The Old Roman World : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization Part 7

[Sidenote: Population and cities.]

[Sidenote: Splendor of Gaulish cities.]

Gaul, which was the first of Caesar's most brilliant conquests, and which took him ten years to accomplish, was a still more extensive province.

It was inhabited chiefly by Celtic tribes, who, uniting with Germanic nations, made a most obstinate defense. When incorporated with the empire, Gaul became rapidly civilized. It was a splendid country, extending from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, with a sea-coast of more than six hundred miles, and separated from Italy by the Alps, having 200,000 square miles. Great rivers, as in Spain, favored an extensive commerce with the interior, and on their banks were populous and beautiful cities. Its large coast on both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic gave it a communication with all the world. It produced corn, oil, and wine, those great staples, in great abundance. It had a beautiful climate, and a healthy and hardy population, warlike, courageous, and generous. Gaul was a populous country even in Caesar's time, and possessed twelve hundred towns and cities, some of which were of great importance.

Burdigala, now Bordeaux, the chief city of Aquitania, on the Garonne, was famous for its schools of rhetoric and grammar. Ma.s.solia (Ma.r.s.eilles), before the Punic wars was a strong fortified city, and was largely engaged in commerce. Vienne, a city of the Allobroges, was inclosed with lofty walls, and had an amphitheatre whose long diameter was five hundred feet, and the aqueducts supplied the city with water.

Lugdunum (Lyons) on the Rhone, was a place of great trade, and was filled with temples, theatres, palaces, and aqueducts. Nemausus (NOEmes) had subject to it twenty-four villages, and from the monuments which remain, must have been a city of considerable importance. Its amphitheatre would seat seventeen thousand people; and its aqueduct constructed of three successive tiers of arches, one hundred and fifty- five feet high, eight hundred and seventy feet long, and fifty feet wide, is still one of the finest monuments of antiquity, built of stone without cement. It is still solid and strong, and gives us a vivid conception of the magnificence of Roman masonry. Narbo (Narbonne) was another commercial centre, adorned with public buildings which called forth the admiration of ancient travelers. The modern cities of Treves, Boulogne, Rheims, Chalons, Cologne, Metz, Dijon, Sens, Orleans, Poictiers, Clermont, Rouen, Paris, Basil, Geneva, were all considerable places under the Roman rule, and some were of great antiquity.

[Sidenote: Illyric.u.m.]

Illyric.u.m is not famous in Roman history, but was a very considerable province, equal to the whole Austrian empire in our times, and was as completely reclaimed from barbarism as Gaul or Spain. Both Jerome and Diocletian were born in a little Dalmatian town.

[Sidenote: Cultivated face of nature.]

[Sidenote: Agricultural wealth.]

Nothing could surpa.s.s the countries which bordered on the Mediterranean in all those things which give material prosperity. They were salubrious in climate, fertile in soil, cultivated like a garden, abounding in nearly all the fruits, vegetables, and grains now known to civilization.

The beautiful face of nature was the subject of universal panegyric to the fall of the empire. There were no destructive wars. All the various provinces were controlled by the central power which emanated from Rome.

There was scope for commerce, and all kinds of manufacturing skill.

Italy, Sicily, and Egypt were especially fertile. The latter country furnished corn in countless quant.i.ties for the Roman market. Italy could boast of fifty kinds of wine, and was covered with luxurious villas in which were fish-ponds, preserves for game, wide olive groves and vineyards, to say nothing of the farms which produced milk, cheese, honey, and poultry. Syria was so prosperous that its inhabitants divided their time between the field, the banquet, and the gymnasium, and indulged in continual festivals. It was so rich that Antiochus III. was able to furnish at one time a tribute of 15,000 talents, beside 540,000 measures of wheat. The luxury of Nineveh and Babylon was revived in the Phoenician cities.

[Sidenote: Natural productions of the various provinces.]

Spain produced horses, mules, wool, oil, figs, wine, corn, honey, beer, flax, linen, beside mines of copper, silver, gold, quicksilver, tin, lead, and steel. Gaul was so cultivated that there was little waste land, and produced the same fruits and vegetables as at the present day. Its hams and sausages were much prized. Sicily was famous for wheat, Sardinia for wool, Epirus for horses, Macedonia for goats, Thessaly for oil, Boeotia for flax, Scythia for furs, and Greece for honey. Almost all the flowers, herbs, and fruits that grow in European gardens were known to the Romans--the apricot, the peach, the pomegranate, the citron, the orange, the quince, the apple, the pear, the plum, the cherry, the fig, the date, the olive. Martial speaks of pepper, beans, pulp, lentils, barley, beets, lettuce, radishes, cabbage sprouts, leeks, turnips, asparagus, mushrooms, truffles, as well as all sorts of game and birds. [Footnote: Martial, B. 13.] In no age of the world was agriculture more honored than before the fall of the empire.

[Sidenote: Roads.]

And all these provinces were connected with each other and with the capital by magnificent roads, perfectly straight, and paved with large blocks of stone. They were originally constructed for military purposes, but were used by travelers, and on them posts were regularly established. They crossed valleys upon arches, and penetrated mountains.

In Italy, especially, they were great works of art, and connected all the provinces. Among the great roads which conveyed to Rome as a centre were the Clodian and Ca.s.sian roads which pa.s.sed through Etruria; the Amerina and Flavinia through Umbria; the Via Valeria, which had its terminus at Alternum on the Adriatic; the Via Latina, which, pa.s.sing through Latium and Campania, extended to the southern extremity of Italy; the Via Appia also pa.s.sed through Latium, Campania, Lucania, Iapygia to Brundusium, on the Adriatic. Again, from the central terminus at Milan, several lines pa.s.sed through the gorges of the Alps, and connected Italy with Lyons and Mayence on the one side, and with the Tyrol and Danubian provinces on the other. Spain and southern Gaul were connected by a grand road from Cadiz to Narbonne and Arles. Lyons was another centre from which branched out military roads to Saintes, Ma.r.s.eilles, Boulogne, and Mayence. In fact, the Roman legion could traverse every province in the empire over these grandly built public roads, as great and important in the second century as railroads are at the present time. There was an uninterrupted communication from the Wall of Antonius through York, London, Sandwich, Boulogne, Rheims, Lyons, Milan, Rome, Brundusium, Dyrrachium, Byzantium, Ancyra, Tarsus, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem--a distance of 3740 miles. And these roads were divided by milestones, and houses for travelers erected every five or six miles.

[Sidenote: Commerce.]

[Sidenote: Objects of ancient commerce.]

Commerce under the emperors was not what it now is, but still was very considerable, and thus united the various provinces together. The most remote countries were ransacked to furnish luxuries for Rome. Every year a fleet of one hundred and twenty vessels sailed from the Red Sea for the islands of the Indian Ocean. But the Mediterranean, with the rivers which flowed into it, was the great highway of the ancient navigator.

Navigation by the ancients was even more rapid than in modern times before the invention of steam, since oars were employed as well as sails. In summer one hundred and sixty-two Roman miles were sailed over in twenty-four hours. This was the average speed, or about seven knots.

From the mouth of the Tiber, vessels could usually reach Africa in two days, Ma.s.silia in three, Tarraco in four, and the Pillars of Hercules in seven. From Puteoli the pa.s.sage to Alexandria had been effected, with moderate winds, in nine days. But these facts apply only to the summer, and to objects of favorable winds. The Romans did not navigate in the inclement seasons. But in summer the great inland sea was white with sails. Great fleets brought corn from Gaul, Spain, Sardinia, Africa, Sicily, and Egypt. This was the most important trade. But a considerable commerce was carried on in ivory, tortoise-sh.e.l.l, cotton and silk fabrics, pearls and precious stones, gums, spices, wines, wool, oil.

Greek and Asiatic wines, especially the Chian and Lesbian, were in great demand at Rome. The transport of earthenware, made generally in the Grecian cities; of wild animals for the amphitheatre; of marble, of the spoils of eastern cities, of military engines, and stores, and horses, required very large fleets and thousands of mariners, which probably belonged, chiefly, to great maritime cities like Alexandria, Corinth, Carthage, Rhodes, Cyrene, Ma.s.salia, Neapolis, Tarentum, and Syracuse.

These great cities with their dependencies, required even more vessels for communication with each other than for Rome herself--the great central object of enterprise and cupidity.

[Sidenote: The metropolis of the empire.]

[Sidenote: The centre and the pride of the world.]

[Sidenote: Its varied objects of interest.]

In this survey of the provinces and cities which composed the empire of the Caesars, I have not yet spoken of the great central city--the City of the Seven Hills, to which all the world was tributary. Rome was so grand, so vast, so important in every sense, political and social; she was such a concentration of riches and wonders, that it demands a separate and fuller notice than what I have been able to give of those proud capitals which finally yielded to her majestic domination. All other cities not merely yielded precedence, but contributed to her greatness. Whatever was costly, or rare, or beautiful in Greece, or Asia, or Egypt, was appropriated by her citizen kings, since citizens were provincial governors. All the great roads, from the Atlantic to the Tigris, converged to Rome. All the s.h.i.+ps of Alexandria and Carthage and Tarentum, and other commercial capitals, were employed in furnis.h.i.+ng her with luxuries or necessities. Never was there so proud a city as this "Epitome of the Universe." London, Paris, Vienna, Constantinople, St.

Petersburg, Berlin, are great centres of fas.h.i.+on and power; but they are rivals, and excel only in some great department of human enterprise and genius, as in letters, or fas.h.i.+ons, or commerce, or manufactures-- centres of influence and power in the countries of which they are capitals, yet they do not monopolize the wealth and energies of the world. London may contain more people than ancient Rome, and may possess more commercial wealth; but London represents only the British monarchy, not a universal empire. Rome, however, monopolized everything, and controlled all nations and peoples. She could shut up the schools of Athens, or disperse the s.h.i.+ps of Alexandria, or regulate the shops of Antioch. What Lyons or Bordeaux is to Paris, Corinth or Babylon was to Rome--secondary cities, dependent cities. Paul condemned at Jerusalem, stretched out his arms to Rome, and Rome protects him. The philosophers of Greece are the tutors of Roman n.o.bility. The kings of the East resort to the palaces of Mount Palatine for favors or safety. The governors of Syria and Egypt, reigning in the palaces of ancient kings, return to Rome to squander the riches they have acc.u.mulated. Senators and n.o.bles take their turn as sovereign rulers of all the known countries of the world. The halls in which Darius, and Alexander, and Pericles, and Croesus, and Solomon, and Cleopatra have feasted, if unspared by the conflagrations of war, witness the banquets of Roman proconsuls. Babylon and Thebes and Athens were only what Delhi and Calcutta are to the English of our day--cities to be ruled by the delegates of the Roman Senate. Rome was the only "home" of the proud governors who reigned on the banks of the Thames, of the Seine, of the Rhine, of the Nile, of the Tigris. After they had enriched themselves with the spoils of the ancient monarchies they returned to their estates in Italy, or to their palaces on the Aventine, for the earth had but _one_ capital--one great centre of attraction. To an Egyptian even, Alexandria was only provincial. He must travel to the banks of the Tiber to see something greater than his own capital. It was the seat of government for one hundred and twenty millions of people. It was the arbiter of taste and fas.h.i.+on. It was the home of generals and senators and statesmen, of artists and scholars and merchants, who were renowned throughout the empire. It was enriched by the contributions of conquered nations for eight hundred years. It contained more marble statues than living inhabitants. Every spot was consecrated by a.s.sociations; every temple had a history; every palace had been the scene of festivities which made it famous; every monument pointed to the deeds of the ill.u.s.trious dead, and swelled the pride of the most powerful families which aristocratic ages had created.

For the ancient authorities, see Strabo, Pliny, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, t.i.tus Livius, Pausanias, and Herodotus. There is an able chapter on Mediterranean prosperity in Napoleon's _History of Caesar_. Smith, _Dictionary of Ancient Geography_, is exhaustive.

See, also, Muller, article on _Atticus_, in Ersch, and Gruber's _Encyclopedia_, translated by Lockhart; Stuart and Revett, _Antiquities of Atticus_; Dodwell, _Tour through Greece_; Wilkinson, _Hand-book for Travelers in Egypt_; Becker, _Hand-book of Rome_.

Anthon has compiled a useful work on ancient geography, but the most accessible and valuable book on the material aspects of the old Roman world is the great dictionary of Smith, from which this chapter is chiefly compiled.

CHAPTER III.

THE WONDERS OF ANCIENT ROME.

[Sidenote: Early inhabitants of Italy.]

The great capital of the ancient world had a very humble beginning, and that is involved in myth and mystery. Even the Latin stock, inhabiting the country from the Tiber to the Volscian mountains, which furnished the first inhabitants of the city, cannot be clearly traced, since we have no traditions of the first migration of the human race into Italy.

It is supposed by Mommsen that the peoples which inhabited Latium belong to the Indo-Germanic family. Among these were probably the independent cantons of the Ramnians, t.i.ties, and Luceres, which united to form a single commonwealth, and occupied the hills which arose about fourteen miles from the mouth of the Tiber. Around these hills was a rural population which tilled the fields. From these settlements a fortified fort arose on the Palatine Hill, fitted to be a place of trade from its situation on the Tiber, and also a fortress to protect the urban villages. Though unhealthy in its site, it was admirably adapted for these purposes, and thus early became an important place.

[Sidenote: Foundation of Rome.]

[Sidenote: Settlement under Romulus.]

[Sidenote: Extent of the city at the death of Romulus.]

The legends attribute a different foundation of the "Eternal City." But these also a.s.sign the Palatine as the nucleus of ancient Rome. It was on this hill that Romulus and Remus grew up to manhood, and it was this hill which Romulus selected as the site of the city he was so desirous to build. But modern critics suppose that he did not occupy the whole hill, but only the western part of it. Varro, whose authority is generally received, a.s.signs the year 753 before Christ as the date for the foundation of the city. The first memorable incident in the history of this little city of robbers was the care of Romulus to increase its population by opening an asylum for fugitive slaves on the Capitoline Hill. But this supplied only males who had no wives. And when the proposal of the founder to solicit intermarriage with the neighboring nations was rejected, he resorted to stratagem and force. He invites the Sabines and the people of other Latin towns to witness games. A crowd of men and women are a.s.sembled, and while all are intent on the games, the unmarried women are seized by the Roman youth. Then ensues, of course, a war with the Sabines, the result of which is that the Sabines are united with the Romans and settle on the Quirinal. The Saturnian Hill is left in possession of the Sabines, while Romulus a.s.sumes the Sabine name of Quirinus, from which we infer that the Sabines had the best of the conflict. Callius, who, it is said, a.s.sisted Romulus, receives as a compensation the hill known as the Caelian. At the death of Romulus, who reigned thirty-seven years, Rome comprised the Palatine, the Quirinal, the Caelian, and the Capitoline hills. [Footnote: M. Ampere, _Hist.

Rom._, tom. i. ch. xii.] The Sabines thus occupy two of the seven hills, and furnish not only people for the infant city, but laws, customs, and manners, especially religious observances.

[Sidenote: The public works of Numa.]

The reign of Numa was devoted to the consolidation of the power which Romulus had acquired, to the civilization of his subjects, and the improvement of the city. He fixed his residence between the Roman and the Sabine city, and erected adjoining to the Regia a temple to Vesta, which was probably only an _oedes sacra_. It was probably along with these buildings that the Sacra Via came into existence. The Regia became in after times the residence of the Pontifex Maximus. Numa established on the Palatine the Curia Saliorum, and built on the Quirinal a temple of Romulus, afterwards rebuilt by Augustus. He also erected on the Quirinal a citadel connected with a temple of Jupiter, with cells of Juno and Minerva. He converted the gate which formed the entrance of the Sabine city into a temple of Ja.n.u.s, and laid the foundation upon the Capitoline of a large temple to Fides Publica, the public faith.

[Sidenote: The reign of Tullus Hostilius.]

[Sidenote: Improvement of the city made by Tullus.]

Under the reign of Tullus Hostilius was the capture of Alba Longa, the old capital of Latium, where Numa had reigned, and the transfer of its inhabitants to Rome, which thus became the chief city of the Latin league. They were located on the Caelian, which also became the residence of the king. He built the Curia Hostilia, a senate chamber, to accommodate the n.o.ble Alban families, in which the Roman Senate a.s.sembled, at the northwest corner of the Forum, to the latest times of the republic. It was a templum, but not dedicated for divine services, adjoining the eastern side of the Vulca.n.a.l. Out of the spoils of Alba Longa, Tullus improved the Comitium, a s.p.a.ce at the northwest end of the Forum, fronting the Curia, the common meeting place of the Romans and Sabines. On the Quirinal Hill he erected a Curia Saliorum in imitation of that of Numa on the Palatine, devoted to the wors.h.i.+p of Quirinus.

[Sidenote: Growth of Rome during the reign of Ancus Martius.]

Ancus Martius, a grandson of Numa, succeeded Tullus after a reign of thirty-two years. Under him the city was greatly augmented by the inhabitants of various Latin cities which he subdued. These settled on the Aventine, and in the valley which separated it from the Palatine, supposed by Niebuhr to be the origin of the Roman Plebs, though it is maintained by Lewis that the Plebeian order was coaeval with the foundation of the city. Ancus fortified Mons Janiculus, the hill on the western bank of the Tiber, for the protection of the city. He connected it with Rome by the Pons Sublicius, the earliest of the Roman bridges, built on piles. The Janiculum was not much occupied by residences until the time of Augustus. Ancus founded Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, which became the port of Rome. It was this king who built the famous Mamertine Prison, near the Forum, below the northern height of the Capitoline.

[Sidenote: Tarquinius Priscus.]

[Sidenote: The Cloaca Maxima.]

[Sidenote: Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter.]

A new dynasty succeeded this king, who reigned twenty-four years; that of the Tarquins, an Etrurian family of Greek extraction, which came from Corinth, the cradle of Grecian art, celebrated as the birth-place of painting and for its works of pottery and bronze. Tarquinius Priscus constructed the Cloaca Maxima, that vast sewer which drained the Forum and Velabrum, and which is regarded by Niebuhr as one of the most stupendous monuments of antiquity. It was composed of three semicircular arches inclosing one another, the innermost of which had a diameter of twelve feet, large enough to be traversed by a Roman hay-cart.

[Footnote: Arnold, _Hist. of Rom._, vol. i. p. 52.] It was built without cement, and still remains a magnificent specimen of the perfection of the old Tuscan masonry. Along the southern side of the Forum this enlightened monarch constructed a row of shops occupied by butchers and other tradesmen. At the head of the Forum and under the Capitoline he founded the Temple of Saturn, the ruins of which attest considerable splendor. But his greatest work was the foundation of the Capitoline Temple of Jupiter, completed by Tarquinius Superbus, the consecrated citadel in which was deposited whatever was most valued by the Romans.