The political condition of the world was most melancholy. All power was concentrated at Rome and in the legions. The most shameful and degrading scenes were daily enacted. The Roman aristocracy, which had conquered the world, and which alone of all the people had any voice in public business under the Cæsars, had abandoned itself to a Saturnalia of the most outrageous wickedness the human race ever witnessed. Cæsar and Augustus, in establishing the imperial power, saw perfectly the necessities of the age. The world was so low in its political relations, that no other form of government was possible. Now that Rome had conquered numberless provinces, the ancient constitution, which was based upon the existence of a privileged patrician class, a kind of obstinate and malevolentTories, could not continue.[17.1]But Augustus had signally neglected every suggestion of true policy, by leaving the future to chance. Destitute of any canon of hereditary succession, of any settled rules concerning adoption, and of any law regulating election, Cæsarism was like an enormous load on the deck of a vessel without ballast. The most terrible shocks were inevitable. Three times in a century, under Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, the greatest power that was ever united in one person fell into the hands of most extravagant and execrable men. Horrors were enacted which have hardly been surpassed by the monsters of the Mongol dynasties. In that fatal list of monarchs, one is reduced to apologizing for a Tiberius, who only attained thorough detestableness towards the close of his life; and for a Claudius, who was only eccentric, blundering, and badly advised. Rome became a school of vice and cruelty. It should be added that the vice came, in a great degree, from the East, from those parasites of low rank and those infamous men whom Egypt and Syria sent to Rome,[17.2]and who, profiting by the oppression of the true Romans, succeeded in attaining great influence over the wretches who governed. The most disgusting ignominies of the empire, such as the apotheosis of the emperors and their deification during life, came from the East, and particularly from Egypt, which was at that period one of the most corrupt countries on the face of the earth.[17.3]
However, the veritable Roman nature still survived, and nobility of soul was far from extinct. The lofty traditions of pride and virtue, which were preserved in a few families, attained the imperial throne with Nerva, and gave its splendor to the age of the Antonines, of which Tacitus is the elegant historian. An age in which such true and noble natures as those of Quintilian, Tacitus, and Pliny the Younger were produced, need not be wholly despaired of. The corruption of the surface did not extend to the great mass of seriousness and honor which existed in the better Roman society, and many examples are yet preserved of devotion to order, duty, peace, and solid integrity. There were in the noble houses admirable wives and sisters.[17.4]Wasthere ever a more touching fate than that of the young and chaste Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, and wife of Nero, remaining pure in the midst of infamy, and slain at twenty-two years of age, without having known a single joy? The epithets “castissimæ,univiræ,” are not at all rare in the inscriptions.[17.5]Some wives accompanied their husbands into exile,[17.6]and others shared their noble deaths.[17.7]The ancient Roman simplicity was not lost. The children were soberly and carefully brought up. The most noble ladies worked with their own hands at woollen fabrics,[17.8]and the excesses of the toilet were almost unknown in the higher families.[17.9]
The excellent statesmen who, so to speak, sprang from the earth under Trajan, were not improvised. They had served in preceding reigns; but they had enjoyed but little influence, and had been cast into the shade by the freedmen and favorite slaves of the Emperor. Thus we find men of the first ability occupying high posts under Nero. The framework was good. The accession of bad emperors, disastrous as it was, could not change at once the general tendency of affairs, and the principles of the government. The empire, far from being in its decay, was in the full strength of vigorous youth. Decay will come, but two centuries later; and, strange to say, under much more worthy monarchs. In its political phase, the situation was analogous to that of France, which, deprived by the Revolution of any established rule for the succession—has yet passed through so many perilous changes without greatly injuring its internal organization or its national strength. In its moral aspect, the period under consideration may be compared to the eighteenth century, an epoch entirely corrupt, if we form our judgment from the memoirs, manuscripts, literature, and anecdotes of the time, but in which, nevertheless, some families maintained the greatest austerity of morals.[17.10]
Philosophy joined hands with the better families of Rome, and resisted nobly. The Stoic school produced the lofty characters of Cremutius Cordus, Thraseas, Arria, Helvidius Priscus, Annæus Cornutus, and Musonius Rufus, admirable masters of aristocratic virtue. The rigidity and exaggeration of this school arose from the horrible cruelty of the Cæsars. The continual thought of a good man was how to inure himself to suffering, and prepare himself for death.[17.11]Lucan, in bad taste, and Persius with superior talent, both gave utterance to the loftiest sentiments of a great soul. Seneca the philosopher, Pliny the Elder, and Papirius Fabianus, kept up a high standard of science and philosophy. Every one did not yield; there were a few wise men left. Too often, however, they had no resource but death. The ignoble portions of humanity at times got the upper hand. Then madness and cruelty ruled the hour, and made of Rome a veritable hell.[17.12]
The government, although so fearfully unstable at Rome, was much better in the provinces. At a distance the shocks which agitated the capital were hardly felt. In spite of its defects, the Roman administration was far superior to the kingdoms and commonwealths it had supplanted. The time for sovereign municipalities had long gone by. Those little States had destroyed themselves by their egotism, their jealousies, and their ignorance or neglect of individual freedom. The ancient life of Greece, all struggle, all external, no longer satisfied any one. It had been glorious in its day, but that brilliant democratic Olympus of demi-gods had lost its freshness, and become dry, cold, unmeaning, vain, superficial, and lacking in both head and heart. Hence the success of the Macedonian rule, and afterwards ofthe Roman. The empire had not yet fallen into the error of excessive centralization. Until the time of Diocletian, the provinces and cities enjoyed much liberty. Kingdoms almost independent existed in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Lesser Armenia, and Thrace, under the protection of Rome. These kingdoms became factious after Caligula, only because the profound policy of Augustus concerning them was diverged from in succeeding reigns.[17.13]The numerous free cities were governed according to their own laws, and had the legislative power and magistracy of autonomic States. Until the third century their municipal decrees commenced with the formula, “The Senate and People of ——”.[17.14]The theatres were not simply places for scenic amusement, but were foci of opinion and discussion. Most of the towns were, in different ways, little commonwealths. The municipal spirit was very strong.[17.15]They had lost only the power to declare war, a fatal power which made the world a field of carnage. “The benefits conferred by Rome upon mankind,” were the theme of adulatory addresses everywhere, to which, however, it would be unjust to deny some sincerity.[17.16]The doctrine of “the Peace of Rome,”[17.17]the idea of a vast democracy organized under Roman protection, lay at the bottom of all political speculations.[17.18]A Greek rhetorician displays vast erudition in proving that Roman glory should be claimed by all the branches of the Hellenic race as a common patrimony.[17.19]In regard to Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt, we may say that the Roman conquest did not destroy any of their liberties. Those nations had either been already long dead to political life, or had never enjoyed it.
Finally, in spite of the extortions of governors and of the violence which is inseparable from despoticsway, the world had in many respects never been so well off. An administration coming from a remote centre was so great an advantage, that even the rapacious Prætors of the latter days of the Republic had failed to render it unpopular. The Julian law had also narrowed down the scope of abuses and peculations. The follies or cruelties of the emperor, except under Nero, reached only the Roman aristocracy and the immediate followers of the prince. Never had men who did not care to busy themselves about politics been able to live more at ease. The ancient republics, in which every one was compelled to take part in the factions, were very uncomfortable places of residence.[17.20]There was continually going on some disorganization or proscription. But under the empire the time seemed made expressly for great proselytisms which should overrule both the quarrels of neighborhoods and the rivalry of dynasties. Attacks on liberty were much more frequently owing to the remnants of the provincial or communal authority than to the Roman administration.[17.21]Of this truth we have had and shall have many occasions to take note.
For those of the conquered countries where political privileges had been unknown for ages, and which lost nothing but the right of destroying themselves by continual wars, the empire was such an era of prosperity and well-being as they had never before experienced; and we may add, without being paradoxical, that it was also for them an era of liberty.[17.22]On the one hand, a freedom of commerce and industry, of which the Grecian States had no conception, became possible. On the other hand, the newrégimecould not but be favorable to freedom of thought. This freedom is always greater under a monarchy than under the rule of jealous and narrow-minded citizens, and it was unknown in the ancient republics. The Greeks accomplished great things without it, thanks to the incomparable force of their genius; but we must not forget that Athens had a complete inquisition.[17.23]The Chief Inquisitor was represented by the archon, and the Holy Office by the royal portico whence issued the accusations of “impiety.” These were numerous, and it is in this kind of causes that we find the Attic orators most frequently engaged. Not only philosophic heresies, such as the denial of a God or of Providence, but the slightest infractions of the rules of municipal worship, the preaching of foreign religions, and the most puerile departures from the absurdly strict legislation concerning the mysteries, were crimes punishable by death. The gods at whom Aristophanes scoffed on the stage, could sometimes slay. They slew Socrates, and almost Alcibiades; and they persecuted Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Theodorus, Diagoras of Melos, Prodicus of Ceos, Stilpo, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Aspasia, and Euripides.[17.24]Liberty of thought was, in fact, the fruit of the kingdoms which arose out of the Macedonian conquests. An Attalus and a Ptolemy first allowed thethinker those liberties which none of the old republics had permitted. The Roman empire continued the same policy. There was, indeed, under the empire more than one arbitrary decree against the philosophers, but it was always called forth by their entering into political schemes.[17.25]We may search in vain the Roman law before Constantine for a single passage against freedom of thought; and the history of the imperial government furnishes no instance of a prosecution for entertaining an abstract doctrine. No scientific man was molested. Men like Galen, Lucan, and Plotinus, who would have gone to the stake in the Middle Age, lived tranquilly under the protection of the law. The empire inaugurated liberty in this respect; it extinguished the despotic sovereignty of the family, the town, and the tribe, and replaced or tempered it by that of the State. But despotic power is the more vexatious the narrower its sphere of action. The old republics and the Feudal system oppressed individuals much more than did the state. The empire at times persecuted Christianity most severely, but at least it did not arrest its progress.[17.26]Republics, however, would have overcome the new faith. Even Judaism would have smothered it, but for the pressure of Roman authority. The Roman magistrates were all that hindered the Pharisees from destroying Christianity at the outset.[17.27]
Expanded ideas of universal brotherhood and a sympathy with humanity at large, derived for the most part from the Stoic philosophy,[17.28]were the results of the broader system of authority and the less confined education which had now assumed control.[17.29]Mendreamed of a new era and of new worlds.[17.30]The public wealth was great, and notwithstanding the imperfect economic doctrines of the day, was considerably diffused. Morals were not what is often imagined. At Rome, it is true, every kind of vice paraded itself with revolting cynicism,[17.31]and the public shows in particular had introduced a frightful degree of corruption. Some countries, Egypt for example, had sounded the lowest depths of infamy. But in most of the provinces there was a middle class in which good-nature, conjugal fidelity, probity, and the domestic virtues, were generally practised.[17.32]Is there anywhere an ideal of domestic life among the honest citizens of small towns more charming than that presented to us by Plutarch? What kindness, what gentle manners, what chaste and amiable simplicity![17.33]Chæronea was evidently not the only place where life was so pure and innocent.
The popular tendencies were yet somewhat cruel even outside of Rome; perhaps as the remnant of antique manners, which were everywhere sanguinary, perhaps as the special effect of Roman severity. But a marked improvement in this respect was taking place. What pure or gentle sentiment, what impression of melancholy tenderness had not received its finest expression from the pens of Virgil and Tibullus? The world was losing its ancient rigidity and acquiring softness and sensibility. Maxims of common humanity became current,[17.34]and the Stoics earnestly taught the abstract notions of equality and the rights of man.[17.35]Woman, under the dotal system of Roman law, was becoming more and more her own mistress. The treatment of slaves was improving;[17.36]Seneca admitted his to his own table.[17.37]The slave was no longer that grotesque and malignant creature which Latin comedy introduced to excite laughter, and which Cato recommended to be treated as a beast of burden.[17.38]The times had changed. The slave was now morally equal to his master, and was admitted to be capable of virtue, fidelity, and devotion, of which he had given abundant proofs.[17.39]Prejudices of birth were becoming effaced.[17.40]Many just and humane laws were enacted, even under the worst emperors.[17.41]Tiberius was a skilful financier, and established upon an excellent basis a system of public credit.[17.42]Nero introduced into the taxation, which had previously been unequal and barbarous, some improvements which throw discredit even on our own times.[17.43]The progress of the theory of legislation was also considerable, although the death-penalty was still absurdly general. Charity to the poor, and sympathy for all, became virtues.[17.44]
The theatre was a most insupportable scandal to decent citizens, and one of the chief causes which excited the antipathy of Jews and Judaized people of every kind against the profane civilization of the age. To their eyes, those vast inclosures were giganticcloacæin which all the vices were collected. While the lower benches applauded, in the upper were often displayed disgust and horror. The gladiatorial spectacles established themselves with difficulty in the provinces. At least the Hellenic provinces repelled them, and generally adhered to the ancient Grecian games.[17.45]Bloody sports always retained in the East distinct marks of Roman origin.[17.46]
The Athenians having one day debated the introduction of these barbarous sports in imitation of Corinth,[17.47]a philosopher arose and moved that they should firstraze to the ground the altar of Pity.[17.48]Thus it happened that one of the most profound sentiments of the primitive Christians, and one, too, which produced the most extended results, was detestation of the theatre, the stadium, the gymnasium; that is to say, of all the public resorts which gave its distinctive character to a Grecian or Roman city. Ancient civilization was a public civilization. Its affairs were transacted in the open air in presence of the assembled citizens. It was the inversion of our system, in which life is private, and is inclosed within the walls of our dwellings. The theatre was the offspring of theagoraand theforum. The anathema against the theatre rebounded against society in general. A bitter rivalry grew up between the Church and the public games. The slave, driven away from the latter, betook himself to the former. I have never seated myself in those melancholy arenas, which are always the best-preserved relics of an ancient city, without seeing in imagination the struggle of the two systems. Here, the honest and humble citizen, already half a Christian, sitting in the first row, covering his face and going away ashamed; there, the philosopher, rising suddenly and openly reproaching the assemblage with its baseness.[17.49]These examples were rare in the first century, but the protest was beginning to make itself heard,[17.50]and the theatre was receiving more and more reprobation.[17.51]
The laws and administrative regulations of the empire were as yet a veritable chaos. Central despotism, municipal and provincial franchises, administrative caprice and the self-will of commonalties, jostled each other in the strangest manner. But religious liberty was a gainer by these conflicts. The complete unityof administration, which was established at about the time of Trajan, proved much more fatal to the rising faith than the irregular, careless, and poorly-policed system of the Cæsars.
Institutions of public charity, founded on the doctrine that the State owes paternal duties to its subjects, were not much developed until after the reigns of Nerva and Trajan.[17.52]A few traces of them, however, are found in the first century.[17.53]There were already charities for children,[17.54]distributions of food to the poor, fixed rates for the sale of bread with indemnity provided for the tradesmen, precautions in regard to supply of provisions, assurance against pirates, and orders enabling persons to buy grain at reduced prices.[17.55]All the emperors, without exception, manifested the greatest solicitude on these topics, which may indeed be called subordinate, but which at certain times rule everything else. In remote antiquity there was not much need of public charity. The world was young and strong, and required no hospital. The good and simple Homeric morality, according to which the guest and the beggar are sent by Jove, is the morality of strong and cheerful youth.[17.56]Greece, in her classic age, enounced the most touching maxims of pity and benevolence, without connecting with them any conception of sadness or social misfortune.[17.57]Man was yet at that epoch healthy and happy; how could he look forward and provide against evil days!
But in respect to institutions for mutual assistance, the Greeks were far in advance of the Romans.[17.58]Not a solitary liberal or benevolent arrangement was everdevised by that cruel aristocracy which, as long as the republic endured, wielded such an oppressive authority.
At the epoch we are now considering, the colossal fortunes and luxury of the nobility, the vast agglomerations of people at certain points, and above all the peculiar and implacable hard-heartedness of the Romans, had caused the rise of pauperism.[17.59]The indulgence of some of the emperors to the Roman mob had aggravated this evil. The public distributions of corn encouraged idleness and vice, and provided no remedy for misery. In this, as in many other things, the Oriental world was superior. The Jews possessed real institutions of charity. The Egyptian temples seem to have sometimes had a fund for the poor.[17.60]The male and female colleges of the Serapeum at Memphis were also to some extent charitable establishments.[17.61]The terrible crisis through which humanity was passing in the capital was scarcely perceived in distant provinces where the mode of life remained simple. The reproach of having poisoned the whole earth, the likening of Rome to a harlot who had made the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication, was in many respects just.[17.62]The provinces were better than Rome; or more properly, the impure elements which gathered together from all quarters into the metropolis, made her a sink of iniquity, in which the old Roman virtues were smothered, and the good seed brought from elsewhere grew with difficulty.
The intellectual condition of the different parts of the empire was quite unsatisfactory. In this respect there had been a real decline. High mental culture is not as independent of political circumstances as is private morality. Besides, the progress of high mental culture and that of morality are not exactly parallel. Marcus Aurelius was certainly a better man than all the old Greek philosophers. Yet his positive notions in regard to the realities of the universe were inferior to those of Aristotle and Epicurus; for he believed at times in dreams and omens, and in the gods as complete and distinct personalities. The world was then undergoing a moral improvement and an intellectual decline. From Tiberius to Nerva this decline is very perceptible. The Greek genius, with a force, originality, and copiousness which have never been equalled, had in the course of several centuries created the rational encyclopædia, the normal discipline of the mind. This wonderful movement commenced with Thales, and the earliest Ionian schools (600 years before Christ), and was stopped about B.C. 120. The last survivors of these five centuries of intellectual progress, Apollonius of Perga, Eratosthenes, Aristarchus, Hero, Archimedes, Hipparchus, Chrysippus, Carneades, and Panetius, had departed, leaving no successors. Only Posidonius and a few astronomers kept up the ancient reputation of Alexandria, Rhodes, and Pergamus. Greece, however fertile in creative genius, had not extracted from her science and philosophy any system of popular instruction or remedy against superstition. Possessing admirable scientific institutes, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece herself were at the same time given over to the most senseless credulity. But if science does not succeed in getting the upper hand over superstition, superstition will extinguish science. Between these two opposing forces, the combat is to the death.
Italy, while adopting Greek science, had for a time inspired it with a new sentiment. Lucretius had furnished the model of the great philosophic poem, at once a hymn and a blasphemy, by turns imparting serenity and despair, and imbued with that profound view of human destiny which was always wanting in the Greeks, who, childlike as they were, took life so gaily that they never dreamed of cursing the Gods, or of accusing nature of injustice and treachery towards man. Graver thoughts occurred to the Latin philosophers. But Rome as well as Greece failed to make science the basis of popular education. While Cicero, with exquisite taste, was transferring into a polished form the ideas he borrowed from the Greeks; while Lucretius was composing his wonderful poem; while Horace was avowing his frank infidelity in the ear of Augustus, who expressed no surprise; while Ovid, one of the most pleasing poets of the time, was treating venerable traditions after the manner of an elegant free-thinker; and while the great Stoics were developing the practical results of Greek philosophy, the silliest chimeras met with full credence, and the belief in the marvellous was unbounded. Never were people more ready for prophecies and prodigies.[17.63]The eclectic deism of Cicero,[17.64]perfected by Seneca,[17.65]remained the creed of a few cultivated minds, but exercised no influence on the age.
Down to Vespasian, the empire had nothing which can be called public instruction.[17.66]What it afterwards possessed was confined to a few dry grammatical exercises, and the general decline became rather accelerated than retarded. The last days of the republic and the reign of Augustus, witnessed one of the most brilliantliterary epochs that has ever occurred. But after the death of the great emperor, the decline may as properly be called sudden as rapid. The intelligent and cultivated society in which had moved Cicero, Atticus, Cæsar, Mæcenas, Agrippa, and Pollio, had vanished like a dream. Doubtless enlightened men remained; men familiar with the learning of their day, and occupying high positions, such as Lucilius, Pliny, Gallio, and the Senecas, with the literary circle which gathered around them. The body of Roman law, which is codified philosophy, which is Greek rationalism reduced to practice, continued its majestic growth. The noble Roman families had preserved a basis of purer religion and a horror of what they called “superstition.”[17.67]The geographers, Strabo and Pomponius Mela; the physician and encyclopædist, Celsus; the botanist, Dioscorides; the jurist, Sempronius Proculus—were able and liberal men. But these were exceptions; leaving out a few thousand enlightened persons, the world was immersed in profound ignorance of the laws of nature.[17.68]Credulity was a universal malady.[17.69]Literary culture was dwindling into a mere rhetorical shell, which contained no kernel. The essentially moral and practical turn which philosophy had taken, banished profound speculation. Human knowledge, if we except geography, made no advances. The schooled and lettered amateur replaced the creative and original student. Here was felt the fatal influence of the great defect in Roman character. That race, so mighty to command, was secondary in genius. The most cultivated Romans, Lucretius, Vitruvius, Celsus, Pliny, Seneca, were, so far as regards positive knowledge, the pupils of the Greeks. Too often, indeed, it was second-rate Greeklearning which they reproduced in a second-rate style.[17.70]Rome never possessed a great scientific school. Charlatanism reigned there almost supreme. Finally the Latin literature, which certainly displayed some admirable qualities, flourished during only a brief period, and never made its way beyond the occidental world.[17.71]
Greece fortunately continued faithful to her genius. The prodigious splendor of Roman power had dazzled and stunned, but not annihilated it. In fifty years more we shall find her reconquering the world, giving again her laws to thought, and sharing the throne of the Antonines. But at this period Greece herself was passing through one of her intervals of lassitude. Genius was scarce, and original science inferior to what it had been in preceding ages, and to what it would be in the following. The Alexandrian school, which had been declining for nearly two centuries, but still at Cæsar’s era could furnish a Sosigenes, was now dumb.
The space from the death of Augustus to the accession of Trajan must, then, be classed as a period of temporary degradation for the human intellect. The ancient world had by no means uttered its last word, but the bitter trials through which it was passing took from it both voice and courage. When brighter days return, and genius shall be delivered from the terrible sway of the Cæsars, she will take heart again. Epictetus, Plutarch, Dionysius the golden-mouthed, Quintilian, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Juvenal, Rufus of Ephesus, Aretæus, Galen, Ptolemy, Hypsicles, Theon, and Lucan, will renew the palmy days of Greece; not that inimitable Greece which existed but once for the simultaneous delight and despair of all who love the beautiful, but aGreece still fruitful and abounding, which will mingle her own gifts with the Roman genius, and produce works of novelty and originality yet able to charm the world.
The general taste was bad. Great Greek writers were wanting; and the Latin writers extant, except the satirist Persius, are of an ordinary type. Excessive declamation spoiled everything. The rule by which the public judged intellectual productions was nearly the same as it is now. Only brilliancy was looked for. Language ceased to be the simple vestment of thought, deriving all its elegance from its perfect adaptation to the idea sought to be expressed. Language began to be cultivated for its own sake. The aim of an author in his writings was to display his own talent. The excellence of a recitation or public reading was measured by the number of passages which excited applause. The cardinal principle that in art everything should serve as ornament, but that anything inserted expressly as ornament is bad, was entirely forgotten. It was a very literary period, as they say. Hardly anything was talked of but eloquence and style; and after all, nearly everybody wrote incorrectly, and there was not a solitary orator. The true orator and writer are not those who make speaking or writing their trade. At the theatre, the principal actor absorbed attention, and dramas were suppressed in order that brilliant passages might be recited. The literary fashion of the day was a sillydilettantism, a foolish vanity which led everybody to affect talent, and which did not stop short of the imperial throne. Hence extreme insipidity and interminable “Theseids,” or dramas written to be read in literary circles; and hence a dreary desert of poeticalcommonplace, which can be compared only to the epics and classic tragedies of sixty years ago.
Stoicism itself could not escape this disease, or at least it did not before Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius succeeded in clothing its doctrines in an elegant vesture. What strange productions are those tragedies of Seneca, in which the loftiest sentiments are expressed in the most wearisome style of literary quackery! indices at once of moral advancement and of an irremediable decline of taste. We are compelled to say the same of Lucan. The tension of mind which resulted naturally from the eminently tragic character of the epoch, gave rise to a species of inflation, in which state the only anxiety was to win applause by brilliant sentences. Something analogous to this happened amongst us during the Revolution; and the most terrible crisis which ever existed produced scarcely anything but a schoolmaster’s literature, crammed with declamation. We must not, however, stop at this point. New ideas are sometimes expressed with much ostentation. The style of Seneca is sober, simple, and pure, in comparison with that of St. Augustine. But we forgive the latter his detestable style and insipid conceits, in return for his noble sentiments.
At all events this cultivation, which was in many respects noble and superior, did not extend to the people. This would have been a minor deprivation, if the people had had at least some religious nourishment, something similar to that which the Church provides for the lowest grades of modern society. But religion was at a very low ebb in all parts of the empire. The wise policy of Rome had left unmolestedthe ancient forms of worship, prohibiting only those observances which were inhuman,[17.72]seditious, or injurious to others.[17.73]She had spread over them all a sort of official varnish, which gave them some general resemblance, and blended them, good and bad, together. Unfortunately these old creeds, though very diverse in origin, had one common characteristic. It was equally impossible for any and all of them to provide theological instruction, applied morality, edifying preaching, or a pastoral ministry productive of good among the people. The pagan temple was never what the synagogue and the Church were in their best days—that is, a common home, school, inn, hospital, and refuge for the poor.[17.74]It was only a chilly cell which the people seldom entered, and where they never learned anything.
The Roman worship was perhaps the least objectionable of those which were yet practised. In it, purity of soul and body was considered a part of religion.[17.75]By its gravity, its decency, and its austerity, this form of worship, leaving out a few extravagances similar to our Carnival, was far superior to the grotesque and sometimes absurd ceremonies which were secretly introduced by those seized with the mania for Oriental customs. Still, the affectation with which the Roman patricians distinguished “religion”—that is, their own rites—from those of foreigners, which they called “superstition,” cannot but appear to us puerile enough.[17.76]All the pagan forms of worship were essentially superstitious. The peasant who, in modern times, drops his penny into the contribution-box of a holy chapel, who invokes his saint in behalf of his oxen or his horses, or who drinks certain waters to cure certain diseases, is so far forth a pagan.Nearly all our superstitions are the remains of a religion anterior to Christianity, and which it has not yet succeeded in completely rooting out. If one would find at this day the image of paganism, he may seek it in some secluded village lying hid in the recesses of some unfrequented province.
The heathen religions, having no guardians but the varying traditions of the people and a few greedy sacristans, could not fail to degenerate into adulation.[17.77]Augustus, although with some reserve, permitted worship of himself in some of the provinces during his lifetime.[17.78]Tiberius allowed the decision in his own presence, of the ignoble competition of the cities of Asia, which disputed among themselves the honor of building a temple to him.[17.79]The extravagant impieties of Caligula produced no reaction.[17.80]Outside of Judaism there did not seem to be a single priest manly enough to resist such follies. Sprung for the most part from a primitive worship of the forces of nature, transformed over and over again by mixtures of all sorts, and by popular imagination, the pagan religions were confined by their antecedents. They could not afford what they never contained—the idea of real divinity, or popular instruction. The fathers of the Church occasion a smile when they animadvert upon the misdeeds of Saturn as a father, and of Jupiter as a husband. But it was certainly much more absurd to erect Jupiter (i.e.the atmosphere) into a moral divinity, who commanded, forbade, rewarded, and punished. In a state of society which was aspiring to possess a catechism, what could be done with a worship like that of Venus, which arose out of a social necessity of the earlyPhœnician navigation in the Mediterranean sea, but became in time an outrage on what was becoming more and more regarded as the essence of religion.
On every side, in fact, an energetic tendency was manifested towards a monotheistic religion, which should provide divine command as a foundation of morality. There occurs in this manner a crisis when the naturalistic religions have become reduced to mere childishness and the grimaces of jugglers, and can no longer answer the wants of society. Then humanity requires a moral and philosophical religion. Buddhism and Zoroasterism responded to this requirement in India and Persia. Orphism and the Mysteries had attempted the same thing in the Grecian world without achieving a lasting success. At the period we are considering, the problem presented itself to the entire world with solemn universality and imposing grandeur.
Greece, it is true, formed an exception in this respect. Hellenism was much less worn out than the other religions of the empire. Plutarch, in his little Bœotian town, lived in the practice of Hellenism—tranquil, happy, and contented as a child, and with a religious conscience entirely undisturbed. In him we see no trace of a crisis; of distraction, uneasiness, or fear of impending revolution. But it was only the Greek mind which was capable of such childlike serenity. Always pleased with herself, proud of her past and of that brilliant mythology, all of whose sacred places lay within her borders, Greece did not participate in the internal disquiet of the world. She alone did not invite Christianity; she alone would have preferred to do without it, and she alone made pretensions of doing better.[17.81]This was the result of the everlasting youthfulness, patriotic feeling, and unconquerable gaiety which always marked the genuine son of Hellas, and which to this day render the Greek a stranger to the profound anxieties which prey upon us. Hellenism was thus in a condition to attempt arenaissance, which no other religion existing at the time could hope for. In the second, third, and fourth centuries of our era, Hellenism had formed itself into an organized system of religion, by means of a welding, as it were, of the old mythology and the Grecian philosophy; and what with its miracle-working sages, its old writers elevated to the ranks of prophets, and its legends about Pythagoras and Apollonius, set up a competition with Christianity, which, though it ultimately failed, was yet one of the most dangerous obstacles that the religion of Jesus found in its way.
This attempt had not yet been made in the time of the Cæsars. The first philosophers who endeavored to bring about the alliance between philosophy and paganism, were Euphrates of Tyre, Apollonius of Tyana, and Plutarch, at the close of the century. Euphrates of Tyre is but little known to us. Legend has so completely disguised the plot of the real life of Apollonius, that it is impossible to say whether he should be considered the founder of a religion, a sage, or a charlatan. As to Plutarch, he was not so much an original thinker and innovator as a moderate reformer, who wished to bring the world to one mind by rendering philosophy a little timid and religion at least one-half rational. He has nothing of the character of Porphyry or Julian.
The attempts of the Stoics at allegorical exegesis werevery feeble.[17.82]Mysteries like those of Bacchus, in which the immortality of the soul was taught through graceful symbols,[17.83]were confined to certain localities and had no extended influence. Disbelief in the official religion was general in the enlightened class.[17.84]Those public men who made the greatest pretension of upholding it, expended their wit upon it freely in moments of leisure.[17.85]The immoral doctrine was openly propounded, that the religious fables were only of use in governing the people, and ought to be maintained for that purpose.[17.86]The precaution was useless, for the faith of the people themselves was shaken to the foundation.[17.87]
After the accession of Tiberius, a religious reaction was perceptible. It would seem that society was shocked at the avowed infidelity of the Augustan age. The way was prepared for the unlucky attempt of Julian, and all the superstitions were reinstated for reasons of state-policy.[17.88]Valerius Maximus affords the first example of a writer of low rank coming to the relief of cornered theologians; of a dirty, venal pen put to the service of religion.
But the foreign rites profited the most by this reaction. The serious movement in favor of the rehabilitation of the Greco-Roman worship did not develop itself until the second century. At first, the classes troubled by religious misgivings were attracted towards the Oriental forms.[17.89]Isis and Serapis were more in favor than ever.[17.90]Impostors of all sorts thaumaturgists and magicians, profited by the popular mood, and, as ordinarily takes place when the state-religion is enfeebled, swarmed on every side.[17.91]We need only refer to the real or fictitious systems of Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander of Abonoticus, Perigrinus, and Simon of Gitto.[17.92]Even these errors and chimeræ were the cry of a world in labor; were the fruitless essays of human society in search of the truth, and sometimes in its convulsive efforts unearthing monstrous deformities destined to speedy oblivion.
On the whole, the middle of the first century was one of the worst epochs of ancient history. Grecian and Roman society had declined from its former condition, and was far behind the ages which were to follow. The greatness of the crisis revealed a strange and secret process going on. Life seemed to have lost its motives; suicide became common.[17.93]Never had an age presented so dire a struggle between good and evil. The powers of evil were a terrible despotism which delivered the world to the hands of monsters and madmen, corruption of morals arising from the importation of Oriental vices, and the want of a pure religion and decent public instruction. The powers of good were on the one side, philosophy fighting with bared breast against tyranny, defying the monsters of oppression, and three or four times proscribed in half a century (under Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian);[17.94]on the other side, the struggles of popular virtue, the legitimate longings for a better religion, the tendency towards confraternities and monotheistic creeds, and the recognition of the lower classes which occurred chiefly under cover of Judaism and Christianity. These two great protests were far from being accordant. The philosophic party and the Christian party were not acquainted with each other, and had so little perception of their common interest that when the philosophers came into power by the accession of Nerva, they were far from being favorable to Christianity. In truth, the aim of the Christians was much more radical. The Stoics, when they became masters of the empire, reformed it, and presided over a hundred of the happiest years in the history of man. The Christians, when they became masters of the empire, ended by destroying it. The heroism of the latter ought not to make us unmindful of that of the former. Christianity was always unjust towards pagan virtues, and made it her business to decry the very men who had fought against the same common enemy. There was as much grandeur in the struggle of philosophy in the first century as in that of Christianity; but how unequal has been the recompense. The martyr who overturned idols with his foot lives in pious legend. Why are not the statues of Annæus Cornutus, who declared in presence of Nero that the emperor’s writings would never be worth those of Chrysippus[17.95]—of Helvidius Priscus, who told Vespasian to his face, “It is thine to murder—it is mine to die!”—[17.96]of Demetrius the Cynic, who answered an enraged Nero, “You may menace me with death; but nature threatens you”[17.97]—placed amongst those of the world’s heroes whom all love and to whom every one pays homage? Is humanity so strong in her battle with vice and depravity, that any school of virtue can repel the aid of others, and maintain that itself alone has the right to be brave, lofty, and resigned?
During the first century of the Christian era, the empire, while manifesting more or less hostility to the religious innovations which were imported from the East, did not declare open war against them. The doctrine of a state-religion was not clearly defined or vigorously upheld. At different epochs under the republic, foreign rites had been proscribed, especially those of Sabazius, Isis, and Serapis.[18.1]But those mysterious systems presented such irresistible attractions to the common people, that the proscription proved unavailing.[18.2]
When (A. U. C. 535) the demolition of the temple of Isis and Serapis was decreed, not a workman could be found to commence it, and the consul himself had to set the example by breaking down the doors with an axe.[18.3]It is evident that the Latin creed was no longer satisfying to the masses; and we may suppose with good reason that it was for the purpose of gratifying the popular instincts that the rites of Isis and Serapis were reëstablished by Cæsar.[18.4]
That great man, with the profound and liberal intuition which characterized him, had shown himself favorable to entire freedom of conscience.[18.5]Augustus was more attached to the national religion.[18.6]He had an antipathy to the Oriental creeds,[18.7]and prohibited thespread of even the Egyptian rites in Italy;[18.8]but he allowed every system, and the Jewish in particular, to enjoy freedom and supremacy in its own country.[18.9]He exempted the Jews from all observances conflicting with their conscience, especially from civil duties on the Sabbath.[18.10]Some of his officers manifested a less tolerant spirit, and would willingly have prevailed on him to become a persecutor in the interest of the Latin form of worship;[18.11]but he does not appear to have yielded to their mischievous counsel. Josephus, whom we may, however, suspect of some exaggeration, declares that Augustus even went so far as to present a gift of consecrated vases to the service of the temple at Jerusalem.[18.12]
Tiberius Cæsar was the first of the emperors who definitely adopted the principle of a state-religion, and who enforced strict precautions against the Jewish and Oriental propaganda.[18.13]It must be borne in mind that the emperor was also “Pontifex Maximus,” and that in protecting the ancient Roman worship he was performing an official duty. Caligula revoked the Tiberian edicts,[18.14]but his supervening lunacy prevented any further results. Claudius seems to have carried out the Augustan policy. At Rome he strengthened the Latin ceremonies, showed considerable dislike to the advance of foreign religions,[18.15]enforced rigorous measures against the Jews,[18.16]and implacably persecuted the religious confraternities.[18.17]In Judea, on the contrary, he treated the natives of the country liberally.[18.18]The favor enjoyed at Rome by the family of Agrippa under the two reigns just mentioned, secured to their co-religionists a powerful protection in all cases not coming within the regulations of the Roman police.
The emperor Nero troubled himself but little about religion.[18.19]His cruelties towards the Christians were the mere outcrops of his natural ferocity, not the results of legislative policy.[18.20]The instances of persecution cited in the Roman annals of this period emanated rather from the authority of the family than from that of the Government,[18.21]and happened only in some noble houses of Rome, where the ancient traditions of domestic rule had been preserved.[18.22]The provinces were entirely free to adhere to their own rites, on the sole condition of not interfering with those of others.[18.23]Provincials residing at Rome were allowed the same privileges so long as they avoided anything which occasioned public scandal.[18.24]The only two religions against which the empire made war in the first century, were Druidism and Judaism; and each of these was, in truth, a fortress wherein was entrenched a distinct and turbulent nationality. Most men were convinced that the profession of Judaism implied hatred of the civil institutions of the empire and indifference to the welfare of the state.[18.25]When Judaism assumed the condition of a mere individual or private system of religious belief, it was not persecuted.[18.26]The rigorous measures which were put in force against the worship of Serapis, were perhaps suggested by the monotheistic character[18.27]which caused it sometimes to be confounded in public estimation with the Jewish and the Christian religions.[18.28]
It appears, then, that no established legislation prohibited in the apostolic age the profession of monotheistic creeds.[18.29]The sectaries were always undersurveillancedown to the accession of the Syrian emperors; but it wasnot until Trajan’s time that they were systematically persecuted, as being intolerant and hostile towards other sects, and as impliedly denying the authority of the state. In a word, the only phase of religious belief against which the Roman empire declared war was theocracy. Its own principle was that of a purely secular organization. It did not admit that religion could have any civil or political connexions or consequences. Above all it would not admit of any association within the state and independent of the state. This point it is essential to remember. It was in truth the root from which sprang all the persecutions. The law concerning the confraternities was in a much greater degree than religious intolerance, the fatal cause of the cruelties which disgraced the reigns of the most liberal emperors.
The Greeks had led the way for the Romans, as well in matters relating to private associations as in all other results of thought and refinement. The Greek ηρανοι or θιασοι of Athens, Rhodes, and the Islands of the Archipelago were useful societies for mutual assistance in the way of loans, fire assurance, common religious observances, and harmless amusement.[18.30]Each society had its rules carved on astela, its archives, its common fund, provided by both voluntary contributions and assessments. The members met together to celebrate the festivals and to hold banquets, where cordiality reigned supreme.[18.31]A brother needing money could borrow from the treasury. Women were admitted into these associations, and had a president for themselves. The meetings were held in secret, and under strict rules for the preservation of order. They took place, it seems, in inclosed gardens, surrounded by porticoes or small buildings, andin the centre was erected an altar for the sacrifices.[18.32]Each association had its officers,[18.33]selected by lot for one year, according to the usage of the ancient Greek democracies, and from which the Christian “clergy” may have derived its name.[18.34]The presiding officer only was elected by vote. These officers passed the candidate through a kind of examination, and were required to certify that he was “holy, pious, and good.”[18.35]
There occurred in the two or three centuries which preceded the Christian era, a movement in favor of these little religious clubs, almost as marked as that which in the middle age produced so many religious orders and subdivisions of orders. In the island of Rhodes alone there is record of nineteen, many of which bore the names of their founders, or reformers.[18.36]Some of them, particularly those ofBacchus, inculcated lofty doctrines, and sought in good faith to administer consolation to man.[18.37]If there yet remained in Greek society a little charity, piety, or good morals, it was due to the existence and freedom of these private devotional assemblies. They acted as it were concurrently with the public and official religion, the neglect of which was becoming more and more apparent day by day. At Rome associations of this nature met with more opposition, and found no less favor among the poorer classes.[18.38]The rules of Roman policy in regard to secret confraternities were first promulgated under the republic (B.C. 186) in the case of the Bacchanals. The Romans were by natural taste much inclined to associations,[18.39]and in particular to those of a religious character;[18.40]but these permanent congregations were displeasing to the patrician order, who controlled the municipal power,[18.41]and whose narrowconceptions of life admitted no other social group besides the family and the State. The most minute precautions were taken, such as the requirement of a preliminary authorization, the limiting of the number of members, and the prohibition against having a permanentMagister sacrorum, and a common fund raised by subscription.[18.42]The same anxiety was manifested on several occasions under the empire. The body of public law contained clauses authorizing all kinds of repression;[18.43]but it depended on the administrative power whether they should be enforced or not, and the proscribed religions often reappeared in a very few years after their proscription.[18.44]Foreign immigration, especially from Syria, unceasingly renewed the soil in which flourished the creeds so vainly doomed to extirpation.
It is astonishing to observe to what an extent a subject, seemingly so unimportant, occupied the greatest minds of that age. It was one of the chief tasks of Cæsar and Augustus to prevent the formation of new clubs, and to destroy those already established.[18.45]A decree published under Augustus attempts to define positively the limits of the right of association, and whose limits were extremely narrow. The clubs (collegia) were to be merely for the purpose of celebrating funeral rites. They were permitted to meet no oftener than once a month; they were to attend only to the obsequies of deceased members, and under no pretext could they obtain an extension of their privileges.[18.46]The Empire resolved on performing the impossible. In logical sequence to its exaggerated notion of the state, it attempted to isolate the individual, to destroy every moral bond of fellowship among men, and to combat that legitimate longingof the poor to press closer together in some little refuge, as it were to keep each other warm. In ancient Greece the “city” was tyrannical, but it offered in exchange for its oppression so much amusement, enlightenment, and glory, that none thought of complaining. The citizen submitted quietly to its wildest caprices, and went to death for it with rapture. But the Roman empire was too vast to be one’s country. It offered to every one great material advantages, but it gave no one anything to love. The insupportable melancholy of such a life appeared worse than death.
Accordingly, in spite of the efforts of statesmen, the confraternities multiplied immensely. They were precisely analogous to our confraternities of the middle age, with their patron saint and their common refectory. The great families might centre their pride in their ancient name, their country, and their traditions; but the humble and the poor had nothing but thecollegium, and there they fastened all their affections. The text of the law shows us that all these clubs were composed of slaves,[18.47]veterans,[18.48]or obscure persons.[18.49]Within their precincts the free-born man, the freedman, and the slave, were equal.[18.50]They contained also many women.[18.51]At the risk of innumerable taunts and annoyances, and sometimes of severer penalties, men persisted in entering thecollegium, where they lived in the bonds of a pleasant brotherhood, where they found mutual succor in time of need, and where they contracted obligations which endured even after death.[18.52]
The place of meeting usually had atetrastyle(portico with four fronts), where were set up the rules of the club near the altar of its protecting divinity, andwhere stood atricliniumfor the repasts.[18.53]These repasts indeed were looked forward to with impatience; they took place on the day sacred to the patron divinity, or on the birthdays of members who had contributed endowments.[18.54]Every one brought his little portion; one of the brotherhood furnished in turn the accessories of the feast, such as couches, table-furniture, bread, wine, sardines, and hot water.[18.55]A slave, newly emancipated, owed his comrades anamphoraof good wine.[18.56]A quiet air of enjoyment animated the repast; it was a positive rule that none of the business of the society should be discussed, in order that nothing might disturb the brief interval of enjoyment and repose which these poor souls were thus providing for themselves.[18.57]Every violent act or rude remark was punished by a fine.[18.58]