Rome

by W. Warde Fowler

It would be unjust to the memory of a great man if we were to think of Trajan as a soldier only. He was a strenuous man, unsparing of himself in any part of his duty. He pursued a policy of public benefit in Italy, striving, like Augustus, to encourage agriculture and population, and carrying out a plan of his predecessor Nerva for providing a fund for the education of poor children. This last institution became an important one, and shows well how really benevolent—perhaps even to excess—how anxious for the well-being of Italy, were the Cæsars of the second century. Money was lent by the State to the Italian farmers in need of it, and the interest, at five per cent., was appropriated to the education of boys up to eighteen and girls up to fourteen years of age.

Trajan bestowed the same minute care on the provinces. In most of these there was no trouble, but in one case, Bithynia, which had been under Senatorial governors, he had to send out a special commissioner to repair neglect and mischief. Luckily for us it happened that this commissioner was Pliny the younger, nephew of the great encyclopædist of the same name; and Pliny was so prominent a figure of the time that his correspondence has been preserved. That part of it which contains his letters to Trajan, and Trajan’s brief and pithy answers, is one of the most precious treasures that have survived from ancient literature. Pliny consults him on a variety of details, some of them almost ludicrously petty, some of them of general importance, such as a famous one about his policy towards the Christians; and the answers show us Trajan as a shrewd and sensible man, fully aware that in such a unity as the Roman Empire there must needs be diversity, and that governors must learn to adapt themselves to such diversity without losing hold of the principles of justice and equity. Before we leave this subject it may be as well to mention that this constant interchange of letters between persons more than a thousand miles apart need astonish no one. In the interest of imperialism the public posts had been thoroughly organised by Augustus; the roads were excellent, the shipping well seen to, and travelling was at least as easy and rapid as it was in England less than a century ago.

Trajan’s strong and rather rugged features, familiar to all students of the Empire, are in striking contrast to those of his three successors. He was clean shaven, but his next successor, Hadrian, introduced the practice of wearing his beard, and this was adhered to. All the imperial portraits of this age, as preserved on coins and sculptures, are perfectly authentic, and the likenesses are consistent. In the British Museum the reader may see the features of these great Cæsars as faithfully reproduced as those of British statesmen in the National Portrait Gallery.

Trajan was succeeded by his cousin Hadrian, beyond doubt one of the most capable and efficient men who ever wielded great power. No one can study his reign without feeling that it was better in this age, if an efficient man could be found, that his hand alone should be on the helm. Probably Hadrian was only one of many who might have done as well as he did, for there was now a spirit abroad of intelligent industry directed to the good of the State; yet it is almost certain that the Empire was the better for not having the sovereignty put into commission. It has been well said of Hadrian that he desired “to see himself all that was to be seen, to know all that was to be known, to do all that was to be done”; and subsequent events proved that this intelligent industry could hardly have been carried all through the imperial work with equal effect, had it been shared with others.

Hadrian accomplished his work by two long periods of travel, each lasting some four years. Without any pomp or state he made himself acquainted with all parts of the Empire and their needs, as no ruler had done since Augustus and Agrippa shared such a task between them. The more immediate object was to inspect the frontiers and secure them, and as Hadrian was a trained soldier, with much experience under Trajan, this was to him familiar work. But he was so full of curiosity, so anxious to see all that the Empire had to show him, that while he practised his indefatigable industry he could also gratify his intelligence. In this he was more like Julius Cæsar than any other Roman we know of, though in most traits of character he was very different from that great man. It is not possible here to describe Hadrian’s frontier work in detail, but a specimen of it shall be given which should be interesting to British readers.

Britain had been invaded by Claudius in the previous century, and the southern part of the island had been made into a Roman province. Since then the frontier had been pushed farther north, and the frontier strongholds were no longer Colchester and Gloucester, but Lincoln, Chester and York. Hadrian spent several months here in the course of his first journey, and his visit had a remarkable result which we can see with our eyes at this moment. He must have noted two facts: first, the unsettled and rebellious condition of the natives of Yorkshire and Northumberland (Brigantes): and secondly, the narrow waist of the island between the Solway Firth and the mouth of the Tyne. He must have reasoned that if Roman forces could be permanently established on a fortified line between the two seas, this line would serve as a check on the Brigantes, and also as a base of operations for further advance northwards.

Thus it is that “Hadrian’s wall” remains as the most striking of all Roman works in our island. It is about seventy miles long, and consisted eventually (for we cannot be sure that it was completed by Hadrian) of a stone wall on the northern side, twenty feet high, an earthen rampart on the southern side, and a military road between them. At intervals there were fortified stations, seventeen in all, including the two which connected the lines with the sea; of these two the eastern one, near Newcastle, now famous for its collieries, is still known as Wallsend. The wall enabled the Romans to advance northwards, and soon another fortification was built on a smaller scale between the Forth and Clyde, about which a large volume has just been published by Dr. G. Macdonald, of Edinburgh. The conquest of the Highlands was never, indeed, carried out; but Hadrian’s great work had an immense moral effect on the population to the south of it, and Britain became very substantially Romanised. Towns and country houses (villæ) sprang up in abundance along or near the military roads. As I write these lines in North Oxfordshire, I have the remains of several of these villæ within easy reach, and can visit, each in a day, at least four considerable Roman towns, viz. Cirencester, Gloucester, Silchester (Calleva), and last, but not least, Bath (Aquæ Sulis), where the Romans found and used, as they always did in such spots, the magnificent hot springs, building noble baths about them which may be seen to this day.

Hadrian’s care for the good working of the civil government was as great as his zeal for frontier defence. Two forward steps were taken by him in this department, both of which helped on that consolidation of the Empire which was his constant aim.

First, he organised and dignified the Civil Service, on which the actual good working of the whole system depended. Cæsar’s share in this work had steadily been increasing while that of the Senate diminished; yet Cæsar had so far done his part, as we saw just now, with the help only of his own personal “servants,” who were mostly freedmen, i.e. slaves by origin, and many of them Greeks. Hadrian now established a public imperial civil service, of which the members must be Roman knights, i.e. men of a certain consequence in regard to birth and property. These new civil servants were excused all military service, and could thus be trained to the work without interruption, during their earlier years.

Secondly, we may date from Hadrian’s reign the beginning of the consolidation of Roman law, and the rise of a school of great lawyers such as the world has never known since. Apart from the defence of Mediterranean civilisation, to which, indeed, its indirect contribution was not small, this was the most valuable legacy of Rome to modern Europe. Law had originally consisted mainly of the old legal rules of the city-state of Rome, embodied in the Twelve tables, and a few statutes; but, in course of time, through the need of interpreting these, and adjusting them to the customs of other peoples in the Empire, an immense body of what we may call judge-made law had arisen in the form of edicts or public notices of magistrates, issued both in Italy and the provinces. As these customs were now well known, and as the Empire had reached its limits, it was possible to close and consolidate this huge body of official decisions and precedents; and this was done under Hadrian’s direction. The other two sources of law were still to grow largely before they could be welded into the great “Body of Law” (Corpus Juris) compiled under the orders of Justinian in the sixth century, which is still the chief European textbook of legal studies. These two sources were the delivered opinions of wise lawyers on points of law, and the decisions of the Cæsars in various forms, all of which had the force of law.