provinces, deprived of political strength or union, in- CHAP. sensibly sunk into the languid indifference of private life. The love of letters, almost inseparable from peace of genius. and refinement, was fashionable among the subjects of Hadrian and the Antonines, who were themselves men of learning and curiosity. It was diffused over the whole extent of their empire; the most northern tribes of Britons had acquired a taste for rhetoric; Homer as well as Virgil were transcribed and studied on the banks of the Rhine, and Danube; and the most liberal rewards sought out the faintest glimmerings of literary merit. The sciences of physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the Greeks; the observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are studied by those who have improved their discoveries and corrected their errors; but if we except the inimitable Lucian, this age of indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of original genius, or who excelled in the arts of elegant composition. The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems, transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind. The beauties of the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own, inspired only cold and servile imitations: or if any ventured to deviate from those models, they deviated at the same time from good sense and propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful vigour of the imagination, after a long repose, national emulation, a new religion, new 110 Herodes Atticus gave the sophist Polemo above eight thousand pounds for three declamations. See Philostrat. 1. i. p. 558. The Antonines founded a school at Athens, in which professors of grammer, rhetoric, politics, and the four great sects of philosophy, were maintained at the public expense for the instruction of youth. The salary of a philosopher was ten thousand drachmæ, between three and four hundred pounds a year. Similar establishments were formed in the other great cities of the empire. See Lucian in Eunuch. tom. ii. p. 353. edit. Reitz. Philostrat, 1. ii. p. 566. Hist. August. p. 21. Dion Cassius, 1. lxxi. p. 1195. Juvenal himself, in a morose satire, which in every line betrays his own disappointment and envy, is obliged, however, to say, -O Juvenes, circumspicit et agitat vos, VOL. I. Satir. vii. 20. CHAP. languages, and a new world, called forth the genius of II. Europe. But the provincials of Rome, trained by an uniform artificial foreign education, were engaged in a very unequal competition with those bold ancients, who by expressing their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already occupied every place of honour. The name of Poet was almost forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste. Degene racy. The sublime Longinus, who in somewhat a later period, and in the court of a Syrian queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens, observes and laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which debased their sentiments, enervated their courage, and depressed their talents. "In the same manner," says he, "as "some children always remain pigmies, whose infant 66 limbs have been too closely confined; thus our ten"der minds, fettered by the prejudices and habits of a "just servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or "to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the ancients; who living under a popular government, wrote with the same freedom as they "acted." This diminutive stature of mankind, if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the old standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of pigmies; when the fierce giants of the north broke in, and mended the puny-breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom; and after the revolution of ten centuries, freedom became the happy parent of taste and science. 111 Longin. de Sublim. c. 43. p. 229. edit. Toll. Here too we may say of Longinus, "his own example strengthens all his laws." Instead of proposing his sentiments with a manly boldness, he insinuates them with the most guarded caution, puts them into the mouth of a friend; and as far as we can collect from a corrupted text, makes a shew of refuting them himself. CHAPTER III. Of the Constitution of the Roman Empire, in the Age, of the Antonines. III. THE obvious definition of a monarchy seems to CHAP. be that of a state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is entrusted with dea of a the execution of the laws, the management of the reve- monarchy. nue, and the command of the army. But unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connexion between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against the enterprises of an aspiring prince. tus. Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been situation levelled by the vast ambition of the dictator; every of Augusfence had been extirpated by the cruel hand of the Triumvir. After the victory of Actium, the fate of the Roman world depended on the will of Octavianus, surnamed Cæsar, by his uncle's adoption, and afterwards Augustus, by the flattery of the senate. The conqueror was at the head of forty-four veteran legions', conscious of their own strength, and of the weakness of the constitution, habituated, during twenty years civil war, to every act of blood and violence, and passionately devoted to the house of Cæsar, from whence alone they had received, and expected, the most lavish rewards. The provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the republic, sighed for the government of a single person, who would be the master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, the humiliation of the 1 Orosius, vi. 18. CHAP. aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows: III. and were supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The rich and polite Italians, who had almost universally embraced the philosophy of Epicurus, enjoyed the present blessings of ease and tranquility, and suffered not the pleasing dream to be interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom. With its power, the senate had lost its dignity; many of the most noble families were extinct. The republicans of spirit and ability had perished in the field of battle, or in the proscription. The door of the assembly had been designedly left open, for a mixed multitude of more than a thousand persons, who reflected disgrace upon their rank, instead of deriving honour from it2. He reforms the senate. Resigns ed power. The reformation of the senate was one of the first steps in which Augustus laid aside the tyrant, and professed himself the father of his country. He was elected censor; and, in concert with his faithful Agrippa, he examined the list of the senators, expelled a few members, whose vices or whose obstinacy required a public example, persuaded near two hundred to prevent the shame of an expulsion by a voluntary retreat, raised the qualification of a senator to about ten thousand pounds, created a sufficient number of Patrician families, and accepted for himself, the honourable title of Prince of the Senate, which had always been bestowed, by the censors, on the citizen the most eminent for his honours and services. But whilst he thus restored the dignity, he destroyed the independence of the senate. The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive. Before an assembly thus modelled and prepared, his usurp Augustus pronounced a studied oration, which displayed his patriotism, and disguised his ambition. "He lamented, yet excused, his past conduct. Filial piety had required at his hands the revenge of his fa 66 2 Julius Cæsar introduced soldiers, strangers. and half-barbarians, into the senate (Sueton, in Cæsar. c. 77. 80.) The abuse became still more scandalous after his death. 3 Dion Cassius, 1. iii. p. 693. Suetonius in August. c. 55. III. "ther's murder: the humanity of his own nature had CHAP. "sometimes given way to the stern laws of necessity, "and to a forced connexion with two unworthy col"leagues as long as Antony lived, the republic for"bad him to abandon her to a degenerate Roman, and "a barbarian queen. He was now at liberty to satisfy "his duty and his inclination. He solemnly restored "the senate and the people to all their ancient rights; " and wished only to mingle with the crowd of his "fellow citizens, and to share the blessings which he "had obtained for his country. title of Emperor ral. It would require the pen of Tacitus (if Tacitus had Is prevailed upon to assisted at this assembly) to describe the various emo- resume it tions of the senate; those that were suppressed, and under the those that were affected. It was dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust it, was still or Genemore dangerous. The respective advantages of monarchy and a republic have often divided speculative inquirers; the present greatness of the Roman state, the corruption of manners, and the licence of the soldiers, supplied new arguments to the advocates of monarchy; and these general views of government were again warped by the hopes and fears of each individual. Amidst this confusion of sentiments, the answer of the senate was unanimous and decisive. They refused to accept the resignation of Augustus; they conjured him not to desert the republic, which he had saved. After a decent resistance, the crafty tyrant submitted to the orders of the senate; and consented to receive the government of the provinces, and the general command of the Roman armies, under the wellknown names of PROCONSUL and IMPERATOR". But he would receive them only for ten years. Even before the expiration of that period he hoped that the wounds of civil discord would be completely healed, 4 Dion (1. liii. p. 698.) gives us a prolix and bombast speech on this great occasion. I have borrowed from Suetonius and Tacitus the general language of Augustus. 5 Imperator (from which we have derived Emperor) signified under the republic no more than general, and was emphatically bestowed by the soldiers, when on the field of battle they proclaimed their victorious leader worthy of that title. When the Roman emperors assumed it in that sense, they placed it after their name, and marked how often they had taken it. |