Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history, Vol. 3 (of 3)

General review of the Roman Empire. Political state of the then known world, 1 Venality of the Courts of Justice, the _Lex Judiciaria_ of Aurelius, 4 Restoration of the tribunes...

Commodus. M. Perennis, 247 Extravagance and cruelty of Commodus, 248 Murder of Commodus, 249 _Pertinax_, 249 _Didius Julianus_, one of the prætorians, aims at the sovereignty, 2...

The war with Mithridates broke out almost instantly after the death of Nicomedes, many provocations having been given on the side of the Romans: its immediate cause was the alli...

If we compare Cicero’s veneration for his high born patrons, with his affection for P. Sulpicius, whose political views were diametrically opposed to those of his older friends,...

Cæsar’s consulship (693) is to be looked upon as the true beginning of the civil wars; its date is four years after that of Cicero. He had not been much talked of until then, al...

When Cæsar came to Gaul, the country was in great commotion. Languedoc, Provence, and only since a short time, Dauphiné also and Savoy, were subject to the Roman sway; the Allob...

The next year, the tribunes were all of them the hireling creatures of Cæsar; and among these was he who was afterwards the frightful triumvir Antony. Pompey had received the co...

Cæsar, continuing his pursuit without stopping, hastened with a few followers to Egypt; another great piece of daring! On his arrival, they brought him the head and ring of Pomp...

With regard to the state, he enacted several measures; among others, that of restoring the _jus honorum_ to the children of those whom Sylla had proscribed. He had received from...

Antony had, by means of decrees which he had wrung from the senate, given Macedonia to his brother Caius, and Syria to Dolabella, who, after Cæsar’s death, was consul with him:...

In the unfortunate issue of the war of Philippi, we may see the irresistible sway of what the ancients called _fatum_: one untoward circumstance followed close upon another, and...

The life of Antony by Plutarch is a very lengthy one; but there are many very remarkable accounts in it, which he had still heard from his grandfather or great grandfather, espe...

The extraordinary powers which Augustus had, he caused to be given him, after the battle of Actium, first for ten years; then, for five; then, once more, for five; then, three t...

Virgil was born on the fifteenth of October 682, and he died in 733, on the twenty-second of September; Horace was born on the eighth of December 687, and he died the twenty-sev...

The very many statues and busts which yet remain of Augustus, bear out the statement of Suetonius, that he was an uncommonly fine man. His _decora facies_ he still had even in h...

Whilst the tribes about the Hartz, and in the Thuringian forest, had their country invaded by the Romans, there existed in Bohemia the great kingdom of Marbod, which is indeed a...

Tiberius was the eldest son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and of Livia Drusilla: his father was quæstor with Cæsar, but afterwards joined the republicans, to whom he seems to have b...

This went on, until at last Sejanus became suspected by Tiberius, and very likely with good reason; for Sejanus at best would have waited for his death, and then at the head of...

Marriage, although it was so easy to dissolve, was distasteful to most persons, so that they lived in concubinage; the many freedmen whose names are found on the inscriptions of...

T. Flavius Vespasianus, who, with all his faults must be looked upon as the _instaurator rei publicæ_, was at that time engaged in the Jewish war. There is a dark stain upon him...

As all wasteful prodigality had been rooted out under Vespasian, and Roman life had been brought back to frugality, the good consequences were lasting, and Domitian also kept in...

Trajan’s buildings are works, which are not only to be noticed in the topography of Rome, but belong to history as great achievements. Apollodorus of Damascus was his great arch...

There were, however, some people besides, who combined both refinement of thought and refinement of expression. Seceding from the Roman school, they formed the African one, to w...

M. Aurelius went to the East to set all right again. He forbore to punish the rebellious provinces, although, the senate was very ready to do so. His mildness was even shown tow...

In the year 212, Caracalla gave himself up to the most wanton cruelties and extortions: these last were still more systematic than those of Commodus, who practised them in Rome...

The senate at Rome had recognised the Gordians, an act in which we see nothing of the usual behaviour of the cowardly, unwarlike aristocrats. It appointed twenty commissioners t...

The whole of Syria was overrun and conquered,—a few strong towns only may have held out; but in the midst of the desert, Palmyra, unobserved by the rest of the world, had risen...

Of the events which now follow, I can give you but an outline, such as every one ought to know by heart. Too great a stress was formerly laid on such a chronological skeleton of...

It would seem that people are wrong in thinking it strange that Constantine should also have appointed Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. He did it, not because they had any claims; b...

After his death, there was again the same difficulty about the election of his successor. His son being an infant, the consulship was then for the first time profaned by a child...

Architecture had already quite fallen off in the fourth century. Constantine’s buildings are most barefaced robberies: his arch is taken from that of Trajan, and all that is of...

A new storm came from another quarter, even the Huns who had formerly driven away the Goths. Of their abodes in the times of Theodosius and his sons, we have no certain trace; p...

_L. Æmilius Paullus_, son of the former, brings in Greeks for the education of his children, ii, 199; consul, 212; defeats Perseus in the battle of Pydna, 213; is not to be rank...

_Asinius Pollio_ taxes Livy with Patavinity, i, 51; is said to have still been living after C. Cæsar’s death, 52; iii, 37, 60; in Spain, 87; his frankness, 92; his opinion on Ci...

_Cæsar_, C. Julius, his fondness for Marius, ii, 327; his consulship to be looked upon as the beginning of the civil wars, iii, 28; married to the daughter of Cinna, 29; does no...

_Christianity_, its spread unjustly reproached with having driven out the fine arts, iii, 224; Severus’ reign favourable to it, 252; increase of the number of Christians, 273; i...

_Crassus_, M. Licinius, consul, conqueror of Spartacus, ii, 404, 406; reconciled to Pompey, 404; victory near Petilia, 406; not unlikely that he used Catiline for his own ends,...

_Epirus_, Pelasgian, but hellenized, i, 458; the power of the kings very much limited, as in Lacedæmon, 552; very likely fallen into the hands of Neoptolemus, a son of Alexander...

_Gauls_, Roman citizens, presented by the emperor Claudius with the right of admission into the senate, i, 87; Gauls and Ligurians less like than Gauls and Cymri, 99; the Gallic...

_Holland_, after the peace of Münster there arose there a wild sort of life and differences between William II. and the city of Amsterdam, i, 308; takes the lead among the seven...

_Ligurians_ in South of France, Piedmont, and Lombardy, i, 368; pushed on by the Iberians as far as Aix in Provence, 368; a warlike race, 371; war against Rome, ii, 51; new war...

_Mediterranean_, the Sirocco increases in summer often into the most dreadful hurricanes, ii, 25; southern gales there are most dangerous, north winds harmless, 27; north-easter...

_Parthians_, foundation of their empire, ii, 222; spread, 267; iii, 2; are not without Greek learning, ii, 310; war against them, iii, 105; commanded by Labienus, driven back by...

_Pontifices_, their number doubled by Numa, two Ramnes, two Tities, i, 124; number at a later period, 130, 523; their number is increased by Sylla from nine to fifteen, ii, 389;...

_Rome_, sister town to Antium and Ardea, i, 116, 223; the commemoration of the foundation of the city held in April, 117; formerly supposed to have been an Etruscan colony, 148;...

_Servius Tullius_, legends of him, i, 85, 155; in the Tuscan annals called Mastarna, 88; son of a man of rank at Corniculum, 155; all the political law traced back to him, 156;...

_Thessaly_, country of Cineas, has produced no other distinguished man, i, 555; well affected to Macedon, ii, 145; part of it Ætolian, 151; blended with Macedon, 151; forms with...

_Virgil_, changes the old legend of the settlement of Æneas in Latium, i, 116; _Gensque virum truncis et duro robore creti_, i, 110; _recens horrebat regia culmo_, 120; his life...