The Old Roman World | Page 3

in breadth, embracing the whole temperate
zone, from the Atlantic Ocean to the wilds of Scythia. The Romans
revel in the spoils of the nations they have conquered, adorn their
capital with the wonders of Grecian art, and abandon themselves to
pleasure and money-making. The Roman grandees divide among
themselves the lands and riches of the world, and this dwelling-place of
princes looms up the proud centre of mundane glory and power.
In the great success of the Romans, we notice not only their own heroic
qualities, but the hopeless degeneracy of the older nations and the
reckless turbulence of the western barbarians, both of whom needed
masters.

The conquered world must be governed. The Romans had a genius for
administration as well as for war. While war was reduced to a science,
government became an art. Seven hundred years of war and
administration gave experience and skill, and the wisdom thus learned
became a legacy to future civilizations.
It was well, both for enervated orientals and wild barbarians, to be
ruled by such iron masters. The nations at last enjoyed peace and
prosperity, and Christianity was born and spread. A new power silently
arose, which was destined to change government, and science, and all
the relations of social life, and lay a foundation for a new and more
glorious structure of society than what Paganism could possibly create.
We see the hand of Providence in all these mighty changes, and it is
equally august in overruling the glories and the shame of a vast empire
for the ultimate good of the human race.
If we more minutely examine the history of either Republican or
Imperial Rome, we read lessons of great significance. In the Republic
we see a constant war of classes and interests,--plebeians arrayed
against patricians; the poor opposed to the rich; the struggle between
capital and labor, between an aristocracy and democracy. Although the
favored classes on the whole retained ascendancy, yet the people
constantly gained privileges, and at last were enabled, by throwing their
influence into the hands of demagogues, to overturn the constitution.
Julius Caesar, the greatest name in ancient history, himself a patrician,
by courting the people triumphed over the aristocratical oligarchy and
introduced a new regime. His dictatorship was the consummation of the
victories of the people over nobles as signally as the submission of all
classes to fortunate and unscrupulous generals. We err, however, in
supposing that the Republic was ever a democracy, as we understand
the term, or as it was understood in Athens. Power was always in the
hands of senators, nobles, and rich men, as it still is in England, and
was in Venice. Popular liberty was a name, and democratic institutions
were feeble and shackled. The citizen-noble was free, not the
proletarian. The latter had the redress of laws, but only such as the
former gave. How exclusive must have been an aristocracy when the
Claudian family boasted that, for five hundred years, it had never
received any one into it by adoption, and when the Emperor Nero was
the first who received its privileges! It is with the senatorial families,

who contrived to retain all the great offices of the state, that everything
interesting in the history of Republican Rome is identified,--whether
political quarrels, or private feuds, or legislation, or the control of
armies, or the improvements of the city, or the government of
provinces. It was they, as senators, governors, consuls, generals,
quaestors, who gave the people baths, theatres, and temples. They
headed factions as well as armies. They were the state.
The main object to which the reigning classes gave their attention was
war,--the extension of the empire. "_Ubi castra, ibi respublica_."
Republican Rome was a camp, controlled by aristocratic generals.
Dominion and conquest were their great ideas, their aim, their ambition.
To these were sacrificed pleasure, gain, ease, luxury, learning, and art.
And when they had conquered they sought to rule, and they knew how
to rule. Aside from conquest and government there is nothing
peculiarly impressive in Roman history, except the struggles of
political leaders and the war of classes.
But in these there is wonderful fascination. The mythic period under
kings; the contests with Latins, Etruscans, Volscians, Samnites, and
Gauls; the legends of Porsenna, of Cincinnatus, of Coriolanus, of
Virginia; the heroism of Camillus, of Fabius, of Decius, of Scipio; the
great struggle with Pyrrhus and Hannibal; the wars with Carthage,
Macedonia, and Asia Minor; the rivalries between patrician and
plebeian families; the rise of tribunes; the Maenian, Hortensian, and
Agrarian laws; the noble efforts of the Gracchi; the censorship of Cato;
the civil wars of Marius and Sulla, and their exploits, followed by the
still greater conquests of Pompey and Julius; these, and other feats of
heroism and strength, are full of interest