CHAPTER I
GRÆCO-ROMAN PAGANISM
EXTENT of the Roman Empire at the Time of Christ.—The policy of ancient Rome was to extend and hold her possessions by force of arms. She made demands; and if they were not complied with, she spurned the medium of diplomacy and appealed for arbitrament to the god of battles. Her achievements were the achievements of war. Her glories were the glories of combat. Her trophies were the treasures of conquered provinces and chained captives bowed in grief and shame. Her theory was that "might makes right"; and in vindication and support of this theory she imbued her youth with a martial spirit, trained them in the use of arms from childhood to manhood, and stationed her legions wherever she extended her empire. Thus, military discipline and the fortune of successful warfare formed the basis of the prosperity of Rome.
At the period of which we write, her invincible legions had accomplished the conquest of the civilized earth. Britain, Gaul, Spain, Italy, Illyria, Greece, Asia Minor, Africa, Egypt, and the islands of the Mediterranean—six hundred thousand square leagues of the most fertile territory in the world—had been subdued to the Roman will and had become obedient to Roman decrees. "The empire of the Romans," says Gibbon, "filled the world, and when that empire fell into the hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his enemies. The slave of imperial despotism, whether he was compelled to drag his gilded chain in Rome and the Senate, or to wear out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or on the frozen banks of the Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed by a vast extent of sea and land, which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings who would gladly purchase the emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnoxious fugitive. 'Wherever you are,' said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, 'remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror.'"
In obedience to a universal law of development and growth, when the Roman empire had reached the limits of physical expansion, when Roman conquest was complete, when Roman laws and letters had reached approximate perfection, and when Roman civilization had attained its crown and consummation, Roman decline began. The birth of the empire marked the beginning of the end. It was then that the shades of night commenced to gather slowly upon the Roman world; and that the Roman ship of state began to move slowly but inevitably, upon a current of indescribable depravity and degeneracy, toward the abyss. The Roman giant bore upon his shoulders the treasures of a conquered world; and Bacchus-like, reeled, crowned and drunken, to his doom.
No period of human history is so marked by lust and licentiousness as the history of Rome at the beginning of the Christian era. The Roman religion had fallen into contempt. The family instinct was dead, and the marital relation was a mockery and a shame. The humane spirit had vanished from Roman hearts, and slavery was the curse of every province of the empire. The destruction of infants and the gladiatorial games were mere epitomes of Roman brutality and degeneracy. Barbarity, corruption and dissoluteness pervaded every form of Roman life.
A perfect picture of the depravity of the times about which we write may be had from a perusal of the Roman satirists, Tacitus and Juvenal. The ordinary Roman debauchee was not the sole victim of their wrath. They chiseled the hideous features of the Cæsars with a finer stroke than that employed by Phidias and Praxiteles in carving statues of the Olympic gods.