The Principate or Early Empire: 27 B. C.–285 A. D

Part III

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Chapter XVI

The Establishment of the Principate: 27 B. C.–14 A. D.

I. The Princeps

The settlement of 27 B. C. During his sixth and seventh consulships, in the years 28 and 27 B. C., Octavian surrendered the extraordinary powers which he had exercised during the war against Antony and Cleopatra and, as he later expressed it, placed the commonwealth at the disposal of the Senate and the Roman people. But this step did not imply that the old machinery of government was to be restored without modifications and restrictions or that Octavian intended to abdicate his position as arbiter of the fate of the Roman world. Nor would he have been justified in so doing, for such a course of action would have led to a repetition of the anarchy which followed the retirement and death of Sulla, and, in disposing of his rivals, Octavian had assumed the obligation of giving to the Roman world a stable form of government. Public sentiment demanded a strong administration, even if this could only be attained at the expense of the old republican institutions.

But while ambition and duty alike forbade him to relinquish his hold upon the helm of state, Octavian shrank from realizing the ideal of Julius Caesar and establishing a monarchical form of government. From this he was deterred both by the fate of his adoptive father and his own cautious, conservative character which gave him such a shrewd understanding of Roman temperament. His solution of the problem was to retain the old Roman constitution as far as was practicable, while securing for himself such powers as would enable him to uphold the constitution and prevent a renewal of the disorders of the preceding century. What powers were necessary to this end, Octavian determined on the basis of practical experience between 27 and 18 B. C. And so his restoration of the commonwealth signified the end of a régime of force and paved the way for his reception of new authority legally conferred upon him.

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The imperium. Nothing had contributed more directly to the failure of the republican form of government than the growth of the professional army and the inability of the Senate to control its commanders. Therefore, it was absolutely necessary for the guardian of peace and of the constitution to concentrate the supreme military authority in his own hands. Consequently on 13 January, 27 B. C., the birthday of the new order, Octavian, by vote of the Assembly and Senate, received for a period of ten years the command and administration of the provinces of Hither Spain, Gaul and Syria, that is, the chief provinces in which peace was not yet firmly established and which consequently required the presence of the bulk of the Roman armies. Egypt, over which he had ruled as the successor of the Ptolemies since 30 B. C., remained directly subject to his authority. As long as he continued to hold the consulship, the imperium of Octavian was senior (maius) to that of the governors of the other provinces which remained under the control of the Senate. In effect, his solution of the military problem was to have conferred upon himself an extraordinary command which found its precedents in those of Lucullus, Pompey and Caesar, but which was of such scope and duration that it made him the commander-in-chief of the forces of the empire.

The titles Augustus and Imperator. On 16 January of the same year the Senate conferred upon Octavian the title of Augustus (Greek, Sebastos) by which he was henceforth regularly designated. It was a term which implied no definite powers, but, being an epithet equally applicable to gods or men, was well adapted to express the exalted position of its bearer. A second title was that of Imperator. Following the republican custom, this had been conferred upon Augustus by his army and the Senate after his victory at Mutina in 43 B. C., and in imitation of Julius Caesar he converted this temporary title of honor into a permanent one. Finally, in 38 B. C., he placed it first among his personal names (as a praenomen). After 27 B. C. Augustus made a two-fold use of the term; as a permanent praenomen, and as a title of honor assumed upon the occasion of victories won by his officers. From this time the praenomen Imperator was a prerogative of the Roman commander-in-chief. However, during his principate Augustus did not stress its use, since he did not wish to emphasize the military basis of his power. But in the Greek-speaking provinces, where his power rested exclusively upon his military author[pg 207]ity, the title Imperator was seized upon as the expression of his unlimited imperium and was translated in that sense by autocrator. From the praenomen imperator is derived the term emperor, commonly used in modern times to designate Augustus and his successors.

The tribunicia potestas, 23 B. C. From 27 to 23 B. C. the authority of Augustus rested upon his annual tenure of the consulship and his provincial command. But in the summer of 23 B. C. he resigned the consulship and received from the Senate and people the tribunician authority (tribunicia potestas) for life. As early as 36 B. C. he had been granted the personal inviolability of the tribunes, and in 30 B. C. their right of giving aid (auxilium). To these privileges there must now have been added the right of intercession and of summoning the comitia (jus agendi cum populo). In this way Augustus acquired a control over comitial and senatorial legislation and openly assumed the position of protector of the interests of the city plebs. He was moreover amply compensated for the loss of civil power which his resignation of the consulship involved, and at the same time he got rid of an office which must be shared with a colleague of equal rank and the perpetual tenure of which was a violation of constitutional tradition. The tribunician authority was regarded as being held for successive annual periods, which Augustus reckoned from 23 B. C.

Special powers and honors. At the time of the conferment of the tribunician authority, a series of senatorial decrees added or gave greater precision to the powers of Augustus. He received the right to introduce the first topic for consideration at each meeting of the Senate, his military imperium was made valid within the pomerium, but, in view of his resignation of the consulship, became proconsular in the provinces. It was probably in 23 B. C. also that Augustus received the unrestricted right of making war or peace, upon the occasion of the coming of an embassy from the king of the Parthians. In the next year he was granted the right to call meetings of the Senate. Three years later he was accorded the consular insignia, with twelve lictors, and the privilege of taking his seat on a curule chair between the consuls in office. These marks of honor gave him upon official occasions the precedence among the magistrates which his authority warranted. On the other hand, in 22 B. C. Augustus refused the dictatorship or the perpetual consulship, which were con[pg 208]ferred upon him at the insistence of the city populace; and in the same spirit he declined to accept a general censorship of laws and morals (cura legum et morum) which was proffered to him in 19 B. C.

The principate. It was by the gradual acquisition of the above powers that the position which Augustus was to hold in the state was finally determined. This position may be defined as that of a magistrate, whose province was a combination of various powers conferred upon him by the Senate and the Roman people, and who differed from the other magistrates of the state in the immensely wider scope of his functions and the greater length of his official term. But these various powers were separately conferred upon him and for each he could urge constitutional precedents. It was in this spirit of deference to constitutional traditions that Augustus did not create for himself one new office which would have given him the same authority nor accept any position that would have clothed him with autocratic power. Therefore, as he held no definite office, Augustus had no definite official title. But the reception of such wide powers caused him to surpass all other Romans in dignity; hence he came to be designated as the princeps, i. e. the first of the Roman citizens (princeps civium Romanorum). From this arose the term principate to designate the tenure of office of the princeps; a term which we now apply also to the system of government that Augustus established for the Roman Empire. The crowning honor of his career was received by Augustus in 2 A. D., when the senate, upon the motion of one who had fought under Brutus at Philippi, conferred upon him the title of “Father of His Country” (pater patriae), thus marking the reconciliation between the bulk of the old aristocracy and the new régime.

Renewal of the imperium. His imperium, which lapsed in 18 B. C., Augustus caused to be reconferred upon himself for successive periods of five or ten years, thus preserving the continuity of his power until his death in 14 A. D.

II. The Senate, the Equestrians and the Plebs

The three orders. The social classification of the Romans into the senatorial, equestrian and plebeian orders passed, with sharper definitions, from the republic into the principate. For each class a distinct field of opportunity and public service was opened; for senators, the magistracies and the chief military posts; for the equites a [pg 209]new career in the civil and military service of the princeps, and for the plebs service as privates and subaltern officers in the professional army. However, these orders were by no means closed castes; the way lay open to able and successful men for advancement from the lower to the higher grades, and for the consequent infusion of fresh vitality into the ranks of the latter.

The Senate and the senatorial order. The senatorial order was composed of the members of the Senate and their families. Its distinctive emblem was the broad purple stripe worn on the toga. Sons of senators assumed this badge of the order by right of birth; equestrians, by grant of the princeps. However, of the former those who failed to qualify for the Senate were reduced to the rank of equestrians. The possession of property valued at 1,000,000 sesterces ($50,000) was made a requirement for admission to the Senate.

The prospective senator was obliged to fill one of the minor city magistracies known as the board of twenty (viginti-virate), next to serve as a legionary tribune and then, at the age of twenty-five, to become a candidate for the quaestorship, which gave admission to the Senate. From the quaestorship the official career of the senator led through the regular magistracies, the aedileship or tribunate, and the praetorship, to the consulship. As an ex-praetor and ex-consul a senator might be appointed a promagistrate to govern a senatorial province; a legate to command a legion or administer an imperial province; or a curator in charge of some administrative commission in Rome or Italy.

During the republic the Senate had been the actual center of the administration and Augustus intended that it should continue to be so for the greater part of the empire. Through the ordinary magistrates it should govern Rome and Italy, and through the promagistrates the senatorial provinces. Furthermore, the state treasury, the aerarium saturni, supported by the revenues from Italy and the Senate’s provinces, remained under the authority of that body. However, to render it capable of fulfilling its task and to reëstablish its prestige, the Senate which now numbered over one thousand had to be purged of many undesirable members who had been admitted to its roll during the recent civil wars. Therefore, in 28 B. C., Augustus in his consular capacity supervised a revision of the senatorial list whereby two hundred unworthy persons were excluded. On that occasion his name was placed at the head of the new roll as the princeps senatus. [pg 210]A second recension ten years later reduced the total membership to six hundred. A third, in 4 A. D., commenced through a specially chosen committee of three with the object of further reducing their number was not carried out. The Senate was automatically recruited by the annual admission of the twenty quaestors, but in addition the princeps enjoyed the right of appointing new members who might be entered upon the roll of the Senate among the past holders of any magistracy. In this way many prominent equestrians were admitted to the senatorial order.

The equestrian order. For the conduct of his share of the public administration the princeps required a great number of assistants in his personal employ. For his legates to command the legions or his provinces with delegated military authority Augustus could draw upon the senators, but both custom and the prestige of the Senate forbade their entering his service in other capacities. On the other hand, freedmen and slaves, who might well be employed in a clerical position, obviously could not be made the sole civil servants of the princeps. Therefore, Augustus drew into his service the equestrian order whose business interests and traditional connection with the public finances seemed to mark them out as peculiarly fitted to be his agents in the financial administration of the provinces.

The equestrian order in general was open to all Roman citizens in Italy and the provinces who were eighteen years of age, of free birth and good character, and possessed a census rating of 400,000 sesterces ($20,000). Admission to the order was in the control of the princeps, and carried the right to wear a narrow purple stripe on the toga and to receive a public horse, the possession of which qualified an equestrian for the imperial civil and military service. With the bestowal of the public horse Augustus revived the long neglected annual parade and inspection of the equites.

Like the career of the senators, that of the equestrians included both military and civil appointments. At the outset of his cursus honorum the equestrian held several military appointments, which somewhat later came regularly to include a prefecture of a corps of auxiliary infantry, a tribunate of a legionary cohort, and a prefecture of an auxiliary cavalry corps. Thereupon he was eligible for a procuratorship, that is, a post in the imperial civil service, usually in connection with the administration of the finances. After filling several of these procuratorships, of which there were a great number of [pg 211]varying importance, an equestrian might finally attain one of the great prefectures, as commander of the city watch, administrator of the corn supply of Rome, commander of the imperial guards, or governor of Egypt. At the end of his equestrian career he might be enrolled in the senatorial order. Thus through the imperial service the equestrian order was bound closely to the princeps and from its ranks there gradually developed a nobility thoroughly loyal to the new régime.

The Comitia and the plebs. The comitia, which had so long voiced the will of the sovereign Roman people was not abolished, although it could no longer claim to speak in the name of the Roman citizens as a whole. It still kept up the form of electing magistrates and enacting legislation, but its action was largely determined by the recommendations of the princeps and his tribunician authority.

While the city plebs, accustomed to receive its free distributions of grain, and to be entertained at costly public spectacles, was a heavy drain upon the resources of the state, the vigorous third estate in the Italian municipalities supplied the subaltern officers of the legions. These were the centurions, who were the mainstay of the discipline and efficiency of the troops, and from whose ranks many advanced to an equestrian career.

III. The Military Establishment

Reorganization of the army. Upon his return to Italy in 30 B. C., Augustus found himself at the head of an army of about 500,000 men. Of these he released more than 300,000 from service and settled them in colonies or in their native municipalities upon lands which it was his boast to have purchased and not confiscated. This done, he proceeded to reorganize the military establishment. Accepting the lessons of the civil wars, he maintained a permanent, professional army, recruited as far as possible by voluntary enlistment. This army comprised two main categories of troops, the legionaries and the auxiliaries.

The legions and auxilia. The legionaries were recruited from Roman citizens or from provincials who received Roman citizenship upon their enlistment. Their units of organization, the legions, comprised nearly 6000 men, of whom 120 were cavalry and the rest infantry. The number of legions was at first eighteen, but was later [pg 212]raised to twenty-five, giving a total of about 150,000 men. The auxiliaries, who took the place of the contingents of Italian allies of earlier days, were recruited from among the most warlike subject peoples of the empire and their numbers were approximately equal to the legionaries. They were organized in small infantry and cavalry corps (cohorts and alae), each 480 or 960 strong. At the expiration of their term of service the auxiliaries were granted the reward of Roman citizenship.

The praetorians. A third category of troops, which, although greatly inferior in number to the legions and auxiliaries, played an exceptionally influential rôle in the history of the principate, was the praetorian guard. This was the imperial bodyguard which attended Augustus in his capacity of commander-in-chief of the Roman armies. It owed its influence to the fact that it was stationed in the vicinity of Rome while the other troops were stationed in the provinces. Under Augustus the praetorian guard comprised nine cohorts, each 1000 strong, under the command of two praetorian prefects of equestrian rank. The praetorians were recruited exclusively from the Italian peninsula, and enjoyed a shorter term of service and higher pay than the other corps.

Conditions of service. It was not until 6 A. D. that the term of enlistment and the conditions of discharge were definitely fixed. From that date service in the praetorian guard was for sixteen years, in the legions for twenty and in the auxilia for twenty-five. At their discharge the praetorians received a bonus of 5000 denarii ($1000), while the legionaries were given 3000 denarii ($600) in addition to an assignment of land. The discharged legionaries were regularly settled in colonies throughout the provinces. To meet this increased expense Augustus was obliged to establish a military treasury (the aerarium militare), endowed out of his private patrimony, and supported by the revenue derived from two newly imposed taxes, a five per cent inheritance tax (vincesima hereditatium) which affected all Roman citizens, and a one per cent tax on all goods publicly sold (centesima rerum venalium).

The fleets. For the policing of the coast of Italy and the adjacent seas Augustus created a permanent fleet with stations at Ravenna and Misenum. Conforming to the comparative unimportance of the Roman naval, in contrast to their military establishment, the personnel of this fleet was recruited in large measure from imperial freedmen [pg 213]and slaves. Only after Augustus were these squadrons and other similar ones in the provinces placed under equestrian prefects.

The military system of Augustus strongly emphasized and guaranteed the supremacy of Italy and the Italians over the provincials. Both the officers and the elite troops were drawn almost exclusively from Italy or the latinized parts of the western provinces. In like manner the reservation of the higher grades of the civil administration, the second prop of Roman rule, for Roman senators and equestrians, as well as the exclusion of the provincial imperial cult from Italian soil, marked clearly the distinction between the conquering and the subject races of the empire. Yet it was Augustus himself who pointed the way to the ultimate romanization of the provincials by the bestowal of citizenship as one of the rewards for military service and by the settlement of colonies of veterans in the provinces.

IV. The Revival of Religion and Morality

The ideals of Augustus. A counterpart to the governmental reorganization effected by Augustus was his attempt to revive the old time Roman virtues which had fallen into contempt during the last centuries of the republic. This moral regeneration of the Roman people he regarded as the absolutely essential basis for a new era of peace and prosperity. And the reawakening of morality was necessarily preceded by a revival of the religious rites and ceremonies that in recent times had passed into oblivion through the attraction of new cults, the growth of skepticism, or the general disorder into which the public administration had fallen as a result of civil strife.

The revival of public religion. One step in this direction was the reëstablishment of the ancient priestly colleges devoted to the performance of particular rites or the cult of particular deities. To provide these colleges with the required number of patrician members Augustus created new patrician families. He himself was enrolled in each of these colleges and, at the death of Lepidus in 12 B. C., was elected chief pontiff, the head of the state religion. A second measure was the repair of temples and shrines which had lapsed into decay. The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, those of Quirinus and the Magna Mater, besides eighty-two other shrines of lesser fame, were repaired or restored by him. One of his generals, Munatius Plancus, renewed the temple of Saturn in the forum. A new temple was erected by [pg 214]Augustus to Mars the Avenger on the forum begun by Julius Caesar, another to the deified Julius himself on the old forum, and a third on the Palatine hill to Apollo, to whom he rendered thanks for the victory at Actium.

The Lares and the Genius Augusti. Among the divinities whose cult was thus quickened into life were the Lares, the guardian deities of the crossways, whose worship was especially practiced by the common folk. Between the years 12 and 7 B. C. each of the two hundred and sixty-five vici into which the city of Rome was then divided was provided with a shrine dedicated to the Lares and the Genius of Augustus, that is, the divine spirit which watched over his fortunes. This worship was conducted by a committee of masters, annually elected by the inhabitants of these quarters. In this way the city plebs while not worshipping the princeps himself, were yet encouraged to look upon him as their protector and guardian.

The imperial cult. A new religion which was to be symbolic of the unity of the empire and the loyalty of the provincials was the cult of Rome and Augustus, commonly known as the imperial cult. The worship of the goddess Roma, the personification of the Roman state, had sprung up voluntarily in the cities of Greece and Asia after 197 B. C. when the power of Rome began to supplant the authority of the Hellenistic monarchs for whom deification by their subjects was the theoretical basis of their autocratic power. This voluntary worship had also been accorded to individual Romans, as Flamininus, Sulla, Caesar and Mark Antony. As early as 29 B. C. the cities of Pergamon in Asia and Nicomedia in Bithynia erected temples dedicated to Roma and Augustus, and established quinquennial religious festivals called Romaia Sebasta. Other cities followed their example and before the death of Augustus each province in the Orient had at least one altar dedicated to Roma and the princeps. From the East the imperial cult was officially transplanted to the West.

In the year 12 B. C. an altar of Rome and Augustus was established at the junction of the rivers Rhone and Sâone, opposite the town of Lugdunum (modern Lyons), the administrative center of Transalpine Gaul apart from the Narbonese province. Here the peoples of Gaul were to unite in the outward manifestation of their loyalty to Roman rule. A similar altar was erected at what is now Cologne in the land of the Ubii between 9 B. C. and 9 A. D. Both in the East and in the West the maintenance of the imperial cult was [pg 215]imposed upon provincial councils, composed of representatives of the municipal or tribal units in which each province was divided.

The imperial cult in the provinces was thus the expression of the absolute authority of Rome and Augustus over the subjects of Rome, but for that very reason Augustus could not admit its development on Italian soil; for to do so would be to deny his claim to be a Roman magistrate, deriving his authority from the Roman people, among whom he was the chief citizen, and would stamp his government as monarchical and autocratic. Therefore, although the poet Horace, voicing the public sentiment, in 27 B. C. acclaimed him as the new Mercury, and both municipalities and individuals in southern Italy spontaneously established his worship, this movement received no official encouragement and never became important. However, from the year 12 B. C. onwards, there were established religious colleges of Augustales, or priestly officers called Sevìri Augustales, in many Italian municipalities for the celebration of the cult of Augustus either alone or in conjunction with some other divinity such as Mercury or Hercules. As these Augustales were almost exclusively drawn from the class of freedmen who were no longer admitted to full Roman citizenship, Augustus avoided receiving worship from the latter, while assuring himself of the loyalty of the liberti and gratifying their pride by encouraging a municipal office to which they were eligible.

The leges Juliae and the lex Papia Poppaea. However, Augustus was not content to trust solely to the moral effects of religious exercises and resorted to legislative action to check the degenerate tendencies of his age. The Julian laws of 19 and 18 B. C. aimed at the restoration of the soundness of family life, the encouragement of marriage, and the discouragement of childlessness, by placing disabilities upon unmarried and childless persons. These measures provoked great opposition, but Augustus was in earnest and supplemented his earlier laws by the lex Papia Poppaea of 9 A. D. which gave precedence to fathers over less fortunate persons among the candidates for public office. A commentary on the effectiveness of his earlier laws was the fact that both the consuls who sponsored this later one were themselves unmarried. To prevent the Italian element among the citizens from being swamped by a continuous influx of liberated slaves, Augustus placed restrictions upon the right of manumission and refused freedmen the public rights of Roman citizens, although granting these to their sons. By example as well as by precept he [pg 216]sought to hold in check the luxurious tendencies of the age, and in his own household to furnish a model of ancient Roman simplicity.

The Secular Games, 17 B. C. To publicly inaugurate the new era in the life of the state begun under his auspices, Augustus celebrated the festival of the Secular Games in the year 17 B. C., for which Horace wrote the inaugural ode, his Carmen Saeculare.

V. The Provinces and the Frontiers

The Dyarchy. The division of the provinces between Augustus and the Senate in 27 B. C. had the effect of creating an administrative dyarchy, or joint rule of two independent authorities, for the empire. However, the original allotment of the provinces underwent some modification subsequent to 27 B. C. In 23 B. C., Augustus transferred to the Senate Narbonese Gaul where the rapid progress of colonization had made it “more a part of Italy than a province.” In exchange he took over Illyricum, where the progress of the Roman arms had been interrupted by the outbreak of the war with Antony and where the Romans were confronted by warlike and restless peoples of the hinterland. Somewhat later Cilicia also became an imperial province and in 6 A. D. Sardinia was placed under an imperial procurator because of disturbances on the island. Southern Greece, previously dependent upon the province of Macedon, was placed under the government of the Senate as the province of Achaea. New administrative districts organized by Augustus out of territories conquered by his generals remained under his control.

Survey and census of the empire. The main expense of the military and civil establishment of the empire was defrayed by the revenues from the provinces. As a basis for an accurate estimate of their resources for purposes of taxation and recruitment Augustus caused a comprehensive census of the population and an evaluation of property to be taken in each newly organized district, and provided for a systematic revision of the census in all the imperial provinces. In addition a general chart of the empire was compiled on the basis of an extended survey conducted under the direction of Agrippa.

The foreign policy of Augustus. As we have seen, Augustus since he was commander-in-chief of the Roman armies and in charge of the administration of the most important border provinces, was entrusted by the senate with the direction of the foreign relations of the [pg 217]state. Here his aims conformed to the general conservatism of his policies and were directed towards securing a defensible frontier for the empire which should protect the peace that he had established within its borders. His military operations were conducted with due regard to the man power and the financial resources of the state. To secure the defensible frontier at which he aimed it was necessary for Augustus to incorporate in the empire a number of border peoples whose independence was a menace to the peace of the provinces and to establish some client kingdoms as buffer states between Roman territory and otherwise dangerous neighbors.

The settlement in Spain. The northwestern corner of the Spanish peninsula was still occupied by independent peoples, the Cantabri, Astures and the Callaeci, who harassed with their forays the pacified inhabitants of the Roman provinces. To secure peace in this quarter Augustus determined upon the complete subjugation of these peoples. From 27 to 24 B. C. he was present in Spain and between these years his lieutenants Antistius, Carisius and Agrippa conducted campaigns against them in their mountain fastness, and, overcoming their desperate resistance, settled them in the valleys and secured their territory by founding colonies of veterans. A subsequent revolt in 20–19 was crushed by Marcus Agrippa.

The pacification of the Alps, 25–8 B. C. A similar problem was presented by the Alpine peoples, who not only made devastating raids into northern Italy but also in the west occupied the passes which offered the most direct routes between Italy and Transalpine Gaul. In 26 B. C. occurred a revolt of the Salassi, in the neighborhood of the Little St. Bernard, who had been subdued eight years before. In the following year they were completely subjugated, and those who escaped slaughter were sold into slavery. In 16 B. C. the district of Noricum, i. e., modern Tyrol and Salzburg, was occupied by Publius Silius Nerva, in consequence of a raid of the Noricans into the Istrian peninsula. In 15 B. C., the step-son of Augustus, Nero Claudius Drusus, crossed the Brenner Pass and forced his way over the Vorarlberg range to Lake Constance, subduing the Raeti on his way. On the shores of Lake Constance he met his elder brother, Tiberius Claudius Nero, who had marched eastwards from Gaul. Together they defeated and subjugated the Vindelici. On the north the Danube was now the Roman frontier. A number of isolated campaigns completed the subjugation of the remaining Alpine peoples by 8 [pg 218]B. C. Raetia and Noricum were organized as procuratorial provinces, while the smaller Alpine districts were placed under imperial prefects.

Gaul and Germany. Caesar had left the land of Gallia Comata crushed but still unsettled and not fully incorporated in the empire. It fell to the lot of Augustus to complete its organization, which was accomplished between 27 and 13 B. C. Subsequent to the transfer of the Narbonese province to the Senate Gallia comata was divided into three districts; Aquitania, Lugdunensis and Belgica, which, however, during the lifetime of Augustus, formed an administrative unity, under one governor with subordinate legati in each district. The colony of Lugdunum was the seat of the administration, as well as of the imperial cult. No attempt was made to latinize the three Gauls by the founding of Roman colonies; but they remained divided into sixty-four separate peoples, called civitates, with a tribal organization under the control of a native nobility. As early as 27 B. C. Augustus took a census in Gaul, and on this basis fixed its tax obligations. The rich lands of Gaul were as important a source of imperial revenue as its vigorous population was of recruits for the Roman auxiliary forces.

But the Gauls were restive under their new burdens and were in addition liable to be stirred up by the Germanic tribes who came from across the Rhine. An invading horde of Sugambri in 16 B. C. defeated a Roman army and, upon a renewed inroad by the same people in 12 B. C., Augustus determined to cross the Rhine and secure the frontier of Gaul by the subjugation of the Germans to the north. The Germans, like the Gauls at the time of the Roman conquest, were divided into a number of independent tribes usually at enmity with one another and hence incapable of forming a lasting combination against a common foe. Individually they were powerful and courageous, but their military efficiency was impaired by their lack of unity and discipline.

Drusus, conqueror of the Raeti, was appointed to command the Roman army of invasion. He first secured the Rhine frontier by the construction of a line of fortresses stretching from Vindonissa (near Basle) to Castra Vetera (near Xanten), the latter of which, with Mogontiacum (Mainz) were his chief bases. Then, crossing the river, in four campaigns (12–9 B. C.) he overran and subjugated the territory between the Rhine and the Elbe. His operations were greatly [pg 219]aided by his fleet, for which he constructed a canal from the Rhine to the Zuider Zee, and which facilitated the conquest of the coast peoples, among them the Batavi, who became firm Roman allies. On the return march from the Elbe in 9 B. C., Drusus was fatally injured by a fall from his horse. His brother Tiberius succeeded him in command and strengthened the Roman hold on the transrhenene conquests. Drusus was buried in Rome, whither Tiberius escorted his corpse on foot, and was honored with the name Germanicus.

Illyricum and Thrace. To the east of the Adriatic the Roman provinces of Illyricum and Macedonia were subject to constant incursions of the Pannonians, Getae (or Dacians) and Bastarnae, peoples settled in the middle and lower Danube valley. Marcus Licinius Crassus, Governor of Macedonia, in 30 and 29 B. C. defeated the Getae and Bastarnae, crossed the Balkans, carried the Roman arms to the Danube and subdued the Moesi to the south of that river. However, it required a considerable time before the various Thracian tribes were finally subdued and a client kingdom under the Thracian prince Cotys was interposed between Macedonia and the lower Danube. Meantime, the Pannonians had been conquered in a number of hard fought campaigns which were brought to a successful conclusion by Tiberius (12–9 B. C.) who made the Drave the Roman boundary. The contemporaneous conquest of Pannonia and of Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe was one of the greatest feats of Roman arms and reveals the army of the empire at the height of its discipline and organization. In 13 B. C., during a lull in these frontier struggles, the Senate voted the erection of an altar to the peace of Augustus (the ara pacis Augustae), in grateful recognition of his maintenance of peace within the empire.

The revolt of Illyricum and Germany. For several years following the death of Drusus no further conquests were attempted until 4 A. D., when Tiberius was again appointed to command the army of the Rhine. After assuring himself of the allegiance of the Germans by a demonstration as far as the Elbe and by the establishment of fortified posts, he prepared to complete the northern boundary by the conquest of the kingdom of the Marcomanni, in modern Bohemia, between the Elbe and the Danube. In 6 A. D. Tiberius was on the point of advancing northward from the Danube, in coöperation with Gaius Saturninus, who was to move eastwards from the Rhine, when a revolt broke out in Illyricum which forced the abandonment of the [pg 220]undertaking and the conclusion of peace with Marbod, the king of the Marcomanni. The revolt, in which both Pannonians and Dalmatians joined, was caused by the severity of the Roman exactions, especially the levies for the army. For a moment Italy trembled in fear of an invasion; in the raising of new legions even freedmen were called into service. But the arrival of reinforcements from other provinces enabled Tiberius after three years of ruthless warfare to utterly crush the desperate resistance of the rebels (9 A. D.). The organization of Pannonia as a separate province followed the reëstablishment of peace.

Until the last year of the war in Illyricum the Germanic tribes had remained quiet under Roman overlordship. But in 9 A. D., provoked by the attempt of the new Roman commander, Publius Quinctilius Varus, to subject them to stricter control, they united to free themselves from foreign rule. In the coalition the Cherusci and Chatti were the chief peoples, and Arminius, a young chieftain of the Cherusci, was its leading spirit. Varus and his army of three legions were surprised on the march in the Teutoberg Forest and completely annihilated. Rome was in panic over the news, but the Germans did not follow up their initial success. Tiberius was again sent to the post of danger and vindicated the honor of Rome by two successful expeditions across the Rhine. But no attempt was made to recover permanently the lost ground. The frontier of the Elbe was given up for that of the Rhine with momentous consequences for the future of the empire and of Europe. The coast peoples, however, remained Roman allies and a narrow strip of territory was held on the right bank of the Rhine. The reason lay in the weakness of the Roman military organization, caused by the strain of the Illyrian revolt and the difficulty of finding recruits for the Roman legions among the Italians. The cry of Augustus, “Quinctilius Varus, give back my legions,” gives the clue to his abandonment of Germany.

The eastern frontier. In the East alone was Rome confronted by a power which was in any way a match for her military strength and which had disastrously defeated two Roman invasions. The conquest of this, the Parthian kingdom, appeared to Augustus to offer no compensation comparable to the exertions it would entail and therefore he determined to rest content with such a reassertion of Roman supremacy in the Near East as would wipe out the shame of the defeats of Crassus and Antony and guarantee Roman territory [pg 221]from Parthian attack. He was prepared to accept the natural frontier of the Euphrates as the eastern boundary of Roman territory. Between the Roman provinces in Asia Minor and the upper Euphrates lay a number of client kingdoms, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, and Commagene. At the death of Amyntas, king of Galatia, in 25 B. C., his kingdom was made into a province, but the others were left under their native dynasts. Across the Euphrates lay Armenia, a buffer state between the Roman possessions and Parthia, which was of strategic importance because it commanded the military routes between Asia Minor and the heart of the Parthian country. To establish a protectorate over Armenia was therefore the ambition of both Rome and Parthia. During the presence of Augustus in the East (22–19 B. C.), Tiberius placed a Roman nominee on the Armenian throne, and received from the Parthian king, Phraates IV, the Roman standards and captives in Parthian hands, a success which earned Augustus the salutation of imperator from his troops. Later Phraates sent four of his sons as hostages to Rome. But the Roman protectorate over Armenia was by no means permanent; its supporters had soon to give way to the Parthian party. Gaius Caesar between 1 B. C. and 2 A. D. restored Roman influence, but again the Parthians got the upper hand and held it until 9 A. D., when Phraates was overthrown and was succeeded by one of his sons whom Augustus sent from Rome at the request of the Parthians.

Judaea and Arabia. To the south of the Roman province of Syria lay the kingdom of Judaea, ruled by Herod until his death in 4 B. C., when it was divided among his sons. Subsequently Judaea proper was made a province administered by a Roman procurator. To the east of the Dead Sea was the kingdom of the Nabataean Arabs, who controlled the caravan routes of the Arabian peninsula and who were firm Roman allies. With their aid a Roman army under Aelius Gallus in 25 B. C. sought to penetrate into the rich spice land of Arabia Felix, but suffered such losses in its march across the desert that it was forced to return without effecting a conquest. At the same time Gaius Petronius defeated the Ethiopians under Queen Candace and secured the southern frontier of Egypt. Through the ports of Egypt on the Red Sea a brisk trade developed with India, from which distant land embassies on various occasions came to Augustus. Further west in Africa, Augustus added the kingdom of Numidia to the province of Africa, and transferred its ruler, Juba II, [pg 222]whose wife was Cleopatra, daughter of Antony the triumvir, to the kingdom of Mauretania (25 B. C.).

The conquests of Augustus established in their essential features the future boundaries of the Roman Empire. At his death he left it as a maxim of state for his successor to abstain from further expansion.

VI. The Administration of Rome

The problem of police. One of the great problems which had confronted the Roman government from the time of the Gracchi was the policing of Rome and the suppression of mob violence. To a certain extent the establishment of the praetorian guard served to overawe the city mob, although only three of its cohorts were at first stationed in the city. As a supplement to the praetorians Augustus organized three urban cohorts, each originally 1500 strong, who ranked between the legionaries and praetorians. Between 12 and 7 B. C. the city was divided for administrative purposes into fourteen regions, subdivided into 265 vici or wards. Each region was put in charge of a tribune or aedile. A force of six hundred slaves under the two curule aediles was formed as a fire brigade. But as these proved ineffective in 6 A. D. Augustus created a corps of vigiles to serve as a fire brigade and night watch. This corps consisted of seven cohorts, one for every two regions, and was under the command of an equestrian prefect of the watch (praefectus vigilum).

The Annona. Another vital problem was the provision of an adequate supply of grain for the city. A famine in 22 B. C. produced so serious a situation that the Senate was forced to call upon Augustus to assume the responsibility for this branch of the administration. At first he tried to meet the situation through the appointment of curators of senatorial rank, but after 6 A. D. he created the office of prefect of the grain supply, filled by an equestrian appointee of the princeps. His duty was to see that there was an adequate supply of grain on hand for the market at a reasonable price and in addition to make the monthly distribution of free grain to the city plebs. The number of recipients of this benefit was fixed at 200,000.

In this way Augustus was forced to take over one of the spheres of the government which he had intended should remain under the direction of the Senate and to witness himself the first step towards the breakdown of the administrative dyarchy which he had created.

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VII. The Problem of the Succession

The policy of Augustus. In theory the position of the princeps was that of a magistrate who derived his powers from the Senate and the Roman people, and hence the choice of his successor legally lay in their hands. However, Augustus realized that to leave the field open to rival candidates would inevitably lead to a recrudescence of civil war. Therefore he determined to designate his own successor and to make the latter’s appointment a matter beyond dispute. Furthermore, his own career as the son and heir of Julius Caesar warned him that this heir to the principate must be found within his own household, and his precarious health was a constant reminder that he could not await the approach of old age before settling this problem. And so, from the early years of his office, he arranged the matrimonial alliances of his kinsfolk in the interests of the state without regard to their personal preferences, to the end that in the event of his decease there would be a member of the Julian house prepared to assume his laborious task. Yet the unexpected length of his life caused Augustus to outlive many of those whom he from time to time looked upon as the heirs to his position in the state.

Marcus Marcellus and Agrippa. Augustus had one daughter Julia, by his second wife Scribonia. He had no sons, but Livia Drusilla, whom he took as his third wife in 36 B. C., brought him two stepsons, Tiberius and Drusus. Yet not one of these but his nephew, Marcus Marcellus, was his first choice for a successor. Marcellus received Julia as his wife in 25 B. C., the next year at the age of nineteen he was admitted to the Senate, and in 23 B. C., as aedile, he won the favor of the populace by his magnificent public shows. When Marcellus died in 23 B. C., Augustus turned to his loyal adherent Agrippa, to whom Julia was now wedded. In 18 B. C. Agrippa received proconsular imperium and the tribunicia potestas for five years, powers that were reconferred with those of Augustus in 13 B. C.

Tiberius. But in the next year Agrippa died, and Augustus, regarding his eldest stepson Tiberius, the conqueror of Noricum, as the one best qualified to succeed himself, forced him to divorce the wife to whom he was devoted and to marry Julia. At that time he was given the important Illyrian command and in 6 B. C. the tribunician authority was granted him for a five year term. But Tiberius, recog[pg 224]nizing that he was soon to be set aside for the two elder sons of Agrippa and Julia, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, whom Augustus had adopted and taken into his own house, and being disgusted with the flagrant unfaithfulness of Julia, retired into private life at Rhodes, thereby incurring the deep enmity of his stepfather.

Gaius and Lucius Caesar. Gaius and Lucius Caesar assumed the garb of manhood (the toga virilis) at the age of fifteen in 5 and 2 B. C., respectively. To celebrate each occasion Augustus held the consulship, and placed them at the head of the equestrian order with the title principes iuventutis. They were exempted from the limitations of the cursus honorum so that each might hold the consulate in his twentieth year. In 1 A. D. Gaius was sent to the East with proconsular imperium to settle fresh trouble in Armenia. There in the siege of a petty fortress he received a wound from which he died in 4 A. D. Two years previously Lucius had fallen a victim to fever while on his way to Spain. In the meantime Augustus had experienced another blow in his discovery of the scandalous conduct of Julia. Her guilt was the more unpardonable in view of the efforts of her father to restore the moral tone of society. She was banished to the island rock of Pandataria, her companions in crime were punished, the most with banishment, one with death on a charge of treason (1 B. C.). Her elder daughter, also called Julia, later met the same fate for a like offence.

Tiberius. At the death of Gaius Caesar, Augustus turned once more to Tiberius, who had been permitted to leave Rhodes at the intercession of Livia. In 4 A. D. he was adopted by Augustus and received the tribunicia potestas for ten years. In 13 A. D. his tribunician power was renewed and he was made the colleague of Augustus in the imperium. Tiberius himself had been obliged to adopt his nephew Germanicus, the son of Drusus, who married Agrippina, the younger daughter of Agrippa and Julia. Association in authority and adoption where necessary had become the means of designating the successor in the principate.

VIII. Augustus as a Statesman

The death of Augustus. In 14 A. D. Augustus held a census of the Roman citizens in the empire. They numbered 4,937,000, an increase of 826,000 since 28 B. C. In the same year he set up in [pg 225]Rome an inscription recording his exploits and the sums which he had expended in the interests of the state. A copy of this has been found inscribed on the walls of the temple of Roma and Augustus at Ancyra, and hence is known as the Monument of Ancyra. On 19 August, 14 A. D., Augustus died at Nola in Campania, at the age of seventy-six.

An estimate of his statesmanship. Opinions have differed and probably always will differ upon the question whether or not Augustus sought to establish a disguised form of monarchical government. Still, in his favor stands the fact that, although when a young man confronted or allied with rivals who sought his destruction he seized power by illegal means, after the fate of the state was in his hands and he had reëstablished an orderly form of government, he conscientiously restricted himself to the use of the powers which were legally conferred upon him. So ably did he conciliate public opinion that the few conspiracies formed against his life and power had no serious backing and constituted no real danger to himself or his system. To have effected so important a change in the constitution with so little friction is proof of a statesmanship of a high order.

His principate marks the beginning of a new epoch in Roman history and determined the course of the subsequent political development of the empire. And the system he inaugurated finds its greatest justification in the era of the pax Romana which it ushered in.

The weakness of his system. Yet it must be admitted that this system contained two innate weaknesses. Firstly, it was built up around the personality of Augustus, who could trust himself not to abuse his great power, and secondly, the princeps, as commander-in-chief of the Roman army, was immeasurably more powerful than the second partner in the administration, the Senate, and able to assert his will against all opposition. Now, as has well been observed, the working of the principate depended upon the coöperation of the Senate and the self-restraint of the emperors, consequently, when the former proved incapable and the latter abused their power, the inevitable consequence was an autocracy. That Augustus realized this himself towards the end of his life is highly probable, yet as the one who brought order out of chaos and gave peace to an exhausted world his name will always be one of the greatest in the history of Rome or indeed of the human race.

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Chapter XVII

The Julio-Claudian Line and the Flavians: 14–96 A. D.

I. Tiberius, 14–37 a. d.

Tiberius princeps. At the death of Augustus, Tiberius by right of his imperium assumed command of the army and through his tribunician authority convoked the Senate to pay the last honors to Augustus and decide upon his successor. Like Julius Caesar, Augustus was deified, and a priestly college of Augustales, chosen from the senatorial order was founded to maintain his worship in Rome. In accordance with a wish expressed in his will, his widow Livia was honored with the name Augusta. Tiberius received the title of Augustus and the other honors and powers which his predecessor had made the prerogatives of the princeps. His imperium, however, was conferred for life, and not for a limited period. The ease of his succession shows how solidly the principate was established at the death of its founder.

Character and policy. Tiberius was now fifty-six years of age. He had spent the greater part of his life in the public service, and consequently had a full appreciation of the burden of responsibility which the princeps must assume. He was the incarnation of the old Roman sense of duty to the state, and at the same time exhibited the proud reserve of the Roman patricians. Stern in his maintenance of law and order, he made an excellent subordinate, but when called upon to guide the policy of state, he displayed hesitation and lack of decision. The incidents of his marriage with Julia and his exile had rendered him bitter and suspicious, and he utterly lacked the personal charm and adaptability of his predecessor. Thus he was temperamentally unsuited to the position he was called upon to fill and this was responsible for his frequent misunderstandings with the Senate. Such an incident occurred in the meetings of the Senate after the death of Augustus. Tiberius, conscious of his unpopu[pg 227]larity, sought to have the Senate press upon him the appointment as the successor of Augustus, and so feigned reluctance to accept, a course which made the senators suspect that he was laying a trap for possible rivals. Yet there was no princeps who tried more conscientiously to govern in the spirit of Augustus, or upheld more rigidly the rights and dignity of the Senate. At the beginning of his principate he transferred from the Assembly to the Senate the right of the election to the magistracies, thus relieving the senators from the expense and annoyance of canvassing the populace.

Mutinies in Illyricum and on the Rhine. Two serious mutinies followed the accession of Tiberius, one in the army stationed in Illyricum, the other among the legions on the Rhine. Failure to discharge those who had completed their terms of service and the severity of the service itself were the grounds of dissatisfaction. The Illyrian mutiny was quelled by the praetorian prefect Lucius Aelius Seianus; the army of the Rhine was brought back to its allegiance by Germanicus, the son of Drusus, whom Tiberius had adopted at the command of Augustus in 4 A. D. He had married Agrippina, daughter of Agrippa and Julia, and was looked upon as the heir of Tiberius in preference to the latter’s younger and less able son, Drusus.

The campaigns of Germanicus, 14–17 A. D. To restore discipline among his troops and relieve them from the monotony of camp life, as well as to emulate the achievements of his father, Germanicus, without the authorization of Tiberius, led his army across the Rhine. The German tribes were still united in the coalition formed in the time of Varus, and, under their leaders Arminius and Inguiomerus, offered vigorous opposition to the Roman invasion. Nevertheless, in three successive campaigns (14–16 A. D.), Germanicus ravaged the territory between the Rhine and the Weser and inflicted several defeats upon the Germans. Still Arminius and his allies were by no means subdued, and the Romans had sustained heavy losses. One army had narrowly escaped the fate of the legions of Varus, and twice had the transports of Germanicus suffered through storms in the North Sea. For these reasons Tiberius forbade the prolongation of the war and recalled Germanicus. With his departure, each of the three Gauls was made an independent province, and two new administrative districts called Upper and Lower Germany, under legates of consular rank, were created on the left bank of the Rhine. Freed from the danger of Roman interference, the Germanic tribes led by [pg 228]Arminius now engaged in a bitter struggle with Marbod, king of the Marcomanni, which ultimately led to the overthrow of the latter’s kingdom. Not long afterwards Arminius himself fell a victim to the jealousy of his fellow tribesmen (19 A. D.).

Eastern mission and death of Germanicus, 17–19 A. D. After his return from Gaul, Germanicus was sent by Tiberius to settle affairs in the East, where the Armenian question had again become acute. While he was in Syria, a bitter quarrel developed between himself and Piso, the legate of the province. Accordingly, when Germanicus fell ill and died there, many accused Piso of having poisoned him. Although the accusation was false Piso was called to Rome to stand his trial on that charge, and, finding that the popularity of Germanicus had biased popular opinion against him, and that Tiberius refused him his protection because of his attempt to assert his rights by armed force, he committed suicide. Agrippina, the ambitious wife of Germanicus, believed that Tiberius from motives of jealousy had been responsible for her husband’s death. She openly displayed her hostility to the princeps, and by plotting to secure the succession for her own children, helped to bring about their ruin and her own.

The withdrawal of Tiberius from Rome, 26 A. D. The decision of Tiberius to leave Rome in 26 A. D. and take up his residence on the island of Capri had important consequences. One was that the office of city prefect, who was the representative of the princeps, became permanent. It was filled by a senator of consular rank who commanded the urban cohorts and had wide judicial functions.

The plot of Seianus. In the second place the absence of Tiberius gave his able and ambitious praetorian prefect Aelius Seianus encouragement and opportunity to perfect the plot he had formed to seize the principate for himself. He it was who concentrated the praetorian guard, now 10,000 strong, in their camp on the edge of the city, and paved the way for their baneful influence upon the future history of the principate. Having caused the death of Drusus, the son of Tiberius, by poison, in 23 A. D., he intrigued to remove from his path the sons of Germanicus, Drusus and Nero. They and their mother Agrippina were condemned to imprisonment or exile on charges of treason. In 31 A. D. Seianus attained the consulate and received proconsular imperium in the provinces. He allied himself with the Julian house by his betrothal to Julia, the grand-daughter of [pg 229]Tiberius. But in the same year the princeps became aware of his plans. Tiberius acted with energy. Seianus and many of his supporters were arrested and executed.

The last years of Tiberius. The discovery of Seianus’ treachery seems to have affected the reason of the aging princeps. His fear of treachery became an obsession. The law of treason (lex de maiestate) was rigorously enforced and many persons were condemned to death, among them Agrippina and her sons. The senators lived in terror of being accused by informers (delatores), and in their anxiety to conciliate the princeps they were only too ready to condemn any of their own number.

The memory of his later years caused Tiberius to pass down in the traditions of the senatorial order, represented by Tacitus and Suetonius, as a ruthless tyrant, and to obscure his real services as a conscientious and economical administrator. His parsimony in expenditures of the public money won him unpopularity with the city mob, but was a blessing to the provincials to whose welfare Tiberius directed particular attention, while he vigorously protected them against the oppression of imperial officials. During his rule the peace of the empire was disturbed only by a brief rising in Gaul (21 A. D.) and a rather prolonged struggle with Tacfarinas, a rebellious Berber chieftain, in Numidia (17–24 A. D.).

II. Caius Caligula, 37–41 a. d.

Accession. Tiberius left as his heirs his adoptive grandson Caius, the sole surviving son of Germanicus, better known by his childhood name of Caligula, acquired in the camps on the Rhine, and his grandson by birth, Tiberius Gemellus. Upon Caius, the elder of the two, then twenty-five years of age, the Senate immediately conferred the powers of the principate. The resentment of the senators towards his predecessor found vent in refusing him the posthumous honor of deification. Caius adopted his cousin, but within a year had him put to death.

Early months of his rule. The early months of his rule seemed the dawn of a new era. The pardoning of political offenders, the banishment of informers, the reduction of taxes, coupled with lavishness in public entertainments and donations, all made Gaius popular with the Senate, the army and the city plebs. However, he was a [pg 230]weakling in body and in mind, and a serious illness, brought on by his excesses, seems to have left him mentally deranged.

Absolutism his ideal. Reared in the house of Antonia, daughter of Antony and Octavia, in company with eastern princes of the stamp of Herod Agrippa, he naturally came to look upon the principate as an autocracy of the Hellenistic type. In his attempt to carry this conception into effect, the vein of madness in his character led him to ridiculous extremes. Not content with claiming deification for himself and his sisters, he built a lofty bridge connecting the Palatine Hill with the Capitoline, so that he might communicate with Jupiter, his brother god. He prescribed the sacrifices to be offered to himself, and was accused of seeking to imitate the Ptolemaic custom of sister marriage. Thoroughly consistent with absolutism was his scorn of republican magistracies and disregard of the rights of the Senate; likewise his attempt to have himself saluted as dominus or “lord.”

The conflict with the Jews. His demand for the acknowledgment of his deification by all inhabitants of the empire brought Caius into conflict with the Jews, who had been exempted from this formal expression of loyalty. In Alexandria there was a large Jewish colony, which enjoyed exceptional privileges and was consequently hated by the other Alexandrians. Their refusal to worship the images of Caius furnished the mob with a pretext for sacking the Jewish quarters and forcibly installing statues of the princeps in some of their synagogues. The Jews sent a delegation to plead their case before Caius but could obtain no redress. In the meantime Caius had ordered Petronius, the legate of Syria, to set up his statue in the temple at Jerusalem, by force, if need be. However, the prudent Petronius, seeing that this would bring about a national revolt among the Jews delayed obeying the order, and the death of Caius relieved him of the necessity of executing it at all.

Tyranny. In less than a year the reckless extravagance of Caius had exhausted the immense surplus Tiberius had left in the treasury. To secure new funds he resorted to openly tyrannical measures, extraordinary taxes, judicial murders, confiscations, and forced legacies. By these means money was extorted not only from Romans of all classes but provincials also. Ptolemy, king of Mauretania, was executed for the sake of his treasure and his kingdom made a province.

Assassination. Caius contemplated invasions of Germany and of [pg 231]Britain, but the former ended with a military parade across the Rhine and the latter with a march to the shores of the Straits of Dover. The fear awakened by his rule of capricious violence soon resulted in conspiracies against his life. In January, 41 A. D., he was assassinated by a tribune of the imperial guards.

III. Claudius, 41–54 a. d.

Nominated by the Praetorians. In the choice of a successor to Caius the power of the praetorian guard was first clearly demonstrated. Caius was the last male representative of the Julian gens, and at his death the Senate debated the question of restoring the republic. However, the decision was made for them by the praetorians, who dragged from his hiding place and saluted as Imperator the surviving brother of Germanicus, Tiberius Claudius Germanicus. The Senate had to acquiesce in his nomination and grant him the powers of the princeps.

Character. Claudius was already fifty-one years old, but because of his ungainly figure and limited mentality had never been seriously considered for the principate. He was learned and pedantic, but lacking in energy and resolution. His greatest weakness was that he was completely under the influence of his wives, of whom he had in succession four, and his favorite freedmen.

Policy. In general the policy of Claudius followed that of Augustus and Tiberius. But in 47 A. D. he assumed the censorship for five years, an office which Augustus had avoided because it set its holder directly above the Senate.

In the capacity of censor, Claudius extended to the Gallic Aedui the jus honorum and consequently the right of admission to the Senate. This was in accord with his policy of generously granting citizenship to the provincials. The census taken in 47 and 48 A. D. showed approximately six million Romans, nearly a million more than in the time of Augustus. Claudius also renewed the attempt of Julius Caesar to occupy the island of Britain. In 43 A. D. his legates Aulus Plautius, Vespasian and Ostorius Scapula subdued the island as far as the Thames, and in the following years extended their conquests farther northward. The southern part of the island became the province of Britain. In 46 A. D., Thrace was incorporated as a province at the death of its client prince.

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Influence of freedmen. During the rule of Claudius the real heads of the administration were a group of able freedmen, Narcissus, Pallas, Polybius and, later, Callistus. While it is true that they abused their power to amass riches for themselves, they contributed a great deal to the organization of the imperial bureaucracy. Their influence caused the widespread employment of imperial freedmen in procuratorial positions.

Agrippina the younger. In 49 A. D. the plot of Messalina, the third wife of Claudius, and her lover Gaius Silius, to depose the princeps in favor of Silius, endangered the power of the trio Pallas, Narcissus and Callistus. It was Narcissus who revealed the conspiracy to Claudius, secured his order for the execution of Messalina, and saw that it was carried into effect. But it was Pallas who induced the princeps to take as his fourth wife his own niece Agrippina, whose ambitions were to prove his ruin.

Death of Claudius. By Messalina Claudius had a son Britannicus and a daughter Octavia, but Agrippina determined to secure the succession for Domitius, her son by her previous husband Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. In 50 A. D., Domitius was adopted by Claudius as Nero Claudius Caesar. The following year he received the imperium, and was thus openly designated as the future princeps. In 53 A. D. Nero was married to Octavia and a year later Claudius died, poisoned, as all believed, by Agrippina, who feared that further delay would endanger her plans.

IV. Nero, 54–68 a. d.

The quinquennium Neronis. Agrippina had previously made sure of the support of the praetorians, and so the appointment of Nero to the principate transpired without opposition. The first five years of his rule were noted as a period of excellent administration. During that time his counsels were guided by the praetorian prefect, Afranius Burrus from Narbonese Gaul, and by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the famous writer and orator from Spain, whom Agrippina had appointed as his tutor in 49 A. D.

Fall of Agrippina. This epoch is also characterized by the attempt of Agrippina to act as regent for her son and retain the influence she had acquired during the later years of the life of Claudius. But in this she was opposed both by Nero himself and his able ad[pg 233]visors. In 55 A. D. Nero caused his adoptive brother Britannicus to be poisoned, through fear that he might prove a rival. Finally, under the influence of his mistress, Poppaea Sabina, the wife of Titus Salvius Otho, he had Agrippina murdered (59 A. D.). Thereupon he divorced Octavia, who was later banished and put to death, and married Poppaea.

The government of Nero. Freed from the fear of any rival influence, Nero, now twenty-two years of age, took the reins of government into his own hands. After the death of Burrus in 62, Seneca lost his influence over the princeps, who took as his chief advisor the worthless praetorian prefect, Tigellinus. The Senate, whose support he had courted in his opposition to Agrippina, now found itself without any influence; and, since his wanton extravagances emptied the treasury, Nero was forced to resort to oppressive measures to satisfy his needs. The sole object of his policy was the gratification of his capricious whims. In the conviction that he was an artist of extraordinary genius, he hungered for the applause of the successful performer, and in 65 A. D. publicly appeared in the theatre as a singer and musician. Nothing could have more deeply alienated the respect of the upper classes of Roman society. Eager to duplicate his theatrical successes in the home of the Muses, in 66 A. D. Nero visited Greece and exhibited his talent at the Olympian and Delphic games.

The fire in Rome and the first persecution of the Christians, 64 A. D. In 64 A. D. a tremendous fire, which lasted for six continuous days and broke out a second time, devastated the greater part of the city of Rome. Subsequently, Nero was accused of having caused the fire, but there is absolutely no proof of his guilt. However, he did seize the opportunity to rebuild the damaged quarter on a new plan which did away with the offensive slum districts, and to erect his famous “Golden House,” a magnificent palace and park on the Esquiline. Popular opinion demanded some scapegoat for the disaster, and Nero laid the blame upon the Christians in Rome, possibly at the instigation of the Jews whose community was divided by the spread of Christian doctrines. Many Christians were condemned as incendiaries, and suffered painful and ignominious deaths. This was the first persecution of the Christians.

The Armenian problem, 51–67 A. D. In 51 A. D. an able and ambitious ruler, Vologases, came to the Parthian throne. He soon [pg 234]found a chance to set his brother Tiridates on the throne of Armenia and was able to maintain him there until the death of Claudius. However, at the accession of Nero, Caius Domitius Corbulo was sent to Cappadocia to reassert the Roman suzerainty over Armenia. At first Vologases abandoned Armenia, owing to a revolt in Parthia, but in 58 A. D. Tiridates reappeared on the scene and war broke out. In two campaigns Corbulo was able to occupy the country and set up a Roman nominee as the Armenian king (60 A. D.). It was not long before the latter was driven out by Vologases, who succeeded in surrounding a Roman force under Caesennius Paetus, the new commander in Cappadocia, and forcing him to purchase his safety by concluding an agreement favorable to the Parthian (62 A. D.). The situation was saved by Corbulo, then legate of Syria, who was finally entrusted with the sole command of operations and forced Vologases to meet the Roman terms (63 A. D.). Tiridates retained the Armenian throne, but acknowledged the Roman overlordship by coming to Rome to receive his crown from Nero’s hands.

The revolt in Britain, 60 A. D. Under Claudius the Romans had extended their dominion in Britain as far north as the Humber, and westwards to Cornwall and Wales. In 59 A. D. Suetonius Paulinus occupied the island of Mona (Anglesea), the chief seat of the religion of the Druids. While he was engaged in this undertaking a serious revolt broke out among the Iceni and Trinovantes, who lived between the Wash and the Thames. It was caused by the severity of the Roman administration and in particular the ill-treatment of Boudicca, the queen of the Iceni, who headed the insurrection, by Roman procurators. The Roman towns of Camulodunum (Colchester), Verulamium (St. Alban’s), and Londinium (London) were destroyed, and 70,000 Romans were said to have been massacred. A Roman legion was defeated in battle and it was not until Paulinus returned and united the scattered Roman forces that the insurgents were checked. The Britons were decisively defeated and Boudicca committed suicide.

The conspiracy of Piso, 65 A. D. About 62 A. D. there began a long series of treason trials in Rome occasioned partly by the desire to confiscate the property of the accused and partly by the suspicion which is the inevitable concomitant of tyranny. The resulting insecurity of the senatorial order naturally produced a real attempt to overthrow the princeps. A wide-reaching conspiracy, in which one [pg 235]of the praetorian prefects was involved and which was headed by the senator Gaius Calpurnius Piso, was discovered in 65 A. D. Among those who were executed for complicity therein were the poet Lucan and his uncle Seneca. Other notable victims of Nero’s vengeance were Thrasea Paetus and Borea Sonarus, the Stoic senators, whose guilt was their silent but unmistakable disapproval of his tyrannical acts. No man of prominence was safe; even the famous general Corbulo was forced to commit suicide in 67 A. D.

The rebellion of Vindex, 68 A. D. Upon Nero’s return from Greece, a more serious movement began in Gaul where Caius Julius Vindex, the legate of the province of Lugdunensis, raised the standard of revolt and was supported by the provincials who were suffering under the pressure of taxation. Vindex was joined by Sulpicius Galba, governor of Hither Spain, and other legates. The commander of Upper Germany, Verginius Rufus, who remained true to Nero, defeated Vindex, but, the revolt spread to the troops of Verginius himself and these hailed their commander as imperator. He, however, refused the honor and gave the Senate the opportunity to name the princeps. Nero’s fate was sealed by his own cowardice and the treachery of the prefect Sabinus, who bought the support of the praetorian guards for Galba. The Senate followed their lead, and Nero, who had fled from Rome, had himself killed by a faithful freedman. With him ends the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

V. The First War of the Legions or the Year of the Four Emperors, 68–69 a. d.

The power of the army. The year 68–69 witnessed the accession of four emperors, each the nominee of the soldiery. And, while up to this time the praetorians had exercised the right of acclamation in the name of the army as a whole, now the legions stationed on the various frontiers asserted for themselves the same privilege. As Tacitus expresses it, the fatal secret of the empire was discovered, namely, that the princeps could be nominated elsewhere than in Rome. Although the principate may be said to have been founded by the universal consent of the Roman world, nevertheless, from its inception the power of the princeps had rested directly upon his military command, and the civil war of 68–69 showed how completely the professional army was master of the situation.

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Galba, 68 A. D. Galba, who succeeded Nero, was a man of good family but moderate attainments and soon showed himself unable to maintain his authority. That he would have been held “fit to rule, had he not ruled,” is the judgment of Tacitus. He had never been enthusiastically supported by the Rhine legions nor the praetorians, and his severity in maintaining discipline, added to his failure to pay the promised donative, completely alienated the loyalty of the guards. At the news that the troops in Upper and Lower Germany had declared for Aulus Vitellius, legate of the latter province (1 Jan., 69), Galba sought to strengthen his position by adopting as his son and destined successor, Lucius Calpurnius Piso, a young man of high birth but no experience. By this step he offended Marcus Salvius Otho, the onetime husband of Nero’s wife Poppaea Sabina, who had been one of Galba’s staunch adherents and hoped to succeed him. Otho now won over the disgruntled praetorian guards who slew Galba and Piso, and proclaimed Otho Imperator.

Otho, Jan.–April, 69. The Senate acquiesced in their decision but not so the legions of Vitellius which were already on the march to Italy. They crossed the Alps without opposition but were checked by the forces of Otho at Bedriacum, north of the Po. Without waiting for the arrival of reinforcements from the Danubian army, Otho ordered an attack upon the Vitellians at Cremona. His army was defeated and he took his own life.

Vitellius, April–December, 69 A. D. Thereupon Vitellius was recognized as princeps by the Senate and his forces occupied Rome. Vitellius owed his nomination to the energy of the legates Valens and Caecina, and, although well-meaning and by no means tyrannical, showed himself lacking in energy and force of character. He was unable to control the license of his soldiery who plundered the Italian towns or his officers who enriched themselves at the public expense, while he devoted himself to the pleasures of the table.

Meanwhile the army of the East, which had recognized Galba, Otho and, at first, Vitellius also, set up its own Imperator, Titus Flavius Vespasianus, who as legate of Judaea was conducting a war against the Jews. Vespasian himself proceeded to occupy Egypt and thus cut off the grain supply of Rome while his ablest lieutenant, Mucianus, set out for Italy. The Danubian legions, who had supported Otho, now declared themselves for Vespasian and, led by Antonius Primus, marched at once upon Italy. The fleet at Ravenna [pg 237]espoused Vespasian’s cause, and Caecina, who led the Vitellians against Primus, contemplated treachery. His troops, however, were loyal, but were defeated in a bloody night battle at Cremona and the way lay open to Rome. Vitellius then opened negotiations and offered to abdicate, but his soldiers would not let him and suppressed a rising in Rome led by the brother of Vespasian. Thereupon the city was stormed and sacked by the army of Primus. Vitellius himself was slain.

Vespasian, December, 69 A. D. Vespasian obtained his recognition as princeps from the Senate and the troops in the West. He entered Rome early in 70 A. D.

VI. Vespasian and Titus, 69–81 a. d.

Caesar an imperial title. Following the example of Galba, Vespasian on his accession took the name of Caesar, which became from this time a prerogative of the family of the princeps. The new princeps inherited from his predecessors two serious wars, both national revolts against Roman rule, the one in Gaul and Lower Germany, the other in Judaea.

The revolt of the Batavi, 69 A. D. The movement in Lower Germany was headed by Julius Civilis, a Batavian chieftain, formerly an officer in the Roman service, who won over the eight Batavian cohorts attached to the Rhine army. At first he posed as a supporter of Vespasian against Vitellius, but at the news of the former’s victory he renounced his allegiance to Rome and called to his aid Germanic tribes from across the Rhine. At the same time the Gallic Treveri and Lingones, the former led by Julius Classicus and Julius Tutor, the latter by Julius Sabinus, rose in rebellion and sought to establish an empire of the Gauls with its capital at Trèves (Augusta Treverorum). They were joined by the Roman legions stationed on the Rhine. However, the remaining peoples of Gaul refused to join the revolt, preferring the Roman peace to a renewal of the old intertribal struggles.

Upon the arrival of an adequate Roman force despatched by Vespasian the mutinous legions returned to their duty, the Treveri and Lingones were subdued, and Civilis forced to flee into Germany. The Batavi returned to their former status of Roman allies under the obligation of furnishing troops to the Roman armies (70 A. D.). But [pg 238]Rome had seen the danger of stationing national corps under their native officers in their home countries. Henceforth the auxiliaries were no longer organized on a national basis and served in provinces other than those in which they were recruited.

The Jewish War, 66–70 A. D. From the year 6 A. D. Judaea had formed a Roman procuratorial province except for its brief incorporation in the principality of Agrippa I (41–44 A. D.). During this time the Jews had occupied a privileged position among the Roman subjects, being exempted from military service and the obligation of the imperial cult, notwithstanding the design of Caligula to set up his image in the temple at Jerusalem. These privileges were the source of constant friction between the Jews and the Greco-Syrian inhabitants of the cities of Palestine, which frequently necessitated the interference of Roman officials. Another cause of unrest was the pressure of the Roman taxation, which rendered agriculture unprofitable and drove many persons from the plains to the mountains to find a livelihood through brigandage. But a more deeply-seated cause of animosity to Roman rule lay in the fact that the Jewish people were a religious community and that for them national loyalty was identical with religious fanaticism. The chief Jewish sects were those of the Sadducees and the Pharisees, of whom the former composed the aristocracy and the latter the democracy. The Sadducees were supported by the Romans and monopolized the offices of the religious community, whereas the Pharisees courted the support of the masses by a policy of hostility to Rome and religious intolerance. It is improbable that the Pharisees actually sought to bring about a revolt but they kindled a fire which they could not control and strengthened the development of a party of direct action, the Zealots, who aimed to liberate Judaea from the Roman force, trusting in the support of Jehovah. By 66 A. D. all Judaea was in a ferment and it required but little incitement to produce a national revolt.

Massacres in Caesarea and Jerusalem, 66 A. D. Such a provocation was afforded by the decision of the Roman government that Jews were not entitled to citizenship in Caesarea, the Roman capital of Judaea, and by a massacre of the Jews by the Greeks in a riot which followed. However, at the same time in Jerusalem the Zealots had overpowered the Roman garrison of one cohort, and massacred both the Romans and their Jewish supporters. At the news, further massacres took place in the towns of Syria and Egypt, the Jews suffer[pg 239]ing wherever they were in a minority but avenging their countrymen where they got the upper hand. The Romans awoke to the seriousness of the situation when the legate of Syria, Cestius Gallus, who had marched on Jerusalem, was forced to beat an ignominious retreat.

Vespasian in command, 67 A. D. In 67 A. D. Vespasian was appointed to the command of an army of 50,000 assembled for the reconquest of Judaea. In this and the following year he reduced the open country and isolated fortresses, and was ready to begin the blockade of Jerusalem, where the majority of the Jews had fled for refuge. However, Vespasian’s elevation to the principate caused a suspension of hostilities for ten months, during which factional strife raged fiercely within the city.

Siege of Jerusalem, 70 A. D. The conclusion of the war Vespasian entrusted to his eldest son Titus, who at once began the siege of Jerusalem (70 A. D.). The city had a double line of fortifications, and within the inner wall were two natural citadels, the temple and the old city of Mount Zion. The population, augmented by great numbers of refugees, suffered terribly from hunger but resisted with the fury of despair. The outer and inner walls were stormed, and then the Romans forced their way into the temple which was destroyed by fire. Mount Zion defied assault but was starved into submission. Jerusalem was destroyed, and Judaea became a province under an imperial legate. The political community of the Jews was dissolved and they were subjugated to a yearly head-tax of two denarii (40 cents) each, payable to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, in consideration of which they enjoyed their previous immunities. The victory of Titus was commemorated by the arch which still stands near the Roman forum.

The frontiers. The disorders of the recent wars rendered it necessary for Vespasian to reorganize many branches of the administration, a task which won for him the name of the second founder of the principate. The security of the frontiers received his particular attention. In Germany he annexed the territory between the Rhine above its junction with the Main and the upper Danube, henceforth known as the Agri Decumates from the tithe (decuma) paid as rental by colonists who settled there. Further east on the Danube two strong legionary camps were constructed at Carnuntum and Vindobona (Vienna). The Euphrates frontier was strengthened by the establishment of Roman garrisons at Melitene and Satala on the [pg 240]Upper Euphrates, and by annexing to the Syrian province the kingdom of Commagene, which Gaius had restored to its native dynasty. Other client principalities met a like fate. Among the soldiery discipline was restored by disbanding four of the mutinous Rhine legions and replacing them with new units. The praetorian guard, dissolved by Vitellius, was reconstituted out of Italian cohorts following the precedent set by Augustus.

The finances. The most serious problem was that of the finances, for the extravagance of the preceding emperors had left the government in a state of bankruptcy and the provinces financially exhausted. Vespasian estimated that the sum of $2,000,000,000 was required to make the necessary outlays. To obtain this amount it was necessary to impose new taxes and avoid all needless expenditures. Yet he not only succeeded in making the state solvent but was able to carry out extensive building operations in Italy and in the provinces. In Rome the Capitoline Temple which had been burned in the fighting with the Vitellians was rebuilt, a temple of Peace was erected on the forum, and the huge Colosseum arose on the site of one of the lakes of Nero’s Golden House. Vespasian also granted state support to the teachers of Greek and Roman oratory in Rome.

In 74 A. D. Vespasian assumed the censorship and took a census of the empire in addition to filling the ranks of the Senate which had been depleted by the late civil wars. He was generous in his grants of citizenship to provincials, and bestowed the Latin right on all the non-Roman communities of Spain, as a preliminary step to their complete romanization.

Vespasian and the senate. Vespasian was the first princeps who was not of the Roman nobility. He was a native of the Italian municipality of Reate and his family was only of equestrian rank. He was furthermore an eminently practical man who made no attempt to disguise the fact that he was the real master in the state. Significant in this respect was his revival of the praenomen imperator, which had been neglected by the successors of Augustus. He treated the Senate with respect, and recognized its judicial authority, but excluded it from all effective share in the government. A senatorial decree and a law of the comitia conferred upon Vespasian the powers of the principate, yet he dated the beginning of his reign from the day of his salutation as Imperator by his army. All these things, combined with his refusal to punish the informers of Nero’s reign, [pg 241]earned him the ill-will of the senators. Some of them proceeded to open criticism of the princeps and a futile advocacy of republicanism in the form of a cult of Brutus and Cato the Younger. The leader of this group was Helvidius Priscus, son-in-law of Paetus Thrasea, whom Nero had put to death, and like him a Stoic. Although not very dangerous, such opposition could not be ignored and Priscus was banished. He was later executed, probably for conspiracy. In all probability it was the antimonarchical tendency of contemporary Stoic teachings that induced Vespasian to banish philosophers from Rome.

The praetorian prefecture. To forestall any disloyalty in the praetorian guard, Vespasian made his son Titus praetorian prefect. Titus also received the imperium and tribunicia potestas, and when Vespasian died in 79 A. D. succeeded to the principate.

Titus, 79–81 A. D. His rule lasted little over two years, and is chiefly remarkable for two great disasters. In 79 A. D. an eruption of the volcano of Vesuvius buried the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabii in Campania. Beneath the heavy deposit of volcanic ashes the buildings of these towns have been preserved from disintegration, and the excavation of the site of Pompeii has revealed with wonderful freshness the life of an Italian municipality under the principate. The following year Rome was devastated by a fire which raged for three days and destroyed Vespasian’s new temple of Capitoline Jupiter. In September, 81 A. D., Titus died, deeply mourned by the whole Roman world.

VII. Domitian, 81–96 a. d.

Character and policy. Titus was followed by his younger brother Domitian, whom, on account of his ambition, neither Vespasian nor Titus had permitted to share in the government. Domitian was a thorough autocrat and his administration was characterized by great vigor and capacity. Far from being a mere tyrant, he paid great attention to the welfare of the provinces and exercised a strict supervision over his officers. He also displayed a real interest in literature and replaced the libraries destroyed in the fire of 80 A. D.

His autocratic policy is clearly seen in his assumption of the censorship as perpetual censor in 84 A. D., whereby he acquired complete control over the composition of the Senate, a power which, without the title, was henceforth one of the prerogatives of the princeps. Even [pg 242]more emphatically does his absolutism come to light in the title dominus et deus (Lord and God), which he required from the officers of his household, and by which he was generally designated, although he did not employ it himself in official documents. For the cult of the deified emperors Domitian erected a special temple in Rome, and he also established a priestly college of Flaviales, modelled on the Augustales of Rome, to perpetuate the worship of his deified father and brother.

Frontier policy: Britain. The desire for military successes as a support for his absolutism led Domitian to adopt an aggressive frontier policy. In Britain, Julius Agricola, legate from 77 to 84 A. D., led the Roman legions north of the Clyde and Firth of Forth and defeated the united Caledonians under their chief Galgacus (84 A. D.). He also sent his fleet around the north of Scotland and proved that Great Britain was an island. But his projects, which included an invasion of Ireland, seemed too costly to Domitian who recalled him, possibly in view of the military situation on the continent. The conquest of Scotland was not completed and the Roman authority was confined to the territory south of the Tyne.

Germany. In 83 A. D. Domitian led an army across the Rhine from Mainz and annexed the district of Wetterau, where the lowlands were already in Roman hands although the hills were still occupied by the hostile Chatti. A chain of forts was built to protect the conquered region. In the winter of 88–89 A. D. the legate of Upper Germany, Antonius Saturninus, was hailed as Imperator by the two legions stationed at Mainz. Aid was expected by the mutineers from the German tribes, but this failed to materialize and the movement was suppressed by loyal troops, possibly from the lower province. In consequence of this mutiny Domitian adopted the policy of not quartering more than one legion in any permanent camp. At the same time he separated the financial administration of the German provinces from that of Gallia Belgica.

The lower Danube. More powerful neighbors faced the Romans along the middle and lower Danube, and in dealing with these the policy of Domitian was less successful. These people were the Germanic tribes of the Marcomanni and Quadi in Bohemia, the Sarmatian Iazyges between the Danube and the Theiss, and the Dacians, who occupied the greater portion of modern Hungary and Roumania. The most powerful of all were the Dacians, among whom a king [pg 243]named Decebalus had built up a strong state. In 85 A. D. they crossed the Danube into Moesia, where they defeated and killed the Roman governor. Thereupon Domitian himself took command and drove the Dacians back across the river. But the pretorian prefect Cornelius Fuscus in attempting to invade Dacia suffered a disastrous defeat in which he and most of his army perished. His successor Tettius Julianus was more successful. However, a complete victory was prevented by Domitian, who rashly invaded the territory of the Marcomanni and Iazyges, and was defeated by them. He thereupon made peace with Decebalus, who gave up his prisoners of war and acknowledged the formal overlordship of Rome, but received an annual subsidy from Domitian in addition to the services of Roman military engineers (89 A. D.). Although Domitian celebrated a triumph for his exploits, his victory was by no means certain and his settlement was only temporary. In the course of the Dacian war Moesia was divided into two provinces.

Conflict with the Senate. Feeling that the army was the surest support of his power, Domitian sought to secure its fidelity by increasing the pay of the soldiers by one third. This new expense, added to the outlays necessitated by his wars, the construction of public works, like the restoration of the Capitoline Temple, and the celebration of public festivals, forced him to augment the taxes and this produced discontent in the provinces. In Rome, particularly after the revolt of Saturninus, his relations with the Senate became more and more strained. Many prominent senators were executed on charges of treason; the teachers of philosophy were again banished from Italy; and notable converts to Judaism or Christianity were prosecuted, the latter on the ground of atheism. The general feeling of insecurity produced the inevitable result; a plot in which the praetorian prefects and his wife Domitia were concerned was formed against his life; he was assassinated, 18 September, 96 A. D. His memory was cursed by the Senate and his name erased from public monuments. It was the oppression of the last years of Domitian’s rule that so strongly biased the attitude of Tacitus towards the principate and its founder.

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Chapter XVIII

From Nerva to Diocletian: 96–285 A. D.

I. Nerva and Trajan, 96–117 a. d.

Nerva and the Senate. Before assassinating Domitian, the conspirators had secured a successor who would be supported by the Senate and not prove inacceptable to the pretorians. Their choice was the elderly senator Marcus Cocceius Nerva, one of a family distinguished for its juristic attainments. He took an oath never to put a senator to death, recalled the philosophers and political exiles, and permitted the prosecution of informers. But he was lacking in force and did not feel his position sufficiently secure to refuse the demands of the praetorian guard for vengeance upon the murderers of Domitian. Therefore to strengthen his authority he adopted a tried soldier, Marcus Ulpius Traianus, the legate of Upper Germany. Trajan received the tribunician authority and proconsular imperium (97 A. D.).

The alimenta. Nerva’s administration benefitted Italy in particular. Not only were the taxes and other obligations of the Italians lessened, but the so-called alimentary system was devised in the interests of poor farmers and the children of poor parents. Under this system of state charity, sums of money were lent to poor landholders at low rates of interest on the security of their land. The interest from these loans was paid over to their respective municipalities and expended by them in supporting the pauper children. The scheme was perfected and extended by the succeeding princes.

An era of internal peace. With Nerva begins a period in the history of the principate that is characterized by amicable relations between the princeps and the Senate. The basis of this concord was the agreement by the successive emperors to acknowledge the freedom of senators from the imperial jurisdiction. There was no longer any question of an active participation by the Senate as a whole in the administration, nevertheless it continued to exercise its influence [pg 245]through the official posts reserved for senators. In addition to the establishment of these harmonious relations, the peaceful succession of a number of able rulers who were designated by adoption and association in the powers of the principate has caused this epoch to be regarded as one of the happiest periods of Roman history.

Nerva died in January, 98 A. D., after a rule of less than two years, and was succeeded by Trajan, who assumed office at Cologne.

Trajan’s character and policy. Trajan was a native of the Roman colony of Italica in Spain, and the first provincial to attain the principate. His accession is evidence not only for the degree of romanization in the Spanish provinces but also for the decline of the dominance of the strictly Italian element within the empire and the transformation of the Italian into an imperial nobility of wealth and office. The new princeps was above all things a soldier, and the desire for military glory was his chief weakness. At the same time he was an energetic and conscientious administrator, and showed a personal interest in the welfare of Italy and the provinces, as we see from his correspondence with the younger Pliny, governor of Bithynia in 111–113 A. D. He respected the rights of the Senate and repeated Nerva’s oath not to condemn one of that body to death.

The conquest of Dacia, 101–106 A. D. In the third year of his rule Trajan undertook the conquest of Dacia, for Domitian’s agreement with Decebalus was regarded as a disgrace and the existence of a strong Dacian kingdom was a perpetual menace to the Danubian frontier. Decebalus was still king of the Dacians and proved himself a valiant opponent, but in two well-conducted campaigns (101–102 A. D.) Trajan forced him to sue for peace. He was obliged to give up his engines of war with the Roman engineers whom he had received from Domitian, to acknowledge Roman overlordship and render military service to Rome. Trajan built a permanent stone bridge across the Danube below the Iron Gates to secure communication with the northern bank, and returned to Rome to celebrate his victory with a triumph. But Decebalus was not content to remain as a Roman vassal and made preparations to recover his people’s independence. In 105 A. D. he opened hostilities by an invasion of Moesia. However, Trajan hurried to the scene, secured the support of the neighboring tribes, and in the following year entered Dacia. His victory was complete, the capital of Decebalus was captured, the king took his own life, and such of the Dacians as did not abandon [pg 246]their country were hunted down and exterminated. Dacia was made a Roman province, and was peopled with settlers from various parts of the empire, particularly from Asia Minor. The new province was of importance both on account of its gold mines and its position as a bulwark defending the provinces to the south of the Danube. To commemorate his Dacian wars, Trajan erected a stone column, one hundred feet high, in the new forum which bore his name. The column, which is still in place, is adorned with a spiral band of sculptured reliefs that vividly trace the course of the military operations.

On other frontiers also Trajan strengthened or extended the boundaries of the empire. In 106 he annexed the kingdom of the Nabataean Arabs to the east of Palestine and Syria. From this was formed the province of Arabia. In Africa also the Romans occupied new territory, and secured it against Berber raids by creating new fortresses at Lambaesis and Timgad.

The Parthian war, 114–116 A. D. The peaceful relations which had existed between Rome and Parthia since the time of Nero were broken in 114 A. D. when the Parthian king Chosroes drove out the Armenian ruler, who had received his crown from Trajan’s hands, and set his own son Parthamasiris in his stead. Trajan at once repaired to the East and concentrated an army for the invasion of Armenia. Parthamasiris offered to acknowledge the Roman suzerainty over Armenia, but Trajan determined to effect a definite settlement of the eastern frontier by the permanent occupation of Armenia and, for strategic reasons, of Mesopotamia also. In 114 he effected an easy conquest of Armenia, and in the next year annexed Upper Mesopotamia. He now resolved to complete his success by the overthrow of the Parthian kingdom. Accordingly, in 116 A. D., he overran Assyria and made it a province, and then pressed on to the Persian gulf, capturing Seleucia, Babylon and the Parthian capital Ctesiphon on his way. From dreams of further conquests Trajan was recalled by a serious revolt in Mesopotamia which was only subdued with great effort, and in 117 A. D. Chosroes was able to reoccupy his capital. At the same time the eastern provinces were disturbed by a rising of the Jews, which began in Cyrene in 115 A. D. and spread to Cyprus, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Horrible massacres were perpetrated both by the Jews and their enemies, and large numbers of troops had to be employed before order was restored.

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News of revolts in Africa and Britain, and of troubles on the Danubian border, led Trajan to set out for Rome. On the way he fell ill and died at Selinus in Cilicia on 8 August, 117 A. D.

II. Hadrian, 117–138 a. d.

Hadrian princeps. Trajan left no male heir and had associated no one with himself in the imperium or tribunician power. However, on his deathbed he adopted his cousin and one-time ward, Publius Aelius Hadrianus, also a native of Italica. Hadrian was married to Sabina, a grand-daughter of Trajan’s sister Marciana. He had had a distinguished military career and in 117 A. D. was commander of the army in Syria. At the news of his adoption his troops saluted him as Imperator and his nomination was confirmed by the Senate. The only opposition came from some of the ablest of Trajan’s officers, notably Lusius Quietus, who soon plotted against his life. But their conspiracy was detected and the Senate condemned to death the four leaders in the plot.

Hellenism. Hadrian was a man of restless energy and extraordinary versatility. He had a keen appreciation of all forms of art and literature, and a great admiration for Hellenism; an admiration which probably arose from a realization of the fact that the culture of the Roman empire was in its foundations Hellenic, but which caused him to be scornfully dubbed a “Greekling” by the Roman aristocracy.

General character of Hadrian’s government. In public life he displayed the greatest devotion to duty, in the belief that “the ruler exists for the state, not the state for the ruler,” and there was no branch of the public administration that was not affected by his zeal. Two extended tours, one in 121–126 and the other in 129–132 A. D., made him acquainted with conditions in the provinces and enabled him to take measures to promote their welfare. The Senate he treated with all outward marks of respect, taking the oath to respect the lives of its members, but at the same time he regarded it as a negligible factor in the government.

Military policy. Realizing that Trajan’s policy of imperial expansion had overtaxed the economic resources of the empire, he began his rule by abandoning the new provinces of Mesopotamia and Assyria, and reverting to the previous Roman policy in Armenia, [pg 248]where a Parthian prince acknowledged his overlordship. He devoted his energies to strengthening the system of frontier defences and raising the standards of discipline and efficiency among the soldiers. Aside from the suppression of the revolts which had broken out in the last years of Trajan’s rule, his most serious military undertaking was the quelling of a new rising of the Jews in Palestine, which followed the foundation of a Roman colony on the site of Jerusalem. Only after a two years’ struggle (132–134 A. D.) was the rebellion crushed.

Judicial and administrative reforms. To aid him in the administration of justice, Hadrian formed a permanent council of eminent jurists. He, too, was responsible for codifying and editing in a final form the praetor’s edict, upon which was based the procedure of the Roman civil law. This task was carried out by the jurist Salvius Julianus. With the object of relieving the city courts of an excessive burden of judicial business, Hadrian divided Italy into four districts, and appointed an official of consular rank to administer justice in each. This was a further step in removing Italy from the control of the Senate and approximating its status to that of a province. Hadrian’s administrative reforms were the result of the steady increase in the sphere of public business carried on by the officers of the princeps, and furthered the development of a centralized bureaucracy. By creating new offices—among them the post of advocate of the fiscus (advocatus fisci) as an alternative for the subaltern military offices—he greatly increased the importance of the equestrian career and the influence of the equites in the government. In the three departments of the military, civil and judicial administration the principate of Hadrian marks a distinct epoch.

Building activity. Everywhere throughout the empire Hadrian built and repaired with the greatest zeal; but particularly in Rome and Athens. In Rome, among other structures, he built the great double temple of Venus and Roma and his own mausoleum, the present Castel Sant’ Angelo. At Athens he completed the great temple of Olympian Zeus, begun by Pisistratus in the sixth century B. C., and added a new quarter to the city.

The choice of a successor. In 136 A. D., Hadrian fell seriously ill and, having no children, adopted Lucius Ceionius Commodus under the name of Lucius Aelius Caesar, and clothed him with the tribunician authority. Hadrian himself withdrew from Rome to his [pg 249]splendid villa at Tibur. However, Aelius died at the beginning of 138 A. D., and thereupon the princeps adopted an elderly senator named Titus Aurelius Antoninus, who in turn adopted the son of the deceased Aelius and his own nephew, Marcus Annius Verus. Antoninus received the imperium and tribunician power and became the partner of Hadrian in the principate. After a long and painful illness the latter died in July, 138 A. D. His later years were clouded by ill health which rendered him moody and suspicious, and probably led to the execution of his brother-in-law and the latter’s grandson on a charge of conspiracy. He had never been popular with the Senate and this step widened the breach between them. Only the energetic action of his successor prevented the execration of his memory and secured his deification.

III. The Antonines, 138–192 a. d.

Antoninus Pius, 138–161 A. D. Antoninus, who received the name of Pius in the first year of his rule, was the personification of ancient Roman piety, i. e. the dutiful performance of obligations in public and private life. His mildness and uprightness enabled him to act in perfect harmony with the senators, and as a concession to them he removed the four consulares juridici whom Hadrian had appointed in Italy.

His public policy. Antoninus adhered to Hadrian’s peaceful foreign policy, but had to wage several border wars and suppress some insurrections in the provinces. In Britain a line of fortifications was constructed from the Firth of Forth to the Clyde. Antoninus laid great emphasis upon an upright administration of justice. At this time, too, the Roman law was greatly enriched through the introduction of principles of equity and began to receive at the hands of the jurists the systematic form by which it was later characterized. In 147 A. D. he conferred the title of Caesar upon the elder of his adopted sons, Marcus Aurelius, whom he had previously married to his daughter, and took him as an associate in the government. Upon the death of Antoninus in March, 161 A. D., Aurelius succeeded to the principate.

The dual principate—Marcus Aurelius, 161–180 A. D., and Lucius Verus, 161–169. Marcus Aurelius at once took as associate in the principate his adoptive brother, Lucius Verus, and for the first time two Augusti shared the imperium. But the real power rested [pg 250]in the hands of Aurelius, for Verus was a weak character, indolent and sensual. Although he did not take the oath not to put a senator to death, and restored the consulares iuridici removed by Antoninus, the elder Augustus respected the Senate and remained on good terms with it. Marcus Aurelius was by nature a student and philosopher, a devoted follower of the Stoic rule of life; his Meditations bear testimony to the true nobility of his character. Such was the princeps who was fated to spend his remaining years in an unceasing struggle against the enemies of the state and, true to his principles, he obeyed the call of duty and devoted himself unsparingly to the public service.

Parthian war: 161–65 A. D. Even before the death of Antoninus, Vologases III of Parthia had begun hostilities and had overrun Armenia. The Roman legate of Cappadocia was defeated and the Parthians broke into Syria, where they won another victory. The situation was critical. Aurelius sent his colleague Verus to the scene, and although the latter displayed neither energy nor capacity, his able generals restored the fortunes of the Roman arms. In 163 Statius Priscus reëstablished Roman authority over Armenia and placed a Roman vassal on the throne. In 164–65, Avidius Cassius invaded Mesopotamia and took the Parthian capitals Seleucia and Ctesiphon. Yet, on the march back, he suffered considerable losses from hunger and disease, and a peace was made with Parthia which gave the Romans territory in upper Mesopotamia to the east of the Euphrates (166 A. D.). But the returning troops brought with them a plague which ravaged the whole empire and caused widespread depopulation.

Wars with the Marcomanni, Quadi and Iazyges: 167–175 A. D. In the meantime a dangerous situation had arisen on the Danubian frontier, where, probably in consequence of the pressure of migratory peoples, the Marcomanni, Quadi and the Sarmatian Iazyges united in an attempt to force their way into the Roman provinces. The army of the Danube had been weakened to reinforce the Syrian troops in the Parthian war and this enabled the barbarians to penetrate the frontier defences and ravage Noricum and Pannonia as far as Aquileia at the head of the Adriatic. The two Augusti proceeded to the scene of war, and after a protracted struggle in which Dacia suffered from a hostile invasion, the enemy were forced to make peace. The Marcomanni submitted in 172, and the Quadi and Sarmatians in 175 A. D. They were forced to surrender the prisoners carried off from the [pg 251]Roman provinces, over 160,000 in number, and to furnish military aid to Rome, while large numbers of them were settled on waste lands south of the Danube under the obligation of tilling the soil and rendering military service. The Roman victory was commemorated by the erection of a column at Rome with sculptures picturing incidents of the war, in imitation of Trajan’s memorial. In addition to the prosecution of this war, the strength of the empire had been taxed by serious outbreaks in Mauretania, Gaul and Egypt.

Revolt of Avidius Cassius, 175 A. D. The complete subjugation of the northern foe was hindered by the revolt of Avidius Cassius, the general who had distinguished himself in the Parthian war and had suppressed the revolt in Egypt. Verus, the colleague of Aurelius, had died in 169, and at a rumor of the death of Aurelius himself in 175 A. D., Cassius proclaimed himself Imperator in Syria. Thereupon Aurelius hastened to conclude peace with the Sarmatians and proceeded to the East. Upon his arrival he found that Cassius had been killed by his own soldiers. Soon afterwards Commodus, the son of Aurelius, received the title Augustus and became co-ruler with his father (177 A. D.).

Second war with the Marcomanni and Quadi, 177–180 A. D. In 177 A. D. war broke out anew with the Quadi and Marcomanni. Aurelius again took command on the Danube and after two years’ fighting had won so complete a victory that he contemplated the annexation of the region occupied by these peoples. But for a second time he was robbed of the fruits of his toil, on this occasion by the hand of death, 17 March, 180 A. D. The principate passed to his son and colleague, Commodus.

Lucius Aurelius Commodus, sole princeps, 180–192 A. D. Lucius Aurelius Commodus, the ignoble son of a noble father, is one of the few in the long line of Roman rulers of whom nothing good can be said. Cowardly, cruel and sensual, he gave himself up to a life of pleasure and left the conduct of the government in the hands of a succession of favorites, who used their power to further their own interests. He abandoned the war with the Marcomanni and Quadi without carrying out his father’s plans and granted them peace on lenient terms so that he might return to the enjoyments of the capital. His chief ambition was to win fame as a gladiator. He frequently appeared in the arena, and finally determined to assume the consulate on 1 January, 193 A. D. in a gladiator’s cos[pg 252]tume. However, on the preceding night he was assassinated at the instigation of the pretorian prefect, Quintus Aemilius Laetus.

IV. The Second War of the Legions, 193–197 a. d.

Pertinax: January–March, 193 A. D. The new princeps (Publius Helvius Pertinax, a senator of low birth but proved military capacity) was the nominee of Laetus. However, his strictness in enforcing discipline among the troops and his economies, necessitated by the exhausted condition of the public finances, soon alienated the goodwill of the praetorians and Laetus himself. After less than three months’ rule he was killed in a mutiny of the pretorian guard (March, 193 A. D.).

Didius Julianus. Their choice for a successor was an old and wealthy senator, Didius Julianus, who purchased his nomination by the promise of a high donative. But his rule was destined to be short for, as in 68 A. D., the armies on the frontiers asserted their claim to appoint the princeps.

The rivals: Severus, Niger and Albinus. Almost simultaneously three commanders were saluted as Imperator by their soldiers. These were Pescennius Niger in Syria, Clodius Albinus in Britain, and Septimius Severus in Upper Pannonia. With their nominations a second war of the legions began. Severus had the advantage of position and immediately marched on Rome as the avenger of Pertinax. He also was able to arrange a truce with Albinus by promising to recognize him as his successor with the title of Caesar. The praetorians offered no resistance to the Danubian army; Julianus was deposed by the Senate and put to death (June, 193 A. D.); and the Senate ratified the nomination of Severus.

Defeat of Niger and Albinus. But the position of Severus was not yet secure, for Niger had been recognized in the eastern provinces and also had a strong following in Rome. He was preparing to march upon Italy and had already occupied Byzantium. Severus at once set out to anticipate his attack. After investing Byzantium he crossed over to Asia Minor and defeated the forces of his rival near Cyzicus and Nicaea, forcing them to withdraw south of the Taurus mountains. The Cilician Gates were forced and Niger decisively beaten in a battle at Issus (194 A. D.). He tried to escape into Parthia but was overtaken and killed. Severus advanced across the Euphrates to [pg 253]punish the Parthian king for his support of Niger. He occupied northern Mesopotamia, and made Nisibis a Roman colony and frontier fortress (196 A. D.). In the same year Byzantium was taken, its fortifications destroyed, and its inhabitants deprived of the right of municipal organization. Severus had brought his Parthian campaign to a hasty conclusion, for in the West Clodius Albinus, feeling his position insecure, had assumed the title of Augustus and occupied Gaul. Severus now elevated his eldest son Bassianus, better known as Caracalla, to the position of Caesar with the additional title of imperator designatus, and set out to meet the usurper. In a great battle at Lugdunum, in which 150,000 men are said to have fought on either side, the army of Severus was victorious and Albinus fell by his own hand (197 A. D.). Many of his adherents, including numerous senators, were put to death.

V. The Dynasty of the Severi, 197–235 a. d.

The Parthian war of 197–199 A. D. Severus was now unchallenged ruler of the empire. Shortly after the defeat of Albinus, he returned to the East and resumed hostilities against the Parthians, whose king, Vologases IV, had taken advantage of his absence to invade Armenia and Mesopotamia and was besieging Nisibis. Severus relieved the beleaguered town and pressed on into the enemy’s territory, where he sacked the two Parthian capitals, Seleucia and Ctesiphon, in 198 A. D. By a peace arranged in the next year northern Mesopotamia was ceded to Rome and was organized as a province under a governor of equestrian rank.

A military monarchy. Septimius Severus was a native of Leptis in Africa. He came from an equestrian family and had begun his official career as an advocate of the fiscus. To secure the prestige of noble lineage he caused himself to be proclaimed as the adopted son of Marcus Aurelius, and took the latter’s family name of Antoninus for himself and his house. His rule was frankly autocratic in character and he made no attempt to disguise the fact that his authority rested upon the support of the soldiery. Light is thrown upon Severus’ policy in general by the significant fact that under him Rome, which he adorned with magnificent structures, received the title sacra (sacred), a term regularly used to designate things under the control of the princeps. The activity of the Senate was limited to register[pg 254]ing its approval of his measures, and equestrians were appointed to military posts hitherto filled only by senators. The special privileges which Italy and the Italians had continued to enjoy were equally disregarded. The title proconsul, which Trajan and his successors had used in the provinces, was now employed by Severus in Italy. In 193 he disbanded the old praetorian guard, which had been recruited from Italy and the more thoroughly latinized provinces, and organized a new corps of picked troops drawn from the legions in general, but especially those of the Danubian army. Severus enrolled three new legions for the Parthian war and placed them under the command of equestrian prefects instead of senatorial legates. Two of these legions were stationed in Mesopotamia, but the third was quartered at the Alban Mount in Latium. This step had the effect of reducing Italy to the status of a garrisoned province, but it was probably taken with the view of providing a larger reserve force to supplement the frontier garrisons. Severus also was the author of many reforms which improved the conditions or increased the rewards of military service. The pay of the troops was raised, the legionaries were allowed to contract a legal marriage when in service, and the equestrian career was opened to veteran centurians. However, there seems to be no proof that Severus deliberately fostered the barbarization of the army by the exclusion of Italian centurians, or that he ruined the discipline of the soldiers by permitting the married legionaries to reside outside of barracks. To rescue the government from the state of insolvency into which it had been brought by his predecessors, Severus stood in need of a large sum of money. This he secured by confiscating the estates of the adherents of Niger and Albinus.

Of signal importance was the increase in the power of the praetorian prefecture at this time. This office was for a number of years held by a single prefect, Publius Fulvius Plautianus, whose daughter was married to the eldest son of Severus. However, his great power proved his undoing, and in 205 A. D. he was executed on a charge of treason made by his own son-in-law. At his death two prefects were again appointed, one of whom was Papinian, the greatest of all Roman jurists. His appointment seems to indicate a division between the military and the civil functions of the prefecture. For from this time the prefect exercised supreme jurisdiction over criminal cases in Italy beyond the hundredth milestone from the city, and in the matter of appeals from the judgments of provincial governors. [pg 255]In the absence of the princeps he also presided over the imperial judicial council. Following Papinian other eminent jurists filled this office. Furthermore, the supervision of the transportation of grain to Rome was transferred from the prefect of the grain supply to the praetorian prefect, and the former officer merely supervised its distribution within the city.

War in Britain, 208–211 A. D. Like Hadrian, Severus paid great attention to strengthening the frontier defences of the empire, particularly the fortifications which linked the Rhine and the Danube. In 208 A. D. when Britain was invaded by the Caledonians, he took the field, accompanied by his two sons. He reinforced Hadrian’s earthen wall between the Tyne and the Solway by a wall of stone, and carried on guerilla warfare against the tribes of the northern part of the island. However, they had not been completely pacified when he died at York in February, 211 A. D., leaving the principate to his sons, Caracalla and Geta, both of whom had previously received the title of Augustus.

Caracalla, 211–217 A. D. The bitter enmity which had long existed between the two brothers continued during a year of joint rule, and divided the empire into rival factions. Then Caracalla, who had previously sought to make himself sole ruler, succeeded in having Geta assassinated. Many of the latter’s friends, among them the prefect Papinian, were executed. Caracalla was cruel and vicious, and displayed no capacity for governing. He relied solely upon the goodwill of the soldiery and courted their support by increased pay and lavish donatives. In 212 A. D., by the famous Antonian Constitution (constitutio Antoniniana) he extended Roman citizenship to all the provincials of the empire, except those who were in a condition of vassalage, such as some of the barbarian peoples who had been settled on waste lands within the Roman borders, and not citizens of organized municipalities (dediticii). This act was the logical culmination of the policy of his predecessors who had granted citizenship to many provincial municipalities and had sanctioned its automatic extension to soldiers of the legions and auxiliary corps. Perhaps Caracalla’s chief motive was to supply a fresh source of income for the treasury, which was sadly depleted by his extravagances, for he greatly increased the number of those liable to the five per cent inheritance tax which fell only upon Roman citizens. A second motive may well have been the desire to secure a uniform[pg 256]ity of legal status and of municipal organization throughout the empire.

Germanic and Parthian wars. In 213 A. D. an attack of a confederacy of German tribes, the Alamanni, upon the Raetian frontier was successfully repelled, and in the next year Caracalla set out for the East, where he planned to conduct a Parthian war in imitation of the conquests of his idol, Alexander the Great. In 215, the Parthian king, Vologases V, came to terms, but when he was dethroned by his brother, Artabanos V, who refused Caracalla’s request for the hand of his daughter, Caracalla prepared to invade Parthian territory. But before he embarked on his venture he was assassinated by the order of the praetorian prefect Marcus Opellius Macrinus, April, 217 A. D.

Macrinus, 217–218 A. D. Macrinus was recognized without opposition as Caracalla’s successor, and bestowed upon his young son Diadumenianus the title of Caesar. He was the first princeps who had not attained senatorial rank. As a ruler he displayed moderation and good sense, but was lacking in force. He purchased peace from the Parthians, abolished oppressive taxes, and sought to lessen the military burden by cancelling the increases of pay which Caracalla had granted to the troops. This latter step cost him the support of the soldiery, and part of the Syrian army declared its allegiance to the fourteen-year-old Bassianus, a great-nephew of Julia Domna, the Syrian wife of Septimius Severus. Bassianus could claim to be a representative of the house of Severus, and consequently was hailed as Imperator under the name of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. However, he is better known as Elagabalus, for he was by hereditary right the priest of the Sun God worshipped under that name at Emesa.

Macrinus tried to suppress the revolt, but he was defeated near Antioch, and he and his son were captured and killed (June, 218 A. D.).

Elagabalus, 218–222 A. D. Thereupon Elagabalus was universally recognized as princeps and entered Rome in the following year. There he introduced the worship of the sun as the supreme deity of the Roman world, and added to the imperial title that of “most exalted priest of the Unconquered Sun God Elagabalus.” His rule was a riot of debauch, in which his associates were worthless favorites, whom he appointed to the highest offices. His grandmother, Julia Maesa, really conducted the government and, realizing his unfitness [pg 257]to rule, forced him to adopt his cousin Severus Alexander with the title of Caesar in 221 A. D. When Elagabalus sought to rid himself of his relative the praetorians forced him to make Alexander his colleague, and finally murdered him (March, 222 A. D.).

Severus Alexander, 222–235 A. D. Marcus Aurelius Severus Alexander was now sole ruler. However, since he was a mere youth, his mother, Julia Mamaea, daughter of Julia Maesa, exercised the powers of a regent. As he grew up Alexander showed himself well-meaning and conscientious, but lacking in self-reliance, and he never emancipated himself from his mother’s tutelage. During his rule the Senate enjoyed a temporary revival of influence. Two councils of senators, one of sixteen and one of seventy members, acted as an imperial cabinet and an advisory legislative council, respectively. At this time, too, the praetorian prefecture became a senatorial office in that it conferred senatorial rank upon its holder. An attempt was made to remedy public abuses, in particular to restore discipline among the troops, and to reduce the military expenditure. But the army had gotten out of hand, especially the praetorians, from whose anger Alexander was unable to protect the noted jurist Paul, who held the praetorian prefecture.

The new Persian empire. The widespread military insubordination was all the more dangerous since new and more aggressive foes began to threaten the integrity of the empire. In 227 A. D. the Parthian dynasty of the Arsacids was overthrown by the Persian Ardaschir (Artaxerxes) who founded the dynasty of the Sassanids. The establishment of this new Persian kingdom was accompanied by a revival of the national Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, and of the Persian claims to the eastern Roman provinces. In 231 the Persians drove the Roman troops out of Mesopotamia and penetrated Cappadocia and Syria. Alexander himself then went to the East, where he took the offensive in the following year. The details of his campaign are uncertain, but at any rate Mesopotamia was recovered and Alexander celebrated a triumph over the Persians in Rome (233 A. D.).

The Germanic campaign and death of Severus Alexander. But the northern frontier was threatened by the attacks of Germanic tribes, and in 234 Alexander assumed the conduct of operations on the Rhine, with his headquarters at Mainz. The barbarians were induced to make peace, but only by the payment of subsidies, and this cost Alexander the respect of the army, who were disgruntled [pg 258]at his policy of retrenchment and his subservience to his mother. A mutiny broke out, led by Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus, a Thracian of peasant origin who had risen from the ranks to high command. Alexander and Julia Mamaea were put to death, and Maximinus was proclaimed Augustus (March, 235 A. D.). With his accession began a half century of confusion and anarchy.

VI. The Dissolution and Restoration of the Empire: 235–285 a. d.

The end of the pax Romana. The period of fifty years from 235 to 285 A. D. is a prolonged repetition of the shorter epochs of civil war of 68–69 and 193–197 A. D. During this interval twenty-six Augusti, including such as were colleagues in the imperium, obtained recognition in Rome and of these only one escaped a violent death. In addition, there were numerous usurpers or “tyrants,” as candidates who failed to make good their claims to the principate were called. Almost all of these emperors were the nominees of the soldiery, and at least possessed military qualifications that were above the average. In general they conscientiously devoted themselves to the task of restoring order in the empire, but their efforts were in the main nullified by the treachery of their own troops and the rise of rival emperors.

The mutiny of the army. The main cause of this disorganization lay in the fact that the professional army had lost all sense of loyalty to the empire, an attitude already frequently evidenced by the praetorians, and by the legions also under Caracalla and his successors. Recruited, as the latter now were, almost entirely from the frontiers of the Roman world, they felt no community of interest with the inhabitants of the peaceful provinces and turned upon them, like unfaithful sheep dogs upon the flocks whom it was their duty to guard. The sole object of the troops was to enrich themselves by plunder and the extortion of high pay and frequent largesses from the emperor whom they supported. Hence, in the expectation of fresh rewards, each army hailed as Imperator the commander who had led it to victory over foreign foes or revolting soldiers of Rome.

Barbarian invasions. In addition to constant civil war, the Roman world was exposed to all the horrors of barbarian invasions. We have already noticed the rise of a new Persian state whose object was the reëstablishment of the empire as it had existed prior to the [pg 259]conquests of Alexander the Great. Likewise on the whole extent of the northern frontier new and more aggressive peoples assaulted and penetrated the frontier defences. On the North Sea coast, between the Rhine and the Weser were the Saxons whose ships raided the shores of Britain and Gaul. Facing the Romans along the lower Rhine were the Franks, along the upper Rhine the Alamanni, further east on the upper Danube the Marcomanni, while on the eastern frontier of Dacia and to the north of the Black Sea were situated the Goths and the Heruli. The withdrawal of troops from some sectors of the frontier to meet attacks at others and the neglect of their duty by the army corps who plunged into the maelstrom of civil war in support of various candidates for the imperial power gave the northern barbarians the opportunity to sweep down in destructive hordes upon the peaceful and undefended provinces.

Dissolution of the empire. The natural consequence of the failure of the imperial government to defend the provinces from hostile invasions was that the provincials began to take measures for their own protection and to transfer their allegiance from the Roman emperors to local authorities, who proved a more efficient help in time of trouble. These separatist tendencies were active both in the East and in the West and led to a temporary dissolution of the unity of the Empire.

Pestilence. A third scourge which afflicted the Roman world at this critical period was a pestilence which, originating in the East, entered the Empire about 252 A. D., and raged for fifteen years.

Valerian and Gallienus: 253–268 A. D. The fortunes of the Empire reached their lowest ebb under Valerian and his son Gallienus (253–268 A. D.). In 256, the Persians invaded Mesopotamia and Syria, and captured Antioch. Valerian at once undertook the defence of the eastern provinces, leaving Gallienus in charge of the West. Antioch was recovered, but when Valerian entered Mesopotamia to relieve the blockade of Edessa, he was defeated by the Persian king Sapor, and taken prisoner (258 A. D.). He died soon afterwards in captivity. The Persians not only reoccupied Antioch but also seized Tarsus in Cilicia and Caesarea in Cappadocia, and ravaged Asia Minor to the shores of the Aegean Sea.

While Valerian was waging his ill-fated war in the East, the rest of the empire was in a continual state of turmoil. In 257 the Goths and other peoples overran Dacia, crossed the Danube and penetrated [pg 260]as far south as Macedonia and Achaia. In 258 a revolt broke out in Mauretania. The Berber tribesmen, led by an able chief, Faraxen, invaded the province of Numidia, and were only reduced to submission by the capture of their leader (260 A. D.). At the same time the Alamanni broke into Raetia, and made their way over the Alps into the Po valley. Gallienus hastened to the rescue and defeated them near Milan. But in his absence in Italy the Franks crossed the Rhine and poured in devastating hordes over Gaul and Spain. The Roman possessions on the right bank of the Rhine were lost at this time and never recovered.

The empire of the Gauls. At the news of the death of Valerian the commander in Pannonia, Ingenuus, raised the standard of revolt. After defeating him, Gallienus found another serious rival in Regalianus, whom, however, he was likewise able to overcome. But at the same time (258 A. D.), Marcus Cassius Latinius Postumus, whom Gallienus had left in command in Gaul, assumed the imperial title, after a victory gained over a body of Franks. He was able to clear Gaul of its foes and make himself master of Britain and Spain. Gallienus was powerless to depose him. Postumus did not endeavor to establish a national Gallic state but regarded himself as exercising the Roman imperium in a portion of the empire. He fixed his capital at Trèves, and organized a senate and other institutions on the Roman model. His coins bore the inscription Roma Aeterna.

Palmyra. In the Orient the Persians were unable to retain their hold on Syria and Asia Minor. Their withdrawal was in large measure caused by the activities of Odaenathus, the ruler of the city of Palmyra, who inflicted a severe defeat upon Sapor and recovered Roman Mesopotamia. Thereupon two brothers, Fulvius Macrianus and Fulvius Quietus, sons of an officer who had distinguished himself against the Persians, were acclaimed as emperors in Asia Minor. However, the one was defeated in attempting to invade Europe and the other was overthrown by Odaenathus. In recognition of his services Gallienus bestowed upon him the title of “Commander of the East” (dux orientis), with the duty of protecting the East (264 A. D.). In Palmyra, he ruled as basileus, or king, and although he nominally acknowledged the overlordship of the Roman emperor, he was practically an independent sovereign.

The Goths. A fresh peril arose in the maritime raids of the Goths, Heruli, and other tribes who had seized the harbors on the [pg 261]north coast of the Black Sea. With the ships that they thus secured they ravaged the northern coast of Asia Minor as early as 256 A. D. In 262 they forced the passage of the Bosphorus and Hellespont and plundered the shores of the Aegean. Their most noted raid was in 267, when they sacked the chief cities of Greece, including Athens.

No less than eighteen usurpers, for the most part officers who had risen from the ranks, had unsuccessfully challenged the authority of Gallienus in the various provinces. At last, in 268 A. D., one of his leading generals, Aureolus, laid claim to the imperial title. Gallienus defeated him and was besieging him in Milan, when he was killed at the instigation of his officers, who proclaimed as his successor one of their own number, Marcus Aurelius Claudius.

Claudius Gothicus, 268–270 A. D. The rule of Claudius lasted only two years, in which his greatest achievement was the crushing defeat which he inflicted upon the Goths who had again overrun Greece and the adjacent lands (269 A. D.). This victory won him the name of Gothicus. Upon the death of Claudius in 270 A. D., the army chose Lucius Domitius Aurelianus as emperor.

Lucius Domitius Aurelianus, 270–275 A. D. Aurelian’s first task was to clear Italy and the Danubian provinces of barbarian invaders. Two incursions of the Alamanni into Raetia and Italy were repulsed, the latter with great slaughter. But the emperor recognized that the security of Italy could no longer be guaranteed and so he ordered the fortification of the Italian cities. The imposing wall which still marks the boundary of part of ancient Rome was begun by Aurelian. A horde of Vandals were beaten and driven out of Pannonia and a victory was won over the Goths in Moesia. But the exposed position of Dacia, and the fact that it was already in large part occupied by the barbarians, induced Aurelian to abandon it altogether. The rest of the Roman settlers were withdrawn to Moesia, where a new province of Dacia was formed behind the barrier of the Danube.

The overthrow of Palmyra. Aurelian was now ready to attempt his second and greater task, the restoration of imperial unity. And in this the East first claimed his attention. There Vaballathus, the son of Odaenathus, ruled over Palmyra, supported and directed by his mother, Zenobia. At the outset Aurelian had recognized his position but in 271 Vaballathus assumed the title of Augustus and thereby declared his independence of Roman suzerainty. He was [pg 262]able to extend his authority over Egypt and a great part of Asia Minor. In 272 Aurelian set out to bring back the East to its allegiance. He speedily recovered Asia Minor, and entered Syria, where he signally defeated the famous Palmyrene archers and mailed horsemen at Emesa. He then crossed the desert and laid siege to Palmyra itself. Zenobia tried to escape, but was taken, and the city surrendered. The queen and her family were carried off to Rome but Palmyra was at first spared. However, it rebelled again when Aurelian had set out for Rome. Thereupon the emperor returned with all speed and recaptured the city. This time it was utterly destroyed. The authority of Rome was once more firmly reëstablished in the East.

The reconquest of Gaul. Following his conquest of Palmyra, Aurelian proceeded to overthrow the already tottering empire of the Gauls. At the death of Postumus in 268, Spain and Narbonese Gaul had acknowledged the Roman emperor Claudius Gothicus. After several successors of Postumus had been overthrown by the mutinous Gallic soldiery, Publius Esuvius Tetricus was appointed emperor in Gaul and Britain. However, foreseeing the speedy dissolution of his empire, he secretly entered into negotiations with Aurelian. The latter invaded Gaul and met the Gallic army at the plain of Chalons. In the course of the battle, Tetricus went over to Aurelian, who won a complete victory. Britain and Gaul submitted to the conqueror (274 A. D.). Thus the unity of the empire was restored and Aurelian assumed the title of “Restorer of the World” (restitutor orbis).

Dominus et deus natus. Not only was Aurelian one of the greatest of Roman commanders; he also displayed sound judgment in his administration. Here his chief work was the suppression of the debased silver currency and the issuing of a much improved coinage. Aurelian regarded himself as an absolute monarch and employed on his coins the titles dominus et deus natus—“born Lord and God.” He likewise reëstablished in Rome the official cult of the Unconquered Sun God, previously introduced by Elagabalus. One of the characteristics of this cult was the belief that the monarch was the incarnation of the divine spirit, a belief which gave a moral justification to absolutism.

Probus, 276–282 A. D. Aurelian was murdered in 275 A. D., and was succeeded by Tacitus, who met a like fate after a rule of less than two years. He was followed by Marcus Aurelius Probus, an able Illyrian officer. Probus was called upon to repel fresh invasions [pg 263]of Germanic peoples, to subdue the rebellious Isaurians in Asia Minor and suppress a revolt in Egypt. Everywhere he successfully upheld the authority of the empire, but his strict discipline eventually cost him the favor of the soldiers who hailed as Imperator Marcus Aurelius Carus. Probus was put to death (282 A. D.). Like his predecessor, Carus was a general of great ability. He appointed his eldest son Carinus Augustus as his co-ruler, and left him in charge of the West while he embarked on a campaign against the Persians. This was crowned with complete success and terminated with the capture of Ctesiphon. But on his return march he died, probably at the hands of his troops (283 A. D.). His younger son, the Caesar Numerianus, who took command of the army, was assassinated by the praetorian prefect Aper. However, the choice of the army fell upon Gaius Valerius Aurelius Diocletianus, who assumed the imperial title in September, 284 A. D. But Carinus had retained his hold upon the West and advanced to crush Diocletian. In the course of a battle at the river Margus in Moesia he was murdered by his own officers (285 A. D.), and with the victory of Diocletian a new period of Roman history begins.

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Chapter XIX

The Public Administration Under the Principate

I. The Victory of Autocracy

The senate and the appointment of the princeps. In the preceding chapters we have traced in outline the political history of the principate to the point where it had become an undisguised military autocracy. This change is clearly seen in connection with the imperial nomination. The appointment to the principate originally involved the conferment of the imperium, the tribunician power and other rights and privileges. The imperium might be bestowed either by a senatorial decree or through the acclamation as imperator by a part of the soldiery. Each of these forms was regarded as valid, but was regularly confirmed by the other. But the tribunician authority and the remaining powers of the princeps were conferred only by a decree of the Senate, confirmed, during the first century at least, by a vote of the Assembly of the Centuries. However, after the accession of Carus (282 A. D.), the Senate, which could no longer claim to exercise any authority in the state, ceased to participate in the appointment of the new ruler. This marks the formal end of the principate.

The Senate’s loss of administrative power. I. Rome and Italy. The constitutional history of the principate is the story of the gradual absorption of the Senate’s powers by the princeps and the supplanting of the Senate’s officers by those in the imperial service. It has been well said that Augustus aimed at the impossible when he sought to be the chief magistrate in the state without being at the same time the head of the administration. He had intended that the Senate should conduct the administration of Rome, Italy and the ungarrisoned provinces, but, as we have seen, he himself had been brought by force of circumstances to take the initial steps in infringing upon the Senate’s prerogatives. Not only did he take over the [pg 265]duties of provisioning and policing the city by establishing the prefectures of the grain supply and the watch, but he also assumed responsibility for the upkeep of the public buildings, streets and aqueducts of Rome, as well as the highways of Italy. These departments of public works were put in charge of commissioners of senatorial rank, called curators, whom the princeps nominated. However, from the time of Claudius equestrian officials, entitled procurators, were appointed to these departments and became their real directors. Finally, under Septimius Severus, the senatorial curators were dispensed with.

II. The aerarium. Augustus had left to the Senate the control of the public treasury, the aerarium, which was maintained by revenues from the senatorial provinces and Italy. But when the princeps came to assume control of those branches of the administration the expense of which was defrayed by the aerarium, it was inevitable that the treasury itself should pass in some degree under his supervision. And so in 44 A. D. the princeps began to designate two quaestors to be in charge of the treasury for a three-year period. Under Nero the place of these quaestors was taken by two prefects appointed in the same manner but from among the ex-praetors. The importance of the aerarium declined in proportion as its revenues passed into the hands of the ministers of the princeps, until in the period between Septimius Severus and Diocletian it sank to the position of a municipal chest for the city of Rome.

III. The senatorial provinces. In the early principate the senatorial provinces were administered by appointees of the Senate, all of whom now bore the title of proconsul, assisted as in former days by quaestors. However, only the proconsul of Africa was at the same time commander of a provincial garrison, and his command was transferred to the imperial governor of Numidia by Caligula. Even in the time of Augustus the imperial procurators had appeared in the senatorial provinces in charge of the revenues which were at the disposal of the princeps, and, before the close of the third century they were in complete control of the financial administration of these provinces. But long before this, by the opening of the second century, the princeps had usurped the Senate’s privilege of appointing the proconsuls. The result was that by the close of the principate all the provinces without distinction were equally under imperial control.

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Restriction of Senate’s elective powers. It was Tiberius who transferred to the Senate the electoral functions of the Assembly but he, as Augustus before him, limited the Senate’s freedom of action by the recommendation of imperial candidates for the lower magistracies. From the time of Nero the consulship also was regularly filled by nominees of the emperors. The custom of appointing several successive consular pairs in the course of each year, each pair functioning for two or four months, greatly weakened the influence of the consulate, while it enabled the emperors to gratify the ambitions of a larger number of candidates for that office.

Loss of legislative functions. The rapid disappearance of the Assembly resulted in the transfer of its sovereign legislative powers to the Senate. The decrees of the Senate thus acquired the validity of laws and after the time of Nerva comitial legislation completely ceased. However, the influence of the princeps encroached more and more upon the legislative freedom of the Senate until in the time of the Severi the senatorial decrees were merely proclamations of the princeps (orationes principis) which were read to the Senate and approved by it. Furthermore, the princeps developed independent legislative power and by the middle of the second century the ordinances or constitutions of the princeps had acquired the force of law. Early in the third century legislation of this type altogether superseded the senatorial decrees. The imperial constitutions included edicts, decreta, or judicial verdicts, responses to the petitions of officers of the princeps or private citizens, and mandates or instructions to his subordinates. Originally, the edicts were only valid during the principate of their author and the other forms of constitutions merely applied to special cases. However, in course of time, they all alike came to be recognized as establishing rules of public and private law which remained in force unless they were specifically revoked by another imperial constitution.

The administration of justice. The republican system of civil and criminal jurisdiction was inherited by the principate, and the courts of the praetors continued to function for Rome and Italy, while the proconsuls were in charge of the administration of justice in the senatorial provinces. In addition the Senate, under the presidency of the consuls, acted as a tribunal for the trial of political offences and criminal charges brought against members of the senatorial order. The Senate also served as a court of appeals from the [pg 267]decisions of the proconsuls. But from the time of Augustus the princeps exercised an unlimited right of jurisdiction which enabled him to take cases under his personal cognizance (cognitio), or appoint a delegate to try them. The imperial officials administered justice in their respective spheres by virtue of delegated authority and consequently appeals from their courts were directed to the princeps. The development of judicial functions by the military and administrative officials of the princeps in Rome—the praetorian prefect, the city prefect, the prefects of the watch and the prefect of the grain supply—seriously encroached upon the judicial power of the praetors. In addition, the consulares of Hadrian, and the iuridici of Marcus Aurelius further limited the sphere of the praetorian courts. Ultimately, under Septimius Severus, we find the city prefect as the supreme judicial authority for all criminal cases arising in Rome or within a radius of one hundred miles of the city and also exercising appellate jurisdiction in civil cases within the same limits, subject however, to an appeal to the court of the princeps. For the rest of Italy, the court of the praetorian prefect was now the highest tribunal in both criminal and civil suits. By this time also the princeps had acquired supreme appellate jurisdiction for the whole empire, a power which was regularly exercised by the praetorian prefect acting in his place, In the third century the Senate ceased to exercise any judicial authority whatever.

As a result of the above processes the princeps became in the end the sole source of legislative, administrative and judicial authority. The republican magistrates had become practically municipal officers, and one of them, the aedileship, disappeared in the third century. The complete victory of the princeps over the Senate is marked by the exclusion of senators from military commands under Gallienus, and their removal from the provincial governorships in which they had continued to exercise civil authority between the time of Aurelian and the accession of Diocletian.

The friction between the Senate and the princeps. It might be thought that owing to the gradual admission to the Senate of the nominees of the princeps that harmony would have been established between the two administrative heads of the state. But although this new nobility was thoroughly loyal to the principate, they proved just as tenacious of the rights of the Senate as the descendants of the older nobility who preserved the tradition of senatorial rule. Au[pg 268]gustus and Tiberius endeavored to govern in concord with the Senate by organizing an advisory council appointed from the Senate, but their successors abandoned the practice. The friction between the princeps and the Senate was due in part to the realization that it was from the senatorial order that rivals might arise and in part to the fact that those emperors who did not interpret their position, as did Augustus, in the light of a magistracy responsible to the Senate, were bound to regard the Senate’s powers as restrictions upon their own freedom of action, and as an unnecessary complication of the administration. The chief services of the Senate were to provide a head for the government when the principate was vacant, and to furnish the only means for the expression of opinion with regard to the character of the administration of the individual emperors. The spontaneous deification or the damnatio memoriae of a deceased princeps was not without weight, for it expressed the opinion of the most influential class in the state.

While the Senate as a body was thus stripped of its power, the senatorial order remained a powerful class. Originally embracing the chief landholders of Italy, it came to include those of the whole empire. Collectively the senators lost in influence, but individually they gained. By the end of the second century the senatorial order had acquired an hereditary title, that of clarissimus (most noble), indicative of their rank.

II. The Growth of the Civil Service

The first steps. The necessary counterpart to the assumption of administrative duties by the princeps was the development of an imperial civil service, the officials of which were nominated by the princeps, and promoted or removed at his pleasure. In this Augustus had taken the first steps by the establishment of equestrian procuratorships and prefectures, and the opening up of an equestrian career, but the number of these posts greatly increased with the extension of the administrative sphere of the princeps at the expense of the Senate. The idea of conducting the government through various departments manned by permanent salaried officials was absolutely foreign to the Roman republic, which only employed such servants for clerical positions of minor importance in Rome. However, the chaotic conditions which had resulted from the republican system showed the need of a [pg 269]change, and the concentration of a large share of the administration in the hands of the princeps both required and gave the opportunity for the development of an organized civil service. This development was unquestionably stimulated and influenced by the incorporation in the Roman empire of the kingdom of Egypt, which possessed a highly organized bureaucratic system that continued to function unchanged in its essential characteristics.

The imperial secretaryships. At first the imperial civil service lacked system and there was little or no connection between the various administrative offices in Italy and in the provinces. Augustus and his immediate successors conducted the administration as part of their private business, keeping in touch with the imperial officials through the private secretaries of their own households, that is to say, their freedmen, who, in another capacity, conducted the management of the private estate of the princeps. An important change was introduced under Claudius, when his influential freedmen caused the creation within the imperial household of a number of secretaryships with definite titles that indicated the sphere of their duties. The chief of these secretaryships were the a rationibus, the ab epistulis, the a libellis, the a cognitionibus and the a studiis. The a rationibus acted as a secretary of the treasury, being in charge of the finances of the empire which were controlled by the princeps; the ab epistulis was a secretary for correspondence, who prepared the orders which the princeps issued to his officials and other persons; the a libellis was a secretary for petitions, who received all requests addressed to the princeps; the a cognitionibus served as a secretary for the imperial inquests, entrusted with the duty of preparing the information necessary for the rendering of the imperial decision in the judicial investigations personally conducted by the princeps (cognitiones); and the a studiis, or secretary of the records, had the duty of searching out precedents for the guidance of the princeps in the conduct of judicial or administrative business. The establishment of these secretaryships in the imperial household tended to centralize more completely the imperial administration and to give it greater uniformity and regularity. At the same time the influence of the freedmen who occupied these important positions was responsible for the admission of freedmen to many of the minor administrative procuratorships. It was under Claudius also that the preliminary military career of the procurators was more definitely fixed.

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The reforms of Hadrian and Septimius Severus. Hadrian took the next decisive step in the development of the central administrative offices when he transformed the secretaryships of the imperial household into secretaryships of state by filling them with equestrians of procuratorial rank in place of imperial freedmen. From this time the latter were restricted to minor positions in the various departments. Under Hadrian also there was a marked increase in the number of administrative procuratorships owing to the final abolition of the system of farming the revenues and their subsequent direct collection by imperial officials as well as the establishment of the public post as a means of intercourse throughout all the provinces. It was possibly with the object of supplying the necessary officials to undertake these new tasks that Hadrian created the office of the advocate of the fiscus as an alternative for the preliminary military career of the procurators.

Septimius Severus, as we have seen, opened the posts of the civil administration to veteran officers upon the completion of a long period of military service. Thus, although a purely civil career was established, which led ultimately to the highest prefectures, nevertheless, during the principate the civil administrative offices were never completely separated from the traditional preliminary military service. It was Septimius Severus also who made the praetorian prefect, as the representative of the princeps, the head of the civil as well as of the military administration.

The salary and titles of the equestrian officials. The ordinary career of an official in the imperial civil service included a considerable number of procuratorships in various branches of the administration, both in Rome, Italy and the provinces. Although from the time of Augustus a definite salary was attached to each of these offices, it was not until after the reforms of Hadrian that four distinct classes of procurators were recognized on the basis of the relative importance of their offices expressed in terms of pay. These four classes of procurators were the tercenarii, ducenarii, centenarii and sexagenarii, who received respectively an annual salary of 300,000, 200,000, 100,000 and 60,000 sesterces; this classification remained unchanged until the close of the third century. At that time the highest class included the imperial secretaries of state, whose title was now that of magister, or master. The salary of the four chief prefectures was probably higher still.

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Following the example of the senatorial order, the equestrians also acquired titles of honor, which depended upon their official rank. From the time of Hadrian the title vir eminentissimus (most eminent) was the prerogative of the praetorian prefects. Under Marcus Aurelius appear two other equestrian titles, vir perfectissimus and vir egregius. In the third century the latter was borne by all the imperial procurators, while the former was reserved for the higher prefectures (apart from the praetorian), the chief officials of the treasury and the imperial secretaries.

Administration of the finances: (I). The Fiscus. The most important branch of the civil administration was that of the public finances, which merits special consideration. Augustus did not centralize the administration of the provincial revenues which were at his disposal, but created a separate treasury or fiscus for each imperial province. However, he did establish the aerarium militare at Rome for the control of the revenues destined for the pensioning of veteran troops. Furthermore, Augustus drew a sharp distinction between the public revenues which were administered by the princeps in his magisterial capacity, and the income from his own private property or patrimony. For the expenditure of the former he acknowledged a strict accountability to the Senate. The policy of Augustus was followed by Tiberius and Caligula, but under Claudius a central fiscus was organized at Rome for the administration of all the public revenues of the princeps. The provincial fisci disappeared, and the military treasury became a department of the fiscus. This new imperial fiscus was under the direction of the a rationibus. From this time the princeps ceased to hold himself accountable for the expenditure of the public imperial revenues, and the fiscus assumes an independent position alongside of the old aerarium of the Roman people, which, as we have shown, it ultimately deprived of all share in the control of the public finances. However, the distinction between the public and private revenues of the princeps was still observed, and the patrimonium was independently administered by a special procurator.

(II). The Patrimonium. But with the extinction of the Julio-Claudian house and the accession of Vespasian the patrimony of the Caesars passed as an appendage of the principate to the new ruler. It then became state property, and as it had grown to enormous size owing to the inheritances of Augustus and the confiscations of Caligula [pg 272]and Nero, the patrimonium was organized as an independent branch of the imperial financial administration. The personal estate of the princeps was henceforth distinguished as the patrimonium privatum. This situation continued until the accession of Septimius Severus, whose enormous confiscations of the property of the adherents of Niger and Albinus were incorporated in his personal estate. This, the patrimonium privatum, was now placed under a new department of the public administration called the ratio or res privata. The old patrimonium became a subordinate branch of the fiscus. The title of the secretary of the treasury in charge of the fiscus was now changed to that of rationalis, while the new secretary in charge of the privy purse was called at first procurator, and later magister, rei privatae. The reform of Severus, which gave to the private income of the princeps a status in the administration comparable to that of the public revenues, is a further expression of the monarchical tendencies of his rule.

The officiales. The subaltern personnel of the various bureaus, the clerks, accountants, etc., during the first two centuries of the principate was composed almost entirely of imperial freedmen and slaves. Among these there was apparently no fixed order of promotion or uniform system of pay, nor could they ever advance to the higher ranks of the service. However, from the time of Severus soldiers began to be employed in these capacities and a military organization was introduced into the bureaus. The way was thus gradually paved for completely dispensing with the services of freedmen and slaves in any part of the civil administration.

III. The Army and the Defence of the Frontiers

The barbarization of the army. It will be recalled that the military policy of Augustus aimed at securing the supremacy of the Roman element in the empire by restricting admission to the legions to Roman citizens or to freeborn inhabitants of provincial municipalities who received a grant of citizenship upon entering the service. The gradual abandonment of this policy is one of the most significant facts in the military history of the principate.

The territorial recruitment of the legions. Under the Augustan system the legions in the West were recruited from Italy and the romanized provinces of the West, the eastern legions from the Greek [pg 273]East and Galatia. But the increasing reluctance of the Italians to render military service led to the practical, although not to the theoretical, exemption of Italy from this burden which now rested more heavily upon the latinized provinces. An innovation of utmost importance was the introduction of the principle of territorial recruitment for the legions by Hadrian. Henceforth these corps were recruited principally from the provinces in which they were stationed, and consequently freedom from the levy was extended to the ungarrisoned provinces, Baetica, Narbonese Gaul, Achaia and Asia. The effect of Hadrian’s reform is well illustrated by a comparison of the various racial elements in the legions stationed in Egypt under the early principate with those in the same legions in the time of Marcus Aurelius. The lists of the veterans discharged from these legions under Augustus or Tiberius show that fifty per cent were recruited from Galatia, twenty-five per cent from the Greek municipalities in Egypt, fifteen per cent from Syria and the Greek East, and the remainder from the western provinces. A similar list from 168 A. D. shows sixty-five per cent from Egypt, the remainder from the Greek East, and none from Galatia or the West. In general, the consequence of Hadrian’s policy was to displace gradually in the legions the more cultured element by the more warlike, but less civilized, population from the frontiers of the provinces. It was Hadrian also who opened the pretorian guard to provincials from Spain, Noricum and Macedonia. As we have seen, Severus recruited the pretorians from the legions and so deprived the more thoroughly latinized parts of the empire of any real representation in the ranks of the army.

The auxiliaries. The auxiliary corps, unlike the legions, were not raised by Augustus from Roman citizens but from the non-Roman provincials and allies. At first they were recruited and stationed in their native provinces, but after the revolt of the Batavi in 68 A. D. they were regularly quartered along distant frontiers. From the time of Hadrian, they were generally recruited, in the same manner as the legions, from the districts in which they were in garrison. The extension of Roman citizenship to practically the whole Roman world by Caracalla in 212 A. D. removed the basic distinction between the legions and the auxiliaries.

The numeri. A new and completely barbarous element was introduced by Hadrian into the Roman army by the organization of the [pg 274]so-called numeri, corps of varying size, recruited from the non-Romanized peoples on the frontiers, who retained their local language, weapons and methods of warfare but were commanded by Roman prefects. The conquered German peoples settled on Roman soil by Marcus Aurelius and his successors supplied contingents of this sort.

The strength of the army. At the death of Augustus the number of the legions was twenty-five; under Vespasian it was thirty; and Severus increased it to thirty-three, totalling over 180,000 men. A corresponding increase had been made in the numbers of the auxiliaries. From about 150,000 in the time of Augustus they had increased to about 220,000 in the second century. The total number of troops in the Roman service at the opening of the third century was therefore about 400,000; one of the largest professional armies the world has ever seen.

The system of frontier defence. A second momentous fact in the military history of the principate was the transformation of the army from a field force into garrison troops. This was the result of the system developed for the defence of the frontiers. Augustus, for the first time in the history of the Roman state endeavored to preclude the possibility of indefinite expansion by attaining a frontier protected by natural barriers beyond which the Roman power should not be extended. Roughly speaking these natural defences of the empire were the ocean on the west, the Rhine and the Danube on the north, and the desert on the east and south. At strategic points behind this frontier Augustus stationed his troops in large fortified camps, in which both legionaries and auxiliaries were quartered. These camps served as bases of operations and from them military roads were constructed to advantageous points on the frontier itself to permit the rapid movement of troops for offensive or defensive purposes. Such roads were called limites or “boundary paths,” a name which subsequently was used in the sense of frontiers. These limites were protected by small forts manned by auxiliary troops.

The fortification of the limites. Although Claudius and Vespasian discarded the maxims of Augustus in favor of an aggressive border policy they adhered to his system for protecting their new acquisitions in Britain and the Agri Decumates. However, these conquests and that of the Wetterau region by Domitian pushed the frontier beyond the line of natural defences and led to the attempt to construct an artificial barrier as a substitute. It was Domitian who took [pg 275]the initial step in this direction by fortifying the limites between the Rhine and Main, and the Main and the Neckar, with a chain of small earthen forts connected by a line of wooden watchtowers. To the rear of this advanced line there were placed larger stone forts, each garrisoned by a corps of auxiliaries, and connected by roads to the posts on the border. While the auxiliary troops were thus distributed along the frontiers in small detachments, the larger legionary cantonments were broken up, and after 89 A. D. no camp regularly contained more than a single legion. Trajan, who also waged his frontier wars offensively, merely improved the system of communication between the border provinces by building military highways along the line of the frontier from the Rhine to the Black Sea, in Arabia, and in Africa.

In the matter of frontier defence, as in so many other spheres, a new epoch begins with Hadrian. He reverted abruptly to the defensive policy of Augustus and began to fortify the limites on a more elaborate scale. The frontier between the Rhine and the Danube was protected by an unbroken line of ditch and palisade, in which stone forts, each large enough for an auxiliary cohort, took the place of the earthen forts of Domitian. At the same time the limes was shortened and straightened, and the secondary line of forts abandoned. In Britain a wall of turf was constructed from the Tyne to the Solway, and in the Dobrudja a similar wall linked the Danube to the Black Sea. The eastern frontier of Dacia was likewise defended by a line of fortifications. Here, as on the other borders, the Roman sphere of influence, and even of military occupation, extended beyond the fortified limes.

Antonius Pius followed Hadrian’s example and ran an earthen rampart with forts at intervals from the Forth to the Clyde in northern Britain. This line of defence was abandoned by Septimius Severus, who rebuilt Hadrian’s rampart in the form of a stone wall with small forts at intervals of a mile and intervening watch towers. In addition seventeen larger forts were constructed along the line of the wall. The limes in Germany was strengthened by the addition of a ditch and earthen wall behind Hadrian’s palisade, but along the so-called Raetian limes, between the Danube and the Main, another stone wall, 110 miles long, took the place of the earlier defences. A similar change was made in the fortifications of the Dobrudja. However, this system was not followed out in the East or in Africa, where the limes was guarded merely by a chain of blockhouses.

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The consequences of permanent fortifications. The result of the construction of permanent fortifications along the frontier was the complete immobilization of the auxiliary corps. Stationed continuously as they were for the most part in the same sectors from early in the second century, and recruited, in increasing proportion, from among the children of the camps, it only required the granting to them of frontier lands by Severus Alexander, upon condition of their defending them, to complete their transformation into a border militia (limitanei). At the same time the scattering of the legions along the line of the frontiers made the assembling of any adequate mobile force a matter of considerable time. And the fortifications themselves, while useful in checking predatory raids by isolated bands and in regulating intercourse across the frontiers, proved incapable of preventing the invasion of larger forces. Consequently, when in the third century the barbarians broke through the limites they found no forces capable of checking them until they had penetrated deeply into the heart of the provinces.

The chaos which followed the death of Severus Alexander was the result of a military policy which left the richest and most highly civilized parts of the empire without any means of self-defence; created a huge professional army the rank and file of which had come to lose all contact with the ungarrisoned provinces, all interest in the maintenance of an orderly government and all respect for civil authority; and at the same time rendered the army itself incapable of performing the task for which it was organized.

On the other hand the army had been one of the most influential agents in the spread of the material and cultural aspects of Roman civilization. The great highways of the empire, bridges, fortifications and numerous public works of other sorts were constructed by the soldiers. Every camp was a center for the spread of the Latin language and Roman institutions and the number of Roman citizens was being augmented continuously by the stream of discharged auxiliaries whose term of service had expired. In the canabae, or villages of the civilian hangers-on of the army corps, sprang up organized communities of Roman veterans with all the institutions and material advantages of municipal life. The constant movement of troops from one quarter of the empire to another furnished a ready medium for the exchange of cultural, in particular of religious, ideas. To the ideal of the empire the army remained loyal throughout the [pg 277]principate, although this loyalty came at length to be interpreted in the light of its own particular interests. Not only was the army the support of the power of the princeps; it was also the mainstay of the pax Romana which endured with two brief interruptions from the battle of Actium to the death of Severus Alexander and was the necessary condition for the civilizing mission of Rome.

IV. The Provinces under the Principate

It is to the provinces that one must turn to win a true appreciation of the beneficial aspects of Roman government during the principate. As Mommsen has said: “It is in the agricultural towns of Africa, in the homes of the vine-dressers on the Moselle, in the flourishing townships of the Lycian mountains, and on the margin of the Syrian desert that the work of the imperial period is to be sought and found.” In this sphere the chief tasks of the principate were the correction of the abuses of the republican administration and the extension of Graeco-Roman civilization over the barbarian provinces of the west and north. How well this latter work was done is attested not merely by the material remains of once flourishing communities but also by the extent to which the civilization of Western Europe rests upon the basis of Roman culture.

Number of the provinces. At the establishment of the principate there were about thirteen provinces, at the death of Augustus twenty-eight, and under Hadrian forty-five. In the course of the third century the latter number was considerably increased. The new provinces were formed partly by the organization of newly conquered countries as separate administrative districts and partly by the subdivision of larger units. At times this subdivision was made in order to relieve a governor of an excessively heavy task and to improve the administration, and at times it proceeded from a desire to lessen the dangers of a revolt of the army by breaking up the larger military commands.

Senatorial and imperial provinces. As we have seen the provinces were divided into two classes, senatorial or public and imperial or Caesarian, corresponding to the division of administrative authority between the Senate and the princeps. The general principle laid [pg 278]down by Augustus that the garrisoned provinces should come under the authority of the princeps was adhered to, and consequently certain provinces were at times taken over by the latter in view of military necessities while others were given up by him to the Senate. As a rule newly organized provinces were placed under imperial governors, so that these soon came to outnumber the appointees of the Senate. Eventually, as has been observed in connection with the history of the civil service, the public provinces passed completely into the hands of the princeps.

Administrative officials. The governors of the senatorial provinces were entitled proconsuls, even if they were of pretorian rank. However, Asia and Africa were reserved for ex-consuls. Following the law of Pompey, a period of five years intervened between the holding of a magistracy and a promagisterial appointment. Each proconsul was assisted by a quaestor, and by three propraetorian legati whose appointment was approved by the princeps. The imperial governors were of two classes, legati Augusti and procurators. In the time of Hadrian there were eleven proconsuls, twenty-four legati Augusti and nine procurators, besides the prefect of Egypt. The subordinates of the legati Augusti were the legates in command of the legions, and the fiscal procurators. The procuratorial governors, at first called prefects, were equestrians, and were placed in command of military districts of lesser importance which were garrisoned by auxiliaries only. An exception to this practice was made in the case of Egypt, which senators were forbidden to enter, and which was governed by a prefect who ranked next to the praetorian prefect and had under his orders a garrison of three legions. These governmental procurators had, in addition to their military duties, the task of supervising financial administration. The title praeses (plural praesides) which was used in the second century for the imperial governors of senatorial rank, came to designate the equestrian governors when these supplanted the legati in the latter half of the third century.

As under the republic, the governors exercised administrative, judicial, and, in the imperial provinces, military authority. However, with the advent of the principate the government of the empire aimed to secure the welfare and not the spoliation of its subjects, and hence a new era dawned for the provinces. All the governors now received fixed salaries and thus one of their chief temptations to abuse their power was removed. Oppressive governors were still to be found, but [pg 279]they were readily brought to justice—the senatorial governors before the Senate and the imperial before the princeps—and condemnations, not acquittals, were the rule. It was from the exactions of the imperial fiscal procurators rather than those of the governors that the provinces suffered under the principate. Although the term of the senatorial governors, as before, was limited to one year, tried imperial appointees were frequently kept at their posts for a number of years in the interests of good government.

It has been mentioned before that under Augustus the taxation of the provinces was revised to correspond more closely to their taxpaying capacity. Under the principate these taxes were of two kinds, direct or tributa and indirect or vectigalia. The tributa, consisted of a poll-tax (tributum capitis), payable by all who had not Roman or Latin citizenship, and a land and property tax (tributum soli), from which only communities whose land was granted the status of Italian soil (ius Italicum) were exempt. The chief indirect taxes were the customs dues (portoria), the five per cent tax on the value of emancipated slaves, possibly the one per cent tax on sales, and the five per cent inheritance tax which was levied on Roman citizens only. In the imperial provinces the land tax was a fixed proportion of the annual yield of the soil, whereas in the senatorial provinces it was a definite sum (stipendium) annually fixed for each community.

The principate did not break abruptly with the republican practice of employing associations of publicani in collecting the public revenues. It is true that they had been excluded from Asia by Julius Caesar, and it is possible that Augustus dispensed with them for the raising of the direct taxes in the imperial provinces, but even in the time of Tiberius they seem to have been active in connection with the tributa in some of the senatorial provinces. Their place in the imperial provinces was taken by the procurator and his agents, in the senatorial at first by the proconsul assisted by the taxpaying communities themselves and later by imperial officials.

On the other hand the indirect taxes long continued to be raised exclusively by the corporations of tax collectors in all the provinces. However, the operations of these publicani were strictly supervised by the imperial procurators. In place of the previous custom of paying a fixed sum to the state in return for which they acquired a right to the total returns from the taxes in question, the publicani now received a fixed percentage of the amount actually collected. Under [pg 280]Hadrian the companies of publicani engaged in collecting the customs dues began to be superseded by individual contractors (conductores), who like the companies received a definite proportion of the amount raised. About the time of Commodus the system of direct collection by public officials was introduced and the contractors gave way to imperial procurators. In the same way, the five percent taxes on inheritances and manumissions were at first farmed out, but later (under Hadrian in the case of the former) collected directly by agents of the state.

The municipalities. Each province was an aggregate of communes (civitates), some of which were organized towns, while others were tribal or village communities. From the opening of the principate it became a fixed principle of imperial policy to convert the rural communities into organized municipalities, which would assume the burden of local administration. Under the Republic the provincial communities had been grouped into the three classes, free and federate (liberae et foederatae), free and immune (liberae et immunes), and tributary (stipendiariae). In addition to these native communities there had begun to appear in the provinces Roman and Latin colonies. Towards the close of the Republic and in the early principate the majority of the free communities lost their immunity from taxation and became tributary. Some of them exchanged the status of federate allies of Rome for that of Roman colonies. During the same period the number of colonies of both types was greatly increased by the founding of new settlements or the planting of colonists in provincial towns. Some of the latter also acquired the status of Roman municipalities. Thus arose a great variety of provincial communities, which is well illustrated by conditions in the Spanish province of Baetica (Farther Spain) under Vespasian. At that time this province contained nine colonies and eight municipalities of Roman citizens; twenty-nine Latin towns; six free, three federate, and one hundred and twenty tributary communities.

We have already mentioned the policy of transforming rural communities into organized municipalities. How rapidly this transformation took place may be gathered from the fact that in Tarraconesis (Hither Spain) the number of rural districts sunk from one hundred and fourteen to twenty-seven between the time of Vespasian and that of Hadrian. A parallel movement was the conversion of the native towns into Roman colonies and municipalities, often through the [pg 281]transitional stage of Latin communities, a status that now existed in the provinces only. The acquirement of Roman or Latin status brought exemption from the poll-tax, while the former opened the way to all the civil and military offices of the empire. An added advantage was won with the charter of a Roman colony, for this usually involved immunity from the land tax also. The last step in the Romanization of the provincial towns was Caracalla’s edict of 212 A. D. which conferred Roman citizenship upon all non-Roman municipalities throughout the empire.

The three Gauls and Egypt. From this municipalization of the provinces two districts were at first excluded on grounds of public policy. These districts were the three Gauls (Aquitania, Lugdunensis and Belgica) and Egypt. At the time of its conquest Gaul was a rich agricultural country, with sharply defined tribal communities, but little or no city development. This condition Augustus judged well adapted, under strict imperial control, to furnishing recruits and supplies of money and kind for the great army of the Rhine. Therefore he continued the division of Gaul in tribal units (civitates), sixty-four in number, each controlled by its native nobility. His policy was in general adhered to for about two hundred years, but in the course of the third century the municipal system was introduced by converting the chief town of each civitas into a municipality with the rest of the civitas as its territorium or district under its administrative control.

In Egypt Augustus by right of conquest was the heir of the Ptolemies and was recognized by the Egyptians proper as “king of upper Egypt and king of lower Egypt, lord of the two lands, autocrator, son of the Sun.” For the Greek residents he was an absolute deified ruler of the Hellenistic type. Thus Egypt, although a part of the Roman empire, was looked upon as subject to the rule of the princeps alone. And, as in the theory of government, so in the political institutions of the country the Romans adapted to their purposes existing conditions in place of introducing radical changes.

In the time of Augustus there were three Greek towns in Egypt, Alexandria the capital, Ptolemais and Naucratis. To these Hadrian added a third, Antinoopolis. Ptolemais, Naucratis and Antinoopolis enjoyed municipal institutions, but Alexandria because of the turbulence of its population was ruled by imperial officials following the [pg 282]Ptolemaic practice. The rest of the population of the country lived in villages throughout the Nile Valley, which was divided for administrative purposes into thirty-six districts called nomes (nomoi). The bulk of the land of Egypt was imperial or public domain land, and the great majority of the Egyptian population were tenants on the imperial domain. For the collection of the land tax, poll tax, professional and other taxes, for the supervision of irrigation, and for the maintenance of the public records of the cultivated acreage and the population (for which a census was taken every fourteen years) there had been developed a highly organized bureaucracy with central offices at Alexandria and agents in each of the nomes. This system of government was maintained by the Romans, and profoundly influenced the organization of the imperial civil service. At the head of the administration of Egypt stood the prefect, an equestrian because of his position as a personal employee of the princeps, and because the power concentrated in his hands would have proved a dangerous temptation to a senator. The chief burden laid upon Egypt was to supply one third of the grain consumed at Rome, or about 5,000,000 bushels annually. This amount was drawn partly from the land tax which was paid in kind and partly from grain purchased by the government.

The first step towards spreading municipal government throughout all Egypt was taken in 202 A. D., when Septimius Severus organized a boule, or senate of the Greek type, in Alexandria and in the metropolis or seat of administration of each nome. His object was to create in each metropolis a body which could be made to assume definite responsibilities in connection with the administration. However, it was not until after Diocletian that these villages received a full municipal organization.

The principate’s greatest service to the provinces was the gift of two and a half centuries of orderly government, which led in many quarters to a material development unequalled in these regions before or since. It is in these centuries that the history of Rome becomes the history of the provinces. At the opening of the period the Italians occupied a privileged position within the empire, at its close they and their one-time subjects were on the same level. The army and the senatorial and equestrian orders had been thoroughly provincialized, and the emperors had come to be as a rule of provincial birth. Rome was still the seat of the administration, but this and the corn dole to [pg 283]the city proletariat were the only things that distinguished it from a provincial city.

The imperial government of Rome had crushed out all vestiges of national loyalty among the peoples it had absorbed, and had failed to create any political institutions which would have permitted the provincials, as such, to have participated in the government of the empire. With the gradual decline of municipal autonomy the great mass of the provincials were deprived of the last traces of an independent political life. The provincial councils established for the maintenance of the imperial cult did indeed occasionally voice the complaints of the provincials but never acquired active political powers. And that the Roman administration proved a heavy burden is attested by the numerous complaints against the weight of taxation and the necessity which many emperors felt of remitting the arrears of tribute.

V. Municipal Life

The Roman empire was at bottom an aggregate of locally self-governing communities, which served as units for conscription, taxation and jurisdiction. They were held together by the army and the civil service, and were united by the bonds of a common Graeco-Roman civilization. These municipalities were of two general types, the Hellenic in the East and the Latin in the West.

The Hellenic municipalities were developments from the poleis, or city-states, which existed prior to the Roman conquest in Greece and the Hellenized areas of Asia and Africa. Municipal towns organized in these areas subsequent to the Roman occupation were of the same type. Their language of government, as well as of general intercourse, was Greek. The characteristic political institutions of the Hellenic municipalities were a popular assembly, a council or boule and annual magistrates. The assembly had the power to initiate legislation; the council and magistrates were elected by it or were chosen by lot. But even under the Roman republic these democratic institutions were considerably modified in the interests of the wealthier classes. Timocratic constitutions were established with required property qualifications for citizenship and for the council and offices. The principate saw a further development along the same lines. The assemblies lost their right to initiate legislation, a power which passed to the magistrates, while the council tended to become a body of ex-[pg 284]magistrates who held their seats for life. However, in spite of this approximation to the Latin type, the Greek official terminology remained unchanged throughout the first three centuries A. D.

The Latin type of municipality was that which developed on Italian soil with the extension of Roman domination over the peninsula, and which was given uniformity by the legislation of Julius Caesar. With the Romanization of the western part of the empire it spread to Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, Germany and the Danubian provinces. In spite of the distinctions in status between Roman and Latin colonies and municipia, all these classes of municipalities were of the same general type which is revealed to us in the Julian Municipal Law (45 B. C.), the charter of the Roman Colonia Genetiva Julia (44 B. C.), and those of the Latin municipalities of Malaca and Salpensa (81–84 A. D.).

The constitutions of these municipalities were patterned closely after that of Rome, although certain titles, like those of consul and Senate were reserved for the capital city. Like Rome, the municipal towns had their officials, their council (curia, ordo), and their plebs. The chief magistrates were a pair of duovirs (or at times a college of quattuovirs), who were assisted by two aediles, and two quaestors The duovirs were in charge of the local administration of justice, and in general conducted the public affairs of the community. Every fifth year the duovirs were called quinquennales and took the census. The aediles had charge of public works, and market and police regulations, while the quaestors were the local treasury officials. All the officials were elected by popular vote, but a definite property qualification was required of each candidate. If no candidates presented themselves for any particular office, provision was made for the nomination of candidates who must serve if elected. At his election each magistrate paid into the treasury, or expended in accordance with the direction of the council, a definite sum of money (summa honoraria), which varied for each office in different communities. Oftentimes these officers did not restrict themselves to the required sum but took this opportunity for displaying their municipal loyalty. As other prominent citizens followed their example the municipalities were richly provided with useful and ornamental public works donated by the richer classes. Thus the municipal offices, being unsalaried, were a heavy drain upon the resources of their holders, but at the same time they offered almost the sole opportunity for gratifying the [pg 285]political ambitions of the population of the provinces. In addition to these civil officials, each community had its colleges of pontiffs and augurs.

The members of the curia were called decuriones, and were usually one hundred in number. They comprised those who had held some local magistracy, and others having the requisite property qualification who were enrolled directly (adlecti) in the council. The council supervised the work of the magistrates and really directed the municipal administration. As in early Rome, so in the municipalities the people were grouped in curiae, which were the voting units in the local assembly or comitia. This assembly elected the magistrates and had legislative powers corresponding to those of the Roman assemblies. However, in the course of the second century A. D. these legislative powers passed into the hands of the council, whose decrees became the sole form of municipal legislation.

The collegia. While the plebs of Rome and the municipalities alike had little opportunity for political activity they found a compensation in the social life of their guilds or colleges. These were associations of persons who had some common tie, such as a common trade or profession, a common worship, or the humble desire to secure for themselves a decent burial by mutual coöperation. Thus arose professional, religious, and funerary colleges. The organization of the colleges was modelled on that of the municipalities. They had their patrons, their presidents (magistri, or quinquennales), their quaestors, and their treasury sustained by initiation fees, monthly dues, fines, contributions, gifts and legacies. The membership was called plebs or populus. The chief factor in the life of the colleges was the social element and their most important gatherings were for the purpose of holding a common banquet. The professional colleges in no way corresponded to the modern trades unions; they attempted no collective bargaining with regard to wages, prices or working hours, although they did not altogether neglect the common interests of their profession.

Apparently until late republican times no restrictions had been placed upon the forming of such collegiate associations, but in 64 B. C. all such unions in Rome had been abolished because of the disorders occasioned by political clubs. In 58 B. C. complete freedom of association was restored, only to be revoked again by Julius Caesar who permitted only the old and reputable professional and religious [pg 286]colleges to remain in existence. Under Augustus a law was passed which regulated for the future the character, organization and activities of these associations. New colleges could only be established in Italy or the provinces if sanctioned by a decree of the Senate or edict of the princeps, and membership in an unauthorized college was a treasonable offence. Trajan authorized the unrestricted formation of funerary colleges (collegia tenuiorum) in Rome, and Septimius Severus extended this privilege to Italy and the provinces. Under Marcus Aurelius the colleges were recognized as juristic persons, with power to manumit slaves and receive legacies. Not only persons of free birth but also freedmen and slaves, and in many cases women as well as men, were freely admitted to membership in the colleges.

The decline of the municipalities. The prosperity of the empire depended upon the prosperity of the municipalities and it is in the latter that the first symptoms of internal decay are noticeable. These symptoms were economic decline and the consequent loss of local autonomy. The reasons for the economic decline are hard to trace. Among them we may perhaps place the ruin of many of the wealthier families by the requirements of office-holding, the withdrawal of others who were eligible for the imperial service with its salaried offices; overtaxation, bad management of local finances, and the disappearance of a free peasantry in the surrounding rural districts who had furnished a market for the manufacturers and merchants of the towns. The devastating wars of the third century with the resultant general paralysis of trade and commerce, plus the depopulation caused by plague and barbarian invasions, struck the municipalities a crushing blow from which they never recovered.

As early as the time of Trajan the imperial government found it necessary to appoint officials called curators to reorganize the financial conditions in one or more municipalities, sometimes those of a whole province. At first these were irregular officials, senators or equestrians, but by the third century they had become a fixture in municipal administration and were chosen from among the local decuriones. Another evidence of the same conditions is the change which took place in the position of the local magistracies. In the second century these offices were still an honor for which candidates voluntarily presented themselves, although there were unmistakable signs that in some districts they were coming to be regarded as a burden. In the third century the magistracies had become an obli[pg 287]gation resting upon the local senatorial order, and to which appointments were made by the curia. The decurionate also had become a burden which all who possessed a definite census rating must assume. To assure itself of its revenues in view of the declining prosperity of the communities the imperial government had hit upon the expedient of making the local decurions responsible for collecting the taxes, and consequently had been forced to make the decurionate an obligatory status. The curia and municipal magistracies had ended by becoming unwilling cogs in the imperial financial administration.

This loss of municipal independence was accompanied by the conversion of the voluntary professional colleges into compulsory public service corporations. From the opening of the principate the government had depended largely upon private initiative for the performance of many necessary services in connection with the provisioning of the city of Rome, a task which became increasingly complicated when the state undertook the distribution of oil under Septimius Severus, of bread in place of grain and of cheap wine under Aurelian. Therefore such colleges as the shipowners (navicularii), bakers (pistores), pork merchants (suarii), wine merchants (vinarii), and oil merchants (olerarii) received official encouragement. Their members individually assumed public contracts and in course of time came to receive certain privileges because it was recognized that they were performing services necessary to the public welfare. Marcus Aurelius, Severus and Caracalla were among the emperors who thus fostered the professional guilds. Gradually the idea developed that these services were public duties (munera) to which the several colleges were obligated, and hence Severus Alexander took the initiative in founding new colleges until all the city trades were thus organized. The same princeps appointed judicial representatives from each guild and placed them under the jurisdiction of definite courts. The colleges from this time onward operated under governmental supervision and really formed a part of the machinery of the administration, although they had not yet become compulsory and hereditary organizations.

The history of the colleges in the municipalities paralleled that of the Roman guilds, although it cannot be traced so clearly in detail. The best known of the municipal colleges are those of the artificers (fabri), the makers of rag cloths (centonarii), and the wood cutters (dendrophori). The organization of these colleges was everywhere [pg 288]encouraged because their members had the obligation of acting as a local fire brigade, but in the exercise of their trades they were not in the service of their respective communities.

It was in the latter part of the third century, when the whole fabric of society seemed threatened with destruction, that the state, with the object of maintaining organized industry and commerce, placed upon the properties of the members of the various colleges in Rome and in the municipalities the burden of maintaining the work of these corporations; a burden which soon came also to be laid upon the individual members thereof. In this way the plebeian class throughout the empire sank to the status of laborers in the service of the state.

VI. The Colonate or Serfdom

While the municipal decurions, and the Roman and municipal plebs had thus sunk to the position of fiscally exploited classes, the bulk of the agricultural population of the empire had fallen into a species of serfdom known to the Romans as the colonate, from the use of the word colonus to denote a tenant farmer. This condition arose under varying circumstances in the different parts of the empire, but its development in Italy and the West was much influenced by the situation in some of the eastern provinces, where the peasantry were in a state of quasi-serfdom prior to the Roman conquest.

Egypt. In Egypt under the Ptolemies the inhabitants of village communities were compelled to perform personal services to the state, including the cultivation of royal land not let out on contract, each within the boundaries of the community in which he was registered (his idia). With the introduction of Roman rule this theory of the idia was given greater precision. All the land of each village had to be tilled by the residents thereof, either as owners or tenants. At times, indeed, the inhabitants of one village might be forced to cultivate vacant lands at a distance. During the seasons of sowing and harvest the presence of every villager was required in his idia. The crushing weight of taxation, added to the other obligations of the peasantry caused many of them to flee from their idia, and this led to an increasing amount of unleased state land. As a large number of private estates had developed, chiefly because of the encouragement extended to those who brought waste land under cultivation, the government forced the property holders to assume the contracts for the [pg 289]vacant public lands in their districts. With the introduction of the municipal councils in the course of the third century, these were made responsible for the collection of the taxes of each nome. To enable the councillors, who were property holders, to fulfill this obligation, their tenants were forbidden to leave their holdings. And so, as state or private tenants, the peasants came to be bound to the soil.

The development in Asia Minor was similar. There the royal lands of the Seleucids became the public land of Rome, and out of this the Roman magnates of the later Republic developed vast estates which in turn were concentrated in the hands of Augustus. These imperial domains were cultivated by peasants, who lived in village communities and paid a yearly rental for the land they occupied. The rest of the land of Asia formed the territories dependent upon the Greek cities, and was occupied by a native population who were in part free peasants settled in villages. On the imperial domains the village came to be the idia to which the peasant was permanently attached for the performance of his liturgies or obligatory services, while on the municipal territories the agricultural population was bound to the soil as tenants of the municipal landholders, the local senators, upon whom had been placed the responsibility for the payment of the taxes of their municipalities.

Africa. In Africa the transformation was effected differently. There, at the opening of the principate, outside of the municipal territories, the land fell into ager publicus, private estates of Roman senators and imperial domains. Under the early emperors, particularly Nero, the bulk of the private estates passed by legacy and confiscation into the control of the princeps, who also took over the administration of the public domain in so far as it was not absorbed in new municipal areas. This domain land was divided into large districts (tractus, regiones) which were directly administered by imperial procurators. Each district comprised a number of estates (saltus, fundi). Whatever slave labor had at one time been used in African agricultural operations was, by the early principate, largely displaced by free laborers, called coloni. These coloni were either Italian immigrants or tributary native holders of the public land.

The estates were usually managed as follows. The procurators leased them to tenant contractors (conductores), who retained a part of their lease holds under their own supervision, and sublet the remainder to tenant farmers (coloni). The relation of these coloni to [pg 290]the contractors as well as to the owners of private estates or their bailiffs (vilici), was regulated by an edict of a certain Mancia, apparently a procurator under the Flavians. By this edict the coloni were obliged to pay a definite proportion of their crop as rental, and in addition to render a certain number of days’ work, personally and with their teams, on the land of the person from whom they held their lease. The coloni comprised both landless residents on the estates and small landholders from neighboring villages. They were encouraged to occupy vacant domain land and bring it under cultivation. Over plough land thus cultivated they obtained the right of occupation for life, but orchard land became an hereditary possession, while in both cases the occupant was required to pay rental in kind to the state. Hadrian also tried to further the development of peasant landholders by permitting the coloni to occupy any lands not tilled by the middlemen, and giving them rights of possession over all types of land. However, the forced services still remained and these constituted the chief grievance of the coloni. And here the government was on the horns of a dilemma, for if the middlemen were restrained from undue exactions often large areas remained untilled, and if the coloni were oppressed they absconded and left their holdings without tenants.

It was in the course of the third century that the failure to create an adequate class of independent small farmers caused the state to fall back upon the development of large private estates as the only way of keeping the land under cultivation and maintaining the public revenues. As a result of this change of policy the middlemen were transformed from tenants into proprietors, and, like the landholders of Egypt, they were forced to assume the lease of vacant public land adjacent to their estates. But to make it possible for the proprietors to fulfill this obligation the state had to give them control over the labor needed to till the soil. Hence the coloni were forbidden to leave the estates where they had once established themselves as tenants. In Africa the estate became the idia or origo corresponding to the village in Egypt. In the municipal territories the landholders of the towns played the rôle of the middlemen on the imperial domains.

Italy. In Italy, unlike Africa, conditions upon the private, rather than the imperial, domains determined the rise of the colonate. At the close of the Republic the land of Italy was occupied by the [pg 291]latifundia and peasant holdings, the former of which were by far the most important factor in agricultural life. It will be recalled that the latifundia were great plantations and ranches whose development had been facilitated by an abundant supply of cheap slave labor. However, even in the first century B. C. these plantations were partly tilled by free peasants, either as tenants or day laborers, and under the principate there was a gradual displacement of slaves by free coloni. The causes for this transformation lay in the cutting off of the main supply of slaves through the suppression of the slave-trading pirates and the cessation of aggressive foreign wars, the decrease in the number of slaves through manumissions, the growth of humanitarian tendencies which checked their ruthless exploitation, and the realization that the employment of free labor was in the long run more profitable than that of slaves, particularly when the latter were becoming increasingly expensive to procure. The coloni worked the estates of the landowners for a certain proportion of the harvest. As elsewhere, in Italy it was fiscal necessity which converted the free coloni into serfs. With the spread of waste lands, due partly to a decline of the population, the state intervened on behalf of the landlords as it had in the provinces and attached the peasants to the domain where they had once been voluntary tenants. Elsewhere throughout the empire, although the process cannot be traced in detail, a similar transformation took place.

Perhaps the ultimate responsibility for the development of the colonate may rest upon the attempt of the imperial government to incorporate within the empire vast territories in a comparatively low state of civilization, and upon the fiscal system whereby it was designed that the expenses imposed by this policy should be met. In the West the administration strove to develop a strong class of prosperous peasants as state tenants; in the East its object was to maintain this class which was already in existence. But the financial needs of the state caused such a heavy burden to be laid upon the agricultural population that the ideal of a prosperous free peasantry proved impossible of realization. The ravages of war and plague in the second and third centuries also fell heavily upon the peasants. As a last resource to check the decline of agriculture the government placed the small farmer at the disposal of the rich landlord and made him a serf. The results were oppression, poverty, lack of initiative, a decline in the birth rate, flight and at the end an increase of un[pg 292]cultivated, unproductive land. The transplanting of conquered barbarians within the empire swelled the class of the coloni but proved only a partial palliative to the general shrinkage of the agricultural elements. But the converse to the development of the colonate was the creation of a powerful class of landholders who were the owners of large domains exempt from the control of municipal authorities.

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Chapter XX

Religion and Society

I. Society under the Principate

Imperial Rome. Roman society under the Principate exhibits in general the same characteristics as during the last century of the Republic. Rome itself was a thoroughly cosmopolitan city, where the concentration of wealth and political power attracted the ambitious, the adventurous and the curious from all lands. Whole quarters were occupied by various nationalities, most prominent among whom were the Greeks, the Syrians, and the Jews, speaking their own languages and plying their native trades. With the freeborn foreign population mingled the thousands of slaves and freedmen of every race and tongue. During the first and second century the population of Rome must have been in the neighborhood of one million, but in the third century it began to decline as a result of pestilence and the general bankruptcy of the empire. Inevitably in such a city there were the sharpest contrasts between riches and poverty, and the luxurious palaces of the wealthy were matched by the squalid tenements of the proletariat. In outward appearance Rome underwent a transformation which made her worthy to be capital of so vast an empire. This was largely due to the great number of public buildings erected by the various emperors and to the lavish employment of marble in public and private architecture from the time of Augustus. The temples, basilicas, fora, aqueducts, public baths, theatres, palaces, triumphal arches, statues, and parks combined to arouse the enthusiastic admiration of travelers and the pride of its inhabitants. But, although after the great fire of 64 A. D. many improvements were made in the plan of the city, restrictions placed upon the height of buildings, and fireproof construction required for the lower stories, still the streets remained narrow and dingy, the lofty tenements were of flimsy construction, in perpetual danger of collapse, and devastating conflagrations occurred periodically.

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The task of feeding the city plebs and providing for their entertainment was a ruinous legacy left by the Republic to the principate. Although the number of recipients of free corn was not increased after Augustus, the public spectacles became ever more numerous and more magnificent. Under Tiberius eighty-seven days of the year were regularly occupied by these entertainments but by the time of Marcus Aurelius there were one hundred and thirty-five such holidays. In addition came extraordinary festivals to celebrate special occasions, like the one hundred and twenty-three day carnival given by Trajan at his second Dacian triumph in 106 A. D. The spectacles were of three main types; the chariot races in the circus, the gladiatorial combats and animal baiting in the amphitheatre, and the dramatic and other performances in the theatre. The expense of these celebrations fell upon the senatorial order and the princeps. Indeed the most important function of the consulship, praetorship and, until its disappearance in the third century, the aedileship, came to be the celebration of the regular festivals. The sums provided for such purposes by the state were entirely inadequate and so the cost had to be met largely from the magistrates’ private resources. The extraordinary spectacles were all given at the expense of the princeps who also at times granted subventions to favored senators from the imperial purse. The cost of the public shows placed as heavy a drain upon the fortunes of the senatorial order as did the summa honoraria upon the holders of municipal offices.

A new feature of Roman society under the principate was the growth of the imperial court. In spite of the wishes of Augustus and some of his successors to live on a footing of equality with the rest of the nobility, it was inevitable that the exceptional political power of the princeps should give a corresponding importance to his household organization. Definite offices developed within the imperial household not only for the conduct of public business but also for the control of slaves and freedmen in the domestic service of the princeps. The chief household officials were the chamberlain a cubiculo and the chief usher (ab admissione). Because of their intimate personal association with the princeps their influence over him was very great, and as a rule they did not hesitate to use their position to enrich themselves at the expense of those who sought the imperial favor. From among the senators and equestrians the princeps chose a number of intimate associates and advisors who were [pg 295]called his “friends.” When forming part of his cortege away from Rome they were known as his companions (comites Augusti). In connection with the imperial audiences a certain degree of ceremonial developed, with fixed forms of salutation which differentiated the rank and station of those attending these functions. In the society of the capital the personal tastes of the princeps set the fashion of the day.

Clients. Characteristic of the times was the new form of clientage which was a voluntary association of master and paid retainer. Under the republic eminent men had throngs of adherents to greet them at their morning reception and accompany them to the forum. It had now become obligatory for practically every man of wealth to maintain such a retinue, which should be at his beck and call at all hours of the day and be prepared to serve him in various ways. In return the patron helped to support his clients with fees, food, and gifts of clothing, and rendered them other favors. The clients were recruited partly from freedmen, partly from citizens of low birth, and partly from persons of the better class who had fallen upon evil days. In general the lot of these pensioners does not seem to have been a very happy one—even the slaves of their patrons despised them—and their large numbers are to be attributed to the superior attractions of city over country life, and to the stigma which in Rome rested upon industrial employment.

Slaves and freedmen. In the early principate slave-holding continued on as large a scale as in the late republic. The palaces of the wealthy in Rome could count slaves by hundreds; on the larger plantations they were numbered by thousands. Trained slaves were also employed in great numbers in various trades and industries. Their treatment varied according to their employment and the character of their owners, but there was a steady progress towards greater humanitarianism, largely due to the influence of philosophic doctrines. In the age of the Antonines this produced legislation which limited the power of the master over his slave. As time went on the number of slaves steadily diminished, in part because of the cessation of continual foreign wars after the time of Augustus, in part because of the great increase of manumissions. Not only were large numbers set free at the death of their owners as a final act of generosity, but also many found it profitable to liberate their slaves and provide them with capital to engage in business for themselves. Many slaves also [pg 296]had good opportunities for accumulating a small store of money (peculium) with which they could purchase their freedom.

The result of these wholesale manumissions was a tremendous increase in the freedmen class. Foreseeing the effect that this would have upon the Roman citizen body, Augustus endeavored to restrict the right of emancipation. By the lex Fufia Caninia (2 B. C.) testamentary manumissions were limited to a fixed proportion of the total number of slaves held by the deceased, and not more than one hundred allowed in any case. The lex Aelia Sentia (4 A. D.) placed restrictions upon the master’s right of manumission during his lifetime, and the Junian law of about the same time prevented slaves liberated without certain formalities from receiving Roman citizenship although granting them the status of Latins. Even freedmen who became Romans lacked the right of voting or of holding office in Rome or the municipalities, unless they received from the princeps the right to wear the gold ring which gave them the privileges of freeborn citizens. In spite of these laws the number of the freedmen grew apace, and there is no doubt that in the course of the principate the racial characteristics of the population of Rome and of the whole peninsula of Italy underwent a complete transformation as a result of the infusion of this new element, combined with the emigration of Italians to the provinces.

The importance of the rôle played by the freedmen in Roman society was in proportion to their numbers. From them were recruited the lower ranks of the civil service, they filled every trade and profession, the commerce of the empire was largely in their hands, they became the managers of estates and of business undertakings of all sorts. The eager pursuit of money at all costs was their common characteristic, and “freedman’s wealth” was a proverbial expression for riches quickly acquired. The more successful of their class became landholders in Italy and aped the life and manners of the nobility. Their lack of good taste, so common to the nouveaux riches of all ages, afforded a good target for the jibes of satirists and is caricatured in the novel of Petronius. We have already seen the influence of the few among them who by the emperors’ favor attained positions of political importance. Despise the freedmen though they might, the Romans found them indispensable for the conduct of public and private business.

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Commerce and industry. The restoration of peace within the empire, the suppression of piracy, the extension of the Roman military highways throughout all the provinces, the establishment of a single currency valid for the whole empire, and the low duties levied at the provincial customs frontiers combined to produce an hitherto unexampled development of commercial enterprise. Traders from all parts of the provinces thronged the ports of Italy, and one merchant of Hierapolis in Phrygia has left a record of his seventy-two voyages there. But Roman commerce was not confined within the Roman borders, it also flourished with outside peoples, particularly those of the East. From the ports of Egypt on the Red Sea large merchant fleets sailed for southern Arabia and India, while a brisk caravan trade through the Parthian and Bactrian kingdoms brought the silks of China to the Roman markets. Even the occasional presence of Roman merchants in China is vouched for by Chinese records. Among all the races of the empire the most active in these mercantile ventures were the Syrians, whose presence may be traced not only in the commercial centers of the East, but also in the harbors of Italy and throughout all the western provinces.

The increased opportunities for trading stimulated the development of manufacturing, for not only could raw materials be more easily procured but towns favorably situated for the manufacture of particular types of goods could find a wider market for their products. However, industrial organization never attained a high degree of development. In the production of certain wares, such as articles of bronze, silver, glass, and, especially, pottery and bricks, the factory system seems to have been employed, with a division of labor among specialized artisans. In general, however, this was not the case and each manufactured article was the product of one man’s labor. In Italy, and probably throughout the western provinces, the bulk of the work of this sort was done by slaves and freedmen.

At the same time the art of agriculture had been developed to a very high degree, and Columella, an agricultural writer of the time of Nero, shows a good knowledge of the principles of fertilization and rotation of crops.

However, this material prosperity, which attained its height early in the second century of our era, declined from reasons which have already been described until the whole empire reached a state of eco[pg 298]nomic bankruptcy in the course of the third century. The progressive bankruptcy of the government is shown by the steady deterioration of the coinage. Under Nero the denarius, the standard silver coin, was first debased. This debasement continued until under Septimius Severus it became one half copper. Caracalla issued a new silver coin, the Antoninianus, one and a half times the weight of the denarius of the day. Both these coins rapidly deteriorated in quality until they became mere copper coins with a wash of silver. Aurelian made the first attempt to correct this evil by issuing only the Antoninianus and giving this a standard value.

To pass a moral judgment upon society under the principate is a difficult task. The society depicted in the satires of Juvenal and in Martial, in the court gossip of Suetonius, or in the polemics of the Christian writers seems hopelessly corrupt and vicious. But their picture is not complete. The letters of Pliny reveal an entirely different world with a high standard of human conduct, whose ideals are expressed in the philosophic doctrines of Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. And the funerary inscriptions from the municipalities, where life was more wholesome and simple than in the large cities, pay a sincere tribute to virtue in all its forms. The luxurious extravagance of imperial Rome has been equalled and surpassed in more recent times, and, apart from the vices of slavery and the arena, modern society has little wherewith to reproach that of the principate.

II. The Intellectual World

Literature. The principate had two literatures; one Greek, the other Roman. But the forms of literary production were the same in each, and the Roman authors took rank with those of Greece in their respective fields. For the Romans could boast that they had adapted the Latin tongue to the literary types of the older culture world, while preserving in their work a spirit genuinely Roman.

The Augustan age. The feeling of relief produced by the cessation of the civil wars, and the hopes engendered by the policy of Augustus inspired a group of writers whose genius made the age of Augustus the culminating point in the development of Roman poetry, like the age of Cicero in Roman prose. Foremost among the poets of the new era was Virgil (70–19 B. C.), the son of a small landholder of Mantua, whose Aeneid, a national epic, the glorification [pg 299]alike of Rome and of the Julian house, placed him with Homer in the front rank of epic poets for all time. His greatest contemporary was Horace (65–8 B. C.), the son of a freedman from South Italy. It was Horace who first wrote Latin lyrics in the complicated meters of Greece, and whose genial satire and insight into human nature have combined with his remarkable happiness of phrase to make him the delight of cultivated society both in antiquity and modern times. The leading elegiac poets were Propertius, Tibullus and Ovid (43 B. C.–17 A. D.). In his Fasti and Metamorphoses the latter recounted with masterly narrative skill the legends of Greek and Roman mythology. His elegies reveal the spirit of the pleasure-seeking society of new Rome and show the ineffectiveness of the attempt of Augustus to bring about a moral regeneration of the Roman people. This, probably, was the true ground for his banishment from Rome. Livy (59 B. C.–17 A. D.) was the one prose writer of note in the Augustan age. His history of Rome is a great work of art, an Aeneid in prose, which celebrated the past greatness of Rome and the virtues whereby this had been attained—those virtues which Augustus aimed to revive.

The age of Nero. From Augustus to Nero there are no names of note in Roman literature, but under the latter came a slight reawakening of literary productivity. Seneca (4 B. C.–65 A. D.), a Spaniard from Corduba, Nero’s tutor, minister and victim, is best known as the exponent of the practical Stoic religion and the only Roman tragedian whose works have survived. His nephew Lucan (39–65 A. D.) portrayed in his epic, the Pharsalia, the struggle of the republicans against Julius Caesar. His work shows a reawakening of a vain republican idealism and is the counterpart to the Stoic opposition in the senate. Petronius (d. 66 A. D.), the arbiter of the refinements of luxury at Nero’s court, displayed his originality by giving, in the form of a novel, a skilful and lively picture of the society of the freedmen in the Greek municipalities of South Italy.

The Flavian era. Under the Flavians, Pliny the Elder (23–79 A. D.), a native of Cisalpine Gaul, compiled his Natural History, which he aimed to make an encyclopaedia of information on the whole world of nature. It is a work of monumental industry but displays a lack of critical acumen and scientific training. At about the same time there taught in Rome the Spaniard Quintilian (d. 95 A. D.), who wrote on the theory and practice of rhetoric, expressing in charming [pg 300]prose the Ciceronian ideal of life and education. His countryman Martial (d. 102 A. D.) gave in satiric epigrams glimpses of the meaner aspects of contemporary life.

Tacitus and his contemporaries. The freer atmosphere of the government of Nerva and Trajan allowed the senatorial aristocracy to voice feelings carefully suppressed under the terror of Domitian. Their spokesman was Tacitus (55–116 A. D.), a man of true genius, who ranks next to Thucydides as the representative of artistic historical writing in ancient times. His Treatise on the Orators, his Life of Agricola, and his descriptive account of the German peoples (Germania) were preludes to two great historical works, the Annals and the Histories, which together covered the period from 14–96 A. D. His attitude is strongly influenced by the persecutions of senators under Domitian, and is the expression of his personal animosity and that of the descendants of the older republican nobility towards the principate in general. A friend of Tacitus, the younger Pliny (62–113 A. D.), imitated Cicero in collecting and publishing his letters. This correspondence is valuable as an illustration of the life and literary diletantism of educated circles of the day, as also for the light it throws upon the administrative policies of Trajan. An embittered critic of the age was the satirist Juvenal (d. about 130 A. D.), from Aquinum in Italy, who wrote from a stoical standpoint but with little learning and narrow vision. Somewhat later the first literary history of Rome was written by Suetonius (75–150 A. D.), who is better known as the author of the Lives of the Caesars (from Julius to Domitian), a series of gossipy narratives which set the style for future historical writing in Rome.

With Hadrian begins the period of archaism in Roman literature, that is, an artificial return to the Latin of Cato, Ennius and Plautus, an unmistakable symptom of intellectual sterility.

Provincial literature. The progress of Romanization in the provinces is clearly marked by the participation of provincials in the literary life of Rome. From the Cisalpine, from Narbonese Gaul, and from Spain, men with literary instincts and ability had been drawn to the capital as the sole place where their talents would find recognition. But gradually some of the provinces developed a Latin culture of their own. The first evidences of this change came from the age of the Antonines, when a Latin literature made its appearance in the province of Africa. Its earliest representative was the sophist Apuleius, the author of the romance entitled The Golden Ass.

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Christian literature. It was in Africa also that a Latin Christian literature first arose, and it was the African Christian writers who made Latin the language of the church in Italy and the West. Of these Christian apologists the earliest and most influential was Tertullian of Carthage, whose literary activity falls in the time of the Severi. Cyprian and Arnobius continued his task in the third century. In Minucius Felix, a contemporary of Tertullian, the Christian community at Rome found an able defender of the faith.

Jurisprudence. In all other sciences the Romans sat at the feet of the Greeks, but in that of jurisprudence they displayed both independence and originality. The growth of Roman jurisprudence was not hampered but furthered by the establishment of the principate, for the development of a uniform administrative system for the whole empire called for the corresponding development of a uniform system of law. The study of law was stimulated by the practice of Augustus and his successors who gave to prominent jurists the right of publicly giving opinions (jus publice respondendi) by his authority on the legal merits of cases under trial. A further encouragement was given by Hadrian’s organization of his judicial council. The great service of the jurists of the principate was the introduction into Roman law of the principles of equity founded on a philosophic conception of natural law and the systematic organization and interpretation of the body of the civil law. Roman jurisprudence reached its height between the accession of Hadrian and the death of Severus Alexander. The chief legal writers of this period were Julian in the time of Hadrian, Gaius in the age of the Antonines, his contemporary Scaevola, the three celebrated jurists of the time of the Severi—Papinian, Paul and Ulpian, all pretorian prefects,—and lastly Modestine, who closes the long line of classic juris-consults.

Greek literature. If we except the brief period of the Augustan age, the Greek literature of the principate stands both in quantity and quality above the Latin. Even Augustus had recognized Greek as the language of government in the eastern half of the empire, and with the gradual abandonment of his policy of preserving the domination of the Italians over the provincials Greeks stood upon the same footing as the Latin speaking provincials in the eyes of the imperial government. In Rome the Greek author received the same recognition as his Roman confrère. Greek historians, geographers, scientists, rhetoricians and philosophers wrote not only for Greeks, but for the educated circles of the whole empire. And it was in Greek [pg 302]that the princeps Marcus Aurelius chose to write his Meditations. Nor should it be forgotten that Greek was the language of the early Christian writers, beginning with the Apostle Paul. By the opening of the third century the champions of the new faith had begun to rank among the leading authors of the day in the East as well as in the West.

Plutarch (c. 50–120 A. D.) and Lucian (c. 125–200 A. D.). The best known names in the Greek literature of the principate are Plutarch and Lucian. Plutarch’s Parallel Lives of famous Greeks and Romans possess a perpetual freshness and charm. Lucian was essentially a writer of prose satires, a journalist who was “the last great master of Attic eloquence and Attic wit.” In the realm of science, Ptolemy the astronomer, and Galen the student of medicine, both active in the second century, profoundly influenced their own and subsequent times.

Philosophy. As we have seen, the doctrines of Stoicism continued to appeal to the highest instincts of Roman character. Besides Seneca and Marcus Aurelius this creed found a worthy exponent in the ex-slave Epictetus, who taught between 90 and 120 A. D. at Nicopolis in Epirus. With Plotinus (204–270 A. D.), Greek philosophy became definitely religious in character, resting upon the basis of revelation and belief, not upon that of reason.

Art. Roman art found its chief inspiration in, and remained in close contact with, Roman public life. The artists of the principate may well have been Greeks, but they wrought for Romans and had to satisfy Roman standards of taste. Realism and careful attention to details may be said to be the two great characteristics of Roman art. This is true both of Roman sculpture, which excelled in statues, portrait busts, and the bas-reliefs depicting historical events with which public monuments were richly decorated, and of the repoussé and relief work which adorned table ware and other articles of silver, bronze and pottery. The Roman fondness for costly decorations is well illustrated by the elaborateness of the frescoes and the mosaics of the villas of Pompeii, and other sites where excavations have revealed the interiors of Roman public and private buildings. The erection of the many temples, basilicas, baths, aqueducts, bridges, amphitheatres and other structures in Rome, Italy and other provinces supplied a great stimulus to Roman architecture and engineering. It was in the use of the arch and the vault, particularly the vault of [pg 303]concrete, that the Roman architects excelled, and their highest achievements were great vaulted structures like the Pantheon and the Baths of Caracalla. The most striking testimony to the grandeur of Rome comes from the remains of Roman architecture in the provinces—from such imposing ruins as the Porta Nigra of Trèves, the theatre at Orange, the Pont du Gard near Nîmes, the bridge over the Tagus at Alcantara and the amphitheatres of Nîmes in France and El-Djemm in Tunisia. But, like the literature, the Roman art of the principate in time experienced a loss of creative power. It reached its height under the Flavians and Trajan and then a steady deterioration set in.

Causes of intellectual decline. The third century A. D. witnessed a general collapse of ancient civilization, no less striking in its cultural than in its political and economic aspects. This cultural decline was the result of political causes which had been gradually undermining the foundations of a vigorous intellectual life. The culture of Greece culminated in its scientific achievements of the third century B. C. At that time in comparison with the Greeks the neighboring, peoples were at best semi-barbarians; in the eastern Mediterranean the Greeks were the dominant race, still animated by a strong love of political freedom. But the Roman conquest with its ruthless exploitation of the provinces ruined the Greek world economically and broke the morale of the Greek peoples, forcing them to seek their salvation in fawning servility to Rome. The consequence was that as the Greeks came under the dominion of Rome their creative impulses withered, their intellectual progress ceased and their eyes were turned backward upon their past achievements. And the Italians themselves were on too low an intellectual level to develop a culture of their own. They had not progressed beyond the adoption of certain aspects of Greek culture before the century of civil wars between 133 and 30 B. C. resulted in the establishment of a type of government which gradually crushed out the spirit of initiative in the Latin speaking world. The material prosperity and peace during the first two centuries of the principate made possible the diffusion of a uniform type of culture throughout the empire as a whole, but after the age of Augustus this is characterized both in the East and in the West by its imitation of the past and its lack of creative power. The third century A. D. with its long period of civil war, foreign invasions, and economic chaos, dealt a fatal blow to the material basis of [pg 304]ancient civilization. The collapse of Graeco-Roman culture was rapid and complete, resembling the breakdown of the civilization of the Aegean Bronze age toward the close of the second millennium before the Christian era. Culturally, the fourth century A. D. belongs to the Middle Ages.

III. The Imperial Cult and the Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism

The religious transformation of the Roman world. The religious transformation of the Roman world during the principate was fully as important for future ages as its political transformation. This religious development consisted in the diffusion throughout the empire of a group of religions which originated in the countries bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean and hence are generally known as Oriental cults. And among these oriental religions are included both Judaism and Christianity.

The state cults. However, the worship of the divinities of Graeco-Roman theology by no means died out during the first three centuries of the Christian era. It continued to flourish in the state cult of Rome, and the municipal cults of the Italian and provincial towns. With the romanization of the semi-barbarous provinces Graeco-Roman deities displaced or assimilated to themselves the gods of the native populations. Druidism, the national religion of Gaul and Britain, was suppressed chiefly because it fostered a spirit of resistance to Roman rule. But the most widespread and vigorous of the state cults was the worship of the princeps.

The imperial cult. We have already discussed the establishment of the imperial cult by Augustus, as a visible expression of the loyalty of the provincials and their acknowledgment of the authority of Rome and the princeps. We have also seen how this cult was perpetuated by the provincial councils organized for that purpose. After the death of Augustus the imperial cult in the provinces gradually came to include the worship of both the ruling Augustus and the Divi, or deceased emperors, who had received deification at the hands of the Senate. This practise was established in all the eastern provinces after the time of Claudius, and in the West under the Flavians. In Rome where the cult of the ruling princeps was not [pg 305]practised, Domitian converted the temple of Augustus into a temple of the Divi or the Caesars.

The pagan Oriental cults. The pagan Oriental cults whose penetration of the European provinces is so marked a feature in the religious life of the principate were the cults of the peoples of western Asia and Egypt which had become Hellenized and adapted for world expansion after Alexander’s conquest of the Persian empire. From this time onward they spread throughout the Greek culture world but it was not until the establishment of the world empire of Rome with its facilities for, and stimulus to, intercourse between all peoples within the Roman frontiers that they were able to obtain a foothold in western Europe. Their penetration of Italy began with the official reception of the cult of the Great Mother of Pessinus at Rome in 205 B. C., but the Roman world as a whole held aloof from them until the close of the republic. However, during the first two centuries of the principate they gradually made their way over the western parts of the empire.

The expansion of the Oriental cults followed the lines of the much frequented trade routes along which they were carried by travelers, merchants and colonies of oriental traders. The army cantonments were also centers for their diffusion, not only through the agency of troops recruited in the East but also through detachments which had seen service there in the course of the numerous wars on the eastern frontiers. Likewise the oriental slaves were active propagandists of their native faiths.

The explanation of the ready reception of these cults among all classes of society is that they guaranteed their adherents a satisfaction which the official religions were unable to offer. The state and municipal cults were mainly political in character, and with the disappearance of independent political life they lost their hold upon men who began to seek a refuge from the miseries of the present world in the world of the spirit and the promise of a future life. This want the Oriental cults were able to meet with the doctrines of a personal religion far different from the formal worship of the Graeco-Roman deities.

Certain characteristics of doctrine and ritual were common to the majority of the Oriental cults. They had an elaborate ritual which appealed both to the senses and to the emotions of the worshippers. By witnessing certain symbolic ceremonies the believer was roused [pg 306]to a state of spiritual ecstasy in which he felt himself in communion with the deity, while by the performance of sacramental rites he felt himself cleansed from the defilements of his earthly life and fitted for a purer spiritual existence. A professional priesthood had charge of the worship, ministered to the needs of individuals, and conducted missionary work. To an age of declining intellectual vigor, when men gave over the attempt to solve by scientific methods the riddle of the universe, they spoke with the authority of revelation, giving a comforting theological interpretation of life. And they appealed to the conscience by imposing a rigid rule of conduct, the observance of which would fit the believer for a happier existence in a future life.

The most important of these oriental divinities were the Great Mother of Pessinus, otherwise known as Cybele, worshipped in company with the male deity Attis; the Egyptian pair Isis and Serapis; Atayatis or the Syrian goddess, the chief female divinity of North Syria; a number of Syrian gods (Ba’als) named from the site of their Syrian shrines; and finally Mithra, a deity whose cult had long formed a part of the national Iranian religion. Towards all these cults the Roman state displayed wide toleration, only interfering with them when their orgiastic rites came into conflict with Roman conceptions of morality. But in spite of this toleration it required a long time before the conservative prejudices of the upper classes of Roman society were sufficiently undermined to permit of their participation in these foreign rites. For one hundred years after the introduction of the worship of the Magna Mater Romans were prohibited from enrolling themselves in the ranks of her priesthood. A determined but unsuccessful attempt was made by the Senate during the last century of the republic to drive from Rome the cult of Isis, the second of these religions to find a home in Italy, and in 42 B. C. the triumvirs erected a temple to this goddess. Augustus, however, banished her worship beyond the pomerium. But this restriction was not enforced by his successors, and by 69 A. D. the cult of the Egyptian goddess was firmly established in the capital. The various Syrian deities were of less significance in the religious life of the West, although as we have seen Elagabalus set up the worship of one of them, the Sun god of Emesa, as an official cult at Rome.

The Oriental cult which in importance overshadowed all the rest was Mithraism, one of the latest to cross from Asia into Europe. In Zoroastrian theology Mithra appears as the spirit who is the chief [pg 307]agent of the supreme god of light Ormuzd in his struggle against Ahriman, the god of darkness. He is at the same time a beneficent force in the natural world and in the moral world the champion of righteousness against the powers of evil. Under Babylonian and Greek influences Mithra was identified with the Sun-god, and appears in Rome with the title the Unconquered Sun-god Mithra (deus invictus sol Mithra). Towards the close of the first century A. D. Mithraism began to make its influence felt in Rome and the western provinces, and from that time it spread with great rapidity. Mithra, as the god of battles, was a patron deity of the soldiers, who became his zealous missionaries in the frontier camps. His cult was also regarded with particular favor by the emperors, whose authority it supported by the doctrine that the ruler is the chosen of Ormuzd and an embodiment of the divine spirit. It is not surprising then that Aurelian, whose coins bore the legend dominus et deus natus (born god and lord), made the worship of the Unconquered Sun-god the chief cult of the state.

Philosophy. Attention has already been called to the value of Stoicism in supplying its adherents with a highly moral code of conduct. Other philosophical systems, notably Epicureanism, likewise inculcated particular rules of life. But the philosophical doctrines which were best able to hold their own with the new religions were those of Neoplatonism and Neopythagoreanism, which came into vogue in the course of the second century, and exhibited a combination of mysticism and idealism well suited to the spirit of the age.

Astrology and magic. Throughout the principate all classes of society were deeply imbued with a superstitious fatalism which caused them to place implicit belief in the efficacy of astrology and magic. Chaldean and Egyptian astrologers enjoyed a great reputation, and were consulted on all important questions. They were frequently banished from Rome by the emperors who feared that their predictions might give encouragement to their enemies. However, these very emperors kept astrologers in their own service, and the decrees of banishment never remained long in force. The almost universal belief in miracles and oracles caused the appearance of a large number of imposters who throve on the credulity of their clients. One of the most celebrated of these was the Alexander who founded a new oracle of Aesculapius at Abonoteichus in Paphlagonia, the fame of which spread throughout the whole empire and even beyond its bor[pg 308]ders. In his exposé of the methods employed by this false prophet, the satirist Lucian gives a vivid picture of the depraved superstition of his time.

At the close of the principate the pagan world presented a great confusion of religious beliefs and doctrines. However, the various pagan cults were tolerant one of another, for the followers of one god were ready to acknowledge the divinity of the gods worshipped by their neighbors. On the contrary, the adherents of Judaism and Christianity refused to recognize the pagan gods, and hence stood in irreconcilable opposition to the whole pagan world.

IV. Christianity and Its Relation to the Roman State

The Jews of the Roman empire. Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Near East had thrown open to the Jews the whole Graeco-Macedonian world, and Jewish settlements rapidly appeared in all its important commercial centers. The Jewish colonies were encouraged by the Hellenistic monarchs who granted them immunity from military service, protection in the exercise of their religion, and a privileged judicial status in the cities where they were established. In course of time the number of Jews in these diaspora became much greater than in Judaea itself. Although the Jews resident outside of Syria had adopted the Greek language, and were influenced in many ways by their contact with Hellenistic culture, they still formed part of the religious community presided over by the High Priest at Jerusalem, and in addition to the annual contribution of two drachmas to the temple of Jehovah, every Jew was expected to visit Jerusalem and offer up sacrifice in the temple at least once in the course of his life. Moreover, they were active in proselytizing and made many converts among the Greeks and other peoples with whom they came into contact. However, their connection with Judaea was purely religious and not political in character.

The privileged status which the Jews had enjoyed in the Hellenistic states was recognized by the Romans and was specifically confirmed by Augustus, although this policy caused considerable dissatisfaction among their Greek fellow townsmen. Furthermore, in deference to the peculiarity of their religion, the Jews were not required to participate in the imperial cult. However, the imperial government made no attempt to foster settlements of the Jews in the western [pg 309]provinces, and during the early principate the only considerable Jewish colony west of the Adriatic was that in Rome. With the exception of Caligula, who tried to force the imperial cult upon the Jews, the successors of Augustus did not interfere with the Jewish religion, except to forbid its propaganda. The expulsions of the Jews from Rome under Tiberius and Claudius were not religious persecutions but police measures taken for the maintenance of good order within the city.

Christianity and Judaism. The Christian religion had its origin in Judaea as a result of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified by the Roman authorities in the principate of Tiberius, after having been condemned for blasphemy by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish high court for the enforcement of the law of Moses. From Judaea Christianity spread to the Jewish diaspora through the missionary activity of the disciples and other followers of Jesus, particularly the Apostle Paul. Although the Christian propaganda was not confined to these Jewish communities, it was among them that the first Christian congregations arose, and this, with the Jewish origin of the new faith, caused the Christians to be regarded by the Roman government as a sect of the Jews. In 49 A. D. Claudius banished the Jews from Rome because of disorders among them between the Christians and the adherents of the older faith. Nero’s persecution of the Christians in 64 A. D. was, as we have seen, not undertaken on religious grounds, and was perhaps due to Jewish instigation. On the whole, the Christians benefited by the attitude of Rome towards their sect, for it gave them the benefit of the immunities which the adherents of Judaism enjoyed.

Although the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. brought about the predominance of the non-Jewish element in the Christian ranks, until the end of the rule of the Flavians the Roman official world made no distinction between Jew and Christian. Domitian apparently exacted the didrachma from both alike. Towards the close of his reign, in 95 A. D., this princeps executed or banished a number of Romans of senatorial rank on charges of atheism or conversion to Judaism. Among the victims were some who professed Christianity. At the same time the Christian communities of Asia Minor seem to have suffered a rather serious persecution on the part of the state. However, this may have been due to disturbances between the Christian and the non-Christian elements in the Greek cities, and there [pg 310]is no definite proof that Domitian made the suppression of Christianity part of the public policy.

Christianity and the Roman state. After Domitian, Christians were no longer liable to the didrachma, and therefore lost their claim to the privileges and exemptions of the Jews. A conflict with the secular power was rendered inevitable by the very nature of Christianity, which was non-Roman, non-national, and monotheistic, refusing recognition to the cults of the state, and denying the divinity of the ruler. The Romans regarded the imperial cult from the political standpoint and considered the refusal to recognize the divinity of the princeps as an act of treason. On the other hand, Christians looked upon the question as a matter of conscience and morality and regarded the worship of the princeps as an act of idolatry. They could pray for him, but not to him. These two points of view were impossible of reconciliation. Furthermore, since the worship of the state gods formed such an integral part of the public life of each community, it was inevitable that those who refused to participate in this worship should be looked upon as atheists and public enemies. On another ground also the Christians were liable to punishment under the lex maiestatis, namely, as forming unauthorized religious associations. These constituted the crimes for which the Christians were actually punished from the close of the first to the middle of the third century of our era.

Popular accusations against the Christians. However, throughout this period the state did not take the initiative against Christians as such, but only dealt with those individuals against whom specific charges were laid by private initiative or the action of local magistrates. These popular accusations charged the Christians with forming illegal associations, with seeking the destruction of mankind (as odiatores humani generis), and with perpetrating all sorts of monstrous crimes in their religious rites. Such accusations were partly due to the belief of the early Christian church in the immediate coming of the kingdom of Christ, to their consequent scorn of wealth and public honors, and to the secrecy which surrounded the exercise of their religion.

The imperial policy from Trajan to Maximus. The attitude of the Roman government towards the Christians in the early second century is clearly seen from the correspondence between Trajan and Pliny the younger, the governor of Bithynia in 112 A. D. This cor[pg 311]respondence fails to reveal any specific law prohibiting Christianity, but shows that the admission of the name of Christian, accompanied by the refusal to worship the gods of the state and the princeps, constituted sufficient grounds for punishment. Thus a great deal of discretion was left to the provincial governor, who was directed to pay no attention to anonymous accusations but who was expected to repress Christianity whenever its spread caused conflicts with the non-Christian element under his authority. A rescript of Hadrian to Minucius Fundanus, proconsul of Asia, ordained that Christians should receive the benefit of a regular trial, and that they should not be condemned for the name, but for some definite crime, e. g., for treason. An exception to the general policy of the emperors in the second century was the persecution of the Christian community at Lyons authorized by Marcus Aurelius. With the state straining every nerve in its struggle with the barbarians, he regarded the Christians as defaulters to the cause of the empire, and as unreasonable, ecstatic transgressors of the law. The attitude of Septimius Severus towards the Christians was in harmony with the procedure of Trajan and Hadrian. In 202 A. D. he ordered the governor of Syria to forbid Jewish proselytizing and Christian propaganda, but forbade that Christians should be sought out with the object of persecution. Severus Alexander showed himself well-disposed towards Christianity and the brief persecution of Maximinus the Thracian was merely a spasmodic expression of hatred against those protected by his predecessor.

The persecutions of the third century. By the middle of the third century the Christian church was in a flourishing condition. It numbered among its adherents men in all walks of life, its leaders were men of culture and ability, and abandoning the attitude of the early church towards the Kingdom of Heaven, the Christians were taking an active part in the society in which they lived. The number of the Christians was so great as to disquiet the government, since in view of their attitude towards the cults of the state they were still traitors in the eyes of the law. And so in their struggle against the forces which threatened the dissolution of the empire, certain of its rulers sought to stamp out Christianity as a means of restoring religious and political harmony and loyalty among their subjects. The Christians were regarded as enemies within the gates and the calamities of the time were attributed to the anger of the gods towards [pg 312]these unbelievers. In 250 A. D. Decius reversed the principle enunciated by Septimius Severus and ordained that Christians were to be sought out and brought to trial. This was accomplished by ordering all the citizens of the empire by municipalities to perform public acts of worship to the gods of the state. Those who refused were punished. The persecution of Decius was terminated by his death in 251, but his policy was renewed by Valerian in 257 A. D. In that year Valerian required the Christians to offer sacrifice publicly, forbade their reunions and closed their cemeteries. In 258 he ordered the immediate trial of bishops, priests and other officers of the churches, and set penalties for the various grades of the clergy who persisted in their beliefs. But Valerian’s persecution also was brief and ended with his defeat and capture by the Persians in 258 A. D. Naturally, in so large a body as the Christians now were not all were animated by the zeal and sincerity of the early brethren, and under threat of punishment many, at least openly, abjured their faith. However, many others cheerfully suffered martyrdom and by their example furthered the Christian cause. Truly, “the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.” The persecutions tried the church sorely, but it emerged triumphant from the ordeal.

Organization of the Christian church. The early Christians formed a number of small, independent communities, united by ties of common interest, of belief, and of continual intercourse. Although the majority of their members were drawn, from the humbler walks of life, they were by no means confined to the proletariat. In their organization these communities were all of the same general type, resembling the Roman religious collegia, but local variations were common. Each church community was directed by a committee, whose members were called at times elders (presbyters), at times overseers (bishops). These were assisted by deacons, who, like themselves, were elected by the congregation to which they belonged. Among the presbyters or bishops one may have acted as president. The functions of the bishops were primarily administrative, including the care of the funds of the association, the care of the poor, the friendless, and traveling brethren, and of discipline among the members of the community. The deacons were the subordinates of the bishops, and assisted in the religious services and the general administration of the community.

But before the close of the principate this loose organization had [pg 313]been completely changed as a result of separatist tendencies among the Christians themselves and the increasing official oppression to which they were exposed. The opposition to these forces resulted in a strict formulation of evangelic doctrine and a firmer organization of the church communities. This organization came to be centralized in the hands of the bishops, now the representatives of the communities. The episcopate was no longer collegiate, but monarchical, and claimed authority by virtue of apostolic succession. Apparently the president of the committee of bishops or presbyters had become the sole bishop, and the presbyters had become priests subject to his authority, although at times presiding over separate congregations. The bishops were now regularly nominated by the clergy, approved by the congregation, and finally inducted into office by the ceremony of ordination. Besides their administrative powers, the bishops had the guardianship of the traditions and doctrines of the church. The clergy were now salaried officers, sharply distinguished from the laity, who gradually ceased to participate actively in the government and regulation of worship of their respective communities, and these communities had developed into corporations organized on a juristic basis, promising redemption to their members and withholding it from deserters.

The primacy of Rome. In the third century, a movement took place for the organization of the separate churches in larger unions, and in this way the provincial synods arose. In these the metropolitan bishops, that is, those from the provincial administrative centers, assumed the leadership. Among the churches of the empire as a whole two rival tendencies made themselves manifest. The one was to accord equal authority to all the bishops, the other to recognize the supremacy of the bishop of Rome. The claim for the primacy of the Roman see was based upon the imperial political status of Rome, and the special history of the Roman church. It was strongly pressed by certain bishops of the second century who laid emphasis upon the claim of the Roman bishopric to have been established by the Apostle Peter.

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