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(134-138 A.D.]

enough to prevent him making mistakes. At the foot of the mountains of Tibur he built a villa which resembled an album of his travels, a sort of panorama of fame. It might have been described as the noisy, tawdry fair of a dying nation. Everything was to be found there; imitation Egyptian, imitation Greek, the Lyceum, the Academy, the Prytaneum, the Pocile, Canopus, the Alpheus, the valley of Tempe, the Elysian fields, Tartarus; temples, libraries, theatres; a hippodrome, a naumachy, a gymnasium, baths, -strange but attractive spot. For it is the last place where enjoyment was to be found, where clever men fell asleep to the empty sound of the "miserly Acheron."1

Hadrian as Patron of the Arts

At Rome, the one thought of the fantastic emperor was that senseless tomb, that immense mausoleum, where Babylon was put to shame, and which, stripped of its treasures, became the citadel of papal Rome. His buildings covered the world. The Athenæums he founded, the encouragement he gave to letters and the fine arts, the liberties he accorded to professors, rejoiced the hearts of all cultivated people. Unfortunately, superstition, caprice, and cruelty mastered him more and more as his physical strength decreased. He had built himself an Elysium to disbelieve in, a hell to laugh at, a philosopher's hall in which to jeer at the philosophers, a Canopus in order to expose the impostures of the priests and to remind himself of the mad festivals of Egypt, which had so greatly amused him. Now everything seemed hollow and empty; nothing interested him any longer. Perhaps some of the martyrdoms which took place during his reign and for which it is not easy to assign a motive may be attributed to the disorders and caprices of his last

months.

Telesphorus was then the head of the Church of Rome; he died confessing Christ and was numbered amongst the most glorious martyrs of the faith. The death of the dilettante Cæsar was sad and undignified, for he was animated by no really elevated moral sentiment. The world, nevertheless, lost in him a mighty pillar. The Jews alone triumphed in the agony of his last moments.

He cared sincerely for civilisation, and perfectly understood its possibilities in his day. Ancient art and literature end with him. He was the last emperor to believe in glory, as Ælius Verus was the last man who knew how to appreciate the refinements of pleasure. Human affairs are so frivolous that brilliancy and pomp must be allowed a part in them. No world will hold together without these. Louis XIV knew this, and men have lived and still live by the light of his copper-gilt sun. Hadrian, in his own way, marks a climax, after which a rapid decline begins. Certainly, from a moral standpoint, Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius far surpass him; but under them the world becomes sad, loses its gaiety, puts on a cowl, becomes Christian, while superstition increases.

The art of Hadrian, although it is cankered, still adheres to principles; it is a skilful and learned art; then decadence sets in with irresistible force. Ancient society realises that all is vanity, and on the day when this discovery is made death is not far off. The two accomplished sages who are to reign next are each in their several ways ascetics. Lucius Verus and Faustina are to be the outcast survivors of ancient fashion.d

[1 Hadrian's villa hardly deserves such sarcasm. It was a sort of miniature, natural and architectural, of the Roman world, -a pleasant artistic retreat for the emperor during his weary illness, and a monument to his cosmopolitan character.]

H. W.-VOL. VI. U

[138-161 A.D.}

ANTONINUS (TITUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS PIUS), 138-161 a.d.

The ancestors of Antoninus originally came from Nemausus (Nîmes); after settling at Rome, they had filled the highest offices there. Antoninus himself, distinguished by Hadrian, had received from that prince the government of a portion of Italy, later on, the proconsulship of Asia, and had finally been adopted by him on condition that he, in his turn, should adopt Marcus Aurelius and Lucius, the son of Ælius Verus. During his reign of twenty-three years (138-161) the empire enjoyed great tranquillity, due as

much to his virtues as to his moderation, and to the able government of his predecessor, who had temporarily removed the causes of disorder.

His renown extended so far that the princes of India, of Bactriana, and Hyrcania chose him to arbitrate in their quarrels; his grateful contemporaries gave him the beautiful title of "Father of the Human Race." He never appointed any but experienced and upright men to public offices, and permitted them to hold their posts for life when he could not replace them by others more able. A wise economy in financial administration gave him the means of establishing useful institutions, as, for example, two asylums where orphan girls were educated under the protection of the Empress Faustina, and the appointments for learned professors that he established not only in Rome, as Vespasian had done, but in the large towns of the provinces.

He was able, also, to succour towns which had been stricken by any plague, such as Rome, Antioch, Narbonne, and Rhodes, when devastated by fire or earthquake. The wealth of a prince, he used to say, is public felicity. He, himself, lived simply, accessible to all, and ready to render justice to all complaints. Two conspiracies against him were discovered; the two instigators alone perished. An Apology for Christianity, composed by Justin, the philosopher, and presented to the FAUSTINA, WIFE OF ANTONINUS emperor, procured toleration and protection for the Christians, who were already numerous in Rome and the provinces.

PIUS

(From a statue in the Vatican)

His

Antoninus engaged in no war, and did not even visit the provinces, which were too peaceful and well governed to render his presence necessary. lieutenants, however, engaged in some battles, against the Moors in Africa, and against the Alani and the Quadi on the Danube. The Laza and the Armenians accepted the kings he installed. The Jews gave some trouble, and the Britons attempted to destroy the wall of Hadrian.

An act that clearly shows the moderation of Antoninus is related by Appian. At that time deputies came to Rome from the barbarians, with a request to be received as subjects of the empire. This was refused them. Such had been the policy of Augustus and Hadrian, and it had had sufficiently good results in the well-being of a hundred millions of men to justify Antoninus in following it. But peace also brought forgetfulness of the martial

[138-161 A.D.]

valour of old. The legions, idle behind the ramparts of their camp, no longer knew how to handle weapons, nor endure fatigue; and all the severity of Avidius Cassius was required to root out the effeminacy of the soldiers, particularly those in Syria, to wean them from indulgence in "baths and the dangerous pleasures of Daphne, to tear from their heads the flowers with which they crowned themselves at their feasts."c

In the beginning of his reign, he made it his particular study to promote only the most deserving to employments; he moderated many imposts and tributes, and commanded that all should be levied without partiality or oppression. His liberality was such, that he even parted with all his own private fortune, in relieving the distresses of the necessitous. Against which, when Faustina, the empress, seemed to remonstrate, he reprehended her folly, alleging, that as soon as he was possessed of the empire, he quitted all private interests; and having nothing of his own, all properly belonged to the public. He acted differently from his predecessors with regard to travelling, and seldom left Rome, saying, that he was unwilling to burden his subjects with ostentatious and unnecessary expenses. By this frugal conduct, he was the better enabled to suppress all the insurrections that happened during his reign, either in Britain, in Dacia, or in Germany. Thus he was at once reverenced and loved by mankind, being accounted rather a patron and a father to his subjects, than a master and commander.. Ambassadors were sent to him from the remotest parts of Hyrcania, Bactria, and India, all offering him their alliance and friendship; some desiring him to appoint them a king, whom they seemed proud to obey. He showed not less paternal care towards the oppressed Christians; in whose favour he declared, that if any should proceed to disturb them, merely upon account of their religion, that such should undergo the same punishment which was intended against the accused.

This clemency was attended with no less affability than freedom; but, at the same time, he was upon his guard, that his indulgence to his friends should not tempt them into insolence or oppression. He therefore took care that his courtiers should not sell their favours, nor take any gratuity from their suitors. In the time of a great famine in Rome, he provided for the wants of the people, and maintained vast numbers with bread and wine all the time of its continuance. When any of his subjects attempted to inflame him with a passion for military glory, he would answer, that he more desired the preservation of one subject, than the destruction of a thousand enemies.

He was an eminent rewarder of learned men, to whom he gave large pensions and great honours, drawing them from all parts of the world. Among the rest he sent for Apollonius, the famous stoic philosopher, to instruct his adopted son, Marcus Aurelius, whom he had previously married to his daughter. Apollonius being arrived at Rome, the emperor desired his attendance; but the other arrogantly answered, that it was the scholar's duty to wait upon the master, and not the master's upon the scholar. To this reply Antoninus only returned, with a smile, that it was surprising how Apollonius, who made no difficulty of coming from Greece to Rome, should think it so hard to walk from one part of Rome to another ; and immediately sent Marcus Aurelius to him. While the good emperor. was thus employed in making mankind happy, in directing their conduct by his own example, or reproving their follies with the keenness of rebuke, he was seized with à violent fever at Lorium, a pleasure house at some distance from Rome; where, finding himself sensibly decaying, he ordered his friends and principal officers to attend him. In their presence, he

[138-161 A.D.] confirmed the adoption of Marcus Aurelius, without once naming Lucius Verus, who had been joined by Hadrian with him in the succession; then commanding the golden statue of Fortune, which was always in the chamber of the emperors, to be removed to that of his successor, he expired in the seventy-fifth year of his age, after a prosperous reign of twenty-two years and almost eight months.

RENAN'S CHARACTERISATION OF ANTONINUS

All

He

Antoninus was a St. Louis in kindness and goodness, with far more judgment and a broader mind. He is the most perfect sovereign who has ever reigned. He was even superior to Marcus Aurelius, since he cannot be accused of weakness. To enumerate his good qualities would be to enumerate the good qualities which may belong to an accomplished man. men hailed in him an incarnation of the mythical Numa Pompilius. was the most constitutional of sovereigns, besides being simple and economical, occupied with good works and labours of public utility, a stranger to excess, no great talker, and free from all intellectual affectation. Through him philosophy became a genuine force; the philosophers were everywhere liberally pensioned. He was himself surrounded by ascetics and the general direction of the education of Marcus Aurelius was his work.

Thus the world seemed to have reached an ideal state; wisdom reigned; the world was governed for twenty-three years by a father; affectation and false taste in literature died out; simplicity ruled; public instruction was the object of earnest attention. The improvement was general; excellent laws were passed, especially in favour of slaves; the relief of suffering became a universal care. The preachers of moral philosophy were even more successful than Dion Chrysostomus; the desire to win frivolous applause was the peril they had to avoid. In the place of the cruel Roman aristocracy a provincial aristocracy was springing up composed of honest people, whose aim was the general good.

The similarity of these aspirations with those of Christianity was striking. But a great difference separated the two schools and was to make them enemies. By reason of its hope of an approaching end of the world, its ill-concealed wish for the downfall of the ancient social order, Christianity, in the midst of the beneficent empire of the Antonines, was a subverter which had to be battled with. The Christian, always pessimistic and inexhaustible in lugubrious prophecies, far from aiding rational progress held it in contempt. Nearly all the Catholic teachers regarded war between the empire and the church as necessary, as the last act of the struggle between God and Satan; they boldly affirmed that persecution would last to the end of all things. The idea of a Christian empire, although it sometimes occurred to them, appeared a contradiction and an impossibility:

Whilst the world was beginning to live again, the Jews and the Christians insisted more than ever on wishing its last hour to approach. Already the imposter Baruch had exhausted himself in vague announcements. The Judeo-Christian sibyl all this time did not cease to thunder. The everincreasing splendour of Rome was a scandalous outrage to the divine truth,

[1 Bury's" estimate is different. He says: "Antoninus was hardly a great statesman. The rest which the empire enjoyed under his auspices had been rendered possible through Hadrian's activity, and was not due to his own exertions; on the other hand, he carried the policy of peace at any price too far, and so entailed calamities on the state after his death."]

[138-161 A.D.]

to the prophets, to the saints. They also devoted themselves to boldly denying the prosperity of the century. All natural scourges, which continued to be fairly numerous, were held up as signs of implacable wrath. The past and present earthquakes in Asia were taken advantage of to inspire the most gloomy terrors. These calamities, according to the fanatics, had only one cause the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. Rome, the courtesan, had given herself up to a thousand lovers who had intoxicated her; she was to become a slave in her turn. Italy, bleeding from civil wars, would become a den of wild beasts. The new prophets employed nearly the same figures to describe the downfall of Rome as the seer of sixty-nine to depict his melancholy fury.

It is difficult for any society not to answer such attacks. The sibylline books containing them, attributed to the pretended Hystaspes and announcing the destruction of the empire, were condemned by the Roman authorities, and those who possessed or read them were amenable to the death penalty. Anxious searching into the future was a crime during the imperial epoch; and indeed under this useless curiosity there was nearly always hidden a desire for revolution and incitement to assassination. Doubtless, it would have been more worthy of the wise emperor who introduced so many humane reforms to despise unrestrained and aimless fantasies and to repeal those harsh laws which Roman despotism made to weigh so heavily on liberty of worship and liberty of association; but evidently the idea occurred to none of those about him, any more than it did to those about Marcus Aurelius.

Only the free thinker can be absolutely tolerant, and Antoninus observed and scrupulously maintained the ceremonies of the Roman religion. The policy of his predecessors in this respect had been unswerving. They had seen in the Christians a secret and anti-social sect, which was dreaming of the overthrow of the empire; and, like all those attached to the ancient Roman principles, they thought it necessary to suppress it. Special edicts were not needed for this; the laws against cœtus illiciti and illicita collegia were numerous. The Christians came under the action of these laws in the most regular manner. It must be observed, firstly, that the true spirit of liberty as it is understood to-day, was then not comprehended, and that Christianity, when it was in power, did not practise it any better than the pagan emperors; secondly, that the repeal of the law against illegal societies would probably have been the ruin of the empire, which rested on the essential principle that the state must admit into itself no society which differed from it. The principle was bad, according to our ideas; it is at least certain that it was the cornerstone of the Roman constitution.

The people would have thought the foundations of the empire shattered if there had been any relaxation of the repressive laws which they held to be essential to the soundness of the state. The Christians appeared to understand this. Far from bearing any ill will to Antoninus personally, they rather regarded him as having lightened their burden. A fact which does infinite honour to this sovereign is that the principal advocate of Christianity dared confidently to address him for the purpose of obtaining the rectification of a legal position which he rightly thought unjust and unseemly in such a happy reign. Others went further, and doubtless during the first years of Marcus Aurelius various rescripts were fabricated purporting to be addressed under the name Antoninus to the Larissians, to the Thessalonians, to the Athenians, to all the Greeks, and to the states of Asia; rescripts so favourable to the Church that if Antoninus had really countersigned them he would have been very inconsistent in not becoming a Christian. These documents only

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