EPILOGUE
Musæ quid facimus? τὶ κεναῖσιν ἐν ἐλπίσιν αὔτως
ludimus ἀϕραδίῃσιν ἐν ἤματι γηράσκοντες;
Σαντονικοῖς camp οισν, ὄπῃ κρύος ἄσπετον ἐστίν,
erramus gelido-τρομεροὶ rigidique poetæ.
Ausonius
SHOULD have preferred to leave the Roman world at the height of its grandeur, when the whole vast territory was enjoying prosperity, if not peace, under the virtuous and benevolent Antonines. In that way this book would best create the true impression of Rome, not as a lamentable failure, but as the conspicuous success which it assuredly was. But as the reader will probably follow the old Greek maxim and desire to see the end before recording a judgment, a few pages are added containing a very brief summary of the closing scenes. It is necessary to notice that even the closing scenes cover a period of two hundred years, and that this progress is not even yet entirely downhill. They include good and bad reigns, periods of prosperity as well as disaster.
Here again the impression of pessimism which we get from reading the account of the Empire is due to the historians as much as to the history. Lampridius and the other writers of the Augustan History are small-minded writers who label the various princes as good or bad largely according to their treatment of the senate. The Augustan historians are trained in the school of Suetonius, they dwell upon gossip and can form no large political judgments. Very little of the gossip is authentic. If they have decided to revile an emperor they repeat the scandals narrated by Suetonius about Tiberius or Nero. It is only in their accounts of military action that they can be trusted, and this fact creates a false preponderance of warfare in the annals of the period.
The succession to the imperial throne continued to be the weak point of the whole system. The throne itself passed through unspeakable degradations. The guards who murdered Pertinax formally put the succession up to auction in the prætorian camp. Septimius Severus (193-198) gave a brief respite of strong government which almost destroyed the fiction of senatorial authority, for Severus held the proconsular power even over Rome and Italy. Caracalla was probably the worst of all the emperors in personal vice and brutality, but he was the author of that famous decree which conferred the citizenship on all the western provinces. In Elagabalus (218-222) Rome had for master the vile and effeminate priest of the Sungod, who brought the fetish-stone of Emesa into the city and attempted to make all the gods bow down to it. Alexander Severus was a blameless prince, and Maximin the Thracian drove the barbarians back behind the limites of the Rhine and Danube. After the Gordians the senate enjoyed for a brief space the opportunity of governing Rome through their nominee Pupienus, but the disorders of the period may be gauged from the fact that in the eighteen years following Alexander Severus, who died in 235, twelve persons wore the purple. Then Gallienus assumed it, having for his colleague that Valerian who was the first of Roman emperors to be taken prisoner by the enemy. Strange and horrible tales hung about his mysterious fate when taken captive by Shapur, the Persian king. In the latter years of Gallienus the Empire was practically divided, for his rebellious general Postumus was recognised as emperor throughout Gaul, Spain, and Britain. In this period, too, Palmyra rose into independent power as the meeting-place of the caravan routes across the Syrian plains. Under the famous Queen Zenobia it practically ruled over the eastern parts of the Empire, and its splendid ruins prove its wealth and magnificence. Gallienus then almost allowed the Empire to disintegrate under his feeble grasp, but his successor Claudius Gothicus (268) was a man and a soldier. He smote the Goths and would have restored the Empire in full, but the plague, which had never wholly disappeared since the time of Marcus Aurelius, carried him off in the third year of his reign. The task was left for Aurelian, that Pannonian peasant whose brilliant generalship hurled back the enemy on every side, while his statesmanship restored the authority of the emperor and even the financial credit of the Empire. The mighty wall with which he surrounded Rome is, however, a sad testimony of the dark days upon which the imperial city had fallen. The Palmyrene kingdom was defeated and the rich city plundered. The rebel Empire of the Gauls was destroyed for ever. The grandest triumph ever witnessed in Rome was that of Aurelian in 274. It is thus described by Vopiscus:
“There were three royal chariots. One was that of Odenathus, brilliant with jewellery in gold, silver, and gems; the second, similarly constructed, was the gift of the Persian king to Aurelian; the third was the design of Zenobia herself, who hoped to visit Rome in it. Wherein she was not deceived, for she entered the city in it after her defeat. There was another chariot yoked to four stags, which is said to have belonged to the king of the Goths. On this Aurelian rode to the Capitol, there to sacrifice the stags which he had vowed to Jupiter the Highest and Mightiest. Twenty elephants went before, tamed beasts of Libya and two hundred different beasts from Palestine, which Aurelian immediately presented to private individuals in order that the treasury might not be burdened with their maintenance. Four tigers, giraffes, elks, and other creatures were led in procession. Eight hundred pairs of gladiators, as well as captives from the barbarian tribes, Blemyes, Axiomitæ, Arabs, Eudæmones, Ludians, Bactrians, Hiberi, Saracens, Persians, all with their various treasures; Goths, Alani, Roxolani, Sarmatians, Franks, Suevi, Vandals, Germans advanced as captives with their hands bound. Among them also were the Palmyrene chiefs, who survived, and the Egyptian rebels. Ten women whom Aurelian had taken fighting in male attire among the Goths were in the procession, while many of these ‘Amazons’ had been slain. In front of each contingent a placard bearing the name of the tribe was carried. Among them was Tetricus (the ‘emperor’ of the Gallic Empire) in a scarlet cloak, a yellow tunic, and Gallic breeches. There walked Zenobia too, laden with jewels and chained with gold chains which others carried. In front of the conquered princes their crowns were borne along labelled with their names. And next the Roman People followed, the banners of the guilds and camps, the mailed soldiers, the royal spoils, the whole army and the senate (although it was saddened to see that some members of its body were among the captives) added much to the splendour of the show. It was not until the ninth hour that the Capitol was reached, and the palace much later.”
Aurelian endeavoured to establish Mithraism as the state religion, and earned the gratitude of the vulgar by supplementing the free supply of corn with a daily ration of pork. Oil and salt were given gratuitously, and he even prepared to supply free wine. The three emperors who succeeded Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus, were men of good character, and the first two were, once more, the nominees of the senate.
Throughout this troubled age the causes of confusion were twofold. On the one hand the Empire itself was so vast and scattered that it tended now to fall to pieces of its own momentum, as the seedbox opens to scatter its seeds. Britain, Gaul, Germany, Palmyra—each in its turn began to feel a unity of its own. Rome was far away, and the government was often weak and negligent. Here was an opportunity for the local generals to carve out thrones for themselves. While the emperor hurried this way and that fresh rebellions broke out in his rear. It was no one’s fault in particular. The world-state was impossible in theory as in practice. It was only possible while the provinces were barbarian. When they became civilised and self-conscious they were bound to feel their natural unity.