R. H.

BARROW

The Romans
‘
CAN BOOK

An analysis of Rome’s achievement

and of her contribution to the
founding of Western Civilization,
written from the point of view that
the study of the past is of vital
importance for the understanding
LI
P E

of ourselves, and that the essence

of Roman genius and character is
no mean part of that study.

Idt

2/-
 R. H. BARROW

WITH SO MANY TEACHERS AND WITH SO MANY

EXAMPLES HAS ANTIQUITY FURNISHED US THAT

NO AGE CAN BE THOUGHT MORE FORTUNATE IN

THE CHANCE OF ITS BIRTH THAN OUR OWN AGE,

FOR WHOSE INSTRUCTION MEN OF EARLIER GENE­

RATIONS HAVE EARNESTLY LABOURED.

QUINTILIAN (A.D.35-95)

PENGUIN BOOKS
HARMGNDSWORTH . MIDDLESEX
 CONTENTS
X (a) What manner of men ? 9
(b) ‘The old ways’ 14
II (a) Kings, Republic, Empire 27
{b) From the Seven Hills to the Roman Orb 29
{c) From City-state to Republic in ruins 43
III (a) The new ways and the old 59
{b) Cicero 69
IV [a) Restoration and the Augustan 80
Principate: Vergil and Horace and Livy
(b) The first and second centuries a.d. 89
V What the Romans wrote about 114
VI The Roman practical genius 130
VII The Roman attitude to Religion 144
and Philosophy
vni The age of crisis and rescue: Diocletian 167
and Constantine
IX Christianity and the Roman Empire 179
X The fifth century 192
XI Roman law 209
Epilogue
C
Cl
1
—(
O

Table of Dates 220

Index 223
 THE ROMANS 15
14 THE ROMANS

to be found in them. It may well be said, in the words of acceptable to it, and so to narrow or to focus its action
the Greek Polybius, 205-123 b.c., himself a sceptic, into this or that purpose vital to man. It was thought
‘What more than anything else distinguishes the Roman that to name its manifestation in individual phenomena
state and sets it above all others is its attitude to the gave definition to what was vague, and, so to speak,
gods. It seems to me that what is a reproach to other piped the energy into the desired end. And so, as the
communities actually holds together the Roman state actions of the farmer and his family, engaged in agri­
- I mean its awe of the gods’, and he uses the same word culture and weaving and cooking and bringing up
which St Paul used on Mars’ Hill in Athens. Polybius children, were many, so the activity of this power was
was not to know that at the very end, when the Roman split up into innumerable named powers energising the
Empire was overrun by barbarians, it would be the idea actions of the household. Every minute operation of
of the greatness and eternity of Rome which would hold nature and man - the manifold life of the fields, the
daily tasks of the farmer, the daily round of his wife,
together belief in the gods.
the growth and care of their children - took place in
the presence and by the energy of these vague powers,
(£) ‘the old ways’ now becoming formless deities.
Roman religion was the religion, first of the family,
. With ‘naming’, i.e. invocation, went prayers and
then of the extension of the family, the state. The family offerings of food and meal, milk and wine, and, on
was consecrate, so, therefore, was the state. The simple occasion, animal sacrifice. The appropriate words and
ideas and rites held and practised by families were ad­ rites were known to the head of the family, who was the
justed and enlarged, partly by new conceptions created priest. Words and ritual were passed on from father to
by new needs, partly by contact with other races and son till they were fixed immutably. A flaw in invocation
cultures, when families came together to form settle­ or ceremony would prevent the numen from issuing into
ments and so eventually to fashion the city of Rome. the action which the family or individual was under­
Anthropologists have given the name ‘animism’ to the taking, and so failure would result. The names of many
stage of primitive religion which supposes a ‘power’ or of these household gods have passed into the languages
‘spirit’ or ‘will’ to reside in everything. To the primi­ of Europe: Vesta, the spirit of the hearth-fire; the
tive Roman, numen, power, or will, resided everywhere, Penates, the preservers of the store-cupboard; the
or rather it manifested itself everywhere by action. All Lares, the guardians of the house. But there were very
that can be known about it is that it acts, but the manner many others. Daily prayer was said; the family meal
of its acting is undetermined. Man is an intruder into was a religious ceremony, and incense and libations
the realm of spirit, whose characteristic is action. How were offered. Certain festivals related to the dead, who
can he mitigate the awe which he feels, and how can he were sometimes regarded as hostile and therefore to be
secure that the numen shall produce the requisite action, expelled from the house by rite, sometimes as kindly
and so win for himself the ‘peace of the gods’ ? spirits to be associated closely with all family festivals
The first need is to ‘fix’ this vague power in a way and anniversaries.
 l6 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 17
When the families coalesced to form a community, The formulae of invocation and prayer were handed
family cult and ritual formed the basis of state cult. down and elaborated and recorded unchanged by the
At first the king was the priest; when kings ceased to colleges. In later centuries a priest could use a liturgy
exist, the title survived as ‘king of the sacred things’. phrased in a tongue which he did not understand, and
To help the ‘king’ were ‘colleges’ of priests, that is to the people took part in rites whose meaning was only
say, ordinary men, not a special caste, who were dimly apprehended, yet which meant something. Pro­
colleagues together in ordering worship and festivals. cessions and holidays, amusements and sacrifices im­
The chief college was that of the pontifices, which took pressed the state-worship upon the popular mind. We
charge of the accumulated lore, made rules, and kept shall see later how the full flood of Greek and Oriental
records of feasts and of outstanding events of religious religious ideas broke upon Rome and how myth and
significance to the state. They built up a sacred law story were adopted to furnish the picturesqueness
{ius divinum). Minor colleges assisted them; thus, the which the native religion lacked. For, especially in the
Vestal Virgins tended the hearth-fire of the state, the fourth and third centuries b.c., new cults were brought
augurs took the omens from the flight of birds or from into the religious practice of the state, though as regards
the entrails of a sacrificed animal; for the gods were myth and ritual they were stamped with the Roman
supposed to impress on the sensitive organs of a conse­ mark. But the influx of ideas never penetrated to the
crated animal signs of approval or of disapproval. The heart of the old Roman religion, which was fixed in its
agricultural festivals of the farmstead were given essential nature. It continued both in the city and in the
national importance; the harvest, the safety of the countryside, as is abundantly clear when the evidence
boundaries, the hunting of wolves from the fields be­ of literature and inscriptions becomes most plentiful.
came the concern of the city. New festivals were added, Educated men of the last century b.c., conversant with
and the list was kept in a Calendar, of which we have Greek philosophy and criticism, might regard it as
records. In his origin Mars was a god of the fields; the mere form; but those same men held offices in the
farmer-soldiers, organised for war, turned him into a sacred colleges and encouraged its practice in the state,
god of battle. New gods came to the notice of the and indeed too in the family. Augustus, the first Em­
Romans as their horizon widened; and deities of the peror, was not building on nothing when he sought to
Etruscan and Greek cities in Italy found their way into rescue from the collapse of the state, and to re-erect, the
the Calendar. Jupiter, Juno and Minerva came from old Roman religion and the morality associated with it.
Etruria; the Greek Hephaistos was equated with A strong morality was supported by this cold and
Volcanus, whom the Romans took over from their formless religion, and the growth of morality was un-
Etruscan neighbours. There were many ‘Italic’ deities hampered by mythology. For the Greeks Homer had
too, for, though we have spoken for simplicity’s sake of enshrined stories of gods in everlasting verse - till in a
Romans, Rome was itself made up of a fusion of Italic later age critics had protested that his gods were less
tribes with special cults of their own, no doubt bearing moral than men. The Romans had no sacred writings
a certain family likeness. beyond the formulae of prayer; there was therefore no
18 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 19
myth-made morality to be undone. The individual’s is beside the mark to suggest that abstract qualities can
business was to establish right relations with the gods, scarcely have inspired any warmth of religious feeling,
not to speculate about their nature. The city’s business for neither did the ‘powers’ themselves. Moreover, the
was the same, and the individual was left to indulge in qualities soon found embodiment in a long line of ‘noble
private beliefs of his own if he wished. The Roman Romans’. The point is that moral ideas were enveloped
attitude is always the same - tolerance, provided that with the sanctity of religious cult, and later literature is
no harm was done to public morals and that no attack not understood if the virtues, to which appeal is so often
was made upon the state as a state. The Roman attached made by historian and orator, are not interpreted in
to the god his own morality as he developed. The pro­ this way. They were bound up with the duty laid upon
cess may be illustrated thus: household and state to worship the gods. Here is to be
One of the earliest powers to be individualised was found the root of that sense of duty which marked the
the power of the sunlight and sky; it was called Jupiter, Roman at his best; it often made him unexciting, but he
if indeed Jupiter was not the single spirit from which could become a martyr for an ideal. He did not argue
other numina were individualised. It was an early cus­ about what was honourable or just; his notions were
tom to swear an oath in the open air under the sky, traditional and instinctive and they were held with an
where no secret could be hidden from an all-seeing almost religious tenacity.
power. Under this aspect of an oath-witnessing power
Hercules received the epithet Fidius, ‘concerned with The man offirm and righteous will,
good faith’. Again the individualising tendency came No rabble clamorous for the wrong,
No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill,
into play; Fides, ‘good faith’, was personified, the
Can shake the strength that makes him strong.
abstract from the epithet. The process went on; epithets
were attached to Fides to denote the different spheres in Thus, the Roman was hard.
which Fides operated. Perhaps the conception which shows best the Roman
This ability to abstract an essential characteristic is point of view is that of the ‘Genius’. The idea of the
part of the mental process of the lawyer. The Romans genius begins from the paterfamilias who in begetting
showed the capacity to isolate the important and to children becomes the head of a family. His essential
pursue its applications; hence their jurisprudence. In character is isolated and given a separate spirit-exis­
the kind of speculation which demands a creative tence; he carries on the family which owes to him its
imagination but seems almost to ignore the data of continuance and looks to him for protection. Thus, as a
experience they failed. But, more important, the isola­ member in that mysterious sequence son-father-son-
tion of moral ideas gave those ideas an added emphasis; father, the individual gains a new significance; he is set
in the household and in the state moral ideas received a against a background which, instead of being a con­
status similar in kind to the status of the ‘powers’ them­ tinuous surface, is broken up, and the pieces are shaped,
selves. They were real things in themselves, and were and one of them is shaped like himself. His geni us, there­
not created by opinion; they had objective validity. It fore, is that which puts him in a special relationship to
20 THE ROMANS
THE ROMANS 21
ing the personality of a ‘corporation’; they were sensi­
his family which went before him, and has perished, and
tive, we should say, to the spirit behind it, and that is
to his family which is yet to be born of his sons. A chain
what they said quite literally when they spoke of a
of mysterious power links the family from generation to
genius. And it is not surprising that in Roman law the
generation; it is because of his genius that he, a man of
law ol ‘corporations’ was carried to a high degree of
flesh and blood, can be a link in that unseen chain. elaboration.
Here we may recall the custom, indeed the right, by
The power which has guided in the present will guide
which noble families set up in a recess of the central hall
in the future, and so the genius of Rome comes close to a
of their houses, at first, wax-masks and, later, busts of
‘Providence’ protecting her, and to a mission which she
their ancestors who had deserved well of their family or is fulfilling.
of the state. In the most solemn domestic rites of the
It is clear that in the household of the farmer the wife
household these busts were made to associate. There
was no question of ancestor-worship or appeasement of occupies a position of authority and responsibility.
the departed; rather, it was a demonstration that they Among the Romans, theoretically she was under the
and all for which they stood still lived on and that they guardianship of her husband, and in law enjoyed no
supplied the spiritual life to the family. rights. But she was not kept in seclusion, as in a Greek
It is but a slight development of the genius to attri­ household; she shared her husband’s life and set a stan­
bute to each man who is potentially a paterfamilias a dard of wifely and motherly virtues envied in a later
genius and to each woman a Juno; for this there was age. Parental authority was strict, not to say severe; and
Greek precedent. But the original idea of ‘Genius'1 was parents received the respect of their children, whom
capable of expansion. Just as the genius of a family ex­ they took round with them in the several occupations
pressed the unity and continuity underlying successive on the land or in the village or in the house. Education
generations, so genius was later made to belong to a was given by the parents, and was ‘practical’; even
group of men unrelated by blood but joined by common the stories of the past were so framed as to point a
interests and purposes through successive stages. The moral, and the Twelve Tables of Law were learnt by
heart.
group acquires an entity of its own; the whole is more
than its parts, and that mysterious extra is the genius. Later ages looked back to the primitive simplicity of
Thus in the early Empire we hear of the genius of a early times, and no doubt idealised it. But it was not
legion; the officer of today will readily agree that the myth; in the third and second century b.c. there was
‘traditions of the regiment’ feebly expresses what he literature which testified to it, for men then wrote who
feels; genius is more personal. So, too, we find the had come in contact with men who had been thus
genius of a town, of a club, of a trading community. brought up. The ‘old ways’ survived as realities, and
We hear of the genius of branches of the civil service - still more as ideals. If we enumerate some of the virtues
the mint and the customs, for example; it is natural to which Romans regarded as characteristically Roman
compare our own ‘high traditions and ideals of the throughout their history, we must connect them with
service’. The Romans had an amazing power of envisag­ the native endowment, the pursuits and manner of
22 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 23
life, the early struggles for survival, and the religion the relief given to over-seriousness by ease of manner,
of the first centuries of the Republic. They will be seen good humour, and humour. Disciplim is the training
to be all of a piece. which produces steadiness of character; industria is hard
First in every catalogue of virtues comes some work; virtus is manliness and energy; dementia the
recognition that a man should admit his subordination willingness to forgo one’s rights; fmgalitas, simple
to something external which has a ‘binding-power’ tastes.
tipon him, and the term for this, religio, has a wide These are some of the qualities which Romans most
application. For a ‘religious man’ the phrase is usually admired. They are moral qualities; they may even be
‘a man of the highest pietas\ and pielas is part of that dull and unexciting. There is nothing among them to
subordination of which we have spoken. You are pius suggest that intellectual power, or imaginativeness, or
to the gods If you admit their claims: you are pius to sense of beauty, or versatility, or charm - that hard-
your parents and elders, and children and friends, and worked word nowadays - appealed to them as a high
country and benefactors, and all that excites, or should ideal. The qualities which served the Roman in his early
excite, your regard and perhaps affection, if you admit struggles with Nature and with neighbours remained
their claims on you, and discharge your duty accord­ for him the virtues above all others. To them he owed it
ingly; the claims exist because the relationships are that his city-state had risen superior to the older
sacred. The demands of pietas and of officium (duty and civilisation which surrounded it - a civilisation which
services, as in ‘tender offices’) constituted in themselves appeared to him to be limp and nerveless unless stiffened
a massive and unwritten code of feeling and behaviour by the very virtues which he himself had painfully
which was outside the law, and was so powerful as to cultivated. Perhaps they can be summed up under
modify in practice the harsh rules of private law, which severitas, which means being stern with oneself.
were only a last resort. The manner of life and the qualities of character here
Gravitas means ‘a sense of the importance of the mat­ described make up the mores maiorum, the manners of
ters in hand’, a sense of responsibility and earnestness. one’s ancestors, which are among the most potent forces
It is a term to apply at all levels — to a statesman or a in Roman history. In the broadest sense the phrase may
general as he shows appreciation of his responsibilities, include the political constitution and the legal frame­
to a citizen as he casts his vote with consciousness of its work of the state, though generally such words as
importance, to a friend who gives his advice based on his instituta, institutions, and leges, laws, are added. In the
experience and on regard for your welfare; Propertius narrower sense the phrase means the outlook on life, the
uses it when assuring his mistress of‘the seriousness of his moral qualities, together with the unwritten rules and
intentions’. It is the opposite of levitas, a quality the precedents of duty and behaviour, which combined to
Romans despised, which means trifling when you should form a massive tradition of principle and usage. To this
be serious, flippancy, instability. Gravitas is often joined tradition appeal was made when revolutionaries laid
with constantia, firmness of purpose, or with firmitas, violent hand on political practice, on religious custom,
tenacity; it may be seasoned with comitas, which means or on standards of morality or taste. The constancy of
 THE ROMANS 25
theology. But it is certain that with the associations and
habits which clustered round it its contribution to
Roman character was very great; by it, too, a mould was
fashioned in which later ages tended to cast the new and
formless mixture of ideas which reached them from the
older Mediterranean cultures. Great men were almost
canonised for their characters or for their achievements.
To the beliefs and manners of those days we must
ascribe that sense of subordination or obedience to
exterior power, whether a god, or a standard, or an
ideal, which in one form or another marked the Roman
to the end. To the same source must be traced the feel­
ing for continuity which, while assimilating the new,
preserved the type and refused to break with the past;
for the future could be faced with greater security if the
value of the past were conserved. The early practice of
rite accompanied by formal invocations and crystallis­
ing into a ‘sacred law’ helped to develop that genius in
law which is Rome’s great legacy; and the law of the
state borrowed a reflected sanctity from its sacred
counterpart. Law presupposed obedience and was not
disappointed. The position of the head of the family,
the respect given to the mother, the training given to
the children, were confirmed and strengthened. The
validity of moral ideas was securely established, and
ties of natural affection and of service to friends and
dependants were made firm by a code of behaviour
which lay outside legal obligation and was of compell­
ing power. The formal nature of religious observance
preserved Roman religion from the gross manifestations
of Oriental ecstasy, even ifit forbade warmth ofpersonal
feeling; and the attitude of toleration towards religion
which marked the republican and imperial ages origi­
nated, paradoxically, with a people who assigned the
utmost importance to state-religion.
 THE ROMANS 29
a.d. 138-193, of which Mommsen, the great German
historian, said, ‘If an angel of the Lord should be minded
to compare the territory ruled by Severus Antoninus as
it was then and as it is now and to decide in which of
the two periods it was ruled with the greater intelli­
gence and humanity, and whether, in general, morals
and happiness have improved or deteriorated since
those days, it is very doubtful whether the judgement
would be in favour of the present day.’ Our own Gibbon
had already said much the same.
Then came a century of confusion, till in a.d. 306
Constantine became Emperor, and Byzantium, re­
named Constantinople, and now Istanbul, became in
a.d. 330 the capital of the eastern half of the Empire,

whence arose the East Roman Empire, heir alike of the

Greek and of the Roman tradition.

(b) FROM THE SEVEN HILLS TO

THE ROMAN ORB
... to sing a hymn to the gods with whom the Seven Hills have foundfavour.
0 all-nurturing Sun, that with thy chariot offire bringest forth the day and
hidest it again and art born anew other andyet the same, may it never be thine to
behold aught greater than this city, Rome. Horace

Thou hast turned into one city what was formerly the orb of the world.
RUTILIUS CLAUDIUS NAMATIANUS

Italy is a mountainous peninsula, with the ‘back­

bone’ of the Apennines lying' nearer to the eastern than
to the western coast and often reaching to the sea itself.
The harbours lie on the west and south. From Alps to
‘instep’ is about as far as from John 0’ Groats to the Isle
of Wight, nearly 600 miles. The angle of the peninsula
is such that the heel is 300 miles further east than is the
north-east coast at Ravenna. From the heel to Greece
is some 50 miles, and from the west corner of Sicily to
Africa only 100 miles.
 THE ROMANS 31
They were a pastoral folk. Their earliest festivals were
concerned with the interests of shepherds; milk, not
wine, is the earliest offering, and wealth was reckoned
in cattle; the very word for ‘money’, pecunia (whence
‘pecuniary’), means ‘head of cattle’. They found other
men of kindred race, Sabellian and Sabine, moving
upon the plain and settling upon the higher ground;
from the fusion of these settlements Rome took her
origin. From her central position her soldiers could
move north and east and south-along the valleys
north and east, and down the plain to the south; they
soon learned the value of ‘interior lines’. Indeed, some
have thought that the site of Rome was chosen from the
first as an outpost against the Etruscans to the north.
And here, for the moment, we leave the Romans, as they
join with outlying settlements, and turn to agricultural
pursuits and trade with Etruscan and Greek merchants.
To the north of the Tiber lay the Etruscan empire.
The Etruscans were probably sea-wanderers (from the
East?) settled at last in Etruria, or Tuscany - cruel,
overbearing, worshipping gloomy gods of the under­
world and divining the future from the study ofthe organs
ofslaughtered animals. They built enormously solid walls
to defend their cities, and they traded with Greek cities
and with Carthage in Africa, and thus ‘borrowed’ from
civilisations superior to their own. From the sea they
penetrated into the Campanian plain, and in the seventh
century tried to move south to occupy it, circling round
the hills to the east to avoid the swamps, and seizing
some of the Latin towns on the high ground.
About the time of the Latin migration to the ‘Seven
Hills’, Greeks began their long process of seizing the best
harbours on the south and west coasts of Italy and the
eastern side of Sicily; the Carthaginians, too, occupied
the western half of the island. At first the Greeks wanted
 THE ROMANS 33
32 THE ROMANS

only trading stations, but in time colonies were sent Till about 270 b.c. Rome fought perpetually for exis­
from Greece to establish cities which soon became among tence in Italy, and her fight could not cease till she was
the fairest of the Mediterranean. Perhaps the earliest recognised as a leading power. The highest qualities of
Greek settlement was Cumae, on the bay of Naples, in courage and resourcefulness were called for; one tribe
the eighth century, and of great moment to Europe; for after another was overcome, and was incorporated on
from the Greeks of Cumae the Latins learned the alpha­ varying terms into the Roman state or sphere of influ­
bet; the Etruscans too adapted the same letters to their ence. Leagues and alliances were created. At one crisis
purpose, and passed them on to the inland tribes. From - the sacking of Rome by roving Gauls in 390 b.c. - the
Cumae, also, Italy may first have learned of Greek gods, Latin cities failed to aid her; they suggested federation,
such as Heracles and Apollo. But the chief settlements and Rome made up her mind that safety lay only in
of the Greeks were in the extreme south of Italy and in their conquest. At great self-sacrifice she reduced them
Sicily. Syracuse and Agrigentum in Sicily, and Taren- to obedience, and then went forward as tribe after
tum, Sybaris, Croton, and Rhegium in South Italy are all tribe appealed to her for aid, and eventually for alliance
Greek in origin. They are most important in Roman and the extension of her ‘rights’ to their cities. At last
history, for through them Rome came into full contact Thurii, in the ‘instep’, appealed for aid against Taren-
with the Mediterranean world. tum. Rome hesitated - and agreed. Tarentum brought
The Etruscans and the Greeks were the two most in Pyrrhus, King of Epirus across the Adriatic; and
powerful influences during Rome’s early years. The Rome emerged from his invasion of Italy the leader of
rest of Italy was sparsely inhabited by tribes, many akin the Greek states in South Italy. Thus, she passed into
to the Latins. They lived in comparative isolation in the sphere of the Carthaginians whose trade covered the
their hills, tending flocks and tilling the land and group­ seas of Sicily and the Western Mediterranean. After half
ing together into settlements, as geography allowed, for a century of struggle (264-202 b.c.) it was decided that
defence and trade and worship. Rome should become a ‘world power’, and that the
Now let us return to the Romans. The first three lands of the West should be ruled by an Aryan, not a
kings were Latins, the last three were Etruscan. The last Semitic race.
of these was ejected by violence (traditionally 510 b.c.), Before the Punic wars are summarised (for the
and the word ‘king’ became anathema to the Romans. Carthaginians were Phoenicians, in Latin Poeni, whence
Yet the Etruscan influence remained. Temples and rites Punicus), two observations must be made. Though Rome
survived; Jupiter was still enthroned on the Capitoline seems to be ceaselessly at war, she was at war because
Hill, Diana on the Aventine. The insignia of Etruscan of the force of events and the logic of her own tempera­
rulers became those of Roman magistrates, the ‘ivory ment. Round her were powers older, more experienced;
chair’, the bundles of rods with two axes bound up with some were ambitious, and their neighbours were afraid:
them (fasces). But, more important, Rome acquired an threats to Rome’s allies were threats to her, and, speak­
organisation which was to turn her into an imperial ing generally, she went to war to remove those threats.
power. After the struggle with Carthage she found herself
 THE ROMANS 39
up provinces in the East, the civilisation and language
which she found there she left untouched to last for
centuries longer.
Firm action was to come in 64-62 b.c. In 88-84 B-c-
Mithridates, King of Pontus, in concert with Tigranes,
King of Armenia, overran most of Asia Minor and
slaughtered thousands of Roman traders; the Pontic
fleet dominated the Aegean, and forces were landed and
welcomed at Athens. The Greek cities throughout
Greece threw in their lot with the invader, and the
whole of Greece appeared to be lost. But Sulla defeated
the Pontic armies in 86 and 85 b.c., cleared Greece, and
in the following year a Roman fleet under Lucullus
dominated the Hellespont. Ten years later Mithridates
again set the East ablaze. The campaigns of Lucullus
carried him very far east. But matters did not go well
for the Romans on the sea, for piracy flourished through­
out the Mediterranean and Roman fleets were em­
barrassed for lack of regular supplies. Therefore, in 67
b.c., Pompey was appointed with extraordinary powers;

he suppressed piracy in an organised sweep starting

from Gibraltar, and he invaded Pontus and Armenia.
He invested Jerusalem, and for the first time Roman
power made contact with the Jewish people; thus began
that troublesome problem. Pompey then ‘settled’ the
East; boundaries and governments, finance and com­
mercial relations were re-ordered. The province of
Cilicia was enlarged, and Bithynia, Pontus, Syria and
Crete all became provinces; Cappadocia, Armenia and
many minor states were left as independent kingdoms.
The appointment of Pompey to that command, it should
be noted, was the step which led to the fall of the
Republic.
It is time now to return to the West. Here we must
pass over wars in Spain and Africa and the suppression
40 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 41

of a slave revolt in Italy, and concentrate on four main and for years Italian resentment had smouldered. Their
features: first, the safety of the western end of the Alps; rebellious manifesto proclaimed a new capital, called
secondly, the relationship between Italy and Rome; Italica, at Corfinium, and the proposed constitution was
thirdly, the conquests and provincial policy of Julius modelled closely upon the political traditions which its
Caesar; and fourthly, the problem of the eastern end of would-be citizens were at the moment rejecting. Justi­
the Alpine frontier. fication of Rome could go no further, though that does
The Alps might appear to be a natural protection of not forgive her shortsightedness in refusing citizenship.
impassable strength. Actually Hannibal, and later his In a swift and resolute campaign the rebellion was
brother, had surmounted them. In the land to the north broken by Sulla, and a series of laws granted enfran­
and east great migrations of people had been going on chisement to all Italians. Italy ceased to be a confederr
for some time; they were hard pressed towards the west acy. The city-state had had its day, and a new idea was
by other peoples in search of land. In 113 b.c. a large born. How it developed and what were its implica­
host of Germans, accompanied by other tribes who had tions must be seen on a later page.
been caught up by them, appeared at the eastern end of The third feature is the conquest of Gaul and its
the Alps. They had already defeated one Roman army organisation by Julius Caesar during the strenuous nine
in Illyria. They pushed their way westwards without years 58-49 b.c. ; his own account of his work is, of
turning aside into Italy: and there was momentary course, the famous Caesar's Gallic War. When he
relief. But in 109 b.c. they appeared in Southern Gaul, entered Gaul, his governorship covered a very small
which thirteen years before Rome had annexed and Gallic province: when he left Gaul, the province
turned into a province. They carried all before them, covered France and Belgium and he had ‘shown the
defeating two armies at Arausio (Orange). In three way’ to Britain. Italy’s frontier of the Western Alps was
years Marius trained the first professional Roman now secure.
Army, re-equipped and led it to defeat the most menac­ But, fourthly, the eastern end yet remained to be
ing of the tribes in Northern Italy and in Gaul. The closed, and it was not till Tiberius, who later became
hordes passed further west, and a hideous danger was Emperor, had undertaken long years of fighting on the
over. Rhine and lower Danube that this quarter was secure;
In 91 b.c. a danger no less serious threatened the City the province of Raetia (Eastern Switzerland and the
of Rbme. The Italian allies rose in open revolt. For two Tyrol), Noricum (Austria) and Pannonia (Carinthia
centuries they had borne the burdens and hazards of and Western Hungary) eventually formed the north­
war; they now desired the very incorporation in the eastern bulwark.
citizen body which earlier they had rejected in favour of Now comes the great turning-point in Roman
alliance. For, as we shall see, Roman citizenship was an provincial policy. Augustus had intended to draw
increasingly valuable possession. Yet, as it increased the frontier at the Elbe, and so to include in the
in value, Rome granted it the more sparingly, the Empire the German tribes who menaced Gaul and to
citizens of the capital jealously guarded its extension, shorten the northern frontier. But in a.d. 9 a Roman
T.R.—2'
 42 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 43
army of three legions was cut to pieces by Arminius and by peace she meant the positive blessings of settled
(Hermann) in the depths of the Teutoberg Forest near order and security oflife and property with all that those
Osnabruck: the xvn, xvm, xix legions never blessings imply.
again appeared in the army list. In the papers which
Augustus left at his death he advised no further exten­
sion of the Empire. (c) FROM CITY-STATE TO REPUBLIC IN RUINS

Yet the Empire was enlarged when necessity coun­ Cato used to say that our state excelled all others in its constitution; in them, for
the most part, an individual had established his own form of state by his laws and
selled it. To protect the Balkan peninsula the tracts institutions . . our state, on the contrary, was the result not of one man’s genius
south of the lower Danube became in a.d. 46 the pro­ but of many men’s, not of one man’s life but of several centuries and periods.
vinces of Thrace (Southern Bulgaria, Turkey and the Genius had never been so profound as to enable any man at any time to overlook
Greek coast at the head of the Aegean sea) and of nothing; nor, if all genius were concentrated in one man, could he have such fore­
Moesia (Serbia, Northern Bulgaria, and the Dobruja). sight as to embrace everything at any one moment; actual experience stretching over
the ages is needed, cicero
The province of Britain was also added. In a.d. 107
Trajan created the province of Dacia (Rumania) as. a It is due to our own moral failure and not to any accident of chance that, while re­
taining the name, we have lost the reality of a republic. cicero
bulwark to protect Moesia and added others in the East
which his successor surrendered. Thus by the end of the The sketch just given has described the growth of
second century the line of the ‘Roman Circle’ was drawn Rome’s foreign power. We now turn to the government
- Rhine, Danube, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, of the city, of Italy and the provinces, touching on social
Africa, Spain, France, Britain - and Rome had 43 pro­ matters only in so far as they cannot be avoided. We
vinces to administer. In a.d. 270 Dacia was evacuated, shall catch a glimpse of the process by which the consti­
and Diocletian (a.d. 284-305) reorganised the whole tution developed and of the ways in which it was modi­
Empire, including Italy, into 120 administrative dis­ fied by the needs of governing overseas possessions.
tricts. We shall see the tentative methods by which Rome
In the history of Rome’s imperial expansidh self- first governed her possessions and the failure of those
defence must be accounted the first motive; but trade methods; we shall then discover why the constitution
inevitably followed and the first motive was mingled which she laboriously wrought broke down and how it
with that of commercial exploitation; and in the second was replaced. In other words, we are concerned with the
century b.c. reasons of safety were sometimes alleged in process by which Rome turned from a city-state into an
order to hide greed and ambition. The first two cen­ Empire. In the story of this process certain elements will
turies a.d. were the age of assimilation, and thereafter for the most part run through from the beginning of the
self-defence was again to the fore as the most urgent Republic to its collapse. These elements are, for exam­
consideration. Rome never fought to impose a political ple, the Senate, the people, the magistracy, and its later
idea or a religious creed; with unique generosity she development the pro-magistracy. Roughly, the magis­
left local institutions and manners of thought and life trates of various kinds and ranks are the executive; the
untouched. She fought to ‘impose the ways of peace’, pro-magistrates are ex-magistrates appointed for special
44 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 45
posts outside Rome, as for example, governors of magistracy was the strongest power; the Senate was
provinces or specially appointed generals of armies. almost impotent through lack of constitutional author­
Roman constitutional history is largely the slow change ity, the people attempted to reassert itself with justifica­
in the duties and powers and functions of these ele­ tion in theory. But its opportunity was lost and its very
ments, and in the relationship between them. If Poly­ nature had changed; moreover, new factors were intro­
bius was right in saying that the Roman constitution duced - an influential business class and a new aristoc­
rested on a balance of power, the balance was main­ racy more jealous of the privileges which it had once
tained at different periods in different ways. Finally, attacked than was ever the old aristocracy. In the
the crash came. And, when the Empire replaces the fourth phase, the first Princeps (or Emperor) learnt the
Republic, we shall find the same elements furnishing lessons of three centuries of Roman constitutional his­
most of the material from which the edifice will be tory and built from the debris of the fallen Republic a
built. The Romans preferred to tolerate apparent structure of government which lasted for two centuries
anomalies and even absurdities, to rely on good sense at least as a government still Roman in essentials.
and understanding and restraint, to observe the spirit We have referred already to some kind of ‘gathering
instead of the letter, and to keep tried and familiar insti­ together’ or ‘dwelling together’ of little settlements of
tutions. They preferred to do this rather than to press various tribes to form the city of Rome. How it was
matters to logical and unworkable conclusions or to brought about and what were the causes and the contri­
define closely in written articles of a constitution what butions from the composing elements no one can say.
was best decided by compromise, or to set up new insti­ Tradition and reasonable deduction from survivals
tutions born of the impulse of the moment. They were suggest that this primitive association was loosely held
happiest in adapting to new uses something already together by common interests symbolically expressed in
wrapped round with tradition and sentiment and prac­ common ‘rites’ of religion, ‘communion in sacred
tice. things’, communio sacrorum. The community was ruled by
As a clue to the account which follows it might per­ a king, who was a patriarchal ruler, the elected officer
haps be useful to mark out in rough-and-ready fashion or magistrate and the priest of the whole people. One
the following phases. First, up to the Punic wars the of his most important duties was ‘to take the auspices’;
potentially autocratic powers of the magistrates were briefly, this means making sure that things were right
gradually reduced by the opposition of the ‘people’ on between the gods and the community. Apparently, a
the one hand and the Senate on the other; further, the new king was appointed by the heads of the leading
‘people’, or the plebeian families, asserted itself in families (patres); the ‘sacred things’ were transferred to
opposition to the Senate, or the patrician families. In him by the patres in whose keeping they were, and the
the second phase, that of the Punic wars, the Senate choice was confirmed by the community as a whole.
was supreme in fact, though not by right, and its The king held supreme power (imperium), appointed
supremacy was justified; the magistracy was superior officials, dispensed justice, led in war, and ordered
to the pro-magistracy. In the third phase, the pro­ religious worship.
46 THE ROMANS

The Senate was the council of the heads of leading

families; they were members for life and with them re­
posed in times of transition the ‘sacred things’. They
offered advice to the king only when consulted; they
proposed a new king, but could not appoint him unless
the whole people approved.
The people as a whole gathered only when summoned
to hear, pronouncements from the king, to take part in
religious rites and to witness certain acts, as, for exam­
ple, disposal of property by will, which later fell under
the head of private law. All our information about these
early times is very vague. Equally obscure are the
changes brought about by the Etruscan supremacy in
Rome. We hear of a new organisation of the whole
people on military lines, with the landholders and
wealthier citizens serving in the front ranks since they
could afford to arm themselves. But the autocratic rule
of the Etruscan kings brought about the ejection of the
alien dynasty, and the title ‘king’ was for ever accursed.
The power of the king passed to two magistrates
originally called ‘praetor-consuls’ (that is, ‘leaders’ who
are ‘colleagues’) and in time merely ‘consuls’; in times
of crisis supreme power was entrusted, though in fact
very rarely, to a ‘dictator’, who held it for a limited
period and for a specified purpose, the magistrates con­
tinuing in their own spheres on sufferance. And so
with the creation of consuls begins that curious princi­
ple of ‘collegiality’ which runs through the history of
the Roman magistracy - the principle of colleagues in
office who have the power of vetoing each others’ pro­
posals ; positive action therefore depends upon colleagues
acting in concert. The change, however, made no
break in the chain; the consuls ‘took the omens’ and
held their power {imperium) in direet succession from
Romulus. The consuls held office for one year; they
48 THE ROMANS

constitution, patrician magistrates nominated patrician

successors for acceptance by the assembly, and the-
measures submitted by patrician magistrates had to be
ratified by the patres. Discontent soon showed itself.
The plebeians took to holding meetings in a ‘Council of
the Plebs’ which was informal and outside the constitu­
tion. The main grievance was the unfettered power of
the consuls. The ensuing struggle can be sketched only
in essentials, but it is important to see that the plebeians
were concerned not with attack in order to obtain
privileges but with defending themselves. A promise
was made that no Roman citizen should be put to
death inside the city without appeal to the people; on
active service discipline might demand otherwise.
Delay brought about a threat by the plebeians, partly
carried out, to found a rival city. This move won from
the patricians, who needed man-power for the army, a
concession of tremendous importance. Plebeians should
have annual magistrates of their own, called ‘tribunes
of the people’, at first two, later ten. They were to be
elected by the ‘Council of the Plebs’, i.e. by plebeians
only. But the tribune, like the Council, was at first
strictly outside the constitution; he was given not
imperium but a special limited power (potestas) to aid
plebeians against individual acts of a patrician magis­
trate; his person was inviolate; he convened the ‘Coun­
cil’ and invited it to pass resolutions. Later, as we shall
see, the tribuneship acquired far-reaching powers of
veto in the whole field of government; and still later the
tribunician power was an essential component of the
power of the Emperors.
Next came a demand to curtail the consul’s power by
law. It was countered by a promise to draw up and
publish a code of law. This is the celebrated Twelve
Tables, which probably went no further than expressing
 50 THE ROMANS
THE ROMANS 51
requii ed no ratification by the patres. The struggle was
trates - and there were by now several grades of elected
over, for the Council of the Plebs was now in theory the
magistrates below that of consul - passed into the
‘sovereign’ power. The patrician families remained;
Senate, and so by the avenue of the magistracy plebeians
but if they still exercised power it was by prestige and
passed into its ranks. The Senate, therefore, was largely
moral influence and not by law. The plebeians were
a body of men who had been elected to various magis­
now the preponderant element in the state, both in
tracies by the people, with whom they naturally kept in
numbers and wealth. For the future, power theoretically
lay with them. touch as they stood for office after office; when their
public service was over, they entered the deliberative
The tribunate remained, though it was now unneces­
assembly to place their experience at the disposal of the
sary, for its original purpose had been served. But it was
state. Thus the prospect of a permanent seat in the
used to new and sinister purposes a hundred and fifty
Senate was opened out to the successful candidate to
years later as a weapon in a new struggle between a new
annual office; and office became a means as well as an
governing class, largely plebeian, and a new and less
worthy populace. end, and was therefore valued in rather a different way
than before, though the consulship was always an
In 287 b.c. it seemed that all was ready for rule by the
honour coveted for its own sake. Thus there arose
people. But it was not to be. The Punic wars now broke
a new rank or status, or, if the term is understood to
upon Rome; energy was necessarily deflected in direc­
have nothing to do with birth, a new nobility - of office.
tions other than political change. Whether, if there had
Patrician birth was now only a matter of private pride;
been a prolonged period of peace, the Senate would
the new ‘nobility’ carried public esteem and was proud,
have been denied its coming supremacy is doubtful; for
it was in a strong position and its leadership was power­ often with the exclusiveness of the newly promoted, of
its responsibilities and position. Meantime, the magis­
ful. But in any case two hundred years of war came, and
tracy became more closely attached to the Senate, for
the experience and wisdom and steadfastness necessary
the magistrate would one day take his place among
for the surmounting of times of strain and danger lay
senators; he therefore consulted it with a new deference.
with the Senate. Its moral supremacy produced its
The exigencies of war pointed to the Senate as the
supremacy in the whole conduct of affairs.
For by the time of the First Punic War its nature and only directive power. The people was assembled with
difficulty, the Senate was at hand and was manageable
composition had changed since the early days of the
Republic. The task of appointing to the Senate lay with in size. Continuity of policy and swift decisions had to
the consuls, as succeeding the king; the ‘collegiate’ be made ; treaties had to be drawn up and supplies
principle secured some measure of responsible choice. granted, often in a hurry. Experienced soldiers and
Later the task was transferred to the censor; for it was statesmen, with knowledge of‘foreign parts’, were in its
clearly sensible that the consul should not appoint the ranks. And so one precedent after another was estab­
lished; the ‘opinion of the Senate’ now became ‘the
man whom, as a senator, he was later to consult. Soon,
by custom which hardened into a right, all ex-magis- decree of the Senate’: as a body it ceased merely to dis­
cuss the problem submitted by the magistrate and now
 THE ROMANS 53
THE ROMANS
their conquest under a praetor. But the praetors were
initiated discussion, and so it gathered into its hands needed at home. Therefore, after 146 b.c., a new device
practically all state business. Its conduct of affairs dur­ was adopted, for which there was precedent. The
ing the hardest years of war was in general excellent; if imperium of consuls had often been prolonged to deal
later it fell from its high standard of efficiency and with a military emergency, and the holders of the com­
d moral integrity, it was for reasons which we have mand were then said to act pro consule, on behalf of the
presently to consider. existing consul. From 146 b.c. pro-consuls and pro­
Rome acquired her supremacy in Italy partly by war, praetors were invested with full imperium and sent out to
partly by taking full advantage of the disunity of the govern the provinces. They were required to govern
various tribes and attaching them one by one to herself within the ‘charter of the province’, a charter drawn
in a loose confederation. By every means in her power up by a senatorial commission which defined the status
she secured that they should look to her for help and of the various communities, fixed boundaries and rates
advantage rather than to each other. Her near neigh­ of taxation and methods of local government, and
bours were incorporated as citizens into her body sanctioned the use of local law. The charters were
politic; to others she extended a limited citizenship drawn up in a generous spirit, partly because. Rome did
which conferred rights of trade, together with enforce­ not want the burden of over-detailed administration,
ment of those rights at law, and freedom of inter­ partly because she was at heart generous. All depended
marriage with Roman citizens. Others were bound by on the governor’s observance and interpretation of the
various treaties of alliance, carrying duties and privi­ provisions of the charter and on his sense of honour; for
leges but also independence to conduct internal affairs. his opportunities for misgovernment and self-aggran­
At a few points in Italy colonies of Roman citizens disement were vast, and he was with difficulty brought
were planted to guard coasts and roads: they were off­
shoots of Rome. Elsewhere ‘municipalities’, i.e. the to book. .
Now let us go back to Rome and sketch m the barest
original towns, were granted full franchise: both these outline the main features of the period of revolution,
communities had a generous degree of self-government. the last too years or so of the Republic (to 31 b.c.).
Appeal against local magistrates could be taken to The challenge to the constitution was made thirteen
Rome. Prefects were sent out to try cases both in towns years after the destruction of Carthage in 146 b.c. It
and country districts; they represented the praetor at came from the tribunate, then held by 1 iberius Gr acchus.
Rome, who was the chief judicial magistrate. Measures to cure the depopulation of the countryside
But, when the lands beyond Italy were annexed, and to arrest the decline of agriculture - both of them
different measures were called for. At first, Rome was, in evils due to war - were his programme. But for success
general, reluctant to ‘create’ a ‘province’; she was con­ he needed more than one year, and he must perforce
tent at first to disarm and tax, as e.g. Macedonia in 167 nullify the veto of his colleagues in the tribunate whom
b.c. ‘Province’ implied annexation and annexation
the Senate had brought over to its side. Both needs
implied a Roman governor. But after 146 b.c. she did could not be satisfied without a breach of usage. He
not hesitate. Sardinia and Sicily had been placed after
 54 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 55
deposed his colleagues, and thereby gave his enemies tion lay in the precarious alignment of the loyalty of
the chance ol denouncing him as the usurper of auto­ armies to generals and of generals to state. And, as the
cratic power. He fell a victim to the very violence to government did not deserve loyalty and generals had
which, so it was afterwards maintained, he had first rival generals to consider, such alignment seldom
appealed. The lesson of his fate was noted by men who occurred.
came after him, for he had raised the question ‘where The change in the attitude of the army was brought
lay the sovereignty?’ and had perished. So perished, too, about largely by Marius’ creation of a professional long-
nine years later, his brother Gaius, who, beginning with service army, trained and equipped on new lines, to
an attempt to widen the Senate by importing new blood, meet the menace of the German tribes beyond the Alps.
ended by proposing to give some of its powers to the’ Henceforth, the army, recruited from the Mediterranean,
new class of influential business men and conciliating looked to its general; gone for ever was the old Italian
the populace of Rome by selling corn at a cheap price. army, composed largely of citizens. The new army was
He sought, too, to bring before a court other than the a mighty weapon at all times, but in its early history it
Senate governors who misgoverned the provinces. For was from the state’s point of view double-edged; it was
two. years he was tribune, and he took his proposals not till the time of Augustus that the right method of
straight to the people whom at first he dominated as by handling it was found.
a spell; but he too was killed. Here was another lesson: Sulla used it for two purposes; first, to defeat the
the people could be roused, and when roused might for threat of foreign enemies and the menace of the Italian
the moment achieve their purpose; but the tribunate, allies; secondly, to enforce upon Rome what it had never
with no military power behind it, was useless to maintain had before, namely a written constitution and the legal
those achievements against resistance. recognition of the supremacy of the Senate. He then A;. , -
The age that follows is the age of great individuals stepped into retirement to watch his constitution work.
seeking so to, alter the machine of government as to But it was not now the same kind of Senate that
adapt it to the new stresses, yet patiently preserving, as had justified its unofficial rule during the Punic wars.
far as they could, the old component parts. But im­ It was now inefficient and self-seeking, intent upon
patience frequently prevailed, and impatience was filling its pockets by the exploitation of the provinces.
fanned to white heat by the personal rivalries which The constitutional changes were soon abolished, though
followed upon the competitive claims to adjust the much of Sulla’s judicial and administrative machinery
government to satisfy ambition or the claims of faithful remained, as it deserved.
armies. For amid the fierce passions loyalty to the state, In 62 b.c. Pompey returned from the East where he
as it.was understood in the old days, was forgotten; long- had wielded the power specially entrusted to him by
service and triumphant armies were now loyal to their the Roman populace. He needed nothing but the rati­
general,, who in turn was loyal to the claims of his army fication of his acts, if his work of organisation there was
for pensions, which meant land. The needs of the state to be put on a lasting basis; he had foolishly (by the
were of secondary importance; indeed, its only salva- standard of the time) disbanded his army. It was not
 56 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 57
until Julius Caesar came to his aid and laid pressure ‘king’ over the Republic. So Caius Gracchus had been
upon the government that his work was ratified. But murdered some ninety years before. Of his legislation
Caesar demanded his reward; Pompey was to see to it we must here say nothing, except that he showed his
that he was given a prolonged command in Gaul, so understanding of the need of a new policy towards the
that the consolidation of the frontier, begun by Marius provinces, and of widening the basis of government at
himself, could go ahead. For nine years Julius Caesar home and of the economic organisation of Italy. But he
stayed on this frontier; France and Belgium were added evolved no new constitution, no theory to justify his own
to the Empire, and the first steps in their civilisation power or to provide for his successor; and above all he
were taken. It was the work of a military commander did little to win the imaginative sympathy of his time.
and his army, not of the people and Senate of Rome. His great-nephew and adopted son, Octavianus, later
Who, then, was entitled to the controlling hand in known as Augustus, had forty-five years of rule.
government? Caesar answered the question in his own The political, social and economic problems in this
favour, as had Sulla before him; but Sulla could rely last century are of great interest, and the evidence for
only on the support of the few, and Pompey had declined part of them includes that fascinating study, the Letters
to take the opportunity, though the lesson of the com­ oTCicero. The chief problem, as is clear, is the weakness
mand entrusted to him was clear. It was Caesar who of^tEe” central government to control the provincial
realised that, though he might have to fight, he could governors, who were in the provinces to execute the
win if he could gain the sympathy of the majority by wishes of the government at home. We have seen that
his programme of intentions. the principle of shared power, or collegiality, weakened
While he was in Gaul the Senate had watched his thF magistrates, i.e. the executive, in relation to the
growing power with alarm, and ceaseless manoeuvres legislature. Now the provincial governor had imperium,
had been exercised to rob him of power. His agents, i.e. the same kind of power as the consuls at home, but
tribunes loyal to him, his friends and all those who he was alone with no colleague; the only controls there­
owed or looked for wealth or advancement to him fore were (a) annual office, (b) his neighbour with equal
defeated these manoeuvres. But towards the end the power in an adjoining province, though this latter
Senate had won over Pompey, who now liked to take might be rather a provocation than a check. But the
up the role of their champion, and had placed an army check of the short span of office was removed by the
under his control. Caesar saw the point, and with his people itself, who voted long terms to one general after
army crossed the river Rubicon in the north of Italy, another, exalted them into great commanders-in-chief,
and by that act declared dvil war. demanded their services as popular heroes on all
In an incredibly short time he scattered the Pompeian occasions, and weakened the only control yet left,
army, pursued part of it to Spain, and defeated the namely laws against misgovernment and prosecution
rest in 48 b.c. His ‘clemency’ astounded the world. to enforce such laws. These were of little avail amid the
For four years Caesar controlled the state, and in 44 strife of parties and the people’s clamour in support of
b.c. he was murdered because he was setting himself as its favourites, and the greed and ambition of the gover­
58 THE ROMANS

nors themselves. Here is to be found the cause of the fall

of the Republic. Not till the Empire was it discovered
(a) how to secure loyal governors, (b) that the true
Roman policy towards the provinces themselves was CHAPTER III
not exploitation but local self-government in a Roman
(a) THE NEW WAYS AND THE OLD
loyalty. Other problems are of great interest, particu­
larly the agrarian question - the condition of agricul­ What remains of the old ways in which Emins said the Roman state stood rooted?
CICERO
ture, the depopulation of the country and the drift to
the towns-and especially to Rome, where an idle rabble How did it come about that the old Roman ways
demanded even greater doles - the question of the re­ ceased to maintain their hold?
instatement of the veterans, the failure of the soldier to The new ways were, of course, due to the influence of
make a farmer, and the dearth of land. This last ques­ Greek habits of thought and life; and it is important
tion touched keenly the Italian ‘allies’, and led to the that by ‘Greek’ we should understand not the supreme
‘Allies War’ (see p. 40): for the Italian cared little about expression of the Hellenic genius as given in four or five
voting, but he cared much about the fear of disposses­ of the great authors of the fifth and fourth centuries
sion to make place for a time-expired soldier. Only b.c., but the culture which was spread over the Eastern

Roman citizenship could save him, and he fought and Mediterranean, and which itself looked back to the great
won. Finally, there was the rapid growth of wealth and age of Athens for most of its inspiration. In many re­
the equally rapid decay of old standards in public and spects it had seized upon the least important aspects
private conduct; and political life knew a corruption because it was incapable of living up to any great
from which it had been free. moment; it had debased Greek language, Greek litera­
The twelve years which followed saw the world ture and Greek character. The Greek masterpieces were
divided into parts organised one against the other by available for reading and were read by many; but the
rival generals and rival parties. The strife, which cost Greek men whom the Romans now began to meet in
thousands of the best lives of the time and left the West daily life were not always as the fifth-century Athenians.
exhausted, was ended by the battle ofActium in 31 b.c., Though the Romans employed the artistic and pro­
when Octavianus finally defeated Marcus Antonius and fessional skill of the ‘Greelding’, on the whole they de­
Cleopatra. At last came the era of peace and order for spised him for his character; and they despised him the
which the people had yearned for centuries. We shall more because he had not lived up to his former great­
see later, first, why the battle of Actium was one of the ness.
great turning-points in history; secondly, what use In considering the relation of one culture to another,
Octavianus, whom we shall hereafter call Augustus, we cannot avoid metaphors, dangerous as they are.
made of his long reign. ‘Influence’, of course, means ‘flowing in’; but the new
ideas were deliberately imported by Roman minds
attracted to them! We sometimes speak of a man
 THE ROMANS 6l

the Roman spirit preserved its individuality, its genius;

Greco-Roman civilisation thus became the root of
European civilisation.
The old and the new points of view are perhaps best
seen in particular men. P. Cornelius Scipio, surnamed
Africanus, may be taken as exemplifying the new type of
Roman, Marcus Porcius Cato as embodying the old
type, and Scipio Aemilianus, who was adopted from
the Aemilian family by the son of Scipio Africanus, as
the forerunner of many who attempted to reconcile the
old and the new ways.
The Cornelian family had already given men of note
to the service of the state. When at a time of crisis in the
Second Punic War the assembly of the people looked
for a bold leader capable of ending the intolerable strain,
and, when men of experience hesitated in face of the
awful hazards, Scipio Africanus, aged twenty-four, con­
fidently offered himself. He was given the task and he
succeeded. Elis whole life was of a piece with that act.
From that time he dramatised himself; he loved the
spectacular and invested himself with a religious aura as
though he were the favourite of divine will. In Spain he
was dazzlingly successful; his magnanimity attached
the tribes to him; they offered him the crown, for they
said he was god-like, and when he refused they fur­
nished him with troops. In Africa he won over by sheer
charm kings who were neighbours of Carthage, and
Rome wondered whether such familiarity with foreign
potentates was altogether right. Story made him stay
as Hasdrubal’s guest, or discuss with the exiled Planni-
bal the relative merits of each other in comparison with
Alexander. At home he brushed aside custom and law,
standing for offices before he was qualified by age, and
receiving encouragement from an admiring people. He
affected; he grand manner and studied every action;
 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 63
62

even at the end, when in semi-exile he lay dying, he discussion is Roman. And the achievements of Alexan­
‘refused his body to an ungrateful country’. Hitherto der and the legends clustering round his name made
the great men of Rome had been such as Gincinnatus, their appeal to the imagination of men like Scipio and
who left his plough to serve the state in time of crisis, stimulated them to dreams of similar exploits.
and returned to it when his work was done. In Scipio The rise of this literature and the performances of
the Roman people were offered a new kind of hero - a tragedies and comedies brought before the Roman
hero who asserted individuality in defiance of tradition, public new types of human character, isolating the
who based leadership on power ofpersonality, and made individual and drawing attention to special features.
a romantic appeal to the imagination now awakening The opportunities for men of strong character to influ­
in the ordinary Roman. How did such a type of hero ence the life of society and of the state was revealed to
arise? the intelligent; the new knowledge of Greek legend and
It arose - if we continue to illustrate ‘movements’ and history showed that it had been done; there was no rea­
‘influences’ by men - when Livius Andronicus, a Greek son why it should not be done in Rome, and arguments
slave captured at Tarentum, composed as a reading-book could be drawn from Greek philosophy to justify it.
for his master’s children a metrical Latin version of The new ideas of Greek thought spread with the Greek
Homer’s Odyssey. The work passed beyond its original language, and a lively and imaginative mind like the
intention fliere was a new literature; stories of heroes mind of Scipio Africanus grasped their implications
who were at once godlike and human. No longer the and created for himself a role as a Roman leader of a
statuesque forbidding heroes of early Rome, slaves of new type.
duty, but warm-blooded and erring and lively and full M. Porcius Cato was born in 234 b.c. and was
of zest. And what leaders of men, swaying multitudes brought up on his father’s Sabine -farm, which he in­
by their word and guiding by their wise counsel the herited. At the age of twenty he distinguished himself
future of city and army! After Homer, Greek comedies fighting under Q. Fabius Maximus against Hannibal,
were translated and were combined with native Italian and served to the end of the war. At the age of thirty he
farces and burlesques, and Roman comedy arose. was quaestor to Scipio in Sicily, and was with him in
Moreover, once the heroes of Homer - Agamemnon, Africa; in 198 b.c. he was praetor of Sardinia, three
Odysseus and the rest - had been treated, there was no years later he was consul, and in 184 b.c. he was censor.
reason why Roman subjects should not be chosen, and He was soldier, lawyer, statesman, farmer, writer, but
Naevius, of Campania, wrote an epic of the First Punic above all a ‘character’.
War, combining Greek and Italian legend and motif. As a young farmer he took up the cause of his neigh­
Ennius followed with an epic in hexameters which bours in local law-courts, for he was a good speaker
included the Second Punic War; the Iliad was his model, ready to champion the right. A friend advised him, in
but his own strong Roman character shines through; spite of his plebeian birth, to seek a larger sphere for his
and in his tragedies, though they owe much to the Greek energy and gifts in Rome itself, whither he went. Till
tragedian Euripides, the moralising and philosophical the day of his death at the age of eighty-five he was

/
 64 THE ROMANS 65
THE ROMANS
engaged in ceaseless labour, laying about him in law- to which he was laying his hand. Not even old age broke
court or senate-house or published work with the same his vigour of mind and body; towards the end of his
lusty vigour and ruthless courage with which he had course he showed the same ardour ‘with which many
engaged in combat on the battle-fields; of this conflict approach the beginning, when their fame is yet to
his fame and his body alike bore many scars. At home make’: though he had achieved fame, he did not relin­
his life was of the simplest, for he trained himself in quish his labours.
austerity; as a general he remained the soldier of the This was the man who fought Hellenistic influence in
ranks, marching on foot and carrying his own arms. As Rome, and naturally lost - though a name which
a provincial administrator, he was inexorable and was becomes a rallying cry for centuries has not altogether
proud of it; he cut down expenses in the interest of the : ost. It is easy to caricature Cato, for he lends himself to
governed, and scrutinised every item charged to the it; and there are many traits in his character which
home government, ‘which under his administration repel us. His treatment of his slaves was inhuman; he
never seemed more terrible nor yet more mild’. He beat gloried in his asceticism; he seemed to deny pleasure to
down contracts for public works, and raised them for others and therein to gain his own twisted pleasure.
the farming of taxes. Once he suspected an enemy or a He may be called narrow, uncompromising, insensi­
friend of dishonourable conduct, he ‘never shrank from tive, vain, sanctimonious; ostentatiously priggish, if it
a quarrel on behalf of the commonwealth’. His speeches were not for his humour, self-righteous, if he were not
were famous; Cicero, who had read over a hundred and fighting for an ideal. He may have cast himself for a
fifty of them, says ‘they show all the qualities of great part, and overacted, but his sincerity remains. It is also
oratory’. Their pungent aphorisms became proverbial; easy to misinterpret his opposition to the fashionable
their skill was a model, for he knew all the tricks. His cult of things Greek; there is something to be said on his
son he educated himself, composing for him text-books side. He knew Greek all his public life, for Greek was
of grammar, law and history; for he would not let him necessary to any statesman who had dealings with the
owe ‘so great a thing as his learning’ to anyone else. He East. He knew well the works of Greek orators and
taught him to ride and box and fight and swim and historians; he took a Greek translation of a Carthagin­
farm. No doubt he was an exacting father; but ‘a man ian work as his model in his book on agriculture. He
who beat his wife or child’, he thought, ‘laid hands on tells his son to look at Greek literature, but not to lay it
what was most sacred’, and a,good husband he thought to heart, for they are ‘a scoundrel and incorrigible race’.
‘worthy of more praise than a great senator’ - his It is not intellect which Cato despises, but the contem­
highest praise. As censor he carried one ordinance after porary use of intellect to undermine character. His ideal
another to check, by high taxation or sheer prohibition, is the citizen of high moral principle, based on tradi­
the luxury encouraged by the flow of wealth into Rome. tion, realising himself in the commonwealth and its
His influence was amazing; his counsel was sought on business, and so creating a triumphant government pre­
all things, for, says Livy, though he was so ‘all-round’, eminent for enlightened policy and massive integrity.
you would have thought him born to do the very thing The Greeks whom he came across were politically dead;
T.R. - 3
66 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 67

yet they came to Rome and talked and talked. When with a view to actions which will please the government,
Carneades and Diogenes, philosophers both, were in oligarchy or democracy, but with a view to actions on
Rome, they made a great stir by their lectures, ‘it was which oligarchy or democracy will be able to base their
like a great wind sounding round about the city’: anc own particular constitutions. Young oligarchs should not
Cato was afraid. For in his view Greek oratory had be trained to luxury, nor democrats to the belief that
nothing to say, and many words with which to say it: freedom is doing what you please. ‘A man should not
his own definition of an orator was vir boms dicendiperitus, think it slavery to live according to the constitution; he
a man of high character who can make a good speech. should think of it rather as his salvation.’
The sophists of Socrates’ day had boasted their skill to The Roman constitution was an oligarchy and it was
make the worse appear the better cause, and the Greeks based on law and custom: the sons of the oligarchy were
of the third and second centuries were their heirs. The multiplying their luxuries: the cult of the individual’s
self-assertion of individual personality, such as Scipio tastes and caprices in indifference to all else was being
loved, was the reverse of Cato’s ideal - action, in the interpreted as freedom: the laws and the unwritten
midst of a community, inspired by a moral motive codes were becoming of less use. Cato trained himself
personal influence and charm were dangerous, thought and wanted others to train themselves, and the best
Cato, and went to the other extreme. The modern self­ school was the Roman school.
culture led to self-indulgence in the name of art and When Scipio was publicly charged with malversation
learning and fashion. The springs of action as dis­ of public funds in his campaigns, he invited the people
covered by ‘the noblest Romans’ were dried up at their to go with him there and then to the temples to render
source; for Cato all true knowledge issued in action, thanks for his victories; for it was the anniversary of the
and action revealed the man. Introspective absorption battle of Zama. He was triumphant - on personal
in self and its culture meant the collapse of a common influence and popular sentimentalism. No wonder Cato
morality; and then would emerge the ‘leader’, casting was afraid.
his spell by cleverness of word and promise over a Scipio was eventually found guilty, but none dared
characterless people. arrest him, and he died in semi-exile. Cato survived
It is possible that the best statement of Cato’s motives him; but, as he himself said, it is not easy to have to
is given by a Greek who lived a hundred and fifty years render an account of your life to an age other than the
before him, namely Aristotle. In that mine of political age in which you have lived.
wisdom, the Politics, he says that the greatest contribu­ Cato could not win; the Roman city-state was passing
tion to the stability of a constitution is made by ‘educa­ away. The wealth of the world, and Asiatic notions of
tion’ or training for the constitution, though ‘nowadays the use of wealth, were entering Rome.
everyone despises it’ (and Aristotle had witnessed the The ideal of Scipio Africanus and the ideal of Cato
decline of the city-state). Laws, he says, are of no use stood in open contrast. When Cato was an old man and
unless the members of a state are trained and educated Scipio already dead, an attempt at a reconciliation of
in the constitution. But such training is training not the two ideals was made by Scipio Aemilianus, son of
 THE ROMANS 69
by example. He was anxious to prevent further expan­
sion of the Empire; he imposed discipline upon the
army; he refused to court the Roman populace whom
he frequently angered, and he boldly maintained that
iberius Gracchus had been rightly slain. ‘So perish all
who do the like again’ - another Homeric line. Scipio
in his turn was murdered, says Cicero, by his political
enemies, in 129 b.c.
Here, then, was an attempt to combine new ideas and
old principles. It failed, as it was bound to fail, before
the seductions of wealth and power. Noble families fell
from their honourable traditions; the new populace of
Rome and the great cities within the Empire exerted
their growing strength to secure ends that were no less
selfish than those of the governing class and probably
not as enlightened. But the antithesis of the Roman spirit
and the surrounding culture continued; there were to
be many Catos and many Scipios of both types, though
of less heroic stature, in Roman history. In spite of
everything, the Roman spirit broke through all that
threatened to submerge it.

{b) CICERO
The race of men shall, perish from the earth before the glory of Cicero shall perish
from their memories. Velleius Paterculus

Cicero stands near the end of the age of conflict

and disruption. From his pages we can reconstruct
much of the story of his time, as seen from the viewpoint
of a member of the aristocracy. He was born in 106 B.c.
and was put to death by Antony a year after the murder
of Julius Caesar in 44 b.c. His extant works take up
eighteen volumes in a small pocket edition published in
1823: three volumes of‘rhetorical’ treatises (or literary
criticism and ‘education’), six volumes of speeches
 THE ROMANS 71
70 THE ROMANS
written to be delivered in Senate or law-court, four of and transacted business of all kinds through inter­
letters, four of philosophical works and one of frag­ mediaries. What they disliked was retail trade and the
ments. In all these pages there is little that tells us of routine of manufacture. But they were on close terms
the manner of life led by the majority; in Latin litera­ with contractors and producers ‘in a big way’ and with
ture, as in Greek, the outlook is that of the few. In Rome financiers and bankers; and they readily sold their
the government was in the hands of an oligarchy drawn estates and country houses and bought others, and
from families ennobled by service to the state and count­ speculated in the land and ‘house-property’ markets.
ing among its numbers the most highly cultivated men These men of senatorial rank moved about Rome and
of the day. In the writings of Cicero the strength and Italy and the provinces as though they were a race
the weaknesses, the blind selfishness, the massive cul­ apart. Their pride in Rome was intense; their apprecia­
ture, and the corruption of public and private integrity tion of themselves could scarcely fall far behind. To
stand out clearly. He was a ‘new man’, that is, he did them Rome was the capital of the world, and they knew
not belong to one of the old families; he came from it, as others did not. They had started their careers with
Arpinum, and like many before him he had migrated military service, and they had held offices in Rome and
to Rome to stand for office as the preliminary to a public had then gone out to govern provinces. Royal houses
career. He was eminently successful, and after his had received them, men of letters and distinction had
famous consulship in 63 b.c. had held a short and in­ conversed with them; councils and assemblies had
conspicuous term of office as proconsul in Cilicia. In decreed them honours and privileges, even offering to
senatorial circles - for, of course, he was a senator - he them the religious veneration accorded to their own
moved freely, for he was a leading advocate, politician kings and heroes. The tide of war had fallen back before
and man of letters. Occasionally a slight trace of social them and before the majesty of Rome, and their power
uneasiness can be detected. He loved Rome and was of organisation had brought order out of chaos. The
miserable when away from it. To him and to his circle might and the prestige of Rome were due to their fore­
the only work which counted as work was in the service fathers who had flung an empire from west to east and
of the state (negotium) ; all else, no matter how urgen t or north to south, and they were the guardians. That they
exacting, was ‘time off’, even though it might include a were sometimes disloyal to the highest traditions and
man’s main livelihood. For this class land was the only' often enriched themselves unscrupulously was true
worthy occupation; trade and industry were not enough. Their heads were turned not so much by power
acceptable pursuits. It was not that these men were as by wealth. All the same, many did realise the weighty
above money; money was their curse, and some of the obligations of the Imperium Romanum, and they realised
largest fortunes of history were gathered into the hands them with Roman gravitas. They were a race apart, for,
of men like Lucullus and Crassus, and were often ex­ even if they had not found the right method, they were
pended on luxuries wicked and futile; moreover, to­ in fact conscious of doing a work for which they were set
wards the end of the Republic senators evaded the rules apart. Had not three hundred and six men from the
forbidding them to have interests in trade and industry Fabian family perished in the service of the state in
72 THE ROMANS
THE ROMANS 73
477 b.c.3 and had not the fortunes of the family hung occupations, together with many thousands who were
upon one young boy? Other families could show com­ always in a state of semi-idleness because there was
parable records. nothing urgent. A great proportion was of foreign birth,
Below this ‘order’ was the order of the ‘knights’ for Rome attracted men and women from all countries;
(eqyites). In the early days of Rome, when the duty of and freed slaves swelled the populace. These freedmen
military service carried with it the duty of providing were a growing class whose influence was increasing.
arms and accoutrements appropriate to wealth, the There were also the slaves. Rome harboured all nation­
citizens were classified according to property. Those alities, and more were yet to come within the next cen­
with a particular assessment were required to bring tury; but already by the time of Cicero there were very
a horse with them to war and to join a cavalry squadron many - Greeks and Syrians and Egyptians and Jews
- in fact, to become a knight. This title survived long and Germans and Africans. Of course, not all these had
after recruitment was on another basis, and it denoted the citizenship.
eventually men who possessed a property qualification These were the classes - Senate, knights, people -
of 400,000 sesterces (about £12,000 today). By Cicero’s whom it was Cicero’s ambition to unite in order to
time the ‘knights’ were a powerful class; they were free promote some kind of social stability after a century of
from the inhibitions about business which hampered strife. He realised that in all quarters of the state there
the senator and free from some of his sense of honour; were men who were ‘sound at heart’; he felt that, if
their interests were in state contracts, in the commercial they could be brought together, they could create a
expansion or development or exploitation of the pro­ healthy public opinion which would be proof against
vinces. Cicero’s great friend Atticus, with whom he irresponsible revolutionaries on the one side and the
corresponded for many years (the letters are still ‘leadership’ of one man which could develop into auto­
extant), was a knight, and he was a cultivated man of cracy. He called his ideal the ‘united front’ of sound
literary and philosophical interests, rich and unostenta­ elements, the concordia ordinum. He realised, as some of
tious, who had far more leisure time on his hands than his writings show, the need of some kind of leadership,
Cicero or members of the Senate. Since about 130 b.c. but his difficulty was to find the right name and the
equestrian influence in the state and in politics had right role and still more to imagine to himself the right
grown enormously; knights were a recognised ‘order’ man. His last philosophical work was the De qfficiis,
with certain privileges and duties and prestige. To the written after the murder of Caesar - a work which for
knights the traditional aspects of Roman power pro­ centuries was read by every educated man in Europe
bably appealed little; they were interested in stability, and now is scarcely read at all. It contains Cicero’s last
and the first Emperor relied on the order very greatly musings upon life and politics and human behaviour,
when he built up his new ‘imperial civil service’. and it is crammed full of a wisdom embodying a politi­
At Rome the rest of the total population of perhaps cal experience such as no Greek had ever passed
three-quarters of a million was made up ofshop-keepers, through; its influence on European thought has been
artisans and ‘small men’ pursuing a great number of profound. It probably cost its author his life, for it made
T.R.—3
 THE ROMANS 8l

for the expression of the true instincts of the solid mass

of people. The tributary of Roman experience, feeding
the river of Mediterranean culture, was thin in volume
compared with the.Hellenistic river in its deep-cut bed.
CHAPTER IV But was it of no value? And was it to be lost?
{a) RESTORATION AND THE AUGUSTAN Cleopatra, unlike the modern popular version of her,
principate: VERGIL and horAce AND LIVY was of Macedonian and Greek descent, powerful of
In my sixth and seventh consulship, after I had put out the flames of civil war intellect, a linguist herself able to conduct affairs with
and by universal consent had become possessed of the control of affairs, I trans­ foreigners, a student of literature and philosophy, hard-
ferred the state from my own power to the will of the Senate and people of Rome. headed in administration, masterful of will and ruth­
For this service I received by decree of the Senate the name of Augustus.
From Augustus’ own account of his Principate
less in carrying it out, not obsessed by the passion of love,
which she used as a means, but dominated by the
To explain in a few words the significance of the battle passion for power with which she hoped to achieve her
of Actium which gave Augustus final victory is difficult. ideal. Alone of the successors of Alexander she dreamt
Hellenistic civilisation, it will be remembered, was an his dream of the fusion of East and West and of the
amalgam of Greek and Oriental ideas fused together unity of mankind. Her audacious plan was to use a
and spread over the East, especially by the work of Roman army to subjugate Rome and then, as Empress,
Alexander the Great and his successors. For centuries divine and supreme, to rule the world; the measure of
this civilisation had attracted able Romans, and its her influence and her ability can be gauged by estimat­
influence on thought, religion, morals and the material ing the skill and the propaganda needed to persuade to
equipment of society at all levels was great. It had a long her cause generals of ancient tradition and legionaries
past and it enshrined the massive achievements of cen­ of Western origin. The party of Octavianus, to enflame
turies of experience, But alongside this vast tradition, the hatred of the West, might paint her as an Egyptian
unnoticed for centuries but at last compelling notice, a tyrant, divine embodiment of the animal gods of the
new and tentative approach to the problem of human Nile, and sunk in every Oriental depravity; but its
life - the organisation of society, conduct collective and leaders knew the truth, and did not underrate her.
individual, ideals of character and behaviour, state­ Romans might sometimes hate their enemies; but a
craft and government, ethics and religion - had pain­ special hatred inspires them when they speak of Hanni­
fully been worked out till it had gained confidence in bal and of Cleopatra, a hatred not untinged by fear;
itself and had proved its worth in competition with and it is fear of something alien, something not
other views upon the same problems. This was the Western.
Roman experience, expressed in institutions and stan­ Octavianus, now Caesar Augustus, strove by every
dards and ideals. True, the last century had seen the measure, direct and indirect, to ensure that the Roman
betrayal of all these. But not a final or a whole-hearted tradition should triumph. He dammed up the flood of
betrayal - rather an eclipse due to defect of machinery Hellenistic influence, and opened every gate which
 82 THE ROMANS
THE ROMANS 83
would admit the Roman genius and its accumulated ‘father of his country’. The consulship he left intact.
experience. He rebuilt the temples, he restored stan­ Routine administration, now thoroughly overhauled
dards in morals and conduct, he set a new fashion of
and made more efficient by the organisation of one
work and devotion to duty. He left his mark on every ‘department’ after another, he divided between the
branch of administration; his praise encouraged poets
Senate and his own civil service, which he built up
and historians to spread abroad the old Roman ideals largely from the middle-class Italians. Thus, he rebuilt
and pride in them, his good sense attached to him the
the state, using the materials of the Republic, and
middle classes of Italy, still sound at heart, and re­
claimed, with ample justice in theory, that he had
cruited from them honest administrators and provincial
‘restored the Republic’, while he excelled others only in
governors. His efforts in large measure succeeded
‘authority’ (auctoritas), a word with a long and honoured
because men wished them to succeed. Eventually they
Republican tradition. From the division of function
contributed to bring about the unity of mankind - as
between Princeps and Senate (for it was this rather than
far as it then could be - from the West by means of
a division of power) the new government has since been
Western ideas of human personality and ordered free­
defined as a ‘diarchy’ rather than a monarchy; whether
dom ; and those ideas were not conspicuous in the past
it remained so depended, as was to be seen, on the
history of the East.
character of the Princeps. But, whatever that character
Augustus moved tentatively towards the constitu­
might be, in theory the constitution remained estab­
tional establishment of his power, learning from the
lished throughout the period of the Empire on the
fate of Julius Caesar the danger of asserting it too
general lines laid down by Augustus. The Princeps was
precipitately. Finally, he based it on a combination of
sincere in his wish that all the elements which he
the proconsular imperium, the ‘tribunician power’ with­
enlisted in the service of the state should function well,
out the office, and certain privileges which were
and, if well, independently of interference by the
accorded to him by vote of the people. The procon­
sular imperium gave him command of all the armies, Princeps.
Such reconstruction succeeded in its immediate and
which were now stationed in the provinces on the fron­
ultimate results because it was accompanied by a
tiers; these provinces were governed by nominees of his
restoration of public confidence. The very thing upon
own; the rest he left to the Senate to administer. The
which Cicero so longed in vain to base the Republic was
‘tribunician power’ gave his person ‘sacrosanctity’ and
established by the end of Augustus’ long Principate. It
his position the appearance of being representative of
was established partly because it was already there,
the people, besides the right of proposing legislation.
though not in the quarters in which Cicero looked for it,
The special privileges gave him, among other rights, the
partly because of the creative efforts of a Princeps with
power of ‘commending’ candidates at elections. He
a superb eye for opportunity and with an insight into
was chief of the pontifices, the college of priests, and held
the underlying sentiments of the age. This basis was a
many positions of religious significance. He called
strong public opinion confident of itself; and Augustus
himself Princeps or ‘first citizen’, and Pater Patriae,
was persuaded that in the Italian people there resided
 THE ROMANS 85
Vergil, tried to achieve similar results through the
special medium of the statesman, legislation.
Unfortunately, the greatness of Horace and Vergil as
the interpreters of the spirit of the time, which was
partly old and partly new, is apparent only after deep
study of them. But, if anyone wishes to understand their
prophetic message, let him study the Carmen Saeculare
of Horace or the Sixth Book of the Aeneid, or the fourth
Eclogue or the sculpture of the Altar of Peace, erected
in 9 b.c., in the company of a guide who can explain
their full religious significance. Here all that can be
said is that the great ‘Secular Hymn’ of Horace was com­
posed to be sung by a choir of boys and girls moving in
procession to the temple ofJupiter on the Palatine Hill.
It summed up in symbolic form, which trailed mani­
fold associations, the meaning of the ‘secular festival’.
This festival, decreed by Augustus in 17 b.c. after an
interval of 129 years, opened the new age in the spirit of
creative hope, not, as formerly, in the spirit of sadness
and contrition in which the previous cycle was buried;
the new age opened with vows of new devotion to the
service of the gods and with prayers for blessings upon
men. Girls and boys - that is, those who were to build
the new edifice - sang this hymn of the rededication of
a people. For, if the Roman character has been success­
fully sketched in the foregoing pages, it will readily
be understood that, when the Roman felt sincerely
about things of morality or sentiment or value, he
expressed them in the language of religion. Opinion
may differ now whether he was right or wrong; but
there is no logic in arguing that, because his notion of
religion was not ours, therefore his sincerity is to be
doubted.
Here is a passage from the hymn, though it is almost
sacrilege to detach it from its context:
86 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 87
‘As surely as Rome, O ye gods, is your handiwork, as and producing a Roman humanism. The most signifi­
surely as from Troy came those armed warriors who cant movement of history, therefore, according to
settled on the Tuscan shore - a mere remnant bidden Vergil, is the march of the Roman along the road of his
to win a new home and a new city, their journey destiny to a high civilisation; for in that destiny is to be
finished under your guidance, a remnant which pure- found the valid and permanent interpretation of all
hearted Aeneas, saved unhurt from blazing Troy to movement and all development. As the Roman alone
survive his country, led as by a free highway to a destiny of all nations had succeeded under divine guidance, so
greater than all that they left behind - so, O gods, to in the future success for him alone was assured if he rose
our youth swift to learn grant ways of righteousness, to his high calling. The stately*movement of the Aeneid
grant to old age calm and rest, to the race of Romulus progresses throughout its length to this theme, the
wealth and increase of its sons, O grant all that is glori­ universal and the ultimate triumph of the Roman
ous ... Already Good Faith and Peace and Honour and spirit as the highest manifestation of man’s powers.
the Modesty of olden days and Virtue so long slighted The Aeneid of Vergil views the destiny of Rome, and
muster courage to return, and Plenty with all the riches that is the destiny of the world, from a transcendental
of its full horn is here for all to see. Phoebus with his level. It was the work of another artist, Livy, to view it
trappings of silver bow, who foresees the future, who is from the standpoint of the man of his day who was
welcome friend of the nine Muses of Rome, who with interested and intelligent enough to read the history of
health-giving skill gives new strength to tired limbs - Rome. Livy traced Rome’s history, from the founda­
Phoebus assuredly beholds with just and kindly eyes tion of the city almost to the time of his death, in one
these towered hills of Rome and prolongs Rome’s great­ hundred and forty-two books, of which only thirty-five
ness and the prosperity of Latium into yet another cycle survive. It will not create any surprise if the reader is
and into ages that ever shall grow better.’ told that it starts with Aeneas. It is a magnificently con­
ceived prose epic, with the portraits of the great men of
The Aeneid of Vergil was a national and religious Rome firmly drawn and the issues of the periods clearly
epic. It was epic, for it narrated in verse the doings of set out. It is the work of an artist and not of an historian.
Aeneas and his band of followers in their pilgrimage Livy knows clearly what his object was in writing
from Troy to the Western world in the high enterprise history; he held that ‘this is the most wholesome
imposed upon them by a divine will which had its own and faithful effect of the study of history; you
plans for the destiny of the world. It was national, for it have in front of you real examples of every kind of
asserted the independence of the Roman spirit from the behaviour, real examples embodied in most con­
spirit of Greece and maintained the individual charac­ spicuous form; from these you can take, both for
ter of Roman achievement. It was religious, for it ex­ yourself and for the state, ideals at which to aim, you
pressed in religious phrase the philosophy of the Roman can learn also what to avoid because it is infamous either
mind, fusing the ideal characters of Regulus and Cato in its conception or in its issue’. In other words, we are
and the rest with the philosophical outlook of Cicero, to behold in the pages of his narrative the Romans of
88 THE ROMANS
old, idealised or at any rate strongly drawn, and we are
to see in them types of morality, and we are to base our
future conduct upon their examples. Whereas in Ver­
gil’s Aeneid Aeneas had been taken by the Sibyl into
Hades to see the great Romans yet to be born, Livy asks
us to look back along the Roman portrait galleries and
to be proud and to imitate or to be warned. The con­
flicts and issues and struggles in the story of Rome are,
of course, apparent tct him; but they are described
in terms of individuals; there are not ‘movements’
or ‘tendencies’ or ‘forces’ at work unattached to men.
History is the record of the ‘doings of men’ (res gestae),
and the course of history, to Livy, has been determined
by Roman men in obedience to Roman gods; to Vergil
history is the working out of the destiny of the Roman
people seen in the light of eternity. To Horace there
was one duty, to proclaim with the inspiration of a
prophet that, if Rome did not change her heart and in
godliness worship the gods, she would have no history
at all; he summoned her to rededication. But all these
artists express their message, as artists must, in terms of
the individual and the special case. That is why Aeneas
and the whole company of heroes are worked so hard;
they embody ideals; and the Roman mind, and,
therefore, the Latin language, prefers not to deal
with abstracts, but to see things - movements and
tendencies and ideals - as expressed in persons who
have lived. Therefore history and moral philosophy,
with examples taken from real men, are the branches
of thought and literature which most interest the
Roman.
The ‘Augustan Age’ was heralded by an outburst of
really sincere feeling, which found sincere expression in
the work of three artists, Vergil, Horace, Livy, and of
those sculptors who carved the ‘religious’ sculpture of
 100 THE ROMANS
West, and often were adapted and absorbed by native
religions, preserving titles and elements of ritual grafted
on to one another in curious variety. In course of time
distinction of race was largely forgotten, and men of
provincial nationality rose to eminence in literature, and
letters, and soldiering, and government. Livy came from
Padua, Seneca, and his brother Gallic, and Lucan, from
Cordova, Columella from Cadiz, Martial and Quinti­
lian from Spain, Pronto and Apuleius from Africa; in
the third century, as we shall see, the Emperors them­
selves came from anywhere but Italy.
One powerful cause of the mingling of nations is to be
found in slavery. During these centuries slavery was
profoundly altered. As wars of expansion ceased, cap­
tives were scarcer, and barbarians made bad slaves; the
economic fallacy of slavery in agriculture and industry
became clearer and standards of humanity were raised.
From the lowest motives of freedom it was discovered
that, the nearer the lot of a slave approached to that of a
free man, the more useful he was. The Romans disliked
retail trade and the routine of business, and slaves per­
formed these tasks for them; the slaves themselves were
often more skilled than their masters. Slaves had always
been allowed to have property of their own, and in the
early Empire this property was often considerable. The
elaborate law dealing with slaves’ property shows how
they could conduct business with free men, and it is
clear that slaves owned land, property, ships, interests in
business concerns, even skves of their own, and that their
rights were protected by law. When Augustus started
his own civil service, he staffed it with slaves and freed­
men; their status improved and the work of the town­
ships was carried on by men who were strictly owned by
the state or the municipality. The position of the slave
was often enviable; he had opportunities without re-
106 THE ROMANS
that private generosity still flowed in spite of the parallel
system of the state. The Emperors were proud of the
scheme; Alim. Italiae appears on the coins of Trajan,
and Trajan’s Arch at Beneventum shows him greeted
by four women, one with a baby in her arms, and by
two Roman citizens, one with a boy on his shoulders,
the other with a boy at his side. The women, no doubt,
symbolise cities.
The legends on coins to which reference has just been
made perhaps call for a paragraph on one aspect of
ancient coinage. It was far more interesting than our
own, for the types were frequently changed, and the
legends and the pictures were chosen to suit the times.
Thus the Emperor could impress upon the public the
significance of a recent event, or he could prepare
opinion for a project, or he could stiffen morale by
focusing attention on ideals. In fact, the coinage not
only repairs some gaps in the historical evidence and
corroborates the rest, but also provides a commentary
and an interpretation, not less welcome or important
for being official. When Antoninus Pius was preparing
his subjects for the nine-hundredth anniversary of the
foundation of Rome, he issued medallions showing the
landing of Aeneas upon the shores of Italy. The victory
over the Parthians and the recovery of the ‘lost stan­
dards’ is duly recorded upon gold coins issued by
Augustus. The fall ofJerusalem in a.d. 70, the bridging
of the Danube in Trajan’s Dacian wars, Hadrian’s tour
of the provinces, the adoption of a successor by a reign­
ing Emperor and so his recommendation to the world at
large, specific acts of imperial generosity or state-craft,
as for example the alimenta - this is the kind of event
recorded. Prosperity is acclaimed or invited; if there
had been civil war, ‘Concordia’ as a legend would
record its end, or even a hope that it might end. ‘Eter-
 THE ROMANS 109
economic changes of the early empire, what had
happened to the old Roman virtues, the sense of duty
to state and to family and to friends and of loyalty to
moral standards? In spite of the extravagances offashion
and licence which surrounded them, the virtues per­
sisted, less rugged perhaps, more humane but none the
less real and pervasive. They flourished chiefly in the
country in the cultivated society of men like Pliny, in
the farmstead from which sprang men such as the
Emperor Vespasian, an Emperor great through his
plain and honest common sense, in the villages and
country towns of the provinces now affected by Roman
ways of life. When Vespasian took a holiday, he went
back to the Sabine farmhouse of his forefathers, which
was kept unaltered. The letters of Pliny reveal a society
whose members were untouched by the excesses of the
capital, though many of them were men whose work
and interests brought them into closest touch with its
life. The men are interested in their work, their house
and land, their literary pursuits, and, perhaps above all,
their friends; the women embody the virtues of the wife
and mother and are interested in literature, in their
husbands’ pursuits and in their family; the children are
brought up in the healthy occupations of the country­
side, and are trained in an unoppressive obedience and
a natural respect. The foundation of this calm and
healthy routine of life seems to be the life of the home
and the mutual regard and affection of friends. Where­
as we find in the letters of Cicero a vivid commentary
on contemporary political life, in Pliny’s letters we have
a picture of that placid social life which was typical of
the ‘Antonine Age’ which immediately followed the age
of Pliny - and a picture drawn by one who found in the
small things of daily occupation an absorbing interest
and pleasure. Pliny himself had a public career; he
 THE ROMANS 129
quiet, O Father, be your rest! May you call us, your
household, from feeble regrets and unmanly mourning
to contemplate your virtues, in presence of which sorrow
and lamentation become a sin. May we honour you in
better ways - by our admiration, by our undying praise,
even, if our powers permit, by following your example.
That is the true honour, the true affection of souls knit
close to yours. To your daughter and widow I would
suggest that they revere the memory of a father and a
husband by continually pondering his deeds and say­
ings, and by cherishing his spiritual, above his physical,
presence. Not that I would place an absolute ban on
likenesses of marble or of bronze. But the image of the
human face, like that face itself, is feeble and perishable,
whereas the essence of the soul is eternal, never to be
caught and expressed by the material and skill of a
stranger, but only by you in your own living. All in
Agricola that won our love and admiration abides and
shall abide in the hearts of men, through endless ages,
in the chronicles of fame. Many of the great men of old
will be drowned in oblivion, their name and fame for­
gotten. Agricola’s story has been told to posterity and
by that he will live.’

T.R.—5
„1'34 THE ROMANS
ancient times has been thy glory; I dare to unseal those
sacred springs, and through Roman towns I sing the
song which Hesiod sang to the Greeks.’ The Roman u
regarded the organic life of the town as the chief instru- tf
ment of civilisation; but he did not forget the country - n
its pleasures, its challenge to work and management, its v'
essential role as the mother of a nation’s sons. ^
In the multiplication of towns throughout the Empire s<
Rome was singularly direct and practical in her 0
methods. In most of her provinces town-life already a
existed: it was further encouraged and the towns were
often replanned and rebuilt. In Britain there were no v
towns before the Romans came; the only collections of ^
dwellings were placed upon high ground and they were F
made for defensive purposes against neighbouring 0
tribes. For a century or two town life in the valleys was 1
deliberately created as a means of spreading a Roman 1
manner of life. But the Briton did not take to it; the s
towns decayed; they were deserted because the people s
preferred to make their livelihood in the woods and *
open lands rather than to act as middlemen or as arti- '
sans for the surrounding country. Roman civilisation, (
of a very diluted character, betook itself to large self- 1
supporting ‘villas’ or country houses. The policy of ^
creating towns failed in Britain as it did not fail on the *
Continent.
Whenever the Romans founded a town, it was planned 1
upon very definite lines. By means of a simple piece of 1
apparatus by which the surveyor determined a right !
angle, two wide streets were drawn intersecting at
ninety degrees. From this cross-roads as a starting-point
rectangular plots of land were marked; at regular
intervals streets of specified width were laid out. We
hear of the ‘building line’, and of rules about the height
of buildings and of regulations excluding heavy traffic
 THE ROMANS 14I
Again, economic conditions did not demand new
techniques and inventions. Though slave labour was
less abundant in the second century of the Empire than
earlier, there was no dearth of labour, and there was
little incentive to think out methods which would
economise time or toil. Moreover, the economic ten­
dencies of the Empire were all against the development
of new processes. Though manufactured articles were
exported from one province to another, or from Italy
to the provinces, they were not exported on any scale
comparable with present practice; and, as the provinces
built up their own industries, they tended to satisfy
their own needs and to look no further afield for mar­
kets. In the third century there was a movement of
population away from the towns, for reasons which we
shall see in a later chapter; and, as country estates grew
larger and were increasingly managed under an almost
feudal system, old methods of manufacture became
stereotyped and were sufficient to supply the needs of a
limited area. Districts lived on their own economy, and
were independent of the resources or manufactures of
neighbouring districts. When self-sufficiency offithis
kind prevails, no stimulus is offered to the inventifn of
new techniques.
Finally, it must be remembered that the Roman
always disliked the routine and the actual manual
labour of industry. The point of view of the well-to-do
Roman is put clearly in a letter of Seneca, and it should
be observed that in essence it is little different from the
attitude of Plato. Seneca derives from Poseidonius, the
last of the Greek philosophers in the direct line of Plato
and Aristotle, a classification of arts into (i) the com­
mon and debasing, (ii) those which amuse the senses of
sight and hearing by illusionist tricks, (iii) those suit­
able to the early education of children, (iv) the liberal,
 I42 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 143
or, as they should be called, the^arts consistent with prejudices were much modified: men tended to agree
freedom (liberae). The first are ‘manual arts’, engaged with Vespasian’s dictum, that money does not smell.
solely in supplying the needs of life; the second are dex­ But it was too late and too difficult to change a tradi­
terous enough, but concerned only with a rather cheap tion; besides, the other influences which we have
amusement; the third are the skills acquired in educa­ indicated above were all against the development of
tion; they are akin to liberal arts, for they are intro­ new techniques, and such influences as these are often
ductory to them. It is only the liberal arts which put a beyond the diagnosis, or even the understanding, of
man in the way of virtue, though they cannot make the men of the day, who certainly are powerless to
him virtuous: ‘Only those arts are liberal which are con­ counteract them.
cerned with virtue’, that is, with human character and
the human spirit manifesting itself in moral behaviour.
And in the last resort it is philosophy alone which deals
with good and evil. Two or three generations earlier
Cicero had said much the same kind of thing in a long
discussion given in the first book of his treatise On
Duties. He thinks there can be nothing in a workshop
worthy of a free man; the occupations ‘which the public
detests’, as for example those of customs officers and
money-lenders, are ‘sordid’; retail trade, since it buys
to sell immediately, is not honourable; to undertake
imports on a large scale and so to satisfy the needs of
a large area is more respectable. Arts which pander to
pleasure are despicable; medicine, architecture and the
like are higher in the scale since they involve long views
and their utility is obvious. There is something sordid
about all gain: only for agriculture is high praise re­
served,, ‘nothing better, nothing more attractive, noth­
ing more suitable for a free man’. The highest occupa­
tion is, of course, public service, undertaken with the
equipment of the virtues of integrity and devotion, of
kindliness and loyalty to the good of all fellow-citizens.
In spite of these views, men like Cicero and Seneca
were in fact concerned with commercial undertakings,
but only, as it were, at long range and on a large scale.
And in the course of the Empire these old-fashioned
 THE ROMANS 145
shortly described. When the official curators of the state
religion admitted into public recognition a non-Roman
cult by granting it a place among public festivals or a
site for a temple, they saw to it that the cult was trans­
formed in a way suitable to Roman tradition. The
legend or story often underwent changes, the ritual and
terminology were modified, and the cult bore a strong
Roman imprint. When this was not possible, at least the
objectionable elements were purged out of it.
In the last century of the Republic the state religion
lost some of its hold upon Roman sentiment. The
increase of wealth and power had led to a materialism
which in its first flush could do without the gods; the
expansion of the Empire and the flow of foreigners to
Rome in the processes of trade and commerce, and of
other activities in which Rome was now plunged, had
brought foreign cults to Italy. These were readily em­
braced ; for they offered an emotional element lacking
in Roman religion and they exalted the importance of
the individual, offering excitement and personal experi­
ences and often a destiny in a world to come. Moreover,
the contrast between the ‘people’ and the older and
governing elements of the population of Rome was now
very marked; the people were enlarged by foreigners
who were of a temperament different from the Roman
and politically were opposed to the senatorial party.
From natural inclination and for political and social
reasons they were indifferent or hostile to the religion
and standards of the older Roman tradition, and found
greater excitement in newer forms of cult. Pressure was
too great, and of necessity the state tolerated all religions
as practised by individuals provided that they were not
immoral, or politically dangerous in the sense that they
preached political doctrine under the form of religion.
By degrees several Eastern cults received official recog-
 THE ROMANS 147
torial circles, to whom he had restored the custodian­
ship of Roman religion, take their duties.
The tests applied to foreign cults, therefore, were three:
(i) Would they upset the dominant position of the Roman
cults? (ii) Were they politically unsafe? (iii) Were they
morally undesirable? If these tests were satisfied,
toleration was complete.
From the time of Augustus a new form of Roman
cult makes its appearance - the worship of the Emperor.
The phrase ‘ the worship of the Roman Emperor’ is here
deliberately used, because it is commonly used;
whether it is the best phrase is open to doubt, as the
following brief account may perhaps suggest. At the
risk of over-simplification we may approach it from
three angles: first, from the viewpoint of the Eastern
provinces; secondly, from Rome; thirdly, from the
Western provinces.
In the Eastern Mediterranean the cult of the Emperor
was a spontaneous growth. The line between God and
man was indistinctly drawn. The theory that the gods
and heroes of old were men who had served well their
country or mankind was commonly accepted; philos­
ophy had spoken of the divine spark or element in man.
Homage had been paid in Oriental fashion to the
successors of Alexander in forms and language borrowed
from religion. A ruler who had conferred benefits upon
his subjects was saluted by titles such as ‘Benefactor’
{Euergetes) and ‘Saviour’ (Soter). The question of king-
ship and its responsibilities received much attention in
more than one school of Greek philosophy, and an ex­
tensive literature - some of which survives - discussed
the qualities of the ideal king; the justification for his
office was found in such qualities as love of humanity,
justice, kindliness and service to his subjects. For the
divinity of rulers resided in the degree to which they
I52 THE ROMANS

Democritus. The universe is the result of chance

agglomerations of atoms, which vary in size and shape
and fall through space. As they fall, they are liable to
swerve - why is not clear ^ and to collide and to form
combinations, and so the world has variety, and law is
not rigid, and man is subject to predetermining causes
over which he has no control. All things are made of
matter, even the soul, though matter varies in degree of
‘thinness’; matter can come apart into atoms, which
alone are indestructible; therefore all may perish except
atoms and the bodies of the gods which reside in the
empty spaces between the universes and so can collide
with nothing and so are immortal. If everything is
material, ideas and impressions of the senses - sight, for
example - are material; they arise because things
throw off husks of atoms, as it were, which strike the
sense organs of the mind itself. Thus, the gods really
exist, for-we have an idea of them; they are happy and
care nothing for the happiness of man, whom they did not
even create. Man may revere the gods and expose him­
self to their emanations and so perhaps gain something
of their qualities; contemplation, therefore, may confer
some benefits. But the gods do not willingly or con­
sciously influence men. Man’s goal is happiness - not
over-indulgence in pleasure, for this may bring pain;
calm of body and of mind is the aim. Above all, get rid of
fears, fear of death and the displeasure of the gods;
death is unconsciousness; the displeasure of the gods is a
myth.
And so the poem expounds the implication of this
doctrine for human knowledge and human life, and
ranges far and wide. Here are the topics of the fifth
book: the nature of the world and mortality; the forma­
tion of the world; the motions of the heavenly bodies;
vegetation and animals and their origin; the extinction
154 THE ROMANS
sure and convincing. In such passages as these the Latin
hexameter verse rose to new heights and was not sur­
passed.
The poem stands remote and unique. Epicureanism
had no great following in Rome; Vergil and Horace
played with it and gave it up. Lucretius had no sectaries
to whom to preach, no predecessors to show him the
way, no posterity of readers to admire him as a philoso­
pher; he was merely a poet whose genius bent to its will
a most intractable theme. With all his passionate
materialism Lucretius protests not so much against
religion as against the forms of religion which were gain­
ing influence in Rome. He has been accused of exag­
gerating the religious crudity against which he inveighs
- reliance on dreams, and magical rites, and sacrifices,
and charms, and rank superstition. Did Lucretius
exaggerate their place in Roman religion? Certainly, if
he had thought only of Roman religion; but he thought
also, and probably first, of those Eastern practices which
in his time were securing a firmer hold upon Roman
sentiment. It was not the gods, nor indeed an outlook
upon life which admitted its marvels and mystery,
against which Lucretius protested: what drove him
almost to madness was man’s self-inflicted and degrad­
ing enslavement to crude and terrifying superstitions (
which a few moments of clear reasoning would dissipate ,
into nothingness. ‘The life of fools in the end becomes a j
hell upon earth.’ With the breathless fervour of a ,
religious convert he attacked in the name of reason the }
irreligion of religion. t
If Epicureanism had not a great following at Rome, j
the reverse is true of Stoicism, for the Romans were ^
natural Stoics long before they heard of Stoicism. The
founder of Stoicism was Zeno (350-260 b.c.) of Citium, v
who lived and taught at Athens. Stoicism looked back a
 156 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 157
than that of Plato or Aristotle. At the present moment he plicit and incidental treatment; thus in the Academica a
is derided as a mere middle-man ofno great intelligence. general view of Zeno’s teaching is given, in In the Nature
In modest depreciation of his philosophical works he of the Gods (Book ii) Stoic physics is treated, in On the
once wrote in a letter to Atticus, ‘they are copies and Ends (Book iii) Stoic ethics.
therefore cost less trouble; I supply only the words, and Before speaking of the teachings of Stoicism, we may
I don’t lack those!’, and he is now taken at his word. In glance briefly at three of its later exponents. Of
one sense he was right, but in supplying the words he Seneca’s public career, of his life at the court of Nero,
rendered an incalculable service to European thought of his wealth, and his death as an alleged conspirator
and letters. He moulded the Latin language into such against the life of Nero, we must say nothing; nor can
form that it became supple enough and clear enough to we review the estimates of him made by modern critics,
put within the reach of any intelligent man not only the some of whom loathe him as the supreme embodiment
philosophical ideas with which his age was familiar, but of a nauseating hypocrisy, while others regard him as a
also those ideas which were yet to be created by Christian saint - ‘this pagan monk, this idealist, who would have
thought and controversy and by European science and been at home with St Jerome or Thomas a Kempis’, who
learning in every field. Moreover, even if Cicero’s works felt an ‘evangelistic passion, almost approaching St
are derivative, they select what they derive and present Paul’s, to open to these sick perishing souls the vision of
it in such form that there is probably no better intro­ a higher life through the practical discipline of philo­
duction to moral philosophy - not excepting Plato him­ sophy’. The best thing to do is to take his works as they
self. Of originality there is none - except in style, lan ­ stand and judge them on their merits. There are several
guage and presentation; but century after century treatises with such titles as On Providence, dealing with
learned its philosophical grammar from these works the age-long question why the good suffer ; they do not
and they are still invaluable. Here are some of the titles: suffer, says Seneca, in the ways that really matter; On
On the State, an imaginary discussion between Scipio Anger-, On the Life of Happiness', On Tranquillity of Mind',
Aemilianus and his friends, and surviving only in muti­ On Mercy, addressed to Nero and the source of some of
lated form; On the Laws, a discussion between Cicero, Shakespeare’s ideas in Portia’s great speech; On Kind­
Atticus and Quintus Cicero; On the Ends of Good and ness. Besides this he wrote {a) the Natural Questions,
Evil, another discussion in which Epicurean, Stoic and which, if of no value scientifically, has some excellent
Academic views are stated and criticised; The Tusculan descriptions of natural phenomena, {b) tragedies, of
Disputations-, On the Nature of the Gods', On Old Age (Scipio great influence in European tragedy, and (c) letters to
and Laelius visit Cato and listen to his wisdom); On Lucilius. The letters, which are a hundred and twenty-
Friendship', On Duties. These are some of the titles of four in number, are musings or meditations or essays
what are commonly called his philosophical works - upon ‘serious subjects’ rather than letters; sometimes
many of them are essays and musings and rambles en­ they start with an anecdote or some real happening to
livened by anecdote rather than set and methodical Seneca or Lucilius, and it is not long before the sermon
treatises. Throughout these writings Stoicism finds ex­ follows.
l62 THE ROMANS

upon which, in the mind of the thinker, the bases of all

behaviour should logically rest. Now the tendency of
the East had been to base morality, not upon a philo­
sophical justification, but upon the authority of the
prophet or seer whose intuition or moral sensitiveness
seemed to carry its own credential. Thus Stoicism, and
particularly Roman Stoicism, paid little attention to a
basic philosophy and built up a large body of precept.
Though reference was made to one or two fundamental
postulates, what really carried authority was the exam­
ple or the teaching of the Stoic ‘wise man’ or sage
{sapiens), the man who possessed the Stoic insight into
the canons of moral behaviour. ‘What will the “sage”
do in such and such circumstances?’ is the Stoic criter­
ion, whereas the earlier Greek question was ‘How am I
to discover by an intellectual process what is right and
therefore what is right in this particular case?’
It would be unprofitable to set out the slender teach­
ings on physics and logic and psychology with which
the Stoic made play, or to expose their inconsistencies.
It must be enough to say that to them the important
thing for man was that ‘he should live according to
Nature’, and Nature was that Force or Providence or
Reason or Fate which ordains that things shall be as
they are. Sometimes it was spoken of as God, sometimes
God was equated with Nature and Stoicism became
Pantheism. Man’s hope of happiness lies in subordina­
tion to this all-pervading and life-sustaining Power.
(The reader who remembers what wds said about ‘sub­
ordination’ in the first chapter will see why Stoicism
particularly appealed to the Romans; and, if he also
remembers their tendency to canonise their national
heroes, and particularly Cato, he will not be surprised
at the authority of the ‘sage’.) The gods of popular
mythology are held to be the popular version of this
l66 THE ROMANS

influence of Stoicism contributed much. The xlviith

letter of Seneca deals with the attitude which a Stoic
master should adopt towards his slaves.
In the Greco-Roman civilisation of the Empire there
were many other philosophies which a man might
adopt - the Cynic, the neo-Platonist, besides adapta­
tions of Platonism and Scepticism and amalgamations
of many others. Their study is of great value; Plotinus,
the greatest of the neo-Platonists, is of absorbing interest
both in himself and in his influence. But they are out­
side our scope; for we are considering the Romans, and
the specifically Roman philosophy was Stoicism.
168 THE ROMANS
The fourth century will present a picture very strange
to one familiar only with the first and second centuries;
for the Empire had passed through the anarchy and the
confused ambitions of the third century and was trans ­
formed; indeed, only by the most desperate efforts of
Diocletian and Constantine was it held together at all.
In the light of the changes it is possible to see somethin;
of the weaknesses of the golden Antonine Age.
If so complex a period as the third century, so defici ­
ent too in good historical witness, admits of any simple
clues, perhaps they may be found, first, in the movement
of power and wealth and vigour away from Rome am !
Italy to the provinces, secondly, in the ever-growin;;;
pressure upon the frontier provinces exerted by ‘bar­
barian’ tribes. To some extent, but not wholly, these
aspects of the question are related. Clearly, threat to
the frontiers thrusts into prominence the importance
of the frontier provinces. But apart from this the pro ­
vinces had grown in wealth and power and significance.
During the early centuries Rome and Italy had been
the centre from which radiated Roman civilisation; as
that civilisation was appropriated by the provinces,
they became more self-reliant from many points of
view - economic, military, intellectual and even politi­
cal. The new importance of the provinces at the expense
of Rome and Italy was the measure of Rome’s success;
but her success was fraught with disaster for herself.
The factors which contributed to the turmoil and
confusion of the third century were complex, and no
attempt to show them at work can be made here; nor
indeed is it easy to give one priority or precedence over
another; they acted and reacted upon one another. In
general terms they were as follows.
In the early days of the Republic the army had been
recruited from Rome; then Italy was drawn upon, then
 170 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 171
understood what they had inherited. Roman-ness themselves, setting up states and armies of their own
(Romanitas) was sadly diluted. and defying the central government. Such were the
For at all costs the army must be increased, till by so-called Gallic Empire, and the state of Palmyra under
the end of the fourth century it was double the size of Queen Zenobia, who even conquered Egypt and for a
the army of Augustus. New systems of defence, which short time held the chief granary of Rome in her power.
relied no longer on the fighting line of the frontier, but Meantime, the invading hordes plundered and burnt
upon successive points of consolidation arranged in and slew; they carried off a vast treasure of gold and
depth, new arms, new specialist corps were demanded. precious objects, and the Empire sank into poverty.
For the pressure from beyond the Empire was constant And, as happens, they often assimilated the civilisation
and severe, and it operated at many points at once. of their victims, and during these troubled years Ger­
The garrison of the province was no longer adequate; mans and Romans drew nearer to one another in habits
its value presupposed spasmodic and isolated attack, and culture and outlook, and the beginnings of the
whereas, as pressure was intensified, a mobile striking German-Roman states took shape.
force was required to be sent at speed to the point most The centre of gravity was moving east. Where the
threatened. The earlier policy of buying off barbarian Emperor was, there was Rome, and he was most often
hordes by regular subsidies, at first successful, failed as east of the Adriatic sea. The Balkan Peninsula was the
the Empire grew obviously weaker; the settling of last to be romanised, and was most vitally conscious of
marauding tribes inside the frontier, tried by Marcus its Roman-ness, whatever its interpretation might be.
Aurelius, for example, only made the defences less It furnished the most vigorous troops, and the troops
assured. And so one race was succeeded by others in created their generals, and from its generals came
growing numbers; the Carpi raided Dacia and were Emperors. The East with its inherited wealth and longer
followed by Goths, till Dacia was surrendered and a tradition of civilisation inevitably exercised its influence;
Roman province became their home. The Goths over a imperial autocracy drew upon the age-long experience
long series of years drove into East Germany, Tran ­ of Eastern monarchy; and in face of the menace of
sylvania, Illyricum, and raided by sea the whole of Asia invasion Rome was no longer strategically suitable
Minor, and penetrated as far into Greece as Athens and as a headquarters of a government, now military above
Sparta. The Juthungi reached North Italy; the Ale- all else. Italy was fast becoming a province rather than
manni, who first appear about a.d. 210, thrust into a land privileged as the cradle of Rome.
Gaul and Italy, and for a moment appeared before The economic effects of civil war, anarchy, disinte­
Rome. Meantime, the Persian power had revived and gration, devastation of land and city by invading hordes
was often victorious over the Roman armies sent to resist were incalculable. Already in the Antonine Age there
its depredations. The Imperial Government was struggl­ were ominous symptoms. The once flourishing cities of
ing for survival and it could not meet the manifold the provinces found it harder to meet their expenses;
threats. It is not to be wondered, therefore, that separate imperial taxes increased; the local councillors found
parts of the Empire took independent steps to save office increasingly a burden, for larger calls were made
 172 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 173
on their pockets. The value of money declined; industry it was saved at the most appalling price, so appalling
satisfied local needs and found no incentive to distribute that historians have sometimes asked whether it had
more widely; production failed to see the kind of goods not better perished. These two men were Diocletian and
that were needed, and remained stagnant. With war Constantine. Diocletian, Emperor a.d. 284-305, of
and invasion capital was destroyed, taxes were ground Illyrian birth, was the son of a freedman; he served
out of town and countryside to pay for the war; when in the army and was elevated to the throne by the
money was not forthcoming, goods were seized, particu­ officers. Constantine, Emperor a.d. 306-337, was also
larly those which would supply the needs of the armies. an Illyrian, the natural son of Constantius and Helena;
Lands went out of cultivation for lack of labour; the he too was nominated Emperor by the soldiers, and had
hardest and least pleasant forms of work were avoided; to fight for the throne. Both men were able organisers.
yet the army must have supplies. Ships were impressed The measures of Diocletian, completed by Constan­
to carry those supplies; the civilian population was a tine, contained little that was really new, and no at­
secondary matter; the standard of living declined as tempt will be made here to show the process of develop­
imports were confined to military necessities and infla­ ment. They regularised and systematised the prece­
tion brought its attendant evils. Yet still, though the dents and practices of the years of stress, when the
Empire starved, the armies must be fed and armed and Empire was in a state of siege; they converted emer­
clothed and transported. gency measures dictated by the urgent needs of the
It is difficult in a few words to paint the picture in crisis into the permanent structure of government.
dark enough colours. The Empire was within an ace of Nothing is easier for a state to do on the plea ofincreased
falling apart and settling down in utter collapse in protection, or security, or prevention of inflation - in
poverty and famine and ruin. ‘Shall I marry? Am I to short, on the plea of the continuance of the emergency.
be sold up ? Shall I have to be a member of the local And so the state became paramount; it was interested
Council? Shall I get my salary? Shall I quit?’ These not in the individual as an individual, but merely as a
are questions put by bewildered folk to an oracle in member of a trade or class or an ‘interest’ organised to
Egypt, and preserved to us on papyri. Trivial, but satisfy its own economic or administrative needs. Thus
eloquent of the ordinary man’s state of mind. A petition each single man became, in effect, the slave of the state.
to the Emperor sent from Asia Minor reads: ‘We are The Imperial Government clamped down upon the
most atrociously oppressed and squeezed by those whose whole Empire the bars which were to hold it together
duty it is to protect the people ... Officers, soldiers, city and which achieved its imprisonment.
magistrates and imperial agents come to our village and The reforms of Diocletian and Constantine were a
take us away from our work and requisition our oxen; stupendous effort to organise, or to plan, security. And
they exact what is not due and we suffer outrageous in­ first, the security of the Emperor, that is, of the unity of
justice and extortion.’ the Empire.
Yet the Empire as a single whole was saved as by, a For sixty or seventy years the imperial authority had
miracle. It was saved by the exertions of two men; but virtually been in the gift of the soldiers, and anarchy
 r74 the romans THE ROMANS 175
had resulted. Now it was to be dissociated from depen­ sons (limitanei), once the defenders and disseminators of
dence upon any sectional interest. The Emperor’s per­ Roman civilisation and honoured as such, were now
son was to be remote and detached; he was rarely seen in the least efficient troops, for they were recruited by
public, he was surrounded by a court of the Oriental forced levy from landowners, and were reinforced by
pattern. Court officials, with new titles, guarded his hired barbarians. The troops stationed near the cities on
person, and admitted to audience; semi-religious cere­ the interior lines of communication (comitatenses) to form
monial invested him with divine authority, which he a mobile force now stood highest in repute, though the
wielded as the partner of God upon the throne. Augus­ civilians of the neighbourhood were often hard tried by
tus had claimed to be the chief citizen; Diocletian was a their exactions and rapacity.
monarch. To maintain the army the Empire was turned into a
How, then, to break away from dependence upon the vast administrative machine designed to produce taxes.
army, and not perish at its hands? The changes in the The machinery took more men out of production, and
army which had come about gradually during the last civil servants have a way of attracting to themselves
hundred years were accepted and extended and system­ more civil servants. Diocletian saw that the Empire was
atised. Ihe army was no longer officered by the sena­ too large for one man to govern; there were precedents
torial and equestrian orders; ‘barbarians’ rose to the for ‘associate-emperors’, and so he divided the Empire
highest posts; the career of the soldier became exclu­ and placed over half of it his partner, entitled like him­
sively military and professional. The army commander self an Augustus. To each Augustus was assigned a
no longer carried out administrative work; civil and ‘Caesar’, a kind of adjutant though with special terri­
military posts were separated; the proconsul, familiar in torial responsibility. The theory was that the Caesar
early days as governor of a province and also comman­ would succeed the Augustus, and so the problem of
der-in-chief, was a thing of the past. The general was succession would be solved. The provinces, Italy inclu­
dependent for his supplies on the civil administration ded, were now broken up into more than a hundred
which was responsible to the Emperor, and he was thus areas grouped into dioceses, the dioceses themselves
held in check. Henceforth the soldier was to have no being grouped into prefectures. Titles were changed; it
touch with administration, justice, supplies or taxation, is now that comes makes its appearance to denote official
hie was a soldier pure and simple, with no inducements position, as e.g. the ‘Count’ of Africa; the dioceses were
to meddle with other matters, which were all in the under Vicars, as e.g. ‘the Vicar of Spain ; the Emperor s
hands of imperial officials, and no opportunities to advisory council was the Consistorium.
gather into his hands the resources necessary for politi­ One of Diocletian’s most urgent tasks was the reform
cal initiative. Strategy, tactics, weapons all changed; of the currency in order to check inflation. Closely con­
the auxiliaries became more honoured than the legions; nected with this was his attempt to fix maximum prices
cavalry, the arm of the barbarian, took precedence for goods and services. The edict, of which part survives,
over infantry, for barbarians had to be fought by bar­ defines the prices for such things as food, timber,
barians and by their own weapons. The frontier garri­ leather, textiles, cosmetics and the like. It fixes the rates
 THE ROMANS I77
the farm, nor the tenant-farmer the estate; moreover,
his children must be brought up to succeed him. If,
overburdened by taxes, the landowner abandoned his
land, the state took it, and eventually the greater por­
tion of the Empire passed into state-ownership. In the
same way factories were nationalised. Transport was an
essential service; and so the voluntary associations of
dockyard labourers, merchant marine and the like were
used by the state as instruments of coercion; member­
ship must be maintained and contracts for public ser­
vices must be carried out. Hence arose a caste system;
no matter what his work - town councillor, soldier,
factory worker, official - each was tied to his job and
status, and his children after him. If by chance he
did ‘improve’ himself and obtained a permit to change
his work, he would be liable to higher taxation; he
might then be ruined. Better to remain as he was. Thus,
there was no incentive to enterprise or initiative or
saving; the state effectively killed them all. Production
fell, and with it the standard of living; the rigid uni­
formity of a lifeless and static mediocrity prevailed.
The price of security was the absorption of the individual
by the state.
The movement of the centre of gravity eastwards like­
wise received recognition. Diocletian had virtually made
his court and headquarters at Nicomedia on the eastern
coast of the sea of Marmora; for in the past the dangers
had come from beyond the Danube and from Persia;
Nicomedia was a strategic point. But the ancient city of
Byzantium, a Dorian colony founded about 600 B.c., lay
across the water, protected or approached by gates of
sea and served by an incomparable harbour. Here was
an impregnable site for the new Christian city of
Constantine, the new capital of the new Christian
Empire, Constantinople. Years were given to its build-
 i78 THE ROMANS
ing; it was adorned with works of beauty gathered from
many cities, pagan works and Christian alike. But no
pagan sacrifice was offered within its walls, for it was
dedicated to the new faith. For nearly a thousand years
it stood inviolate, till in 1204 it was taken by Crusaders
professing the faith of its founder; but till then it shel­
tered the religion, the learning and the power of the
East Roman Empire, the so-called Byzantine civilisa­
tion.
And so the Empire was held together. Diocletian and
Constantine undertook a work of reconstruction, muck1
as Augustus had undertaken it years earlier. But, where­
as Augustus reconstructed by mobilising forces and
energies and goodwill to undertake a voluntary effort,
the reformers of the third century had to impose a
machinery designed to extract the resources necessary
for the work of government and the ensuring of se­
curity. Of contemporary literature there is little, for the
spontaneity necessary to literature was lacking. In time
life and letters revived; a new imagination manifested
itself, but in the members rather than in the body itself,
in Africa and Gaul and Egypt. It throbbed more
strongly in the arteries of Christian thought and life
j than in the tired channels of paganism; and eventually
those members detached themselves to live their own
life.
 THE ROMANS 181
jews visiting Jerusalem for the Feast were converted.
The Christian leaders were soon driven by Jewish per­
secution from Jerusalem to the synagogues of Samaria
and Syria; persecutors followed, Saul being among
them. Soon two victories were won; henceforth the Gos­
pel was to be preached to Gentiles, and converts were
freed from Jewish customs. The Apostle of the Gentiles
could now carry a Gospel emancipated from Judaism,
though the enmity of ‘Judaisers’ dogged all his travels.
St Paul travelled by the high roads of commerce and
communication now made secure by the Roman peace;
he visited first the Jewish communities and then preached
to the Gentiles, using the Greek language of the day.
His converts were mainly of the lowest social grade;
and, when his preaching caused disorder, it was the
Jews who excited it. He was protected by Roman offi­
cials as a Jewish sectary. Festus would have dismissed
his case as ‘concerning your own religion’ if St Paul,
when accused of treason, had not appealed to Caesar;
for, as Festus saw, the isssue was one not of treason but
of religious observance.
But, if the Roman Government knew no distinction
at this time between Christianity and Judaism, the peo­
ple soon did; for it learnt that there was in their midst
something more contemptible, and something more
dangerous, than Judaism. By a.d. 64, the date of the
persecution under Nero, the government had at last taken
notice ofit; for, as presented by its attackers, Christianity
deservedly provoked official attention; it failed to satisfy
the terms on which Rome granted tolerance.
In the first place, Christianity was particularly vul­
nerable to misinterpretation: secondly, Christians often
deliberately invited persecution. To the Roman of the
time Christians appeared to hate the human race. They
looked forward to the early return of Christ when all
l82 THE ROMANS
but themselves would be destroyed by fire as being evil;
and in this disaster to ‘Eternal Rome’ and to the hopes
of mankind they seemed to glory. In the second century
and onwards this attitude of mind expressed itself in a
different way; Christians went out of their way to pro­
voke enmity that they might win a crown ofmartyrdom.
Christians came from the lower orders of society, and
their teachings seemed to aim at social revolution. They
masked behind secret meetings the most frightful prac­
tices - gross immorality and cannibalism (for such in­
terpretation could be put upon the content of such pas ­
sages as St John vi. 52-9). They disrupted family life,
for a convert from a family would not take part in the
family worship or in some elements of family life, such
as amusements. They gave evidence of their belief that
the world was soon to perish by their refusal to co­
operate in religious festivals, to shoulder civic responsibi ­
lities, or to serve in the army. But the pagan valued his
world and his civilisation. Such was the popular attitude
to Christianity in the second century.
The Roman Government had easy tests. Had the cult
been ‘recognised’ under the ‘Law of Associations’ which
forbade regular gatherings of people except under
licence? If not, it was an ‘unlicensed religion’ and must
be suppressed, for it might hide anti-social or criminal
plots of the worst kind. The magistrate in the course of
his duties could deal with that. But the matter became
more important if treasonable activities were suspected;
would the Christian make a demonstration of loyalty
to ‘Rome and Augustus’?
The Christian refused; the state persisted; each mis­
understood the other; each started from an opposite
point. To the Roman the unity of the Empire was of
vital importance, and homage to ‘Rome and Augustus’
embodied and expressed that ideal. It was an act of
 186 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 187
the number of Christians who fraudulently obtained reached in the relations of Church and Empire. ‘Never­
certificates cast discredit upon the faith. In a.d. 257 theless, because great numbers still persist in their opin­
Valerian attempted to bring about the Christian toler­ ions, and because we have perceived that at present
ance which had been refused for two centuries by order­ they neither pay reverence and due adoration to the
ing the higher clergy to sacrifice, while permitting them gods, nor yet worship their own God, therefore we ...
to remain Christian in private; and in the east laymen have judged fit to ... permit them again to be Christians.
and clergymen were punished for being Christians, ... It will be the duty of the Christians ... to pray to God
especially harsh penalties being prescribed for senators for our welfare and for that of the public and for their
and knights. The Church as an organisation was thus own ...’ This was the ‘Edict of Toleration’ issued by
attacked. But it was under Diocletian that the issue was Galerius, a former persecutor, as he lay dying of a fright­
most clearly defined. In his desperate efforts to cement ful disease. But it was the so-called Edict of Milan, a.d.
together the Empire he was particularly sensitive to 313, which put the matter on a new and regular basis -
influences which tended towards separatism. Though the religious neutrality of the state. It is possible that
at first he underestimated the strength of the Christians, no such pronouncement was issued as an edict; but, as
by a.d. 303 he had reached the conclusion, under pres­ given by the historian Lactantius, the ‘Edict’ certainly
sure from Galerius, his partner in rule that there was sums up authentically the instructions sent by the Em­
indeed a state within the state. His measures went peror Constantine to his officials during the years a.d.
beyond precedent. No Christian could hold Roman 311-13. Its drift can be gathered from these extracts:
citizenship; therefore he could hold no post in the im­ ‘... no man should be denied leave of attaching himself
perial or municipal services, nor could he appeal from to the rites of Christians or to whatever other religion
a judicial verdict. No Christian slaves could be freed. his mind directed him, that thus the supreme divinity,
The churches and the sacred books were to be de­ to whose worship we freely devote ourselves, might con­
stroyed. This edict was followed by others. The clergy tinue to vouchsafe his favour and beneficence to us ...
were to be imprisoned and were to be made by torture The open and free exercise of their respective religions
to sacrifice to the gods. The aim was to rob the laity of is granted to all others, as well as to the Christians ...
its leaders and the organisation of the Church of its and we mean not to derogate aught from the honour
main supports. Finally, this last edict was made to apply due to any religion or its votaries.’ All Church property
to all Christians. was to be restored, even at a cost to the imperial ex­
Thus, in the interest of the unity of the Empire, chequer. And at the same time the Emperor Constan­
Christianity was to be broken up and dispersed. And tine declared himself a Christian, and without persecut­
the edicts, while they did not bring about the unity of ing paganism weighted the scales of neutrality strongly
the Empire, did cause disunion in the Church. in favour of Christianity.
But during the years which followed, the unity of the The Roman Government had been puzzled about
Empire was threatened rather by the open conflict of Christianity. It took time to discover the new faith; it
rival Emperors; and in a.d. 31 i the next stage was had discovered it and misunderstood it. Through mis-
 l88 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 189
understanding it had applied an impossible test; the things and assessing the nature of men’s thoughts, is
test refused, it persecuted spasmodically; intermittent suddenly startled by an event for which he is totally un­
persecution seemed to serve only as a stimulant; the prepared. The change was brought about by one man,
first general persecution was too late; neutrality was Constantine, whose character refuses to fit into the pat­
now the only course, and it remained the permanent tern ofthe age, whose convictions are uniquely his own,
policy for sixty years. Emperors might be pagan, and, whose very language, as shown in letters and rescripts,
indeed, like Julian the Apostate (a.d. 361), might give is new and unexpected. Twenty or so years after the
all encouragement to paganism, just as Constantine be­ persecution by Diocletian, Constantine, the Roman
fore him had supported the Christian Church; but Emperor, writes such sentences as are quoted below (the
neutrality officially prevailed. In a.d. 378 the last step circumstances in which they were written cannot here
was taken by Theodosius, who surrendered neutrality be narrated): ‘divisions of this kind (iti the Church) should
and proscribed paganism. The temples were national­ not be kept from me, for by them the high God may be
ised, and became museums of art. The calendar hitherto moved not only against the human race, but also against
based on pagan festivals was reformed. The gods were me myself, to whose care by His heavenly will He has
legislated out of existence, though not without opposi-! entrusted the guidance of all the affairs of earth, and
tion. The state employed the same instrument in favour so may in anger decide things otherwise than hitherto.
of Christianity which had been employed against it in For then indeed shall I be able to be most fully free from
the previous century. And paradoxically the state was anxiety and to hope to receive always all that is most
! influenced by the same motive as before. Whereas, ear­ prosperous and best from the ready generosity of the
lier, in the supposed interest of the survival of the Em­ most powerful God, when I shall see that mankind,
pire as a unity held together by religious sanctions, it held together in brotherly unity, adores the most holy
had persecuted Christianity, now, with the same purpose God with the worship of the Catholic religion, as is due
it strove to stamp out the enemies of Christianity. Hope to Him.’ ‘The result {ofschism) is that the very men who
of the success and survival of the Empire depended on ought to preserve brotherhood in unity of mind and
that which had once been thought to be disruptive of spirit stand apart from one another in a shameful and
imperial unity and welfare. The state placed itself under wicked feud and so provide those who keep their minds
the aegis of the Christian religion, the religion of a i turned away from this most holy religion with an excuse
minority of its members. Thus, the state was true to the j for mocking at it.’ ‘The Gospel books and the Apostles’
beliefof the Romans of the early Republic, that Rome de­ books and the prophecies of the ancient prophets teach
pended upon the goodwill of divine power. So, it might us clearly what we ought to think about the Divine.
be said, had primitive Roman faith vindicated itself. Therefore let us drive away the strife which creates war
So momentous and so sudden a reversal of policy as and let us find the solution of our problems in those
came about in a.d. 313 cannot be explained as the in- divinely-inspired writings.’ ‘The eternal and divine
evitable and almost predictable result proceeding from | goodness of our God which is past understanding by no
sufficient causes. The historian, tracing the course of means permits the conditions of mankind to wander too
 THE ROMANS 191
immediate return of Christ, and its language was the
language of ‘apocalypse’; later it took a longer view,
and reasoned defence and explanation of its doctrines
brought the Gospel to the educated; and attack - the
best means of defence - assailed the foundations of
paganism. Its attitude to works of pagan literature and
learning had at first-been uncompromising, for they
were the bible of paganism. After struggles of conscience
the ablest men of the Church realised that pagan litera­
ture was separable from paganism, and that Christian­
ity could not refuse itself the aid of education and
scholarship. In the early part of this period of three
hundred years the hostility of the people had set in
motion the repressive measures of the state; in the latter
part the state, more nervously solicitous for imperial
unity than in the Principate, itself took the initiative,
while Christian and pagan on the whole settled down in
peace with one another under an all-pervasive domina­
tion. In so far as originality of thought and expression
survived, the advantage lay with Christianity; for
while pagain thought and letters and religion could only
plough again familiar acres now almost exhausted,
Christianity had a new interpretation of life to offer, and
its vitalising message transformed old modes of thought
and language. Even before the reign of Constantine the
Church held property, though under what legal title
is obscure. From persecution to neutrality to favour;
from degradation to respectability to dignity; from un­
questioning faith to statements of creed couched in the
most searching of philosophical terms; from ignorance
to learning. Henceforth the Christian Church was armed
with all the panoply which Greco-Roman civilisation
could furnish for the next period of its history. But that
is the chapter of the Middle Ages, though in a very real
sense still the history of Rome.
 vA f~<~>
THE ROMANS 193
cletian the Senate, though it might meet as a council,
gradually became an ‘order of society’, enjoying certain
exemptions from taxes and certain dignities. Very many
members of this order had never seen the city of Rome
CHAPTER X or even travelled outside the provinces in which they
THE FIFTH CENTURY were born. From being an ‘order’ of men elected by the
Neither grey hairs nor wrinkles can suddenly take away moral authority; a life people to magistracies and so qualified to sit in the great
honourably lived reaps its rewards of authority to the end. cicero council of the Republic, which in fact though not by
We now pass to the beginning of the fifth century, not right had governed the Roman world, senators became
in order to give an outline of events, but to look back a stratum of society, enjoying privileges but no power.
from that standpoint upon some of the changes which They drew away from other men, aloof and self-con-
had taken place in Roman institutions and ideas. For tained, and cast back their minds to the traditions and
, present purposes all that need be recorded between a.d. the literature and culture of an age which they fondly
337 (the death of Constantine) and a.d. 4.00 is that a thought could never really pass away. The ,power of the
brief attempt had been made by Julian to revitalise Emperor, girt about with the sanctity, first, of ‘divinity’
paganism, that Theodosius had established Christianity and later of vice-regency as God’s representative, was
as the official religion, that in a.d. 395 his two sons had absolute and was not called into question. The hope of
divided the Empire into two parts, Arcadius ruling in a Republican restoration which the senators of the early
the East and Honorius in the West, and that the pres­ Empire had cherished had now long been forgotten.
sure of Huns and Goths upon the northern frontier of Yet the old phrases are kept; when in a.d. 458 the
the Danube had become severe and alarming. Emperor Majorian writes, purely out of politeness, to
In the sphere of government and public life the old the Senate, he addresses them aspatresconscripti, ‘enrolled
ideals have passed away, though the names remain, a fathers’, the most ancient name of the Senate dating
shadow without substance; the reign of Diocletian and from the early days of the Republic. He acknowledges
its inauguration of the all-powerful state had in fact that the Senate has chosen him and the army has or­
destroyed all that Cato or Cicero, or even Pliny, had dained his appointment. He describes himself as Prin­
regarded as an essential characteristic of Rome. ceps, the title used by Augustus; yet he also speaks of his
The partnership of Augustus and the Senate had regnum, his position asjrcx, the title abhorred by Romans,
gradually broken down; the position of Princeps had and he hopes to serve faithfully the respublica, the ancient
become more autocratic during the first century ; and, name for the commonwealth, which has compelled him
though for a moment under the Antonines the Senate to reign.
had dreamed of a restoration of its position when it Roman citizenship had once been a valued posses­
exercised influence in the choice of an Emperor’s succes­ sion. In the early days of the Republic citizenship had
sor, those dreams had been shattered in the third cen­ been fought for and won; in the last century of the
tury by the army’s usurpation of authority. After Dio­ Republic ‘allies’ of Rome had wrested it from an un­
194 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 195
willing donor. The appeal made in virtue of his Roman policy of able administrators; now the civil servant was
citizenship by the greatest Roman citizen of the first hated, for his function was to extort taxes, to see that
century a.d., St Paul, had received immediate atten­ none left their appointed guild or sought other work or
tion. The dignity of that status, as well as its rights and evaded tribute to the state in money or kind or services.
duties, had been the creation of a long process of The state was the universal master. In the early days of
political development, which had come to its full the Republic, when the .plebeians had demanded a
stature under the early Empire. It was already declin­ champion, they forced upon the patricians the creation
ing when the Emperor Caracalla enfranchised vir­ of tribunes to safeguard their interests. And now the
tually the whole of the Roman world, in order that the oppressed found their protection again, not in a magis-
whole world might pay the taxes due from a Roman trate of the state, but inTEe persons of the bishops of the
citizen. And now the idea of citizenship had vanished; Church. Popular demand forced upon men of its choice
the municipal towns no longer cherished a valued civic the rule of bishop; St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, was
life, they bore only the burdens of taxation; and town not even baptised when he was compelled by the crowd
councillors had exchanged the pride of office for the to shoulder the responsibilities of this office. The letters
enforced responsibility of tax-collection. Men were find of men like St Ambrose and St Augustine show clearly
ing in membership of the Christian Church the sense of the work of the bishops. They resist official tyranny,
citizenship which neither Rome nor municipality could they withstand provincial governors, with whom per­
any longer offer them. sonally they are often on friendly terms, they take mat­
Many of the great offices of state, the magistracies, ters to the imperial ear itself, they arbitrate in disputes
had disappeared or had been so altered as not to be the and guide and guard their peoples in all the difficulties
same offices except in name. The function of the praetor of their lives. It is now that the Church becomes the
was now to organise public shows; once he had been a leader in the alleviation of poverty and distress, in pro­
high judicial authority. The consulship was a high viding hospitals and schools and orphanages and charity
honour - for it was bestowed by the Emperor - and was of all kinds. And so it offered to men a hope and belief
nothing more; yet in a.d. 399 it was so valued that it is that the individual still was of worth, though society
called a ‘Divine reward’. The great provincial com­ might be in bondage to the state. The bishop virtually
mands, formerly the last honour and the heaviest took over the functions of the city magistrate who by
responsibility of those who had served the state in a this time was an unwilling tool of the Government; and
series of magistracies to which they were elected by the the bishop was the choice of the city population.
people, became rungs in the ladder of promotion As for the army, formerly it was the Roman’s privi­
ascended by the professional civil servant employed by lege to fight as citizen and protector of his family and his
the Emperor. Their original powers and duties were gods on behalf of the city of Rome. The cavalry had
divided and placed in the hands of separate officials, all taken precedence, then later the legionary. But the
acting as a check upon one another. Once the provinces growing needs of Empire had changed this; first the
owed their romanisation in great part to the enlightened professional army, then the recruitment of non-Roman
 THE ROMANS 107

returns with the connivance of land inspectors. The

picture is terrible.
Yet it was precisely on these large estates owned by
the country aristocracy that culture of the old kind
flourished. In Gaul and Africa the landowners lived a
secluded life in their luxurious houses, corresponding
with one another (for letters were greatly in vogue as a
form of literature), discussing the literary merits of the
classical writers Vergil, Horace, Terence, Statius and
the rest. There were centres of academic studies through­
out the Empire; and Gaul, especially, could claim
several of note, in particular that at Bordeaux. Litera­
ture was the favourite study, philosophy languished.
But in spite of the aridity of much of this study it was
pursued with an earnestness which is in a sense pathe­
tic; for it proceeded from two contradictory and sub­
conscious feelings - first, that the old culture was pass­
ing away; secondly, that it could never pass away, for
then nothing but void could be imagined.
Rutilius Claudius Namatianus was a member of one of
the Gallic noble families, whose estates were ‘made ugly’
by the invading barbarians. His father had held office
in Rome and he himself had been Prefect of the City in
a.d. 413, six years after the law condemning paganism

and four years after Alaric’s descent upon Rome. In a

poem of 700 lines he tells the story of his unwilling
return from Rome to Gaul to look after his lands,
with what reluctance he tore himself away from the
city ‘where the sky is clearer above the seven hills’,
and as he leaves he utters amid his tears a grateful
prayer:
Rome is the Queen of the world, nurse of men and
mother of gods, whose majesty shall not fade from the
hearts of men till the sun itself is overwhelmed: her
gifts are as widely spread as the sun’s rays - the sun
198 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 199
which rises and sets on lands ruled by Rome. Her ad­ delight: the magic of Rome pervades all. There is no
vance was held back neither by the scorching desert nor hint that the old order has passed, Christianity receives
the icy armoury of the north: wherever Nature had no mention; there is still the faith that Rome can emerge
fostered life, there Rome had penetrated. She had made triumphant. Rutilius is not alone, either as a devoted
one fatherland of many nations, and to be brought Roman or as a provincial devoted to Rome. Claudian,
within her rule was a blessing. What was before the who was born in Egypt, cared not whether the Western
world Rome had turned into one city, offering the Emperor was Christian or pagan so long as he was
conquered partnership in her own law. Clemency had Emperor of Rome, for the Eastern upstart, Constanti­
tempered her might of arms: whom she had feared, she j nople, he detested: his passion was the Senate and the
had overcome, and whom she had overcome she loved. pagan institutions for which it stood. He also obstinately
Embracing the whole world in her law - bringing vic­ clung to the past, and from the past created a Roman
tories, she had made all things live together joined in a future. The letters of Symmachus, too, relate in placid
common confederacy. Other empires had waxed and calm the trivialities of the day, and assume the mainte­
waned: but Rome’s war had been righteous, her peace nance of the priestly colleges and the ordered routine
free from pride, and glory had been added to her vast of the ancient worship. Yet he lived on friendly terms
resources. Her deeds had exceeded her destiny: what with some of the most uncompromising enemies of
she ruled was less than she deserved to rule ... And then paganism. And there were many others like him.
Rutilius calE upon Rome to summon to her aid her oid There was, however, another place besides the houses
courage and fortitude ... Despise the pain the wounds of Gallic nobles in which the culture of Greco-Roman
will heal and the limbs grow strong. From adversity civilisation was preserved - within the Christian Church
snatch prosperity, from ruin riches. The heavenly itself, in the bishops’ houses and schools, in monasteries,
bodies set, only to renew their light: what cannot sink in Church foundations, and even in hermits’ cells. As is
leaps most quickly to the surface: the torch is dipped well known, there had been a division of opinion among
that it may blaze more brightly. The foes of Rome, for Christian writers and thinkers; some, like Tertullian,
a moment victorious, were routed one and all and even were for destroying all that was pagan in origin; others,
Hannibal lived to regret his success. The disaster which like Clement of Alexandria, were for ‘spoiling the
wrecks others renews Rome; her power to thrive in Egyptians’. By the fifth century this conflict had largely
calamity will give her a second birth. Her enemies shall been resolved; and Christian leaders were often the best-
be brought low, and eternally for Rome the Rhineland educated men of the day. In these centres there was life
shall be ploughed, the Nile shall overflow its banks, and and enterprise; the Roman training in rhetoric found a
Africa and Italy and the West shall lavish corn and wine. new outlet in the sermon and the theological treatises,
The poem breathes much of the atmosphere of the which were often published in instalments eagerly
Rome of four centuries earlier; the gods are there, the awaited by their readers. Disputes with pagan sup­
myths: places exercise their old charm, the old institu­ porters of the old learning gave opportunity for polemi­
tions receive due reverence, and the ‘ancient ways’ still cal pamphlets, while the necessary and voluminous
 202 THE ROMANS

civilisation which Rome had taken under its wing was

now Greco-Roman civilisation and for its continuance
Rome was responsible. Within Greco-Roman civilisa­
tion there lay the possibility of perfection and finality.
Not that the world was perfect or that human institutions
were final, but within the ‘thought-forms’, if the phrase
may be used, at which that civilisation had painfully
arrived - in politics, in social ideals, in ethics, and in the
material expression of these things - there was the hope
of perfection. This - and much more - is all contained in
the phrase ‘Eternal Rome’. Rome’s own spiritual experi­
ence, the union of that experience with the rest of
Mediterranean civilisation, and the resulting new crea ­
tion offered the framework within which lay the for­
tunes of humanity. Destroy those ‘thought-forms’, des­
troy the old culture of which thc' olcl gods were a part,
and humanity was doomed.
This was the challenge which Christian writers and
thinkers had to take up; and in taking it up they found
themselves much embarrassed, and chiefly for two rea­
sons. In the first place, they were themselves the pro­
duct - and often the finest product - of Greco-Roman
civilisation; and to think beyond it and outside it im­
plied a supreme effort of thought and will. Secondly,
they owed it to the very tools with which they were
going to criticise, and many of them loved pagan litera­
ture with real devotion. Thus, they were engaged upon
the difficult task of an intellectual and emotional re­
orientation.
The point is capable of illustration from many angles;
but it must suffice to consider only St Augustine, the
supreme example.
Before he became a Christian, St Augustine was a
teacher of rhetoric in Italy; he knew Roman literature
well; he had read much Greek literature and philosophy
206 THE ROMANS

Christians make of pagan thought is that it regards man

as sufficient of himself, that the world can be explained
by the world; their own creed is that, unless man in­
vokes a principle outside himself, he can find no solu­
tion of his problems. Thus, it is no longer a matter of
securing the goodwill of the gods, for the successful
achievement of what men will; but of doing the will of
God, for its own sake, often in violation of what men,
left to themselves, would will. That is the point at issue,
as the Christians saw it. But that the difference was
beyond compromise did not mean that learning was
therefore to be cast aside. (The point perhaps might be
put shortly in this way, though this is not in St Augus­
tine. Archimedes, when elaborating the th eory of levers,
had said that, if only he had a point of fulcrum outside
the world, he would move the world. The Christian
believed that Greco-Roman thought attempted to move
the world from within and naturally failed; only
Christianity offered the principle from outside.)
Thus St Augustine argued with the supporters of the
old Roman worship. But on a lower plane he had
another task to perform, which had engaged the powers
of every Christian teacher for generations; he had to
wrestle with the gods and vague powers {daemons) who
possessed the minds of the less educated - the malign
‘influences’ of astrology, the power of‘fortune’ and luck,
the ‘magic’ of spiritualists, the terrors of half-remem­
bered superstitions, the cults of a thousand and one
little gods. These were the enslaving forces from which
the masses had to be liberated. That many native gods
took on a Christian guise as patron saints is well known,
and the process can be watched in some detail. But of
all this no more can be said.
With St Augustine we have reached the last great
name of antiquity. When he died in a.d. 430, the Van-
208 THE ROMANS

literature, till at last they were able to go to Greek

literature itself.
The barbarian invasions were neither catastrophic
and sudden, nor destructive and disruptive. Rome CHAPTER XI
never fell, she turned into something else. Rome, super­
seded as the source of political power, passed into even ROMAN LAW
greater supremacy as an idea; Rome, with the Latin Justice is the constant and perpetual will to give each man his right.
Digest OF JUSTINIAN
language, had become immortal.
The greatest achievement of the Romans, whether we
consider it on its own intrinsic merits or in its influence
on the history ofthe world, is without doubt their law.
‘There is not a problem of jurisprudence,’ says Lord
Bryce, ‘which it does not touch: there is scarcely a cor­
ner of political science on which its light has not fallen.’
‘What the American law needs most to-day,’ says an
American lawyer, ‘is more of the invigorating eternal
influence of Roman law.’ And the same writer claims
that, whereas the population ofthe Roman Empire may
have been 50 millions, at present 870 million people
live under systems traceable to Roman law.
It is naturally impossible to explain satisfactorily in a
short chapter why Roman law is so supreme an achieve­
ment; yet not even the slightest book on the Romans
should therefore dismiss the subject. None the less, the
simplest account cannot help being difficult reading.
In a.d. 527 Justinian became Emperor of the East
Roman Empire, of which Constantinople was the
capital. For a hundred years or so Italy had been un­
der the control of‘barbarian’ kings, Teutonic in origin.
In the middle of the century Justinian’s generals re­
conquered Italy, and till the twelfth century the East
Roman Empire maintained some hold upon it.
Soon after his accession Justinian gave orders that
Roman law should be codified. The codified Roman
law was published in a.d. 533 and it applied to the
 210 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 211

East Roman Empire. When Italy was recovered, it arose as Rome grew were met by logical deductions ex­
became law there also and thus it became known to the panding the laws, or by legal fictions which kept the letter
West. Eventually schools and universities came into and enlarged the spirit. Less than a hundred years after
being very largely to study it. Justinian’s great work is the the publication ofthe Twelve Tables a special magistrate
Corpus luris Civilis, the Corpus of Civil Law, comprising was appointed to relieve the consuls of their judicial
the Code (imperial statutes), the Digest (jurisprudence), powers. He was the praetor. In 242 b.c. another praetor
the Institutes (an elementary treatise), the Novellae was appointed to deal specially with relations between
(later enactments from a.d. 535 to 565). citizens and foreigners; he was called the. praetor pere-
The question is: What were the qualities in Roman arims. At later dates the number was increased.
law which earned for it so great and permanent an Now it must be noted (i) that the praetor was above
influence? The answer to this question will throw light the law, (ii) that the fact that foreigners (Italians were
on the qualities of the men who elaborated this law. foreigners) and Roman citizens did business together
The Digest opens with these words of Ulpian: and were ready to refer disputes to the praetor peregrims
‘Anyone intending to study law {ius), should first know presupposed some likeness between the Roman and the
whence the word ius is derived. It was named ius from foreign conceptions of law, though not enough to make
justice: for, as Celsus aptly defined it, law is the art of a special judge unnecessary, (iii) that the praetor urbanus
the good and the fair. It is by virtue of this that a man and the praetor peregrims were required to publish at the
might call us priests ; for we worship justice, and we pro­ beginning of their year of office a statement of the rules
fess a knowledge of what is good and fair, separating {edictum) which would guide them in their interpretation
the fair from the unfair, discriminating between what of the law of the Twelve Tables, (iv) that the praetors
is allowed and what is not allowed, desiring to make were elected by popular vote and were not necessarily
men good not merely by fear of penalties but by the lawyers, though knowledge of law became increasingly
encouragement of rewards; we lay claim, unless I am a qualification for office. But it is a feature of Roman
mistaken, to a true philosophy, not a sham philosophy.’ public life that all holders of office sought advice; the
These seem at first sight strange words, yet they were Emperors later similarly sought advice. On these things
written by one of the greatest minds of jurisprudence. hangs much of the strength of Roman law.
Law did in fact start with the priests, in Rome as The praetor was above the law. He could not annul
elsewhere; and Justinian, after a thousand years of the existing law of the Twelve Tables, but by the
Roman law, claims that lawyers might well be regarded framing of his edict and by his day-to-day decisions he
as priests ofjustice. By 450 b.c, law was out ofthe hands could supplement it, or he could reform it by granting
of the priests: customary unwritten law was now written remedial relief; the law stood, but he could make a way
down in the Twelve Tables. They were published in the round. The praetor peregrims had to deal with foreigners
forum, and they contained the law relating to Roman not bound by Roman law; his task was to create out of
citizens, ius civile. For three hundred years the Twelve the customs of Romans and the customs of foreigners a
Tables were interpreted, and the new situations which law acceptable to both. It was likely to be wider in
 212 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 213
scope and less bound by local or national traditions; it province where conditions would be different. He must
had to satisfy men as men, not men as citizens of this or make the right adjustments in his attitude, taking local
that state. The praetor urbanus thus built up the law of differences into account. Yet Roman notions of law and
citizens, ius civile) the praetor peregrims, who would draw order must prevail. And, when he came back to take
on the ius civile but would enlarge it by non-Roman his place in the Senate, his experience was worth
law, built up the ‘law of the nations’, ius gentium. much; a council of state composed of men with such
The praetor was appointed annually. It was there­ experience has indeed been rare in history.
fore convenient for him to take over the edict of his pre­ We have reached 89 b.c., and the answer to our
decessor, if he wished; but he could adapt it at the out­ question must take note of these points: (i) the expan­
set, and he could enlarge or modify it during his office. sion of Rome and the growth of foreign trade and
It was in a state of perpetual growth; it was alive: relations brought into being the conception of a ‘law of
‘edictal law is the living voice { viva vox) of the civil law’. nations’, and necessitated its expression in concrete
Fresh minds were constantly at work on it. form; (ii) this law affected and eventually superseded
In course of time Romans and Italians had more to the older ‘law ofthe citizens’; (iii) the process of develop­
do with one another, till in 89 b.c. all Italians were ment implied in (i) and (ii) was made possible by
made Roman citizens. But hitherto they had come ihe device of ‘edictal law’, the ‘living voice’; develop­
under the ius gentium, administered by the praetor pere- ment was not stunted or delayed, but was initiated by a
grinus, which was wider and more equitable than the magistrate, himself above the law. So far, then, we have
citizens’ law; and the citizens had learned something of [a) a capacity for change and development, {b) a con­
the nature of the ius gentium. So Italians, when they ception of law which takes account of men as men, and
became citizens, were not likely to accept anything less not only of citizens under a national law.
wide, and existing Roman citizens were ready to accept We now pass to the period of the Empire, though we
something wider. The result was that by a gradual pro­ shall glance back to the Republic. Under the Republic
cess the civil law approached the wider law of the (except during the last years) the Senate’s decisions were
nations. But of course citizenship involved much that not law, but were only recommendations to the popu­
was refused to foreigners: and the superseding of civil lar assembly. Under the early Empire the law-making
law by ius gentium did not take place till the second and powers of the popular assemblies were virtually trans­
third centuries a.d. ferred to the Senate. From the reign of Tiberius to
Meantime, the provincial governor also issued his Septimius Severus the Senate made law, though only
edict to run in his province. He had held office in Rome such law as the Emperor approved. The edictal law of
and he knew something of law. He studied the edict of his the praetor continued to grow. But in the reign of
predecessor, and modified it in the light ofhis experience. Hadrian it was consolidated and codified and came to
He had to take into account local custom and prejudice, an end. With the age of the Antonines, the Emperor’s
the habits of mind ofhis provincials; yet Roman notions legislative power superseded all else. His ‘edict’ was
of law and order must prevail. He might pass to another a general ordinance; his ‘decree’ was a judgement in a
214 the romans

suit submitted to him; his ‘rescript’ was his opinion on a

point of law. All of them made law.
Thus the whole tendency was to concentrate law­
making power in the Emperor’s hands. The ‘living
voice’ of edictal law was silenced; the Senate was sub­
servient. The distinction between civil law and the law
of nations was (for practical purposes) obliterated when
Caracalla bestowed citizenship on the Roman world in
a.d. 212. Yet the period from Trajan to Septimius
Severus, that is, the period when law-making power is
increasingly concentrated in the Emperor’s hands, is the
age of Classical Roman Law, the age in which two of
the influences which transformed it into a timeless
world law were most potent. These influences came from
(i) the jurisconsults; (ii) philosophy.
During the last seventy years or so of the Republic the
study of law was earnestly pursued by a number of able
and educated men, most of whom brought to their
studies a practical experience of office at home and of
administration in the provinces. Some were actively
engaged in practice in the law-courts, others were men
of letters who wrote upon legal subjects. They were
‘skilled in the law’, jurisprudentes ov juris consulti. In an
age when public life and problems of home and pro­
vincial administration occupied the best minds of the
day, knowledge of law was in demand. These ‘jurispru­
dents’ were freely consulted and they gave ‘opinions’
to those who consulted them. Their ‘answers’ to
problems were freely quoted and published and they
carxied great weight, since they came from men of
intellect, learning and practical experience. Such men
were Q, Mucius Scaevola, M. Junius Brutus (not the
assassin ofjulius Caesar), Servius Sulpicius Rufus. Cicero
himself was an advocate rather than a jurist.
Such a position had these jurisprudentes reached in
T£l A— pjL.

A1'' -*
216 THE ROMANS THE ROMANS 217
fore had its laws; Reason in Nature was their source; We may omit minor attempts at codification in the
and these laws were outside and beyond man. third and fourth centuries, and come at once to the
Now the Romans had already arrived at the notion Theodosian Code which went into effect in a.d. 439.
of an unwritten ‘law of nations’ through their dealings This Code was an official collection of the Emperors’
with foreigners. The jurisprudentes were educated men, Statutes, and contained none of the writings of the jur­
of wide knowledge of literature and of philosophy, and ists. It is of great value to us, for it gives a picture of the
they were instinctively drawn to Stoicism with its stress activities of the Christian Emperors, and of the social
on standards of conduct. It was they who began to conditions ofthe day; it exerted no little influence on
equate the ‘law of nations’ with the ‘law of Nature’, and the ‘barbarian’ codes. For, when successive barbarian
to believe that the law of nations was a faint approxi­ aces overran the West, and Italy was subject to a
mation to the ‘law of Nature’. The aim of law thus was foreign government, the barbarians incorporated into
to move closer to the objective standards enshrined in their own legal codes great masses of Roman law. Thus
the laws of Nature which were based on reason which the Edict of Theodoric (a.d. 500) bound Roman and
in turn was the reason, not of one man or one nation, Ostrogoth: the Code of Alaric II, the Visigoth, was
but of man as part of Nature. This was the point of framed in a.d. 506, and based on the Theodosian Code,
view of the jurisprudentes for over two hundred years; on the Sententiae of Paulus the jurist, and on the Insti­
and the result was that in all their labours of making tutes of Gaius: and from it Western Europe derived
law, of amending and interpreting existing law, they much of its knowledge of Roman law. There was also
had a norm or a criterion to guide them, the ideal of die Lex Romana ofthe Burgundians (a.d. 517). But the
natural justice, of an objective good, more sublime and Code of Theodosius was not enough.
more comprehensive than any of man’s devising, which The great codification was that of Justinian, as we
lawyer and philosopher would strive to discover and have seen. It included imperial statutes and it also dis­
to embody- progressively in the laws of the Roman tilled the writings of the jurists; what was obsolete was
Empire. omitted, and the whole was arranged in magnificent
Thus we are brought back to the opening words of order. Justinian claimed that three million lines ofjuris­
the Digest quoted earlier in this chapter. ‘The art of the prudential law had been reduced to a hundred and fifty
good and the fair’, ‘desiring to make men good by the thousand of the Digest, ‘a moderate compendium
encouragement of rewards’, ‘separating the fair from through which you can easily see your way’ {moderatum
the unfair’. ‘We worship justice’, and in a new sense the et perspicuum compendium). But into it had entered a
lawyers were ‘priests’, concerned with absolute and thousand years of practical wisdom, and that wisdom
eternal values, valid for all men at all times and in all had passed through Roman minds. There were no
places, which they strove to express in the form of violent innovations. The compilers of the Digest looked
‘equity’ for the use of mankind. back over the centuries of Roman law and conceived
But Roman law was not yet in such form that it could their work as being part of the orderly progress initiated
be serviceable to mankind; it was of enormous bulk. by the infant Republic.
 THE ROMANS 219
experience and knowledge deserve respect — respect for
the pledged word (fides) and the expressed intention,
the faith ofthe Romans by which ‘with their friends and
such as relied on them they kept amity’, and ‘the most
EPILOGUE sacred thing in life’.
This book began by inviting attention to the sense of
Respect for these things presupposed training {disa-
self-subordination which marked the Roman mind. plina), the training of the home, of public life, of life
‘Because you bear yourself as less than the gods, yoh itself, and the training which comes from the self
rule the world.’ In a thousand years the Romans had (severitas). And training of this kind creates a respon­
been schooled as no other nation, and they had kept sible cast of mind {gravitas) which assigns importance
that sense of subordination. None the less, no other to important things, so that, when once the hand is
nation achieved an Empire so far-reaching and so funda­ placed to the plough, a man does not look back and
mentally humane. Through obedience comes power. falter, but keeps to his purpose [constantia). These are
The great gift of Roman obedience flowered in due the qualities which make up the genius of the Roman
time into the great ideals of Roman law. By learning people.
at infinite cost that lesson Rome has set those ideals
upon succeeding ages. The Romans were ‘a law-in­
spired nation’, but the law was of their making and they
imposed it on themselves. And, as the fundamental
ideas of that law are studied, they will be found to en
shrine the ideals and qualities which the Romans of the
earliest times set before themselves, now broadened and
refined and made of universal application. Respect for
eternal values, the will of the gods (pietas) , and then-
expression as objective ‘right’ in the practical things of
human life - respect for human personality and human
relationships (humanitas), whether in the family or the
state or the circle of friends, springing from a regard for
the personality of each individual and issuing in the
maintenance ofhis freedom (/z’iertoj — respect for tradi­
tion {mores) that holds fast to what has been handed
down because it contains accumulated wisdom which
no one moment and no one man can supply — respect
for authority {auctoritas), not as obedience to superior
power, but as regard for the judgement of men whose
222 THE ROMANS
249-1351 Decius

284-305 Diocletian

306-337 Constantine 313 Edict of Milan

265-340 Eusebius
361-363 Julian 325 Council of Nicaea
330 Foundation of Constanti­
nople
340-420 St Jerome
379-395 Theodosius I (West)
354-430 St Augustine
384 Symmachus, prefect of
the City
404 Last poem of Claudian
410 Sack of Rome by Alaric
413 Rutilius Claudius Nama­
tianus, prefect of the
City.
c. 420 Vegetius
438 Theodosian Code
455 Sack of Rome by Van­
dals
522 Reconquest of Italy by
Justinian
527-565 Justinian (East) 533 Promulgation of the
Digest

NOTE
A bibliography which would satisfy
readers who might wish to pursue topics
touched on in this book would occupy
many pages. It seems best therefore to
refer them to The Claim of Antiquity.
This pamphlet, issued by the Councils
of the Societies for the Promotion of
Hellenic and Roman Studies, is pub­
lished by the Oxford University Press,
price one shilling. It contains an anno­
tated list of books, arranged in subjects,
for those who do not read Greek or
Latin. It was last revised in 1935 and
is in print.