Chapter C: Julius Cæsar (8)

Suetonius praises Vespasian, and yet he tells us things which either do away with the praise, or which ought not to have been recorded, as they were mere rumours: when we compare both of these statements together, we are justly astonished, and therefore feel uncertain on more than one point. Thus much may we look upon as borne out by facts. Vespasian was wanting in the higher qualities of the soul, nor had he such a heart as Trajan had; but he was still a very worthy person for the time in which he lived, being an honest and just man, especially in a negative sense, and one who was not guilty of tyranny: only some isolated instances of extortion are mentioned of him. His morals were as spotless as could ever have been expected in times like those. After the death of his first wife, he lived in a sort of left-handed marriage with a woman of low estate, to whom he, however, granted all the honours of a lawful wife, and with whom he was happy: she must indeed have been an excellent woman. He quite loathed the debauchery and the awfully vulgar and wasteful gluttony which had become so common among the Romans: luxury had then thrown itself into the fashion of extravagant feasts, got up at the maddest cost. Vespasian, on the contrary, who had kept his old simple tastes unaltered, reclaimed his subjects, as well by his example as by the open expression of his disgust, from this way of living: he thus brought about a reform in Roman life which is remarkable in history: Never again did this reckless prodigality become as rife among the Romans, as it had been in the times before Vespasian: it is true, as we see from Ammianus’ excellent description, that in the fourth century it was again to be found among the great men; but Vespasian had struck at the roots of it. He ruled the state with great care and conscientiousness, putting down every sort of waste, and getting the confused finances in order: he showed no mistrust towards the governors, though, on the other hand, he would uphold the provinces against them. Yet the feelings of a refined soul were unknown to him: he did nothing to foster intellect, and he had an antipathy to men of education and philosophers, as well as to those who were something more than mere men of business: these he considered as useless, and even had a hostile feeling against them. Helvidius Priscus, who personally and intellectually, by his mind and his acquirements, certainly was one of the first men of Rome, professed to be of the Stoic philosophy. The Roman Stoics had a spice of republicanism in them which was ill suited to the age; and this gave birth to an unpardonable petulance, which could lead to no good. Helvidius was blind to the good qualities of Vespasian, and gave himself up to an utterly useless opposition. In this he cannot be excused; but what is worst of all, Vespasian conceived such a spite against him, that he had him put to death: it was the most noble blood of the Roman state which he then shed. Otherwise he kept himself pure from blood: on several occasions, when he had received no such provocation, he even showed himself truly mild. He was also grateful, and overlooked a great deal in Mucianus and others. Antonius Primus likewise lost his life, but deservedly: he had made the revolution for Vespasian that he might thus rule the Roman empire himself; and when he did not find this answer, he plotted against him. Suetonius particularly charges Vespasian with avarice; yet it is by no means certain whether there is any truth in this. He is said to have declared that the state wanted for its support _quadringinties millies_, that is to say, two thousand millions of dollars. This seems quite absurd. Even if we conceive all the countries of the empire as it was then, to have been as thriving as France and Italy are now, it seems scarcely possible that such a sum should have been raised. Nor can we understand what it should have been wanted for, although there was an army of about four hundred thousand men, and these received treble pay, a _denarius_ a day. That number cannot be correct. It is true that he spent much in building; but building is not after all one of the necessary expenses of the state. In the reign of Vespasian, very great works were completed in Rome and elsewhere: nor were they merely what could not be dispensed with; but such also was their magnificence that they were a lasting honour to the empire, like the Colosseum and the temple of Peace. This does not agree with his _sordidissima avaritia_; and such facts are to be set against the anecdotes of Suetonius. Vespasian died when upwards of sixty-nine.

The government had in reality been carried on under him by his son Titus, who on his return from Jerusalem had reached his thirty-second year. Vespasian himself felt no vocation for it. Titus may have had the guilt of many of the unrighteous deeds which were done in Vespasian’s reign, however strange the contrast may seem between his own rule and this administration: before his father’s death, he was very unpopular; people looked upon him but with fear and dread. What was afterwards so much praised in him, so that he was even called _deliciæ generis humani_, was after all nothing but his openhandedness: he seems to have wished to gladden the hearts of those about him by his liberality, and to load them with presents. In this way he employed the treasures hoarded up by his father, who had kept for himself the management of the finances. Perhaps there is no ruler who has done more real good to the Roman world than Vespasian. One of his fine qualities was the openness of his disposition: owing to this he placed full trust in Titus, made him _præfectus prætorio_, and quite gave up to him a part of the government. How very different this is from the behaviour of eastern princes, who always utterly mistrust their sons! Titus was by no means popular: some violent and also cruel deeds are laid to his charge; Cæcina, for instance, who played a great part among the Vitellians, was killed by his orders. Yet it is said that proofs of a conspiracy of his against the house of Vespasian had been discovered.

The fears which people had entertained of Titus, were not justified during his reign. With his accession his whole bearing changed; and the leading features in his character were benevolence and affability, which in a prince are always prized much higher than any other quality: let a prince be kind to those about him, and he may forget all his other duties. His father had been exceedingly frugal; Titus, on the contrary, was generous, even profuse. The former had spent great sums on buildings only: he had restored Rome; he had altered the senseless edifices of Nero, the golden house in particular; and he had built the huge Colosseum, which, although destined for a dismal purpose, was quite to the taste of the Roman populace. Vespasian did not live to see the dedication of the Colosseum, which was celebrated by Titus only. The extravagance displayed in it, had none of the old simple grandeur; but as was the case in the whole time of the emperors, and even in the last stage of the republic, there was something whimsical and repulsive about it. Goethe has a very nice remark on this subject in the _Farbenlehre_ (Science of Colours).[43] Even women had to fight to death as gladiators; but Titus’ humanity did not reach so far as this.

His reign was perfect tranquillity abroad, and great comfort in Rome; but it was visited with calamities. There was an immense fire in the city, besides the catastrophe of Herculanum and Pompeii, when Vesuvius, which had been quiet since the time of the Greek settlements, all at once began to throw up fire—fortunately for us.

The love of the people for Titus was the more decided, as they were by no means mistaken with regard to Domitian.

Domitian was a bad son and a bad brother, and there is no doubt of his having sought the life of his father and his brother; especially of the latter, who, however, never tried to avenge himself upon him, and even treated him with confidence. Domitian is one of those men, who are too lightly thought of because they are bad. What he is reproached with may be true, that he showed himself a coward in war; although this is still problematical: that his boundless vanity led to no corresponding achievements, is certain; his cruelty, his falseness, are beyond a doubt; yet for all that he ought not to be estimated too low. He was a very accomplished man, and of a decided talent for literature. Rutgertsius has already remarked, that the paraphrase of the _Phænomena_ of Aratus commonly ascribed to Germanicus, is by Domitian, who as emperor had taken the name of Cæsar Germanicus, as it was more illustrious than that of the Flavii. That it cannot have been the adopted son of Tiberius, is evident from the way in which the poet speaks of his father, whom he introduces as a ruler, and as one who had had the apotheosis. I believe that the poem was written in the time of Titus. It is very respectable as to its general composition, poor as the subject is. Moreover, although Quintilian may have said too much in what he tells us of Domitian, and this exaggeration may have been slavish and in the court-style of despotism; still he certainly would not from mere flattery have praised what was thoroughly worthless. Domitian had a taste for Roman literature, which has done good: he established the great endowment for rhetoricians which Quinctilian received, and he instituted the _Agon Capitolinus_ in which poets were crowned: Roman literature, therefore, took a fresh start in his time. Not to speak of Tacitus, who was then a youth, and of Pliny, the younger,—however little one may admire him,—who was growing up (many well educated people of his day wrote as well as he did); there is Statius belonging to that age, whose _Silvæ_ are among the most agreeable works of antiquity which are left to us, there is Juvenal, who was also one of the greatest minds, but who bore a deadly hatred to Domitian. We see from Domitian’s poem, that he was against the false taste of his times. He slighted Statius; yet for this we are not so much to accuse him of partiality, as to acknowledge the correctness of his judgment. Statius is great in his little poems, which are some of those genuine effusions which are tinged with the true spirit of the country: one enjoys them particularly, when one reads them in Italy. But his Thebais is a cold, laboured poem, quite bombastic and unbearable: it is the one with which he did not win the Capitoline prize.

As all wasteful prodigality had been rooted out under Vespasian, and Roman life had been brought back to frugality, the good consequences were lasting, and Domitian also kept in this path. He was by no means a spendthrift, being profuse only to the army, the pay of which he raised to four hundred and eighty denarii, and that, it seems, from cowardice: for this he tried to make up by lessening the number of the troops, which was not at all suited to the circumstances of the times. In the East indeed there was profound peace with the Parthians, weakness having manifested itself among them, as is always the case in Asia when states have reached a certain point of greatness: the Parthians, therefore, left the Romans unmolested, as long as these did not attack them. War was, however, waging on the northern frontier. Tacitus’ Agricola throws some light on this; it is one of the greatest masterpieces of biography which we have from antiquity. Agricola completed the conquest of Britain: he went beyond the two Firths against the Highland hills, and built a fleet with which he sailed round Scotland, and visited the Orkney islands. This is the brilliant military epoch of Domitian. To this circumnavigation of Scotland the statue of Oceanus seems to refer, which all through the middle ages lay at the entrance of the _Forum Martium_.[44] A statue of the Rhine likewise belongs to the time of Domitian.

In his earliest youth, in the days of the insurrection of Civilis, Domitian had been in Gaul; as emperor, he conducted a war against the Chatti in the country about the Mayne. Could one but rely here on the medals, and on the flatteries of Martial, he got the surname of Germanicus most rightfully; but the historians all agree in this, that with regard to those victories the nation was imposed upon. Yet even then the war may not have been without advantage to the Romans. Certain it is that the Germans on the right bank of the Rhine were not able to make head against their legions; nor is it to be wondered at: for an ill-trained militia could not stand its ground against the Romans, and moreover the unhallowed dissensions among the Germans were as mischievous as ever. War was likewise waged on the banks of the Austrian Danube, where nations such as the Marcomanni and the Sueves, of which we have heard nothing for a long space of time, again make their appearance feebly allied with Slavonic tribes; and indeed they showed themselves to be formidable.

The most important war under Domitian, was that against the Dacians, the same race as the ancient Getæ, who as early as Alexander’s time had driven the Scythian tribes before them. Since Diceneus (in the reign of Augustus) the great Dacian monarchy in Transylvania, and very likely almost the whole of Wallachia and part of Moldavia and the Banat, had arisen. They were rich, owing to their mines; and we see from the column of Trajan, that they were not at all looked upon as barbarians, but that they were even held in higher esteem than the Germans: they had fortified towns and wooden houses, such as are still common in the Tyrol. Their king Decebalus was a man of much greatness of character, and worthy of ruling his nation in such critical circumstances. They had a well organized constitution, and an aristocracy, who by way of distinction wore either caps or long hair: they were withal a brave and free people. Since the days of Augustus, they had often threatened the Roman frontier; and as soon as Rome felt weak, they burst into Mœsia: to Pannonia, perhaps, they did not come; for the country between the Theiss and the Danube was nothing but deep marshes. Lower down, towards Pressburg, it was inhabited partly by Gallic, and partly by German tribes. Of Domitian’s Dacian wars, we have but very confused accounts; Xiphilinus and Zonaras entirely pass over the details. We know thus much, that once at least the Romans suffered a great defeat, and that the Dacians overran Mœsia. But such wars, even when successfully carried on, always in the long run became dangerous to these peoples; and therefore Decebalus concluded a peace in a form which seems to us humiliating. This does not, however, prove much, as such was the general custom in wars against the Romans. Domitian could now take the name of Dacicus, and, after his great losses, return in triumph to Rome.

From the time of this campaign, Domitian’s cruelty displayed itself more and more. Before this, some individuals had already been put to death either on suspicion, or because he hated them; an insurrection also had broken out under L. Antonius Saturninus in _Germania Superior_, that is to say, Alsace and Suabia, as far as the _limites_: these districts were covered with Roman troops, and Saturninus had himself proclaimed emperor by them, but was conquered by L. Appius Maximus, and paid for it with his life. Domitian’s cruelty was within the bounds of human nature, being different from that of Caligula and Nero. Caligula was mad, and Nero very nearly so; they were downright brutes, and their cruelty, to use an expression of Aristotle’s, was παρὰ φύσιν: to characters like these, the rules of morality do not apply; they are degenerate specimens of humanity. Domitian’s cruelty was that of a thoroughly bad man; it sprang from human passions, from envy, malice, and the mere love of mischief: avarice there was none in it, as this is rather an eastern vice. In the senate, at that time, there were men who were worthy of being the friends of Agricola and Tacitus: Herennius Senecio had written the life of Helvidius Priscus; Arulenus Rusticus, that of Pætus Thrasea; and their writings displayed much warmth of heart. Maternus and others were likewise authors, though perhaps not altogether free from declamation; but literature had now again some reality in it, and it was that very reality which gave offence to the tyrant. Then arose the horrible class of the informers, the description of which is one of the most interesting things in Pliny’s letters: they were a very different set from the _delatores_ of Tiberius’ reign. These men are justly abhorred in a moral point of view; but they were men of intellect, and some of them of no common talent. The great mass was in the days of Tiberius much worse than it was now; and so it was, of course, with the victims: for though the women, as we learn from Juvenal, were still thoroughly depraved, the men, owing to the length of their training in the school of hardship, had become better and more energetic. Domitian was even present at the _delationes_: the informers were ingenious, well-bred persons, who lived in good society, and also turned their talents against equally distinguished, but noble-minded people. The time was awful; it passed, as Tacitus says, in silent dread: the impression which it made on a great mind, is incomparably described in the introduction of the Agricola and in the _Historiæ_.

Particularly fearful were the three last years of Domitian. Had his rage been only directed against the better men, he might have lived longer; but he also turned it against the bad and fierce ones, against Prætorian officers and his own wife Domitia, who had offended him, and whom he had offended. Then was the conspiracy formed against him, and he was stabbed by the officers of his guards.

He had built the _Forum Palladium_ near the _Forum Augustum_, and established government offices and courts of Justice there: part of the wall and the hall are still preserved as monuments of that age. He also erected many other magnificent buildings.