Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

NERO.—Nero reigned from 54 to 68. He was the grandson of Germanicus, and had been the pupil of the philosopher Seneca, and of Burrus, an excellent man, the captain of the Prætorian Guard. The first five years of Nero's reign were honorably distinguished from the portion of it that followed. When a warrant for the execution of a criminal was brought to him, he regretted that he had ever learned to write. His first great crime was the poisoning of Britannicus, the son of Claudius. Nero became enamored of a fierce and ambitious woman, Poppæa Sabina. On the basis of false charges, he took the life of his wife, Octavia, the daughter of Claudius (A.D. 62). His criminal mother, Agrippina, after various previous attempts made by him to destroy her, was dispatched by his command (A.D. 59). His unbridled cruelty and jealousy moved him to order Seneca, one of the men to whom he owed most, to commit suicide. He came forward as a musician, and nothing delighted him so much as the applause rendered to his musical performances. He recited his own poems, and was stung with jealousy when he found himself outdone by Lucan. His eagerness to figure as a charioteer prompted him, early in his reign, to construct a circus in his own grounds on the Vatican, where he could exhibit his skill as a coachman to a throng of delighted spectators. At length he appeared, lyre in hand, on the stage before the populace. Senators of high descent, and matrons of noble family, were induced by his example and commands to come forward in public as dancers and play-actors. The public treasure he squandered in expensive shows, and in the lavish distribution of presents in connection with them.

THE CHRISTIANS.—Nero has the undesirable distinction of being the first of the emperors to persecute the Christians. In A.D. 64 a great fire broke out at Rome, which laid a third of the city in ashes. He was suspected of having kindled it; and, in order to divert suspicion from himself, he charged the crime upon the Christians, who were obnoxious, Tacitus tells us, on account of their "hatred of the human race." Their withdrawal from customary amusements and festivals, which involved immorality or heathen rites, naturally gave rise to this accusation of cynical misanthropy. A great number were put to death, "and in their deaths they were made subjects of sport; for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and, when day declined, were burned to serve for nocturnal lights." At length a feeling of compassion arose among the people for the victims of this wanton ferocity. Prior to this time, while the Christians were confounded with the Jews as one of their sects, they had been more protected than persecuted by the Roman authorities. Now that they were recognized as a distinct body,—the adherents of a new religion not identified with any particular nation, but seeking to spread itself everywhere,—they fell under the condemnation of Roman law, and were exposed to the hostility of magistrates, as well as to the wrath of the fanatical populace.

Nero was a great builder. The ground which had been burnt over in the fire he laid out in regular streets, leaving open spaces, and limiting the height of the houses. But a large area he reserved for his "Golden House," which, with its lakes and shady groves, stretched over the ground on which the Coliseum afterwards stood, and as far as the Esquiline.

THE CITY OF ROME.—Ancient Rome was mostly built on the left bank of the Tiber. It spread from the Palatine, the seat of the original settlement, over six other hills; so that it became the "city of seven hills." All of them appeared higher than they do now. Of these hills the Capitoline was the citadel and the seat of the gods. In earlier days, from a part of the summit, the Tarpeian Rock, criminals were hurled. In time the hill became covered with public edifices, of which the grandest was the Temple of "Capitoline Jupiter." On the Palatine were eventually constructed the vast palaces of the emperors, the ruins of which have been uncovered in recent times. The walls of Servius Tullius encompassed the seven hills. The walls constructed by Aurelian (270-275 A.D.), Probus, and Honorius (402 A.D.), inclosed an area twelve miles in circumference. The streets were most of them narrow; and, to economize space, the houses were built very high. One of the finest, as well as most ancient, thoroughfares was the Via Sacra, which ran past the Coliseum, or the Flavian amphitheater, and under the Triumphal Arch of Titus, erected after the capture of Jerusalem, along the east of the Forum to the Capitol. There was a particular street in Rome where shoemakers and booksellers were congregated. The central part of the city was thronged, and noisy with cries of teamsters and of venders of all sorts of wares. The fora—one of which, the "Roman Forum," between the Capitoline and the Palatine, was the great center of Roman life—were open places paved, and surrounded with noble buildings,—temples, and basilicas, or halls of justice. The fora were either places for the transaction of public business, or they served the purpose of modern market-places. Among the public buildings of note were the vast colonnades, places of resort both for business and for recreation. The sewers, and especially the aqueducts, were structures of a stupendous character. Among the most imposing edifices in ancient Rome were the baths. Those built by Diocletian had room for three thousand bathers at once. In these establishments the beauty of the gardens and fountains without was on a level with the elegance of the interior furnishings, and with the attraction of the libraries, paintings, and sculptures, which added intellectual pleasure to the physical comfort for which, mainly, these gigantic buildings were constructed. Besides the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, there were many other temples, some of which were but little inferior to that majestic edifice.

The triumphal arches—as that of Titus, already mentioned, which was built of Pentelic marble—and the commemorative columns—as the Column of Trajan, which stood in the forum that bears his name—were among the architectural wonders of the ancient capital of the world. The plain, named of old the Campus Martius, on the north-west side of the city, and bordering on the Tiber, contained, among the buildings and pleasure-grounds by which it was covered, the Pantheon, and the magnificent mausoleum of Augustus. On the south-west of the Coelian Hill, the Appian Way turns to the south-east, and passes out of the Appian Gate. It is skirted for miles with sepulchral monuments of ancient Romans, of which the circular tomb of Metella Cæcilia is one of the most interesting. There are varying estimates of the population of ancient Rome. Probably the number of free inhabitants, in the early centuries of the empire, was not far from a million; and the slaves were probably almost as many.

DEATH OF NERO: GALBA.—Growing jealous of the legates who commanded armies on the frontiers, Nero determined to destroy them. They consequently revolted; and war between the troops of two of them issued in the death of Vindex, the general in Gaul. But Galba was deputed to carry on the contest; and Nero, being forsaken even by his creature, Tigellinus, and the prætorians, at last gained courage to call on a slave to dispatch him, and died (A.D. 68) at the age of thirty. The principal events out of Italy, during his reign, were the revolt of the Britons under the brave queen Boadicea (A.D. 61), and the suppression of it by Suetonius Paulinus; the war with the Parthians and Armenians, extending slightly the frontier of the empire; and the beginning of the Jewish war. Despite the corruption at Rome, her disciplined soldiers still maintained their superiority on the borders.

OTHO: VITELLIUS.—With the death of Nero, the Augustan family came to an end. Galba began the series of military emperors. A Roman of the old type, simple, severe, and parsimonious, he pleased nobody. The prætorians killed him, and elevated Otho, a profligate noble, to the throne; but he was obliged to contend with a rival aspirant, Vitellius, commander of the German legions, who defeated him, and became emperor A.D. 69. Vitellius was not only vicious, like his predecessor, but was cowardly and inefficient. The Syrian and Egyptian legions refused to obey so worthless a ruler, and proclaimed their commander, Flavius Vespasian, as emperor. As Vespasian's general, Antonius, approached Rome, Vitellius renounced the throne, and declared his readiness to retire to private life. His adherents withstood him; and, in the struggle that followed between the two parties in the city, the Capitoline Temple was burned. The Flavian army took Rome, and Vitellius was put to an ignominious death (A.D. 69).

CHAPTER III. THE FLAVIANS AND THE ANTONINES.

VESPASIAN: THE JEWISH WAR.—Vespasian, the first in the list of good emperors, restored discipline in the army and among the prætorians, instituted a reform in the finances, and erected the immense amphitheater now called the Coliseum, for the gladiatorial games. By his general, Cerealis, he put down the revolt in Germany and Eastern Gaul, and thus saved several provinces to the empire. Civilis, the leader of the rebellion, had aimed to establish an independent German principality on the west of the Rhine. Vespasian had begun the war with the Jews while Nero reigned (A.D. 66). The Romans had to face a most energetic resistance. Among the captives taken by them in Galilee was the Jewish historian, Josephus. At the end of A.D. 67, all Galilee was subdued. The fanatical, or popular, party, the Zealots, got the upper hand at Jerusalem. The city was torn with the strife of violent factions. In A.D. 70 commenced the memorable siege by Titus, the son of Vespasian, the details of which are given by Josephus. The fall of the city was attended with the conflagration of the temple. Although the estimate given by Josephus of the number that perished during the siege, which he places at eleven hundred thousand, is exaggerated, it is true that the destruction of life was immense. The inhabitants of the city who were not killed were sold as slaves. In Britain a most competent officer—Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus—was made governor in A.D. 78. He conquered the country as far north as the Tyne and the Solway, and built a line of forts across the isthmus between England and Scotland.

TITUS (A.D. 79-81).—Vespasian's firm and beneficent reign was followed by the accession of Titus, who had been previously associated by his father with himself in the imperial office. Titus was mild in temper, but voluptuous in his tastes, and prodigal in expenditures. One of the marked events of his short reign was the destruction of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum by a great eruption of Vesuvius (A.D. 79). The uncovering of the streets and buildings of Pompeii in recent times has added much to our knowledge of ancient arts and customs. A terrible fire and destructive pestilence at Rome were regarded as sent by the gods, not on account of the sins of the emperor, but of the nation.