Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul | Page 5

against Queen Candace, and a loose suzerainty was claimed over her kingdom, but the Roman frontier still stopped short at Elephantine. Over the territories of the semi-Greek semi-Scythian settlements to the north of the Black Sea Rome exercised a protectorate, which was for obvious reasons not unwelcome to those concerned. Along or near the eastern frontier she well understood the policy of the "buffer state," and, within her own borders in those parts, was ready to make tools of petty kings, whose own ambitions would both assist her against external foes and relieve her of administrative trouble.
At no time did the Roman Empire possess so natural or scientific a frontier as at this, when it was bounded by the Rhine, the Danube, the Black Sea, the Euphrates, the Desert, and the Atlantic. The only exception, it will be perceived, was in Britain, but the Roman idea there also was to annex the whole island, a feat which was never accomplished. Two generations after our chosen date Rome had conquered as far as the Firths of Clyde and Forth; it had crossed the Southern Rhine, and annexed the south-west corner of Germany, approximately from Cologne to Ratisbon; it had passed the Danube, and secured and settled Dacia, which is roughly the modern Roumania; and it had pushed its power somewhat further into the East. But it had not thereby increased either its strength or its stability.
At the period then with which we are to deal, the Roman Empire included the countries now known as Holland, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, the southern half of the Austrian Empire, Greece, Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, Egypt, Tripoli and Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, and also the southern two-thirds of England. Within these borders there prevailed that greatest blessing of the Roman rule, the _pax Romana_, or "Roman peace." Whatever defects may be found in the Roman administration, on whatever abstract grounds the existence of such an empire may be impugned, it cannot be questioned that for at least two centuries the whole of this vast region enjoyed a general reign of peace and security such as it never knew before and has never known since. That peace meant also social and industrial prosperity and development. It meant an immense increase in settled population and in manufactures, and an immense advance--particularly in the West--in civilised manners and intellectual interests.
Peoples and tribes which had been at perpetual war among themselves or with some neighbour were reduced to quietude. Communities which had been liable to sudden invasion and to all manner of arbitrary changes in their conditions of life, in their burdens of taxation, and even in their personal freedom, now knew exactly where they stood, and, for the most part, perceived that they stood in a much more tolerable and a distinctly more assured position than before. If there must sometimes be it would be the Roman tyrant, and he, as we shall find, affected them but little. All irresponsible local tyrannies, whether of kings or parties, were abolished.
On the high seas within the empire you might voyage with no fear whatever of pirates. If you looked for pirates you must look beyond the Roman sphere to the Indian Ocean. There might also be a few to be found in the Black Sea. On the high road you might travel from Jerusalem to Rome, and from Rome to Cologne or Cadiz, with no fear of any enemy except such banditti and footpads as the central or local government could not always manage to put down. On the whole there was nearly everywhere a clear recognition of the advantages conferred by the empire.
It is quite true that during these two centuries we meet with frequent trouble on the borders and with one or two local revolts of more or less strength. At our chosen date the Jews were being stirred by their fanatical or "zealot" party into an almost hopeless insurrection; within two years the rebellion broke out. Three years later still, certain ambitious semi-Romans took advantage of a troubled time to make a determined but futile effort to form a Gaulish or German-Gaulish empire of their own. Half a century after Nero the Jews once again rose, but were speedily suppressed. But apart from these abortive efforts--made, one by a unique form of religious zeal, one by adventurous ambition, at opposite extremities of the Roman world--there was established a general, and in most cases a willing, acceptance of the situation and a proper recognition of its benefits.
The only serious war to be feared within the empire itself was a civil war, begun by some aspiring leader when his chance seemed strong of ousting the existing emperor or of succeeding to his throne. Four years from the date at which we have placed ourselves such