The Old Roman World | Page 8

a general sense, pursued war as a trade, to gratify
a thirst for power, to raise themselves on the ruins of ancient
monarchies, to enrich themselves with the spoils of the world, and to
govern it for selfish purposes. There were many Roman wars which
were exceptions, when an exalted patriotism was the animating
principle; but aggressive war was the policy and shame of Rome. Her
citizens did not generally fight to preserve liberties or rights or national
existence, but for self-aggrandizement. Incessant campaigns for a
thousand years brought out military science, courage, energy, and a
grasping and selfish patriotism. They gave power, skill to rule,
executive talents; and these qualities, eminently adapted to worldly
greatness, made the Romans universal masters, even if they do not
make them interesting. They developed great strength, resource, will,
and even made them wise in administration, possibly great civilizers,
since centralized power is better than anarchies; yet these traits do not
make us love them, or revere them. Providence doubtless ordered the
universal monarchy, which only universal war could establish, for the
good of the world at that time, for the advancement of civilization itself.
Universal dominion must be succeeded by universal peace, and in such
a peace the higher qualities and virtues and talents can only be
manifested, so that the Roman rule was not a calamity, but a very
desirable despotism. Yet despotism it was,--cold, remorseless,
self-seeking. War made the Romans practical, calculating, overbearing,
proud, scornful, imperious.
[Sidenote: Success of the Romans in war.]
But war made them a great people, and made them eminent in certain
great qualities. Their success in war is tantamount to saying that in one
great field of genius, which civilization honors, they not merely
distinguished themselves, and gained a proud fame which will never
die out of the memory of man, but that they have had no equals in any
age. War enabled them to build up a vast empire, which empire gave a
great impulse to ancient civilization.

[Sidenote: Providence seen in the ascendency of great nations.]
There is something very singular and mysterious in the results of wars
which are caused and carried on by unprincipled and unscrupulous men.
They are made to end in substantial benefits to the human race. The
wrath of man, in other words, is made to praise God, showing that He
is the Sovereign ruler on this earth, and uses what instruments He
pleases to carry out his great and benevolent designs. However
atrocious the causes of wars, and execrable the spirit in which they are
carried out, they are ever made to subserve the benefit of future ages,
and the great cause of civilization in its vast connections. Men may be
guilty, and may be punished for their wickedness, and execrated
through all time by enlightened nations; still they are but tools of the
higher power. I do not say that God is the author of wars any more than
He is of sin; but wars are yet sent as a punishment to those whom they
directly and immediately affect, while they unbind the cords of slavery,
and relax the hold of tyrants. They are like storms in the natural world:
they create a healthier moral life, after the disasters are past. Those
ambitious men, who seek to add province to province and kingdom to
kingdom, and for whom no maledictions are too severe, since they shed
innocent blood, rarely succeed unless they quarrel with doomed nations
incapable of renovation. Thus Babylon fell before Cyrus when her day
had come, and she could do no more for civilization. Thus Persia, in
her turn, yielded to the Grecian heroes when she became enervated
with the luxuries of the conquered kingdoms. Thus Greece again
succumbed to Rome when she had degenerated into a land where every
vice was rampant. The passions which inflamed Cyrus, and Alexander,
and Pompey were alike imperious, and their policy was alike
unscrupulous. They simply were bent on conquest, and on establishing
powerful empires, which conquests doubtless resulted in the
improvement of the condition of mankind. There is also something
hard and forbidding in the policy of successful statesmen. We are
shocked at their injustice, cruelty, and rapaciousness; but they are often
used by Providence to raise nations to preeminence, when their
ascendency is, on the whole, a benefit to the world. There is nothing
amiable or benign in the characters of such men as Oxenstiern,
Richelieu, or Bismarck, but who can doubt the wisdom of their

administration? It is seldom that any nation is allowed to have a great
ascendency over other nations unless the general influence of the
dominant State is favorable to civilization; and when this influence is
perverted the ascendency passes away. This is remarkably seen in the
history of the Persian, the Greek,