questa
del Foro tuo solitudineogni
rumore vince, ogni gloria,e
tutto che al mondo è civile,grande,
augusto, egli è romano ancora.Carducci.The
Perspective of Roman History
ATHENS
and Rome stand side by side as the parents of Western civilisation.
The parental metaphor is almost irresistible. Rome is so obviously
masculine and robust, Greece endowed with so much loveliness and
charm. Rome subjugates by physical conquest and government. Greece
yields so easily to the Roman might and then in revenge so easily
dominates Rome itself, with all that Rome has conquered, by the
mere
attractiveness of superior humanity. Nevertheless this metaphor of
masculine and feminine contains a serious fallacy. Greece, too, had
had days of military vigour. It was by superior courage and skill
in
fighting that Athens and Sparta had beaten back the Persian
invasions
of the fifth century before Christ, and thus saved Europe for
occidentalism. Again it was by military prowess that Alexander the
Great carried Greek civilisation to the borders of India,
Hellenising
Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, Egypt, Phœnicia and even Palestine. This
he did just at the moment when Rome was winning her dominion over
Latium. Instead, then, of looking at Greece and Rome as two coeval
forces working side by side we must regard them as predecessor and
successor. Rome is scarcely revealed as a world-power until she
meets
Greek civilisation in Campania near the beginning of the third
century before Christ. The physical decline of Greece is scarcely
apparent until her phalanx returns beaten in battle by the Roman
maniples at Beneventum. Moreover, in addition to this chronological
division of spheres there is also a geographical division. Greece
takes the East, Rome the West, and though by the time that Rome
went
forth to govern her Western provinces she was already pretty
thoroughly permeated with Greek civilisation, yet the West remained
throughout mediæval history far more Latin than Greek. When
Constantine divided the empire he was only expressing in outward
form
a natural division of culture.
The
resemblances between Rome and Greece even from the first are very
clearly marked. In many respects they are visibly of the same
family,
and, though we no longer speak as confidently of “Aryan” and
“Indo-European” as did the ethnologists and philologists of the
nineteenth century, yet there remains an obvious kinship of
language,
customs, and even dress. Many of the most obvious similarities,
such
as those of religion, are now seen to be the result of later
borrowing, but there remains a distinct cousinship, whether derived
from the conquest of both peninsulas by kindred tribes of northern
invaders, as Ridgeway holds, or from the existence of an aboriginal
Mediterranean face, as Sergi believes—or from both.But
with all these resemblances, one of the most interesting features
of
ancient history lies in the psychological contrast between Greece
and
Rome, or rather between Athens and Rome. Athens is rich in ideas,
full of the spirit of inquiry, and hence fertile in invention, fond
of novelty, worshipping brilliance of mind and body. Rome is stolid
and conservative, devoted to tradition and law. Gravity and the
sense
of duty are her supreme virtues. Here we have the two types that
succeed and conquer, set side by side for comparison. To which is
the
victory in the end?To
the Englishman of to-day Rome is in some ways far more familiar
than
Greece. Apart from obvious resemblances in history and in
character,
Rome touches our own domestic history, and any man who has marked
the
stability of old Roman foundations or the straightness of old Roman
roads has already grasped a fundamental truth about her. He is
surely
not far wrong in the general sense of irresistible power, of blind
energy and rigid law, which he associates with the name of Rome.
Thus, there is not as there was in the case of Greece any radical
misconception of the Roman character to be combated.But
there is, it appears, a widely prevalent false perspective in the
common view of Roman history. The modern reader, especially if he
be
an Englishman, is a very stern moralist in his judgment of other
nations and ages. In addition to this he is a citizen of an empire
now extremely self-conscious and somewhat bewildered at its own
magnitude. He cannot help drawing analogies from Roman history and
seeking in it “morals” for his own guidance. The Roman empire
bears such an obvious and unique resemblance to the British that
the
fate of the former must be of enormous interest to the latter. For
this reason alone we are apt to regard the
fall
of Rome as the cardinal point of Roman history. To this must be
added
the influence of Gibbon’s great work. By Gibbon we are led to
contemplate above all things (with Silas Wegg) her Decline and
Fall.
Thus Rome has become for many people simply a colossal failure and
a
horrible warning. We behold her first as a Republic tottering to
her
inevitable ruin, and then as an Empire decaying from the start and
continuing to fester for some five hundred years. This is one of
the
cases which prove that History is made not so much by heroes or
natural forces as by historians. It is an accident of
historiography
that the Republic was not described by any great native historian
until its close, when amid the horrors of civil war men set
themselves to idealise the heroes of extreme antiquity and thus
left
a gloomy picture of unmitigated deterioration. As there was no
great
historian in sympathy with the imperial regime, the reputation of
the
early Empire was left mainly in the hands of Tacitus and Suetonius,
the former of whom riddled it with epigrams while the latter
befouled
it with scandal. Nearly all Roman writers had a rhetorical training
and a satirical bent: all Romans were praisers of the past. Thus it
is that Roman virtue has receded into an age which modern criticism
declares to be mythological. It is a further accident that the
genius
of Rome’s greatest modern historian was also strongly satirical. It
was a natural affinity of temper which led Gibbon to continue the
story of Tacitus and to dip his pen into the same bitter
fluid.Thus
Rome has found few impartial historians and hardly any sympathetic
ones. But is it possible to be sympathetic? While every true
scholar
feels a thrill at the name of Greece, scarcely any one
loves
Ancient Rome. At the first mention of her name the average man’s
thoughts fly to the Colosseum and the Christian martyr “facing the
lion’s gory mane” to the music of Nero’s fiddle. His second
thought is to formulate his explanation of her decline and fall.
The
explanations are as various as political complexions. “Luxury,”
says the moralist, “Heathendom,” says the Christian,
“Christianity,” replies Gibbon. The Protectionist can easily show
that it was due to the Importation of free corn, while the Free
Trader draws attention to the enormous burdens which Roman trade
had
to bear. “Militarism,” explains the peace-lover; “neglect of
personal service,” replies the conscriptionist. The Liberal and the
Conservative can both draw valuable conclusions from Roman history
in
support of their respective attitudes of mind. “If it had not been
for demagogues like Marius and the Gracchi,” says the Conservative,
“Rome might have continued to exhibit the courage and patriotism
which she displayed under senatorial guidance in the war against
Hannibal, instead of rushing to her doom by way of sedition and
disorder.” With equal justice the Liberal points to the stupid
bigotry with which that corrupt oligarchy, the senate, delayed
necessary reforms. That, he says, was the cause of the downfall of
Rome. That was the writing on the wall.Plate
I. GENERAL VIEW OF ROMAN FORUMWhether
it is or is not possible to love Ancient Rome, I would suggest that
this attitude of treating her merely as a subject for autopsies and
a
source of gloomy vaticinations for the benefit of the British
Empire
is a preposterous affront to history. The mere notion of an empire
continuing to decline and fall for five centuries is ridiculous. It
is to regard as a failure the greatest civilising force in all the
history of Europe, the most stable form of government, the
strongest
military and political system that has ever existed.It
is just at this point that our own generation can add something of
great importance to the study of Roman history. Whatever may be
said
for its faith, hope is the great discovery of our age. By the help
of
that blessed word “Evolution” we have learnt not to put our
Golden Ages in the past but in the future. In many instances we
have
discovered that what our fathers called decay was really progress.
May it not be so with Rome?The
destiny or function of Rome in world-history was nothing more or
less
than the making of Europe. The modern family of European nations
are
her sons and daughters, and some of her daughters have grown up and
married foreign husbands and given birth to offspring. For this
great
purpose it was necessary that the city itself should pass through
the
phases of growth, maturity and decay. In political terms, it was
part
of the Roman destiny to translate the civilisation of the
city-state
into that of the nation or territorial state. Having evolved the
Province it was necessary that the City should expire. Conquest on
a
colossal scale was part of the programme, absolute centralised
dominion was another part. For this purpose the change from
republic
to autocracy was necessary.Plate
II. THE ROMAN COMPAGNAGreece,
as we have seen elsewhere, by her system of small states enclosed
and
protected by city walls, had been able, long before the world at
large was nearly ripe for it, to develop a civilised culture with
habits of thought and speech which are now called European or
Occidental. It was in a highly concentrated social life and under
artificial conditions that Athens had laid the foundation of all
our
arts, sciences and philosophies. It was, however, as we saw,
impossible for the civic democracy to expand naturally. She could
hold a little empire for a few years by means of precarious
sea-power. She could throw off a few daughter cities made in her
own
likeness. But for missionary work on a large scale the city-state
was
not adapted. Something much larger than a city and much more
single-minded than a democracy was necessary for that purpose. The
genius of Alexander the Great, an autocrat and a semi-barbarian,
enabled him to do much towards propagating Hellenism in the eastern
part of the Mediterranean littoral. But his early death prevented
the
fulfilment of his task and the half of him that was Greek made him
consider the planting of new Greek cities the only means for
fulfilling it.Here
then was the part which Rome had to play. She had to do for the
West
what Alexander had attempted for the East. In some respects her
task
was harder, for her work lay among warlike barbarians, but easier
in
that she had not to face the corrupting influence of a rival and
more
ancient civilisation.Rome
too began as a city-state and it was while she was still in that
condition that Greek civilisation came to her and took her by
storm.
It was the new wine that burst the old bottle when Rome attempted
to
transform herself into a Greek democracy, and failing became a
monarchy once more. It was not, therefore, a case of “decline and
fall” when Rome ceased to be a republic. No liberal need heave a
sigh for the departed republic. It was an oligarchy that had for a
century deserved to be replaced by something better, and the change
was even an upward step in liberty for all but a few hundreds of
Roman nobles. If we can but turn our minds away from the gossip of
the court and the spite of the discontented aristocracy to a just
survey of that majestic and enduring system of provincial
government,
we shall be able to discern progress where historians would have us
lament decay.It
was progress again when Rome gradually ceased to be a city-state
with
a surrounding territory and became successively the capital of an
empire and then one of half a dozen great centres of government.
Finally it was progress, as we ought by now to be able to see, when
the artificial ramparts on the Rhine and Danube broke down and the
new nations came into their inheritance. By that time Rome had
accomplished her work and the phase of the city-state was
over.Some
such convictions as these are, I think, inevitable to any one who
views European history as a whole in the light of any theory of
historical evolution. Rome has long been the playground of
satirists
and pessimists. Unfortunately at this date it is difficult if not
impossible to shake their verdict and to read Roman history in the
new light. To do so you cannot follow the authorities, for they
were
all on the side of deterioration. The idea of progress was unknown
to
the ancient world, and above all others the Romans believed that
their Golden Age was behind them. It becomes necessary therefore to
extract truth from unwilling witnesses, always a precarious and
suspicious undertaking. All the Roman men of letters believed with
Horace:damnosa
quid non imminuit dies?ætas
parentum peior auis tulitnos
nequiores, mox daturosprogeniem
uitiosiorem.[1]Unless
we are prepared to accept the rank of
progenies vitiosissima
we are compelled to discount this whole tendency of thought and
read
our authorities between the lines. They were all rhetoricians, all
bent on praising the past at the expense of the present and the
future; none of them were over-scrupulous in dealing with evidence.
If all the historians had perished and only the inscriptions
remained
we should have a very different picture of the Roman empire, a
picture much brighter and, I think, much more faithful to
truth.LatinismHellenism
we know and understand; every true classical scholar is a Hellenist
by conviction. But what is Latinism and who are our Latinists? The
altar fires are extinct and the votaries are scattered. Except for
a
small volume of the choicest Latin poetry of the Augustan age, what
that is Latin gives us pleasure to-day? Greek studies seem to
attract
all that is most brilliant and genial in the world of scholarship:
Latin is mainly relegated to the dry-as-dusts. Who reads Lucan out
of
school hours? Who would search Egypt for Cicero’s lost work “De
Gloria”? Who would recognise a quotation from Statius?It
has not always been so. Once they quoted Lucan and Seneca across
the
floor of the House of Commons. The eighteenth century was far more
in
sympathy with Ancient Rome than we are. In those days it would not
have seemed absurd to argue the superiority of Vergil over Homer.
Down to that day Latin had remained the alternative language for
educated people, the medium of international communication, even
for
diplomacy, until French gradually took its place. Only if you
specifically sought to reach the vulgar did you write in English.
Though Dr. Johnson could write a very pretty letter in French, he
used habitually to converse with Frenchmen in Latin; not that it
made
him more intelligible, for, in fact, no foreigner could understand
the English pronunciation of Latin; but that he did not wish to
appear at a disadvantage with a mere Frenchman by adopting a
foreign
jargon. As for public inscriptions, though half the literary men in
London signed a round-robin entreating the great autocrat to write
Oliver Goldsmith’s epitaph in English, Johnson “refused to
disgrace the walls of Westminster Abbey with an English
inscription.”Plate
III. VIEW OF SPOLETOWhat
is the cause of the eclipse which Latin studies are still
suffering?
One cause, perhaps, is to be found in the misuse of the language by
the pedagogues and philologists of the past in the school and the
examination-room. But another cause is the recent discovery of the
true Greek civilisation, whereby scholars have come to realise that
Latin culture is in the main only secondary and derivative. At the
present moment we are passing through a stage of revolt against
classicism, convention, and artificiality. We know that Greek
culture, truly discerned, is neither “classic” nor conventional
nor artificial, but Latinism is still apparently subject to all
these
terms. The Latinity of Cicero, Vergil, Ovid, Horace, Lucan, and the
greater part of the giants, in fact all the Latin of our schools
is—what Greek is not—really and truly classical. They were not
writing as they spoke and thought. They had studied the laws of
expression in the school of rhetoric, and on pain of being esteemed
barbarous they wrote under those laws. Style was their aim. Their
very language was subject to arbitrary laws of syntax and grammar.
The English schoolboy who approaches Cicero by way of the primer’s
rules and examples is entering into Latin literature by much the
same
road as the Romans themselves. The Romans were grammarians by
instinct and orators by education. Thus Latin is fitted by nature
for
schoolroom use, and for all who would learn and study words, which
after all are thoughts, Latin is the supremely best
training-ground.
The language marches by rule. Rules govern the inflexions and the
concords of the words. The periods are built up logically and
beautifully in obedience to law. Latin, of all languages, least
permits translation. You have only to translate Cicero to despise
him.In
the world of letters, as in that of politics, there are the virtues
of order and the virtues of liberty. Our own eighteenth century was
logical in mind because it had to clothe its thoughts in a language
of precision. But even Pope and Addison are rude barbarians
compared
with Vergil and Cicero.
De gustibus non est disputandum—let
some prefer the plain roast and others the made dish. Latin may be
an
acquired taste, but no sort of excellence is mortal. Latin will
come
into its own again along with Dryden and Congreve, along with
patches
and periwigs. Meanwhile it must be a very dull soul who is unmoved
by
the grandeur of Roman history, the triumphant march of the citizen
legions, the dogged patriotism which resisted Hannibal to the
death,
and the pageantry and splendour of the Empire. One must be blind
not
to admire the massive strength of her ruined monuments, arches,
bridges, roads, and aqueducts. And one must be deaf indeed not to
enjoy the surges of Ciceronian oratory or the rolling music of the
Vergilian hexameter. Greece may claim all the charm of the
spring-time of civilisation, but Rome in all her works has a
majesty
which must command, if not love, wonder and respect. Mommsen justly
remarks that “it is only a pitiful narrow-mindedness that will
object to the Athenian that he did not know how to mould his State
like the Fabii and Valerii, or to the Roman that he did not learn
to
carve like Phidias and to write like Aristophanes.”Under
the flowing toga of Latinism the natural Roman is concealed from
our
view. It is possible that the progress of research and excavation
may
to some extent rediscover him and distinguish him, as it has
already
done for his Hellenic brother, from the polished courtiers of the
Augustan age who have hitherto passed as typical products of
Rome.It
is astonishing how little we really know of Rome and the Romans
after
all that has been said and written about them. The ordinary natural
Roman is a complete stranger to us. It is certain that he did not
live in luxury like Mæcenas, but how did he live and what sort of
man was he? We can discern that his language was not in the least
like that of Cicero. It appears that he neither dreaded nor
disliked
emperors like Nero, as did Tacitus and Juvenal. As for his
religion,
much has already been done, and more still remains to be done, to
show that he did not really worship the Hellenised Olympians who
pass
in literature for his gods. Recent scholarship has done something
to
reveal to us the presence of a real national art in Rome, or at any
rate of an artistic development on Italian soil which made visible
steps of its own out of Hellenic leading-strings. Thus there is
some
hope that the real Roman will not always elude us. But for the
present in the whole domain of art, religion, thought, and
literature, Greek influence has almost obliterated the native
strain.
For the present, therefore, we must be content to regard Roman
civilisation as mainly derivative, and our principal object will be
to see how Rome fulfilled her task as the missionary of Greek
thought. This object, together with the unsatisfactory nature of
the
records, must excuse the haste with which I have passed over the
earlier stages of Roman republican history. It is obvious that the
first three centuries of our era will be the important part of
Roman
history from this point of view. Also, if the progress of
civilisation be our main study, nothing in Roman history before the
beginning of the second century B.C. can come directly under our
attention. When the Romans first came into contact with the Greeks
they were still barbarians, with no literature, no art, and very
little industry or commerce. The earlier periods will only be
introductory.Italy
and the RomanThe
pleasant land of Italy needs no description here. Our
illustrations[2]
will recall its sunny hill-sides, its deep shadows, its vineyards
and
olive-yards. But there are one or two features of its geography
which
have a bearing upon the history of Rome.To
begin with, the geographical unity of the Italian peninsula is more
apparent than real. The curving formation of the Apennines really
divides Italy into four parts—(1) the northern region, mainly
consisting of the Po valley, a fertile plain which throughout the
Republican period was scarcely considered as part of Italy at all,
and was, in fact, inhabited by barbarian Gauls; (2) the long
eastern
strip of Adriatic coast, an exposed waterless and harbourless
region,
with a scanty population, which hardly comes into ancient history;
(3) the southern region of Italy proper, hot, fertile, and rich in
natural harbours, so that it very early attracted the notice of the
Greek mariners, and was planted with luxurious and populous cities
long before Rome came into prominence; and (4) the central plain
facing westward, in which the river Tiber and the city of Rome
occupy
a central position. Etruria and Latium together fill the greater
part
of it. Its width is only about eighty miles, so that there is no
room
for any considerable rivers to develop, and, in fact, there are
only
four rivers of any importance in a coast-line of more than 300
miles.
We may call the whole of this region a plain in distinction from
the
Apennine highlands; but it is, of course, plentifully scattered
with
hills high enough to provide an impregnable citadel, and to this
day
crowned with huddled villages.Rome
herself on her Seven Hills began her career by securing dominion
over
the Latin plain which surrounded her on all sides but the north.
The
Roman Campagna,[3]
which is now desolate and fever-stricken, was once all populous
farmland. The river Tiber, though its silting mouth and tideless
waters now render it useless for navigation, was in the flourishing
days of Ancient Rome navigable for small vessels and Ostia was a
good
artificial harbour at its mouth. Thus it is history rather than
geography which has made Rome into an unproductive capital. We may
conclude that geography has placed Rome in a favourable position
for
securing the control of the Mediterranean and especially of the
western part of it.It
is worth while also to notice the neighbours by whom she was
surrounded when she first struggled forward into the light. Just
across the Tiber to the north of her were the Etruscans of whom we
shall see more in the next chapter. Their pirate ships scoured the
sea while their merchants did business with the Greeks of Sicily,
Magna Græcia and Massilia. It was perhaps her position at
the
tête du pont
that led to Rome’s early prominence in war. Across the water on the
coast of Africa was the dreaded city of Carthage, which had for
centuries been striving to establish itself on the island of
Sicily.
All these were seafaring, commercial peoples, but it was not by sea
that Rome met them. Behind Rome, among the valleys and on the spurs
of the Apennines, were a whole series of sturdy highland clans who
like all highlanders noticed the superior fatness of the valley
sheep. It was against these Umbrians, Marsians, Pelignians,
Sabines,
and Samnites that the cities of the plain were constantly at feud,
and it was mainly her struggles with these that kept the Roman
swords
bright in early days.As
to the Romans themselves and their origin there is little that we
can
say for certain. Ancient ethnology is not by any means yet secure
of
its premises. One thing is clear enough, if we can place any
reliance
whatever upon literary records—the national characteristics of the
ancient Roman were very unlike those of the modern Italian. The one
was bold, hardy, grave, orderly and inartistic: the other is
sensitive, vivacious, artistic, turbulent and quick-witted. There
is
not a feature in common between them and yet the modern Italian is
surely the normal South European type. As you go southwards through
France you find the people approaching these characteristics more
and
more. The Spaniard and the Greek share them. The Ancient Roman of
republican days, unless he is a literary invention, is assuredly no
southerner in temperament, though the southern qualities
undoubtedly
begin to grow clear as Roman history progresses. And then the whole
of early Roman history is marked by a strife between the two orders
Patrician and Plebeian, which is certainly not simply a struggle
between two political parties, nor a mere conflict between rich and
poor. There is a division between the two of religion and custom in
such matters as burial, for example, and marriage-rites. The
patricians fear contamination of their blood if the plebeians are
allowed to intermarry with them. These considerations and others
like
them have led Prof. Ridgeway to formulate for Rome, as he has
already
done with success for Greece, a theory of northern invasion and
conquest in very early days. Probably it is a theory which can
never
be proved nor disproved, so woefully scanty is our evidence for the
earliest centuries of Roman history. But it explains the great
riddle
of Roman character as no other theory does.The
archæology of the spade does not help us much though it has made
some interesting discoveries on the soil of Italy. There is of
course
at the base a Neolithic culture resembling that of the rest of
Europe. Then there is a phase of pile-dwellings widely spread among
the marshes of the Lombard plain called the “Terramare”
civilisation. As this phase belongs to the bronze age we may infer
that civilisation developed later in Italy than in Greece owing to
the lack of fortified cities. In this Terramare period the dead
were
carefully buried whole, often folded up into a sitting posture to
fit
their contracted graves. Then comes an Early Iron period, called
“The
Villanova,” where the cremated ashes of the dead are collected in
urns and deposited in vaults generally walled with flat slabs of
stone. Above these two stages come Etruscan and Gallic remains and
then those of the Rome of history. It is probable enough that the
Iron Age of the Villanova culture represents a conquest from the
north. It is likely that in prehistoric times Italy experienced the
same fate as throughout the ages of history. The Alpine passes are
easier from north to south than in the reverse direction, and the
smiling plains of North Italy have always possessed an irresistible
attraction for the barbarian who looks down upon them from those
barren snow-clad heights. Whether the invader be an Umbrian or
Gaulish or Gothic or Austrian warrior, Italia must pay the price
for
her “fatal gift of beauty.”