Part 6

Their influence, great as it was in breaking down the intellectual barriers between Rome and her allies and subjects, and in forming the conception of a world-wide empire, was even greater in the world of finance. Even the great Cæsar failed to throw open the Roman Senate to the civilized world, and admission to that body continued to be jealously guarded, in spite of occasional exceptions, till the Senate had been practically superseded by the Imperial Household; but admission to the Equestrian Order was a relatively easy matter; no sanctity attached to the Order, no historic glamour; and a skilled financier found his way into its ranks with comparative ease. Roman bankers such as Cicero’s friend Atticus, needed the assistance of clever Jews and Greeks, for Roman money was invested privately as well as publicly in all parts of the Empire; municipal securities, then as now, were a favourite investment; cities and colonies were in the habit of borrowing money for local improvements; the knowledge possessed by men, who had been acquainted with the local and personal conditions was a valuable commodity; and any Roman, who aspired to play a great part in the financial world, drew into his service men from all parts of the Empire; these men were not infrequently rewarded by admission to the Equestrian Order; some of them were free men, the majority were slaves to begin with. The process was so common that the term “Libertus” is used much in the same way as we employ the terms “agent,” or “man of business.” Not the least important consequence of the system was the admission of the Jews to a share in the control of administration; “they of Cæsar’s Household” were not domestic servants, but financial secretaries of considerable importance.

Slavery has been reproached with being responsible for the horrors of the arena, and a general indifference to the sanctity of human life; but this love of spectacular bloodshed, this indifference to the sufferings and death of human beings and animals, is by no means an exclusive feature of societies in which slavery is an accepted institution. Bull fights are being extended at the present day from Spain to France; bull baiting, bear baiting, badger baiting, prize fighting, cock fighting, were accepted amusements in England till the beginning of the present century, some of them are not unknown to our contemporaries; nor is it easy to distinguish that delight in the sufferings of condemned criminals, or in the encounters between trained combatants, which filled the Roman amphitheatres, from the excitement which drew crowds to look on at the merciless tortures and executions of the period of the Reformation, and led the fashionable friends of Madame de Sevignê to watch a woman being burned alive. So far were gladiatorial combats from being one of the hardships imposed by slavery, that we have repeated references in the early Imperial period to the misconduct of Roman knights, and even Senators, who exhibited themselves in the arena. A skilled gladiator risked his life, as does a skilled toreador, and he enjoyed the same measure of popular favour; there were statues of gladiators as well as of schoolmasters.

The tendency of the Empire was to break down the barriers between the free man and the slave; as political power ceased to be the privilege of a caste, and became the reward of recognized merit bestowed by the head of the administration, the importance of free descent was diminished; the spiteful remarks about freedmen and servile origin, which we occasionally find in the Latin authors, were suggested by the improved position of slaves and freedmen; they represent the impotent malice of a caste, which saw that the sceptre was departing from between its knees; the distinction was long preserved by literature, for the boys of the Roman Empire, like the boys of England, were brought up on the works of the great Athenians, who spoke of the slave as the slave was spoken of when the free citizens in the most liberal of Greek States were really an aristocracy of birth entrusted with the conduct of affairs among a population by which they were far outnumbered, and which included many men as wealthy as the freeborn citizens, and no less enlightened.

It was largely through slavery that men of letters, men of science, architects, engineers, sailors, and even soldiers, found their way from all parts of the world into the executive services of the Empire. Rome had become cosmopolitan without being aware of the fact, long before the genius of Cæsar finally started her on an admittedly cosmopolitan career.

In spite of the pleasant personal relations which often prevailed between slaves and their owners, emancipation on a large scale was not regarded with favour, the statesmen who on different occasions of emergency released slaves in large numbers in order to fill up vacancies in the army were spoken of reproachfully; the step was always felt to be a desperate one.

The reason, however, of the objection to such emancipations was less fear of the slaves, or dislike, than the interference which it involved with industrial pursuits; it amounted to a wholesale confiscation of property; an analogous process at the present day would be summarily to impress large bodies of operatives; this would bring many industrial communities to a standstill. Similarly when at a later period we find restrictions imposed upon the custom of emancipating slaves by testament, this may well have become a means of throwing the responsibility of maintaining superfluous slaves upon the public dole fund, and of exempting the heir from the necessity of supporting them. Emancipation does not seem to have been regarded as an unmixed blessing. We have the well known case of Cicero’s secretary Tiro; Tiro was a slave, but he was his master’s friend; the relations between them were of a most affectionate nature; Cicero’s letters to him are full of anxious inquiries after his health, of demands that he shall run no risk of over fatigue; that he shall take the best medical advice; and yet it was only late in his life that Cicero bestowed liberty on Tiro. The letters in which Cicero’s relatives, and especially his son, congratulate Tiro on his elevation, show that, slave though he was, he was no less respected than loved. That such relations were common we may infer from the statement made by Paterculus, that in the proscription of B.C. 43 the fidelity of sons to their fathers was least; the merit of wives stood first, of freedmen second, of slaves third.

The institution of slavery did not demoralize the ancients in the same way that negro slavery is said to have demoralized the Americans, or coloured slavery in general to demoralize white men; it was a totally different institution.

In this, as in all other details of ancient history, the memory of the bad, the exceptional, the sensational, is preserved; the normal conditions are forgotten; and as it is much easier to declaim than to inquire, the essential but unobtrusive features of any particular institution escape notice. On the whole, the action of slavery in ancient times was beneficial to civilization, and the eventual dismemberment of the Empire was not due chiefly to the existence of slavery. The races who broke up the Empire themselves recognized slavery, and it was long before agricultural slavery disappeared even from England.

I

The Death of Augustus

In the hottest weather of the year 14 A.D., a hush fell upon the streets of old Rome, as the news rapidly circulated that her foremost citizen was dead, and that the man whose name had spelled peace and prosperity for the whole civilized world was no longer at the head of affairs. Few men were still living who could remember any rule but his; for forty-five years he had controlled without serious opposition the destinies of an Empire which stretched from the Euphrates to the English Channel; the men who had taken an active part in the events before the reins of government dropped into his skilful hands were now but few, and if they ever spoke of the days which immediately preceded his reign, it was to contrast fourteen years of anarchy with nearly half a century of order. Here and there in the palaces of the few old Roman families that had survived the revolutions of the middle of the last century the good old times were bewailed, when the spoils of the world were distributed between the members of a few princely houses theoretically associated in administering the affairs of only one Italian town, and bitter epigrams were circulated at the expense of the monarch who posed as the first man of a free city; but the vast body of the population had long forgotten the days of a liberty in whose privileges they had never shared, while they had suffered from its concomitant licence; the streets were no longer the scene of furious fights between the retainers of great noblemen, the citizens regularly received their supplies of corn, holidays were frequent and the amusements of the public provided for on a liberal scale; the Prince himself had been the foremost to enjoy all that delighted the hearts of his fellow citizens.

As the fierceness of the hot Italian sun diminished, and the streets began to fill, the praises of the dead man passed from mouth to mouth; one would remember the humility with which he had pressed the claims of his chosen candidates for public office, and the courtesy with which he had asked for a vote; another would recall him studiously fulfilling the sacred duty of a patron, and pleading in the Forum on behalf of a humble client; yet another would describe him standing at his own door once a year dressed in white begging for alms to bestow on the needy; others would speak of the modesty of his household, the model of an ancient Roman family where Livia his consort herself superintended the weaving of her maids; nor would the gayer sort forget his interest in the shows of the circus, or fail to tell stories of his modest bets, and somewhat liberal jokes; the scholar would speak of his simple entertainments in which the poet and the historian shared in the conversation on terms of equality with their host; those of more serious mind would dwell on his scrupulous attention to the ordinances of religion, his restoration of temples and shrines and their various cults; while the tender-hearted would deplore his private sorrows, the premature deaths that had snatched away his grandsons, the scandals that had bereft his home of his daughter and granddaughter; nor would they fail to bewail the fact that the only possible successor to his heritage and his power was an alien in blood.

As the days wore on the symptoms of the public sorrow increased, and the authorities began to fear that the order of the funeral might be marred by some such frantic outburst as had attended the obsequies of the first great Cæsar, whose body had been seized by an excited mob and burned in the public market place; regulations were issued to ensure such order as the Prince himself would have commanded, and to prevent the licences into which an orgy of sorrow might degenerate. Day by day was reported the slow progress of the procession from the small country house in Campania in which he had died to the gates of the city; here the body had been guarded and carried by soldiers, there by the knights, the second order in the State, and lastly the Senators themselves were waiting to receive it, and conduct it on the final stage of its journey into Rome.

The day came at length when the long train of mourners filed through the narrow streets, at its head the ivory bier draped in purple, behind it the effigy of the dead man, and a stately series of similar effigies leading back through the great Cæsar himself to mythical Æneas and Anchises and the goddess Venus; there were no deep-voiced bells, no dull minute guns to express and intensify the public sorrow, but the silence was broken by the shrieks of dishevelled women and the monotonous blare of hoarse trumpets. After the images came the chief mourner, a tall and stately man with bowed head, the Commander-in-chief of the Roman armies, descended from the noblest blood of ancient Rome; behind him walked members of the family, high officials, statesmen, senators, the representatives of kings and cities. Principalities and powers were all assembled to do honour to the dead. The heat of the season had rendered it necessary to conduct the ceremony by night, and the flare of torches fell fitfully on the procession and on the faces of the spectators. At length the tedious ritual was completed, the wine, the oil and the spices were thrown on the pyre, thrice was the dead man called by name, and the silence was broken by no answer; the chief mourner applied the torch with averted face, the crackling flames rose to the sky, the soldiers ran round the burning pile, an eagle sped heavenwards through the smoke; when the fire had at length died down, and wine had been sprinkled on the ashes, a cry arose of Farewell, and yet again Farewell; then the mourners departed to their homes, and the Roman people dispersed to magnify the events of the last few hours, and to remember portents: stars had fallen from their places in the sky, the earth had been shaken, rivers had reversed their course, the kindly rain had been turned into blood, and even small domestic catastrophes were now known to have had their significance; a Senator had seen the soul of the deceased rise to heaven from the midst of the flames, and the credulous were comforted by reflecting that the Genius of Augustus still watched over the destinies of the Roman people.

Meanwhile in the palaces of the Senators one question of supreme interest was debated: What was to be the new order of things? and, indeed, was there to be a new order?

It was fortunate for the destinies of civilized humanity that a successor was ready at hand to take up the reins of government which had dropped from the tired hands of Augustus, and that the question of succession was not left to be settled by debate in the Senate, or the result of a civil war. Tiberius was on the spot; he had been for all practical purposes his stepfather’s colleague for ten years; he was acting Commander-in-chief of the Roman armies; he was of ripe age and ripe experience; his personal knowledge of the Empire was almost co-extensive with its limits; he does not seem to have visited Africa or Egypt, but he had served or commanded armies, and conducted negotiations over the whole area between the sources of the Euphrates and the North Sea. There was no living Roman with equal knowledge of affairs, or of superior rank; his succession was inevitable, if there was to be a successor to Augustus.

The life of Tiberius is from every point of view profoundly interesting; it began in the middle of the great revolution which eventually substituted the rule of one man for the rule of the Senate, and which left the city of Rome the capital rather than the mistress of an Empire; it ended after nearly fourscore years, during which the constitution of that Empire was so firmly established that the incapacity of individual rulers, and the mutual rivalries of aspirants to the chief power, though sometimes resulting in civil war, failed to shake its stability; it coincided with a great step in the forward march of civilization which has left its impress upon all subsequent history. If the political events which occurred during the life of Tiberius are of supreme interest, his personal history is no less attractive to the student of character, and of the strange vicissitudes which may occur in the life of a human being; not the least of the many contradictions in this life is the fact that the man, who is called by the great German historian, Mommsen, “the ablest of the Roman Emperors,” should have become the recognized type of all that is most evil in a ruler, and left a name which is seldom mentioned without an expression of detestation.

II

Parents and Childhood of Tiberius

The connexion of the Claudian clan with Rome was referred by the Roman historians to the very beginnings of her history; they had no doubt of the antiquity of the event; it was only debated whether this Sabine stock was received into the community on the Tiber at the suggestion of Titus Tatius, the consort of Romulus, or four years after the expulsion of the Kings. The headquarters of the Claudians were the region round Tusculum, in which town its chiefs had a fortress; their domain gave its name to one of the later electoral divisions of the Roman territory. From the beginning the Claudian stock was credited with an unusual measure of aristocratic pride and public spirit; the legends said that one Claudius caused by his intemperance the secession of the plebs to the Mons Sacer, and that the unbridled lust of another brought about the downfall of the Decemvirate; we are on firmer ground in attributing to the Appius Claudius who was Censor in B.C. 312 the inception, if not the completion, of two works of great public utility, the Appian Aqueduct, and the even more famous Appian Way, the great South Road, the first link in the chain of highways which bound the Empire together. Appius Claudius the Censor had two sons, who took the additional names of the Handsome and the Strong; the descendants of both were to do good service to their country; a Claudius Pulcher fought the Carthaginians in Sicily, a Claudius Nero defeated Hasdrubal at the battle of the Metaurus. The Censor is further credited with having been the earliest Roman writer in prose and verse. Intellectual and administrative eminence was thus ascribed to the Claudians, also a touch of arrogance extending to relations in which arrogance was out of place; for it was Appius Claudius Pulcher the Admiral who, when the unwonted abstemiousness of the Sacred Chickens portended disaster, threw them into the sea, and was deservedly rewarded by a defeat.

Both the leading Claudian families were united in the person of the Emperor; his father was a Nero, his mother was a Pulcher, for though her father belonged legally to the Livian Gens, he had been adopted from the Claudian. The family enumerated among its distinctions thirty-three consulships, five dictatorships, seven censorships, six triumphs, and two ovations.

In the last century and a half of the Republic the Neronic branch was less distinguished than that of Pulcher; no records survive of the immediate ancestors of the Emperor on the father’s side, and no Claudius Nero appears in the consular list after 204 B.C. When Horace wished to remind the Romans of their debt to the Neros, he had to go back to the battle of the Metaurus. The family had become so obscure that the genuine descent of the Emperor from the conqueror of Hasdrubal has been questioned; but it was not questioned by his contemporaries, who would have been only too glad to add the reproach of an obscure ancestry to the other indignities which they fastened upon him. It would be in accordance with the pride, and even rectitude of conduct, ascribed to the Claudians, that this branch of the family preferred comparative poverty to taking part in the scrambles for office, and interested intrigues, which marked the decadence of the Senate; and that its successive chiefs chose the dignified life of a Roman noble of the old-fashioned type, concentrating their energies rather upon the management of their ancestral domains than upon pushing themselves into the inner circle of Senators who sped to exploit the Roman conquests.

Tiberius Claudius Nero, the father of the Emperor, appears first in the party of Cæsar; he was already a quæstor, and while holding that office commanded the fleet which besieged Alexandria, and rescued Cæsar from the insurrection of the Alexandrians; he was rewarded by being made a Pontifex, and entrusted with the establishment of colonies in Gaul, at Narbonne and Arles among other places. This was work which required considerable tact; it was not always easy to satisfy both the veterans who formed the colony and the population whom they displaced. Cæsar was not in the habit of employing incompetent agents, and the selection of Tiberius Nero for this work is an evidence of his capacity. After the assassination of Cæsar he became a warm partisan of the Liberators; he is even said to have proposed in the Senate that the Tyrannicides should be rewarded, when others thought that an amnesty was sufficient for their deserts. It is not clear whether he was Prætor at this time or shortly afterwards, but he certainly held that office when Lucius Antonius and Fulvia making a diversion against Octavian at Præneste; before the fall of Præneste he had slipped away to Campania, and endeavoured to form an army from the proprietors in that district who were threatened with the confiscation of their land for the benefit of Octavian’s soldiers; in this enterprise he was unsuccessful, and had to flee for his life to Sicily, where he took refuge for a short time with Sextus Pompeius.

As we afterwards find Tiberius Nero in the closest association with Octavian under circumstances which, judged by our standards of conduct, are discreditable, it is advisable to stop to consider whether a man could with any measure of consistency serve under Cæsar, and then join hands with his murderers; on the solution of this question depends the claim of Tiberius to be considered an honourable man; for in this relation we can measure him by standards which are applicable to ancient and modern life alike.