Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

In the age of Hadrian, painting flourished to a limited degree. Ætion made a composition of Alexander and Roxane, with Erotes busied about him in the king's armor, which Lucian greatly admired. But painting continued to sink into a mere daubing of colors, and was commonly an occupation of slaves to adorn walls in the most expeditious manner, according to the caprice of tasteless tyrants. Foreign artists were often employed servilely to copy the old masters; while the purity of native taste was exemplified in one of the annual ceremonies at Rome, which consisted in fresh painting the statue of Jupiter, in the capitol, with bright vermilion. The time delighted in tricks of all kinds. In the golden house of Nero, a Pallas, by Fabullus, was admired, which looked at every one who directed his eyes toward her; and the picture of the tyrant himself, one hundred and twenty feet high, on canvass, is justly reckoned by Pliny as one of the fooleries of the age.

Ancient coins throw much light upon Roman art. They make us feel the reality of great events connected with the rise and fall of the empire more vividly than any written records. The annual coinage, bearing the names and portraits of leading personages, indeed, formed the most legible and enduring "state gazette," continued without interruption from Pacuvius, B.C. 200, who was an artist as well as poet, down to the fifth century. In this department of Roman art, as in every other, the progress of growth, decline, and decay, is distinctly marked. The last coins, like the last temples, statues, and pictures, foretokening Gothic art, were as marked features of transition, as those which were stamped on Grecian genius as it migrated into Rome. Starting from the heart of the Etruscan nation, which was partly of an oriental derivation, art in the Augustan age ran through its second cycle, correspondant to that of the Periclean, showing that the evolution which in Greece had been illustrated in consummate statues, was strictly normal, and the same which in Etruria, at the outset, dawned in drawings upon vases. The strong influence which Assyria had thrown over some parts of Lydia, in Asia Minor, was carried far west by the Etruscans, who quitted that district and settled in the north-west of Italy. They were celebrated workers in clay and bronze; and the ornaments and figures wrought by them on these materials are identical with the figures upon the bronze bowls and plates recently discovered by Mr. Layard at Nineveh. The Etruscans were well acquainted with agriculture, as well as many other practical arts, and knew how to work the iron of Elba. Thus it was that Providence placed the formative element of the Augustan age at the right time and in the right place to execute its mission under the wisdom of a divine intent.

When the appropriate field had been cleared, and all fitting agencies were prepared, the advent of Christianity rendered possible the full development of the human soul, and a corresponding improvement of noble art. The preliminary throes of a heavenly birth transpired under the last decay of paganism, the impressions of which are preserved in the primitive sculptures, mosaics, and illuminations of the yet persecuted church. In the catacombs under Rome are numerous works of the late Augustan period, not to be exceeded in interest by any other remains of past ages. Many entire days may be well spent in that sanctuary of antiquity, where Paganism and Christianity confront each other engaged in mortal conflict. Great numbers of the vestiges of that struggle and auspicious triumph have been taken from the subterranean chapels and tombs, and are now affixed to the walls of the Vatican, where they furnish abundance of enjoyment and reflection to one studious of the great unfoldings of the divine purpose in human progress. These "sermons in stones" are addressed to the heart, not to the head; and possess great value from being the creation of the purest portion of the "catholic and apostolic church" then extant. In all the Lapidarian Gallery, there are no prayers for the dead, nor to the apostles or early saints; and, with the exception of such relics as "eternal sleep," "eternal home," etc., not one expression contrary to the plain sense of Scripture. This is the more remarkable when it is known that the catacombs remained open during half of the fifth century.

That Mosaic should be popular with the Romans was natural, since their thoughts, mythology, social and philosophical systems, exhibited only one vast composition made up of precious fragments plundered from the East, and maintained in a gorgeous form on their grand system of forcible compact and consolidated union. Pliny states that Scylla was the first Roman who caused stone-laid work to be produced, about B.C. 80. Many elegant spoils from Greece were deposited in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and were probably adopted as decorations, which created in the minds of luxurious and ostentatious patricians an anxiety for other magnificent embellishments, and thus occasioned Mosaic. The most noble specimen of it now extant is the splendid pavement of the Pantheon, the historical worth of which is commensurate with its great superficial extent. Porphyry, Giallo Antico, and Pavonazzetto are the principal marbles employed, and they are arranged simply in round and square slabs. Fine fragments have been found in the Baths of Caracalla, and are preserved, with numerous other specimens, in the great Mosaic depository of the Vatican. The most generally known, and by far the most exquisite example of this art still existing, is the picture usually called "Pliny's Doves." It is in the museum of the Capitol, and represents a metal bason, on the edge of which four doves are sitting; one of them is stooping to drink, and not only the shadow cast by it, but even the reflection of part of the head in the water, is beautifully shown. The vast accumulation of precious material after each campaign greatly enhanced the passion for Mosaic decoration, and it was copiously produced till the end of the second century. The church early adopted this art for sacred symbolic purposes, and during the mediæval period, carried it to the highest perfection. The only specimen of primitive work now extant, is the curious incrustation which lines the vaulting of the Baptistery erected by Constantine, dedicated to Santa Constanza, and which represents a vine covering, as it were, the whole roof.

Illuminated books were known to the pagan Romans, and were at a later period made in a most attractive style by Christian zeal. In the time of Pliny, written volumes were decorated with pictures; and Dibdin refers to a collection of seven hundred notices by Varro, of eminent men, illustrated by portraits. This book appears to have been seen by Symmachus at the end of the fourth century, who speaks of it in one of his letters. The Vatican Virgil has but little ornament; and of enriched initials, or ornamental borders, the early Latin MSS. have none. In the fifth century, a great improvement began, which will be noticed in its proper place. The process of laying on and burnishing gold and silver appears to have been familiar to the oriental nations from a remote antiquity. There is no instance of its use in the Egyptian papyri, yet it is not unreasonable to believe that the Greeks acquired the art from the East, and conveyed it westward with all other elements of artistic worth. Among the later generations of that people, the usage became so common that the scribes or artists in gold constituted a distinct class. The luxury thus introduced to the Romans was augmented by writing on vellum, stained of a purple or rose color, the earliest instance of which is recorded by Julius Capitolinus, in his life of the emperor Maximinus the younger, to whom his mother made a present of the works of Homer, written on purple vellum, in letters of gold. This was at the commencement of the third century. Thence a rapid decline succeeded until, under the auspices of rising Christianity, this beautiful art rose to the highest point. Before the fourth century ended, St. Jerome tells us its use was more frequent, but always applied to copies of the Bible, and devotional books, written for the libraries of princes, and the service of monasteries.

Thus have we briefly sketched the arts of that people who, at all periods, and in every form, have built out of ruins. A band of robbers found on the banks of the Tiber a city abandoned by its builders, and which they chose to inhabit. But outcasts as they were, they brought few women with them, and these they took by violence from the peaceful Etruscans. No attractive house, nor ample temple, was erected by the Romans for five hundred years, so barbarous was the genius of the people. Corinth and Syracuse, two most magnificent cities, left no impression on their conquerors; their drinking vessels were of gold, while their temples and deities were of uncouth stone, or brittle clay. Nero built an immense palace, gilded in the most costly manner throughout. But the masters of the world, trembling to enter it, commanded its destruction, and removed the works of Phidias and Praxiteles, of Scopas and Lysippus, of Apelles and Zeuxis, and, in a fearful conflagration, poured forth torrents of precious metals from its ceilings, its arches, and its architraves, in order to construct out of its scathed kitchens and stables a bath and amphitheatre for the Roman people. They did less in their city than in their colonies, for the ultimate welfare of humanity. The most majestic and solid specimen of engineering was the bridge with which they spanned the Danube; and the grandest of their works was the wall they erected against the Caledonians. About B.C. 200, the Chinese completed their immense wall, to fence themselves in; and the Romans would fain ward the northern barbarians off. But Providence, leaving the effete East to its chosen isolation, with irresistible movement sweeps outward on the broad current of progressive civilization, and lifts the curtain of a new act in the still more glorious West.

CHAPTER III.

SCIENCE.

We are told by Livy that, soon after his disappearance from among men, the spirit of Romulus revisited the distinguished senator, Proculus Julius, and addressed him as follows: "Go, tell my countrymen it is the decree of heaven, that the city I have founded shall become the mistress of the world. Let her cultivate assiduously the military art. Then let her be assured, and transmit the assurance from age to age, that no mortal power can resist the arms of Rome." Strict and persevering obedience to this counsel eventually caused that colossal power to extend itself from Siberia to the Great Desert, and from the Ganges to the Atlantic. But it would be in vain to look to such a people, actuated by martial ambition only, for the general and successful cultivation of science. Regal, republican, and imperial Rome, was undoubtedly a perfect model of a predatory state, but the last to excel in refined and erudite thought.

The old Romans were much attached to agriculture, as a general pursuit. It was only at a late period that commerce, literature, art, and science, were introduced among them, and then only in a subordinate place. Among the Greeks, most proper names, and almost all the most distinguished, were derived from gods and heroes, and bore a significancy both poetical and glorious. Among the Romans, on the contrary, the names of many of their most distinguished families, such as Fabius, Lentulus, Piso, Cicero, and many others, were taken from vegetable productions, and the occupations of agriculture. Others, as Secundus, Quintus, Septimus, and Octavius, are derived from the numbers of the old popular reckoning. But mathematics never flourished with that people, while agriculture was a science in which they first and chiefly excelled. It was one of the very few departments in which Rome produced original writers. The language and science of conquered peoples were generally despised as barbarian, but renderings into the Latin were sometimes made, as when the writings of the Punic Mago upon agriculture were translated at the command of the senate of Rome.