Nor could any army, however strong, do more than prop up existing institutions. These themselves were rotten. Despotism cannot save a state. The reign of Louis XIV. was one of the most brilliant in modern annals. But no reign ever more signally undermined the state. It is the patriotism of soldiers that saves, not their physical force. Their force can be turned against the interests of a state as well as employed in its favor. Despotism sows the seeds of future ruin. No state was ever supported by military strength, except for a time, and then only when the soldiery were animated by noble sentiments. The imperial forces of Rome, while they preserved the throne of absolutisms, destroyed the self-reliance of the citizens, and supported wicked institutions. The difference in the aims of government under the Caesars, and under the consuls, was heaven-wide. The military genius which created an empire, was misdirected when that empire sought to perpetuate wrong. How different is the spirit which animated the armies of the United States, when they sought to preserve the institutions of liberty and the integrity of the state, from that spirit which animates the armies of the Sultan of Turkey! The Roman empire under the later emperors was more like the Ottoman empire, than the republic in the days of Cato. It was sick, and must die. A great army devoted to the interests of despotism generates more evils than it cures. It eats out the vitals of strength, and poisons the sources of renovation. It suppresses every generous insurrection of human intelligence. It merely arms tyrants with the power to crush genius and patriotism. It prevents the healthful development of energies in useful channels. The most that can be said in favor of the armies of the empire is, that they preserved for a time the decaying body. They could not restore vitality; they warded off the blows of fate. They could only keep the empire from falling until the forces of enemies were organized. No generalship could have saved Rome. The great military emperors must have felt that they were powerless against the combination of barbaric forces. The soul of Theodosius must have sunk within him to see how fruitless were his victories, how barren any victories to such a diseased and crumbling empire. Diocletian retired, in the plenitude of his power, to die of a broken heart. The utmost the emperors could do, was to erect on the banks of the Bosphorus a new capital, and virtually make a new combination of those provinces most removed from danger. The old capital was abandoned to its fate.
[Sidenote: The Roman constitution.]
[Sidenote: Infamy of the imperial regime.]
[Sidenote: Abortive efforts of good emperors.]
The elaborate and complicated constitution of the Romans, on which so much genius and experience were employed, was subverted when Caesar passed the Rubicon. Only forms remained, a bitter mockery, and a thin disguise. These were nothing. Neither consuls, nor praetors, nor pontiffs, nor censors, nor tribunes existed, except in name. Every office of the republic was absorbed in the imperial despotism. The glorious constitution, which gave authority to Cato and dignity to Cicero, was a dead-letter. Flatterers, and sycophants, and courtiers, took the place of senators. The imperial despotism crushed out every element of popular power, every protest of patriots, every gush of enthusiasm. The constitution could not save when it was itself lost. Never was there a more wanton and determined disregard of those great rights for which the nations had bled, than under the emperors. Every conservative influence that came from the people was hopelessly suppressed. The reign of beneficent emperors, like the Antonines, and of monsters like Nero and Caracalla, was alike fatal. The seal of political ruin was set when Augustus was most potent and most feared. Government simply meant an organized mechanism of oppression. There is nothing conservative in government which does not have in view the interests of the governed. When it is merely used to augment gigantic fortunes, or create inequalities, or encourage frivolities, and allows great evils to go unredressed, then its very mechanism becomes a refinement of despotic cruelty. When sycophants, jesters, flatterers, and panderers to passions become the recipients of court favor, and control the hand that feeds them, then there is no responsible authority. The very worst government is that of favorites, and that was the government of Rome, when only courtiers could gain the ear of the sovereign, and when it was for their interest to cover up crimes. What must, have been the government when even Seneca accumulated one of the largest fortunes of antiquity as minister? What must have been the court when such women as Messalina and Agrippina controlled its councils? The ascendency of women and sycophants is infinitely worse than the arbitrary rule of stern but experienced generals. The whole empire was ransacked for the private pleasure of the emperors, and those who surrounded them. "L'etat, c'est moi," was the motto of every emperor from Augustus to Theodosius. With such a spirit, so monopolizing and so proud, the rights of subjects were lost in an all-controlling despotism, which crushed out both grand sentiments and noble deeds. None could rise but those who administered to the pleasures of the emperor. All were sure to fall who opposed his will. From this there was no escape. Resistance was ruin. There was a perfect system of espionage established in every part of the empire, and it was impossible to fly from the agents of imperial vengeance. And the despotism of the emperors was particularly hateful, since it veiled its powers under the forms of the ancient republic, until in the very wantonness of its vast prerogatives it threw away its vain disguises, and openly and insultingly reveled on the forced contributions of the world. There were good and wise emperors who sought the welfare of the state, but these were exceptions to the general rule. Octavius, that Ulysses of state craft, checked open immoralities by legal enactments, discouraged celibacy, expelled unworthy members from the Senate, appointed able ministers and governors, and sought to prevent corruption, which was then so shameful. Vespasian introduced a severe military discipline among the legions, permitted citizens to have free access to his person, and promoted many great objects of public utility.
[Sidenote: Hadrian.]
[Sidenote: Marcus Aurelius.]
Hadrian attempted to give dignity to the Senate, and visited in person nearly all the provinces of his empire, impartially administered justice, magnificently patronized art, and encouraged the loftiest form of Greek philosophy. Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius set, in their own lives, examples of the sternest virtue, although they were deceived in the character of those to whom they delegated their powers, and were even ruled by unworthy favorites. Marcus Aurelius was, after all, the finest character of antiquity who was intrusted with absolute power. Contrasted with Solomon, or Augustus, or even Theodosius, he was a model prince, for he had every facility of indulging his passions, but his passions he restrained, and lived a life of the severest temperance and virtue to the end, sustained by the severest doctrines of the Stoical school. All that his rigid severity and moral elevation could do to save a decaying empire was done. He sought to base the stability of the throne on a rigid morality, on self-denial and self-sacrifice. When only twelve, he adopted the garb and the austerities of a philosopher, believing in virtue for its own sake.
From his earliest youth he associated with his instructors in the greatest freedom, and it was the happiness of his life to reward philosophers and scholars. He promoted men of learning to the highest dignities of the empire, and even showed the greatest reverence for the cultivation of the mind. Philosophy was the great object of his zeal, but he also gave his attention to all branches of science, to law, to music, and to poetry. His disposition was kind and amiable, and he succeeded in acquiring that self-command and composure which it was the professed object of the Stoics to secure. He was firm without being obstinate, gentle without being weak. He was modest, retiring, and studious. He believed that it was necessary for good government that rulers should be under the dominion of philosophy. He was so universally beloved and esteemed, that everybody who could afford it had his statue in his house. No man on a throne was ever held in such profound veneration. If ever there was, in a heathen country, an example of sublime virtue, it shone in the life of Marcus Aurelius; if ever there was an expression of supernal beauty, it was in his features beaming with love and gentleness and humility. He never neglected the duties of his office. He was noble in all the relations of a family. He was the model of an emperor. He only complained of want of time to prosecute his literary labors. He was probably the most learned man in his dominions. The Romans called him brother and father, and the Senate felt that its ancient dignity was restored. He had great causes of unhappiness. The barbarians invaded his territories; a long peace had destroyed martial energies; the Roman world was sinking into languor and decay; his adoptive brother Verus lived in luxury and dissoluteness; his wife Faustina was a second Messalina, abandoned to promiscuous profligacy; a pestilence ravaged Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, and Gaul, still this great man preserved his serenity, his virtues, and his fame. He was unseduced by any kind of mortal temptation, and left an unstained character, and an unrivaled veneration for his memory. And when we consider that he was the absolute master of one hundred and twenty millions, having at his disposal the riches of the world, and all its pleasures,—above public opinion, with no law to check him—a law only to himself, we find more to admire than in Solomon before his fall. His meditations have lately been translated and published—a work full of moral wisdom, rivaling Epictetus in morality, and the sages of the Middle Ages in contemplative piety. Niebuhr says it is more delightful to speak of him than of any man in history. The historical critic can see but one defect—his persecution of the Christians. He was doubtless a bigoted Stoic, as Paul was, at one time, a bigoted Pharisee; and the great delusion of his life was to rear a basis of national prosperity on the sublime morality of the philosophers whom he copied. He sought to save the state by the Stoical philosophy. Never were nobler efforts put forth on the part of a philosophic prince; but neither his patronage of philosophers, nor his own bright example, nor the doctrines of the Porch, conservative as they are, were of any avail. The Roman world could not be saved by the philosophy of Aurelius any more easily than the imperial despotism could be averted by the patriotism of Cicero. He was succeeded, after a glorious reign of twenty years, by his son Commodus, as incapable of managing an empire as Rehoboam was the kingdom of his father Solomon. Thus are the schemes and enterprises of the best men baffled by a mysterious power above us, who holds in his own hands the destinies of nations—the Divine Providence who giveth and who withholdeth strength.
Marcus Aurelius did all that human virtue could do to arrest the ruin which he saw, with the saddest grief, was impending over the empire, in spite of all the external prosperity which called forth such universal panegyric. And the empire was also favored by a succession of military emperors, who tried the force of arms, as Aurelius had philosophy.