CHAPTER 1.

THE LAST DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC. Capital and labor — Electoral corruption — Anti-monopoly legislation — The distribution of the land — Senatorial corruption and State charity — Caius Gracchus is killed — The consulship of Marius — More State charity and the social war — Revolt in the East — Bloody strifes in the city — Dictatorship of Sulla — Sulla, Pompey, and Caesar — Pompey and Crassus, consuls — Land monopoly and anti-poverty reform CHAPTER 2.

THE TWO TRIUMVIRATES. The Senate offends Caesar — Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar — The consulate of Caesar — Reform by law — The triumvirate dissolved — Legal government at an end — Caesar crosses the Rubicon — Caesar dictator, demi-god, and deity — Caesar’s government — The murder of Caesar — Octavius presents himself — Plot, counterplot, and war — Octavius becomes consul — The triumvirs enter Rome — “The saviors of their country” — Antony and Cleopatra.

CHAPTER 3.

THE ROMAN MONARCHY. The father of the people — The accession of Tiberius — The enemy of public liberty — A furious and crushing despotism — Accession of Caligula — Caligua imitates the goods — Caligula’s prodigality — The delirium of power — Claudius and his wives — Messalina’s depravity — Agrippina the tigress — Roman society in general — Ultimate paganism.

CHAPTER 4.

THE “TEN PERSECUTIONS.” Roman law and the Jews — The persecution by Nero — Government of Domitian — Pliny and the Christians — Government of Trajan — Riotous attacks upon the Christians — Government of Commodus — Government of Septimius Severus — Government of Caracalla — Persecution by Maximum — The persecution by Decius — Christianity legalized — The ten persecutions a fable.

CHAPTER 5.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE. Freedom in Jesus Christ — Pagan idea of the State — Rights of individual conscience — Christians subject to civil authority — The limits of State jurisdiction — The Roman religion — The Roman laws — Sources of persecution — Superstition and selfishness — The governors of provinces — State selfpreservation — State religion means persecution — Christianity victorious — Christianity means rights of conscience.

CHAPTER 6.

THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE. The persecution under Diocletian — The attack is begun — Afflictions of the persecutors — Rome surrenders — Six emperors at once — Roman embassies to Constantine — The Edict of Milan.

CHAPTER 7.

ANCIENT SUN WORSHIP. The secret of sun worship — The rites of sun — worship in the mysteries — Jehovah condemns sun worship — Sun worship in Judah — Sun worship destroys the kingdom — Sun worship of Augustus and Elagabalus — Aurelian’s temple to the sun — Constantine a worshiper of the sun.

CHAPTER 8.

THE FALLING AWAY — THE GREAT APOSTASY. The root of the apostasy — Heathen rites adopted — The mysteries — The forms of sun worship adopted — Rome exalts Sunday — Heathen philosophy adopted — Clement’s philosophic mysticism — Origen’s philosophic mysticism — Imperial aims at religious unity — Paganism and the apostasy alike — The two streams unite in Constantine CHAPTER - THE EXALTATION OF THE BISHOPRIC. A clerical aristocracy created — Bishopric of Rome asserts preeminence — Contentions in Rome and Carthage — The bishops usurp the place of Christ — An episcopal Punic War — the bishopric of Antioch — Disgraceful character of the bishopric CHAPTER 10.

THE RELIGION OF CONSTANTINE. His low utilitarianism — Pagan and apostate Christian — His perjury and cruelty — Many times a murderer — The true cross and Constantine — Is this paganism or Christianity? — A murderer even in death — Little better than a pagan.

CHAPTER 11.

CONSTANTINE AND THE BISHOPS. The new theocracy — The new Israel delivered — Final war with Licinius — Original State chaplaincies — The bishops and the emperor — Constantine sent to heaven — The mystery of iniquity.

CHAPTER 12.

THE UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. A false unity — The Catholic Church established — Which is the Catholic Church? — Councils to decide the question — The Donatists appeal to the emperor — The State becomes partisan — Clergy exempt from public offices — Fruits of the exemption — The church of the masses — The church a mass of hypocrites.

CHAPTER 13.

THE ORIGINAL SUNDAY LEGISLATION. Israel rejects the Lord as king — The Lord would not forsake the people — The kingdom not of this world — The new and false theocracy — Constantine’s Sunday law — Sunday legislation is religious only — The empire a “kingdom of God” — By authority of Pontifex Maximus — Council of Nice against the Jews — Sabbath-keepers accursed from Christ — All exemption abolished — The church obtains the monopoly — Origin of the Inquisition.

CHAPTER 14.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH. The Trinitarian Controversy — Homoousion or Homoiousion — The secret of the controversy — Constantine’s design — Constantine’s task — The Council of Nice — Character of the bishops — Constantine’s place in the council — The framing of the creed — The creed and its adoption — Their own estimate of the creed — The true estimate of the council.

CHAPTER 15.

ARIANISM BECOMES ORTHODOX. Arius returned; Athanasius banished — Athanasius is returned and again banished — Macedonius made bishop of Constantinople — General Council of Sardica — Athanasius again returned — General councils of Arles and Milan — The bishop of Rome is banished — Hosius forced to become Arian — Athanasius again removed — Liberius becomes Arian and is recalled — Double council; Rimini and Seleucia — The emperor’s creed declared heretical — The world becomes Arian.

CHAPTER 16.

THE CATHOLIC FAITH RE-ESTABLISHED. Jovian, Valentinian, and Valens — The contentions begin again — The order of the hierarchy — Gregory, bishop of Constantinople — The Meletian schism — The Council of Constantinople — Council of Aquileia — Penalties upon heretics — The empire is “converted.” CHAPTER 17.

MARY IS MADE THE MOTHER OF GOD. Chrysostom deposed and banished — Chrysostom recalled and again banished — A general council demanded — Cyril of Alexandria — Nestorius of Constantinople — Cyril and Nestorious at war — The bishop of Rome joins Cyril — General Council of Ephesus — Condemnation of Nestorius — Council against council — All alike orthodox — Cyril bribes the court and wins.

CHAPTER 18.

THE EUTYCHIAN CONTROVERSY. The controversy begins — Eusebius in a dilemma — Forecast of the Inquisition — A general council is demanded — The second general Council of Ephesus — Eutyches is declared orthodox — The unity of the council — Peace is declared restored CHAPTER 19.

THE POPE MADE AUTHOR OF THE FAITH. Pretensions of the bishops of Rome — “Irrevocable” and “universal” — Leo demands another council — The general Council of Chalcedon — “A frightful storm” — Condemnation of Dioscorus — Leo’s — letter the test — Leo’s letter approved — Leo’s letter “the true faith” — Unity of the council is created — Leo’s doctrine seals the creed — The creed of Leo and Chalcedon — Royalty ratifies the creed — The council to Leo — Imperial edicts enforce the creed — Leo “confirms” the creed — The work of the four councils CHAPTER 20.

THE CHURCH USURPS THE CIVIL AUTHORITY. Events that favored the papacy — The bishops censors of magistrates The Bible is made the code — The bishopric a political office — The worst characters become bishops — the episcopal dictatorship — Civil government vanished.

CHAPTER 21.

THE RUIN OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. The bishopric of Rome — Pride of the bishops and clergy — Vices of clergy and people — Abominations of sun worship continued — Heathen practices in the church — Monkish virtue made prevalent — Hypocrisy and fraud made habitual — Pure, unmingled naturalism — Destruction and devastation — No remedy, and final ruin.

CHAPTER 22.

THE SUPREMACY OF THE PAPACY. The papacy and the barbarians — The “conversion” of Clovis — The “holy” wars of Clovis — Such conversion was worse corruption — She destroys those she cannot corrupt — Destruction of the Herulian kingdom — Theodoric’s rule of Italy — Papal proceedings in Rome — The pope put above the State — Conspiracies against the Ostrogoths — The accession of Justinian — The Trisagion controversy — Justinian joins in the controversy — The Vandal kingdom uprooted — The Ostrogothic kingdom destroyed — Temporal authority of the papacy — The Lombards invade Italy — The pope appeals to France — The pope anoints Pepin king — Pepin’s gift to the papacy — The pope makes Charlemagne emperor — The papacy made supreme — The germ of the entire papacy.

CHAPTER 23.

PROTESTANTISM — TRUE AND FALSE. The papal power and Luther’s protection — The principles of Protestantism — Protestantism is Christianity — Zwingle as a Reformer — Henry VIII against Luther — Luther against the papacy — Henry divorces the pope — Religious rights in England — The Calvinistic theocracy — Calvin’s Despotism — Religious despotism in Scotland — The rise of the Puritans — Puritan designs upon England — Elizabeth persecutes the Puritans — Origin of the Congregationalists — Puritan government of New England — New England Puritan principles — roger Williams against Puritanism — Banishment of Roger Williams — John Wheelright and his preaching — Wheelright is banished — The Puritan inquisition — Puritan covenant of grace — Mrs.

Hutchinson is condemned — the inquisition continues — Planting of Connecticut and New Haven — The theocracy is completed — Laws against the Baptists — The Baptist principles — The whipping of Elder Holmes — The persecutors justify themselves — Thomas Gould and his brethren — Another remonstrance from England — First treatment of Quakers — First law against Quakers — Rhode Island’s glorious appeal — Horrible laws against the Quakers — Horrible tortures of Quakers — The people effect a rescue — Children sold as slaves — The death penalty is defeated — “A humaner policy” — The people rescue the sufferers — Laws of New Haven and Connecticut — John Wesley prosecuted — Martin Luther and Roger Williams.

CHAPTER 24.

THE NEW REPUBLIC. Civil government wholly impersonal — It is the scriptural idea — How are the powers that be, ordained — The American doctrine is scriptural — The Declaration asserts the truth — Government and religion rightly separate — Governmental authority not religious — Daniel and the government — It is intentionally so — The Presbytery of Hanover — Their second memorial — Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance — Christianity does not need it — It undermines public authority — Virginia delivered — Ratification of the Constitution — The Christian idea.

CHAPTER 25.

THE GREAT CONSPIRACY. The Constitution denounced — A religious amendment proposed — The National Reform Association — Proposed national hypocrisy — The new hierarchy — Moral and civil government distinct — Morality and religion inseparable — This work committed to the church alone — The two “spheres” — The National Reform theocracy — The new kingdom of God — What they propose to do — National Reform toleration — They propose union with the papacy — Religious worship in public schools — Their principles and aims are alike — The W. C. T. U. in bad company — Principles of the National W. C. T. U. — History repeats itself — Wrong ideas of the gospel — Prohibition joins the procession — Principles of national Prohibition party — Origin of the American Sabbath Union — Church and State to be united — The whole scheme is theocratical — Anti American and anti- Christian.

CHAPTER 26.

THE BOND OF UNION. The Catholic Church accepts — What Rome means by it — What the Protestants mean by it — Compulsory religious observance — What is the church for? — Sunday practice of church members — They invade the realm of conscience — The basis of Sunday observance — The authority for Sunday observance — No obligation upon a free conscience — The people must all go to church — More, more, more, more! — Sunday work is to be treason — The modern Puritan ideal — The true National Reform religion — The rumble of the coming train — Whom Sunday laws affect — How Sunday laws are enforced — Supreme Court decisions — “A relic of the Middle Ages” — It worked “nearly perfectly” — Their object is to make it universal.

CHAPTER 27.

WILL IT SUCCEED? Chaplaincies unconstitutional — Government chaplaincies anti- Christian — An imposition upon the people — Liquor-drinking chaplains — National Religious Proclamations — Appropriations to churches — A fallacious protest — The church raid upon the treasury — The Constitution forgotten — Church power strangles free discussion — The amendment proposed — A new Council of Nice — The proposed national theology — The Constitution disregarded — The national Sunday law — Religious legislation only — What they covet — Congress and the world to come — The State dictates to conscience — Enforced religious observance — No disturbance of worship — The Constitution protects them — The meaning of exemption — “Every-body’s attention” called — An invasion of rights — We plead for the rights of all — Why they propose exemption — “Embarrassing legislation” — They will “scoop all in” — Inalienable right.

CHAPTER 28.

CONCLUSION. What more is needed? — International Sunday-law movement — The pope exalts himself and Sunday — The arch-mistress of sorceries — Shall papal or Christian principles rule? — The lesson of the history.

APPENDIX.

HOW SUNDAY LAWS ARE ENFORCED. Prosecution of Elder J. W. Scoles — Allen Meeks — Joe McCoy — J. L. Schockey — James M. Pool — James A. Armstrong — William L. Gentry — Ples. A. Pannell — J. L. James — Allen Meeks, the second time — John A. Meeks — John Neusch — F. N.

Elmore — William H. Fritz — Z. Swearingen — I. L. Benson — James A. Armstrong, the second time — J. L. Munson — James M.

Pool — J. L. Shockey, the second time — Alexander Holt — Letters from prominent citizens of Arkansas.

CHAPTER 1.

THE LAST DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC.

WITH the exception of Britain, all the permanent conquests of Rome were made by the arms of the republic, which, though “sometimes vanquished in battle,” were “always victorious in war.” But as Roman power increased, Roman virtue declined; and of all forms of government, the stability of the republican depends most upon the integrity of the individual. The immortal Lincoln’s definition of a republic is the best that can ever be given: “A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” A republic is a government of the people” — the people compose the government. The people are governed by “the people” — by themselves. They are governed by the people, “for the people” — they are governed by themselves, for themselves. Such a government is but self-government; each citizen governs himself, by himself, — by his own powers of self-restraint, — and he does this for himself, for his own good, for his own best interests. In proportion as this conception is not fulfilled, in proportion as the people lose the power of governing themselves, in the same proportion the true idea of a republic will fail of realization.

It is said of the early Romans that “they possessed the faculty of selfgovernment beyond any people of whom we have historical knowledge,” with the sole exception of the Anglo-Saxons. And by virtue of this, in the very nature of the case they became the most powerful nation of all ancient times.

But their extensive conquests filled Rome with gold. With wealth came luxury; as said Juvenal, — “Luxury came on more cruel than our arms, And avenged the vanquished world with her charms.” In the train of luxury came vice; self-restraint was broken down; the power of self-government was lost; and the Roman republic failed, as every other republic will fail, when that fails by virtue of which alone a republic is possible. The Romans ceased to govern themselves, and they had to be governed. They lost the faculty of self-government, and with that vanished the republic, and its place was supplied by an imperial tyranny supported by a military despotism.

In the second Punic War, Rome’s victories had reduced the mighty Carthage, B.C. 201, to the condition of a mere mercantile town; and within a few years afterward she had spread her conquests round the whole coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, and had made herself “the supreme tribunal in the last resort between kings and nations.” “The southeast of Spain, the coast of France from the Pyrenees to Nice, the north of Italy, Illyria and Greece, Sardinia, Sicily, and the Greek islands, the southern and western shores of Asia Minor, were Roman provinces, governed directly under Roman magistrates. On the African side, Mauritania (Morocco) was still free. Numidia (the modern Algeria) retained its native dynasty, but was a Roman dependency. The Carthaginian dominions, Tunis and Tripoli, had been annexed to the empire. The interior of Asia Minor up to the Euphrates, with Syria and Egypt, was under sovereigns called allies, but, like the native princes in India, subject to a Roman protectorate. Over this enormous territory, rich with the accumulated treasures of centuries, and inhabited by thriving, industrious races, the energetic Roman men of business had spread and settled themselves, gathering into their hands the trade, the financial administration, the entire commercial control, of the Mediterranean basin. They had been trained in thrift and economy, in abhorrence of debt, in strictest habits of close and careful management.

Their frugal education, their early lessons in the value of money, good and excellent as those lessons were, led them as a matter of course, to turn to account their extraordinary opportunities. Governors with their staffs, permanent officials, contractors for the revenue, negotiators, bill-brokers, bankers, merchants, were scattered everywhere in thousands. Money poured in upon them in rolling streams of gold.: — Froade. F1 The actual administrative powers of the government were held by the body of the senators, who held office for life. The Senate had control of the public treasury, and into its hands went not only the regular public revenue from all sources, but also the immense spoil of plundered cities and conquered provinces. With the Senate lay also the appointment, and from its own ranks, too, of all the governors of provinces; and a governorship was the goal of wealth. A governor could go out from Rome poor, perhaps a bankrupt, hold his province for one, two, or three years, and return with millions. The inevitable result was that the senatorial families and leading commoners built up themselves into an aristocracy of wealth ever increasing. Owing to the opportunities for the accumulation of wealth in the provinces more rapidly than at home, many of the most enterprising citizens sold their farms and left Italy. The farms were bought up by the Roman capitalists, and the small holdings were merged into vast estates.

Besides this, the public lands were leased on easy terms by the Senate to persons of political influence, who by the lapse of time, had come to regard the land as their own by right of occupation. The Licinian law passed in 367 B. C., provided that no one should occupy more than three hundred and thirty-three acres of the public lands; and that every occupant should employ a certain proportion of free laborers. But at the end of two hundred years these favored holders had gone far beyond the law in both of these points: they extended their holdings beyond the limits prescribed by the law; and they employed no free laborers at all, but worked their holdings by slave labor wholly. Nor was this confined to the occupiers of the public lands; all wealthy land owners worked their land by slaves.

In the Roman conquests, where prisoners were taken in battle, or upon the capture or the unconditional surrender of a city, they were all sold as slaves. They were not slaves such as were in the Southern States of the United States in slavery times. They were Spaniards, Gauls, Greeks, Asiatics, and Carthaginians. Of course they were made up of all classes, yet many of them were intelligent, trained, and skillful; and often among them would be found those who were well educated. These were bought up by the wealthy Romans by the thousands. The skilled mechanics and artisans among them were employed in their owners’ workshops established in Rome; the others were spread over the vast landed estates, covering them with vineyards, orchards, olive gardens, and the products of general agriculture; and all increasing their owners’ immense incomes. “Wealth poured in more and more, and luxury grew more unbounded. Palaces sprang up in the city, castles in the country, villas at pleasant places by the sea, and parks and fish-ponds, and game preserves, and gardens, and vast retinues of servants,” everywhere. The effect of all this absorbing of the land, whether public or private, into great estates worked by slaves, was to crowd the free laborers off the lands and into the large towns and into Rome above all. There they found every trade and occupation filled with slaves, whose labor only increased the wealth of the millionaire, and with which it was impossible successfully to compete. The only alternative was to fall into the train of the political agitator, become the stepping-stone to his ambition, sell their votes to the highest bidder, and perhaps have a share in the promised more equable division of the good things which were monopolized by the rich.

For, to get money by any means lawful or unlawful, had become the universal passion. “Money was the one thought from the highest senator to the poorest wretch who sold his vote in the Comitia. For money judges gave unjust decrees, and juries gave corrupt verdicts.” — Froude. F2 It has been well said that, “With all his wealth, there were but two things which the Roman noble could buy — political power and luxury.” — Froude. F3 And the poor Roman had but one thing that he could sell — his vote.

Consequently with the rich, able only to buy political power, and with the poor, able only to sell his vote, the elections once pure, became matters of annual bargain and sale between the candidates and the voters. “To obtain a province was the first ambition of a Roman noble. The road to it lay through the praetorship and the consulship; these offices, therefore, became the prizes of the State; and being in the gift of the people, they were sought after by means which demoralized alike the givers and the receivers. The elections were managed by clubs and coteries; and, except on occasions of national danger or political excitement, those who spent most freely were most certain of success. Under these conditions the chief powers in the commonwealth necessarily centered in the rich. There was no longer an aristocracy of birth, still less of virtue.... But the door of promotion was open to all who had the golden key. The great commoners bought their way into the magistracies. From the magistracies they passed into the Senate.” — Froude. F4 And from the Senate they passed to the governorship of a province.

To obtain the first office in the line of promotion to the governorship, men would exhaust every resource, and plunge into what would otherwise have been hopeless indebtedness. Yet having obtained the governorship, when they returned, they were fully able to pay all their debts, and still be millionaires. “The highest offices of State were open in theory to the meanest citizen; they were confined, in fact, to those who had the longest purses, or the most ready use of the tongue on popular platforms.

Distinctions of birth had been exchanged for distinctions of wealth. The struggle between plebeians and patricians for equality of privilege was over, and a new division had been formed between the party of property and a party who desired a change in the structure of society.” — Froude. F5 Such was the condition of things, B.C. 146, when the ruin of Carthage left Rome with no fear of a rival to her supremacy. Senatorial power was the sure road to wealth. The way to this was through the praetorship and the consulship. These offices were the gift of the populace through election by popular vote. The votes of the great body of the populace were for sale; and as only those who could control sufficient wealth were able to buy enough votes to elect, the sure result was, of course, that all the real powers of the government were held by the aristocracy of wealth. Then as these used their power to increase their own wealth and that of their favorites, and only used their wealth to perpetuate their power, another sure result was the growth of jealousy on the part of the populace, and a demand constantly growing louder and more urgent, that there should be a more equable division of the good things of life which were monopolized by the favored few. “All orders in a society may be wise and virtuous, but all cannot be rich. Wealth which is used only for idle luxury is always envied, and envy soon curdles into hate. It is easy to persuade the masses that the good things of this world are unjustly divided, especially when it happens to be the exact truth.” — Froude. F6 And as these two classes were constantly growing farther apart, — the rich growing richer and the poor, poorer, — there ceased to be any middle class to maintain order in government and society by holding the balance of power. There remained only the two classes, the rich and the poor, and of these the rich despised the poor and the poor envied the rich. And there were always plenty of men to stir up the discontent of the masses, and present schemes for the reorganization of society and government. Some of these were well meaning men, men who really had in view the good of their fellow-men, but the far greater number were mere demagogues, — ambitious schemers who used the discontent of the populace only to lift themselves into the places of wealth and power which they envied others, and which, when they had secured, they used as selfishly and as oppressively as did any of those against whom they clamored. But whether they were well meaning men or demagogues, in order to hold the populace against the persuasions and bribes of the wealthy, they were compelled to make promises and concessions, which were only in the nature of larger bribes and which in the end were as destructive of free government as the worst acts of the Senate itself.

In the long contest between the people and the Senate, which ended in the establishment of an imperial form of government, the first decisive step was taken by Tiberius Gracchus, who was elected tribune of the people in the year 133 B.C. On his way home from Spain shortly before, as he passed through Tuscany, he saw in full operation the ‘large estate system carried on by the wealthy senators or their favorites, — the public lands unlawfully leased in great tracts, “the fields cultivated by the slave gangs, the free citizens of the republic thrust away into the towns, aliens and outcasts in their own country, without a foot of soil which they could call their own.”

He at once determined that the public lands should be restored to the people; and as soon as he was elected tribune, he set to work to put his views into law. As the government was of the people, if the people were only united they could carry any measure they pleased, in spite of the Senate. As the senators and their wealthy favorites were the offenders, it was evident that if any such law should be secured, it would have to be wholly by the people’s overriding the Senate; and to the people Tiberius Gracchus directly appealed. He declared that the public land belonged to the people, demanded that the monopolists should be removed, and that the public lands should be re-distributed among the citizens of Rome. The monopolists argued that they had leased the land from the Senate, and had made their investments on the faith that the law was no longer of force.

Besides this they declared that as they were then occupying the lands, and as the lands had been so occupied for ages before, with the sanction of the government, to call in question their titles now, was to strike at the very foundations of society. Tiberius and his party replied only by pointing to the statute which stood unrepealed, and showing that however long the present system had been worked, it was illegal and void from the beginning.

Yet Tiberius did not presume to be arbitrary. He proposed to pay the holders for their improvements; but as for the public land itself, it belonged to the people, and to the people it should go. The majority of the citizens stood by Tiberius. But another of the tribunes, Octavius Caecina by name, himself having large interests in the land question, went over to the side of the Senate; and, in the exercise of his constitutional right, forbade the taking of the vote. From the beginning, the functions of the tribunes were that they should be the defenders of the people and the guardians of the rights of the people, against the encroachment of the Consulate and the Senate. And now when one of their own constitutional defenders deserted them and went over to the enemy, even though in doing it he exercised only his constitutional prerogative, this the people would not bear. It was to support an unlawful system that it was done; the people were allpowerful, and they determined to carry their measure, constitution or no constitution. F7 Tiberius called upon them to declare Caecina deposed from the Tribunate; they at once complied. Then they took the vote which Caecina had forbidden, and the land law of Tiberius Gracchus was secured.

Three commissioners were appointed to carry into effect the provisions of the law. But from whatever cause, the choosing of the commissioners was unfortunate — they were Tiberius himself, his younger brother, and his father in law. Being thus apparently a family affair, the aristocrats made the most of it, and bided their time; for the tribunes were elected for only a year, and they hoped so to shape the elections when the year should expire, as to regain their power. But when the year expired, Tiberius unconstitutionally presented himself for re-election, and the prospect was that he would secure it. When the election day came, the aristocrats, with their servants and hired voters, went armed to the polls; and as soon as they saw that Tiberius would surely be chosen, they raised a prior. The people being unarmed, were driven off. Tiberius Gracchus and three hundred of his friends were killed and pitched into the Tiber. Yet though they had killed Tiberius, they did not dare to attempt at once the repeal of the law which he had secured, nor openly to interfere with the work of the commissioners in executing the law. Within two years the commissioners had settled forty thousand families upon public lands which the monopolists had been obliged to surrender.

The commissioners soon became unpopular. Those who were compelled to resign their lands were exasperated, of course. On the other hand, those to whom the land was given were not in all cases satisfied. It was certain that some would be given better pieces pieces of land than others, and that of itself created jealousy and discontent. But the greatest trouble was, that in the great majority of cases it was not land that they wanted, in fact. It was money that they wanted first of all; and although the land was virtually given to them and well improved at that, they could not get money out of it without work. It had to be personal work, too, because to hire slaves was against the very law by virtue of which they had received the land; and to hire freemen was impossible, (1) because no freeman would work for a slave’s wages — that in his estimate would be to count himself no better than a slave — and, (2) the new landed proprietor could not afford to pay the wages demanded by free labor, because he had to meet the competition of the wealthy land owners who worked their own land with slave labor. The only alternative was for the new land-holders to work their land themselves, and do the best they could at it. But as the money did not come as fast as they wished, and as what did come was only by hard work and economical living, many of them heartily wished themselves back amid the stir and bustle of the busy towns, working for daily wages, though the wages might be small. The discontented cries soon grow loud enough to give the Senate its desired excuse to suspend the commissioners and then quietly to repeal the law, and resume its old supremacy.

Just nine years after the death of Tiberius Gracchus his brother Caius was elected a tribune, and took up the work in behalf of which Tiberius had lost his life. The Senate had been jealous of him for some time, and attacked him with petty prosecutions and false accusations; and when he was elected tribune, the Senate knew that this meant no good to it. Caius revived the land law that had been secured by his brother ten years before, but he did not stop there; he attacked the Senate itself. All important State cases, whether civil or criminal, were tried before a court composed of senators — about sixty or seventy. This privilege also the senators had turned to their own profit by selling their verdicts. It was no secret that the average senatorial juryman was approachable with money; if not in the form of a direct bribe, there were many other ways in which a wealthy senator could make his influence felt. Governors could plunder their provinces, rob temples, sell their authority, and carry away everything they could lay hands on; yet, although in the eyes of the law these were the gravest offenses, when they returned to Rome, they could admit their fellowsenators to a share in their stealings, and rest perfectly secure. If the plundered provincials came up to Rome with charges against a governor, the charges had to be passed upon by a board of senators who had either been governors themselves or else were only waiting for the first chance to become governors, and a case had to be one of special hardship and notorious at that, before any notice would be taken of it in any effective way. The general course was only to show that the law was a mockery where the rich and influential were concerned. At this system of corruption, Caius Gracchus aimed a successful blow. He carried a law disqualifying forever any senator from sitting on a jury of any kind, and transferring these judicial functions to the equites, or knights, an order of men below the dignity of mouators, but yet who had to be possessed of a certain amount of wealth to be eligible to the order. By this measure, Caius bound to himself the whole body of the knights.

But these attacks upon the Senate successful though they were, and these favors to the knights, were of no direct benefit to the people; therefore to maintain his position with them, Caius was obliged to do something that would be so directly in their favor that there could be no mistaking it. It was not enough that he should restore the land law that had been secured by his brother. That law, even while it was being worked at its best, was satisfactory to but few of its beneficiaries. The law was restored, it is true, but the prospect of leaving Rome and going perhaps to some distant part of Italy to engage in hard work, was not much of a temptation to men who had spent any length of time in Rome, involved in its political strifes, and whose principal desire was to obtain money and the means of subsistence with as little work as possible. It required something more than the restoration of the land law to satisfy these, and Caius granted it.

With the “enthusiastic clapping” of every pair of poor hands in Rome, he secured the passage of a law decreeing that there should be established in Rome, public granaries to be filled and maintained at the cost of the State, and that from these the wheat should be sold to the poor citizens at a merely nominal price. This law applied only to Rome, because in Rome the elections were held. “The effect was to gather into the city a mob of needy, unemployed voters, living on the charity of the State, to crowd the circus and to clamor at the elections, available no doubt immediately to strengthen the hands of the popular tribune, but certain in the long run to sell themselves to those who could bid highest for their voices.” — Froude. F8 We have already seen that the only stock in trade of the poor citizen was his vote and the effect of this law was greatly to increase the value of that commodity; because as now he was virtually supported by the State, he became more nearly independent, and could easily devote more time to political agitation, and could demand larger returns for his influence and his vote. But Caius carried his law, and so bound to himself, and greatly multiplied, too, the mass of voters in Rome; and having secured the support of both the knights and the populace, he carried all before him, and was even re-elected to the Tribunate, and could have been elected the third time; but he proposed a scheme that estranged the mob, and his power departed.

He proposed that in different parts of the empire, Roman colonies should be established with all the privileges of Roman citizenship, and one of these places was Carthage. That city, while it existed, had always been the greatest earthly menace to Rome, and when it had been reduced to ashes and the Roman plowshare drawn over it, it was cursed forever. And now the mere suggestion to restore it was magnified by Caius’s enemies to a height that made the proposition appear but little short of treason. This of itself, however, might not have defeated him; but if this colonization scheme was carried out, many of the populace would have to leave Rome and go to some distant part of the empire: and worse than all else, they would have to work. No longer could they be fed at the public expense and spend their lives in the capital, in the whirl of political excitement and the amusements of the Roman circus. Even to contemplate such a prospect was intolerable; still more, and as though Caius deliberately designed to add insult to injury, he proposed to bestow the franchise upon all the freemen of Italy. This would be only to cut down in an unknown ratio the value of the votes of those who now possessed the franchise. Such a calamity as that never could be borne. The course of the Senate might have been one of misrule, but this of Caius Gracchus was fast developing into unbearable despotism. The election day came, riots were raised, and Caius Gracchus and three thousand of his friends were killed, as had been his brother and his friends ten years before.

The mob having now no leader, the Senate resumed its sway as before, and went on in the same old way, except that the laws actually passed by Caius had to stand. It was not long, however, before the Senate was put to a test which effectually exposed its utter incompetency to rule the Roman State.

West of the Carthaginian province of Rome, lay the kingdom of Numidia, over which the Roman power extended its protectorate. Miscipsa was king. He had two sons, Hiempsal and Adheabal, and an illegitimate nephew, Jugurtha. Miscipsa died B.C. 118, and left his kingdom jointly to the three young men. Jugurtha at once murdered Hiempsal, and attacked Adherbal. Adherbal appealed to Rome, but Jugurtha had already made himself safe with the Senate. The Senate sent out commissioner, Jugurtha bribed them, and they went home again. Jugurtha pushed the war, Adherbal was taken, and was killed after having been tortured almost to death. After the capture of Adherbal and his forces, some Roman citizens had also been taken, and after their surrender, they too were killed. This raised such a cry at Rome that the Senate was compelled at least to promise an investigation; but as no results were to be seen, one of the tribunes openly told the people that there were men in the Senate who were bribed. At this the popular indignation began to show itself so strongly that the Senate dared no longer to brave it, and declared war on Jugurtha. An army was sent to Africa in command of a consel. Jugurtha bribed the consul, and secured a peace on the payment of a small fine.

Memmius, the same tribune who before had the courage openly to charge the Senate with taking bribes, again openly exposed in the Forum this last piece of rascality. The Senate saw the storm gathering, and once more bestirred itself to the extent of calling Jugurtha to Rome. This was only to increase the opportunities of both Jugurtha and themselves. Jugurtha came laden with gold, and in addition to the Senate which he already owned, he bribed every one of the tribunes, except Memmius, who was proof against all his blandishments. Jugurtha had been called to Rome under a safeconduct, and he was at last ordered back home, but the cause was not yet settled. The Senate sent over another army. But Rome had as yet no standing army, and there had now been peace so long that the old military discipline of the citizens had completely run down. The men who were enlisted were wholly ignorant of military duty, and the officers, appointed mostly from among the rich young nobles, were more illy prepared for war than were the men. The army went to Africa, and in about two months the half of it was destroyed, and the other half captured, by Jugurtha. About the same time, two armies were destroyed by the Gauls up on the Rhone. (“While the great men at Rome were building palaces, inventing new dishes, and hiring cooks at unheard-of salaries, the barbarians were at the gates of Italy.” — Froude. F9 This combination of disgraces and dangers gave such force to the popular complaints against the Senate, that it was at last aroused to a determination really to do something, and the best man that could be found — Caecilius Metellus — was appointed to lead a new expedition against Jugurtha.

Metellus having it in mind to put an end to the Jugurtha. War, chose as his second in command the ablest general that he could find, Caius Marius.

Arrived in Numidia, the Roman army was successful in several battles, and Jugurtha asked for peace; but as Metellus demanded unconditional surrender, and could not be bribed, Jugurtha drew his forces into the desert, and caused the war to drag along. As the time for the election of a consel for the next drew on, Marius’s name was mentioned as the candidate of the people. It was the law that the candidate must be present at the election, and Marius obtained the consent of Metellus to go to Rome. Election day came, B.C. 107, and although the aristocracy did all they could to defeat him, Marius was elected — the first instance in a hundred years in which a consul had been chosen from the people. Metellus was recalled, and Marius was given sole command in the war with Jugurtha. He first set on foot a thorough reorganization of the military power of Rome. Up to this time, the Roman armies had been but a militia — citizens called from their various occupations for service upon emergency, and returning to their occupations as soon as the occasion was past which made their services necessary. Marius enlisted men to become professional soldiers. These he thoroughly drilled, and reduced to the strictest discipline. Thus originated the standing army of Rome, which out of the corruptions of the times at last arose to a military despotism. With such an army of well trained and well disciplined troops, Marius, before the next year was ended, had brought the Jugurthine War to a triumphant close, and Jugurtha himself was brought in chains to Rome.

Marius had barely ended the trouble in Numidia, before all his skill and all the valor of his well trained legions, were urgently demanded to turn back the tide of barbarians, — Cimbri and Teutons, — which in two mighty streams of hundreds of thousands each, was pouring into Italy. While Marius was in Africa, the largest army that Rome had ever sent against an enemy, was by these savages swept out of existence, B.C. 107. But although the generalship of Marius was now urgently needed — B.C. — his consulship had expired, and there was no precedent for electing the same person consul a second time. In times of imminent danger it was in the province of the Senate to suspend the constitution, declare the State in danger, and appoint a dictator. But as Marius was the favorite of the populace, it was known by all that should the Senate exercise its prerogative, it would never appoint him as the dictator; and it was also known by all that Marius was the only man who could save the State.

Therefore, the people took the power into their own hands again, and virtually suspended the constitution by electing Marius consul the second time, B.C. 104.

The barbarians, however, did not come at once into Italy. By some cause their erratic course was turned aside, and they swept through southern Gaul, across the Pyrenees into Spain, over northern Spain to the Atlantic, up the coast into Gaul again, across Gaul to the Seine and even to the Rhine; and then gathering fresh force from their brethren from the wilds of Germany, the torrent rolled once more toward Italy. In this wild raid two years were consumed. In Rome the people still held sway, and Marius was elected consul a third time, and even a fourth time. He put the two years to good use in perfecting the efficiency of his legions, and drawing them up to the borders of Italy. He met the Teutons even beyond the Alps, and annihilated the whole host, July 20, B.C. 102. The Cimbri by another route passed the Alps and forced back as far as the Po, the legions under Catulus. Marius, in his absence, was elected consul the fifth time, and continued in command. He came to the rescue of Catulus. The Cimbri were utterly destroyed (B.C. 101, summer), and Italy was saved. Marius was the idol of the people; they prided themselves upon saving the country by him, and they elected him consel the sixth time, B.C. 100.

But Rome was no sooner free once more from the danger of a foreign foe, than by civil strife and political violence she began to prey again upon her own vitals. Besides Marius, the two favorites of the people just at this time were Saturninus, a tribune, and Glaucia, a praetor. With these Marius allied himself. They were all powerful, and passed, (1) another land law dividing up portions of the public domain among the veterans of Marius; (2) a law establishing colonies in Sicily, Achaia, and Macedonia; (3) a law reducing as low as two cents a peck, the price of wheat from the public granaries; and, (4) to cap it all, they passed a vote that all the senators should take an oath to execute these laws under penalty of fine and expulsion from the Senate.

All this was done in the midst of riot, tumult, and bloodshed. Metellus alone, of all the senators, refused to take the oath to execute these laws.

Saturninus had him dragged out of the Senate house and expelled from the city. Yet there was not entire harmony in the popular party. There were rival candidates and consequent jealousies. Saturninus and Glaucia were in the full tide of success, and would brook no rivals. Memmius stood for the consulship at the same time that Glaucia was a candidate for that office. As it appeared that Memmius would be elected, he was murdered. At this, both Saturninus and Glaucia were declared public enemies. They took refuge in the capitol, and barricaded it. The aristocrats laid siege to them; Marius interceded, and they surrendered to him. They were confined in an apartment of the Senate house to be held for trial. The aristocrats tore off the roof, and pelted them to death with stones and tiles.

It will be remembered that in the tribunate of Caius Gracchus — B.C. — the corruption of justice by the senators had made it necessary to deprive them of the right to sit on juries, and that this privilege was bestowed upon the knights. Yet within about thirty years the same evil bad grown to such a height among the knights as to call loudly for a reform.

Accordingly, in B.C. 91 Marcus Divius Drusus, a tribune, brought forward a proposal to reform the law courts, and thereby incurred the deadly enmity of the whole Equestrian order. With this he proposed both new land laws and new corn laws, which increased the hatred of the senatorial order toward the populace. These laws were passed, but the Senate declared them null and void. Drusus had also entered into negotiations with the Italians to secure for them Roman citizenship. He was denounced in the Senate house as a traitor, and on his way home was assassinated.

The Italians seeing their last hope was gone, rose in rebellion, and set about to form a new State of their own to be called Italia. They had long borne an equal share in the burdens of the State; they had helped to subdue Jugurtha, and had borne an important part in the defeat of the barbarian host. They were now determined that if they were to bear an equal share in the burdens of the State, they would have a voice, too, in the affairs of the State; and if they could not have it in the Roman State, they would have it in one of their own. Rome was determined not to allow this if she could avoid it. But in the war which followed, the first campaigns were disastrous to the Roman arms, and although some successes were afterwards gained, they were not decisive; she soon found her treasury empty, and found disaffection springing up in districts that had not revolted. Drusus had been murdered in 91; the war for the franchise immediately followed, and Rome’s dangers and distresses became so threatening that in the latter part of the year 90, a law was passed granting th the franchise to all the Italian communities which should within sixty days hand in their names to the praetor in Rome; and a third law was passed shortly afterward empowering the Roman magistrates in the field to bestow the franchise upon all who would receive it. In this way the forces of the insurgents were so weakened that the war was soon closed.

The close of war in the field was only the signal for the renewal of strife in the political arena of the city. All the old quarrels were renewed with increased bitterness, and the lately enfranchised Italians were a new element in the strife. Their voting power was incorporated with that of tribes already existing, which was only to rob them of a large share of the value of their votes. This made them discontented from the very beginning.

Added to all the bitterness of factions, and the rivalries of all classes who had any political power at all, there was now wide-spread distress and ruin that affected all classes. And besides all this, Mithradates, king of Pontus, taking advantage of the social war in Italy, had set out to reduce all the East in subjection to himself. The Roman governors had made such a tyrannical use of their power that all the provinces of the East were ready to revolt at the first fair opportunity that offered. The fleets of Mithradates, coming out over the Black Sea, poured through the Hellespond and the Dardanelles into the Grecian Archipelago. All the islands, and the provinces of Ionia, Caria, and Lydia, taking advantage of this, rose at once in determined revolt, and put to death many thousands of the Roman residents. Not only the governors, but the merchants, the bankers, and the farmers of the taxes, with their families, were promiscuously murdered.

Mithradates himself, with a powerful army, followed close upon the success of his fleet, crossed the Bosphorus, and penetrated into Greece, which received him as a deliverer. All this compelled Rome to declare war upon Mithradates; but this was only to deepen her own local contests; because there was bitter rivalry and contention as to who should command the armies to be sent against Mithradates. Marius was still a great favorite, but there was now a strong rival to his popularity in the person of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Sulla had been one of Marius’s best assistants in putting an end to the Jugurthine War, and also in defeating the Teutons and the Cimbri. He made himself the favorite of the soldiers by allowing them to indulge “in plundering and in all kinds of license.” Before the social war he had already made one journey into the East with an army, had defeated one of the generals of Mithradates, had restored, for a time, order in the Eastern provinces, and had received an embassy from the Parthians, which was sent to solicit an alliance with Rome, B.C. 92. He returned to Rome in 91, and both he and Marius were given command in the war with the Italians. Sulla’s success was more marked than that of Marius, and there were not those lacking who would stir up jealousy between the two commanders by claiming that Marius’s success against Jugurtha and the barbarians was more owing to the abilities of Sulla than to his own. Sulla was one of the aristocracy, — “a patrician of the purest blood,” — but he had made an immense bid for the favor of the populace by exhibiting in the arena a hundred African lions.

Everybody in Rome, and, for that matter, in all Italy, knew that the contest for the command of the troops in the Mithradatic War, lay between Marius and Sulla; and every one knew that the contest stood, Sulla and the Senatorial party against Marius and the people. The contest deepened, and it was more and more evident that, in the existing state of things, it could not be decided without a crisis. A tribune — Sulpicius Rufus — proposed for adoption a series of laws: (1) that Marius should be given command in the Mithradatic War; (2) that more power should be given to the newly-made citizens and more value to their votes, by increasing the number of tribes, and distributing the new citizens through all the tribes; (3) that any senator who was in debt more than 2000 denarii (about $300), should lose his seat; (4) and that those who had been banished on suspicion of having encouraged the Italian revolt should be recalled.

These proposals only made the confusion of parties worse confounded.

The proposal to give Marius the command pleased the great majority of the people; that in favor of the new citizens, secured the influence of all these, but the proposal to increase the power of their votes was bitterly opposed by the old voters, because it would lessen the value of their own votes. The proposal to unseat such of the senators as should come within the provisions of the law, was only to raise the whole Senate to war by attempting to curtail its power; and again, the proposal in favor of Marius only aroused both the Senate and Sulla to the most determined opposition.

But through it all it soon became evident that Rufus would carry his whole scheme. The consuls, — Sulla was one of them, — to prevent the legislation, proclaimed the day a public holiday. Rufus armed his party and drove the consuls from the Forum, compelled them to withdraw the proclamation of a holiday, and carried his laws. But Sulla put himself at the head of his soldiers and marched them into the city, and “for the first time a Roman consul entered the city of Rome at the head of the legions of the republic.” There was resistance, but it was utterly vain. Marius escaped to Africa, Rufus was taken and killed, and twelve others of the popular leaders put to death without a trial. Sulla, at the head of his troops and supported by the Senate, settled affairs to suit himself, and with his legions departed for the East in the beginning of the year 87 B. C.

Sulla was no sooner well out of Italy than one of the consuls — Cinna — put himself at the head of the people, and proposed to carry out the laws of Rufus. The new citizens had assembled in crowds to exercise their right of voting. The other consul, standing for Sulla and the Senate, brought out an armed force, and commanded the assembled voters to disperse; and because they refused, they were hewn down where they stood, and “the Forum was heaped high with the bodies of the slain.” “Such a scene of slaughter had never been witnessed in Rome since the first stone of the city was laid.” — Froude. Cinna and the tribunes fled, but it was to gather together the soldiers as Sulla had done before them. Marius, too, returned with a thousand cavalry from Numidia, and he had no sooner stepped ashore in Italy than he was joined by five thousand of his veterans, and with his six thousand men he united with Cinna at the gates of Rome. The Senate had made preparations for a vigorous defense, and, in order to prevent the threatened attack, issued proclamations, making every concession, and granting every privilege that had been demanded. But all was to no purpose. They could not be trusted. Marius and Cinna pressed forward, and after a brief resistance, the city was surrendered, and the two generals entered with their troops. A fearful massacre followed. Fifty senators and a thousand knights were slain, besides great numbers of their partisans, and for many days the city was given up to a reign of terror.

These were the last days of the year 87 B.C. Marius died January 13, 86.

Cinna, supported by his troops, became virtually dictator, and ruled Rome for three years.

Sulla was everywhere successful against Mithradates, and in the year 84 a peace was concluded, in which Mithradates was reduced to the position of a vassal of Rome. In 83 Sulla determined to return to Italy, which under Cinna’s rule had been almost entirely turned against him. The Italians dreaded to have Sulla return, and Cinna started to go into Greece with his forces to meet Sulla there, but his troops mutinied and killed him, and Sulla was in a short time landed in Italy with 40,000 veteran troops, who had not yet known defeat. Sulla was joined by Pompey with a legion which he had raised. The defeat of Cinna had dissolved the unity of the parties in Italy, yet it took Sulla about a year to bring all the country into subjection. As soon as he had made his position secure, he entered upon a course of continuous and systematic murder of all who had in any way given support to Cinna or Marius. He had the Senate to appoint him dictator, which made him master of everything and everybody in Italy. “He at once outlawed every magistrate, every public servant of any kind, civil or municipal, who had held office under the rule of Cinna. Lists were drawn for him of the persons of wealth and consequence all over Italy who belonged to the liberal party. He selected agents whom he could trust, or supposed he could trust, to enter the names for each district. He selected, for instance, Oppiancicus of Larino, who inscribed individuals whom he had already murdered, and their relations whose prosecution he feared.

It mattered little to Sylla who were included, if none escaped who were really dangerous to him; and an order was issued for the slaughter of the entire number, the confiscation of their property, and the division of it between the informers and Sylla’s friends and soldiers. Private interest was thus called in to assist political animosity; and to stimulate the zeal for assassination, a reward of 5001 was offered for the head of any person whose name was in the schedule.... Four thousand seven hundred persons fell in the proscription of Sylla, all men of education and fortune. The real crime of many of them was the possession of an estate or a wife which a relative or a neighbor coveted. The crime alleged against all was the opinion that the people of Rome and Italy had rights which deserved consideration as well as the senators and nobles.

The liberal party were extinguished in their own blood. Their estates were partitioned into a hundred and twenty thousand allotments, which were distributed among Sylla’s friends, or soldiers, or freedmen. The land reform of the Gracchi was mockingly adopted to create a permanent aristocratic garrison.

There were no trials, there were no pardons. Common report or private information was at once indictment and evidence, and accusation was in itself condemnation.” — Froude. f12 Reform was popular, and Sulla must needs be a reformer; but his was a reformation which aimed to make the Senate both supreme and absolute.

He had already, while consul in 88, crippled the power of both the tribunes and the people, by passing a law that no proposal should be made to the assembly without the sanction of the Senate; and now the value of the office of tribune was lowered by the provision that any one who should become a tribune should never afterward be chosen to any other office. In another form, also, he lessened the power of the people; he enacted a law that no man should be elected consul who was not forty-three years old, and who had not already been a praetor or a quaestor, and that no one should be made consul a second time within ten years. He also took entirely away from the knights the right of sitting as the court of justice, and restored to the Senate this privilege. As in the matter of the election of tribunes and consuls he had so far deprived the people of the exercise of their power, he now went farther, and enacted a law that the assembly of the people should not even be called together without the Senate’s sanction. But the heaviest stroke of all that he made against the populace was to abolish entirely the grants of grain, and to shut up the public granaries.

Thus the power of the Senate was made absolute, and to render it secure, ten thousand slaves were enfranchised and formed into a senatorial guard.

But in the existing order of things, it was impossible that such power could be respected, or that it could long be exercised. The only means by which Sulla was enabled to create such a power at all, was the army which was so entirely devoted to himself.

From this time forth, in the very nature of things, it became more and more certain that the army would be the real source of power; that whosoever should have the support of the strongest body of troops would possess the power; and that just as soon as that power should be turned against the Senate instead of for it, all this system which had been so carefully built up would be scarcely more tangible than the stuff that dreams are made of.

Sulla himself had set the example in 88, it had been readily followed by Cinna in 87, it was repeated here by Sulla in 81, and he himself saw in Pompey a readiness to follow it this same year.

Pompey had been sent to Sicily and Africa to reduce things to order there, and he was eminently successful. When he had completed his task, he was ordered by the Senate to disband his troops. He refused, and Sulla had to smooth the matter over by granting him a triumph, and allowing him to assume the title of “the Great,” although he was only about twenty-five years of age. By this act of Pompey’s Sulla saw that it would be the best thing to do, to bind Pompey securely to himself. Pompey was already married to Antistia, a lady whose father had been murdered for standing up for Sulla, and whose mother had been driven mad, and to destroy herself, by her husband’s terrible fate. But Sulla had a stepdaughter, Emilia, whom he proposed that Pompey should marry. Emilia was already married, and was pregnant at the time, yet at Sulla’s invitation Pompey divorced Antistia, and married Emilia. There was just then another youth in Rome whom it was to Sulla’s interest to gain also, and he proposed to secure his allegiance in much the same way that he had gained Pompey’s. That youth was Julius Caesar.

Caesar was the nephew of the great Marius, and had married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, by whom he had a daughter named Julia. He was at this time about twenty years of age. Sulla proposed to him that he should divorce Cornelia, and marry some woman whom Sulla should choose.

Caesar flatly refused. Sulla tried to compel him to it: he deprived him of his office of the priesthood,he took his wife’s dowry from him, and confiscated his estate. But Caesar would not yield an inch. Next Sulla hired assassins to kill him, and he escaped only by bribing the assassins. Caesar’s friends interceded, and finally obtained his pardon; but he, not willing to trust himself within Sulla’s reach, left Italy, and joined the army in Asia. In Sulla resigned his dictatorship, and died the following year.

The power which Sulla had given to the Senate was only used to build up itself. As no election could be had without the appointment of the Senate, the elections soon fell under the control of senatorial rings and committees, and no candidate could hope to succeed who had not the favor of the Senate; and the surest means of securing the favor of the senatorial party was the possession of wealth, and a willingness to spend it to secure an office.

The distribution of the land by Sulla had worked no better than had that by the Gracchi, nor in fact hardly as well; because since that there had been forty years of degeneracy and political violence, and a part of the time almost anarchy. Extravagance in living had increased at a rapid rate among all classes: among the really wealthy, in an ostentatious display, or the exhaustion of pleasure; among those of moderate fortunes in an effort to ape the ways of the wealthy; and even among the poor, owing to the virtually free distribution of wheat. For so long as they could get the main part of their living for nothing, they were not likely to cultivate habits of economy. It was easy enough to distribute land to those who had neither land nor money. The difficulty was to keep it so distributed. Those to whom Sulla had distributed land, especially his soldiers, lived far beyond their means; their lands were soon mortgaged, and at last forfeited, falling once more into the hands of the wealthy land owners, to be worked by slaves, while the free citizens were again crowded into the cities. Besides the vast numbers of slaves who were put to use on farms and in shops all over Italy, there were many who were kept and trained to fight one another in the amphitheater, solely for the amusement of the populace. Nothing made a person so popular as to set forth a few pairs of gladiators in the circus to murder one another. At Capua, about seventy-five miles south of Rome, was the most famous training-school for gladiators. In the year B. C., two hundred of these gladiators, led by Spartacus, broke away from their “stables” in Capua, and were soon joined by escaped slaves from all the surrounding country, in such numbers that in a little while Spartacus found himself at the head of 70,000 men ready for any sort of desperate action. For two years they spread terror from one end of Italy to the other, till Pompey and Crassus led forth an army, and annihilated the whole host, B.C. 71. Spartacus was killed, sword in hand, and 6,000 captives were crucified all along the highway from Capua to Rome.

Pompey and Crassus were made consuls for the year 70, Sulla’s legislation was undone, and everything set back as it was before, except that the prerogative of sitting as a court of law was not restored entirely to the knights. This privilege the senators had again prostituted to their old purposes, and as the knights could not be fully trusted either, the court was now to be composed of two-thirds knights and one-third senators. The power of the tribunes was fully restored, also the right of the populace to assemble at their own wish. The public granaries were once more opened.

The mob was happy, the Senate was embittered, and the way was again opened for the full tide of political violence which immediately followed.

Caesar was now fast becoming popular. He and Bibulus had been elected aediles for the year 65, the office of which was to take charge of the public buildings and the games and theaters. “They were expected to decorate the city with new ornaments, and to entertain the people with magnificent spectacles.” Caesar acquitted himself so well in this as to make himself the favorite of the whole multitude of the people. Then as he felt his influence becoming more firmly established, he set on foot an inquiry into the proscription that had been carried on by Sulla. A committee of investigation was appointed, of which Caesar himself was made chairman.

At the time when the roof of the Senate house had been torn off, and Saturninus and Glaucia were pelted to death with tiles, in Saturninus, the father of Titus Labienus had been killed. One of those engaged in the massacre at the time was Rabirius, and although he was now a very old man, Labienus prosecuted him before Caesar’s committee for the murder of his father. Rabirius was convicted, but he appealed to the people, who could not see their way clear to convict him of a guilt that was common to the whole aristocracy; and although he was acquitted, they chose to show to the senatorial party that it was out of no respect to them. The people decided to make Caesar the head of religion by electing him to the office of Pontifex Maximus, which became vacant just at this time. This was the greatest honor that could come to a Roman citizen. The office was for life, and until now had always been held by members of the aristocracy, and Sulla had sought to confine it exclusively to these by giving to the sacred college the privilege of electing its own chief. Labienus being tribune, had succeeded in carrying a vote in the assembly by which this privilege was resumed by the people. To fill the vacancy which now occurred, two of the aristocracy were presented by the senatorial party, and Caesar was nominated by the people. Immense sums of money were spend by the senatorial party to buy sufficient votes to elect one or the other of their two candidates. Caesar likewise spent money freely, although deeply in debt already. When he left home for the Forum on the morning of the election day, and his mother kissed him good-by, he told her he would either come home Pontifex Maximus or would not come home at all. Such an extreme alternative, however, was not necessary, because he was elected by a vote larger than that of both the other candidates put together. This was in the year 63, and soon afterward Caesar was elected praetor for the next year.

The land monopoly had again become as notorious as at any time before.

The small proprietors had sold, out and large holdings had increased, until the land had fallen into a few hands, and Rome was crowded with a rabble of poor citizens largely fed at public expense. Against the will of the Senate, and by the unanimous voice of the people, Pompey had been sent, B.C. 72, to the East against Mithradates, who had again strongly asserted his power. Pompey was victorious everywhere, and his conquests in the East had brought to the State large quantities of land, and his honest conduct in these affairs had filled the treasury with money. Here was a grand opportunity for reform. Rullus, a tribune, brought forward a proposition that part of the territory acquired by Pompey should be sold, and the money used to buy land in Italy upon which to settle poor citizens from Rome. Cicero, as consul, opposed it strenuously. He railed on Rullus with all the bitterness his abusive tongue could utter. Rullus had stated that the populace of Rome was become so powerful as to be dangerous, and that for the good of the State it would be proper that some should be removed from the city, and placed upon lands where they could support themselves. This was all true, as Cicero well knew; yet he hesitated not a moment to curry favor with these, by setting it before them in as objectionable a light as possible in order to defeat the aim of Rullus. Cicero hated the influence of the people as much as anybody else in Rome, but he hated Rullu’s proposition more because it would lessen the power of the aristocracy, whose favor he just now longed for more than for anything else; he therefore pretended to be the friend of the people and to be defending them against the ulterior scheme of Rullus. He succeeded.

Rullu’s bill was defeated, and his plan came to nothing. And had his plan even succeeded it would likewise have come to nothing; because now the cry had become popular and was becoming more and more imperative — “Bread for nothing, and games forever!”

CHAPTER 2.

THE TWO TRIUMVIRATES.

THE senators held office for life, and therefore the Senate was always in possession of power; while owing to the fact that the elections were annual, the power of the people was but spasmodic at the best. Whenever some extraordinary occasion, or some leader who could carry the multitude with him, arose, the people would awake and carry everything before them. But when the particular occasion was past, or the leader fallen, the people would drop back into the old easy way, though there was scarcely ever an election without a riot, and the Senate would gradually regain all its former power; each time only using it the more despotically, in revenge for the checks which had been put upon it, and the insults which it had received. With politics, as it had universally become, it was inevitable and in fact essential, that there should arise a power constantly active, which should balance that of the Senate, and hold in check its despotic tendencies. This power, as had already appeared, lay in the army. But the army must be led. Consequently the logic of the situation was that a coalition should be formed representing the different classes of the people, but depending upon the army for support. Such a coalition was demanded by the times and events, and was actually created in B.C. 60.

Pompey’s work was done in the East, and in December 62 B. C., he returned to Rome to display and enjoy such a triumph as had never before been seen on earth. A long train of captive princes of the conquered countries as trophies of his victories, and wagons laden with all manner of treasure as an offering to the State, followed the triumphant general as he returned to the capital. A triumphal column was erected in his honor, with an inscription which declared “that Pompey, ‘the people’s general,’ had in three years captured fifteen hundred cities, and had slain, taken, or reduced to submission twelve million human beings.” The offerings which he brought filled the treasury to overflowing, and the income from the countries subdued made the annual revenue of the republic double what it had been before. All this was lost upon the Senate, however, except to deepen its jealousy of Pompey. By a special vote, indeed, he “was permitted to wear his triumphal robe in the Senate as often and as long as it might please him;” but with this the Senate proposed that favors to Pompey should cease.

At the border of Italy Pompey had disbanded his troops, and he entered Rome as a private citizen, with only his political influence to sustain him.

And just here Pompey failed. Although he was every inch a general, he was no politician. He could victoriously wield an army, but he could do nothing with a crowd. He could command legions, but could not command votes.

More than this, during his absence, the senatorial party had employed the time in strenuous efforts and by all means in their power, to destroy his influence in the city, and to create jealousy and distrust between Caesar and Pompey. When Pompey had departed for Asia, it was with the friendship of Caesar, whose influence had helped to secure his appointment. During Pompey’s absence, Caesar’s influence and popularity had constantly increased in Rome. He held the people’s favor, and Pompey held the military power. The senatorial party decided, if possible, to divide this power by estranging Pompey and Caesar from one another. The tale was carried to Pompey that his wife, Mucia, had been seduced by Caesar.

This accomplished its intended purpose, and Pompey divorced her.

Pompey’s prompt action in disbanding his troops at the border of Italy had relieved the Senate from dread of his military power; yet Pompey’s troops, although disbanded, and of no force as a military power, were an important element in the elections, so long as Pompey could retain their sympathies.

Pompey asked that his acts in Asia might be ratified, but the Senate and its partisans, though not openly refusing to do so, raised so many questions and created so many delays as to amount in effect to a refusal. He also asked that public lands might be distributed to his soldiers, and this also was so successfully opposed as to defeat him. He then attempted to gain his wishes by political influence and action. By the free use of money he secured the election of both the consuls for the year 60 B. C.; but he was disappointed in both. One had not sense enough to be a consul, and the other, Metellus Celer, was the brother of Mucia, whom Pompey had divorced, and under pretense had only lent himself to Pompey in order to take revenge for the reproach thus cast upon his sister. Celer immediately went over to the senatorial party, and engaged in the most violent opposition to Pompey. The tribune Flavius, who had proposed Pompey’s measures, went so far as to seize Celer, and put him in prison. Celer called the senators to his cell to deliberate there. The tribune set up his tribunal at the prison door, so that the senators might not enter; but the senators had the prison walls torn down, and went in in spite of the tribune.

The Senate, not content with estranging Pompey and Caesar from one another, and openly insulting Pompey besides, proceeded to offend Caesar.

At the close of Caesar’s praetorship, — at the end of 62 B. C., — the province of Further Spain had been assigned him. But he was in debt two hundred and fifty millions of sesterces — about twelve millions of dollars.

To pay his debts and make the necessary preparations for his journey to Spain, he borrowed from Crassus eight hundred and thirty talents — nearly thirteen millions of dollars. The senatorial party, however, endeavored to prevent his departure from Rome, and a decree was passed to the effect that the praetors should not go to their provinces until certain important questions of State and religion had been finally settled. Caesar knew that this was aimed at him, and therefore in defiance of the decree he went at once to his province, and put himself at the head of the legions there. This was the first real opportunity that Caesar had ever had to prove his ability as a military leader, and he acquitted himself well. “He thus effected the complete subjugation of the districts of Lusitania north of the Tagus, including the wild fastnesses of the Herminian Mountains and the rapid waters of the Durius. Brigantium in Galicia, protected on the land side by the difficult character of the surrounding country, he attacked with a naval armament, and erected his victorious standard at the furthest extremity of his province.” — Merivale. f13 The complete conquest of his province, and the settlement of its civil administration upon a permanent basis, were all accomplished in a little more than a year. His great success entitled him to a triumph, and he desired also to stand for the consulship during the ensuing year. He addressed the Senate soliciting the award of the triumph which he had justly earned. The Senate knew that he wanted also to be a candidate for the consulship. The law was that no general to whom was granted a triumph should come into Rome until the time of triumphal entry, which time was to be fixed by the Senate; and the custom, which had the force of law, was that every candidate for the consulship must appear publicly in the Forum on three distinct occasions, and must be present personally in the Forum on the day of the election. The Senate designed to prevent Caesar’s candidacy for the consulship by granting the triumph and setting the time on a day beyond the day of the election, thus keeping him out of the city, so that it would be impossible for him to be present in the Forum as a candidate. This custom could be, and in fact had been, dispensed with on important occasions; but the Senate was very tenacious of both law and custom when they could be turned to its own advantage. Caesar applied to the Senate for a dispensation allowing him to be a candidate in his absence.

The Senate would not grant it, and when Caesar’s friends began to urge the matter, Cato defeated them by obtaining the floor and talking all the rest of the day. When Caesar learned of the determination of the Senate to shut him out of the consulship by granting a triumph on a day after the election, he checkmated their nicely-planned move. He renounced the triumph, went at once to Rome, went through the necessary forms, and appeared as a candidate for the consulship.

The Senate had now offended Pompey and embittered his soldiers, and had committed itself to open and determined hostility to Caesar. Pompey took in the situation, saw his opportunity, and acted upon it at once. He made overtures to Caesar, who received him willingly, and an alliance was formed. Caesar and Crassus were already firm friends, and had been working together for some time. But Crassus and Pompey were bitter enemies. Caesar’s tact, however, soon tempered the feud, and reconciled the enmity. Caesar was the idol of the people; Pompey was the idol of the soldiers; and Crassus, the richest individual in the Roman world, represented the moneyed class, the farmers of the taxes, etc., who were not of the nobility. These three men covenanted together “that no proceedings should be allowed to take place in the commonwealth without the consent of each of the three contracting parties. United they constituted a power beyond all the resources of the commonwealth to cope with” — Merivale. Thus THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE became an accomplished fact, and though there were a few expiring struggles, the power of the Roman Senate was virtually gone forever.

Caesar was elected consul by acclamation; and only by the very desperation of bribery and corruption did the senatorial party succeed in electing Bibulus as his colleague. It was the custom, immediately upon the election of the consuls, to name the province which should be theirs at the expiration of the year of their office. The Senate sought to cast a slur upon Caesar by assigning to him the department of roads and forests. But he cared not for that, as he held the power of the State, and had a full year in which to use it before anything in that line was to be performed.

Caesar’s consulship was for the year 59 B.C. The first act of his administration was to secure the publication of the proceedings of the Senate, that the people might know what was done therein. He next brought forward the land law for the reward of Pompey’s veterans, which the Senate had already refused to allow. This measure, however, like that of Tiberius Gracchus, included thousands of the free citizens who had sold their lands and crowded into Rome. In the long interval since the repeal of the land law of Sulla, things had fallen back into the same old way. The public lands had fallen from those to whom the State had distributed them, to the great landed proprietors. Caesar’s land law, like all those before it, proposed to buy the rights of these proprietors, as represented in their improvements, and distribute the lands among Pompey’s veterans and several thousands of the unemployed population of the city. He showed to the Senate that there was plenty of money in the treasury, which Pompey’s soldiers themselves had brought to the State, to supply all the land required under the act. The Senate would not listen. Cato took the lead in the opposition, and talked again for a whole day; he grew so violent at last that Caesar ordered the lictors to take him off to prison. Many of the senators followed Cato. As nothing could be done, however, Caesar ordered Cato to be set free, at the same time telling them that as they had refused to take part in legislation, henceforth he would present his propositions at once to the people. Bibulus, however, was owned by the Senate, and he as consul might obstruct and delay the proceeding in the assembly. Besides this, the Senate had bribed three tribunes to assist Bibulus.

Caesar did not hesitate. A day was appointed, and he presented his bill in the Forum, which before daylight the populace had filled to overflowing, to prevent the senatorial party from getting in. As Bibulus was consul, a passage was made for him through the crowd, and he took his place with Caesar on the porch of the temple of Castor and Pollux. Caesar stepped forward, and read from a tablet the proposed law, and turning to Bibulus asked if he had any fault to find with it. Bibulus answered that there should be no revolutions while he was consul, at which the assembly hissed. This made Bibulus yet more angry, and he burst out to the whole assembly, “During my year you shall not obtain your desire, not though you cried for it with one voice.” Pompey and Crassus, though not officials, were both present. Caesar now signaled to them; they stepped forward, and he asked whether they would support the law. Pompey made a speech in which he declared that he spoke for his veterans and for the poor citizens, and that he approved the law in every letter of it. Caesar then asked, “Will you then support the law if it be illegally opposed?” Pompey replied: “Since you, consul, and you, my fellow-citizens, ask aid of me, a poor individual without office and without authority, who nevertheless has done some service to the State, I say that I will bear the shield if others draw the sword.”

At this, a mighty shout arose from the assembly. Crassus followed with a speech to the same purpose. He likewise was cheered to the echo. Bibulus rushed forward to forbid the vote to be taken. The bribed tribunes interposed their veto. Bibulus declared that he had consulted the auspices, — had read the sky, — and that they were unfavorable to any further proceeding that day, and declared the assembly dissolved. But the assembly had not come together to be dissolved by him, nor in any such way as that.

They paid no attention. He then declared all the rest of the year to be holy time. This was met by a yell that completely drowned his voice. The assembly rushed upon the platform, pushed Bibulus off, broke his insignia of office, bandied him about with the bribed tribunes, and trampled upon them; but they were able to escape without serious injury. Then Cato took up the strain, pushed his way to the rostra, and began to rail at Caesar. He was met with a roar from the assembly that completely drowned his voice, and in a moment he was arrested and dragged away, raving and gesticulating. The law was then passed without a dissenting voice.

The next day Bibulus asked the Senate to pass a decree annulling the act of the assembly, but this failed. Cato, Celer, and Favonius openly refused to obey the law, upon which a second law was passed, making it a capital offense to refuse to swear obedience to the law. Bibulus then shut himself up in his own house, and refused to act as consul any more. This left the triumvirate absolute, with the actual power in Caesar’s hands for the rest of the year. Pompey’s soldiers had been provided for by the land law which had just been passed, and his acts in Asia were confirmed. In addition to this an act was passed in behalf of Crassus. The farmers of the taxes throughout the provinces had taken the contract at too high a price, and now they were not making as much as they expected. Crassus was the chief of all these, and an act was passed granting new terms. By these acts Caesar had more firmly bound to himself both Pompey and Crassus. He then proceeded more fully to gratify the people by a magnificent display of plays and games.

In legislation, the Senate was totally ignored; Caesar acted directly with the assembly of the people, and passed such laws as he pleased. Yet it must be said that he passed none that were not good enough in themselves, but they were laws which in fact meant nothing. There was no public character to sustain them, and consequently they were made only to be broken. There was a law for the punishment of adultery, when not only Caesar, but nine tenths of the people were ready to commit adultery, at the first opportunity. There were laws for the protection of citizens against violence, when every citizen was ready to commit violence at a moment’s notice. There were laws to punish judges who allowed themselves to be bribed, when almost every man in Rome was ready both to offer and to receive brides. There were laws against defrauding the revenue, when almost every person only desired an opportunity to do that very thing.

There were laws against bribery at elections, when every soul in Rome from Caesar to the lowest one of the rabble that shouted in the Forum, was ready to bribe or to be bribed. “Morality and family life were treated as antiquated things among all ranks of society. To be poor was not merely the sorest disgrace and the worst crime, but the only disgrace and the only crime: for money the statemen sold the State, and the burgess sold his freedom; the post of the officer and the vote of the juryman were to be had for money; for money the lady of quality surrendered her person, as well as the common courtesan; falsifying of documents, and perjuries had become so common that in a popular poet of this age an oath is called ‘the plaster for debts.’ Men had forgotten what honesty was; a person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man, but as a personal foe. The criminal statistics of all times and countries will hardly furnish a parallel to the dreadful picture of crimes — so varied, so horrible, and so unnatural.” — Mommsen. F15 In this condition of affairs such laws were nothing more nor less than a legal farce.

Caesar’s consulship was about to expire, and as above stated, when he was elected the Senate had named as his “province” the department of roads and forests instead of a province. As this was intended at the first to be only a slur upon Caesar, and as both he and the people fully understood it, the people set aside this appointment, and voted to Caesar for five years the command of Illyria, and Gaul within the Alps; but as there were some fears from the barbarians of Gaul beyond the Alps, a proposition was introduced to extend his province to include that. Pompey and Crassus heartily assented, and the Senate seeing that it would be voted to him any way by the assembly, made a virtue of necessity, and bestowed this itself.

Pompey now married Caesar’s daughter Julia, which more firmly cemented the alliance while Caesar should be absent.

The triumvirate had been formed to continue for five years. As the term drew to a close, the triumvirate was renewed for five years more. Pompey and Crassus were made consuls for the year 55 B. C., with the understanding that while in office they should extend Caesar’s command in Gaul for five years longer after the expiration of the first five; and that at the expiration of their consulate, Pompey should have Spain as his province, and Crassus should have Syria.

The first thing to by done the new consuls was to secure the assembly’s indorsement of the triumvirs’ arrangement of the provinces. This also the senators opposed by every means to the very last. Cato raved as usual, and when at the expiration of his allotted time he refused to sit down, he was dragged away by an officer, and the meeting adjourned. The next day the assembly came together again. When the senatorial party saw that the action of the triumvirs was to be ratified in spite of them, Cato and Atticus, a tribune, were lifted to men’s shoulders, and the tribune cried out, as Bibulus on the like occasion formerly, that the skies were unfavorable, and the proceedings illegal. Other tribunes ordered the proceedings to go on, at which a riot began. Clubs and stones and swords and knives were freely used. The senatorial party were driven out, the arrangement of the provinces fully ratified, and the assembly dismissed. The people had no sooner gone out than the senatorial party came back, presented a motion for Caesar’s recall, and proceeded to vote upon it. The assembly returned, and drove them out with more bloodshed, and certainly to prevent all question as to what had been done, passed a second time the motion upon Caesar’s appointment.

Pompey, yet more to please the populace, dedicated a new theater, which would seat forty thousand people. It was decorated with marble and adorned with precious stones in such abundance as had never before been seen in Rome. The dedication with music, games, chariot races, and contests between men and beasts, continued five days, during which five hundred lions — one hundred each day — were turned loose in the arena only to be killed. Besides this, eighteen elephants were compelled to fight with bands of gladiators, the piteous cries of the poor creatures finding a response even in the savage sympathies of Romans.

By the strifes of parties, the election of consuls for the year 54 was prevented until the expiration of 55, and the consulates of Pompey and Crassus had expired. Crassus departed for the East. Pompey assumed command of the province of Spain, but instead of going to Spain, remained in Rome.

In 54, Pompey’s wife, Caesar’s daughter, died; in June 53 Crassus was killed in that memorable battle with the Parthians; and the triumvirate was dissolved. Pompey had now been so long separated from the army that his influence with the soldiery was almost gone, while Caesar’s uninterrupted course of victory in Gaul had made him the idol of the army, as well as the pride of the people. The triumvirate was no sooner broken by the death of Crassus, than the Senate began earnestly to try to win Pompey, and compass Caesar’s destruction. “No aristocracy was ever more shortsighted at the crisis of its fate than the once glorious patriciate of Rome. It clung desperately to its privileges, not from a fond regard to their antiquity, or their connection with any social or religious prejudices; disdained to invoke the watchwords of patriotism or utility; it took up its ground upon the enactments which Sulla had made to enhance its own wealth and power, and depress those of its rivals, and contended with its assailants upon purely selfish considerations. Without a policy and without a leader, the nobles went staggering onward in their blind conflict with the forces arrayed against them.” — Merivale. F16 Pompey took his stand with the Senate. Although he was in Rome, he was really commander of the province of Spain, and was thus in possession of an army, though that army was at a distance. Under pretense of a need of troops in Syria against the Parthians who had defeated and slain Crassus, the Senate drew from Caesar two legions, and stationed them at Capua. A motion was then made in the Senate for Caesar’s recall, and the appointment of his successor. But just then an obstacle presented itself which disconcerted all their plans. Scribonius Curio had been one of the most violent partisans of the senatorial party, and largely on account of this he had been elected tribune by the favor of the Senate. But Curio went over to the interests of Caesar. When the motion was made to appoint a successor to Caesar, Curio moved an amendment to the effect that Pompey be included, and that when Caesar was relieved of this command, Pompey should be relieved of his command also. This amendment met with such approval that it was accepted by an overwhelming majority, and the people were so jubilant that they strewed flowers in Curio’s way as he returned from the assembly. The adoption of this amendment completely blocked the effort of the Senate to depose Caesar.

Curio so persistently interposed his veto to all proceedings against Caesar, that at last an attempt was made to get rid of him. One of the censors pronounced him unworthy of a place in the Senate; the consul Marcellus put the question to vote, and it was defeated. Then the consul and his partisans dressed themselves in mourning, and went straight to Pompey; declared the city in danger; placed its safety in his hands; and gave him the two legions that were at Capua. Pompey refused to accept the charge unless it was sanctioned by the consuls who had been elected for the next year. These both confirmed the appointment, and promised their support when they should come into office. Caesar’s enemies had now both an army and a commander. This being by the official act of the consular authority,WAS ACONFESSION THAT LEGAL GOVERNMENT WAS AT AN END,AND WAS VIRTUALLY THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GOVERNMENT ONLY BY MILITARY FORCE.

Curio’s tribunate ended with the year 50, and he closed his term of office with an appeal to the people, in which he declared that justice was violated, that the reign of law was passed, and that a military domination reigned in the city. He then left the city, and went to Caesar, who was encamped at Ravenna with a legion.

The consuls for the year 49 were both avowed enemies to Caesar. Two of the tribunes for the year were Mark Antony and Cassius Longinus, — friendly to Caesar and ready to veto every proposition that appeared to be to his disadvantage. Caesar sent Curio back to Rome early in January with a letter in which he offered any one of three things: (1) That the agreement long before made should stand, and he be elected consul in his absence; or (2) that he would leave his army if Pompey would disband his troops; or (3) that he would surrender to a successor all Gaul beyond the Alps with eight of his ten legions, if he were allowed to retain his original province of Illyria and Northern Italy with two legions.

The consuls objected to the reading of the letter, but the demands of the tribunes prevailed. When it had been read through, the consuls prohibited any debate upon it, and made a motion to consider the state of the republic.

None of Caesar’s propositions would be considered for a moment.

Lentulus, one of the consuls, took the lead in urging prompt and determined action, and others followed to the same purpose. Some advised delay till they were better prepared; others advised that a deputation be sent to treat further with Caesar.

The majority supported Lentulus. It was moved that Caesar should dismiss his troops by a certain day which the Senate should name, and return to Rome as a private citizen, or be declared a public enemy. The two tribunes interposed their vetos on the ground that it had been decreed by the people that Caesar should be allowed to stand for the consulship in his absence; but their plea was totally disregarded, and the motion was passed almost unanimously. The tribunes then protested against the illegality of the proceedings, and cried aloud that they were refused the free exercise of their official prerogatives. The assembly in reply voted the State in danger; suspended the laws; ordered an immediate levy of troops; and gave the consuls sole power to provide for the public safety. The Senate next proposed to punish the two tribunes. They were given to understand that if they entered the Senate house, they would be expelled by force. They, with Curio, fled to Caesar. The consuls made Pompey commander-in-chief of the forces, and gave him the freedom of the public treasury. Pompey went to Capua to take charge of the two legions there, and organize the new levies.

When the news of these proceedings reached Caesar at Ravenna, he assembled his legions, and laid the whole matter before them. The Senate had satisfied itself with the pleasing illusion that Caesar’s legions were so dissatisfied with him and discouraged by the long tedious campaigns in barbarous Gaul, that they only waited for a good opportunity to desert him in a body. But never had they been more mistaken than they were in this.

The soldiers were ready to support him to the utmost. They not only offered to serve without pay, but actually offered him money for the expenses of the war. Only one officer out of the whole army failed him.

This one slipped away secretly, and fled to Pompey, and Caesar sent all his baggage after him.

Caesar sent orders to Gaul beyond the Alps for two legions to follow him, and he set out toward Rome with the one legion — 5,000 men — that was with him. About twenty miles from Ravenna, a little stream called the Rubicon formed part of the boundary between the territory of Rome proper and the provinces which had been assigned to Caesar. To cross this boundary with an armed force was to declare war; but as the Senate had already by its actions more than once openly declared war, Caesar had no hesitation in crossing the boundary. He passed it, and marched ten miles onward to Rimini. There he halted and waited for the two legions ordered from Gaul, one of which reached him about the end of January, and the other about the middle of February.

By the time that Caesar had reached Rimini, the rumor had reached Rome that he was coming, and a panic seized his enemies throughout the whole city. Their excited imaginations and guilty fears pictured him as coming with all his legions, accompanied by hosts of the terrible barbarians of Gaul, hurrying on by forced marches, nearer and yet nearer, and breathing forth fiery wrath. “Flight, instant flight, was the only safety. Up they rose, consuls, praetors, senators, leaving wives and children and property to their fate, not halting even to take the money out of the treasury, but contenting themselves with leaving it locked. On foot, on horseback, in litters, in carriages, they fled for their lives to find safety under Pompey’s wing in Capua.” — Froude. F17 Instead of Caesar’s marching toward Rome, however, he was waiting quietly at Rimini for his legions to come from Gaul, and his waiting there was working doubly to his advantage, to say nothing of the results of the panic-stricken fears of his enemies in Rome. Not only did the two legions come promptly from Gaul, but troops flocked to him from all the country around; and cities on the way to Rome began to declare for him, and were ready to open their gates as soon as he should arrive. Ahenobarbus, with a few thousand men, occupied a strong place in the mountains directly in Caesar’s way. Caesar surrounded the place, and captured the whole body of them. He then let them all go. Ahenobarbus and some of his officers went away, but his troops declared for Caesar. As soon as Pompey and the nobles heard of the capture of Ahenobarbus and the the desertion of these troops, they took up their flight again for Brundusium on the east coast of Italy, where they might take ships for Epirus. The greater part of them sailed away at once. Pompey remained with a portion of his army for the ships to return to take them away. Caesar hurried to Brundusium, where he arrived on the ninth of March. Pompey was there. Caesar asked for a meeting, but Pompey refused. Caesar began a siege, but the ships soon came, and Pompey and his army sailed away for Durazzo on the coast of Epirus. Caesar had no ships, and could follow the fugitives no farther. He therefore went directly to Rome. She threw wide her gates to receive him.

The remains of the Senate was convened by the tribunes who had fled to Caesar, but it would do nothing. The assembly of the people voted him the money in the treasury. He took what he needed, and as Spain and the Mediterranean Coast of Gaul were yet subject to Pompey, he went in a few days to bring these into subjection. This was all accomplished before winter. He was made dictator in his absence. He returned to Rome in October. He appointed a day for the election of consuls for the year 48, and himself and Servilius Isauricus were chosen without opposition. Thus he was elected consul for the very year that had been promised him long before by the Senate and assembly, although the Senate had declared that he never should have it at all. The election of the other lawful magistrates soon followed, the form of legal government was restored, and he set out at once to find Pompey and the Senate. He marched to Brundusium, and sailed to Epirus. There he found that Pompey had gone to Macedonia.

After much maneuvering, the armies met at Pharsalia in Thessaly, and Pompey’s army was completely routed. Pompey fled to Egypt. Caesar followed closely; but Pompey had been murdered and beheaded before he had fairly landed, and only his head was preserved and rendered an unwelcome present to Caesar.

Caesar spent the time till the autumn of 47 setting things in order in Egypt and the East, then he returned to Rome. Finding that Pompey was dead, and that all hope of support from him was gone, Caesar’s enemies in Rome became his most servile flatterers. Those who had plunged the State into civil war rather than allow him while absent to be even a candidate for the consulship, now in his absence made him dictator for a whole year, and were ready to heap upon him other preferences without limit.

A part of the year 46 was spent in subduing the opposing forces in Africa.

This was soon accomplished, and the servile flatterers went on with their fawning adulations. Even before his return, the Senate voted in his favor a national thanksgiving to continue forty days. When he returned, they voted him not one triumph, but four, with intervals of several days between, and that his triumphal car should be drawn by white horses. They made him inspector of public morals for three years. And as though they would be as extravagant in their adulation as they had been in their condemnation, they voted him dictator for ten years, with the right to nominate the consuls and praetors each year; that in the Senate his chair should always be between those of the two consuls; that he should preside in all the games of the circus; that his image carved in ivory should be borne in processions among the images of the gods, and be kept laid up in the capitol over against the place of Jupiter; that his name should be engraved on a tablet as the restorer of the capital; and finally that a bronze statue of him standing on a globe should be set up with the inscription, “Caesar, the Demi-god.”

Caesar was not wanting in efforts to maintain the applause of the populace.

He gave to each soldier about a thousand dollars, and to each citizen about twenty dollars, with house-rent free for a year; and provided a magnificent feast for the citizens, who were supported by the public grants of grain.

Twenty-two thousand tables were spread with the richest viands, upon which the two hundred thousand State paupers feasted, while from hogsheads the finest wine flowed freely. Above all this he furnished the finest display of games and bloody battles of gladiators that had ever been seen. So great was it, indeed, and so bloody, and so long continued, that it fairly surfeited the savage Roman appetite; and the people began to complain that the vast sums of money spent on the shows would have been better employed in donations direct to themselves. Time and space would fail to tell of the numbers, the magnitude, and the magnificence of the buildings with which he adorned the city.

In the winter of 46-5 Caesar was compelled to go to Spain to reduce the last remains of the senatorial forces. This was accomplished before the month of April was passed, yet he did not return to Rome until September.

As soon as the news of his victory reached Rome, however, the Senate, which sincerely hoped he would be killed, began once more to pour forth its fulsome flattery. It voted a national thanksgiving to continue fifty days, decreed him another triumph, conferred upon him the power to extend the bounds of the city, and erected another statue of him with the inscription, “To The Invincible Deity.”

When he returned and had enjoyed his triumph, he again celebrated the occasion with games, combats, and shows no less splendid than those which he had given before, only not so long continued. After this was all over, he took up the regulation of the affairs of society and state. He gave his soldiers lands, but instead of trying to provide lands in Italy for all of them, he distributed the most of them in colonies in the provinces. He cut down the quantity of public grants of grain, and sent thousands upon thousands of citizens away beyond the seas to establish Roman provinces.

Eighty thousand were sent to rebuild Carthage. Another host was sent to rebuild Corinth, which had been destroyed by the Romans a hundred years before. To lessen the evils that had rent the State so long in the annual elections, he enacted that the elections to the lesser offices of the State should be held only once in three years. He enacted that at least one third of the hired help of farmers, vineyardists, stock raisers, etc., should be Roman citizens. He enacted that all physicians, philosophers, and men of science should be Roman citizens. This privilege was likewise bestowed upon large numbers of people in Gaul, Spain, and other places. In the early days of Rome, unions of the different trades and handicrafts had been formed for mutual benefit. In the times which we have sketched, they had become nothing but political clubs, and withal had become so dangerous that they had to be utterly abolished. In B.C. 58, Clodius, to strengthen his political influence, had restored them. Caesar now abolished them again, but allowed bona fide trades-unions to be organized upon the original plan of mutual benefit. F18 As inspector of public morals he next attempted, as he had when he was consul in 59, to create reform by law. It was a time of unbounded luxury and of corresponding license and licentiousness. He forbade the rich young nobles to be carried in litters. Sea and land were being traversed for dainties for the tables of the rich; Caesar appointed inspectors of the tables and the provision stores to regulate the fare, and any prohibited dish found on any table was picked up and carried away even though the guests were sitting at the table at the moment. The marriage relation had fallen to very loose ways. He enacted that any Roman citizen who was the father of three legitimate children born in Rome, or four in Italy, or five anywhere else, should be exempted from certain public obligations; and that the mothers in such cases should be allowed the special dignity of riding in litters, dressing in purple, and wearing necklaces of pearls. Divorces were as frequent as anybody chose to make them, and Caesar, who had divorced his own wife merely upon suspicion, essayed to regulate divorces; and he who from his youth had enjoyed the personal favors of the chief women of Rome, he who “had mistresses in every country which he visited, and liaisons with half the ladies in Rome,” and who was at the time maintaining an adulterous connection with the Queen of Egypt, — he presumed to enact laws against adultery.

One thing, however, he did , which was more lasting than all his other acts put together; and, in fact, of more real benefit. This was the reform of the calendar.

All this time the Senate was heaping upon him titles and honors in the same extravagant profusion as before. One decree made him the father of his country; another liberator; another made him imperator, and commanderin- chief of the army for life with the title to be hereditary in his family.

They gave him full charge of the treasury; they made him consul for ten years, and dictator for life. A triumphal robe and a crown of laurel were bestowed on him, with authority to wear them upon all occasions. A figure of his head was impressed upon the coin. His birthday was declared to be a holiday forever; and the name of the month, Quinctilius, was changed to Julius, and is still our July. Next his person was declared sacred, and any disrespect to him in word or action was made to be sacrilege. It was decreed that the oath of allegiance should be sworn by the Fortune of Caesar. The Senate itself took this oath, and by it swore sacredly to maintain his acts, and watch over the safety of his person. To complete the scale, they declared that he was no more Caius Julius, a man, but Divus Julius, a god; and that a temple should be built for the worship of him, and Antony should be the first priest.

Then, having exhausted the extremest measure of the most contemptible sycophancy, March 15, B.C. 44,THEY MURDERED HIM.

Caesar was dead; but all that had made him what he had been, still lived.

Pretended patriots assassinated Caesar to save the republic from what they supposed was threatened in him; but in that act of base ingratitude and cruel “patriotism,” there was accomplished that which they professed to fear from him, and which in fact they realized from those who were worse than he. It was with the Romans at this time, as it was with the Athenians when Demosthenes told them that if there were no Philip, they themselves would create a Philip. Affairs had reached that point in the Roman State where a Caesar was inevitable, and though to avoid it they had killed the greatest Roman that ever lived, the reality was only the more hastened by the very means which they had employed to prevent it. This they themselves realized as soon as they had awakened from the dream in which they had done the desperate deed. Cicero exactly defined the situation, and gave a perfect outline of the whole history of the times, when, shortly after the murder of Caesar, he bitterly exclaimed, “We have killed the king; but the kingdom is with us still. We have taken away the tyrant; the tyranny survives.” That tyranny survived in the breast of every man in Rome.

At the death of Caesar, to Mark Antony, the sole surviving consul, the reins of government fell. Lepidus, Caesar’s general of cavalry, was outside the walls with a legion of troops about to depart for Spain. He took possession of the Camp of Mars, and sent to Antony assurances of support. As night came on, with a body of troops he entered the city and camped in the Forum. He and Antony at once came to a mutual understanding. Antony as consul agreed to secure for Lepidus the office of Pontifex Maximus made vacant by the murder of Caesar, and the alliance was completed by Antony’s daughter being given in marriage to the son of Lepidus. Antony secured Caesar’s will and all his private papers, besides a great sum of money.

As the will showed that Caesar had bequeathed his private gardens to the people of Rome forever as a pleasure ground, and to each citizen a sum of money amounting to nearly fourteen dollars, this bound the populace more firmly than ever to the memory of Caesar. And as Antony stood forth as the one to avenge Caesar’s death, this brought the populace unanimously to his support. By the help of all this power and influence, Antony determined to put himself in the place which Caesar had occupied. Among Caesar’s papers he found recorded many of Caesar’s plans and intentions in matters of the government. These he made to serve his purpose as occasion demanded; for the Senate dared not dissent from any of Caesar’s recorded wishes and designs. When the legitimate papers were exhausted, he bribed one of Caesar’s clerks to forge and declare to be Caesar’s purpose, such State documents as he chose to have made laws, all of which by the power of Caesar’s name were carried against all opposition.

Soon, however, there came a serious check upon the success of Antony’s soaring ambition. Octavius appeared upon the scene. Caius Octavius was the grandson of one of Caesar’s sisters, and by Caesar’s will was left his heir and adopted son. He was then in the nineteenth year of his age. He was in Apollonia when Caesar was killed; and upon learning of the murder he immediately set out for Rome, not knowing the particulars, nor yet that Caesar had left a will in his favor. These he learned when he reached the coast of Italy. Without delay, he incorporated Caesar’s name with his own, — Caius Julius Caesar Octavius, — and presented himself to the nearest body of troops as the heir of the great general. When he reached Rome, Antony received him coldly; refused to give him any of the money that had been left by Caesar; and caused him all the trouble he possibly could in securing possession of the inheritance. Notwithstanding all this, the young Octavius succeeded at every step, and checked Antony at every move.

Antony had lost much of his own influence with the populace by failing to fulfill or even to promise to fulfill to them the provisions of Caesar’s will.

And by refusing to Octavius any of Caesar’s money, he hoped so to cripple him that he could not do it.

Octavius promptly assumed all the obligations of the will. He raised money on that portion of the estate which fell to him; he persuaded the other heirs to surrender to his use their shares in the inheritance; he borrowed from Caesar’s friends; and altogether succeeded in raising sufficient funds to discharge every obligation. By paying to the people the money that Caesar had left them, he bound the populace to himself. At the time of Caesar’s funeral, one of the tribunes, a fast friend to Caesar, but who unfortunately bore the same name as one of Caesar’s enemies, was mistaken by the populace for the other man, and in spite of his cries and protestations, was literally torn to pieces. The time came for the vacant tribunate to be filled.

Octavius strongly favored a certain candidate. The people proposed to elect Octavius himself, though he was not yet of legal age to hold office.

Antony, as consul, interfered to stop the proceedings. This roused the spirit of the people, and as they could not elect Octavius, they stubbornly refused to elect anybody.

Antony, seeing his power with the people was gone, next tried to secure the support of the army. The six best legions of the republic were stationed in Macedonia, destined for service in Parthia. Five of these legions Antony wheedled the Senate into transferring to him. Next he intrigued to have the province of Gaul within the Alps bestowed on him instead of the province of Macedonia which had already been given him. This the Senate hesitated to do, and interposed so many objections that Antony found his purpose about to be frustrated, and he made overtures to Octavius. Octavius received him favorably; a pretended reconciliation was accomplished between them; and by the support of Octavius, Antony secured the change of provinces which he desired. Antony called four of his legions from Macedonia to Brundusium, and went to that place to assume command. As soon as Antony went to Brundusium, Octavius went to Campania, to the colonies of veterans who had been settled there upon the public lands, and by the offer of about a hundred dollars to each one who would join him, he soon secured a force of ten thousand men. These he took to the north of Italy, to the border of Antony’s province, and put them in camp there.

When Antony met his legions at Brundusium, he found them sullen, and instead of their greeting him with acclamations they demanded explanations. They declared that they wanted vengeance for Caesar’s death, and that instead of punishing the assassins, Antony had dallied with them. They called upon him to mount the tribunal, and explain his conduct.

He replied that it was not the place of a Roman commander to explain his conduct, but to enforce obedience. Yet he betrayed his fear of them by mingling promises with his threats and pledges with his commands. He offered them about twenty dollars apiece, and drew a contrast between the hard service in Parthia, and the easy time that was before them in the province to which he was to take them. This did not satisfy them. He put some to death, yet the others would not be quiet. The agents of Octavius were among them contrasting the hundred dollars to each man, that he was paying, with the paltry twenty dollars that Antony was offering. Antony was obliged to increase his bid, but it was not yet near the price Octavius was offering. He broke up the command into small bodies, and ordered them to march separately thus along the coast of the Adriatic, and unite again at Rimini, and he himself returned to Rome. He had barely time to reach his home, when a messenger arrived with the word that one of his legions had gone over bodily to Octavius. This message had scarcely been delivered when another came saying that another legion had done likewise.

He went with all haste to where they were, hoping to win them back, but they shut against him the gates of the city where they were, and shot at him from the walls. By raising his bid to the same amount that Octavius was paying, he succeeded in holding the other two legions in allegiance to himself.

War could be the only result of such counterplotting as this, and other circumstances hastened it. Antony now had four legions; Lepidus had six; three were in Gaul under the command of Plancus; and Octavius had five.

When Antony had obtained the exchange of provinces, the one which he secured — Gaul within the Alps — was already under the command of a pro-consul, Decimus Brutus. But with the command of the province Antony had received authority to drive out of it any pretender to the government. He commanded Decimus to leave the province. Decimus refused, and Antony declared war. Decimus shut himself up in a stronghold, and Antony laid siege to him there. Octavius saw now an opportunity to humble Antony, and strengthen himself — he offered his service to the Senate.

The two consuls whose term of office had expired came up, January 43, B.

C., and Octavius joined his forces to theirs. Two battles were fought in April, in both of which Antony was worsted, though both the pro-consuls were slain. Antony left the field of battle, and marched across the Alps and joined Lepidus. Decimus desired to follow with all the forces present; but as he was one of the murderers of Caesar, Octavius would not obey him.

Also the troops of Octavius declared that Caesar’s heir was their leader, and Decimus their enemy. Decimus then marched also across the Alps, and joined his forces to those of Plancus. This left Italy wholly to Octavius, and he made the most of the opportunity. He demanded that the Senate grant him a triumph. His demand was only treated with contempt. The Senate in turn sent to him a peremptory command to lead his army against “the parricides and brigands” that had joined their forces in Gaul. He replied by sending to Rome four hundred of his soldiers to demand for him the consulship for the year 42.

The soldiers presented their demand in the Senate house. It was refused.

One of them then laid his hand upon his sword and declared with an oath, “If you do not grant it, this shall obtain it for him.” Cicero replied, “If this is the way that you sue for the consulship, doubtless your chief will acquire it.” The soldiers returned to Octavius, and reported upon their embassy.

Octavius with his legions immediately crossed the Rubicon and started for Rome, giving up to the license of his soldiers all the country as he passed.

As soon as the Senate learned that Octavius was coming with his army, they sent an embassy to meet him, and to tell him that if he would only turn back they would grant everything he asked, and add yet above all about five hundred dollars for each of his soldiers. But he, knowing that he had the Senate in his power, determined to make his own terms after he should get possession of the city. The Senate turned brave again, put on a blustering air, and forbade the legions to come nearer than ninety miles to the city. As two legions had just come from Africa, the Senate supposed they had a military power of their own. They threw up fortifications and gave the praetors military command of the city. By this time Octavius and his army had reached Rome. The senators again suddenly lost all their bravery. Such of them as had least hope of favor fled from the city or hid themselves. Of the others, each one for himself decided to go over to Octavius; and when each one with great secrecy had made his way to the camp of the legions, he soon found that all the others had done the same thing. The legions and the praetors who had been set to defend the city went over bodily to Octavius. The gates were thrown open; Octavius with his legions entered the city; the Senate nominated him for consul; the assembly was convened, and he was elected — September 22, 43 B.C. — with his own cousin, Pedius, chosen as his colleague, and with the right to name the prefect of the city. Octavius became twenty years old the next day.

An inquiry was at once instituted upon the murder of Caesar, and all the conspirators were declared outlaws; but as Brutus and Caassius, the two chief assassins, were in command of the twenty legions in Macedonia and Asia Minor, Octavius needed more power. This he obtained by forming an alliance with Antony and Lepidus. These two commanders crossed the Alps, and the three met on a small island in the River Reno, near Bologna.

There, as a result of their deliberation for three days, THE SECOND TRIUMVIRATE was formed, and the tripartition of the Roman world was made.

They assumed the right to dispose of all the offices of the government; and all their decrees were to have the force of law, without any question, confirmation, or revision by either the Senate or the people. In short, they proposed that their power should be absolute — they would do what they pleased. Yet they were compelled to consider the army. To secure the support of the legions, they pledged to them eighteen of the finest districts in Italy, with an addition of about a thousand dollars to each soldier. The conditions of the compact were put into writing, and when each of the triumvirs had taken an oath faithfully to observe them, they were read to the troops. The soldiers signified their approval upon condition that Octavius should marry the daughter of Antony’s wife Fulvia. F19 When the powers of the triumvirate had thus been made firm, the triumvirs sat down “with a list of the noblest citizens before them, and each in turn pricked [with a pin] the name of him whom he destined to perish. Each claimed to be ridded of his personal enemies, and to save his own friends.

But when they found their wishes to clash, they resorted without compunction to mutual concessions.” Above all other men Cicero was the one upon whom Antony desired to execute vengeance; and in return for this boon, he surrendered to Octavius his own uncle on his mother’s side.

Lepidus gave up his own brothers. “As they proceeded, their views expanded. They signed death warrants to gratify their friends. As the list slowly lengthened, new motives were discovered for appending to it additional names. The mere possession of riches was fatal to many; for the masters of so many legions were always poor: the occupation of pleasant houses and estates sealed the fate of others; for the triumvirs were voluptuous as well as cruel. Lastly, the mutual jealousy of the proscribers augmented the number of their victims, each seeking the destruction of those who conspicuously favored his colleagues, and each exacting a similar compensation in return. The whole number extended, we are told, to three hundred senators and two thousand knights; among them were brothers, uncles, and favorite officers of the triumvirs themselves.” — Merivale. F20 When this list had been arranged, the triumvirs with their legions started to Rome. Before they reached the city, they sent to the consuls the names of seventeen of the most prominent citizens, with an order to put them all to death at once. Cicero was one of the seventeen. The executioners “attacked the houses of the appointed victims in the middle of the night: some they seized and slew unresisting; others struggled to the last, and shed blood in their own defense; others escaping from their hands raised the alarm throughout the city, and the general terror of all classes, not knowing what to expect, or who might feel himself safe, caused a violent commotion.” — Merivale. F21 Cicero had left the city, but he was overtaken by the messengers of blood, his head and his hands were cut off and carried to Antony, who exulted over the ghastly trophies; and Fulvia in a rage of gloating anger took the bloody head and held it upon her knees, and looking into the face poured forth a torrent of bitter invective against him whose face it was, and then in a perfect abandon of fury seized from her hair her golden bodkin, and pierced and through the tongue that had so often, so exultantly, and so vilely abused both her husbands.

The triumvirs reached Rome one after another. “Octavius entered first; on the following day Antony appeared; Lepidus came third. Each man was surrounded by a legion and his praetorian cohort. The inhabitants beheld with terror these silent soldiers taking possession of every point commanding the city. Rome seemed like a place conquered and given over to the sword.” — Duruy. F22 A tribune called an assembly of the people; a few came, and the three commanders “were now formally invested with the title of triumvirs, and all the powers they claimed were conferred upon them” November 27, B.C. 43. The following night there was posted throughout the city this edict: — “M. Lepidus, Marcus Antonius, and Octavius Caesar, chosen triumvirs for the reconstitution of the republic, thus declare: Had not the perfidy of the wicked answered benefits by hatred; had not those whom Caesar in his clemency spread after their defeat, enriched and loaded with honors, become his murderers, we too should disregard those who have declared us public enemies. But perceiving that their malignity can be conquered by no benefits, we have chosen to forestall our enemies rather than be taken unawares by them. Some have already been punished; with the help of the gods we shall bring the rest to justice. Being ready to undertake an expedition against the parricides beyond the seas, it has seemed to us and will appear to you necessary that we should not leave other enemies behind us. Yet we will be more merciful than a former imperator, who also restored the ruined republic, and whom you hailed with the name of Felix. Not all the wealthy, not all who have held office, will perish, but only the most dangerous evil-doers.

These offenders we might have seized unawares; but for your sakes we have preferred to draw up a list of proscribed persons rather than to order an executing by the troops, in which harm might have come to the innocent. This then is our order: Let no one hide any of those whose names follow; whosoever shall aid in the escape of a proscribed man shall be himself proscribed. Let the heads be brought to us. As a reward, a man of free condition shall receive twenty-five thousand Attic drachmae, a slave ten thousand, together with freedom and the name of citizen. The names of persons receiving these rewards shall be kept secret.” — Duruy. F23 Attached to this document were one hundred and thirty names of senators and knights who were devoted to death. Another list of one hundred and fifty was almost immediately added, and yet others followed in quick succession. Guards had been placed at all the gates, all places of refuge had been occupied, and all means of escape had been cut off. The slaughter began. “The executioners, armed with the prostituted forms of authority, rushed unresisted and unhindered in pursuit of their victims. They found many to aid them in the search, and to stimulate their activity. The contagious thirst of blood spread from the hired assassins to all who had an ancient grudge to requite, a future favor to obtain. Many fell in the confusion whose names were not included in the list of the proscribed.

Many a private debt was wiped out in the blood of the creditor. Robbers and cut-throats mingled with the bitter partisan and the private enemy.

While the murderer carried the head of his victim to fix it on a spike before the rostra, and claim the proffered reward, the jackals of massacre entered the tenantless house, and glutted themselves with plunder.” Merivale. f24 When the names of the published lists had been exhausted, and all their political enemies had been slain, the triumvirs published yet another list, not of more to be put to death, but of those whose property should be confiscated. When this list was exhausted, then “all the inhabitants of Rome and Italy, — citizens and foreigners, priests and freedmen,” — who had possessions amounting to more than twenty thousand dollars, were obliged to “lend” to the triumvirs one-tenth of all their possessions, and “give” one year’s income besides. Then, “glutted with blood and rapine,” Lepidus, for the triumvirate, announced to the Senate that the proscription was at an end. Octavius, however, reserved the right to kill some more, and “declared that the only limit he had fixed to the proscription was that he should be free to act as he pleased.” — Suetonius. F25 Then the fawning Senate voted to the triumvirs civic crowns as “the saviors of their country.”

In the beginning of the year 42 B. C., Antony and Octavius, leaving Lepidus in command of Rome and Italy, started to the East to destroy Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Caesar; but it was summer before they got all their troops together in Macedonia. Brutus and Cassius, with their united forces, had returned from Asia Minor into Europe. The two armies met at Philippi in Macedonia. The forces of Brutus and Cassius numbered about one hundred thousand, and those of Antony and Octavius about one hundred and twenty thousand. Two battles, twenty days apart, were fought on the same ground. In the first Cassius lost his life; in the second the army of Brutus was annihilated, and Brutus himself committed suicide.

It became necessary now to pay the soldiers the money and put them in possession of the land which had been promised them when the triumvirate was formed. A sum equal to a thousand dollars had been promised to each soldier, and as there were now one hundred and seventy thousand soldiers, a sum equal to one hundred and seventy million dollars was required.

Antony assumed the task of raising the money from the wealth of Asia, and Octavius the task of dispossessing the inhabitants of Italy and distributing their lands and cities among the soldiers. Antony’s word to the people of Pergamos describes the situation both in Italy and all the countries of Asia.

To them he said: — “You deserve death for rebellion; this penalty I will remit; but I want money, for I have twenty-eight legions, which with their auxiliary battalions amount to 170,000 men, besides cavalry and detachments in other quarters. I leave you to conceive what a mass of money must be required to maintain such armaments. My colleague has gone to Italy to divide its soil among these soldiers, and to expel, so to speak, the Italians from their won country. Your lands we do not demand; but instead thereof we will have money.

And when you hear how easily, after all, we shall be contented, you will, we conceive, be satisfied to pay and be quit of us. We demand only the same sum which you have contributed during the last two years to our adversaries; that is to say, the tribute of ten years; but our necessities compel us to insist upon receiving this sum within twelve months.” — Merivale. F26 As the tribute was much reduced by the time it reached the coffers of Antony, the levy was doubled, and the command given that it should be paid in two installments the same year. To this the people replied, “If you force us to pay the tribute twice in one year, give us two summers and two harvests. No doubt you have also the power to do so.” But instead of considering the distress of the people caused by these most burdensome exactions, “Antony surrounded himself with flute-players, mountebanks, and dancing-girls. He entered Ephesus, preceded by women dressed as Bacchantes, and youths in the garb of Fauns and Satyrs. Already he assumed theATTRIBUTES of Bacchus, and set himself to play the part by continual orgies.” — Duruy. F27 While Cassius was in Asia Minor, he had compelled Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, to supply him with troops and money. As these had been used against the triumvirs, Antony sent from Tarsus in Cilicia, and called her to account for her conduct. She came, representing Venus, to render her account in person. And “when she first met Mark Antony, she pursed up is heart on the river of Cydnus.” “The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggared all description: she did lie In her pavilion (cloth of gold and tissue), O’er-picturing that Venus, where we see The fancy out-work nature: on each side her, Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling cupids, With divers colored fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool, And what they undid, did.... “Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides, So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes, And made their bends adornings: at the helm A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands, That yarely frame the office. From the barge A strange invisible perfume hits the sense Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast Her people out upon her; and Antony, Enthroned in the market-place, did sit alone, Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy, Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra, too, And made a gap in nature.... “Upon her landing, Antony sent to her, Invited her to supper: she replied, It should be better, he became her guest; Which she entreated: Our courteous Antony, Whom ne’er the word of ‘No,’ woman heard speak, Being barbered ten times o’er, goes to the feast; And, for his ordinary, pays his heart, For what his eyes eat only.” F28 — Shakespeare.

Antony went with Cleopatra to Alexandria, B.C. 41. Fulvia died in the spring of 40. Antony’s giddy infatuation with the voluptuous queen of Egypt was fast estranging him from Octavius and the Roman people. The matter was patched up for a little while, by the marriage of Antony and Octavia, the sister of Octavius, B.C. 40; but within two years Antony was again swallowed up in the charms of Cleopatra, from whom he never again separated. Two children whom he had by her he named respectively the Sun and the Moon, and when Cleopatra assumed the dress and professed theATTRIBUTES of Isis, Antony played the part of Osiris. He publicly rejected Octavia in 35, divorced her in 32, and war was declared the same year. The war began and ended with the naval battle of Actium, September 2, B.C. 31.

In the midst of the battle Cleopatra hoisted sail and fled. Antony left everything and followed her. They sailed home to Alexandria, and there committed suicide. In the meantime Lepidus had been set aside, and now, just thirteen and one-half years from the murder of Caesar, the State, having again gone through the same course precisely, came again to the exact point where it had been then, only in worse hands, and Octavius was the head of one hundred and twenty millions of people, andSOLE MASTER OF THE ROMAN WORLD.

CHAPTER 3.

THE ROMAN MONARCHY.

THE “mask of hypocrisy” which Octavius had assumed at the age of nineteen, and “which he never afterwards laid aside,” was now at the age of thirty-four made to tell to the utmost in firmly establishing himself in the place of supreme power which he had attained. Having before him the important lesson of the fate of Caesar in the same position, when the Senate bestowed upon him the flatteries, the titles, and the dignities which it had before bestowed upon Caesar, he pretended to throw them all back upon the Senate and people, and obliged the Senate to go through the form of absolutely forcing them upon him. For he “was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation that the Senate and people would submit to slavery provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.” He therefore “wished to deceive the people by an image of civil liberty, and the armies by an image of civil government.” — Gibbon. f31 In this way he finally merged in himself the prerogatives of all the regular officers of the State — tribune, consul, prince of the Senate, pro-counsul, imperator, censor, Pontifex Maximus — with all the titles and dignities which had been given by the Senate to him, as before to Caesar. In short, he himself became virtually the State; his will was absolute. Having thus drawn to himself “the functions of the Senate and the magistrate, and the framing of the laws, in which he was thwarted by no man,” the title of “Father of his Country” meant much more than ever it had before. The State was “the common parent” of the people. The State being now merged in one man, when that man became the father of his country, he likewise became the father of the people. And “the system by which every citizen shared in the government being thrown aside, all men regarded the orders of the prince as the only rule of conduct and obedience.” — Tacitus. F32 Nor was this so merely in civic things: it was equally so in religious affairs.

In fact there was in the Roman system no such distinction know as civil and religious. The State was divine, therefore that which was civil was in itself religious. One man now having become the State, it became necessary that some title should be found which would fit this new dignity and express this new power.

The Senate had exhausted the vocabulary of flattering titles in those which it had given to Caesar. Although all these were now given to Octavius, there was none amongst them which could properly define the new dignity which he possessed. Much anxious thought was given to this great question. “At last he fixed upon the epithet ‘Augustus,’ a name which no man had borne before, and which, on the contrary, had been applied to things the most noble, the most venerable, and the most sacred. The rites of the gods were called august; their temples were august. The word itself was derived from the holy auguries; it was connected in meaning with the abstract term “authority,” and with all that increases and flourishes upon earth. The use of this glorious title could not fail to smooth the way to the general acceptance of the divine character of the mortal who was deemed worthy to bear it. The Senate had just decreed the divinity of the defunct Caesar; the courtiers were beginning now to insinuate that his successor, while yet alive, enjoyed an effluence from deity; the poets were even suggesting that altars should be raised to him; and in the provinces, among the subjects of the State at least, temples to his divinity were actually rising, and the cult of Augustus was beginning to assume a name, a ritual, and a priesthood. — “Encyclopedia Britannica.” F33 He tyrannized over the nobles by his power, and held the affections of the populace by his munificence. “In the number, variety, and magnificence of his public spectacles, he surpassed all former example. Four and twenty times, he says, he treated the people with games upon his own account, and three and twenty times for such magistrates as were either absent or not able to afford the expense.... He entertained the people with wrestlers in the Campus Martius, where wooden seats were erected for the purpose; and also with a naval fight, for which he excavated the ground near the Tiber.” In order that the people might all go to these special shows, he stationed guards through the streets to keep the houses from being robbed while the dwellers were absent. “He displayed his munificence to all ranks of the people on various occasions. Moreover, upon his bringing the treasure belonging to the kings of Egypt into the city, in his Alexandrian triumph, he made money so plentiful that interest fell, and the price of land rose considerably. And afterwards, as often as large sums of money came into his possession by means of confiscations, he would lend it free of interest, for a fixed term, to such as could give security for the double of what was borrowed. The estate necessary to qualify a senator, instead of eight hundred thousand sesterces, the former standard, he ordered, for the future, to be twelve hundred thousand; and to those who had not so much, he made good the deficiency. He often made donations to the people, but generally of different sums; sometimes four hundred, sometimes three hundred, or two hundred and fifty sesterces: upon which occasions, he extended his bounty even to young boys, who before were not used to receive anything, until they arrived at eleven years of age. In a scarcity of corn, he would frequently let them have it at a very low price, or none at all, and doubled the number of the money tickets.” — Suetonius. F34 It occurred to him that he ought to abolish the distribution of grain at public expense, as he declared that it was “working unmitigated evil, retarding the advance of agriculture, and cutting the sinews of industry.”

But he was afraid to do it, lest some one would take advantage of the opportunity and ascend to power by restoring it. His own words are these: “I was much inclined to abolish forever the practice of allowing the people corn at the public expense, because they trust so much to it, that they are too lazy to till their lands; but I did not persevere in my design, as I felt sure that the practice would sometime or other be revived by some one ambitious of popular favor.” — Suetonius. F35 In public and political life a confirmed and constant hypocrite, in private and domestic life he was no less. He was so absolutely calculating that he actually wrote out beforehand what he wished to say to his friends, and even to his wife. He married Clodia merely for political advantage, although at that time she was scarcely of marriageable age. He soon put her away, and married Scribonia. Her, too, he soon put away, “for resenting too freely the excessive influence which one of his mistresses had gained over him” (Suetonius f36 ) and immediately took Livia Drusilla from her wedded husband. Her he kept all the rest of his days; for, instead of resenting any of his lascivious excesses, she connived at them.

By Scribonia he had a daughter — Julia. Her he gave first to his sister’s son, who soon died; and then he gave her to her brother-in-law, Marcus Agrippa, who was already married to her cousin by whom he had children.

Nevertheless Agrippa was obliged to put away his wife and children, and take Julia. Agrippa likewise soon died; then Tiberius was obliged to put away his wife, by whom he already had a son and who was soon to become a mother again, in order that he might be the step-son of the emperor by becoming Julia’s third husband. By this time, however, Julia had copied so much of her father’s wickedness that Tiberius could not live with her; and her daughter had copied so much of hers, that “the two Julias, his daughter and grand-daughter, abandoned themselves to such courses of lewdness and debauchery, that he banished them both” (Suetonius f37 ), and even had thoughts of putting to death the elder Julia.

Yet Augustus, setting such an example of wickedness as this, presumed to enact laws punishing in others the same things which were habitually practiced by himself. But all these evil practices were so generally followed, that laws would have done no good by whomsoever enacted, much less would they avail when issued by such a person as he.

Augustus died at the age of seventy-six, August 19, A.D. 14, and was succeeded by — TIBERIUS.

Forty-three years of the sole authority of Augustus had established the principle of absolutism in government, but “the critical moment for a government is that of its founder’s death.” It was now to be discovered whether that principle was firmly fixed; but Tiberius was fifty-six years old, and had been a careful student of Augustus, and though at his accession the new principle of government was put to its severest test, Tiberius made Augustus his model in all things; “continued his hypocritical moderation, and made it, so to speak, the rule of the imperial government.” — Duruy. f38 Though he immediately assumed the imperial authority, like his model, “He affected by a most impudent piece of acting to refuse it for a long time; one while sharply reprehending his friends who entreated him to accept it, as little knowing what a monster the government was; another while keeping in suspense the Senate when they implored him and threw themselves at his feet, by ambiguous answers and a crafty kind of dissimulation; in so much that some were out of patience and one cried out during the confusion, ‘Either let him accept it or decline it at once;’ and a second told him to his face: ‘Others are slow to perform what they promise, but you are slow to promise what you actually perform.’ At last as if forced to it, and complaining of the miserable and burdensome service imposed upon him, he accepted the government.” — Suetonius. F39 The purpose of all this was, as with Augustus, to cause the Senate by fairly forcing imperial honors upon him, firmly to ally itself to the imperial authority by making itself the guardian of that power; so that when any danger should threaten the emperor, the Senate would thus stand pledged to defend him. And dangers were at this time so thick about Tiberius that he declared he had “a wolf by the ears.”

The principle thing that had marked his accession was the murder of Agrippa Posthumus, the son of Agrippa the minister of Augustus; and now a slave of Agrippa’s had got together a considerable force to avenge his master’s death. “Lucius Scribonius Libo, a senator of the first distinction, was secretly fomenting a rebellion, and the troops both in Illyricum and Germany were mutinous. Both armies insisted upon high demands, particularly that their pay should be made equal to that of the praetorian guards. The army in Germany absolutely refused to acknowledge a prince who was not their own choice, and urged with all possible importunity Germanicus, who commanded them, to take the government on himself, though he obstinately refused it.” — Suetonius. F40 All these dangers were soon passed, and Tiberius pretending to be the servant of the Senate, “assumed the sovereignty by slow degrees,” and the Senate allowed nothing to check its extravagance in bestowing titles, honors, and powers, for “such was the pestilential character of those times, so contaminated with adulation, that not only the first nobles, whose obnoxious splendor found protection only in obsequiousness, but all who had been consuls, a great part of such as had been praetors, and even many of the inferior senators, strove for priority in the fulsomeness and extravagance of their votes. There is a tradition that Tiberius, as often as he went out of the Senate, was wont to cry out in Greek, ‘How fitted for slavery are these men!’ Yes, even Tiberius, the enemy of public liberty, nauseated the crouching tameness of his slaves.” — Tacitus. f41 This course of conduct he continued through nine years, and his reign was perhaps as mild during this time as that of any other Roman would have been; but when at last he felt himself secure in the position where he was placed above all law, there was no enormity that he did not commit.

One man being now the State, and that one man being “divine,” high treason — violated majesty — became the most common crime, and the “universal resource in accusations.” In former times,” If any one impaired the majesty of the Roman people by betraying an army, by exciting sedition among the Commons, in short, by any maladministration of the public affairs, the actions were matter of trial, but words were free.” — Tacitus. F42 But now the law embraced “not words only, but a gesture, an involuntary forgetfulness, an indiscreet curiosity.” — Duruy. More than this, as the emperor was the embodiment of the divinity of the Roman State, this divinity was likewise supposed to be reflected in the statues and images of him. Any disrespect, any slight, any indifference, any carelessness intentional or otherwise, shown toward any such statue, or image, or picture, was considered as referring to him; was violative of his majesty; and was high treason. If any one counted as sold, a statue of the emperor with the field in which it stood, even though he had made and set up the statue himself; any one who should throw a stone at it; any one who should take away its head; any one who should melt the bronze or use for any profane purpose the stone, even of a broken or mutilated image or statue, — all were alike guilty of high treason.

Yet more than this, in all cases of high treason when the accused was found guilty, one fourth of his estate was by law made sure to the informer. “Thus the informers, a description of men called into existence to prey upon the vitals of society and never sufficiently restrained even by penalties, were now encouraged by rewards.” — Tacitus. F44 Bearing these facts in mind, it is easy to understand the force of that political turn which the priests and Pharisees of Jerusalem took upon Pilate in their charges against Christ: “If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar.” John 19:12. On account of the furious jealousy of Tiberius and his readiness to welcome the reports of informers, the priests and Pharisees knew full well, and so did Pilate, that if a deputation should be sent to Rome accusing him of high treason in sanctioning the kingship of a Jew, Pilate would be called to Rome and crucified.

Thus in Tiberius the government of Rome became “a furious and crushing despotism.” The emperor being above all law, forgot all restraint, and “abandoned himself to every species of cruelty, never wanting occasions of one kind or another, to serve as a pretext. He first fell upon the friends and acquaintances of his mother, then those of his grandsons and his daughterin- law, and lastly those of Sejanus, after whose death he became cruel in the extreme.” Sejanus was his chief minister of State and his special friend and favorite — a worthy favorite, too. Tiberius, at his particular solicitation, retired to the island of Capri, where he attempted to imitate the lascivious ways of all the gods and goddesses at once.

Sejanus, left in command of the empire, aspired to possess it in full. He had already put away his own wife, and poisoned the son of Tiberius that he might marry his widow. His scheme was discovered; he was strangled by the public executioner, and torn to pieces by the populace. Then, under the accusation of being friends of Sejanus, a great number of people were first imprisoned, and shortly afterward, without even the form of a trial, Tiberius “ordered all who were in prison under accusation of attachment to Sejanus, to be put to death. There lay the countless mass of slain — of every sex and age — the illustrious and the mean; some dispersed, other collected in heaps; nor was it permitted to their friends or kindred to be present, or to shed a tear over them, or any longer even to go and see them; but guards were placed around, who marked signs of sorrow in each, and attended the putrid bodies till they were dragged to the Tiber; where, floating in the stream, or driven upon the banks, none dared to burn them, none to touch them. Even the ordinary intercourse of humanity was intercepted by the violence of fear; and in proportion as cruelty prevailed, commiseration was stifled.” — Tacitus. F45 After the example of Augustus, and to satisfy the clamors of the people, he loaned money without interest for three years to all who wanted to borrow.

He first compelled “all money-lenders to advance two thirds of their capital on land, and the debtors to pay off at once the same proportion of their debts.” This was found insufficient to meet all the demands, and he loaned from the public treasury about five millions, of dollars. In order to obtain money to meet this and other drafts on the public treasury, “he turned his mind to sheer robbery. It is certain that Cneius Lentulus, the augur, a man of vast estate, was so terrified and worried by his threats and importunities, that he was obliged to make him his heir.... Several persons, likewise of the first distinction in Gaul, Spain, Syria, and Greece, had their estates confiscated upon such despicably trifling and shameless pretenses, that against some of them no other charge was preferred than that they held large sums of ready money as part of their property. Old immunities, the rights of mining, and of levying tolls, were taken from several cities and private persons.” — Suetonius. F46 As for anything more about “this monster of his species,” we shall only say in the words of Suetonius, “It would be tedious to relate all the numerous instances of his cruelty; suffice it to give a few examples, in their different kinds. Not a day passed without the punishment of some person or other, not excepting holidays, or those appropriated to the worship of the gods.

Some were tried even on New Year’s Day. Of many who were condemned, their wives and children shared the same fate; and for those who were sentenced to death, the relations were forbid to put on mourning. “Considerable rewards were voted for the prosecutors, and sometimes for the witnesses also. The information of any person, without exception, was taken, and all offenses were capital, even speaking a few words, though without any ill intention. A poet was charged with abusing Agamemnon; and a historian, for calling Brutus and Cassius ‘the last of the Romans.’ The two authors were immediately called to account, and their writings suppressed, though they had been well received some years before, and read in the hearing of Augustus. Some who were thrown into prison, were not only denied the solace of study, but debarred from all company and conversation. Many persons, when summoned to trial, stabbed themselves at home, to avoid the distress and ignominy of a public condemnation, which they were certain would ensue. Others took poison in the Senate house. The wounds were bound up, and all who had not expired, were carried, half dead, and panting for life, to prison. Those who were put to death, were thrown down the Gemonian stairs, and then dragged into the Tiber. In one day, twenty were treated in this manner, and amongst them women and boys. Because, according to an ancient custom, it was not lawful to strangle virgins, the young girls were first deflowered by the executioner, and afterwards strangled. “Those who were desirous to die, were forced to live. For he thought death so slight a punishment, that upon hearing that Carnulius, one of the accused, who was under prosecution, had killed himself, he exclaimed, ‘Carnulius has escaped me.’ In calling over his prisoners, when one of them requested the favor of a speedy death, he replied, ‘You are not yet restored to favor.’ A man of consular rank writes in his annals that at table, where he himself was present with a large company, he was suddenly asked aloud by a dwarf who stood by amongst the buffoons, why Paconius, who was under a prosecution for treason, lived so long.

Tiberius immediately reprimanded him for his pertness, but wrote to the Senate a few days after, to proceed without delay to the punishment of Paconius.” — Suetonius f47 Tiberius died March 16, A.D. 37, in the seventy-eighth year of his age and the twenty-third year of his reign, and was succeeded by — CALIGULA.

Caligula was the son of Germanicus, who was the adopted son of Tiberius.

He was born and brought up in the camp. When he grew large enough to run about, the soldiers made him a pair of boots — Caliga after the pattern of their own, and from that he got his name of “Caligula,” that is, Little Boots. His real name was Caius. He was now twenty-five years old, and had been with Tiberius for the last five years. “Closely aping Tiberius, he put on the same dress as he did from day to day, and in his language differed little from him. Whence the shrewd observation of Passienus the orator, afterward so famous, ‘that never was a better slave nor a worse master.’” — Tacitus. F48 He imitated Tiberius in his savage disposition, and the exercise of his vicious propensities, as closely as he did in his dress and language. If he were not worse than Tiberius, it was only because it was impossible to be worse.

Like his pattern, he began his reign with such an appearance of gentleness and genuine ability, that there was universal rejoicing among the people out of grateful remembrance of Germanicus, and among the soldiers and provincials who had known him in his childhood. As he followed the corpse of Tiberius to its burning. “He had to walk amidst altars, victims, and lighted torches, with prodigious crowds of people everywhere attending him, in transports of joy, and calling him, besides other auspicious names, by those of ‘their star,’ ‘their chick,’ ‘their pretty puppet,’ and ‘bantling.’... Caligula himself inflamed this devotion, by practising all the arts of popularity.” — Suetonius. F49 This appearance of propriety he kept up for eight months, and then, having become giddy with the height at which he stood, and drunken with the possession of absolute power, he ran wildly and greedily into all manner of excesses.

He gave himself the titles of “Dutiful,” “The Pious,” “The Child of the Camp, the Father of the Armies,” “The Greatest and Best Caesar.” — Suetonius. F50 He caused himself to be worshiped, not only in his images, but in his own person. Among the gods, Castor and Pollux were twin brothers representing the sun, and were the sons of Jupiter. Caligula would place himself between the statues of the twin brothers there to be worshiped by all votaries. And they worshiped him, too; some saluting him as Jupiter Latialis that is, the Roman Jupiter, the guardian of the Roman people. He caused all the images of the gods that were famous either for beauty or popularity, to be brought from Greece, and their heads taken off and his put on instead, and then sent them back to be worshiped. He set up a temple, and established a priesthood in honor of his own divinity; and in the temple he set up a statue of gold the exact image of himself, which he caused to be dressed every day exactly as he was. The sacrifices which were to be offered in the temple, were flamingos, peacocks, bustards, guineas, turkeys, and pheasants, each kind offered on successive days. “The most opulent persons in the city offered themselves as candidates for the honor of being his priests, and purchased it successively at an immense price.” — Suetonius. F51 Castor and Pollux had a sister who corresponded to the moon. Caligula therefore on nights when the moon was full, would invite her to come and stay with him. This Jupiter Latialis placed himself on full and familiar equality with Jupiter Capitolinus. He would walk up to the other Jupiter and whisper in his ear, and then turn his own ear, as if listening for a reply.

Not only had Augustus and Romulus taken other men’s wives, but Castor and Pollux, in the myth, had gone to a double wedding, and after the marriage had carried off both the brides with them. Caligula did the same thing. He went to the wedding of Caius Piso, and from the wedding supper carried off the bride with himself, and the next day issued a proclamation “that he had got a wife as Romulus and Augustus had done;” but in a few days he put her away, and two years afterward he banished her.

Lollia Paulina was the wife of a proconsul. She was with her husband in one of the provinces where he was in command of an army. Caligula heard somebody say that her grandmother had been a very beautiful woman. He immediately sent and had Lollia Paulina brought from her husband, and made her his wife; and her also soon afterwards he put away. But he found a perfect wanton, by the name of Caesonia, who was neither handsome nor young, and her he kept constantly. He lived in incest with all three of his sisters, but one of them, Drusilla, was a special favorite. Her he took from her husband, a man of consular rank, and made her his wife and kept her so as long as she lived, and when she died, he ordered a public mourning for her, during which time he made it a capital offense for anybody to laugh, or bathe, or eat with his parents or his own family; and ever afterwards his most solemn oath was to sware by the divinity of Drusilla.

He was so prodigal that in less then a year, besides the regular revenue of the empire, he spent the sum of about one hundred millions of dollars. He built a bridge of boats across the Gulf of Balae, from Balae to Puteoli, a distance of three and a half miles. He twice distributed to the people nearly fifteen dollars apiece, and often gave splendid feasts to the Senate and to the knights with their families, at which he presented official garments to the men, and purple scarfs to the women and children. He exhibited a large number of games continuing all day. Sometimes he would throw large sums of money and other valuables to the crowd to be scrambled for. He likewise made public feasts at which, to every man, he would give a basket of bread with other victuals. He would exhibit stage plays in different parts of the city at night time, and cause the whole city to be illuminated; he exhibited these games and public plays not only in Rome, but in Sicily, Syracuse, and Gaul.

As for himself, in his feasts he exerted himself to set the grandest suppers and the strangest dishes, at which he would drink pearls of immense value, dissolved in vinegar, and serve up loaves of bread and other victuals modeled in gold. He built two ships each of ten banks of oars, the poops of which were made to blaze with jewels, with sails of various parti-colors, with baths, galleries, and saloons; in which he would sail along the coast feasting and reveling, with the accompaniments of dancing and concerts of music. At one of these revels he made a present of nearly one hundred thousand dollars to a favorite charioteer. His favorite horse he called Incitatus, — go ahead, — and on the day before the celebration of the games of the circus, he would set a guard of soldiers to keep perfect quiet in the neighborhood, that the repose of Go-ahead might not be disturbed.

This horse he arrayed in purple and jewels, and built for him a marble stable with an ivory manger. He would occasionally have the horse eat at the imperial table, and at such times would feed him on gilded grain in a golden basin of the finest workmanship. He proposed at last to make the horse consul of the empire.

Having spent all the money, though an enormous sum, that had been laid up by Tiberius, it became necessary to raise funds sufficient for his extravagance, and to raise it he employed “every mode of false accusation, confiscation, and taxation that could be invented.” He commanded that the people should make their wills in his favor. He even caused this rule to date back as far as the beginning of the reign of Tiberius, and from that time forward any centurion of the first rank who had not made Tiberius or Caligula his heir, his will was annulled, and all his property confiscated.

The wills of all others were set aside if any person would say that the maker had intended to make the emperor his heir. This caused those who were yet living to make him joint heir with their friends or with their children. If he found that such wills had been made and the maker did not die soon, he declared that they were only making game of him, and sent them poisoned cakes.

The remains of the paraphernalia of his spectacles, the furniture of the palace occupied by Augustus and Tiberius, and all the clothes, slaves, and even freedmen belonging to his sisters whom he banished, were put up at auction, and the prices were run up so high as to ruin the purchasers. At one of these sales a certain Aponius Saturninus, sitting on a bench, became sleepy and fell to nodding; the emperor noticed it, and told the auctioneer not to overlook the bids of the man who was nodding so often. Every nod was taken as a new bid, and when the sale was over, the dozing bidder found himself in possession of thirteen gladiatorial slaves, for which he was in debt nearly half a million dollars. If the bidding was not prompt enough nor high enough to suit him, he would rail at the bidders for being stingy, and demand if they were not ashamed to be richer than he was.

He levied taxes of every kind that he could invent, and no kind of property or person was exempt from some sort of taxation. Much complaint was made that the law for imposing this taxation had never been published, and that much grievance was caused from want of sufficient knowledge of the law. He then published the law, but had it written in very small characters and posted up in a corner so that nobody could obtain a copy of it. His wife Caesonia gave birth to a daughter, upon which Caligula complained of his poverty, caused by the burdens to which he was subjected, not only as an emperor but as a father, and therefore made a general collection for the support of the child, and gave public notice that he would receive New Year’s gifts the first of the following January. At the appointed time he took his station in the vestibule of his palace, and the people of all ranks came and threw to him their presents “by the handfuls and lapfuls. At last, being seized with an invincible desire of feeling money, taking off his slippers he repeatedly walked over great heaps of gold coin spread upon the spacious floor, and then laying himself down, rolled his whole body in gold over and over again.” — Suetonius. F52 His cruelty was as deadly as his lust and prodigality were extravagant. At the dedication of that bridge of boats which he built he spent two days reveling and parading over the bridge. Before his departure, he invited a number of people to come to him on the bridge, all of whom without distinction of age, or sex, or rank, or character, he caused to be thrown headlong into the sea, “thrusting down with poles and oars those who, to save themselves, had got hold of the rudders of the ship.” At one time when meat had risen to very high prices, he commanded that the wild beasts that were kept for the arena, should be fed on criminals, who, without distinction as to degrees of crime, were given to be devoured.

During his revels he would cause criminals, and even innocent persons, to be racked and beheaded. He seemed to gloat over the thought that the lives of mankind were in his hands, and that at a word he could do what he would. Once at a grand entertainment, at which both the consuls were seated next to him, he suddenly burst out into violent laughter, and when the consuls asked him what he was laughing about, he replied, “Nothing, but that upon a single word of mine you might both have your throats cut.”

Often, as he kissed or fondled the neck of his wife or mistress, he would exclaim, “So beautiful a throat must be cut whenever I please.”

All these are but parts of his ways, but the rest are either too indecent or too horrible to relate. At last, after indulging more than three years of his savage rage, he was killed by a company of conspirators, with the tribune of the praetorian guards at their head, having reigned three years, ten months, and eight days, and lived twenty-nine years. He was succeeded by — CLAUDIUS.

The soldiers not only killed an emperor, but they made another one. There was at that time, living in the palace, an uncle to Caligula, named Claudius, now fifty years old. Though he seems to have had as much sense as any of them, he was slighted and counted as a fool by those around him. Even his mother, when she would remark upon any one’s dullness, would use the comparison, “He is a greater fool than my son Claudius.” About the palace he was made the butt of the jests and practical jokes of the courtiers and even of the buffoons. At supper he would cram himself full of victuals, and drink till he was drunk; and then go to sleep at the table. At this, the company would pelt him with olive stones or scraps of victuals; and the buffoons would prod him with a cane, or snip him with to wake him. And when he had gone to sleep, while he lay snoring, they would put slippers on his hands, that when he should wake and attempt to rub his eyes open, he would rub his face with the slippers.

The night that Caligula was killed, Claudius, fearing for his own life, crept into a balcony, and hid himself behind the curtains of the door. The soldiers, rushing through the palace, happened to see his feet sticking out, and one of them grabbed him by the heels and demanding to know who owned them, dragged forth Caludius; and when he discovered who he was, exclaimed, “Why, this is Germanicus; let’s make him emperor!” The other soldiers in the band immediately adopted the idea, saluted him as emperor, set him on a litter, and carried him on their shoulders to the camp of the praetorian guards. The next day while the Senate deliberated, the people cried out that they would have one master, and that he should be Claudius.

The soldiers assembled under arms, and took the oath of allegiance to him; upon which he promised them about seven hundred dollars apiece.

By the mildness and correctness of his administration, he soon secured the favor and affection of the whole people. Having once gone a short distance out of the city, a report was spread that he had been waylaid and killed. “The people never ceased cursing the soldiers for traitors, and the Senate as parricides, until or two persons, and presently after several others, were brought by the magistrates upon the rostra, who assured them that he was alive, and not far from the city, on his way home.” — Suetonius. F53 As he sat to judge causes, the lawyers would openly reprove him and make fun of him. One of these one day, making excuses why a witness did not appear, stated that it was impossible for him to appear, but did not tell why. Claudius insisted upon knowing, and after several questions had been evaded, the statement was brought forth that the man was dead, upon which Claudius replied, “I think that is a sufficient excuse.” When he would start away from the tribunal, they would call him back. If he insisted upon going, they would seize hold of his dress or take him by the heels, and make him stay until they were ready for him to go. A Greek once having a case before him, got into a dispute with him, and called out loud, “You are an old fool;” and a Roman knight once being prosecuted upon a false charge, being provoked at the character of the witnesses brought against him, upbraided Claudius with folly and cruelty, and threw some books and a writing pencil in his face. He pleased the populace with distributions of grain and money, and displays of magnificent games and spectacles.

This is the Claudius mentioned in Acts 18:2, who commanded all Jews to depart from Rome. This he did, says Suetonius, because they “were continually making disturbances at the instigation of one Chrestus.” These disturbances arose from contentions of the Jews against the Christians about Christ. As the Christians were not yet distinguished from the Jews, the decree of banishment likewise made no distinction, and when he commanded all Jews to depart from Rome, Christians were among them.

One of his principal favorites was that Felix, governor of Judea, mentioned in Acts 23:24, before whom Paul pleaded, and who trembled as the apostle “reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.”

Claudius was not as bad as either Tiberius or Caligula, but what he himself lacked in this respect was amply made up by his wives. “In his marriage, as in all else, Claudius had been pre-eminent in misfortune. He lived in an age of which the most frightful sign of depravity was that its women were, if possible, a shade worse than its men, and it was the misery of Claudius, as it finally proved his ruin, to have been united by marriage to the very worst among them all. Princesses like the Bernice, and the Drusilla, and the Salome, and the Herodias of the sacred historians, were in this age a familiar spectacle; but none of them were so wicked as two at least of Claudius’s wives. He was betrothed or married no less than five times. The lady first destined for his bride had been repudiated because her parents had offended Augustus; the next died on the very day intended for her nuptials. By his first actual wife, Urgulania whom he had married in early youth, he had two children, Drusus and Claudia; Drusus was accidentally choked in boyhood while trying to swallow a pear which had been thrown up into the air. Very shortly after the birth of Claudia, discovering the unfaithfulness of Urgulania, Claudius divorced her, and ordered the child to be stripped naked and exposed to die. His second wife, AElia Petina, seems to have been an unsuitable person, and her also he divorced. His third and fourth wives lived to earn a colossal infamy — Valeria Messalina for her shameless character, Agrippina the younger for her unscrupulous ambition. “Messalina, when she married, could scarcely have been fifteen years old, yet she at once assumed a dominant position, and secured it by means of the most unblushing wickedness. But she did not reign so absolutely undisturbed as to be without her own jealousies and apprehensions; and these were mainly kindled by Julia and Agrippina, the two nieces of the emperor. They were, no less than herself, beautiful, brilliant, and evil-hearted women, quite ready to make their own coteries, and to dispute, as far as they dared, the supremacy of a bold but reckless rival. They, too, used their arts, their wealth, their rank, their political influence, their personal fascinations, to secure for themselves a band of adherents, ready, when the proper moment arrived, for any conspiracy.... “The life of this beautiful princess, short as it was, — for she died at a very early age, — enough to make her name a proverb of everlasting infamy. For a time she appeared irresistible. Her personal fascination had won for her an unlimited sway over the facile mind of Claudius, and she had either won over by her intrigues, or terrified by her pitiless severity, the noblest of the Romans and the most powerful of the freedmen.” — Farrar. F54 She became “so vehemently enamored of Caius Silius, the handsomest of the Roman youth, that she obliged him to divorce his wife, Julia Silana, a lady of high quality,” that she might have him to herself. “Nor was Silius blind to the danger and malignity of his crime; but, as it was certain destruction to decline her suit, and there were some hopes of beguiling Claudius, while great rewards were held out to him, he was content to take the chance of what might happen thereafter, and enjoy the present advantages. The empress proceeded not stealthily, but went to his house frequently, with a numerous train, accompanied him incessantly abroad, loaded him with presents and honors; and at last, as if the fortune of the empire had been transferred with the emperor’s wife, at the house of her adulterer were now seen the slaves, freedmen, and equipage of the prince.” — Tacitus. F55 Claudius made a journey to Ostia, and while he was gone, Messalina publicly celebrated her marriage with Silius, with royal ceremony. “I am aware that it will appear fabulous that any human beings should have exhibited such recklessness of consequences; and that, in a city where everything was known and talked of, any one, much more a consul elect, should have met the emperor’s wife, on a stated day, in the presence of persons called in, to seal the deeds, as for the purpose of procreation, and that she should have heard the words of the augurs, entered the house of the husband, sacrificed to the gods, sat down among the guests at the nuptial banquet, exchanged kisses and embraces, and in fine passed the night in unrestrained conjugal intercourse. But I would not dress up my narrative with fictions to give it an air of marvel, rather than relate what has been stated to me or written by my seniors.” — Tacitus. F56 The report of all this was carried to Claudius, which so terrified him that but for his favorites, he would undoubtedly have surrendered the empire to Silius. Several of these, however, rallied him with the assurance that they would stand by him and help him through, and they persuaded him to start for Rome; but fearing that even then, if Messalina should meet him, she would persuade him to pardon her, they took him in the same carriage with themselves, and all the way as they went, one of them kept continually exclaiming, “O the villainy, O the treason!” As for Messalina, “she never wallowed in greater voluptuousness; it was then the middle of autumn, and in her house she exhibited a representation of the vintage: the winepresses were plied, the wine vats flowed, and round them danced women begirt with skins like Bacchanalians at their sacrifices, or under the maddening inspiration of their deity: she herself, with her hair loose and flowing, waved a thyrsus; by her side Silius, crowned with ivy, and wearing buskins, tossed his head about; while around them danced the wanton choir in obstreperous revelry. It is reported that Vectius Valens, having in a frolic climbed to an exceeding high tree, when asked what he saw, answered, ‘a terrible storm from Ostia.’” — Tacitus. F57 That storm was coming swiftly, and when it came, Messalina was given the privilege of killing herself. She plied the dagger twice but failed, and then a tribune ran her through with his sword. Word was carried to Claudius while he was sitting at a feast, that Messalina was no more, to which he made neither reply nor inquiry, “but called for a cup of wine and proceeded in the usual ceremonies of the feast, nor did he, indeed, during the following days, manifest any symptom of disgust or joy, of resentment or sorrow, nor, in short, of any human affection; not when he beheld the accusers of his wife exulting at her death; not when he looked upon her mourning children.” — Tacitus. F58 Messalina was dead; but bad as she had been, a worse woman took her place. This was Agrippina, sister of Caligula, niece of Claudius, and the mother of Nero. “Whatever there was of possible affection in the tigress nature of Agrippina was now absorbed in the person of her child. For that child, from its cradle to her own death by his means, she toiled and sinned.

The fury of her own ambition, inextricably linked with the uncontrollable fierceness of her love for this only son, henceforth directed every action of her life. Destiny had made her the sister of one emperor; intrigue elevated her into the wife of another: her own crimes made her the mother of a third. And at first sight her career might have seemed unusually successful; for while still in the prime of life she was wielding, first in the name of her husband, and then in that of her son, no mean share in the absolute government of the Roman world. But meanwhile that same unerring retribution, whose stealthy footsteps in the rear of the triumphant criminal we can track through page after page of history, was stealing nearer and nearer to her with uplifted hand. When she had reached the dizzy pinnacle of gratified love and pride to which she had waded through so many a deed of sin and blood, she was struck down into terrible ruin and violent, shameful death by the hand of that very son for whose sake she had so often violated the laws of virtue and integrity, and spurned so often the pure and tender obligation which even the heathen had been taught by the voice of God within their conscience to recognize and to adore. “Intending that her son should marry Octavia, the daughter of Claudius, her first step was to drive to death Silanus, a young nobleman to whom Octavia had already been betrothed. Her next care was to get rid of all rivals possible or actual. Among the former were the beautiful Calpurnia and her own sister-in-law, Domitia Lepida. Among the latter was the wealthy Lollia Paulina, against whom she trumped up an accusation of sorcery and treason, upon which her wealth was confiscated, but her life spared by the emperor, who banished her from Italy. This half vengeance was not enough for the mother of Nero. Like the daughter of Herodias in sacred history, she dispatched a tribune with orders to bring her the head of her enemy; and when it was brought to her, and she found a difficulty in recognizing those withered and ghastly features of a once celebrated beauty, she is said with her own hand to have lifted one of the lips, and to have satisfied herself that this was indeed the head of Lollia.... Well may Adolf Stahr observe that Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and husband-murdering Gertrude are mere children by the side of this awful giant-shape of steely feminine cruelty.” — Farrar. F59 By the horrible crimes and fearful sinning of Agrippina, Nero became emperor of Rome, A.D. 57, at the age of seventeen. As in the account already given, there is enough to show what the Roman monarchy really was; and as that is the purpose of this chapter, it is not necessary any further to portray the frightful enormities of individual emperors. It is sufficient to say of Nero, that, in degrading vices, shameful licentiousness, and horrid cruelty, he transcended all who had been before him.

It is evident that for the production of such men as Antony and Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula, Claudius and Nero, with such women as their mothers and wives — to say nothing of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Domitian, who quickly followed — in direct succession and in so short a time, there must of necessity have been a condition of society in general which corresponded to the nature of the product. Such was in fact the case. “An evil day is approaching when it becomes recognized in a community that the only standard of social distinction is wealth.

That day was soon followed in Rome by its unavoidable consequence, a government founded upon two domestic elements, corruption and terrorism. No language can describe the state of that capital after the civil wars. The accumulation of power and wealth gave rise to a universal depravity. Law ceased to be of any value. A suitor must deposit a bribe before a trial could be had. The social fabric was a festering mass of rottenness. The people had become a populace; the aristocracy was demoniac; the city was a hell. No crime that the annals of human wickedness can show was left unperpetrated; — remorseless murders; the betrayal of parents, husbands, wives, friends; poisoning reduced to a system; adultery degenerating into incests and crimes that cannot be written. “Women of the higher class were so lascivious, depraved, and dangerous, that men could not be compelled to contract matrimony with them; marriage was displaced by concubinage; even virgins were guilty of inconceivable immodesties; great officers of state and ladies of the court, of promiscuous bathings and naked exhibitions. In the time of Caesar it had become necessary for the government to interfere and actually put a premium on marriage.

He gave rewards to women who had many children; prohibited those who were under forty-five years of age, and who had no children, from wearing jewels and riding in litters, hoping by such social disabilities to correct the evil. It went on from bad to worse, so that Augustus, in view of the general avoidance of legal marriage and resort to concubinage with slaves, was compelled to impose penalties on the unmarried — to enact that they should not inherit by will except from relations. Not that the Roman women refrained from the gratification of their desires; their depravity impelled them to such wicked practices as cannot be named in a modern book. They actually reckoned the years, not by the consuls, but by the men they had lived with. To be childless and therefore without the natural restraint of a family, was looked upon as a singular felicity. Plutarch correctly touched the point when he said that the Romans married to be heirs and not to have heirs. “Of offenses that do not rise to the dignity of atrocity, but which excite our loathing, such as gluttony and the most debauched luxury, the annals of the times furnish disgusting proofs. It was said, ‘They eat that they may vomit, and vomit that they may eat.’

At the taking of Perusium, three hundred of the most distinguished citizens were solemnly sacrificed at the altar of Divius Julius by Octavian. Are these the deeds of civilized men, or the riotings of cannibals drunk with blood? “The higher classes on all sides exhibited a total extinction of moral principle; the lower were practical atheists. Who can peruse the annals of the emperors without being shocked at the manner in which men died, meeting their fate with the obtuse tranquillity that characterizes beasts? A centurion with a private mandate appears, and forthwith the victim opens his veins, and dies in a warm bath.

At the best, all that was done was to strike at the tyrant. Men despairingly acknowledged that the system itself was utterly past cure. “That in these statements I do not exaggerate, hear what Tacitus says: ‘The holy ceremonies of religion were violated; adultery reigning without control; the adjacent islands filled with exiles; rocks and desert places stained with clandestine murders, and Rome itself a theater of horrors, where nobility of descent and splendor of fortune marked men out for destruction; where the vigor of mind that aimed at civil dignities, and the modesty that declined them, were offenses without distinction; where virtue was a crime that led to certain ruin; where the guilt of informers and the wages of their iniquity were alike detestable; where the sacerdotal order, the consular dignity, the government of provinces, and even the cabinet of the prince, were seized by that execrable race as their lawful prey; where nothing was sacred, nothing safe from the hand of rapacity; where slaves were suborned, or by their own malevolence excited against their masters; where freemen betrayed their patrons, and he who had lived without an enemy died by the treachery of a friend.’” — Draper. F60 To complete this dreadful picture requires but the touch of Inspiration. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections. For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient: being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death; not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” F61 When this scripture was read by the Christians in Rome, they knew from daily observation that it was but a faithful description of Roman society as it was. And Roman society as it was, was but the resultant of pagan civilization, and the logic, in its last analysis, of the pagan religion. Roman society as it was, wasULTIMATE PAGANISM.

CHAPTER 4.

THE “TEN PERSECUTIONS.”

THAT which Rome was in its supreme place, the other cities of the empire, — Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, etc. — were in their narrower spheres; for it was the licentiousness of Greece and the East which had given to the corruption of Rome a deeper dye. Into that world of iniquity, Jesus Christ sent, as sheep among wolves, a little band of disciples carrying hope to the despairing, joy to the sorrowing, comfort to the afflicted, relief to the distressed, peace to the perplexed, and to all a message of merciful forgiveness of sins, of the gift of the righteousness of God, and of a purity and power which would cleanse the soul from all unrighteousness of heart and life, and plant there instead the perfect purity of the life of the Son of God and the courage of an everlasting joy. This gospel of peace and of the power of God unto salvation they were commanded to go into all the world and preach to every creature.

The disciples went everywhere preaching the word, and before the death of men who were then in the prime of life this good news of the grace of God had actually been preached in all the then known world. Romans 1:8 and Romans 10:18; Colossians 1:6,23. And by it many were brought to the knowledge of the peace and power of God, revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. “In every congregation there were prayers to God that he would listen to the sighing of the prisoner and captive, and have mercy on those who were ready to die. For the slave and his master there was one law and one hope, one baptism, one Saviour, one Judge. In times of domestic bereavement the Christian slave doubtless often consoled his pagan mistress with the suggestion that our present separations are only for a little while, and revealed to her willing ear that there is another world — a land in which we rejoin our dead. How is it possible to arrest the spread of a faith which can make the broken heart leap why with joy?” — Draper. f71 Yet to arrest the spread of that faith there were many long, earnest, and persistent efforts by the Roman empire. Before entering, however, upon the examination of this subject as it is, it is necessary to notice a point that has been much misunderstood or else much misrepresented; that is the imperial or “Ten Persecutions.”

In the Church and State scheme of the fourth century, the theory of the bishops was that the kingdom of God was come; and to maintain the theory it became necessary to pervert the meaning of both Scripture history and Scripture prophecy. Accordingly, as the antitype of the ten plagues of Egypt, and as the fulfillment of the prophecy of the ten horns which made war with the Lamb ( Revelation 17:12-14), there was invented the theory of ten persecutions of the Christians inflicted by the ten emperors, Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Maximin, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, and Diocletian. Some of these persecuted the Christians, as Nero, Marcus Aurelius, Decius, and Diocletian; others were as gentle toward the Christians as toward anybody else; and yet others not named in the list, persecuted everybody but the Christians. The truth is that so far as the emperors were concerned, taken one with another, from Nero to Diocletian, the Christians fared as well as anybody else.

In this discussion and in the study of this subject everywhere, it must ever be borne in mind that Christianity was wholly outlawed in the Roman empire, and that every one who professed it became by the very fact of his profession an outlaw — an enemy to the emperor and people of Rome, and guilty of high treason.

So long as the Christians were confounded with the Jews, no persecution befell them from the Roman State, because the Roman empire had recognized the Jewish religion as lawful; consequently when the Emperor Claudius commanded all Jews to depart from Rome, Christians were included among them, as for instance Aquila and Priscilla. Acts 18:1,2.

And when in Corinth, under Gallio the Roman governor of the province of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection against Paul upon the charge that “this fellow persuadeth men to worship God contrary to the law,” Gallio replied: “If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you: but if it be a question of words and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters.” And with this, “he drave them from the judgment seat.” Acts 18:12-16. Also when the centurion Lysias had rescued Paul from the murderous Jews in Jerusalem, and would send him for protection to Felix the governor, he wrote to Felix thus: “When I would have known the cause wherefore they accused him, I brought him forth into their council: whom I perceived to be accused of questions of their law, but to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds.” Acts 23:28,29.

To please the Jews, Felix left Paul in prison. When Festus came in and had given him a hearing, and would bring his case before King Agrippa, he spoke thus of the matter: “There is a certain man left in bonds by Felix: about whom, when I was at Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me, desiring to have judgment against him. To whom I answered, It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die, before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him.

Therefore, when they were come hither without any delay on the morrow, I sat on the judgment seat, and commanded the man to be brought forth.

Against whom, when the accusers stood up, they brought none accusation of such things as I supposed: but had certain questions against him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. And because I doubted of such manner of questions, I asked him whether he would go to Jerusalem, and there be judged of these matters. But when Paul had appealed to be reserved unto the hearing of Augustus, I commanded him to be kept till I might send him to Caesar.”

And when Agrippa had heard him, the unanimous decision was, “This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds,” and Agrippa declared, “This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar.” Acts 25:14-21; Acts 26:31,32.

And even when he had been heard twice by Caesar — Nero — as it was still but a controversy between Jews concerning questions of their own, the Roman power refused to take cognizance of the case, and Paul, a Christian, was released. But when Christianity had spread among the Gentiles and a clear distinction was made and recognized between the Christians and the Jews, by all parties, and Christianity appeared as a new religion not recognized by the Roman law, then came the persecution of Christians by the Roman State.

The first persecution of the Christians was that which was inflicted by — Nero , n A.D. 64, although it was only the horrid cruelty inflicted that made his punishment of the Christians conspicuous above that of many others upon whom the rage of that tyrant fell. For, “Except that his murders were commonly prompted by need or fear, and therefore fell oftenest on the rich and powerful, it can hardly be said that one class suffered from them more terribly than another. His family, his friends, the senators, the knights, philosophers and THE PERSECUTION BY NERO.

Christians, Romans and provincials, were all decimated by them.” — Merivale. f72 July 19, A.D. 64, the tenth year of Nero’s reign, a fire broke out in the city of Rome, which raged unchecked for six days. The stricken people had barely begun to collect their thoughts after the fire had subsided, when flames burst out a second time, in another quarter of the city, and raged for three days. Taken together, the two conflagrations destroyed nearly the whole of the city. Of the fourteen districts into which the city was divided, only four remained uninjured. Nero was universally hated for his desperate tyranny. A rumor was soon spread and readily believed, that while the city was burning, he stood watching it, and chanting the “Sack of Troy” to an accompaniment which he played upon his lyre. From this the rumor grew into a report, and it was also believed, that Nero himself had ordered the fires to be kindled. It was further insinuated that his object in burning the city was to build it anew upon a much more magnificent scale, and bestow upon it his own name.

Whether any of these rumors or suspicions were certainly true, cannot be positively stated; but whether true or not, they were certainly believed, and the hatred of the people was intensified to such fierceness that Nero soon discovered that the ruin of the city was universally laid to his charge. He endeavored to allay the rising storm: he provided shelter, and supplied other urgent necessaries for the multitude. Vows and great numbers of burnt offerings to the gods were made, but all to no purpose. The signs of public dissatisfaction only became more significant. It became essential that the emperor should turn their suspicion from him, or forfeit the throne and his life. The crisis was a desperate one, and desperately did he meet it.

There was a little band of Christians known in the city. They were already hated by the populace. These were accused, condemned, and tortured as the destroyers of the city. Tacitus tells of the fate of those to whom he says “the vulgar gave the name of Christians”: — “He [Nero] inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men who, under the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from Christ, who in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator, Pontius Pilate. For awhile this dire superstition was checked; but it again burst forth; and not only spread itself over Judea, the first seat of this mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum which receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious.

The confessions of those who were seized, discovered a great multitude of their accomplices, and they were all convicted, not so much for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their hatred of human kind. They died in torments, and their torments were embittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse race. and honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishment, but the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to the public welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant.” — Tacitus. f73 This cruel subterfuge accomplished the purpose intended by the emperor, to deliver him from the angry suspicion of the populace. This persecution, however, as directed by Nero, did not extend beyond the city, and ceased with that one effort. And from that time, for the space of nearly two hundred years — till the reign of Decius, A.D. 249-251 — there was no imperial persecution in the city of Rome “During that period, the Christians were in general as free and secure as other inhabitants of Rome. Their assemblies were no more disturbed than the synagogues of the Jews, or the rights of other foreign religions.” — Milman. f74 DOMITIAN, who is next named in the list of persecutors, was so jealous of his imperial power and withal such a downright coward, that he was afraid of every man who was, or might become, popular or from any cause conspicuous.

His suspicions were constantly creating imaginary plots against his throne and his life, and his fears welcomed any tale of treason or of plot. There was an ample number of flatterers and sycophants who voluntarily assumed the vile office of informers, to have satisfied perhaps any man in the world but Domitian. He, however, was not content with this.

He deliberately hired every man in the empire who was willing to sell himself to such service. And there were multitudes who were willing so to sell themselves. This system had been employed by others, but “Domitian seems, of all the emperors, to have carried it furthest, and adopted it most systematically. It was an aggravation rather than an extenuation of his crime that he seduced into his service men of high rank and character, and turned the Senate into a mob of rivals for the disgrace of thus basely serving him. The instruments of his jealous precaution rose in a graduated hierarchy. The knights and senators trembled before a Massa Baebius, a Carus, and a Latinus; but these delators trembled in their turn before the prince of delators, Memminus Regulus, and courted him, not always successfully, by the surrender of their estates or their mistresses.... The best and noblest of the citizens were still marked out as the prey of delators whose patron connived at enormities which bound their agents more closely to himself, and made his protection more necessary to them. The haughty nobles quailed in silence under a system in which every act, every word, every sigh, was noted against them, and disgrace, exile, and death followed upon secret whispers. The fears of Domitian increased with his severities. He listened to the tales not of senators and consulars only, but of the humblest officials and even of private soldiers. Often, says Epictetus, was the citizen, sitting in the theater, entrapped by a disguised legionary beside him, who pretended to murmur against the emperor, till he had led his unsuspecting neighbor to confide to him his own complaints, and then skulked away to denounce him.” — Merivale. f75 Such a system gave full and perfect freedom to vent every kind of petty spite; and not only was freedom given to it, but by the informers’ receiving a share of the property of the accused, a premium was put upon it. Many were put to death to allay Domitian’s fears. Large numbers of others were either put to death or banished for the sake of their property, and yet many others were executed or banished upon charges invented by the informers to satisfy their personal hatred or to maintain with the emperor their standing of loyalty. Among the victims of this universal treachery, some Christians were numbered. Hated as they were, it would have been strange indeed had there been none. Among these was the apostle John, who was banished to the Isle of Patmos. There were two others whose names we know — Flavius Clemens and his wife Domitilla. Clemens was the cousin, and Domitilla was the niece, of Domitian. Clemens had enjoyed the favor of the emperor for a long time, and attained the honor of the consulship.

The term of his office, however, had hardly more than expired when he was accused, condemned, and executed; and Domitilla was banished to a desolate island on the western coast of Italy. The charge against them was “atheism and Jewish manners,” “which cannot with any propriety be applied except to the Christians, as they were obscurely and imperfectly viewed by the magistrates and by the writers of that period.” — Gibbon. f76 A great number of other persons were involved in the same accusation as were Clemens and Domitilla, and likewise met the same fate with them — confiscation of goods and banishment or death. Yet it is with no manner of justice or propriety that this has been singled out as a persecution against the church, or of Christians as such; because at the same time there were thousands of people of all classes who suffered the same things and from the same source. This is granting that Clemens was killed and Domitilla banished really on account of their religion. Considering their kinship to the emperor, and the standing of Clemens, it is fairly questionable whether it was not for political reasons that they were dealt with, and whether their religion was not the pretext rather than the cause, of their punishment. And for political crimes especially it was no unusual thing for all o a man’s friends and relations to be included in the same proscription with himself. “This proscription took place about eight months before Domitian’s death, at a period when he was tormented by the utmost jealousy of all around, and when his heart was hardened to acts of unparalleled barbarity; and it seems more likely that it was counseled by abject fear for his own person or power, than by concern for the religious interests of the State.” — Merivale. f77 In September, A.D. 96, Domitian was succeeded by — Nerva , hose temper and administration were directly contrary to those of Domitian. He reversed the cruel decrees of Domitian, recalled the banished, and prosecuted instead of encouraged the informers. Nerva was succeeded in A.D. 98 by — Trajan , under whom Pliny the Younger was governor of the province of Bithynia. In that province he found Christianity so prevalent that the worship of the gods was almost deserted. He undertook to correct this irregularity; but this being a new sort of business with him, he was soon involved in questions that he could not easily decide to his own satisfaction, and he concluded to address the emperor for the necessary instructions. He therefore wrote to Trajan as follows: — “Sir: It is my constant method to apply myself to you for the resolution of all my doubts; for who can better govern my dilatory way of proceeding or instruct my ignorance? I have never been present at the examination of the Christians [by others], on which account I am unacquainted with what uses to be inquired into, and what and how far they used to be punished; nor are my doubts small, whether there be not a distinction to be made between the ages [of the accused], and whether tender youth ought to have the same punishment with strong men? whether there be not room for pardon upon repentance? or whether it may not be an advantage to one that had been a Christian, that he has forsaken Christianity? whether the bare name, without any crimes besides, or the crimes adhering to that name, be to be punished? In the meantime I have taken this course about those who have been brought before me as Christians: I asked them whether they were Christians or not. If they confessed that they were Christians, I asked them again, and a third time, intermixing threatenings with the questions. If they persevered in their confessions, I ordered them to be executed; for I did not doubt but, let their confessions be of any sort whatsoever, this positiveness and inflexible obstinacy deserved to be punished.

There have been some of this mad sect whom I took notice of in particular as Roman citizens, that they might be sent to that city.

After some time, as is usual in such examinations, the crime spread itself, and many more cases came before me. A libel was sent to me, though without an author, containing many names [of persons accused]. These denied that they were Christians now, or ever had been. They called upon the gods, and supplicated to your image, which I caused to be brought to me for that purpose, with frankincense and wine; they also cursed Christ; none of which things, it is said, can any of those that are really Christians be compelled to do, so I thought fit to let them go. Others of them that were named in the libel, said they were Christians, but presently denied it again; that indeed they had been Christians, but had ceased to be so, some three years, some many more; and one there was that said he had not been so these twenty years. All these worshiped your image and the images of our gods; these also cursed Christ. However, they assured me that the main of their fault, or of their mistake, was this: That they were wont, on a stated day, to meet together before it was light, and to sing a hymn to Christ, as to a god, alternately; and to oblige themselves by a sacrament [or oath] not to do anything that was ill; but that they would commit no theft, or pilfering, or adultery; that they would not break promises, or deny what was deposited with them, when it was required back again; after which it was their custom to depart, and to meet again at a common but innocent meal, which they had left off upon that edict which I published at your command, and wherein I had forbidden any such conventicles. These examinations made me think it necessary to inquire by torments what the truth was; which I did of two servant-maids, who were called “deaconesses;” but still I discovered no more than that they were addicted to a bad and to an extravagant superstition. Hereupon I have put off any further examinations, and have recourse to you; for the affair seems to be well worth consultation, especially on account of the number of those that are in danger; for there are many of every age, of every rank, and of both sexes, who are now and hereafter likely to be called to account, and to be in danger; for this superstition is spread like a contagion, not only into cities and towns, but into country villages also, which yet there is reason to hope may be stopped and corrected. To be sure the temples, which were almost forsaken, begin already to be frequented; and the holy solemnities, which were long intermitted, begin to be revived. The sacrifices begin to sell well everywhere, of which very few purchasers had of late appeared; whereby it is easy to suppose how great a multitude of men may be amended, if place for repentance be admitted.”

To this letter Trajan replied: — “My Pliny: You have taken the method which you ought, in examining the causes of those that had been accused as Christians; for indeed no certain and general form of judging can be ordained in this case. These people are not to be sought for; but if they be accused and convicted, they are to be punished: but with this caution, that he who denies himself to be a Christian, and makes it plain that he is not so, by supplicating to our gods, although he had been so formerly, may be allowed pardon, upon his repentance. As for libels sent without an author, they ought to have no place in any accusation whatsoever, for that would be a thing of very ill example, and not agreeable to my reign.” f78 These are the facts in the case in regard to the persecution by Trajan. As a matter of fact Trajan had little to do with it. Pliny found the laws being violated. As governor of a province, he took judicial and executive cognizance of it. In his enforcing of the laws there were questions raised which he submitted to the emperor for decision. The emperor informed him that the proper course had been pursued. As a lover of justice, he directed that no regard should be paid to anonymous communications, but that all accusations should be made in due and legal form. He even goes so far as to limit to the regular form of judicial process the Christians’ disregard of the law — they were not to be sought after; but when accused in regular form, if they refused to yield, they were to be punished. In all this it is easy to see the emperor, who was the representative of the law; the just judge, refusing everything but the strictest conformity to the regular legal proceedings; and the humane man, willing rather to forego opportunity, than to hunt for occasion, to prosecute. It is difficult, therefore, to see how Trajan could fairly be charged with persecuting the Christians.

Trajan died in A.D. 117, and was succeeded by — HADRIAN.

The fanatical populace being forbidden by Trajan’s orders to proceed against the Christians in any but the legal way, had in many places taken to raising riots and wreaking their vengeance upon the Christians in this disorderly way. In A.D. 124, Hadrian made a tour through the Eastern provinces. The proconsul of Asia Minor complained to him of these riotous proceedings. The emperor issued a rescript commanding that the Christians should not be harassed, nor should informers be allowed to ply their trade in malicious prosecutions. If those who desired to prosecute the Christians could clearly prove their charges before the tribunal, “let them pursue this course only, but not by mere petitions and mere outcries against the Christians.” “If any one bring an accusation and can show that they have done anything contrary to the laws,” the magistrate was to judge of the matter “according to the heinousness of the crime;” but if any one should undertake a prosecution of the Christians “with a view to slander,” the matter was to be investigated “according to its criminality,” and if it was found that the prosecution had been made on false accusation, the false accusers were to be severely punished.

This rescript is as follows: — “To Minucius Fundanus: I have received an epistle, written to me by the most illustrious Serenius Granianus whom you have succeeded. I do not wish, therefore, that the matter should be passed by without examination, so that these men may neither be harassed, nor opportunity of malicious proceedings be offered to informers. If, therefore, the provincials can clearly evince their charges against the Christians, so as to answer before the tribunal, let them pursue this course only, but not by mere petitions, and mere outcries against the Christians. For it is far more proper, if any one would bring an accusation, that you should examine it. If any one, therefore, bring an accusation, and can show that they have done anything contrary to the laws, determine it thus according to the heinousness of the crime. So that indeed, if any one should purpose this with a view to slander, investigate it according to its criminality, and see to it that you inflict the punishment.” f79 Hadrian’s leniency was not from any respect to the Christians as such, but from his own native respect for justice and fairness. He died A.D. 138, and was succeeded by — ANTONINUS PIUS.

As soon as Hadrian’s death was known, the restraints imposed by his edicts were cast off, and the sufferings of the Christians from popular tumult and riot were renewed. The bitterness of the popular clamor was deepened by serious disasters. Disastrous floods, earthquakes, and fires occurred about this time, all of which the superstitious pagans interpreted as the evidence of the anger of the gods poured upon the empire as punishment for the disrespect shown to the gods by the Christians, and which was so lightly dealt with by the imperial power. Antoninus, however, being doubtless the mildest-mannered man that ever held the imperial power of Rome, renewed and rather extended the protective edicts of Hadrian. Antoninus was succeeded in A.D. 161, by — MARCUS AURELIUS.

Public calamities still continued. A terrible pestilence swept over the whole Roman empire from Ethiopia to Gaul, and the fury of the populace again fell severely upon the devoted Christians. Marcus Aurelius saw this matter in much the same light as the great mass of the people, and looked upon the pestilence that then raged, as a warning to restore the ancient religion in its minutest particulars. He summoned priests from all quarters to Rome, and even put off his expedition against the Marcomannians for the purpose of celebrating the religious solemnities, by which he hoped that the evil might be averted. He therefore sanctioned the popular rage against the Christians, and followed it up with an edict in which he commanded that search should be made for the Christians; and when brought to trial, they were to be forced by tortures to deny the faith and do homage to the Roman gods. Marcus Aurelius died, March 17, A.D. 180, and was succeeded by his son — COMMODUS.

This emperor, instead of being a persecutor of the Christians, was rather a friend to them, if such a man could be counted the friend of anybody.

Commodus, for the first three years of his reign, was a monster in vice, and after that a monster in cruelty as well as in vice. One evening in the third year of his reign, as he was returning from the amphitheater through the dark passage to the imperial palace, he was attacked by an assassin who felt so certain of accomplishing his bloody purpose that with a drawn sword he exclaimed, “The Senate sends you this.” The attempt failed, however. The guards protected the emperor and captured the assassin. He confessed that his act was the culmination of a conspiracy which had originated with the emperor’s sister Lucilla, who hoped to become empress by the death of Commodus. The conspirators were punished, Lucilla being first banished and afterwards put to death. But the words which the assassin had uttered — “the Senate sends you this” — still rung in the emperor’s ears; and by it he was caused to think that the Senate was in some way connected with the attempt upon his life. The whole body of the Senate became subject to his bitter and abiding enmity. But as he had nothing more tangible than suspicion to guide him, his course was necessarily uncertain, until a horde of informers had arisen and turned his suspicions into facts.

This event, however, was not long delayed; because as soon as it was learned that the emperor desired to detect treason in the senators, the informers, whose trade had been abolished in the mild and just reign of Antoninus Pius, readily reappeared in numbers sufficient to satisfy the desire of the emperor. “Distinction of every kind soon became criminal.

The possession of wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus; important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation. The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity or remorse.... Every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the mind of Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of empire to these unworthy favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign power, except the unbounded license of indulging his sensual appetites. His hours were spent in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful women, and as many boys of every rank and of every province; and wherever the arts of seduction proved ineffectual, the brutal lover had recourse to violence.... The intervals of lust were filled up with the basest amusements.” — Gibbon. f80 Wild beasts were brought from far countries that the emperor might have the honor of slaying them with his own hand. The African lion, in his native haunts, men were forbidden under heavy penalty to kill even in selfdefense, that he might be reserved for the sport of the emperor. At last he entered the arena in the character of a gladiator, armed with a helmet, a sword, and a buckler, and obliged gladiators to fight with him, armed only with a net and a leaden trident. He thus fought (?) seven hundred and thirty-five times, and each contest meant the death of his antagonist. The list of senators sacrificed to his suspicions continued still to lengthen. His cruelty at last arrived at that pitch where nobody within his reach could feel secure for an hour; and that they might certainly escape his furious caprice, Marcia his favorite concubine, Eclectus his chamberlain, and Laetus his praetorian prefect, formed a conspiracy to kill him. Marcia gave him a drink of poisoned wine, and the poison was assisted in its work by a professional wrestler who strangled him. Yet Commodus was not a persecutor of the Christians; but with this exception, there were few people in all the empire whom he did not persecute. For some reason Marcia was friendly to the Christians, and her influence with Commodus, as well as his disposition to be as unlike his father as possible, inclined him to be favorable to them.

SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS, the fifth of the “ten persecutors,” was emperor from A.D. 193 to 211. He was at first the friend of the Christians. There were Christians among the domestics of his household. Both the nurse and the teacher of his son Caracalla were Christians, and “he always treated with peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes who had embraced the new religion.” — Gibbon. It must not be supposed, however, that Severus himself was inclined to become a Christian. Finding that the number of Christians was rapidly increasing, he issued an edict in A.D. 202 forbidding anybody thereafter to adopt the new religion. This, however, did not prohibit those who were already Christians from remaining so. The purpose being to check the spread of the new religion, he forbade any further changing from the old to the new. Yet the result of the edict was indirectly to increase the hardships of the Christians under the already existing laws. This was the measure of the persecution by Septimius Severus. But there is another side to the story of Severus which, when compared with this, shows that it is only by a severe stretch of language, if not of imagination, that the Christians could be counted as persecuted by him.

It was through a triangular civil war that Septimius Severus secured the imperial power. He was commander of the troops on the Illyrian frontier, and was in Pannonia. Pescennius Niger was commander of the troops in Syria. Clodius Albinus was governor of Britain. The troops of Niger proclaimed him emperor; and the troops of Severus did the same for him.

Severus had the advantage of being nearest to Rome. He hastened into Italy with his army, and was acknowledged by the Senate as lawful emperor. War immediately followed between Severus and Niger. Niger was defeated in two engagements, and slain. As long as the contest with Niger was uncertain, Severus pretended the utmost friendship for Albinus; bestowed upon him the title of Caesar; sent him a letter in which he called him the brother of his soul and empire; and charged the messengers who carried the letter that when they delivered it, they should secure a private audience with Albinus and assassinate him.

Albinus, however, detected the conspiracy, and by it discovered that if he were to live, it would have to be as emperor. He crossed into Gaul; the armies met at Lyons; Albinus was defeated, captured, and beheaded.

Severus discovered that the Senate had encouraged Albinus. He therefore sent to the Romans the head of Albinus with a letter declaring that none of the adherents of either Albinus or Niger should be spared. He did, however, pardon thirty-five senators who were accused of having favored Albinus, while forty-one other senators with their wives, their children, and their friends were put to death. The same punishment was inflicted upon the most prominent characters of Spain, Gaul, and Syria, while many others were sent into exile, or suffered the confiscation of all their property, merely because they had obeyed the governor under whose authority they had happened to fall in the triangular conflict. Niger had been a popular governor, and many cities of the East contributed to him considerable sums of money when he was proclaimed emperor. All these cities were deprived of their honors, and were compelled to pay to Severus four times the amount that they had contributed to Niger. To elevate to the dignity of a persecution the treatment of the Christians by Septimius Severus in view of his treatment of the Roman Senate and whole cities and provinces of the empire, bears too much evidence of an attempt to make out a case, to be counted worthy of any weight.

Severus was succeeded in A.D. 211, by his two sons, CARACALLA AND GETA.

A little more than a year afterward, Caracalla murdered Geta in his mother’s arms, who in the struggle to protect him, was wounded in the hand and covered with blood: and immediately following, “under the vague appellation of the friends of Geta, above twenty thousand persons of both sexes suffered death.” This, however, was but the beginning; for “Caracalla was the common enemy of mankind.” He left the city of Rome in A.D. 213, and spent the rest of his reign, about four years, in the several provinces of the empire, particularly those of the East, “and every province was by turn the scene of his rapine and cruelty.” — Gibbon. The senators were compelled to accompany him wherever he went and to furnish daily entertainment at immense expense, which he gave over to his soldiers. They were likewise required to build in every city where he would come, magnificent palaces and splendid theaters which he would either not visit at all or else visit and order at once to be torn down.

The property of the most wealthy was confiscated at once, while that of the great mass of the people was taken under the form of taxes heavily increased. In the city of Alexandria in Egypt, simply because they had indulged in a bit of raillery at his expense, he took his station on top of the temple of Serapis, and commanded a general massacre of the citizens, which he directed and enjoyed from his elevated station. Thousands upon thousands of people were thus inhumanly slaughtered. And these are but parts of his wicked ways. Yet Caracalla is not numbered among the persecutors of the Christians, nor did he, in fact, molest the Christians as such. Yet it would be difficult to find an emperor, from Nero to Diocletian, who caused as much suffering to the Christinas, as Caracalla did to almost everybody but the Christians. It would not be correct, however, to suppose that the Christians were exempt from his ravages: they of course shared the common lot in his desperate attentions.

The next in the list of the “Ten Persecutors” is — MAXIMIN.

In the year 235 A. D., Maximin became emperor by the murder of the emperor Alexander Severus. Of him and the persecution of the Christians inflicted by him, the ecclesiastical historian says: — “The emperor Alexander being carried off after a reign of thirteen years, was succeeded by Maximinus, who, inflamed with hatred against the house of Alexander, consisting of many believers, raised a persecution, and commanded at first only the heads of the churches to be slain, as the abettors and agents of evangelical truth.’ — Eusebius. f83 Alexander Severus had not only been a friend to the Christians, but had gone so far as to place an image of Christ among his household gods. The church in Rome had appropriated a piece of land in that city which was claimed by the Cooks’ Union. A dispute arose about it, and the case was brought to the emperor for settlement. He decided in favor of the church, saying that it was better that God should be worshiped on that ground than that it should be given up to the cooks. Through such pronounced favor of the emperor, many Christians became connected with the imperial household, and bishops were received at court. When Maximin murdered the emperor Alexander, the Christians and the bishops to whom Eusebius refers were involved in the massacre. And this is the extent of Maximin’s persecution of the Christians.

Maximin was a barbarian who had risen from the condition of a Thracian peasant to the highest military command. When he was in humble circumstances, he had been slighted by the Roman nobles, and treated with insolence by their slaves; others had befriended him in his poverty, and had encouraged him in adversity. When he became emperor, he took vengeance on all alike, for all “were guilty of the same crime — the knowledge of his original obscurity. For this crime many were put to death; and by the execution of several of his benefactors, Maximin published, in characters of blood, the indelible history of his baseness and ingratitude.” — Gibbon. f84 Maximin was but little less than a wild beast in the shape of a man.

Knowing full well his own shameful inferiority, he was supremely suspicious of everybody else. Being so treacherous and so cruel himself, he was ready to believe that every distinguished person was guilty of treason. “Italy and the whole empire were infested with innumerable spies and informers.” Magnus, a principal senator, was accused of conspiracy. “Without a witness, without a trial, and without an opportunity of defense, Magnus with four thousand of his supposed accomplices, was put to death.... Confiscation, exile, or simple death were esteemed uncommon instances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunate sufferers he ordered to be sewed up in the hides of slaughtered animals, others to be exposed to wild beasts, others again to be beaten to death with clubs.” — Gibbon. f85 Such was the conduct of Maximin toward the Roman nobles. He next, at one single storke, confiscated all the treasure and all the revenue of all the cities of the empire, and turned them to his own use. The temples everywhere were robbed of all the gold and silver offerings; “and the statues of gods, heroes, and emperors were melted down, and coined into money.” In many places these robberies and exactions were resisted, the people defending the rights of their cities and the sacredness of their temples. In such cases massacres accompanied the robbery of the temples and the confiscation of the cities’ treasures.

Of Maximin’s treatment of the Christians, as of that of Domitian and Septimius Severus, it is but proper to remark that to separate this from all the other evidences of his cruelty, which were so wide-spread and continuous, magnifying this while ignoring all the rest — in order to bestow upon it the distinction of a “persecution” — bears too much evidence of an effort to make out a case, to be worthy of indorsement in any sober or exact history.

The next one in the list of the “Ten Persecutions” is that by the emperor — DECIUS, whose reign was but a little more than two years in length, from A.D. 249- 251. Decius was somewhat after the model of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius — devoted to Rome, her laws, and her institutions. His serious endeavor was to bring back the Roman discipline, and the Roman virtue of earlier times. Therefore, one of the earliest acts of his reign was to revive the office of censor. The choosing of the censor was left to the Senate, and as the result, Valerian was unanimously chosen. The speech which Decius made upon the investiture of Valerian with the insignia of his office, will enable the reader to form some estimate of the ideal which this emperor had formed for himself in the matter of government. He said: — “Happy Valerian, — happy in the general approbation of the Senate and of the Roman republic! Accept the censorship of mankind: and judge of our manners. You will select those who deserve to continue members of the Senate; you will restore the equestrian order to its ancient splendor; you will improve the revenue, yet moderate the public burdens. You will distinguish into regular classes the various and infinite multitude of citizens; and accurately review the military strength, the wealth, the virtue, and the resources of Rome. Your decisions shall obtain the force of laws.

The army, the palace, the ministers of justice, and the great officers of the empire, are all subject to your tribunal. None are exempted excepting only the ordinary consuls, the prefect of the city, the king of the sacrifices, and (as long as she preserves her chastity inviolate) the eldest of the vestal virgins. Even these few, who may not dread the severity, will anxiously solicit the esteem of the Roman censor.” — Gibbon. f86 With such views of the public needs and of his duty as emperor to restore the purity of the old Roman discipline, it could only be that the effects of his efforts would be first felt by the Christians, because by their denial of the gods and repudiation of the Roman religion and their denial of the right of the State to interfere with their religious exercise or profession, they were placed as the first of the enemies of the Roman people. In the year 250 the persecution began. Rigorous search was ordered for all the people who were suspected of refusing to conform to the Roman worship, with the object of compelling them to return to the exercise of the ceremonies of the Roman religion. When they were found, if they refused, threats were first to be used, and if that failed, torture was to be applied, and if that failed, death was to be inflicted.

The persecution began in Rome, and as there had been a long period of peace, many of the professed Christians had become worldly, and thought more of increasing their earthly possessions than of cultivating the Christian virtues. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, who lived at the time and was put to death only a few years afterward, says: — “Forgetful of what believers had either done before in the times of the apostles, or always ought to do, with the insatiable ardor of covetousness, devoted themselves to the increase of their property.” f87 Immediately upon the issuing of this edict, large numbers of these gave up their profession, whose ready compliance encouraged the emperor to suppose that it would be but an easy task entirely to suppress the Christian faith. Bishops themselves had set the people an example in worldly degeneracy, for says Cyprian of them: — “Among the priests there was no devotedness of religion; among the ministers there was no sound faith: in their works there was no mercy; in their manners their was no discipline. In men, their beards were defaced; in women, their complexion was dyed: the eyes were falsified from what God’s hand had made them; their hair was stained with a falsehood. Crafty frauds were used to deceive the hearts of the simple, subtle meanings for circumventing the brethren. They united in the bond of marriage with unbelievers; they prostituted the members of Christ to the Gentiles. They would swear not only rashly, but even more, would swear falsely; would despise those set over them with haughty swelling, would speak evil of one another with envenomed tongue, would quarrel with one another with obstinate hatred. Not a few bishops who ought to furnish both exhortation and example to others, despising their divine charge, became agents in secular business, forsook their throne deserted their people, wandered about over foreign provinces, hunted the markets for gainful merchandise, while brethren were starving in the church. They sought to possess money in hoards, they seized estates by crafty deceits, they increased their gains by multiplying usuries. — Cyprian. f88 Seeing then, that so many of the people had so readily renounced their profession, and believing that the influence of the bishops was to a large extent the cause of the existence and spread of Christianity, and seeing the character of many of them thus displayed, the efforts of Decius were first directed at these with the hope that if their influence was checked, it would be easy to restore the Roman worship. But it could not be made to succeed. If a bishop was imprisoned or banished, it only bound his flock closer to him; if he was put to death, by his example others were only encouraged to be the more faithful to their profession; and thus, although the persecution began with the bishops, it soon embraced the people; and although it had its beginning in Rome, it soon extended throughout the empire.

Thus began the first imperial persecution that there had been in the city of Rome since that of Nero, and the first one which really spread over the whole empire. Wherever the edict was published, the idea was always by mild measures first, if possible, to restore the Roman worship everywhere; and it was only when the milder measures failed, that the severer were employed, even to death. Being so wide-spread, the Decian persecution was thus the severest that had ever yet been inflicted upon the Christians by any emperor; yet it continued only about two years, for the emperor lost his life in a battle with the Goths in December, 251.

The author of the next of the “Ten Persecutions” was — VALERIAN, who became emperor in August, 253. At first he was favorable to the Christians. Indeed, Dionysius, as quoted by Eusebius, says that “never was there any of the emperors before him so favorably and benevolently disposed toward them;” that, “in the commencement of his reign” he “plainly received them with excessive civility and friendship;” and that the emperor’s house “was filled with pious persons, and was, indeed, a congregation of the Lord.” This is probably somewhat extravagant, but that the emperor was friendly to the Christians at the beginning of his reign, is very evident.

This leniency continued till the year 257, when his conduct toward them was reversed; but, like Decius, he hoped to put an end to Christianity without the employment of violent measures. He endeavored first to compel the church leaders, — the bishops, the presbyters, and the deacons, — to renounce Christianity, expecting that the people would follow their example. This failing, he next forbade their holding meetings; likewise failing in this, an edict was issued in 258 commanding them to be put to death at once. The senators and knights who were Christians, were to be deprived of their rank and property, and if they still persevered, they were to be beheaded. Women of rank who were Christians, were to be deprived of their property and banished. Sixtus, the Roman bishop, and four deacons of the church in Rome were put to death under this edict in August. This persecution came to an end in 260, when Valerian was taken prisoner by the king of Persia. He was succeeded in the empire by his son — GALLIENUS, who not only immediately put a stop to the persecution, but issued an edict which in effect recognized Christianity as among the lawful religions of the Roman empire, by commanding that the church property should be restored; for none but legally existing bodies could legally hold common property.

Yet this man who showed himself to be such a friend to the Christians as to make their religion legal, was very little behind Maximin in his cruelty to every one but the Christians. During his reign there arose nineteen usurpers in different parts of the empire, of whom there was not one “who enjoyed a life of peace or died a natural death.” Gallienus was so fortunate as to be successful over them all, yet their efforts kept the empire in a state of constant ferment, and the disposition of Gallienus toward all be gathered from a command that he issued with respect to one Ingenuus, who assumed the office of emperor in the province of Illyricum. When the revolt had been quelled, Gallienus wrote to his minister there these words: — “It is not enough that you exterminate such as have appeared in arms: the chance of battle might have served me as effectually. The male sex of every age must be extirpated; provided that, in the execution of the children and old men,you can contrive means to save our reputation. Let every one die who has dropped an expression, who has entertained a thought, against me, against me — the son of Valerian, the father and brother of so many princes.

Remember that Ingenuus was made emperor: tear, kill, hew in pieces. I write to you with my own hand, and would inspire you with my own feelings.” — Gibbon. f90 This being a sample of things in nineteen different parts of the empire, it will be seen that under Gallienus as under some of the others whom we have named, although the Christians were unmolested, they were about the only people in the empire who were so.

The next one in the list of the ten persecutors is — AURELIAN, who became emperor in A.D. 270. His persecution, like that of some of the others in the list, is a myth. So far from Aurelian’s being a persecutor or an enemy of the Christians, or one whom they dreaded, the bishops themselves appealed to him in one of their intestine controversies.

Paul of Samosata was Bishop of Antioch, and like many other bishops of his day, he assumed a style and an arrogance becoming an emperor of Rome rather than a servant of Christ. He was accused of heresy and tried by a council of bishops, who pronounced him deposed, and named another to be seated in his place. But, although they could easily enough pronounce him deposed, it was another thing to unseat him in fact. Paul held his bishopric in spite of them. The council then appealed to Aurelian to enforce their decree and compel Paul to vacate the bishopric. Aurelian refused to decide the question himself, but referred them to the Bishop of Rome, saying that whoever the bishops of Rome and Italy should decide to be the proper person, should have the office. They decided against Paul, and Aurelian compelled him to relinquish his seat. Afterward, however, in the last year of his reign, as it proved to be, Eusebius says that Aurelian was persuaded to raise persecution against the Christians, and the rumor was spread abroad everywhere; yet before any decree was issued, death overtook him. This is the history of Aurelian as one of the “Persecutors”, and this is the history of “the ninth persecution.”

The tenth persecution, that of Diocletian, was a persecution indeed. We shall not dwell upon it here, because it will have to be noticed fully in another place.

The evidence here presented, however, is sufficient to show that the story of the Ten Persecutions is a fable. That both events and names have been forced into service to make up the list of ten persecutions and to find among the Roman emperors ten persecutors, the history plainly shows.

The history shows that only five of the so-called ten persecutors can by any fair construction be counted such. These five were Nero, Marcus Aurelius, Valerian, Decius, and Diocletian. Of the other five Trajan not only added nothing to the laws already existing, but gave very mild directions for the enforcement of these, which abated rather than intensified the troubles of the Christians. It would be difficult to see how any directions could have been more mild without abrogating the laws altogether, which to Trajan would have been only equivalent to subverting the empire itself. Domitian was not a persecutor of the Christians as such, but was cruel to all people; and in common with others, some Christians suffered, and suffered only as did others who were not Christians. Septimius Severus only forbade any more people to become Christians without particularly interfering with such as were already Christians. The cruelty of Maximin, more bitter even than that of Domitian, involved all classes, and where it overtook Christians, that which befell them was but the common lot of thousands and thousands of people who were not Christians. Aurelian was not in any sense a persecutor of the Christians in fact. At the utmost stretch, he only contemplated it. Had he lived longer, he might have been a persecutor; but it is not honest to count a man a persecutor who at the most only intended to persecute. It is not fair in such a case to turn an intention into a fact.

Looking again at the record of the five who really were persecutors, it is found that from Nero to Marcus Aurelius was ninety-three years; that from Marcus Aurelius to Decius was eighty years; that from Decius to Valerian’s edict was six years; and that from the edict of Gallienus to Diocletian’s edict of persecution was forty-three years. From the record of this period, on the other hand, it is found that between Nero and Marcus Aurelius, Domitian and Vitellius raged; that between Marcus and Decius, the savage Commodus and Caracalla, and Elagabalus and Maximin, all ravaged the empire like wild boars a forest; and that next after Valerian came Gallienus.

From these facts it must be admitted that if the persecution of the Christians by Pagan Rome depended upon the action of the emperors, and if it is to be attributed to them, Christians had not much more to bear than had the generality of people throughout the empire. In short, the story of the “Ten Persecutions” is a myth.

CHAPTER 5.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

ALTHOUGH the tale of the “Ten Persecutions” is a myth, this is not by any means to pronounce as myths all stories of the persecution of Christians by Pagan Rome. Though there were not ten persecutions as such, there was one continuous persecution, only with variations, for two hundred and fifty years.

Nor is it strictly correct to speak of this as the persecution of Christians by the Romans. It was all this, it is true, but it was much more. The controversy between the Christians and the Romans was not a dispute between individuals, or a contention between sects or parties. It was a contest between antagonistic principles. It was, therefore, a contest between Christianityand Rome, rather than between Christians and Romans. On the part of Christianity it was the proclamation of the principle of genuine liberty; on the part of Rome it was the assertion of the principle of genuine despotism. On the part of Christianity it was the assertion of the principle of the rights of conscience and of the individual; on the part of Rome it was the assertion of the principle of the absolute absorption of the individual, and his total enslavement to the State in all things, divine as well as human, religious as well as civil This is detected by a mere glance again at the actions of the emperors whom we have named in the previous chapter. With the exception of Nero, the emperors who persecuted the Christians most, were among the best that Rome ever had; while those emperors who were the very worst, persecuted the Christians, as such, the least or not at all. Marcus Aurelius, indeed, is acknowledged not only to have been one of the best of the Roman emperors, but one of the best men of all pagan times; while on the other hand, Domitian, and Vitellius, and Commodus, and Caracalla, and Elagabalus, and Maximin, were not only the worst of Roman emperors, but among the worst of all men. While on the part of those emperors who persecuted the Christians it was not cruelty that caused them to do so; on the part of the others named who did not persecute the Christians as such, but who persecuted everybody indiscriminately, it was nothing but cruelty that caused them to do so. With the exception of Nero, it was invariably the best of the emperors who persecuted the Christians; and they invariably did it, not because they were cruel and delighted to see people suffer, but only by the enforcement of the laws which were already extant; by way of respect to institutions long established; and to preserve a system the fall of which, to them, meant the fall of the empire itself.

The best men naturally cared most for the Roman institutions and held as most sacred the majesty of Rome and the dignity of Roman law as the expression of that majesty. Being thus the most jealous of the Roman integrity and Roman institutions, any disregard of the majesty of Rome, or any infraction of the laws, would not be suffered by them to go unnoticed.

Christians, caring nothing for the majesty of Rome in view of the awful majesty of Jesus Christ, not only disregarded the Roman laws on the subject of religion, but asserted the right to disregard them; and held it to be the most sacred and heaven-enjoined duty to spread abroad these views to all people. Consequently, in the very nature of things, these would be the first ones to incur the displeasure of those emperors who held sacred the Roman institutions. On the other hand, those emperors who cared little or nothing for anything but the gratification of their appetites and passions, and the indulgence of their cruel propensities, cared little or nothing whether the Christians obeyed the laws or not. They themselves cared nothing for the laws, the manners, or the institutions of Rome, and they cared little whether other people cared for these things or not.

Jesus Christ came into the world to set men free, and to plant in their souls the genuine principle of liberty, — liberty actuated by love, — liberty too honorable to allow itself to be used as an occasion to the flesh, or for a cloak of maliciousness, — liberty led by a conscience enlightened by the Spirit of God, — liberty in which man may be free from all men, yet made so gentle by love that he would willingly become the servant of all, in order to bring them to the enjoyment of this same liberty. This is freedom indeed.

This is the freedom which Christ gave to man; for, whom the Son makes free is free indeed. In giving to men this freedom, such an infinite gift could have no other result than that which Christ intended; namely, to bind them in everlasting, unquestioning, unswerving allegiance to him as the royal benefactor of the race. He thus reveals himself to men as the highest good, and brings them to himself as the manifestation of that highest good, and to obedience to his will as the perfection of conduct. Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh. Thus God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, that they might know him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he sent. He gathered to himself disciples, instructed them in his heavenly doctrine, endued them with power from on high, sent them forth into all the world to preach this gospel of freedom to every creature, and to teach them to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded them.

The Roman empire then filled the world, — “the sublimest incarnation of power, and a monument the mightiest of greatness built by human hands, which has upon this planet been suffered to appear.” That empire, proud of its conquests, and exceedingly jealous of its claims, asserted its right to rule in all things, human and divine. In the Roman view, the State took precedence of everything. It was entirely out of respect to the State and wholly to preserve the State, that either the emperors or the laws ever forbade the exercise of the Christian religion. According to Roman principles, the State was the highest idea of good. “The idea of the State was the highest idea of ethics; and within that was included all actual realization of the highest good; hence the development of all other goods pertaining to humanity, was made dependent on this.” — Neander. f91 Man with all that he had was subordinated to the State; he must have no higher aim than to be a servant of the State; he must seek no higher good than that which the State could bestow. Thus every Roman citizen was a subject, and every Roman subject was a slave. “The more distinguished a Roman became, the less was he a free man. The omnipotence of the law, the despotism of the rule, drove him into a narrow circle of thought and action, and his credit and influence depended on the sad austerity of his life. The whole duty of man, with the humblest and greatest of the Romans, was to keep his house in order, and be the obedient servant of the State.” — Mommsen. f92 It will be seen at once that for any man to profess the principles and the name of Christ, was virtually to set himself against the Roman empire; for him to recognize God as revealed in Jesus Christ as the highest good, was but treason against the Roman State. It was not looked upon by Rome as anything else than high treason; because as the Roman State represented to the Roman the highest idea of good, for any man to assert that there was a higher good, was to make Rome itself subordinate. And this would not be looked upon in any other light by Roman pride than as a direct blow at the dignity of Rome, and subversive of the Roman State. Consequently the Christians were not only called “atheists,” because they denied the gods, but the accusation against them before the tribunals was of the crime of “high treason,” because they denied the right of the State to interfere with men’s relations to God. The common accusation against them was that they were “irreverent to the Caesars, and enemies of the Caesars and of the Roman people.”

To the Christian, the word of God asserted with absolute authority: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” Ecclesiastes 12:13. To him, obedience to this word through faith in Christ, was eternal life. This to him was the conduct which showed his allegiance to God as the highest good, — a good as much higher than that of the Roman State as the government of God is greater than was the government of Rome.

This idea of the State, was not merely the State as a civil institution, but as a divine institution, and the highest conception of divinity itself. The genius of Rome was the supreme deity. Thus the idea of the State as the highest good was the religious idea, and consequently religion was inseparable from the State. All religious views were to be held subordinate to the State, and all religion was only the servant of the State.

The Roman State being the chief deity, the gods of Rome derived their dignity from the State rather than the State deriving any honor from them.

And the genius of the Roman State being to the Roman mind the chief deity, as Rome had conquered all nations, it was demonstrated to the Roman mind that Rome was superior to all the gods that were known. And though Rome allowed conquered nations to maintain the worship of their national gods, these as well as the conquered people were considered only as servants of the Roman State. Every religion was held subordinate to the religion of Rome, and though “all forms of religion might come to Rome and take their places in its pantheon, they must come as the servants of the State.”

The State being the Roman’s conception of the highest good, Rome’s own gods derived all their dignity from the fact that they were recognized as such by the State. It was counted by the Romans an act of the greatest condescension and an evidence of the greatest possible favor to bestow State recognition upon any foreign gods, or to allow any Roman subject to worship any other gods than those which were recognized as such by the Roman State. A fundamental maxim of Roman legislation was, — “No man shall have for himself particular gods of his own; no man shall worship by himself any new or foreign gods, unless they are recognized by the public laws.” — Cicero. f93 Again: the Roman State being the supreme deity, the Senate and people were but the organs through which its ideas were expressed; hence the maxim, Vox populi, vox dei, — the voice of the people is the voice of god.

As this voice gave expression to the will of the supreme deity, and consequently of the highest good; and as this will was expressed in the form of laws; hence again the Roman maxim, “What the law says is right.”

It is very evident that in such a system there was no place for individuality.

The State was everything, and the majority was in fact the State. What the majority said should be, that was the voice of the State, that was the voice of God, that was the expression of the highest good, that was the expression of the highest conception of right; and everybody must assent to that or be considered a traitor to the State. The individual was but a part of the State.

There was therefore no such thing as the rights of the people; the right of the State only was to be considered, and that was to be considered absolute. “The first principle of their law was the paramount right of the State over the citizen. Whether as head of a family, or as proprietor, he had no natural rights of his own; his privileges were created by the law as well as defined by it. The State in the plenitude of her power, delegated a portion of her own irresponsibility to the citizen, who satisfied the conditions she required, in order to become the parent of her children; but at the same time she demanded of him the sacrifice of his free agency to her own rude ideas of political expediency.” — Mericale. f94 It is also evident that in such a system, there was no such thing as the rights of conscience; because as the State was supreme also in the realm of religion, all things religious were to be subordinated to the will of the State, which was but the will of the majority. And where the majority presumes to decide in matters of religion, there is no such thing as rights of religion or conscience. Against this whole system Christianity was diametrically opposed, — First, In its assertion of the supremacy of God; in the idea of God as manifested in Jesus Christ as the highest idea of good; in the will of God as expressed in his law as the highest conception of right; and in the fear of God and the keeping of his commandments as the whole duty of man.

Christ had set himself before his disciples as the one possessing all power in heaven and in earth. He had told them to go into all the world and teach to every creature all things whatsoever he had commanded them. Christ had said that the first of all the commandments, that which inculcates the highest and first of all duties, is “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” This put Jesus Christ above the State, and put allegiance to him above allegiance to the State; this denied the supremacy of Rome, and likewise denied that either the Roman gods were gods at all, or that the genius of Rome itself was in any sense a god.

Secondly, When the republic as represented by the Senate and people of Rome was merged in the imperial power, and the emperor became the embodiment of the State, he represented the dignity, the majesty, and the power of the State, and likewise, in that, represented the divinity of the State. Hence divinity attached to the Caesars.

Christianity was directly opposed to this, as shown by the word of Christ, who, when asked by the Pharisees and the Herodians whether it was lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not, answered: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” In this Christ established a clear distinction between Caesar and God, and between religion and the State. He separated that which pertains to God from that which pertains to the State. Only that which was Caesar’s was to be rendered to Caesar, while that which is God’s was to be rendered to God and with no reference whatever to Caesar.

The State being divine and the Caesar reflecting this divinity,l whatever was God’s was Caesar’s. Therefore when Christ made this distinction between God and Caesar, separated that which pertains to God from that which pertains to Caesar, and commanded men to render to God that which is God’s, and to Caesar only that which is Caesar’s, he at once stripped Caesar — the State — of every attribute of divinity. And in doing this he declared the supremacy of the individual conscience; because it is left with the individual to decide what things they are which pertain to God.

Thus Christianity proclaimed the right of the individual to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience, while Rome asserted the duty of every man to worship according to the dictates of the State.

Christianity asserted the supremacy of God; Rome asserted the supremacy of the State. Christianity set forth God as manifested in Jesus Christ as the chief good; Rome held the State to be the highest good. Christianity set forth the law of God as the expression of the highest conception of right; Rome held the law of the State to be the expression of the highest idea of right. Christianity taught that the fear of God and the keeping of his commandments is the whole duty of man; Rome taught that to be the obedient servant of the State is the whole duty of man. Christianity preached Christ as the sole possessor of power in heaven and in earth; Rome asserted the State to be the highest power. Christianity separated that which is God’s from that which is Caesar’s; Rome maintained that that which is God’s is Caesar’s.

This was the contest, and these were the reasons of it, between Christianity and the Roman empire.

Yet in all this Christianity did not deny to Caesar a place; it did not propose to undo the State. It only taught the State its proper place; and proposed to have the State take that place and keep it. Christianity did not dispute the right of the Roman State to be; it only denied the right of that State to be in the place of God. In the very words in which he separated between that which is Caesar’s and that which is God’s, Christ recognized the rightfulness of Caesar to be; and that there were things that rightfully belong to Caesar, and which were to be rendered to him by Christians. He said, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” In these words he certainly recognized that Caesar had jurisdiction in certain things, and that within that jurisdiction he was to be respected. As Caesar represented the State, in this scripture the phrase represents the State, whether it be the State of Rome or any other State on earth. This is simply the statement of the right of civil government to be; that there are certain things over which civil government has jurisdiction; and that in these things the authority of civil government is to be respected.

This jurisdiction is more clearly defined in Paul’s letter to the Romans 13:1-10. There it is commanded, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers.” In this is asserted the right of the higher powers — that is, the right of the State — to exercise authority, and that Christians must be subject to that authority. Further it is given as a reason for this, that “there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” This not only asserts the right of the State to be and to exercise authority, but it also asserts the truth that the State is an ordinance of God, and the power which it exercises is ordained of God. Yet in this very assertion Christianity was held to be antagonistic to Rome, because it put the God of the Christians above the Roman State, and made the State to be only an ordinance of the God of the Christians. For the Roman empire, or for any of the Roman emperors, to have recognized the truth of this statement would have been at once to revolutionize the whole system of civil and religious economy of the Romans, and to deny at once the value of the accumulated wisdom of all the generations of the Roman ages. Yet that was the only proper alternative of the Roman State, and that is what ought to have been done.

Civil government being thus declared to be of God, and its authority ordained of God, the instruction proceeds: “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.... Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.” Governments being of God, and their authority being ordained of God, Christians in respecting God will necessarily respect in its place, the exercise of the authority ordained by him; but this authority, according to the words of Christ, is to be exercised only in those things which are Caesar’s and not in things which pertain to God. Accordingly, the letter to the Romans proceeds, “For this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.” This connects Paul’s argument directly with that of Christ above referred to, and shows that this is but a comment on that statement, and an extension of the argument therein contained.

The scripture proceeds: “Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor. Owe no man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Let it be borne in mind that the apostle is here writing to Christians concerning the respect and duty which they are to render to the powers that be, that is, to the State in fact. He knew full well, and so did those to whom he wrote, that there are other commandments in the very law of which a part is here quoted. But he and they likewise knew that these other commandments do not in any way relate to any man’s duty or respect to the powers that be. Those other commandments of the law which is here partly quoted, relate to God and to man’s duty to him. One of them is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me;” another, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” etc.; another, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;” and another, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God,” etc.: and these are briefly comprehended in that saying, namely, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” According to the words of Christ, all these obligations, pertaining solely to God, are to be rendered to him only, and with man in this realm, Caesar can never of right have anything to do in any way whatever.

As, therefore, the instruction in Romans 13:1-10 is given to Christians concerning their duty and respect to the powers that be; and as this instruction is confined absolutely to man’s relationship to his fellow-men, it is evident that when Christians have paid their taxes, and have shown proper respect to their fellow-men, then their obligation, their duty, and their respect,to the powers that be,have been fully discharged, and those powers never can rightly have any further jurisdiction over their conduct.

This is not to say that the State has jurisdiction of the last six commandments as such. It is only to say that the jurisdiction of the State is confined solely to man’s conduct toward man, and never can touch his relationship to God, even under the second table of the law. This will be more fully discussed in a subsequent chapter.

This doctrine asserts the right of every man to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience, as he pleases, and when he pleases. Just this, however, was the subject of the whole controversy between Christianity and the Roman empire. There was never any honest charge made that the Christians did violence to any man, or refused to pay tribute.

The direct and positive instruction was not only that they should do no evil, but that they should speak no evil of any man; and that they practiced accordingly is shown by Pliny’s letter to Trajan concerning the Christians, in which he says that when they met and partook of that harmless meal, before they separated they pledged one another not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to do violence to any man. The Roman State never had any just charge to bring against the Christians in any of these respects. The charge was atheism, because they denied the gods, and high treason, because they denied the right of the State to rule in things pertaining to God. Therefore as a matter of fact the whole controversy between Christianity and the Roman empire was upon the simple question of the rights of conscience, — the question whether it is the right of every man to worship according to the dictates of his own conscience, or whether it is his duty to worship according to the dictates of the State.

This question was then as it always has been, very far-reaching. When the right was claimed to worship according to the dictates of conscience, in that was claimed the right to disregard all the Roman laws on the subject of religion, and to deny the right of the State to have anything whatever to do with the question of religion. But this, according to the Roman estimate, was only to bid defiance to the State and to the interests of society altogether. The Roman State, so intimately and intricately connected with religion, was but the reflection of the character of the Roman people, who prided themselves upon being the most religious of all nations, and Cicero commended them for this, because their religion was carried into all the details of life. “The Roman ceremonial worship was very elaborate and minute, applying to every part of daily life. It consisted in sacrifices, prayers, festivals, and the investigations, by auguries and haruspices, of the will of the gods and the course of future events. The Romans accounted themselves an exceedingly religious people, because their religion was so intimately connected with the affairs of home and State.... Thus religion everywhere met the public life of the Roman by its festivals, and laid an equal yoke on his private life by its requisition of sacrifices, prayers, and auguries. All pursuits must be conducted according to a system carefully laid down by the College of Pontiffs.... If a man went out to walk, there was a form to be recited; if he mounted his chariot, another.” — James Freeman Clarke. f95 But this whole system of religion was false. The gods which they worshiped were false gods. Their gods, in short were but reflections of themselves, and the ceremonies of worship were but the exercise of their own passions and lusts. Neither in their gods nor their worship was there a single element of good. Therefore upon it all Christianity taught the people to turn their backs. The Christian doctrine declared all these gods to be no gods, and all the forms of worship of the gods to be only idolatry, and a denial of the only true God — the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The games and all the festival days were affairs of state, and “were an essential part of the cheerful devotion of the pagans, and the gods were supposed to accept, as the most grateful offering, the games that the prince and people celebrated in honor of their peculiar festivals.” — Gibbon. f96 The festivities of the wedding and the ceremonies of the funeral were all conducted under the protection of the gods. More than this, “the number of the gods was as great as the number of the incidents in earthly life.” — Mommsen. The “pagan’s domestic hearth was guarded by the penates, or by the ancestral gods of his family or tribe. By land he traveled under the protection of one tutelar divinity, by sea of another; the birth, the bridal, the funeral, had each its presiding deity; the very commonest household utensils and implements were cast in mythological forms; he could scarcely drink without being reminded of making a libation to the gods.” — Milman. All this heathen ceremony Christianity taught the people to renounce, and every one did renounce it who became a Christian. But so intricately was the idolatry interwoven into all the associations of both public and private life, of both State and social action, that “it seemed impossible to escape the observance of them without at the same time renouncing the commerce of mankind and all the offices and amusements of society.” Yet with any of it true Christianity did not compromise.

Every Christian, merely by the profession of Christianity, severed himself from all the gods of Rome and everything that was done in their honor. He could not attend a wedding or a funeral of his nearest relatives, because every ceremony was performed with reference to the gods. He could not attend the public festival, for the same reason. Nor could he escape by absenting himself on such occasions, because on days of public festivity, the doors of the houses, and the lamps about them, and the heads of the dwellers therein, must all be adorned with laurel and garlands of flowers in honor of the licentious gods and goddesses of Rome. If the Christian took part in these services, he paid honor to the gods as did the other heathen. If he refused to do so, which he must do if he would obey God and honor Christ, he made himself conspicuous before the eyes of the people, all of whom were intensely jealous of the respect they thought due to the gods; and also in so refusing the Christians disobeyed the Roman law which commanded these things to be done.

All this subjected the Christian to universal hatred, and as the lawspositively forbade everything that the Christians taught both with reference to the gods and to the State, the forms of law furnished a ready channel through which this hatred found vent. This was the open way for the fury of the populace to spend itself upon the “deniers of the gods, and enemies of the Caesars and of the Roman people;” and this was the source of the persecution of Christianity by pagan Rome.

Before Christ was born into the world, Maecenas, one of the two chief ministers of Augustus, had given to that first of Roman emperors the following counsel, as embodying the principle which should characterize the imperial government: — “Worship the gods in all respects according to the laws of your country, and compel all others to do the same; but hate and punish those who would introduce anything whatever, alien to our customs in this particular; not alone for the sake of the gods, because whoever despises them is incapable of reverence for anything else; but because such persons, by introducing new divinities, mislead many to adopt also foreign laws.” f99 The Christians did refuse to worship the gods according to the laws, or in any other way; they did introduce that which was pre-eminently alien to all the Roman customs in this particular; they did despise the gods. In the presence of the purity, the goodness, and the inherent holiness of Jesus Christ, the Christians could have no other feeling than that of abhorrence for the wicked, cruel, and licentious gods of the heathen. And when from love for Christ they shrank in abhorrence from this idolatry, it only excited to bitter hatred the lovers of the licentious worship of the insensate gods; and, as above stated, there was the law, and there the machinery of the State, ready to be used in giving force to the religious enmity thus excited.

One of the ruling principles of law in the Roman State was this: — “Whoever introduces new religions, the tendency and character of which are unknown, whereby the minds of men may be disturbed, shall, if belonging to the higher rank, be banished; if to the lower, punished with death.” f100 Nothing could be more directly condemned by this law than was Christianity. 1. It was wholly a new religion, one never before heard of; it was not in any sense a national religion, but was ever announced as that which should be universal. Being so entirely new, in the nature of the case its tendency and character were unknown to the Roman mind. 2. Of all religions the world has ever known, Christianity appeals most directly to the minds of men. The first of all the commandments demanding the obedience of men declares, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind.” The law of God was set forth as the highest conception of right, and the letter to all the Christians in Rome said, “With the mind I myself serve the law of God.” Romans 7:25.

Again that same letter said, “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Romans 12:2. Again and again in the Christian writings this same idea was set forth, and it was all summed up in the saying of Christ to the woman of Samaria, “God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit;” thus setting God before the mind to be discerned only by the mind, and worshiped in a mental and spiritual conception only. 3. The Christians were almost wholly from the lower ranks. The common people heard Christ gladly; so also did they hear his gracious gospel from his disciples. There was yet a further disadvantage, however, in the position of the Christians. Christianity had sprung from among the Jews. It had been despised by the Jews. The Jews were viewed by the Romans as the most despicable of all people. Therefore, as the Christians were despised by the Jews, who were despised by the Romans, it followed that to the Romans the Christians were the despised of the despised. It was but the record of a literal fact which Paul wrote: “We are made as the filth of the world, and are the off scouring of all things unto this day.” Corinthians 4:13. The law declared that if those who did what the statute forbade belonged to the lower ranks, they were to be punished with death; and as the Christians were mostly from the lower ranks, death became the most common penalty incurred by the profession of Christianity.

There was yet another disadvantage. These laws had all been framed, and the system had been established, long before there were any Christians in the world. Therefore the teaching of the Christians, their practice, and their disregard of the Roman laws, appeared to the Romans in no other light than as an open insurrection against the government, and an attempt at the dissolution of society itself.

The persecution of the Christians, having its foundation principle in the system of laws and government of Rome, proceeded from four distinct causes and from four distinct sources.

First, from the populace. The Christians refused to pay any respect or honor whatever to the gods to whom the people were devoted in every act and relationship of life. They were charged at once with being atheists and enemies of the gods, and therefore of being the direct cause of all the calamities and misfortunes that might befall anybody from any source.

Everything in nature, as well as in the life of the individual, was presided over by some particular deity, and therefore whatever, out of the natural order, might happen in the course of the seasons or in the life of the individual, was held to be a token of the anger of the insulted gods, which was only to be appeased by the punishment of the Christians.

If the fall of rain was long delayed so that crops and pastures suffered, it was laid to the charge of the Christians. If when rain did come, there was too much so that the rivers overflowed and did damage, they charged this likewise to the Christians. If there was an earthquake or a famine, the Christians’ disrespect to the gods was held to be the cause of it. If an epidemic broke out, if there was an invasion by the barbarians, or if any public calamity occurred, it was all attributed to the anger of the gods, which was visited upon the State and the people on account of the spread of Christianity. For instance; Esculapius was the god of healing, and as late as the time of Diocletian, when a plague had spread far through the empire and continued a long time, Porphyry, who made strong pretensions to being a philosopher, actually argued that the reason why the plague could not be checked was that the spread of Christianity had destroyed the influence of Esculapius. When such things as this were soberly announced as the opinion of the wise, it can readily be understood how strong a hold the same superstition had upon the minds of the common heathen.

The turning away of individuals from the worship of the gods and their renouncing all respect for them, and holding as idolaters only those who would show respect to them, excited the most bitter feelings in the great mass of the people. When there was added to this the calamities and misfortunes that might befall, which were held to be but a manifestation of the anger of the gods, and their sympathy with the people in their antagonism to Christianity, — all these things tended only to deepen that feeling of bitterness and to inspire the populace with the idea that they were doing the will of the gods, and performing the most acceptable service, when they executed vengeance upon the offending Christians. And “when superstition has once found out victims, to whose guilt or impiety it may ascribe the divine anger, human revenge mingles itself with the relentless determination to propitiate offended heaven, and contributes still more to blind the judgment and exasperate the passions.” — Milman. f101a Nor was this resentment always confined to respect for the gods, but often private spite and personal animosities were indulged under cover of allegiance to the gods and respect to the laws. This was shown not only by prosecution before the magistrates, but by open riot and mob violence; and there was no lack of individuals to work upon the riotous propensities of the superstitiously enraged people. For instance, one Alexander of Abonoteichus, a magician, when he found that his tricks failed to excite the wonder that he desired, declared that the Pontus was filled with atheists and Christians, and called on the people to stone them if they did not want to draw down on themselves the anger of the gods. He went so far at last as never to attempt to give an exhibition until he had first proclaimed, “If any atheist, Christian, or Epicurean has slipped in here as a spy, let him be gone.”

The second source from which proceeded the persecution of the Christians was the priests and artisans. The priests had charge of the temples and sacrifices, by which they received their living and considerable profit besides. Pliny’s testimony, before quoted, plainly says that in his province “the temples were almost forsaken,” and of the sacrifices “very few purchasers had of late appeared.” The influence of Christianity reached much farther than to those who openly professed it. Many, seeing the Christians openly forsaking the gods, and refusing to offer sacrifices, would likewise, merely upon economical principles, stop making sacrifices in the temples. The priests and the traffickers in sacrificial offerings, seeing their gains falling off, were not slow in charging to the Christians the delinquency, were prompt to prosecute them before the tribunals, and were very diligent to secure the most rigid enforcement of the laws commanding sacrifice to the gods. From the same cause the artisans found their gains vanishing, through the diminished sale of carved and engraved images, amulets, etc. Upon which, like that Demetrius of the Scriptures who made silver shrines for Diana ( Acts 19:21-29), they became very zealous for the honor of the gods, and raised persecution against the disciples in order to restore the worship of the gods — and their own accustomed income.

A third source from which persecution arose was the governors of provinces. Some of these were of cruel and splenetic disposition, and, holding a personal animosity against the Christians, were glad of the opportunity to be the ministers of such laws as were of force against them.

Others who were totally indifferent to the merits of the question, yet who earnestly desired to be popular, were ready to take part with the people in their fanatical rage, and to lend their power and use their official influence against the Christians. Yet others who had no particular care for the worship of the gods, could not understand the Christians’ refusal to obey the laws.

The governors could see nothing in such a refusal to obey the law and perform the ceremonies therein prescribed, but what appeared to them to be blind, willful obstinacy and downright stubbornness. They regarded such willful disobedience to the law to be much more worthy of condemnation than even the disrespect to the gods. Such a one was Pliny, who said, “Let their confessions be of any sort whatever, this positiveness in inflexible obstinacy deserved to be punished.” Many of the governors “would sooner pardon in the Christians their defection from the worship of the gods, than their want of reverence for the emperors, in declining to take any part in those idolatrous demonstrations of homage which pagan flattery had invented, such as sprinkling their images with incense, and swearing by their genius.” — Neander. f102a Still others were disposed to be favorable to the Christians, to sympathize with them in their difficult positions, and to temper as far as possible the severity of the laws against them. And when the Christians were prosecuted before their tribunals, they would make personal appeals to induce them to make some concession, however slight, that would justify the governor in certifying that they had conformed to the law, so that he might release them, — not only from that particular accusation, but from any other that might be made.

Such governors would plead with the Christians to this effect, “I do not wish to see you suffer; I know you have done no real harm, but there stands the law. I am here as the representative of the empire to see that the laws are enforced. I have no personal interest whatever in this matter; therefore I ask you for my own sake that you will do some honor to the gods, however slight, whereby I may be relieved from executing this penalty and causing you to suffer. All that is required is that you shall worship the gods. Now your God is one of the gods; therefore what harm is there in obeying the law which commands to worship the gods without reference to any particular one? Why not say, ‘The Emperor our lord,’ and sprinkle a bit of incense toward his image? Merely do either of these two simple things, then I can certify that you have conformed to the law, and release you from this and all future prosecutions of the kind.”

When the Christian replied that he could not under any form or pretense whatever worship any other God than the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ; nor honor any other by any manner of offering; nor call the emperor lord in the meaning of the statute, then the governor, understanding nothing of what the Christian called conscience, and seeing all of what he considered the kindest possible offers counted not only as of no worth but even as a reproach, his proffered mercy was often turned into wrath. He considered such a refusal only an evidence of open ingratitude and obstinacy, and that therefore such a person was unworthy of the slightest consideration. He held it then to be only a proper regard for both the gods and the State to execute to the utmost the penalty which the law prescribed.

Another thing that made the action of the Christians more obnoxious to the Roman magistrates, was not only their persistent disregard for the laws touching religion, but their assertion of the right to disregard them. And this plea seemed the more impertinent from the fact that it was made by the despised of the despised.

The fourth source from which persecution came to the Christians was the emperors. Yet until Christianity had become so wide-spread as to attract the attention of the emperor, there was no general persecution from this source. The first persecution by the direct instigation of the emperors was that inflicted by Nero. With this exception, the persecution of the Christians by the emperors was solely as the representatives of the State, to maintain the authority of the State and the dignity of her laws; and to preserve the State from the certain ruin which they supposed to be threatened from Christianity. This explains why it was that only the best of the emperors persecuted the Christians, as such.

In the emperor was merged the State. He alone represented the divinity of the Roman State. The Christians’ refusal to recognize in him that divinity or to pay respect to it in any way, was held to be open disrespect to the State. The Christians’ denial of the right of the State to make or enforce any laws touching religion or men’s relationship to God, was counted as an undermining of the authority of government. As it was held that religion was essential to the very existence of the State, and that the State for its own sake, for its own self-preservation, must maintain proper respect for religion; when Christianity denied the right of the State to exercise any authority or jurisdiction whatever in religious things, it was held to be but a denial of the right of the State to preserve itself.

Therefore when Christianity had become quite generally spread throughout the empire, it seemed to such emperors as Marcus Aurelius, Decius, Valerian, and Diocletian — emperors who most respected Roman institutions — that the very existence of the empire was at stake.

Consequently their opposition to Christianity was but an effort to save the State, and was considered by them as the most reasonable and laudable thing in the world. And it was only as a matter of State policy that they issued edicts or emphasized those already issued for the suppression of Christianity. In making or enforcing laws against the Christians it was invariably the purpose of these emperors to restore and to preserve the ancient dignity and glory of the Roman State. In an inscription by Diocletian, it is distinctly charged that by Christianity the State was being overturned, and his views on this subject are seen in the following extract from one of his edicts: — “The immortal gods have, by their providence, arranged and established what is right. Many wise and good men are agreed that this should be maintained unaltered. They ought not to be opposed.

No new religion must presume to censure the old, since it is the greatest of crimes to overturn what has been once established by our ancestors, and what has supremacy in the State.” F102aa This is further shown by the following words from the edict of Galerius putting a stop to the persecution of Christianity: — “Among other matters which we have devised for the benefit and common advantage of our people, we have first determined to restore all things according to the ancient laws and the public institutions of the Romans. And to make provision for this, that also the Christians, who have left the religion of their fathers, should return again to a good purpose and resolution.” f103a With persecution proceeding from these four sources, it is evident that from the day that Christ sent forth his disciples to preach the gospel, the Christians were not certain of a moment’s peace. It might be that they could live a considerable length of time unmolested; but yet they were at no time sure that it would be so, because they were subject at all times to the spites and caprices of individuals and the populace, and at any hour of the day or night any Christian was liable to be arrested and prosecuted before the tribunals, or to be made the butt of the capricious and violent temper of the heathen populace.

Yet to no one of these sources more than another, could be attributed the guilt or the dishonor of the persecution, because each one was but the inevitable fruit of that system from which persecution is inseparable. The theory which attaches blame to the emperors as the persecutors of the Christians is a mistaken one, because the emperor was but the representative, the embodiment, of the State itself. The State of Rome was a system built up by the accumulated wisdom of all the Roman ages; and to expect him whose chief pride was that he was a Roman, and who was conscious that it was the highest possible honor to be a Roman emperor — to expect such a one to defer to the views of a new and despised sect of religionists whose doctrines were entirely antagonistic to the entire system of which he was a representative, would be to expect more than Roman pride would bear. As the case stood, to have done such a thing, would have been to make himself one of the despised sect, or else the originator of another one, worthy only, in the eyes of the populace, of the same contempt as these. Of course we know now that the emperors should have done just that thing, and they were told then that they ought to do it, but the fact is nevertheless that Roman pride would not yield. Nor is this the only case of the kind in the history of Christianity.

The theory that would make the governors responsible is likewise a mistaken one, because the governors were simply the officers of the State set over a particular province to conduct the affairs of the government and to maintain the laws. It was not in their power to set aside the laws, although as we have seen, some of them even went as far as possible in that direction rather than cause the Christians to suffer by enforcing the law.

The only theory that will stand the test at all is that which places upon the priests and the people the guilt of the persecutions. They were the ones who did it from real bitterness of the persecuting spirit. And yet to attach all the blame to these, would be a mistake, because it would have been impossible for them to persecute had it not been for the system of government of which they were a part.

Had the State been totally separated from religion, taking no cognizance of it in any way whatever; had the State confined itself to its proper jurisdiction, and used its power and authority to compel people to be civil and to maintain the public peace, it would have been impossible for either people, priests, governors, or emperors, to be persecutors. Had there been no laws on the subject of religion, no laws enforcing respect for the gods, nor prohibiting the introduction of new religions, — even though religious controversies might have arisen, and having arisen even had they engendered bitter controversies and stirred up spiteful spirits, — it would have been impossible for any party to do any manner of wrong to another.

Instead of this, however, the Roman government was a system in which religion was inseparable from the State — a system in which the religion recognized was held as essential to the very existence of the State; and the laws which compelled respect to this religion were but the efforts of the State at self-preservation. Therefore there was a system permanently established, and an instrument formed, ready to be wielded by every one of these agencies to persecute the professors of that religion.

Except in cases of the open violence of the mob, all that was done in any instance by any of the agencies mentioned, was to enforce the law. If the Christians had obeyed the laws, they never would have been persecuted.

But that was the very point at issue. It was not right to obey the laws. The laws were wrong. To obey the laws was to cease to be a Christian. To obey the laws was to dishonor God and to deny Christ. To obey the laws was to consent that mankind should be deprived of the blessing of both civil and religious liberty, as well as to forfeit for themselves eternal life.

If religion be properly a matter of State, and rightfully a subject of legislation, then there never was any such thing as persecution of the Christians. And what is more, there never has been in all history any such thing as persecution on account of religion. If religion be properly a subject of legislation and of law, then it is the right of the State to make any laws it may choose on the subject of religion; and it is its right to attach to these laws whatever penalty will most surely secure proper respect for the religion chosen. And if the legislation be right, if the law be right, the enforcement of the law under whatever penalty cannot be wrong.

Consequently if religion be properly a matter of the State, of legislation, and of law, there never was and there never can be any such thing as persecution on account of religion or for conscience’ sake.

From all these evidences it is certain that the real blame and the real guilt of the persecution of the Christians by the Roman empire lay in the pagan theory of State and government — the union of religion and the State. This was the theory of the State, and the only theory that then held sway, and this necessarily embodied both a civil and a religious despotism. And as Jesus Christ came into the world to set men free and to plant in their hearts and minds the genuine principles of liberty, it was proper that he should command that this message of freedom, and this principle of liberty, should be proclaimed in all the world to every creature, even though it should meet with the open hostility of earth’s mightiest power. And proclaim it his disciples did, at the expense of heavy privations and untold sufferings. “Among the authentic records of pagan persecutions, there are histories which display, perhaps more vividly than any other, both the depth of cruelty to which human nature may sink, and the heroism of resistance it may attain.... The most horrible recorded instances of torture were usually inflicted, either by the populace or in their presence in the arena. We read of Christians bound in chairs of red-hot iron, while the stench of their half-consumed flesh rose in a suffocating cloud to heaven; of others who were torn to the very bone by shells or hooks of iron; of holy virgins given over to the lust of the gladiator, or to the mercies of the pander; of two hundred and twenty-seven converts sent on one occasion to the mines, each with the sinews of one leg severed by a red-hot iron, and with an eye scooped from its socket; of fires so slow that the victims writhed for hours in their agonies; of bodies torn limb from limb, or sprinkled with burning lead; of mingled salt and vinegar poured over the flesh that was bleeding from the rack; of tortures prolonged and varied through entire days. For the love of their divine Master, for the cause they believed to be true, men, and even weak girls, endured these things without flinching, when one word would have freed them from their sufferings. No opinion we may form of the proceedings of priests in a later age, should impair the reverence with which we bend before the martyr’s tomb.” — Lecky. f104a All this was endured by men and women, and even weak girls, that people in future ages might be free — free to worship according to the dictates of their own consciences — free both civilly and religiously. All this was endured in support of the principle that with religion civil government can of right have nothing to do. Yet for two hundred and fifty years this contest continued. On one side was the poor and despised, on the other the rich and the honored. On one side was the apparently weak, yet really strong; on the other the apparently powerful, yet really weak. On one side was a new doctrine sustained by no earthly power, and without recognition; on the other side was a system which was the outgrowth of ages, and supported by all the resources of the mightiest empire that the world had ever known. Yet it was the conflict of truth and right against error and wrong, of the power of God against the power of the Roman State; and it was bound to conquer. Two hundred and fifty years this contest continued, and then as the outcome of the longest, the most widespread, and the most terrible persecution that ever was inflicted by the Roman State, that empire was forced officially to recognize the right of every man to worship as he pleased. Thus was Christianity acknowledged to be victorious over all the power of Rome. The rights of conscience were established, and the separation of religion and the State was virtually complete.

Whatever men may hold Christianity to be, however they may view it, whether as the glorious reality that it is, or only a myth; whether as the manifestation of the truth of God, or only an invention of men; — it never can be denied that from Christianity alone the world received that inestimable boon, the rights of conscience; and the principle — invaluable alike to religion, the State, and the individual — of the absolute, complete, and total separation between the civil and the religious powers.

It never can be denied that Christianity was in the Roman empire in the first and second centuries as really as it ever was at any time afterward. Marcus Aurelius, Suetonius, Hadrian, Tactius, Tacitus, and Pliny, all give the most unexceptionable testimony that it was there. And just as certainly as it was there, so certainly did it proclaim the right of men to worship according to the dictates of their own consciences, and that the State has not of right anything to do with religion. And so certainly was there a prolonged and terrible contest upon this issue. Therefore those who object to Christianity while advocating the rights of conscience, and opposing a union of religion and the State, contradict themselves and undermine the foundation upon which they stand. Christianity is the glorious original of the rights of conscience and of the individual. Jesus Christ was the first to announce it to the world; and his disciples were the first to proclaim it to all men, and to maintain it in behalf of all men in all future ages. George Bancroft states the literal truth when he says: — “No one thought of vindicating religion for the conscience of the individual, till a voice in Judea, breaking day for the greatest epoch in the life of humanity, by establishing a pure, spiritual, and universal religion for all mankind, enjoined to render to Caesar only that which is Caesar’s. The rule was upheld during the infancy of the gospel for all men.” f105a Therefore it is not too much to repeat that, from Christianity alone the world has received that inestimable boon, the rights of conscience; and the principle invaluable alike to religion, the State, and the individual — of the absolute, complete, and total separation between the civil and the religions powers.

Yet this victory of Christianity over Pagan Rome was no sooner won, and the assured triumph of Christianity was no sooner at hand, than ambitions bishops and political priests perverted it and destroyed the prospect of all its splendid fruit. They seized upon the civil power, and by making the State the servant of the church, established a despotism as much more cruel than the one which had just been conquered, as the truth which was thus perverted was higher, nobler, and more glorious than the evil system which had been established in the blindness and error of paganism.

The system which had been conquered was that in which the State recognizes and makes use of religion only for its political value, and only as the servant of the State. This was paganism, and such a system is pagan wherever found. The system which was established by the perversion of Christianity and the splendid victory that it had won, was a system in which the State is made the servant of the church, and in which the power of the State is exercised to promote the interests of the church. This was the papacy And to tell the history of the perversion of Christianity, and the establishment, and the support, of the papal despotism, is the purpose of the following chapters of this book.

CHAPTER 6.

THE RISE OF CONSTANTINE.

DURING the eighty years occupied for the most part by the “dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid, inhuman Domitian,” “Rome groaned beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient families of the republic and was fatal to almost every virtue, and every talent, that arose in that unhappy period.” — Gibbon f101 This dreary scene was relieved by a respite of eighty-four years through the successful reigns of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius; only to be opened up again by Commodus, A.D. 180, and to continue unrelieved for more than one hundred years. It is useless to pursue the subject in detail. Of this period it may be remarked as of one before, that to attempt to follow it in detail, would be only “to record the mandates of despotism, incessant accusations, faithless friendships, the ruin of innocence; one unvarying repetition of causes terminating in the same event, and presenting no novelty from their similarity and tiresome reiteration.” — Tacitus f102 The inroads of the barbarians obliged the legions to be always stationed on the frontier of the empire, all the way from the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube. Emperors were made and unmade by the soldiers according to their own caprice, many of whom never saw the capital of their empire; and the office was one so certainly to be terminated by murder that although from Commodus to Constantine there were sixty men named as emperor, only seven died a natural death; two — Decius and Valerian — perished by the enemy; and all the rest were murdered in the internal strifes of the failing empire.

DIOCLETIAN, the commander of the imperial body-guard, was proclaimed emperor by the troops September 17, 285. He organized system by which he wished to give to the office of emperor a tenure more secure than that allowed by the licentious caprice of the soldiery. He reigned alone only about six months, when — April 1, A.D. 286 — he associated with himself in the office of emperor, Maximian. Six years afterward, March 1, A.D. 292, he named two other associates, Galerius and Constantius, though in inferior stations.

Diocletian and Maximian each bore the title of Augustus, while Galerius and Constantius each bore that of Caesar. Both these Caesars were already married, but each was obliged to put away his wife and be adopted as a son, and marry a daughter, of one of the Augusti. Galerius was adopted as the son of Diocletian, and married his daughter; Constantius as the son of Maximian, and married his step-daughter. The empire was then divided into four principal parts, each to be governed by one of the four emperors.

Diocletian retained as his part, Thrace, Egypt and Asia. To Maximian was given Italy and Africa. Upon Galerius was bestowed what was known as the Illyrian provinces, bounded by Thrace, the Adriatic, the Danube, the Alps, and the Rhine; while to Constantius fell all that was west of the Rhine and the Alps; namely, Gaul, Spain, and Britain.

It appears to have been Diocletian’s intention that whenever the place of either of the two Augusti became vacant, it should be filled by one of the Caesars, whose place in turn should be filled by a new appointment, thus securing a permanent, peaceful, and steady succession to the imperial authority. Nor did the division and distribution of the offices stop here. It was extended in regular gradation to the smallest parts of the empire.

Diocletian fixed his capital at Nicomedia; and Maximian his at Milan, which under his care assumed the splendor of an imperial city. “The houses are described as numerous and well built; the manners of the people as polished and liberal. A circus, a theater, a mint, a palace, baths, which bore the name of their founder Maximian; porticoes adorned with statues, and a double circumference of walls contributed to the beauty of the new capital.... By the taste of the monarch, and at the expense of the people, Nicomedia acquired, in the space of a few years, a degree of magnificence which might appear to have required the labor of ages, and became inferior only to Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch, in extent or populousness.” — Gibbon And with the exception of the short reign of Maxentius, from the day when these two emperors made these two cities their capitals, no emperor ever dwelt in Rome.

Diocletian and Maximian also established each a court and a ceremonial modeled upon that of the king of Persia. Whoever would address the emperor must pass a succession of guards and officers, and “when a subject was at last admitted to the imperial presence, he was required, whatever might be his rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore according to the eastern fashion, the divinity of his lord and master.” The two emperors assumed not exactly crowns, but diadems, the first that had been worn by Romans since the abolition of the kingly office. “The sumptuous robes of Diocletian and his successors were of silk and gold, and it is remarked with indignation, that even their shoes were studded with precious stones.”

It is, however, as the author of the last and most terrible persecution of Christianity by Pagan Rome — the last effort of the pagan State against the freedom of thought and of worship taught by Christianity — that Diocletian is chiefly known to the world, though strictly speaking he was not the author of it.

Diocletian and Constantius were both friendly to the Christians, and had many professed Christians in public offices. In considerable numbers they were employed in Diocletians’s palace; but Galerius and Maximian were savagely opposed to every form of the Christian name. Galerius urged upon Diocletian the issuing of a decree condemning Christianity. Diocletian hesitated, but agreed to prohibit any Christian from holding any public office or employment, and spoke strongly against the shedding of blood.

Galerius persuaded him to allow the calling of a council of the officers of the State, the outcome of which was that on February 24, A.D. 303, a “general edict of persecution was published; and though Diocletian, still averse to the effusion of blood, had moderated the fury of Galerius, who proposed that every one refusing to offer sacrifice should immediately be burnt alive, the penalty inflicted on the obstinacy of the Christians might be deemed sufficiently rigorous and effectual. “It was enacted that their churches in all provinces of the empire should be demolished to their foundations, and the punishment of death was denounced against all who should presume to hold any secret assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of directing the blind zeal of persecution, had diligently studied the nature and genius of the Christian religion; and as they were not ignorant that the speculative doctrines of the faith were supposed to be contained in the writings of the prophets, of the evangelists, and of the apostles, they most probably suggested the order that the bishops and the presbyters should deliver all their sacred books into the hands of the magistrates, who were commanded under the severest penalties, to burn them in a public and solemn manner. By the same edict the property of the church was at once confiscated; and the several parts of which it might consist, were either sold to the highest bidder, united to the imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. “After taking such effectual measures to abolish the worship and to dissolve the government of the Christians, it was thought necessary to subject to the most intolerable hardships the condition of those perverse individuals who should still reject the religion of nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons of a liberal birth were declared incapable of holding any honors or employments; slaves were forever deprived of the hopes of freedom, and the whole body of the people were put out the their protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to determine every action that was brought against a Christian. But the Christians were not permitted to complain of any injury which they themselves had suffered; and thus those unfortunate secretaries were exposed to the severity, while they were excluded from the benefits, of public justice.” — Gibbon f104 The attack upon the church buildings began the day before this decree was published. Then, “at the earliest dawn of day, the praetorian praefect, accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and officers of the revenue, repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia, which was situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful part of the city. The doors were instantly broke open; they rushed into the sanctuary; and they searched in vain for some visible object of worship, they were obliged to content themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of Holy Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by a numerous body of guards and pioneers, who marched in order of battle, and were provided with all the instruments used in the destruction of fortified cities. By their incessant labor, a sacred edifice which towered above the imperial palace, and had long excited the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was in a few hours leveled with the ground.” — Gibbon f105 The decree had hardly been posted up in the most public place in Nicomedia, when a professed Christian, whose zeal outran his good sense, pulled it down, and tore it to pieces. It had been now more than forty years since the decree of Gallienus had legally recognized Christianity. In this time of peace the churches had become filled with a mass of people who were Christians only in name. Large church buildings were built in all parts of the empire. The genuine faith and discipline of the church had been seriously relaxed long before that, and now in this time of peace, and through the vast numbers that united themselves with the name of the Christianity, there came the natural result — violent contention and ambitious aspirations. Quite a striking picture of the churches in this time is given us in the following extract, by one who was there at the time: — “When by reason of excessive liberty, we sunk into negligence and sloth, one envying and reviling another in different ways, and we were almost, as it were, on the point of taking up arms against each other and were assailing each other with words as with darts and spears, prelates inveighing against prelates, and people rising up against people, and hypocrisy and dissimulation had arisen to the greatest height of malignity, then the divine judgment which usually proceeds with a lenient hand, whilst the multitudes were yet crowding into the church,with gentle and mild visitations began to afflict its episcopacy, the persecution having begun with those brethren that were in the army. But as if destitute of all sensibility, we were not prompt in measures to appease and propitiate the Deity; some, indeed, like atheists, regarding our situation as unheeded and unobserved by a providence we added one wickedness and misery to another. But some that appeared to be our pastors, deserting the law of piety, were inflamed against each other with mutual strifes, only accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalship, hostility and hatred to each other, only anxious to assert the government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves.” — Eusebius. f106 When the decree was issued for the abolition of Christianity, vast multitudes of these formal professors turned back again with the same readiness and with the same selfish motives with which they had joined the church; and as is always the case, their easy rejection of the faith made the persecution so much the more severe upon those refusing to yield.

Within fifteen days after the publication of the edict, a fire broke out twice in the emperor’s palace at Nicomedia, and although it was quenched both times without doing any material damage, as it was attributed to the resentment of the Christians, it caused their suffering to be yet more severe. “At first, indeed, the magistrates were restrained from the effusion of blood; but the use of every other severity was permitted, and even recommended to their zeal; nor could the Christians, though they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of their churches, resolve to interrupt their religious assemblies, or to deliver their sacred books to the flames.” — Gibbon f107 As they refused to discontinue their meetings or to burn the Scriptures, another edict was shortly passed, commanding that all the bishops, presbyters, readers, and exorcists should be punished. Another edict soon followed, commanding the magistrates everywhere to compel all these to renounce the Christian faith and return to the worship of the gods by offering the appointed sacrifice. This again was soon followed by an edict, the fourth in the series, including the whole body of the Christians within the provisions of the edicts which had preceded. Heavy penalties were pronounced against all who should attempt to shield the Christians from the force of the edicts. “Many were burnt alive, and the tortures by which the persecutors sought to shake their resolution were so dreadful that even such a death seemed an act of mercy. The only province of the empire where the Christians were at peace was Gaul, which had received its baptism of blood under Marcus Aurelius, but was now governed by Constantius Chlorus, who protected them from personal molestation, though he was compelled,in obedience to the emperor, to destroy their churches. In Spain, which was also under the government, but not under the direct inspection of Constantius, the persecution was moderate, but in all other parts of the empire it raged with fierceness, till the abdication of Diocletian in 305. This event almost immediately restored peace to the western province, but greatly aggravated the misfortunes of the Eastern Christians, who passed under the absolute rule of Galerius. Horrible, varied and prolonged tortures were employed to quell their fortitude, and their final resistance was crowned by the dreadful of all deaths, roasting over a slow fire. “It was not till A.D. 311, eight years after the commencement of the general persecution, ten years after the first measure against the Christians, that the Eastern persecution ceased. Galerius, the archenemy of the Christians, was struck down by a fearful disease.

His body, it is said became a mass of loathsome and fetid sores — a living corpse, devoured by countless worms, and exhaling the odor of a charnel-house. He who had shed so much innocent blood, shrank himself from a Roman death. In his extreme anguish he appealed in turn to physician after physician, and to temple after temple. At last he relented towards the Christians. He issued a proclamation restoring them to liberty, permitting them to rebuild their churches, and asking their prayers for his recovery.” — Leaky. f108 The edict of Galerius here referred to was as follows: — “Among the important cares which have occupied our mind for the utility and preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct and re-establish all things according to the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of reclaiming, into the way of reason and nature, the deluded Christians, who had renounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their fathers; and presumptuously despising the practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected a various society from the different provinces of our empire. “The edicts which we have published to enforce the worship of the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to danger and distress, many having suffered death, and many more who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of any public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit them therefore freely to profess their private opinions and to assemble in their conventicles without fear or molestation, provided always that they preserve a due respect to the established laws of government. By another rescript we shall signify our intentions to the judges and magistrates, and we hope that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their prayers to the deity whom they adore, for our safety and prosperity, for their own, and for that of the republic.” f109 Shortly after Diocletian issued the last of the four edicts against Christianity and in the twenty-second year of his reign, he abdicated the empire, May 1, A.D. 305. By previous arrangement Maximian on his part also abdicated the imperial authority at his palace in Milan. “The abdication of Diocletian and Maximian was succeeded by eighteen years of discord and confusion. The empire was afflicted by five civil wars; and the remainder of the time was not so much a state of tranquillity as a suspension of arms between several hostile monarchs who, viewing each other with an eye of fear and hatred, strove to increase their respective forces at the expense of their subjects.” — Gibbon. f110 Galerius and Constantius immediately succeeded to the places of these two, each assuming the title of Augustus. Galerius at once assumed to himself the authority to appoint the two Caesars, without waiting to consult Constantius. As a matter of course he appointed those whom he could use to promote his own ambitious designs to secure to himself the supreme authority in the empire. One of these was his own nephew, Maximin, who was given command of Syria and Egypt. The other was one of his own subordinate officers, Severus, who was sent to Milan to succeed Maximian.

Thus Galerius virtually held control of three fourths of the empire, and only waited a good opportunity to lay claim to the rest. This opportunity he supposed was given him when, July 25, A.D. 306, Constantius died in Britain; but he was disappointed, for as soon as Constantius was dead, the army proclaimed Constantine Augustus and emperor, and a messenger was sent to Galerius to announce to him the fact. Such a proceeding had not been included in his plans, and Galerius threatened to burn both the letter and the messenger who brought it. Constantine, however, at the head of the legions of Britain, was in a position not to be despised. Galerius, therefore decided to make the best of the situation. He recognized Constantine as the successor of Constantius in that division of the empire, with the title of Caesar, but fourth in rank, while he raised Severus to the dignity of Augustus.

Just at this time there was another important move upon the stage of action. The people of the city of Rome were greatly offended at the action of Diocletian in removing the capital, and Galerius now took step that deepened their sense of injury. A general census was begun to list all the property of the Roman citizens for the purpose of levying a general tax.

Wherever there was any suspicion of concealment of any property, the citizen was tortured to compel an honest statement of his possessions.

Rome had been exempt from taxation for nearly five hundred years, and when the census takers began their work there, the injury which the people felt that they had already suffered by the removal of their capital, was so deepened, that they broke out into open revolt, and proclaimed Maxentius emperor, October 28, A.D. 306. Maxentius was the son of Maximian. “The praefect of the city and a few magistrates, who maintained their fidelity to Severus, were massacred by the guards; and Maxentius, invested with the imperial ornaments, was acknowledged by the applauding Senate and people as the protector of the Roman freedom and dignity.” — Gibbon. f111 At the invitation of Maxentius and the Senate, Maximian gladly left his place of retirement, and again assumed the position of associate emperor.

Galerius ordered Severus, who was stationed at Milan, to march to Rome and put down this rebellion. But when he reached the city, he found it so well fortified and defended against him that he dared not attack it. Besides this, a large number of his troops deserted him to their old commander Maximian, and he was compelled, if he would save his life, to march back again as fast as he could. He stopped at Ravenna, which was strongly fortified, and where he had a large fleet. Maximian soon came up and began a seige. Severus had found so little favor among the people of Italy, and had been deserted by so large number of his troops, that Maximian found it an easy task to convince him that there was a plan formed by the city of Ravenna also, to betray him and deliver him up. By this means, and the positive assurance that his life would be preserved, Severus was persuaded to surrender. But no sooner was the city secured, than he found that the only liberty that was left him was to kill himself.

February A.D. 307, Maximian went to Milan, took possession of his former capital, and without waiting, crossed the Alps to meet Constantine, who was then at Arles in Gaul. March 31 an alliance was formed.

Constantine married Maximian’s daughter Fausta, and Maximian gave him the title of Augusts. Galerius himself now undertook to punish the Romans for their rebellion; but his experience was identical with that of Severus, only that he was fortunate enough to escape with his life and some of his troops. In his retreat, the enmity of the Romans was yet more deepened by the desolation which his legions left in their train. “They murdered, they ravished, they plundered, they drove away the flocks and herds of the Italians; they burnt the villages through which they passed and they endeavored to destroy the country which it had not been in their power to subdue.” — Gibbon f112 Galerius, not willing to recognize either Maxentius or Maximian, appointed Licinius to the office of Augustus, November 11, 307, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Severus. Maximin, governor of Syria and Egypt, with the title of Caesar, no sooner heard of the appointment of Licinius to the title of Augustus, than he demanded of Galerius the same honor; and the demand was made in a tone which in the existing condition of things Galerius was compelled to respect. Thus at the beginning of the year 308, “for the first, and indeed for the last, time the Roman world was administered by six emperors.” — Gibbon. f113 It was not however the purpose of these six emperors to administer the Roman world together. Each one was determined to administer it alone.

Each one was jealous of all the others, and narrowly watched them all, ready instantly to grasp and make the most of whatever opportunity might present itself. The first two of the emperors between whom this mutual jealousy produced an open quarrel, were Maximian and Maxentius.

Maxentius refused to acknowledge himself subordinate to his father, and his father insisted that it was by his ability as a commander that Maxentius was made secure in his claim to the dignity of emperor. The difference between them was submitted to the troops for decision. They decided in favor of Maxentius. Maximian left his son and Italy, and went to his son-inlaw Constantine, in Gaul, and there a second time he abdicated the imperial dignity; but only that he might the more securely contrive new mischiefs.

Not long afterward an invasion of the Franks called Constantine and his troops to the Rhine north of the Moselle. A report of the death of Constantine was hastily seized upon by Maximian as the truth, and he assumed the position of emperor; took the money from Constantine’s treasury, and distributed it among the soldiers; and began overtures for an alliance with Maxentius. Constantine heard of Maximian’s movements; marched quickly from the Rhine to the Saone; took some boats at Chalons; and with his legions so unexpectedly arrived at Arles that Maximian considered it his only safety to take refuge in Marseilles. Constantine followed and attacked the city. The garrison gave up Maximian, who, like Severus, was allowed the choice of killing himself or of being put to death.

Galerius died in the month of May, A.D. 311. Four of the six emperors now remained, and another apportontment of the eastern dominions was made between Licinius and Maximin. With the latter Maxentius formed an alliance which drew Constantine and Licinius together on the other side. “Maxentius was cruel, rapacious and profligate,” “a tyrant as contemptible as he was odious.” In him it seemed as though the times of Commodus and Elagabalus were returned.

In A.D. 308, Marcellus was elected bishop of Rome. “This new bishop wished to avail himself of the calm which religion enjoyed, at the commencement of his pontificate, to ordain rules and re-establish in the church the discipline which the troubles [of the Galerian persecution] had altered. But his severity rendered him odious to the people, and caused divisions among the faithful. Discord degenerated into sedition, and the quarrel terminated in murder.” Maxentius blamed Marcellus as being the chief cause of these disturbances, “and condemned him to groom posthorses in a stable on the high-road.”

After about nine months of this service, some priests succeeded in carrying Marcellus off. They concealed him in the house of a Roman lady named Lucilla. When the officers would have taken him again, the faithful assembled under arms to defend him. Maxentius ordered out his guards and dispersed them. He then commanded that Lucilla’s house should be converted into a stable, and obliged Marcellus to continue in the office of the groom. In January, A.D. 310, Marcellus died, and was succeeded by Eusebius, whom Maxentius banished to Sicily. He died there after a few months, and was succeeded by Melchiades, in the same year, A. D.310.

In A.D. 311, Melchiades wrote a letter to Constantine, and sent it by a delegation of bishops to him at Treves in Gaul, inviting him to come to the relief of the church, and the conquest of Rome. Constantine deliberated, and Maxentius became more and more tyrannical. In A.D. 312, an embassyfrom Rome went to Constantine at Arles, and in the name of the Senate and people requested him to deliver the city from the despotism of the tyrant. Constantine gladly embraced the opportunity thus offered, and quickly set out toward Rome. f114 At Turin he met and destroyed a strong body of the troops of Maxentius; and at Verona after, a considerable siege of the city, and a hard-fought battle in the field, which beginning in the afternoon, continued through the whole of the following night, he vanquished quite a formidable army.

Between Verona and Rome there was nothing to check the march of Constantine. Maxentius drew out his army, and met Constantine on the banks of the Tiber, nine miles from Rome. He crossed the Tiber and set his army in battle array, with the river in his rear. The battle was joined.

Maxentius was soon defeated; and his army, broken to pieces, attempted to escape. In the confusion and by the terrible onslaught of Constantine’s veterans, thousands of the soldiers of Maxentius were crowded into the river and drowned. Maxentius, endeavoring to escape on his horse across the Milvian bridge, was crowded off into the river, and being clothed with heavy armor, was drowned, October 28, A.D. 312.

In the month of March, 313, Constantine and Licinius met in Milan.

Constantine’s sister Constantia was given in marriage to Licinius as a bond of friendship between the two emperors. Maximin, on hearing of the death of Maxentius, declared war against Licinius, and started with an army from Syria toward Europe. He crossed the Bosphorus, captured Byzantium, marched onward and took Heraclea. By this time Licinius himself had arrived within eighteen miles of that place, and April 30 a battle was fought,and Maximin was defeated. He himself, however, escaped, and in the month of the following August, his life ended in a manner not certainly known.

The edict of Galerius restoring to Christians the right to worship had had little or no effect upon Maximin. In his dominions and by his direction the persecutions had continued. Before Constantine and Licinius had seperated, after their meeting at Milan in March, they jointly issued the celebrated edict of Milan, which acknowledged the right for which Christianity had contended for two hundred and fifty weary and painful years, by confirming “to each individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and professing his own religion.” That edict is as follows: — “Wherefore as I, Constantine Augustus, and I, Licinius Augustus came under favorable auspices to Milan, and took under consideration all affairs that pertained to the public benefit and welfare, these things among the rest appeared to us to be most advantageous and profitable to all. “We have resolved among the first things to ordain those matters by which reverence and worship to the Deity might be exhibited.

That is, how we may grant likewise to the Christians, and to all the free choice to follow that mode of worship which they may wish.

That whatsoever divinity and celestial power may exist, may be propitious to us and to ‘all that live under our government.

Therefore, we have decreed the following ordinance as our will, with a salutary and most correct in ten tion, that no freedom at all shall be refused to Christians, to follow or to keep their observances or worship. But that to each one power be granted to devote his mind to that worship which he may think adapted to himself. That the Deity may in all things exhibit to us his accustomed favor and kindness. “It was just and consistent that we should write that this was our pleasure. That all exceptions respecting the Christians being completely removed, which were contained in the former epistle that we sent to your fidelity, and whatever measures were wholly sinister and foreign to our mildness, that these should be altogether annulled; and now that each one of the Christians may freely and without molestation pursue and follow that course and worship which he has proposed to himself: which, indeed, we have resolved to communicate most fully to your care and diligence, that you may know we have granted liberty and full freedom to the Christians, to observe their own mode of worship which as your fidelity understands absolutely granted to them by us, the privilege is also granted to others to pursue that worship and religion they wish.

Which it is obvious is consistent with the peace and tranquillity of our times; that each may have the privilege to select and to worship whatsoever divinity he pleases.But this has been done by us, that we might not appear in any manner to detract anything from any manner of religion, or any mode of worship.” f115 If all the professors of Christianity had been content with this victory, and had held the tide of events steadily to the principles of this edict, — the principles for which Christianity had so long contended, — the miseries of the ages to come would never have been.

Yet in order that we may enter upon the direct history of the perversion of this victory,in such a way that it may be best understood, it is essential that we trace two other lines of events that culminate in Constantine, and which gave the most material force to that important series of movements which made the papacy a success.

CHAPTER 7.

ANCIENT SUN WORSHIP.

IN the history of mankind no form of idolatry has been more widely practiced than that of the worship of the sun. It may well be described as universal; for there is scarcely a nation in which the worship of the sun in some form has not found a place. In Egypt, the oldest nation of historic times, under the names of Ra and Osiris, with half a dozen other forms; in Phenicia and the land of Canaan, under the names of Baal, Melkarth, Shamas, Adoni, Moloch, and many other forms; in Syria, Tammuz and Elagabalus; among the Moabites, under the names of Baal-peor and Chemosh; among the Babylonians and Assyrians, under the names of Bel and Shamas; among the Medes and Persians and other kindred nations, under the name of Ormuz and Mithra; among the ancient Indians, under the name of Mitra, Mithra, or Mithras; in Greece, under Adonis, Apollo, Bacchus, and Hercules; in Phrygia, under the term Atys; and in Rome, under Bacchus, Apollo, and Hercules; — in all these places, and under all these forms, the sun was worshiped by all these peoples. The myth of Hercules alone will illustrate the wide-spread practice of this worship: “The mythology of Hercules is of a very mixed character in the form in which it has come down to us. There is in it the identification of one or more Grecian heroes with Melcarth, the sun-god of the Phenicians. hence we find Hercules so frequently represented as the sun-god, and his twelve labors regarded as the passage of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac. he is the powerful planet which animates and imparts fecundity to the universe, whose divinity has been honored in every quarter by temples and altars, and consecrated in the religious strains of all national. From Meroe in Ethiopia, and Thebes in Upper Egypt, even to Britain, and the icy regions of Scythia; from the ancient Taprobana and Palibothra in India, to Cadiz and the shores of the Atlantic; from the forests of Germany to the burning sands of Africa; — everywhere, in short, where the benefits of the luminary of day are experienced, there we find established the name and worship of a Hercules. “Many ages before the period when Alcmena is said to have lived, and the pretended Tyrinthian hero to have performed his wonderful exploits, Egypt and Phenicia, which certainly did not borrow their divinities from Greece, had raised temples to the sun, under a name analogous to that of Hercules, and had carried his worship to the isle to Thasus and to Gades. Here was consecrated a temple to the year, and to the months which divided it into twelve parts, that is, to the twelve labors or victories which conducted Hercules to immortality. It is under the name of Hercules Astrochyton, or the god clothed with a mantle of stars, that the poet Nonnus designates the sun, adored by the Tyrians. He is the same god,’ observes the poet, ‘whom different nations adore under a multitude of different names: Belus on the bank of the Euphrates, Ammon in Libya, Apis at Memphis, Saturn in Arabia, Jupiter in Assyria, Serapis in Egypt, Helios among the Babylonians, Apollo at Delphi,AEsculapius throughout Greece,’ etc. Martianus Capella in his hymn to the sun, as also Ausonius and Macrobius, confirms the fact of this multiplicity of names given to a single star. “The Egyptians, according to Plutarch, thought that Hercules had his seat in the sun and that he traveled with it around the moon.

The author of the hymns ascribed to Orpheus. fixes still more strongly the identity of Hercules with the sun. He calls Hercules the god who produced time whose forms vary, the father of all things, and destroyer of all. He is the god who brings back by turns Aurora and the night, and who, moving onward from east to west, runs through the career of his twelve labors; the valiant Titan who chases away maladies, and delivers man from the evils which afflict him.’” — Anthom. f123 By whatever name or under whatever form the sun was worshiped, there was always a female divnity associated with it. Sometimes this female was the moon sometimes the earth, sometimes the atmosphere, and at other times simply the female principle in nature. In other forms it was the idea of a male and female blended in one, as in the case of Baalim. The female sometimes appeared as the wife of the one with whom she was worshiped; sometimes as both the sister and the wife, as in the case of Osiris; yet again as the wife of some other god; and often not exactly as a wife at all, but simply as a female associate. With Osiris was associated Isis; with Baal, Ashtaroth, or Astarte; with Bel, Mylitta; with Shamas, Anunit; with Adonis, Venus; with Hercules, Omphale; with Apollo, Diana; with Atys, Cybele. Sometimes they were worshiped in the images of the male and female human figure; sometimes in the form of a bull and a heifer, as in Osiris and Isis; sometimes in a form in which the human and the beast were blended; sometimes in a simple carved disc for the male, and a piece of carved wood for the female, as in some forms of Baal and Astarte; sometimes in the form of stones which had fallen from heaven, but mostly in the form of cones or obelisks which they themselves had shaped to represent the male, and of other shapes to represent the female. And yet in unison with all these the sun itself was worshiped, especially at its rising, by a bow or prostration, or kissing of the hand.

In none of these forms, however, not even in the naked shining sun, was it the literal object that was worshiped, but certain functions or powers, of which these were but the representations. It was observed that the sun in co-operation with the earth and the atmosphere which gave rain, caused all manner of verdure to spring forth and bear its proper fruit. It was held, therefore, that the sun was the supreme formative power, the mighty author of fruitfulness, and that the greatest and most glorious manifestation and exertion of his powers were employed in reproduction. Sun worship was therefore nothing more nor less than the worship of the principle of reproduction in man and nature. And as the influence of the real sun was extended over and through all nature, so this principle was extended through all worship. “All paganism is at bottom a worship of nature in some form or other, and in all pagan religions the deepest and most awe-inspiring attribute of nature was its power of re-production. The mystery of birth and becoming was the deepest mystery of nature; it lay at the root of all thoughtful paganism, and appeared in various forms, some of a more innocent, others of a most debasing type. To ancient pagan thinkers, as well as to modern men of science, the key to the hidden secret of the origin and preservation of the universe, lay in the mystery of sex. Two energies or agents, one an active and generative, other a feminine, passive, or susceptible one, were everywhere thought to combine for creative purposes; and heaven and earth sun and moon, day and night, were believed to co-operate to the production of being. Upon some such basis as this rested almost all the polytheistic worship of the old civilization; and to it may be traced back, by stage, the separation of divinity into male and female gods; the deification of distinct powers of nature, and the idealization of man’s own faculties, desires, and lusts; where every power of his understanding was embodied as an object of adoration, and every impulse of his will became an incarnation of deity.” — “Encyclopedia Britannica.” f125 As the sun was the great god, the supreme lord, and as he exerted his most glorious powers in reproduction, it was held to be the most acceptable worship for his devotees so to employ themselves and their powers.

Consequently prostitution was the one chief characteristic of sun worship wherever found. As the association of a female without reference to relationship was the only requirement necessary to worship, the result was the perfect confusion of all relationships among the worshipers, even to the mutual interchange of garments between the sexes. In the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus there is a faithful record of such a result among the sun worshipers of the land of Canaan whom the Lord caused to be blotted from the earth. The prohibition in Deuteronomy 22:5 — “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment” — was aimed directly at this practice in sun worship.

The sacrifice of virginity was the most acceptable offering that ever could be made in the worship of the sun. Indeed, until this sacrifice had been made, no other offering was acceptable. One ancient writer saw the manner of worship of Bel and Mylitta in Babylon, and has left a record of what he saw. He says: — “The Babylonians have one most shameful custom. Every woman born in the country must once in her life go and sit down in the precinct of Venus, and there consort with a stranger.... Venus is called Mylitta by the Assyrians.” — Herodotus. f126 Baal-peor, by whose shameful worship Balaam succeeded in bringing evil upon Israel when he failed in his own efforts to curse them, was the god which in Moab presided over such characters as above described by Herodotus in Babylon. This particular system of worship did not prevail outside of Egypt and the Eastern nations. In Greece and Rome the worship was through Bacchus, Hercules, Apollo, etc., and was more in the form of festivals — mysteries — celebrated with obscene symbols and in most lascivious rites. The rites of Bacchus are thus described: — “The worship of Bacchus prevailed in almost all parts of Greece.

Men and women joined in his festivals dressed in Asiatic robes and bonnets, their heads wreathed with vine and ivy leaves, with fawn skins flung over their shoulders, and thyrsi or blunt spears twined with vine leaves, in their hands. They ran through the country shouting Io Bacche ! Euoi ! Iacche ! etc., swinging their thyrsi, beating on drums, and sounding various instruments. Indecent emblems were carried in procession, and the ceremonies often assumed a most immoral character and tendency. The Woman, who bore a chief part in these frantic revels, were called Bacchae Maenades Thyiades Euades, etc.” — Anthon. f127 In the mysteries Bacchus was identified with Osiris, and was worshiped as the sun. In India, Schiva and his worship were identical with Bacchus and his worship. “The two systems of worship have the same obscenities, and the same emblems of the generative power.” — Anthon. “An obscure native of Greece brought first to Etruria, and shortly afterwards to the more congenial soil of Rome, the mysterious orgies of Bacchus, which had already obtained an infamous celebrity in the East. The horrible wickednesses which were perpetrated at the initiations, at which the passions of the youth of either sex were inflamed by wine and music, secresy and security, had been practiced by the devotees without remorse for some time, before they were discovered.... The Bacchanalia, though constantly interdicted, continued to reappear in the city.” — Merivale. f129 The worship of the Phrygian Cybele and Atys was common in Greece five hundred years before Christ, and was introduced into Rome about 547 B.