The Trial of Jesus from a Lawyer's Standpoint Volume II Part 13

As the sculptors did not hesitate to carve the images of the Hetairai in marble and give them the names of the G.o.ddesses of Olympus, so the poets, orators, and historians did not fail to immortalize them in their poems, orations, and annals. Greek statuary and literature were then transported to Italy to corrupt Roman manners. It was not long before adultery and seduction had completely poisoned and polluted every fountain of Roman private life. "Liaisons in the first houses," says Mommsen, "had become so frequent, that only a scandal altogether exceptional could make them the subject of special talk; a judicial interference seems now almost ridiculous."

Roman women of patrician rank, not content with n.o.blemen as lovers, sought out "lewd fellows of the baser sort" among slaves and gladiators, as companions of corrupt intrigues. Juvenal, in his Sixth Satire, paints a horrible picture of social depravity when he describes the lewdness of Messalina, the wife of Claudius I. This woman, the wife of an emperor, and the mother of the princely Britannicus, descends from the imperial bed, in the company of a single female slave, at the dead of night, to a common Roman brothel, a.s.sumes the name Lycisca, and submits to the embraces of the coa.r.s.est Roman debauchees.

The degradation of women was not peculiar to the Capital of the empire, but extended to every province. Social impurity was rankest in the East, but it was present everywhere. Virtue seemed to have left the earth, and Vice had taken her place as the supreme mistress of the world.

_Luxury and Extravagance._--At the birth of Christ, the frontiers of the Roman empire comprised all the territory of the then civilized world. In extending her conquests, Rome laid heavy tribute upon conquered nations.

All the wealth of the earth flowed into her coffers. The result was unexampled luxury and extravagance. A single ill.u.s.tration will serve to show the mode of life of the wealthy Roman citizen of the time of which we write. Lucullus, the lieutenant of Sulla, and the friend of Cicero and Pompey, had ama.s.sed enormous wealth in the Mithradatic wars. This fortune he employed to inaugurate and maintain a style of social life whose splendor and extravagance were the astonishment and scandal of his age and race. The meals served upon his table, even when no guests were present, were marked by all the taste, elegance, and completeness of a banquet. On one occasion, when he happened to dine alone, the table was not arranged with the ordinary fullness and splendor; whereupon he made complaint to the servants, who replied that they did not think it necessary to prepare so completely when he was alone. "What! did you not know that Lucullus would dine with Lucullus?" was his answer. At another time, Cicero and Pompey met him in the Forum and requested that he take them with him to dine, as they desired to learn how his table was spread when no visitors were expected. Lucullus was embarra.s.sed for a moment; but soon regained his composure, and replied that he would be delighted to have such distinguished Romans dine with him, but that he would like to have a day for preparation. They refused this request, however; nor would they consent that he send directions to his servants, as they desired to see how meals were served in his home when no guests were there. Lucullus then requested Cicero and Pompey to permit him to tell his servants, in their presence, in what room the repast should be served. They consented to this; and Lucullus then directed that the Hall of Apollo should be arranged for the dinner. Now the dining rooms in the home of Lucullus were graded in price; and it was only necessary to designate the room in order to notify the servants of the style and costliness of the entertainment desired. The Hall of Apollo called for an expenditure, at each meal, of fifty thousand drachmas, the equivalent of $10,000 in our money. And when Cicero and Pompey sat down at the table of Lucullus a few hours later, the decorations of the room and the feast spread before them, offered a spectacle of indescribable beauty and luxury. The epicure had outwitted the orator and the general.

Other anecdotes related by Plutarch also ill.u.s.trate the luxurious life of Lucullus. Once when Pompey was sick, his physician prescribed a thrush for his meal; whereupon Pompey's servants notified him that a thrush could not be secured in Italy during the summer time, except in the fattening coops of Lucullus.

Cato despised the luxurious habits of Lucullus; and, on one occasion, when a young man was extolling the beauties of frugality and temperance in a speech before the senate, the Stoic interrupted him by asking: "How long do you mean to go on making money like Cra.s.sus, living like Lucullus and talking like Cato?"[162]

Lucullus was not the only Roman of his day who spent fabulous sums of money in luxurious living and in building palatial residences. M.

Lepidus, who was elected Consul in 87 B.C., erected the most magnificent private edifice ever seen in Rome.

But the culmination of magnificence in Roman architecture was the Golden House of Nero. Its walls were covered with gold and studded with precious stones. The banquet rooms were decorated with gorgeous ceilings, and were so constructed that from them flowers and perfumes could be showered from above on the guests below.

Concerning the luxurious life of the later days of the republic, Mommsen says: "Extravagant prices, as much as one hundred thousand sesterces (1,000) were paid for an exquisite cook. Houses were constructed with special reference to this subject.... A dinner was already described as poor at which the fowls were served up to the guests entire, and not merely the choice portions.... At banquets, above all, the Romans displayed their hosts of slaves ministering to luxury, their bands of musicians, their dancing-girls, their elegant furniture, their carpets glittering with gold, or pictorially embroidered, their rich silver plate."[163]

But the luxury and extravagance of the Romans were nowhere so manifest as in their public bathing establishments. "The magnificence of many of the thermae and their luxurious arrangements were such that some writers, as Seneca, are quite lost in their descriptions of them. The piscinae were often of immense size--that of Diocletian being 200 feet long--and were adorned with beautiful marbles. The halls were crowded with magnificent columns, and were ornamented with the finest pieces of statuary. The walls, it has been said, were covered with exquisite mosaics that imitated the art of the painter in their elegance of design and variety of color. The Egyptian syenite was encrusted with the precious green marbles of Numidia. The rooms contained the works of Phidias and Praxiteles. A perpetual stream of water was poured into capacious basins through the wide mouths of lions of bright and polished silver. 'To such a pitch of luxury have we reached,' says Seneca, 'that we are dissatisfied if we do not tread on gems in our baths.'"[164]

The circuses were scarcely inferior to the baths in magnificence.

Caligula is said to have strewn them with gold dust.

The result of Roman luxury in the matter of food and drink was a coa.r.s.e and loathsome gluttony which finds no parallel in modern life.

Epicureanism had degenerated from barley-bread and water to the costliest diet ever known. Wealthy Romans of the age of Augustus did not hesitate to pay two hundred and fifty dollars for a single fish--the mullet. And that they might indulge their appet.i.te to the fullest extent, and prolong the pleasures of eating beyond the requirements and even the capacity of nature, they were in the habit of taking an emetic at meal times. We learn from the letters of Cicero that Julius Caesar did this on one occasion when he went to visit the orator at his country villa. And the degeneracy of Roman life is nowhere more clearly indicated than in the Fourth Satire of Juvenal where he describes the gathering of the great men of the state, at the call of Domitian, to determine how a turbot should be cooked.

But the reader must not infer that all Romans were rich and that luxury was indulged in every home. In the Roman capital the extremes of wealth and poverty met. The city was filled with idlers, vagabonds and paupers from all quarters of the globe. In the early days of the Republic, st.u.r.dy farmers had tilled the soil of Italy and had filled the legions with brave and hardy warriors. The beginning of the empire witnessed a radical change. Hundreds of thousands of these farmers had been driven from their lands to furnish homes to the disbanded soldiers of conquerors like Sulla, Marius, and Caesar. Homeless and poverty-stricken, they wandered away to Rome to swell the ranks of mendicants and adventurers that crowded the streets of the imperial city. The soldiers themselves, finding agriculture distasteful and unprofitable, sold their lands to Roman speculators, and returned to the scene of the triumphs of their military masters. The inevitable consequence of this influx of strangers and foreigners, without wealth and without employment, was the degradation and demoralization of Roman social and industrial life.

Augustus was compelled to make annual donations of money and provisions to 200,000 persons who wandered helpless about the streets. This state of things--fabulous wealth in the hands of a few, and abject poverty as the lot of millions--was the harbinger sure and swift of the destruction of the state.

_Slavery._--At the beginning of the Christian era, slavery existed in every province of the Roman empire. Nearly everywhere the number of slaves was much greater than that of the free citizens. In Attica, according to the census of Demetrius Phalereus, about the beginning of the fourth century B.C., there were 400,000 slaves, 10,000 foreign settlers, and 20,000 free citizens. Zumpt estimates that there were two slaves to every freeman in Rome in the year 5 B.C. It frequently happened that a wealthy Roman possessed as many as 20,000 slaves. Slaves who gained their freedom might themselves become masters and own slaves.

During the reign of Augustus, a freedman died, leaving 4,116 slaves.

Cra.s.sus possessed so many that his company of architects and carpenters alone exceeded 500 in number.

The princ.i.p.al slave markets of Greece were those at Athens, Ephesus, Cyprus, and Samos. In the market place of each of these cities, slaves were exposed for sale upon wooden scaffolds. From the neck of each was hung a tablet or placard containing a description of his or her meritorious qualities, such as parentage, educational advantages, health and freedom from physical defects. They were required to strip themselves at the request of purchasers. In this way, the qualifications of slaves for certain purposes could be accurately judged. The vigorous, large-limbed Cappadocians, for instance, like our modern draft horses, were selected for their strength and their ability to lift heavy loads and endure long-continued work.

The property of the master in the slave was absolute. The owner might kill or torture his slave at will. Neither the government nor any individual could bring him to account for it. Roman law compelled female slaves to surrender themselves, against their will, to their master's l.u.s.t. All the coa.r.s.eness and brutality of the haughty, arrogant, and merciless Roman disposition were manifested in the treatment of their slaves. Nowhere do we find any mercy or humanity shown them. On the farms they worked with chains about their limbs during the day; and at night they were lodged in the _ergastula_--subterranean apartments, badly lighted and poorly ventilated. The most cruel punishment awaited the slave who attempted to escape. The _fugitavarii_--professional slave chasers--ran him down, branded him on the forehead, and brought him back to his master. If the master was very rich, or cared little for the life of the slave, he usually commanded him to be thrown, as a punishment for his attempt to flee, to the wild beasts in the amphitheater. This cruel treatment was not exceptional, but was ordinary. Cato, the paragon among the Stoics, was so merciless in his dealings with his slaves that one of them committed suicide rather than await the hour of punishment for some transgression of which he was guilty.[165] It frequently happened that the slaves had knowledge of crimes committed by their masters. In such cases they were fortunate if they escaped death, as the probability of their becoming witnesses against their masters offered every inducement to put them out of the way. In his defense of Cluentius, Cicero speaks of a slave who had his tongue cut out to prevent his betraying his mistress.[166] If a slave murdered his master, all his fellow-slaves under the same roof were held responsible for the deed. Thus four hundred slaves were put to death for the act of one who a.s.sa.s.sinated Pedanius Secundus, during the reign of Nero.[167] Augustus had his steward, Eros, crucified on the mast of his s.h.i.+p because the slave had roasted and eaten a quail that had been trained for the royal quail-pit. Once a slave was flung to the fishes because he had broken a crystal goblet.[168] On another occasion, a slave was compelled to march around a banquet table, in the presence of the guests, with his hands, which had been cut off, hanging from his neck, because he had stolen some trifling article of silverware. Cicero, in his prosecution of Verres, recites an instance of mean and cowardly cruelty toward a slave. "At the time," he says, "in which L. Domitius was praetor in Sicily, a slave killed a wild boar of extraordinary size.

The praetor, struck by the dexterity and courage of the man, desired to see him. The poor wretch, highly gratified with the distinction, came to present himself before the praetor, in hopes, no doubt, of praise and reward; but Domitius, on learning that he had only a javelin to attack and kill the boar, ordered him to be instantly crucified, under the barbarous pretext that the law prohibited the use of this weapon, as of all others, to slaves."

The natural consequence of this cruel treatment was unbounded hatred of the master by the slave. "We have as many enemies," says Seneca, "as we have slaves." And what rendered the situation perilous was the numerical superiority of the slave over the free population. "They multiply at an immense rate," says Tacitus, "whilst freemen diminish in equal proportion." Pliny the Younger gave expression to the universal apprehension when he wrote: "By what dangers we are beset! No one is safe; not even the most indulgent, gentlest master." Precautionary measures were adopted from time to time both by individuals and by the government to prevent concerted action among the slaves and to conceal from them all evidences of their own strength. To keep down mutiny among his slaves, Cato is said to have constantly excited dissension and enmity among them. "It was once proposed," says Gibbon, "to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar habit; but it was justly apprehended that there might be some danger in acquainting them with their own numbers."[169]

If the Roman masters maltreated and destroyed the bodies of their slaves, the slaves retaliated by corrupting and destroying the morals of their masters. The inst.i.tution of slavery was one of the most potent agencies in the demoralization of ancient Roman manners. The education of children was generally confided to the slaves, who did not fail to poison their minds and hearts in many ways. In debauching their female slaves, the Roman masters polluted their own morals and corrupted their own manhood. The result teaches us that the law of physics is the law of morals: that action and reaction are equal, but in opposite directions.

_Destruction of New-Born Infants._--The destruction of new-born children was the deepest stain upon the civilization of the ancient Greeks and Romans. In obedience to a provision of the code of Lycurgus, every Spartan child was exhibited immediately after birth to public view; and, if it was found to be deformed and weakly, so that it was unfit to grow into a strong and healthy citizen of the Spartan military commonwealth, it was exposed to perish on Mount Taygetus. The practice of exposing infants was even more arbitrary and cruel in Rome than in Greece. The Roman father was bound by no limitations; but could cast his offspring away to die, through pure caprice. Paulus, the celebrated jurist of the imperial period, admitted that this was a paternal privilege. Suetonius tells us that the day of the death of Germanicus, which took place A.D.

19, was signalized by the exposition of children who were born on that day.[170] This was done as a manifestation of general sorrow. The emperor Augustus banished his granddaughter Julia on account of her lewdness and licentiousness, as he had done in the case of his daughter, Julia. In exile, she gave birth to a child which Augustus caused to be exposed. It often happened that new-born babes that had been cast away to die of cold and hunger or to be devoured by dogs or wild beasts were rescued by miscreants who brought them up to devote them to evil purposes. The male children were destined to become gladiators, and the females were sold to houses of prost.i.tution. Often such children were picked up by those who disfigured and deformed them for the purpose of a.s.sociating them with themselves as beggars.

The custom of exposing infants was born of the spirit of fierceness and barbarity that characterized many ancient races. Its direct tendency was to make savages of men by destroying those tender and humane feelings for the weak and helpless which have been the most marked attributes of modern civilizations. Occasionally in our day one hears or reads of a proposition by some pseudo-philanthropist that the good of the race demands the destruction of certain persons--deformed infants, imbecile adults and the like. But the humanity of the age invariably frowns upon such proposals. The benign and merciful features of our Christian creed would be outraged by such a practice.

_Gladiatorial Games._--The combats of gladiators were the culmination of Roman barbarity and brutality. All the devotees of vice and crime met and mingled at the arena, and derived strength and inspiration from its b.l.o.o.d.y scenes. The gatherings in the amphitheater were miniatures of Roman life. There, political matters were discussed and questions of state determined, as was once the case in the public a.s.semblies of the people. Now that the gates of Ja.n.u.s were closed for the third time in Roman history, the combats of the arena took the place, on a diminutive scale, of those battles by which Romans had conquered the world. The processions of the gladiators reminded the enthusiastic populace of the triumphal entries of their conquerors into the Roman capital. Nothing so glutted the appet.i.te and quenched the thirst of a cruel and licentious race as the gorgeous ceremonials and b.l.o.o.d.y butchery of the gladiatorial shows.

These contests, strange to say, first took place at funerals, and were intended to honor the dead. In 264 B.C., at the burial of D. Junius Brutus, we are told, three pairs of gladiators fought in the cattle market. Again, in 216 B.C., at the obsequies of M. aemilius Lepidus, twenty-two pairs engaged in combat in the Forum. And, in 174 B.C., on the death of his father, t.i.tus Flaminius caused seventy-four pairs to fight for three days.[171] It will thus be seen that the death of one Roman generally called for that of several others.

In time, the fondness of these contests had grown so great that generals and statesmen arranged them on a gigantic scale as a means of winning the favor and support of the mult.i.tude. The Roman proletariat demanded not only bread to satisfy their hunger, but games to amuse them in their hours of idleness. Augustus not only gave money and rations to 200,000 idlers, but inaugurated gladiatorial shows in which 10,000 combatants fought. Not only men but wild beasts were brought into the arena. Pompey arranged a fight of 500 lions, 18 elephants and 410 other ferocious animals, brought from Africa. In a chase arranged by Augustus, A.D. 5, 36 crocodiles were killed in the Flaminian circus, which was flooded for the purpose. Caligula brought 400 bears into the arena to fight with an equal number of African wild animals. But all previous shows were surpa.s.sed in the magnificent games inst.i.tuted by Trajan, A.D. 106, to celebrate his victories on the Danube. These games lasted four months; and, in them, 10,000 gladiators fought, and 11,000 beasts were slain.

Such was the thirst for blood, and to such a pitch had the fury of the pa.s.sions reached at the beginning of the empire that Romans were no longer satisfied with small fights by single pairs. They began to demand regular battles and a larger flow of blood. And to please the populace, Julius Caesar celebrated his triumph by a real battle in the circus. On each side were arrayed 500 foot soldiers, 300 cavalrymen, and 20 elephants bearing soldiers in towers upon their backs. This was no mimic fray, but an actual battle in which blood was shed and men were killed.

To vary the entertainment, Caesar also arranged a sea fight. He caused a lake to be dug out on Mars Field, and placed battles.h.i.+ps upon it which represented Tyrian and Egyptian fleets. These he caused to be manned by a thousand soldiers and 2,000 oarsmen. A b.l.o.o.d.y fight then ensued between men who had no other motive in killing each other than to furnish a Roman holiday. Augustus also arranged a sea fight upon an artificial lake where 3,000 men were engaged. But both these battles were eclipsed by the great sea fight which the emperor Claudius caused to be fought on Lake Fucinus, in the presence of a great mult.i.tude that lined the sh.o.r.e. Nineteen thousand men engaged in the b.l.o.o.d.y struggle.

On an eminence overlooking the lake, the Empress Agrippina, in gorgeous costume, sat by the side of the emperor and watched the battle.

Announcement of gladiatorial fights in the amphitheater was made by posters on the walls of the city. In these advertis.e.m.e.nts, the number and names of the fighters were announced. On the day of the performance a solemn procession of gladiators, walking in couples, pa.s.sed through the streets to the arena. The arrangements of the building and the manner of the fights were so ordered as to arouse to the highest pitch of excitement the pa.s.sions and expectations of the spectators. The citizens were required to wear the white toga. The lower rows of seats were occupied by senators, in whose midst were the boxes occupied by the imperial family. The equestrian order occupied places immediately above the senators. The citizens were seated next after the equestrians, and in the top-most rows, on benches, were gathered the Roman rabble. An immense party-colored awning, stretched above the mult.i.tude, reflected into the arena its variegated hues. Strains of music filled the air while preparations for the combat were being made. The atmosphere of the amphitheater was kept cool and fragrant by frequent sprays of perfume.

The regular combat was preceded by a mock fight with blunt weapons. Then followed arrangements for the life-and-death struggle. The manager of the games finally gave the command, and the fight was on. When one of the gladiators was wounded, the words "hoc habet" were shouted. The wounded man fell to the earth, dropped his weapon, and, holding up his forefinger, begged his life from the people. If mercy was refused him, he was compelled to renew the combat or to submit to the death stroke of his antagonist. Attendants were at hand with hot irons to apply to the victim to see that death was not simulated. If life was not extinct, the fallen gladiator was dragged out to the dead room, and there dispatched. Servants then ran into the arena and scattered sand over the blood-drenched ground. Other fighters standing in readiness, immediately rushed in to renew the contest. Thus the fight went on until the Roman populace was glutted with butchery and blood.

Gladiators were chosen from the strongest and most athletic among slaves and condemned criminals. Thracians, Gauls, and Germans were captured and enslaved for the purpose of being sacrificed in the arena. They were trained with the greatest care in gladiatorial schools. The most famous of these inst.i.tutions was at Capua in Italy. It was here that Spartacus, a young Thracian, of n.o.ble ancestry, excited an insurrection that soon spread throughout all Italy and threatened the destruction of Rome.

Addressing himself to seventy of his fellow-gladiators, Spartacus is said to have made a bitter and impa.s.sioned speech in which he proposed that, if they must die, they should die fighting their enemies and not themselves; that, if they were to engage in b.l.o.o.d.y battles, these battles should be fought under the open sky in behalf of life and liberty, and not in the amphitheater to furnish pastime and entertainment to their masters and oppressors. The speech had its effect. The band of fighters broke out of Capua, and took refuge in the crater of Mount Vesuvius (73 B.C.). Spartacus became the leader, with Crixus and Oenomaus, two Celtic gladiators, as lieutenants. Their ranks soon swelled to the proportions of an army, through accessions of slaves and desperadoes from the neighborhood of the volcano. During two years, they terrorized all Italy, defeated two consuls, and burned many cities. Crixus was defeated and killed at Mount Gargarus in Apulia by the praetor Arrius. Spartacus compelled three hundred Roman prisoners, whom he had captured, to fight as gladiators, following Roman custom, at the grave of his fallen comrade and lieutenant. Finally, he himself was slain, sword in hand, having killed two centurions before he fell. With the death of their leaders, the insurgents either surrendered or fled.

Those who were captured were crucified. It is said that the entire way from Capua to Rome was marked by crosses on which their bodies were suspended, to the number of ten thousand.[172]

Throughout Italy were amphitheaters for gladiatorial games. But the largest and most celebrated of all was the Coliseum at Rome. Its ruins are still standing. It was originally called the Flavian Amphitheater.

This vast building was begun A.D. 72, upon the site of the reservoir of Nero, by the emperor Vespasian, who built as far as the third row of arches, the last two rows being finished by t.i.tus after his return from the conquest of Jerusalem. It is said that twelve thousand captive Jews were employed in this work, as the Hebrews were employed in building the Pyramids of Egypt, and that the external walls alone cost nearly four millions of dollars. It consists of four stories: the first, Doric; the second, Ionic; the third and fourth, Corinthian. Its circ.u.mference is nearly two thousand feet; its length, six hundred and twenty feet; and its width, five hundred and thirteen. The entrance for the emperor was between two arches facing the Esquiline, where there was no cornice. The arena was surrounded by a wall sufficiently high to protect the spectators from the wild beasts, which were introduced by subterranean pa.s.sages, closed by huge gates from the side. The Amphitheater is said to have been capable of seating eighty-seven thousand people, and was inaugurated by gladiatorial games that lasted one hundred days, and in which five thousand beasts were slain. The emperor Commodus himself fought in the Coliseum, and killed both gladiators and wild beasts. He insisted on calling himself Hercules, was dressed in a lion's skin, and had his hair sprinkled with gold dust.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DYING GLADIATOR (ANTIQUE SCULPTURE)]

An oriental monk, Talemachus, was so horrified at the sight of the gladiatorial games, that he rushed into the midst of the arena, and besought the spectators to have them stopped. Instead of listening to him, they put him to death.

The first martyrdom in the Coliseum was that of St. Ignatius, said to have been the child especially blessed by our Savior, the disciple of John, and the companion of Polycarp, who was sent to Rome from Antioch when he was bishop. When brought into the arena, St. Ignatius knelt down and exclaimed: "Romans who are here present, know that I have not been brought into this place for any crime, but in order that by this means I may merit the fruition of the glory of G.o.d, for love of whom I have been made a prisoner. I am as the grain of the field and must be ground by the teeth of the lions that I may become bread fit for His table."

The lions were then let loose, and devoured him, except the larger bones which the Christians collected during the night.

The spot where the Christian martyrs suffered was for a long time marked by a tall cross devoutly kissed by the faithful. The Pulpit of the Coliseum was used for the stormy sermons of Gavazzi, who called the people to arms from thence in the Revolution of March, 1848.

_Graeco-Roman Social Depravity, Born of Religion and Traceable to the G.o.ds._--The modern mind identifies true religion with perfect purity of heart and with boundless love. "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" is the leading aphorism of both the Hebrew and Christian faiths. The Sermon on the Mount is the chart of the soul on the sea of life; and its beat.i.tudes are the glorifications of the virtues of meekness, mercy, and peace. To the mind imbued with the divine precepts of the Savior, it seems incredible that religion should have ever been the direct source of crime and sin. It is, nevertheless, a well-established fact that the Roman and Greek mythologies were the potent causes of political corruption and social impurity in both Italy and Greece. Nothing better ill.u.s.trates this truth than the abominable practice that found its inspiration and excuse in the myth of the rape of Ganymede. The guilty pa.s.sion of Zeus for the beautiful boy whom he, himself, in the form of an eagle, had s.n.a.t.c.hed up from earth and carried away to Olympus to devote to shameful and unnatural uses, was the foundation, in Greece, of the most loathsome habit that ever disgraced the conduct of men. Pa.s.sionate fondness for beautiful boys, called paiderastia in Greek, termed sodomy in modern criminal law, was the curse and infamy of both Roman and Grecian life. This unnatural vice was not confined to the vulgar and degenerate. Men of letters, poets, statesmen and philosophers, debased themselves with this form of pollution. It was even legalized by the laws of Crete and Sparta.

Polybius tells us that many Romans paid as much as a talent ($1,000) for a beautifully formed youth. This strange perversion of the s.e.xual instincts was marked by all the tenderness and sweetness of a modern courts.h.i.+p or a honeymoon. The victim of this degrading and disgusting pa.s.sion treated the beautiful boy with all the delicacy and feeling generally paid a newly wedded wife. Kisses and caresses were at times showered upon him. At other times, he became an object of insane jealousy.

An obscene couplet in Suetonius attributes this filthy habit to Julius Caesar in the matter of an abominable relations.h.i.+p with the King of Bithynia.[173] "So strong was the influence of the prevalent epidemic on Plato, that he had lost all sense of the love of women, and in his descriptions of Eros, divine as well as human, his thoughts were centered only in his boy pa.s.sion. The result in Greece confessedly was that the inclination for a woman was looked upon as low and dishonorable, while that for a youth was the only one worthy of a man of education."[174]

A moment's reflection will convince the most skeptical of the progress of morality and the advance of civilization. That which philosophers and emperors not only approved but practiced in the palmiest days of the commonwealths of Greece and Rome, is to-day penalized; and the person guilty of the offense is socially ostracized and branded with infamy and contempt.

The above is only one of many ill.u.s.trations of the demoralizing influence of the myths. The Greeks looked to the G.o.ds as models of behavior, and could see nothing wrong in paiderastia, since both Zeus and Apollo had practiced it. Nearly every crime committed by the Greeks and Romans was sought to be excused on the ground that the G.o.ds had done the same thing. Euthyphro justified mistreatment of his own father on the ground that Zeus had chased Cronos, his father, from the skies.

Homer was not only the Bible, but the schoolbook of Grecian boys and girls throughout the world; and their minds were saturated at an early age with the escapades of the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses as told by the immortal bard. Plato, in the "Republic," deprecates the influence of the Homeric myths upon the youth of Greece, when he says: "They are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by the kindred of the G.o.ds." And Seneca thus condemns the moral effect of the myth of Zeus and Alcmene: "What else is this appeal to the precedent of the G.o.ds for, but to inflame our l.u.s.ts, and to furnish a free license and excuse for the corrupt act under shelter of its divine prototype?" "This," says the same author in another treatise, "has led to no other result than to deprive sin of its shame in man's eyes, when he saw that the G.o.ds were no better than himself."

We have seen that, in the matter of the multiplicity of the G.o.ds, there were deities of the baser as well as of the better pa.s.sions, and of criminal as well as virtuous propensities. Pausanias tells us that in his day, on the road to Pellene, there were statues of Hermes Dolios (the cheat), and that the wors.h.i.+pers of this G.o.d believed that he was always ready to help them in their intrigues and adventures. The same writer also tells us that young maidens of Troezene dedicated their girdles to Athene Apaturia, the deceiver, for having cunningly betrayed aethra into the hands of Neptune. The festivals of Bacchus were far-famed in ancient times for the drunken debauches and degrading ceremonies that accompanied them. The Attic feasts of Pan were celebrated with every circ.u.mstance of low buffoonery. The solemnities of the Aphrodisia were akin to the baccha.n.a.lian orgies in all the features of inebriety and l.u.s.t. The name of the G.o.ddess of love and beauty was blazoned across the portal of more than one Greek and Roman brothel. The Aphrodite-Lamia at Athens and the Aphrodite-Stratonikis at Smyrna were the favorite resorts of the most famous courtesans of antiquity. Venus was the recognized G.o.ddess of the harlots. A thousand of them guarded her temple at Corinth; and, when an altar was erected to her at the Colline gate in Rome, in the year 183 A.U.C., they celebrated a great feast in her honor, and dedicated chaplets of myrtle and roses, as a means of obtaining her favor as the guardian divinity of their calling.

What more could be expected, then, of the morality of the Greeks and Romans, when we consider the nature of their religion and the character of their G.o.ds? Jupiter and Apollo were notorious rakes and libertines; Venus and Flora were brazen-faced courtesans; Harmonia was a Phrygian dancer, who had been seduced by Cadmus; Hercules was a gladiator; Pan was a buffoon; Bacchus was a drunkard, and Mercury was a highway robber.

And not only in the poems of Homer and Hesiod did the Greek and Roman youth learn these things, but from the plays of the theaters and from plastic art as well. If we except the gladiatorial fights in the amphitheaters, nothing was more cruel and unchaste than Greek and Roman tragedy and comedy. At the time of Christ, the tastes and appet.i.tes of the mult.i.tude had grown so fierce and depraved that ordinary spectacles were regarded as commonplace and insipid. Lifelike realities were demanded from the actors on the stage; and accordingly, the hero who played the role of the robber chief, Laureolus, was actually crucified before the spectators, and was then torn to pieces by a hungry bear.

The burning of Hercules on Mount Oeta and the emasculation of Atys were sought to be realized on the stage by the actual burning and emasculation of condemned criminals. l.u.s.tful as well as cruel appet.i.tes were inflamed and fed by theatrical representations of the intrigues and adventures of the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses. Pantomimes and mimic dances, with flute accompaniment, were employed to reproduce the amours and pa.s.sionate devotions of the inhabitants of Olympus. The guilty loves of Aphrodite with Mars and Adonis, the adventures of Jupiter and Apollo with the wives and daughters of mortals, were the plays most frequently presented and most wildly applauded. And the ignorant rabble were not the only witnesses of these spectacles. "The sacerdotal colleges and authorities," says Arn.o.bius, "flamens, and augurs, and chaste vestals, all have seats at these public amus.e.m.e.nts. There are seated the collective people and senate, consuls and consulars, while Venus, the mother of the Roman race, is danced to the life, and in shameless mimicry is represented as reveling through all the phases of meretricious l.u.s.t. The great mother, too, is danced; the Dindymene of Pessinus, in spite of her age, surrendering herself to disgusting pa.s.sion in the embraces of a cowherd. The supreme ruler of the world is himself brought in, without respect to his name or majesty, to play the part of an adulterer, masking himself in order to deceive chaste wives, and take the place of their husbands in the nuptial bed."[175]

Not only gladiatorial games and theatrical shows, but painting and sculpture as well, served to corrupt and demoralize Roman and Greek manners. Nor is there any prudery in this statement. The masterpieces of the Greek artists have been the astonishment and despair of all succeeding ages; and the triumphs of modern art have been but poor imitations of the models of the first masters. But it is, nevertheless, true that the embodiment in marble of certain obscene myths was destructive of ancient morals. The paintings in the temples and houses of the cities of Greece and Italy were a constant menace to the mental purity of those who gazed upon them. The statue of Ganymede at the side of Zeus was a perpetual reminder to the youth of Athens of the originator of the loathsome custom of paiderastia. The paintings of Leda and the swan, of the courts.h.i.+p of Dionysus and Ariadne, of the naked Aphrodite ensnared and caught in the net with Ares that adorned the walls and ceilings of Greek and Roman homes, were not too well calculated to inspire pure and virtuous thoughts in the minds and hearts of tender youths and modest maidens who looked upon and contemplated them. At Athens, especially, was the corrupting influence of painting and plastic art most deeply felt. "At every step," says Dollinger, "which a Greek or Roman took, he was surrounded by images of his G.o.ds and memorials of their mythic history. Not the temples only, but streets and public squares, house walls, domestic implements and drinking vessels, were all covered and incrusted with ornaments of the kind. His eye could rest nowhere, not a piece of money could he take into his hand without confronting a G.o.d. And in this way, through the magical omnipresence of plastic art, the memory of his G.o.ds had sunk into his soul indelibly, grown up with every operation of his intellect, and inseparably blended with every picture of his imagination."[176]

It can thus be easily imagined how close the connection between the social depravity and the religion of the Greeks and Romans. What was right in the conduct of the G.o.ds, men could not deem sinful in their own behavior. Indeed, lewd and lascivious acts were frequently proclaimed not only right, but sacred, because they had been both sanctioned and committed by the G.o.ds themselves. "As impurity," says Dollinger, "formed a part of religion, people had no scruples in using the temple and its adjoining buildings for the satisfaction of their l.u.s.t. The construction of many of the temples and the prevalent gloom favored this. 'It is a matter of general notoriety,' Tertullian says, 'that the temples are the very places where adulteries were arranged, and procuresses pursue their victims between the altars.' In the chambers of the priests and ministers of the temple, impurity was committed amid clouds of incense; and this, Minucius adds, more frequently than in the privileged haunts of this sin. The sanctuaries and priests of Isis at Rome were specially notorious in this respect. 'As this Isis was the concubine of Jove herself, she also makes prost.i.tutes of others,' Ovid said. Still more shameful sin was practiced in the temples of the Pessinuntine mother of the G.o.ds, where men prost.i.tuted themselves and made a boast of their shame afterwards."[177]