Chapter M: Cocceius Nerva. M. Ulpius Trajanus (1)

The histories of Nerva and of Trajan are some of those which are comparatively the most imperfectly known to us, although these two emperors have so gladdened the hearts of the Romans by their rule, and theirs was an age of the best Roman literature, an age of which moreover so many other monuments are come down to us. Tacitus evidently has not described this period: he says that he had kept it for when he was old; to excuse himself for not writing contemporary history, as he could certainly not have praised it unconditionally. Trajan himself has written memoirs, especially of the events of the Dacian war; but no author of any note has dwelt upon this important history.

Nerva was much beyond sixty, and a venerable consular and senator: how he came to be proclaimed, we know not. When proclaimed, he was gladly received by the senate, and the prætorians assented to the choice. He set forth the principles on which he would govern, and he remained true to them. But he was very cautious in making reforms: for being old, he did not venture to undertake much, or to give provocation to the prætorians; and therefore he punished so few of the informers who under Domitian had been a curse to mankind. This gave offence and disgust to many honourable men, while it raised the courage of many bad ones: the feeling of actual happiness was chilled by the consciousness that all these men were still alive and in office, and that they might one day again become dangerous. The consequence of this weakness of Nerva’s was, that those who wished to continue the time of Domitian, now used their influence in the senate to do anything they liked. Junius Mauricus therefore, when the death of an informer was talked of at a party at the emperor’s, said, “Yes, if he were still alive, nothing would be done to him; but he would be in company with us.”[45] The præfect Casperius called upon the soldiers to demand the murderers of Domitian from Nerva; and on his refusal they seized them by force, and two of them were most horribly ill-used: they then compelled Nerva to express his approval of it in the senate.[46] Nerva, feeling his own weakness, had recourse to the same means as Galba to strengthen himself in his old age: but he made a much more happy choice than the former had done,—he adopted Trajan.

Hispania Bœtica was by this time quite Latinized, and Latin only was spoken there, at least in the towns; just as West Prussia and Silesia are Germanized. Italica, in the neighbourhood of Seville, was one of the earliest settlements in those parts; it was founded by Roman soldiers of the Scipios, who chose to remain in a country in which they had lived a number of years, and got families by Spanish wives: the town, being constituted as a colony or a second-rate _municipium_, became very thriving. It was the birthplace of Trajan and Hadrian: Trajan’s family was one of the most distinguished there. M. Ulpius Trajanus was the son of a man of note: his father had in the reign of Nero already attained a high rank in the Roman army, and was much looked up to; the son became known and honoured even in the times of Domitian, which were so little favourable to the display of excellence. A happier choice Nerva could never have made; it was received with joy and respect by the Prætorians themselves. At that time, Trajan was in Rome; but he soon went to Germany where his head-quarters were at Cologne. Our knowledge of the affairs of Germany in those days is very scanty; the relations of that country with the Romans were still strikingly peaceful. The name of a place on the military road from the Main to Augsburg, _Aræ Flaviæ_, proves that (probably under Domitian) the Romans had already taken possession of this _sinus imperii_. Whether the rampart and ditch, which, beginning from the Westerwald, reached along the Lahn, the Taunus, and the Main, to the Altmühl, was or was not made at that time, the country was at all events subject to the Romans. Free German tribes were dwelling only in Franconia, the Upper Palatinate, Hesse, and Westphalia; Suevia, in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, was not yet under the Roman rule; the Frisian tribes were subdued under Tiberius, but they afterwards became free. In the days of Nerva, there was a little war in Suabia; of this the only trace is to be met with in an inscription which speaks of the _Victoria Suevica_. The boundaries of the several tribes are most distinctly given in the Germany of Tacitus, where we see how they did not interfere with each other.

Nerva, who reigned but one year and a half, died, A. D. 98, in his sixty-sixth year. The empire was so firmly settled, that Trajan, although absent in Cologne, could quietly step into the imperial dignity as if it were an inheritance: he did not come to Rome until the following year; but allegiance was yielded to him everywhere. He now soon showed his energy, as he laid hold upon the ruffians whom Nerva had spared: a few only atoned for their guilt with their lives, by far the greater part being exiled to the rocks of the Mediterranean. He took a still bolder step when he brought the Prætorians to account, who had had a share in the late misdeeds; and had the ringleaders executed. By this means, his rule was completely strengthened. His reforms were gentle, nor did they reach much beyond individuals: he reduced the taxes, especially taking off those which had been laid as a penalty on the provinces; and he must have got the finances into excellent order, as Hadrian after him was able to remit such immense sums. Whilst he thus lightened the burthens of the world, he had not only money for expensive wars, but also for the most costly works: he never was embarrassed for money. The details of the care which he took of the provinces, and also the principles of his administration, we may glean from the tenth book of Pliny’s Epistles: the good emperors checked the arbitrary rule of the governors by looking themselves into what was done. It was part of Trajan’s happiness, that his father, who was in a hale old age, still lived many years to see the successes of his son, and to have his heart gladdened by his glory: such fine family affection had never been seen in the Roman world before. He was married to an excellent wife in Plotina, who, however, did not bear him any children: the praise of this woman far outweighs those few anecdotes which look very like gossip. His sister Marciana was likewise most respectable, a true matron. And to these two ladies, a considerable improvement in the Roman manners is certainly owing: all the empresses, since Livia—with the exception of Vespasian’s wife, who as a freed woman could not indeed appear in society—had exercised a most baneful influence upon morals. The open shamelessness which was quite the fashion, was now put a stop to.

Trajan’s true bent was for war and for great works. This, as the empire was then situated, was by no means to be found fault with. Whilst he gave occupation to his subjects and his armies, he imparted a higher tone to the age in which he lived: if such a universal empire continues to have peace, torpor and stagnation must be the consequence. Trajan’s wars and victories were certainly beneficial to the Roman state; the only question was, Whither were they to lead?—There was no stopping short; and hence it may be seen, how wretched is such a dominion over the world.

The cause of his first war, was one which to Roman feelings appeared a just one. Domitian had made peace with Decebalus on condition of paying a tribute; this tribute Trajan would not pay, and Decebalus, conscious of his power, declared war, A. D. 101. His empire comprised Transylvania, the mountain districts of Moldavia and Wallachia, and perhaps also the plains of the latter country and of Upper Hungary; in the plains of Moldavia and Bessarabia he in all likelihood ruled over the Sarmatians: his frontiers cannot be accurately laid down. This mighty and strong country was inhabited by a most warlike, free, and civilized people, whose prince was a worthy match for Trajan. The war lasted for three years, until Trajan, by taking the capital, compelled Decebalus to conclude a peace, the terms of which are fully known to us from the pillar: the Roman prisoners and deserters were to be given up, and Decebalus had to pay a large war-contribution,—which was not hard for him to do, as Dacia was rich in silver,—and he was still left as an independent prince in his kingdom. Some years afterwards, the war broke out again. The peace was a very oppressive one; its heavy burthens were only felt after it was concluded, when the insolence of the Roman governors made matters unbearable; and as the Dacians repented of what they had done, Rome declared war once more. Decebalus fell; and in the second campaign, Dacia was made a province, which it continued to be down to the times of the Goths. In the heart of the country, a number of Roman colonies were established; one, for instance, in its capital, Zarmizegethusa, under the name of _Colonia Ulpia_; and also especially in Transylvania and the mountain districts of Moldavia and Wallachia: no traces of any are found in the plains. And so firmly did the Roman rule take root there, that to this day, after the most varied vicissitudes, the language spoken in Wallachia is but a corruption of Latin, although Rome was only mistress there for a hundred and fifty years. The Wallachs, however, spread further towards Pindus in Macedon, and into Greece and Epirus: they are a mysterious people. From the many ruins and inscriptions in it, one may see that Dacia was a very flourishing and civilized country.

There now followed some years of peace, which certainly did not make him happy. When therefore the Parthian king had deposed the king of Armenia, which was subject to the doubtful sovereignty of Rome and Parthia, and had raised a kinsman of his to the throne; Trajan, availing himself of the opportunity, took up arms, marched into Armenia, and received the homage of Parthamasiris, the king set up by the Parthians. With this he was satisfied, the king having come to his camp, and received back his kingdom from him as a fief, which it in truth may be called. But Trajan went on with the war. It is a pity that we do not know its history in detail: like the Dacian wars, it must have been rich indeed in great achievements, as nature opposed immense difficulties. Thus much seems clear, that Trajan took Armenia for the base of his operations, and penetrated towards the lower Tigris. There he reduced, not only Seleucia, but also Ctesiphon, the capital of the king of kings; and he came as far as the ocean, that is to say, the Persian Gulf. Here he either began to feel the difficulties in the way of his darling wish to conquer the whole of the Persian Empire; or it was with him as with many a great general who waged war for its own sake, finding pleasure in it, that he became tired of war, and thought that he should be able at any time to return to it. Thus it was with Napoleon, in whose case it saved the world. He was sometimes sick of war; and as he then wished to rest himself for some months in Paris, he would make peace, meaning to renew the war afterwards: he liked moreover to let people somewhat raise their heads once more, and then, when they had recovered their strength a little, to beat them again with so much the greater glory. Thus Trajan also felt induced to grant peace to the Parthians, after having given them Parthamaspates, one of their pretenders, for a king. The Parthians, as individuals, deserve but little of our esteem: they were barbarians, and they gained their civilization only from the Greek towns. Persia did not rise into eminence till it was ruled by Sassanides. At this time, the Parthians had vassal-kings in the different countries, and the king himself with his court travelled from one of these to the other, and was entertained by them: his proper residence was at Ctesiphon.

Trajan, however, was not yet able to make up his mind what to do. He then set about the conquest of Arabia. From inscriptions and coins, and from the things there which had not existed until his time, we may conclude that he made Arabia Petræa on the eastern coast of the Red Sea down to the Gulf of Acaba—even as far as Medina, if Medina were not included—a Roman province, and received the homage of the Arab tribes between the Euphrates and Syria. He had in the treaty of peace caused the Parthians to give up to him the supremacy over Osroëne, Mesopotamia, and Kurdistan: Edessa likewise was incorporated into the empire. Thus he reserved for himself the groundwork for a future war, just as Napoleon did: he undoubtedly meant, should he live long enough, to extend the frontier as far as to India; or at least, to leave the conquest for his successor.

Nubia, between Egypt and the upper cataract, was likewise subjected in the reign of Trajan to the Roman sway, under which it remained for a hundred and fifty years. Moreover Fezzan between Tripoli and the town of Bornu on the Niger were Roman; which is proved by the inscriptions at Gharma.

Whilst Trajan could not make up his mind to leave the East, he also stayed for a considerable period in Cilicia; and there he fell sick at Selinus, which was afterwards called Trajanopolis, and died in the sixty-first, or sixty-fourth year of his life, A. D. 117. His ashes were brought to Rome, and enshrined there in a golden urn beneath the triumphal pillar. In the last months of his life, he had adopted Hadrian; or Plotina had spread a report of his having done so. This was undoubtedly a happy thing for Rome: for although Hadrian in his after life was guilty of sad misdeeds, it was owing to his ill state of health; so that he was hardly accountable for them. He was a near kinsman of Trajan and a most able man.

ART AND LITERATURE UNDER TRAJAN.

Trajan’s buildings are works, which are not only to be noticed in the topography of Rome, but belong to history as great achievements. Apollodorus of Damascus was his great architect, whose likeness I had the pleasure of discovering: it is the figure of a man in a Greek dress, presenting to the Emperor, who is seated, a drawing on a scroll; and it is on the bas reliefs of the arch of Constantine, the upper part of which is undoubtedly taken from the arch of Trajan. In the early times of the republic, art had the finish of the Etruscan school, owing to Etruscan artists; before the first Punic War, painting also flourished in Rome. Then followed the imitation of the Greeks, of which we cannot give a positive opinion. In the reign of Augustus, the material began to be of paramount importance, notwithstanding which the style was still grand: instead of the good freestone from the quarries of the neighbourhood, people would have nothing but marble. In the temple of Mars Ultor, all the columns are of marble. Otherwise Augustus, on the whole, still built many great works of the stone of the country; and this was yet done even as late as Claudius. But in the course of time, the taste for foreign marbles became more and more decided: Phrygian, Numidian, and other marbles were now used. In Nero’s days, Greek architecture with marble pillars was in fashion; and the material was looked upon as the chief thing, which in architecture is perfectly absurd. With the exception of the Colosseum, all the buildings of Titus and Domitian’s time are overdone; though highly finished, they want distinctness of character: the impression of grandeur is quite lost. Under Trajan, architecture acquires new splendour and dignity; which was owing to that Greek whom we have named: in a new form, it went to work with the treasures of the whole of the immense empire; so that it never signified whether it cost some millions more or less. Trajan either made or completed noble highways; he paved the Via Appia from Capua to Brundusium with basalt; he drained the Pontine marshes as far as they can be drained, and built the harbour of Centumcellæ (Civita Vecchia); the conviction must even then have been come to, that the Tiber was continually filling the harbours of Ostia and Portus with silt. He built baths at the hot springs of Civita Vecchia, and made the mole and harbour of Ancona: for the Tyrrhenian maritime towns were entirely destroyed, though it is not known when. The greatest of his buildings are at Rome, such as the _Forum Ulpium_ and therein the _Columna Cochlis_. The slope of the Quirinal Hill, which reached almost as far as the Capitol, was for a considerable length lowered upwards of a hundred and forty feet (it may be that I do not quite remember the exact measure[47]): this height is marked by the pillar. It was his object to place the government offices in his Forum. The _Forum Ulpium_, like the _Forum Augusti_ before it, was not, as formerly, an open space, which now would no longer have had any meaning: we know for certain, that the finance department, and all that belonged to it, had its offices there: the whole was like a city of palaces. In the middle stood the column, round which was twined a representation of the two Dacian wars of Trajan in bas relief. Although these bas reliefs have suffered from fire and lightning, they are still quite excellent, as this branch of the art was then at its height: they are in exquisite taste. These figures are also of value in an historical and antiquarian point of view, as they give us representations of weapons, armour, dresses, and buildings of which otherwise we should not have known anything. Within, there are steps which lead to the top; and beneath, there is a vault in which the ashes of Trajan were laid: of the latter nothing more is to be found. On the top was the bronze statue of Trajan: this was taken down in the times of barbarism, and Sixtus V. replaced it by a statue of St. Peter. In the Forum round it, two gigantic buildings in the form of _basilicæ_ have been brought to light by the clearings made by the French. The magnificence of these, beggars all description: among other things, there are floors in them of the most beautiful Numidian marble. At the entrances of the Forum, there arose triumphal arches; which we only know from coins: it may be that Constantine despoiled one of these, and had a piece of it patched into his own triumphal arch.

Under Hadrian also, costly buildings were erected; as for instance, the temple of Venus and Roma: but unluckily he had no taste, and following his own whims, he exercised a baneful influence. Of the time of Antoninus Pius, we have ruins which are much less beautiful; and under M. Antoninus, there remains of sculpture only the art of casting in bronze: his bronze statue is excellent; but the sculptures on the arch of Antoninus are far inferior to those of Trajan’s reign. In the triumphal arch of Severus, a most dreadful falling off is to be seen: even the proportions are neglected, as people were no longer able to draw. The spread of Christianity is unjustly reproached with having driven out the fine arts: they had already died away before that.

But Trajan’s age was just as great in literature. Tacitus, it is true, stands quite alone; he is one of those mighty minds which are no creatures of any age. Yet even the mightiest souls feel the influence of their age, which still gives them their tone and their impulses, though it does not make them what they are. It is quite useless to ask Who was Tacitus’ teacher?—he was taught by the sorrows of his times. His great soul was deeply wounded by the horrors of Domitian’s reign, the distress of which was followed under Nerva and Trajan by a refreshing period. The first edition of the Agricola was written by him in the latter years of Domitian, as he says in the wretchedly corrupted beginning of the second chapter: (of the correctness of my emendation I have not the least doubt.[48]) He afterwards revised the work. One may see here all the greatness of the man, though it is struggling with the difficulty in finding utterance, which arises from a decided aversion to diffuseness,—from a striving after terseness without any affectation, from a wish to express with the greatest conciseness nothing but the thought itself, nor even to waste a word, notwithstanding a great richness of ideas, This is most displayed in Tacitus’ earlier writings; in the life of Agricola, and in his Germany. He did not want to write large books, but only small treatises; and yet he wished to take in them the complete description of his subject, all the fulness of his thoughts was to be laid before his future reader. The real work of his life, which he began later,—evidently later even than the _Germania_,—are the _Historiæ_, the most finished performance of his that we know of: had we them entire, we should see him passing through all the various styles of history. There he did not condense; but he told his story at full length, and with much detail: there is no reason to doubt that these histories comprised the whole of the thirty books mentioned by St. Jerome. After he had finished this work, he wrote the Annals besides, so as to give a full account of the times of the Cæsars from the completion and establishment of the _principatus_, after the farce of the republican forms had been put an end to. These he wrote concisely, throwing out some particular parts only in bold relief: the nearer he approached the _Historiæ_, the more diffuse he must have become. At the latter end of Nero, he certainly went as much into detail as in the _Historiæ_. Tacitus is not difficult to understand when one has once entered into his way of thinking: it is pitiful to hear people complain of him and Sallust for affectation and mannerism. If we compare the wonderful symmetry in Tacitus and Sallust with Livy, we see that they for their times were far greater masters of style than the latter; for whenever he takes upon himself to be argumentative, as in the preface and in the passage on the triumph of Cornelius Cossus in the fourth book, he becomes infinitely harder than any part of Tacitus. Livy wishes there to be short and pithy, and he is unintelligible: the last named passage is the most difficult which I know of in the good Latin prose. Wherever he is not trying to be concise, he is very easy.

At the side of Tacitus, who stands quite alone,—as did Æschylus and Sophocles, as did many a lyric poet, and as did Lessing, who among our German prose writers has not found his equal,—but whose transcendent merits were not acknowledged by his age, as men were glad to soothe their feelings by placing a number of people on a par with him; Pliny the Younger was mentioned in his day. Pliny’s letters are psychologically most interesting; they give one much insight into the human mind. He was one of the most good natured of men, but exceedingly vain: before the eyes of the public, he had a strong feeling of his own greatness and classicality. Although in conversation with his friends, he certainly used to criticise Tacitus, and to deplore his defects; in his letters to him, he is full of humility, and makes himself infinitely small, just that Tacitus might be favourably disposed towards him, and extol him highly: he would say that the public always named him and Tacitus together; but that he himself was well aware how much indeed Tacitus was his superior. His letters are most instructive, and give us an invaluable picture of the times; and we recognise in Pliny himself a benevolent and useful man, who makes a very good use of his large fortune, one who was an excellent civil governor, but never free from childish vanity: he always tells his friends the good which he does, of course in the strictest confidence, and these letters are afterwards published. Notwithstanding all this, he is a man of much understanding and talent, being strikingly like the Parisian writers of the eighteenth century: whole phrases in him are quite French, as the late Mr. Spalding has rightly observed. He is therefore hardly to be translated into German; but he may be rendered most beautifully into French. One may see from these letters, that a sort of current coin of intellect had then come into use; and this was indeed a matter of course in a time which had been preceded by a host of eminent men: a great many thoughts had become common property, so as to belong to the whole generation, and a chord which had once been struck by a man like Tacitus, could not but vibrate for a long time. Moreover, it was an age of comfort and of cheerfulness after long depression. Every thing in it had thus been brought to a level of mediocrity, and the self-same persons, under different circumstances, would in all likelihood have been very little indeed. We may judge of them in some measure from Florus, who lived in the reign of Trajan. The earlier history was already so far behind them, that people only wanted to have a general notion of it. The book is quite a book of the time; insufferably frivolous, and displaying a shocking want of taste, and an utter ignorance of the actual state of things.

Before Trajan’s time, Greek literature had long been dead; in the reign of Augustus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus was accomplished as a critic and as an historian; in that of Tiberius, Strabo was eminent for his practical turn for history. Yet these stand quite alone. Under Domitian, Greek literature began to be restored by the schools of the rhetoricians, who assume quite a different character. Dio Chrysostom of Prusa is really an author of uncommon talent, whose speeches for the most part painfully impress us by the triflingness of the matter of which they treat: everywhere we find in him an excellence of language, a pure, though acquired Atticism, over which he has a wonderful mastery. There is not a more amiable mind than his: he is not vain, like a rhetorician, and yet he is conscious of his powers. He was an unaffected Platonist whose whole soul was in Athens: by-gone Athens was all the world to him, and for it he forgets Rome and its rulers.

He is succeeded by Plutarch of Chæronea, whose amiability every one must know and appreciate, although it is easy enough to see his defects as an historian, and the weakness of his eclectic philosophy. Notwithstanding this, there is no saying how much we owe him; and it is impossible to read him but with the highest pleasure. His language is far less perfect than that of Dio.

By these two men, Greek literature was raised again; and though they had no successors to equal them, yet we may date from them a new era. The real Alexandrine literature must be deemed to end with the death of Eratosthenes in the reign of Ptolemy Evergetes: the period from Aristarchus to Dio, is an intermediate one which has no distinct character. In Rome under Augustus, a bad Greek literature became in vogue, the Greek “_abbés_” (or language-masters) having corrupted every body’s taste, as the French did ours in the last century: Livy stands forth like a great man in that age. The fancy for what was Greek, even though this had no longer a literature, spoiled Rome until the time of Seneca: much mischief was also done by the fondness for sophistry. Then follows Quintilian as the restorer of pure taste in Roman literature: from him to Tacitus, there is a new classic era. Yet this epoch did not last: the Greek school raises its head again, and fascinates the Romans anew. Under Hadrian, the Greek language once more becomes prevalent, and is generally written by all persons of education; under the Antonines, all is hellenized.—The taste is changed; the antiquarian fondness for the quaint and for Grecian phraseology, becomes the ruling fashion of the day.

HADRIAN. T. ANTONINUS PIUS. M. AURELIUS ANTONINUS.

Hadrian was married to the niece of Trajan, the daughter of his sister Marciana; which was the cause of his election. Even if Plotina forged the deed of Hadrian’s adoption by Trajan, she did no harm: at all events, that the election was not contrary to the wishes of Trajan, everything tends to prove. Of Hadrian it was said by those who came after him, that it was uncertain whether he should be classed among the good princes or the bad ones. He committed cruelties which cast a foul stain on his memory; but, on the other hand, he did an immense deal of good. But if we keep before us as an excuse for these cruelties, the state of mind into which he was thrown by his last illness, there is scarcely any other reign which was so beneficial to the Roman world as his. No prince before him had looked upon himself as the emperor of the whole Roman empire, but as the sovereign of Rome, or at most of Italy: in the provinces, the care of the Cæsars extended only to military affairs. This was in some measure the case even under Trajan.

Hadrian had properly speaking no war, or at most petty wars on the frontiers: there were also some disturbances from the Moors; but these were soon quelled. For the sake of preserving peace, he first of the Roman emperors gave subsidies to the border nations. Of Trajan’s conquests, he only kept Dacia; those which had been gained from the Parthians, he abandoned. The twenty-two years of his reign were free from any calamity worth mentioning. One of his first acts was to remit 900,000,000 sesterces (45,000,000 dollars) of arrears of taxes; whether this was to his subjects directly, or to the publicans, has not been made out. Much remains to be done for the history of the Roman financial system; for that of the land-tax, Savigny has done a great deal, and done it well.

Hadrian extended his benefits over all the countries of the Roman empire: he travelled over the provinces, from the cataracts of Egypt to the Scottish borders. There is not, perhaps, a province which he did not visit.

The outbreak of the Jews in Cyprus and Cyrene, where great numbers of them were settled, was a very fierce one. They had made an attempt before; but now the struggle was carried on with unbridled fury by Barkochba: the Jews fought with the greatest courage, though it was only for vengeance, as they knew all the while that they should perish at last. All that remained of that hapless nation in Palestine was extirpated, with the exception of the Samaritans, and Jerusalem was rebuilt as a military colony under the name of Ælia Capitolina, a name which, remarkably enough, has been kept up to this day: the Arab writers do not call the place Jerusalem, but either the Holy City or Ilia. No Jew was allowed to come near it, not even so much as to get a sight of Mount Moriah.

Whilst travelling through the provinces, Hadrian built everywhere great works. In Britain he erected the wall against the Caledonians for the protection of the province, which now already began to be Romanized, though indeed the Gaelic and Cymric elements of the population were likewise preserved. But above all, it was on Athens, which he enthusiastically loved, as well as on Greece in general, that he showered his benefits. He adorned Athens with works, the like of which had not been wrought for the city since the times of Pericles; he finished the Olympiëum, built a theatre and an entire new town, and even had himself invested with the dignity of an _Archon Eponymus_. In the last years of his life, he fell into a state of melancholy; and then, on the one hand, he sought for aid to secure the succession of the empire, and on the other, he gave way to sudden outbursts of anger and to mistrust, and was thus led to put many persons to death. He was an enemy to the Roman senate, which, however, in all likelihood was a set of presumptuous, overbearing, disagreeable people, who besides were enormously rich: it had now already come to pass, that in these wealthy families the senatorial dignity was handed down as an inheritance from father to son. Then it was that Hadrian first adopted a young man named Ælius Verus, in whom, however, he was unaccountably mistaken. On this occasion an immense _congiarium_ was given to the people. Most happily for Rome, this unworthy fellow died a short time afterwards; on which Hadrian chose T. Antoninus (Pius), whom he had already thought of before, a grandson of Arrius Antoninus, the friend of Nerva, and an altogether blameless man.

Among the remarkable features of Hadrian’s reign, is the foundation of the system of Roman jurisprudence in its later form, the drawing up of the _edictum perpetuum_, and the further development of the law by means of imperial edicts. It is a new epoch in Roman jurisprudence; the _responsa prudentum_, now that they were given in the name of the emperor, acquired a real authority. The emperors had even since Augustus had a sort of council of state; but Hadrian put the _consistorium Principis_ on a surer footing: a regularly settled form that body never had. The _præfectus prætorio_ henceforth is a lawyer and not a military man, a strange combination in the manner of the East.

The decline of literature under Hadrian becomes yet more marked than it had been under Trajan. The inscriptions are in a quite barbarous Latin, the grammatical forms being utterly disregarded, and all the cases jumbled together. I have seen at Rome an inscription of the time of Hadrian, which is composed in a real _lingua rustica_. Just so, we have in Egypt inscriptions, which pass for Greek, but are entirely barbarous. Such inscriptions, although still to be met with in Italy only far and between, are yet enough to show in what a state the population was even then, the gaps which had been made in it by the civil wars, having been filled up by myriads of slaves. A jargon was formed in the altogether desolate parts of Italy, from whence it also spread to Rome; just what happened in the case of the Wends, when about a hundred and fifty years ago they were compelled to speak German. This is the _lingua rustica_, or _vulgaris_, like that of the black slaves in the American colonies. People of rank, no doubt, still spoke Latin; they learned it as the English in the colonies do their own language, after having spoken when children that of the Creoles. I do not doubt in the least that Pliny and Tacitus, even if they knew a _lingua rustica_ at all, talked to each other as they wrote. A language which is grown poor, as ours did after the thirty years’ war,[49] tries to recruit itself from books and from the earlier writers. The latter were therefore read for the sake of their language; the older the style, the more valued was the writer. Hence indeed it was that Plautus, Nævius, Ennius, whom people in Seneca’s time still held in such contempt, were now read with so much favour: the older the language, the purer it was deemed. This fondness for them caused the most correct authors to be neglected; as for instance, Cicero was for Cato and Gracchus. The contempt for the older writers, certainly lasted from Virgil to the end of the first century of our era. In like manner, not a very long while ago were Walther von der Vogelweide and Zacharias Theobald extolled among us as models, the former for poetry, the latter for historical writing. Hadrian, being himself a lover of the _antiquitas_, contributed by his example to this revival of the ancient literature; but he did much more in favour of that of the Greeks. Greek had no doubt also kept itself more alive: in Athens, the people in all likelihood did not yet speak at all barbarously. There were very few Greek writers indeed, and Hadrian only brought them out too much. To write Greek poetry got into fashion more than it had ever been, and he gave pensions for it; as for instance, to the lyric poet Mesomedes.

The taste for archæology and old-fashioned language called forth a writer like Gellius, from whom we may learn much. He is somewhat later than Pliny; his book must be dated from the reign of M. Antoninus. His ignorance of his own age is quite inconceivable: he knows nothing about Roman institutions, so that he also most ludicrously misunderstands the ancients, being one of those who, to use Goethe’s words, “see the world but on a holiday.” Yet he has not even the least knowledge of antiquity itself, nor any notion of the law, or in fact of human life: thus for instance, he has no idea of what a colony is, although there were hundreds of them in his times. Hence his many mistakes, however agreeable an author he may be otherwise. A man of the same stamp is Fronto, the tutor of M. Antoninus: it is remarkable how he makes his pupil read authors merely for the sake of their phrases, leading him to hunt after words, as he calls it himself. Former rhetoricians had tried to produce an effect by a subtle combination of thoughts; but now it was to be done by out-of-the-way words and forms. Fronto’s hatred against Seneca really arises from a feeling of being entirely incapable of such refinement as his.

There were, however, some people besides, who combined both refinement of thought and refinement of expression. Seceding from the Roman school, they formed the African one, to which belonged Apuleius and Tertullian, and which lasted to the middle of the third century, until the time of Arnobius. This African school is most incorrectly spoken off as having had quite a dialect of its own, the peculiarities of its diction are all of them expressions of the most ancient Roman language, which it collected and made use of. The same thing was about this time to a certain extent the case with the Greeks; and this may then have given rise to many a collection of glosses in Latin as well as in Greek: the abuse of it is shown in the Lexiphanes of Lucian. Apuleius and Tertullian, however, are men of the highest talent: Apuleius, who writes in a remarkably lively style, is undoubtedly to be placed among the first geniuses of his age. His Apology, in which the quaint expressions are not so heaped together as in the Metamorphoses, shows with what eloquence he could speak and write, so long as he did not strive to be over-refined. Old words which were becoming obsolete, are here and there to be met with even in Sallust and Tacitus, but very sparingly and without abuse: the later writers sow them broadcast. How the African school with all its peculiarities arose, is perhaps more than we can now tell; yet Carthage was in the western world so decidedly the second city after Rome, that one may easily understand, how in literature also it stood in marked opposition to it: there was very much the same difference which there is now between Paris and Geneva. In the provincial towns, like Madaura, Hippo, and others, Punic was still spoken; and thus it was that the change into the Arabic became so easy in those parts. It is very likely that the present language of Tunis is by no means Arabic in reality, but that it still contains much of the Punic: many Latin elements are preserved in it; as for instance, the use of the preposition _de_ to express the genitive.

Greek literature kept rising: the eastern world, owing to Hadrian’s partiality, had not only got to a far greater height of literary wealth and originality, but also of pride and vanity. Then arose the witty Lucian, who indeed has been overrated for some time, but whom we should by no means make light of. His pure Attic style calls forth our admiration, as he certainly spoke nothing but Syriac until he had grown up to be a young man. On the whole, all the eastern world at that time went on cheerfully, whilst the West moved sluggishly: the East had ceased to look upon itself as subdued, since the right of Roman citizenship already extended over millions, every emperor conferring it on new countries. In the days of the Antonines also lived Lucian, Galen, Pausanias (who indeed is less ingenious, but very useful and important for us), Aristides, that most disagreeable writer, and the whole school of Greek rhetoricians who looked upon themselves as forming the second grand era of eloquence. These wrote after the ancient models, but alas! there is nothing in their works: whenever they have something to write about, they show no want of talent. This is also the case with the Latin writers. Apuleius shows talent wherever he has a subject, as in that eccentric book, the Metamorphoses, and in his Apology; and so does Tertullian, as for instance, when he writes against the theatre, having a truth to deal with. On the other hand, Aristides’ declamation on the battle of Leuctra is really insufferable. Tertullian should be read much more generally by philologists, and so should the Fathers on the whole; for this we have before us the bright example of such great men as Scaliger, Hemsterhuys, Valckenaer, and others. We cannot thoroughly know the history of those times, unless we study the writings of a Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Athenagoras.

There is no pile of building in earlier Rome more colossal than the _moles Hadriani_, of which we know for certain that the tower with all its inscriptions was still in existence in the middle ages: Procopius tells us that the statue of the emperor was thrown down at the siege of Rome by the Goths. The destroyer did his worst; but the huge masses are yet standing, so that it is now the largest building which has been left, and even in its shattered state it is still noble. Of Hadrian’s villa, about two miles from Tibur, there remain to this day immense ruins, which, notwithstanding their strange outlines, have kept their extraordinary beauty: a great number of very fine statues have been dug up there. Where the gardens were, some exotic plants have grown wild. Of Hadrian as an author, we have nothing but a few verses, which are found in his life by Spartianus; a doubtful epigram on his favourite horse Borysthenes, (as for myself, I think it to be genuine;) and some Greek verses. He has, however, written much poetry.

He was succeeded by T. Antoninus Pius, whom he would not have adopted, had M. Aurelius been grown up. To this boy, Hadrian’s attention was directed even from his early childhood: his real name was Annius Verus; but on account of his unflinching love of truth Hadrian called him Verissimus. But as he was well aware that a youth of such tender years was not yet fit for the throne; he adopted the husband of the sister of Verus’ father, whose chief recommendation in his eyes was this connexion. T. Antoninus Pius was married to Galeria Faustina, the sister of Annius Verus the elder. The Roman names are now so confused, that it is with the greatest trouble that one is able to find one’s way among them. T. Aurelius Antoninus came originally from Nemausus (_Nismes_) in the province of Gaul, Italy having even then almost entirely ceased to furnish princes. His history is one of those which are least known to us. The seventieth book of Dio Cassius was already lost when Zonaras and Xiphilinus made their abstracts; so that we are indeed confined to the wretchedly written lives in the _Scriptores Historiæ Augustæ_. His reign lasted more than twenty-two years. His personal character was very good: his surname of _Pius_ he earned by getting divine honours granted to Hadrian when he died, in spite of the violent irritation which was felt against him. His reign was not as undisturbed as the one before it had been. He had some wars on the borders, besides which there were risings among the Britons and the Moorish tribes of mount Atlas; moreover, there was a rebellion of the Jews, and there were hostilities with the Parthians. These wars were in many places insurrections, which more than anything proves the oppression of the people by the governors. His reign was disastrous, owing to awful earthquakes: the destruction of Rhodes, Smyrna, and other Ionian towns, mentioned by Aristides, took place at this time. If we can venture to make conjectures from the very few memorials which have been left to us, we may say that Antoninus was a very well-meaning, good man, but a commonplace person, and anything but a great prince. He seems to have laid the foundation of that steady decline which we see in the days of M. Antoninus.

The golden age of jurisprudence still went on in his time. Gaius, it is certain, already wrote in the last years of his reign; Appian, the beginning of the writings of Galen, and Sextus Empiricus are of the same date. The manufactures of Egypt, especially of Alexandria, were most flourishing indeed, even under Hadrian; above all, those of linen, cotton, and glass. Astronomy also and mathematical geography had reached a high standard.

He was succeeded by M. Antoninus: of the adoption of this Marcus, there are two different accounts. The generally received one is that T. Antoninus adopted him together with Lucius Verus, the son of L. Verus; according to the other, Marcus had to adopt Verus as his son. The former of these is supported by the fact of their being called _Divi fratres_; on the other hand, Verus in a letter to Marcus, speaks of Antoninus as “_pater tuus, avus meus_.” It may be that M. Antoninus adopted Verus as his son, and afterwards gave him to his father for adoption. The real name of the elder Verus was Commodus and Antoninus Verus; but they changed names, and the firstborn son of Verus was called Commodus. If there ever was spotless virtue, it was that of Marcus. There cannot be greater kindness, modesty, conscientiousness, and mastery over self, than was seen in this noble-hearted man: he certainly was the best of his age. We may behold him from his early childhood, recognising him even in the wretched life which has been written of him; moreover we have the many busts which have been taken at the different ages of his life, from his twelfth, sixteenth, twentieth year to his death: there is in every one of these the same virtuous expression. Formerly we knew him as a full-aged man from his golden book the Meditations, in which indeed there are things which give us pain, as we thence discover that he was not happy; but even in his trouble we cannot but love him for his fine soul. Particularly interesting is the first book. Now again we see him also in his correspondence with Fronto as a grown up youth, in the first cheerful years of the spring tide of life, and, as far as his nature would allow, very happy indeed. Afterwards, we find him sorrowful and weighed down by the burthen of his duties, of which, however, he never would let himself neglect any: he was an excellent husband and father, and an enthusiastic disciple of his master, who was infinitely below him; and when his eyes had been opened with regard to this, he yet returns to him that he might not slight or offend him, coaxing him, and asking his advice when he had no need for it. His education is remarkable; the range it took was immense: it is quite incredible what an amount of knowledge was placed before him, and with what zeal he applied himself to it. As his teacher of rhetoric, he had Fronto, who, at that time, had the greatest reputation as an advocate, and who in his own way was training him to be a rhetorician. He had also a Greek of the same stamp, Herodes Atticus, who was, however, much more a man of the world than the old pedantic Fronto. Marcus Antoninus read a vast deal of the classical literature of the two languages; and until his twentieth year, the whole of his attention was directed to grammar and literature. He had a great liking for the older writers before Cicero, preferring Plautus, Ennius, and Nævius, to Virgil and Horace. Soon afterwards, in his twenty-second year, he became acquainted with a man whom he looked upon as his true guardian angel, sent to him by Heaven. This was Junius Rusticus, of whose personal character we know nothing beyond what M. Antoninus himself says of him in his first book. However inferior Zeno may have been to Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics were the only philosophers at that time who were worth anything: the Platonists had sunk into _Thaumaturgi_ and _Theurgi_; the Peripatetics had fallen to nothing; but the Stoics were ever able to rise again, owing to their moral discipline. That really great man, Epictetus, had already lived and taught. Arrian was likewise a distinguished man; and in his philosophy also, he was worthy of the better ages of Greece. Epictetus infused a new life into the Stoic philosophy; though indeed it was not of long duration, as the minds, which until then had been attached to Stoicism, now turned themselves towards Neo-Platonism and Christianity. Stoicism opened to M. Antoninus a new world; and it is this which gives the otherwise childish letters of Fronto such an indescribable interest: they throw light upon the state of mind of the youth, who cast rhetoric aside in disgust, and sought his only happiness in philosophy, in the insight which it opens into virtue and eternity, and not in its dialectical juggleries. He bore the task of government, just as religious men say that one should take up the cross and bear it. Living wholly for the state and the government, and unremittingly fulfilling his duties as a general, he complains of not being able to conceive one cheering thought. No prince was ever so loved by his subjects, that is to say, by one half of the world, as he was by his: the people of Syria and Egypt are to be excepted, who indeed had never seen him, and were little inclined to him. The whole of the West, on the other hand, adored him: this is shown by the countless busts which are found of him. Men of the same age, as a mark of love, would in those days call each other _frater_; younger ones would call their elders _pater_; and so loveable was he, that all who knew him in the least placed themselves on this affectionate footing with him. His demeanour to the senate was just as if he looked upon it as the old senate, the real seat of Roman sovereignty, and upon himself as a mere _magistratus_.