Chapter C: Julius Cæsar (7)

There was at that time at Rome the most absolute military despotism. For, owing to the Prætorians, it was quite impossible to undertake anything against the Cæsar: they were well paid and kept, and would have cut down senate and people, if they had set themselves against the emperor; so that the condition of the empire was like that of a place which is taken by the most ruthless barbarians. In the first years of his reign, the emperor wasted in the most senseless way a treasure of one hundred and thirty millions of dollars which Tiberius had left; this hoard being exhausted he extorted money by confiscations, and this also was squandered again. During the reign of Tiberius, there had been peace with the Germans for twenty years, ever since the recall of Germanicus; Caligula, however, wishing for once to enjoy the pleasure of a campaign, marched to the German frontier, and there he waged war like a madman. Yet this was the least evil which Rome suffered. He also undertook some gigantic structures: near Puzzuoli, a dyke may still be traced, which he quite uselessly and absurdly built across the harbour, to throw a bridge across it. He caused himself to be worshipped as a god.

Whilst now the empire was goaded into despair for nearly four years, the Prætorian officers, some of whom had every day to appear before him, when he would mock and ill treat them, formed a conspiracy, and he was slain to the great joy of the senate and people.

The mad idea was now taken up of restoring the republic, and especially by the consuls whom Caligula had appointed. They called the senate together; shame and disgrace were denounced against Caligula; and during the first hours people talked with great spirit and enthusiasm. But they were soon at a loss how to arrange matters; and still more so when it was known that the Prætorians would not hear of any other ruler than a monarch. Claudius, who in a tumult had hid himself, was drawn from his hiding-place by the Prætorians, and dragged into the camp; and there, after having passed the night in fear of death, he was proclaimed emperor. The _cohortes urbanæ_ declared for the republic; but they were not able to stand against the power of the Prætorians, By the following morning already, people were glad that Claudius was emperor.

TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CÆSAR.

The emperor Claudius, uncle of Caligula and brother of Germanicus, had never been adopted by Tiberius; whereas all the other emperors were, by a fiction, the sons of their predecessors. He had preserved his life in the reign of Caligula only as it were by a miracle; and he was then fifty years of age. Whilst of Caligula we can but speak as of a monster, Claudius deserves our deepest pity; yet he has done very bad things which betoken a turn for evil, though this indeed was only developed by his misfortunes. Even his mother Antonia, a daughter of the triumvir Antonius, called him a _portentum hominis_; he was an ἀτελέστον; he had capacities and talents; yet he was deficient in what really constitutes human reason, whence, in a psychological point of view, he was a real curiosity. Although he had a desire of knowledge, application, memory, and a taste for science and literature, he was wanting in judgment and discretion, so that he often said and did things which were downright stupid: it is as if a thick rind had grown round his better nature, which he but seldom broke through; there are a great many absurdities of his on record. Suetonius is very instructive with regard to him, very aptly describing his character by the Greek words ἀβλεψία and μετεωρία. The Greeks always have most adequate expressions to draw characters; those phrases mean a thoughtless absence of mind and a want of reflection, when one says what is most preposterous, and one leaves untold what ought to have been told: there was a complete disproportion between his thoughts and his power of uttering them, and this it is, what those Greek words admirably express. By the whole of his family he was knocked about, being the brother of those distinguished persons who possessed the whole love of the family. Old Augustus, who always felt such circumstances keenly, wished to keep him altogether aloof from the public gaze, whilst his grandmother Livia treated him with peculiar harshness and imperiousness. The unfortunate youth took this to heart. Had he been brought up with kindness, he would have become a good, plodding, and somewhat weak-headed man: as it was, he became vicious, and the feeling that he was despised made him a coward; so that he always kept in the background, and whenever he at all wished to put himself forward, it was but to meet with a failure. Thus he found his only comfort in literature. Livy, whose kind heart may even be seen from his work, had great pity on him, and, trying to find him some occupation, encouraged him to write history. Now, as he knew a great many things, he deemed himself to be called upon to write the history of the civil wars; and he told it in such an honest manner, that his family got very angry with him. Afterwards, he wrote memoirs of Augustus, which they allowed to pass muster, but so as only to despise their author. He was indeed thoroughly honest; yet he always got little thanks for it. Augustus would not give him any employment, on account of his dreadful stupidity; Tiberius, although he did not care much for him, gave him even the consulship. He was married more than once. The profligacy of the female sex at that time went beyond all bounds: Augustus had striven in vain to repress it; Tiberius promulgated some legal decisions against it, yet without any result. Claudius therefore was highly unfortunate in this respect also; he attached himself very affectionately to the women who betrayed and disgraced him.

Thus Claudius, generally despised, had reached his fiftieth year when Caligula was murdered. His behaviour as emperor at first was reasonable and good; he made no one smart for the childish attempt to restore the republic, there was a general _abolitio dictorum factorumque_. A few only of the murderers of Caius he had executed, although they had deserved very well of the Roman world. He also was the first who, on entering upon his power, gave a _donativum_ to the soldiers. Caius already had undertaken the government, without repeating that farce which Tiberius still played; Claudius also forbore to do so. His reign, which lasted fourteen years, was at first truly a relief after that of Caius; people felt comforted, and cherished hopes, whilst he on his side made many good regulations. Yet he was altogether without any will of his own; had he had an honest friend whom he could have entirely relied on, his rule might have been good and praiseworthy. But he did not go beyond the walls of his palace; he only sought to amuse his ladies, and lived almost exclusively with slaves and freedmen, as he was generally despised by men of rank. He was in fact of a kind and loving temper; but he was shy and timid. Slaves now stood forth as his advisers and friends; just as Don Miguel’s most intimate confidant is his barber. Very likely, Polybus, or Polybius, before whom Seneca humbled himself, was far from being altogether contemptible;—the Greek slaves received a very good education in the Roman houses; if they had good abilities, they were very accomplished. Pallas and Narcissus, on the other hand, were men of a different stamp; thoroughly bad, and of insatiable rapacity, they plundered the empire. By the influence of these men, and owing to his unhappy marriage with Agrippina, his own brother’s daughter, who was very beautiful, but who had not a trace of the virtues of her parents, he was ruled with absolute sway. She, being without virtue and shame, by her intrigues succeeded in getting him to adopt Nero, her son by her first marriage, although Claudius had a son of his own, Britannicus. Hence it was that his reign became so disgraceful and disastrous; a large number of innocent men were also put to death under his rule, though not so many as under other emperors. Whenever Narcissus demanded a victim, Claudius was his tool; so that his life was one continual degradation.

There were, however, considerable works executed in his reign. The finest and most magnificent aqueduct which has been carried on to Rome, the _Aqua Claudia_, was built by him; and there is no doubt but that in the restoration of the city in the fifteenth century, it might have been completely repaired. Other relics also of his buildings are in the very grandest style; the two great arches, known under the name of the _Porta Maggiore_ are undoubtedly his. He likewise accomplished the draining of the Lake Fucinus into the Liris, which Augustus had given up in despair: the fallen in vaults may still be seen. At first, some mistakes were made in the levelling, and an attempt to let off the water miscarried; but the fault was soon remedied.

He undertook a warlike expedition against Britain, a country which no one had thought anything about since the time of Julius Cæsar; and he extended the boundary of the Roman empire thus far. He himself led the army over, and established a province which comprised the greater part of south-eastern England, and in which colonies and _municipia_ were soon founded: from thence the subjection of Caledonia was afterwards effected. He died, being undoubtedly poisoned by his wife Agrippina; for she wanted to secure the succession for her son Nero, as she knew that Claudius was sorry that he had adopted him, and wished to reinstate Britannicus in his rights. He had always been unhappy,—fortune indeed had been too hard upon him,—and he died despised and laughed at; an instance of which we have in the _Ludus de morte Claudii Cæsaris_ (incorrectly called ἀποκολοκύνθωσις) written by Seneca.

LITERATURE AFTER THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS. MORAL CONDITION OF ROME AND THE
PROVINCES.

Already in the time of Augustus, a dearth in literature begins which is a striking contrast to the great number of poets in the days of the dictator Cæsar: not one poet can be named who was young in the latter years of Augustus. I could not undertake to explain this; yet it is a phenomenon which has very often been repeated in modern times. But prose was likewise barren. Even in the best days of Roman literature, the influence of the Greek Rhetoricians had become very considerable, and the writers after Cicero, Cæsar, and Sallust, are not altogether free from the effects of these school exercises: many passages may be shown in Livy, which he would not have written had he not passed through the declamation school. But in the later times this influence became still more powerful, and of this period we may get the best idea from the _Suasoria_ and the Controversies of the elder Seneca: those symptoms then broke out, which are described in Tacitus’ excellent dialogue _de Oratoribus_. From this school, of which it was the sole task, without regard to the contents of a work, without any subject-matter to awaken thought, to make an effect merely by unexpected turns, a swell of words, far-fetched thoughts, and a jingle of periods, arose the era of Seneca; for it must in justice be ascribed to him. The elder Seneca still belongs to a different age, and he remembers very well the earlier and better taste. From what he writes to his sons, it may be seen to how low an ebb taste had then fallen: he rails at them for their fondness for the new manner, but has himself already acquired a sort of relish for it: he wrote his Controversies when an old man upwards of eighty. The philosopher Seneca is the most remarkable character of that time, and one of the few eminent persons living in it: not to be unjust to him, one must know the whole range of that literature to which he belonged, and then one sees how well he understood how to make something even of what was most absurd. To the self-same school of literature belongs the elder Pliny, although his is quite a different mind: this is what is called the _argentea ætas_. This sort of division is very silly; one should divide Roman literature quite differently: it is a senseless thing to put Tacitus, Seneca, and Pliny side by side; they do not bear the smallest resemblance to each other. This literary period began as early as the reign of Augustus, and it lasted down to that of Domitian, when absurdity reached its height; only we have lost its _coryphæi_, such as Aufidius, and others. Tacitus does not by any means belong to this rabble, as the earlier school continues along with a modern one.

Seneca is a man of real genius, which after all is the main thing: his influence upon literature has been a most beneficial one; and this I say the more readily, as I dislike him so much. The opinion Dio Cassius gives of him, has a great deal in it which is true and correct; but it is exaggerated, and much too bitter. His affected and sentimental style, strikingly reminds one of a French school, of which Rousseau and Buffon were the founders, and which owing to its faults would be quite unbearable, had it not originated from men of such transcendent talent. Seneca, however, is not to be compared with either of them for loftiness of intellect. _Diderot’s Essai sur le règne de Claude et de Néron_, is a very remarkable book, and the contrast between him and Dio Cassius is highly interesting: his too was a very ingenious mind, and his manner was like that of Seneca, as he also was but the creature of his age. In the time of Nero, lived Lucan, whose poetry is of the school of Seneca, a striking proof how much more intolerable this mannerism is in poetry than in prose. Bernardin de St. Pierre and Chateaubriand are of the same school: it would be still more bearable, did it not always fall into moralizing sentimentality, which is the case with the former, whilst Chateaubriand is neither more nor less than a bad Lucan. The latter kept his ground until late in the middle ages, and was immensely read, almost as much as Virgil: people were divided into the Virgilian and Lucanian school. The true restorator of good taste in Rome was Quintilian, who is by no means to be reckoned as one of the _argentea ætas_. With that insupportable mannerism Nero also was tainted; whose talent no one can deny, but who, wherever he was not a fiend, showed himself strange and wrong-headed. In prose the same tone pervaded history also: Fabius Rusticus, who was so much read, has undoubtedly written likewise in the Annæan manner.

The empire was, on the whole, in a prosperous condition. Certain it is that during the eighty years after the battle of Actium, in a time of profound peace, and of great vitality, which only required that there should not be any devastations and destructions,—men felt very comfortable and happy, and recovered their strength. Caligula’s exactions, it is true, were very hard to bear; yet they did not so very much check this development: the population after the wars was certainly more than doubled, the towns became filled with inhabitants, and the wastes were peopled. Unhappy Greece alone remained a wilderness, even to the reign of Trajan. Such countries as had fallen into the hands of the farmers-general,—who, using them as pastures, would not rebuild the towns, nor allow of any tillage,—lay waste; yet they were gardens indeed in comparison with what they were at the time of the battle of Actium. It was just the same in Italy; there the fields were cultivated by bondmen, and the population was indeed restored by slaves who were imported, though it increased in quite a different ratio from what it did in the provinces, where it was recruited by _ingenui_. It is not mere declamation in Lucan, when he says with regard to the state of Italy,

_Rarus et antiquis habitator in urbibus errat._

Marriage, although it was so easy to dissolve, was distasteful to most persons, so that they lived in concubinage; the many freedmen whose names are found on the inscriptions of that period, are the children whom the masters had by their female slaves. This gave rise to those celebrated laws, the _Lex Julia_ and the _Lex Papia Poppæa_. The degeneracy and profligacy of the freeborn female citizens was so awful, that many a man who was no profligate, may have found a much more faithful and estimable partner in a slave than in a Roman lady of high birth; and thus it was looked upon as a point of conscience not to marry. Hence there were now many more born slaves and _libertini_ than there were freeborn citizens; besides which, in the great houses, innumerable hosts of bought slaves were kept. In the provinces, where the _parsimonia provincialis_ was still reigning, there was no such disproportion: these had a population of _ingenui_; in some it was also restored and recruited by the military colonies;—such a soldier, though he may formerly have been a brigand, might after all have turned out quite a respectable man, after having once got a home of his own. These men made the use of the Latin language more general. Nor could this be helped: for what was spoken in those countries was but a jargon, from which the people did their best to wean themselves; and they were none the worse for it. The main object of the provincials could not have been, and indeed was not, anything else but to become Romans. In the midst, therefore, of the most detestable tyranny, the vital energies of the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean revived. The tyranny of the governors was, however, far less than what it had been in the times of the republic; at least, it was so under Tiberius, in whose reign a fraudulent proconsul would certainly not have been acquitted.

NERO.

After the death of Claudius, Nero, then a youth of seventeen years, mounted the throne without any opposition: whether Claudius had still made a disposition in favour of Britannicus, can no longer be made out. Nero was endowed by nature with bountiful gifts; he had a talent for music and the fine arts, and also for mechanics: there is no reason to doubt that in music he was a virtuoso. He was a pupil of Seneca. At first, he gave birth to the fairest hopes; yet even thus early, it was difficult for farsighted people to believe in them, who felt sure that a viper’s brood must be vipers. His mother Agrippina was the unworthy daughter of the worthy Germanicus, and the worthy sister of Caligula; his father, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, was quite her match, and he said himself, that from him and Agrippina a monster only could have been born. The whole of the Roman world shared in this foreboding; and therefore people were so much the more astonished at Nero’s behaving at first like the disciple of Seneca and Burrhus. The latter was a fine honest man of the old school, and a good officer, who was appointed by Nero as _præfectus prætorio_; Seneca was a refined man of the world, who busied himself a great deal about virtue, and may also have looked upon himself as an old Stoic, believing for certain that there was not a more clever and virtuous man living than himself: yet this did not prevent his giving himself every moment a dispensation from his virtue. The influence of these two men during the first years of this reign was decided; but the beautiful dream of Nero’s amiability was very short, as both of these tutors were very soon set aside. The first impulse was given by the profligacy to which Nero had yielded himself up from his earliest youth; and then by his mother, who left no means untried to keep her son in a state of dependence. She was opposed by Burrhus and Seneca: the former withstood her out of love for his country; the latter perhaps from the same motives, but just as much from personal grounds, Agrippina being his enemy. When this change took place, cannot be exactly ascertained. The progress of it—the personal connexions in which Nero lived; the influence of Poppæa Sabina, a woman of high rank and wonderful beauty, but tainted with the profligacy of her age, in whose nets he was irretrievably entangled; the still more baneful influence of his mother—is described by Tacitus: I will not speak of Nero’s degeneracy and unbounded depravity; all of it is too well known,—his name alone is enough. He resolved to murder his own mother, against whom he bore a grudge; and after an unsuccessful attempt, he carried out his purpose, owing, as Dio represents it, to Seneca’s instigation. That the speech which he caused to be read on that subject in the senate, was composed by Seneca, is an undoubted fact.

Though Nero now raged without restraint, and every day steeped his hands more and more in bloodshed, Tacitus does not look upon it as certain, that he had the city set on fire: on the contrary, he takes it for an idle rumour. It looks like Nero’s madness, that during the fire he got up upon the tower of Mæcenas, and in the attire of a tragedian sang the Ἰλίου ἅλωσις to the lyre: at all events, it may have been a welcome thing to him to be now able to build Rome anew. This fire, which lasted six whole days, is of very great importance in history: an immense number of monuments of every kind, historical records, works of art, and libraries, utterly perished; the larger half of Rome was destroyed, or at least very much damaged; the streets were all laid out in straight lines, and made broader, and they were built up in a new style, which gave the city quite a different appearance. The great fire at Constantinople, under Leo Macellas[41] in the fifth century of our era, has likewise had a most ruinous effect on Greek literature.

After this fire, Nero gave loose to his boundless prodigality and love of building; and for this purpose he extorted money from the whole of the Roman world. He built, what is called his “Golden Palace,” which extended from the Palatine, where afterwards the temple of Venus and Roma[42] was erected by Hadrian, to the baths of Titus, which, to speak more correctly, are those of Trajan: Vespasian had it destroyed for the sake of the remembrances connected with it. Some parts of the walls may still be found in the substructions of the baths of Titus: it was a most beautiful pile of masonry, with a coating of the finest marble: we are to imagine it to have been like a fairy palace in an eastern dream.

After this, Nero also had Seneca executed, whose manly end somewhat redeems the weakness of his life. Bareas Soranus and Thrasea Pætus were likewise made to die: the latter was preceded by his wife Arria, who gave him the example of a courageous death.

In Nero’s days, the Roman empire had not such rest as under Claudius. During the reign of the latter, the Romans had carried on wars in Britain, where they had established themselves, and had reduced a large part of the country into the form of a Roman province. From the despair of the Britons, we may see that the condition of a province, while it was yet new, and especially in a poor country, was one of great hardship; for it was only by great extortion that anything worth naming could be wrung from it. Hence arose the insurrection of the Britons under the great queen Boudicea as Tacitus calls her; according to Dio Cassius, Bunduica. This war at first was disastrous, and, to say the least, very serious indeed: the Romans were utterly beaten; their fortresses were demolished, two of their towns were taken, and many of them were slain. Suetonius Paullinus at last with great difficulty crushed the rebellion; Boudicea killed herself, and the Britons again bowed beneath the Roman yoke. Thus that outbreak paved the way for the complete conquest of Britain; and the Romans were now already masters of England, with the exception of Yorkshire and Lancashire, and the northern provinces: Anglesea also was Roman.

Another war was waged by Corbulo against the Parthians in Armenia, where a younger dynasty of the Arsacidæ was seated on the throne. This war Corbulo carried on with unfaltering success, conquering Artaxata and Tigranocerta, and obliging Vologæsus to sue for peace. The last scion of this race of kings, Tiridates, was forced to receive Armenia as a fief from Nero; for which purpose he had to come to Rome, where he met with a splendid reception. His appearance in Rome is one of those events of which the memory has survived in the traditions of the middle ages: he is mentioned, for instance, in the _Mirabilia Romæ_; and there is a legend—which, of course, is quite unfounded—that he brought the statues of Castor and Pollux, the work of Phidias and Praxiteles, as a present to Rome. The thanks which Corbulo earned for his victories, was death. He was undoubtedly one of the best Romans of that age; he was a man free from every craving of ambition, true and conscientious. His bust was found about forty years ago; its features are noble.

Nero now passed from one mad freak to another. I am inclined to believe, that he was not morally accountable for all of this, as insanity seems to have been hereditary in his family: Caligula was his uncle. Many things that he did were merely contemptible; as for instance, his going like a stroller through the Greek towns, where he tried to win the prizes, either as a musician, singer, or poet, in the public contests, or else in the horse-races, putting himself on a level with the other competitors. This would have been the most innocent of his pranks, were it not that he also robbed Greece of its works of art. The _præfectus prætorio_, Tigellinus, who had been appointed in the room of Burrhus, was at that time the most infamous of all those men who had any energy: the world was rid of him by the rising of Galba and Vindex.

In the thirteenth year of Nero’s reign, the first real attempt was made to overthrow his rule: a former conspiracy of Calpurnius Piso, in which Seneca also had perished, was a mere court plot in which no troops had any share. Nero had undertaken his journey through Greece to gratify his vanity: and whilst he everywhere caused himself to be crowned there as a conqueror, a rebellion broke out in Gaul under Julius Vindex, an Aquitanian of rank. The Gauls who had received the Roman franchise, bore all of them at that time the _prænomen_ of Julius, either after Julius Cæsar or Augustus; just as in Asia all had the name of Tiberius Claudius (thus, without a doubt Tib. Claudius Galenus). This has given rise to confusion in the system of Roman names: Julius Agricola, although a native of the Roman colony Forum Julii, may likewise have sprung from Gallic ancestors, which Tacitus, of course, says nothing about. Julius Vindex had the rank of a Roman senator; and by his wealth and his influence he set an insurrection on foot, which had quite a different character from a former rising in the reign of Tiberius: his object was simply as a Roman to shake off the yoke of Nero, not to sever Gaul itself from Rome. He met with very great sympathy, and had already spread his rule from Aquitaine as far as Besançon. The history of that time is in a very wretched state, as Tacitus is wanting, and nothing is left of Dio but the abridgment of Xiphilinus. Near Besançon, Vindex met T. Virginius Rufus, the commander of the German troops, a distinguished man, one of the few disinterested and true patriots which Rome still had. The latter was afraid that such a rising in Gaul, although it had the deliverance of Rome for its object, might cause the dismemberment of the empire; so they made a truce, and agreed to acknowledge the authority of the senate. The German troops wished to have Rufus for emperor; but he refused: Vindex, on the other hand, was slain in a tumult which had broken out between the two armies.

In the meanwhile, Servius Sulpicius Galba was proclaimed emperor in Spain: in that country there was only one legion, though there were many veterans out of whom a militia might be formed. Galba sprang from one of the most distinguished Roman houses. The _prænomen_ Servius was quite an heir-loom among the Sulpicii, as Appius was among the Claudii: yet it had altogether vanished as a _prænomen_, and had almost become a nomen, so that sometimes another _prænomen_ is put before it; which indeed is incorrect, but may be accounted for. Of Galba’s character we do not know much; had we but Suetonius, we should be at a loss how to form any notion of him, as Suetonius himself has no insight into character, being nothing but a pleasing and lively teller of anecdotes; some light is, however, thrown on Galba by the beginning of the _Historiæ_ of Tacitus. Galba had the respect of the army; he had been, when in his best days, a good general, and for those times at least, a blameless governor: but now he was in his seventy-first year, and had fallen under the influence of unworthy people, especially of freedmen. This sort of petty courts, composed of freedmen, had a great deal to do with the demoralized state of the Roman world. On the whole, there was in the Roman empire a bitter hatred against Nero, except among bloodthirsty men, of whom there were not a few: these rather liked him. Galba began his march, and soon formed new legions from the Romans and Italians who came to hand. According to the obscure accounts which we have, it appears that he now availed himself of the pretence that the Gauls were rebels against the majesty of the Roman senate, although under Vindex they had risen against the tyrant only; and he allowed his troops to plunder the southern Gallic towns. Virginius Rufus declared for him, and they both of them now crossed the Alps by different roads. Not a sword was drawn in behalf of Nero, although the prætorians were devoted to him: the passes of the Alps opened without a blow being struck, and the rebel armies drew nigh to the capital; on which Nero found himself abandoned by every one. The senate quickly passed from its former cringing servility into defiance and contempt; Nero fled from his palace, and took refuge in the farm-yard of one of the retainers of his household, where he hid himself, and, with the greatest reluctance, and with uncertain hand, inflicted on himself a deadly wound. Against him and his memory, every possible condemnation was denounced; yet his dead body was buried after all.

SERVIUS SULPICIUS GALBA. M. SALVIUS OTHO. A. VITELLIUS.

Galba entered Rome. Had he shown himself open-handed, he might easily have won men’s hearts; but he gave offence on every side. He partly protected Nero’s companions from public animadversion, and partly punished them. Then he behaved like a miser. Economy was certainly necessary; but he overdid it, as he gave no donation whatever to the prætorians, and a very niggardly one to the troops which he had brought with him. He moreover displayed hatred and mistrust towards the prætorians, although he had dismissed his own soldiers, except a few whom he billeted in the city. The prætorians, being ten thousand strong, were masters of his life; so that he ought to have driven them out, and decimated them as accomplices in the cruelties of Nero. The most powerful person in the city, to the disgrace of the age, was M. Salvius Otho; a man without any illustrious ancestry, whose station was entirely owing to Nero’s favour; a coxcomb of the then world in the most disgusting sense, and this implied much more depravity in ancient times than in our days; the associate of many of the profligacies of Nero:—cruelty, however, cannot be laid to his charge with certainty. He was rich, pleasing, what is called amiable; and he had that affable manner, which could not but have the greatest influence upon the minds of the prætorians. These therefore saw in him the man who could make up to them for Nero, whom they began to miss more and more. Galba, who already knew that the German troops on the Upper Rhine under Cæcina and Fabius Valens had become mutinous, and would not acknowledge him, tried to strengthen himself by adopting Calpurnius Piso, a distinguished young Roman. But that choice was an unfortunate one, as Piso had nothing to recommend him, but his high descent and his spotless character. Had not Galba been weakened by old age, his government might have become quite praiseworthy; but he lost the affection of all good men, not only by his avarice, but also because justice was shamefully abused and sold under his name by his favourites Vinius, Laco, and Icelus. Otho had reckoned on being himself adopted; whatever choice therefore Galba might have made, it would have been his ruin, if it were not Otho: yet the old soldier had after all too much love for his country to choose him. By dint of deep dissimulation, Otho got the prætorians to declare themselves at the moment when he wanted to call upon them. This was done. The city being at that time quite open, the prætorians marched in, and went straight to the forum. Galba, who had appeared in person with Piso to restore tranquillity, was stabbed before the German troops could have been moved into the town; and Otho was proclaimed emperor.

The senate was still respectable enough to abhor this election; but yet nothing better was to be looked for from Vitellius, whom the troops on the German frontier had proclaimed: he was by far the more vulgar and worthless of the two. His beastly gluttony alone distinguished him; and it is quite inconceivable, how Galba could have given him the chief command of the troops in Germany. He had a sort of popularity from his father, who had been thrice consul and likewise censor: the latter must have been a goodnatured man; for though he disgraced himself by the most abject flattery to Claudius, he was an enemy to no one, and therefore enjoyed the favour of the people. This favour passed on to the son, who, however, spent the whole of his life in brutal sensuality and vulgarity. He was at that time already fifty-seven years old, nor could he be said to have made a better use of his youth: it is very likely that Cæcina and Valens merely wished to put him forward for the moment, as, they might afterwards get him out of the way, and decide which of them should succeed to the throne. Vitellius was profusely liberal to the soldiers: he flattered them by granting them everything, while old Galba wanted to allow them nothing but what was absolutely necessary. He marched forth against Italy; the quickness with which he approached shows the readiness with which the Roman soldiers could move, and also the excellence of the high roads. Otho raised an army; Vitellius met with resistance on the frontiers from the legions in Mœsia and Pannonia, who thought it presumptuous in the German troops to try and force an emperor upon them. On these therefore Otho could rely, and likewise on the armies in the East, where at that time there had been as yet no rising. Italy was then the most defenceless part of the whole empire, there being hardly any troops there but the prætorians: with these Otho took the field. Cæcina and Valens had already passed the Alps, before Otho with his hastily collected force had reached the Po. The first battle was in favour of his cause. Otho ought now to have protracted the war, as he had much greater resources and far more money, and he could also reckon on getting reinforcements; but to his misfortune, he resolved upon giving battle near Bedriacum, in the neighbourhood of Cremona, and there he was worsted. All was not, however, lost; yet Otho made up his mind to put an end to his life, telling those who survived him, to make their peace with the conqueror as they best could. People generally look upon this as the act of a noble-minded man, who does not wish blood to be shed for his honour; which is the view which Tacitus also seems to take: I cannot see anything in it but the act of a most effeminate soul, for which the effort of a long struggle, the suspense between fear and hope, is the hardest lot to bear. Such characters are not unseldom met with: as, for instance, persons who are very fond of money, will often rather forego a great deal, than bring upon themselves the worry of a troublesome lawsuit. Juvenal looks upon Otho’s deed with just as little respect. Nor has Tacitus in his heart thought higher of Otho than he really deserves; for we must indeed consider that when a great writer describes a truly tragical act, it may easily happen that he does it with an emotion which is widely different from his moral judgment. Otho died in his thirty-seventh year, on the ninety-fifth day after his proclamation. Galba had reigned seven or eight months.

Vitellius took possession of Rome, and of the palace of the Cæsars; and giving himself the appearance of an avenger of Galba, although he had himself rebelled against him, he caused upwards of a hundred prætorians to be put to death. Yet, leaving aside his contemptible character, things did not at first go on as badly as had been expected. Soon, however, (A. D. 70.) his tranquillity was disturbed by the news of the rising of the Mœsian legions: these were to have come to the aid of Otho, and had wished to do so; and they were now commanded by a most ambitious tribune, Antonius Primus. At the same time, he was informed that the Syrian and the Parthian legions, the former under T. Flavius Vespasianus, the latter under Licinius Mucianus, refused to acknowledge him. Yet both of these last-named insurrections were far off; both armies also had enough to do, the one with the Parthians, the other with the Jews, and they could not leave the country where they were without leaving the frontiers open to the inroads of the enemy. It is also quite inconceivable to me, how the legions could have been withdrawn from the Rhine to Italy, without the barbarians attacking the frontiers. There are some traces of treaties having been concluded; but that treaties should have been made at all, is the very thing which we cannot understand: it would seem that since the times of Caligula a peaceful intercourse had sprung up, and that the Germans had lost every longing for an offensive war. The tract of country between the Upper Rhine and the Upper Danube, may even then have been Roman, although the ditch with the rampart and palisades (_limes_) was not dug till a later period.

T. Flavius Vespasianus, who, with all his faults must be looked upon as the _instaurator rei publicæ_, was at that time engaged in the Jewish war. There is a dark stain upon him, which cannot be washed away; but otherwise his faults are very pardonable. The rebellion of the Jews had, even as early as the reign of Claudius, been stirred up by ill usage and usurpation. There are few struggles which so deserve the attention of posterity as this: I should like, on account of its awful greatness, to tell it at full length; but time forbids, and also what is most momentous in it belongs rather to Jewish than to Roman history. I refer you to Josephus, whose book, in spite of its many defects of language, is one of the most interesting historical works that have been left to us of antiquity. I also class it with Cæsar’s Commentaries among the most instructive, owing to the light which it throws on the tactics of the Romans, and their method of besieging places. Josephus was a Pharisee, and this he cannot throw off;—not such a bad one indeed as those of the gospel; but still the leaven of the Pharisees is in him;—besides which, he has an unbearable national vanity, to gratify which he distorts many a fact in the earlier history; this we can scarcely term anything else than falsifying. His numbers bespeak eastern magniloquence; they are evidently impossible. Everywhere he shows himself an Asiatic, notwithstanding all his Greek learning: for with the exception of some ever recurring mistakes, he writes very good Greek. He is generally spoken of as Flavius Josephus; and no doubt he was called Titus Flavius Josephus after the emperor who gave him his liberty and the Roman citizenship.

Vespasian was then with a strong army in Judæa, where the Jews were making a desperate and heroic resistance. He was of low origin: his grandfather was the first of his race who had somewhat risen from obscurity, and not being vain, he had no illustrious pedigree forged for him. He himself, being then in his sixtieth year, had passed through the evil times of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, during which he had to put up with many a hardship: he had shared in the slavery of the world, and occasionally had to play the part of an involuntary slave. As a distinguished officer, he had risen step by step without a stain of cruelty or injustice upon him; which is so much the more to his honour, as he was so very fond of money. The cradle of his race was Nursia in the high Sabine mountains, whence also Sertorius came; there the old Italian stock had been preserved purest: to both of these applies Fronto’s expression _Nursina durities_. In the Roman army, he was generally known and respected.

Mucianus in Syria belonged to one of the highest Roman families, the Licinii, and he was also descended from the Mucii: yet he knew that high birth had lost its influence; besides which, he was effeminate, and had tact enough to feel that he was inferior to Vespasian: they were very different men. After having formerly been on bad terms, Mucianus now held out his hand to the stern, harsh Vespasian. Mucianus, without being bad, had caught the vices of his set; he had little ambition, and deemed it wiser to be under an emperor of his own choice. Vespasian, on the other hand, was free from the faults of the great world, having rather the virtues which are peculiar to the lower classes: he had acknowledged Galba; but after his death he began to think of taking the throne for himself, being conscious that he was fit for it. Yet there was no need for him to decide in the matter himself, as Antonius Primus, with the Mœsian legions, encountered and defeated the army of the generals of Vitellius near Cremona. In Rome, the insurrection had likewise already broken out. Here Vespasian’s brother, T. Flavius Sabinus, was præfect; and his younger son, Domitian, was kept as a sort of hostage. Against these Vitellius was at first irritated; then he was frightened, and wished to capitulate; after the battle of Cremona especially, he was quite mild: but when afterwards different symptoms showed themselves, he again veered round and wanted to arrest them. They fled to the Capitol, which, however, was taken, and for the second time since Sylla, burned to ashes: Domitian had a very narrow escape. At Rome, the anarchy was complete. When in those days a man wanted to descend from his throne, he was not able to save his life; for there were no convents then, as in the Byzantine period. Vespasian’s party had been gradually forming; and it gained strength owing to the successes of the victorious army, which straightway marched to Rome, where the maddest excesses were now committed on both sides. The conquerors took possession of the city without meeting with any resistance, and Vitellius was murdered.

T. FLAVIUS VESPASIANUS. TITUS. DOMITIANUS.

Under these circumstances, Domitian, a very young man hardly twenty, seized upon the government in the absence of his father: his elder brother Titus remained in Judæa, and it was a long time before Vespasian came to Rome. Many ruthless deeds were done in the meanwhile, rather from personal vengeance than party motives. Although Vespasian himself had many good qualities indeed, his party was no better than the opposite one; just as it was in the latter part of the thirty years’ war, when the Swedish, French, and Imperial armies were equally lawless and destructive. The dismal history of these little men is wonderfully told by a great one, who, however, makes none of them his hero.

Vespasian came to Rome very late, which had led to not a few bad consequences: the city was all this while under the rule of a most profligate and tyrannical youth, who showed himself even then to be what he afterwards turned out. Some of the senators, especially Helvidius Priscus,—a man who, however, was not at all in keeping with his time,—allowed themselves to be drawn into an altogether ill-timed “_fronde_” against the government, a plot alike unfortunate for themselves, for Vespasian, and for the empire. Under these circumstances, a feeling began to gain ground in Gaul, the symptoms of which already displayed themselves before. As early as in the reign of the emperor Tiberius, there had been a most senseless rising of the Ædui under Julius Sacrovir; then came that of Vindex, in which a national Gallic feeling manifested itself, being very likely the reason why Virginius Rufus had him murdered and his army of Gauls scattered: the act of that Roman general thus appears morally in a very bad light. The death of Vindex must be looked upon as an event, which did not quell the national spirit of the Gauls, but rather kindled it still more. We have not indeed any complete or adequate notion of the state of Gaul under the Romans: that country cannot possibly have been otherwise than in a thriving condition, even from the times of Cæsar; of southern Gaul, this is certain. All our knowledge of Gaul is limited to the few things said about it in history, and to what we are told in Pliny and Strabo: these two, however, only speak of the _civitates_, without making any mention whatever of the smaller places; and they leave us without the least information as to their internal affairs. Here we trace them merely from the beginning of Tacitus’ account; for otherwise they are not to be met with in history until the end of the third century, which is treated of by the wretched _Scriptores historiæ Augustæ_: the itineraries also give only a few places on some of the high roads. For this reason, Gaul on our maps looks like a newly cultivated country with a few towns: this, however, is merely the accidental effect of the scantiness of our information. The East, on the other hand, being constantly spoken of in history from the Macedonian era down to the fifth, and sixth centuries, the maps of Asia Minor and Syria are dotted all over with towns. Gaul was under the Romans a well tilled and thickly peopled country: there are found in many parts of France ruins of very considerable towns, the names of which are quite uncertain or altogether unknown. Thus a short time ago, in the neighbourhood of Montbeliard, magnificent ruins were discovered of a place which very likely is only to be met with in an itinerary, and even there with a doubtful name only: the excavations near Valenciennes, and in Normandy and elsewhere, betoken towns of great extent, and evidently of much population. To fill up the gaps of the geography of ancient Gaul, one should keep to the documents of the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, in which the places had Latin and Gaulish names of old date: for then there were no new towns built, as it was a time of destruction. The population of Gaul had been nearly annihilated by the Cimbric wars, and afterwards it had again severely suffered under Cæsar; but for one hundred and ten years, there had been peace, during which the population in so favoured a land must have doubled or trebled. We are not to suppose that there was the same prosperity as in France in the German countries along the banks of the Rhine; for these were undoubtedly far behind in civilization: they were very like Germany Proper, being densely peopled, and having many villages, but hardly any towns. Their population has most incorrectly been reckoned with that of Gaul; but it was thoroughly German ever since the times of Cæsar, perhaps even much earlier still; it never belonged to Gaul, except politically under the Romans. A boundary line had been settled between the Romans and the Germans,—probably by treaties,—namely the country between the Meuse and the Waal, the _insula Batavorum_, which was subject to the Romans: there was a Roman garrison there, but the natives had not yet adopted the Roman language and manners. From these Batavians the rebellion of Civilis arose, which spread over the German provinces of the Roman empire and over France, the Lingones taking the lead. The insurrection was very dangerous, as the German tribes on the right bank of the Rhine declared for it; some of them more actively, and others more sluggishly, being hindered only by their own division and dissensions, and by all sorts of jealousies and petty quarrels. The Roman generals, on the other hand, opposed them with great resolution. Still less union than among the Germans with each other, was there between the Germans and Gauls; whereas the Gauls and Romans were much more akin, as the great men among the Gauls had adopted the Roman language, and Roman manners generally prevailed among them. How the rebellion ended, we do not exactly know, as Tacitus’ histories are broken off just here: that the insurgents were put down, is self-evident from the condition in which they were afterwards; and it is also expressly told us by Xiphilinus. Domitian, even before the arrival of Vespasian, took upon himself the command in those parts; but he had no share in the subjugation of the rebels, which was accomplished by the generals of his father.

Vespasian reigned for more than nine years, and his rule was thoroughly beneficial. It is difficult to judge of him, as Tacitus fails us here. Suetonius is a very sorry painter of character, and his opinions are of as little worth as those of the _Scriptores historiæ Augustæ_: in fact, he has no turn whatever for writing history. He is a learned man, and he does not write badly; but he cannot take a wide view. The earlier times are better handled by him; for there he had books before him: without books, however, he was not able to do much; and thus the times which he had seen himself, or about which he had been told by those who had seen them, are the very worst written. His work was certainly published before Tacitus’ _Historiæ_ came out; for had he had them before his eyes, he could not possibly have described the anarchy after Nero’s death in so wretched a way: it must have been a work of his youth, and not indeed of the time when he was secretary of state under Hadrian. We are in a sad plight here, and moreover the materials for the history of the emperors are throughout very bad: if we had Dio, we should be all right; but we only have the pitiful abridgment of Xiphilinus. We can therefore only dwell on single traits.