The Roman Empire by A. T. J.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 5, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 42.

The Roman Empire.

By A. T. J.

(Continued.)

"The only accession which the Roman Empire received during the first century of the Christian era, was the province of Britain. In this single instance the successors of Caesar and Augustus were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter. The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seemed to invite their arms; the pleasing, though doubtful intelligence of a pearl fishery attracted their avarice; and as Britain was viewed in the light of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any exception to the general system of continental measures. After a war of about forty years [A. D. 41-81], undertaken by the most stupid [Claudius], maintained by the most dissolute [Nero], and terminated by the most timid [Domitian] of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke. . . . At the very time when Domitian, confined to his palace, felt the terrors which he inspired, his legions, under the command of the virtuous Agricola, defeated the collected force of the Caledonians at the foot of the Grampian hills; and his fleets, venturing to explore an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the Roman arms round every part of the island.

"But the superior merit of Agricola soon occasioned his removal from the Government of Britain. . . . Before his departure, the prudent general had provided for security as well as for dominion. He had observed that the island is almost divided into two unequal parts by the opposite gulfs, or, as they are now called, the Friths of Scotland. Across the narrow interval of about forty miles, he had drawn a line of military stations, which was afterwards fortified in the reign of Antoninus Pius, by a turf rampart erected on foundations of stone. This wall of Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the modern cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, was fixed as the limit of the Roman province. The native Caledonians preserved in the northern extremity of the island their wild independence, for which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valor. . . . The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe, turned with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians.

"Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and such the maxims of Imperial policy, from the death of Augustus to the accession of Trajan [A. D. 98]. That virtuous and active prince had received the education of a soldier, and possessed the talents of a general. The peaceful system of his predecessors was interrupted by scenes of war and conquest; and the legions, after a long interval, beheld a military emperor at their head. The first exploits of Trajan were against the Dacians, the most warlike of men, who dwelt beyond the Danube, and who, during the reign of Domitian, had insulted with impunity the majesty of Rome.

"Decebalus, the Dacian king, approved himself a rival not unworthy of Trajan; nor did he despair of his own and the public fortune, till, by the confession of his enemies, he had exhausted every resource, both of valor and policy. This memorable war, with a very short suspension of hostilities, lasted five years; and as the emperor could exert, without control, the whole force of the State, it was terminated by the absolute submission of the barbarians. The new province of Dacia, which formed a second exception to the precept of Augustus, was about thirteen hundred miles in circumference. Its natural boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss or Tibiscus [Temes], the Lower Danube, and the Euxine [Black] Sea.

"Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause upon their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst for military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. The praises of Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan. Like him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition against the nations of the East; but he lamented, with a sigh, that his advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equaling the renown of the son of Philip. Yet the success of Trajan, however transient, was rapid and specious. The degenerate Parthians, broken by intestine discord, fled before his arms. He descended the River Tigris in triumph, from the mountains of Armenia to the Persian Gulf. He enjoyed the honor of being the first, as he was the last, of the Roman generals who ever navigated that remote sea. His fleets ravaged the coasts of Arabia; and Trajan vainly flattered himself that he was approaching towards the confines of India.

"Every day the astonished senate received the intelligence of new names and new nations that acknowledged his sway. They were informed that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchis, Iberia, Albania [countries above Armenia between the Black and the Caspian Seas], Osrhoene [a province of Mesopotamia in the bend of the Euphrates], and even the Parthian monarch himself, had accepted their diadems from the hands of the emperor; that the independent tribes of the Median and Carduchian hills had implored his protection, and that the rich countries of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, were reduced into the state of provinces. But the death of Trajan soon clouded the splendid prospect; and it was justly to be dreaded that so many distinct nations would throw off the unaccustomed yoke when they were no longer restrained by the powerful hand which had imposed it."

In A. D. 117, Trajan died, and was succeeded by Hadrian, and—

"The resignation of all the Eastern conquests of Trajan was the first measure of his reign. He restored to the Parthians the election of an independent sovereign, withdrew the Roman garrisons from the provinces of Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, and, in compliance with the precept of Augustus, once more established the Euphrates as the frontier of the empire."

"The martial and ambitious spirit of Trajan formed a very singular contrast with the moderation of his successor. The restless activity of Hadrian was not less remarkable, when compared with the gentle repose of Antoninus Pius. The life of the former was almost a perpetual journey; and as he possessed the various talents of the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar, he gratified his curiosity in the discharge of his duty. Careless of the difference of the seasons and of climates, he marched, on foot and bareheaded, over the snows of Caledonia and the sultry plains of the Upper Egypt; nor was there a province of the empire, which, in the course of his reign, was not honored with the presence of the monarch. But the tranquil life of Antoninus Pius was spent in the bosom of Italy; and during the twenty-three years that he directed the public administration, the longest journeys of that amiable prince extended no farther than from his palace in Rome to the retirement of his Lanuvian Villa.

"Notwithstanding this difference in their personal conduct, the general system of Augustus was equally adopted, and uniformly pursued, by Hadrian and the two Antonines. They persisted in the design of maintaining the dignity of the empire, without attempting to enlarge its limits. By every honorable expedient they invited the friendship of the barbarians; and endeavored to convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above the temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order and justice. During a long period of forty-three years [A. D. 117-161], their virtuous labors were crowned with success; and if we may except a few slight hostilities that served to exercise the legions of the frontier, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius offered the fair prospect of universal peace. The Roman name was revered among the most remote nations of the earth. The fiercest barbarians frequently submitted their differences to the arbitration of the emperor; and we are informed by a contemporary historian that he had seen ambassadors who were refused the honor which they came to solicit, of being admitted into the rank of subjects.

"The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant preparation for war; and while justice regulated their conduct, they announced to the nations on their confines that they were as little disposed to endure as to offer an injury. The military strength which it had been sufficient for Hadrian and the elder Antoninus to display, was exerted against the Parthians and the Germans by the Emperor Marcus [Aurelius, A. D. 161-180]. The hostilities of the barbarians provoked the resentment of that philosophic monarch, and, in the prosecution of a just defense, Marcus and his generals obtained many signal victories both on the Euphrates and on the Danube."—Dec. and Fall, chap. 1, par. 4-12.

After a sketch of the provinces, which we shall have occasion hereafter to notice, Gibbon gives the area and population of the empire, as follows:—

"This long enumeration of provinces whose broken fragments have formed so many powerful kingdoms, might almost induce us to forgive the vanity or ignorance of the ancients. Dazzled with the extensive sway, the irresistible strength, and the real or affected moderation of the emperors, they permitted themselves to despise, and sometimes to forget, the outlying countries which had been left in the enjoyment of a barbarous independence; and they gradually usurped the license of confounding the Roman monarchy with the globe of the earth. But the temper as well as the knowledge of a modern historian, requires a more sober and accurate language. He may impress a juster image of the greatness of Rome, by observing that the empire was above two thousand miles in breadth, from the wall of Antoninus and the northern limits of Dacia to Mount Atlas and the tropic of Cancer; that it extended, in length, more than three thousand miles, from the Western Ocean to the Euphrates; that it was situated in the finest part of the temperate zone—between the twenty-fourth and fifty-sixth degrees of northern latitude; and that it was supposed to contain above sixteen hundred thousand square miles, for the most part of fertile and well-cultivated land."—Dec. and Fall, chap. 1, last par.

"The number of subjects who acknowledged the laws of Rome,—of citizens, of provincials, and of slaves,—cannot now be fixed with such a degree of accuracy as the importance of the object would deserve. We are informed that when the Emperor Claudius exercised the office of censor, he took an account of six million nine hundred and forty-five thousand Roman citizens, who, with the proportion of women and children, must have amounted to about twenty millions of souls. The multitude of subjects of an inferior rank was uncertain and fluctuating. But after weighing with attention every circumstance which could influence the balance, it seems probable that there existed, in the time of Claudius, about twice as many provincials as there were citizens, of either sex and of every age; and that the slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of the Roman world. The total amount of this imperfect calculation would rise to about one hundred and twenty millions of persons, a degree of population which possibly exceeds that of modern Europe, and forms the most

numerous society that has ever been united under the same system of government."—Id., chap. 2, par. 17.

It should be borne in mind that when Gibbon states that this degree of population “possibly exceeds that of modern Europe,” it was the Europe of more than a hundred years ago. This was written about A. D. 1773, and, according to the printed estimates, at that date Europe contained a population of about 107,000,000. Its population, June, 1882, was 327,743,400.

In the reign of Marcus Aurelius we reach the summit of the greatness of the Roman Empire. In the reign of Commodus, his son and successor, A. D. 180, this mighty “fabric of human greatness” began to decline and totter toward its fearful fall. At this point, therefore, we shall close our view of the greatness and power of Rome, only pausing to remark that, in view of the indubitable evidences which we have presented, we cannot see how any one can doubt that the prophet spoke directly of the Roman Empire when he said:—

“The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron; forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things; and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.”

A. T. J. (To be continued.)