The Caesars

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As a supplement to the reign of Marcus Aurelius, we ought to notice the
rise of one great rebel, the sole civil disturber of his time, in Syria.
This was Avidius Cassius, whose descent from Cassius (the noted
conspirator against the great Dictator, Julius) seems to have suggested to
him a wandering idea, and at length a formal purpose of restoring the
ancient republic. Avidius was the commander-in-chief of the Oriental army,
whose head-quarters were then fixed at Antioch. His native disposition,
which inclined him to cruelty, and his political views, made him, from his
first entrance upon office, a severe disciplinarian. The well known
enormities of the neighboring Daphne gave him ample opportunities for the
exercise of his harsh propensities in reforming the dissolute soldiery. He
amputated heads, arms, feet, and hams: he turned out his mutilated
victims, as walking spectacles of warning; he burned them; he smoked them
to death; and, in one instance, he crucified a detachment of his army,
together with their centurions, for having, unauthorized, gained a
splendid victory, and captured a large booty on the Danube. Upon this the
soldiers mutinied against him, in mere indignation at his tyranny.
However, he prosecuted his purpose, and prevailed, by his bold contempt of
the danger which menaced him. From the abuses in the army, he proceeded to
attack the abuses of the civil administration. But as these were protected
by the example of the great proconsular lieutenants and provincial
governors, policy obliged him to confine himself to verbal expressions of
anger; until at length, sensible that this impotent railing did but expose
him to contempt, he resolved to arm himself with the powers of radical
reform, by open rebellion. His ultimate purpose was the restoration of the
ancient republic, or, (as he himself expresses it in an interesting
letter, which yet survives,) "_ut in antiquum statum publica forma
reddatur_;" _i.e._ that the constitution should be restored to its
original condition. And this must be effected by military violence and the
aid of the executioner--or, in his own words, _multis gladiis, multis
elogiis_, (by innumerable sabres, by innumerable records of condemnation.)
Against this man Marcus was warned by his imperial colleague Lucius Verus,
in a very remarkable letter. After expressing his suspicions of him
generally, the writer goes on to say--"I would you had him closely
watched. For he is a general disliker of us and of our doings; he is
gathering together an enormous treasure, and he makes an open jest of our
literary pursuits. You, for instance, he calls a philosophizing old woman,
and me a dissolute buffoon and scamp. Consider what you would have done.
For my part, I bear the fellow no ill will; but again, I say, take care
that he does not do a mischief to yourself, or your children."

The answer of Marcus is noble and characteristic: "I have read your
letter, and I will confess to you I think it more scrupulously timid than
becomes an emperor, and timid in a way unsuited to the spirit of our
times. Consider this--if the empire is destined to Cassius by the decrees
of Providence, in that case it will not be in our power to put him to
death, however much we may desire to do so. You know your great-
grandfather's saying,--No prince ever killed his own heir--no man, that
is, ever yet prevailed against one whom Providence had marked out as his
successor. On the other hand, if Providence opposes him, then, without any
cruelty on our part, he will spontaneously fall into some snare spread for
him by destiny. Besides, we cannot treat a man as under impeachment whom
nobody impeaches, and whom, by your own confession, the soldiers love.
Then again, in cases of high treason, even those criminals who are
convicted upon the clearest evidence, yet, as friendless and deserted
persons contending against the powerful, and matched against those who are
armed with the whole authority of the State, seem to suffer some wrong.
You remember what your grandfather said--Wretched, indeed, is the fate of
princes, who then first obtain credit in any charges of conspiracy which
they allege--when they happen to seal the validity of their charges
against the plotters, by falling martyrs to the plot. Domitian it was, in
fact, who first uttered this truth; but I choose rather to place it under
the authority of Hadrian, because the sayings of tyrants, even when they
are true and happy, carry less weight with them than naturally they ought.
For Cassius, then, let him keep his present temper and inclinations; and
the more so--being (as he is) a good General--austere in his discipline,
brave, and one whom the State cannot afford to lose. For as to what you
insinuate--that I ought to provide for my children's interests, by putting
this man judicially out of the way, very frankly I say to you--Perish my
children, if Avidius shall deserve more attachment than they, and if it
shall prove salutary to the State that Cassius should live rather than the
children of Marcus."

This letter affords a singular illustration of fatalism, such certainly as
we might expect in a Stoic, but carried even to a Turkish excess; and not
theoretically professed only, but practically acted upon in a case of
capital hazard. _That no prince ever killed his own successor_, i.e.,
that it was vain for a prince to put conspirators to death, because, by
the very possibility of doing so, a demonstration is obtained that such
conspirators had never been destined to prosper, is as condensed and
striking an expression of fatalism as ever has been devised. The rest of
the letter is truly noble, and breathes the very soul of careless
magnanimity reposing upon conscious innocence. Meantime, Cassius increased
in power and influence: his army had become a most formidable engine of
his ambition through its restored discipline; and his own authority was
sevenfold greater, because he had himself created that discipline in the
face of unequalled temptations hourly renewed and rooted in the very
centre of his head-quarters. "Daphne, by Orontes," a suburb of Antioch,
was infamous for its seductions; and _Daphnic luxury_ had become
proverbial for expressing an excess of voluptuousness, such as other
places could not rival by mere defect of means, and preparations elaborate
enough to sustain it in all its varieties of mode, or to conceal it from
public notice. In the very purlieus of this great nest, or sty of
sensuality, within sight and touch of its pollutions, did he keep his army
fiercely reined up, daring and defying them, as it were, to taste of the
banquet whose very odor they inhaled.

Thus provided with the means, and improved instruments, for executing his
purposes, he broke out into open rebellion; and, though hostile to the
_principatus_, or personal supremacy of one man, he did not feel his
republican purism at all wounded by the style and title of _Imperator_,--
that being a military term, and a mere titular honor, which had co-existed
with the severest forms of republicanism. _Imperator_, then, he was
saluted and proclaimed; and doubtless the writer of the warning letter
from Syria would now declare that the sequel had justified the fears which
Marcus had thought so unbecoming to a Roman emperor. But again Marcus
would have said, "Let us wait for the sequel of the sequel," and that
would have justified him. It is often found by experience that men, who
have learned to reverence a person in authority chiefly by his offices of
correction applied to their own aberrations,--who have known and feared
him, in short, in his character of reformer,--will be more than usually
inclined to desert him on his first movement in the direction of wrong.
Their obedience being founded on fear, and fear being never wholly
disconnected from hatred, they naturally seize with eagerness upon the
first lawful pretext for disobedience; the luxury of revenge is, in such a
case, too potent,--a meritorious disobedience too novel a temptation,--to
have a chance of being rejected. Never, indeed, does erring human nature
look more abject than in the person of a severe exactor of duty, who has
immolated thousands to the wrath of offended law, suddenly himself
becoming a capital offender, a glozing tempter in search of accomplices,
and in that character at once standing before the meanest of his own
dependents as a self-deposed officer, liable to any man's arrest, and,
_ipso facto_, a suppliant for his own mercy. The stern and haughty
Cassius, who had so often tightened the cords of discipline until they
threatened to snap asunder, now found, experimentally, the bitterness of
these obvious truths. The trembling sentinel now looked insolently in his
face; the cowering legionary, with whom "to hear was to obey," now mused
or even bandied words upon his orders; the great lieutenants of his
office, who stood next to his own person in authority, were preparing for
revolt, open or secret, as circumstances should prescribe; not the accuser
only, but the very avenger, was upon his steps; Nemesis, that Nemesis who
once so closely adhered to the name and fortunes of the lawful Caesar,
turning against every one of his assassins the edge of his own
assassinating sword, was already at his heels; and in the midst of a
sudden prosperity, and its accompanying shouts of gratulation, he heard
the sullen knells of approaching death. Antioch, it was true, the great
Roman capital of the Orient, bore him, for certain motives of self-
interest, peculiar good-will. But there was no city of the world in which
the Roman Caesar did not reckon many liege-men and partisans. And the very
hands, which dressed his altars and crowned his Praetorian pavilion, might
not improbably in that same hour put an edge upon the sabre which was to
avenge the injuries of the too indulgent and long-suffering Antoninus.
Meantime, to give a color of patriotism to his treason, Cassius alleged
public motives; in a letter, which he wrote after assuming the purple, he
says: "Wretched empire, miserable state, which endures these hungry blood-
suckers battening on her vitals!--A worthy man, doubtless, is Marcus; who,
in his eagerness to be reputed clement, suffers those to live whose
conduct he himself abhors. Where is that L. Cassius, whose name I vainly
inherit? Where is that Marcus,--not Aurelius, mark you, but Cato
Censorius? Where the good old discipline of ancestral times, long since
indeed disused, but now not so much as looked after in our aspirations?
Marcus Antoninus is a scholar; he enacts the philosopher; and he tries
conclusions upon the four elements, and upon the nature of the soul; and
he discourses learnedly upon the _Honestum_; and concerning the _Summum
Bonum_ he is unanswerable. Meanwhile, is he learned in the interests of
the State? Can he argue a point upon the public economy? You see what a
host of sabres is required, what a host of impeachments, sentences,
executions, before the commonwealth can reassume its ancient integrity!
What! shall I esteem as proconsuls, as governors, those who for that end
only deem themselves invested with lieutenancies or great senatorial
appointments, that they may gorge themselves with the provincial luxuries
and wealth? No doubt you heard in what way our friend the philosopher gave
the place of praetorian prefect to one who but three days before was a
bankrupt,--insolvent, by G--, and a beggar. Be not you content: that same
gentleman is now as rich as a prefect should be; and has been so, I tell
you, any time these three days. And how, I pray you, how--how, my good
sir? How but out of the bowels of the provinces, and the marrow of their
bones? But no matter, let them be rich; let them be blood-suckers; so
much, God willing, shall they regorge into the treasury of the empire. Let
but Heaven smile upon our party, and the Cassiani shall return to the
republic its old impersonal supremacy."

But Heaven did _not_ smile; nor did man. Rome heard with bitter
indignation of this old traitor's ingratitude, and his false mask of
republican civism. Excepting Marcus Aurelius himself, not one man but
thirsted for revenge. And that was soon obtained. He and all his
supporters, one after the other, rapidly fell (as Marcus had predicted)
into snares laid by the officers who continued true to their allegiance.
Except the family and household of Cassius, there remained in a short time
none for the vengeance of the senate, or for the mercy of the emperor. In
_them_ centred the last arrears of hope and fear, of chastisement or
pardon, depending upon this memorable revolt. And about the disposal of
their persons arose the final question to which the case gave birth. The
letters yet remain in which the several parties interested gave utterance
to the passions which possessed them. Faustina, the Empress, urged her
husband with feminine violence to adopt against his prisoners
comprehensive acts of vengeance. "Noli parcere hominibus," says she, "qui
tibi non pepercerunt; et nec mihi nec filiis nostris parcerent, si
vicissent." And elsewhere she irritates his wrath against the army as
accomplices for the time, and as a body of men "qui, nisi opprimuntur,
opprimunt." We may be sure of the result. After commending her zeal for
her own family, he says, "Ego vero et ejus liberis parcam, et genero, et
uxori; et ad senatum scribam ne aut proscriptio gravior sit, aut poena
crudelior;" adding that, had his counsels prevailed, not even Cassius
himself should have perished. As to his relatives, "Why," he asks, "should
I speak of pardon to them, who indeed have done no wrong, and are
blameless even in purpose?" Accordingly, his letter of intercession to the
senate protests, that, so far from asking for further victims to the crime
of Avidius Cassius, would to God he could call back from the dead many of
those who had fallen! With immense applause, and with turbulent
acclamations, the senate granted all his requests "in consideration of his
philosophy, of his long-suffering, of his learning and accomplishments, of
his nobility, of his innocence." And until a monster arose who delighted
in the blood of the guiltless, it is recorded that the posterity of
Avidius Cassius lived in security, and were admitted to honors and public
distinctions by favor of him, whose life and empire that memorable traitor
had sought to undermine under the favor of his guileless master's too
confiding magnanimity.

CHAPTER V.

The Roman empire, and the Roman emperors, it might naturally be supposed
by one who had not as yet traversed that tremendous chapter in the history
of man, would be likely to present a separate and almost equal interest.
The empire, in the first place, as the most magnificent monument of human
power which our planet has beheld, must for that single reason, even
though its records were otherwise of little interest, fix upon itself the
very keenest gaze from all succeeding ages to the end of time. To trace
the fortunes and revolutions of that unrivalled monarchy over which the
Roman eagle brooded, to follow the dilapidations of that aerial arch,
which silently and steadily through seven centuries ascended under the
colossal architecture of the children of Romulus, to watch the unweaving
of the golden arras, and step by step to see paralysis stealing over the
once perfect cohesion of the republican creations,--cannot but insure a
severe, though melancholy delight. On its own separate account, the
decline of this throne-shattering power must and will engage the foremost
place amongst all historical reviews. The "dislimning" and unmoulding of
some mighty pageantry in the heavens has its own appropriate grandeurs, no
less than the gathering of its cloudy pomps. The going down of the sun is
contemplated with no less awe than his rising. Nor is any thing portentous
in its growth, which is not also portentous in the steps and "moments" of
its decay. Hence, in the second place, we might presume a commensurate
interest in the characters and fortunes of the successive emperors. If the
empire challenged our first survey, the next would seem due to the Caesars
who guided its course; to the great ones who retarded, and to the bad ones
who precipitated, its ruin.

Such might be the natural expectation of an inexperienced reader. But it
is _not_ so. The Caesars, throughout their long line, are not interesting,
neither personally in themselves, nor derivatively from the tragic events
to which their history is attached. Their whole interest lies in their
situation--in the unapproachable altitude of their thrones. But,
considered with a reference to their human qualities, scarcely one in the
whole series can be viewed with a human interest apart from the
circumstances of his position. "Pass like shadows, so depart!" The reason
for this defect of all personal variety of interest in these enormous
potentates, must be sought in the constitution of their power and the very
necessities of their office. Even the greatest among them, those who by
way of distinction were called _the Great_, as Constantine and Theodosius,
were not great, for they were not magnanimous; nor could they be so under
_their_ tenure of power, which made it a duty to be suspicious, and, by
fastening upon all varieties of original temper one dire necessity of
bloodshed, extinguished under this monotonous cloud of cruel jealousy and
everlasting panic every characteristic feature of genial human nature,
that would else have emerged through so long a train of princes. There is
a remarkable story told of Agrippina, that, upon some occasion, when a
wizard announced to her, as truths which he had read in the heavens, the
two fatal necessities impending over her son,--one that he should ascend
to empire, the other that he should murder herself, she replied in these
stern and memorable words--_Occidat, dum imperet_. Upon which a
continental writer comments thus: "Never before or since have three such
words issued from the lips of woman; and in truth, one knows not which
most to abominate or to admire--the aspiring princess, or the loving
mother. Meantime, in these few words lies naked to the day, in its whole
hideous deformity, the very essence of Romanism and the imperatorial
power, and one might here consider the mother of Nero as the impersonation
of that monstrous condition."

This is true: _Occidat dum imperet_, was the watchword and very cognizance
of the Roman imperator. But almost equally it was his watchword--
_Occidatur dum imperet_. Doing or suffering, the Caesars were almost
equally involved in bloodshed; very few that were not murderers, and
nearly all were themselves murdered.

The empire, then, must be regarded as the primary object of our interest;
and it is in this way only that any secondary interest arises for the
emperors. Now, with respect to the empire, the first question which
presents itself is,--Whence, that is, from what causes and from what era,
we are to date its decline? Gibbon, as we all know, dates it from the
reign of Commodus; but certainly upon no sufficient, or even plausible
grounds. Our own opinion we shall state boldly: the empire itself, from
the very era of its establishment, was one long decline of the Roman
power. A vast monarchy had been created and consolidated by the all-
conquering instincts of a republic--cradled and nursed in wars, and
essentially warlike by means of all its institutions [Footnote: Amongst
these institutions, none appear to us so remarkable, or fitted to
accomplish so prodigious a circle of purposes belonging to the highest
state policy, as the Roman method of colonization. Colonies were, in
effect, the great engine of Roman conquest; and the following are among a
few of the great ends to which they were applied. First of all, how came
it that the early armies of Rome served, and served cheerfully, without
pay? Simply because all who were victorious knew that they would receive
their arrears in the fullest and amplest form upon their final discharge,
viz. in the shape of a colonial estate--large enough to rear a family in
comfort, and seated in the midst of similar allotments, distributed to
their old comrades in arms. These lands were already, perhaps, in high
cultivation, being often taken from conquered tribes; but, if not, the new
occupants could rely for aid of every sort, for social intercourse, and
for all the offices of good neighborhood upon the surrounding proprietors
--who were sure to be persons in the same circumstances as themselves, and
draughted from the same legion. For be it remembered, that in the
primitive ages of Rome, concerning which it is that we are now speaking,
entire legions--privates and officers--were transferred in one body to the
new colony. "Antiquitus," says the learned Goesius, "deducebantur integral
legiones, quibus parta victoria." Neither was there much waiting for this
honorary gift. In later ages, it is true, when such resources were less
plentiful, and when regular pay was given to the soldiery, it was the
veteran only who obtained this splendid provision; but in the earlier
times, a single fortunate campaign not seldom dismissed the young recruit
to a life of ease and honor. "Multis legionibus," says Hyginus, "contigit
bellum feliciter transigere, et ad laboriosam agriculturae requiem _primo
tyrocinii gradu_ pervenire. Nam cum signis et aquila et primis ordinibus
et tribunis deducebantur." Tacitus also notices this organization of the
early colonies, and adds the reason of it, and its happy effect, when
contrasting it with the vicious arrangements of the colonizing system in
his own days. "Olim," says he, "universae legiones deducebantur cum
tribunis et centurionibus, et sui cujusque ordinis militibus, _ut consensu
et charitate rempublicam efficerent_." _Secondly_, not only were the
troops in this way paid at a time when the public purse was unequal to the
expenditure of war--but this pay, being contingent on the successful issue
of the war, added the strength of self-interest to that of patriotism in
stimulating the soldier to extraordinary efforts. Thirdly, not only did
the soldier in this way reap his pay, but also he reaped a reward, (and
that besides a trophy and perpetual monument of his public services,) so
munificent as to constitute a permanent provision for a family; and
accordingly he was now encouraged, nay, enjoined, to marry. For here was
an hereditary landed estate equal to the liberal maintenance of a family.
And thus did a simple people, obeying its instinct of conquest, not only
discover, in its earliest days, the subtle principle of Machiavel--_Let
war support war_; but (which is far more than Machiavel's view) they made
each present war support many future wars--by making it support a new
offset from the population, bound to the mother city by indissoluble ties
of privilege and civic duties; and in many other ways they made every war,
by and through the colonizing system to which it gave occasion,
serviceable to future aggrandizement. War, managed in this way, and with
these results, became to Rome what commerce or rural industry is to other
countries, viz. the only hopeful and general way for making a fortune.
_Fourthly_, by means of colonies it was that Rome delivered herself from
her surplus population. Prosperous and well-governed, the Roman citizens
of each generation outnumbered those of the generation preceding. But the
colonies provided outlets for these continual accessions of people, and
absorbed them faster than they could arise. [Footnote: And in this way we
must explain the fact--that, in the many successive numerations of the
people continually noticed by Livy and others, we do not find that sort of
multiplication which we might have looked for in a state so ably governed.
The truth is, that the continual surpluses had been carried off by the
colonizing drain, before they could become noticeable or troublesome.] And
thus the great original sin of modern states, that heel of Achilles in
which they are all vulnerable, and which (generally speaking) becomes more
oppressive to the public prosperity as that prosperity happens to be
greater (for in poor states and under despotic governments, this evil does
not exist), that flagrant infirmity of our own country, for which no
statesman has devised any commensurate remedy, was to ancient Rome a
perpetual foundation and well-head of public strength and enlarged
resources. With us of modern times, when population greatly outruns the
demand for labor, whether it be under the stimulus of upright government,
and just laws, justly administered, in combination with the manufacturing
system (as in England,) or (as in Ireland) under the stimulus of idle
habits, cheap subsistence, and a low standard of comfort--we think it much
if we can keep down insurrection by the bayonet and the sabre. _Lucro
ponamus_ is our cry, if we can effect even thus much; whereas Rome, in her
simplest and pastoral days, converted this menacing danger and standing
opprobrium of modern statesmanship to her own immense benefit. Not
satisfied merely to have neutralized it, she drew from it the vital
resources of her martial aggrandizement. For, _Fifthly_, these colonies
were in two ways made the corner-stones of her martial policy: 1st, They
were looked to as nurseries of their armies; during one generation the
original colonists, already trained to military habits, were themselves
disposable for this purpose on any great emergency; these men transmitted
heroic traditions to their posterity; and, at all events, a more robust
population was always at hand in agricultural colonies than could be had
in the metropolis. Cato the elder, and all the early writers, notice the
quality of such levies as being far superior to those drawn from a
population of sedentary habits. 2dly, The Italian colonies, one and all,
performed the functions which in our day are assigned to garrisoned towns
and frontier fortresses. In the earliest times they discharged a still
more critical service, by sometimes entirely displacing a hostile
population, and more often by dividing it and breaking its unity. In cases
of desperate resistance to the Roman arms, marked by frequent infraction
of treaties, it was usual to remove the offending population to a safer
situation, separated from Rome by the Tiber; sometimes entirely to
disperse and scatter it. But, where these extremities were not called for
by expediency or the Roman maxims of justice, it was judged sufficient to
_interpolate_, as it were, the hostile people by colonizations from Rome,
which were completely organized [Footnote: That is indeed involved in the
technical term of _Deductio_; for unless the ceremonies, religious and
political, of inauguration and organization, were duly complied with, the
colony was not entitled to be considered as _deducta_--that is, solemnly
and ceremonially transplanted from the metropolis.] for mutual aid, having
officers of all ranks dispersed amongst them, and for overawing the growth
of insurrectionary movements amongst their neighbors. Acting on this
system, the Roman colonies in some measure resembled the _English Pale_,
as existing at one era in Ireland. This mode of service, it is true,
became obsolete in process of time, concurrently with the dangers which it
was shaped to meet; for the whole of Italy proper, together with that part
of Italy called Cisalpine Gaul, was at length reduced to unity and
obedience by the almighty republic. But in forwarding that great end, and
indispensable condition towards all foreign warfare, no one military
engine in the whole armory of Rome availed so much as her Italian
colonies. The other use of these colonies, as frontier garrisons, or, at
any rate, as interposing between a foreign enemy and the gates of Rome,
they continued to perform long after their earlier uses had passed away;
and Cicero himself notices their value in this view. "Colonias," says he
[_Orat. in Rullum_], "sic idoneis in locis contra suspicionem periculi
collocarunt, ut esse non oppida Italiae sed _propugnacula_ imperii
viderentur." _Finally_, the colonies were the best means of promoting
tillage, and the culture of vineyards. And though this service, as
regarded the Italian colonies, was greatly defeated in succeeding times by
the ruinous largesses of corn [_frumentationes_], and other vices of the
Roman policy after the vast revolution effected by universal luxury, it is
not the less true that, left to themselves and their natural tendency, the
Roman colonies would have yielded this last benefit as certainly as any
other. Large volumes exist, illustrated by the learning of Rigaltius,
Salmatius, and Goesius, upon the mere technical arrangements of the Roman
colonies. And whose libraries might be written on these same colonies
considered as engines of exquisite state policy.] and by the habits of the
people. This monarchy had been of too slow a growth--too gradual, and too
much according to the regular stages of nature herself in its development,
to have any chance of being other than well cemented; the cohesion of its
parts was intense; seven centuries of growth demand one or two at least
for palpable decay; and it is only for harlequin empires like that of
Napoleon, run up with the rapidity of pantomime, to fall asunder under the
instant reaction of a few false moves in politics, or a single unfortunate
campaign. Hence it was, and from the prudence of Augustus acting through a
very long reign, sustained at no very distant interval by the personal
inspection and revisions of Hadrian, that for some time the Roman power
seemed to be stationary. What else could be expected? The mere strength of
the impetus derived from the republican institutions, could not but
propagate itself, and cause even a motion in advance, for some time after
those institutions had themselves given way. And besides the military
institutions survived all others; and the army continued very much the
same in its discipline and composition, long after Rome and all its civic
institutions had bent before an utter revolution. It was very possible
even that emperors should have arisen with martial propensities, and
talents capable of masking, for many years, by specious but transitory
conquests, the causes that were silently sapping the foundations of Roman
supremacy; and thus by accidents of personal character and taste, an
empire might even have expanded itself in appearance, which, by all its
permanent and real tendencies, was even then shrinking within narrower
limits, and travelling downwards to dissolution. In reality, one such
emperor there was. Trajan, whether by martial inclinations, or (as is
supposed by some) by dissatisfaction with his own position at Rome, when
brought into more immediate connection with the senate, was driven into
needless war; and he achieved conquests in the direction of Dacia as well
as Parthia. But that these conquests were not substantial,--that they were
connected by no true cement of cohesion with the existing empire, is
evident from the rapidity with which they were abandoned. In the next
reign, the empire had already recoiled within its former limits; and in
two reigns further on, under Marcus Antoninus, though a prince of elevated
character and warlike in his policy, we find such concessions of territory
made to the Marcomanni and others, as indicate too plainly the shrinking
energies of a waning empire. In reality, if we consider the polar
opposition, in point of interest and situation, between the great officers
of the republic and the Augustus or Caesar of the empire, we cannot fail to
see the immense effect which that difference must have had upon the
permanent spirit of conquest. Caesar was either adopted or elected to a
situation of infinite luxury and enjoyment. He had no interests to secure
by fighting in person: and he had a powerful interest in preventing others
from fighting; since in that way only he could raise up competitors to
himself, and dangerous seducers of the army. A consul, on the other hand,
or great lieutenant of the senate, had nothing to enjoy or to hope for,
when his term of office should have expired, unless according to his
success in creating military fame and influence for himself. Those Caesars
who fought whilst the empire was or seemed to be stationary, as Trajan,
did so from personal taste. Those who fought in after centuries, when the
decay became apparent, and dangers drew nearer, as Aurelian, did so from
the necessities of fear; and under neither impulse were they likely to
make durable conquests. The spirit of conquest having therefore departed
at the very time when conquest would have become more difficult even to
the republican energies, both from remoteness of ground and from the
martial character of the chief nations which stood beyond the frontier,--
it was a matter of necessity that with the republican institutions should
expire the whole principle of territorial aggrandizement; and that, if the
empire seemed to be stationary for some time after its establishment by
Julius, and its final settlement by Augustus, this was through no strength
of its own, or inherent in its own constitution, but through the continued
action of that strength which it had inherited from the republic. In a
philosophical sense, therefore, it may be affirmed, that the empire of the
Caesars was _always_ in decline; ceasing to go forward, it could not do
other than retrograde; and even the first _appearances_ of decline can,
with no propriety, be referred to the reign of Commodus. His vices exposed
him to public contempt and assassination; but neither one nor the other
had any effect upon the strength of the empire. Here, therefore, is one
just subject of complaint against Gibbon, that he has dated the declension
of the Roman power from a commencement arbitrarily assumed; another, and a
heavier, is, that he has failed to notice the steps and separate
indications of decline as they arose,--the moments (to speak in the
language of dynamics) through which the decline travelled onwards to its
consummation. It is also a grievous offence as regards the true purposes
of history,--and one which, in a complete exposition of the imperial
history, we should have a right to insist on,--that Gibbon brings forward
only such facts as allow of a scenical treatment, and seems every where,
by the glancing style of his allusions, to presuppose an acquaintance with
that very history which he undertakes to deliver. Our immediate purpose,
however, is simply to characterize the office of emperor, and to notice
such events and changes as operated for evil, and for a final effect of
decay, upon the Caesars or their empire. As the best means of realizing it,
we shall rapidly review the history of both, promising that we confine
ourselves to the true Caesars, and the true empire, of the West.

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