The Caesars | Page 4

Asia Minor, in
Egypt,--every where the members of this empire had begun to knit; the
cohesion was far closer, the development of their resources more
complete; the resistance therefore by many hundred degrees more
formidable: consequently, by the fairest inference, the power in that
proportion greater which laid the foundations of this last great
monarchy. It is probable, indeed, both _à priori_, and upon the
evidence of various facts which have survived, that each of the four
great empires successively triumphed over an antagonist, barbarous in
comparison of itself, and each by and through that very superiority in
the arts and policy of civilization.
Rome, therefore, which came last in the succession, and swallowed up
the three great powers that had seriatim cast the human race into one
mould, and had brought them under the unity of a single will, entered
by inheritance upon all that its predecessors in that career had
appropriated, but in a condition of far ampler development. Estimated
merely by longitude and latitude, the territory of the Roman empire was
the finest by much that has ever fallen under a single sceptre. Amongst
modern empires, doubtless, the Spanish of the sixteenth century, and
the British of the present, cannot but be admired as prodigious growths
out of so small a stem. In that view they will be endless monuments in
attestation of the marvels which are lodged in civilization. But
considered in and for itself, and with no reference to the proportion of
the creating forces, each of these empires has the great defect of being
disjointed, and even insusceptible of perfect union. It is in fact no
vinculum of social organization which held them together, but the ideal
vinculum of a common fealty, and of submission to the same sceptre.
This is not like the tie of manners, operative even where it is not
perceived, but like the distinctions of geography--existing to-day,
forgotten to-morrow--and abolished by a stroke of the pen, or a trick of
diplomacy. Russia, again, a mighty empire, as respects the simple
grandeur of magnitude, builds her power upon sterility. She has it in
her power to seduce an invading foe into vast circles of starvation, of
which the radii measure a thousand leagues. Frost and snow are
confederates of her strength. She is strong by her very weakness. But
Rome laid a belt about the Mediterranean of a thousand miles in

breadth; and within that zone she comprehended not only all the great
cities of the ancient world, but so perfectly did she lay the garden of the
world in every climate, and for every mode of natural wealth, within
her own ring-fence, that since that era no land, no part and parcel of the
Roman empire, has ever risen into strength and opulence, except where
unusual artificial industry has availed to counteract the tendencies of
nature. So entirely had Rome engrossed whatsoever was rich by the
mere bounty of native endowment.
Vast, therefore, unexampled, immeasurable, was the basis of natural
power upon which the Roman throne reposed. The military force which
put Rome in possession of this inordinate power, was certainly in some
respects artificial; but the power itself was natural, and not subject to
the ebbs and flows which attend the commercial empires of our days,
(for all are in part commercial.) The depression, the reverses, of Rome,
were confined to one shape--famine; a terrific shape, doubtless, but one
which levies its penalty of suffering, not by elaborate processes that do
not exhaust their total cycle in less than long periods of years.
Fortunately for those who survive, no arrears of misery are allowed by
this scourge of ancient days; [Footnote: "Of ancient days."--For it is
remarkable, and it serves to mark an indubitable progress of mankind,
that, before the Christian era, famines were of frequent occurrence in
countries the most civilized; afterwards they became rare, and latterly
have entirely altered their character into occasional dearths.] the total
penalty is paid down at once. As respected the hand of man, Rome
slept for ages in absolute security. She could suffer only by the wrath of
Providence; and, so long as she continued to be Rome, for many a
generation she only of all the monarchies has feared no mortal hand
[Footnote: Unless that hand were her own armed against herself; upon
which topic there is a burst of noble eloquence in one of the ancient
Panegyrici, when haranguing the Emperor Theodosius: "Thou, Rome!
that, having once suffered by the madness of Cinna, and of the cruel
Marius raging from banishment, and of Sylla, that won his wreath of
prosperity from thy disasters, and of Cæsar, compassionate to the dead,
didst shudder at every blast of the trumpet filled by the breath of civil
commotion,--thou, that, besides the wreck of thy