Part 40 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARCUS AURELIUS IN HIS TRIUMPHAL CAR (Palace of the Conservatori, Rome)

A panel from an arch erected by the emperor.]

69. THE PROVINCES OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

THE STANDING ARMY

The Roman Empire, at its widest extent in the second century, included forty-three provinces. They were protected against Germans, Parthians and other foes by twenty-five legions, numbering with the auxiliary forces, about three hundred thousand men. This standing army was one of Rome's most important agencies for the spread of her civilization over barbarian lands. Its members.h.i.+p was drawn largely from the border provinces, often from the very countries where the soldiers' camps were fixed. Though the army became less and less Roman in blood, it always kept in character and spirit the best traditions of Rome. The long intervals of peace were not pa.s.sed by the soldiers in idleness. They built the great highways that penetrated every region of the empire, spanned the streams with bridges, raised dikes and aqueducts, and taught the border races the arts of civilization. It was due, finally, to the labors of the legionaries, that the most exposed parts of the frontiers were provided with an extensive system of walls and ramparts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PANTHEON The original building was the work of Agrippa, a minister of Augustus. The temple was reconstructed by Hadrian who left the Greek portico unchanged but added the rotunda and the dome. This great dome, the largest in the world, is made of solid concrete. During the Middle Ages, the Pantheon was converted into a church. It is now the burial place of the kings of Italy.]

THE ROMAN ROADS

The Roman system of roads received its great extension during the imperial age. The princ.i.p.al trunk lines began at the gates of Rome and radiated thence to every province. Along these highways sped the couriers of the Caesars, carrying dispatches and making, by means of relays of horses, as much as one hundred and fifty miles a day. The roads resounded to the tramp of the legionaries pa.s.sing to their stations on the distant frontier. Travelers by foot, horseback, or litter journeyed on them from land to land, employing maps which described routes and distances. Traders used them for the transport of merchandise. Roman roads, in short, were the railways of antiquity. [11]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TOMB OF HADRIAN The building was formerly topped by another of smaller size which bore a statue of the emperor. In medieval times this stately tomb was converted into a castle. It is now used as a museum. The bridge across the Tiber was built by Hadrian.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, ROMAN BRITAIN SHOWING CHIEF ROMAN ROADS]

THE PAX ROMANA

In her roads and fortifications, in the living rampart of her legions, Rome long found security. Except for the districts conquered by Trajan but abandoned by Hadrian, [12] the empire during this period did not lose a province. For more than two hundred years, throughout an area as large as the United States, the civilized world rested under what an ancient writer calls ”the immense majesty of the Roman peace.” [13]

EXTENSION OF ROMAN CITIZENs.h.i.+P

The grant of Roman citizens.h.i.+p to all Italians after the Social War [14]

only increased for a time the contrast between Italy and the provinces.

But even before the fall of the republic Caesar's legislation had begun the work of uniting the Roman and the provincial. [15] More and more the emperors followed in his footsteps. The extension of Roman citizens.h.i.+p was a gradual process covering two centuries. It was left for the emperor Caracalla, early in the third century, to take the final step. In 212 A.D.

he issued an edict which bestowed citizens.h.i.+p on all freeborn inhabitants of the empire. This famous edict completed the work, begun so many centuries before, of Romanizing the ancient world.

PRIVILEGES OF ROMAN CITIZENS

The grant of citizens.h.i.+p, though it increased the burden of taxation, brought no slight advantage to those who possessed it. A Roman citizen could not be maltreated with impunity or punished without a legal trial before Roman courts. If accused in a capital case, he could always protect himself against an unjust decision by an ”appeal to Caesar”, that is, to the emperor at Rome. St. Paul did this on one occasion when on trial for his life. [16] Wherever he lived, a Roman citizen enjoyed, both for his person and his property, the protection of Roman law.

70. THE ROMAN LAW AND THE LATIN LANGUAGE

IMPROVEMENT OF ROMAN LAW

The Romans were the most legal-minded people of antiquity. It was their mission to give laws to the world. Almost at the beginning of the republic they framed the code of the Twelve Tables, [17] which long remained the basis of their jurisprudence. This code, however, was so harsh, technical, and brief that it could not meet the needs of a progressive state. The Romans gradually improved their legal system, especially after they began to rule over conquered nations. The disputes which arose between citizens and subjects were decided by the praetors or provincial governors in accordance with what seemed to them to be principles of justice and equity. These principles gradually found a place in Roman law, together with many rules and observances of foreign peoples. Roman law in this way tended to take over and absorb all that was best in ancient jurisprudence.

CHARACTER OF ROMAN LAW

Thus, as the extension of the citizens.h.i.+p carried the principles and practice of Roman law to every quarter of the empire, the spirit of that law underwent an entire change. It became exact, impartial, liberal, humane. It limited the use of torture to force confession from persons accused of crime. It protected the child against a father's tyranny. It provided that a master who killed a slave should be punished as a murderer, and even taught that all men are originally free by the law of nature and therefore that slavery is contrary to natural right. Justice it defined as ”the steady and abiding purpose to give every man that which is his own.” [18] Roman law, which began as the rude code of a primitive people, ended as the most refined and admirable system of jurisprudence ever framed by man. This law, as we shall see later, has pa.s.sed from ancient Rome to modern Europe. [19]

LATIN IN ITALY

The conquest by Latin of the languages of the world is almost as interesting and important a story as the conquest by Rome of the nations of the world. At the beginning of Latin in Roman history Latin was the speech of only the Italy people of Latium. Beyond the limits of Latium Latin came into contact with the many different languages spoken in early Italy. Some of them, such as Greek and Etruscan, soon disappeared from Italy after Roman expansion, but those used by native Italian peoples showed more power of resistance. It was not until the last century B.C.

that Latin was thoroughly established in the central and southern parts of the peninsula. After the Social War the Italian peoples became citizens of Rome, and with Roman citizens.h.i.+p went the use of the Latin tongue.