Do what you will, Take any means, but keep me from the forum, Men's faces ; there are
murderers
in the crowd : All men in mass are murderers.
Universal Anthology - v07
Hitherto we have seen the frontiers assailed in many quarters, and the energies of the bravest princes tasked in their defense.
But these attacks have been local and desul tory.
The Chatti on the Rhine, the Marcomanni on the Upper, the Samaritans on the Lower, Danube, the Roxalani on the shores of the Euxine, have often assailed and vexed the prov inces, but separately and at different times ; Aurelius had to make head against all these enemies at once.
The unity of the empire imparted a germ of union to its assailants.
Hence no champion of Rome had so hard a task ; hence Aurelius, far from making permanent conquests beyond his frontiers, stood everywhere on the defensive, and confronted the foe by his lieutenants in Gaul, Pannonia, Dacia, or Moesia, while he
planted himself commonly in the center of his line of stations, at Carnuntum, Vindobona, or Sirmium ; hence his wars were protracted through a period of twelve years, and though his partial victories gained him ten times the title of Imperator, none was sufficiently decisive to break the forces banded against him. The momentary submission of one tribe or an other led to no general result ; notwithstanding his own san guine hopes and the fond persuasion of his countrymen, his last campaign saw the subjugation of Scythia and the safety of the empire still distant and doubtful. The barbarians were stronger at this crisis than ever, — stronger in unity, stronger in arms and tactics, stronger possibly in numbers. Neither to Marius, we may believe, nor to Germanicus, nor to Trajan,
THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE.
107
would they now have yielded as heretofore. But the empire was at least as much weaker. The symptoms of decline, in deed, were as yet hardly manifest to common observation; under ordinary circumstances they might still have eluded the notice even of statesmen ; but in the stress of a great calamity they became manifest to all. The chief of the state was deeply impressed with them. Against anxiety and apprehension he struggled as a matter of duty, but the effort was sore and hope less ; and from the anticipation of disasters beyond his control he escaped, when possible, to pensive meditations on his own moral nature, which at least might lie within it.
The brilliancy of the city and the great provincial capitals, the magnificence of their shows and entertainments, still re mained, perhaps, undimmed. The dignity of the temples and palaces of Greece and Rome stood, even in their best days, in marked contrast with the discomfort and squalor of their lanes and cabins. The spacious avenues of Nero concealed perhaps more miserable habitations than might be seen in the narrow streets of Augustus ; but as yet we hear no distinct murmurs of poverty among the populace. The causes, indeed, were al ready at work which, in the second or third generation, reduced the people of the towns to pauperism, and made the public serv ice an intolerable burden : the decline, namely, of agriculture and commerce, the isolation of the towns, the disappearance of the precious metals, the return of society to a state of barter, in which every petty community strove to live on its own im mediate produce. Such, at a later period, was the condition of the empire, as revealed in the codes of the fourth century. These symptoms were doubtless strongly developed in the third, but we have at least no evidence of them in the second. We
indeed, that there was a gradual, though slow, diminution in the amount of gold and silver in circulation. The result would be felt first in the provinces, and latest in the cities and Rome itself, but assuredly it was already in progress. Two texts of Pliny assert the constant drain of specie to the East ; and the assertion is confirmed by the circumstances of the case ; for the Indians, and the nations beyond India, who transmitted to the West their silks and
spices, cared little for the wines and oils of Europe, still less for the manufactures in wool and leather which formed the staples of commerce in the Mediterranean. There was still a great, perhaps an increasing, demand for these metals in works
may reasonably suppose,
108 THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE.
of art and ornament, and much was consumed in daily use, much withdrawn from circulation and eventually lost by the thriftless habit of hoarding. But the supply from the mines of Thrace, Spain, and Germany was probably declining, for it was extracted by forced labor, the most expensive, the most harassing, and the most precarious. The difficulty of maintain ing the yield of the precious metals is marked in the severe regulations of the later emperors, and is further attested by the progressive debasement of the currency.
Not more precise is our information respecting the move ment of the population, which was also at this period on the verge of decline. To the partial complaints of such a decline in Italy, muttered, as they generally were, by the poets or satirists, I have hitherto paid little heed. In statements of this kind there is generally much false sentiment, some angry misrepre sentation. The substitution of slave for free labor in many parts of Italy may have had the appearance of a decline in population, while it actually indicated no more than a movement and trans fer. It was more important, however, in the future it fore shadowed than in the present reality. The slave population was not reproductive ; it was only kept at its level by fresh drafts from abroad. Whenever the supply should be cut off, the residue would rapidly dwindle. This supply was main tained partly by successful wars, but still more by a regular and organized traffic. The slaves from the North might be exchanged for Italian manufactures and produce ; but the venders from many parts, such as Arabia and Ethiopia, Central Africa, and even Cappadocia and other districts of Asia Minor, would take, I suppose, nothing but specie. With the contrac tion of the currency, the trade would languish, and under this depression a country like Italy, which was almost wholly stocked by importation, would become quickly depopulated. Still more, on the decline of the slave population, there would follow a decline of production, a decline of the means of the proprietors, a decline in the condition of the free classes, and consequently in their numbers also. That such a decline was actually felt under the Flavian emperors appears in the sudden adoption of the policy of alimentation, or public aid to impoverished freemen.
Nor was it in this way only that slavery tended to the de cline of population. Slavery in ancient, and doubtless in all times was a hotbed of vice and selfish indulgence, enervating the spirit and vital forces of mankind, discouraging legitimate
THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE. 109
marriage, and enticing to promiscuous and barren concubinage. The fruit of such hateful unions, if fruit there were, or could be, engaged little regard from their selfish fathers, and both law and usage continued to sanction the exposure of infants, from which the female sex undoubtedly suffered most. The losses of Italy from this horrid practice were probably the greatest ; but the provinces also lost proportionably ; the imi tation of Roman habits was rife on the remotest frontiers ; the conquests of the empire were consolidated by the attractions of Roman indulgence and sensuality ; slavery threw discredit on all manual labor, and engendered a false sentiment of honor, which constrained the poorer classes of freemen to dependence and celibacy ; vice and idleness went hand in hand, and com bined to stunt the moral and physical growth of the Roman citizen, leaving his weak and morbid frame exposed in an unequal contest to the fatal influences of his climate.
If, however, the actual amount of population in Italy and other metropolitan districts had but lately begun sensibly to decline, for some generations it had been recruited mainly from a foreign stock, and was mingled with the refuse of every nation, civilized and barbarian. Slaves, freedmen, clients of the rich and powerful, had glided by adoption into the Roman gentes, the names of which still retained a fallacious air of antiquity, while their members had lost the feelings and prin ciples which originally signalized them. As late as the time of the younger Pliny, we find the gentile names of the republic still common, though many of them have ceased to recur on the roll of the great magistracies, where they have been supplanted by others, hitherto obscure or unknown ; but the surnames of Pliny's friends and correspondents, which distinguish the family from the house, are in numerous instances strange to us, and often grotesque and barbarous. The gradual exhaustion of the true Roman blood had been already marked and deplored under Claudius, and there can be no doubt, though materials are wanting for tracing it, that the flux continued to gather force through succeeding generations.
The decay of moral principles which hastened the disinte gration of Roman society was compensated by no new discoveries in material cultivation. The idea of civilization common to the Greeks and Romans was the highest development of the bodily faculties, together with the imagination ; but in explor ing the agencies of the natural world, and turning its forces to
110 THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE.
the use of man, the progress soon reached its limits. The Greeks and Romans were almost equally unsteady in tracing the laws of physical phenomena, which they empirically ob served, and analyzing the elements of the world around them. Their advance in applied science stopped short with the prin ciples of mechanics, in which they doubtless attained great practical proficiency. Roman engineering, especially, deserves the admiration even of our own times. But the ancients in vented no instrument for advancing the science of astronomy ; they remained profoundly ignorant of the mysteries of chemis try ; their medicine, notwithstanding the careful diagnosis of Hippocrates and Galen, could not free itself from connection with the most trivial superstitions. The Greeks speculated deeply in ethics and politics ; the Romans were intelligent stu dents of legal theory and procedure ; but neither could dis cover from these elementary sciences the compound ideas of public economy. Their principles of commerce and finance were to the last rude and unphilosophical. They made little advance, at the height of their prosperity and knowledge, in the economy of labor and production ; they made no provision for the support of the increasing numbers to which the human race, under the operation of natural laws, ought to have at tained. We read of no improvements in the common processes of agriculture, none even in the familiar mode of grinding corn, none in the extraction and smelting of ores, none in the art of navigation. Even in war, to which they so ardently devoted themselves, we find the helmet and cuirass, the sword, spear, and buckler, identical in character and almost in form, from the siege of Troy to the sack of Rome. Changes in tactics and discipline were slight and casual, compelled rather by some change in circumstances than spontaneous or scientific. The ancient world had, in short, no versatility, no power of adapta tion to meet the varying wants of its outward condition. Its ideas were equal to the extension of its material dominion. A little soul was lodged in a vast body.
The Egyptian civilization, the Hindu, the Chinese, as well as the Greek and Roman, have all had their natural limits, at which their vitality was necessarily arrested. Possibly all civilizations are subject to a similar law, though some may have a wider scope and a more enduring force than others ; or possibly there may be a real salt of society in the principle of intelligent freedom, which has first learned to control itself,
THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE. Ill
that it may deserve to escape from the control of external forces. But Roman society, at least, was animated by no such principle. At no period within the sphere of historic records was the commonwealth of Rome anything but an oligarchy of warriors and slave owners, who indemnified themselves for the restraint imposed on them by their equals in the forum by aggression abroad and tyranny in their households. The causes of its decline seem to have little connection with the form of government established in the first and second centuries. They were in full operation before the fall of the Republic, though their baneful effects were disguised and perhaps retarded by outward successes, by extended conquests, and increasing sup plies of tribute or plunder. The general decline of population throughout the ancient world may be dated even from the second century before our era. The last age of the Republic was perhaps the period of the most rapid exhaustion of the human race ; but its dissolution was arrested under Augustus, when the population recovered for a time in some quarters of the empire, and remained at least stationary in others. The cause of slavery could not but make itself felt again, and de manded the destined catastrophe. Whatever evil we ascribe to the despotism of the Caesars, we must remark that it was slavery that rendered political freedom and constitutional gov ernment impossible. Slavery fostered in Rome, as previously at Athens, the spirit of selfishness and sensuality, of lawless ness and insolence, which cannot consist with political equality, with political justice, with political moderation. The tyranny
became no more than an ergastulum or barracoon on a vast scale, commensurate with the dominions of the greatest of Roman slaveholders. It is vain to imagine that a people can be tyrants in private life, and long escape subjection to a com mon tyrant in public. It was more than they could expect, more, indeed, than they deserved, if they found in Augustus, at least, and Vespasian, in Trajan and Hadrian, in Antoninus and Aurelius, masters who sought spontaneously to divest themselves of the most terrible attributes of their boundless autocracy.
I have elsewhere observed, only the tyranny of every noble extended and intensified. The empire
of the emperors was, as
112 THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193. By MICHAEL FIELD.
[Pseudonym of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, English ladies. Their joint publications under this name are — "Callirrhoe' and Fair Rosamund" (1884) ; " The Tragic Mary " and "The Father's Tragedy" (1885) ; "Brutus Ultor" (1886) ; "Canute the Great" (1887) ; "The Cup of Water," "Stepha- nia," "Underneath the Bough," and "Long Ago," (1889); "Attila, My Attila ! " (1895). ]
Didius — Stay a little.
The lady Marcia prayed to welcome you. So old a friend !
Clara — Gods, how I hate old friends ! And you, Cornelius ?
Cornelius — Tell me of your hatreds ;
They shall be mine. Clara —
Grow rich ! Cornelius —
I hate your poverty. I promise.
Clara —
Rome shall never say You sought me for my fortune. How I wish
Your uncle could be murdered ! Cornelius —
Your hand when I inherit ? Didius —
You will yield me Loveliest jewel,
You jest at murder! Clara —
Didius — Hush, child ! No bloodshed ! And do not rage at Pertinax : his sale
Of slaves has given me opportunity
Of purchasing a dwarf, a very gem,
The creature Commodus had cast in bronze. . . . Clara —
He cost you dear ?
Didius — Ah, child, he is a gift.
So are these pearls, this hyacinth-colored mantle, Once owned by an Augusta.
Yet, alas, While Pertinax is watchful, these must lie
Unworn within your press.
I instantly wish dead.
Who grows each day a little worthier still, More careful of the poor, more scrupulous, Can no one murder him ?
Every one I hate Old Pertinax,
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
Would he could go We must be married,
113
Clara —
The way of Commodus !
Cornelius —
For we are one already.
Manlia —
At last we welcome you.
Dearest Marcia,
Marcia —
I have no strength to utter, and a peril
I must not think of.
More terrible, is slain. Clara — —
Cornelius
They bless our wishes.
Manlia —
Is slain
Marcia, do not gasp . . .
Marcia —
by whom?
—
The good old man was butchered. Infamy !
Didius —I do not like this violence . . . Manlia —
[Enter Mabcia.
Hush ! There is news Pertinax is dead,
The gods be praised !
By his praetorian guard
Dear Marcia, calm yourself.
Didius —
Your husband !
Marcia—
He would not leave his emperor.
Didius —
Can such fidelity be possible,
But the issue ?
You spoke of peril . . . Is Eclectus safe ?
God knows 1 Loyal heart !
Do mortals knit so close ?
Marcia — They died together,
If he were in the palace.
Didius — Nay, I trust ——
At noon he crossed the Stadium leisurely
You are not yet a widow. [Reenter AsASOAimra.
Abascantus, There is a passion in your steps as if
The treasure vessels from your Syrian marts Had touched at Ostia : check your eagerness, For Pertinax is dead. When Caesar dies, He still is Caesar, and the throne is shaken As if an earthquake passed.
Abascantus — An hour ago
That was the talk of Rome. The corpse must cool Before the funeral-rites ; a yesterday
Must be of age, to interest. Noble patron,
The past is swept away, our policy
VOL. VII. —8
114
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
Changed on the instant, and the loaded coffers I guard and with my watchfulness increase, Surrendered to your service, for the world
Is now at auction, and your price the highest That any Roman has the power to bid.
Come quickly to the camp.
Diditu — You break designs
As if they were accomplishment.
Abascantus — They are
When revenue conducts them.
Marcia — Rome for sale !
The Empire offered ! Didius, do not listen ; There is no verity behind this cry :
The world may be possessed in many ways,
It may not know its lord ; but, oh, believe me, It has its Caesar ; nothing alters that,
No howling of a little, greedy crowd.
Why should you rule this city ? Have you raised it
To higher honor ? Have you borne its griefs ? Will it remember you ?
Abascantus —
A safe, a graven memory.
On all the coins
(To Didius) Do you stoop
. . .
High in esteem, but not a lawful empress,
To justify yourself to
oh, a lady
A Nazarene and friend of slaves. More meetly You should desire the quickening approbation Of wife and daughter. An imperial beauty
Is at your side, a noble consort, wealth
To make all unaccustomed places smooth
As the floor's treading . . . and you hesitate ! Oome with me to the camp.
Didius —
This fortune crosses me.
Dearest husband, You have the very majesty of Jove,
Clara —
Marilia —stifle with impatience.
So suddenly
But claim father
So gentle, so urbane, that you will slip Into a throne nor note its quality.
All so smooth
Didius — Ay, in Olympus, smooth Among the happy gods, there could rule
But to contend . . . Go, treasurer, to the camp With large freedom. Bring me word again How you have prospered.
a
I is
I
;
!
it, j
!
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193. 115
Manlia — Say that he will rule Nobly at Numa.
Didius — That would damage me, That was the error of poor Pertinax.
Be lavish, Abascantus.
Abascantus — Come yourself.
Men do not win the world by sending stewards With liberty of purchase ; all is vain
Without the master's voice.
Didius — I will not come ;
I cannot. Do I ever choose the slaves,
Or look upon my treasure till 'tis wiped
Of blood and filthy contact ? Must I strive, All Plutus in reserve ?
Do what you will, Take any means, but keep me from the forum, Men's faces ; there are murderers in the crowd : All men in mass are murderers. Stand aside, Mutter your promises ; if you can buy
A palace, paying honestly the price,
It is simply that . . .
Abascantus — (Aside to Clara) Work on him;
I fear that woman.
Didius — (To Marcia) Is Rome bought and sold ?
[Exit.
Alas, you see, she is a purchaser,
Is not ashamed to trade in noblest blood, If once a state of servitude is owned : We traffic in all creatures, and, if fate Allow the traffic, we are justified.
Marcia —
You are forbidden ; something holds you back. Rome to be bought !
(Showing the city) Look there !
But if I stood,
Marcia — It is the strong,
And they must be accoutered by the gods —
What helmets and what spears ! — who may prevail In circumstance so awful. Dare you call
The Mighty Helpers who have fought for Rome
To aid you in this enterprise ? I know
The day will come she will bear many evils,
And many kingdoms build their seat on her :
But touch her with a menacle for gold !
0 Didius, do not dream that what is done
Didius —
An army at my back to overwhelm, You would not interpose.
116
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
Of foolish men can ever come to pass ;
It is the Sibyl's books that are fulfilled,
The prophecies — no doings"of a crowd ;
They are laid by as dust. If fate allow,"
You say, " the traffic ! " You may change the current And passage of whole kingdoms by not knowing
Just what is infamy : a common deed
It may be, nothing monstrous to the eye,
And yet your children may entreat the hills
To hide them from its terror. Be dissuaded :
I know what one may do, and what it is
To strike predestined blows : but this attempt
Will lead you to wide ruin.
Didius— Clara, child, You lay this dearest head against my shoulder, You clasp my arm as if to make entreaty ;
But for your sake, if this should prove a gift That secretly should blight you !
Clara— Give itme. You say I am the apple of your eye,
You say I am your idol, praise my beauty, And yet you shut it in the dark forever,
As you have shut away your murrhine vase, If now you let another rise more high, Another pass beyond me ; be most sure
I never shall have pleasure any more
From any gift you give, in any honor
You may attempt to win, if you refuse
My marvelous, full title. Indiscreetly
Cornelius let it drop into my ear ;
From him it has no meaning : you may breathe And with
Mardia —
—Husband, Clara
breathe of joy on all my youth. join my prayers.
For the great suit
Flushes benignant. Didius —
This That
There no need, won. know when Jove
Ah, Cornelius, see smile to win, and you have heard
alone can win it. Is so
[Reenter Abaacantus. Well, Abascantus, do we rule the world
Abaacantus —
You must appear in person. have bribed With promises, but still the soldiers shout,
I it ?
I
?
! is
I is a
I it is
it,
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193. 117
" Let Didius come himself and raise the price
Sulpicianus bids. "
Didius — Sulpicianus!
It is unseemly he should leave the corse
Of a dear son-in-law unvisited . . . Abascantus —
His speech is artful, and your fluent lips Are needed with their generosity,
For he is winning power the thievish way Of subtle eloquence.
Cornelius — If you should speak, Most gracious sir, we cannot doubt the issue ; Your golden mouth and not your golden coffers Will earn you sovereignty.
Didius — — If I must speak ?
Why, so it is my gift ! Sulpicianus
Will scarcely there be master. You must leave me To ponder on my periods. By and bye,
If with security I can provide
These palaces and thrones.
(To Mabcia) Eclectus lives, Marcia, be sure of that, and if I rule
Shall be most dear to me in trust. Go in !
[Exeunt all but Abascantus and Gabba, who has been forgotten.
And treasurer, count my gold.
Abascantus — No counting now ;
You must appease the soldiers, or, inflamed, They lift Sulpicianus on their shields.
You lose the precious instant.
Didius — Face this Borne,
I never wanted words, They streamed up to my lips so fluently ; And now I am ashamed and cannot speak.
This populace !
But leave me — count my gold ; for if my treasure Lie not in solid heaps upon the floor
I will not stir a foot.
[Exit Abascantus.
If this delay
Should save me from my doom ! And yet Ifear . . .
His jaws locked on a sudden — treasurer
Of the imperial chests ! — while I must traverse Wide halls and palaces with no more right
Than if I were a ghost ;
Marcia said true ; and now this awful charge Is laid upon me, a strange emptiness
I am not Caesar ;
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THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
Fills me with lassitude. How should I speak ? These Roman citizens, who were my neighbors, Who were my friends, are foreign to me now : If they will be my slaves, they may be happy ; But that is the condition, and to that
Will the praetorians yield ? I am struck dumb. The gold must speak ; for at whatever price Rome rate herself I am her purchaser,
And the great gods, the silent companies,
Must sit around and scoff. . . .
— [Reenter Abascantus. How just!
Abascantus
My patron, we must part with him and quickly To the new emperor.
Didius — Thus the coffers doom. You have been long away.
Abascantus — In colloquy
With logic and with chance. Sulpicianus Will offer at the least five thousand drachms. To every soldier : of his honesty
He can pledge that.
Didius — And I a thousand more. We have these sums, or they are on the way.
Abascantus —
They never will arrive: but you must go
And bray like Hercules, no point reserved,
If you would give your heaps of jewels light,
See your rare vases placed, and claim the service Of Pylades, the wing-foot dancer, perfect
As gem or vase. And there must be no question, No scruple, if Augusta and her dwarf . . .
Didius —
Clara Augusta ! But revolted soldiers . . .
Gabba — Murder !
Abascantus — And bloodshed! Hail, Sulpicianus ! Ours is but merchant's traffic.
Didius — I will bid.
ARMINIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY. 119
ARMINIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY.
By DION CASSIUS.
(Translated for this work. )
[Dion Cassius Cocceiancs, Roman historian, was born at Nicaea, a. d. 155, son of a provincial governor. Going to Rome on his father's death, he was ad mitted to the Senate about the time of Marcus Aurelius's death ; was advocate, edile, and quaestor, during Commodus's reign ; made pnetor by Fertinax, he held the office under Septimius Severus, was provincial governor under Macrinus, and made consul about 220, probably by Heliogabalus ; proconsul of Africa and imperial legate under Alexander Severus, the latter made him consul again in 229, but he retired soon after to his native place, and died there. Of his immense " History of Rome," in eighty books, only a small part is extant. ]
Germanictjs brought news of the victory [of Tiberius over the Pannonians], and the consequent glorifying of the imperial name for Augustus and Tiberius ; and a triumph was decreed — among other honors, two memorial arches in Pannonia, which were to be permanent trophies. . . .
While these decrees were still fresh, adverse news from Germany prevented the celebrations. This is what was going on there at that very time : —
The Romans held certain spots in Germany, not con nectedly, but as they could take them by force here and there ; at these places the Roman soldiers made winter quarters, and built villages. The barbarians soon adopted their ways of life, came together in the market place, and mingled peacefully with them ; yet their own ancestral usages, their ingrained habits, the influence of liberty and of arms, were not wholly forgotten. Thus while, kept under this oversight, they gradually and to some extent unlearned the old, they bore the change in their life willingly because they did not perceive it.
Now when Quintilius Varus, made prefect of Germany after administering Syria, on taking the reins of government began suddenly to transform this people, —to rule them as subjects in serfdom, and exact money from them as from conquered foes, — the Germans would not bear the performance : the leaders coveting their lost chieftainship, the people their wonted manner of life before the foreign domination. But because, since many Romans dwelt along the Rhine and many among themselves, they did not dare attempt open rebellion, they treated Varus with apparently entire submission to his orders ;
120 ARMINIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY.
and tolled him far from the Rhine, to the bounds of the Che- rusci and to the river Visurgis (Weser). There, living in the utmost peace and friendship toward him, they inveigled him into the belief that they could be held in servitude otherwise than by military force. Varus, therefore, did not keep his troops together in one spot, as should be done in a hostile country : he dispersed many of them among the weaker tribes, who asked for them on the pretext of strengthening town garrisons, or hunting down robbers, or convoying supplies in safety. Among those who were conspiring, Arminius and Segimerus, the leaders both in the plots and the war which was being kindled, were always in company with Varus and very often feasting with him.
While Varus was thus confident, anticipating no evil, and not only withdrew his trust from those who, suspecting how matters stood, warned him to beware, but even censured them for being causelessly alarmed over him and bringing odium on the rest, — suddenly out of the quiet, some of the distant Ger man tribes revolted ; undoubtedly because Varus marching against them would be handier to slaughter from his belief that he had a friendly district to traverse, and could not protect himself when war was suddenly raised by all at once. "
This plan was approved by the event. They [the " friendly tribes] urged on the departing army, themselves remaining at home [ostensibly] to make ready as auxiliaries and come swiftly with help. Their forces — already at hand in a desig nated place — being soon gathered, and the Roman soldiers massacred whom each had among them, previously gotten from Varus ; having overtaken him while sticking fast in the path less forest, the enemy suddenly showed themselves in their true colors, and inflicted vast and varied havoc on the Roman army. For here there were mountains full of ravines and inequalities of ground, and exceedingly close-set trees ; so that the Romans before the enemy attacked them were tired out with cutting, and road and bridge making, and many other things of the sort they had to do. They had in train also many carts and beasts of burden, as in time of peace, and not a few children and women and a numerous other attendance followed after, so that it formed on that account a much scattered line of march. Meanwhile rains with high winds came on, and dis persed them still more ; while the ground, having become slippery around the roots and [fallen] trunks of trees, made
ARMINIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY. 121
them stumble in walking, and the tree-tops breaking off and falling threw them into confusion.
The Romans being thus in such helplessness, the barbarians suddenly from every direction at once, through the dense coverts before mentioned, surrounded them, who were used to beaten roads, and at first shot at them from a distance ; then, as no one defended himself and many were wounded, they joined battle : for the Romans, not marching in any order, but promiscuously among the carts and the unarmed, could not easily be collected into any sort of bodies ; and being singly always fewer than their assailants, they suffered much without being able to retaliate.
Then they encamped there, having chosen as suitable a place as was feasible on a wooded mountain ; and having after wards burned and broken up most of the vehicles not absolutely indispensable to them, and drawn themselves up in order of battle, they marched somewhat better on the following day, so that they managed to advance into a cleared space, though they by no means escaped without bloodshed. Then setting out into the woods, they were again attacked ; and though they defended themselves against their assailants, they profited scarcely at all by it, for this reason : that being collected in a narrow space, cavalry and infantry crowded together in the same spot, when they were attacked many fell by each other's means and many on account of the trees.
So the third day came to them on the march : and again a furious rain and violent wind, beating on them, not only hin dered them from either going forward or standing firmly, but deprived them of the use of their weapons and armor ; for neither their arrows, javelins, nor shields being other than quite soaked through, they could not be used effectively. To the enemy, as they were mostly destitute of armor and able to advance or retreat in safety, these things mattered less. By this time also the natives were far more numerous (for at the outset the rest were hesitating, and only joined them for the sake of the spoil) ; and the Romans being fewer (for many had been killed in the previous battles), they were more easily surrounded and slain.
Varus, therefore, and others of most distinction, fearing lest they might be taken alive and put to death by these fiercest of enemies (for they were wounded), summoned fortitude for a deed of dreadful necessity, for they slew themselves. When
122 ARM1NIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY.
this was announced, no one defended himself any longer, even if his strength was sufficient for it : all imitated their leader, and, casting away their arms, suffered whoever would to kill them ; for no one could fly, however much he wished. So now every man and beast could be safely slain. And all might have been killed or captured, had not the barbarians been occupied in plundering the spoil ; whereby the strongest made their escape.
[Gap in MS. here. But Zonaras, a Byzantine compiler of the twelfth cen tury, who in this part not only uses Dion Cassius as his chief authority, but often copies his very words, has the following passage, which sup plies it:—]
The barbarians captured all the fortifications but one, which kept them so busy that they neither crossed the Rhine nor invaded Gaul. But that one they were not able to master, because they were unskilled in the art of besieging, and the Romans showered darts upon them, by which they were driven back and many slain. After this, learning that the Romans had placed a guard at the Rhine, and that Tiberius was ad vancing with a powerful army, many abandoned the attempt on the fortification ; and the rest, drawing away from it so as not to suffer harm from those within, guarded the roads, hoping to capture them by starvation. But the Romans within, so long as they had plenty of provisions, remained in the place waiting for succor ; then, as no one brought help to them and they were suffering from hunger, watching for a stormy night they stole away (there were few soldiers and many non-combatants), and
passed the first and second fortress [of the barbari ans] in safety ; but when they reached the third they were discovered, by reason of the women and children continually calling to the grown men for help, from fear and fatigue in the darkness and cold. But the trumpeters who were with them, playing a brisk march, made the enemy believe
night had fallen and they could not see) that they had come from Asprenas. By this means they checked the pursuit; and Asprenas, hearing what had happened, did really bring succor to them. And some of those captured gained their freedom afterward, being ransomed by their relatives ; for that was permitted to be done if they would remain outside Italy.
(for
ECLOGUE. 123
ECLOGUE.
On the Accession of a Young Emperob.
Bt calpurnius siculus.
(Translated for this work. )
[Nothing whatever is known of the author but his name, and his date has been set all the way from the time of Nero (a. d. 54-68) to that of Car in us (283). But internal evidence seems to fix the first of his eleven eclogues (here trans lated) in October, 238, three months after the accession of Gordian III. He imitated not only Virgil but Virgil's imitators ; but he is the first talented ex tant follower of Virgil in the bucolics. ]
Ornitus —
Not yet are the sun-horses tamed as the summer declines to its
end,
Though under the weight of the juice-laden clusters the wine
presses bend,
And with guttering murmur the foamy new must gushes into
the air. Corydon —
Ornitus, look, notice the cows that my father gave into my care, How under their broad shaggy flanks they are quietly folding
the knee.
Why should not we repose too in the shade of this neighboring
tree?
Why shield our blistering faces with only a cap from the heat ?
Ornitus —
Rather this grove, brother Corydon ; there let us seek a retreat In the grots of our father Faunus, where the pine forest sheds Its slender tresses, and softens the glare of the sun on our heads; Where under its roots the great beech-tree shelters the bubbling
spring,
And amid its wide-spreading branches entangles the shadows
bearing Faun. Ornitus —
Take then these pipes, and if any choice air you have mastered, play on;
Nor shall my flute to accompany fail you — a workmanlike deed Of versatile Lygdon's, made recently out of a fully grown reed.
they fling. Corydon —
Wherever you call me, Ornitus, I follow; for while my delight, My Leuce, denies me embraces and all the enjoyments of night, She has made a clear path for my use to the shrine of the horn-
124 ECLOGUE.
And now we will lie down together, out of the sunshine's reach. But what is the holy inscription I see carven here on the beech, Which some one I know not has lately engraved with a hurrying
blade ? Corydon —
Do you notice how green, too, the message has kept all the tracings he made,
Not yawning in open-mouthed rifts as of so many mouths gone adry ?
Bring your eyes nearer, Ornitus — you can read quicker than I Writing carved high on the bark of a tree ; for your father before
you
Was lengthy and bulky between joints ; and likewise the mother
that bore you,
Not being jealous, injected no dwarfishness into your blood.
Ornitus —
No shepherd, no wandering wayfarer did this in trifling mood ; The god himself sung it — naught cattle-bred my reading of it
espies,
Nor marks the inspired composition the use of our mountain
cries. Corydon —
Marvels you tell ; so let not your eyes wander, but hasten along, And read out for both of us straightway the lines of this heavenly
" Faunus am I, sprung from jEther ; the mountain and wood are my care;
song. Ornitus (reads) —
I sing to the people good tidings; delight in this fashion to bear
Such jubilant songs of what waits them from Fate's manifested decree.
Denizens ye of the forest, rejoice with me ; every man's cattle at last
May wander at large without danger; the shepherd, no longer afraid,
Cares not at night his inclosure to guard with fascine barricade ; No longer the plunderer skulking lays snares for the sheep on
their way,
Nor loosing the draught-horses' halter, decamps in the night with
his prey.
Peace and security with us, the golden age is reborn ;
Bountiful Justice at last upon earth is allowed to return, Cleansed from her filth and her mold; a blest era succeeds to the
gloom,
ECLOGUE.
125
Led by a youth, who has sported with issues of law from the womb.
While he rules in his godhead, Bellona, the worst of the heavenly band,
Bound by him with her hands tied behind her and stripped of her weapons shall stand,
Turning her old lacerations against her own maddening breast; And e'en as all nations have known civil war at her evil behest, So will she war with herself; for no Philips has Rome now to
mourn,
Nor triumphs to lead with herself as the chief of the captives
forlorn.
Off to the dungeons of Tartarus all the War brood shall take
flight,
Bury their heads in the shadows, and fear to come forth to the
light.
Snow-white Peace shall be with us; nor white as to visage
alone, —
Such as full oft was the masking, all open hostilities done,
Of her who when far-off assailants were vanquished, by am
bushes laid
Spread terror and hate through the people, with silent and
treacherous blade.
All the crimes of the feigners of peace he has ordered to pack
and be gone
Far, far away, and fair Clemency buries the swords that are
drawn.
With no funeral pomp of a Senate in chains will his service of
gore
Weary the headsman ; with prisons o'erflowing, no more
Shall the Curia count the few Fathers still left from the Senate
of yore.
Quiet profound shall there be, with the drawing of weapons
unknown,
That shall call back fresh reigns of old Saturn to Latium's long
desecrate throne;
Fresh reigns of Numa, who first to the hot-hearted Roman array, Exulting in slaughter, and burning afield to engage in the fray, Taught the employments of peace, and with arms become silent
around,
Ordered the flutes for the sacrifice, not for the battle, to sound. No more shall the shade of a phantom distinction be sold on the
block,
Nor, silenced, the powerless fasces and judgment seat naught but
a mock
126 ECLOGUE.
Shall a consul accept ; but with law's return, justice for all shall there come,
Giving us back both the guise and the wont of the Forum of Home.
Jubilate, ye of the uttermost race next the South Wind that lies, Tills the boisterous Boreal region, or neighbors the Orient skies, Or dwells in the realm of the Sunset, or burns in the middlemost
air.
Notice ye how shines the twentieth night in the heaven so fair ? How it shows us the peace-bringing comet set off with its radiant
glow ?
How the limpid star is transmitted unmarred to the watchers
below?
Does the torch, as it oft has, besprinkle the heavens from pole
unto pole
With fires all ensanguined, and sparkle with blood flaming over
the whole ?
Not such as the present the past was, when, Caesar snatched off
in his prime,
It pointed to fatal embroilments, the people chastised for the
crime.
Most plainly a true god has taken the weight of the empire at
last,
In his strong arms upbearing so that unshaken through all
has passed;
No crash of its fall shall resound through the world when it
changes its head,
Nor shall Rome from its punishments deem that the holy
Penates are dead,
The sun set save now that longingly sees one arise in the
sky. " Corydon —
Ornitus, just now, as though filled with the sense that the god was anigh,
trembled a feeling stole o'er me where terror and joy inter twine;
But now of the eloquent Faun let us worship the godhead be nign.
Ornitus —
We will voice in his honor the carols the god has himself brought
us here,
And out from the flute's polished throat shall the music sound
lofty and clear
Perchance Meliboeus may waft to reach the great Emperor's
ear.
it
it
it,
;
I ;
it
KING GOLL.
KING GOLL. (THIRD century. ) Bt W. B.
planted himself commonly in the center of his line of stations, at Carnuntum, Vindobona, or Sirmium ; hence his wars were protracted through a period of twelve years, and though his partial victories gained him ten times the title of Imperator, none was sufficiently decisive to break the forces banded against him. The momentary submission of one tribe or an other led to no general result ; notwithstanding his own san guine hopes and the fond persuasion of his countrymen, his last campaign saw the subjugation of Scythia and the safety of the empire still distant and doubtful. The barbarians were stronger at this crisis than ever, — stronger in unity, stronger in arms and tactics, stronger possibly in numbers. Neither to Marius, we may believe, nor to Germanicus, nor to Trajan,
THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE.
107
would they now have yielded as heretofore. But the empire was at least as much weaker. The symptoms of decline, in deed, were as yet hardly manifest to common observation; under ordinary circumstances they might still have eluded the notice even of statesmen ; but in the stress of a great calamity they became manifest to all. The chief of the state was deeply impressed with them. Against anxiety and apprehension he struggled as a matter of duty, but the effort was sore and hope less ; and from the anticipation of disasters beyond his control he escaped, when possible, to pensive meditations on his own moral nature, which at least might lie within it.
The brilliancy of the city and the great provincial capitals, the magnificence of their shows and entertainments, still re mained, perhaps, undimmed. The dignity of the temples and palaces of Greece and Rome stood, even in their best days, in marked contrast with the discomfort and squalor of their lanes and cabins. The spacious avenues of Nero concealed perhaps more miserable habitations than might be seen in the narrow streets of Augustus ; but as yet we hear no distinct murmurs of poverty among the populace. The causes, indeed, were al ready at work which, in the second or third generation, reduced the people of the towns to pauperism, and made the public serv ice an intolerable burden : the decline, namely, of agriculture and commerce, the isolation of the towns, the disappearance of the precious metals, the return of society to a state of barter, in which every petty community strove to live on its own im mediate produce. Such, at a later period, was the condition of the empire, as revealed in the codes of the fourth century. These symptoms were doubtless strongly developed in the third, but we have at least no evidence of them in the second. We
indeed, that there was a gradual, though slow, diminution in the amount of gold and silver in circulation. The result would be felt first in the provinces, and latest in the cities and Rome itself, but assuredly it was already in progress. Two texts of Pliny assert the constant drain of specie to the East ; and the assertion is confirmed by the circumstances of the case ; for the Indians, and the nations beyond India, who transmitted to the West their silks and
spices, cared little for the wines and oils of Europe, still less for the manufactures in wool and leather which formed the staples of commerce in the Mediterranean. There was still a great, perhaps an increasing, demand for these metals in works
may reasonably suppose,
108 THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE.
of art and ornament, and much was consumed in daily use, much withdrawn from circulation and eventually lost by the thriftless habit of hoarding. But the supply from the mines of Thrace, Spain, and Germany was probably declining, for it was extracted by forced labor, the most expensive, the most harassing, and the most precarious. The difficulty of maintain ing the yield of the precious metals is marked in the severe regulations of the later emperors, and is further attested by the progressive debasement of the currency.
Not more precise is our information respecting the move ment of the population, which was also at this period on the verge of decline. To the partial complaints of such a decline in Italy, muttered, as they generally were, by the poets or satirists, I have hitherto paid little heed. In statements of this kind there is generally much false sentiment, some angry misrepre sentation. The substitution of slave for free labor in many parts of Italy may have had the appearance of a decline in population, while it actually indicated no more than a movement and trans fer. It was more important, however, in the future it fore shadowed than in the present reality. The slave population was not reproductive ; it was only kept at its level by fresh drafts from abroad. Whenever the supply should be cut off, the residue would rapidly dwindle. This supply was main tained partly by successful wars, but still more by a regular and organized traffic. The slaves from the North might be exchanged for Italian manufactures and produce ; but the venders from many parts, such as Arabia and Ethiopia, Central Africa, and even Cappadocia and other districts of Asia Minor, would take, I suppose, nothing but specie. With the contrac tion of the currency, the trade would languish, and under this depression a country like Italy, which was almost wholly stocked by importation, would become quickly depopulated. Still more, on the decline of the slave population, there would follow a decline of production, a decline of the means of the proprietors, a decline in the condition of the free classes, and consequently in their numbers also. That such a decline was actually felt under the Flavian emperors appears in the sudden adoption of the policy of alimentation, or public aid to impoverished freemen.
Nor was it in this way only that slavery tended to the de cline of population. Slavery in ancient, and doubtless in all times was a hotbed of vice and selfish indulgence, enervating the spirit and vital forces of mankind, discouraging legitimate
THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE. 109
marriage, and enticing to promiscuous and barren concubinage. The fruit of such hateful unions, if fruit there were, or could be, engaged little regard from their selfish fathers, and both law and usage continued to sanction the exposure of infants, from which the female sex undoubtedly suffered most. The losses of Italy from this horrid practice were probably the greatest ; but the provinces also lost proportionably ; the imi tation of Roman habits was rife on the remotest frontiers ; the conquests of the empire were consolidated by the attractions of Roman indulgence and sensuality ; slavery threw discredit on all manual labor, and engendered a false sentiment of honor, which constrained the poorer classes of freemen to dependence and celibacy ; vice and idleness went hand in hand, and com bined to stunt the moral and physical growth of the Roman citizen, leaving his weak and morbid frame exposed in an unequal contest to the fatal influences of his climate.
If, however, the actual amount of population in Italy and other metropolitan districts had but lately begun sensibly to decline, for some generations it had been recruited mainly from a foreign stock, and was mingled with the refuse of every nation, civilized and barbarian. Slaves, freedmen, clients of the rich and powerful, had glided by adoption into the Roman gentes, the names of which still retained a fallacious air of antiquity, while their members had lost the feelings and prin ciples which originally signalized them. As late as the time of the younger Pliny, we find the gentile names of the republic still common, though many of them have ceased to recur on the roll of the great magistracies, where they have been supplanted by others, hitherto obscure or unknown ; but the surnames of Pliny's friends and correspondents, which distinguish the family from the house, are in numerous instances strange to us, and often grotesque and barbarous. The gradual exhaustion of the true Roman blood had been already marked and deplored under Claudius, and there can be no doubt, though materials are wanting for tracing it, that the flux continued to gather force through succeeding generations.
The decay of moral principles which hastened the disinte gration of Roman society was compensated by no new discoveries in material cultivation. The idea of civilization common to the Greeks and Romans was the highest development of the bodily faculties, together with the imagination ; but in explor ing the agencies of the natural world, and turning its forces to
110 THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE.
the use of man, the progress soon reached its limits. The Greeks and Romans were almost equally unsteady in tracing the laws of physical phenomena, which they empirically ob served, and analyzing the elements of the world around them. Their advance in applied science stopped short with the prin ciples of mechanics, in which they doubtless attained great practical proficiency. Roman engineering, especially, deserves the admiration even of our own times. But the ancients in vented no instrument for advancing the science of astronomy ; they remained profoundly ignorant of the mysteries of chemis try ; their medicine, notwithstanding the careful diagnosis of Hippocrates and Galen, could not free itself from connection with the most trivial superstitions. The Greeks speculated deeply in ethics and politics ; the Romans were intelligent stu dents of legal theory and procedure ; but neither could dis cover from these elementary sciences the compound ideas of public economy. Their principles of commerce and finance were to the last rude and unphilosophical. They made little advance, at the height of their prosperity and knowledge, in the economy of labor and production ; they made no provision for the support of the increasing numbers to which the human race, under the operation of natural laws, ought to have at tained. We read of no improvements in the common processes of agriculture, none even in the familiar mode of grinding corn, none in the extraction and smelting of ores, none in the art of navigation. Even in war, to which they so ardently devoted themselves, we find the helmet and cuirass, the sword, spear, and buckler, identical in character and almost in form, from the siege of Troy to the sack of Rome. Changes in tactics and discipline were slight and casual, compelled rather by some change in circumstances than spontaneous or scientific. The ancient world had, in short, no versatility, no power of adapta tion to meet the varying wants of its outward condition. Its ideas were equal to the extension of its material dominion. A little soul was lodged in a vast body.
The Egyptian civilization, the Hindu, the Chinese, as well as the Greek and Roman, have all had their natural limits, at which their vitality was necessarily arrested. Possibly all civilizations are subject to a similar law, though some may have a wider scope and a more enduring force than others ; or possibly there may be a real salt of society in the principle of intelligent freedom, which has first learned to control itself,
THE ROMAN EMPIRE ON THE EDGE OF DECLINE. Ill
that it may deserve to escape from the control of external forces. But Roman society, at least, was animated by no such principle. At no period within the sphere of historic records was the commonwealth of Rome anything but an oligarchy of warriors and slave owners, who indemnified themselves for the restraint imposed on them by their equals in the forum by aggression abroad and tyranny in their households. The causes of its decline seem to have little connection with the form of government established in the first and second centuries. They were in full operation before the fall of the Republic, though their baneful effects were disguised and perhaps retarded by outward successes, by extended conquests, and increasing sup plies of tribute or plunder. The general decline of population throughout the ancient world may be dated even from the second century before our era. The last age of the Republic was perhaps the period of the most rapid exhaustion of the human race ; but its dissolution was arrested under Augustus, when the population recovered for a time in some quarters of the empire, and remained at least stationary in others. The cause of slavery could not but make itself felt again, and de manded the destined catastrophe. Whatever evil we ascribe to the despotism of the Caesars, we must remark that it was slavery that rendered political freedom and constitutional gov ernment impossible. Slavery fostered in Rome, as previously at Athens, the spirit of selfishness and sensuality, of lawless ness and insolence, which cannot consist with political equality, with political justice, with political moderation. The tyranny
became no more than an ergastulum or barracoon on a vast scale, commensurate with the dominions of the greatest of Roman slaveholders. It is vain to imagine that a people can be tyrants in private life, and long escape subjection to a com mon tyrant in public. It was more than they could expect, more, indeed, than they deserved, if they found in Augustus, at least, and Vespasian, in Trajan and Hadrian, in Antoninus and Aurelius, masters who sought spontaneously to divest themselves of the most terrible attributes of their boundless autocracy.
I have elsewhere observed, only the tyranny of every noble extended and intensified. The empire
of the emperors was, as
112 THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193. By MICHAEL FIELD.
[Pseudonym of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, English ladies. Their joint publications under this name are — "Callirrhoe' and Fair Rosamund" (1884) ; " The Tragic Mary " and "The Father's Tragedy" (1885) ; "Brutus Ultor" (1886) ; "Canute the Great" (1887) ; "The Cup of Water," "Stepha- nia," "Underneath the Bough," and "Long Ago," (1889); "Attila, My Attila ! " (1895). ]
Didius — Stay a little.
The lady Marcia prayed to welcome you. So old a friend !
Clara — Gods, how I hate old friends ! And you, Cornelius ?
Cornelius — Tell me of your hatreds ;
They shall be mine. Clara —
Grow rich ! Cornelius —
I hate your poverty. I promise.
Clara —
Rome shall never say You sought me for my fortune. How I wish
Your uncle could be murdered ! Cornelius —
Your hand when I inherit ? Didius —
You will yield me Loveliest jewel,
You jest at murder! Clara —
Didius — Hush, child ! No bloodshed ! And do not rage at Pertinax : his sale
Of slaves has given me opportunity
Of purchasing a dwarf, a very gem,
The creature Commodus had cast in bronze. . . . Clara —
He cost you dear ?
Didius — Ah, child, he is a gift.
So are these pearls, this hyacinth-colored mantle, Once owned by an Augusta.
Yet, alas, While Pertinax is watchful, these must lie
Unworn within your press.
I instantly wish dead.
Who grows each day a little worthier still, More careful of the poor, more scrupulous, Can no one murder him ?
Every one I hate Old Pertinax,
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
Would he could go We must be married,
113
Clara —
The way of Commodus !
Cornelius —
For we are one already.
Manlia —
At last we welcome you.
Dearest Marcia,
Marcia —
I have no strength to utter, and a peril
I must not think of.
More terrible, is slain. Clara — —
Cornelius
They bless our wishes.
Manlia —
Is slain
Marcia, do not gasp . . .
Marcia —
by whom?
—
The good old man was butchered. Infamy !
Didius —I do not like this violence . . . Manlia —
[Enter Mabcia.
Hush ! There is news Pertinax is dead,
The gods be praised !
By his praetorian guard
Dear Marcia, calm yourself.
Didius —
Your husband !
Marcia—
He would not leave his emperor.
Didius —
Can such fidelity be possible,
But the issue ?
You spoke of peril . . . Is Eclectus safe ?
God knows 1 Loyal heart !
Do mortals knit so close ?
Marcia — They died together,
If he were in the palace.
Didius — Nay, I trust ——
At noon he crossed the Stadium leisurely
You are not yet a widow. [Reenter AsASOAimra.
Abascantus, There is a passion in your steps as if
The treasure vessels from your Syrian marts Had touched at Ostia : check your eagerness, For Pertinax is dead. When Caesar dies, He still is Caesar, and the throne is shaken As if an earthquake passed.
Abascantus — An hour ago
That was the talk of Rome. The corpse must cool Before the funeral-rites ; a yesterday
Must be of age, to interest. Noble patron,
The past is swept away, our policy
VOL. VII. —8
114
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
Changed on the instant, and the loaded coffers I guard and with my watchfulness increase, Surrendered to your service, for the world
Is now at auction, and your price the highest That any Roman has the power to bid.
Come quickly to the camp.
Diditu — You break designs
As if they were accomplishment.
Abascantus — They are
When revenue conducts them.
Marcia — Rome for sale !
The Empire offered ! Didius, do not listen ; There is no verity behind this cry :
The world may be possessed in many ways,
It may not know its lord ; but, oh, believe me, It has its Caesar ; nothing alters that,
No howling of a little, greedy crowd.
Why should you rule this city ? Have you raised it
To higher honor ? Have you borne its griefs ? Will it remember you ?
Abascantus —
A safe, a graven memory.
On all the coins
(To Didius) Do you stoop
. . .
High in esteem, but not a lawful empress,
To justify yourself to
oh, a lady
A Nazarene and friend of slaves. More meetly You should desire the quickening approbation Of wife and daughter. An imperial beauty
Is at your side, a noble consort, wealth
To make all unaccustomed places smooth
As the floor's treading . . . and you hesitate ! Oome with me to the camp.
Didius —
This fortune crosses me.
Dearest husband, You have the very majesty of Jove,
Clara —
Marilia —stifle with impatience.
So suddenly
But claim father
So gentle, so urbane, that you will slip Into a throne nor note its quality.
All so smooth
Didius — Ay, in Olympus, smooth Among the happy gods, there could rule
But to contend . . . Go, treasurer, to the camp With large freedom. Bring me word again How you have prospered.
a
I is
I
;
!
it, j
!
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193. 115
Manlia — Say that he will rule Nobly at Numa.
Didius — That would damage me, That was the error of poor Pertinax.
Be lavish, Abascantus.
Abascantus — Come yourself.
Men do not win the world by sending stewards With liberty of purchase ; all is vain
Without the master's voice.
Didius — I will not come ;
I cannot. Do I ever choose the slaves,
Or look upon my treasure till 'tis wiped
Of blood and filthy contact ? Must I strive, All Plutus in reserve ?
Do what you will, Take any means, but keep me from the forum, Men's faces ; there are murderers in the crowd : All men in mass are murderers. Stand aside, Mutter your promises ; if you can buy
A palace, paying honestly the price,
It is simply that . . .
Abascantus — (Aside to Clara) Work on him;
I fear that woman.
Didius — (To Marcia) Is Rome bought and sold ?
[Exit.
Alas, you see, she is a purchaser,
Is not ashamed to trade in noblest blood, If once a state of servitude is owned : We traffic in all creatures, and, if fate Allow the traffic, we are justified.
Marcia —
You are forbidden ; something holds you back. Rome to be bought !
(Showing the city) Look there !
But if I stood,
Marcia — It is the strong,
And they must be accoutered by the gods —
What helmets and what spears ! — who may prevail In circumstance so awful. Dare you call
The Mighty Helpers who have fought for Rome
To aid you in this enterprise ? I know
The day will come she will bear many evils,
And many kingdoms build their seat on her :
But touch her with a menacle for gold !
0 Didius, do not dream that what is done
Didius —
An army at my back to overwhelm, You would not interpose.
116
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
Of foolish men can ever come to pass ;
It is the Sibyl's books that are fulfilled,
The prophecies — no doings"of a crowd ;
They are laid by as dust. If fate allow,"
You say, " the traffic ! " You may change the current And passage of whole kingdoms by not knowing
Just what is infamy : a common deed
It may be, nothing monstrous to the eye,
And yet your children may entreat the hills
To hide them from its terror. Be dissuaded :
I know what one may do, and what it is
To strike predestined blows : but this attempt
Will lead you to wide ruin.
Didius— Clara, child, You lay this dearest head against my shoulder, You clasp my arm as if to make entreaty ;
But for your sake, if this should prove a gift That secretly should blight you !
Clara— Give itme. You say I am the apple of your eye,
You say I am your idol, praise my beauty, And yet you shut it in the dark forever,
As you have shut away your murrhine vase, If now you let another rise more high, Another pass beyond me ; be most sure
I never shall have pleasure any more
From any gift you give, in any honor
You may attempt to win, if you refuse
My marvelous, full title. Indiscreetly
Cornelius let it drop into my ear ;
From him it has no meaning : you may breathe And with
Mardia —
—Husband, Clara
breathe of joy on all my youth. join my prayers.
For the great suit
Flushes benignant. Didius —
This That
There no need, won. know when Jove
Ah, Cornelius, see smile to win, and you have heard
alone can win it. Is so
[Reenter Abaacantus. Well, Abascantus, do we rule the world
Abaacantus —
You must appear in person. have bribed With promises, but still the soldiers shout,
I it ?
I
?
! is
I is a
I it is
it,
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193. 117
" Let Didius come himself and raise the price
Sulpicianus bids. "
Didius — Sulpicianus!
It is unseemly he should leave the corse
Of a dear son-in-law unvisited . . . Abascantus —
His speech is artful, and your fluent lips Are needed with their generosity,
For he is winning power the thievish way Of subtle eloquence.
Cornelius — If you should speak, Most gracious sir, we cannot doubt the issue ; Your golden mouth and not your golden coffers Will earn you sovereignty.
Didius — — If I must speak ?
Why, so it is my gift ! Sulpicianus
Will scarcely there be master. You must leave me To ponder on my periods. By and bye,
If with security I can provide
These palaces and thrones.
(To Mabcia) Eclectus lives, Marcia, be sure of that, and if I rule
Shall be most dear to me in trust. Go in !
[Exeunt all but Abascantus and Gabba, who has been forgotten.
And treasurer, count my gold.
Abascantus — No counting now ;
You must appease the soldiers, or, inflamed, They lift Sulpicianus on their shields.
You lose the precious instant.
Didius — Face this Borne,
I never wanted words, They streamed up to my lips so fluently ; And now I am ashamed and cannot speak.
This populace !
But leave me — count my gold ; for if my treasure Lie not in solid heaps upon the floor
I will not stir a foot.
[Exit Abascantus.
If this delay
Should save me from my doom ! And yet Ifear . . .
His jaws locked on a sudden — treasurer
Of the imperial chests ! — while I must traverse Wide halls and palaces with no more right
Than if I were a ghost ;
Marcia said true ; and now this awful charge Is laid upon me, a strange emptiness
I am not Caesar ;
118
THE WORLD AT AUCTION, a. d. 193.
Fills me with lassitude. How should I speak ? These Roman citizens, who were my neighbors, Who were my friends, are foreign to me now : If they will be my slaves, they may be happy ; But that is the condition, and to that
Will the praetorians yield ? I am struck dumb. The gold must speak ; for at whatever price Rome rate herself I am her purchaser,
And the great gods, the silent companies,
Must sit around and scoff. . . .
— [Reenter Abascantus. How just!
Abascantus
My patron, we must part with him and quickly To the new emperor.
Didius — Thus the coffers doom. You have been long away.
Abascantus — In colloquy
With logic and with chance. Sulpicianus Will offer at the least five thousand drachms. To every soldier : of his honesty
He can pledge that.
Didius — And I a thousand more. We have these sums, or they are on the way.
Abascantus —
They never will arrive: but you must go
And bray like Hercules, no point reserved,
If you would give your heaps of jewels light,
See your rare vases placed, and claim the service Of Pylades, the wing-foot dancer, perfect
As gem or vase. And there must be no question, No scruple, if Augusta and her dwarf . . .
Didius —
Clara Augusta ! But revolted soldiers . . .
Gabba — Murder !
Abascantus — And bloodshed! Hail, Sulpicianus ! Ours is but merchant's traffic.
Didius — I will bid.
ARMINIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY. 119
ARMINIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY.
By DION CASSIUS.
(Translated for this work. )
[Dion Cassius Cocceiancs, Roman historian, was born at Nicaea, a. d. 155, son of a provincial governor. Going to Rome on his father's death, he was ad mitted to the Senate about the time of Marcus Aurelius's death ; was advocate, edile, and quaestor, during Commodus's reign ; made pnetor by Fertinax, he held the office under Septimius Severus, was provincial governor under Macrinus, and made consul about 220, probably by Heliogabalus ; proconsul of Africa and imperial legate under Alexander Severus, the latter made him consul again in 229, but he retired soon after to his native place, and died there. Of his immense " History of Rome," in eighty books, only a small part is extant. ]
Germanictjs brought news of the victory [of Tiberius over the Pannonians], and the consequent glorifying of the imperial name for Augustus and Tiberius ; and a triumph was decreed — among other honors, two memorial arches in Pannonia, which were to be permanent trophies. . . .
While these decrees were still fresh, adverse news from Germany prevented the celebrations. This is what was going on there at that very time : —
The Romans held certain spots in Germany, not con nectedly, but as they could take them by force here and there ; at these places the Roman soldiers made winter quarters, and built villages. The barbarians soon adopted their ways of life, came together in the market place, and mingled peacefully with them ; yet their own ancestral usages, their ingrained habits, the influence of liberty and of arms, were not wholly forgotten. Thus while, kept under this oversight, they gradually and to some extent unlearned the old, they bore the change in their life willingly because they did not perceive it.
Now when Quintilius Varus, made prefect of Germany after administering Syria, on taking the reins of government began suddenly to transform this people, —to rule them as subjects in serfdom, and exact money from them as from conquered foes, — the Germans would not bear the performance : the leaders coveting their lost chieftainship, the people their wonted manner of life before the foreign domination. But because, since many Romans dwelt along the Rhine and many among themselves, they did not dare attempt open rebellion, they treated Varus with apparently entire submission to his orders ;
120 ARMINIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY.
and tolled him far from the Rhine, to the bounds of the Che- rusci and to the river Visurgis (Weser). There, living in the utmost peace and friendship toward him, they inveigled him into the belief that they could be held in servitude otherwise than by military force. Varus, therefore, did not keep his troops together in one spot, as should be done in a hostile country : he dispersed many of them among the weaker tribes, who asked for them on the pretext of strengthening town garrisons, or hunting down robbers, or convoying supplies in safety. Among those who were conspiring, Arminius and Segimerus, the leaders both in the plots and the war which was being kindled, were always in company with Varus and very often feasting with him.
While Varus was thus confident, anticipating no evil, and not only withdrew his trust from those who, suspecting how matters stood, warned him to beware, but even censured them for being causelessly alarmed over him and bringing odium on the rest, — suddenly out of the quiet, some of the distant Ger man tribes revolted ; undoubtedly because Varus marching against them would be handier to slaughter from his belief that he had a friendly district to traverse, and could not protect himself when war was suddenly raised by all at once. "
This plan was approved by the event. They [the " friendly tribes] urged on the departing army, themselves remaining at home [ostensibly] to make ready as auxiliaries and come swiftly with help. Their forces — already at hand in a desig nated place — being soon gathered, and the Roman soldiers massacred whom each had among them, previously gotten from Varus ; having overtaken him while sticking fast in the path less forest, the enemy suddenly showed themselves in their true colors, and inflicted vast and varied havoc on the Roman army. For here there were mountains full of ravines and inequalities of ground, and exceedingly close-set trees ; so that the Romans before the enemy attacked them were tired out with cutting, and road and bridge making, and many other things of the sort they had to do. They had in train also many carts and beasts of burden, as in time of peace, and not a few children and women and a numerous other attendance followed after, so that it formed on that account a much scattered line of march. Meanwhile rains with high winds came on, and dis persed them still more ; while the ground, having become slippery around the roots and [fallen] trunks of trees, made
ARMINIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY. 121
them stumble in walking, and the tree-tops breaking off and falling threw them into confusion.
The Romans being thus in such helplessness, the barbarians suddenly from every direction at once, through the dense coverts before mentioned, surrounded them, who were used to beaten roads, and at first shot at them from a distance ; then, as no one defended himself and many were wounded, they joined battle : for the Romans, not marching in any order, but promiscuously among the carts and the unarmed, could not easily be collected into any sort of bodies ; and being singly always fewer than their assailants, they suffered much without being able to retaliate.
Then they encamped there, having chosen as suitable a place as was feasible on a wooded mountain ; and having after wards burned and broken up most of the vehicles not absolutely indispensable to them, and drawn themselves up in order of battle, they marched somewhat better on the following day, so that they managed to advance into a cleared space, though they by no means escaped without bloodshed. Then setting out into the woods, they were again attacked ; and though they defended themselves against their assailants, they profited scarcely at all by it, for this reason : that being collected in a narrow space, cavalry and infantry crowded together in the same spot, when they were attacked many fell by each other's means and many on account of the trees.
So the third day came to them on the march : and again a furious rain and violent wind, beating on them, not only hin dered them from either going forward or standing firmly, but deprived them of the use of their weapons and armor ; for neither their arrows, javelins, nor shields being other than quite soaked through, they could not be used effectively. To the enemy, as they were mostly destitute of armor and able to advance or retreat in safety, these things mattered less. By this time also the natives were far more numerous (for at the outset the rest were hesitating, and only joined them for the sake of the spoil) ; and the Romans being fewer (for many had been killed in the previous battles), they were more easily surrounded and slain.
Varus, therefore, and others of most distinction, fearing lest they might be taken alive and put to death by these fiercest of enemies (for they were wounded), summoned fortitude for a deed of dreadful necessity, for they slew themselves. When
122 ARM1NIUS DESTROYS VARUS'S ARMY.
this was announced, no one defended himself any longer, even if his strength was sufficient for it : all imitated their leader, and, casting away their arms, suffered whoever would to kill them ; for no one could fly, however much he wished. So now every man and beast could be safely slain. And all might have been killed or captured, had not the barbarians been occupied in plundering the spoil ; whereby the strongest made their escape.
[Gap in MS. here. But Zonaras, a Byzantine compiler of the twelfth cen tury, who in this part not only uses Dion Cassius as his chief authority, but often copies his very words, has the following passage, which sup plies it:—]
The barbarians captured all the fortifications but one, which kept them so busy that they neither crossed the Rhine nor invaded Gaul. But that one they were not able to master, because they were unskilled in the art of besieging, and the Romans showered darts upon them, by which they were driven back and many slain. After this, learning that the Romans had placed a guard at the Rhine, and that Tiberius was ad vancing with a powerful army, many abandoned the attempt on the fortification ; and the rest, drawing away from it so as not to suffer harm from those within, guarded the roads, hoping to capture them by starvation. But the Romans within, so long as they had plenty of provisions, remained in the place waiting for succor ; then, as no one brought help to them and they were suffering from hunger, watching for a stormy night they stole away (there were few soldiers and many non-combatants), and
passed the first and second fortress [of the barbari ans] in safety ; but when they reached the third they were discovered, by reason of the women and children continually calling to the grown men for help, from fear and fatigue in the darkness and cold. But the trumpeters who were with them, playing a brisk march, made the enemy believe
night had fallen and they could not see) that they had come from Asprenas. By this means they checked the pursuit; and Asprenas, hearing what had happened, did really bring succor to them. And some of those captured gained their freedom afterward, being ransomed by their relatives ; for that was permitted to be done if they would remain outside Italy.
(for
ECLOGUE. 123
ECLOGUE.
On the Accession of a Young Emperob.
Bt calpurnius siculus.
(Translated for this work. )
[Nothing whatever is known of the author but his name, and his date has been set all the way from the time of Nero (a. d. 54-68) to that of Car in us (283). But internal evidence seems to fix the first of his eleven eclogues (here trans lated) in October, 238, three months after the accession of Gordian III. He imitated not only Virgil but Virgil's imitators ; but he is the first talented ex tant follower of Virgil in the bucolics. ]
Ornitus —
Not yet are the sun-horses tamed as the summer declines to its
end,
Though under the weight of the juice-laden clusters the wine
presses bend,
And with guttering murmur the foamy new must gushes into
the air. Corydon —
Ornitus, look, notice the cows that my father gave into my care, How under their broad shaggy flanks they are quietly folding
the knee.
Why should not we repose too in the shade of this neighboring
tree?
Why shield our blistering faces with only a cap from the heat ?
Ornitus —
Rather this grove, brother Corydon ; there let us seek a retreat In the grots of our father Faunus, where the pine forest sheds Its slender tresses, and softens the glare of the sun on our heads; Where under its roots the great beech-tree shelters the bubbling
spring,
And amid its wide-spreading branches entangles the shadows
bearing Faun. Ornitus —
Take then these pipes, and if any choice air you have mastered, play on;
Nor shall my flute to accompany fail you — a workmanlike deed Of versatile Lygdon's, made recently out of a fully grown reed.
they fling. Corydon —
Wherever you call me, Ornitus, I follow; for while my delight, My Leuce, denies me embraces and all the enjoyments of night, She has made a clear path for my use to the shrine of the horn-
124 ECLOGUE.
And now we will lie down together, out of the sunshine's reach. But what is the holy inscription I see carven here on the beech, Which some one I know not has lately engraved with a hurrying
blade ? Corydon —
Do you notice how green, too, the message has kept all the tracings he made,
Not yawning in open-mouthed rifts as of so many mouths gone adry ?
Bring your eyes nearer, Ornitus — you can read quicker than I Writing carved high on the bark of a tree ; for your father before
you
Was lengthy and bulky between joints ; and likewise the mother
that bore you,
Not being jealous, injected no dwarfishness into your blood.
Ornitus —
No shepherd, no wandering wayfarer did this in trifling mood ; The god himself sung it — naught cattle-bred my reading of it
espies,
Nor marks the inspired composition the use of our mountain
cries. Corydon —
Marvels you tell ; so let not your eyes wander, but hasten along, And read out for both of us straightway the lines of this heavenly
" Faunus am I, sprung from jEther ; the mountain and wood are my care;
song. Ornitus (reads) —
I sing to the people good tidings; delight in this fashion to bear
Such jubilant songs of what waits them from Fate's manifested decree.
Denizens ye of the forest, rejoice with me ; every man's cattle at last
May wander at large without danger; the shepherd, no longer afraid,
Cares not at night his inclosure to guard with fascine barricade ; No longer the plunderer skulking lays snares for the sheep on
their way,
Nor loosing the draught-horses' halter, decamps in the night with
his prey.
Peace and security with us, the golden age is reborn ;
Bountiful Justice at last upon earth is allowed to return, Cleansed from her filth and her mold; a blest era succeeds to the
gloom,
ECLOGUE.
125
Led by a youth, who has sported with issues of law from the womb.
While he rules in his godhead, Bellona, the worst of the heavenly band,
Bound by him with her hands tied behind her and stripped of her weapons shall stand,
Turning her old lacerations against her own maddening breast; And e'en as all nations have known civil war at her evil behest, So will she war with herself; for no Philips has Rome now to
mourn,
Nor triumphs to lead with herself as the chief of the captives
forlorn.
Off to the dungeons of Tartarus all the War brood shall take
flight,
Bury their heads in the shadows, and fear to come forth to the
light.
Snow-white Peace shall be with us; nor white as to visage
alone, —
Such as full oft was the masking, all open hostilities done,
Of her who when far-off assailants were vanquished, by am
bushes laid
Spread terror and hate through the people, with silent and
treacherous blade.
All the crimes of the feigners of peace he has ordered to pack
and be gone
Far, far away, and fair Clemency buries the swords that are
drawn.
With no funeral pomp of a Senate in chains will his service of
gore
Weary the headsman ; with prisons o'erflowing, no more
Shall the Curia count the few Fathers still left from the Senate
of yore.
Quiet profound shall there be, with the drawing of weapons
unknown,
That shall call back fresh reigns of old Saturn to Latium's long
desecrate throne;
Fresh reigns of Numa, who first to the hot-hearted Roman array, Exulting in slaughter, and burning afield to engage in the fray, Taught the employments of peace, and with arms become silent
around,
Ordered the flutes for the sacrifice, not for the battle, to sound. No more shall the shade of a phantom distinction be sold on the
block,
Nor, silenced, the powerless fasces and judgment seat naught but
a mock
126 ECLOGUE.
Shall a consul accept ; but with law's return, justice for all shall there come,
Giving us back both the guise and the wont of the Forum of Home.
Jubilate, ye of the uttermost race next the South Wind that lies, Tills the boisterous Boreal region, or neighbors the Orient skies, Or dwells in the realm of the Sunset, or burns in the middlemost
air.
Notice ye how shines the twentieth night in the heaven so fair ? How it shows us the peace-bringing comet set off with its radiant
glow ?
How the limpid star is transmitted unmarred to the watchers
below?
Does the torch, as it oft has, besprinkle the heavens from pole
unto pole
With fires all ensanguined, and sparkle with blood flaming over
the whole ?
Not such as the present the past was, when, Caesar snatched off
in his prime,
It pointed to fatal embroilments, the people chastised for the
crime.
Most plainly a true god has taken the weight of the empire at
last,
In his strong arms upbearing so that unshaken through all
has passed;
No crash of its fall shall resound through the world when it
changes its head,
Nor shall Rome from its punishments deem that the holy
Penates are dead,
The sun set save now that longingly sees one arise in the
sky. " Corydon —
Ornitus, just now, as though filled with the sense that the god was anigh,
trembled a feeling stole o'er me where terror and joy inter twine;
But now of the eloquent Faun let us worship the godhead be nign.
Ornitus —
We will voice in his honor the carols the god has himself brought
us here,
And out from the flute's polished throat shall the music sound
lofty and clear
Perchance Meliboeus may waft to reach the great Emperor's
ear.
it
it
it,
;
I ;
it
KING GOLL.
KING GOLL. (THIRD century. ) Bt W. B.
