CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE REIGN OF AUGUSTUS CÆSAR. B.C. 31-A.D. 14.
Augustus, being now the emperor of Rome, sought to win the affections of his people. He lived with republican simplicity in a plain house on the Palatine Hill, and educated his family with great strictness and frugality. His public conduct was designed to conceal his unbounded power. He rejected all unworthy members from the Senate, and limited the number of the Senators to six hundred. The Comitia of the Centuries was still allowed to pass laws and elect magistrates, but gradually these powers were taken away, until, in the reign of Tiberius, they are mentioned no more. The emperor's chief counselors in public affairs were his four friends, M. Vipsanius Agrippa, C. Cilnius Mæcenas, M. Valerius Messala, and Asinius Pollio, all persons of excellent talents, and devoted to their master. Agrippa aided him greatly in embellishing the city of Rome with new buildings, and the Pantheon, which was built in the Campus Martins, still bears the inscription, M. Vipsanius Agrippa, consul tertium. Augustus was accustomed to say that he found Rome a city of brick, and left it a city of marble.
To secure the peace of the capital, and to extirpate the robbers who filled its streets, Augustus divided Rome into fourteen regions, and each region into several smaller divisions called Vici: a magistrate was placed over each Vicus, and all these officers were under the command of the city prefect. A police force, Vigiles, seven hundred in number, was also provided, who succeeded in restoring the public peace. Italy, in a similar manner, was divided into regions, and local magistrates were appointed, who made life and property every where secure.
We must notice briefly the extent and condition of that vast empire, over which Augustus ruled—too vast, in fact, to be subjected to the control of a single intellect. Italy, the peculiar province of the emperor, had lost a large part of its free population, whose place was supplied by slaves; military colonies were numerous, a kind of settlement which never tended to advance the prosperity of the country; the cities were declining, and many of them almost abandoned. The north of Italy, however, still retained a portion of its former prosperity; its great droves of swine supplied the people of Rome with a large part of their food; vineyards also abounded there, and the wine-vats of upper Italy were said to be often larger than houses. Coarse woolen cloths were manufactured in Liguria, and a finer wool was produced near Mutina. But Italy, once so fertile, could no longer produce its own corn, for which it depended chiefly upon Sicily, Africa, and Egypt.
The island of Sicily, too, had suffered greatly during the civil wars. Its cities were fallen into ruin, and the woods and mountains were filled with fugitive slaves, who, when captured, were taken to Rome and exposed to wild beasts in the amphitheatres. A Roman colony was planted by Augustus in the almost deserted city of Syracuse.
The condition of the extensive province of Gaul was more promising, its savage tribes having begun to adopt the arts of civilization. The Gauls purchased from southern traders such articles as they were unable to produce at home, and supplied Italy, in return, with coarse wool and cargoes of bacon. Several Roman colonies established in Gaul enjoyed various political privileges, but the people in general were oppressed with taxes and burdened with debts. The religion of the Druids was discouraged by laws which forbade human sacrifices, and, indeed, all rites opposed to the Roman faith. In Southern Gaul the city of Massilia (Marseilles) had imparted civilization to the neighboring tribes: they learned to use the Greek characters in writing, while many of the Gallic cities invited Greek teachers to open schools in their midst.