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The Historians' History of the World 06 [The Early Roman Empire]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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Those for whom he once conceived a regard he favoured even to madness. He used to kiss Mnester, the pantomimic, publicly in the theatre; and if any person made the least noise while he was dancing, he would order him to be dragged out of his seat and scourged him with his own hand. A Roman knight once making some bustle, he sent him, by a centurion, an order to go forthwith down to Ostia, and carry a letter from him to King Ptolemy in Mauretania. The letter was comprised in these words: “Do neither good nor harm to the bearer.” He made some gladiators captains of his German guards. He took from the gladiators called Mirmillones some of their arms. One Columbus coming off with victory in a combat, but being slightly wounded, he ordered some poison to be infused into the wound, which he thence called Columbinum. For thus it certainly was put down with his own hand amongst other poisons. He was so extravagantly fond of the party of charioteers that rode in green, that he supped and lodged for some time constantly in the stable where their horses were kept. At a certain revel he made a present of two millions of sesterces to one Cythicus a driver of a chariot. The day before the Circensian games, he used by his soldiers to enjoin silence in the neighbourhood, that the repose of his horse Incitatus might not be disturbed. For this favourite animal, besides a marble stable, an ivory manger, scarlet body clothes, and a bracelet of jewels, he appointed a house, with a retinue of slaves, and fine furniture, for the reception of such as were invited in the horse’s name to sup with him. It is even said that he designed to have made him consul.c
Such is the picture of this lunatic as Suetonius vividly paints it. For four years the world bore his furious madness without by sedition protesting against such a saturnalia of power. “How I wish,” said the monster,“that the Roman people had only one head, so I could strike it off at a blow.” The senate, however, grew tired of finding him victims, and finally, as already mentioned, a prætorian tribune, Chærea, strangled him.
Chærea was a republican. He and his friends thought that, after such a prince, monarchical government had been sufficiently judged by experience. The occasion now seemed favourable for the senate to resume the power. It did so, and for three days deemed a republic assured. But this was reckoning without either soldiers or people.
At the time of Caligula’s murder, Claudius, his uncle, who was with him, had hidden in an obscure corner. A soldier found and showed him to his comrades. Claudius begged for life. “Be our emperor,” they answered, and as he trembled and could not walk, they carried him to their camp, where he regained sufficient courage to harangue the troops, promising them money (donativum). It was the price of an empire he paid, an unfortunate innovation which amongst the soldiers had passed into law.
The senators, abandoned little by little, themselves hastened to greet the new master. Chærea was sentenced to death. “Do you know how to kill?” he asked the soldier charged to execute him. “Your sword is not well ground perhaps. That which I used for Caligula would be better.”
Claudius (Tiberius Claudius Drusus Cæsar), 41-54 A.D.
Claudius, brother to Germanicus and grandson to Livia, through his father Drusus the first, was then fifty years old. During his youth he had been continually ill, and in the royal household every one had neglected the poor child, not daring to show him either to the people or the soldiers. At last his existence was almost forgotten and at forty-six he was not even a senator. He consoled himself by study and writing a history of the Etruscans and Carthaginians. Caligula, who named him consul, brought him a little more into prominence; the soldiers’ whim did the rest. They gave him the empire, but could not do away with the effects of his upbringing, that timidity, irresolution, and want of self-dependence which resulted most disastrously, so that he often did evil with the very best intentions. In his reign the real rulers were his wife, Messallina, whose name is one with all debauchery and even with most repulsive coarseness, and his freedmen Polybius, Narcissus, and Pallas. [At least they exercised an undue influence over him.]
Claudius began well. He revoked the acts of Caligula, had the Augustan laws sworn to, and recalled the banished. Naturally kind-hearted, he easily adopted the manners that had contributed to the popularity of the first emperor. He visited his sick friends, consulting the consuls and the senate as if he were quite dependent on their favour. He liked to act as judge and often did it very well. Unfortunately, his undignified bearing, his shaking head, stammering and often ridiculous speech made him of very little account. He re-established the censorship and often exercised it himself, but rather with the tastes of an antiquarian loving old customs than with a sense of the real needs of the empire.
In spite of these oddities and weaknesses, this prince, without regarding the examples of infamy and crime given by his surroundings, can hardly be counted among the worst emperors. The freedmen whom long power had not yet spoiled sought to justify their influence by good service, and we find what we should hardly have expected—namely, several wise measures with regard to slaves in the interior; against too greedy advocates, usurers, and those banished from the provinces who flocked to Rome, etc. Moreover, there were useful works: an aqueduct, a port at Ostia, an attempt to drain Lake Fucinus, etc. In the provinces a liberal administration and a firm foreign policy were crowned by success.
Augustus had wished to constitute a Roman minority in the midst of the submissive nations which would prove a support to the government. But it was to govern always in Rome’s interests. A futile effort, because he was aiming at nothing less than arresting the course of the world, as if the emperors could have continued an aristocracy against which they had contended in the battles of Pharsalia, Thapsus, and Philippi. In his will Augustus had advised a careful guarding of civic privilege, and in the short space of thirty-four months, the number of citizens had nearly doubled. Tiberius aided much in this increase. Claudius also contributed largely, because he made the law of continuous extension and progressive assimilation, which had made the fortune of the republic, a rule of policy. He personally asked that the nobles of Gallia Comata, who had long been citizens, should also assume Roman dignities and have a seat in the senate.
The Emperor Claudius
(From a bust in the Vatican)
Only one religious provincial sect was persecuted under Claudius—that of the Druids, because their priests refused the peace offered by Augustus on condition of their uniting their gods to the Olympian deities. Claudius tried, therefore, to abolish their worship, and punished with death both priests and their adherents.b
In the interior parts of Britain, the natives, under the command of Caractacus, maintained an obstinate resistance, and little progress was made by the Roman arms, until Ostorius Scapula was sent over to prosecute the war. He penetrated into the country of the Silures, a warlike tribe who inhabited the banks of the Severn; and having defeated Caractacus in a great battle, made him prisoner, and sent him to Rome (50 A.D.). The fame of the British prince had by this time spread over the provinces of Gaul and Italy; and upon his arrival in the Roman capital, the people flocked from all quarters to behold him. The ceremonial of his entrance was conducted with great solemnity. On a plain adjoining to the Roman camp, the prætorian troops were drawn up in martial array; the emperor and his court took their station in the front of the lines, and behind them was ranged the whole body of the people. The procession commenced with the different trophies which had been taken from the Britons during the progress of the war. Next followed the brothers of the vanquished prince, with his wife and daughter, in chains, expressing by their supplicating looks and gestures the fears with which they were actuated. But not so Caractacus himself. With a manly gait and an undaunted countenance, he marched up to the tribunal, where the emperor was seated, and addressed him in the following terms: