The Grandeur That Was Rome: a survey of Roman culture and civilisation

by J. C. Stobart

The prefect who represented his master on the throne of the Ptolemies was in a difficult position. To Rome he was a mere servant, to the Egyptians something like a god. Against these flattering influences Gallus the poet had not strength to resist. He allowed statues to be erected to him and even had his own achievements engraved upon the pyramids. A traitorous friend reported these indiscretions at Rome. Augustus was content to recall him and forbid him to live in the provinces or to enter his presence. But the officious senate voted his condemnation to banishment, and confiscated all his property to Augustus, whereby Gallus was driven to suicide. Then Augustus was sorry and complained that it was hard not to be able to scold one’s friends like a private man. This was the first case of that disease known as delatio (informing) which was afterwards to become such a pest under the Empire. It is satisfactory to learn that the informer was very rudely treated in Roman society. From Egypt, as a base, expeditions were made in the time of Augustus to Arabia and the Soudan. Arabia Felix was to the Romans a kind of Eldorado of boundless wealth, as Horace writes to a friend who was joining the campaign. The Arabs brought their incense into the Syrian markets and already traded with India from Aden, but the national wealth of the country was exaggerated and its difficulties unknown. This expedition of 25 B.C., which was on a very large scale and included contingents from Judæa, was one of the few deliberate wars of conquest ever planned by Augustus. He learnt a lesson by its failure in the burning and trackless deserts. The other campaign against the black Æthiopians of the Soudan under their warlike but one-eyed queen Candace was more successful. Petronius the legate penetrated as far as the Second Cataract and sent a thousand prisoners to Rome, but Augustus seems to have been content to make the First Cataract his southern frontier.

FIG. 1.
COLONNADE OF OCTAVIA

FIG. 2.
ROMAN BAS-RELIEF

Plate XLIX.

The neighbouring client kingdom of Judæa is of importance not only because the days of Augustus saw the birth of that Child in Bethlehem who was destined to conquer Rome and through Rome the world, but because its throne was occupied by the ablest and most remarkable man, next to Augustus, in the whole Empire. Herod the Great, an Edomite Arab by birth, had succeeded to the throne of the Maccabees in 37 B.C. He was not only a daring warrior but a singularly skilful diplomat who was always able to cover up his crimes by adroit flattery and a fascinating manner. He was very successful in trimming between the rivals throughout the civil wars and even shared the favours of Cleopatra with his Roman masters. In these ways he increased his domains by the addition of Gadara, Samaria, and the Philistine coast towns. In compliment to Augustus he refounded Samaria with great splendour as the Greek city of Sebaste and built Greek theatres, Roman amphitheatres, and baths in Jerusalem itself. He even instituted quinquennial games there, wherein naked athletes performed to the infinite disgust of the Jews. He took his sons to Rome for their education and there he met and fascinated both Augustus and Agrippa. He even persuaded Agrippa to visit Jerusalem for the opening of his magnificent new temple in 15 B.C. Agrippa came and sacrificed a whole hecatomb to Jehovah to the apparent delight of the people. Later on Herod made a grand tour of Asia Minor, scattering lavish gifts everywhere and receiving complimentary inscriptions in return. He succeeded in obtaining valuable privileges for his fellow-Jews scattered abroad in those regions. Henceforth they were not forced to render military service and had special permission to keep the Sabbath.

In 9 and 8 B.C., however, he got into trouble with Augustus for conducting a military expedition against the Arabs without permission. This was the greatest offence that a client king could commit, and Augustus declared that henceforth he would treat Herod not as a friend, but as a subject. But in the next year a humble embassy was sent to Rome with the historian Nicolaus as its spokesman. Herod received the gracious permission to deal with his rebellious sons as he thought fit, and accordingly strangled two of them. Herod’s family history is a deplorable record of crimes and intrigues. He seems to have had ten wives, and on his death in 4 B.C., he left three wills among which Augustus had to decide. Seeing that Judæa was so rich and powerful as to be a possible source of danger, he decided to split it up into three. Then began a whole series of troubles, in the course of which the Jews of Jerusalem actually attacked a Roman legion. In revenge the legate of Syria, Quintilius Varus, crucified 2000 of the inhabitants. In the final award Judæa fell to Archelaus, Galilee to Herod Antipas. Ten years later, however, the infamous Archelaus was deposed at the petition of his subjects, and Judæa was made subject to the province of Syria with a procurator of its own. Herod Antipas continued to rule his petty kingdom until about A.D. 34, when it also was united to the province. He is the Herod whom Christ denounced as “that fox,” and he is the Herod of Christ’s Judgment, when he happened to be at Jerusalem on a visit to Pontius Pilatus, the Roman procurator. Pilate was a Roman knight, but Felix, one of his successors, was only a freedman. The seat of the Roman government was not at Jerusalem, but at Cæsarea, so that the prætorium in which the trial of Jesus took place must have been the temporary head-quarters of Pilate in the palace built by Herod the Great.