The Empire of Rome by A. T. J.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 29, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 41.

The Empire of Rome.

By A. T. J.

(Continued.)

"The Cæsar of Western Rome—he only of all earthly potentates, past or to come, could be said to reign as a monarch, that is, as solitary king. He was not the greatest of princes, simply because there was no other but himself. There were, doubtless, a few outlying rulers, of unknown names and titles, upon the margins of his empire; there were tributary lieutenants and barbarous reguli, the obscure vassals of his scepter, whose homage was offered on the lowest step of his throne, and scarcely known to him but as objects of disdain. But these feudatories could no more break the unity of his empire, which embraced the whole civilized world,—the total habitable world as then known to geography or recognized by the muse of history,—than at this day the British Empire on the sea can be brought into question or made conditional, because some chief of Owyhee or Tongataboo should proclaim a momentary independence of the British trident, or should even offer a transient outrage to her sovereign flag.

"Parthia, it is true, might pretend to the dignity of an empire. But her sovereigns, though sitting in the seat of the great king, were no longer the rulers of a vast and polished nation. They were regarded as barbarians, potent only by their standing army, not upon the larger basis of civic strength; and even under this limitation, they were supposed to owe more to the circumstances of their position—their climate, their remoteness, and their inaccessibility except through arid and sultry deserts—than to intrinsic resources, such as could be permanently relied on in a serious trial of strength between the two powers. The kings of Parthia, therefore, were far enough from being regarded in the light of antagonistic forces to the majesty of Rome. And, these withdrawn from the comparison, what else was there—what prince, what king, what potentate of any denomination—to break the universal calm that through centuries continued to lave, as with the quiet undulations of summer lakes, the sacred footsteps of the Cæsarian throne."—De Quincey's Essays, The Cæsars, introduction, par. 3.

"As respected the hand of man, Rome slept for ages in absolute security. . . . The Roman power, in its centuries of grandeur, involved every mode of strength, with absolute immunity from all kinds and degrees of weakness. It ought not, therefore, to surprise us that the emperor, as the depositary of this charmed power, should have been looked upon as a sacred person, and the imperial family considered as a 'divina domus.' . . . Much more may this be supposed of him to whose care was confided the weightier part of the human race; who had it in his power to promote or suspend the progress of human improvement; and of whom, and the motions of whose will, the very prophets of Judea took cognizance.

"No nation and no king was utterly divorced from the counsels of God. Palestine, as a central chamber of God's administration, stood in the same relation to all. It has been remarked, as a mysterious and significant fact, that the founders of the great empires all had some connection, more or less, with the temple at Jerusalem. . . . And we may be sure that, amongst them, the Roman emperor, as the great accountant for the happiness of more men, and men more cultivated, than ever before were entrusted to the motions of a single will, had a special, singular, and mysterious relation to the secret councils of Heaven."—Id., par. 9, 10.

"All the self-governing powers that had previously filled the world are seen to bend one after the other, and finally disappear. How suddenly did the earth become desolated at her free nations! . . . However deeply we may sympathize with the fall of so many free States, we cannot fail to perceive that a new life sprang immediately from their ruins. With the overthrow of independence, fell the barriers of all exclusive nationalities: the nations were conquered—they were overwhelmed together; but by that very act were they blended and united; for, as the limits of the empire were held to comprise the whole earth, so did its subjects learn to consider themselves as one people."—Von Ranke, History of the Popes, Book 1, chap. 1, sec. 1, par. 2, 5.

"Although it would be difficult to affirm, and still more so to prove, that this people [the Romans under the republic] had, from their first rise, formed a plan in order to conquer and subject all nations, it cannot be denied but that, if we examine their whole conduct attentively, it will appear that they acted as if they had a foreknowledge of this; and that a kind of instinct had determined them to conform to it in all things. . . . Enemies to the liberty of all nations; having the utmost contempt for kings and monarchy; looking upon the whole universe as their prey, they grasped, with insatiable ambition, the conquest of the whole world; they seized indiscriminately all provinces and kingdoms, and extended their empire over all nations: in a word, they prescribed no other limits to their vast projects than those which deserts and seas made it impossible to pass."—Rollin's Ancient History, Sequel to Alexander's Successors, chap. 1, sec. 7, last two paragraphs.

The Roman conquests were almost entirely accomplished by the arms of the nation as a republic, and when Augustus succeeded in merging into himself all the authority of the empire, then, as shown by the quotations already given, he became the master of the world, and the remote peoples that had not yet felt the terror of the actual presence of the Roman arms, hastened, as in the day of Alexander the Great, to send their ambassadors, with presents, to crave his friendship.

"The name of Augustus growing famous all over the world, the remotest nations of the North and East, that is, the Scythians, the Sarmatians [Sarmatians], the Indians, and the Seres, sent ambassadors, with presents to him, to pray his friendship, the last of which, Florus tells us, were four years on their journey, which is to be supposed coming and going. The Seres were the farthest people of the East, the same whom we now call the Chinese. They being anciently famous for the making of silk, and silken manufactures; hence serica became the name of silk, and sericos of a silken garment, both among the Greeks and Latins."—Prideaux's Connection, part 2, book 8, last par. but one, An. 25, Herod 13.

In the year 21 B. C., Augustus started on an official journey into the East. After spending some time in Sicily, he sailed into Greece, and wintered at Samos.

"While Augustus lay at this place, there came thither to him ambassadors from Candace, queen of Ethiopia, . . . who, finding him at Samos, there obtained from him the peace which they desired, and then returned again into Ethiopia. . . . Early the next spring Augustus passed from Samos into Lesser Asia, and, having settled all matters there, continued his progress through that country into Syria, and came to Antioch.

"Phraates, king of Parthia, on Augustus's coming into Syria, sent ambassadors to him to pray his friendship. For being then upon ill terms with his people, whom he had much alienated from him by his tyranny and cruelty, he dreaded a foreign war, and he had reason at that time to fear it from Augustus. For whereas Augustus had three years before released to him one of his sons (whom he had in captivity at Rome), upon promise that he would send back to him all the prisoners and ensigns which the Parthians had taken from the Romans in their wars with Crassus and Antony, he had not yet discharged himself of that obligation. That, therefore, this might not be a cause of war against him, he now not only sent back all those captives and ensigns, but also yielded to all other terms of peace which were then required of him, and gave four of his sons, with their wives and children, in hostage for the performance of them."

"At the same time that Augustus made peace with Parthia, he settled also the affairs of Armenia. . . . Augustus, toward the end of summer, returning out of Syria, was attended by Herod to the sea-shore, where he embarked; and from thence sailed back to Samos, and there resided all the ensuing winter in the same manner as he had the former. . . . While Augustus lay at Samos, there came thither to him a second embassy, from the king of India, to desire the establishment of a league of friendship with him, to which purpose he wrote to him a letter in the Greek language, telling him therein, that though he reigned over six hundred kings, yet he had such value for the friendship of Augustus, by reason of the great fame which he had heard of him, that he sent this embassy on so long a journey on purpose to desire it of him; to which letter he subscribed by the name of Porus, king of India. . . . Of the ambassadors that first set out from India on this embassy, three, only, reached the presence of Augustus; the others that were in commission, died on the way. . . . Among the presents which they brought were several tigers, and these were the first of this sort of wild beasts that had been seen either by Greeks or Romans."—Id., Book 9, An. 21, Herod 17; An. 19, Herod 19.

When it is remembered that at this time the Parthian hordes held dominion from the Tigris to the borders of China; that the hordes of the Scythians and the Sarmatians were spread over all the north country above the Sea of Aral, the Caspian, and the Black Sea, and westward to the River Vistula and the Baltic Sea (the Baltic was then called the Sarmatian Ocean); and that from the Vistula, the Upper Danube, and the Rhine, to the German Sea, was covered with the German tribes, as wild and savage as were the American Indians when the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, and that even these had been chastised by Germanicus; then when it is seen, as above, that the Sarmatians, the Scythians, the Parthians, the Chinese, and the Indians, came to the throne of Augustus, bringing presents, asking his friendship, and praying for promises of peace—bearing all this in mind, it stands as the literal truth that, from the Atlantic to the Pacific; from the Arctic regions to the Indian Ocean; and from the German Sea and the Friths of Forth to Ethiopia; there was not a single organized people in the world that did not either feel or fear the power of Rome. See "Labberton's Historical Atlas," map 15; "Ginn and Heath's Classical Atlas," map 12.

The boundaries of the actual conquests of the Roman armies—the limits to which the Roman soldiers actually marched and conquered—were marked by the Tigris, the Danube, the Rhine, the Friths of Forth, the Atlantic Ocean, the Deserts of Sahara, the Desert of Arabia, and the Persian Gulf.

To quote Gibbon's elegant lines:—

"The arms of the Republic, sometimes vanquished in battle, always victorious in war, advanced with rapid steps to the Euphrates, the Danube, the Rhine, and the ocean; and the images of gold, or silver, or brass, that might serve to represent the nations and their kings, were successively broken by the iron monarchy of Rome."—Decline and Fall, chap. 38, par. 43, the first paragraph under "General Observations," etc., at the close of the chapter.

"In the second century of the Christian era, the Empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion

of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved upon the emperors all the executive powers of government. . . .

"The principal conquests of the Romans were achieved under the republic; and the emperors, for the most part, were satisfied with preserving those dominions which had been acquired by the policy of the senate, the active emulation of the consuls, and the martial enthusiasm of the people. The seven first centuries were filled with a rapid succession of triumphs; but it was reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious design of subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation into the public councils. . . .

"His generals in the early part of his reign attempted the reduction of Ethiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a thousand miles to the south of the tropic; but the heat of the climate soon repelled the invaders, and protected the unwarlike natives of those sequestered regions. The northern countries of Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labor of conquest. The forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from freedom; and though, on the first attack, they seemed to yield to the weight of the Roman power, they soon, by a signal act of despair, regained their independence, and reminded Augustus of the vicissitude of fortune. On the death of that emperor, his testament was publicly read in the senate. He bequeathed, as a valuable legacy to his successors, the advice of confining the empire within those limits which nature seemed to have placed as its permanent bulwarks and boundaries; on the west the Atlantic Ocean; the Rhine and the Danube on the north; the Euphrates on the east; and, towards the south, the sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa."—Dec. and Fall, chap. 1, par. 1-3.

(To be continued.)