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

by J. C. Stobart

Plate L. COIN PLATE II

The procurator only commanded auxiliary troops, and nearly all the “Roman soldiers” mentioned in the Gospels must have been of Jewish birth. As soon as it was a province, but not before, Judæa had to pay tribute to Cæsar. Hence the existence of a “chief of the publicans” like Zacchæus. As usual, the Romans preserved what they could of native institutions, and the Sanhedrin continued to act as a national council, so far as could be permitted. Thus it might try Jesus, but it could not pronounce the death sentence. On the other hand, another procurator, Festus, committed Paul to the Sanhedrin for judgment. The fact is that the Jewish law was so peculiarly national that a bewildered and well-intentioned Roman knight like Pilate might often say “take ye Him and judge Him according to your law.” The Roman government was so tolerant of the religion of its subjects that even a Roman citizen who ventured to enter the Holy of Holies was punished with death. The Jewish religion was expressly under Roman protection. Agrippa, as we have seen, had sacrificed to Jehovah, but later on we find Augustus commending his grandson Gaius for not having worshipped Jehovah. As a matter of fact, with the spread of the newer forms of Hellenic philosophy the religious feeling of the world, which had long ago given up its faith in the Olympian mythology, was turning more and more towards monotheism and a mystical system of ethics. The higher Pharisaism, which Paul had learnt at the feet of Gamaliel, was decidedly influenced by Stoicism. Hence the Jewish religion even before its Christian development was extremely fascinating to the Roman mind, and it had to be forbidden in the capital. Even at Jerusalem the Jews were expected to sacrifice, not to but for “Cæsar and the Roman People” every day. Augustus paid for this ritual out of his own pocket. In deference to the feeling of the Jews, the coins struck for Judæa bore no portrait of Cæsar, and even the standards, because they bore portraits, were ordered not to be carried into the Holy City. It is true that the silver denarius of Syria circulated in Judæa to some extent, and it is of such a coin that Christ was speaking when He asked: “Whose image and superscription is this?”

The province of Africa with Numidia was handed over to the senate as peaceful in 27 B.C., and it was one of the only two Roman provinces which Augustus never visited. Nominally it stretched from the boundary of the kingdom of Mauretania at the river Ampsaga on the west to the borders of the Cyrenaica on the east. But actually it consisted of the islands of fertility on the Tunisian coast. Carthage had been colonised by Julius Cæsar and was now refounded by Augustus. There was no inland frontier. In the desert behind the mountains there still flourished the wild Gætulian nomads who occasionally descended upon the peaceful province and provided a Roman triumph. This was the reason why a legion was still kept in Africa. The neighbouring kingdom of Mauretania was assigned to an interesting young royal couple. The husband was Juba, a descendant of Masinissa, who had been educated as a Roman, had served in the Roman army and was so complete a Greek scholar that he wrote among many other works a history of the Drama. The wife was a daughter of Cleopatra by Antony, who had ridden in Cæsar’s triumph at Rome. Both Mauretania and its eastern neighbour Numidia, which had been added to the Roman province, now settled down to wealth and happiness under the Roman rule. The splendid ruins which still survive indicate a prosperity which has not as yet been completely recovered.

Cyrene, where the descendants of the Romans are now carving out a province for themselves, though geographically a part of the African continent, was historically regarded as a Greek island, and united in one province with Crete. It consisted of a group of five Greek cities with a large intermixture of Jews. Cyrene has no history in this period, but after the siege of Jerusalem there was a terrible outburst of Jewish fanaticism. Thousands of Roman citizens were tortured and slain.

Perhaps no country in the world has had such a chequered and miserable history as the pleasant island of Sicily with its rich volcanic soil. For four hundred years it had been mainly Greek. The eastern end, at least, had been scattered with important city-states which, under the leadership of Syracuse, had waged incessant conflict with the Carthaginian invaders in their western strongholds. We have seen how the Romans finally drove out the Semitic element and conquered the Greeks. During the latter part of republican history the island had been of vital importance to Rome as supplying through its tribute the chief part of the corn-supply. At the same time it had been cruelly exploited and oppressed by Roman governors like Verres. Then during the civil wars Sextus Pompeius had made it his head-quarters, and it had been laid under heavy contributions by both sides. Messina, its richest town, had been the scene of a sack and massacre. No country had more to hope from the Pax Augusta, and it now began to enjoy one of its brief periods of rest. Augustus spent the winter of 22 in Sicily at the beginning of his tour in Greece. He founded colonies at six famous cities of old. While he was in the island the Sicilians offered him a kind of round-robin of complaint against the extortion of his procurator. Augustus instantly dismissed the offender and replaced him by his own valued tutor, the philosopher Areus. It was thoroughly in accordance with his policy to put a Greek philosopher in charge of a Greek island.

So far we have been surveying the treatment of that part of the Roman world which was already quite civilised and mainly Greek. We now turn to the barbarian West and North, mainly consisting of newly conquered Cæsarian provinces. In these quarters, the nearer parts of Spain and the Narbonensian province of Gaul were the only regions which could be called civilised. As soon as the provisional settlement of 27 b.c. was effected Augustus hurried away to Gaul. It was generally thought that he was on his way to conquer Britain, for that was the second of the two tasks which Julius had left to his successor. Accordingly the loyal Horace dutifully prays:

serues iturum Cæsarem in ultimos
orbis Britannos.[45]

But this was not the time, and Augustus was not the man, for dazzling conquests. “Hasten slowly” was his favourite motto, and his empire policy was founded on the same principle. For the present the Ocean, then called British, was boundary enough. Augustus was reducing the army and Britain would have taken at least a legion to keep it quiet. So Britain had to delay its prospects of civilisation until Gaul and Spain were organised and the German frontier settled. We have the record of British chiefs coming to Rome with unknown petitions during the period, but beyond that there is silence on our island. As for Gaul, Julius had done the work of conquest thoroughly enough, and the Gauls as an adaptable people were taking to Roman civilisation with avidity. There were indeed corners of it not yet enlightened and the whole government required organisation. Augustus went straight to the capital of the old province, Narbonne, and there he arranged a census and a land register, not, as Ferrero observes, out of mere statistical curiosity. Probably no tribute had come in from Gaul during the civil wars, and Augustus was much concerned with finance. For the moment an outbreak in Spain called the emperor away, but five years later he returned to complete his work. The old province, which has passed into history as Provence, was now handed back to the senate as completely pacified, and the rest of Gaul was eventually divided into three parts: Aquitania, the half-Spanish south-west; Lugdunensis (the east and centre stretching right across France with its capital Lyons or Lugdunum on its eastern border); and Belgica (the northern part with Trier—Augusta Treverorum, not yet founded—and Rheims as its chief towns). This division was mainly, though not entirely, based on racial considerations. Together the three formed one of Cæsar’s provinces as Gallia Comata.