Numerous portraits, both in marble and on coins, demonstrate that this Nose was very frequent among the Romans, and peculiarly characteristic of that nation. Hence its name. The persevering energy, stern determination, and unflinching firmness of the conquerors of the world; their rough, unrefined character, which, notwithstanding the example of Greece, never acquired the polish of that country, all indicate the accuracy of the mental habit attributed to the owner of this Nose.
Sufficient stress has never been laid by historians on national characteristics. The peculiar psychonomy of nations is an element which is never taken into account, when the historical critic endeavours to elucidate the causes and consequences of events. He judges of all nations by the standard of his own, regardless of age, climate, physiognomy, and psychonomy. This is as absurd as the fashion the Greeks had of deducing foreign names and titles from the Greek, a practice which Cicero wittily ridicules. In this ridicule we willingly join; yet we are equally open to it, when we interpret the actions of foreign nations by our own national standard.
It was the psychonomic difference between the Romans and the Greeks, which prevented the former from benefiting so efficiently from the lessons in art and philosophy of the latter, as they would have done had their minds been congenial.
The refinement which Rome received from Greece, was converted in the transfer into a refinement of coarse sensual luxury. Rome, after the conquest of Greece, filled its forums and halls with Greek workmanship, and its schools with Greek learning; nevertheless Roman mind advanced not one step beyond its original coarseness.
At the period when Rome possessed itself by conquest of the principal works of Grecian art, her citizens only regarded them as household furniture of but little value. Polybius narrates that, after the siege of Corinth, he saw some Roman soldiers playing at dice upon a picture of Bacchus, by Aristides; a picture esteemed one of the finest in the world. When King Attalus offered 600,000 sesterces (£4,845 15s.) for this picture, Mummius, the Roman Consul, thinking there must be some magic property in it, to make it worth such an enormous sum, refused to sell it, and hung it up in the Temple of Ceres at Rome. So little were the Romans conscious of the real value of the treasures of Greek art, that Mummius covenanted with the masters of the ships, hired to convey the spoils of Corinth to Rome, that if any of the exquisite paintings and statuary should be lost, they should replace them with new ones![[8]]
It is not surprising, therefore, that Rome, although possessed of infinitely greater wealth, a larger population, and the splendid examples of Greece, not only produced no artist of merit, but receded far from the high standard which Greece, notwithstanding its internal divisions, its comparative poverty, small extent, and unassisted genius, had established. There is no way of accounting for these facts, but by the difference in their psychonomy. The genius of Rome was of a very different nature from that of Greece, and was incompetent to advance the great work which the latter had commenced.
This is an example which, with numerous others that occur in the world’s history, might teach those who, in modern phrase, assert that the uniform order of the world is progress, that retrogression has ofttimes been the apparent order, and that it is a foolish short-sightedness to judge of the order of the world from a few hundred years in its history. The Greek who remembered the magnificent works of his country, and looked upon the degenerate splendor of Rome, no doubt equally dogmatically asserted that the world was in its dotage, that it had retrograded, and would never be regenerated.
The ancient Hindoo, who, in ages too remote for history to record, wept over the fallen splendor and lost power, the ruined wealth and degenerate arts of his country; the Egyptian who, in ante-Mosaic periods, beheld the fierce and barbarous Shepherd-Kings trampling with haughty contempt and hostile fanaticism on the wonderful works which still astonish the progressed world; the Assyrian, who, a century before the foundation of Rome, witnessed the downfall of his country’s magnificence and extensive empire,—all equally thought that these glories would never be resuscitated, and that the best ages of the world were past away; and if any of them had been told, that in other lands and other climes they would, in far-distant ages, be outvied, he would have turned with incredulity from the prospect, and have demanded what race was to surpass the glorious achievements of his own.
But the modern dogmatist tries to take his case out of the argument, by pretending that Christianity will protect the world from again retrograding. This is the mere pride of the Pharisee, who flatters himself that he is not as other men are, that his Christianity is too pure to fall, and his knowledge too vast to be blasted. Or else he forgets that the pure Christianity of the first disciples and martyrs failed to preserve succeeding generations from the inroads of sin and darkness more overwhelming than had ever blackened the face of Europe since the commencement of the historical period. The dogmatist of those days sighed over the world’s degeneracy, and saw not through the surrounding gloom any hopeful gleam of light; just as the modern dogmatist rejoices over the world’s advance, without perceiving any overhanging shadow of darkness.
Both judge of the world by their own time and circumstances, just as we are too apt to judge of each other by ourselves.