The Reign of Tiberius | Page 7

throne at the order of Napoleon. The nations of modern Europe were developed out of the ruin of Caesar's Empire; and from that, the more civilised among them have obtained the politer share of their laws, their institutions, and their language: and to Caesar, we are indebted for those inestimable treasures of antiquity, which the Roman Empire and the Roman Church have preserved from the barbarians, and have handed on for the delight and the instruction of modern times. There are those, who can perceive in Caesar nothing but a demagogue, and a tyrant; and in the regeneration of the Commonwealth, nothing but a vulgar crime: among these, I am sorry to inscribe the name of Thomas Gordon. The supporters of this view are generally misled, by the specious allurements of the term "Republic." Tiberius, it may be, was not a perfect ruler, and other sovereigns were even more ferocious; but the excesses of the most reckless Emperor are hardly to be compared to the wholesale massacres and spoliations, which attended the last agonies of the expiring Commonwealth. After the Macedonian and Asiatic wars, we find a turbulent and servile crowd, instead of the old families and tribes of Roman citizens; instead of allies, oppressed and plundered provinces; instead of the heroes of the young Republic, a set of worn-out, lewd, and greedy nobles. By these, the spoils of the world were appropriated, and its government abused: Caesar gave the helpless peoples a legal sovereign, and preserved them from the lawless tyranny of a thousand masters. He narrates himself, that "he found the Romans enslaved by a faction, and he restored their liberty:" "Caesar interpellat; ut Populum Romanum, paucorum factione oppressum, in libertatem vindicat." The march of Caesar into Italy was a triumphal progress; and there can be no doubt, that the common people received him gladly. Again he says, "Nihil esse Rempublicam; appellationem modo, sine corpore et specie;" "The Republic is nothing but an empty name, a phantom and a shadow." That Caesar should have seen this, is the highest evidence of his genius: that Cicero did not see it, is to himself, and to his country, the great misfortune of his career; and to his admirers, one of the most melancholy events in Roman history. The opinions of Tacitus were not far removed from the opinions of Cicero, but they were modified by what he saw of Nerva and of Trajan: he tells us, how Agricola looked forward to the blessings of a virtuous Prince; and his own thoughts and writings would have been other, than they are, had he witnessed the blameless monarchy of Hadrian and the Antonines. The victims of a bad Emperor were taken usually from among the nobles; many of them were little better, than their destroyer; and his murders were confined, almost invariably, within the walls of Rome: but the benefits of the Imperial system were extended into all the provinces; and the judgment-seat of Caesar was the protection of innumerable citizens. Many were the mistakes, many the misfortunes, deplorable the mischiefs, of the Imperial administration; I wish neither to deny, nor to conceal them: but here I must content myself with speaking broadly, with presenting a superficial view of things; and, upon the whole, the system of the Emperors was less bad than the decayed and inadequate government, out of which it was developed. For the change from the Republic to the Empire was hardly a revolution; and the venerable names and forms of the old organisation were religiously preserved. Still, the Consuls were elected, the Senate met and legislated, Praetors and Legates went forth into the provinces, the Legions watched upon the frontiers, the lesser Magistrates performed their office; but above them was Caesar, directing all things, controlling all things; the Imperator and Universal Tribune, in whose name all was done; the "Praesens Divus," on whom the whole depended; at once the master of the Imperial Commonwealth, and the minister of the Roman People.
"The Annals," and the history of Tiberius, have detained us, for the most part, within the capital: "The Agricola" brings us into a province of the Empire; and "The Account of Germany" will take us among the savages beyond the frontier. I need scarcely mention, that our country was brought within the Roman influence by Julius Caesar; but that Caesar's enterprise was not continued by Augustus, nor by Tiberius; though Caligula celebrated a fictitious triumph over the unconquered Britons: that a war of about forty years was undertaken by Claudius, maintained by Nero, and terminated by Domitian; who were respectively "the most stupid, the most dissolute, and the most timid of all the Emperors." It was in the British wars, that Vespasian began his great career, "monstratus fatis"; but the island was not really added to the Empire,