The Absence of Genius
Those were the wonders of great power steadily directed to a great purpose. General coercion was the simple principle, and the only talisman of a Roman Emperor was the chain, except where it was casually commuted for the sword; the universality of the compression atoned for half its evil. The natural impulse of man is to improvement; he requires only security from rapine. The Roman supremacy raised round him an impregnable wall. It was the true government for an era when the habits of reason had not penetrated the general human mind. Its chief evil was in its restraint of those nobler and loftier aspirations of genius and the heart which from time to time raise the general scale of mankind.
Nothing is more observable than the decay of original literature, of the finer architecture and of philosophical invention, under the empire. Even military genius, the natural product of a system that lived but on military fame, disappeared; the brilliant diversity of warlike talent that shone on the very verge of the succession of the Cæsars sank like falling stars, to rise no more. No captain was again to display the splendid conception of Pompey’s boundless campaigns; the lavish heroism and inexhaustible resource of Antony; or the mixture of undaunted personal enterprise and profound tactic, the statesmanlike thought, generous ambition, and high-minded pride that made Cæsar the very emblem of Rome. But the imperial power had the operation of one of those great laws of nature which through partial evil sustain the earth—a gravitating principle which, if it checked the ascent of some gifted beings beyond the dull level of life, yet kept the infinite multitude of men and things from flying loose beyond all utility and all control.
Roman Avarice
Yet it was only for a time. The empire was but the superstructure of the republic, a richer, more luxuriant, and more transitory object for the eye of the world, and the storm was already gathering that was to shake it to the ground. The corruptions of the palace first opened the imperial ruin. They soon extended through every department of the state. If the habitual fears of the tyrant in the midst of a headlong populace could scarcely restrain him in Rome, what must be the excesses of his minions where no fear was felt, where complaint was stifled by the dagger, and where the government was bought with bribes, to be replaced only by licensed rapine!
The East was the chief victim. The vast northern and western provinces of the empire pressed too closely on Rome, were too poor and too warlike to be the favorite objects of Italian rapacity. There a new tax raised an insurrection; the proconsular demand of a loan was answered by a flight which stripped the land, or by the march of some unheard-of tribe, pouring down from the desert to avenge their countrymen. The character, too, of the people, influenced the choice of their governors. Brave and experienced soldiers, not empty and vicious courtiers, must command the armies that were thus liable to be hourly in battle, and on whose discipline depended the slumbers of every pillow in Italy. Stern as is the life of camps, it has its virtues, and men are taught consideration for the feelings, rights, and resentments of man by a teacher that makes its voice heard through the tumult of battle and the pride of victory. But all was reversed in Asia, remote, rich, habituated to despotism, divided in language, religion, and blood; with nothing of that fierce, yet generous clanship, which made the Gaul of the Belgian marshes listen to the trumpet of the Gaul of Narbonne, and the German of the Vistula burn with the wrongs of the German of the Rhine.
The Discovery of Danger
Under Nero, Judea was devoured by Roman avarice. She had not even the sad consolation of owing her evils to the ravage of those nobler beasts of prey in human shape that were to be found in the other provinces—she was devoured by locusts. The polluted palace supplied her governors; a slave lifted into office by a fellow slave; a pampered profligate, exhausted by the expenses of the capital; a condemned and notorious extortioner, with no other spot to hide his head, were the gifts of Nero to my country. Pilate, Felix, Festus, Albinus, Florus, a race more profligate and cruel as our catastrophe approached, tore the very bowels of the land. Of the last two it was said that Albinus should have been grateful to Florus for proving that he was not the basest of mankind, by the evidence that a baser existed; that he had a respect for virtue by his condescending to commit those robberies in private which his successor committed in public; and that he had human feeling by his abstaining from blood where he could gain nothing by murder; while Florus disdained alike concealment and cause, and slaughtered for the public pleasure of the sword!
A number of partial insurrections, easily suppressed, displayed the wrath of the people and indulged the cruelty of the procurator. They indulged also his avarice. Defeat was followed by confiscation; and Florus even boasted that he desired nothing more prosperous than insurrection in every village of Judea. He was about to be gratified before he had prepared himself for this luxury!
A menial in my house was detected with letters from an agent of the Roman governor. They required details of my habits and resources, which satisfied me that I had become an object of vengeance. From the time of my return I had seen with bitterness of soul the insults to my country. I had summoned my friends to ascertain what might be our means of resistance, and found them as willing and devoted as became men; but our resources for more than the first burst of popular wrath, the seizure of some petty Roman garrison, or the capture of a convoy, were nothing. The jealousies of the chief men of the tribes, the terrors of Rome, the positions of the Roman troops, cutting off military communication between the north and south of Judea, made the attempt hopeless, and it was abandoned for the time. Even those letters which marked me for a victim made no change in my determination that if I could not escape danger by individual means, no public blood should be laid to my charge. For a few months all was tranquil; the habits of rural life are calculated to keep depressing thoughts at a distance. My wife and daughters returned to their graceful pursuits, with the added pleasure of novelty after so long a cessation. I hunted through the hills with Constantius, or, traversing the country which might yet be the scene of events, availed myself of the knowledge of a master of the whole science of Roman war.