Characters and Events of Roman History | Page 2

in detail in that part of my work yet to
be written.
I have said that not all history can be explained by economic forces and factors, but this
does not prevent me from regarding economic phenomena as also of high importance.
The seventh lecture, "Wine in Roman History," is an essay after the plan in accordance
with which, it seems to me, economic phenomena should be treated.
The last lecture deals with a subject that perhaps does not, properly speaking, belong to
Roman history, but upon which an historian of Rome ought to touch sooner or later; I
mean the rôle which Rome can still play in the education of the upper classes. It is a
subject important not only to the historian of Rome, but to all those who are interested in
the future of culture and civilisation. The more specialisation in technical labour
increases, the greater becomes the necessity of giving the superior classes a general
education, which can prepare specialists to understand each other and to act together in
all matters of common interest. To imagine a society composed exclusively of doctors,
engineers, chemists, merchants, manufacturers, is impossible. Every one must also be a
citizen and a man in sympathy with the common conscience. I have, therefore,
endeavoured to show in this eighth lecture what services Rome and its great intellectual
tradition can render to modern civilisation in the field of education.
These lectures naturally cannot do more than make known ideas in general form; it would
be too much to expect in them the precision of detail, the regard for method, and the use

of frequent notes, citations, and references to authorities or documents, that belong to my
larger work on Rome; but they are published partly because I consider it useful to
popularise Roman history, and partly because some of the pleasantest of memories attach
to them. Their origin, the course on Augustus given at the Collège de France, which
proved one of the happiest occasions of my life, and their development, leading to my
travels in the two Americas, have given me experiences of the greatest interest and
pleasure.
I am glad of the opportunity here to thank all those who have contributed to make the
sojourn of my wife and myself in the United States delightful. I must thank all my friends
at once; for to name each one separately, I should need, as a Latin poet says, "a hundred
mouths and a hundred tongues."
GUGLIELMO FERRERO.
TURIN, February 22, 1909.

CONTENTS
"CORRUPTION" IN ANCIENT ROME, AND ITS COUNTER
PART IN MODERN HISTORY ......... 1
THE HISTORY AND LEGEND OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA .............................
37 THE DEVELOPMENT OF GAUL ................. 69 NERO .................................... 101
JULIA AND TIBERIUS ...................... 143 WINE IN ROMAN HISTORY ...................
179 SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE .. 207 ROMAN HISTORY
IN MODERN EDUCATION ....... 239 INDEX ................................... 265

"Corruption" in Ancient Rome And Its Counterpart in Modern History
Two years ago in Paris, while giving a course of lectures on Augustus at the Collège de
France, I happened to say to an illustrious historian, a member of the French Academy,
who was complimenting me: "But I have not remade Roman history, as many admirers
think. On the contrary, it might be said, in a certain sense, that I have only returned to the
old way. I have retaken the point of view of Livy; like Livy, gathering the events of the
story of Rome around that phenomenon which the ancients called the 'corruption' of
customs--a novelty twenty centuries old!"
Spoken with a smile and in jest, these words nevertheless were more serious than the tone
in which they were uttered. All those who know Latin history and literature, even
superficially, remember with what insistence and with how many diverse modulations of
tone are reiterated the laments on the corruption of customs, on the luxury, the ambition,
the avarice, that invaded Rome after the Second Punic War. Sallust, Cicero, Livy, Horace,

Virgil, are full of affliction because Rome is destined to dissipate itself in an incurable
corruption; whence we see, then in Rome, as to-day in France, wealth, power, culture,
glory, draw in their train--grim but inseparable comrade!--a pessimism that times poorer,
cruder, more troubled, had not known. In the very moment in which the empire was
ordering itself, civil wars ended; in that solemn Pax Romana which was to have endured
so many ages, in the very moment in which the heart should have opened itself to hope
and to joy, Horace describes, in three fine, terrible verses, four successive generations,
each corrupting Rome, which grew ever the worse, ever the more perverse and
evil-disposed:
Aetas parentum, peior avis, tulit Nos nequiores, mox daturos Progeniem vitiosiorem.
"Our fathers were worse than our grandsires; we have deteriorated from