CHAPTER V
[1] The period from the reign of Augustus Caesar through that of Marcus Aurelius (31 B.C.-192 A.D.) was known as "the good Roman peace." No other large section of the western world has ever known such unbroken peace and prosperity for so long a time. Piracy ceased upon the seas, and trade and commerce flourished. The cities and the great middle class in the population were prosperous. Travel was safe and common, and men traveled both for business and pleasure. The Christian State within a State had not yet taken form. Literature and learning flourished. The law became milder. The rights of the accused became better recognized. A certain broad humanity pervaded the administration of both law and government. There was much private charity. Hospitals were established. Women were given greater freedom, larger intellectual advantages, and a better position in the home than they were to know again until the nineteenth century. It was the Golden Age of the Empire. Toward the close of the period the Christian Father, Tertullian, wrote: "Every day the world becomes more beautiful, more wealthy, more splendid. No corner remains inaccessible…. Recent deserts bloom…. Forests give way to tilled acres…. Everywhere are houses, people, cities. Everywhere there is life."
[2] Slavery in Rome came to be much more demoralizing than ever was the case in the United States. Instead of an ignorant people of an inferior race, the Roman slave was often the superior of his master—the unfortunate captive in an unsuccessful war against an oppressor. The holding of such educated and intelligent people in slavery was far more degrading to a ruling people than would have been the case had their slaves been ignorant and of inferior racial stock.
[3] The Roman State had come to be essentially a collection of cities. Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Carthage, Ephesus, and Lyons were great cities, judged even by present-day standards, throbbing with varied industries and a strong intellectual life. In addition there were hundreds of other cities scattered all over the Empire, each with its own municipal life, while on the frontier were stockaded villages serving as centers of trade with the barbarian tribes beyond.
[4] Chief among the new ideals that sapped the old Roman strength must be mentioned the new Christian religion, with its doctrine of other- worldliness and its system of government not responsible to the Empire. Another influence was the rise of a super-civic philosophy, derived chiefly from the writings of Plato (see footnote 1, page 42), which held that certain men could be above the State and yet by their wisdom in part direct it. The two influences combined to undermine the resisting strength of the State.
[5] Not only was the future of western European civilization settled there, but that of North and South America as well. Had Saracenic civilization come to dominate Europe, the Koran might have been taught to- day in the theological schools of Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, and Valparaiso, and the Christian religion been the possession only of the Greek and Russian churches, while our literature and philosophy and civilization would have been tinctured, through and through, with oriental ideas and Mohammedan conceptions.
[6] It is hard for us to imagine what happened, for the Indians we know to-day represent a much higher grade of civilization than did the German invaders. If we could imagine the United States overrun by the Indians of a hundred and fifty years ago, as the German tribes overran the Roman Empire, and becoming the rulers of a people superior to them in numbers and intellect, we should have something analogous to the Roman situation.
[7] As allies, citizens, soldiers, colonists, and slaves the Germans had long been filtering into the Roman world, and the Roman world was in part Germanized before the barriers were broken. These German-Romans helped to assimilate the Germans who came later, much as Italian-Americans in the United States help to receive and assimilate new Italians when they come.
[8] "The historical importance of the mere fact that it was an organic unity which Rome established, and not simply a collection of fragments artificially held together by military force, that the civilized world was made, as it were, one nation, cannot be overstated…. It was a union, not in externals merely, but in every department of thought and action; and it was so thorough, and the Gaul became so completely a Roman, that when the Roman government disappeared he had no idea of being anything else than a Roman…. It was because of this that, despite the fall of Rome, Roman institutions were perpetual." (Adams, G. B., Civilization during the Middle Ages, 2d ed., p. 30.)
[9] A Germanic king, when he feared no Roman general or emperor, could usually be made to stand in awe when a Christian priest or bishop appealed to Heaven and the saints, and threatened him with eternal hell-fire if he did not do his bidding.
[10] The Church, it must be remembered, maintained its separate system of government and kept up the old forms of the Roman law. It had also its courts and its exemptions for the clergy, and these it forced the barbarians to respect. During half a dozen centuries it was the chief force that made life tolerable for myriads of men and women, and almost the only force upholding any semblance of humane ideals.
[11] Clotilda, wife of the heathen Clovis, was a Burgundian princess and a devout Christian, who had long tried to persuade her husband to accept her faith. In 496, during a battle with the Alemanni, near the present city of Strassburg, Clovis vowed that if the God of Clotilda would give him victory, he would do as she desired. The Alemanni were crushed, and he and three thousand of his chiefs were at once baptized.
[12] Draper, John W., Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. II, pp. 145-46.
[13] The extent of the Benedictine order alone may be seen from the Benedictine statement that "Pope John XXII, who died in 1334, after an exact inquiry, found that, since the first rise of the order, there had been of it 24 popes, near 200 cardinals, 7000 archbishops, 15,000 bishops, 15,000 abbots of renown, above 4000 saints, and upwards of 37,000 monasteries. There had been likewise, of this order, 20 emperors, 10 empresses, 47 kings and above 50 queens, 20 sons of emperors and 48 sons of kings, about 100 princesses and daughters of kings and emperors, besides dukes, marquises, earls, countesses, etc., innumerable." From this it may be inferred how fully the Church was the State during the long period of the Middle Ages.
[14] Draper, John W., Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. I, p. 437.