Part 23 (1/2)
NERO, A.D. 54-68.--The first five years of the reign of Nero were marked by the mildness and equity of his government. He discouraged luxury, reduced the taxes, and increased the authority of the Senate. His two preceptors, Seneca and Burrus, controlled his mind, and restrained for a time the const.i.tutional insanity of the Claudian race. At length, however, he sank into licentiousness, and from licentiousness to its necessary attendants, cruelty and crime. From a modest and philosophic youth, Nero became the most cruel and dissolute of tyrants. He quarreled with his mother Agrippina, who for his sake had murdered the feeble Claudius; and when she threatened to restore Britannicus to the throne, he ordered that young prince to be poisoned at an entertainment. In order to marry Poppaea Sabina, a beautiful and dissolute woman, wife of Salvius Otho, he resolved to divorce his wife Octavia, and also to murder his mother Agrippina. Under the pretense of a reconciliation, he invited Agrippina to meet him at Baiae, where she was placed in a boat, which fell to pieces as she entered it. Agrippina swam to the sh.o.r.e, but was there a.s.sa.s.sinated by the orders of her son. The Roman Senate congratulated Nero upon this fearful deed, while the philosopher Seneca wrote a defense of the matricide. The philosopher, the Senate, and the emperor seem worthy of each other.
It would be impossible to enumerate all the crimes of Nero. In A.D. 64 a fire broke out in Rome, which lasted for six days, consuming the greater part of the city. Nero was supposed to have ordered the city to be fired, to obtain a clear representation of the burning of Troy, and, while Rome was in flames, amused himself by playing upon musical instruments. He sought to throw the odium of this event upon the Christians, and inflicted upon them fearful cruelties. The city was rebuilt upon an improved plan, and Nero's palace, called the Golden House, occupied a large part of the ruined capital with groves, gardens, and buildings of unequaled magnificence.
In A.D. 65 a plot was discovered in which many eminent Romans were engaged. The poet Lucan, Seneca, the philosopher and defender of matricide, together with many others, were put to death. In A.D. 67 Nero traveled to Greece, and performed on the cithara at the Olympian and Isthmian games. He also contended for the prize in singing, and put to death a singer whose voice was louder than his own. Stained with every crime of which human nature is capable, haunted by the shade of the mother he had murdered, and filled with remorse, Nero was finally dethroned by the Praetorian Guards, and died by his own hand, June 9, A.D. 68. He was the last of the Claudian family. No one remained who had an hereditary claim to the empire of Augustus, and the future emperors were selected by the Praetorian Guards or the provincial legions.
During this reign, Boadicea, the British queen, A.D. 61, revolted against the Romans and defeated several armies; but the governor, Suetonius Paulinus, conquered the insurgents in a battle in which eighty thousand Britons are said to have fallen. Boadicea, unwilling to survive her liberty, put an end to her life.
On the death of Nero, Servius Sulpicius Galba, already chosen emperor by the Praetorians and the Senate, was murdered in the Forum, January, A.D.
69. He was succeeded by Salvius Otho, the infamous friend of Nero, and the husband of Poppaea Sabina. The legions on the Rhine, however, proclaimed their own commander, A. Vitellius, emperor, and Otho's forces being defeated in a battle near Bedriac.u.m, between Verona and Cremona, he destroyed himself.
Vitellius, the new emperor, was remarkable for his gluttony and his coa.r.s.e vices. He neglected every duty of his office, and soon became universally contemptible. Vespasian, the distinguished general, who had been fighting successfully against the Jews in Palestine, was proclaimed emperor by the governor of Egypt. Leaving his son t.i.tus to continue the war, Vespasian prepared to advance upon Rome. His brave adherent, Antonius Primus, at the head of the legions of the Danube, without any orders from Vespasian, marched into Italy and defeated the army of Vitellius. The Praetorians and the Roman populace still supported Vitellius; a fearful ma.s.sacre took place in the city, and the Capitoline Temple was burned; but Antonius Primus took the Praetorian camp, and Vitellius was dragged from his palace and put to death, December 20, A.D. 69.
REIGN OF T. FLAVIUS VESPASIa.n.u.s, A.D. 69-79.--Vespasian, the founder of the first Flavian family of emperors, was a soldier of fortune, who had risen from a low station to high command in the army. He was brave, active, free from vice, and, although fond of money, was never charged with extortion or rapacity. Toward the close of the summer, A.D. 70, he arrived in Rome, and received the imperium from the Senate. He began at once to restore discipline in the army, and raised to the rank of Senators and Equites ill.u.s.trious men from the provinces, as well as from Italy and Rome, thus giving to the provincials a certain share in the government. The courts of justice were purified, the _Delatores_, or spies, were discountenanced, and trials for treason ceased. To increase his revenues, Vespasian renewed the taxes in several provinces which had been exempted by Nero, and he introduced economy and good order into the administration of the finances. Yet he expended large sums in rebuilding the Capitoline Temple, and also in completing the Colosseum, whose immense ruins form one of the most remarkable features in the modern scenery of Rome. He built, too, the Temple of Peace and a public library. He appointed lecturers upon rhetoric, with a salary of 100 sesterces, but was possessed himself of little mental cultivation. He is even said to have disliked literary men, and, in the year A.D. 74, expelled the Stoic and Cynic philosophers from Rome.
In A.D. 70, September 2, his son t.i.tus took the city of Jerusalem, after a brave defense by the Jews, who were finally betrayed by their own factions. The city was totally destroyed, and nearly half a million of the Jews perished in the siege. Those who survived, being forbidden to rebuild their city, were scattered over the empire, and each Jew was compelled to pay a yearly tax of two drachmae, which was appropriated to rebuilding the Capitoline Temple. The Arch of t.i.tus, which still exists at Rome, was erected in commemoration of the fall of Jerusalem.
Vespasian's generals repressed an insurrection of the Germans, and in A.D. 71 C. Julius Agricola, father-in-law of the historian Tacitus, entered Britain as legate to Petilius Cerialis. He was made governor of the province in A.D. 77, and led his victorious armies as far north as the Highlands of Scotland. This excellent character, by his justice and moderation, reconciled the Britons to the Roman yoke.
By his first wife, Flavia Domatilla, Vespasian had three children--t.i.tus, Domitian, and Domatilla. When she died he formed an inferior kind of marriage with Coenis, a woman of low station, who, however, seems to have deserved his esteem. He died 23d of June, A.D.
79, at the age of seventy. Although never a refined or cultivated man, Vespasian, by his hardy virtues, restored the vigor of the Roman government, and gave peace and prosperity to his subjects; while he who founded a library and established schools of rhetoric can not have been so wholly illiterate as some writers have imagined.
REIGN OF t.i.tUS, A.D. 79-81.
t.i.tus was one of the most accomplished and benevolent of men. Eloquent, warlike, moderate in his desires, he was called _Amor et deliciae humani generis_, ”The love and the delight of the human race.” In early life he had been thought inclined to severity, and his treatment of the Jews, at the fall of their city, does not seem in accordance with his character for humanity. But no sooner had he ascended the throne than he won a general affection. Such was the mildness of his government that no one was punished at Rome for political offenses. Those who conspired against him he not only pardoned, but took into his familiarity. He was so generous that he could refuse no request for aid. He was resolved, he said, that no one should leave his presence sorrowful; and he thought that day lost in which he had done no good deed. t.i.tus wrote poems and tragedies in Greek, and was familiar with his native literature. During his reign, A.D. 79, occurred a violent eruption of Vesuvius, together with an earthquake, by which Herculaneum, Stabiae, and Pompeii, three towns on the Bay of Naples, were destroyed. The emperor was so touched by the sufferings of the inhabitants that he expended nearly his whole private fortune in relieving their wants. Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were covered by lava or ashes, were thus preserved from farther decay, and, having been partially excavated and restored, enable us to form a truthful conception of the domestic life of the Roman cities in the age of t.i.tus. We here enter the villas of the rich or the humble homes of the poor, and find every where traces of comfort, elegance, and taste.
The next year after the destruction of these cities, a fire broke out in Rome, which raged for three days, desolating the finest regions of the city. The Capitoline Temple was again destroyed, together with many buildings in the Campus Martius. A pestilence followed soon after, which ravaged Rome and all Italy.
In A.D. 81 t.i.tus dedicated the Colosseum, which was now completed, and also his famous baths, the ruins of which may still be visited at Rome.
Splendid games and spectacles were exhibited in honor of these events.
Few military events occurred during this reign, the empire being perfectly quiet, except where the active Agricola was subduing the wandering tribes of Scotland.
At length t.i.tus, having gone to the Sabine villa where his father Vespasian died, was himself suddenly arrested by death. It was believed that his brother Domitian was the cause of this unhappy event, and all the people lamented their emperor as if they had lost a father or a friend. t.i.tus died September 13, A.D. 81.
REIGN OF DOMITIAN, A.D. 81-96
Domitian, who was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers upon his brother's death, possessed the mental ability of the Flavian family, joined to the vices and cruelty of the Claudian. In him Nero or Caligula seemed revived. His first political acts, however, were often useful, and for several years he concealed his true disposition. But he soon surrounded himself with spies and informers, and put to death the n.o.blest men of his time. To preserve the fidelity of the soldiers he doubled their pay, while he won the populace by games and donations. But, to maintain his expenditure, he confiscated the property of the richer citizens, and no man of wealth was safe from an accusation of treason.
Agricola, who had gained a great victory over the Caledonians at the foot of the Grampion Hills, and who was about to subdue all Scotland, Domitian recalled, being jealous of his military fame; and that brave leader pa.s.sed the last eight years of his life in retirement at Rome, in order to avoid the suspicions of the tyrant. Meanwhile, the Dacians, led by their king Decebalus, having crossed the Danube, Domitian took the field against them, and, in A.D. 90, was defeated, and forced to conclude a humiliating peace. Yet, on his return to Rome, he celebrated a triumph, a.s.suming the name of Dacicus. The next year an insurrection broke out among the German legions, which was, however, suppressed.
Domitian now ordered himself to be styled the ”Lord and G.o.d,” and was wors.h.i.+ped with divine honors. A ferocious jealousy of all excellence in others seemed to possess him with rage against the wise and good. The most eminent of the n.o.bility were put to death. All philosophers, and among them the virtuous Epictetus, were banished from Rome. The Christians, which name now included many persons of high station, were murdered in great numbers. At last the tyrant resolved to put to death his wife Domitia, but she discovered his design, and had him a.s.sa.s.sinated, 18th September, A.D. 96. The Senate pa.s.sed a decree that his name should be erased from all public monuments, and refused to yield to the wishes of the soldiers, who would have proclaimed him a G.o.d.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copper Coin of Antoninus Pius, about A.D. 138, showing figure of Britannia.]
CHAPTER XLI.
PROSPERITY OF THE EMPIRE, A.D. 96.--COMMODUS, A.D. 180.--REIGN OF M.