The Crest-Wave Of Evolution Part 25

_fons Bandusia splendidiot vitro_

that he loved so well and set such sweet music to. He give you that country as Virgil gives you the valley vistas, not unfringed with mystery, of Appenines and the north. Between them, Italy is there, as it had never been interpreted before. If--in Virgil at least--there is a direct practical purpose, there is no less marvelous art and real vision of Nature.

And then Augustus set both of them to singing the grandeur of Rome; to making a new patriotism with their poetry; to inspiring Roman life with a sense of dignity,--a thing it needed sorely: Virgil in the _Aeneid_ (where also, as we have seen, he taught not a little Theosophy); Horace in the _Carmen Saeculare_ and some of the great Odes of the third and fourth books. The lilt of his lines is capable of ringing, and does so again and again, into something very like the thrill and resonance of the Grand Manner. Listen for it especially in the third and fourth lines of this:

_Quid debeas, o Roma, Neronibus Testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal Devictus, et pulcher fugatis Ille dies Latio tenebris._

I am not concerned here to speak of his limitations; nor of Virgil's; who, in whatever respect the _Aeneid_ may fall short, does not fail to cry out in it to the Romans. Remember the dignity and the high mission of Rome!--By all these means Augustus worked towards the raising of Roman ideals.

To that end he wrote, he studied, he made orations. He searched the Latin and Greek literatures; and any pa.s.sage he came on that illumined life or tended towards upliftment, he would copy out and send to be read in the senate; or he would read it there himself to the senators; or publish it as an edict. There is a touch of the Teacher in this, I think. He has given Rome Peace; he is master of the world, and now has grown old. He enjoys no regal splendor, no pomp or retinue; his life is as that of any other senator, but simpler than most. And his mind is ever brooding over Rome, watchful for the ideas that may purify Roman life and raise it to higher levels.

Many things occurred to sadden his old age. His best friends were dead; Varus was lost with his legions; there had been the tragedy of Julia, whom he had loved well, and the deaths of the young princes, her sons. He was a man of extraordinarily keen affections, and all these losses came home to him sorely.

But against every sadness he had his own achievements to set.

There was Rome in its marble visibly about him, that he had found in brick and in ruins; Rome now capable of centuries of life, that had been, when he came to it, a ghastly putridity.

XIX. AN IMPERIAL SACRIFICE

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's"

This is the secret of writing: look at the external things until you see pulsating behind them the rhythm and beauty of the Eternal. Only look for it, and persist in your search, and presently the Universal will be revealed s.h.i.+ning through the particular, the sweep of everlasting Law through the little object, and happenings of a day.

Come to history with the same intent and method, and at last things appear in their true light. Here, too, as in a landscape, is the rhythm of the Eternal; here are the Basic Forms. I doubt if the evidence of the annalists is ever worth much, unless they had an eye to penetrate to these. When one sees behind the supposed fact narrated and the judgments p.r.o.nounced the glimmering up of a basic form, one guesses one is dealing with a true historian.

Recently I read a book called _The Tragedy of the Caesars,_ by the novelist Baring-Gould; and in it the life of a certain man presented in a sense flatly contradictory to the views of nineteen centuries anent that man; but it seemed to me at last an account that had the rhythm, the basic form, showing through.

So in this lecture what I shall try to give you will be Mr.

Baring-Gould's version of this man's life, with efforts of my own to go further and make quite clear the basic form.

What does one mean by 'basic form'? In truth it is hard to define. Only, this world, that seems such a heterogeneous helter-skelter of mournful promiscuities, is in fact the pattern that flows from the loom of an Eternal Weaver: a beautiful pattern, with its rhythms and recurrences; there is no haphazard in it; it is not mechanical,--yet still flawless as the configuarations of a crystal or the petals of a perfect flower.

The name of the man we are to think of tonight has come down as a synonym for infamy: we imagine him a gloomy and bloodthirsty tyrant; a morose tiger enthroned; a gross sensualist;--well, I shall show you portraits of him, to see whether you can accept him for that. The truth is that aristocratic Rome, degenerate and frivolous, parrot-cried out against the supposed deneracy of the imperial, and for the glories of the old republican, regime; for the days when Romans were Romans, and 'virtuous.' One came to them in whom the (real) ancient Roman honor more appeared than in another man in Italy, perhaps before or since;--and they could not understand the honor, and hated the man. They captured his name in a great net of lies; they breathed a huge fog of lies about him, which come down to us as history. Now to see whether a plain tale may not put them down.

Once more take your stand, please, on the Mountain of the G.o.ds: the time, in or about the year 39 B.C.:--and thence try to envisage the world as Those do who guide but are not involved in the heats and dusts of it. The Western World; in which Rome, _caput mundi,_ was the only thing that counted. _Caput mundi;_ but a kind of idiot head at that: inchoate, without co-ordination; maggots scampering through what might have been the brain; the life fled, and that great rebellion of the many lives which we call decay having taken its place. And yet, it was no true season for Rome to be dead; it was no natural death; not so much decent death at all as the death in life we call madness. For the Crest-Wave men were coming in; it was the place where they should be. The cycle of Italy had begun, shall we say, in 94 B.C., and would end in 36 A.D.; --for convenience one must give figures, though one means only approximations by them;--and not until after that latter date would souls of any caliber cease to be incarnate in Roman bodies. Before that time, then, the madness had to be cured and Rome's mission had to be fulfilled.

The mission was, to h.o.m.ogenize the world. That was the task the Law had in mind for Rome; and it had to be done while the Crest-Wave remained in Italy and important egos were gathered in Rome. Some half dozen strong souls, under the G.o.ds' special agent Octavian, had gone in there to do the work; but the Crest-Wave had flowed into Rome when Rome was already vice-rotten; and how could she expect to run her whole thirteen decades a great and ruling people? None of those strong souls could last out the whole time. Octavian himself, should he live to be eighty, would die and not see the cycle finished: twenty years of it would remain--to be filled by one worthy to succeed him, or how should his work escape being undone? The world must be made h.o.m.ogensous, and Rome not its conqueror and cruel mistress, but its well-respected heart and agreed-on center; and all this must be accomplished, and established firmly, before her cyclic greatness had gone elsewhere:--that is, before 37 A.D.

The Republic, as we have seen, had had its method of ruling the provinces: it was to send out young profligates to fleece and exploit them, and make them hate Rome. This must be changed, and a habit formed of ruling for the benefit of the subject peoples.

Two or three generations of provincials must have grown up in love with Rome before the end of the cycle, or the Empire would then inevitably break. By 37 A.D., the Crest-Wave would have left Italy, and would be centering in Spain. Spain, hating Rome, would shake off the Roman yoke; she would have the men to do it;--and the rest of the world would follow suit. Even if Spain should set herself to the G.o.ds' work of union-making, what path should she take towards it? Only that of conquest would be open; and how should she hope to conquer, and then wipe out the evil traces of her conquering, and create a h.o.m.ogeneity, all within her possible cycle of thirteen decades? Rome's great opportunity came, simply because Rome had done the conquering before ever the Crest-Wave struck her; in days when the Crest-Wave was hardly in Europe at all. Even so, it would be a wonder if all could be finished in the few years that remained.

By Rome it never could have been done at all: it was the office of a Man, not of a state or nation. The Man who should do it, must do it from Rome: and Rome had first to be put into such condition as to be capable of being used. It devolved upon Augustus to do that first, or his greater work would be impossible. He had to win Rome to acquiescence in himself as Princeps. So his primary need was a personality of infinite tact; and _that_ he possessed. He was the kind of man everybody could like; that put everyone at ease; that was friendly and familiar in all sorts of society; so he could make that treacherous quagmire Rome stable enough to be his _pied-a-terre._ That done, he could stretch out his arms thence to the provinces, and begin to weld them into unity. For this was the second part and real aim of his work: to rouse up in the Empire a centripetalism, with Rome for center, before centripetalism, in Rome itself, should have given place to the centrifugal forces of national death.

Rome ruled the world, and Augustus Rome, by right of conquest; and that is the most precarious right of all, and must always vanish with a change in the cycles. He had to, and did, trans.m.u.te it into a stable right: first with respect to his own standing in Rome,--which might be done, with _tact_ for weapon,-- in a few years; then with respect to Rome's standing in the world,--which could not be done in less than a couple of lifetimes, and with the best of good government as means. If the work should be interrupted too early it would all fall to pieces. So then he must have one successor at least, a soul of standing equal to his own: one that could live and reign until 37 A.D. Let the Empire until that year be ruled continuously from Rome in such a manner as to rouse up Roman--that is, World, --patriotism in all its provinces, and the appearance of the Crest-Wave in a new center would not be the signal for a new break-up of the world. The problem was, then, to find the man able to do this.

The child: for he must not be a man yet. And seeing what was at stake, he must be better equipped than Augustus: he must be trained from childhood by Augustus. Because he was to work in the midst of much more difficult conditions. Augustus had real men to help him: the successor probably would have none. When the Crest-Wave struck it, Rome was already mean and corrupt and degenerate. Augustus, not without good human aid, might hope to knock it into some kind of decency during the apex-time of the thirteen decades. His reign would fall, roughly, in the third quarter of the cycle, which is the best time therein; but his successor would have to hold out through the last quarter, which is the very worst. The Crest-Wave would then be pa.s.sing from Italy: Rome would be becoming ever a harder place for a Real Man to live and work in. Meaner and meaner egos would be sneaking into incarnation; decent gentlemanly souls would be growing ever more scarce. By 'mean egos' I intend such as are burdened with ingrate personalities: creatures on whom sensuality has done its disintegrating work; whose best pleasure is to exempt themselves from any sense of degradation caused by fawning on the one strong enough to be their master, by tearing down as they may his work and reputation, circulating lies about him, tormenting him in every indirect way they can. Among such as these, and probably quite lonely among the, the successor of Augustus would lave to live, fulfilling Heaven's work in spite of them. Where to find a Soul capable, or who would dare undertake the venture? Well; since it was to be done, and for the G.o.ds,--no doubt the G.o.ds would have sent their qualified man into incarnation.

In B.C. 39 Octavian proclaimed a general amnesty; and among these who profited by it was a certain member of the Claudian gens,--one of that Nero family to which Rome owed so much--

_Testis Metaurum flumen et Hasdrubal Devictus_

He had been a friend of Caesar's and an enemy of Octavian's; and had been spending his time recently in fleeing from place to place in much peril; as had also his wife, aged eighteen, and their three-year-old son. On one occasion this lady was hurrying by night through a forest, and the forest took fire; she escaped, but not until the heat singed the cloak in which the baby boy in her arms was wrapped. Now they returned, and settled in their house on the Palatine not far from the house of Octavian.

In Rome at that time marriage was not a binding inst.i.tution. To judge by the lives of those prominent enough to come into history, you simply married and divorced a wife whenever convenient. Octavian some time before had married Scribonia, to patch up an alliance with her kins-man s.e.xtus Pompey, then prominent on the high seas in the role--I think the phrase is Mr.

Stobart's--of gentleman-pirate. As she was much older than himself, and they had nothing in common, it occurred to no one that, now the utility of the match had pa.s.sed, he would not follow the usual custom and divorce her. He met Livia, the wife of this Tiberius Claudius Nero, and duly did divorce Livia. A new wedding followed, in which Claudius Nero acted the part of father to his ex-wife, and gave her away to Octavian. It all sounds very disgraceful; but this must be said: the great Augustus could never have done his great work so greatly had he not had at his side the gracious figure of the empress Livia,-- during the fifty-two years that remained to him his serenest counselor and closest friend.

And then--there was the boy: I believe the most important element in the transaction.

His father died soon afterwards, and he came to live in the palace, under the care of his mother,--and of Augustus; who had now within his own family circle the two egos with whom he was most nearly concerned, and without whom his work would have been impossible. So I think we may put aside the idea that the marriage with Livia was an 'affair of the heart,' as they call it:--a matter of personal and pa.s.sional atraction. He was guided to it, as always, by his _Genius,_ and followed the promptings of the G.o.ds.

But,--h.e.l.l hath no fury like a woman scorned. The divorced Scribonia never forgave Augustus. She became the center of a faction in society that hated him, hated Livia, loathed and detested the whole Claudian line. There must have been bad blood in Scribonia. Her daughter Julia became profligate. Of Julia's five children, Agrippa Postumus went mad through his vices; Julia inherited her mother's tendencies, and came to a like end.

Agrippina, a bitter and violent woman, became the evil genius of the next reign. Of this Agrippina's children, Drusus and Caligula went mad and her daughter was the mother of the madman Nero. To me the record suggest this: that the marriage with, not the divorce of, Scribonia was a grave mistake on the part of Octavian; bringing down four generations of terible karma. He was afloat in dangerous seas at that time, and a mere boy to take arms against them: did he, trusting in material alliances and the aid of s.e.xtus Pirate, forget for once to trust in his _Genius_ within? We have seen how the lines of pain became deeply graven on his face during the years that followed Caesar's death. A high soul, incarnating, must take many risks; and before it has found itself and tamed the new personality, may have sown griefs for itself to be reaped through many lives. The descendants of Augustus and Scribonia were the bane of Augustus and of Rome. But Livia was his good star, and always added to his peace.

But now, back to the household on the Palatine, in the thirties B.C.

Julia (Scribonia's daughter), pert, witty, bold, and daring, was the darling of her father, whom she knew well how to amuse.

Drusus, the younger son of Livia and Claudius Nero, was a bold handsome boy of winning manners and fine promise, generally noticed and loved. To these two you may say Augustus stood in only human relations: the loving, careful, and _jolly_ father, sharing in all their games and merriment. He always liked playing with children: as emperor, would often stop in his walks through the streets to join in a game with the street-boys. But with Livia's elder son, Tiberius, he was different. Tiberius had no charm of manner: Drusus his brother quite put him in the shade. He carried with him the scars of his babyhood's perilous adventures, and the terror of that unremembered night of fire.

He was desperately shy and sensitive; awkward in company; reserved, timid, retiring, silent. Within the nature so pent up were tense feelings; you would say ungovernable, only that he always did govern them. He went unnoticed; Drusus was the pet of all; under such conditions how much harmony as a rule exists between two brothers? But Tiberius loved Drusus with his whole heart; his thoughts knew no color of jealousy; unusual harmony was between them until Drusus died.--The world said Augustus disliked the boy: we shall see on what appearances that opinion was based. But Tiberius, then and ever afterwards, held for Augustus a feeling deeper and stronger than human or filial affection: it was that, with the added reverence of a disciple for his Teacher.--You shall find these intense feelings sometimes in children of his stamp; though truly children of the stamp of Tiberius are rare enough; for with all his tenderness, his over-sensitiveness and timidity, put him to some task, whisper to him _Duty!_--and the little Tiberius is another child altogether: unflinching, silent, determined, pertinacious, ready to die rather than give in before the thing is most whole-souledly done.

Augustus, merriest and most genial of men, never treated him as he did Julia and Drusus: there were no games and rompings with Tiberius. Let this grave child come into the room, and all ended; as if the Princeps were a school-boy caught at it by some stern prowling schoolmaster. Indeed, it was common talk that Augustus, until the last years of his life, never smiled in Tiberius' presence; that his smile died always on his stepson's entry; the joke begun went unfinished; he became suddenly grave and restrained;--as, I say, in the presence of a soul not to be treated with levity, but always upon a considered plan.

The children grew up, and people began to talk of a successors.h.i.+p to Augustus in the Princ.i.p.ate. It would be, of course, through Julia, his daughter. He married her to Marcellus, aged seventeen, his sister Octavia's son, who he adopted. Marcellus and Julia, then, would succeed him; no one thought of retiring Tiberius. Marcellus, however, died in a couple of years; and folk wondered who would step into his place. Augustus gave Julia to Vipsanius Agrippa, the man who had won so many campaigns for him. Agrippa was as old as the Princeps, but of much stronger const.i.tution; and so, likely to outlive him perhaps a long while. Very appropriate, said Rome: Agrippa will reign next: an excellent fellow. No one thought of shy Tiberius.--Agrippa, by the way, was a strong man and a strict disciplinarian,--with soldiers, at any rate: it might be hoped also with wives. It was just as well for lady Julia to be under a firm hand.

Ten years later Agrippa died, and the heirs.h.i.+p presumptive pa.s.sed to his two eldest children by Julia: the princes Caius and Lucius. Augustus adopted them in due course. Heirs.h.i.+p presumptive means here, that they were the ones Rome presumed would be the heirs: a presumption which Augustus, without being too definite, encouraged. The Initiate Leaders and Teachers of the world do not, as a rule, as far as one can judge, advertise well beforehand the ident.i.ty of their successors.--As for Tiberius;--why, said Rome, his stepfather does not even like him. Drusus, now, and _his_ children,--ah, that might be a possibility.

For the marriages of the two brothers told a tale. Drusus had married into the sacred Julian line: a daughter of Octavia and Mark Anthony; his son Germanicaus was thus a grand-nephew of Augustus, and a very great pet. But Tiberius had made a love-match, with a mere daughter of Agrippa by some former wife: an alliance that could not advance him in any way. Her name was Vipsania; the whole intensity of his pent-up nature went into his feeling for her; he was remarkably happily married;--that is, for the human, the tender, sensitive, and affectionate side of him.

Meanwhile both brothers had proved their worth. At twenty-two, Tiberius set up a kind in Armenia, and managed for Augustus the Parthian affair, whereby the standards of Cra.s.sus were returned.

There were Swiss and German campaigns: in which Drusus was rather put where he might s.h.i.+ne,--and he did s.h.i.+ne;--and Tiberius a little in the shade. But Drusus in Germany fell from his horse, and died of his injuries; and then Tiberius was without question the first general of his age, and ablest man under the Princeps. As a soldier he was exceedingly careful of the welfare of his men; cautious in his strategy, yet bold; reserved; he made his own plans, and saw personally to their carrying out;-- above all, he never made mistakes and never lost a battle. His natural shyness and timidity and awkwardness vanished as soon as there was work to be done: in camp, or on the battlefield, he was a very different man from the shy Tiberius of Roman society.

Gossip left his name untouched. It took advantage of Augustus; natural _bonhomie,_ and whispered tales agains _him_ galore: even said that Livia retained her hold on him by taking his indiscretions discreetly;--which is as much as to say that an utterly corrupt society judged that great man by its own corrupt standards. But Tiberius was too austere; his life chilled even Roman gossip into silence. There was also his patent devotion to Vipsania..... You could only sneer at him, if at all, for lack of spirit.

He had, then, great and magnificent qualities; but the scars of his babyhood peril remained. There was that timid and clinging disposition; that over-sensitiveness that came out when he was away from camp, or without immediate business to transact, or in any society but that of philosophers and occultists:--for we do know that he was a student of Occult Philosophy. He had grand qualities; but felt, beneath his reserve, much too strongly; had a heart too full of pent-up human affections. But it is written:

_"Before the Soul can stand in the prescence of the Masters, its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart."_

It devolved upon his Teacher to break that heart for him; so that he might stand in the presence of the Masters.

Agrippa had died; and for Julia's sake it was wise and better to provide her with a husband. Augustus hesitated long before he dared take the tremendous step he did: as one doubtful whether it would accomplish what he hoped, or simply kill at once the delicate psychic organism to be affected by it. Then he struck, --hurled the bolt. Let Tiberius put away Vipsania and marry Julia.

Put away that adored Vipsania:--marry that Julia,--whom every single instinct in his nature abhorred! Incompatible:--that is the very least and mildest thing you can say about it;--but he must say nothing, for he is speaking to her father. He resists a long time, in deep anguish; but there is one word that for Tiberius was ever a clarion call to his soul.

What, cries he, is this terrible thing you demand of me?--and his Teacher answers: _Duty._ Duty to Rome, that the Julian and Claudian factions may be united; duty to the empire, that my successors, Caius and Lucius, may have, after I am gone, a strong man for their guardian.--You will note that, if you please.

Augustus had just adopted these two sons of Julias; they were, ostensibly, to be his successors; there was no bait for ambition in this sacrifice Tiberius was called on to make; he would not succeed to the Princ.i.p.ate; the marriage would not help him; there was to be nothing in it for him but pure pain. In the name of duty he was called on to make a holocaust of himself.