Beacon Lights of History Volume Iii Part 10

Nor did Paganism offer any consolations to the down-trodden, injured, neglected, uninteresting woman of antiquity. She could not rise above the condition in which she was born. No sympathetic priest directed her thoughts to another and higher and endless life. n.o.body wiped away her tears; n.o.body gave encouragement to those visions of beauty and serenity for which the burdened spirit will, under any oppressions, sometimes aspire to enjoy. No one told her of immortality and a G.o.d of forgiveness, who binds up the bleeding heart and promises a future peace and bliss. Paganism was merciful only in this,--that it did not open wounds it could not heal; that it did not hold out hopes and promises it could not fulfil; that it did not remind the afflicted of miseries from which they could not rise; that it did not let in a vision of glories which could never be enjoyed; that it did not provoke the soul to indulge in a bitterness in view of evils for which there was no remedy; that it did not educate the mind for enjoyments which could never be reached; that it did not kindle a discontent with a condition from which there is no escape. If one cannot rise above debas.e.m.e.nt or misery, there is no use in pointing it out. If the Pagan woman was not seemingly aware of the degradation which kept her down, and from which it was impossible to rise, Paganism did not add stings to her misery by presenting it as an accident which it was easy to surmount. There would be no contentment or submission among animals if they were endowed with the reason of men. Give to a healthy, but ignorant, coa.r.s.e, uncultivated country girl, surrounded only with pigs and chickens, almost without neighbors, a glimpse of the glories of cities, the wonders of art, the charms of social life, the triumphs of mind, the capacities of the soul, and would she be any happier, if obliged to remain for life in her rustic obscurity and labor, and with no possible chance of improving her condition? Such was woman under Paganism. She could rise only so far as men lifted her up; and they lifted her up only further to consummate her degradation.

But there was another thing which kept women in degradation. Paganism did not recognize the immaterial and immortal soul: it only had regard to the wants of the body. Of course there were exceptions. There were sages and philosophers among the men who speculated on the grandest subjects which can elevate the mind to the regions of immortal truth,--like Socrates, Plato, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius,--even as there were women who rose above all the vile temptations which surrounded them, and were poets, heroines, and benefactors,--like Telessa, who saved Argos by her courage; and Volumnia, who screened Rome from the vengeance of her angry son; and Lucretia, who destroyed herself rather than survive the dishonor of her house. There are some people who rise and triumph over every kind of oppression and injury. Under Paganism there was the possibility of the emanc.i.p.ation of the soul, but not the probability. Its genius was directed to the welfare of the body,--to utilitarian ends of life, to ornaments and riches, to luxury and voluptuousness, to the pleasures which are brief, to the charms of physical beauty and grace. It could stimulate ambition and inculcate patriotism and sing of love, if it coupled the praises of Venus with the praises of wine. But everything it praised or honored had reference to this life and to the mortal body. It may have recognized the mind, but not the soul, which is greater than the mind. It had no aspirations for future happiness; it had no fears of future misery. Hence the frequency of suicide under disappointment, or ennui, or satiated desire, or fear of poverty, or disgrace, or pain.

And thus, as Paganism did not take cognizance of the soul in its future existence, it disregarded man's highest aspirations. It did not cultivate his graces; it set but a slight value on moral beauty; it thought little of affections; it spurned gentleness and pa.s.sive virtues; it saw no l.u.s.tre in the tender eye; it heard no music in the tones of sympathy; it was hard and cold. That which const.i.tutes the richest beat.i.tudes of love it could not see, and did not care for. Ethereal blessedness it despised. That which raises woman highest, it was indifferent to. The cold atmosphere of Paganism froze her soul, and made her callous to wrongs and sufferings. It destroyed enthusiasm and poetic ardor and the graces which s.h.i.+ne in misfortune. Woman was not kindled by lofty sentiments, since no one believed in them. The harmonies of home had no poetry and no inspiration, and they disappeared. The face of woman was not lighted by supernatural smiles. Her caresses had no spiritual fervor, and her benedictions were unmeaning plat.i.tudes. Take away the soul of woman, and what is she? Rob her of her divine enthusiasm, and how vapid and commonplace she becomes! Destroy her yearnings to be a spiritual solace, and how limited is her sphere! Take away the holy dignity of the soul, and how impossible is a lofty friends.h.i.+p! Without the amenities of the soul there can be no real society. Crush the soul of a woman, and you extinguish her life, and shed darkness on all who surround her. She cannot rally from pain, or labor, or misfortune, if her higher nature is ignored. Paganism ignored what is grandest and truest in a woman, and she withered like a stricken tree. She succ.u.mbed before the cold blasts that froze her n.o.blest impulses, and sunk sullenly into obscurity. Oh, what a fool a man is to make woman a slave! He forgets that though he may succeed in keeping her down, chained and fettered by drudgeries, she will be revenged; that though powerless, she will instinctively learn to hate him; and if she cannot defy him she will scorn him,--for not even a brute animal will patiently submit to cruelty, still less a human soul become reconciled to injustice. And what is the possession of a human body without the sympathy of a living soul?

And hence women, under Paganism,--having no hopes of future joy, no recognition of their diviner attributes, no true scope for energies, no field of usefulness but in a dreary home, no enn.o.bling friends.h.i.+ps, no high encouragements, no education, no lofty companions.h.i.+p; utterly unappreciated in what most distinguishes them, and valued only as household slaves or victims of guilty pleasure; adorned and bedecked with trinkets, all to show off the graces of the body alone, and with nothing to show their proud equality with men in influence, if not in power, in mind as well as heart,--took no interest in what truly elevates society. What schools did they teach or even visit? What hospitals did they enrich? What miseries did they relieve? What charities did they contribute to? What churches did they attend? What social gatherings did they enliven? What missions of benevolence did they embark in? What were these to women who did not know what was the most precious thing they had, or when this precious thing was allowed to run to waste? What was there for a woman to do with an unrecognized soul but gird herself with ornaments, and curiously braid her hair, and ransack shops for new cosmetics, and hunt for new perfumes, and recline on luxurious couches, and issue orders to attendant slaves, and join in seductive dances, and indulge in frivolous gossip, and entice by the display of sensual charms? Her highest aspiration was to adorn a perishable body, and vanity became the spring of life.

And the men,--without the true sanct.i.ties and beat.i.tudes of married life, without the tender companions.h.i.+p which cultivated women give, without the hallowed friends.h.i.+ps which the soul alone can keep alive, despising women who were either toys or slaves,--fled from their dull, monotonous, and dreary homes to the circus and the theatre and the banqueting hall for excitement or self-forgetfulness. They did not seek society, for there can be no high society where women do not preside and inspire and guide. Society is a Christian inst.i.tution. It was born among our German ancestors, amid the inspiring glories of chivalry. It was made for women as well as men of social cravings and aspirations, which have their seat in what Paganism ignored. Society, under Paganism, was confined to men, at banquets or symposia, where women seldom entered, unless for the amus.e.m.e.nt of men,--never for their improvement, and still less for their restraint.

It was not until Christianity permeated the old Pagan civilization and destroyed its idols, that the n.o.ble Paulas and Marcellas and Fabiolas arose to dignify human friends.h.i.+ps, and give fascination to reunions of cultivated women and gifted men; that the seeds of society were sown. It was not until the natural veneration which the Gothic nations seem to have had for women, even in their native forests, had ripened into devotion and gallantry under the teachings of Christian priests, that the true position of women was understood. And after their equality was recognized in the feudal castles of the Middle Ages, the _salons_ of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries established their claims as the inspiring geniuses of what we call society. Then, and not till then, did physical beauty pale before the brilliancy of the mind and the radiance of the soul,--at last recognized as the highest charm of woman. The leaders of society became, not the ornamented and painted _heterae_ which had attracted Grecian generals and statesmen and men of letters, but the witty and the genial and the dignified matrons who were capable of instructing and inspiring men superior to themselves, with eyes beaming with intellectual radiance, and features changing with perpetual variety. Modern society, created by Christianity,--since only Christianity recognizes what is most truly attractive and enn.o.bling among women--is a great advance over the banquets of imperial Romans and the symposia of gifted Greeks.

But even this does not satisfy woman in her loftiest aspirations. The soul which animates and inspires her is boundless. Its wants cannot be fully met even in an a.s.semblage of wits and beauties. The soul of Madame de Stael pined amid all her social triumphs. The soul craves friends.h.i.+ps, intellectual banquetings, and religious aspirations. And unless the emanc.i.p.ated soul of woman can have these wants gratified, she droops even amid the glories of society. She is killed, not as a hero perishes on a battle-field; but she dies, as Madame de Maintenon said that she died, amid the imposing splendors of Versailles. It is only the teachings and influences of that divine religion which made Bethany the centre of true social banquetings to the wandering and isolated Man of Sorrows, which can keep the soul alive amid the cares, the burdens, and the duties which bend down every son and daughter of Adam, however gilded may be the outward life. How grateful, then, should women be to that influence which has s.n.a.t.c.hed them from the pollutions and heartless slaveries of Paganism, and given dignity to their higher nature! It is to them that it has brought the greatest boon, and made them triumphant over the evils of life. And how thoughtless, how misguided, how ungrateful is that woman who would exchange the priceless blessings which Christianity has brought to her for those ornaments, those excitements, and those pleasures which ancient Paganism gave as the only solace fox the loss and degradation of her immortal soul!

AUTHORITIES.

Plutarch's Lives; Froude's Caesar; Shakspeare's Antony and Cleopatra; Plato's Dialogues; Horace, Martial, and Juvenal, especially among the poets; Lord's Old Roman World; Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars; Dion Ca.s.sius; Rollin's Ancient History; Merivale's History of the Romans; Biographic Universelle; Rees's Encyclopedia has a good article.

PAGAN SOCIETY.

GLORY AND SHAME.

50 B.C.

We have now surveyed what was most glorious in the States of antiquity.

We have seen a civilization which in many respects rivals all that modern nations have to show. In art, in literature, in philosophy, in laws, in the mechanism of government, in the cultivated face of Nature, in military strength, in aesthetic culture, the Greeks and Romans were our equals. And this high civilization was reached by the native and unaided strength of man; by the power of will, by courage, by perseverance, by genius, by fortunate circ.u.mstances. We are filled with admiration by all these trophies of genius, and cannot but feel that only superior races could have accomplished such mighty triumphs.

Yet all this splendid exterior was deceptive; for the deeper we penetrate the social condition of the people, the more we feel disgust and pity supplanting all feelings of admiration and wonder. The Roman empire especially, which had gathered into its strong embrace the whole world, and was the natural inheritor of all the achievements of all the nations, in its shame and degradation suggests melancholy feelings in reference to the destiny of man, so far as his happiness and welfare depend upon his own unaided efforts.

It is a sad picture of oppression, injustice, crime, and wretchedness which I have now to present. Glory is succeeded by shame, strength by weakness, and virtue by vice. The condition of the ma.s.s is deplorable, and even the great and fortunate s.h.i.+ne in a false and fict.i.tious light.

We see laws, theoretically good, practically perverted, and selfishness and egotism the mainsprings of life; we see energies misdirected, and art corrupted. All n.o.ble aspirations have fled, and the good and the wise retire from active life in despair and misanthropy. Poets flatter the tyrants who trample on human rights, while sensuality and luxurious pleasure absorb the depraved thoughts of a perverse generation.

The first thing which arrests our attention as we survey the civilized countries of the old world, is the imperial despotism of Rome. The empire indeed enjoyed quietude, and society was no longer rent by factions and parties. Demagogues no longer disturbed the public peace, nor were the provinces ransacked and devastated to provide for the means of carrying on war. So long as men did not oppose the government they were safe from molestation, and were left to pursue their business and pleasure in their own way. Imperial cruelty was not often visited on the humble cla.s.ses. It was the policy of the emperors to amuse and flatter the people, while depriving them of political rights. Hence social life was free. All were at liberty to seek their pleasures and gains; all were proud of their metropolis, with its gilded glories and its fascinating pleasures. Outrages, extortions, and disturbances were punished. Order reigned, and all cla.s.ses felt secure; they could sleep without fear of robbery or a.s.sa.s.sination. In short, all the arguments which can be adduced in favor of despotism in contrast with civil war and violence, show that it was beneficial in its immediate effects.

Nevertheless, it was a most lamentable change from that condition of things which existed before the civil wars. Roman liberties were prostrated forever; n.o.ble sentiments and aspirations were rebuked. Under the Emperors we read of no more great orators like Cicero, battling for human rights and defending the public weal. Eloquence was suppressed.

Nor was there liberty of speech even in the Senate. It was treason to find fault with any public acts. From the Pillars of Hercules to the Caspian Sea one stern will ruled all cla.s.ses and orders. No one could fly from the agents and ministers of the Emperor; he controlled the army, the Senate, the judiciary, the internal administration of the empire, and the religious wors.h.i.+p of the people; all offices, honors, and emoluments emanated from him. All influences conspired to elevate the man whom no one could hope successfully to rival. Revolt was madness, and treason absurdity. Nor did the Emperors attempt to check the gigantic social evils of the empire. They did not seek to prevent irreligion, luxury, slavery, and usury, the encroachments of the rich upon the poor, the tyranny of foolish fas.h.i.+ons, demoralizing sports and pleasures, money-making, and all the follies which lax principles of morality allowed; they fed the rabble with corn, oil, and wine, and thus encouraged idleness and dissipation. The world never saw a more rapid retrogression in human rights, or a greater prostration of liberties.

Taxes were imposed according to the pleasure or necessities of the government. Provincial governors became still more rapacious and cruel; judges hesitated to decide against the government. Patriotism, in its most enlarged sense, became an impossibility; all lofty spirits were crushed. Corruption in all forms of administration fearfully increased, for there was no safeguard against it.

Theoretically, absolutism may be the best government, if rulers are wise and just; but practically, as men are, despotisms are generally cruel and revengeful. Despotism implies slavery, and slavery is the worst condition of mankind.

It cannot be questioned that many virtuous princes reigned at Rome, who would have ornamented any age or country. t.i.tus, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Antoninus Pius, Alexander Severus, Tacitus, Probus, Carus, Constantine, Theodosius, were all men of remarkable virtues as well as talents. They did what they could to promote public prosperity. Marcus Aurelius was one of the purest and n.o.blest characters of antiquity.

Theodosius for genius and virtue ranks with the most ill.u.s.trious sovereigns that ever wore a crown,--with Charlemagne, with Alfred, with William III., with Gustavus Adolphus.

But it matters not whether the Emperors were good or bad, if the regime to which they consecrated their energies was exerted to crush the liberties of mankind. The imperial despotism, whether brilliant or disgraceful, was a mournful retrograde step in civilization; it implied the extinction of patriotism and the general degradation of the people, and would have been impossible in the days of Cato, Scipio, or Metellus.

If we turn from the Emperors to the cla.s.s which before the dictators.h.i.+p of Julius Caesar had the ascendency in the State, and for several centuries the supreme power, we shall find but little that is flattering to a nation or to humanity. Under the Emperors the aristocracy had degenerated in morals as well as influence. They still retained their enormous fortunes, originally acquired as governors of provinces, and continually increased by fortunate marriages and speculations. Indeed, nothing was more marked and melancholy at Rome than the vast disproportion in fortunes. In the better days of the republic, property was more equally divided; the citizens were not ambitious for more land than they could conveniently cultivate. But the lands, obtained by conquest, gradually fell into the possession of powerful families. The cla.s.ses of society widened as great fortunes were acc.u.mulated; pride of wealth kept pace with pride of ancestry; and when plebeian families had obtained great estates, they were amalgamated with the old aristocracy. The equestrian order, founded substantially on wealth, grew daily in importance. Knights ultimately rivalled senatorial families. Even freedmen in an age of commercial speculation became powerful for their riches. The pursuit of money became a pa.s.sion, and the rich a.s.sumed all the importance and consideration which had once been bestowed upon those who had rendered great public services.

As the wealth of the world flowed naturally to the capital, Rome became a city of princes, whose fortunes were almost incredible. It took eighty thousand dollars a year to support the ordinary senatorial dignity. Some senators owned whole provinces. Trimalchio, a rich freedman whom Petronius ridiculed, could afford to lose thirty millions of sesterces in a single voyage without sensibly diminis.h.i.+ng his fortune. Pallas, a freedman of the Emperor Claudius, possessed a fortune of three hundred millions of sesterces. Seneca, the philosopher, ama.s.sed an enormous fortune.

As the Romans were a sensual, ostentatious, and luxurious people, they accordingly wasted their fortunes by an extravagance in their living which has had no parallel. The pleasures of the table and the cares of the kitchen were the most serious avocation of the aristocracy in the days of the greatest corruption. They had around them regular courts of parasites and flatterers, and they employed even persons of high rank as their chamberlains and stewards. Carving was taught in celebrated schools, and the masters of this sublime art were held in higher estimation than philosophers or poets. Says Juvenal,--

"To such perfection now is carving brought, That different gestures by our curious men Are used for different dishes, hare or hen."

Their entertainments were accompanied with everything which could flatter vanity or excite the pa.s.sions; musicians, male and female dancers, players of farce and pantomime, jesters, buffoons, and gladiators exhibited, while the guests reclined at table after the fas.h.i.+on of the Orientals. The tables were made of Thuja-root, with claws of ivory or Delian bronze. Even Cicero, in an economical age, paid six hundred and fifty pounds for his banqueting-table. Gluttony was carried to such a point that the sea and earth scarcely sufficed to set off their tables; they ate as delicacies water-rats and white worms. Fish were the chief object of the Roman epicures, of which the _mullus_, the _rhombus_, and the _asellus_ were the most valued; it is recorded that a mullus (sea barbel), weighing but eight pounds, sold for eight thousand sesterces. Oysters from the Lucrine Lake were in great demand; snails were fattened in ponds for cooking, while the villas of the rich had their piscinae filled with fresh or salt-water fish. Peac.o.c.ks and pheasants were the most highly esteemed among poultry, although the absurdity prevailed of eating singing-birds. Of quadrupeds, the greatest favorite was the wild boar,--the chief dish of a grand _coena_,--coming whole upon the table; and the practised gourmand pretended to distinguish by the taste from what part of Italy it came. Dishes, the very names of which excite disgust, were used at fas.h.i.+onable banquets, and held in high esteem. Martial devotes two entire books of his "Epigrams" to the various dishes and ornaments of a Roman banquet.

The extravagance of that period almost surpa.s.ses belief. Cicero and Pompey one day surprised Lucullus at one of his ordinary banquets, when he expected no guests, and even that cost fifty thousand drachmas,--about four thousand dollars; his table-couches were of purple, and his vessels glittered with jewels. The halls of Heliogabalus were hung with cloth of gold, enriched with jewels; his table and plate were of pure gold; his couches were of ma.s.sive silver, and his mattresses, covered with carpets of cloth of gold, were stuffed with down found only under the wings of partridges. His suppers never cost less than one hundred thousand sesterces. Cra.s.sus paid one hundred thousand sesterces for a golden cup. Banqueting-rooms were strewed with lilies and roses. Apicius, in the time of Trajan, spent one hundred millions of sesterces in debauchery and gluttony; having only ten millions left, he ended his life with poison, thinking he might die of hunger. Things were valued for their cost and rarity rather than their real value. Enormous prices were paid for carp, the favorite dish of the Romans as of the Chinese. Drusillus, a freedman of Claudius, caused a dish to be made of five hundred pounds weight of silver. Vitellius had one made of such prodigious size that he was obliged to build a furnace on purpose for it; and at a feast which he gave in honor of this dish, it was filled with the livers of the scarrus (fish), the brains of peac.o.c.ks, the tongues of parrots, and the roes of lampreys caught in the Carpathian Sea.

The n.o.bles squandered money equally on their banquets, their stables, and their dress; and it was to their crimes, says Juvenal, that they were indebted for their gardens, their palaces, their tables, and their fine old plate.

Unbounded pride, insolence, inhumanity, selfishness, and scorn marked this n.o.ble cla.s.s. Of course there were exceptions, but the historians and satirists give the saddest pictures of their cold-hearted depravity.

The sole result of friends.h.i.+p with a great man was a meal, at which flattery and sycophancy were expected; but the best wine was drunk by the host, instead of by the guest. Provinces were ransacked for fish and fowl and game for the tables of the great, and sensualism was thought to be no reproach. They violated the laws of chast.i.ty and decorum; they scourged to death their slaves; they degraded their wives and sisters; they patronized the most demoralizing sports; they enriched themselves by usury and monopolies; they practised no generosity, except at their banquets, when ostentation balanced their avarice; they measured everything by the money-standard; they had no taste for literature, but they rewarded sculptors and painters who prost.i.tuted art to their vanity or pa.s.sions; they had no reverence for religion, and ridiculed the G.o.ds.

Their distinguis.h.i.+ng vices were meanness and servility, the pursuit of money by every artifice, the absence of honor, and unblus.h.i.+ng sensuality.

Gibbon has eloquently abridged the remarks of Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus respecting these people:--

"They contend with each other in the empty vanity of t.i.tles and surnames. They affect to multiply their likenesses in statues of bronze or marble; nor are they satisfied unless these statues are covered with plates of gold. They boast of the rent-rolls of their estates; they measure their rank and consequence by the loftiness of their chariots and the weighty magnificence of their dress; their long robes of silk and purple float in the wind, and as they are agitated by art or accident they discover the under garments, the rich tunics embroidered with the figures of various animals. Followed by a train of fifty servants, and tearing up the pavement, they move along the streets as if they travelled with post-horses; and the example of the senators is boldly imitated by the matrons and ladies, whose covered carriages are continually driving round the immense s.p.a.ce of the city and suburbs.

Whenever they condescend to enter the public baths, they a.s.sume, on their entrance, a tone of loud and insolent command, and maintain a haughty demeanor, which perhaps might have been excused in the great Marcellus after the conquest of Syracuse. Sometimes these heroes undertake more arduous achievements: they visit their estates in Italy, and procure themselves, by servile hands, the amus.e.m.e.nts of the chase.

And if at any time, especially on a hot day, they have the courage to sail in their gilded galleys from the Lucrine Lake to their elegant villas on the sea-coast of Puteoli and Cargeta, they compare these expeditions to the marches of Caesar and Alexander; yet should a fly presume to settle on the silken folds of their gilded umbrellas, should a sunbeam penetrate through some unguarded c.h.i.n.k, they deplore their intolerable hards.h.i.+ps, and lament, in affected language, that they were not born in the regions of eternal darkness. In the exercise of domestic jurisdiction they express an exquisite sensibility for any personal injury, and a contemptuous indifference for the rest of mankind. When they have called for warm water, should a slave be tardy in his obedience, he is chastised with a hundred lashes; should he commit a wilful murder, his master will mildly observe that he is a worthless fellow, and shall be punished if he repeat the offence. If a foreigner of no contemptible rank be introduced to these senators, he is welcomed with such warm professions that he retires charmed with their affability; but when he repeats his visit, he is surprised and mortified to find that his name, his person, and his country are forgotten. The modest, the sober, and the learned are rarely invited to their sumptuous banquets, only the most worthless of mankind,--parasites who applaud every look and gesture, who gaze with rapture on marble columns and variegated pavements, and strenuously praise the pomp and elegance which he is taught to consider as a part of his personal merit. At the Roman table the birds, the squirrels, the fish, which appear of uncommon size, are contemplated with curious attention, and notaries are summoned to attest, by authentic record, their real weight. Another method of introduction into the houses of the great is skill in games, which is a sure road to wealth and reputation. A master of this sublime art, if placed at a supper below a magistrate, displays in his countenance a surprise and indignation which Cato might be supposed to feel when refused the praetors.h.i.+p. The acquisition of knowledge seldom engages the attention of the n.o.bles, who abhor the fatigue and disdain the advantages of study; and the only books they peruse are the 'Satires of Juvenal,' or the fabulous histories of Marius Maximus. The libraries they have inherited from their fathers are secluded, like dreary sepulchres, from the light of day; but the costly instruments of the theatre--flutes and hydraulic organs--are constructed for their use. In their palaces sound is preferred to sense, and the care of the body to that of the mind. The suspicion of a malady is of sufficient weight to excuse the visits of the most intimate friends. The prospect of gain will urge a rich and gouty senator as far as Spoleta; every sentiment of arrogance and dignity is suppressed in the hope of an inheritance or legacy, and a wealthy, childless citizen is the most powerful of the Romans. The distress which follows and chastises extravagant luxury often reduces the great to use the most humiliating expedients. When they wish to borrow, they employ the base and supplicating style of the slaves in the comedy; but when they are called upon to pay, they a.s.sume the royal and tragic declamations of the grandsons of Hercules. If the demand is repeated, they readily procure some trusty sycophant to maintain a charge of poison or magic against the insolent creditor, who is seldom released from prison until he has signed a discharge of the whole debt. And these vices are mixed with a puerile superst.i.tion which disgraces their understanding. They listen with confidence to the productions of haruspices, who pretend to read in the entrails of victims the signs of future greatness and prosperity; and this superst.i.tion is observed among those very sceptics who impiously deny or doubt the existence of a celestial power."

Such, in the latter days of the empire, was the leading cla.s.s at Rome, and probably also in the cities which aped the fas.h.i.+ons of the capital.

Frivolity and luxury loosened all the ties of society. They were bound up in themselves, and had no care for the people except as they might extract more money from them.

As for the miserable cla.s.s whom the patricians oppressed, their condition became worse every day from the accession of the Emperors. The plebeians had ever disdained those arts which now occupied the middle cla.s.ses; these were intrusted to slaves. Originally, they employed themselves upon the lands which had been obtained by conquest; but these lands were gradually absorbed or usurped by the large proprietors. The small farmers, oppressed with debt and usury, parted with their lands to their wealthy creditors. Even in the time of Cicero, it was computed that there were only about two thousand citizens possessed of independent property. These two thousand persons owned the world; the rest were dependent and powerless, and would have perished but for largesses. Monthly distributions of corn were converted into daily allowance for bread. The people were amused with games and festivals, fed like slaves, and of course lost at last even the semblance of manliness and independence. They loitered in the public streets, and dissipated in gaming their miserable pittance; they spent the hours of the night in the lowest resorts of crime and misery; they expired in wretched apartments without attracting the attention of government; pestilence, famine, and squalid misery thinned their ranks, and they would have been annihilated but for constant accession to their numbers from the provinces.

In the busy streets of Rome might be seen adventurers from all parts of the world, disgraced by all the various vices of their respective countries. They had no education, and but small religious advantages; they were held in terror by both priests and n.o.bles,--the priest terrifying them with Egyptian sorceries, the n.o.bles crus.h.i.+ng them by iron weight; like lazzaroni, they lived in the streets, or were crowded into filthy tenements; a gladiatorial show delighted them, but the circus was their peculiar joy,--here they sought to drown the consciousness of their squalid degradation; they were sold into slavery for trifling debts; they had no homes. The poor man had no ambition or hope; his wife was a slave; his children were precocious demons, whose prattle was the cry for bread, whose laughter was the howl of pandemonium, whose sports were the tricks of premature iniquity, whose beauty was the squalor of disease and filth; he fled from a wife in whom he had no trust, from children in whom he had no hope, from brothers for whom he felt no sympathy, from parents for whom he felt no reverence; the circus was his home, the fights of wild beasts were his consolation; the future was a blank, death was the release from suffering. There were no hospitals for the sick and the old, except one on an island in the Tiber; the old and helpless were left to die, unpitied and unconsoled.

Suicide was so common that it attracted no attention.

Superst.i.tion culminated at Rome, for there were seen the priests and devotees of all the countries that it governed,--"the dark-skinned daughters of Isis, with drum and timbrel and wanton mien; devotees of the Persian Mithras; emasculated Asiatics; priests of Cybele, with their wild dances and discordant cries; wors.h.i.+ppers of the great G.o.ddess Diana; barbarian captives with the rites of Teuton priests; Syrians, Jews, Chaldaean astrologers, and Thessalian sorcerers.... The crowds which flocked to Rome from the eastern sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean brought with them practices extremely demoralizing. The awful rites of initiation, the tricks of magicians, the pretended virtues of amulets and charms, the riddles of emblematical idolatry with which the superst.i.tion of the East abounded, amused the languid voluptuaries who had neither the energy for a moral belief nor the boldness requisite for logical scepticism."

We cannot pa.s.s by, in this enumeration of the different cla.s.ses of Roman society, the number and condition of slaves. A large part of the population belonged to this servile cla.s.s. Originally brought in by foreign conquest, it was increased by those who could not pay their debts. The single campaign of Regulus introduced as many captives as made up a fifth part of the whole population. Four hundred were maintained in a single palace, at a comparatively early period; a freedman in the time of Augustus left behind him forty-one hundred and sixteen; Horace regarded two hundred as the suitable establishment for a gentleman; some senators owned twenty thousand. Gibbon estimates the number of slaves at about sixty millions,--one-half of the whole population. One hundred thousand captives were taken in the Jewish war, who were sold as slaves, and sold as cheap as horses. William Blair supposes that there were three slaves to one freeman, from the conquest of Greece to the reign of Alexander Severus. Slaves often cost two hundred thousand sesterces, yet everybody was eager to possess a slave.

At one time the slave's life was at the absolute control of his master; he could be treated at all times with brutal severity. Fettered and branded, he toiled to cultivate the lands of an imperious master, and at night was shut up in a subterranean cell. The laws hardly recognized his claim to be considered a moral agent,--he was _secundum hominum genus_; he could acquire no rights, social or political,--he was incapable of inheriting property, or making a will, or contracting a legal marriage; his value was estimated like that of a brute; he was a thing and not a person, "a piece of furniture possessed of life;" he was his master's property, to be scourged, or tortured, or crucified. If a wealthy proprietor died under circ.u.mstances which excited suspicion of foul play, his whole household was put to torture. It is recorded that on the murder of a man of consular dignity by a slave, every slave in his possession was condemned to death. Slaves swelled the useless rabbles of the cities, and devoured the revenues of the State. All manual labor was done by slaves, in towns as well as the country; they were used in the navy to propel the galleys. Even the mechanical arts were cultivated by the slaves. Nay more, slaves were schoolmasters, secretaries, actors, musicians, and physicians, for in intelligence they were often on an equality with their masters. Slaves were procured from Greece and Asia Minor and Syria, as well as from Gaul and the African deserts; they were white as well as black. All captives in war were made slaves, also unfortunate debtors; sometimes they could regain their freedom, but generally their condition became more and more deplorable. What a state of society when a refined and cultivated Greek could be made to obey the most offensive orders of a capricious and sensual Roman, without remuneration, without thanks, without favor, without redress! What was to be expected of a cla.s.s who had no object to live for? They became the most degraded of mortals, ready for pillage, and justly to be feared in the hour of danger.

Slavery undoubtedly proved the most destructive canker of the Roman State. It was this social evil, more than political misrule, which undermined the empire. Slavery proved at Rome a monstrous curse, destroying all manliness of character, creating contempt of honest labor, making men timorous yet cruel, idle, frivolous, weak, dependent, powerless. The empire might have lasted centuries longer but for this incubus, the standing disgrace of the Pagan world. Paganism never recognized what is most n.o.ble and glorious in man; never recognized his equality, his common brotherhood, his natural rights. It had no compunction, no remorse in depriving human beings of their highest privileges; its whole tendency was to degrade the soul, and to cause forgetfulness of immortality. Slavery thrives best when the generous instincts are suppressed, when egotism, sensuality, and pride are the dominant springs of human action.

The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which G.o.d has given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female s.e.x. In the earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic, woman was comparatively virtuous and respected; she a.s.serted her natural equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the training of her children, and inspiring her husband to n.o.ble deeds. But under the Emperors these virtues had fled. Woman was miserably educated, being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed to ribald conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superst.i.tions; she was regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and was chiefly valued for household labors; she was reduced to dependence; she saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.

Love after marriage was not frequent, since woman did not s.h.i.+ne in the virtues by which love is kept alive. She became timorous or frivolous, without dignity or public esteem; her happiness was in extravagant attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness. If virtuous, it was not so much from principle as from fear. Hence she resorted to all sorts of arts to deceive her husband; her genius was sharpened by perpetual devices, and cunning was her great resource. She cultivated no lofty friends.h.i.+ps; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no enn.o.bling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration. Her amus.e.m.e.nts were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected, her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned.

And here I do not allude to great and infamous examples that history has handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that unblus.h.i.+ng depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of those times; I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and Agrippinas of imperial Rome; I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of Pompeii,--I mean the general frivolity and extravagance and demoralization of the women of the Roman empire. Marriage was considered inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband. Numerous were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable marriages, but the relation was shunned. Courtesans usurped the privileges of wives, and with unblus.h.i.+ng effrontery. A man was derided who contemplated matrimony, for there was but little confidence in female virtue or capacity, and woman lost all her fascination when age had destroyed her beauty; even her very virtues were distasteful to her self-indulgent husband. When, as sometimes happened, the wife gained the ascendency by her charms, she was tyrannical; her relatives incited her to despoil her husband; she lived amid incessant broils; she had no care for the future, and exceeded man in prodigality. "The government of her house is no more merciful," says Juvenal, "than the court of a Sicilian tyrant."

In order to render herself attractive, she exhausted all the arts of cosmetics and elaborate hair-dressing; she delighted in magical incantations and love-potions. In the bitter satire of Juvenal we get an impression most melancholy and loathsome:--

"'T were long to tell what philters they provide, What drugs to set a son-in-law aside,-- Women, in judgment weak, in feeling strong, By every gust of pa.s.sion borne along.

To a fond spouse a wife no mercy shows; Though warmed with equal fires, she mocks his woes, And triumphs in his spoils; her wayward will Defeats his bliss and turns his good to ill.