The Historians' History of the World 05

The name of Italy now at length assumed the significance which it still bears; for all free inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul obtained the rights of Roman citizens. But little was done to repair the losses and decays of which we have spoken in former chapters. The military colonies planted by Sulla and Octavian had lowered its condition even beyond its former misery. Ancient and respectable citizens made way for reckless and profligate soldiery—such as the centurion who would have slain the poet Virgil. Our pity for the ejected inhabitants is somewhat lessened by the thought that all the civilised world was open to them, for all the world was Roman. Gaul, and Spain, and Sicily, and the provinces of the East, depopulated by long wars, gratefully received families of Italian citizens, who brought them their habits of civilised life, industry, and such property as they had saved from the ruin of their homes. Great as was the injustice of expelling these persons, the actual loss and suffering, after the pain of leaving home was over, must have been incalculably less than we, in the present condition of Europe, are apt to imagine. After the settlement of these colonies, it is probable that what could be done for the welfare of Italy was done by Augustus and his able ministers, Agrippa and Mæcenas. But the evils were too great and too recent to admit of palliation; and Italy probably never recovered from the effects of the Roman wars of conquest, till she received a new population from the north.

The provinces were gainers by the transference of power from the senate to a single man. The most important provinces were governed by deputies appointed by the prince himself;[138] the rest were left to the rule of senatorial proconsuls. The condition of the imperial provinces was preferred; for the taxes exacted were lighter, and the government was under severer control. Instances occur of senatorial provinces requesting as a favour to be transferred to the rule of the emperor. But even the senatorial government was more equitable than of old. The salaries of the proconsuls were fixed; greedy men were no longer left to pay themselves by extortion; and the governors held power for several years, so that they had more temptation to win the good opinion of their subjects. The examples of Pilate and Felix show, indeed, that glaring injustice was still perpetrated; but these very cases show that the governors stood in awe of those whom they governed—for in both cases the iniquity was committed through fear of the Jews, whom these men had misgoverned and whose accusations they feared. It may be added that both these men were severely punished by the Romans for their misgovernment.

The world, therefore, on the whole, was a gainer by the substitution of the imperial rule for the constitution falsely named republican. For nearly two centuries the government was, with two intervals, administered by rulers of great abilities and great energy; and though, no doubt, there was enough of oppression and to spare, yet there was much less than had been common in the times of senatorial dominion.

But if the provinces—that is, the empire at large—continued to be content with a central despotism, in comparison with the old senatorial rule of “every man for himself,” this was not the case at Rome. The educated classes at least, and the senatorial nobility, soon began to regret even the turbulent days of Marius and Pompey. The practice of oratory, in which Romans excelled and took chief delight, was confined to mere forensic pleadings, and lost all that excitement which attached to it when an orator could sway the will of the senate, and calm or rouse the seething passions of the Forum. We cannot wonder at Cicero, notwithstanding his hatred for commotion, throwing himself into the conflict against Antony with the fervid energy which is revealed in the Philippics. He felt that this was the last chance of supporting the old freedom of the Forum, which, with all its turbulence, he loved, partly as the scene of his own glories, partly as a barrier against the crushing force of military despotism. And though the slaughter of the proscription and of the Civil War removed many of the leading senators, men of independent will revolted against the deadening weight of despotic government, as is revealed in the pages of Tacitus.

For a time, however, there was a general disposition, even at Rome, to welcome the tranquillity ensured by the rule of Octavian, and nothing can more strongly show the security that men experienced, even before the battle of Actium, than the sudden burst with which literature and the polite arts rose from their slumbers.

LITERATURE