CHAPTER XXXIX. CLIMAX OF THE EMPIRE.-NERVA, TRAJAN, AND THE ANTONINES. A.D. 96 TO A.D. 192. "And wise AURELIUS, in whose well-taught mind THE NEW EMPIRE HAS A CONSTITUTIONAL CHARACTER-HAPPINESS OF THE NEW ERA-UNION OF MONARCHY AND LIBERTY-ACCESSION OF NERVA-HIS CHARACTER AND ORIGINCLEMENCY AND GOVERNMENT OF NERVA-DISCONTENT OF THE PRÆTORIANS-NERVA ADOPTS TRAJAN-HIS DEATH-ACCESSION OF TRAJAN-HIS EXTRACTION AND CHARAOTER HIS SETTLEMENT OF THE GERMAN FRONTIER-HIS ENTRY INTO ROME-HIS MAGNANIMITY AND FIRMNESS-TITLE OF "OPTIMUS"-FIRST DACIAN WAR, AND SUBMISSION OF DECEBALUS-SECOND DACIAN WAR-TRAJAN'S BRIDGE OVER THE DANUBE-DEATH OF DECEBALUS AND CONQUEST OF DACIA-THE FORUM AND COLUMN OF TRAJAN-DACIA A ROMAN PROVINCE CONQUESTS IN ARABIA — GOVERNMENT OF TRAJAN-DIGNITY AND FREEDOM OF THE SENATE - CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE-TRAJAN'S ECONOMY AND MAGNIFICENCE-NATURAL DISASTERS AT ROME-PARTHIAN AGGRESSIONS IN ARMENIA-TRAJAN GOES TO THE EAST-EARTHQUAKE AT ANTIOCH-CONQUEST OF ARMENIA AND ASSYRIACAPTURE OF CTESIPHON-TRAJAN ON THE PERSIAN GULF-HIS RETREAT TO ANTIOCH, AND DEATH IN CILICIA-EPOCH FROM WHICH THE EMPIRE BEGAN TO RECEDE-ACCESSION AND ORIGIN OF HADRIAN-HIS EDUCATION AND EARLY CAREER-HIS ALLEGED ADOPTION BY TRAJAN-HIS SYSTEM OF POLICY-THE CONQUESTS OF TRAJAN ABANDONED-HADRIAN'S RETURN TO ROME-DANGERS ON THE FRONTIERS-HADRIAN IN MESIA-HIS FIRST PROGRESS: GAUL: THE RHINE: BRITAIN: THE "VALLUM ROMANUM": MAURETANIA: ASIA: ATHENS SICILY: ROME: CARTHAGE-HADRIAN'S SECOND PROGRESS HIS RESIDENCE AT ATHENS, AND BUILDINGS THERE-HADRIAN AT ALEXANDRIA AND ANTIOCH-HIS WORKS AT ROME-THE "EDICTUM PERPETUUM -ADOPTION AND DEATH OF CEIONIUS COMMODUS VERUS-AURELIUS ANTONINUS IS ADOPTED BY HADRIAN, AND HIMSELF ADOPTS M. ANNIUS VERUS AND L. AURELIUS VERUS-DEATH AND CHARACTER OF HADRIANGREAT MERITS OF HIS GOVERNMENT-ACCESSION OF ANTONINUS PIUS-HIS ORIGIN AND FAMILY-ASSOCIATION OF M. AURELIUS IN THE EMPIRE-CHARACTER OF THE TWO ANTONINES-THE BASIS OF THEIR POWER WAS NOT DESPOTIC-STATE OF THE FRONTIERSTHE "VALLUM ANTONINI IN BRITAIN EXCESSES OF FAUSTINA-HAPPY LIFE AND DEATH OF ANTONINUS ACCESSION OF MARCUS AURELIUS THE PHILOSOPHER-HIS 66 MEDITATIONS"-HIS ASSOCIATION OF LUCIUS VERUS IN THE EMPIRE-THE PARTHIAN WAR-VICTORIES OF AVIDIUS CASSIUS-GOVERNMENT OF AURELIUS-THE BARBARIANS ON THE DANUBE-PESTILENCE BROUGHT PROM THE EAST-THE EMPERORS AT AQUILEIA -DEATH OF VERUS-WAR UPON THE DANUBE-VICTORY OVER THE QUADI-THE THUNDERING LEGION-VICES OF COMMODUS AND FAUSTINA REBELLION AND DEATH OF AVIDIUS CASSIUS-AURELIUS AT ANTIOCH, ALEXANDRIA, AND ATHENS HIS TRIUMPH SHARED WITH COMMODUS-PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS-NEW WAR UPON THE DANUBE DEATH OF AURELIUS-ACCESSION OF COMMODUS-HE PURCHASES PEACE FROM THE BARBARIANS-PLOT OF LUCILLA AGAINST HIS LIFE-RAGE OF COMMODUS AGAINST THE SENATE-STATE OF THE PROVINCES AND FRONTIERS-REVOLT OF MATERNUS-THE MINISTERS PERENNIS AND CLEANDER-PROFLIGACY OF COMMODUS-HIS PERFORMANCES IN THE AMPHITHEATRE-HIS ASSUMPTION OF DIVINITY-HIS MONSTROUS ARROGANCE -DEATH OF COMMODUS-EPOCH OF THE DECISIVE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE-ROMAN AND GREEK LITERATURE IN THE SECOND CENTURY. THE assassination of Domitian had very different results from the suicide of Nero. The one was followed by a change of dynasty: VOL. III. I I the other ushered in a revolution. The magnitude of the change is concealed by our habit of regarding the empire as one continuous form of government; but the despotism which the Cæsars had veiled under constitutional forms was really overthrown and replaced by a monarchy based, however imperfectly, on the principles of the ancient commonwealth. The ultimate moral basis of the claims of the Cæsars to be the masters of Rome and of the world was that power, fate, or fortune-call it what you willwhich genius had created, which success had ratified, and which their growing arrogance, scarcely keeping pace with the adulation of their subjects, had developed into divine pretensions. We have seen how it came to pass that this divine right was transferred to the Flavian dynasty, though unconnected with the Cæsarean family, either by birth or by adoption. It perished with the death of Domitian, whose successor was chosen on the lower but sounder principle of political convenience. The Senate, in making the election, and Nerva, in accepting it, formed that compact between prince and people, which has a far higher antiquity than its supposed invention by constitutional theorists. This is a fact never to be forgotten by those who claim, as a merit of the imperial system, the happiness which ancient and modern historians vie with one another in describing as the portion of the world under the new government. Thus Gibbon declares, in a memorable passage, that "if a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would without hesitation name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines, who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the law. Such princes deserved the honour of restoring the Republic, had the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational freedom." The felicity of the period is doubtless exaggerated by the historian's philosophic sympathy with the Antonines, and his candour adds the admission of its insecurity, which must have embittered, in the minds of these monarchs themselves, "the reward that inseparably waited on their success; the honest pride of virtue; the exquisite delight of beholding the general happiness of which they were the authors. They must often have recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the character of a single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some jealous tyrant, would abuse, to the destruction, that absolute power which they had exerted for the benefit of their people. The ideal restraints of the Senate and the laws might serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible instrument of oppression; and the corruption of Roman manners would always supply flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers prepared to serve, the fear or the avarice, the lust or the cruelty, of their masters." That such an end-which was realized in the sixth of these new emperors, the son of the virtuous Aurelius-should have threatened from the very first, was due to the impossibility of reviving among a degenerate people the living spirit of that constitution which Nerva and Trajan laboured to restore. Tacitus confesses that his joy at the new springing of a happy age is tempered by the reflection that, by nature the remedies of human weaknesses are slower than the ills themselves; and, just as bodies grow slowly and swiftly perish, so what is good in the minds and pursuits of men is more easily crushed than recalled to life. But yet, the vast amount of happiness and prosperity, which the Roman world enjoyed for nearly a hundred years, is to be traced to that new state of things, which the historian sums up with his characteristic terseness, that, "Nerva Cæsar mingled things which had hitherto been incompatible-the principate and liberty.' Nerva was, in fact, the free choice of the Senate, acting as the organ of the people; neither designated, on the one hand, by any pretensions of birth, great services, or high genius; nor, on the other, raised up by the power of the Prætorians. The Senate were so much better prepared for the crisis than they had been at the death of Nero, as to prove that their chiefs could hardly have been strangers to the plot for Domitian's death. The Prætorians-far less powerful in comparison with the legions than before their disbanding by Vitellius, and less closely connected with the people of Rome and Italy, and never enthusiastic for the Flavian princes, who had kept them under firm discipline-observed a sullen attitude of expectation, hoping perhaps soon to work their will with the Senate's nominee. And if there was no Otho to throw himself into their arms, so there was no Galba, or Vitellius, or Vespasian, driven to rebellion by fear or the voice of their own soldiers. The legions of the Danube, whose muttered threats form some testimony to the character which Domitian had earned when he led them, are said to have been appeased by the eloquence of the sophist, Dio Chrysostom. Only on the Rhine was there a commander eminent enough to have been saluted Imperator; but Trajan-probably by a previous understanding-declared for the choice of the Senate, and had not long to wait for his reward. The election seems to have been governed by motives not unlike those which guide a conclave of cardinals. The senators found a member of their own body, not so eminent for ability, or even for character, as to provoke their jealousy, but whose accomplishments and moderation made him a dignified and faithful representative of the order, and old enough to secure his elevation being an experiment. MARCUS COCCEIUS NERVA is said by Eutropius to have been of the middle nobility. His family had come over, about the beginning of the century, from Crete, where they had been planted in a remote age by an Italian ancestor. Hence one historian regards him as the first example of that foreign extraction of the emperors, which became so common with his successors; and panegyrists compared him with the first Tarquin. He was "the son of an official, the grandson of a jurist, the great-grandson of the minister of Augustus." M. Cocceius Nerva, the "optimus Cocceius" of Horace,† acted, as the friend of Antony, with Mæcenas as Octavian's, in the reconciliation of the triumvirs (B.c. 40), and was consul in B.C. 36. The great jurist, M. Cocceius Nerva, whom we have seen ending his faithful service to Tiberius by starving himself to death (A.D. 33),‡ was probably the son of the former, and he was certainly the father of the jurist who is mentioned by the name of "Nerva filius ;" and this last was probably the father of the emperor. Nerva is said to have been born at Narnia, in Umbria; and, brought up in the traditions of his family, he became an accomplished writer and public speaker. He was consul with Vespasian in A.D. 71, and again with Domitian in A.D. 90, but he had held no proconsular command. His want of military reputa 66 * The prefects of the legions on the Rhine, on the Danube, and in Syria, formed, as Mr. Merivale observes, a military triumvirate, in whose hands the fate of Rome now actually resided." But "the chief of the army of Syria lay at too great a distance to compete, at least at the moment, with either" of the other two: "the commander on the Rhine had generally the most decisive influence; and it was fortunate for the feeble emperor that he possessed at this juncture in his lieutenant, Trajan, the most devoted as well as the bravest of partisans." † Sat. I., v., 28, 32. + See p. 380. tion, and the easy self-indulgence of his habits, preserved him from the jealousy and dislike to which Galba had fallen a victim. His bodily infirmities were in advance of his age, which is variously stated at 63, 65, or even 70. "The senators hoped to guide him, the soldiers could hardly fear him; but his personal appearance was agreeable and imposing, and in the charm which soonest wins and retains longest the admiration of the populace, he might hope to rival Augustus and Tiberius, Nero and Titus.” * While the Senate conferred upon Nerva the tribunitian power and other honours of the imperial dignity, the body of Domitian, which his nurse Phyllis had lifted from the floor of the chamber where he fell, was privately interred in the temple of the Flavian family. No one ventured even to suggest his apotheosis; his statues were overthrown, and his name effaced from the public monuments. The surviving victims of his proscription were recalled from exile; and the punishment of the delators was commenced. But Nerva, with a clemency not unmingled with timidity, preferred security to vengeance; and, besides abolishing the trials for majestas, he delivered the leading men from the constant danger of being betrayed by their own followers, by enacting that the evidence of a slave should not be received against his master, nor even that of a freedman against his patron. He took a vow, in the presence of the assembled Fathers, that no Senator should be put to death during his principate; and, in the review of his brief career, Nerva was able to declare that he had done no deed to prevent him from abdicating in safety. The extent of his clemency towards the agents of the late tyranny provoked dissatisfaction from those who were impatient to avenge their wrongs. One evening, Junius Mauricus, who had just returned from banishment, found himself supping at the emperor's table in the company of Veiento, one of the worst of the delators. The conversation turned upon the recent death of Catullus, another of Domitian's creatures; and Nerva asked, "Were Catullus now alive, what would his fate be?" "He would be supping with us,” replied Mauricus. Among the measures by which Nerva endeavoured to revive the spirit of the old republic, was a division of land among the poor citizens and a public provision for their children. The sale of the furniture of the palaces, and other articles of imperial luxury, gave an example of republican simplicity, while supplying the cost of these public benefactions, and of his presents to his friends. The Merivale, vol. vii. p. 194. |