The Caesars

T >> Thomas de Quincey >> The Caesars

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The first overt act of weakness,--the first expression of conscious
declension, as regarded the foreign enemies of Rome, occurred in the reign
of Hadrian; for it is a very different thing to forbear making conquests,
and to renounce them when made. It is possible, however, that the cession
then made of Mesopotamia and Armenia, however sure to be interpreted into
the language of fear by the enemy, did not imply any such principle in
this emperor. He was of a civic and paternal spirit, and anxious for the
substantial welfare of the empire rather than its ostentatious glory. The
internal administration of affairs had very much gone into neglect since
the times of Augustus; and Hadrian was perhaps right in supposing that he
could effect more public good by an extensive progress through the empire,
and by a personal correction of abuses, than by any military enterprise.
It is, besides, asserted, that he received an indemnity in money for the
provinces beyond the Euphratus. But still it remains true, that in his
reign the God Terminus made his first retrograde motion; and this emperor
became naturally an object of public obloquy at Rome, and his name fell
under the superstitious ban of a fatal tradition connected with the
foundation of the capitol. The two Antonines, Titus and Marcus, who came
next in succession, were truly good and patriotic princes; perhaps the
only princes in the whole series who combined the virtues of private and
of public life. In their reigns the frontier line was maintained in its
integrity, and at the expense of some severe fighting under Marcus, who
was a strenuous general at the same time that he was a severe student. It
is, however, true, as we observed above, that, by allowing a settlement
within the Roman frontier to a barbarous people, Marcus Aurelius raised
the first ominous precedent in favor of those Gothic, Vandal, and Frankish
hives, who were as yet hidden behind a cloud of years. Homes had been
obtained by Trans-Danubian barbarians upon the sacred territory of Rome
and Caesar: that fact remained upon tradition; whilst the terms upon which
they had been obtained, how much or how little connected with fear,
necessarily became liable to doubt and to oblivion. Here we pause to
remark, that the first twelve Caesars, together with Nerva, Trajan,
Hadrian, and the two Antonines, making seventeen emperors, compose the
first of four nearly equal groups, who occupied the throne in succession
until the extinction of the Western Empire. And at this point be it
observed,--that is, at the termination of the first group,--we take leave
of all genuine virtue. In no one of the succeeding princes, if we except
Alexander Severus, do we meet with any goodness of heart, or even
amiableness of manners. The best of the future emperors, in a public
sense, were harsh and repulsive in private character.

The second group, as we have classed them, terminating with Philip the
Arab, commences with Commodus. This unworthy prince, although the son of
the excellent Marcus Antoninus, turned out a monster of debauchery. At the
moment of his father's death, he was present in person at the head-
quarters of the army on the Danube, and of necessity partook in many of
their hardships. This it was which furnished his evil counsellors with
their sole argument for urging his departure to the capital. A council
having been convened, the faction of court sycophants pressed upon his
attention the inclemency of the climate, contrasting it with the genial
skies and sunny fields of Italy; and the season, which happened to be
winter, gave strength to their representations. What! would the emperor be
content for ever to hew out the frozen water with an axe before he could
assuage his thirst? And, again, the total want of fruit-trees--did that
recommend their present station as a fit one for the imperial court?
Commodus, ashamed to found his objections to the station upon grounds so
unsoldierly as these, affected to be moved by political reasons: some
great senatorial house might take advantage of his distance from home,--
might seize the palace, fortify it, and raise levies in Italy capable of
sustaining its pretensions to the throne. These arguments were combated by
Pompeianus, who, besides his personal weight as an officer, had married
the eldest sister of the young emperor. Shame prevailed for the present
with Commodus, and he dismissed the council with an assurance that he
would think farther of it. The sequel was easy to foresee. Orders were
soon issued for the departure of the court to Rome, and the task of
managing the barbarians of Dacia, was delegated to lieutenants. The system
upon which these officers executed their commission was a mixed one of
terror and persuasion. Some they defeated in battle; and these were the
majority; for Herodian says, _pleizous ton barbaron haplois echeirosanto_:
Others they bribed into peace by large sums of money. And no doubt this
last article in the policy of Commodus was that which led Gibbon to assign
to this reign the first rudiments of the Roman declension. But it should
be remembered, that, virtually, this policy was but the further
prosecution of that which had already been adopted by Marcus Aurelius.
Concessions and temperaments of any sort or degree showed that the
Pannonian frontier was in too formidable a condition to be treated with
uncompromising rigor. To _hamerimnon onoumenos_, purchasing an immunity
from all further anxiety, Commodus (as the historian expresses it) _panta
edidou ta aitoumena_--conceded all demands whatever. His journey to Rome
was one continued festival: and the whole population of Rome turned out to
welcome him. At this period he was undoubtedly the darling of the people:
his personal beauty was splendid; and he was connected by blood with some
of the greatest nobility. Over this flattering scene of hope and triumph
clouds soon gathered: with the mob, indeed, there is reason to think that
he continued a favorite to the last; but the respectable part of the
citizens were speedily disgusted with his self-degradation, and came to
hate him even more than ever or by any class he had been loved. The Roman
pride never shows itself more conspicuously throughout all history, than
in the alienation of heart which inevitably followed any great and
continued outrages upon his own majesty, committed by their emperor.
Cruelties the most atrocious, acts of vengeance the most bloody,
fratricide, parricide, all were viewed with more toleration than oblivion
of his own inviolable sanctity. Hence we imagine the wrath with which Rome
would behold Commodus, under the eyes of four hundred thousand spectators,
making himself a party to the contests of gladiators. In his earlier
exhibitions as an archer, it is possible that his matchless dexterity, and
his unerring eye, would avail to mitigate the censures: but when the Roman
Imperator actually descended to the arena in the garb and equipments of a
servile prize-fighter, and personally engaged in combat with such
antagonists, having previously submitted to their training and discipline--
the public indignation rose a to height, which spoke aloud the language
of encouragement to conspiracy and treason. These were not wanting: three
memorable plots against his life were defeated; one of them (that of
Maternus, the robber) accompanied with romantic circumstances, [Footnote:
On this occasion we may notice that the final execution of the vengeance
projected by Maternus, was reserved for a public festival, exactly
corresponding to the modern _carnival_; and from an expression used by
Herodian, it is plain that masquerading had been an ancient practice in
Rome.] which we have narrated in an earlier paper of this series. Another
was set on foot by his eldest sister, Lucilla; nor did her close
relationship protect her from capital punishment. In that instance, the
immediate agent of her purposes, Quintianus, a young man, of signal
resolution and daring, who had attempted to stab the emperor at the
entrance of the amphitheatre, though baffled in his purpose, uttered a
word which rang continually in the ears of Commodus, and poisoned his
peace of mind for ever. His vengeance, perhaps, was thus more effectually
accomplished than if he had at once dismissed his victim from life. "The
senate," he had said, "sends thee this through me:" and henceforward the
senate was the object of unslumbering suspicions to the emperor. Yet the
public suspicions settled upon a different quarter; and a very memorable
scene must have pointed his own in the same direction, supposing that he
had previously been blind to his danger. On a day of great solemnity, when
Rome had assembled her myriads in the amphitheatre, just at the very
moment when the nobles, the magistrates, the priests, all, in short, that
was venerable or consecrated in the State, with the Imperator in their
centre, had taken their seats, and were waiting for the opening of the
shows, a stranger, in the robe of a philosopher, bearing a staff in his
hand, (which also was the professional ensign [Footnote: See Casaubon's
notes upon Theophrastus.] of a philosopher,) stepped forward, and, by the
waving of his hand, challenged the attention of Commodus. Deep silence
ensued: upon which, in a few words, ominous to the ear as the handwriting
on the wall to the eye of Belshazzar, the stranger unfolded to Commodus
the instant peril which menaced both his life and his throne, from his
great servant Perennius. What personal purpose of benefit to himself this
stranger might have connected with his public warning, or by whom he might
have been suborned, was never discovered; for he was instantly arrested by
the agents of the great officer whom he had denounced, dragged away to
punishment, and put to a cruel death. Commodus dissembled his panic for
the present; but soon after, having received undeniable proofs (as is
alleged) of the treason imputed to Perennius, in the shape of a coin which
had been struck by his son, he caused the father to be assassinated; and,
on the same day, by means of forged letters, before this news could reach
the son, who commanded the Illyrian armies, he lured him also to
destruction, under the belief that he was obeying the summons of his
father to a private interview on the Italian frontier. So perished those
enemies, if enemies they really were. But to these tragedies succeeded
others far more comprehensive in their mischief, and in more continuous
succession than is recorded upon any other page of universal history. Rome
was ravaged by a pestilence--by a famine--by riots amounting to a civil
war--by a dreadful massacre of the unarmed mob--by shocks of earthquake--
and, finally, by a fire which consumed the national bank, [Footnote: Viz.
the Temple of Peace; at that time the most magnificent edifice in Rome.
Temples, it is well known, were the places used in ancient times as banks
of deposit. For this function they were admirably fitted by their
inviolable sanctity.] and the most sumptuous buildings of the city. To
these horrors, with a rapidity characteristic of the Roman depravity, and
possible only under the most extensive demoralization of the public mind,
succeeded festivals of gorgeous pomp, and amphitheatrical exhibitions,
upon a scale of grandeur absolutely unparalleled by all former attempts.
Then were beheld, and familiarized to the eyes of the Roman mob--to
children--and to women, animals as yet known to us, says Herodian, only in
pictures. Whatever strange or rare animal could be drawn from the depths
of India, from Siam and Pegu, or from the unvisited nooks of Ethiopia,
were now brought together as subjects for the archery of the universal
lord. [Footnote: What a prodigious opportunity for the zoologist!--And
considering that these shows prevailed, for 500 years, during all which
period the amphitheatre gave bounties, as it were, to the hunter and the
fowler of every climate, and that, by means of a stimulus so constantly
applied, scarcely any animal, the shyest, rarest, fiercest, escaped the
demands of the arena,--no one fact so much illustrates the inertia of the
public mind in those days, and the indifference to all scientific
pursuits, as that no annotator should have risen to Pliny the elder--no
rival to the immortal tutor of Alexander.] Invitations (and the
invitations of kings are commands) had been scattered on this occasion
profusely; not, as heretofore, to individuals or to families--but, as was
in proportion to the occasion where an emperor was the chief performer, to
nations. People were summoned by circles of longitude and latitude to come
and see _theasumenoi ha mae proteron maete heormkesun maete aekaekoeisun_--
things that eye had not seen nor ear heard of] the specious miracles of
nature brought together from arctic and from tropic deserts, putting forth
their strength, their speed, or their beauty, and glorifying by their
deaths the matchless hand of the Roman king. There was beheld the lion
from Bilidulgerid, and the leopard from Hindostan--the rein-deer from
polar latitudes--the antelope from the Zaara--and the leigh, or gigantic
stag, from Britain. Thither came the buffalo and the bison, the white bull
of Northumberland and Galloway, the unicorn from the regions of Nepaul or
Thibet, the rhinoceros and the river-horse from Senegal, with the elephant
of Ceylon or Siam. The ostrich and the cameleopard, the wild ass and the
zebra, the chamois and the ibex of Angora,--all brought their tributes of
beauty or deformity to these vast aceldamas of Rome: their savage voices
ascended in tumultuous uproar to the chambers of the capitol: a million of
spectators sat round them: standing in the centre was a single statuesque
figure--the imperial sagittary, beautiful as an Antinous, and majestic as
a Jupiter, whose hand was so steady and whose eye so true, that he was
never known to miss, and who, in this accomplishment at least, was so
absolute in his excellence, that, as we are assured by a writer not
disposed to flatter him, the very foremost of the Parthian archers and of
the Mauritanian lancers [_Parthyaion oi toxichaes hachribentes, chai
Mauresion oi hachontixein harizoi_] were not able to contend with him.
Juvenal, in a well known passage upon the disproportionate endings of
illustrious careers, drawing one of his examples from Marius, says, that
he ought, for his own glory, and to make his end correspondent to his
life, to have died at the moment when he descended from his triumphal
chariot at the portals of the capitol. And of Commodus, in like manner, it
may be affirmed, that, had he died in the exercise of his peculiar art,
with a hecatomb of victims rendering homage to his miraculous skill, by
the regularity of the files which they presented, as they lay stretched
out dying or dead upon the arena,--he would have left a splendid and a
characteristic impression of himself upon that nation of spectators who
had witnessed his performance. He was the noblest artist in his own
profession that the world had seen--in archery he was the Robin Hood of
Rome; he was in the very meridian of his youth; and he was the most
beautiful man of his own times _Ton chath eauton hathropon challei
euprepestatos_. He would therefore have looked the part admirably of the
dying gladiator; and he would have died in his natural vocation. But it
was ordered otherwise; his death was destined to private malice, and to an
ignoble hand. And much obscurity still rests upon the motives of the
assassins, though its circumstances are reported with unusual minuteness
of detail. One thing is evident, that the public and patriotic motives
assigned by the perpetrators as the remote causes of their conspiracy,
cannot have been the true ones. The grave historian may sum up his
character of Commodus by saying that, however richly endowed with natural
gifts, he abused them all to bad purposes; that he derogated from his
noble ancestors, and disavowed the obligations of his illustrious name;
and, as the climax of his offences, that he dishonored the purple--
_aischrois epitaedeumasin_--by the baseness of his pursuits. All that is
true, and more than that. But these considerations were not of a nature to
affect his parasitical attendants very nearly or keenly. Yet the story
runs--that Marcia, his privileged mistress, deeply affected by the
anticipation of some further outrages upon his high dignity which he was
then meditating, had carried the importunity of her deprecations too far;
that the irritated emperor had consequently inscribed her name, in company
with others, (whom he had reason to tax with the same offence, or whom he
suspected of similar sentiments,) in his little black book, or pocket
souvenir of death; that this book, being left under the cushion of a sofa,
had been conveyed into the hands of Marcia by a little pet boy, called
Philo-Commodus, who was caressed equally by the emperor and by Marcia;
that she had immediately called to her aid, and to the participation of
her plot, those who participated in her danger; and that the proximity of
their own intended fate had prescribed to them an immediate attempt; the
circumstances of which were these. At mid-day the emperor was accustomed
to bathe, and at the same time to take refreshments. On this occasion,
Marcia, agreeably to her custom, presented him with a goblet of wine,
medicated with poison. Of this wine, having just returned from the
fatigues of the chase, Commodus drank freely, and almost immediately fell
into heavy slumbers; from which, however, he was soon aroused by deadly
sickness. That was a case which the conspirators had not taken into their
calculations; and they now began to fear that the violent vomiting which
succeeded might throw off the poison. There was no time to be lost; and
the barbarous Marcia, who had so often slept in the arms of the young
emperor, was the person to propose that he should now be strangled. A
young gladiator, named Narcissus, was therefore introduced into the room;
what passed is not known circumstantially; but, as the emperor was young
and athletic, though off his guard at the moment, and under the
disadvantage of sickness, and as he had himself been regularly trained in
the gladiatorial discipline, there can be little doubt that the vile
assassin would meet with a desperate resistance. And thus, after all,
there is good reason to think that the emperor resigned his life in the
character of a dying gladiator. [Footnote: It is worthy of notice, that,
under any suspension of the imperatorial power or office, the senate was
the body to whom the Roman mind even yet continued to turn. In this case,
both to color their crime with a show of public motives, and to interest
this great body in their own favor by associating them in their own
dangers, the conspirators pretended to have found a long roll of
senatorial names included in the same page of condemnation with their own.
A manifest fabrication!]

So perished the eldest and sole surviving son of the great Marcus
Antoninus; and the crown passed into the momentary possession of two old
men, who reigned in succession each for a few weeks. The first of these
was Pertinax, an upright man, a good officer, and an unseasonable
reformer; unseasonable for those times, but more so for himself. Laetus,
the ringleader in the assassination of Commodus, had been at that time the
praetorian prefect--an office which a German writer considers as best
represented to modern ideas by the Turkish post of grand vizier. Needing a
protector at this moment, he naturally fixed his eyes upon Pertinax--as
then holding the powerful command of city prefect (or governor of Rome.)
Him therefore he recommended to the soldiery--that is, to the praetorian
cohorts. The soldiery had no particular objection to the old general, if
he and they could agree upon terms; his age being doubtless appreciated as
a first-rate recommendation, in a case where it insured a speedy renewal
of the lucrative bargain.

The only demur arose with Pertinax himself: he had been leader of the
troops in Britain, then superintendent of the police in Rome, thirdly
proconsul in Africa, and finally consul and governor of Rome. In these
great official stations he stood near enough to the throne to observe the
dangers with which it was surrounded; and it is asserted that he declined
the offered dignity. But it is added, that, finding the choice allowed him
lay between immediate death [Footnote: Historians have failed to remark
the contradiction between this statement and the allegation that Laetus
selected Pertinax for the throne on a consideration of his ability to
protect the assassins of Commodus.] and acceptance, he closed with the
proposals of the praetorian cohorts, at the rate of about ninety-six
pounds per man; which largess he paid by bringing to sale the rich
furniture of the last emperor. The danger which usually threatened a Roman
Caesar in such cases was--lest he should not be able to fulfill his
contract. But in the case of Pertinax the danger began from the moment
when he _had_ fulfilled it. Conceiving himself to be now released
from his dependency, he commenced his reforms, civil as well as military,
with a zeal which alarmed all those who had an interest in maintaining the
old abuses. To two great factions he thus made himself especially
obnoxious--to the praetorian cohorts, and to the courtiers under the last
reign. The connecting link between these two parties was Laetus, who
belonged personally to the last, and still retained his influence with the
first. Possibly his fears were alarmed; but, at all events, his cupidity
was not satisfied. He conceived himself to have been ill rewarded; and,
immediately resorting to the same weapons which he had used against
Commodus, he stimulated the praetorian guards to murder the emperor. Three
hundred of them pressed into the palace: Pertinax attempted to harangue
them, and to vindicate himself; but not being able to obtain a hearing, he
folded his robe about his head, called upon Jove the Avenger, and was
immediately dispatched.

The throne was again empty after a reign of about eighty days; and now
came the memorable scandal of putting up the empire to auction. There were
two bidders, Sulpicianus and Didius Julianus. The first, however, at that
time governor of Rome, lay under a weight of suspicion, being the father-
in-law of Pertinax, and likely enough to exact vengeance for his murder.
He was besides outbid by Julianus. Sulpician offered about one hundred and
sixty pounds a man to the guards; his rival offered two hundred, and
assured them besides of immediate payment; "for," said he, "I have the
money at home, without needing to raise it from the possessions of the
crown." Upon this the empire was knocked down to the highest bidder. So
shocking, however, was this arrangement to the Roman pride, that the
guards durst not leave their new creation without military protection. The
resentment of an unarmed mob, however, soon ceased to be of foremost
importance; this resentment extended rapidly to all the frontiers of the
empire, where the armies felt that the praetorian cohorts had no exclusive
title to give away the throne, and their leaders felt, that, in a contest
of this nature, their own claims were incomparably superior to those of
the present occupant. Three great candidates therefore started forward--
Septimius Severus, who commanded the armies in Illyria, Pescennius Niger
in Syria, and Albinus in Britain. Severus, as the nearest to Rome, marched
and possessed himself of that city. Vengeance followed upon all parties
concerned in the late murder. Julianus, unable to complete his bargain,
had already been put to death, as a deprecatory offering to the
approaching army. Severus himself inflicted death upon Laetus, and
dismissed the praetorian cohorts. Thence marching against his Syrian
rival, Niger, who had formerly been his friend, and who was not wanting in
military skill, he overthrew him in three great battles. Niger fled to
Antioch, the seat of his late government, and was there decapitated.
Meantime Albinus, the British commander-in-chief, had already been won
over by the title of Caesar, or adopted heir to the new Augustus. But the
hollowness of this bribe soon became apparent, and the two competitors met
to decide their pretensions at Lyons. In the great battle which followed,
Severus fell from his horse, and was at first supposed to be dead. But
recovering, he defeated his rival, who immediately committed suicide.
Severus displayed his ferocious temper sufficiently by sending the head of
Albinus to Rome. Other expressions of his natural character soon followed:
he suspected strongly that Albinus had been favored by the senate; forty
of that body, with their wives and children, were immediately sacrificed
to his wrath; but he never forgave the rest, nor endured to live upon
terms of amity amongst them. Quitting Rome in disgust, he employed himself
first in making war upon the Parthians, who had naturally, from situation,
befriended his Syrian rival. Their capital cities he overthrew; and
afterwards, by way of employing his armies, made war in Britain. At the
city of York he died; and to his two sons, Geta and Caracalla, he
bequeathed, as his dying advice, a maxim of policy, which sufficiently
indicates the situation of the empire at that period; it was this--"To
enrich the soldiery at any price, and to regard the rest of their subjects
as so many ciphers." But, as a critical historian remarks, this was a
shortsighted and self-destroying policy; since in no way is the
subsistence of the soldier made more insecure, than by diminishing the
general security of rights and property to those who are not soldiers,
from whom, after all, the funds must be sought, by which the soldier
himself is to be paid and nourished. The two sons of Severus, whose bitter
enmity is so memorably put on record by their actions, travelled
simultaneously to Rome; but so mistrustful of each other, that at every
stage the two princes took up their quarters at different houses. Geta has
obtained the sympathy of historians, because he happened to be the victim;
but there is reason to think, that each of the brothers was conspiring
against the other. The weak credulity, rather than the conscious
innocence, of Geta, led to the catastrophe; he presented himself at a
meeting with his brother in the presence of their common mother, and was
murdered by Caracalla in his mother's arms. He was, however, avenged; the
horrors of that tragedy, and remorse for the twenty thousand murders which
had followed, never forsook the guilty Caracalla. Quitting Rome, but
pursued into every region by the bloody image of his brother, the emperor
henceforward led a wandering life at the head of his legions; but never
was there a better illustration of the poet's maxim, that

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