THE EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE: A SKETCH
Written Specially for the Present Work
By Dr. OTTO HIRSCHFELD
Professor of Ancient History in the University of Berlin
The words “The Age of the Roman Empire is a period better abused than known,” written by Theodor Mommsen half a century ago, no longer contain a truth. To his own illuminative and epoch-making works we owe it, in the first instance, that this period, so long unduly neglected and depreciated, has come into the foreground of research within the last decade or two, and has enchained the interest of the educated world far beyond the narrow circle of professed scholars. Edward Gibbon, the only great historian who had previously turned his attention to this particular field, and whose genius built up the brilliant Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on the sure foundation laid ready to his hand by the vast industry of the French scholar Le Nain de Tillemont, chose to confine himself, as the title of his work declares, to giving a description of the period of its decay. By so doing he did much to confirm, though he did not originate, the idea that the whole epoch of the Roman Empire must be regarded as a period of deterioration, and that the utmost to which it can lay claim is an interest of somewhat pathological character, as being the connecting-link between antique and mediæval times, and between the pagan and the Christian world. And when we look upon the picture sketched by that incomparable painter of the earlier days of the empire, Tacitus, where scarcely a gleam of light illumines the gloomy scene, we may well feel justified in the opinion that the only office of this period is to set forth to us the death-struggle of classical antiquity, and that no fresh fructifying seeds could spring from this process of corruption.
And, as a matter of fact, it cannot be denied that even the best days of the Empire can hardly with truth be spoken of as the prime of Rome. There is a dearth of great names, such as abound in the history of Greece and the early history of Rome. Julius Cæsar, the last truly imposing figure among the Romans, does not belong to it; he laid the foundations of this new world, but he was not destined to finish his work, and not one of his successors came up to the standard of this great prototype. Individual character falls into the background during the empire, even the individuality of the Roman people; its history becomes the history of the antique world, and an account of the period between the reigns of Augustus and Constantine can, in its essence, be nothing other than the history of the world for the first three centuries after Christ.