kindly re- ceived at Milan; the only condition exacted from him was a marriage with the emperor's sister Helena, a princess some years his senior; and on the day in which he entered his twenty-fifth year, (Nov. 6,) Constantius, in the presence and amid the acclamations of the army, bestowed on him the dignity of Csesar. He was immediately after sent to take the command in Gaul. This country had lately been the scene of rebellion^ and this circumstance had probably contributed to the elevation of Julian. Silvanus, one of those German officers who were now so numerous in the Roman service, had, by his opportune desertion just before the battle of M ursa, contributed not a little to the victory of Constantius. The command of the imperial infantry was his reward, and he enjoyed the favor of his sovereign, which, however, only exposed him the more to the hostility of the favorites, one of whom, Arbetio, as the surest means of destroying him, induced the emperor to give him the charge of delivering Gaul from the depredations of the Germans. Silvanus was not long in thai province, when an agent, selected for the purpose, applied to him for letters of recommendation to his friends at court. These be unsus- pectingly gave, and they were conveyed to his enemies, who, erasing all but the signature, filled them with language calling on his friends to aid his designs on the empire. The matter was then laid before the emperor in council, and orders were given to arrest the persons to whom the letters were addressed. Malaric, however, the commander of the foreign guards, and Silvanus's countryman, aided by his brother officers, warmly asserted the innocence of the absent general ; and at his in- stance a new inquiry was instituted, in which the forgery was detected. The discovery, however, came too late; Silvanus, indignant at the treatment he had received, and seeing no other prospect of security, had assumed the purple at Cologne. Treachery was then employed against him, and Urcisinus, a general who had lately distinguished himself so much in the defence of the East, that fear of his doing what Silvanus had now done had caused his recall, sullied his fame by becoming the instrument. He set out for Gaul, with a few of his friends, under the pretence of avenging the injuries which he had re- ceived at court, and joined the usurper. He was received with kindness and confidence, which he repaid by seducing some of A. D. 357.] COURT OF CONSTANTIUS. 327 the foreign troops, and causing Silvanus to be murdered after a brief reign of twenty-eight days. The troops then returned to their allegiance. The court of Gonstantius was one in which all the vices which distinguished those of the East flourished in luxuriance. There was in it no place for virtue and integrity ; the vile race of eunuchs (for such the history of all ages proves them to be) were so powerful, that, as the historian sarcastically observes, Gonstantius had a good deal of influence with the chief of them, the chamberlain Eusebius. Their rapacity knew no bounds ; justice and the honors of the state were set up to sale, the complaints of the injured were intercept- ed, the honorable and the independent were secretly under- mined or openly assailed. But the eunuchs were not the sole authors of evil ; we find among the pests of the court the general Barbatio, and Paulus the notary, a crafty Span- iard surnamed Gatena, from his skill in entangling destined victims in the meshes of dangerous subtleties. There were many others whose names it boots not to record. The char- acter of the emperor, jealous of his dignity, and barbarously cruel to all who were even suspected of encroaching on it, gave effect to the arts of these men, and few were safe from their machinations. While Gonstantius remained in Italy, he paid a visit to the ancient capital, (Apr. 28, 357.) He entered it in a triumphal procession, visited and admired all its venerable monuments, and gave orders for the transportation thither of an obelisk from Egypt, to commemorate his abode at Rome. After a stay of only thirty days, he quitted it, never again to return. The cause of his so speedy departure was the invasion of the lUyrian provinces by their ancient devastators, the Qua- dans and their allies. He took the field in person against them, cut their armies to pieces, ravaged their country far and wide, and compelled them to sue for peace. At this time also he listened to the entreaties of the Sarmatians, and consented to turn his arms against their rebellious slaves. On his approach, the Limigantes offered to pay an annual tribute, and to furnish recruits for the army ; but they ex- pressed their determination not to quit their country. When, however, they found themselves attacked on different sides by the Roman legions, their former masters, and the Gothic Taifalans, their dwellings fired, and their country ravaged in all directions, their spirit abated, and they came, with their wives and children, to the Roman camp, and consented to re- # 328 CONSTANTIUS. [a. d. 359. move whithersoever it should please the emperor to appoint their abode. Lands were accordingly assigned them at some distance from the river ; and, the war being thus to all ap- pearance terminated, Constantius retired to Sirmium for the winter. Early, however, in the following year, (359,) intel- ligence that the Limigantes had returned, and were about to cross the Danube and ravage the provinces, obliged him again to take the field. When he reached the banks of the river, the Limigantes were quite submissive, craved permis- sion to be allowed to pass over and state their grievances, and to have lands assigned them within the Roman frontiers, where they might dwell as peaceful subjects. Constantius gave a cheerful consent; his tribunal was erected on a mound near the river ; the Limigantes surrounded it ; he stood up, and was preparing to address them, when one of them flung his shoe at the tribunal, and raised their war-cry, 3Iarha Qiiarha. Listantly a rush to the tribunal was made by the multitude ; the emperor had only time to mount a fleet horse, and fly to the camp ; his guards were cut to pieces, and the tribunal was destroyed. But when the Roman troops learned the danger to which their emperor had been exposed, they hastened to take vengeance on the traitors ; and they speedily massacred the entire multitude of the Limigantes. For his successes against this people, Constantius took the title of Sarmaticus. The war on the Illyrian frontier being thus terminated, the emperor found it necessary to proceed to the East, where Sapor had once more crossed the Tigris, and poured his troops over the plains of Mesopotamia. The director of the campaign was a Roman subject named Antoninus, who had been forced to seek at the court of Persia a refuge from op- pression. His plan was to neglect the fortresses, push on for the Euphrates, and think only of the conquest and plun- der of Antioch; but the country was destroyed by the Ro- mans, and the river, happening to swell at this time, could not be passed at the usual places. The march of the Persian army was therefore directed toward the head of the stream ; but, as it was passing under the walls of the strong city of Amida, Sapor halted and summoned it to surrender. A dart flung from the walls chanced to graze his tiara ; and the haughty despot, heedless of the remonstrances of his minis- ters, resolved to avenge the insult by the destruction of the city. His army, which counted one hundred thousand men, invested it after a general assault had been tried and failed. A. D. 360.] PERSIAN WAR. 329 The works of the besiegers were carried on under the direc- tion of the Roman deserters, and, after a gallant defence of seventy-three days, the city was taken by storm, and all but those who had contrived to escape by the gate most remote from the point of attack were ruthlessly massacred. But the Persians purchased their conquest with the loss of nearly the third part of their host. The capture of Amida terminated the campaign. In the following spring, (360,) Sapor again crossed the Tigris. He besieged and took the cities of Singara and Bezabde ; the former of which he dismantled, as it lay in a sandy plain ; but in the latter, which occupied a peninsula on the Tigris, he placed a strong garrison. Having failed in an attempt on Virtha, a strong fortress of the independent Arabs, he led his troops back to Persia. In the autumn, Constantius, who had at length arrived in the East, passed the Euphrates, and, hav- ing assembled his troops at Edessa, and wept over the ruins of Amida, advanced to attempt the recovery of Bezabde ; but all his efforts to take it having failed, and the weather be- coming tempestuous, he abandoned the siege, and returned to Antioch for the winter. It is now time that we should direct our attention to the conduct of the Caesar Julian in his administration of the Gallic provinces. The Franks and Alemans had been of late almost the undisputed masters of the country to an extent far westward of the Rhine ; forty-five cities, among which were those bearing the modern names of Tongres, Treves, Worms, Spire, and Strasburg, beside numerous towns and villages, had been pillaged or burnt by them ; and the Caesar received at Turin, on his road, the intelligence of the capture of the flourishing colony of Cologne. He passed the winter at Vienne, and early in the summer (356) he proceeded to Autun, which had lately gallantly repelled an attack of the barbarians. He thence made his way through a country occupied by the en- emy to Rheims, where he had ordered his troops to assemble. After two encounters with the Alemans, in one of which he was successful, he penetrated to the Rhine, and, having sur- veyed the ruins of Cologne, and formed a just conception of the difficulties he would have to encounter, he led his troops back to their winter quarters in Gaul. He fixed his own abode in the city of Sens, where for thirty days he was be- sieged by the Alemans ; but he defended the town with skill and courage, and the barbarians were forced to retire. Julian himself, in his extant writings, speaks slightingly of 28* pp 330 CONSTANTIUS. [a. D. 357. his first campaign. It was the initiation of a retired student in the affairs of actual life ; and the love of honest fame, and the lessons of solid wisdom which he had derived from the works of those men of mighty intellect who had flourished in ancient Greece, combined with his natural talent, soon en- abled him to acquire the character of an able general. His next campaign therefore proved a glorious one. A principal cause of his success was the removal of the impediments which the eunuchs had prepared for him in his own army, where they had caused the command of the cavalry to be given to Marcellus, a man who seemed to think his only duty to be that of thwarting the Caesar. As, however, though near at hand, he had not come to his aid when he ran such risk at Sens, he was, on Julian's complaint, supported prob- ably by the empress, removed from his command, and an officer named Severus, of a very different character, sent in his stead. Marcellus proceeded to the court, and was com- mencing a course of insinuations against the loyalty of Julian, when the prince's chamberlain Eutherius, who had been de- spatched for the purpose, arrived. This noble-minded eu- nuch* demanded an audience of the emperor, and, when ad- mitted, he boldly asserted the innocence of his master, and proved the culpable conduct of Marcellus, who was obliged to retire in disgrace to his native country, Pannonia. Julian, now master of his actions, prepared to commence operations, (357.) The plan of the campaign was, that, while he should advance from Rheims on the one side with the troops of Gaul, Barbatio, the general of the imperial infantry, should lead an army of thirty thousand men from Italy, and cross the Rhine near Basil, [Rauraci,) so that the Alemans, attacked on both sides, should be forced to abandon the left bank of the river. Julian's first care was to restore the fortifications of the city of Saverne, in the heart of the country occupied by the enemy ; but, while he was thus en- gaged, a large body of the Alemans passed unobserved be- tween the two Roman armies, and made an attempt on the city of Lyons, which having failed, they fell to plundering the surrounding country, Julian immediately sent bodies * Ammianus (xvi. 7) is justly lavish in his praise of this excellent man. He commences by observing, that what he said would hardly be credited, " ea re quod si Numa Pompilius vel Socrates bona quos- dam dicerent de spadone, dictisque religionum adderent fidem, a veri- tate descivisse arguerentur. Sed inter vepres rosae nascuntur, et inter feras nonnullae mitescunt." A. D. 357.] JULIAN IN GAUL. 331 of horse to occupy the roads by which they must return, and the booty was thus recovered, and all the plunderers cut to pieces, except those who were permitted to pass unmolested under the very ramparts of Barbatio's camp. When Julian, soon after, being anxious to drive the barbarians out of the islands which they occupied in the Rhine, applied to Bar- batio for seven of the boats which he had collected to form a bridge over the Rhine, the latter forthwith burned the whole of them, sooner than aid his operations. Julian, however, by means of the shallows in the river, caused by the summer heat, passed over a body of troops, and destroyed or expelled the barbarians. He then set his troops to restore the fortifi- cations of the town of Zabern, [TaberncB ;) and while they were thus engaged, Barbatio, as a further means of injuring Julian, seized the corn provided for them, consumed a part of it, and burned the remainder. Shortly after, he was sud- denly fallen on by the barbarians, defeated, and driven to Basil. Then, as if he had gained a victory, he put his troops into winter quarters, and returned to court, to follow his usual course of maligning the Caesar. Chnodomar, the Alemannic king, supported by six other kings and ten princes of royal lineage, now prepared to at- tack the Caesar, whose forces, as he learned from a desert- er, were, by the departure of Barbatio, reduced to thirteen thousand men. The Germans occupied three days and nights in passing the Rhine; and an army of thirty-five thousand of their warriors was thus assembled at Strasburg, [Argen- toratum.) Julian, who was encamped at a distance of twen- ty-one miles from that place, advanced to attack them; his troops being arranged in two divisions, the one of horse, the other of foot. It was so late in the day when they came in view of the enemy, that he wished to defer the attack till the morning; but the impatience of his troops was not to be restrained. Placing himself, therefore, at the head of his guards, he went round encouraging the men to fight valiantly. The battle then began; the Roman cavalry which was on the right fought at first in a manner worthy of its fame; but, as the Germans had mingled footmen through their cavalry, the heavy cuirassiers were thrown into confusion, and re- treated. Julian immediately rode up and rallied them, and the combat of cavalry was renewed. The Roman infantry, led by Severus, though vigorously opposed, was at length completely successful ; and the barbarians quitted the field with a loss of six thousand men, and many more were 33^ CONSTANTIUS. [a. D. 358-359. drowned in the Rhine, or slain by the darts of their pursuers as they were swimming across. Chnodomar himself was ta- ken while attempting to escape, and conducted to the Caesar, by whom he was treated with kindness. He was afterwards sent to the emperor, who assigned him a residence at Rome, where he ended his days. In this glorious and important victory, the loss of the Romans had been only four tribunes and two hundred and forty-three men. Julian resolved to follow up his success, passed the Rhine near Mentz, and advanced for a space of ten miles into the hostile territory, wasting the lands and burning the houses. The impediment of a deep, dark forest, occupied by the con- cealed bands of the Germans, and the appearance of the snow, which now began to cover the ground, it being past the time of the autumnal equinox, warning him of the imprudence of any farther advance, he decided to repass the river. Be- fore, however, he quitted the soil of Germany, he repaired and garrisoned a fortress which Trajan had erected ; and, having granted the Alemans a truce for ten months, he departed. The following summer, (358,) Julian turned his arms against the Franks. By the celerity of his movements, he anticipated all resistance, and their tribes submitted to such terms as he thought fit to dictate. Then, as the truce with the Alemans had expired, he crossed the Rhine for the sec- ond time. Suomar, one of the most potent of the Alemanic princes, submitted at his approach. The territories of an- other, named Hortorius, were wasted with fire and sword, and he was forced to sue for mercy. Both princes were obliged to restore all the captives in their hands, and to sup- ply materials for the restoration of the towns which they had destroyed. As the princes who dwelt beyond the territories of Suomar and Hortorius had likewise shared in the war, Julian pre- pared to cross the Rhine a third time, in order to chastise them, (359.) As he was about to construct a bridge at Mentz, the German princes marched with all their forces, and oc- cupied the farther bank of the river. Their vigilance was such that there seemed but little prospect of the Romans being able to construct a bridge : but Julian caused three hundred men to drop down the stream one night in small boats, who very nearly succeeded in. capturing the German princes, as they were returning late from a banquet given by Hortorius, and their troops immediately dispersed to secure ^;. A. D. 360.] JULIAN IN GAUL. 333 their families and property. The Romans then crossed the river unopposed, and wasted the lands in the usual manner ; and the Alemannic kings, six in number, were glad to obtain peace on the conqueror's own terms. The number of Ro- man subjects delivered from captivity by this and the pre- ceding treaties was not less than twenty thousand. Julian's civil administration rivalled his military exploits. The ruined cities were restored, and, as the agriculture of Gaul had suffered severely from the events of late years, a fleet of six hundred large vessels was built for the regular importation of corn from the better cultivated isle of Britain, in order to supply the towns and fortresses along the Rhine, the free navigation of which stream to the sea Julian had forced the Franks to concede. Julian also attended strictly to the administration of justice ; and he alleviated, as far as was in his power, the burden of excessive taxation under which the people groaned. The usual residence of the Caesar during the winter was Lutetia or Paris, (Parisii,) a town built on an island in the Seine, and approached by two wooden bridges ; while a suburb, in which stood the imperial palace, spread over the left bank of the river. For this city Julian had an extreme partiality; and we find him amid the luxury and profligacy of Antioch dwelling on its memory with tender affection.* At the court of Constantius, Julian and his exploits were at first merely subjects of merriment to the eunuchs and the other favorites. His personal appearance and his manners were ridiculed in the presence of the emperor. He was called a she-goat, and no man, (in allusion to the philosophic beard which he cherished,) a chattering mole, an ape in pur- ple, and so forth ; nay, so far did courtly adulation and im- perial folly proceed, that, in the laurelled letters sent to the provinces to announce the victory at Strasburg, Constantius was actually declared to have gained it in person ! But the fame of Julian was not to be obscured by petty arts like these ; and the plan was adopted of alarming the jealousy of the emperor by dwelling on the talents and virtues of the Caesar, and hinting at the probability of his casting oflf his allegiance. As this was the subject on which Constantius was most susceptible of alarm, their stratagem easily suc- ceeded ; and a scheme for depriving him of the power to rebel was devised. In the spring of 360, a tribune and a * Misopogon, p. 340, 334 coNSTANTros. [a. d. 360. notary arrived at Paris with orders for four entire divisions of the auxiliaries, and drafts of three hundred men each from the other corps, to proceed without delay to join the imperial standard in the East. Julian represented in vain that the Germans had entered the Roman service on the express con- dition of not being sent beyond the Alps, and that a breach of faith like this might put a total end to further enlistments: he also urged the unprotected condition in which Gaul would be left by the withdrawal of so large a portion of the troops belonging to it ; the imperial envoys would hear of nothing but obedience, and Julian was obliged to issue his orders for the march of the troops. His judicious advice that they should not march through Paris was also despised, and ere long they approached that city. Julian went forth to meet them; he addressed them, extolling their former exploits, and urging them to yield a cheerful obedience to the imperial commands. He then invited the principal officers to an en- tertainment, from which they departed sad and dejected at the idea of quitting their lenient prince, and their natal soil. At the approach of night, the discontent of the troops broke out into action; they seized their arms, and, surrounding the palace, with loud shouts proclaimed Julian Augustus. During the night, the entrances of the palace were secured against them; but at dawn Julian was obliged to come forth. His resistance, his menaces, his entreaties, his arguments, were of no avail ; he was forced to yield to their violence, and accept the proffered dignity. They raised him triumph antly on a shield, they proclaimed him Augustus, and then desired him to produce a diadem. On his saying that he did not possess one, they called for his wife's collar or brace- Jet; but Julian deemed a female ornament inauspicious, and refused to use it; for a similar reason he rejected a horse- trapping. At length, a standard-bearer took a collar from his own neck, and placed it on the head of the Caesar, who, having promised a donative of five gold pieces and a pound of silver to each man, was at length permitted to retire into the palace. In the manifesto which Julian some time after addressed to the Athenians, he declared in the most solemn manner that he was totally ignorant of the designs of the army; and he was a man of so much probity., and had such a veneration for truth, that it is difficult to refuse him our belief. That judicious and honest historian Ammianus, who was a contemporary, hints not a suspicion on the subject ; yet, when we consider A.D. 361.] JULiAN IN GAfL. 335 the ordinary conduct of men in such circumstances, and rec- ollect that Julian must have been aware that the assumption of empire was almost the only security against his sharing the fate of his brother, we find it impossible not to feel some- what irictedulous. The question is, therefore, one of the many which must remain forever uncertain. That Julian was determined to retain the empire which he had accepted is beyond doubt; but he was most anxious to shun the guilt of the eifusion of blood in civil war. On the day following that of his elevation, he assembled the troops, and, addressing them with his usual eloquence, obtained from them an as- surance, that^ if the emperor of the East would acknowledge him, they would remain quietly in Gaul : he at the same time pledged himself, that promotion, both civil and military, should henceforth go by merit, and not by favor. Those officers who were known to be attached to Constantius were deposed and secured, but no blood was shed. Julian wrote to that emperor, excusing what had occurred, and requiring the confirmation of his dignity, but offering to acknowledge the supremacy of the elder emperor, and to supply him an- nually with Spanish horses and with barbarian recruits. While Julian was waiting the return of his ambassadors from the East, he increased his army by proclaiming a gene- ral pardon to the bands of outlaws which had arisen in conse- quence of the persecution of the adherents of Magnentius, and they cheerfully accepted it, and crowded to his standard. He then crossed the Rhine for the fourth time, to chastise the perfidy of the Attuarians, a Frankish tribe; and, this object being effected, he marched southwards, and took up his win- ter quarters at Vienne. As this city was full of Christians, and a great part of his army followed the Christian creed, Julian, who, as we shall presently show, had long since adopt- ed a different faith, condescended to play the hypocrite for probably the last time, and went publicly to the church on Christmas day. Early in the spring, (361,) Julian learned that Vadomar, an Alemannic prince, had committed ravages to the south of the Danube; and there appeared reason for believing that the German was actinop in obedience to secret instructions from Constantius, who wished to find occupation for his rival m Gaul, Julian resolved to employ artifice; and he sent the notary Philagrius, furnished with secret instructions to entrap the German prince. When Philagrius came to the Rhine, Vadomar, thinking his proceedings unknown, passed over to 336 CONSTANTIUS. [a.d. 361. visit him, and readily accepted an invitation to a dinner. When he came, Philagrius retired to read his instructions, and, in obedience to them, he seized Vadomar, and forwarded him to the camp of Julian, where, being convicted by his own letter to Constantius, which had been intercepted, he was sent a prisoner into Spain. Julian, then putting himself at the head of some light troops, crossed the Rhine in the dead of the night, and so terrified the Germans, that they sought most humbly for pardon and peace. The ambassadors of Julian had met with so many obstacles and delays, that they did not overtake Constantius till he had reached Caesarea in Cappadocia, on his way for the Persian war. The empress Eusebia and the princess Helena, whose influence might have prevented a rupture, were both dead; and Constantius, left to his own passions and the suggestions of his flatterers, returned a haughty answer, requiring Juliaa to renounce his usurped title, and accept a pardon on certain conditions. Julian caused the letter to be read out in pres- ence of the army, with whose consent he declared himself ready to resign his dignity ; but the loud shouts of Julian Au- gustus, which rose on all sides, inspired him with resolution, and he dismissed the imperial envoy with a letter of defiance. These transactions, it may be observed, had taken place at Paris in the preceding year, just before Julian's expedition against the Attuarians. Aware of the importance of bold and decisive measures in civil contests, and fearful of the arts of Constantius among the Germans, Julian resolved to advance at once into Illyricum. His soldiers readily agreed to follow him; and at Basil he di- vided his army into three divisions, of which one, under two officers named Jovins and Jovinus, was to go through the Alps and northern Italy ; another, under Nevitta, the commander of the cavalry, was to proceed through Noricum ; while, at the head of the third, Julian himself, entering the Black Forest, should make for the Danube, and go down that river in boats. This daring and judicious plan proved perfectly successful. Julian landed unexpectedly at Bononia, within nineteen miles of Sirmlura, and seized Lucilian, the general of the cavalry, who was preparing to oppose him. At Sirmium he was joy- fully received, and, being immediately joined by his remain- ing divisions, he advanced and secured the pass of Succi in Mount Hsemus, When Constantius heard of the advance of Julian, he gave up all thoughts of the Persian war for the pres- ent, and prepared to return and combat for his empire. But AD. 361.] JULIAN. 337 on his way he was attacked by a fever, caused, probably, by the agitation of his spirits, and he breathed his last at a little town near Tarsus, named Mopsucrenae, in the forty-fifth year of his age, naming, it is said, Julian for his successor. CHAPTER IV* JULIAN, JOVIAN. A. u. 1114— 1117. A. D. 361—364. REFORMATIONS OF JULIAN. HIS RELIGION. HIS TOLER- ANCE. JULIAN AT ANTIOCH. ATTEMPT TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE AT JERUSALEM. THE PERSIAN WAR. DEATH OF JULIAN. ELECTION OF JOVIAN. SURRENDER OF TERRITORY TO THE PERSIANS. RETREAT OF THE ROMAN ARMY. DEATH OF JOVIAN. Julian. A. u. 1114—1116. A. D. 361—363. Julian was at Naissus when two officers of rank arrived,, sent to inform him of the death of Constantius, and of his nomination to the empire. He therefore passed Mount Haemus without delay, marched by Philippopolis to Perin- thus, and, on the 11th of December, he entered the capital amid the loud and joyful acclamations of the people. The imperial palace, like the abode of an Eastern monarch, swarmed with eunuchs and other ministers of luxury. The emoluments of these men were enormous, and their salaries and allowances formed an article of no trifling magnitude in the accounts of the treasury. We are told that, one day when Julian called for a barber to trim his hair, he saw a man most splendidly dressed enter the apartment. The emperor, in af- fected amazement, exclaimed, " It was a barber, and not a receiver-general of the finances, that I sent for." He then inquired of him respecting his salary and perquisites, and * Authorities : Zosimus, Ammianus, Julian, Libanius, the Epitom- ators, and the Ecclesiastical Historians. CONTIN. 29 Q Q 338 JULIAN. - [a. d. 361. found that, independently of a large salary and considerable perquisites, he had an allowance of twenty loaves a day, and fodder for an equal number of horses. Julian, regardless of justice, and of the claims of long, and, in some cases, faithful service, resolved on making a general clearance of the palace ; and barbers, cooks, cupbearers, and others, to the number of some thousands, got leave to go whither they would, many probably to starve. The emperor was also resolved that those who had been the instigators or instru- ments of the cruelties and oppressions exercised under the late reign, should not escape with impunity. A commission composed of two civilians, Sallust, the upright prefect of the East, and Mamertinus, the consul elect, and of four generals, Nevitta, Agilo, Jovinus, and Arbetio, was appointed to sit at Chalcedon, to hear charges and pass sentences. As the number of the military men, some of whom were barbarians by birth, predominated in the tribunal, the decisions were as often the result of prejudice and faction as of justice. No one can condemn the execution of the chamberlain Euse- bius, or of Apodemius, one of the chief agents in the de- struction of Silvanus and Gallus, or of Paulus Catena, which last was burnt alive ; but Justice herself seemed to Ammia- nus to have bewept the death of Ursulus, the treasurer, and to have convicted the emperor of ingratitude ; for, when he was sent into Gaul, in want of almost every thing, Ursulus had directed the treasurer there to supply him with all that he should require. Julian made a futile effort to get rid of the charge, by averring that Ursulus was put to death without his knowledge. As little can the banishment of Taurus, the ex-praetorian prefect, be justified, whose only offence was loyalty to the prince whom he served. On the whole, however, the number of those who suffered death or ban- ishment was not considerable, and most of them deserved their fate. The love of justice, and the correct sense of the duties of a ruler, which Julian had displayed when a Caesar in Gaul, did not desert him on the imperial throne in Constantinople; and, had it not been for one fatal circumstance, he might have been the object of general applause and admiration. But Julian had renounced the religion of the empire, and adopted that of ancient Greece, which he entertained the chimerical idea of restoring to its primitive importance ; and, in the pursuit of this object, he did not attend suf- ficiently to the principles of justice and equity. From his A. D. 361.] RELIGION OF JULIAN. 339 change of faith he has been styled the Apostate, unjustly, as appears to us, for of his sincerity there can be no doubt; and, however we may lament for, pity, or even despise those who change from conviction, we are not justified in con- demning or reviling them. Gallus and Julian, after the massacre of their relatives, had been committed to the charge of Eusebius, the bishop of Nicomedia. They were instructed in the articles of faith and practice then prevalent, with all of which they complied without any hesitation ; and Julian, it was remembered, had publicly read the Holy Scriptures in the church of that city. But, while the rude, sullen Gallus became a steady and big- oted believer, the milder and more philosophic and studious Julian took a distaste to the religion in which he was in- structed. He had been made familiar with the great writers of ancient Hellas by his tutor, the eunuch Mardonius; and the admiration he felt for the works of Homer and other eminent poets, the veneration for antiquity, and the brilliant colors with which the ancient poetic Olympus stood invested, as contrasted with the grovelling superstition with which he was surrounded ; and the noble spirit and glorious deeds of the believers in the ancient creed, compared with the base arts and paltry actions of the men of his own time, — all combined to operate on the mind of the young prince, and he became a believer in the theology of Homer and Hesiod. But it was not the charming poetic creed of the early and best days of Hellas that Julian adopted ; it was the absurd, contemptible mysticism of the New Platonists; and as, in his Christianity, he neglected the beautiful simplicity of the gospel, confounding it with the intricate metaphysics and abject superstition which then prevailed in the church, so, in his paganism, he lost the poetic creed of the old times in the tasteless, unsubstantial vagaries and allegories of the school of Alexandria. In fact, he had not that original vigor of intellect which would have emancipated him from the spirit of the age. Superstition was the prevailing senti- ment, and the philosophic emperor was in his way as deeply immersed in it as the most grovelling ascetic. According to the emperor's own account, he was a Chris- tian till he reached his twentieth year. He then, after being instructed by various sophists, was, by the archimage Maxi- mus, secretly initiated at Ephesus with all those ceremonies which imposture and superstition had imported from Asia, and incorporated with the mythic faith of Hellas. During 340 JULIAN. [a.d. 361. his short abode, some years after, at Athens, Julian was sol- emnly initiated in the mysteries of Eleusis. Still he was to outward appearance a Christian, and the empress Eusebia had not probably a shade of doubt respecting the faith of her distinguished protege. In Gaul he appears to have still dissembled, and to have openly assisted at the Christian wor- ship, while in his closet he offered his homage to the Sun and Hermes. When he assumed the imperial dignity, he disdained all further concealment of his sentiments, and boldly proclaimed himself a votary of the ancient gods. It may be, perhaps, laid down as an axiom in history, that when once a religious or political system has gone out of use among any people, its permanent restoration is an im- possibility. The power of a monarch or of a political party may reestablish it for a time, but when the hand that sus- tained it is gone, it sinks back into its previous state of neglect and impotence. The efforts of Julian to restore paganism, must, therefore, even had his life been prolonged, have proved utterly abortive. The system had long been crumbling to pieces from internal feebleness and decay ; the theism on which it was founded, and of whpse various forms Its beautiful mythes were merely the expositions,* had long been unknown; and the mystic views of the New Platonists, which Julian had adopted, were totally opposite to its spirit. To this should be added, that Christianity, corrupt as it then was, had, by its noble spirit of benevolence and charity, by the sublimity of its original principles, and by the organiza- tion of its hierarchy, a moral power such as the old religion had not possessed at any period of its prevalence. When we view the attempt of Julian in this light, we may feel disposed to pity, while we deride the folly of the imperial fanatic. Julian was by nature just and humane; he was also a philosopher and statesman enough to know that persecu- tion, if it does not go the full length of extermination, adds strength, and numbers, and energy, to the persecuted and irritated party. He, therefore, instead of imitating Diocle- tian, proclaimed a general toleration. The pagans were directed to open their temples, and offer victims as hereto- fore ; the contending sects of Christians were commanded to abstain from harassinor and tormenting each other. The catholic prelates and clergy, whom the Arian Constantius * See the author's Mythology of ancient Greece and Itckly. A. D. 361.] REFORM IN PAGANISM. 341 had banished, were accordingly restored to their sees and churches.* The real object of all this moderation, we are assured by Ammianus, was to increase the mutual animosity of the Christian sects, by giving free course to their contro- versial spirit while depriving them of the power of extermi- nating each other, and thus to prevent their uniting in op- position to his ulterior projects. We can hardly blame Julian for giving a preference to his fellow-believers in civil and military employments. This mild form of persecution is the fate of religious and political parties in all ages. But even his most partial admirers can- not (Ammianus does not) justify the edict which prohibited the Galilseans, as he affected to style the Christians, from teaching the arts of grammar or rhetoric, i. e. from being schoolmasters. By means of this, he expected that the Christian youth would either frequent the schools of the pagan teachers, and thus probably be converted, or they would abstain from them, and thus grow up in ignorance, and the church, losing the advantages of learning and cul- tivation, sink into contempt. A far more legitimate and laudable mode of warfare was his effort to reform paganism on the model of Christianity, by introducing into it those rules and practices to which the latter seemed to him in- debted for its success. He thus desired that the priesthood in every city should be composed of persons, without dis- tinction of birth or wealth, eminent for the love of gods and men ; that the priest should be undefiled in mind and body, his reading be solely of a serious and instructive nature, and the theatre and the tavern be alike unvisited by him. He required that hospitals should be erected in each town ; " for it is shameful to us," said he, " that no beggar should be found among the Jews, and that the impious Galilseans should support not only their own poor, but ours also, while these last appear destitute of all assistance from ourselves." These were his advice and exhortations to the sacerdotal bodies of the temples of Asia Minor, in which country alone such were to be found. It can be only these, we may ob- serve, that are meant, when the hostility of the priests of the heathen to the Christian religion is noticed. While Julian abode at Constantinople, ambassadors ar- rived from distant countries, even from India and the isle of Serendib or Ceylon, with which the subjects of the empire * See below, Chapter VI. 29* 342 JULIAN. [a. d. 362. had now commercial relations. All was tranquil on the banks of the Rhine and the Danube, and the Persian mon- arch had made proposals of peace. It might therefore have been expected that a philosopher in principle and a devotee in religion, such as the emperor was, would have been satis- fied to apply his whole time and thoughts to the promotion of the welfare of his subjects and the extension of his re- ligious creed. But Julian, when in Gaul, had been smit- ten with the passion for military glory; and the example of Alexander the Great, which had fascinated even Juliu!. Caesar, urged him to aspire to the conquest of the East. He therefore returned a haughty reply to the envoys of Sapor, and, in the end of the spring, (362,) he passed over to Asia at the head of a formidable army. He made little delay on the road; his piety, however, induced him to turn aside and offer his devotions to the Mother of the Gods at Pessinus, the ancient seat of her worship. He arrived, toward the end of the month of June, at Antioch, where he resolved to remain till the following spring, when he should be prepared to open the campaign with vigor in Mesopotamia. The people of Antioch received the emperor with loud demonstrations of joy. Julian now divided his thoughts be- tween preparations for war, the administration of justice, and vvhat he regarded as his religious duties. Each day numerous victims were sacrificed to the gods, for which purpose birds of white plumage were brought even from considerable distances; for, in the creed of Julian, the gods derived pleasure, if not nourishment, from the holy steam which ascended from the altars on which the flesh of victims was consumed. He himself frequently slaughtered the sa- cred beasts with his own hands, and he sought, in their reek- inor entrails, to discover future events. Faithful in the dis- charge of all his religious duties, the pious emperor might be seen gravely moving along in religious procession amid a crowd of those persons of both sexes who led lives of infamy in the service of the licentious religions of the East. The grove of Daphne, about five miles from Antioch, in which stood a stately temple of Apollo, raised by the kings of Syria, had long been celebrated as the scene of acts of licentiousness most alien from the character of Phoebus Apollo, the purest object of Grecian worship, and Daplmic manners had long been proverbial. But since the triumph of Christianity, the sanctity of the temple of Daphne had A.D. 362.] JULIAN AT ANTIOCH. 343 greatly declined ; and on the day of the festival of the god, Julian, who seemed to estimate piety by the number of vic- tims, was mortified to find that the only animal that bled on the altar of the lord of light was a solitary goose, provided at the cost of the sole remaining priest, whose means proba- bly did not reach to the purchase of a swan. The glory of Daphne had indeed departed ; the emperor's own brother, Gall us, had caused the bones of the bishop Babylas, who had •riied in prison in the time of Decius, to be transported into the sacred precincts, and a stately church to be erected over them ; and the grove of Daphne thus, in accordance with the superstition then prevalent, became a favorite burial- place for the Christian inhabitants of Antioch. But Julian resolved to remove the profanation, and restore the temple to its pristine sanctity and magnificence. The church of St. Babylas was demolished, and the Christian bodies were re- moved. On this occasion, the body of the saint was con- veyed to Antioch in a lofty car, amid the loud singing of psalms by an immense multitude ; and that very night the temple of Daphne was consumed by lightning sent from Heaven at the prayer of the offended saint, according to the Christians of Antioch; by fire applied to it by themselves in the opinion of the emperor, who in return shut up their prin- cipal church, and seized its wealth. Several of the Christians were tortured, and a presbyter, named Theodoret, was be- headed ; but no persecution, properly speaking, took place. It was different, however, elsewhere; and in Gaza, Csesarea, and other towns, the now triumphant pagans exercised the most atrocious cruelties on the devoted Christians ; and the emperor only gently condemned their excesses. The great majority of the people of Antioch were Chris- tians in rites and doctrines ; but in practice they were very remote from the standard of gospel perfection, and Antioch had long been noted as the most luxurious and dissipated 'city of the East, The strict and austere morals of the em- 'peror were therefore fully as distasteful to the Antiochians as his pagan superstition ; and, as they were a witty and in- genious people, they assailed him with the darts of ridicule. They mocked at his sacerdotal exercises ; they derided his short stature and his efTorts to make his shoulders appear broad, and his lona: strides in walkihor. But the grand butt of their shafts was his bushy , populous beard, which, in his character of philosopher, he sedulously nourished. He took his revenge by writing a satire on the Antiochians, whidh 344 JULIAN. [a. d. 362. he named the Beardhater, {Misopogon ;) but he never for- gave them, and he publicly declared his intention not to re- visit their city. At the same time, in order to win the favor of the common people, Julian adopted a very questionable policy. The har- vest having been deficient, the natural consequences had followed ; corn was at a monopoly-price, and capitalists made it a matter of speculation. To remedy this evil, the emperor, by an edict, fixed a maximum, or highest price, a^ which corn might be sold ; and he poured into the market 422,000 measures of corn drawn from the granaries of other towns, and even from Egypt. This corn, as might easily have been foreseen, was all bought up by the capitalists ; the supply was kept back as before, and the small quantities that were brought into the market were sold underhand at a price beyond the maximum. Julian was perplexed ; he would not or could not be made to see the policy of leaving trade to regulate itself; he was persuaded that the scarcity was entirely artificial, and produced by the conduct of the wealthy land-owners ; and on one occasion he arrested and sent to prison the whole senate of Antioch, consisting of two hundred members. They were, however, released in the evening, but cordiality was never restored between them and the emperor; and, as we have seen, they lampooned and rid- iculed him, and he satirized them in return. Julian, while at Antioch, as a means of mortifying the Christians, whom he hated, resolved on restoring the Jews to their country, and rebuilding the temple of Jehovah, whom he regarded with respect as a national god. He committed the task to Alypius, an able and learned Antiochian, who had been governor of Britain ; and this officer, being second- ed by the governor of the province, set at once about clear- ing away the ruins on Mount Moriah ; but a tempest and earthquake, and flames which burst from the ground and scorched and burned the workmen, prevented the progress of the work, and the death of the emperor put an end to all thoughts of resuming it. The Christians of the time viewed in this event the direct interference of Heaven ; and many modern, even Protestant, writers take the same view. By so doing, no concession cer- tainly is made to the false miracles of the church of Rome, and we are very far from holding, that Providence might not see fit to interpose in a case of extraordinary importance. But we deny such to have been the case in the present in- A. D. 363.] TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM. 345 Stance ; the futility of Julian's efforts against Christianity, and the fate which so soon awaited him, could not be un- known to Omniscience, and a miracle seems therefore to have been superfluous. The present one is, moreover, ex- plicable perhaps by natural causes. We know how prone the ecclesiastical writers were to convert, partly from ignorance, partly from design, natural events into miracles, and also how a tale gains in its progress. Rejecting therefore the storm and earthquake,* and confining ourselves to the fiery explosions to which we have the testimony of Ammianus, it has been supposed, with some degree of probability, that the phenomenon may come under the head of choke-damp, with the cause and effects of which we are now so familiar, and that the workmen may have been injured by the air, which had now been confined for three centuries in the vaults and cavities beneath the site of the temple. Still this explana- tion is not without its difficulties ; and, though we ourselves cannot regard the event as supernatural, we leave the reader to form his own judgment, and 7return to the plain path of history. In the spring of the year 363, Julian departed from Anti- och, and proceeded to Beroea, {Aleppo,) and thence marched to Hierapolis, not far from the banks of the Euphrates, at which town the troops had been ordered to rendezvous. The river was passed without delay; and, as it seems to have been the emperor's design to enter the enemy's country by Nisibis and Armenia, the army advanced to Carrhge. But, circum- stances having caused him to alter his views, he detached his relative, Procopius, with Sebastian, ex-duke of Egypt, and thirty thousand select troops, directing them to join Arsaces, king of Armenia, and, having ravaged the adjacent parts of Media, to be prepared to cooperate with him on the Tigris when he should have reached that river. He him- self, having directed his march, as it were, for that river, suddenly turned to the right, and reached Callinicum on the Euphrates, along which he proceeded till he came to Circesium, the southern limit of the Roman dominion bie- yond the river, built at the confluence of the Aboras and the Euphrates. The imperial army, the largest ever led by a Roman emperor against Persia, counted sixty-five thousand men. * Yet, according to AMmkn'as, (xxiii. 1,) a shock of an eartJiquabe was felt at Constantinople at this very time. RR 346 JULIAN. [a. d. 363 It was composed of the veteran troops of the East and the West, of Scythian {i. e. Sarmatian) auxiliaries, and of bodies of the Saracens or Bedoween light horse, who had joined the emperor since his passage of the Euphrates. Parallel to the march of the army, a fleet moved along the river, com- posed of fifty war-galleys, an equal number adapted for the formation of bridges, and one thousand vessels of various kinds, carrying provisions, arms, and warlike machines. On leaving Circesium, the army entered the hostile territory, and moved southwards along the Euphrates. It marched in three parallel columns : the infantry, which formed the strength of the army, led by the emperor in person, occu- pied the centre ; Nevitta, at the head of some legions, moved along the bank of the river on the right ; while the cavalry, under an officer of high rank in the East, named Arinthaeus, and the Persian prince Hormisdas, [Hoormuz^)* was placed on the left, where the assaults of the enemy were most to be apprehended ; and the charge of the rear-guard was com- mitted to Dagalaiphus, Victor, and Secundinus, duke of Osrhoene. The whole line of march extended nearly ten miles in breadth. The country over which the army passed was a level, sandy plain, in which were only to be seen the wild ass and antelope, the ostrich and the bustard. It was destitute of trees, and its only plants were wormwood and aromatic reeds and shrubs. On the evening of the sixth day, the army reached Anatha, (^Annah,) a town situated on an island of the Euphrates, the people of which at first prepared to resist ; but they yielded to the instances of Prince Hor- misdas, and opened their gates. The next town to which the army came stood also in an island : it was named Thilu- tha, and was so strong that the emperor judged it prudent to be content with the promise of the inhabitants to surrender when he should have conquered the interior country. The people of the next town made a similar promise ; the re- maining towns on the route were found deserted, and were pillaged and burnt; and at length the army, in about fifteen days after its departure from Circesium, arrived at Mace- practa, the frontier town of the ancient Assyria. During the latter days of the march, the Persian Surena, and Rho- * Hormisdas was a member of the royal family of Persia, who made his escape from prison in the troubles which occurred during the minor- ity of Sapor. He sought refuge at the court of Constantius, and rose to high rank in the Roman army. He was a Christian. A. D. 363] PERSIAN WAR. 347 dosaces, the emir of the tribe of Gassan, (Assanitceum,) had been hovering about the army with their light cavalry; and on one occasion Hormisdas narrowly escaped becoming their captive. The army now entered Assyria, and, having surmounted the impediments caused by the numerous canals with which that province was intersected, arrived at a strong city named Perisabor, (Anbar,) situated close to the Euphrates. The garrison having despised the summons to surrender, the town was invested. A breach was soon effected in a tower at one of the angles of the wall, and the garrison, abandon- ing the town, retired into the citadel which overhung the river. The Romans entered and burned the town, and then erected their machines against the citadel. The garrison made a gallant defence till they saw a Helepolis, or moving tower, advancing against the walls. They then demanded a conference with Hormisdas, and, the governor being let down from the walls for the purpose, the terms of surrender were arranged. The inhabitants, two thousand five hundred in number, (for the greater part had made their escape over the river,) were allowed to retire, and the fort was then reduced to ashes. Quitting the banks of the Euphrates, the emperor now directed his course toward those of the Tigris. When the army had marched about fourteen miles, they found the land covered with water, the natives having opened the sluices by which they were used to turn the waters over their fields. The canals were also full, and it was found necessary to halt a day in order to construct bridges of skin-bags, and leathern boats, and of the palm-trees which grew so abundantly in that region. The difficulties of the route being thus sur- mounted, the army reached a large town named Maogamal- ca, distant only eleven miles from the suburbs of Ctesiphon. As this strong fortress could not be safely left in their rear, an immediate siege was resolved on. The emperor himself advanced on foot with a few of his guards to reconnoitre the site of the town, when suddenly they were fallen on by ten Persians who had stolen out by a postern gate, and had crept round through the adjacent hillocks. Two of them singled out the emperor, and attacked him sword in hand ; but he received their strokes on his shield, and ran one of them through, and the other was slain by the guards who came to his relief The next day, the canal which lay between the army and the town was passed by means of bridges, and a 348 JULIAN. [a. d. 363. camp was formed, secured by a double rampart, against the attacks of the Surena, and his numerous cavalry. At the same time, the Roman horse, under the command of Victor, was directed to scour the country as far as the suburbs of Ctesiphon. The siege was then commenced in form. The garrison defended themselves gallantly, but they were not aware of their walls, while openly assailed by rams and other engines, being secretly undermined ; and, while they were exerting all their power against the enemy, whom they saw, fifteen hundred Roman soldiers emerged from the floor of one of the temples, and, slaughtering all whom they met, opened the gates to their companions. A general massacre ensued ; rage and lust burst all restraints ; neither age nor sex was spared, and the governor* and eighty of his guards, and some of the women, seem alone to have been spared. The town was razed, and, it being ascertained that a party of the enemy had concealed themselves in the artificial cav- erns, which were numerous in those parts, with the intention of falling on the rear of the army as it was departing, fires of straw and wood were made at the mouths of the caverns, and they were thus either smothered, or forced to come out and be slain. The march being resumed, the army came to a paradise^ or royal park walled in, and abundantly stocked with lions, bears, and other kinds of Oriental game. The walls were instantly broken down, and the soldiers amused themselves with slaughtering the savage denizens. At length the Roman army beheld the walls and towers of Ctesiphon crowning the opposite bank of the Tigris, while its suburb of Cochet lay not far from their camp. To form the siege of the latter while it could be so easily suc- cored from the city on the opposite side of the river, seemed a needless and a tedious task ; and to pass the army over for the attack on the capital, the fleet from the Euphrates would be requisite. The Nahar-malca, or royal canal, which poured the waters of that river into the Tigris, was at hand, but it discharged itself below Coche, while the army was encamped above that city. Julian, however, was aware that Trajan and Severus had opened a new course for that canal, which had been afterwards dammed up, and eff*aced by the Persians; and among the prisoners there chanced to be an old man * His name was Nabdates ; he was burnt alive a few days after for having used insulting language to Prince Hormisdas. t Formerly called Seleucia. A. D. 363.] PERSIAN WAR. 349 who recollected and pointed out its situation. The army was immediately set to work, and the Roman fleet speedily rode on the Tigris. The broad Nahar-malca was passed by a bridge of boats, and the army, approaching Coche, en- camped at a stately palace adorned with paintings of the royal hunts, and surrounded with rich and well-planted fields. It was at this spot that Julian resolved to attempt the pas- sage of the Tigris. The difficulties he knew to be great; the stream is rapid, the banks are high ; they were occupied by a strong force of cavalry, infantry, and elephants, and the city of Ctesiphon, with its numerous population and garri- son, was at hand. But Julian relied on fortune, who so long had stood his friend; and, having previously caused some of the strongest of the vessels that carried the provisions and machines to be unladen, and eighty soldiers to embark in each of them, he summoned his generals to council, and in- formed them of his intention of attempting the passage that very night. They all remonstrated against it, but in vain ; and Victor, to whom the task was committed, prepared to obey. As soon as the word was given, five of the vessels started, and, running down with the current, made for the opposite shore. When they reached it, the enemy attacked them, and set them on fire. Julian, on beholding the flame, though aware of the truth, cried out that it was the appoint- ed signal, and that the landing had been effected. Instantly every vessel pushed off* and swept down the stream with such speed, that they arrived in time to save both the men and the vessels. Many soldiers, in their ardor, trusted themselves on their broad shield to the current ; the banks were speed- ily won, and the troops formed. They were joined by the emperor, and, after a contest of about twelve hours' duration,, the Persians fled to Ctesiphon, which the Romans might have entered pell-mell with them but for the caution of Vic- tor, who feared that they might be overwhelmed by the mul- titude of the people. The loss of the Persians was said to be two thousand five hundred, that of the Romans, only seventy men. The emperor distributed civic, naval, and castrensic crowns to those who had most distinguished them- selves; and he prepared to offer numerous victims to Mars the Avenger.* But of ten oxen of eminent beauty selected for this purpose, nine fell to the ground in melancholy mood * Perhaps because Augustus had built a temple to this god after the recovery of the standards from the Parthians. See above, p. 10. CONTIN. 30 350 JULIAN. [a. d. 363. before they approached the altars, and the tenth burst his bonds and escaped; and when he was caught and slain, the signs in his entrails were of ill omen. At the sight, Julian, in indignation, took Jove to witness that he would never aorain sacrifice to Mars.* It might have been expected that the siege of Ctesiphon, a city which had thrice surrendered to the Roman arms, would now be commenced without delay. But in the coun- cil which was held in the presence of the emperor, to delib- erate on the question, it was unanimously agreed that it would be highly imprudent to undertake it ; and Julian him- self fully concurred in the opinion of the council. Intelli- gence also arrived, that, on account of the treacherous con- duct of the kinor of Armenia, and the dissension of the Ro- man generals, there was now no chance of his being joined by the troops sent from Carrhae. To retreat might be dis- graceful ; but prudence counselled that a minister, whom Sapor had secretly sent to Prince Hormisdas, to propose terms of peace, should be admitted to an audience. Unhap- pily, Julian recollected that his Macedonian model had always rejected the propositions of Darius; and Hormisdas was ordered to dismiss the envoy before the soldiers should know of his arrival. Julian also resolved, like Alexander, to advance and pursue his rival ; and he was encouraged in this design by the arrival of a Persian nobleman, who, with a train of his followers, came, pretending to seek refuge and protection from the cruelty of Sapor ; and describing the discontent of the people, and the weakness of the govern- ment, offered to be the guide of the Romans. As it would be necessary to quit the banks of the Tigris, and the ships and stores, if left behind, must inevitably fall into the hands of the enemy, Julian issued orders for the whole to be burnt, except twelve of the smaller ones, which should be conveyed with the army, for the construction of bridges. The discon- tent and fears of the troops, however, caused an attempt to be made, when too late, to extinguish the flames : and men, judging by the event, have condemned the conduct of the emperor, whose real error was of a very different kind. Quittirjg, therefore, the banks of the Tigris, the Roman army entered on the fertile country to the east of that river. At first, supplies were had in plenty ; but, as they advanced, they found the villages deserted, and the grass and standing * Probably in imitation of Augustus. See History of Rome, p. 467. A. D. 363.] PERSIAN WAR. 351 corn in flames. They were frequently obliged to encamp till the flames had subsided on the ground over which they were to march: the Persian cavalry now began to show itself more boldly ; and the treacherous guide, having obtained his object, disappeared. Any farther advance vi^as now hope- less; the only question was, what line of retreat should be adopted. The soldiers were clamorous for returning by the route by which they had come ; but the emperor and their officers proved to them that the wasted state of the country, the inundation of the river, (now swollen by the melting of the snows in the mountains,) and the quantity of mosquitoes and other insects, from which they had already suffered most severely, would render a retreat by that route nearly imprac- ticable. It was therefore resolved to turn northwards, and endeavor to gain the trans-Tigrian Roman province of Cor- duene. As soon as the retreat commenced, the Persians, who had hitherto only shown themselves in small parties, appeared in greater force, and the Romans had to win their way by force of hand. The country still was burnt, and the towns were every where deserted. In the district named Maranga, a general attack was made by the Persian army ; but they were finally repelled with loss, after the action had lasted from daybreak to sunset. A truce was then made for three days, in order that the wounded on both sides might be tended ; but on the part of the Romans there was hardly any food for man or beast, and the superior officers had to share their own private stores with the common men. On this, as on all occasions, the emperor set a noble exam- ple. He used only such food as a common soldier would have actually disdained, and he caused the provisions of his household to be distributed among the troops. The uneasi- ness of his mind caused his sleep to be broken, and he used to read and write in his tent when thus awaked. As he was thus engaged one night, he beheld the Genius of the State, who had appeared to him in Gaul, the night before he was declared emperor, retreating from the tent with a dejected air, his head and cornucopioe shrouded in a veil. He rose from his humble couch, and made deprecatory offerings to the gods, committing all to their will : as he looked out, he beheld a meteor flaming across the sky, and he shuddered when he thought it might be the menacing star of Mars. Before daylight, he summoned the Tuscan haruspices to his tent, to explain the meaning of the sign. They counselled 8:52 JULIAN. [a. d. 363. him not to give battle that day, or, at all events, not to move from where he was for at least some hours ; but he took no heed of their warnings, and at daybreak (June 26) the army get forward. The Persians hovered around, as usual. Julian was ri- ding unarmed out before his troops to reconnoitre, when he heard that the rear was attacked. Snatching up a shield, he vi^as hastening to its support ; but he was recalled by intelli- gence that the troops in advance, whom he had just quitted, were also attacked : he was riding back, when a furious charge was made by the Persians on the centre of the left, which was yielding to the pressure of their heavy-armed cavalry and elephants. He flew to their aid ; at that very moment, the Roman light troops drove off the enemy; and, stretching out his hands, he was urging on his men to follow up their success, and was giving them an example himself, when a spear grazed his arm, and, entering his side, pierced the lower part of his liver. He attempted to pull it out ; but the sharp steel cut his fingers deeply, and he fell from his horse. He was taken up by those about him, and conveyed away, and committed to the care of the surgeons. When the pain was a little assuaged, he called for his horse and arms, that he might return to the aid of his troops ; but he soon per- ceived that his strength did not correspond with his will. Meantime, the action was maintained vigorously on both sides ; and the Persians were finally repulsed, with a loss of fifty men of rank, and a great number of the common sol- diers. The Romans had to lament the death of Anatolius, the master of the offices ; and the aged prefect Sallust nar- rowly escaped the same fate. Julian, aware that he was dying, addressed those who were mourning around him. He expressed his satisfaction that it had pleased the gods, who had often given an early death as their best boon, to withdraw him from the danger of corrup- tion : he reflected with pleasure on the innocence of his past life, and declared that he had always endeavored to promote the welfare of the people, which he regarded as the true end of government. He had, therefore, sought to maintain peace, and repress license ; and, though it was foretold to him that he would perish by steel, he did not shrink from exposing himself to danger. He was grateful, he said, to the Supreme Being that he had not fallen by a conspiracy, or been taken off by a lingering disease, but was thus removed in the midst A. D. 363.] DEATH OF JULIAN. 353 of his glorious career. He would say nothing on the choice of his successor, lest he might chance to pass over a worthy person, or, by naming some one of whom the army might not approve, expose him to danger. When he had conclu- ded, he distributed his private property among his friends. He rebuked those present for their tears, saying it was a mean thing to mourn for a prince who was about to be uni- ted to the stars. When they had ceased, he conversed with the philosophers, Maximus and Priscus, on the nature of the soul, till his wound beginning to bleed afresh, he called for a draught of cold water ; and, when he had drunk it, he breathed his last, about midnight, in the thirty-second year of his age. We have devoted so much space to the actions of this emperor, that any remarks on his character may appear su- perfluous. Yet there is in it so much to interest, that we cannot refrain from keeping it in view a little longer, and pointing out his virtues as well as his faults, — vices he had none, — more especially as he has been so hardly treated by those injudicious writers, who think themselves bound to portray the enemy of their faith as a perfect monster. The time, however, is arrived in which a better knowledge of the gospel has removed such narrow prejudice; and the virtues of Julian and the crimes of Constantine may be recognized without Christianity being supposed to sustain an injury. In person, Julian was of middle height, broad-shouldered, and well-built. His nose was straight, his eyes bright ; his shaggy beard was peaked, his hair was soft and fine. He was able to endure great bodily fatigue, and he never shrank from toil or danger. He practised, without effort, the four cardi- nal virtues, and their attendant moral qualities. His chastity was conspicuous ; he had never known a woman when he married, and after the death of his wife he thought no more of the sex. In his German and his Persian wars, he dis- played the talents of an able general, and he was both loved and feared by his soldiers. Julian was learned, and at the same time himself an elegant writer. His principal faults were vanity and superstition. He was too fond of talking, and took too much pleasure in light conversation and buf- foonery ; he was negligent of his person and dress to a de- gree that indicated an originally feeble mind. It is mel- ancholy to read of his superstitious regard to portents ; his fancied intercourse with the fabled gods of Greece, and his extreme love for pouring forth the blood of victims in their 30* ss 354 JOVIAN. [a. d. 363. honor.* His enmity to the Christians was unjust and little- minded ; but their revenge has been ample. Julian was not a great man, but he was better qualified to rule than most princes; and, though we may not admire, we must esteem his character. Jovian. A. u. 1116—1 117. A. D. 363—364. The morning after the death of Julian, a general assem- bly of the officers of the army was held for the purpose of choosing an emperor; for, as the house of Constantine was now extinct, no one could justly put forth any other claim than that of merit. They were split into two parties ; Arin- thaius, Victor, and the remaining courtiers of Constantius, looked out for one of their own party whom they might pro- pose ; while Nevitta, Dagalaiphus, and the Gallic officers, sought a candidate of their own side. Both, however, agreed in the person of the prefect Sallust ; but he declined the honor, pleading his age and his infirmities. An officer of rank then proposed that they should, for the present, only think of extricating the army from the instant perils, and that, when they reached Mesopotamia, they might choose an emperor at their leisure. But, while they were deliberating, some persons saluted as emperor Jovianus, the commander of the Domestics, or body-guard. He was immediately in- vested with the royal robes, and he rode through the troops, who readily acknowledged his authority. Jovianus, whom the caprice of fortune thus elevated to the purple, was distinguished more by his father's merit than his own. He was the son of Count Varronianus, who, after hav- ing long served with reputation, was now living in dignified retirement. Jovian was tall and comely in person, of a gay and cheerful temper, a lover of wine and women, fond of literature, at the same time a good soldier, and even a zeal- ous Christian. As soon as Jovian was proclaimed, victims were slain, and *^ " Superstitiogus magis quam sacrorum legitimus ofeseryator, ini?u- meras sine parsimonia pecudes mactans, ut sestimaretur si revertasset de Parthis boves jam defuturos : Marci illius similis Coesaris in quern id accepimus dictum : oi Xtvxoi ^obq MuQxto rw Kaioaqi. 'uiv ov ytx'jo'tSi W*«t« a;ioAwju,£^tt." Aminianus, xxv. 4. A. D. 363.] PERSIAN WAR. 355 their entrails inspected. The augurs having pronounced that it would be the utter ruin of the army to remain where it was, the march was instantly resumed. The Persians, imboldened by the intelligence of the death of Julian, con- veyed to them by deserters, pressed on with redoubled vigor ; but, in spite of their incessant attacks, the Romans succeed- ed in reaching Sumere, (Samara,) on the Tigris, about one hundred miles above Ctesiphon. Marching up the stream, they encamped next night in a valley, at a place named Carche, and on the first of July, they arrived at the town of Dura, where they were detained for four days, by the perse- vering energy of the enemy. The impatient soldiers insisted on passing the river at that place ; and, Jovian and his officers having remonstrated with them to no purpose, a body of five hundred Gauls and Sarmatians were directed to try if they could swim across the stream. They made the attempt at night, and easily succeeded, and the impatience of the sol- diers could only be restrained by the promise of the engineers that they would construct bridges of inflated skins. Should the Romans succeed in passing the river, or in reaching the frontiers of Corduene, which were only a hun- dred miles distant, they would be out of danger, and might continue the war with advantage. Sapor, therefore, re- solved not to let slip the occasion of concluding a treaty, while they were in his power. He accordingly despatched the Surena and another pobleman to the Roman camp, to signify that, on certain conditions, their sovereign, out of his clemency, would permit the emperor and the remnant of his army to depart in safety. Sallust and Arinthajus were sent to the Persian monarch, by whom they were artfully detained for four entire days, during which the army suffered severely from the want of food. The terms which Sapor in- sisted on, were the absolute cession of the five provinces be- yond the Tigris, and the surrender of the cities of Nisibis, Singara, and the Moors' Camp, (Castra Maurorum.) He also required that no aid should be given to the king of Ar- menia, at any future time, against the Persians. To these severe and humiliating conditions Jovian acceded, only stipulating that the inhabitants of Nisibis and Singara should be permitted to depart with their movable property. A peace was then concluded for thirty years, and hostages of rank were exchanged on both sides. This was the most inglorious treaty ever concluded by Rome, for it was the first by which she had abandoned terri- 356 JOVIAN. [a. d. 363. tory. The conquests of Trajan had, it is true, been aban- doned by Hadrian and Aurelian, but these were voluntary cessions, dictated by political wisdom ; the treaty of Dura was a plain confession of inferiority, a barter of territory for life and liberty. Ammianus, who was present, speaks of it with the grief and indignation of a gallant soldier ; and he maintains that, in the four days that were spent in negotia- tion, the army might have reached Corduene, though it was a hundred miles distant. But he seems to have forgotten that the incessant attacks of the Persians had already forced the army to halt at Dura ; and he does not explain how an army of 60,000 men could have marched one hundred miles in four days, without provisions, and continually assailed by an active and persevering foe. Eutropius, who was also present, is, perhaps, more correct in saying that the peace, though inglorious, was necessary. But the original error may be charged on Julian, who should have repassed the Ti- gris when he found himself unable to undertake the siege of Ctesiphon ; and perhaps it was death alone that saved him from the disgrace of concluding the treaty of Dura. The Roman soldiers hastened to pass to the farther bank of the river. Some crossed on inflated skins, leading their horses by the bridle ; others got over in the boats which had been brought with the army. Some of the more impatient, who had not waited for the signal for the passage, were drowned, in their attempts to swim across; or, if they reached the other side, were slain or carried away for slaves, by the Saracens. When the whole army had effected its passage, the march was directed for the Roman territory. The ruins of the once impregnable Atra were passed, and, after a march of seventy miles, which occupied six days, over an arid plain, which only produced bitter plants and brackish water, the army reached the castle of Ur, where it was met by a small convoy of provisions, sent from the army of Pro- copius and Sebastian. The troops made a halt there for a few days, of which the emperor took the advantage for send- ing appointments to offices of trust and importance to those whom he thought best calculated to support his interests in the West. When the supply of provisions was exhausted, the army renewed its march ; and the famine which it expe- rienced was so great, that a modius (201bs.) of meal, when- ever it chanced to be found, was sold for ten pieces of gold. At the town of Thilsaphata, the emperor was met by Sebas- tian and Procopios, and their principal officers; and the A. D. 363.] CHRISTIANITY REESTABLISHED. 35"7 army finally encamped under the walls of Nisibis, which city shame prevented Jovian from entering, though earnestly entreated by the people. The following day, Bineses, a Persian nobleman, who was one of the hostages sent with the army, called on the emper ror to fulfil his promise, and surrender the town. Jovian having acceded to his demand, he entered, and displayed the banner of Persia from the citadel. Nothing could exceed the grief and indignation of the Nisibenes. They implored the emperor not to force them to migrate, affirming that, even unaided, they were able to maintain their town against all the power of Persia. But Jovian, alleging a regard for his oath, was deaf to their entreaties ; and at length, exasperated at an advocate named Silvanus, who cried out, when he saw a crown presented to him by the citizens, " May you be thus crowned, O emperor, by the remaining cities ! " he issued orders for those to depart within three days who were not willing to be subjects of the king of Persia. The grief and lamentation were naturally great, and the loss of property was considerable, owing to the want of beasts of burden to convey it away. A new quarter was built at Amida for the reception of the exiles, which city, in consequence, resumed its former importance. Singara and the Moors' Camp were surrendered in like manner, and Jovian then led his troops to Antioch. The remains of the late emperor were com- mitted to the charge of Procopius, to be conveyed to Tarsus. The attachment of Jovian to the Christian faith was well known. On the march to Antioch, the Labarum was again displayed. By a circular epistle, addressed to the governors of the provinces, he declared the Christian faith to be the religion of the empire ; all the edicts of Julian against it were abolished, and the church was restored to its posses- sions and immunities. The prelates thronged to the court of the Christian emperor • and the venerable Athanasius, although seventy years of age, undertook, at that advanced season of the year, a journey from Alexandria to Antioch, in order to confirm him in the path of orthodoxy. By a wise and humane edict, Jovian calmed the fears of his pagan subjects, proclaiming universal toleration, except for the practisers of magic arts. Impatient to reach the capital, Jovian remained only six weeks at Antioch. He first marched to Tarsus, where he made a brief halt, and gave directions relating to the tomb of JuliaPf 4^^t Ty^ii^ jft Qapgatjopia, he was met by 358 VALENTINIAN, VALENS. [a. D. 364. deputies, sent to assure him of the obedience of the armies and people of the West. On the 1st of January, 364, he assumed the consulate at Ancyra, with his infant son for his colleague, whose crying, and reluctance to be carried in the curule chair, were regarded as ominous. He thence pro- ceeded toward the capital ; but, having supped heartily one night, (Feb. 17,) when he halted at Dadastana, a little town on the frontiers of Bithynia, he was found dead in his bed the following morning. Various causes were assigned for his death ; but the most probable one was his having lain in a recently plastered room, in which there was a large fire of charcoal. He was in the 33d year of his age, and he had not reigned quite eight months. CHAPTER v.* VALENTINIAN, VALENS, GRATIAN, VALEN- TINIAN II., AND THEODOSIUS. A. u. 1117—1148. a. d. 364—395. ELEVATION OF VALENTINIAN AND OP VALENS. PROCOPIUS. GERMAN WARS. RECOVERY OF BRITAIN. REBELLION IN AFRICA. QUADAN WAR. DEATH OF VALENTINIAN. HIS CHARACTER, GRATIAN. THE GOTHS. THE HUNS. THE GOTHIC WAR. BATTLE OF HADRIANOPLE, AND DEATH OF VALENS. — -RAVAGES OF THE GOTHS. THEO- DOSIUS. SETTLEMENTS OF THE GOTHS. MAXIMUS. DEATH OF GRATIAN. DEFEAT OF MAXIMUS. MASSACRE AT THESSALONICA. CLEMENCY OF THEODOSIUS. DEATH OF VALENTINIAN II. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF EUGENIUS. DEATH AND CHARACTER OF THEODOSIUS. STATE OF THE EMPIRE. Valentiman and Valens. A. u. 1117—1128. A. D. 364—375. The death of the emperor Jovian did not prevent the advance of the army ; and while it was on its march for Nicaea, the generals and civil officers met in frequent delib- * Authorities : Ammianus, Zosimus, the Epitomators, and Ecclesi- astical Historians. A. D. 364.] CHARACTER OF TALENTINIAN. 359 eration on the choice of an emperor. All the suffrages were united in favor of the prefect Sallust; but he again refused the imperial dignity, both for himself or for his son, alleg- ing the age of the one and the inexperience of the other. Various persons were named and rejected : at length all united in approbation of Valentinian, who was then at An- cyra, in command of the second school of the Scutarians; and an invitation was sent to him to repair to Nicsea, where the solemn election was to be held. Valentinian was a Pannonian by birth, son of Count Gra- tian, a distinguished officer. He had himself served with great credit, and was now in the forty-third year of his age. In person he was tall and handsome. He was chaste and temperate in his habits ; his mind had been little cultivated, and he was unacquainted with the Greek language, and with literature in general. He was a Christian in religion, and he had offended the emperor Julian by the public expression of his contempt for the rites of paganism. Every prudent measure was adopted by the friends of Valentinian to prevent the appearance of a competitor for the empire. No time, it might therefore be supposed, would have been lost in causing him to be acknowledged ; yet it was not till the second day after his arrival at Nicaea that he let him- self be seen ; the first happening to be the Bissextile, a day noted as unlucky in the annals of Rome. On the evening of that day, at the suggestion of Sallust, it was forbidden, on pain of death, for any man of high rank to appear the next morning in public. At daybreak, the impatient troops all assembled without the city ; Valentinian advanced, and, having ascended a lofty tribunal, was unanimously saluted emperor. He was then arrayed in the imperial habit, and was proceeding to address the assembled troops, when a general cry arose for him to name a colleague ; for late events had made even the meanest perceive the danger of an un- settled succession. The tumult increased, and menaced to become serious, when the emperor, by his authority, stilled the clamor, and, addressing them, declared that he felt as well as they the necessity of an associate in the toils of govern- ment, but that the choice required time and deliberation. He assured them that he would make the choice with all con- venient speed, and in conclusion promised them the usual donative. Their clamors were converted into acclamations, and the emperor was conducted to the palace, surrounded by eagles and banners, and guarded by all the troops. 360 VALENTINIAN, VALENS. [a. D. 365. The word was given to march for Nicomedia. Meantime Valentinian called a council of his principal officers to delib- erate on the choice of a colleague, though he had probably already, in his own mind, fixed on the person. All were silent but the free-spoken Dagalaiphus, who said, ** If you love your own family, most excellent emperor, you have a brother ; if the state, seek whom you may invest with the purple." Valentinian was offended, but he concealed his feelings. The army marched for the Bosporus, and, soon after their arrival at Constantinople, (Mar. 28,) the emperor assembled them in a plain near the city, and presented to them his brother Valens, as his colleague in the empire. In this choice, he proved that natural affection was stronger in his breast than regard for the public happiness ; for Valens, though in his thirty-sixth year, had never borne any employ- ment, or showed any distinguished talent. As none, however, ventured to dissent, the choice seemed to be made with the general approbation. A general reformation of the administration of the empire was effected in ♦he course of the year. Most of the officers of the palace and governors of provinces appointed by Julian, were dismissed ; but the whole proceeding was regulated by equity. In the spring of the following year, (365,) the two emperors quitted the capital of the East, and at the palace of Median a, three miles from Naissus, they made a formal division of the empire, and parted — never again to meet. Valentinian, reserving to himself the West, committed the East, including Greece and the country south of the Lower Danube, to the rule of his brother. The able generals and great officers were also divided between them ; to the inex- perienced Valens were assigned the services of Sallust, Vic- tor, Arinthaeus, and Lupicinus ; among those whom Valen- tinian retained for himself, was the intrepid Dagalaiphus. Valens had soon to contend for his empire. Procopius, afler the funeral of the emperor Julian, had retired to his estates in Cappadocia, where he lived in peace, till an officer and soldiers appeared, sent by the new emperors to arrest him. He made his escape to the sea-coast, and sought refuge among the barbarians of the country of Bosporus; but, after some time, weary of the hardships and privatioi?? he endured, he came secretly to Bithynia, and sheltered himself there in various retreats. He at length ventured into the capital, where two of his friends, a senator and a eunuch, afforded him concealment. He there observed the discontent of the A. D. 365.] PROCOPius. 361 people, who despised Valens, and detested his father-in-law, Petronius, a cruel, hardhearted man, who seemed to have, no other desire than that of stripping every man of his prop- erty, claiming with this view the payment of debts due to thei state, even so far back as the reign of Aurelian. Imbold- ened by this aspect of affairs, Procopius resolved to acquire the empire, or perish in the attempt. The conjuncture was favorable ; for. Sapor having resumed hostilities, Valens had passed over to Asia to take the field against him. While he was in Bithynia, he learned that the Goths were preparing to invade Thrace, which was now unguarded. He therefore sent back some of his troops; and, as they had to pass through Constantinople, Procopius seized the occasion of attempting to gain over two Gallic cohorts, which had halted in that city. His promises and the memory of Julian prevailed with them. At the dawn of day, Procopius appeared in their quarters, like one risen from the dead, and, having renewed his promises, was saluted emperor. They escorted him thence to the tribunal. The people at first were silent and indifferent; but, a few hired voices having set the exam- ple, they joined in the acclamation of emperor. Procopius then took possession of the palace ; he displaced the officers of Valens, and secured the gates of the city and the entrance of the port. Numbers flocked to his standard ; the troops, as they arrived from Asia, were seduced ; those on the northerm frontier were induced to declare for him, and the Gothic- princes to promise a large body of auxiliaries. Faustina, the widow of Constantius, joined his party, and he carried about with him her daughter Constantia, a child only five years old. He thus endeavored to make his cause appear to be that of the house of Constantine against the upstart Pannonians. When Valens heard of the events at Constantinople, he gave way to the most abject despair, and even meditated re- signing the purple, till he was brought back to nobler thoughts by the remonstrances of his officers. He then sent the Jovian and Herculian legions against the usurper, who waS' now at Nicaea. Procopius met them on the banks of the Sangarius; and, when the troops were on the point of enga- ging, he advanced alone into the midst, and, addressing the opposite legions, induced them to declare for him. Valens, nevertheless, advanced to Nicomedia, having sent one of his generals to invest Nicaea ; and he himself soon after laid siege- to Chalcedon. But the besiegers were beaten off at Nicaea, and Valens, whose army was in want of provisions, and who CONTIN. 31 TT 362 VALENTINIAN, VALENS. [a. D. 366, feared to be attacked in the rear by the garrison of Nicsea, retired with all speed to Ancyra, leaving Procopius master of Bithynia. At Ancyra, he was joined by Lupicinus, with a strong body of troops from Syria. He then gave the com- mand to Arinthaeus, who advanced against the rebels that were at Dadastana, under the command of one Hyperectri- ses, a man of low rank, whom Procopius had raised out of friendship. Arinthaeus, when he beheld him, called out to the soldiers to bind their commander and deliver him up ; and such was his ascendency over their minds that they obeyed his mandate. Procopius, however, made himself master of Gyzicus on the Hellespont. He then unwisely suffered his soldiers to plunder the house of Arbetio,* who was living in retirement ; and, instead of advancing at once into Asia, where the people would probably have declared for him, he thought only of collecting money for carrying on the war. In the spring, (366,) Valens advanced into Galatia, and, as Procopius carried the infant daughter of Constantius with him to the field, he invited the offended Arbetio to repair to his camp; and this aged general of Constantine's, taking off his helmet, and displaying his hoary locks, advanced toward the troops of Procopius, and, addressing the soldiers as his children and the sharers of his former toils, implored them to follow himself, who was, as it were, their parent, rather than that profligate adventurer and common robber. Many were thus induced to desert ; and, when Procopius gave battle to the imperial troops at Nacolia in Phrygia, Agilo, an officer of rank, and several of his men, went over to the emperor in the heat of the action. Procopius, seeing all lost, fled on foot to the mountains, with two companions, by whom he was treacherously seized next day, and delivered bound to the emperor. His head was instantly struck off; the two traitors shared his fate. Judicial inquiries ensued ; the rack was in constant use ; the executioner was incessantly em- ployed : neither age, sex, nor rank, was spared, and the re- sults of the victory of Nacolia were more direful than the most terrible civil war. As nothing of very great importance, in a political sense, occurred for some years in the East, we will devote our pages henceforth to the actions of Valentinian. The absence of the Roman armies and the intelligence of the death of Julian having inspirited the Alemans, they * See above, p. 326. A. D. 366—368.] ALEMANNIC WAR. 363 passed the Rhine in the beginning of January, 366, and proceeded to ravage Gaul in their usual manner. The Counts Charietto and Severian were defeated and slain by them. But Jovinus, the master of the cavalry, having taken the command of the army destined to act against them, surprised and cut to pieces tu^o of their divisions, and, en- gaging the third in the vicinity of Chalons, {Catalauniy) de- feated them after a w^ell-contested action, vi^ith a loss of 6,000 slain and 4,000 wounded, that of the Romans being only twelve hundred men. For this victory, Jovinus was, on his return to Paris, justly honored with the consulate. Some time after, (368,) an Alemannic chief, named Ran- do, surprised the city of Mentz, (Moguntiacum,) on the day of one of the Christian festivals, and carried away a great num- ber of the inhabitants. Valentinian, resolved to take ven- geance on the whole nation, ordered Count Sebastian to invade their country from the south, with the armies of Italy and Illyricum, while he himself and his son Gratianus should cross the Rhine at the head of the troops of Gaul. They passed the river without opposition ; as they advanced, no enemy appeared; the deserted villages were burnt, and the cultivated lands laid waste. At length they learned that the enemy had occupied a lofty mountain, the north side of which alone was of easy ascent. Valentinian, having posted Count Sebastian at that side to intercept the fugitives, gave the signal to advance ; and the Roman soldiers, in spite of all impediments, won their way up the steep sides of the mountain. When they had attained the summit, they charged the enemies vigorously, and drove them down the northern side, where they were intercepted and slaughtered by Count Sebastian. Valentinian and his son then returned to Treves for the winter, and celebrated their victory by magnificent triumphal games. Instead of again invading Germany, the prudent emperor resolved to provide for the defence of Gaul ; and he caused a chain of forts and castles to be constructed, chiefly along the left bank of the Rhine, from its source to the ocean. The Germans made various attempts to interrupt the works, especially those on the right bank of the river, and sometimes with success ; but the em- peror completed his design, and secured the tranquillity of Gaul for the remainder of his reign. The coasts of Gaul and Britain were now infested by the invasions of the pirates of the North, who, united under the name of Saxons, (that of the people of the neck of the Cim- 364 VALENTINIANj VALENS. [a. D. 371. brie peninsula,) had long since commenced that series of plundering excursions which afterwards led to such im- portant consequences. A large body of these freebooters having penetrated into Gaul, (371,) Severus, the master of the infantry, w^as sent with a considerable force to oppose them. The Saxons, when they beheld the number and the arms of the Romans, declined the combat, and offered to supply a select number of their youth for the Roman service, as the condition of a safe retreat. The treaty was con- cluded, the condition fulfilled, and the Saxons set out for the coast. But, in a wooded valley on the way, a chosen body of Roman infantry was posted in ambush to attack them as they passed. Some, however, of the soldiers rising before their time, the freebooters became aware of the treachery that was meditated, and stood on their defence.* The Romans were on the point of destruction, when a body of cuirassiers, who had been posted with the same design on another part of the road, hearing the din of combat, hastened to the spot, and the unfortunate Saxons, assailed in front and rear, were cut to pieces ; all who escaped the sword were reserved for the sports of the amphitheatre. It is not necessary to express our disgust at this piece of treachery ; but even in her best days Rome did not shrink from breach of faith and contempt of engagements. The coasts of Britain suffered equally with those of Gaul from the inroads of the northern pirates, and this now wealthy and civilized island was, in addition, subject to the ravages of a domestic enemy; for, the avarice of the military commanders causing them to defraud their soldiers of their pay, and to sell discharges or exemptions from service, the discipline of the troops was at an end, and the highways were filled with robbers. The Picts and Scots, as the un- subdued natives of the northern part of the island were called, poured their savage hordes down into the now de- fenceless province, and ravaged it far and wide. The em- peror, when intelligence of their devastations reached him, selected first Severus, and then Jovinus, for the command in Britain ; but he finally committed it to Count Theodosius, a Spaniard by birth, and an officer of approved merit and capacity. Theodosius landed at Sandwich, {Rutupice,) whence he * "Ac licet," says Ammianus, "Justus quidam arbiter rerum factum incusabit perfidum et deforme, pensato tamen negotio non fecit indigne manum latronum exitialem tandem, copia data, captam." A. D. 369.] RECOVERY OF BRITAIN. 365 advanced to London : he then led his troops against the barbarians, and attacked and routed their scattered bands, recovering a large quantity of booty and captives. By pub- lishing an amnesty, he induced the soldiers who had deserted to return to their standards, and he speedily cleared the Ro- man part of the island of its northern invaders. He restored all the cities and fortresses that had suffered injury or decay. The province which he recovered from the enemy he named Valentia, from the emperor.* On his return to court, (369,) Theodosius was promoted to the dignity of master of the horse, and given the command on the Upper Danube, where he acted with his usual success against the Alemans. He was then chosen to suppress a revolt in Africa. The military commandant in that province, Count Roma- nus, was one of those officers, so common under all despotic governments, who, heedless of justice and of the welfare of the people, think only of gratifying their pride and avarice. Relying on the influence of his kinsman Remigius, the mas- ter of the offices, he set at nought the prayers and complaints of the provincials, and he suffered them to become the prey of the barbarians if they did not come up to his demands. The people of Tripolis, who had thus been abandoned to the Gsetulians, ventured to send deputies with their com- plaints to the emperor; and the charge of examining into the state of the province was committed to the notary Palla- dius. But this man had been selected by the influence of Remigius, and consequently his report asserted the inno- cence of Romanus, and the falsehood of the charges made by the Tripolitans. The deaths and mutilations of some of their most distinguished citizens, under a barbarous de- cree of the deceived emperor, ensued ; and Romanus contin- ued his career of tyranny and extortion till his excesses forced the people to declare for a Moorish prince, who had been driven into insurrection. The name of this prince was Firmus, the son of Nabal. In a domestic quarrel, after the death of his father, he hap- pened to kill one of his brothers; and Romanus, prompted * " Recuperatamque provineiam, quae in ditionem concesserat hos- tium, ita reddiderat statui pristino, ut eodem referente et rectorem ha- beret legitimum, et Valentia deinde vocaretur arbitrio Principis velut ovantis." Am. Mar. xxviii. 3. This does not justify the language of Gibbon, that Theodosius " with a strong hand confined the trembling Caledonians to the northern angle of the island ; and perpetuated, by the name and settlement of the new province of Valentia, the gforiies of the reign of Valentinian." ^ 31* 366 VALENTINIAN, VALENS. [a. D. 373-376. by hatred or avarice, or it may be by a regard for justice, showed such a determination to punish him, that Firmus saw that he must submit to be executed or appeal to his sword. He chose the latter alternative; thousands flocked to his standard : Romanus proved unable to resist him, and the charge of reducing him was committed to the able Theo- dosius, (373.) The contest between this officer and Firmus resembled that between Metellus and Jugurtha, in the same country. The arts of the African were encountered with cor- responding dissimulation ; the Roman general, at the head of an expedite force of less than 4,000 men, traversed the coun- try in all directions, and a Moorish prince, with whom Fir- mus had sought refuge, resolved to imitate the conduct of Bocchus, and obtain the favor of the victor by the surrender of the fugitive. Firmus,^ however, anticipated his treachery by a voluntary death. The fate of Theodosius himself may here be told. He had committed Romanus to safe custody on his landing in Africa, and abundant evidence of that officer's guilt had been procured. But court favor availed to procure delay ; bribery brought forward friendly witnesses, and forgery pro- duced favorable documents; and the final result was, that the guilty Romanus escaped with impunity, while the innocent Theodosius, after death had removed Valentinian, who knew his worth, was, through court intrigue, seized and beheaded at Carthage, on a vague suspicion that he was grown too powerful for a subject ! (376.) While Theodosius was engaged in the reduction of Af- rica, a war with the once formidable Q,uadans engaged the arms of Valentinian in person. In pursuance of his plan of securing the banks of the frontier rivers by fortresses, the ground for one of them was marked out on what the dua- dans claimed as their territory. On their complaint, Equi- tius, who commanded in Illyricum, suspended the works till he should have received further instructions from the emperor. His enemy Maximin, the tyrannic prefect of Gaul, seized this occasion for injuring him in the mind of Valentinian, and of procuring the command of the province of Valeria (the scene of the dispute) for his own son Marcellinus. The passion- ate and credulous emperor was easily induced to comply with his desire, and that important command was intrusted to an inexperienced and insolent youth. On his arrival in the province, Marcellinus caused the works which Ecjuitius had suspended to be resumed; and when Gabinius, the Q,ua- A.D. 375.] Q,UADAN WAR. 367 dan king, modestly remonstrated, he invited him to a ban- quet, affecting a willingness to comply with his wishes, and caused him, as he was departing from it, to be assassinated. The murder of their king exasperated the duadans ; and, having procured the aid of a body of horse from their usual allies, the Sarmatians, they crossed the Danube, and invaded Pannonia. It was now the harvest-time, and the population were all engaged in their rural toils. The slaughter of the defenceless peasantry was therefore immense, and huge quantities of booty were carried over the Danube. The ravages of the invaders extended to the very walls of Sirmi- ura. The two only legions which Equitius could bring into the field were cut to pieces. The Sarmatians, following the example of their allies, invaded Mcesia; but the young Theo- dosius, who, though only a youth, held the post of duke of that frontier, routed them in several encounters, and forced them to retire, and sue for peace. In the following spring, (375,) the emperor Valentinian quitted Treves, his ordinary residence, and, at the head of the greater part of the troops of Gaul, appeared on the banks of the Danube. He crossed that river, and, having devastated the duadan country far and wide, repassed it without having lost a single man of his army. As he in- tended to return and complete the destruction of the Q,ua- dans in the following year, he fixed his winter quarters at a place named Bregilio, on the banks of the Danube, near the site of the modern city of Presburg. While he abode there, he was waited on by ambassadors from that people, suing for peace in the humblest terms. In his reply, he gave a loose to his violent passions, reproaching the envoys and those who sent them, in the most opprobrious terms. The violence of his exertions caused him to burst a blood-vessel, and he fell back speechless into the arms of his attendants. He expired within a few hours, (Nov. 17,) in the fifty-fifth year of his age, and after a reign of twelve years wanting one hundred days. Valentinian is praised as a brave soldier, a lover of justice, a man frugal, temperate, and chaste, in private life. He alle- viated, when he could, the burdens of his subjects ; he was a rigid maintainer of discipline in the army. Above all, he was tolerant in religion, and did not seek to impose his own faith on his subjects by force or by disqualifications. On the other hand, he was choleric and cruel ; the slightest offences were punished by a cruel death, and the sentence at times 368 VALENS, GRATIAN, ETC. [a. D. 375. was passed in a tone of barbarous jocularity. He had two she-bears, which he named Gold-grain {Mica aurea) and In- nocence. These animals, who were accustomed to tear human victims, were such favorites with him that he caused their dens to be constructed near his own bed-chamber, and assigned them keepers, whose task was to foster their natural ferocity. We are not informed of the fate of Gold-grain, but Innocence, after a long course of service, was let loose in the woods. F«/cw5, Gratiarty Valentinian II, A. u. 1128—1131. A. D. 375—378. The late emperor had, in the fifth year of his reign, asso- ciated in the empire with himself and his brother, his son Gratian, then a boy in his ninth year. This prince, who was now in his seventeenth year, was residing at Treves when the death of his father occurred. His absence im- boldened two officers of rank, Merobaudes and Equitius, to make an attempt to advance their own interest by adding to the number of the emperors ; and, having contrived to re-^ move the Gallic troops, from whom they apprehended oppo- sition, they brought to the camp Valentinian, the half-brother of Gratian, a child only four years old, who was residing with his mother, the empress Justina, at a country-seat one hundred miles distant from Bregilio, and invested him with the purple. Gratian, a prudent and moderate prince, did not show any resentment at this act of assumption. He ac- cepted his infant colleague, to whom he acted as a kind and attentive guardian. The portion of the empire assigned to the young emperor was Illyricum, Italy, and Africa; and he and his mother fixed their residence at Milan. Since the fall of Procopius, the emperor Valens had reigned in security. The settlement of the thrones of Ibe- ria and Armenia had caused some hostile demonstrations between him and the great Sapor; but the Roman was timid, and age had softened the energy of the Persian, and their differences were settled by negotiation. After the death of his brother, Valens found himself obliged to take the field in person against a formidable enemy; and the fall of the Roman empire is, with some appearance of reason, dated from this inauspicious period. A. D. 375.] THE GOTHS. 369 The great Gothic nation, whose steps we have traced from the North to the Euxine, consisted of two main stems, the Ostrogoths, or East-goths, and the Visigoths, or West- goths. The monarch of the former, named Hermanric, had, according to the chroniclers of his nation, at the advanced age of eighty years, the period when most men have ceased from their labors, commenced a career of conquest which extended his dominion back to the shores of the Baltic. The kings of the Visigoths were obliged to renounce the royal title, and be content with the humbler rank of Judges; and Hermanric was the acknowledged monarch of Scythia. The aid given to Procopius having caused hostilities between him and the emperor Valens, the Gothic sovereign committed the conduct of the war to Athanaric, one of the Judges of the Visigoths; it was terminated by a treaty in the year 369, and the Goths remained tranquil till the year of the death of Valentinian, when the appearance of an enemy from the remote regions of the East precipitated them on the Roman empire. The extensive plains of northern Asia, from the confines of Europe, or rather from those of the territory of the great Slavonian portion of the human family, to the shores of the eastern ocean, have from time immemorial been the abode of two races of men. The one, known to the ancients by the name of Scythians, to the moderns by that of Turks, has always occupied the western portion of these plains; and it is of this people that historians speak when they narrate the wars and conquests of the Scythians. They are tall, well-formed, and fair, and belong to what is termed the Caucasian or Indo-German portion of mankind. The other race, long unknown to the ancients, are termed Mongols or Tatars; their original seats are to the east of those of the Turks ; and their physical qualities, such as their extreme ugliness, their thin beards, the great breadth between their eyes, and other marks, indicate them to belong to a different portion of the human race. To the south of the seats of the Mongols lies the exten- • . . . . ® sive empire of China, the inhabitants of which appear to belong to the Mongol family. The annals of this people tell of numerous wars between them and their barbarous kinsmen of the north. Some time before the period of which we write, the arms of China had prevailed ; the power of the Mongols had been broken, and a large portion of 370 VALENS, GRATIAN, ETC. [a. D. 375-376. their warriors had, with their flocks and herds, moved west- ward in quest of new settlements. The Huns, as that por- tion of the Mongols of whom we treat were named, ad- vanced till they encountered the Alans, who dwelt between the Volga and the Don, or Tanais, on the banks of which latter stream the forces of the two nations engaged. The king of the Alans was slain, and victory crowned the arms of the Huns. A portion of the vanquished people migrated ; the rest submitted, and were incorporated with the conquer- ors, who then entered the territories of the Gothic monarch, (375,) whose tyranny had made him odious to the greater part of his subjects, and caused them to view the progress of the Huns with indifference. Some time before, on the occasion of the desertion of a chief of the Roxolans, Her- manric had caused his innocent wife to be torn to pieces by wild horses, and her brothers now seized the occasion for vengeance. Hermanric perished by their daggers, and his son and successor, Withimer, fell in battle against the Huns. The greater part of the nation of the Ostrogoths forthwith submitted ; but the more generous portion, with their infant sovereign Witheric, and led by two brave chiefs named Saphrax and Aletheus, penetrated to the banks of the Nies- ter, which Athanaric occupied at the head of the warriors of the Visigoths. The Hunnish hordes soon appeared, and by causing a large body of their cavalry to ford the river by moonlight and surround the Goths, they forced them to retire and seek the shelter of the hills. Athanaric had arranged anew plan of defence; but his people had lost courage, and, under the guidance of their two other Judges, Fritigern and Atavivus, they approached the banks of the Danube, seeking the protection of the Roman emperor, (376.) The Gothic envoys proceeded to Antioch, where Valens was then residing. Their request was taken into consider- ation by the emperor and his council ; and it was decided to give them a settlement within the bounds of the empire, on the condition of their delivering up their arms before they passed the river, and suffering their children to be separated from them, and dispersed through the cities of Asia, to serve as hostages, and be brought up in Roman manners. Under the pressure of necessity, the Goths consented to these terms ; and orders for their transportation were then issued to the imperial officers. As the stream of the Danube was rapid, swollen, and a mile in breadth, many perished in the pas- sage ; but we are assured that at the least two hundred thou- A. D. 376.] THE GOTHS, 371 sand Gothic warriors, with their wives, children, and slaves, were safely landed on the southern bank of the river. The hostages were delivered according to agreement : but to retain their arms they consented to prostitute their wives and chil- dren, and to sacrifice their most precious possessions; and the lust and avarice of the imperial officers caused them to endanger the peace of the empire for their gratification. A powerful Gothic army thus occupied the hills and plains of Lower Mcesia. Soon after, Saphrax and Aletheus, with their Ostrogoths, appeared on the banks of the Danube imploring a passage; but Valens, now become alarmed, dismissed their envoys with a refusal. Prudence and policy equally counselled that so formidable a host as that of the Visigoths should have been managed delicately, and the utmost care been taken to avoid giving them any cause of irritation. But Lupicinus and Maximus, the governors of the province, thought only of indulging their avarice. The vilest food, such as the flesh of dogs, was supplied to them ; to obtain a pound of bread they had to give a slave, and to pay ten pounds of silver for a small quantity of flesh meat; and when all their property had thus been expended, want impelled them to the sale of their sons and daughters. Their patience was at length exhausted, and their menaces alarmed Lupicinus and Maximus, who there- fore resolved to disperse them along the frontiers without delay. With this view they drew around them all the troops they could assemble; and, as they in consequence removed those that were watching the Ostrogoths, that people seized the opportunity of crossing the river on rafts and in boats, and encamped, unshackled by conditions, on the Roman territory. The Visigoths, conducted by Fritigern, in com- pliance with the orders of the Roman general, advanced to Marcianopolis, seventy miles inland from the Danube. Here, however, they were refused a market; and a quarrel in con- sequence arose between them and the Roman soldiers, in which some blood was spilt. Lupicinus, who was at the time entertaining the Gothic chiefs, when informed of this event, gave orders for their guards to be slain. Fritigern, hearing the noise, drew his sword, and, calling on his com- panions to follow him, forced his way through the crowd, and rejoined his countrymen without the walls. Their banners were instantly raised, and their horns sounded, according to their custom, for war. Lupicinus, at the head of what troops he could collect, marched out against them. VALENS, GRA.T1AN, ETC. [a. D. 377-378. The engagement took place about nine miles from Marcian- opolis ; and it terminated in the total defeat of the Romans. The unprotected country soon felt the effects of the Gothic victory; the husbandmen were massacred or enslaved, the villages w^ere plundered and burnt. A body of Goths in the Roman service, vi^ho were quartered at Hadrianople, were driven into insurrection by the imprudent violence of the governor of that town. They joined their victorious countrymen, and their united forces laid siege to the city. But the Goths knew nothing of sieges, and Fritigern drew them off, declaring that " he was at peace with stone walls." The slaves who wrought in the gold-mines of Thrace fled to the invaders, and revealed to them all the recesses in the mountains in which the inhabitants had concealed themselves with their cattle and property. Enormities of every kind were perpetrated on the unhappy people of the country, (377.) To check the excesses of the barbarians, Valens sent the troops of the East, under his generals Trajan and Profuturus, with whom Richomer, count of the domestics in the Western empire, united his forces, and it was resolved to seek out and attack the enemy. The Goths, who had repassed Mount Hsemus, were now encamped in the plain adjacent to the most southern of the mouths of the Danube. When the approach of the Roman army was discerned, Fritigern summoned all the scattered warriors to his standard, and an action was fought, which, after lasting from dawn till dusk, terminated in the decisive advantage of neither party. For the seven following days, the Goths remained within their camp, which was secured, according to the custom of their race, by a strong circuit of wagons. The plan of the Ro- man generals was to confine them to the angle which they occupied, till famine, by its sure operation, should have re- duced them. But while, with this view, they were fortifying their lines, they learned that Fritigern had formed a league with the Ostroojoths, and had even induced a larcre number of the Huns and Alans to join his standard. The Romans, fearful of being surrounded, abandoned the siege of the Gothic carap, and retired; and the liberated Goths rapidly spread their devastations as far as the Hellespont, (378.) Valens had early sought the aid of his nephew and col- league Gratian ; and that gallant young emperor was pre- paring to lead the forces of the West to the deliverance of the East, when the Alemans, learning his design, and perhaps A. D. 378.] GOTHIC WAR. 373' acting in concert with the Goths, passed the Rhine to the number of forty thousand. The troops which had been sent on to Pannonia were recalled, and Gratian, guided by the military experience and wisdom of his general Nanienus, and* of Mellobaudes, king of the Franks, and count of the do- mestics, gave the barbarians battle at Colmar {Argentaria) in Alsace. The victory of the Romans was decisive ; the king of the Alemans was slain ; and of their entire host not more than five thousand men escaped from the field of battle. Gratian then invaded their country, and forced them to sue for peace. While Gratian was thus inspiring his subjects with ad^ miration and respect for their youthful emperor, Valens had reached Constantinople, where, urged by the clamors of the populace, and inspirited by the recent successes of some of his generals, he resolved to assume in person the conduct of the war against the barbarians ; and he set out at the head of a large army. The Goths had proposed to occupy the defiles on the road from that city to Hadrianople ; but the march of the imperial troops was conducted with so much skill and celerity, that they reached the latter place unim- peded, and secured themselves in a strong camp beneath its walls. A council was held to decide on future operations. Count Richomer, whom Gratian had despatched with intel- ligence of his victories, and with assurances of his speedy approach, urged strongly the prudence of waiting for the arrival of the Gallic legions; his advice was seconded by Victor, the master of the horse, a Sarmatian by birth, but a cautious and prudent man. On the other hand, Count Se- bastian and the court flatterers advised against sharing witb a colleague the glory of a certain victory. Their counsels^ aided by the jealousy of Valens, prevailed. While prepara- tions were being made for battle, a Christian presbyter ar- rived as the envoy of Fritigern. The public letters of which he was the bearer, craved that Thrace, with all its cattle and corn, should be given to his people as the condition of a perpetual peace; but he was also commissioned to deliver a private letter, in which Fritigern, writing as a friend, said that he should never be able to bring his countrymen to agree to any terms unless the imperial army were close at hand to daunt them by its presence. The object of the wily Goth was to bring on a speedy engagement. At dawn the following day, (Aug. 9,) the legions of the East were in motion, the imperial treasure and insignia being left CONTIN. 32 374 VALENS, GRATIAN, ETC. [a, D. 378. within the walls of Hadrianopie. Toward noon the wag- on-fence of the enemy, twelve miles from the city., was discerned. The Romans began to form their line of battle; the Goths, as the troops of Aletheus and Saphrax were hot yet come up, sent again illusive proposals of peace, and, while time was thus gained, the effects of the heat of the burning sun were augmented by the Goths setting fire to the grass and wood of the surrounding country. The Romans also suffered from want of food : and at length the arrival of Saphrax and Aletheus put an end to all negotiation, and the battle commenced. The horse of the Roman left wing pen- etrated to the enemy's line of wagons, but, being unsupported, was overthrown and scattered ; and the foot, being thus left without protection, and crowded into too narrow a space to be able to use their arms to advantage, were crushed by the masses of the enemy. After a long but fruitless resistance, they fled in all directions. The emperor sought refuge among the troops named Lancearians and Mattiarians, from their weapons, who still stood their ground. Count Trajan crying out that all was lost if the emperor were not saved, Count Victor hastened to the spat with the reserve of Bata- vians; but the emperor was nowhere to be found, and the furious onset of the Goths soon forced all to provide for their own safety. A moonless night terminated the rout, and aided the escape of the vanquished Romans. Since the day of Cannae, no such calamity had befallen the Roman arras. Scarcely a third part of the army quitted the field. Among the slain were the Counts Trajan, Sebastian, Valerian, and Equitius, and six-and-thirty other officers of rank. The fate of Valens himself was never exactly known. Some said that at nightfall he fell mortally wounded by an arrow, and that his body, confounded among those of the common soldiers, could never be recognized. Others as- serted that, when he was wounded, some of his guards and eunuchs conveyed him to a neighboring cottage, and, while tbey were engaged in trying to dress his wound, the enemy surrounded the house, and, being unable to force the doors, heaped straw and wood against them, and, setting fire to these materials, burned the house and all within it. One of the guards, who escaped out of a window, survived to tell the story. Such was the fate of the emperor Valens, in the fiftieth year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. He is said to have been a firm friend^ a rigid maintainer of both civil A. D. 378.] GOTHIC WAR. 375 and military order, a mild ruler of the provinces. He was also moderately liberal. On the other hand, he is charged with avarice, indolence, severity bordering on cruelty ; and it is added, that, though affecting a great regard to justice, he would never allow the judges to give any sentence but such as he wished. In religion, he was an Arian; and the Catholics underwent some persecution during his reign. On the morning after the battle, the Goths, eager to pos- sess the wealth of which they knew it to be the depot^ sur- rounded the walls of Hadrianople. The soldiers and camp followers, who had been shut out of the town, fought with desperate resolution, and kept them at bay for the space of five hours ; and the imprudent slaughter of three hundred men who went over to them, showed that safety only lay in valor and constancy. A violent tempest at last forced the Goths to return to their wagon-camp. They again had re- course to negotiation, and then tried the way of treachery. Some of the guards had deserted to them, and they induced these men to return to the city as if they had made their escape, and, if admitted, they were to set fire to a part of the town, in order that, while the besieged were engaged ia quenching the flames, the Goths might seize the opportunity of breaking in at some unguarded place. The traitors were admitted ; but the discrepancy in their account of the designs of the enemy caused them to be put to the torture, and the truth was thus discovered- The Goths, in the morning, re- newed the assault; but the defence was resolute as ever, and they retired in the evening, accusing one another of madness in not attending to the counsel of Fritigern, and avoiding all dealings with stone walls. They departed the next day, and directed their course for the capital. They plundered and wasted all the circumjacent country ; but they feared the strength of the walls and the magnitude of the population of the city. While they were insulting its strength, a squadron of Saracenic light horse, which had lately arrived, issued from one of the gates and attacked them. The conflict was well maintained and dubious; but when the Goths beheld an Arab warrior, half naked, with his long hair hanging about him, raise a hoarse and dismal chant, and, drawing his dagger, rush into the midst of their ranks, and, putting his mouth to the throat of one whom he had slain, suck his blood, they were filled with horror and disgust. They short- ly after withdrew with their booty to the northern provinces, and spread their ravages as far as the Adriatic. 376 GRATiAx, ETC. [a. d. 379. Meantime, an act of barbarous, and therefore questiona- ble, policy was put in practice by Julius, who commanded beyond Mount Taurus. Apprehending danger from the Gothic youth who were dispersed in the various towns and cities, he, with the consent of the senate of Constantinople, issued orders to their commanders, who happened to be all Romans, (a thing, as Ammianus observes, very rare in those days,) to assemble them all on a certain day, as if to receive their promised pay, and then to slaughter them. The orders were executed ; the Goths were collected, unarmed, in the squares of the towns, the avenues were guarded, and, from the tops of the adjacent buildings, the soldiers overwhelmed them with their weapons.* Gratian, Valentinian IL, and Theodosius. A. u. 1131— 1136. A. D. 378—383. Gratian had been on his march to aid his uncle, when he heard of the defeat and death of that ill-fated prince. He forthwith halted, and, taking into serious consideration the state of the empire, and knowing that the West would de- mand his own undivided attention, he saw clearly the neces- sity of selecting some one, in whose character the general and the statesman should be united, to take the charge of the East. Acting on the wisdom which experience had taught, he resolved that the person selected should be his colleague in the empire, and not a subordinate officer ; and the choice which he made was alike honorable to himself and its object. The person selected by Gratian for the high dignity of emperor of the East was the son of that Theodosius, who, only three years before, had been put to death by his own authority. The younger Theodosius had, oa that oc- casion, craved leave to resign his command ; and, having obtained it, he had retired to his native country, Spain, and fixed his residence on his paternal estate at Coco, between Valladolid and Segovia. He there divided his time between the town and the country ; and the care and the improvement of his property formed his chief occupation. While thus * Zosimus (who is followed by Gibbon) says that they were the Gothic youths who had been delivered up to Valens. Ammianus seems to speak of them as Goths in the Roman service. This writer's valuable history ends at this point. A. D. 379-3S2.] THEODosius. 377 engaged, he was summoned to receive the purple, with which he was invested by Gratian in the city of Sirmium, (Jan. 19, 379,) amid the favoring acclamations of the soldiers and the people. Theodosius was now in the thirty-third year of his age ; his person and countenance displayed manly vigor and dignity; and time proved that the qualities of his heart corre- sponded to those outward charms which captivated the vulgar. No man ever attained to empire in a more honorable man- ner ; the slightest vestige of intrigue or manoeuvre is not to be discerned; his country was in danger, and a noble-minded prince summoned to its aid the man deemed most capable of delivering it from its enemies; for we must not refuse the me'ed of praise to Gratian, who could intrust such power to a man whose father had been murdered in his name. Theodosius did not venture to lead the dispirited troops of the East into the field against the Goths. He fixed his own residence at Thessalonica, and caused the fortifications of the other towns to be strengthened. By frequent sallies, the soldiers were taught to encounter the barbarians ; grad- ually, small armies were formed, and, by well-concerted ope- rations, victories were gained. This Fabian policy was aided by the dissensions which naturally broke out among the various bodies of the barbarians when the able Fritigern was removed by death. A Gothic chief, of royal blood, named Modar, entered the service of Theodosius, who gave him a high military command ; and he surprised and cut to pieces a large body of his countrymen. Athanaric, who had emerged from his retirement after the death of Fritigern, and prevailed on the greater part of the Visigoths to submit to his rule, was now advanced in years, and disposed to peace. He therefore listened to the proposals of Theodo- sius, and concluded a treaty. The emperor advanced ta meet him at some distance from Constantinople, and At^ha- naric accompanied him to that city. The Gothic prince was amazed at its strength and magnificence; but the change in his mode of life probably proved fatal to him, for he died not long after his arrival. He was interred by the emperor with the utmost magnificence, and a stately monument was raised to his memory. His whole army entered the imperial service ; the other chiefs gradually agreed to treaties with the emperor ; and thus, within a space of little more than four years after the death of Valens, (382,) the victors of Hadrianople had become the subjects of the empire. The settlements assigned them were in the provinces of Mcesia 32 * V y 378 GRATIAN, ETC. [a. D. 386. .and the cis-Danubic Dacia, which had been laid desolate by their ravages. During all this time, the Ostrogoths were far away in the north, among the tribes of Germany. They at length (336) appeared once more on the banks of the Lower Danube, their numbers augmented by German and Sarmatian, or per- haps Hunnish auxiliaries, and proposed to renew their dev- astation of the Roman provinces. Promotus, the general 'of the opposite frontier, had recourse to stratagem against them. He sent over spies, who stipulated to betray the Ro- man army, assuring the barbarians that, if they crossed the river in the dead of the night, they might surprise it when buried in sleep. Accordingly, on a moonless night, the Goths embarked their warriors in three thousand monozi/ls, or canoes, and pushed for the opposite shore; but, when they approached it, they found it guarded, for the length of two miles and a half, by a triple line of vessels ; and, while they were struggling to force their way through them, a fleet of galleys came, with stream and oars, down the river, and as- sailed them. The resistance which they were able to offer was slight ; their king or general Odothgeus, and numbers 'of their warriors, were slain or drowned, and they were final- ly obliged to solicit the clemency of the victors.* Theodo- sius, who was at hand, concluded a treaty with them, by which they engaged to become his subjects. Seats were assigned them in Lydia and Phrygia, where they were gov- erned by their own hereditary chiefs, under the supreme authority of the emperor. A body of 40,000 Goths, named FcRderati, or allies, henceforth formed a part of the army of the East, distinguished by gold collars, higher pay, and various privileges. We will now turn to the West and the emperor Gratian. This prince, whose character was by nature feeble and gentle, had been fostered, as it were, into greatness by the wisdom and the counsels of the able preceptors with whom * There is some confusion in this account. Zosimus (iv. 35, and 38, 30,) makes the Goths to be twice defeated, (A. D. 383 and 386,) on the same river, and by the same person, and in the same manner, as it •would appear. The Gothic general in the former he calls QCdotheus; the same with the Odothaeus of Claudian (De iv. Cons. Hon. 626) in the second. We cannot, by the way, agree with Gibbon that this was Aletheus. One of the most improbable circumstances in the narrative is, that the Goths should not have discerned the Roman shipping ; for tae Danube is nowhere too wide to be seen across. A. D. 383.] CHARACTER OF GRATIAN. 379 his father had surrounded him.* In the acts of the early years of his reign, though he was the ostensible agent, they were the secret directors ; and the youth, whose chief virtue was ductility to good, obtained the fame due to higher qual- ities. But when death or other causes had removed these able and virtuous advisers, the amiable but indolent prince fell under the guidance of men of a different character, to whom he intrusted the affairs of the state, while he devoted him- self to the delights of the chase, in which he bent the bow and flung the dart with the skill of a Commodus. The offices and advantages of the court and the provinces were set to sale, and the minds of the subjects were thus alienated; but this would have signified little had Gratian been careful to retain the attachment of the soldiers, which his conduct, when directed by worthy advisers, had won. This, how- ever, he lost by his own imprudence. He had placed a body of Alans among his guards, and, charmed with their dexterity in the use of his favorite weapons, he committed to them exclusively the defence of his person. He used even to ap- pear in public in their peculiar national dress, to the grief and indignation of the legionary soldiers, even the Germans viewing with horror the Scythian costume. While such was the temper of the troops, a revolt broke out in the army of Britain, (383,) and a person named Max- imus was there proclaimed emperor. This man, who was a native of Spain, and the fellow-soldier of Theodosius, was re- siding in Britain, but without civil or military rank of any importance. His abilities and his virtues are recognized, but whence his influence arose we are uninformed ; and if we may credit his own positive assertion, his dignity was forced on him. He plainly saw that he could not recede; and, as the British youth crowded to his standard, he passed over to Gaul at the head of a large army.t The troops of Gaul all declared for him, and Gratian fled from Paris to Lyons with only three hundred horse. The gates of all the towns on his way were closed against him, and the treacher- * Ausonius, the poet (more properly versifier) of Bordeaux, was one of his tutors. Gratian honored him with the consulate in 379. We cannot see why Gibbon should call Ausonius " a professed pagan." t A large emigration of Britons to Armorica is placed in this time, to which belongs the legend of St. Ursula and her virgins. These are said to have been 11,000 noble and 60,000 plebeian maidens, the des- tined brides of the emigrants, who, mistaking their way, went up the Rhine, and were massacred at Cologne by the Huns — who were not there. 380 THEODOsius, ETC. [a. d. 383-387. ous governor of Lyons amused him with promises till those sent in pursuit of him arrived, and he was slain as he rose from supper, (Aug. 25.) His brother Valentinian applied, but in vain, for his body. Mellobaudes, the Frank king and Roman general, shared the fate of his master ; but Maximus, who was now acknowledged by the whole West, could boast that no other blood was shed except in the field. Theodosius, Valentinian II., and 3Iaximus, A. u. 1136—1141. A. D. 383—388. The late revolution had been so sudden that Theodosius had been, perhaps, uninformedof it until it was accomplished; and, ere he could determine how to act, he was waited on by an embassy from the usurper, headed by his chamberlain, a man advanced in years, and, as the historian observes, to the praise of Maximus, not a eunuch. The envoy justified the conduct of his master, assertinor his ignorance of the murder of Gratian : he then proceeded to give Theodosius the op- tion of peace or war. Gratitude and honor urged the em- peror to avenge the fate of his benefactor ; but prudence sug- gested that the issue of a contest with the troops of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was doubtful, and that the barbarians, who hovered on the frontiers, would be ready to pour into the empire when its forces should have been wasted in civil conflict. He, therefore, lent a favorable ear to the pro- posals of Maximus, and acknowledged hiin as a colleague, carefully, however, stipulating for the security of Valen- tinian in his share of tlie empire. The images of the three imperial colleagues were, according to usage, exhibited to the people. The empire now remained at rest for a space of four years; but at length (3ST) its repose was disturbed by the ambition of Maximus; for, not content with his own ample portion, this fortunate rebel cast an eye of cupidity on the dominions of Valentinian, where many were disaffected on account of religion. Having extorted large sums of money from his subjects, he took a great number of barbarians into pay ; and, when an ambassador from Valentinian came to his courts he persuaded him to accept the services of a part of his troops for an imminent Pannonian war. The envoy himself was their guide through the passes of the Alps ; Maximus A. D. 387.] FLIGHT OF VALENTINIAN. 381 secretly followed at the head of a larger body, and a precipi- tate flight from Milan to Aquileia alone assured the safety of Valentinian and his mother. Not deeming themselves se- cure even in that strong city, they embarked in a vessel, and, sailing round the Grecian peninsula, landed at Thessaloni- ca,* whither Theodosius hastened to visit them. He delib- erated with his council as to what were best to be done ; the same reasons as before urged him to pause before he should engage in a civil war ; and the injuries of Valentinian might possibly have gone unrevenged, had they not found an advo- cate in the beauty of his sister Galla. By the directions of her mother, this princess cast herself at the feet of Theodo- sius, and with tears implored his aid. Few hearts are proof against the tears of beauty — that of Theodosius, at least, was not ; his empress was dead, and his aid was assured if the lovely supplicant would consent to share the throne of the East. The condition was accepted, the nuptials were cele- brated, and the royal bridegroom then prepared to take the field. Large bodies of Huns and Alans crowded to the standard of Theodosius, who found Maximus encamped near Siscia, on the banks of the Save. The light cavalry of the barbarians flung themselves into that deep and rapid river the moment they reached it, and routed the troops which guarded the opposite bank. Next morning, a general action ensued, which terminated in the submission of the surviving troops of Maximus, who fled to Aquileia, whither he was rapidly followed by Theodosius. The gates were burst open ; the unfortunate Maximus was dragged into the pres- ence of the victor, who, having reproached him with his misdeeds, delivered him to the vengeance of the soldiers, by whom his head was struck off. His son Victor, whom he had given the rank of Caesar, and left behind him in Gaul, was put to death by Count Arbogast, one of Theodosius's generals, by the order of that emperor; and the whole of the West was thus subjected to the rule of Valentinian, The generous Theodosius compensated those who had suffered by the oppression of Maximus, and he assigned an income to the mother of that ill-fated prince, and provided for the edu- cation of his daughters. * Gibbon's account of their voyage is more suited to epic poetry thaa to history. 382 THEODOSIUS, ETC. [a. d. 390. Theodosius and Valentinian II. A. V. 1141—1145. A. D. 388—392. Theodosius, after his victory, remained three years in Italy to regulate the affairs of the West for his juvenile col- league. In the spring of the year 389, he made a triumphal entrance into the ancient capital of the empire ; but his usual abode was the palace of Milan. While Theodosius was residing in Italy, (390,) an unhappy event occurred, which casts almost the only shade over his fair fame. In the city of Thessalonica, an eminent charioteer of the circus conceived an impure affection for a beautiful boy, one of the slaves of Botheric, the commander of the gar- rison : to punish his insolence, Botheric cast him into prison. On the day of the games, the people, with whom he was a great favorite, enraged at his absence, rose in insurrection, and, as the garrison was then very small, they massacred Botheric and his principal officers, and dragged their bodies about the streets. Theodosius, who was of a choleric temper, was filled with fury when he heard of this atrocious deed. His first resolution was to take a bloody revenge ; the efforts of the bishops then led him to thoughts of clemency ; but the arguments of his minister Rufinus induced him, finally, to expedite an order for military execution. He then attempted to recall the order, but it was too late. The people of Thes- salonica were, in the name of the emperor, invited to the games of the circus. Their love of amusement overcoming their fear of punishment, they hastened to it in crowds ; when the place was full, the soldiers, who were posted for the pur- pose, received the signal, and an indiscriminate massacre en- sued. The lowest computation gives the number of those slain as seven thousand. The archbishop of Milan at this time was the intrepid Am- brose. When he heard of the bloody deed, he retired to the country, whence he wrote to the emperor to say that he had been warned in a vision not to offer the oblation in his name or presence, and advising him not to think of receiving the Eucharist with his blood-stained hands. Theodosius ac-^ knowledged and bewailed his offence, and after some time proceeded to the cathedral to perform his devotions; but Ambrose met him at the porch, opposed his entrance, and insisted on the necessity of a public penance. Theodosius Av S>. 390.] ARBOGAST. 333 submitted ; and the lord of the Roman world, laying aside his imperial habit, appeared in the posture of a suppliant in the midst of the church of Milan, with tears soliciting the pardon of his sin. After a penance of eight months, he was restored to the communion of the faithful. To the cruelty of Theodosius on this occasion may be op- posed his clemency, some time before, to the people of Anti- och. This lively, licentious people, being galled by an in- crease of taxation, (387,) flung down, dragged through the streets, and broke, the images of Theodosius and his family. The governor of the province sent to court information of this act of treason ; the Antiochenes despatched envoys to testify their repentance. After a space of twenty-four days, two officers of high rank arrived to declare the will of the emperor. Antioch was to be degraded from its rank, and made a village, under the jurisdiction of Laodicea; all its places of amusement were to be shut up, the distribution of corn to be stopped, and the guilty to be inquired after and punished. A tribunal was erected in the market-place, the most wealthy citizens were laid in chains, and their houses exposed to sale, when monks and hermits descended in crowds from the mountains, and, at their intercession, one of the officers agreed to return to court, and learn the present disposition of the emperor. The anger of the generous Theodosius had subsided ere he arrived, and a full and free pardon was readily accorded to the repentant city. Valentinian, after the death of his mother and the departure of Theodosius, fixed his abode in Gaul. His troops were commanded by Count Arbogast, a Frank by birth, who had held a high rank in the service of Gratian, after whose death he had passed to that of Theodosius. Aware of the weak- ness of his young sovereign, the ambitious barbarian raised his thoughts to empire. He corrupted the troops, he gave the chief commands to his countrymen, he surrounded the prince with his creatures, and Valentinian found himself little better than a prisoner in the palace of Vienne. He sent to inform Theodosius of his situation ; but, impatient of delay, he summoned Arbogast to his presence, and deliv- ered him a paper containing his dismissal from his posts. " You have not given me my authority, and you cannot take it away," was the reply of the general ; and he tore the pa- per, and cast it on the ground. Valentinian snatched a sword from one of the guards, but he was prevented from using it. 384 THEODosius. [a. d. 392-394. A few days after, he was privately strangled, and a report was spread that he had died by his own hand, (May 15, 392.) Theodosius. A. u. 1145—1148. A. D. 392—395. Arbogast, deeming it more prudent to reign under the name of another than to assume the purple himself, selected for his imperial puppet a rhetorician named Eugenius, who had been his secretary, and whom he had raised to the rank of master of the offices. An embassy was despatched to Theodosius to lament the unfortunate accident of the death of Valentinian, and to pray him to acquiesce in the choice of the armies and people of the West. Theodosius acted with his usual caution ; he dismissed the ambassadors with presents, and with an ambiguous answer ; but he was secretly swayed by the tears of his wife, and resolved to avenge the death of her brother. After devoting two years to his prepa- rations for this hazardous war, he at length (394) put him- self at the head of his troops, and directed his march for Italy. Arbogast, taking warning by the errors of Maximus, contracted his line of defence, and, abandoning the northern provinces, and leaving unguarded the passes of the Julian Alps, encamped his troops under the walls of Aquileia. Theodosius, on emer^incr from the mountains, made a furious assault on the fortified camp of the enemy, in which ten thou- sand of his Gothic troops perished. At nightfall he retired, baffled, to the adjacent hills, where he passed a sleepless night, while the camp of the enemy rang with rejoicings. Arbogast, baving secretly sent a large body of troops to get in the rear of the emperor, prepared to assail him in the morning, (Sept. 6.) But the leaders of these troops assured Theodo- sius of their alleo-iance ; and in the enoraaement a sudden tempest from the Alps blew full in the faces of the troops of the enemy ; and, their superstition leading them to view in it the hand of Heaven, they flung down their arms and submit- ted. Eugenius was taken and put to death ; Arbogast, after wandering some days through the mountains, perished by his own hand. Theodosius survived his victory only five months. Though he was not more than fifty years of age, indulgence had un- A. D. 395.] CHARACTER OF THEODOSIUS. 385 dermined his constitution, and he died of dropsy at Milan, (Jan. 17, 395,) leaving his dominions to his two sons, Arca- dius and Honorius. The character of the great Theodosius is one which it is gratifying to contemplate. Called from a private station to empire, he was still the same in principle and conduct ; and',, the surest evidence of native greatness of soul, he remained unchanged by prosperity. He was an affectionate and faith- ful husband to both his wives, a fond parent, a generous and kind relation, an affable and agreeable companion, and a steady friend. As a sovereign, he was a lover of justice, a wise and benevolent legislator, an able and successful gen- eral. His defects were too slavish a submission to some in- tolerant ecclesiastics, which led to the enactment of per- secuting laws against heretics and pagans ; a violence of temper, which we have seen exemplified in the massacre at Thessalonica; a love of indolence, and an over-fondness for the pleasures of the table, which brought him to a prema- ture death, to the great calamity of the empire. The reign of Theodosius forms an epoch in the history of the Roman empire. He was the last who ruled over the whole empire ; and it was in his time that the ancient system of religion, under which Rome had risen, flourished, and commenced, at least, her decline, was finally and permanent- ly suppressed. His reign was also the last in which Rome appeared with any remnant of her original dignity on the scene of the world. It will surely not be accounted impiety or superstition, if we say that the eloquent appeals and lam- entations of the advocates for the old religion were not with- out foundation ; and that, in the order of Providence, Rome's greatness was indissolubly united with her pontifices, augurs, and vestals. Such seems undeniably to have been the fact ; the cause is probably inscrutable.* * [The author has said, only ten lines before, that the decline of Rome began under the ancient system of religion. If so, there was, of course, no connection between the maintenance of that system and the greatness of Rome. Every reader of Roman history must surely perceive that her own moral degradation, and the advance of other nations, were the causes of her decline. Our author loses, in this in- stance, his usual acuteness, or he would see that his remark implies a tendency in Christianity to weaken morality — a tendency he would be the last to allow. See his own words on the last page of this work. — J. T. S.] CONTIN. 33 WW 386 THEODosius. [a. d. 395. If we credit the complaints of contemporary writers, lux- ury was continually on the increase, and manners became more depraved every day. These statements are, however, to be received with caution ; and how either luxury or de- pravity could exceed that under the successors of Augustus, it is not easy to discern. Property had, of late years, been somewhat more secure from the rapacity of the court, and the terrors of the barbarians were as yet too remote to produce that recklessness which consumes to-day what it is not certain of possessing to-morrow. The censurers, in fact, are either splenetic pagans, eager to cast a slur on the new faith, or Christian ascetics, who viewed all indulgence with a jaun- diced eye. We are very -far from saying that the morals of this period were pure, or at all comparable with those of modern Europe ; we only doubt if they were worse than those of the times of Tiberius and Nero. A striking proof, however, was given at this time, that the thew and sinew of the Roman soldier were no longer what they had been in the days of the republic. The infantry craved and obtained permission to lay aside their helmets and corselets, as oppressing them with their extreme weight. Even future misfortunes could not induce them to resume these arms ; and this, among other causes, contributed to the speedy downfall of the empire. Literature continued to share in the general decline. Po- etry might be regarded as extinct ; history has only to pre- sent the name of Amraianus Marcellinus, who, however, among the historians of the empire, stands next in rank to Tacitus, though at a very long interval. The Sophists, that is, those to whom the manner was every thing, the matter of comparatively little importance, were the class of literary men held in most esteem. Orations, panegyrics, public or private epistles, in which the absence of fruit is sought to be concealed by the abundance of foliage and flowers, form the store of these men's compositions. The most distinguished among them was Libanius of Antioch, the friend of both Julian and Theodosius, a large portion of whose writings still exist. Julian himself occupies no mean place among the Sophists. His letters, from his station in society, are far more important and interesting than those of Libanius. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 387 CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. SUPPRESSION OF PAGANISM. RELIGION OF THE FOURTH CEN- TURY. STATE OF MORALS. THE DONATISTS. THE ARIANS. OTHER HERETICS. — ECCLESIASTICAL CONSTITU- TION. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. THE MANICH^ANS. As the reign of Theodosius was the period of the com- plete fall of paganism, and final triumph of the Christian faith, we will here interrupt our narrative of political events, and briefly relate the victories of the church over heathen- ism and heresy, and portray its external and internal con- dition. When Constantine embraced the Christian religion, he left the ancient system of the Roman state undisturbed : toward the end of his reign, however, he issued edicts for the demolition of heathen temples, and prohibited sacrifices. Constantius was more hostile to heathenism than his father had been ; and he executed the laws against it with great severity, even punishing capitally those guilty of the crime of offering sacrifice to idols. The absurd and fruitless efforts of Julian in its favor have been related, and the humane and enlightened toleration of Jovian and Valentinian has been praised. But Theodosius (much less Gratian) had not strength or enlargement of mind to resist or refute the argu- ments of the advocates of intolerance, and in their time the veneration of the tutelar deities of ancient Rome was treated as a crime. The preservation of a pure monotheism being the main object of the law of Moses, its prohibitions against idolatry are numerous and severe ; but the Christian religion, relyinor on its internal worth and its utter incompatibility with idol- atry, is less emphatic on that subject. The habit, however, of confounding it with the Mosaic law had become so strong, and the opinion of the gods of the heathen being evil spirits, and not mere creatures of imagination, so prevalent,* that the worship of them was held to be the highest insult to the * [This idea was not confined to those times. Modern theologians have held it. Thus does Prideaux, in his valuable " Connection of Old and New Testaments." — J. T. S.J 388 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. majesty of the Creator ; and the sovereign who suffered innt- pious rites to be performed, was regarded as participatinor in the guilt. Yielding to these considerations, Gratian, on his accession, refused to receive the insignia of a Pontifex Maxi- mus, which even the most zealous of his predecessors had not rejected ; and he seized on the sacerdotal revenues for the uses of the church or state, and abolished all the honors and immunities of the heathen priesthoods. The image and altar of Victory, which were placed in the senate-house, had been removed by Constantine and restored by Julian. As the majority of the senate still adhered to the old religion of the state, the tolerant Valentinian had suffered it to remain undisturbed ; but his more zealous son ordered it to be again removed. A deputation of the senate, sent on this oc- casion, was refused an audience by the emperor. The year after his death, another deputation waited on his brother Valentinian : it was headed by Symmachus, the prefect of the city, a pontiff and augur, a man of noble birth, and of distinguished eloquence and unstained virtue. He was op- posed by Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, and the prayer of the Roman senate was rejected. When Theodosius was at Rome,* he called on the senate to choose between the two religions; and the majority of that body, warned by the fate of Symmachus, who had recently been sent into exile, voted in accordance with the wishes of the emperor. Pretended conversions became numerous, the temples were deserted and the churches filled with worshippers, and the religion under which Rome had flourished for twelve centuries ceased forever. Respect probably for the dignity of the city caused the temples to be spared and left to the operation of natural decay; but in the provinces no such delicacy was observed, and many Christian prelates, such as Martin of Tours, Marcellus of Apamea, and Theophilus of Alexandria, headed holy crusades for the destruction of the abodes of the idols ; and many a stately edifice, the pride of architecture, w^as thus consigned to untimely ruin. A few escaped de- struction by being converted into Christian churches. In effect, the fate of the temples seems in general to have de- pended on the good sense or fanaticism of the bishop of the diocese in w'hich they stood. The edicts which Theodosius put forth against sacrifices and other heathen rites having been frequently eluded, he at * Most probably after his victory over Maximus, though both Zosi- mus and Prudentius place it after that over Eugenius. RELIGION OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 389 length (392) published one which breathes the very spirit of intolerance.* By this he forbids all persons, no matter what their rank, to offer any sacrifice whatever, or even to suspend garlands, burn incense or place lights before the domestic deities of Roman religion, the Genius, the Lar, and the Penates. The penalty was the forfeiture of the house or estate in which the rites had been performed, or, if these were the property of another person, a fine of twenty-five pounds weight of gold. Prohibited thus in either its public or private exercise, heathenism gradually died away. Its last lingering footprints appeared in remote villages ; t and in the reign of the grandson of Theodosius, it even was doubted (but without reason) if there were any longer any pagans in existence. Thus have we witnessed the final triumph of the church over its open and declared enemy. Before we enter on the history of its civil wars, we will take a view of its own nature and character. The Christianity of the days of Constantino and his suc- cessors is most certainly not that of the gospel. In effect, with the exception of transubstantiation and image worship, (from neither of which it was far distant,) and a few other points of minor importance, it differed little from the system which our ancestors flung off at the time of the Reformation. The church of Rome is, in fact, very unjustly treated, when she is charged with being the author of the tenets and prac- tices which were transmitted to her from the fourth century. Her guilt or error was that of retention, not of invention. The learned author whom we have taken for our principal guide in this part of our work, presents the following brief view of the state of religion at this time.| ** The fundamental principles of the Christian doctrine were preserved hitherto incorrupt and entire in most churches, though it must be confessed that they were often explained and defended in a manner that discovered the greatest igno- rance, and an utter confusion of ideas. The disputes carried on in the council of Nice concerning the three persons in the Godhead, afford a remarkable instance of this, particu- * Yet Theodosius was not of an intolerant temper. He bestowed the consulate on Symmachus, and he was on terms of personal friend- ship with the Sophist Libanius. t Hence the heathens were called Pagans, (Pagani,) or villagers, d, pago. t Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, Cent. iv. Part ii. chap. 3, 33* B9D THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. larly in the language and explanations of those who approved the decisions of that council. So little light, precision, and order, reigned in their discourses, that they appeared to sub- stitute three gods in the place of one. "Nor did the evil end here; for those vain fictions, which an attachment to the Platonic philosophy and to popular opinions had engaged the greatest part of the Christian doc- tors to adopt before the time of Constantine, were now con- firmed, enlarged, and embellished in various ways. Hence arose that extravagant veneration for departed saints, and those absurd notions of a certain^re destined to purify sepa- rate souls, that now prevailed, and of which the public marks were every where to be seen. Hence, also, the celibacy of priests, the worship of images and relics, which, in process of time, almost utterly destroyed the Christian religion, or at least eclipsed its lustre, and corrupted its essence in the most deplorable manner. " An enormous train of different superstitions were gradu- ally substituted in the place of genuine religion and true piety. This odious revolution proceeded from a variety of causes. A ridiculous precipitation in receiving new opin- ions, a preposterous desire of imitating the pagan rites, and of blending them with the Christian worship, and that idle propensity which the generality of mankind have toward a gaudy and ostentatious religion, all contributed to establish the reign of superstition upon the ruins of Christianity. Ac- cordingly, frequent pilgrimages were undertaken to Pales- tine, and to the tombs of the martyrs, as if there alone the sacred principles of virtue, and the certain hope of salvation, were to be acquired. The reins being once let loose to superstition, which knows no bounds, absurd notions and idle ceremonies multiplied every day. Q-uantities of dust and earth, brought from Palestine and other places remark- able for their supposed sanctity, were handed about as the most powerful remedies against the violence of wicked spirits, and were sold and bought every where at enormous prices. 'The public processions and supplications, by which the pagans endeavored to appease their gods, were now adopted into the Christian worship, and celebrated with great pomp and magnificence in several places. The virtues that had formerly been ascribed to the heathen temples, to their lus- trations, to the statues of their gods and heroes, were now attributed to Christian churches, to water consecrated by certain forms of prayer, and to the images of holy men; and RELIGION OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 391 the same privileges that the former enjoyed under the dark- ness of paganism, were conferred upon the latter under the light of the gospel, or rather under that cloud of supersti- tion that was obscuring its glory. It is true that as yet im- ages were not very common, nor were there any statues at all ; but it is at the same time as undoubtedly certain, as it is ex- travagant and monstrous, that the worship of the martyrs was modelled according to the religious services that were paid to the gods before the coming of Christ." Thus doth this learned and candid historian express him- self; and we must remind the reader that it is not of the tenth or twelfth century, as might perhaps be supposed, that he is writing, but of the fourth, the period of the Nicene council, the age of Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Basil the Great, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and others, who are regarded as the great Fathers of the Church. All these superstitions are to be found in their writings, and mostly mentioned in terms of approbation. The great parent of the external corruption of the pure and simple faith of the gospel seems, as we have already ob- served, to have been the law of Moses; for this law, which was at the same time a system of religious and of civil polity, was, in accordance with the designs of Providence and the state of the world at the time, so framed as to bear a certain degree of resemblance to the civil and religious institutions of the neighboring nations. Hence it had its priesthood, its sacrifices, its splendid ceremonies and ritual observances. When, therefore, the Christians, from the natural love of parade and magnificence, or with the specious view of gain- ing over the heathen, wished to introduce rites and ceremo- nies into the church, they found them ready to their hand in the law of the Israelites; and, when once the practice had begun, the step was easy to the introduction of various tenets and practices of heathenism, for which the Mosaic law fur- nished no precedent. The Mosaic religion, for example, had no mysteries, and no mythology and worship of heroes; yet the Christianity of the fourth century had both. We have already shown how the simple rites of baptism and the Eucharist were converted into mysteries. The notion of their importance became every day more and more deep and solemn ; they were termed awful and tremendous mysteries, by the greatest of the Fathers ; and such were the miraculous powers ascribed to the elements of the Eucharist, that St. Ambrose, in a pub- 392 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. lie discourse, affirmed that his own brother, happening to have them about his person, was by their efficacy saved in a shipwreck. Christianity obtained its heroes and mythology in the fol- lowing manner : The memory of the Martyrs, (i. e. wit- nesses,) or those who had testified their faith in Christ by sealing it w^ith their blood, and, in a less degree, that of the Confessors, who had shown their willingness to do tlie same, was naturally held in reverence and respect by the members of the church. The principle of human nature from which pilgrimage arises caused the pious to resort to the places where their remains were deposited ; these places were soon regarded as being possessed of superior sanctity, which could only arise from the mortal relics of the holy men which lay there; and the sanctity, being inherent in these remains, would of course accompany them, if transferred. Hence arose the translation of the bodies of the apostles, and other holy men, from the humble tombs in which they had hitherto reposed, to capital cities and other places, to give holiness to stately churches which were to be erected in their honor. Every, even the smallest, fragment of the body of a saint, every thing, in short, that had touched that hallowed frame when ani- mated, was held to possess virtue ; and wonderful tales were told each day of the miracles performed by them. As it might seem absurd that the earthly portions of the holy men should possess such power, and their spiritual have no influ- ence in the lower world, a kind of ubiquity was ascribed to their glorified spirits, and it was believed that they could hear prayer and give aid to the supplicant. False miracles, false relics, even false saints, were rapidly manufactured,* and the church had soon a mythology which far exceeded in copiousness that of ancient Greece.f A maxim of the most pernicious nature now greatly prevailed in the church, namely, " That it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie, * " Certain tombs were falsely given out for the sepulchres of saints and confessors ; the list of the saints was augmented with fictitious names, and robbers were converted into martyrs. Some buried the bones of dead men in certain retired places, and then affirmed that they were divinely admonished by a dream, that the body of some friend of God lay there," &c. «&c. Mosheim, ut supra. t " The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians," says Gibbon, " was gradually corrupted ; and the monarchy of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtilties, was degraded by the intro- duction of a popular mythology which tended to restore the reign of polyiheism." RELIGION or THE FOURTH CENTORY. 393 when by such means the interests of the church might be promoted." This had, no doubt, been of long standing, for pious fraud and pious fiction early began, but it was now at its acme ; and even the greatest of the Fathers are charged with acting on this maxim,* and thus transforming Chris- tianity into polytheism and idolatry. " If, in the beginning of the fifth century," says Gibbon:, whom we may here safely quote, " Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead to assist at the festi- val of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused at noon-day a gaudy, super- fluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through the prostrate crowd, consisting for the most part of strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigils of the feast, and who already felt the strong intoxication of fanaticism, and perhaps of wine. Their devout kisses were imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice, and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes of the saint, which were usually concealed by a linen or silken veil from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the tombs of the martyrs in the hope of obtaining from their powerful intercession every sort of spiritual, but more especially of temporal blessings. They implored the preservation of their health or the cure of their infirmities, the fruitful ness of their barren wives, or the safety and hap- piness of their children. Whenever they undertook any dis- tant or dangerous journey, they requested that the holy mar- tyrs would be their guides and protectors on the road; and if they returned without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the martyrs to celebrate with grateful thanksgivings their obligations to the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of the favors which they had received; eyes and hands, and feet of gold and silver; and edifying pictures, which could not long escape the abuses of indis- * Mosheim, ut supra, Paragraph xvi. 394 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. creet or idolatrous devotion, representing the image, the at- tributes, and the miracles of the tutelar saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same methods of deceiv- ing the credulity and of affecting the senses of mankind ; but it must ingenuously be confessed that the ministers of the Catholic church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of paganism if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved in less than a century the final conquest of the Roman em- pire, but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals." Nothing is more characteristic of the corruption which Christianity had undergone than the high honor in which the various classes of ascetics were held. These useless or pernicious beings now actually swarmed throughout the East- ern empire, and were gradually spreading themselves into the West. We have shown how asceticism has been derived from the sultry regions of Asia, and how it originates in the Gnos- tic principles. It had long been insinuating itself into the church; but, after the establishment of Christianity, it burst forth like a torrent, spreading from Egypt over Syria, Meso- potamia, and the other provinces, at such a rate, that, " in a short time," observes Mosheim, "the East was filled with a lazy set of mortals, who, abandoning all human connections, advantages, pleasures, and concerns, wore out a languishing and miserable life amidst the hardships of want and various kinds of suffering, in order to arrive at a more close and rap- turous communion with God and angels." Of these fanatics there were two classes, the Coenobites and the Eremites, a branch of which last were the Anacho- rites.* The former, as their name denotes, lived together in a fixed habitation under an abhot^ a word signifying fa- ther. The founder of this order was a man named Antony, who drew together a number of the Eremites of Egypt, and gave them fixed rules of conduct. There is a life of this hero of the monastic orders, which has been written by the * Koivo^iaxoi, livers-in-common; "EQi^^urai, dwellers-qf-the-desert^ Qqri^iog.) vfhence our word Hermit; ^vaxf^QV^aif 'retirers. The gen- eral term was Mova;(ol, solitaries, whence our Monk. STATE OF MOHALS. 395 great Alhanasius.* The Eremites, on the contrary, dwelt solitary in caves or in wretched cottages of the desert; while the Anachorites, rejecting even this faint semblance of hu- manity, lived like the beasts of the field, wandering without certain abode, lying down wherever night overtook them, and feeding on the spontaneous produce of the earth, shun- ning the sight and the society of all human beings. The most distinguished of the Eremites was Paul, a recluse of the Thebais, a kind of semi-savage, whose life and acts St. Jerome did not think it beneath him to record as an ensam- ple of true Christian holiness and perfection. Beside the above-mentioned classes of ascetics, we read of an order named in Egypt Sarabaites, who travelled about from place to place, working fictitious miracles, selling false relics, and performing various other frauds to deceive the credulous multitude. These, like the corresponding Moharnmedan dervishes, were mostly notorious profligates : heavy com- plaints are made also of the Coenobites ; but the hermits were in general mere fanatics or spiritual madmen. The hope of acquiring heaven by virginity and mortifica- tion was not confined to the male sex; woman, with the en- thusiasm and the devotional tendency peculiar to her, rushed eagerly toward the crown of glory. Nunneries became nu- merous, and were thronged with inmates. Nature, however, not unfrequently asserted her rights, and the complaints and admonitions of the most celebrated Fathers assure us that the unnatural state of vowed celibacy was productive of the same evils and scandals in ancient as in modern times. The state of morals among Christians in general was, according to the testimony of the contemporary Fathers and other writers, extremely low. " When," says the writer already quoted, " we cast an eye toward the lives and morals of Christians at this time, we find, as formerly, a mixture of good and evil, some eminent for their piety, others infamous for their crimes. The number, however, of immoral and unworthy Christians began so to increase, that the examples of real piety and virtue became extremely rare. When the terrors of persecution were totally dispelled; when the church, secured from the efforts of its enemies, enjoyed the sweets of prosperity and peace; when the major part of bish- ops exhibited to their flock the contagious examples of arro- gance, luxury, effeminacy, animosity, and strife, with other * The next place in fame to St. Antony is occupied by St. Pacho- mius. 396 THE CHRISTIAN CHITRCH. vices too numerous to mention; when the inferior rulers and doctors of the church fell into a slothful and opprobrious negligence of the duties of their respective stations, and employed in vain wranglings and idle disputes that zeal and attention which were due to the culture of piety and to the instruction of their people; and when (to complete the enor- mity of this horrid detail) multitudes were drawn into the profession of Christianity, not by the power of conviction and argument, but by the prospect of gain or by the fear of punishment, — then it was indeed no wonder that the church was contaminated with shoals of profligate Christians, and that the virtuous few were, in a manner, oppressed and over- whelmed by the superior numbers of the wicked and licen- tious. It is true that the same rigorous penance which had taken pl^ace before Constantine the Great, continued now in full force against flagrant transgressors ; but when the reign of corruption becomes universal, the vigor of the law yields to its sway, and a weak execution defeats the purposes of the most salutary discipline. Such was now unhappily the case : the age was sinking daily from one period of corruption to another, the great and the powerful sinned with impunity, and the obscure and indigent alone felt the severity of the laws." When such was the state of morals, it is natural to be sup- posed that heresy and schism should prevail, and the unity of the church be torn by feud and faction. We shall there- fore proceed to enumerate the principal sects and heresies of the fourth century. The first of these was the Donatists, so named from Do- natus, one of their most active partisans. It was a sect, not a heresy, for the orthodoxy of its members never was ques- tioned. It originated in the following circumstance : On the death of the bishop of Carthage in 311, the clergy and people of that city chose the archdeacon Caecilianus for his successor, and he was consecrated by the bishops of Af- rica Minor, without waiting for those of Numidia. These last, highly offended, summoned Cagcilianus before them; his disappointed competitors were active in their hostility, and a wealthy lady, named Lucilla, whom he had reprimand- ed for her superstitious practices, with all a woman's appe- tite for vengeance, lavished her money on the Numidians, to keep up their zeal, Caecilianus having refused to submit to their jurisdiction, they declared him unworthy of his dignity, and appointed in his stead his deacon Majorinus ; and the THE DONATISTS. 397 church of Carthage had thus two rival bishops. The rea- sons given for the sentence against Csecilianus vi^ere, that Felix of Aptungus, by whom he was consecrated, was a Tra- ditor, and that he himself, when a deacon, had shown, in the time of the late persecution, great cruelty toward the martyrs and confessors, actually leaving them to perish for want of food in their prisons. The Donatists having appealed to Constantine, that em- peror (313) directed the bishop of Rome, aided by three Gallic prelates, to examine the cause. The decision was in favor of Caecilianus, who was acquitted of the charges brought against him, as also was Felix of Aptungus, whose cause was examined by the proconsul of Africa. The Don- atists were dissatisfied; and the emperor ordered (314) a greater number of prelates to meet at Aries, and examine the cause anew. The result of this inquiry also was adverse to- them; they then appealed to the emperor in person, who examined the cause at Milan, (316,) and confirmed the pre- ceding sentences. They acted after this with so much inso- lence, that Constantine lost patience, and deprived them of their churches, banished their bishops, and even put some of their more refractory prelates to death. As the Donatists were numerous and powerful, tumults ensued, which Constantine sought in vain to allay. The savage and ferocious populace, which sided with them, un- der the name of Circumcellions, massacred, ravaged, and plundered their opponents all through the province; and matters were approaching to a civil war, when Constantine abrogated the laws made against the Donatists. The empe- ror Constans endeavored to heal the schism ; but the Dona- tists would listen to no terms, and the Circumcellions even ventured to give battle to the imperial troops. They were, however, defeated ; and a persecution ensued, which lasted till the accession of Julian, when the Donatists again raised their heads. Their numbers were so great that they counted no less than four hundred bishops of their party ; but they split into two factions. The eloquent Augustine, bishop of Hippo, wrote, preached, and spoke against them ; and this sect, the offspring of episcopal arrogance, gradually died away. The era of the establishment of Christianity [as the state religion] witnessed another schism in the church, of far greater and more lasting importance than that caused by the CONTIN, . 34 898 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Donatists. This was the celebrated Arian controversy, of which we will now briefly trace the history. The language of the New Testament, respecting the dig- nity of Christ, is lofty, but, at the same time, involved in a certain degree of obscurity, if we may venture so to express ourselves, which, acting on the natural diversity of human minds, has, in all ages, caused a difference of opinion to exist on this mysterious subject.* It would probably have been better if the church had been content on this, as on other high matters, to confine itself strictly to Scripture lan- guage, and not to have attempted to be " wise beyond what is written." On this, however, as lying without our prov- ince, we venture not to speak decidedly ; our task is simply to state facts and opinions. That the Christians of the first century worshipped Christ, is a fact not to be disputed ; the testimony of Pliny is con- clusive on the subject. They believed firmly in his divinity, but they did not anxiously seek to fathom the mystery which enveloped it. Yet there were those, as we have seen, when treating of the Gnostic sects, who speculated on this lofty subject; and in the church itself, Praxeas and others ad- vanced some very hazardous conjectures. As the fondness for Platonism advanced, that portion of the Christian doc- trine which seemed most akin to the airy speculations of the Athenian sage, drew more and more the attention of learned Christians ; and, about the middle of the third century, Sa- bellius, a bishop or presbyter of Cyrene in Africa, advanced a theory which drew to him a considerable number of fol- lowers. He maintained that a certain energy proceeded from the Father, and united itself to the Son, the man Jesus, and he regarded the Holy Spirit as in the same way a Dortion of the Father. Hence the Sabellians are called JL Patripassians. The opinions of Sabellius were, however, refuted by Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria. Beryllus, bishop of Bozrah in Arabia, taught that Christ did not exist before Mary, but that, at the time of his birth, a spirit, issuing from God himself, and therefore a portion of * No one, surely, will deny the sense, the learning, or the honesty, of those who have held opinions different from the one generally re- ceived on this subject. If any one text more than another would seem to make in favor of Arianism, it is Phil. ii. 6 — 9 ; yet Dr. Lardner, in his Letter on the Logos, declares that it was this very text tliat made him a Socinian ! THE ARIANS. 399 the Divine Being, was united to him. Beryllus was refuted by Origen, and he acknowledged and recanted his error. Paul, the celebrated bishop of Samosata, a man whom looseness of morals, and pride and arrogance, fostered by wealth, had rendered generally odious, was degraded from his episcopal dignity by a council in the year 269, on ac- count of his heretical opinions on this subject. He appears to have held that the Son and Holy Ghost exist in God as reason and activity exist in man ; that Christ was born a mere man, but that the reason or wisdom of the Father de- scended on him, and abode with him while on earth, and that hence he might, though improperly, be called God. It will be observed that the substance of these heresies of the second and third centuries, was the confounding of the Son and Holy Ghost with the Father. The church, on the other hand, had frequently decided that there was a real dif- ference, and that three distinct persons existed in the Deity, but without making any exact definition of the nature of their relation ; and the utmost liberty of sentiment and ex- pression was allowed respecting it. Yet the most prevalent opinion in Egypt and the adjacent countries, was that of Origen, who held that the Son was in God, as reason is in man, and that the Holy Ghost was simply the divine energy — a notion not very far removed from Sabellianism. In the year 319, in an assembly of the clergy of Alexan- dria, the bishop Alexander took occasion to communicate to them his sentiments on this head ; and he asserted that the Son was not only of the same eminence and dignity, but of the same essence with the Father. One of the presbyters, named Arius, treated this opinion as false, and as little re- moved from Sabellianism. He was then led to state his own opinions, which tended to the opposite extreme; for he held that the Son had been created by the Father before all things, but that time had elapsed before his creation ; that he was created out of nothing; that he was the instrument by whom the Father gave existence to the universe ; he was superior, therefore, to all other beings, but inferior, both in nature and dignity, to the Father. These opinions, when promulgated, found numerous favorers in Egypt and else- where; but Alexander caused them to be condemned in two councils which he summoned, and their author to be excom- municated. Arius withdrew to Palestine, whence he wrote numerous letters to eminent men, and drew many of them over to his sentiments. The controversy was maintained 400 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. with great heat ; and the emperor Constantine, who at first treated it as trifling and unimportant, and wrote to the par- ties enjoining peace, was at length induced to summon a general council for its decision. This council, the first of those named CEcumenical or General, met at Nicsea in Bithynia, in the year 325. Three hundred and eighteen bishops, it is said, appeared in it, and the emperor in person was present at their deliberations. They commenced with personal altercation, and presented the emperor with libels or written accusations against each other, which Constantine, however, burned, exhorting them to peace and unity. Of the proceedings of this council we have only very imperfect accounts; but its decision was against the Arians. It was determined that the Son was consubstantial [oijioovuiog) with the Father, as it is expressed in the Nicene creed. The council further terminated the dispute about the time of keeping Easter, regulated some points of discipline, and then separated. It had been very near coming to a resolution of imposing on the clergy the yoke of celibacy, such progress had that unnatural tenet of the Gnostics made in the church. Persecution was of course employed against the defeated party, and Eusebius, bishop of Nicoraedia, and others, were banished ; but an Arian, who had been commended to the emperor by his sister when on her death bed, found means to convince him that the decision of the council was unjust, and Arius, Eusebius, and others, were recalled from exile. Athanasius, the successor of Alexander, however, refused to restore Arius to his rank and office in the church, for which he was himself deposed, by a council holden at Tyre in 335, and banished to Gaul. But the people of Alexandria refused to admit Arius ; and he died the following year at Constanti- nople, of a bowel complaint, as it would appear, which some suspect was brought on by poison administered by his ene- mies, who affected to view in it a judgment of Heaven. The moral character of Arius, it may be here observed, was with- out stain; and of his religious sincerity there seems to be lit- tle ground of doubt. Of the sons of Constantine, two were orthodox; but Con- stantius, into whose hands the entire empire finally fell, was strongly attached to the Arian system. Persecution and se- duction were employed against the Homoousians ; frequent synods were convened ; so that, as Ammianus observes, " by the troops of bishops who were hurrying backwards and THE ARIANS. 401 forwards on the beasts devoted to the public service, to the synods, as they call them, in order to draw the whole sect to their own opinions, the entire posting establishment was well nigh ruined ; " and Athanasius expressed his fears that the clergy would thereby draw on them the derision and con- tempt of unbelievers. At length, a general council of the East was held at Seleucia in Isauria, (359,) and one of the West, at Rimini [Ariminum) in Italy, (360.) The former separated without coming to any decided conclusion ; the latter, which sat seven months, was, by proper management, brought to sanction a creed sufficiently Arian for the empe- ror's purpose, and "the whole world groaned," says Jerome, ** and wondered to find itself Arian." Julian was indifferent, Jovian and Valentinian were orthodox but tolerant, Valens was an Arian and a persecutor. Theodosius was rigidly orthodox ; and the second general council v/hich he assem- bled at Constantinople (381) condemned the Arians anew. Intolerant edicts were forthwith issued against them ; they were deprived of their churches, banished, and otherwise persecuted. Their sect gradually declined in the East; it had never flourished in the West ; but the Goths and other barbarians, who had been converted by Arians, carried their religious system with them when they became conquerors ; and it was not till the close of the sixth century that Arian- ism became extinct in Spain. The Arians shared the general fate of all who, on points beyond human comprehension, venture to exercise the pow- ers of their mind ; they at length came to hold different shades of opinion, and thus became subdivided into sects. Their varieties may, however, be reduced to three : — 1. The prim- itive and proper Arians, who held simply that the Son was created out of nothing. 2. The Semi-Arians, who asserted that the Son was of similar essence {ojxoioovaLog^ with the Father, but by a peculiar privilege, not by nature. This was the doctrine favored by Constantius, and it was the prevalent sentiment in the council of Seleucia. 3. The Aetians, or Eunomians, so named from their chiefs, Aetius and Euno- mius, who may be regarded as pure Arians, for they held that the Son was unlike {uvof-ioiog) the Father, and o^ another essence^ (hegoiaiog.^ Of the Acacians, Eusebians, and other minor divisions, we will not speak. The Arian controversy gave rise to other heresies. Apol- linaris, bishop of Laodicea, in his zeal for the divinity of Christ, went near to denying his humanity. He held that 34* YY 402 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. the body of Christ had only had a sensitive soul, and that the divine nature assumed in him the office of the rational soul, whence it seemed to follow that his divine as well as his human nature suffered on the cross. This opinion, we may perceive, was indebted for its origin to the author's Plat- onism. Marcellus, bishop of Ancyra, regarded the Son and Holy Ghost as emanations of the divine nature, which, after per- forming the functions appointed to them, were to return into the substance of the Father. Hence it plainly followed that there could not be three distinct persons in the Godhead, Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, the disciple of Marcellus, ■taught that Jesus was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary ; that the Word, i. e. a divine emanation or ray, de- scended on him, and that hence he was called the Son of God, and even God; that the Holy Ghost was only a virtue proceeding from the Deity. These opinions were condemned by both orthodox and Arians, and Photinus was degraded from his dignity. Macedonius, a Semi-Arian, being deposed from the see of Constantinople in 360, by the influence of the Eunomi- ans, taught openly an opinion which he had hitherto held in secret; namely, that the Holy Ghost is a divine energy dif- fused through the universe, and not a person distinct from the Father and Son. The second general council was assembled at Constantinople in 3S1, chiefly on account of this heresy. It completed what that of Nicaea had left im- perfect, establishing the doctrine of three persons in one God, which is still generally received. It also condemned and anathematized all heresies hitherto known, and it assigned the first rank after the bishop of Rome to the bishop of Constantinople. Such were the principal heresies which divided the church in the fourth century. They all arose from the vain attempt of rendering clear and definite that which had been left ob- scure and mysterious ; and they were combated too often by force and cruelty, rather than by reason and charity. The fourth was, in fact, a century of persecution : as soon as the church obtained temporal power, it abused it ; for church- men are nothing more than men. He who has power will take delight in its exercise ; and when he can silence an op- ponent by force, he will be willing to avoid the more tedious course of reasoning, or the nobler one of tolerance. In this condemnation the orthodox and the Arians are alike in- cluded. FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. 403 In consequence of its establishment as the religion of the state, the church underwent a change in its constitution. The emperor assumed the entire control of its external administration. He alone had the power of convening a General Council ; he appointed judges to decide religious controversies ; he took cognizance of all civil causes between members of the hierarchy, regulated disputes between the bishops and people, and exercised a general superintendence over the church. The bishops, on their part, had made a mo- nopoly of the internal administration; people and presbyters alike were excluded from their original share, and of the an- cient government of the church there now remained nothing more than the shadow. The government of the church was modelled after that of the state. The prelates of the four principal cities of the empire answered to the four prsetorian prefects, and seem, even in this century, to have been termed Patriarchs. The Exarchs, corresponding with civil officers of the same title, had the inspection of several provinces. The Metropolitans had the government of one province; the Archbishops were over certain districts ; the Bishops were next in rank ; the inferior clergy, headed by Arch-presbyters and Arch-deacons, completed the sacred edifice. The bishop of Rome, chiefly in consequence of his supe- rior wealth and magnificence, and the civil dignity of his see, enjoyed a certain preeminence in rank, but nothing more. He had no power of making laws for the church, or of appointing bishops to their sees ; and the other prelates strenuously maintained their equality with him, as deriving their authority from the same divine source. The fourth century and the early part of the fifth were the golden age of the literature of the early church. The most distinguished of the Fathers then flourished, and a large proportion of their works have come down to modern times. We will here enumerate some of the principal. Athanasius, the secretary and the successor of Alexander in the see of Alexandria, was, throuorhout the whole of his 7 7 O life, the invincible opponent of Arianism. In his opposition to that heresy, he braved the resentment of emperors; and he was five times expelled from his episcopal throne, and passed twenty years of his life in exile. His energy was in- domitable ; his sincerity was beyond question; his talents qualified him to rule an empire. As a writer and a speaker, he was clear, forcible, and persuasive ; but his style was un- 404 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. polished, and his learning was inferior to that of some of his contemporaries.* Gregory, named Nazianzen from the town of Nazianzes in Cappadocia, of which his father was bishop, was a man of great piety, and considerable learning and eloquence. He also was an inveterate foe of Arianism ; and Theodosius, when, in his zeal for orthodoxy, he obliged the Arian prelate of Constantinople to resign his dignity, seated Gregory by force of arms on the archiepiscopal throne. But the pious prelate finally experienced the ingratitude of courts and bishops, and he resigned his see, and retired to a solitude in his native province, where he passed the remaining years of his life in the cultivation of poetry and the exercise of devo- tion ; for his heart was naturally tender, and his genius elegant. The rival of Gregory in genius and in eloquence, was his early friend, companion, and countryman, Basil, surnamed the Great, archbishop of Caesarea. But Basil had a pride of character from which Gregory was free; and the real Chris- tian knowledge of the great promoter of Oriental monas- ticism may not unreasonably be called in question. Basil and Gregory Nazianzen may be termed the great Christian sophists. In their works, as in those of Libanius, the anxiety as to form and manner, in preference to matter and import, may be discerned ; the dignity of simplicity was unknown to or despised by them, and the glitter of false eloquence assumes its place in their writings, Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, the brother of St. Basil, was also a writer of some eminence. His oration on the life of Gregory the Wonder-worker, proves him, however,, to have been a man of great credulity. Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, was the author of various works. It is to his Ecclesiastical History that we are chiefly indebted for our acquaintance with the early fortunes of the church ; and his Life of Constantine is a principal source of our knowledge of the events of that emperor's reign. But the credit of this prelate as an historian is greatly diminished by the rule which he declares he had laid down for his guid- ance, namely, to relate nothing to the disadvantage of those whom he celebrates, of which proceeding we have noticed * The account of Athanasius given by Gibbon (chap, xxi.) is in the historian's best manner, and does him credit. It shows that " even in a bishop he could spy desert." FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. 405 an instance in his suppression of the murder of Crispus. He justifies this conduct by the specious, but untrue, pretext that this course is the more edifying one ; it being more edi- fying and profitable, for example, to blazon forth the virtues of the early Christians, than to narrate their dissensions and portray their wickedness and apostasies. History would thus become mere panegyric, and be of little more use than romance. Happily the prelate did not always adhere to his own rule ; and he occasionally lets us see that all was not purity and perfection in the church. These were the principal fathers of this century who used the Greek language. The following wrote in Latin : Lactantius, named the Christian Cicero from the elegance of his rich and copious style, is supposed to have been an African. His principal work, the Divine Institutes, is a refutation of paganism. His own notions of Christianity seem to have been of a more philosophic cast than those of most of his contemporaries. Like the apologists in general, his arguments often are weak, and his conclusions not justi- fied by his premises. Ambrose, a native of Gaul, the Becket of antiquity, vjras the civil governor of Liguria. When, on the occasion of a dispute between the orthodox and the Arians for the vacant see of Milan, (374,) he addressed the people in the cathedral in order to appease the commotion, he was greeted with the unanimous cry, " We will have Ambrose for our bishop." Ambrose, who was thirty-four years old, had not yet been baptized ; his religious instruction had necessarily been ex- tremely slight, and, in his desire to escape the elevation, for which he deemed himself unfit, he publicly committed some acts of gross injustice and immorality. But the people cried, " Thy offence be upon our heads ; " they drew him from a concealment which he had sought, and conducted him in triumph to Milan. He was thus forced to yield, and on the eighth day after his baptism, he was consecrated. He im- mediately made over the whole of his property to the church or the poor ; and spiritual ambition took entire possession of his soul. In the cause of orthodoxy, he resisted Justina, the Arian mother of Valentinian II. ; in the cause of the authority of the church, he humbled even the great Theodo- sius. As a writer, Ambrose is entitled to but moderate praise. His works discover a fondness for the prevalent su- perstitions of the age, and he lays claim to the power of per- forming miracles. He was an able statesman, a bold, am- bitious prelate, but a man of unblemished private life. 406 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Augustine, bishop of Hippo Regius in Africa, was a man of considerable mental power. He was engaged in con- tinual controversy with the Donatists and other heretics. His writings are numerous ; his most remarkable work is his Confessions, the earliest piece of autobiography that we possess. Augustine entered more deeply into the abstruse questions of grace, free will, and original sin, than the Fa- thers in general. He is regarded as the chief author of the opinions known by the name of Calvinism. Jerome, a native of Illyricum, had conceived such a pas- sion for a monastic life, that he left his own country and shut himself up in a convent at Bethlehem, where he de- voted all his days to devotion, study, and composition. He applied himself to the Hebrew language, and translated the Old Testament into Latin ; and as a translator and critic he ranks far above his contemporaries. He also engaged warm- ly in controversy, and earned the fame of being the most foul-mouthed of all the Fathers. On heretics and reformers alike the vials of his wrath were poured forth ; the opposers of mortification, celibacy, pilgrimage, saint-worship, and other superstitions which he chose to admire and recommend, however exemplary their lives, received no better treatment than the obstinate heretic or sinner, from this most choleric of saints. Even age brought no cooling to his fervent spirit; and his very latest writings are as fierce and fiery as those composed in his prime of life. Such were the principal Fathers of the fourth century ; and, viewing their writings, and those of their predecessors and successors, we tbink that any person of candor will agree with us in saying, that neither in critical skill, in learn- ing, in judgment, or in correct morality, can they stand a comparison with the Protestant divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or even with the Gallican divines of the same period. In gaudy, glittering, theatric eloquence, a Basil, a Gregory, a Chrysostom, may claim the precedence ; but what work can the ancient church produce to be placed alongside of the Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker 1 or where can we find in it reasoning equal to that of Chillingworth and Barrow? The Fathers may be read with profit, but cannot be safely taken as guides, unless we are willing to end in submission to the church of Rome. The Christian religion is contained in the New Testament alone, and is thence to be derived, by the application of the principles of sound criticism in a spirit actuated by the sincere love of truth. THE MANIC H JEANS. 407 We will conclude this chapter by an account of the Mani- chaean heresy. This heresy, which arose in the middle of the third centu- ry, may be regarded as the last and most permanent form of Gnosticism. Its founder, from whom it derived its name, was Manes, a Persian by birth, and one of the sacerdotal caste of the Magians, who embraced Christianity, and en- deavored to amalgamate it with his original faith. Of the history of his life little is known with certainty. He is said to have been put to death by the Persian king Varanes I. As the foundation of his system, Manes laid down the two principles of Light and Darkness, with their'respective chiefs (the Ormuzd and Ahriman of Persian theology) and their countless myriads of subordinate spirits. The prince of Darkness was long ignorant of the existence of the realm of light ; but when he accidentally discovered it, he invaded it. The armies of Light, headed by the First Man, opposed him, but could not prevent his seizing a large portion of it, and mingling it with matter. The Living Spirit, the second leader of the troops of Light, had more success; yet still much of the pure element remained immersed in matter. From the mixture the prince of Darkness formed the parents of the iiuman race, who had therefore a material body, in which were two souls, one sensitive and lustful, the other rational and immortal, as being produced of Light. The Living Spirit then created the earth out of matter, as a habitation for the human race, in order to their gradual puri- fication from the influence of corrupt matter ; and to aid them in their efforts, God produced, from his own substance, two beings, named Christ and Holy Ghost, the former of whom, (the Persian Mithras,) a splendid substance, subsist- ing in and by himself, filled with life and infinite in wisdom, resided in the sun; while the latter, also luminous and ani- mated, pervaded the atmosphere of the earth, illumining the minds of men, giving fertility to the soil, and drawing out from it the particles of celestial heat, and restoring "them to their native region. The Supreme Deity sent a succession of angels and holy men to admonish and exhort the souls imprisoned in matter. At length, he directed Christ to quit his abode in the sun, and, taking on him the semblance of a body, to appear on earth. Christ obeyed the mandate, performed miracles, and gave precepts to man ; but the prince of Darkness stirred up the Jews against him, and, in appearance, he suffered death 408 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. on the cross. He reascended to the san, having appointed apostles to propagate his religion, and promised a Paraclete or Comforter, who would add what was needful to his doc- trine, and dispel all error from the minds of his servants. This great Paraclete was Manes ; and those who obeyed the laws of Christ as enlarged by him, would gradually be freed from the influence of matter, but not wholly in this life ; for, after death, they must first proceed to the moon, which is composed of purifying water', after an abode in which of fif- teen days, they were to ascend to the sun, whose^re would remove all remaining stains. The souls of the wicked were, after death, to m'igrate into the bodies of animals and other natures, till they should have expiated their guilt. The world was finally to be consumed with fire, and the prince and powers of Darkness be compelled to return to and abide forever in their original gloom and misery. The moral system of Manes was severe and rigorous in the extreme; but, aware that celibacy, long fasting, and mortification, were not suited to mankind in general, he made a distinction similar to one already noticed,* dividing his followers into the Elect and the Hearers, from the former of whom alone obedience was exacted to his ascetic system. Manes rejected all the books of both the Old and the New Testament, except St. Paul's Epistles, which, however, he regarded as greatly interpolated and corrupted. He gave his disciples a gospel of his own, named Ertang, dictated to him, as he said, by God himself The Manicheean assem- blies had always a president, who represented Jesus Christ, twelve rulers or masters, and seventy-two bishops, to corre- spond with the apostles and disciples ; under the bishops were presbyters and deacons, all selected from the body of the Elect ; and the hierarchy was thus completed. The Manichcean system long continued to flourish. It spread itself over both the empires. We believe there is little doubt, that those who, under the names of Albigenses, Paulicians, Cathari, and other denominations, were so cru- elly persecuted by the church of Rome in the middle ages, v/ere the descendants of the Manicha^ans. There is reason to suppose that the mistresses and the loves of the trouba- dours of the South of France were not earthly ; that the conventional language, retained by the Soofees in Persia, had been carried by the Manichseans to Spain and France ; , * See above, p. 283. A. D. 395.] HONORIUS. 409 that in Italy, this language, which had hitherto been con- fined to religion, was, by Frederick II. and his friends, ex- tended to politics, and made the bond of union of the Ghibellines ; and that it is only by a knowledge of it, that the writings of Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, and the other writers of that age, can be understood.* In fine, it might appear that Manichseism eventually led to the Reformation.. CHAPTER Vll.t HONORIUS, VALENTINIAN III., ETC. A. u. 1148—1229. A. D. 395—476. DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE. RUFINUS. THE GOTHS IN GREECE. GILDO. INVASION OF ITALY BY ALARIC. BY RADAGAISUS. MURDER OF STILICHO. CLAUDIAN. ALARIC'S SECOND INVASION. SACK OF ROME. DEATH OF ALARIC. BARBARIANS IN THE EMPIRE. VALENTIN- IAN III. BONIFACE AND ^TIUS. GENSERIC. HIS CON- QUEST OF AFRICA. ATTILA. THEODORIC. BATTLE OF CHALONS. ATTILa's INVASION OF ITALY. MURDER. OF ^TIUS AND OF VALENTINIAN. MAXIMUS. SACK OF ROME BY GENSERIC. AVIT US. MAJORIAN. SEVE- RUS. ANTHEMIUS. NEPOS AND GLYCERIUS. ROMULUS AUGUSTUS. END OF THE EMPIRE. CONCLUSION. Honorius. A. u. 1148—1176. A. D. 395—423. With Theodosius the unity of the Roman empire termi- nated ; it never again obeyed a single ruler, and henceforth the empires of the East and the West are as distinct as any independent kingdoms of ancient or modern times. As the history of that of the East, during the remaining period of our narrative, presents no events of much political impor- * The proofs will be found in the various works of Signor Rossetti, the learned and sagacious expounder of Dante. t Authorities : Zosimus, Claudian, Jornandes, the Ecclesiastical Historians, and the Chroniclers. CONTIN. 35 Z Z 410 HONORIUS. [a. D. 395. tance, we will confine ourselves to that of the West, and rapidly relate its fall. Theodosius had two sons : to the elder, named Arcadius, a youth of eighteen years of age, who had been left behind in Constantinople, was assigned the empire of the East ; to the younger, Honorius, a boy of eleven years, that of the West.* The care of both the emperors and their dominions was committed by Theodosius, on his death bed, to Stilicho, a man of great talent, civil and military, and of incorrupt in- tegrity, to whom he had given his niece and adopted daugh- ter Serena in marriage, and had raised him to the high rank of master of both the cavalry and infantry of the empire. After the decease of Theodosius, Stilicho remained in Italy with the young Honorius. The chief minister of Ar- cadius was Rufinus, the prefect of the East, a native of Gaul, who, having devoted himself to the practice of the law at Constantinople, by his talents and by his profound hypoc- risy gained the favor of the late emperor, who had gradually raised him to his present dignity. As soon as death had relieved him from the restraint which his knowledge of the latent vigor of Theodosius's character imposed, Rufinus flung off the mask, and gave free course to his cruelty and his avarice. In the gratification of this last ignoble passion, he passed all bounds. Justice was sold, offices were sold, oppressive taxes were imposed, testaments were extorted or forged, ruinous fines were exacted, properties were confis- cated on the slightest pretexts. The wealth thus acquired was retained by the most rigid parsimony, and Rufinus was consequently the object of hatred to many, and of sincere attachment to no one. The ambitious prefect hoped to unite his only daughter to his youthful sovereign ; but he seems not to have reflected on the secret machinations of a despotic court; and while he was absent on a journey of vengeance to Antioch, where, without even a shadow of proof, he judicially murdered the count of the East, a secret conspiracy m the palace, headed by the chamberlain Eutropius, undermined his power. Dis- covering that their young monarch had no affection for his destined bride, the confederates planned to substitute for her the fair Eudoxia, the orphan daughter of Bauto, a Frank general in the imperial service. They inflamed the imagina- * The province of lUyricum was divided between the two empires. A. D. 395.] RUFINUS. 411 tion of the emperor by their commendations of her charms ; the view of her picture confirmed the impression, and when, on the day fixed for the royal nuptials, after the return of Rufinus, (April 27,) the bearers of the diadem, robes, and ornaments, of the future empress, issued from the palace, they entered not the mansion of the prefect, but the house in which Eudoxia was dwelling, and conducted the daughter of Bauto to the imperial residence. The sense and spirit exhibited by the new empress soon filled Rufinus with alarm; and it is not unlikely that, in the rage of disappointed ambi- tion, and the dread of a hostile faction, he may, as he is charged, have resolved to aim at the empire, and with this view have secretly encouraged the Goths and Huns to renew their ravages. But Rufinus had a foe to encounter more formidable than the eunuchs of the palace. He had long since drawn on himself the enmity of Stilicho; and that general, who had already divided between the royal brothers the jewels and other private property of their deceased father, now pre- pared to apportion between the two empires the troops which had been assembled under the imperial standard for the late war. Under the pretext of the ravages of the Goths, he marched in person at the head of the troops that were to return to the East ; and he had reached Thessalonica when he received an order from Arcadius, dictated by the fears of Rufinus, to send on the troops, but to advance no farther himself. He obeyed, committing to the soldiers the execution of the designs which he had formed against Rufi- nus. The army, led by Gainas, a Goth, marched for the capital; not a soldier divulged the secret of Stilicho; Rufi- nus was led to hope that they would aid his ambition, and he freely distributed to them a portion of his hoarded treasures. When they were within a mile of the city, (Nov. 27,) he and the emperor advanced to salute them. As he was passing along the ranks, the wings gradually closed and surrounded him : Gainas then gave the signal ; a soldier plunged his sword into his breast, and he fell dead at the feet of the em- peror. His lifeless body was abandoned to the rage of the populace, who treated it with every species of horrid indig- nity. His wife and daughter found sanctuary in a church, and they ended their days in a convent at Jerusalem.* * The power now fell into the hands of the eunuch Eutropius, whom Claudian, the panegyrist of Stilicho, lashes in so fearful a manner. Of the poet's satiric pojvers, the following is a specimen : — 412 HONORius. [a. D. 396-398. The Goths, under the guidance of an intrepid young prince named Alaric, after ravaging the northern provinces, had advanced into Greece, (396.) They no where encoun- tered opposition ; from Mount Olympus to the extremities of Taenaron and Malea, they ravaged the country and pillaged the towns. At length (397) Stilicho debarked an army on the isthmus of Corinth, and advanced into Arcadia, to engage the invaders. By skilful movements he forced them to re- tire to Mount Pholoe, and, having diverted the course of the only stream that supplied them, and drawn a line of posts round them, he withdrew to share in the pleasures of the stage and dance in the cities of Greece. The soldiers, not being controlled by the presence of their general, quitted the works, and spread themselves over the country. Alaric, watching his opportunity, marched out with his booty and captives, crossed the Corinthian Gulf, and was master of Epirus before Stilicho knew of his escape. The Gothic prince had meantime been secretly negotiating a treaty with the ministers of Arcadius ; and just at this conjuncture he was appointed to the military command of eastern Illyricum, and Stilicho received orders to depart from the dominions of the emperor of the East. . The attention of Stilicho was next directed to Africa, where Gildo, the brother of the unfortunate Firmus, ruled in nearly total independence ; for, after the suppression of that rebel, the government of Africa had been conferred on Gildo, who had risen to the rank of count in the service of Rome. At a distance from the seat of empire, and there- fore secure from punishment, he indulged all his passions without restraint, and the unhappy country groaned beneath his tyranny. Persons of wealth were poisoned in order to obtain their properties ; the fairest matrons and maidens, after being forced to submit to the embraces of the tyrant, were abandoned to his swarthy Moorish and Gaetulian guards. Asperius nihil est humili, cum surgit in altutnj Cuncta ferit dum cuncta timet ; desaevit in omnes, Ut se posse putent ; nee bellua tetrior ulla Quam servi rabies in libera terga furentis. Agnoscit gemitus, et poenae parcere nescit Quam subiit, dominique memor quem verberat odit. Adde quod eunuchus nulla pietate movetur, Nee generi natisve eavet. dementia eunctis In similes, animosque ligant consortia damni. Iste nee eunuchis placidus, sed pejus in aurum jEstuat ; hoc uno fruitur succisa libido. In Eutrop. I. 181, seq. A. D. 398.] GILDO. 413 His excesses were unnoticed by Theodosius, who resided at a distance; but he saw that from Stilicho he had no favor to expect, and he therefore craftily tendered his allegiance to the throne of Arcadius. The ministers of that prince, re- gardless of faith or honor, grasped at the delusive offer, and signified to Stilicho their right to Africa. Their claim was met by a decided negative. Stilicho instantly accused the African as a rebel to the senate, and that body declared him the enemy of the republic. The prudent Symmachus sug- gested the danger of the corn-ships being kept back, and the ^city being thus exposed to famine ; but Stilicho had already provided for this case, and abundant supplies of corn from Gaul were poured into the granaries of Rome. The command of the force destined for the reduction of the Moorish tyrant was committed to his own brother Mas- cezel, whom he had forced to fly for his life, and whose innocent children he had murdered. The army of Mascezel consisted of only five thousand Gallic veterans; but these were deemed sufficient to overcome the naked and disorderly barbarians, who, to the number, it is said, of seventy thou- sand, marched under the banners of Gildo. Shortly after his landing, (398,) Mascezel gave the signal for engagement. He himself advanced before his troops with offers of par- don; one of the enemy's standard-bearers met him, and Mascezel, on his refusal to yield, struck off his arm with his sword. The standard fell to the ground ; the supposed vol- untary act was imitated by all the other standard-bearers : the cohorts proclaimed the name of Honorius; the barba- rians dispersed and returned to their homes ; and the victory was thus gained without the slightest effusion of blood. Gildo fled to the sea-shore, and, throwing himself into a small vessel, made sail for the East; but the wind drove him into the port of Tabraca, where he was seized by the inhab- itants and cast into prison, and he terminated his existence by his own hand. Mascezel, on his return, was received at court with great favor ; but, shortly after, as he was riding with Stilicho over a bridge, his horse threw him into the river ; and the attendants, observing that Stilicho smiled, gave him no aid, and he was drowned.* The guilt of his death was accordingly charged on the envy of Stilicho. * So Gibbon " softens," as he terms it, the narrative of Zosimus, "which, in its crude simplicity," he says, '< is almost incredible." Zosimus simply says (v. ii.) that the guards, on a given signal, pushed him into the river, and that Stilicho lauffhed. 35* 414 HONORius. [400-403. The young emperor, now in his fourteenth year, was uni- ted in marriage at this time with his cousin Maria, the daughter of Stilicho; but the consummation was deferred; and ten years after Maria died a virgin. Honorius, who was utterly devoid of talent or energy, passed his days in feeding poultry; and Stilicho, while he lived, was in reality the mon- arch of the West. This able man had soon again to measure arms with the ambitious Alaric. The Gothic prince, in addition to his rank of master of Illyricum, was now, by the unanimous suffrages of his countrymen, king of the Visigoths. For some years he acted a dubious part between the emperors of the East and the West; but he finally (400) resolved on the invasion and plunder of Italy. By arts or by arms he was for three years withheld from treading its plains; but at length (402) the court of Milan was alarmed by intelligence of the approach of the Goths. The council of the young emperor proposed an instant flight to Gaul. Stilicho, alone undismayed, pledged himself, if the court would only remain tranquil during his absence, to return, within a limited time, at the head of a powerful army. He accordingly crossed the Alps in the depth of winter, collected the troops of Gaul and Britain, and took into pay a large body of Alemannic cav- alry. But, while he was thus engaged, the Goths had ad- vanced to Milan; and Honorius had fled and shut himself up in the town of Asta (Asti) in Liguria, where he was closely besieged by the Gothic monarch. Stilicho hastened to his relief; by skilful manceuvres he cut off the supplies of the barbarians, and he gradually drew round them a line of fortifications. During these operations, the festival of Easter arrived, (403.) While the Goths were devoutly celebrating it, their camp at Pollentia (twenty-five miles south-east of Turin) was assailed by the imperial cavalry. Alaric speedily drew out and formed his men ; the battle was maintained through- out the day with mutual valor ; but in the evening the Goths retired. Their camp was forced ; the booty and captives were all recovered ; and the wife of Alaric remained a pris- oner in the hands of the victors. Alaric was, however, pre- paring, at the head of his remaining troops, to cross the Apennines and push on for Rome ; but his council of war- riors forced him to listen to the offers of Stilicho, and con- clude a treaty for the evacuation of Italy. He repassed the Po, with the secret design of seizing the city of Verona, A. D. 404-406.] INVASION OF ITALY. 415 advancing rapidly into Germany, passing the Rhine, and invading the defenceless provinces of Gaul. But Stilicho, who had a secret intelligence with some of the Gothic chiefs, learned his design, and, at a short distance from Verona, the Goths were assailed on all sides by the imperial troops. Their loss was considerable; Alaric himself owed his safety to the swiftness of his horse. He then assembled his remaining forces amid the adjacent rocks, where he pre- pared to stand a siege ; but hunger and desertion soon forced him to accept another treaty ; and Italy was at length de- livered from the Goths, though but for a time. In the following year, (404,) Honorius visited the ancient capital of the empire. He entered it in triumphal pomp, Stilicho seated in his chariot by his side. His abode in the capital is distinguished by an edict abolishing the combats of gladiators; for, as these inhuman contests were going on one day in the amphitheatre, an Asiatic monk, named Telemachus, urged by a generous impulse, sprang into the arena to separate the combatants. The enraged spectators overwhelmed him with a shower of stones ; and he perished a martyr in the sacred cause of humanity. When the rage of the people subsided, they were filled with penitence ; a ready obedience was yielded to the edict is- sued on the occasion by the emperor, and the barbarous and inhuman gladiatorial combats ceased forever. As invasions of the barbarians were now matter of con- stant apprehension, and neither Rome nor Milan was con- sidered to be sufficiently secure for the imperial residence, Honorius fixed his abode at Ravenna. This city, situated on the Adriatic, was strongly fortified ; and its only approach on the land side was by a causeway leading through a deep morass.* Strong thus by nature and art, Ravenna hence- forth continued, for more than three centuries, to be the seat of government in Italy. The apprehensions of the emperor and his court vi^ere not unfounded ; for, within two years after the departure of Al- aric, a numerous host of Germans poured into Italy, (406.) This host, which is stated at 200,000 fighting men, accom- panied by their wives, children, and slaves, was composed of adventurers from most of the German and Sarmatian tribes. The leader-in-chief was named Radagaisus. The task of * Owing to the recession of the waters of the Mediterranean, Ra- venna is now four miles from the sea. 41:6 HONORius. [a. d. 407-408. defending Italy fell, as before, to Stilicho; he caused the Ceeble emperor to shut himself up in Ravenna; while he himself, with an army of between thirty and forty thousand men, the utmost force he was able to collect, took his post at Pavia, (Ticinum.) The barbarians advanced unopposed, pillaging the towns and cities on their way ; they crossed the Po and the Apennines, and laid siege to the city of Flor- ence in Tuscany. Stilicho, who had, at length, been joined by the troops which he had summoned from the provinces, and by barbarian auxiliaries, now advanced to its relief. Adopting his former policy, he avoided a general action, and gradually drew a strong line of fortifications around the posi- tion occupied by the host of Radagaisus. Famine soon spread its ravages among the men and horses; their furious assaults on the lines of circumvallation were repelled ; and they were at length obliged to surrender at discretion. Radagaisus was beheaded by order of Stilicho ; the common barbarians were sold for slaves. The principal nations composing the host of Radagaisus were the Suevians, Burgundians, Vandals, and Alans; and only a portion of their immense force had entered Italy. In the following winter, those who had remained in Germany crossed the Rhine never to retreat; and, in less than two years, after devastating the Gallic provinces, they had reached the Pyrenees. At this time, the trans-Alpine prov- inces had ceased to obey the emperor Honorius. The army of Britain had invested with the purple a private sol- dier of the name of Constantine, (407;) and, on his passing over to Gaul, all the cities which had escaped the barbarians yielded him submission. The troops of Honorius besieged him in Vienne, but they were forced to make a precipitate retreat over the Alps; and, in the following year, (408,) Constantine, with little difficulty, made himself master of Spain. After the retreat of Alaric from Italy, relations of friend- ship were formed between that prince and Stilicho ; and the Goth, quitting the service of the emperor of the East, was appointed commander of the Roman forces in all lilyricum ; the eastern portion of which region Stilicho reclaimed from the court of Byzantium. A semblance of war ensued be- tween the two empires ; and Alaric carried on some feeble operations in Epirus and Thessaly, for which he furnished a long account of expenses to the court of Ravenna, intima- ting, though in respectful terms, that a refusal to comply A.D. 408.] MURDER OF STILICHO. 417 with his demands might prove hazardous. Stilicho deem- ing it the wiser course to yield, his authority silenced all opposition ; and the sum of 4000 pounds of gold, under the name of a subsidy, was promised to Alaric. While the empire was thus distracted and menaced on all sides, court intrigue deprived it of the only man capable of saving it. Olympius, a man whom the influence of Stilicho had advanced to a high office at court, and who concealed his vices under the mask of extreme piety, was secretly un- dermining his benefactor in the mind of the feeble emperor. He made Honorius believe that Stilicho had formed designs on his life and throne. As the troops, which, on account of the menaces of Alaric, were lying north of the Po, were composed of different elements — some devoted, others hos- tile to Stilicho — Honorius, at the instigation of Olympius, announced his intention of reviewing them in their different quarters. He visited Stilicho at Bologna, where the barba- rian troops (those most devoted to the general) lay, and thence proceeded to Pavia, to the camp of the Roman troops, the enemies of Stilicho and the barbarians. By the arts of Olympius, these troops had been prepared to enact the part required of them, and, after listening to an address from the emperor, they rose and massacred all the friends of Stilicho, including the highest officers of the empire. Honorius, who was ignorant of the projected massacre, was filled with ter- ror ; but he was finally persuaded to approve of what had been done, and commend the actors. Stilicho, on hearing of the massacre at Pavia, held a council of the leaders of the auxiliaries ; they were unanimous in urging him to ven- geance, but he hesitated to involve the empire in a civil war. His confederates retired in disgust at his irresolution, and in the night his camp was assailed by the troops of a Gothic leader named Sarus, who was one of the band of his enemies His faithful Hunnish guards were cut to pieces, and he him- self escaped with difficulty. He retired to Ravenna, and took sanctuary in a church ; by artifice and perjury the bishop was induced to yield him up, and he was beheaded as soon as he had passed the sacred threshold, (Aug. 23.) His son was shortly after put to death; his daughter Thermantia, who, like her sister, was the emperor's virgin wife, was di- vorced; his memory was defamed; his friends were tortured and murdered. Among those involved in the fate of the great Stilicho was the poet Claudian, the last ancient poet in whose verses the AAA 418 HONORIUS. [a. D. 408. Latin language appears with any lustre. CJaudian was born at Alexandria in Egypt. The Latin, therefore, was not his mother tongue ; yet he made it the graceful and elegant ve- hicle of such poetry as had not been equalled, except by Statins, since the Augustan age. Panegyric and satire were the principal themes of his muse. He may be called the poet laureate of Stilicho, whose victories he celebrates, and whose enemies he overwhelms with invective. His diction is harmonious, though not perfectly pure; his descriptions are rich and luxuriant ; he possessed the rare talent of ele- vating the mean and diversifying the similar without offend- ing the good sense or taste of the reader. In a word, Clau- dian closes with dignity the band of Latin poets.* While, by the base arts of courtiers, Italy was thus de- prived of her only stay, Alaric lay encamped on her confines. As if to aid him in his projects, the fanatic Olympius caused an edict to be issued excluding all those who did not hold the orthodox creed from civil and military employment ; and on one day the wives and children of the barbarians in the Roman service (a body of 30,000 men) were massacred in the towns of Italy, in which they were dwelling as hostages. These troops vowed a heavy revenge; and Alaric, certain of .their cooperation, hesitated not to enter Italy as the avenger of the death of Stilicho, and of his own wrongs. Stilicho had perished in the montli of August, and in the following October, Alaric passed the Alps, the Po, the Apennines ; and Rome, for the first time since the days of Hannibal, saw a foreign enemy before her gates. The Gothic forces closely blockaded all the approaches, and stopped the navigation of the Tiber. Famine and pestilence soon began to spread their ravages through the crowded population. At length, two senators were sent as envoys to the Gothic camp. When led before Alaric, they spoke of the dignity and number of the Roman people, and bade him to prepare for battle if he would not grant reasonable terms. " The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed," replied the Goth, with a laugh. He then demanded, as a ransom, all the gold, silver, and precious movables in the city, and all the barbarian slaves. He final- * Gibbon (chap, xxx.) draws the character of this poet with tolerable accuracy. He evidently admired him. We cannot, however, con- cede, that in Claudian " it would not be easy to produce a passage that deserves the epithet of sublime or pathetic ; to select a verse that melts the heart or enlarges the imagination." Of the last, at least, there are many. A.D. 409.] ATTALUS MADE EMPEROR. 419 ly consented to take 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver, 3,000 of pepper, 4,000 robes of silk, and 3,000 pieces of scarlet cloth ; and, on the delivery of these articles, Alaric led his troops into Tuscany for the winter. His army, aug- mented by the barbarians who had been in the Roman ser- vice, and by 40,000 slaves, counted, at the least, 100,000 fighting men, (409.) The early part of the year was spent in fruitless negotia^ tions for peace. Olympius was in his turn undermined by the intrigues of the palace, and forced to seek his safety in flight. A brave barbarian officer, named Gennerid, was placed at the head of the army, and 10,000 Huns were taken into pay. But the intrigues of the palace still prevailed, and an oath was extorted from the principal officers of the state and army, never, under any circumstances, to consent to a peace with the insolent invader of Italy. All hopes of accom- modation being thus cut off, Alaric led his troops once more toward Rome. By making himself master of the port of Ostia,* where the corn for the supply of the city was ware- housed, he speedily put an end to all thoughts of resistance; and the senate, at his dictation, invested with the purple At- talus, the prefect of the city. The new emperor bestowed on his benefactor the rank of commander-in-chief of the armies of the West, which he had sought in vain from the ministers of Honorius, and made Adolphus, [Athanlf,) the Gothic monarch's brother-in-law, count of the domestics, with the custody of the royal person. Milan cheerfully ac- knowledged the new emperor, whom Alaric conducted in triumph almost to the gates of Ravenna, where an embassy from Honorius, offering to divide the empire with him, en- tered the camp. Attalus insisted on his resignation ; and so desperate in reality did the affairs of Honorius now seem, that Jovius, his principal minister, and Valens, his general, two of the envoys, went over to the side of his rival. Honorius was in despair, preparing to fly to the Eastern court, when a body of four thousand veterans landed in Ra- venna. As these sufficed for its defence, he now felt some- what reassured, and he was soon further cheered by the arrival of a large sum of money, sent by Count Heraclian, who had defeated the troops sent to Africa by Attalus, and distressed the Romans by preventing the exportation of corn and oil. Alaric, wearied with the insolence and imprudence * See above, p. 80. 420 HONORius. [a. D. 410-412. of the emperor of his own creation, and acted on by the arts of the treacherous Jovius, at length publicly stripped him of his diadem and purple, which he sent to Honorius as a pledge of amity. He then advanced to within three miles of Ravenna, in the full expectation that a peace would now be concluded ,• but Sarus the Goth, at the head of three hun- dred men, sallied from one of the gates, and cut to pieces a division of his troops ; and a herald soon after appeared to declare that the emperor would never enter into friendship with the invader of Italy. The Gothic monarch, bent on vengeance, led his troops once more to Rome. The senate prepared to make a des- perate resistance ; but treachery rendered their plans unavail- ing. At midnight, (Aug. 24, 410,) the Salarian gate was silently opened, and the Goths were admitted ; and Rome, for the first time since the days of Camillus, (a space of eight centuries,) became the prey of a foreign enemy. All the horrors and atrocities consequent on the capture of a large town by storm, were felt by the unhappy city; but the evils were mitigated, in many instances, by the Christian feeling of the Arian Goths ; and it is acknowledged that Rome suffered far less at their hands, than it did afterwards, in the 16th century, from the Catholic troops of the orthodox em- peror Charles V. Numbers were, of course, reduced from affluence or comfort to slavery or poverty, and the provinces of Africa and the East were filled with fugitives from the ancient capital of the empire. Alaric remained only six days in Rome ; he then led his troops southwards, captured Nola and other towns, and, on coming to the Straits of Rhegium, prepared to pass over and make the conquest of Sicily prelusive to that of Africa. But a storm shattered his transports, and a premature death ter- minated his visions of dominion. To form a grave for the mighty Alaric, the course of the Busentinus, a small river which washes the walls of Consentia, was diverted, and his corpse, royally arrayed, was deposited in its bed. The stream was then restored to its original channel ; and, that the secret of the resting-place of Alaric might never be known, a massacre was made of all the prisoners who had been engaged in the work. The royal dignity, after the death of Alaric, was conferred on Adolphus. This prince, who was of a prudent and mod- erate temper, effected a treaty with the court of Ravenna, and the Visigoths at length (412) evacuated Italy, after a A. D. 413.] BARBARIANS IN SPAIN. 4211 possession of four years. But they never again returned to their former seats ; Adolphus, in the character of a Roman general, led his troops against the invaders and the usurpers- of southern Gaul ; and his authority was speedily acknowl- edged from the Mediterranean to the Ocean. A marriage into the royal house of Theodosius also contributed to give him consequence. Placidia, the daughter of that monarch by Galla, had been detained in the Gothic camp since the period of the first siege of Rome by Alaric ; and, though the court of Honorius rejected with disdain Adolphus's propo- sals of marriage, and insisted on her restitution, the princess herself was less haughty, and she readily gave her hand to the brave and handsome monarch of the Goths. Count Heraclian, who had been loyal to Honorius when his cause seemed nearly hopeless, became a rebel when Italy was delivered of the Goths. He assumed the purple, (413,) and, embarking a numerous army in a large fleet, sailed from Africa, and entered the Tiber. But, as he was on the road to Rome, he was met and defeated by one of the imperial gen- erals, and he fled back to Africa in a single ship. He sought refuge in the temple of Memory, at Carthage, whence he was taken and beheaded. It would be tedious were we to relate the actions and deaths of Constantine, of Maximus, Jovinus, Sebastian, and: others, who at this period aimed at empire in Gaul and Spain, and perished in the attempt. We therefore pass them over in silence, and proceed to relate the conquest of Spain by the Goths. The fruitful and wealthy provinces of Spain had, in conse- quence of its position, been strangers to war for the last four centuries, with the exception of the irruption of the Germans in the time of Gallienus ; it was now to suffer in common with the rest of the empire. The barbarians who had passed the Rhine in 406, had reached the foot of the Pyrenees, and the barbarian mercenaries, called Honorians, to whom the usurper Constantine had committed the passes of those mountains, turning traitors to their trust, admitted the con- federate Germans and Alans into the heart of Spain, (409.) Rapine and devastation traversed the land from the Pyrenees to the Straits of Gades ; and when Spain had thus been ex- hausted of its strength and wealth, the conquerors set down, resolved to occupy it permanently. The Suevians and Van- dals settled in the north; the Alans spread over the central region from sea to sea; a branch of the Vandals took posses- CONTIN. 36 422 VALENTINIAN III. [a. d. 414-423. sion of Baetica. They were not, however, suffered to remain long undisturbed. Adolphus, covetous of military fame, readily accepted the task of recovering Spain for the empire. He led his Goths through the Pyrenees, (414,) and surprised the city of Barcelona, llis career of victory, however, was cut short ere long (Aug. 415) by the dagger of an assassin j and Singaric, a brother of Sarus, was placed on the vacant throne. The six children of Adolphus by a former marriage were put to death, and Placidia was treated as a slave by this tyrant. But he also perished by assassination on the seventh day of his reign, and the choice of the nation gave the throne to a chief named Waliia. Within the space of four years, this valiant warrior restored Spain to the empire; and he then (419) repassed the Pyrenees, and fixed his royal residence at Toulouse, ruling the country from the Loire to the confines of Spain. When the Goths were thus established in the south and west of France, the Burgundians obtained permanent posses- sion of the Upper Germany, and their name remains in its modern appellation. The Lower Germany was at the same time occupied by the Franks. Armorica, or the north-v/est portion of Gaul, and the island of Britain, being left to their own resources, assumed an attitude of independence. In this condition of his empire, that most feeble and con- temptible of princes, Honorius, emperor of the West, died (423) of dropsy, after an inglorious reign of twenty-eight years. Valentinian III. A. u. 117—61208. A. D. 423—455. Honorius died childless ; but the western branch of the line of Theodosius did not expire with him. Placidia, whom we have seen treated with such indignity after the death of her husband, had been redeemed for 600,000 measures of wheat; and her brother had obliged her to give her hand to a brave and faithful general, named Constantius, by whom she had two children, a daughter named Honoria, and a son Valen- tinian. At her impulsion, Constantius claimed and obtained the title of Augustus, and a share in the empire ; but he died shortly after, and, by the intrigues of a steward and a nurse, enmity was excited between the emperor and his sister, to whom he had been hitherto most fondly attached. As the A. D. 425-428.] COUNT boniface. 423 Gothic soldiers took the part of their queen, and the city of Ravenna was filled with tumult, Placidia was induced to re- tire from the scene. She went to the court of Byzantium, where she was most kindly received by the reigning empe- ror, Theodosius II. ; and when, a few months after, intelli- gence arrived of the death of Honorius, the Eastern monarch prepared to assert by arms the claim of her son to the vacant throne, which had been occupied by John, the Primicerius, or principal secretary of the late emperor. It was some time before the troops of the East were in readiness to attempt the conquest of Italy. At length (425) they set forth ; Aquileia was surprised, and one of the Eastern commanders, who had been made a prisoner and carried into Ravenna, having contrived to gain over the garrison, the usurper was seized and beheaded. Though Theodosius might have asserted his claim to the whole empire, he con- tented himself with the addition of western Illyricum to his dominions, and he caused his young cousin, Valentinian, to be invested with the monarchy of the West. A marriage, which afterwards took place, was agreed on, Valentinian be- ing to espouse, when of suitable age, Eudoxia, the daughter of Theodosius. As the young monarch was now only six years old, the government of himself and his empire naturally fell into the hands of his mother, and she retained her power for a space of five-and-twenty years. The armies of the West were commanded by two able men, Boniface and vEtius. The former, who held the government of Africa, had been at all times attached to the cause of Pla- cidia; the latter, who was of barbaric origin, had joined the late usurper, and had even brought a force of 60,000 Huns as far as the confines of Italy, to his aid, when he heard of his fate. Having negotiated a treaty for the retreat of the bar- barians, he entered the service of Valentinian; and he soon gained great influence over the mind of Placidia. This in- fluence he employed for the destruction of his rival. He se- cretly persuaded Placidia to recall Boniface from his govern- ment, and he at the same time advised Boniface to refuse obe- dience, assuring him that his death was intended, Boniface fell into the trap laid for him. He armed in his defence, and repelled the first attacks made on him ; but feeling that he could not long resist single-handed, he sent to propose an al- liance to the king of the Vandals, (428.) When the Goths recovered Spain for Honorius, the Sue- vians and Vandals still remained unsubdued in Gallicia. 424 TALENTINIAN III. [a. d. 429-439. Dissension soon broke out between them; the Vandals pre- vailed ; but, on the approach of an imperial army, they broke up, and marched for Baetica, and, having there defeated a superior force of Romans and Goths, they became masters of the entire province, which has derived from them its name of Andalusia, The kinor of the Vandals at this time was named Gen- seric. He is described as of middle stature, slow of speech, a contemner of luxury, prone to anger, covetous of gain, skilled in gaining nations and in sowing dissensions among his enemies. In the May of 429, he embarked his troops in vessels furnished by Boniface and the Spaniards, and crossed the Straits of Gades. His whole force, composed of Vandals, Alans, Goths, and others, did not exceed 50,000 men ; but he easily induced the Moors to unite with him, and the persecuted Donatists regarded as a deliverer the Christian, though not orthodox, Genseric. Boniface, when too late, saw the error he had committed ; the letters of yEtius being shown and compared, in an interview between him and an envoy sent from court, he discovered the fraud of which he had been the victim, and he resolved to re- turn to his allegiance ; and when Genseric refused to evac- uate the country, he led out his troops and gave him battle. But he met with a total defeat, (430;) the whole country, far and wide, was now exposed to the ravages of the Van- dals, and the cities of Carthage, Cirta, and Hippo Regius, alone remained to the empire. In this last, the modern Bona, Count Boniface shut himself up, and held it for four- teen months against the Vandals. At length, (431,) being reenforced by troops from the East, he marched out and gave them battle, but again met with a total defeat. Giving now all up for lost, he got on shipboard, and sailed for Italy. Placidia received him with favor, and raised him to high rank ; but ^tius, who was in Gaul, soon appeared with a body of barbarians. The quarrel between the rivals was decided by arms, (432;) victory declared for Boniface, but he received a mortal wound in the conflict, ^tius was proclaimed a rebel; he sought refuge with the Huns, and the empire thus remained without a general. Nevertheless, the progress of Genseric, retarded by other means, was slow. Cirta and Carthage still held out ; and it was not till the tenth year af- ter his landing in Africa, (439,) that the latter was taken, and that by surprise, not force. JEtius did not long remain in exile. Supported by the A. D. 439.] ATTILA. 425 arms of 60,000 Huns, he was soon able to dictate his own terms to the empress Placidia, and, with the title of Patrician and the command of the entire army, he in effect governed the empire, which he alone was able to preserve from ruin. He still kept up an intercourse with the Huns ; he was on terms of friendship with their king, in whose camp his son was educated ; he employed Huns in the defence of Gaul, and he placed colonies of Alans in the territories of Valens and Orleans. The monarch of the Huns at this time was the mighty Attila. His power was obeyed from the banks of the Rhine to far beyond the Volga ; the Scandinavian peninsula is said to have yielded him tribute ; his possessions extended south- wards fifteen days' journey below the Danube ; the empire of the East, which he had ravaged to the very gates of Constan- tinople, paid him an annual subsidy ; and all the influence of ^tius had been unable to preserve that of the West from a similar decrradation. Genseric, menaced by both empires, had sought the alliance of the potent monarch of the Huns ; and it was at his insti- gation that Attila had invaded the Eastern empire, and thus obliged an expedition destined for Africa to be recalled. The same artful prince was the cause of the Hunnish hordes being poured into the Western empire. The occasion was as follows : The successor of Wallia on the throne of the Visigoths was Theodoric, the son of the great Alaric, a prince of con- siderable ability and vigor. Ambitious to extend his domin- ions, he laid siege to the city of Aries; but iEtius hastened to its defence, and the Goths were forced to retire with loss. Shortly after, Count Litorius, a Roman general, advanced at the head of an army of Huns to the very gates of Toulouse ; but his rashness brought on him a total defeat and personal captivity. JEtius soon appeared with a powerful force ; an in- stant engagement was expected, but the generals on both sides \were prudent, and a treaty of amity was concluded, (439.) Theodoric thenceforth devoted himself to the promotion of the welfare of his subjects, and he became universally loved and respected. He had six sons and two daughters; the two latter were married, the one to the son of the king of the Suevians in Spain, the other to Hunneric, the eldest son of Genseric. But, high as she stood in birth and alliance, the Gothic princess was doomed to be the victim of tyranny. 36* B B B 426 VALENTINIAN III. [a. D. 451. Genseric, suspecting that she had conspired to poison him, cut off her nose and ears, and sent her back thus mutilated to her father. Theodoric resolved to avenge her injuries ; the Romans agreed to supply him with ships, arms, and money, and he was preparing for the invasion of Africa, when Genseric once more called on Attila for aid, and the storm was again diverted. It is also said that Attila was incited to arms by a Roman lady of royal descent. Honoria, the sister of Valentinian, had had an intrigue with her chamberlain Eugenius. When the consequences of her frailty became apparent, her mother sent her away to Constantinople, and caused her to be im- mured in a nunnery. Hating a life of celibacy and restraint, Honoria despatched a trusty eunuch to Attila, with a ring as the pledge of her affection. Attila accepted the gift, and he sent to demand the princess and a share of the empire. His demand was of course refused; and Honoria was sent back to Italy, where the ceremony of her marriage with some ob- scure person having been performed, she was shut up in prison for the rest of her days. Urged by the various claimants for his aid, Attila moved from his royal village in the plains of Hungary, (451.) Di- visions of all his subject nations marched beneath his banner. He crossed the Rhine at its confluence with the Neckar, and poured his hordes over the plains of Belgium and France. The celestial aid of saints or the strength of fortifications preserved Troyes and Paris, but other towns and cities were taken and plundered without mercy, and the Hunnish mon- arch at length pitched his tents beneath the walls of Orleans, which Sangiban, king of the Alans, had engaged to betray. But the plot was discovered, the attacks of the Huns were repelled, and at the sight of the banners of ^Etius and The- odoric, who were marching to its relief, the prudent Hun drew off his troops, and retired to the plains of Champagne, which were better adapted for the operations of cavalry. iEtius, aided by the eloquence of the senator Avitus, had succeeded in inducing Theodoric, whose first plan had been to await the invaders within his own territories, to share in the common defence of Gaul. The Burgundians, the Salian Franks, the Saxons, Alans, Armoricans, and others, had also been prevailed on to aid the common cause ; and at the head of a host composed of such various materials, iEtius and Theodoric prepared to engage the host of Attila. A. D. 451-452.] ATTILA IN ITALY. ^ 427 The armies encountered on the plains of Chalons. Attila, with his Huns, occupied the centre of his line; the Rugians, Herulans, Franks, Burgundians, and others, were ranged on each side of them ; the right wing was formed by the Gepi- dans, the left by the Ostrogoths. On the side of the allies, Sangiban and his Alans were placed in the centre, where they might be watched, ^tius commanded on the left, Theodoric on the right. The battle was long, obstinate, and bloody. The Huns easily pierced through the yielding centre, and then directed their whole force against the Visi- goths ; and Theodoric, as he was cheering his men, fell by the javelin of an Ostrogothic chief. But his son Torris- mond, who was stationed on an adjacent eminence, when he saw the Visigoths yielding, hastened to restore the battle, and Attila was forced to retreat. The approach of night saved his troops from a total defeat ; they secured themselves within their wagon-fence, and Attila caused a pile to be made of saddles and horse-furniture, determined to fire it, and rush into the flames if his camp should be forced. But the dread of the valor inspired by despair withheld the allies from the attack ; and ^tius also feared the power of the Goths, if the Huns should be destroyed. He therefore pre- vailed on Torrismond to be content with the vengeance al- ready exacted for the fate of his father, and return to Tou- louse to secure his throne. The allies broke up and retired, and Attila was allowed to repass the Rhine unmolested. The policy of JEtius, in thus dismissing the Huns, was fatal to the empire. In the following spring, (452,) Attila again claimed the princess Honor ia and her treasures, and, meeting again with a refusal, he advanced and laid siege to Aquileia. After a siege of three months, this important city was carried by assault. All the cities north of the Po surrendered or were taken, ^tius in vain souorht to retard the myriads of the barbarians ; the timid Valentinian fled to Rome, and an embassy composed of Leo, the bishop of that city, and two eminent senators, was sent to deprecate the wrath of Attila, who now lay encamped on the shores of the Lake Benacus. Attila was superstitious; when he was re- minded that Alaric had not long survived the taking of Rome, he secretly shuddered at the omen ; and he consent- ed, on receiving an immense sum under the name of the dower of the princess Honoria, to evacuate Italy. He re- tired threatening dreadful vengeance if the princess were not 428 VALENTINIAN III. [a. d. 453-455. delivered to his ambassador ; but in the following year, (453,) having drunk too freely on the night of his adding another maiden to his harem, he burst a vessel in his lungs, and was suffocated in his own blood. His funeral was celebrated with magnificence, after the usage of his nation. His mighty empire fell to pieces, and the Huns ceased to be formidable. Valentinian, worthless and dissolute, instead of viewing in ^tius the saviour of his empire, feared and hated him with all the rancor of a petty mind. The son of JEtius was be- trothed to the emperor's daughter ; and when, one day, (451,) in the palace his father was urging the immediate marriage, Valentinian drew his sword for the first time in his life, and plunged it into the general's bosom ; the eunuchs and others hastened to follow his example, and yEtius expired pierced by a hundred wounds. His principal friends were sum- moned separately to the palace before the event could be known, and all were murdered. The loss of iEtius was universally deplored, and the contempt in which the em- peror had been held was converted into abhorrence, " I know not your motives and provocations," said a Roman whom he asked to approve the deed; "I only know that you have acted like a man who cuts off his right hand with his left." The feeble emperor did not long survive his able general. Among his other vices, Valentinian was addicted to gaming. He won, one day, a large sum of money from a wealthy sen- ator named Petronius Maximus, on whose chaste and beau- tiful wife he had long cast an eye of lust. As Maximus had not the money about him, the emperor exacted his ring from him by way of security ; and he forthwith sent it to his wife, with an order, in her husband's name, to wait on the empress Eudoxia. The lady, on arriving at the palace, was led into a private apartment ; Valentinian soon entered, and extorted by force the favors which she would not yield to solicitation. Her tears and her reproaches when she reached home ex- cited Maximus to vengeance. Two of the guards who had been attached to ^Etius readily consented to be his instru- ments, and, as Valentinian was viewing some military sports in the Field of Mars, they rushed on him, and stabbed him, none of those present offering to resist them, (March 16, 455.) A. D. 455.] MAXIMUS. 429 Maximus, Avitus, Majorian, Severus, A?ithemius, Olyhrius, Glycerius, Nepos, Augustulus. A. u. 1208—1229. A. D. 455—476. The revenge of Maximus may have been stimulated by ambition, for he became the successor of the destroyer of his honor ; but the happiness, of which he had enjoyed a large portion when in a private station, departed the moment he mounted a throne, and he was heard to exclaim, in reference to a well-known story, " O fortunate Damocles ! thy reign began and ended with the same dinner." * Maximus married his son to the daughter of the late em- peror, and, as his wife died opportunely, he forced the re- luctant empress Eudoxia to give her hand to himself. In an unguarded hour he revealed to her the secret of his share in the death of her former husband ; and Eudoxia, who had loved Valentinian, worthless and faithless as he was, resolved to avenge him. She sent a secret invitation to Genseric, and ere long a fleet bearing a numerous army of Vandals and Moors entered the Tiber. Maximus hastened to fly from the city ; but the moment he appeared in the streets, he was assailed by a shower of stones ; a soldier gave him his first wound, and his mangled body was flung into the Tiber, (June 12.) His reign had not lasted quite two months. As Genseric was approaching the city, he was met by a procession of the clergy headed by the bishop Leo. The bold and eloquent prelate, who had turned away the wrath of Attila, was able also to mitigate the ferocity of Genseric, who promised to spare the people and the buildings of Rome. But this promise was little more than illusory. Rome was delivered to pillage for a space of fourteen days ; churches, temples, and private houses, were plundered alike, and thou- sands of captives, among whom were the empress Eudoxia and her two daughters, were embarked for Africa, This calamity gave occasion to a noble display of genuine Chris- tian feeling in Deogratias, bishop of Carthage. He con- * [Damocles, having declared Dionysius of Sicily the happiest man on earth, was, by him, induced to try the happiness of royalty. No sooner had he mounted the tlxrone, than he saw a sword hanging by a single hair just over his head: he was glad to yield his place immC' diately. — J. T. S.] 430 AVITUS, MAJORIAN. [a. d. 456-457. verted two large churches into hospitals, and himself attend- ed most assiduously to the sick among the unhappy captives. Maximus had committed the command of the troops in Gaul to the senator Avitus, a native of Auvergne, who, after passing thirty years of his life in the public service, had re- tired to the enjoyment of private life. Avitus was at Tou- louse negotiating a treaty with Theodoric, who by the murder of his brother Torrismond had occupied the Gothic throne, when he received intelligence of the death of Maximus. The prospect of empire attracted him ; the Goths gave him their suffrage ; an assemblage of the provinces of Gaul at Aries elected him, (Aug. 15 ;) the people of Italy submitted to him, and the emperor of the East acknowledged him. While the new emperor proceeded to Rome, Theodoric, as his general, crossed the Pyrenees to recover Spain, which had nearly all fallen under the power of the Suevians. His success was complete; he effectually broke the Suevian might, and he captured and put to death his brother-in-law, their king. But meantime Avitus had ceased to reign. The Romans disliked him as a foreigner, and Count Ricimer, a Goth, one of the commanders of the barbarian troops, having acquired fame by a victory over a Vandal fleet off Corsica, took advantage of it, and ordered Avitus to resign his dig- nity. He obeyed, (Oct. 16, 456,) and was made bishop of Placentia. But the senate voted his death; and he died or was murdered as he was on his way to secure himself in his native province. Ricimer, who, as being a barbarian by birth, could not himself mount the throne, governed Italy for some months under the title of Patrician. He then (457) bestowed the purple on his intimate friend Majorian, a man of primitive Roman virtue, who, in the words of the historian Procopius,* *' excelled in every virtue all who had ever reigned over the Romans." To restore the state to its former strength by the abolition of abuses, was the great object of this excellent man, and he made, with this view, many wise and salutary regulations. But the course of decline is not to be stopped ; and the reformer Majorian became an object of aversion to the degenerate Romans. Majorian, who was a warrior as well as a statesman, re- solved to achieve the conquest of Africa, and destroy the do- * De Bell. Vandal, i. 7. A. D. 461.] EMPERORS OF THE EAST. 431 minion of the Vandals. As it was only among the barbarians that soldiers were now to be found, he enlisted troops from among the nations north of the Alps. He defeated Theodo- ric in battle, and, having reunited the greater part of Gaul and Spain to the empire, he assembled, in the port of Gar- th agena, a fleet of three hundred ships, with a large number of transports, for the invasion of Africa. It is said that he even ventured to appear as his own ambassador at Garthage, having changed the color of his hair.* But treachery ren- dered all his preparations unavailing. Guided by secret in- telligence, Genseric succeeded in destroying the imperial fleet in the harbor, and Majorian was forced to consent to a treaty. He returned to Italy to carry on his plans of refor- mation, and to prepare for future war ; but a sedition, fo- mented by Ricimer, broke out in the camp near Tortona, at the foot of the Alps, and Majorian was forced to abdicate. Five days after, (Aug. 7, 461,) he died, as was said, of a dys- entery. Ricimer, whose object was to reign under the name of an- other, resolved not to commit again the error of selecting a man of virtue and energy: his choice therefore fell on Se- verus, a man so obscure, that even his origin is hardly known ; and for a space of more than five years he governed Italy (almost all that remained of the empire) under the name of his puppet. But Marcellinus, who commanded in Dalmatia, disdaining to submit to him, held that province in independ- ence; and JEgidius, a general of much ability, maintained his dominion over nearly the whole of Gaul. Meantime the piratic squadrons of Genseric ravaged the coasts of Italy, and Ricimer was forced to seek, as a suppliant, aid from the court of Byzantium. Arcadius, who died in the year 408, had been succeeded by his son Theodosius IL, a child of seven years of age ; but during the reign of this prince, who was more conspicuous for piety than for the regal virtues, the empire was in reality governed by his sister Pulcheria, the only one of the descend- ants of the great Theodosius who inherited any portion of his talents. On his death, (459,) Pulcheria was proclaimed em- press. She had, after the fashionable superstition of that age, made a vow of perpetual virginity; but, aware of the pre- judices to which her sex was exposed, she selected as her * Procopius, ut supra. 43'2 ANTHEMius. [a. d. 457-4T2. nominal husband a respectable senator named Marcian, a man now sixty years old, and made him her colleague in the empire. Marcian survived his wife; and on his death, (457,) the patrician Asper, who was in the East what Ricimer was in the West, conferred the vacant dignity on Leo, the steward of his household, who proved himself to be a monarch of ability and energy, and scorned to be the mere puppet of the patrician. It was to this empei'or that Ricimer made application for aid against the Vandals. Assistance was promised on condi- tion of the West receiving an emperor chosen by the court of Byzantium, Ricimer accepted the terms, and the person selected (467) was Anthemius, the son-in-law of the late em- peror Marcian. On his arrival at Rome, (Apr. 12,) Anthe- mius gave his daughter in marriage to Ricimer. Marcellinus readily acknowledged the new emperor, and accepted a com- mand in the expedition prepared against the Vandals. Vigor- ous exertions were made by both empires; and in the follow- ing year, (468,) while the troops of the West under Marcelli- nus were recovering the isles of the Mediterranean, an army from Egypt moved westwards, and a fleet of 1100 ships, carry- ing upwards of 100,000 men, sailed from the Hellespont, and entered the Bay of Carthage. Its commander, Basiliscue, the brother of Leo's empress, was, however, utterly devoid of tal- ent or experience. Instead of marching at once against the capital, he listened to the insidious proposals of Genseric, till the crafty Vandal, taking advantage of a change in the wind, sent, in the night, fire-ships among the imperial vessels. Bas- iliscus fled to Constantinople, after the loss of one half of his fleet and troops. Marcellinus was assassinated in Sicily ; and that island fell into the hands of Genseric,- whose fleets now met nowhere with resistance. Unity did not long continue between Anthemius and his haughty son-in-law. Ricimer quitted Rome, (471,) and fixed his abode at Milan. Italy was on the point of being the scene of a civil war, when the mediation of the bishop of Pavia succeeded in averting it. But the delay was brief, for the next year (472) Ricimer encamped with his army on the banks of the Anio, where he was joined by the man whom he had selected for the purple, Olybrius, a noble Roman, the husband ofPlacidia, the daughter of Valentinian III. Rome, after standing a siege of three months, was taken by storm and pillaged. Anthemius was put to death by order of his A. D. 475-476.] FALL OF THE EMPIRE. 433 ruthless son-in-law, who followed him to the tomb within forty days, (Aug. 20,) being cut off in the midst of his triumph by a painful disorder. Olybrius himself was carried off by death only two months later, (Oct. 23.) The court of Byzantium, after some delay, bestowed the- sceptre of the West on Julius Nepos, the nephew of Marcel- linus. But meantime, Gundobald, a Burgundian, who had succeeded his uncle Ricimer in the command of his army, had invested a soldier named Glycerins with the imperial purple. Gundobald, however, having departed to assert his claim to the kingdom of Burgundy, Glycerins did not feel himself strong enough to maintain a contest for the empire, and he retired and became bishop of Salona. Nepos, after a brief reign of less than three years, (475,) on the occasion of a revolt of the barbarian troops, abandoned the empire, and fled to his principality in Dalmatia. These barbarians in the Roman pay were termed Confed- erates ; they were drawn from various nations, of which the principal were the Herulans, Alans, Turcilingans, and Rugi^ ans. Their commander was Orestes, a Pannonian by birth,, who had been secretary to Attila. On the death of that mon^ arch, he had entered the Roman service j and Nepos had raised him to the dignity of Patrician, and given him the command of the army. By his artful conduct, Orestes gained the troops over to his interest, and at his impulsion they rose against Nepos. From some unknown motive, Orestes, though not a barbarian, did not himself assume the purple. He conferred: it (476) on his son, named Romulus Augustus, or, as he is usually called, Augustulus, under whose name he preferred to reign. But his power was of brief duration ; his barbarian soldiers, excited by the example of their brethren in Gaul, Spain, and Africa, where they had acquired permanent landed possessions, insisted on a third part of the lands of Italy being divided among them. Orestes gave a prompt refusal. One of the commanders, named Odoacer, then proposed to his comrades to unite under him, and they would soon, he assured them, make the patrician yield to their demands. Forthwith they flocked from all parts to the standard of Odoacer. Ores- tes shut himself up in Pavia ; but the town was taken by storm, and he was put to death by the victors. His son, on laying down his purple, was allowed to retire to the villa of Lucullus in Campania, with an annual pension of 6,000 pieces of gold. Odoacer took the title of king of Italy, under CONTIN. 37 C C 434 FALL OF THE EMPIRE. which he reigned for a space of eighteen years, when his do- minion was overthrown by the Ostrogoths. The empire of the West was now at an end. The parts of which it had been composed were never again united ; they each formed a separate and independent state. In all, the govern- ment and the lands were held by the German conquerors. We will briefly notice these new states. After the defeat and death of Odoacer, the Ostrogoths re- tained possession of Italy for a term of seventy-five years, when (568) their power was overthrown by the Langobards, or Lombards, whose dominion lasted for two centuries. The Vandals retained possession of Africa till about the middle of the sixth century, when they were conquered by the great Belisarius, the general of Justinian, emperor of the East. Africa remained part of the Eastern empire till it was conquered by the Arabs in the following century. The Visigoths obtained possession of the entire Spanish peninsula, which they retained till the period of the invasion of the Arabs. Their dominions in the south of France were all, excepting a small portion, reduced by Clovis, the first king of the Franks. The Burgundians and Alemans had founded states in Swit- zerland, the east of France, and along the Rhine; but, like the Goths, they were successively reduced, and obliged to ac- knowledge the dominion of Clovis the Frank. Nearly the whole of France obeyed this able prince; but at his death (511) his dominions were divided among his four sons. In the reign of Valentinian III. the Roman troops had been withdrawn from Britain. The unwarlike inhabitants, unable to defend themselves against the savage Caledonians, called to their aid (449) the Saxon chiefs Hengist and Horsa. Their allies became their enemies, and in a short time tlie greater part of the island was conquered by the Saxons and their kindred tribes. We thus have witnessed the rise and progress, the decline and fall, of that mighty empire, which, commencing in a vil- lage on the banks of the Tiber, finally made the Ocean and the Euphrates its boundaries. Its fall was in the order of Nature, which has set limits to all things human ; but it is not unworthy of remark that, at the time when the Roman repub- FALL OF THE EMPIRE. 435 lie was at the very height of its power, the Tuscan augurs ventured to foretell the period of Roman dominion. Accord- ing to the rules of their art, they inferred that the twelve vul- tures seen by Romulus, denoted the twelve centuries of rule assigned to his city by the decrees of Heaven. The accom- plishment of that prophecy is a curious fact ; but history con- tains many such coincidences. The rise of Rome is one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the annals of the world; its fall was an ordinary event, and contains nothing to excite surprise. The Roman empire, as left by Augustus, embraced the whole civilization of the West, while on all its confines dwelt poor but brave and energetic nations, eager, when an occasion should offer, to rush in and seize its wealth. It was only therefore by the conservation of the military spirit, by which it had been acquired, that it could be retained ; but we have seen how early and how totally this spirit became ex- tinct. When the nobles and men of property were immersed in luxury and sensual indulgence; when the country was de- populated or filled only with slaves, the cities thronged with an idle, beggarly, turbulent population, vigorous only for evil ; when the provincials were so beaten to the earth by excessive taxation, that the rule of barbarian conquerors was looked to as an alleviation; when the noble, elevating, soul-expanding religion of the gospel had been degraded by Oriental ascet- icism into a slavish, enervating superstition ; when, finally, the defence of the empire against the barbarians was intrusted to the barbarians themselves, — its fnll was assured. A new order of things was to arise out of the union of German energy with Roman civilization, from which, after a series of many centuries, were to result the social institutions of modern Eu- rope, the colonization of the most distant regions of the earth, and the mighty political events which yet lie hidden in the womb of Time. APPENDIX. A. Page 1. — Authorities. Dion Cassias wrote the history of Rome, from the foundation of the city to his own consulate, in the reign of Alexander Severus. Of this work the first books exist only in fragments, and the portion from the reign of Claudius to Uie end only in the Epitome of the modern Greek Xiphilinus. For the period from the death of M. Aurelius to the end, Dion is a contemporary authority. Velleius Paterculus was the contemporary of Augustus and Tiberius, (see above, p. 115;) the second book of his history extends from the Viriathian war, B. C 148, to the death of Livia Augusta, A. D. 29. Tacitus lived in the period from Nero to Trajan, both inclusive. His Annals, in sixteen books, extended from the death of Augustus to that of Nero. Of these, the part of the fifth book containing the fall of Sejanus, the seventh to the tenth, and part of the eleventh, to A.D. 47, and the end of the sixteenth, are lost. The greater portion of his His- tories, which extended from the death of Nero to that of Doraitian, has also perished. They end with the conference between Cerialis and Civilis, (above, p. 150.) Suetonius Tranquillus, the contemporary of Tacitus, (above, p. 167,) has left minute biographies of the Ccesars from C Julius Caesar to Domitian, inclusive. Herodian was the contemporary of Dion Cassius, to whom, as an his- torian, he is much inferior. His work extends from the death of M. Aurelius to the reign of Gordian. Gibbon calls him "an elegant" historian, and, to a certain extent, he is such ; but he is feeble, negli- gent, devoid of political wisdom, and utterly careless of chronology. He reminds us more of Dionysius Halicarnassensis than of Thucyd- ides. The Augustan History consists of a series of lives of all the emperors and tyrants or aspirants to empire, from Hadrian to Carus and his sons. The authors are ^lius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, .Stilus Lamprid- ius, Trebellius Pollio, and Flavins Vopiscus. As writers, none of them possess any merit ; but they may claim some praise on account of the letters and other original documents which they have preserved. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Greek by birth, wrote in Latin. His object seems to have been to be the continuator of Tacitus ; for his work, which extended from the accession of Nerva to the death of Va- lens, commenced where Tacitus had ended. Of the thirty-one books of which his work originally consisted, the first thirteen are lost ; the fourteenth commences with the account of the conduct of the Caesar APPENDIX. 437 Gallus, in the reign of Constantius. Ammianus is a judicious, honest, and impartial historian, but his style is inflated and disagreeable. Zosimus wrote in Greek about the time of the fall of the Western empire. His work, of which only six books remain, after a sketch of the history of the emperors from Augustus to Diocletian, relates public events in detail thence to the attack on the Goths by Sarus, (above, p. 420.) The remainder of the work is lost, as also are the end of the first and commencement of the second books, which contained the reign of Diocletian. Zosiraus was a pagan, and he is inveterately hos- tile to Constantine and the Christian emperors. The Epitomators are, in Greek, Zonaras ; in Latin, Eutropius, Festus ttufus, Aurelius Victor, and Orosius. The first of these was a modern Greek monk, who wrote a Chronicle in 18 books, which extends from the Creation to the death of the Byzantine emperor John Alexius. Eutropius, who had been secretary to Constantine, and had shared in Julian's expedition to Persia, wrote, for the use of the emperor Valens, an epitome of the Roman history, from Romulus to the death of Jovian. His work was continued by the Lombard historian, Paulus Diaconus. A similar epitome, embracing the same period, was addressed to Valen- tinian by Festus Rufus. Under the name of Aurelius Victor, the con temporary of Ammianus, we possess two short pieces; the one, i?e CcBsarihus, containing brief notices of the emperors, from Augustus to Julian ; the other, the Epitome^ similar notices of all, from Augustus to Theodosius. The History of Orosius, a Christian presbyter, extends from the Creation to W^allia, the Visigoth king, (above p. 422.) The Panegyrists, Mamertinus, Eumenius, Nazarius, pronounced lau datory discourses before the emperors Maximian, Constantine, and Con stantius. Mamertinus the younger delivered the eulogiura of Julian ; Ausonius, that of Gratian and Pacatus, and that of Theodosius. These laudatory effusions contain many facts of which we find no account elsewhere. It is to be observed that their authors were all born and brought up in Gaul. The modern French have retained the custom of pronouncing 6loges. The Ecclesiastical historians also furnish many events to civil histo- ry. Eusebius wrote a life of Constantine. The history of Socrates extends from the conversion of that emperor to the ] 7th consulate of Theodosius II. ; that of Sozomen, from the same event to the death of Honorius ; that of Theodoret, from the rise of Arianism to Theodo- sius II., with whose reign the history of Evagrius commences, and extends into the sixth century. The history of the Arian Philostor- gius, of which only fragments remain, extended from the rise of Arianism to the reign of Valentinian III. The Chronologists, Eusebius Cassiodorus, Jerome, Idatius, and oth- ers, supply occasional historic facts; so also do the writings of the contemporary Fathers, Ambrose, Jerome, etc. In like manner, the poets Claudian, Sidonius Apollinaris, and Prudentius, and the sophists, such as Libanius, are at times historic authorities. For the affairs of the Goths, their national historian Jornandes is often our best guide. On looking over this list of authorities, it will be seen that the im- portant reigns of Trajan and Diocletian are those for which we have the least materials : for the former, we have only the Panegyric of Pliny, Xiphilin's epitome of Dion, and the Epitomators; for the latter, only these last. 438 APPENDIX. C. Page 14. — The German Tribes. The following trans-Rhenic German tribes and nations are men tioned in the preceding History. The seats assigned them are either those where they were first fovmd, or where they subsequently settled. Frisians. In West Friesland, Groningen, and north part of Over- Tssel. Chaucans. Along the coast, from the Ems to the Elbe in East Friesland, Oldenburg, and Bremen. Langobards^ (i. e. Longbeards.) West of the Elbe in Luneburg and Alt-Mark. Rugians. On the Oder, in Pomerania. Burgu?idians. Original seats between the Oder and the Vistula, in the Netz district. Vandals. North side of the Ricsengeburg and Lausitz. Herulans. Upper Hungary. Bructerans. To the south of the Frisians, between the Saal and the Ems. Sicambrians. Along the Rhine, from Emmerich to the Sieg; east- wards to the Bructerans ; part of Cleves and adjoining states. Angrivarians. South of the Chaucans, along the Ems. Chamavans. From the south of the Angrivarians to the Lippe. Usipetans. South of the Lippe. Tencterans. South of the Usipetans ; on the Rhine, about Cologne and Bonn. Cheruscans. In and on both sides of the Hartz forest. Chattans. South of the Cheruscans, in Hesse, Fulda, Nassau, and parts of Franconia and Westphalia. Memans, {i. e. All-men.) Along the Rhine, from the Main to the Neckar. Suevians. Under this general name are included the Quadans, Marcomans, and other nations. The proper Suevians seem to have inhabited the modern Suabia. Marcomans, {i. e. March-men, or Borderers.) In Bohemia, and southwards. Q,uadans. 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