CHAPTER III.
SCIENCE.
Weare told by Livy that, soon after his disappearance from among men, the spirit of Romulus revisited the distinguished senator, Proculus Julius, and addressed him as follows: "Go, tell my countrymen it is the decree of heaven, that the city I have founded shall become the mistress of the world. Let her cultivate assiduously the military art. Then let her be assured, and transmit the assurance from age to age, that no mortal power can resist the arms of Rome." Strict and persevering obedience to this counsel eventually caused that colossal power to extend itself from Siberia to the Great Desert, and from the Ganges to the Atlantic. But it would be in vain to look to such a people, actuated by martial ambition only, for the general and successful cultivation of science. Regal, republican, and imperial Rome, was undoubtedly a perfect model of a predatory state, but the last to excel in refined and erudite thought.
The old Romans were much attached to agriculture, as a general pursuit. It was only at a late period that commerce, literature, art, and science, were introduced among them, and then only in a subordinate place. Among the Greeks, most proper names, and almost all the most distinguished, were derived from gods and heroes, and bore a significancy both poetical and glorious. Among the Romans, on the contrary, the names of many of their most distinguished families, such as Fabius, Lentulus, Piso, Cicero, and many others, were taken from vegetable productions, and the occupations of agriculture. Others, as Secundus, Quintus, Septimus, and Octavius, are derived from the numbers of the old popular reckoning. But mathematics never flourished with that people, while agriculture was a science in which they first and chiefly excelled. It wasone of the very few departments in which Rome produced original writers. The language and science of conquered peoples were generally despised as barbarian, but renderings into the Latin were sometimes made, as when the writings of the Punic Mago upon agriculture were translated at the command of the senate of Rome.
The Etruscan race were early subject to the Grecian influence, through a current of Tyrrhenian Pelasgi, and they continued the westward development of science thence received, by penetrating the north of Italy, and across the Alps. The influence which they exerted upon the political character and scientific progress of the ancient Romans, was very great. The impression which the latter left upon universal civilization, vastly extended the scope of thought, but very much of it grew out of a particular element in primitive Etruscan character. This consisted in their close intimacy with natural phenomena. Many of their most sagacious minds were organized into a college, who gave themselves to divination and the observation of meteorological occurrences. The Fulgatores, or interpreters of the lightning, occupied themselves with the direction of the electric fluid, and with turning it aside, or drawing it down. An account is given by Father Angelo Cortenovis, perhaps fabulous, that the tomb of Lars Porsena, described by Varro, was furnished with a brazen helmet, and a brazen chain appended, which formed a collector of atmospheric electricity, or a conductor of lightning. If such was the fact, or, as Michaelis believed, the metallic points upon Solomon's temple were for the like purpose, they must have been formed at a time when mankind possessed the remnants of an ante-historical knowledge of natural philosophy, which was speedily beclouded to be unfolded under fairer auspices. That the connection between lightning and conducting metals was early discovered, is clear from the notice taken of it by Ctesias. He said, "He has two iron swords in his possession, presents from the king (Artaxerxes Mnemon) and his mother (Parysatis); these swords, if planted in the earth, turned aside clouds, hail, and lightning. He has himself seen their effect; for the king had made the experiment twice before his eyes." Humboldt says, "The close attention paid by the Tuscans to the meteorological processes of the atmosphere, and to every thing which varied from the ordinary course of nature, makes it certainly a subject of regretthat none of the lightning-books have come down to us. The epochs of the appearance of great comets, or the fall of meteoric stones, and the crowds of falling stars, were, without doubt, as clearly laid down in them, as in the more ancient Chinese annals used by Edward Biot." Creuzer, in his Symbols and Mythology of the Ancient Nations, has attempted to show that the peculiarity of the country in Etruria produced the characteristic direction of the mind of its inhabitants. There is a strong analogy between the power over lightning, attributed to Prometheus, and the wonderful pretended attraction of the lightning of the Fulgatores. But there was no science in the operation, which consisted in exorcising only, and possessed nothing more effective or practical than the carved ass's head, by means of which, according to their religious customs, they defended themselves during a thunder-storm. Otfried Mūller states that, according to the complex Etrurian theory of Auguries, the soft, warming lightning, which Jupiter sent down, by his own authority and power, was distinguished from the more violent electrical mode of castigation, which, according to the constitution of the heavens, he only dared send down after a previous consultation with all the twelve gods. Lightning from the higher cloud-region they carefully distinguished from those flashes which Saturn caused to arise from below, and which they called terrestrial lightning, a distinction much more intelligently discriminated by modern science. After an imperfect but continuous mode, complete registers of the daily condition of the weather were established.
The Aquileges, those who were specially skilled in drawing forth springs of water and examining its properties, originated a somewhat critical investigation of geological phenomena, such as the strata of rocks and the inequalities of earth-formations. Diodorus extols the Tuscan race as a people addicted to the study of nature. They were undoubtedly, in their day, the most efficient promoters of physical knowledge, and laid the foundation of science for the Augustan age.
The knowledge of a great part of the surface of the eastern world was first attained by the conquests made by Alexander. These occurred at a time when the Grecian language and philosophy were so widely spread, that scientific observation and the systematic arrangement of general phenomena, could be rendered most lucidto the mind, and most profitable to the world. By another most providential coincidence, at the moment when an immense store of new materials was thus gathered for study and use, the great Stagirite was at hand to direct inquiry into the facts of natural history, with a comprehensive sagacity never before known. Having explored every possible depth of speculative investigation, and spread out all realms in a map of practical improvement, bounded and defined by definite scientific language, he gave the immense treasure to the West, then just prepared for the donation. Anterior to the Augustan age, science had accumulated many materials, but could hardly be said to exhibit a growing body of determinate results. The Alexandrian school opened on the eastern edge of a new cycle, whose unfolding was manifestly one of great advancement. It was among the Romans that the idea of progressive science was first conceived and declared as a law. Pliny would not despair of seeing proficiency perpetually increased. Seneca, also, felt assured that the time would come when what was now dark would be luminous, and that which is now most admired would be entirely eclipsed by infinitely more resplendent discoveries. Such hopeful sentiments show a confidence of the increase of knowledge, which was not expressed in earlier times. It is especially to be observed that this anticipation, both in Pliny and Seneca, was prompted by the discoveries at that time made in astronomy; which, as Whewell remarks, was "the only progressive science produced by the ancient world." At a later period, Ovid, in the chorus to his Medea, expressed a like confidence in regard to maritime discovery. But the prospect of scientific progress was not connected with much, if any, general improvement of mankind, even in the estimation of those who entertained the fondest expectations. It must, therefore, have afforded some consolation to those who lived when the old world was decomposing, and when its heart, mind and soul, all bore tokens of a great and radical change, to gaze on any bright gleams which science revealed through the clouds of the future.
The Ptolemies, by their love for the sciences, their splendid establishments for promoting intellectual development, and their unwearied endeavors to extend the advantages of commerce, gave an impulse to the study of nature and the knowledge of geography,such as had not existed in any preceding nation. Even before the first Punic war had shaken the power of Carthage, Alexandria had become the greatest emporium of trade and thought in the world. When martial force had laid the broad foundations of empire far down the track of national destinies, Egypt became a province, and all its immensely valuable attainments in science were transferred to the Romans. As the companions of Alexander had become acquainted with the monsoon winds, which render such powerful assistance in voyages between the east coast of Africa and the west coast of Asia, so the Cæsars, in due time and order, were put in possession of means by which they might compass the western shores of Europe. Thus greater portions of the globe have become accessible, the nations have been drawn together more closely, and the sphere of human knowledge has been progressively enlarged. This direction of Greek thought, which was productive of such grand results, and had been so long in a quiet state of preparation, was manifested in the noblest way at the era of transition from Pericles to Augustus. Its extension at the time of the Lagides may be considered as a very important step in the general knowledge of nature ultimately attained.
Before the appearance of Aristotle, the phenomena of nature had not been studied by the aid of acute observation, and for their interpretation they were surrendered to obscure guesses and arbitrary hypotheses. But in the new age which succeeded, much more careful attention to empirical analysis was manifested. Facts were sifted, and synthetical results obtained. The securer road of induction was opened, and speculations in natural philosophy assumed more and more the form and worth of practical knowledge. An ardent desire to study facts succeeded the power and passion to amass them, and a science was born of nobler aspect than a merely spiritless and empty erudition. The peculiar character of Ptolemean scholasticism preserved itself until near the fall of the western empire, and formed an all-prevailing element in Roman science. Much assistance was derived from the great collections originally in the museum at Alexandria, and the two libraries at Bruchium and at Rhacotis. Connected with the first was a large body of learned men, whose diversified talents and universal knowledge enabled them to generalize all the elements that had been agglomerated forthe advantage of a yet more critical age. The library of Bruchium was the oldest, and suffered at the burning of the fleet in the time of Julius Cæsar. The library of Rhacotis made a part of the Serapeum, where it was united to the museum. The collection of Pergamus was, by the generosity of Anthony, incorporated with the library of Rhacotis.
Doubtless the germ of all subsequent progress in the natural sciences was to be found in Plato's high regard for the development of a mathematical mode of thought, and in the system which Aristotle set forth respecting all organized beings. These were the guiding-stars which conducted all great masters of learning amid fanatical errors for many centuries, and prevented the utter loss of a scientific method. Step by step the progress went forward. Eratosthenes of Cyrene projected a systematic "Universal Geography;" and, outstripping the "System of Floodgates," by Strato of Lampsacus, followed the rush of waters through the Dardanelles, and went forth in thought beyond the Pillars of Hercules to attempt the solution of the problem concerning the similarity of the level of the ocean around all the continents. A corresponding illustration of the intellectual activity of the age appeared in the attempt to determine, by approximation, the circumference of the earth. The data arrived at by Bematist, were indeed incomplete; but the device to raise himself from the narrow segment of his native land, measure adjacent degrees, and finally obtain a knowledge of the size of the entire globe, is a striking index to the Augustan age.
But the splendid progress made in the scientific acquaintance with the celestial bodies at that time, is most worthy of note. Aristyllus and Timochares determined the position of fixed stars. Aristarchus of Samos, the cotemporary of Cleanthes, was acquainted with the ancient Pythagorean ideas, attempted to explore thoroughly the construction of the universe, and guessed at the double movement of the earth round its axis, as well as its progress round a central sun. Seleucus of Euthræ, a century later attempted to confirm the opinion of the Samian writer; and Hipparchus, the founder of scientific astronomy, became the greatest original observer of the stars in the whole of antiquity. He was the first author of astronomical tables, and the discoverer of the precession of the equinoxes. His own observations were made at Rhodes, and upon comparingthem with those of Timochares and Aristyllus, he was led to this great discovery. In the same hands, celestial phenomena were first employed to determine the geographical position of certain places. The new map of the world, constructed by Hipparchus, touched upon eclipses, and the measurement of shadows, for the determination of the geographical latitudes and longitudes. Improvements cluster, and a new aid of great value soon appeared, in the hydraulic clock of Ctesibius, which measured time much more accurately than the Clypsydra, or water-glasses, formerly in use. For a corresponding improvement in the determination of space, better instruments were invented from time to time, dating from the ancient sun-dial and the scaphæ to the discovery of the Astrolabes, the solstitial rings, and the dioptric lines. Wider views and keener organs were afforded to increased scientific skill, which gradually led to a closer acquaintance with the loftiest planetary movement. But the knowledge of the absolute size, form, and physical properties of these bodies, made no progress whatever, that being reserved as the leading glory of a posterior age.
The Augustan period, though it attained not to true astronomical science in the highest form, was yet remarkable in some departments of mathematics. Euclid, Appollonius of Perga, and Archimedes, were geometers of the highest class, who were intermediate between Plato and the Menæchmean figures and the age of Kepler and Tycho, Galileo and Laplace.
Archimedes was bornB.C.287, and is said to have been related by blood to Hiero, king of Syracuse. He was too late to associate with Euclid, but found a friend and genial companion in Conon, another distinguished mathematician of that age. In his researches Archimedes used "his beloved Doric dialect," and contributed much to the improvement of mathematical science. His first discoveries related to the area of the parabola, the surface and solidity of the sphere and cylinder, the properties of spheroids, and of that spiral which is called indifferently the spiral of Conon or of Archimedes. The speculations respecting the sphere and cylinder appear to have interested this great man the most, for he wished to have his grave marked by these solids, and was the first mathematician who caused his scientific discoveries to be inscribed on his tomb. Of his astronomical studies, none have reached ourtimes, excepting the method of determining the sun's apparent diameter. Cicero speaks of an orrery, as it would be called in modern times, made by Archimedes, and exhibiting the motion of the sun, the moon, and the planets; which he uses as an argument against those who deny a Providence. "Shall we," says he, "attribute more intelligence to Archimedes for making the imitation, than to nature for framing the original?"
Perhaps the most remarkable of his discoveries were those he made in mechanics, and their adaptation by him to practical use. The lever, the wheel and axle, the polyspact or pulley, the wedge, and the screw were known to him. He seems to have turned much of his attention to the construction of powerful machines, and boasted of the unlimited extent of his art in the well-known expression, "Give me a spot to stand on, and I will move the earth." He is said to have enabled Hiero, through a mechanical contrivance, to push a large ship into the sea, by his individual strength. His application was so intense that he required to be reminded of the common duties of eating and drinking by those about him; and while his servants were placing him in his bath, he would still continue drawing mathematical diagrams with any materials within his reach. "So that," according to Plutarch, "this abstraction made people say, and not unreasonably, that he was accompanied by an invisible siren, to whose song he was listening."
By his proficiency in the "Equilibrium of Bodies in Fluids," he detected the true weight of Hiero's crown, and exclaimed to the startled public, "I have found it! I have found it!" So greatly was his inventive power feared by the often repulsed Romans, that at last the appearance of a rope or a pole above the wall of a besieged city threw them into a panic, for fear of some new "infernal machine." His burning mirrors occasioned Lucian to say that Archimedes, by his mechanical skill, burnt the Roman ships. Galen refers to the same fact. Archimedes lent great aid in the final defense of his beloved Syracuse, but the fortune of Rome was overwhelming at last. It is said that Marcellus gave strict orders to preserve a person of whose genius he had seen such extraordinary proofs, but this was forgotten in the license of war. A ruthless soldier burst upon the venerable philosopher absorbed over adiagram, and smote him dead. Cicero, traveling in Sicily about a hundred and fifty years later, had great difficulty in finding his tomb. "I recollected," he says, "some verses which I had understood to be inscribed on his monument, which indicated that on the top of it there was a sphere and a cylinder. On looking over the burying-ground (for at the gate of the city the tombs are very numerous and crowded), I saw a small pillar just appearing above the brushwood, with a sphere and cylinder upon it, and immediately told those who were with me, who were the principal persons in Syracuse, that I believed that to be what I was seeking. Workmen were sent in with tools to clear and open the place, and when it was accessible, we went to the opposite side of the pedestal; there we found the inscription, with the latter portions of the lines worn away, so that about half of it was gone. And thus, one of the most illustrious cities of Greece, and one formerly of the most literary, would have remained ignorant of the monument of a citizen so distinguished for his talents, if they had not learnt it from a man of a small Samnite village."
When the dominion of the Romans supervened upon that of the Greeks, and bore all irresistibly to the West, much that was glorious appeared to be obscured, but nothing was lost. All the materials which flowed into the vast stream of Roman civilization, from the valley of the Nile, from Phœnicia, the Euphrates, and the Ilissus, arrived by ways and in times which infinite wisdom saw to be best, and from Octavius to Constantine were amalgamated, and thenceforth still further removed for the grandest use. From India to the Atlantic coast, from Libyan borders to Caledonian hills, not only was the greatest variety in the forms of earth, its organic productions and physical phenomena presented to general notice, but also the human race was seen in all the gradations of civilized and savage life. In the East, effete races existed still in the possession of ancient knowledge, and in the exercise of ancient arts; while in the West, over gathering hordes of energetic barbarians, the fresh dawn of a mightier life was beginning to rise. In the time of Ælius Gallius and Bulbus, distant scientific expeditions were undertaken; and under Augustus, a general survey of the entire empire was commenced by Zenodoxus and Polycletus. The same Grecian geometricians, or others under their direction, prepared itinerariesand special topographical accounts to be distributed among the rulers of the several provinces. They were the first statistical works undertaken in Europe. Roads were divided into miles, and extended to the remotest boundaries, so that Hadrian, in an uninterrupted journey which occupied eleven years, traveled with ease from the peninsula of Iberia to Judea, Egypt, and Mauritania. It might reasonably be expected that such a vast field, so diversified in climate and productions, and which might with so much facility be explored by state officers and their retinues of learned men, would have produced numerous proficients in science. On the contrary, during the four centuries, when the Romans held undivided sway over the known world, Dioscorides the Cilician, and Galenus of Pergamus, were the only natural philosophers. The first made some approach to botanical science, and increased the number of species of plants, which had been described. And it was at this time that Galen, by the care of his dissections, and the extent of physiological researches, has been declared worthy of being placed near to Aristotle, and generally above him. Ptolemæus, whom we before mentioned as a systematic astronomer and geographer, is a third bright name to be added to the experimental philosophers Dioscorides and Galen. He measured the refraction of light, and was the first founder of an important part of optics. All these distinguished masters of such science as existed among the Romans were Greeks, as we have before seen was the case with the prime leaders in the departments of literature and art.
As the soldiers of Alexander of Macedon brought home the jungle-fowl of India, and domesticated it in Europe; so the agents of Providence, acting in the realms of science, gathered up and transmitted just such elements as their successors would most need. As soon as mineral acids could be obtained, chemistry first began, a powerful means of decomposing matter; therewith the distillation of sea-water, described by Alexander of Aphrodisias in the time of Caracalla, became an invention of great importance. The new solvent was variously applied, and the scientific mind gradually became acquainted with the compound nature of matter, its chemical constituents, and their mutual affinities.
Anatomical knowledge also improved under Roman teachers. Marinus, and Rufus of Ephesus, dissected monkeys, and distinguishedbetween the nerves of motion and the nerves of sense. Ælian of Præneste wrote a history of animals, and Oppianus of Cilicia, a poem upon fishes. These contained some accurate descriptions, but few facts founded upon their own examination, or worthy of a standard work on natural history. Great numbers of elephants, elks, ostriches, crocodiles, panthers, tigers, and lions, were slaughtered in the Roman amphitheatre during four centuries, but without any result save that of a brutal enjoyment. In that great metropolis there was no academy of science, and no general interest in a high range of intellectual pursuits. Antonius Castor, the Roman physician, was the only citizen who is reported to have had a botanical garden, probably made to imitate those of Theophrastus and Mithridates, but of no more practical use to science than was the collection of fossil bones made by the emperor Augustus, in the museum of natural curiosities. Galen, the only anatomist of true scientific method, flourished under the Antonines, and died aboutA.D.203. He was originally from Pergamus, but went early to Alexandria, where he perfected his professional skill, and then removed to Rome, the scene of his great trials and triumphs. His superiority excited the jealous hatred of the metropolitan physicians; but the reputation he had earned was superior to their malice. Galen regarded his chief publication as "a religious hymn in honor of the Creator."
The noble undertaking of a "Description of the World," by Caius Plinius the Second, was doubtless the greatest contribution to general science made during the Augustan age. It comprised thirty-seven books, and was the first great Encyclopedia of Nature and Art. In all antiquity nothing had ever been attempted in like manner, and for many centuries it remained perfectly unique. In its dedication to Titus, the author appropriately applied to his work a Greek expression which signifies the abstract and compendium of universal knowledge and science.
The "Historia Naturalis" of Pliny includes a description of the heavens and the earth; the position and course of the celestial bodies, the meteoric phenomena of the atmosphere, the form of the earth's surface, and everything relating to its productions, from the plants and the mollusca of the ocean up to the human race. According to Humboldt, all these subjects were treated of and applied,in the most varied way, and brought forth the noblest fruit of descriptive genius. The elements of general knowledge were copiously employed in this great work, but without strict order in the arrangement. "The road over which I am about to travel," says Pliny, with a noble pride, "has been hitherto untrodden; no one of our nation, or of the Greeks, has alone undertaken to treat of the entire subject, namely Nature. If my enterprise does not succeed, it is, nevertheless, a fine and grand thing to have attempted it." The intelligent author attempted an immense picture, and did not entirely succeed; but the want of success depended principally upon a want of capacity to make the description of nature subordinate to scientific generalizations, and in view of the comprehensive laws of creation. Eratosthenes and Strabo had referred, not only to a description of mountains, but to an account of the entire earth; of their investigations, however, Pliny made but very little use. Not more did he profit by Aristotle's work on the anatomical history of animals. As overseer of the fleet in lower Italy, and as governor of Spain, he had but little time for extended research in natural science, and was often compelled to commit the execution of large portions of his designs to inferior hands.
Pliny the younger, in his letters, characterizes the work of his uncle truly "as a learned book, full of matter, not less manifold in its subjects than nature herself is." There are many things in Pliny which are generally objected to as unnecessary and foreign to his subject, but that most competent critic, Alexander Von Humboldt, is disposed to speak of the general result in terms of praise. "It appears to me to be particularly gratifying, that he so frequently, and always with so much pleasure, alludes to the influence exerted by nature upon the moral and intellectual development of man. His plan of connecting the subject is seldom well chosen. For example, the account of mineral and vegetable matter leads him to a fragment from the history of sculpture; a fragment which has been of almost more importance for the present condition of our knowledge than anything referring to descriptive natural history which can be extracted from the work." Pliny evidently had a feeling for art, but he seldom betrayed an artistic feeling in the forms of his scientific disquisition. His data came from books rather than from nature direct, and a sombre hue invested all hewrote. As Aristotle had garnered all anterior wealth in the same department, and passed it over to the Romans, so Pliny, in turn, gathered up later accumulations, and transmitted the grand aggregate to the middle ages. Providence always has the man ready for the needful task.
That the ancients made some powerful applications of the lens is evident from the account given by Lucian and Galen, that Archimedes burned the Roman fleet at the siege of Syracuse, by means of glasses,B.C.212. But neither the Greeks nor Romans have left us any account of the lens being applied to increase the stores of discovery in natural science. The only authentic records we have respecting the microscope, or its still more powerful correlative, belong to that age of scientific invention for the advent of which the Augustan age was appointed to prepare.
Lucullus and Pompeius, by their eastern victories, made the Romans acquainted with Greek science and philosophy; the consequence of which was that many accomplished teachers streamed from those erudite regions to traffic their superior knowledge for Roman wealth. The latter really enjoyed nothing disconnected with the tumultuous excitement of war, even in the brief intervals of general peace. A master-passion for the sensations of battle morbidly existed in every breast, and yearned for gratification in the combats of gladiators, or the yet wilder brutality of the circus. The cruel and ostentatious spectacles which arose with the conquests of the republic, were continued with enhanced extravagance under the empire, fostered by the wealth, excitement, and corruption, which those conquests had introduced. There was no affinity of soul for refined and tranquil pleasure in the Romans; so that, if the legitimate drama was attempted, the admiring mob felt the keenest delight on viewing a mimic procession, or could interrupt the plot by vociferous exclamations for novelties of a yet more exciting and degrading kind. Civilization advanced perpetually, but from the period of culmination under Augustus, as before under Pericles, each step of progress was marked by its decline. As the palaces were enlarged, they were filled by impoverished dependents. Scipio, Metellus, and others, form courts around themselves, wherein the arts and sciences are taught by slaves, while the streets resound with the exulting shouts of those who conduct thousandsof captives to bondage or death. The great become greater, and the little become less; until the exhausted empire succumbs to barbarians, and a superseded civilization disappears from earth.
The elder Gracchus, that truly noble Roman, attempted first to enlarge the number of landed proprietors, and then to fortify them with the energy of self-respect, through the dignity of free toil. The extension of an enlightened yeomanry, happily employed in the avocations of scientific agriculture, was the ambition of his life, and the occasion of his martyr-death. The republican tribune fell under patrician clubs, and not in vain was his corpse dragged through the streets, and thrown into the Tiber. Says Bancroft, "The deluded nobles raised the full chorus of victory and joy. They believed that the Senate had routed the people; but it was the avenging spirit of slavery that had struck the first deadly wound into the bosom of Rome. When a funeral pyre was kindled to the manes of Tiberius Gracchus, the retributive Nemesis lighted the torch, which, though it burned secretly for a while, at last kindled the furies of social war, and involved the civilized world in the conflagration."
The first outbreak of righteous indignation was in the West, and thence the war-cry of freedom spread far and wide. From the plains of Lombardy, it reached the fields of Campania, and was echoed beyond the Apennines. A fit leader sprang to the head of outraged thousands, and pointed to the Alps, telling them that beyond those dazzling heights was a home and a hope for the free. But in vain. To grace the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, a combat of ten thousand gladiators, and eleven thousand wild beasts, was offered to the metropolitans. Spartacus, and six thousand of his rebelling associates were crucified, thus lining the road from Capua to the Capitol with monuments of Roman refinement and power.
Julius Cæsar, in the capacity of quæstor, came to Gades (Cadiz), in further Spain, and, not far from the temple of Hercules, beheld the statue of Alexander the Great. Then and there, in that remotest West, he was quickened by the most daring resolution, and immediately returned to Rome, fired with the purpose which soon after leaped the Rubicon and won the world. History records that he caused one important practical application to be made of astronomicalscience, in the correction of the calendar; this was due to the Alexandrian school, and was executed by the astronomer Sosigenes, who came from Egypt to Rome for the purpose. Thus was that age bounded by divine purpose and human ambition; Cæsar finding his motive to martial conquest on the same remote boundary where Pliny conceived the design of encyclopædic science. Moreover, the sagacious warrior found in the mode of arming and fighting there an improvement which he, with the greatest advantage, introduced into his own army. It was principally to his German auxiliaries, and the more effective mode of warfare he had learned from them, that he believed himself indebted for victory at Pharsalia, the crowning battle of his fortunes. Augustus formed his body-guard out of westerners only, and all succeeding emperors sought more and more to enlist Germans in their armies. The great scale of human destiny ever weighs heaviest in the West.
But jurisprudence was that department of science in which the Romans thought with most originality, and have exerted the greatest benefit. In that they were most at home, and from necessity as well as temperament, they cultivated their legal system with great care. It had its foundation in their elder jurisprudence, in which ultra-democratic principles prevailed; afterward the written code of the primitive period was a good deal modified, and greatly enlarged. Cæsar had formed the project of a general digest of Roman laws; but this great design, like many other kindred ones, fell in his violent death. Under Augustus, however, great lawyers of opposite schools, arose to mature a system of scientific jurisprudence which has exerted the mightiest influence on after ages. The people who outraged every principle of private rights, social justice, and public law, were the very nation who most accurately defined the laws they had themselves violated. The frequency and extent of colossal wrongs in that age necessitated a corresponding distinctness and majesty in the proclamation of rights. The Romans were distinguished for a sound judgment, and strong practical sense, qualities which eminently fitted them to mold the forms, and establish the titles connected with that equity which should every where preside over the relations of civil life. In this department of science alone, the help which they derived from Greece was very slight. The mere framework, so far as the laws of the twelvetables are concerned, came to them from Athens; but the grand edifice was completed by their own hands, a source and model which has affected the legal systems of the whole civilized world. The Scævolæ, M. Manilius, and M. Junius Brutus, were eminent legalists of the earlier period. Ælius Gallus, prefect of Egypt under Augustus, and the friend of Strabo the geographer, also his namesake, C. Aquilius Gallus, were distinguished at a later date. The latter was the most erudite lawyer, previous to the brilliant days of Cicero, and was the greatest reformer of his profession. Nor does it appear that he was lacking in fees, since we are told by Pliny that he owned and occupied a splendid palace on the Viminal hill. He served the office of prætor in company with Cicero,B.C.67, and both before and after that he often sat as judge. It was before him that Cicero defended both Cæcina and Cluentius.
The Forum still awes the visitor, and affects strong minds the strongliest, because therein Rome was the law-giver of nations, whence oracles of justice emanated that still are the guides of civil life. The deep and comprehensive thinker will thrill under the power of an invisible divinity, as he looks down upon the narrow scene whereon transpired the entire history of the stupendous empire, from Romulus to Constantine. By the councils of statesmen, meditations of philosophers, and enthusiasm of orators, the history of mankind, not only then but through all time, was projected, rehearsed, and confirmed. On that spot dwelt a tremendous moral power, which, in moldering Rome, forecast the fate of the world.
But we are not to forget in this regard that in the dark recesses of the catacombs the torch of a brighter science has been kindled, which has already burned in beauty to the surface, and is spreading hope and life among the barbarous hordes who descend upon the exhausted East to destroy, but are destined to return laden with the richest blessings for the West. Even Trajan desired that the feeble and despised disciples of the Nazarene should be required to sacrifice to pagan gods, and to be punished if they refused. The same system was continued under Adrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius. But, under the command of the latter emperor, a legion wholly composed of Christians, insured, by its valor, a victory to the Roman army, and a new power was evidently gaining the ascendency.As a succeeding cycle draws near, the final struggles of the old grow spasmodic. FromA.D.302, to 311, in every part of the empire, martyr blood was shed in torrents; and soon after, Christianity, triumphant, ascended the throne of the Cæsars, with Constantine. From the middle of the second century, the new faith was contented with issuing the humblest forms of apology to its persecutors, and trimmed its lamp in meek seclusion, aided mainly by St. Justin, and Tertullian. But in the third century, Christian literature became more scientific. It was the beginning of theology, and the formal construction of dogmas. This work, like all other tides of progress, began in the remote East, and swept perpetually toward the West. Alexandria was the first great school, and Clement, Origen, and Cyprian, the leading masters. They with their associates and successors worked on silently, but successfully, in their aggressions against paganism, till they had laid the broad and solid basis of a mightier civilization to come.