The Historians' History of the World 05

Before this time, also, had begun the adornment of the city with noble buildings of public use. A vast basilica was laid out and begun by M. Æmilius Paulus, consul in 50 B.C. This magnificent work was said to have been erected with money received from Cæsar as the price of the consul’s good services. But the Basilica Æmilia was eclipsed by the splendid plans of the dictator Cæsar. A great space had lately been cleared by the fire kindled at the funeral of Clodius. Other buildings were pulled down, and the Basilica Julia extended on the south of the Forum along the frontage formerly occupied by the Tabernæ Veteres. The great work was completed by Octavian. Still more magnificent edifices were the Thermæ or hot-baths of Agrippa, and the noble temple erected by the same great builder, which still remains under the name of the Pantheon. In this structure the arch, that instrument by which Rome was enabled to give that combination of stability and magnitude which distinguishes all her works, achieved its greatest triumph; and here was seen the first of those great vaulted domes which became the distinctive attribute of the Christian architecture of modern Italy. By these and many other works—politic both because they increased the magnificence and the health of the capital, and also gave constant employment to workmen who might otherwise have been turbulent—the emperor Augustus was enabled to boast that he had “found Rome of brick, and left it of marble.”

But it was not to Rome alone that Augustus, Agrippa, and others confined their labours. Nothing more excites our wonder than to stumble upon costly works, built with a solidity that seems to imply immortality, in the mountain districts of Italy or in remote valleys of Gaul or Asia Minor or Africa. Wherever the Roman went he carried with him his art of building. The aqueduct which was constructed by Agrippa to supply Nemausus (Nismes), a colony of no great note, with water, is a proof of this assertion. The largest modern cities can hardly show a work of public utility so magnificent as the structure which is known to thousands of modern travellers under the name of the Pont du Gard.

SOCIAL CONDITIONS; RELIGION

It is needless here to repeat the dismal tale of corruption and vice which was presented in the life of most of the eminent Romans of the time. Even the rich who were not vicious in their pleasures, such as Lucullus and Hortensius, showed less of taste and good sense in their expenditure than a desire of astonishing by display. The old religion had lost its hold upon the public mind, though superstitious practices lingered among the uneducated classes. Philosophy did little to supply the void. The practical tendencies of the Roman mind attached it to the most practical doctrines of the Hellenic teachers. The moral philosophy of Zeno and Epicurus divided the Roman world; for here were to be found broad and positive principles of action, comprehensible by all. The finer speculations of the academic and peripatetic schools found few votaries among men who were equally downright in their purposes of virtuous or vicious living. In earlier times the stoic doctrines had found a response in the hearts of men who revived the stern simplicity of the old Roman life.

Some of the best men, in the times that followed the Punic Wars, were stoics by practice as well as in profession. Such were Æmilius Paulus and his son the younger Scipio. Notwithstanding the pride and self-sufficiency which was the common result of Zeno’s discipline, there was something ennobling in the principle that a man’s business in life is to do his duty, regardless of pleasure or pain, riches or poverty, honour or disgrace. But nature is too strong for such a system to prevail for many years or over many men. The popular philosophy of the later times was borrowed from the school of Epicurus, but it was an easy and fashionable modification of the morality of that philosopher. Epicurus taught that human happiness could not exist without pleasure, but he added that without the practice of virtue real pleasure could not exist. The former precept was adopted by the sensualists of Rome; the latter was set aside.

Nothing more strongly proves the vicious state of society than the neglect of the marriage tie and the unblushing immorality of the female sex. Cæsar and Octavian, though their own practice was not such as to set example to society, both saw the danger of this state of things, and both exerted themselves to restore at least outward decency. Lawful marriage they endeavoured to encourage or even to enforce by law.