Asia is soon opened to these insatiable conquerors. The empire daily enlarges, and that enormous power over-runs all the known world.
The first passion of the Romans was glory. During seven centuries, patriotism, which policy cherished with so great success, directed the love of glory in favour of the republic; and the Romans signalized themselves no less by their attachment to their country, than by their warlike exploits. This space was filled with a long train of heroes, and those that followed, despairing to become famous in the same manner, sought to distinguish themselves by other methods. Rome was mistress of the world; it appeared glorious to become master of Rome. Sylla, Marius, and some others, showed that such a project was not impracticable: Cæsar accomplished it. That boasted conqueror, who was reproached with so many things, effaced them all by his virtue: by his military virtue which destroyed above a million of men, oppressed his fellow-citizens, and enslaved his country. In vain did the republic exert her utmost endeavours to save her expiring liberty; she was exhausted and stretched her hands to Augustus, who, from a bad citizen, became the best of masters.
Raised to the empire, he put an end to war, and soon gave mankind a peace the most universal, they had ever enjoyed. The elementary spirits have given an idea of the pleasure of this general tranquillity, by the agreeable prospect of the landskips which are here represented.
This peace.... Pray (says I interrupting the Prefect) suspend a moment the rapid recital of so many revolutions; give me leave to examine this picture, and a little time to calm the perturbation of my mind. How I love to see that beautiful sky; those plains that lose themselves at a distance; those pastures filled with flocks; those fields covered with corn? The breath of war blows far from those climates the vertiginous spirit of heroism. This is indeed the seat of peace and tranquillity. My imagination carries me to those delightful vallies: I behold and contemplate nature, whose labours nothing interrupts, producing on every side life and pleasure. My thoughts are composed and my spirits sedate amidst the tranquillity that reigns in those places: my blood, grown cool, flows in my veins with the same gentle motion as the rivulets that water those green turfs; and the passions now have on my mind only the effect of the zephyr, which seems to play gently among the branches of leafy trees.
CHAP. XIX.
The other Side of the Gallery.
The Prefect soon resumed the thread of his discourse. The quickness, wherewith he ran over the Gallery, hardly gave me time to view the several pictures he was explaining. I had not seen him before nor did I afterwards see him speak with so much action. His face was inflamed, his eyes darted fire, and his words were too slow for his eagerness.
The language, the manners, the laws of the Romans (said he) were spread over the world. The nations, conquered and settled, became members of the empire; and all the known world made but one family. By what fatality was Augustus’s peace, which seemed so unalterable, of so short a duration? Mankind only breathed, and were soon inflicted with new wounds. When Rome had no more kingdoms to subdue, she had rebels to reduce. Several nations, thinking it a great happiness or a great glory to be parted from the body of the empire, rebelled in Europe, in Asia, in Africa: all were repressed. Thus most of the nations, formerly attacked and defeated, now the aggressors and reduced, continued to be hurled from one misfortune to another; and the following pictures, those which represent the more celebrated times of the first Emperors, will still go on to present to thee spectacles of blood. The three reigns of Titus, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius, were three fine Days in a severe Winter.
Those times, nevertheless, were times of peace, in comparison of those that had gone before and those that came after. The empire was like a body with a good constitution, but which however is attacked with some disorders, and shews that it is not far from its decline.
Whilst the Romans, at first to extend, then to support and sometimes to inrich themselves, kept the world in awe, pulled down what attempted to rise, and penetrated wherever they were allured by rich spoils; towards the North, in those frozen climates where nature seems to reach only to expire, there arose and increased, in the bosom of peace and silence, nations who were one day to humble the pride of the masters of the world. Three centuries had not yet passed since Augustus’s peace, when, in the reign of Valerianus, the deceitful hope of a more commodious and happy life armed these unpolished people. See where they are coming out of their huts, tumultuously gathering together, marching in disorder, and showing the way to the hideous multitudes who followed one another from age to age.
These foreign enemies, coming when the empire was rent with internal rebellions, shook the Colossus. It withstood however, for some time, the weight which pulled it down, and one while ready to fall, and another while erect, it seemed sometimes to be going to stand firm again.