Chapter C: Julius Cæsar (4)

In Italy there now arose the greatest despair. Places which had not offended in the least, nor ever once withstood the Julian party, were confiscated just as much as those which had sided with the Pompeians. Among those who were driven out, there were no doubt in many instances the sons of the old soldiers of Sylla: these were ready to rush to arms, and were only looking about for some one who would put himself at their head. Two men now declared for them. One of these was the consul L. Antonius, a brother of the triumvir, who was seeking for an opportunity to overthrow the rival of his brother, in which he was chiefly set on by Fulvia, his sister-in-law. Fulvia was a termagant, a furious bloodthirsty woman, profligate but clever: to Antony she was attached with passionate love, and she had also been faithful to him ever since she married him. The late Queen Caroline of Naples, the wife of Ferdinand, was by no means unlike her. Fulvia had been a deadly enemy to Cicero; now she was jealous of Cleopatra, and brooding over schemes for putting everything into confusion, so as to bring Antony back to Italy. In Præneste she gave out that the oppressed should be protected. In the same manner, Tib. Claudius Nero, the husband of Livia, had stood forth in Campania, and he seems to have done it out of humanity and justice. Octavian, however, never once lost his head. He was a coward; but by degrees he had accustomed himself to look difficulties in the face, events having matured him, and therefore, thanks chiefly to Agrippa, he now behaved with prudence and address. He turned himself to his veterans. Those generals of Antony who were near at hand, showed themselves undecided; C. Asinius Pollio in Gaul and Illyria, would not declare for Antony, though in his heart he was for him; and thus Octavian succeeded in isolating L. Antonius, who with part of the old soldiers, with refugees, senators, and knights, and also with Fulvia, betook himself to Perugia. There they were blockaded by Octavian, and as peace seemed hopeless, they held out to the last: at length, driven to it by the most frightful famine, and left by M. Antony to their fate, they capitulated. L. Antonius betrayed his party, made up with Octavian, and was allowed to go free with Fulvia who now withdrew to Asia. The veterans went into the service of the young Cæsar, having hopes of new assignments of land, as he promised to take care of them as he would of his own men; the newly levied soldiers also went over to him: and thus there remained only the unfortunate senators, knights, and inhabitants of Perugia, who were obliged to surrender at discretion. Three hundred of these, all of them men of rank, were offered up like beasts of sacrifice at the altar of Divus Julius; Perugia was set fire to, and burned to ashes, either during the pillage, or owing to the despair of the inhabitants. The town was afterwards rebuilt as a Julian military colony, under the name of Augusta Perusia, as it is still called on solemn occasions.

From the year of the Perusian war (712), dates Virgil’s fourth eclogue, which is in praise of Asinius Pollio under whose protection he then was, probably at Mantua: Asinius was, at that time, all but an enemy to Octavian, and very near taking up arms against him. Now that all was over, Antony, who had concentrated his troops in Greece, went across to Brundusium; and there, by the mediation of Mæcenas and Cocceius, a peace was concluded between him and Octavian, by which the civil war was put off for nine years. To this period belongs Horace’s journey to Brundusium. (The greatest part of his poems were written in his early youth, or at least before the battle of Actium: his most poetical time was about his thirtieth year.) As a bond of peace, it was agreed that Antony should marry Octavia, the widow of C. Marcellus, and half sister of Octavian,—not indeed by Atia, and therefore not of the Julian house, but by the same father. In the midst of a most corrupt age, and in a bad family, she was a noble-minded woman,—a sad example of the hard fate to which persons of the highest rank may be subjected. She was an exemplary wife: in her behaviour to C. Marcellus, she was spotless; and such she was also to Antony, who neglected her in the most shameful way. An excellent mother she also was; but she had the misfortune of losing her dearest son, the hope of the Roman people: of her children by Antony, the Antonia who was afterwards married to Drusus, the son of Livia, seems alone to have been worthy of her. Antony got the empire of the east as far as the Ionian Sea,—the self-same division which was projected under Severus, nearly settled under Diocletian, and at last established under the sons of Theodosius; the west was given to Octavian; but Lepidus was to have Africa, and doubtless Sicily also and the islands between those countries.

But Sicily was then in the power of Sextus Pompey, the younger son of the great Pompey. He had, after the battle of Munda, collected a force among the Celtiberians, and in the year of Cæsar’s death he carried on an indecisive war against Asinius Pollio. When the amnesty was decreed, at which time he was at Marseilles, he was recalled together with the rest by the senate; the value of his father’s property was to be refunded to him, and the _imperium oræ maritimæ_ was promised him. This _imperium_, however, he had first to create. When the proscriptions came out, he was in great danger: Antony was in possession of his paternal mansion on the Carinæ, and for the sake of it, he was already trying to have him killed. He did not therefore venture to come to Rome, but surrounded himself with all sorts of adventurers, and gathered together a swarm of pirates such as his father had crushed,—in fact the sons of these, and even in some instances the self-same men: he was their natural patron; for, according to Asiatic custom, the conquered placed themselves under the protection of the conqueror. Thus he made himself master of Sicily, which was still quite a Greek island: his pirates too were either Greeks or hellenized Asiatics. He was joined by Statius Murcus, with part of the fleet of Brutus and Cassius. With the rest of it, Domitius Ahenobarbus carried on the war for two years under his own auspices; after this, he united himself with Asinius Pollio, and by him was reconciled to Antony, to whom also he then attached himself. Antony had, even before the battle of Philippi, been foiled in an attempt on Sicily, and moreover Sextus Pompey had very much strengthened himself since; Antony therefore and Octavian now began to treat with the latter by themselves, taking no heed of Lepidus, whom, without asking his leave, they confined to Africa. There was a peace made near the headland of Misenum. Pompey went to them on shore, and trusted himself to them with some generosity; they, on the other hand, with a magnanimity which was otherwise foreign to them, went on board his flagship, and partook of a meal with him. One of his commanders wanted on this occasion to cut the cables of the anchors, and to seize them; but Pompey ordered that it should not be done. By this peace Pompey had Sicily, and as it is stated in an account very likely to be true, Achaia likewise, together with Sardinia, given up to him; so that he had the heart of the maritime dominion. In this possession he peacefully maintained himself for four years.

Sextus Pompey is said to have been _sermone barbarus_. He was indeed a rough fellow, and had lived abroad from his earliest youth; but we see in what a corrupt and neglected state the vulgar tongue must at that time already have been. People only who were highly educated spoke well; it was a particular refinement, a perfection of language, which, if not carefully cultivated, was very liable to degenerate before long. Cicero tells us of the _sermo urbanus_ of the time of Lælius, and remarks that the ladies of that period spoke an idiom of uncommon elegance.[23] But now this refined style was already gone off, as is the case at the present day nearly everywhere, even in England and France. Sextus Pompey was a mere _condottiere_ like Antony and others: he thought of nothing beyond maintaining himself in Sicily and those parts, the restoration of the republic being no concern of his. By the peace of Misenum, all the proscribed were allowed to return to Rome.

Peace having been thus restored, Antony turned to the east, where Labienus had fled over to the Parthians. The latter was one of those men whose fate does not inspire any sympathy: he was a seditious tribune in Cicero’s consulship, and afterwards a tool of Cæsar’s usurpation. His family also was a seditious one: his uncle had been slain with Saturninus, and he had tried to avenge him upon C. Rabirius, one of the few still living of those who with Marius had stormed the Capitol, thirty-seven years having passed since then. Labienus was an intriguer from inclination, not from need, as he was very rich: he threw himself into the arms of Cæsar, and distinguished himself as an officer in the Gallic wars. Afterwards, it is not known for what reason, he went over to Pompey, to whom he remained faithful. Then, after the battle of Pharsalus, he went to Africa, and from thence to Spain; after which he again makes his appearance in the army of Brutus, takes a part in the battle of Philippi, and at last betakes himself to the Parthians. He now led a Parthian army to Syria, and these barbarians, when commanded by one of Cæsar’s comrades, achieved things such as they had never done before: yet after gaining several victories, they were at length driven back by Ventidius.

The same family policy as that of Labienus is met with at that time in more instances than one. That Asinius Pollio was so determined an enemy to Pompey, Cicero, Brutus, and the other Pompeian senators, whose characters he must otherwise have liked, whereas the Cæsarians were not at all to his taste; was owing to nothing else but personal feeling. It so happened that when Pompeius Strabo, the father of Cn. Pompey, overcame in the Social War the Picentines and Marrucinians, the prætor of the Marrucinians was slain, Herius Asinius, the father or grandfather of Pollio (very likely his father; for he also called his son again Herius Asinius). For this reason, he looked upon Cæsar’s party as the Marian one, and attached himself to it as such. This was also the case with Munatius Plancus, a man of distinguished intellect, and not to be slightingly spoken of; but whom in other respects I cannot uphold. He was a Tiburtine, and all the inhabitants of Tibur, Præneste, in short, all the Latins, were thoroughgoing partisans of Cinna; so that Munatius quite naturally became a Cæsarian, as Cæsar, who was Cinna’s son-in-law, might in truth be deemed the representative of his party.

Antony now again withdrew to the East, and being separated from Cleopatra, he lived for some time with Octavia, until he obliged her to go back to Rome. Whilst he now stayed in Asia, and sometimes also in Alexandria, he was allured by the hope of Asiatic trophies; for the Romans still smarted under the disgrace of the overthrow of Crassus. The Armenian king Artavasdes had made advances to him. The whole of the Parthian empire consisted of a number of distinct kingdoms, which in reality were vassal principalities, and not mere satrapies of the king of kings who kept his court at Ctesiphon near Seleucia. Antony marched with a large army through Armenia and Aderbijan to Media, the true Irak Ajemi; and there he besieged the town of Phraata. (The geography of those parts we know very little of.) His plan was wretchedly devised. Owing to the impassable nature of the ground, he had left his battering engines behind, with two legions under the legate Statianus to protect them; this depot was taken by the Parthian sovereign Phraortes, and the two legions were cut to pieces. Afterwards the main army also was so closely pressed, that Antony, having narrowly escaped the fate of Crassus, had to retreat to Armenia: the fourth part of his army had been annihilated, and most of his baggage entirely lost. Antony now returned to his revels with his paramour, to whom he gave Cœlesyria, Judæa, and Cyprus for her empire, a thing which highly disgusted the Romans. To that kingdom, as the coins of Cleopatra show, the puzzling name of Chalcis is given, which I cannot account for in any way: it is certainly to be understood of this realm, and not of the tetrarchy of a later day.

The life of Antony by Plutarch is a very lengthy one; but there are many very remarkable accounts in it, which he had still heard from his grandfather or great grandfather, especially about the frightful distress which there was in Greece: the parallel with Demetrius is very happy. To this period belong the stories of the profligate way in which he spent his time, squandering in eastern luxury and pomp the sums which he had extorted from the nations. The only feeling that one can have with regard to Antony, is that of satisfaction that all is over with him. Here he forgets the shame which he had suffered in war. Fortune, however, was yet once more favourable to him; for the king of Media besought his protection, and showed himself inclined to acknowledge his supremacy instead of that of the king of the Parthians.

In the meanwhile, Octavian took up arms against Sextus Pompey. The soul of this war was Agrippa, who built a fleet on the Lucrine Lake, which he converted into a sort of harbour, where he exercised his ships: a fair ground of quarrel did not exist. Twice was the fleet destroyed by storms: when it was restored, Agrippa gained a glorious victory near Mylæ (Milazzo); but at Tauromenium, Octavian’s ships were utterly routed before his eyes, the commanders of the Pompeian fleet, to crown his disgrace, being freedmen, Mena (Μηνᾶ = Μηνόδωρος, not Mænas; we know the name from Horace’s Epistles)[24] and Menecrates. Octavian’s troops had landed under Cornificius, one of his most faithful servants, and had likewise been beaten, almost indeed annihilated: Agrippa retrieved matters. Another fleet was built, and now Agrippa won a great naval victory. Pompey left Sicily, sought the protection of Antony, and staid for some time in the Levant. Antony was favourably inclined towards him; but whilst he wavered as to whether he should receive him or have him executed, Pompey, owing to one of those fatal orders, was murdered by a proscribed person in Phrygia, a deed which was yet more shameful, as he had formerly made it a point in the peace of Misenum, that all the proscribed should be reinstated. Whether the house of the Pompeii became extinct with him, or whether the consul Sextus Pompeius in the reign of the emperor Tiberius was a descendant of his, is more than I can say.

Cæsar was now master of Sicily. He had called on Lepidus to give him aid from Africa; but the latter, who was discontented with the smallness of his share, and insolent on the strength of the power which belonged to him, had delayed, and had only come over at last with a considerable army, when matters had already become very much entangled. He then began to quarrel with Cæsar for the possession of Sicily; and he seems to have been quite in the right, if in such a division of robbers there can be any question at all of right. But Lepidus had neither the respect nor the love of any one, not even of his own soldiers; and therefore Cæsar, who was his superior in determination and address, betook himself into his camp,—the boldest feat of his life!—and called upon the soldiers to declare for him. The thing succeeded: the daring recklessness of the step, perhaps also the feeling in favour of Cæsar’s adopted son, but more especially the hope of a great donation, such as Lepidus was not able to give, had its effect. Lepidus was forsaken by all the world. Octavian assigned him Circeii for his abode; and thus the whole of the west was united under him. In that dreary place near the Pontine marshes, which is only beautiful from the sea-side, Lepidus passed the rest of his life, having the title, but not the power of a _pontifex maximus_.

The immediate cause of the war which ended with the fight at Actium, was the divorce of Antony and Octavia. The latter had brought to him very rich presents, military stores, and troops which she had raised for him, and had gone with them to meet him to Athens; yet he would not see her, but ordered her to hand over the presents to his officers, and then to go back to Rome. There, however, she was not to dwell in his house, although she had even the children of Fulvia with her; and when moreover she still went on living as his wife, he sent her a letter of divorcement, and married his paramour, which was a great outrage in the eyes of the Romans. The war now began under circumstances which left no doubt whatever as to what its end would be. Antony indeed had formerly been a much superior general to Octavian; but the best commanders were now on the side of the latter, who could also recruit his legions, which his rival had not the means of doing, as he ruled over quite different races of men, and could get nothing better than deserters to fill up the ranks of his army with. Where Antony seemed to have the advantage, was in his fleet; for the Phœnician and Greek nations were at all times far more seafaring than those of the west: had these resources been for ten years in the hands of an able man, they might have given him power; but owing to the carelessness with which Antony had wasted his means, they were useless. The fleet of Octavian consisted of the remnants of Pompey’s, and also of the ships which Agrippa had lately built: these last were small sailing vessels, whereas Antony had immense rowing galleys fitted up with towers and additional decks, rather as if for fighting by land, than for manœuvring by sea. Agrippa, who to all intents and purposes was Octavian’s admiral, displayed from the very first quite an extraordinary activity.

At the entrance of the gulf of Ambracia, near the Corinthian colony of Actium, Antonius collected his fleet; so that in the event of a favourable issue, he might have the passage open to Italy: the fleet of Octavian was lying off the Thesprotian coast. As the fleets faced each other, thus also did the two armies at the entrance of the gulf of Prevesa. Agrippa undertook several detached enterprises, and by taking Leucas and Patræ in the rear of the enemy, made it uncommonly difficult for them to get provisions. In the battle, the strength on Antony’s side was greatest; and if perhaps he could not have conquered, he might at least have stoutly disputed the victory, had not Cleopatra and the Egyptian ships taken to flight with womanish cowardice, at a moment when nothing as yet was lost. Whether Antony thought in his jealousy that Cleopatra meant to sacrifice him and gain over Octavian, or whatever it was; forgetting everything else, he followed her in a fast sailing vessel, and was received in her royal ship. The whole of the fleet which remained, being thus bereft of the strongest ships, was now destroyed by that of Agrippa. All was then lost. Antony was in despair: between him and Octavian no peace was possible; for the conquered there was nothing left but to die. Three days was he angry with Cleopatra, whom he had followed to Alexandria; but her power of bewitching him was so great, that he made it up with her again. He still tried to deceive himself as to the terrible condition in which he stood: he hoped that his land force would be more successful, as it was very much attached to him. It is remarkable how faithfully in these wars the troops still clung to their leaders: it was quite different under the Macedonian successors of Alexander, when, even on the field of the battle, the soldiers would pass over from one side to the other. After Antony had left his troops, though hard pressed by Agrippa, and in spite of all Octavian’s great promises, they held out with unshaken fidelity for six days, nor would they believe that he was not to return; but when Canidius, his lieutenant, also deserted them, they acknowledged Octavian as imperator. With this the war was ended: whatever Roman legions there were still in the eastern provinces, yielded without a struggle; though indeed there were some trifling exceptions, owing to personal motives.

The battle was fought on the second of September 721. This ought to have refuted those later writers, like Gellius and Macrobius, who did not see with their own eyes, and who would have it that the old rule was still held, that no battle could be fought on the days after the calends, nones, and ides, without its being unlucky for Rome. At that time, the whole state of affairs was unpropitious; but yet, all circumstances considered, the victory of Octavian over Antony was the most fortunate thing that could have happened. What Horace says of it, is perfectly just; and no man of sense, let him think of Octavian what he will, could have had any other wish than that he should conquer.

Eleven months passed before the war was quite over. Octavian went back to Italy, where new commotions had broken out; for the veterans, who were as unruly as ever, were again crying out for allotments of land. Agrippa took possession of the eastern provinces; but it was not until the spring of the following year, that Octavian marched through Asia Minor and Syria to Egypt, so as to force the _claustra_ of the country, near Pelusium. There was probably a secret order from Cleopatra to open the gates of the place, as she was afraid of war: it is very likely that as a vain woman she felt sure that she should be able to enslave Octavian, even as she once did Cæsar who was so much against her. The only thing that she seems to have been afraid of, was that the war would be prolonged, and that Octavian would come to Alexandria quite implacable. But Octavian made an attack likewise from the other side, from Parætonium in Libya. This, however, was not feasible for a large army; for although there were fortified towns in that quarter, the country between Cyrene and Alexandria is one of the most inhospitable regions in the world. Here Antony had still a number of Roman soldiers, both cavalry and infantry, with which he wanted to make a sally; but the troops went over to the enemy, all but a few who had no hope left, like Cassius of Parma, one of the murderers of Cæsar. Antony therefore made up his mind to die; but his end was cowardly and pitiful: the deadly thrust was not strong enough, and he lingered on for a considerable time, slowly bleeding to death. Cleopatra had shut herself up in her palace with all her treasures: Octavian wished very much to get her alive for his triumph; but it was feared that she might choose the death of Sardanapalus. On the first of August 722, the day that Antony died, Alexandria capitulated; and on the morrow, the gates of the town were opened to the Roman army. Cleopatra kept the dead body of her lover in her room: she wavered between the hope of gaining Octavian, and the feeling that she ought not to live any longer. Proculeius, an officer of Octavian, of whom also Horace makes honourable mention, gave her his word that her life should be spared, and tried to persuade her not to do any harm to herself: but when she saw that Octavian would not on any account let her come before him, but treated her like a slave; when she got no answer to her prayers, that she might still have the countries given to her by Antony,—for Egypt, for her treasures, nay even for a life of freedom,—then it was, that after having tried several sorts of poison, or not having ventured to try them, she put the asps on her bosom, and so killed herself.

Thus ended the civil war and the triumvirate: in fact, there had for the last years already been no more triumvirate, as Lepidus had been set aside. Augustus was now sole ruler of the Roman world. The first of August was by a decree of the senate appointed for ever as a holiday, under the name of _Feriæ Augustæ_:[25] the month of Sextilis henceforth had the name of August, even as Quintilis, in which Julius Cæsar was born, had been called after him July. Augustus would have liked better to have had September, in which he was born, named after him; but as all the great events of his life had happened in August, and in that month he had also first entered upon the consulship, the preference was given to it. These Feriæ were celebrated with banquets, festivities, garlands of flowers, and the like, and were still observed in the days of Placidia, and even down to the reign of Pope Leo the Great. It was in fact a political festival, but accompanied with libations and other religious ceremonies, all of which were kept up on that day to the latest times. For this reason, the festival of Vincula Petri[26] was (according to Beda and Biondo of Forli) appointed for the first of August. In the church of S. Pietro in Vincola on the Esquiline, in the baths of Trajan, the chains with which the apostle St. Peter was bound in Rome, as well as those which he wore at Jerusalem, are deposited; and the public secular holiday, with its feasting and revelry, still remains, just as it was on the _Feriæ Augustæ_ of old. Even now, whoever is in any sort of clientship in the later meaning of the word, visits his patron on this day; the servants in the houses of acquaintances have presents given them, as it is with us on the first of January; and the people spend the money which they get in treating themselves. When first I lived in Italy, I was very much annoyed at this impudence, until I found in Biondo that it was the keeping up of a most ancient custom. There are many of these usages in modern Rome, which have their origin from the remotest antiquity. Down to the last century, it was still the practice to carry a carved image of the Virgin on a certain day out of the city, and to wash it in the river Almo, as was formerly done with the image of Cybele. A number of such old customs are now become obsolete; for instance, an image was carried from one church to another, and back again, by way of paying a visit. The festival of the first of August has been called, all through the middle ages to this very day, _Feragosto_.

Here ends the old Roman history: the last contest was the death struggle, and from henceforth the history changes its character. Here I hope also to end my (large) work. The events which followed, down to the fall of the empire, may most suitably be divided into the histories of the several emperors, the first of whom the ancients themselves quite rightly deemed Augustus to have been; for Augustus he was now already called. Yet there is still to be described the transition from an usurped _tyrannis_ into a regularly constituted monarchy.

ROME A MONARCHY. EASURES OF AUGUSTUS FOR THE CONSOLIDATION OF HIS POWER.

Augustus had already been more than once invested with the consulship. His first was in 709; the second, which he immediately afterwards resigned, was ten years later; two years afterwards came his third; the others, down to the eleventh, followed year by year: he was altogether thirteen times consul. It was soon after the end of the war of Actium, that he behaved as if he wanted to lay down his power as dictator. This was, as every body knew, a farce; nor could he have been taken at his word, as the whole army had sworn obedience to him, and besides the soldiers, no citizens were under arms. And no man in his senses could have wished him to resign his authority: for, if under far more favourable circumstances, when very many eminent men were living, and people were still quite accustomed to the republic, the free constitution had not been able to stand its ground, and the state was ruled by individuals; how should it now have held its own, if Augustus had given up his power: some one else, and very likely some more unworthy person, would have been placed at the helm; and thus there would only have arisen new civil wars. The senate therefore may have been quite in earnest when beseeching him; and Augustus may also have put on a serious face, as he hoped thus to have his former cruelties forgotten. To show the exact date of the rise of his power might be impossible, or at least very difficult. The name of _Imperator_ was now—this was a peculiar form of flattery—given him as a _prænomen_; so that instead of C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus, he was now called Imperator Julius Cæsar Octavianus: from thence, _Imperator_ was always the _prænomen_ of the Roman emperors; as we may see from the coins. In the second century, this was forgotten: in official style indeed one said Imperator Antoninus Augustus, but otherwise Imperator M. Antoninus Augustus as well. Octavian in fact wished to have Romulus as a kind of _agnomen_; but as some took umbrage at this, it was resolved on the motion of L. Munatius Plancus—who now distinguished himself by his flatteries, just as had been done among the Greeks with regard to their Macedonian rulers—to call him Augustus, which the Greeks at once translated into Σεβαστός. The dictatorship was offered to him; but he declined it: this may have been owing to superstition, from which he was not free. It is possible that Sylla’s and Cæsar’s ends frightened him; but perhaps also, the thing seemed to him to be too straightforward, and it pleased him as it were to play with it. But he was named consul every year, if he chose: they wanted to make him sole consul; but he refused it, and rather wished to have two consuls to help him: this again was opposed by the senate; “one besides him was already too much.” At the same time, the proconsular power out of Rome was given him over the whole of the empire, and he could always exercise it by deputy; so that he was enabled to give away the provinces at his pleasure. With the censorship, he got the privilege of excluding from the senate, or calling into it, any one whom he chose. By virtue of his office of tribune, he could annul the decrees of the senate, and interfere with every act of all the magistrates: moreover it gave him the _provocatio_ from all judicial decisions, which is the source of the modern appeal. He was tribune for life, and as such had the right of calling the senate together, of making motions, and of putting matters to the vote: this first began in the seventh century, and no one was now startled at it.[27] To Lepidus he left indeed the name of _pontifex maximus_; but after his death, he had that dignity also conferred upon himself, and thus he engrossed the whole authority of the spiritual law. Moreover, he had, by means of the tribunician and censorial powers, the supreme control over the _ærarium_; so that, by an artificial accumulation, all the powers of government, with the exception of the administrative ones of the præetors and consuls, were concentrated in his person.

When Augustus, after the battle of Actium, tried to give a new form to the state, he, for the sake of appearance, went back in everything to the ancient form. Cæsar took into his own hands half of the elections, and at last even all of them; but Augustus restored the elections which were held by the _comitia_, though the _Candidati Cæsaris_ now stood, of whom it was an understood thing that they were to suffer no _repulsa_. The poets of that time, for instance Horace, speak of the _ambitio Campi_, and of the uncertainty of the elections, in language which one could only have used in the days of the republic; and there is some truth in it: for Augustus did not give himself the trouble, or did not take it upon himself to meddle with all the elections. This was so much the case, that owing to Egnatius Rufus in particular a tumult arose; as the latter, in defiance of the person who represented Augustus, and in violation of the _leges annales_, stood for the prætorship, just after he had been ædile; and also, immediately after his prætorship, for the consulship: to such a degree was the show of liberty kept up! Yet, after all, assemblies of the people were in reality confined to those elections. Of _plebiscita_ no mention is made in earnest in the reign of Augustus: for we cannot reckon that to be one, which Pacuvius, a tribune, brought forward to have the month of Sextilis called August. Of laws, there were several passed: the form in which this was done, was that a decree of the senate was laid by the consuls before the centuries, and approved of by the latter. This, as there is reason to believe, may have lasted until some time in the reign of Tiberius, to judge from the _Lex Julia Norbana_: afterwards we do not hear any more of laws properly so called.

Cæsar had already introduced a host of adventurers into the senate, and Antony a great many more; and it was just the same in the times of the triumvirate. Augustus now caused it to be made known, that those who felt that they were not fit for the senate, had better to leave it of their own free will; so that he might not have to strike them off the list: whoever acted thus should be treated in the most considerate manner. A few only, not more than about fifty, did so. As this was not enough, he put out a great many more: but not to hurt their feelings, and because he feared for his life from their offended vanity, he left to them the _latus clavus_ and the first seats in the theatre; which was a great consolation for those wretches. He raised the _census senatorius_, which for an indefinite period had been double the _census equestris_, to a million sesterces: at the same time, he behaved liberally, and to those whom he wished to keep in the senate, he made up what was wanting from the public means. The senate had until then its regular sittings three times a month, and extraordinary ones only when summoned; Augustus reduced these to two, and gave it holidays during the months of September and October. Even now, the whole of October is still the vacation time at Rome; after the end of September, no more business can be done: under the emperors, all the courts of law had vacations in the autumn, which was a thing quite unknown in the days of the republic. In the senate, nothing else could be taken in hand but what the consul laid before it, as to him belonged the _jus relationis_. Augustus, however, was also _princeps senatus_; and as such he revived the claim he had by the old forms to the _jus relationis_, a right which had been dropped in the later times of the republic. He now formed for himself another and more select council of state, which had previously to discuss all those matters that were to be brought before the senate. Anything like a debate in the senate is no more to be thought of: all that was proposed, was sure to pass; there was nothing else done but making fine phrases and compliments.

The extraordinary powers which Augustus had, he caused to be given him, after the battle of Actium, first for ten years; then, for five; then, once more, for five; then, three times, for ten years: in the very beginning of the third decennium, he died. The tribunician authority he had given him for life. The senate had formerly been, for their Roman subjects, the supreme court to judge political crimes; and this privilege Augustus left to it, so as to shift the odium thereof from himself upon the senators: it afterwards became their chief business. With the taxation, the senate had nothing whatever to do, as Augustus had the control over the finances of the whole empire, and could raise or lower the taxes. In Italy itself there was no land-tax, even as with us there is none on the seignorial estates; but indirect taxes were paid, and of these there was a variety, as, for instance, on legacies and bequests, and when slaves were made free. Even as the hereditary Stadtholder of Holland was Captain General and high Admiral, so was Augustus master of the whole army, that is of the forty-three or forty-seven legions, and of the innumerable _auxilia_, about 400,000 men in all: over these, the senate had not the slightest power, not even over the enlistment of them. The provinces in which no troops were regularly stationed, and which therefore did not belong to the military department, (Italy, as the country of the sovereign people, was excepted from all these regulations,) came under the care of the senate: these were Asia, Africa (so far as it was not subject to Juba), Gallia Narbonensis, Hispania Bætica, Achaia, Macedon, Bithynia, Cyprus, Crete, and Cyrene.[28] For himself, Augustus kept by far the larger and richer share, namely, Spain, all but Bætica; Gallia Lugdunensis and Aquitaine; the countries north of the Alps, Rhætia, and Vindelicia; Dalmatia, Pannonia, (Thrace had a king,) Mœsia; Pontus, (Cappadocia had a king,) Cilicia, Syria, and Egypt: the revenues of these provinces may have hardly been sufficient to keep the armies which lay there in fortified camps. The senate had two proconsular and ten pro-prætorian provinces; but it was not until five years after a man had been consul or prætor, that he could be admitted to cast lots with those who were to preside over the provinces. Augustus made some wholesome changes with regard to the arbitrary rule which was exercised in the provinces; certainly in his own provinces, yet very likely also in those of the senate. Until then, all governors had unchecked power to take whatever they pleased: he was the first to assign fixed appointments to these functionaries. His governors, whom he chose indiscriminately from the senators, _viri consulares_, _prætorii_, and knights, were called _legati Augusti_: as we learn from coins and inscriptions, their official title was _legati pro Consule_, _Prætore_, and so forth. The senatorial governors were as before, for one year; those of Augustus, for an indefinite period; for four, five, or even ten years. This was a very happy change for the provinces; yet the ones which had an imperial governor, were much better off than those which were senatorial: in these last, we are sorry to meet with _actiones repetundarum_; even as late as the second century; in fact their whole establishment was but a pageant for which the subjects had to pay dearly. There was a double _ærarium_, that of the senate, and that of the emperor: how far the latter had also the disposal of that of the senate, is more than we can tell. Among the proofs of Augustus’ thoughtfulness, are to be reckoned measures like the _Lex Ælia Sentia_, by which a stop was put to those disgraceful emancipations which brought down the franchise to the very lowest slaves. The way in which the Roman citizens were spread far and wide, was prodigious: the franchise reached much beyond the frontiers of Italy, and Narbonnese Gaul, and a great many places in Spain, had likewise the privileges of citizenship. Such provincials could not, however, get into the senate. Yet even to this rule there were exceptions: as early as in the days of Cæsar, some of them had been brought into it; and under Augustus there were yet more, especially from Provence, where Latin was spoken very early, so much so indeed that the country itself was called _Italia altera_.[29] The number of the _capita civium_, as is given at that time,—somewhat more than four millions,—seems to us frightfully small; for we are not to look upon it as that of the fathers of families, as all free men who in their sixteenth year had put on the _prætexta_ must be reckoned therein. One quite shudders at the falling off of the population, and by this again we learn how great was the rage and fury of the civil wars.

Among the praiseworthy regulations which he made, are also those about the police of Rome. The state of the capital was awful. Since the days of Sylla and the proscriptions, no one at Rome was sure of his life, nor was there any kind of police: to see this, we have only to read the orations of Cicero _pro Cluentio_, _pro Milone_, _pro Sexto Roscio Amerino_; in Suetonius, we meet with accounts of bandits (_grassatores_) openly showing themselves in Rome with their short swords. Augustus, with great determination, put that down. We see what consequences will arise, when old institutions are allowed to go on without being modified according to the wants of the times: that which at first was wise and expedient, in after days becomes perverted and mischievous. Augustus made a new division of the city. Rome had kept all its municipal arrangements even as Servius Tullius had left them: it had four regions, and also the liberties of the Aventine, as a sort of suburb: the real suburbs were quite neglected. These four regions had _vici_, and this perhaps was also the case with the other districts: all police matters there were under the charge of the _ædiles plebis_, which was quite insufficient. Augustus, without troubling himself about what was old town, new town, _pomœrium_, and so forth, now divided the whole extent of the city, as it was then really inhabited, into fourteen regions: over each region he placed a magistrate, and it had likewise a number of _vici_, every one of which was presided over by a _magister vici_. This division proved excellent, and by it security was restored in Rome. Owing to the extension of the empire, the Roman magistrates, who at first had been the magistrates of a city, could now no longer give their time to city business; and therefore several _magistratus minores_ had been established: but these offices had no authority, and they were in the hands of freedmen, as no man of any rank would have anything to do with them. Some years after the battle of Actium, Augustus instituted a _præfectus urbi_ in whom the whole of the city administration was concentrated: this place he bestowed according to his own pleasure; L. Piso held it for twenty years. The good done by this magistracy, and his most happy choice of the person who filled it, was one of the chief causes which gained for him the affection of the inhabitants of the capital. Moreover he set up a sort of _Gensd’armerie_, _vigiles_, _cohortes urbanæ_, which had to act and to be at hand whenever it was wanted; as when there was a riot, a fire, in short, anything serious. The men were in barracks, thus forming a sort of garrison which he might keep without its making any show. He also established a _præfectura ærarii_, very likely, not only for his own _ærarium_, but also for that of the senate: at least, the imperial treasury afterwards absorbed the other which had formerly been managed by quæstors. For all these offices he chose, from a εὐπρόσωτος αἰτία, _equites Romani_, not senators: these last, cringing and fawning as they were, still had a mighty opinion of their own dignity.

By a _lex Julia_, the courts of justice had been entirely restored into the hands of the knights. This law he maintained; but he prodigiously increased the lists of the jury (the decuries), inasmuch as for petty cases he admitted persons of less fortune than the _census equester_ required.

Italy had accidentally grown into one mass. At first, it had not reached beyond the south; but by little and little it had been stretched further to Cisalpine Gaul: Etruria and Umbria thus belonged to it, whilst the Rubicon was the boundary between it and the provinces. Augustus now extended it, as was right, to the Alps, and this Italy he divided into a number of regions. What was the meaning of these regions, cannot be made out; but one would almost believe that they must have had some reference to the quæstors, of whom, at that time, there were forty to collect the revenue, and also ten prætors. Whether presidents besides were given to such districts, like the consulars appointed by Hadrian, and the _correctores_ under Severus; is a thing of which there is no trace to be met with in the reigns of Augustus and his immediate successors. By this I do not, however, mean to say, that they had not some sort of authorities over them; for the supposition that the region must have had a corresponding office is so very natural. At a later period, we find in inscriptions and in books very many notices, which bear upon the subject; but at this time, none whatever.

Augustus had a huge private fortune. He possessed whole principalities, of which Josephus gives us a very striking example in the will of Herod, who bequeathed his property to the family of the Cæsars: such kings and tetrarchs very often left all that they had to the emperors. The stewards of the countries which belonged to these last, were the _procuratores Cæsaris_: they were generally knights, but never senators; they might even be imperial freedmen, though perhaps this was not yet the case under Augustus. In the provinces, the emperor was so absolute, that Augustus, for instance, changed the whole registration of land in Gaul without asking any body’s leave, were it only for form’s sake. The soldiers all swore fealty to the emperor, certainly also to the _imperium populi Romani_; but no one was bound to the consul. The establishment of the prætorian cohorts was no innovation. There had been such troops from the earliest times, being a sort of guards or orderlies, like the “_guides des généraux_” during the French revolution: they are to be met with in the Punic wars, and also in the civil wars, on both sides; and they had arisen out of the former _evocati_. Augustus had taken them back with him, and had founded twenty-eight military colonies, as a means of checking any popular movement; and that he might likewise curb these veterans themselves, he formed the _cohortes prætoriæ_, which in Italy represented in fact the armed Roman people: they were chiefly enlisted, or raised by conscription, from the districts of Latium which had been the strongholds of the Marian party. At first, he kept them scattered in Italy, so as to cause no alarm; but by degrees they were drawn nearer and nearer, until at last the _castrum prætorium_ before the city was built. Under Augustus there were about eight thousand of them.

Formerly the provincials were called to arms only in cases when a province was threatened; henceforth from the subjects of all the provinces of the emperor, many of whom had the lesser Roman franchise, cohorts were formed, which we hear of under the name of _auxilia_, and which may have made up about the half of the army. _Socii_ are no more spoken of at all. The legions, with regard to the organization of which in those days one is quite in the dark, had to serve a regular term of sixteen years; afterwards, they still remained for some time under the _vexilla_ as a reserve, and then they were to have land assigned them. This system of allotments was Augustus’ work, as was also the increase of pay. Hitherto the soldiers had got the old pay of a hundred and twenty _denarii_, or twelve hundred _asses_, yearly; Cæsar doubled, and Augustus trebled it. This was, after all, not much, about sixty dollars of our money; and as the price of everything at Rome had then immensely risen, it was not a large pay for fellows like these who had the throne in their gift. Still, owing to the number of soldiers, it was a burthen which the state could hardly bear, as even Tiberius, who was a very able ruler, already acknowledged.

LITERATURE.

Roman literature reached perfection through Cicero and with him, even as our own did through Lessing, and we may almost set down the year 680, when Cicero was in the prime of his life, as the epoch in which it made this step; the language shared likewise in this decisive advance. However much there may be of the beautiful in earlier times, yet there is always something wanting, even in Cicero’s first writings; but all that was coarse and clumsy is now thrown off, and nothing remains but the pure and polished language. With the greatest justice, the Latin of Cicero has been acknowledged as the very best: it is, after all, the language which was spoken by the well educated in his day, and had we more of Cornelius Nepos than the _Vita Attici_, there again we should also find Ciceronian latinity. As yet, Latin prose had been altogether weak and unequal, being sometimes spun out, and sometimes cramped: Cicero alone gave it its perfection. His influence also on his contemporaries is incalculable: there is no doubt but that the finish of Cæsar’s style is to be attributed to him and to his age.

There was then a host of distinguished writers and men of genius; and though of some of them we know but little, they are not for that the less eminent. I do not, however, mean to say that all who at that time were remarkable in literature, are to be reckoned among the classical writers; some of them, especially the older contemporaries of Cicero, are quite in the spirit of the earlier age: thus among us, Winkelmann, as to his style, belongs to the period before Lessing. So likewise Varro, who for his immense learning and reading in Roman matters—in what was Greek, this may not have been so great—had such a high renown, is, in all that is left of him, not at all like one who lived in the same age with Cicero: he is as strong a contrast to him as Mascov, Mosheim, and Reimarus were to Lessing. Nigidius Figulus also was very likely a writer of the same kind. The real bloom of Roman literature consisted of men who were younger than Cicero, and whom he beheld springing up around him. One of these was the orator M. Cælius Rufus, whom we may still judge of even from his letters: his language was like that of Cicero for excellence. Curio’s letters do not make the same impression upon me: yet they are not of importance enough for one to be able to give a positive opinion about them, and I would rather trust Cicero’s own judgment, who assigns him a very high rank. C. Licinius Calvus, a contemporary of both, was an orator and a poet as well: him also Cicero greatly esteemed; and if Quintilian does not think favourably of him, Tacitus, on the other hand, says that he really had talent as an orator.[30] He died young. Sallust was considerably younger than Cicero, and of the same age with Cælius, Calvus, and Curio: he went his own way, living in the past, and the language and style of his contemporaries remained foreign to him. As he was not conversant with the language as it was spoken, it is no wonder that his style has quite a different air from what we find in theirs: as an historian, he is all that one could wish. That Priscian charges some of those men with archaisms, is nothing at all against them.[31]