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Caesar: A Sketch by James Anthony Froude
Produced by Eric Eldred, Robert Connal and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: Julius Caesar]
CAESAR
_A SKETCH_
BY
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A.
FORMERLY FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD
_"Pardon, gentles all
The flat unraised spirit that hath dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth So great an
object."_
--SHAKESPEARE, Henry V.
PREFACE.
I have called this work a "sketch" because the materials do not exist for a portrait which shall be
at once authentic and complete. The original authorities which are now extant for the life of
Caesar are his own writings, the speeches and letters of Cicero, the eighth book of the
"Commentaries" on the wars in Gaul and the history of the Alexandrian war, by Aulus Hirtius,
the accounts of the African war and of the war in Spain, composed by persons who were
unquestionably present in those two campaigns. To these must be added the "Leges Juliae"
which are preserved in the Corpus Juris Civilis. Sallust contributes a speech, and Catullus a
poem. A few hints can be gathered from the Epitome of Livy and the fragments of Varro; and
here the contemporary sources which can be entirely depended upon are brought to an end.
The secondary group of authorities from which the popular histories of the time have been
chiefly taken are Appian, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Dion Cassius. Of these the first three were
divided from the period which they describe by nearly a century and a half, Dion Cassius by
more than two centuries. They had means of knowledge which no longer exist--the writings, for
instance, of Asinius Pollio, who was one of Caesar's officers. But Asinius Pollio's accounts of
Caesar's actions, as reported by Appian, cannot always be reconciled with the Commentaries;
and all these four writers relate incidents as facts which are sometimes demonstrably false.
Suetonius is apparently the most trustworthy. His narrative, like those of his contemporaries,
was colored by tradition. His biographies of the earlier Caesars betray the same spirit of
animosity against them which taints the credibility of Tacitus, and prevailed for so many years in
aristocratic Roman society. But Suetonius shows nevertheless an effort at veracity, an
antiquarian curiosity and diligence, and a serious anxiety to tell his story impartially. Suetonius,
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in the absence of evidence direct or presumptive to the contrary, I have felt myself able to
follow. The other three writers I have trusted only when I have found them partially confirmed by
evidence which is better to be relied upon.
The picture which I have drawn will thus be found deficient in many details which have passed
into general acceptance, and I have been unable to claim for it a higher title than that of an
outline drawing.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
Free Constitutions and Imperial Tendencies.--Instructiveness of Roman History.--Character of
Historical Epochs.--The Age of Caesar.--Spiritual State of Rome.--Contrasts between Ancient
and Modern Civilization.
CHAPTER II.
The Roman Constitution.--Moral Character of the Romans.--Roman Religion.-- Morality and
Intellect.--Expansion of Roman Power.--The Senate.--Roman Slavery.--Effects of Intercourse
with Greece.--Patrician Degeneracy.--The Roman Noble.--Influence of Wealth.--Beginnings of
Discontent.
CHAPTER III.
Tiberius Gracchus.--Decay of the Italian Yeomanry.--Agrarian Law.--Success and Murder of
Gracchus.--Land Commission.--Caius Gracchus.--Transfer of Judicial Functions from the
Senate to the Equites.--Sempronian Laws.--Free Grants of Corn.--Plans for Extension of the
Franchise.--New Colonies.-- Reaction.--Murder of Caius Gracchus
CHAPTER IV.
Victory of the Optimates.--The Moors.--History of Jugurtha.--The Senate corrupted.--Jugurthine
War.--Defeat of the Romans.--Jugurtha comes to Rome.--Popular Agitation.--The War
renewed.--Roman Defeats in Africa and Gaul.--Caecilius Metellus and Caius Marius.--Marriage
of Marius.--The Caesars.--Marius Consul.--First Notice of Sylla.--Capture and Death of Jugurtha
CHAPTER V.
Birth of Cicero.--The Cimbri and Teutons.--German Immigration into Gaul.-- Great Defeat of the
Romans on the Rhone.--Wanderings of the Cimbri.-- Attempted Invasion of Italy.--Battle of
Aix.--Destruction of the Teutons.--Defeat of the Cimbri on the Po.--Reform in the Roman Army.--
Popular Disturbances in Rome.--Murder of Memmius.--Murder of Saturninus and Glaucia
CHAPTER VI.
Birth and Childhood of Julius Caesar.--Italian Franchise.--Discontent of the Italians.--Action of
the Land Laws.--The Social War.--Partial Concessions.--Sylla and Marius.--Mithridates of
Pontus.--First Mission of Sylla into Asia.
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CHAPTER VII.
War with Mithridates.--Massacre of Italians in Asia.--Invasion of Greece.--Impotence and
Corruption of the Senate.--End of the Social War.-- Sylla appointed to the Asiatic
Command.--The Assembly transfer the Command to Marius.--Sylla marches on Rome.--Flight
of Marius.--Change of the Constitution.--Sylla sails for the East.--Four Years' Absence.--Defeat
of Mithridates.--Contemporary Incidents at Rome.--Counter Revolution.-- Consulship of
Cinna.--Return of Marius.--Capitulation of Rome.--Massacre of Patricians and Equites.--Triumph
of Democracy.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Young Caesar.--Connection with Marius.--Intimacy with the Ciceros.-- Marriage of Caesar
with the Daughter of Cinna.--Sertorius.--Death of Cinna.--Consulships of Norbanus and
Scipio.--Sylla's Return.--First Appearance of Pompey.--Civil War.--Victory of Sylla.--The
Dictatorship and the Proscription.--Destruction of the Popular Party and Murder of the Popular
Leaders.--General Character of Aristocratic Revolutions.--The Constitution
remodelled.--Concentration of Power in the Senate.--Sylla's General Policy.--The Army.--Flight
of Sertorius to Spain.--Pompey and Sylla.--Caesar refuses to divorce his Wife at Sylla's
Order.--Danger of Caesar.--His Pardon.--Growing Consequence of Cicero.--Defence of
Roscius.--Sylla's Abdication and Death
CHAPTER IX.
Sertorius in Spain.--Warning of Cicero to the Patricians.--Leading Aristocrats.--Caesar with the
Army in the East.--Nicomedes of Bithynia.-- The Bithynian Scandal.--Conspiracy of
Lepidus.--Caesar returns to Rome.-- Defeat of Lepidus.--Prosecution of Dolabella.--Caesar
taken by Pirates.-- Senatorial Corruption.--Universal Disorder.--Civil War in Spain.--Growth of
Mediterranean Piracy.--Connivance of the Senate.--Provincial Administration.--Verres in
Sicily.--Prosecuted by Cicero.--Second War with Mithridates.--First Success of Lucullus.--Failure
of Lucullus, and the Cause of it.--Avarice of Roman Commanders.--The Gladiators.--The Servile
War.--Results of the Change in the Constitution introduced by Sylla
CHAPTER X.
Caesar Military Tribune.--Becomes known as a Speaker.--Is made Quaestor.-- Speech at his
Aunt's Funeral.--Consulship of Pompey and Crassus.--Caesar marries Pompey's
Cousin.--Mission to Spain.--Restoration of the Powers of the Tribunes.--The Equites and the
Senate.--The Pirates.--Food Supplies cut off from Rome.--The Gabinian Law.--Resistance of the
Patricians.-- Suppression of the Pirates by Pompey.--The Manilian Law.--Speech of
Cicero.--Recall of Lucullus.--Pompey sent to command in Asia.--Defeat and Death of
Mithridates.--Conquest of Asia by Pompey
CHAPTER XI.
History of Catiline.--A Candidate for the Consulship.--Catiline and Cicero.--Cicero chosen
Consul.--Attaches Himself to the Senatorial Party.--Caesar elected Aedile.--Conducts an Inquiry
into the Syllan Proscriptions.--Prosecution of Rabirius.--Caesar becomes Pontifex
Maximus--and Praetor.--Cicero's Conduct as Consul.--Proposed Agrarian Law.--Resisted by
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Cicero.--Catiline again stands for the Consulship.-- Violent Language in the
Senate.--Threatened Revolution.--Catiline again defeated.--The Conspiracy.--Warnings sent to
Cicero.--Meeting at Catiline's House.--Speech of Cicero in the Senate.--Cataline joins an Army
of Insurrection in Etruria.--His Fellow-conspirators.--Correspondence with the
Allobroges.--Letters read in the Senate.--The Conspirators seized.-- Debate upon their
Fate.--Speech of Caesar.--Caesar on a Future State.-- Speech of Cato--and of Cicero.--The
Conspirators executed untried.--Death of Catiline.
CHAPTER XII.
Preparations for the Return of Pompey.--Scene in the Forum.--Cato and Metellus.--Caesar
suspended from the Praetorship.--Caesar supports Pompey.--Scandals against Caesar's
Private Life.--General Character of them.--Festival of the Bona Dea.--Publius Clodius enters
Caesar's House dressed as a Woman.--Prosecution and Trial of Clodius.--His Acquittal, and the
Reason of it.--Successes of Caesar as Propraetor in Spain.--Conquest of Lusitania.--Return of
Pompey to Italy.--First Speech in the Senate.-- Precarious Position of Cicero.--Cato and the
Equites.--Caesar elected Consul.--Revival of the Democratic Party.--Anticipated Agrarian Law.--
Uneasiness of Cicero.
CHAPTER XIII.
The Consulship of Caesar.--Character of his Intended Legislation.--The Land Act first proposed
in the Senate.--Violent Opposition.--Caesar appeals to the Assembly.--Interference of the
Second Consul Bibulus.--The Land Act submitted to the People.--Pompey and Crassus support
it.--Bibulus interposes, but without Success.--The Act carried--and other Laws.--The Senate no
longer being Consulted.--General Purpose of the Leges Juliae.-- Caesar appointed to
Command in Gaul for Five Years.--His Object in accepting that Province.--Condition of Gaul,
and the Dangers to be apprehended from it.--Alliance of Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus.--The
Dynasts.--Indignation of the Aristocracy.--Threats to repeal Caesar's Laws.--Necessity of
Controlling Cicero and Cato.--Clodius is made Tribune.--Prosecution of Cicero for Illegal Acts
when Consul.--Cicero's Friends forsake him.--He flies, and is banished.
CHAPTER XIV.
Caesar's Military Narrative.--Divisions of Gaul.--Distribution of Population.--The Celts.--Degree
of Civilization.--Tribal System.--The Druids.--The AEdui and the Sequani.--Roman and German
Parties.--Intended Migration of the Helvetii.--Composition of Caesar's Army.--He goes to
Gaul.--Checks the Helvetii.--Returns to Italy for Larger Forces.--The Helvetii on the
Saone.--Defeated, and sent back to Switzerland.--Invasion of Gaul by Ariovistus.--Caesar
invites him to a Conference.--He refuses.-- Alarm in the Roman Army.--Caesar marches against
Ariovistus.--Interview between them.--Treachery of the Roman Senate.--Great Battle at
Colmar.-- Defeat and Annihilation of the Germans.--End of the First Campaign.-- Confederacy
among the Belgae.--Battle on the Aisne.--War with the Nervii.--Battle of Maubeuge.--Capture of
Namur.--The Belgae conquered.-- Submission of Brittany.--End of the Second Campaign.
CHAPTER XV.
Cicero and Clodius.--Position and Character of Clodius.--Cato sent to Cyprus.--Attempted
Recall of Cicero defeated by Clodius.--Fight in the Forum.--Pardon and Return of
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Cicero.--Moderate Speech to the People.-- Violence in the Senate.--Abuse of Piso and
Gabinius.--Coldness of the Senate toward Cicero.--Restoration of Cicero's House.--Interfered
with by Clodius.--Factions of Clodius and Milo.--Ptolemy Auletes expelled by his
Subjects.--Appeals to Rome for Help.--Alexandrian Envoys assassinated.-- Clodius elected
aedile.--Fight in the Forum.--Parties in Rome.--Situation of Cicero.--Rally of the
Aristocracy.--Attempt to repeal the Leges Juliae.--Conference at Lucca.--Caesar, Pompey, and
Crassus.--Cicero deserts the Senate.--Explains his Motives.--Confirmation of the Ordinances of
Lucca.--Pompey and Crassus Consuls.--Caesar's Command prolonged for Five Additional
Years.--Rejoicings in Rome.--Spectacle in the Amphitheater.
CHAPTER XVI.
Revolt of the Veneti.--Fleet prepared in the Loire.--Sea-fight at Quiberon.--Reduction of
Normandy and of Aquitaine.--Complete Conquest of Gaul.--Fresh Arrival of Germans over the
Lower Rhine.--Caesar orders them to retire, and promises them Lands elsewhere.--They refuse
to go--and are destroyed.--Bridge over the Rhine.--Caesar invades Germany.--Returns after a
Short Inroad.--First Expedition into Britain.--Caesar lands at Deal, or Walmer.--Storm and Injury
to the Fleet.--Approach of the Equinox.-- Further Prosecution of the Enterprise postponed till the
following Year.-- Caesar goes to Italy for the Winter.--Large Naval Preparations.--Return of
Spring.--Alarm on the Moselle.--Fleet collects at Boulogne.--Caesar sails for Britain a Second
Time.--Lands at Deal.--Second and more Destructive Storm.--Ships repaired, and placed out of
Danger.--Caesar marches through Kent.--Crosses the Thames, and reaches St. Albans.--Goes
no further, and returns to Gaul.--Object of the Invasion of Britain.--Description of the Country
and People.
CHAPTER XVII.
Distribution of the Legions after the Return from Britain.--Conspiracy among the Gallic
Chiefs.--Rising of the Eburones.--Destruction of Sabinus, and a Division of the Roman
Army.--Danger of Quintus Cicero.--Relieved by Caesar in Person.--General
Disturbance.--Labienus attacked at Lavacherie.--Defeats and kills Induciomarus.--Second
Conquest of the Belgae.--Caesar again crosses the Rhine.--Quintus Cicero in Danger a Second
Time.--Courage of a Roman Officer.--Punishment of the Revolted Chiefs.--Execution of Acco.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Correspondence of Cicero with Caesar.--Intimacy with Pompey and Crassus.-- Attacks on Piso
and Gabinius.---Cicero compelled to defend Gabinius--and Vatinius.--Dissatisfaction with his
Position.--Corruption at the Consular Elections.--Public Scandal.--Caesar and Pompey.--Deaths
of Aurelia and Julia.--Catastrophe in the East.--Overthrow and Death of Crassus.-- Intrigue to
detach Pompey from Caesar.---Milo a Candidate for the Consulship.--Murder of
Clodius.--Burning of the Senate-house.--Trial and Exile of Milo.--Fresh Engagements with
Caesar.--Promise of the Consulship at the End of his Term in Gaul.
CHAPTER XIX.
Last Revolt of Gaul.--Massacre of Romans at Gien.--Vercingetorix.--Effect on the Celts of the
Disturbances at Rome.--Caesar crosses the Cevennes.-- Defeats the Arverni.--Joins his Army
on the Seine.--Takes Gien, Nevers, and Bourges.--Fails at Gergovia.--Rapid March to
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Sens.--Labienus at Paris.--Battle of the Vingeanne.--Siege of Alesia.--Caesar's Double
Lines.--Arrival of the Relieving Army of Gauls.--First Battle on the Plain.--Second Battle.--Great
Defeat of the Gauls.--Surrender of Alesia.--Campaign against the Carnutes and the
Bellovaci.--Rising on the Dordogne.--Capture of Uxellodunum.--Caesar at Arras.--Completion of
the Conquest.
CHAPTER XX.
Bibulus in Syria.--Approaching Term of Caesar's Government.--Threats of
Impeachment.--Caesar to be Consul or not to be Consul?--Caesar's Political Ambition.--Hatred
felt toward him by the Aristocracy.--Two Legions taken from him on Pretense of Service against
the Parthians.--Caesar to be recalled before the Expiration of his Government.--Senatorial
Intrigues.-- Curio deserts the Senate.--Labienus deserts Caesar.--Cicero in Cilicia.-- Returns to
Rome.--Pompey determined on War.--Cicero's Uncertainties.-- Resolution of the Senate and
Consuls.--Caesar recalled.--Alarm in Rome.-- Alternative Schemes.--Letters of
Cicero.--Caesar's Crime in the Eyes of the Optimates.
CHAPTER XXI.
Caesar appeals to his Army.--The Tribunes join him at Rimini.--Panic and Flight of the
Senate.--Incapacity of Pompey.--Fresh Negotiations.-- Advance of Caesar.--The Country
Districts refuse to arm against him.-- Capture of Corfinium.--Release of the Prisoners.--Offers of
Caesar.-- Continued Hesitation of Cicero.--Advises Pompey to make Peace.--Pompey, with the
Senate and Consuls, flies to Greece.--Cicero's Reflections.-- Pompey to be another
Sylla.--Caesar Mortal, and may die by more Means than one.
CHAPTER XXII.
Pompey's Army in Spain.--Caesar at Rome.--Departure for Spain.--Marseilles refuses to receive
him.--Siege of Marseilles.--Defeat of Pompey's Lieutenants at Lerida.--The whole Army made
Prisoners.--Surrender of Varro.--Marseilles taken.--Defeat of Curio by King Juba in Africa.--
Caesar named Dictator.--Confusion in Rome.--Caesar at Brindisi.--Crosses to Greece in
Midwinter.--Again offers Peace.--Pompey's Fleet in the Adriatic.--Death of Bibulus.--Failure of
Negotiations.--Caelius and Milo killed.--Arrival of Antony in Greece with the Second Division of
Caesar's Army.--Siege of Durazzo.--Defeat and Retreat of Caesar.--The Senate and
Pompey.--Pursuit of Caesar.--Battle of Pharsalia.--Flight of Pompey.--The Camp
taken.--Complete Overthrow of the Senatorial Faction.--Cicero on the Situation once more.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Pompey flies to Egypt.--State of Parties in Egypt.--Murder of Pompey.--His Character.--Caesar
follows him to Alexandria.--Rising in the City.-- Caesar besieged in the Palace.--Desperate
Fighting.--Arrival of Mithridates of Pergamus.--Battle near Cairo, and Death of the Young
Ptolemy.--Cleopatra.--The Detention of Caesar enables the Optimates to rally.--Ill Conduct of
Caesar's Officers in Spain.--War with Pharnaces.-- Battle of Zela, and Settlement of Asia Minor.
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Aristocracy raise an Army in Africa.--Supported by Juba.--Pharsalia not to end the
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War.--Caesar again in Rome.--Restores Order.--Mutiny in Caesar's Army.--The Mutineers
submit.--Caesar lands in Africa.-- Difficulties of the Campaign.--Battle of Thapsus.--No more
Pardons.-- Afranius and Faustus Sylla put to Death.--Cato kills himself at Utica.-- Scipio
killed.--Juba and Petreius die on each other's Swords.--A Scene in Caesar's Camp.
CHAPTER XXV.
Rejoicings in Rome.--Caesar Dictator for the Year.--Reforms the Constitution.--Reforms the
Calendar--and the Criminal Law.-- Dissatisfaction of Cicero.--Last Efforts in Spain of Labienus
and the Young Pompeys.--Caesar goes thither in Person, accompanied by Octavius.-- Caesar's
Last Battle at Munda.--Death of Labienus.--Capture of Cordova.-- Close of the Civil
War.--General Reflections.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Caesar once more in Rome.--General Amnesty.--The Surviving Optimates pretend to
submit.--Increase in the Number of Senators.--Introduction of Foreigners.--New
Colonies.--Carthage.--Corinth.--Sumptuary Regulations.-- Digest of the Law.--Intended Parthian
War.--Honors heaped on Caesar.--The Object of them.--Caesar's Indifference.--Some
Consolations.--Hears of Conspiracies, but disregards them.--Speculations of Cicero in the Last
Stage of the War.--Speech in the Senate.--A Contrast, and the Meaning of it.--The
Kingship.--Antony offers Caesar the Crown, which Caesar refuses.--The Assassins.--Who they
were.--Brutus and Cassius.--Two Officers of Caesar's among them.--Warnings.--Meeting of the
Conspirators.--Caesar's Last Evening.--The Ides of March.--The Senate-house.--Caesar killed.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Consternation in Rome.--The Conspirators in the Capitol.--Unforeseen Difficulties.--Speech of
Cicero.--Caesar's Funeral.--Speech of Antony.-- Fury of the People.--The Funeral Pile in the
Forum.--The King is dead, but the Monarchy survives.--Fruitlessness of the Murder.--Octavius
and Antony.--Union of Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus.--Proscription of the Assassins.--Philippi,
and the end of Brutus and Cassius.--Death of Cicero.--His Character.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
General Remarks on Caesar.--Mythological Tendencies.--Supposed Profligacy of
Caesar.--Nature of the Evidence.--Servilia.--Cleopatra.--Personal Appearance of Caesar.--His
Manners in Private Life.--Considerations upon him as a Politician, a Soldier, and a Man of
Letters.--Practical Justice his Chief Aim as a Politician.--Universality of Military
Genius.--Devotion of his Army to him, how deserved.--Art of reconciling Conquered
Peoples.--General Scrupulousness and Leniency.--Oratorical and Literary Style.--Cicero's
Description of it.--His Lost Works.--Cato's Judgment on the Civil War.--How Caesar should be
estimated.--Legend of Charles V.-- Spiritual Condition of the Age in which Caesar lived.--His
Work on Earth to establish Order and Good Government, to make possible the Introduction of
Christianity.--A Parallel.
CAESAR: A SKETCH
CHAPTER I.
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To the student of political history, and to the English student above all others, the conversion of
the Roman Republic into a military empire commands a peculiar interest. Notwithstanding many
differences, the English and the Romans essentially resemble one another. The early Romans
possessed the faculty of self-government beyond any people of whom we have historical
knowledge, with the one exception of ourselves. In virtue of their temporal freedom, they
became the most powerful nation in the known world; and their liberties perished only when
Rome became the mistress of conquered races, to whom she was unable or unwilling to extend
her privileges. If England was similarly supreme, if all rival powers were eclipsed by her or laid
under her feet, the Imperial tendencies, which are as strongly marked in us as our love of
liberty, might lead us over the same course to the same end. If there be one lesson which
history clearly teaches, it is this, that free nations cannot govern subject provinces. If they are
unable or unwilling to admit their dependencies to share their own constitution, the constitution
itself will fall in pieces from mere incompetence for its duties.
We talk often foolishly of the necessities of things, and we blame circumstances for the
consequences of our own follies and vices; but there are faults which are not faults of will, but
faults of mere inadequacy to some unforeseen position. Human nature is equal to much, but not
to everything. It can rise to altitudes where it is alike unable to sustain itself or to retire from
them to a safer elevation. Yet when the field is open it pushes forward, and moderation in the
pursuit of greatness is never learnt and never will be learnt. Men of genius are governed by their
instinct; they follow where instinct leads them; and the public life of a nation is but the life of
successive generations of statesmen, whose horizon is bounded, and who act from day to day
as immediate interests suggest. The popular leader of the hour sees some present difficulty or
present opportunity of distinction. He deals with each question as it arises, leaving future
consequences to those who are to come after him. The situation changes from period to period,
and tendencies are generated with an accelerating force, which, when once established, can
never be reversed. When the control of reason is once removed, the catastrophe is no longer
distant, and then nations, like all organized creations, all forms of life, from the meanest flower
to the highest human institution, pass through the inevitably recurring stages of growth and
transformation and decay. A commonwealth, says Cicero, ought to be immortal, and for ever to
renew its youth. Yet commonwealths have proved as unenduring as any other natural object:
Everything that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment, And this huge state presenteth nought but shows,
Whereon the stars in silent influence comment.
Nevertheless, "as the heavens are high above the earth, so is wisdom above folly." Goethe
compares life to a game at whist, where the cards are dealt out by destiny, and the rules of the
game are fixed: subject to these conditions, the players are left to win or lose, according to their
skill or want of skill. The life of a nation, like the life of a man, may be prolonged in honor into
the fulness of its time, or it may perish prematurely, for want of guidance, by violence or internal
disorders. And thus the history of national revolutions is to statesmanship what the pathology of
disease is to the art of medicine. The physician cannot arrest the coming on of age. Where
disease has laid hold upon the constitution he cannot expel it. But he may check the progress of
the evil if he can recognize the symptoms in time. He can save life at the cost of an unsound
limb. He can tell us how to preserve our health when we have it; he can warn us of the
conditions under which particular disorders will have us at disadvantage. And so with nations:
amidst the endless variety of circumstances there are constant phenomena which give notice of
approaching danger; there are courses of action which have uniformly produced the same
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results; and the wise politicians are those who have learnt from experience the real tendencies
of things, unmisled by superficial differences, who can shun the rocks where others have been
wrecked, or from foresight of what is coming can be cool when the peril is upon them.
For these reasons, the fall of the Roman Republic is exceptionally instructive to us. A
constitutional government the most enduring and the most powerful that ever existed was put
on its trial, and found wanting. We see it in its growth; we see the causes which undermined its
strength. We see attempts to check the growing mischief fail, and we see why they failed. And
we see, finally, when nothing seemed so likely as complete dissolution, the whole system
changed by a violent operation, and the dying patient's life protracted for further centuries of
power and usefulness.
Again, irrespective of the direct teaching which we may gather from them, particular epochs in
history have the charm for us which dramas have-- periods when the great actors on the stage
of life stand before us with the distinctness with which they appear in the creations of a poet.
There have not been many such periods; for to see the past, it is not enough for us to be able to
look at it through the eyes of contemporaries; these contemporaries themselves must have
been parties to the scenes which they describe. They must have had full opportunities of
knowledge. They must have had eyes which could see things in their true proportions. They
must have had, in addition, the rare literary powers which can convey to others through the
medium of language an exact picture of their own minds; and such happy combinations occur
but occasionally in thousands of years. Generation after generation passes by, and is crumbled
into sand as rocks are crumbled by the sea. Each brought with it its heroes and its villains, its
triumphs and its sorrows; but the history is formless legend, incredible and unintelligible; the
figures of the actors are indistinct as the rude ballad or ruder inscription, which may be the only
authentic record of them. We do not see the men and women, we see only the outlines of them
which have been woven into tradition as they appeared to the loves or hatreds of passionate
admirers or enemies. Of such times we know nothing, save the broad results as they are
measured from century to century, with here and there some indestructible pebble, some law,
some fragment of remarkable poetry which has resisted decomposition. These periods are the
proper subject of the philosophic historian, and to him we leave them. But there are others, a
few, at which intellectual activity was as great as it is now, with its written records surviving, in
which the passions, the opinions, the ambitions of the age are all before us, where the actors in
the great drama speak their own thoughts in their own words, where we hear their enemies
denounce them and their friends praise them; where we are ourselves plunged amidst the
hopes and fears of the hour, to feel the conflicting emotions and to sympathize in the struggles
which again seem to live: and here philosophy is at fault. Philosophy, when we are face to face
with real men, is as powerless as over the Iliad or King Lear. The overmastering human interest
transcends explanation. We do not sit in judgment on the right or the wrong; we do not seek out
causes to account for what takes place, feeling too conscious of the inadequacy of our analysis.
We see human beings possessed by different impulses, and working out a pre-ordained result,
as the subtle forces drive each along the path marked out for him; and history becomes the
more impressive to us where it least immediately instructs.
With such vividness, with such transparent clearness, the age stands before us of Cato and
Pompey, of Cicero and Julius Caesar; the more distinctly because it was an age in so many
ways the counterpart of our own, the blossoming period of the old civilization, when the intellect
was trained to the highest point which it could reach, and on the great subjects of human
interest, on morals and politics, on poetry and art, even on religion itself and the speculative
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problems of life, men thought as we think, doubted where we doubt, argued as we argue,
aspired and struggled after the same objects. It was an age of material progress and material
civilization; an age of civil liberty and intellectual culture; an age of pamphlets and epigrams, of
salons and of dinner-parties, of senatorial majorities and electoral corruption. The highest
offices of state were open in theory to the meanest citizen; they were confined, in fact, to those
who had the longest purses, or the most ready use of the tongue on popular platforms.
Distinctions of birth had been exchanged for distinctions of wealth. The struggles between
plebeians and patricians for equality of privilege were over, and a new division had been formed
between the party of property and a party who desired a change in the structure of society. The
free cultivators were disappearing from the soil. Italy was being absorbed into vast estates, held
by a few favored families and cultivated by slaves, while the old agricultural population was
driven off the land, and was crowded into towns. The rich were extravagant, for life had ceased
to have practical interest, except for its material pleasures; the occupation of the higher classes
was to obtain money without labor, and to spend it in idle enjoyment. Patriotism survived on the
lips, but patriotism meant the ascendency of the party which would maintain the existing order of
things, or would overthrow it for a more equal distribution of the good things which alone were
valued. Religion, once the foundation of the laws and rule of personal conduct, had subsided
into opinion. The educated, in their hearts, disbelieved it. Temples were still built with increasing
splendor; the established forms were scrupulously observed. Public men spoke conventionally
of Providence, that they might throw on their opponents the odium of impiety; but of genuine
belief that life had any serious meaning, there was none remaining beyond the circle of the
silent, patient, ignorant multitude. The whole spiritual atmosphere was saturated with cant--cant
moral, cant political, cant religious; an affectation of high principle which had ceased to touch
the conduct, and flowed on in an increasing volume of insincere and unreal speech. The truest
thinkers were those who, like Lucretius, spoke frankly out their real convictions, declared that
Providence was a dream, and that man and the world he lived in were material phenomena,
generated by natural forces out of cosmic atoms, and into atoms to be again resolved.
Tendencies now in operation may a few generations hence land modern society in similar
conclusions, unless other convictions revive meanwhile and get the mastery of them; of which
possibility no more need be said than this, that unless there be such a revival in some shape or
other, the forces, whatever they be, which control the forms in which human things adjust
themselves, will make an end again, as they made an end before, of what are called free
institutions. Popular forms of government are possible only when individual men can govern
their own lives on moral principles, and when duty is of more importance than pleasure, and
justice than material expediency. Rome at any rate had grown ripe for judgment. The shape
which the judgment assumed was due perhaps, in a measure, to a condition which has no
longer a parallel among us. The men and women by whom the hard work of the world was done
were chiefly slaves, and those who constitute the driving force of revolutions in modern Europe
lay then outside society, unable and perhaps uncaring to affect its fate. No change then
possible would much influence the prospects of the unhappy bondsmen. The triumph of the
party of the constitution would bring no liberty to them. That their masters should fall like
themselves under the authority of a higher master could not much distress them. Their
sympathies, if they had any, would go with those nearest their own rank, the emancipated
slaves and the sons of those who were emancipated; and they, and the poor free citizens
everywhere, were to a man on the side which was considered and was called the side of "the
people," and was, in fact, the side of despotism.
CHAPTER II.
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