Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

The first outbreak of righteous indignation was in the West, and thence the war-cry of freedom spread far and wide. From the plains of Lombardy, it reached the fields of Campania, and was echoed beyond the Apennines. A fit leader sprang to the head of outraged thousands, and pointed to the Alps, telling them that beyond those dazzling heights was a home and a hope for the free. But in vain. To grace the triumph of Trajan over the Dacians, a combat of ten thousand gladiators, and eleven thousand wild beasts, was offered to the metropolitans. Spartacus, and six thousand of his rebelling associates were crucified, thus lining the road from Capua to the Capitol with monuments of Roman refinement and power.

Julius Cæsar, in the capacity of quæstor, came to Gades (Cadiz), in further Spain, and, not far from the temple of Hercules, beheld the statue of Alexander the Great. Then and there, in that remotest West, he was quickened by the most daring resolution, and immediately returned to Rome, fired with the purpose which soon after leaped the Rubicon and won the world. History records that he caused one important practical application to be made of astronomical science, in the correction of the calendar; this was due to the Alexandrian school, and was executed by the astronomer Sosigenes, who came from Egypt to Rome for the purpose. Thus was that age bounded by divine purpose and human ambition; Cæsar finding his motive to martial conquest on the same remote boundary where Pliny conceived the design of encyclopædic science. Moreover, the sagacious warrior found in the mode of arming and fighting there an improvement which he, with the greatest advantage, introduced into his own army. It was principally to his German auxiliaries, and the more effective mode of warfare he had learned from them, that he believed himself indebted for victory at Pharsalia, the crowning battle of his fortunes. Augustus formed his body-guard out of westerners only, and all succeeding emperors sought more and more to enlist Germans in their armies. The great scale of human destiny ever weighs heaviest in the West.

But jurisprudence was that department of science in which the Romans thought with most originality, and have exerted the greatest benefit. In that they were most at home, and from necessity as well as temperament, they cultivated their legal system with great care. It had its foundation in their elder jurisprudence, in which ultra-democratic principles prevailed; afterward the written code of the primitive period was a good deal modified, and greatly enlarged. Cæsar had formed the project of a general digest of Roman laws; but this great design, like many other kindred ones, fell in his violent death. Under Augustus, however, great lawyers of opposite schools, arose to mature a system of scientific jurisprudence which has exerted the mightiest influence on after ages. The people who outraged every principle of private rights, social justice, and public law, were the very nation who most accurately defined the laws they had themselves violated. The frequency and extent of colossal wrongs in that age necessitated a corresponding distinctness and majesty in the proclamation of rights. The Romans were distinguished for a sound judgment, and strong practical sense, qualities which eminently fitted them to mold the forms, and establish the titles connected with that equity which should every where preside over the relations of civil life. In this department of science alone, the help which they derived from Greece was very slight. The mere framework, so far as the laws of the twelve tables are concerned, came to them from Athens; but the grand edifice was completed by their own hands, a source and model which has affected the legal systems of the whole civilized world. The Scævolæ, M. Manilius, and M. Junius Brutus, were eminent legalists of the earlier period. Ælius Gallus, prefect of Egypt under Augustus, and the friend of Strabo the geographer, also his namesake, C. Aquilius Gallus, were distinguished at a later date. The latter was the most erudite lawyer, previous to the brilliant days of Cicero, and was the greatest reformer of his profession. Nor does it appear that he was lacking in fees, since we are told by Pliny that he owned and occupied a splendid palace on the Viminal hill. He served the office of prætor in company with Cicero, B.C. 67, and both before and after that he often sat as judge. It was before him that Cicero defended both Cæcina and Cluentius.

The Forum still awes the visitor, and affects strong minds the strongliest, because therein Rome was the law-giver of nations, whence oracles of justice emanated that still are the guides of civil life. The deep and comprehensive thinker will thrill under the power of an invisible divinity, as he looks down upon the narrow scene whereon transpired the entire history of the stupendous empire, from Romulus to Constantine. By the councils of statesmen, meditations of philosophers, and enthusiasm of orators, the history of mankind, not only then but through all time, was projected, rehearsed, and confirmed. On that spot dwelt a tremendous moral power, which, in moldering Rome, forecast the fate of the world.

But we are not to forget in this regard that in the dark recesses of the catacombs the torch of a brighter science has been kindled, which has already burned in beauty to the surface, and is spreading hope and life among the barbarous hordes who descend upon the exhausted East to destroy, but are destined to return laden with the richest blessings for the West. Even Trajan desired that the feeble and despised disciples of the Nazarene should be required to sacrifice to pagan gods, and to be punished if they refused. The same system was continued under Adrian, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius. But, under the command of the latter emperor, a legion wholly composed of Christians, insured, by its valor, a victory to the Roman army, and a new power was evidently gaining the ascendency. As a succeeding cycle draws near, the final struggles of the old grow spasmodic. From A.D. 302, to 311, in every part of the empire, martyr blood was shed in torrents; and soon after, Christianity, triumphant, ascended the throne of the Cæsars, with Constantine. From the middle of the second century, the new faith was contented with issuing the humblest forms of apology to its persecutors, and trimmed its lamp in meek seclusion, aided mainly by St. Justin, and Tertullian. But in the third century, Christian literature became more scientific. It was the beginning of theology, and the formal construction of dogmas. This work, like all other tides of progress, began in the remote East, and swept perpetually toward the West. Alexandria was the first great school, and Clement, Origen, and Cyprian, the leading masters. They with their associates and successors worked on silently, but successfully, in their aggressions against paganism, till they had laid the broad and solid basis of a mightier civilization to come.

CHAPTER IV.

PHILOSOPHY.

Greek philosophy was early divided into two great systems represented by Plato and Aristotle. The first gathered the moral beauty of his age into his teaching, and was the progenitor of moralists; while the second, who came upon the central highway of civilization at a later period, expressed the other half of the mental world, and was the patriarch of natural philosophers. The Platonists and Aristotleians were perpetuated in continuous but separate lines of disciples, until both schools had become quite degenerate in the third century before Christ, when they were mainly displaced during the Augustan age by the disciples of Zeno and Epicurus. Then began the dismemberment of Greek speculation, and the founder of the Academy, with his famous pupil and rival, the first of peripatetics, who in their joint action gave to philosophy all its parts, and constituted it a science, were virtually set aside. And yet portions of their several systems continually re-appeared in the multiform schools which subsequently arose; but so long as philosophical disquisition obtained in any sect, morals were an inheritance from Plato, and natural philosophy from Aristotle.

Stoicism and Epicureanism originated at nearly the same time, and were in violent struggle with each other until about a century before the Christian era. When at the lowest degree of exhaustion, they passed into Rome, and were cultivated without any speculative originality, but became in many instances a favorite recreation with men of might. The Periclean age had been filled by a philosophy which, without forgetting the universe and God, had especially a human and moral character. The age which followed was intensely practical, and borrowed only such speculative theories as were suited to their martial and ambitious pursuits. The age of Augustus was characterized throughout by eclecticism in philosophy, and that not of the noblest kind. But the three great objects of thought, nature, man, God, were not overlooked; through the first the culminating point was reached, and as the epoch closed religious philosophy began to beam with auspicious light.

As in the realm of art, we found the absence of all true grandeur and simplicity, so will the facts appear in the department now under consideration. The sublime folly of Stoicism only leads to the baseness of Epicurean belief. Such will doubtless be observed down to the second century of Christian truth on earth, when there was no longer any thing great to think or act under the empire, and the only genial asylum for aspiring souls was the invisible world.