f II. sensibly inspired the natives of those countries CHAP. with the sentiments of Romans; and Italy gave fashions, as well as laws, to her Latin provincials. They solicited with more ardour, and obtained with more facility, the freedom and honours of the state; supported the national dignity in letters * and in arms; and, at length, in the person of Trajan, produced an emperor whom the Scipios would not have disowned for their countryman. The situation of the Greeks. was very different from that of the barbarians. The former had been long since civilised and corrupted. They had too much taste to relinquish their language, and too much vanity to adopt any foreign institutions. Still preserving the prejudices, after they had lost the virtues, of their ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolished manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled to respect their su perior wisdom and power t. Nor was, the influence of Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow limits of that once celebrated country. Their empire by the progress of colonies and conquest, had been diffused from the Hadriatic to the Euphrates and the Nile. Asia an African youth who lived among the populace, with the use of + There is not, I believe, from Dionysius to Libanus, à single Greek critic who mentions Virgil or Horace. They seem ignorant that the Romans had any good writers, འ J CHAAP Was Joovered with Greek cities, and the long reign of the Macedonian kings, had introduced a → silent revolution into Syria and Egypt. In their pompous courts those princes united the elegance of Athens with the luxury of the East, and the example of the court was imitated, at an humble distance, by the higher ranks of their subjects. Such was the general division of the Roman em pire into the Latin and Greek languages. To these we may add a third distinction for the body of the natives in Syria, and especially in Egypt. The use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them from the commerce of mankind, checked the improvements of those barbarians *.. The slothful effeminacy of the former, exposed them to the contempt, the sullen ferociousness of the latter, excited the aversion of the conquerors t Those nations had submitted to the Roman Me to shoul power, but they seldom desired or deserved the freedom of the city and it was remarked, that more than two hundred and thirty years elapsed: after the ruin of the Ptolemies, before an Egyptian was admitted into the senate of Rome ‡. It is a just though trite observation, that victorious Rome was herself subdued by the arts of Greece. General use of both languages. 31292 those immortal writers who still com 139Tmand the admiration of modern Europe, soon became the favourite object of study and imita ebrisavodi ni no 1 25vg! tion The curious reader may see in Dupin (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. xix. p. 1. c. 8.) how much the use of the Syriac and Egyptian languages was still preserved. Pr + See Juvenal, Sat. iii. and xv. Ammian. Marcelin. xxij. 16. ‡ Dion Cassius, 1. lxxvii, p. 1275. The first instance happened under the reign of Septimius Severus. T tion in Italy and the western provinces. But the CHAARP. elegant amusements of the Romans were not suf fered to interfere with their sound maxims of poz licy. Whilst they acknowledged the charms of the Greek, they asserted the dignity of the Latin tongue, and the exclusive use of the latter was inflexibly maintained in the administration of civil as well as military government * The two lan*. guages exercised at the same time their separate jurisdiction throughout the empire: the former, as the natural idiom of science; the latter, as the legal dialect of public transactions. Those who united letters with business, were equally conversant with both; and it was almost impossible, in any province, to find a Roman subject, of a liberal education, who was at once a stranger to the Greek and to the Latin language.isxs (10938) It was by such institutions that the nations of Slaves. the empire insensibly melted away into the Roman name and people. But there still remained, in the centre of every province and of every family, an unhappy condition of men who endured the weight, without sharing the benefits, of society. In the free states of antiquity, the do-, mestic slaves were exposed to the wanton rigouresgegnet of despotism. The perfect settlement of the Their treatRoman empire was preceded by ages of violence ment. and rapine. The slaves consisted, for the most part, of barbarian captives, taken in thousands 21 *See Valerius Maximus, l. fi. c. 2. n. 2. The emperor Clau--* dius disfranchised an eminent Grecian for not understanding Latin. He was probably in some public office.Suetonius in Claud. c. 16. II. CHA P. by the chance of war, purchased at a vile price*, accustomed to a life of independence, and impatient to break and to revenge their fetters. Against such internal enemies, whose desperate insurrections had more than once reduced the republic to the brink of destruction †, the most severe regulations +, and the most cruel treatment, seemed almost justified by the great law of self-preservation. But when the principal nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa, were united under the laws of one sovereign, the source of foreign supplies flowed with much less abundance, and the Romans were reduced to the milder but more tedious method of propagation. In their numerous families, and particularly in their country estates, they encouraged the marriage of their slaves. The sentiments of nature, the, babits of education, and the possession of a dependent species of property, contributed to alleviate the hardships of servitude (.. The existence of a slave became an object of greater value, and though his happiness still depended on the temper and circumstances of the master, the huma nity of the latter, instead of being restrained by fear, * In the camp of Lucullus, an ox sold for a drachma, and a slave, for four drachma, or about three shillings. Plutarch. in Lucull. p. 580. Diodorus Sicul 1s in Eclog, Hist. 1, xxxiv. and xxxvi. Florus, iii. 19, 20. v. 3. ++ See a remarkable instance of severity in Cicero in Verrem, See in Gruter, and the other collectors, a great number of inscriptions addressed by slaves to their wives, children, fellow. servants, masters, &c. They are all most probably of the Imperial age. fear, was encouraged by the sense of his own in-C HA P. terest. The progress of manners was accelerated by the virtue or policy of the emperors; and by the edicts of Hadrian and the Antonines, the protection of the laws was extended to the most abject part of mankind. The jurisdiction of life and death over the slaves, a power long exercised and often abused, was taken out of private hands, and reserved to the magistrates alone. The subterraneous prisons were abolished;` and, upon a just complaint of intolerable treatment, the injured treatment, the injured slave obtained either his deliverance, or a less cruel master *. II. chisement. Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect con- Enfrandition, was not denied to the Roman slave; and if he had any opportunity of rendering himself either useful or agreeable, he might very naturally expect that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would be rewarded with the inestimable gift of freedom. The benevolence of the master was so frequently prompted by the meaner suggestions of vanity and avarice, that the laws found it more necessary to restrain than to encourage a profuse and undistinguished liberality, which might degenerate into a very dangerous abuse t. It was a maxim of ancient jurisprudence, that a slave had not any country of his own, he acquired with his liberty an admission into the political society of which his patron was VOL. I. F. a mem * See the Augustan History, and a Dissertation of M. de Burigny, in the xxxvth volume, of the Academy of Inscriptions, upon the Roman slaves. t See another dissertation of M. de Burigny, in the xxxth volume, on the Roman freedmen. |