90 COURT OF THE EMPERORS. [CH. III. held on three stated days in every month, the calends, the nones, and the ides. The debates were conducted with decent freedom; and the emperors themselves, who gloried in the name of senators, sat, voted, and divided, with their equals. To resume, in a few words, the system of the imperial government, as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed.* The face of the court corresponded with the forms of the administration. The emperors, if we except those tyrants whose capricious-folly violated every law of nature and decency, disdained that pomp and ceremony which might offend their countrymen, but could add nothing to their real power. In all the offices of life, they affected to confound themselves with their subjects, and maintained with them an equal intercourse of visits and entertainments. Their habit, their palace, their table, were suited only to the rank of an opulent senator. Their family, however numerous or splendid, was composed entirely of their domestic slaves and freedmen. Augustus or Trajan would have blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial offices, which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of Britain. The deification of the emperors is the only instance in * Dion Cassius (1. 53, p. 703-714) has given a very loose and partial sketch of the imperial system. To illustrate, and often to correct him, I have meditated Tacitus, examined Suetonius, and consulted the following moderns: the Abbé de la Bleterie, in the Memoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions, tom19, 21, 24, 25, 27. Beaufort, République. Romaine, tom. 1, p. 255-275. The Dissertations of Noodt and Gronovius, de lege Regia, printed at Leyden, in the year 1731. Gravina de Imperio Romano, p. 479-544, of his Opuscula. Maffei Verona Illustrata, p. i. p. 245, &c. A weak prince will always be governed by his domestics. The power of slaves aggravated the shame of the Romans; and the senate paid court to a Pallas or a Narcissus. There is a chance that a modern favourite may be a gentleman. See a treatise of Vandale de Consecratione Principium. It would be easier for me to copy, than it has been to verify, the quotations of that learned Dutchman. which they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty. The Asiatic Greeks were the first inventors, the successors of Alexander the first objects, of this servile and impious mode of adulation. It was easily transferred from the kings to the governors of Asia; and the Roman magistrates very frequently were adored as provincial deities, with the pomp of altars and temples, of festivals and sacrifices.* It was natural that the emperors should not refuse what the proconsuls had accepted; and the divine honours which both the one and the other received from the provinces, attested rather the despotism than the servitude of Rome. But the conquerors soon imitated the vanquished nations in the arts of flattery; and the imperious spirit of the first Cæsar too easily consented to assume, during his lifetime, a place among the tutelar deities of Rome. The milder temper of his successor declined so dangerous an ambition, which was never afterwards revived, except by the madness of Caligula and Domitian. Augustus permitted indeed some of the provincial cities to erect temples to his honour, on condition that they should associate the worship of Rome with that of the sovereign; he tolerated private superstition, of which he might be the object;† but he contented himself with * See a dissertation of the Abbé Mongault, in the first volume of the Academy of Inscriptions. Jurandasque tuum per nomen ponimus aras, says Horace to the emperor himself; and Horace was well acquainted with the court of Augustus. [It may be questioned whether this line ought not to be taken rather as a figurative expression of confidence and gratitude, than as describing a positive fact. Compare with it Odes 3, 5, and 25, in his third book. Neither the wildest enthusiasm nor the most abject adulation could there have represented Augustus, during his lifetime, as actually drinking nectar, wielding the thunder, and sitting in council with the gods in heaven. Such passages were only poetical ascriptions to him of the qualities that fitted him for such exaltation, and prognosticated that "hac arte" his future apotheosis was prepared. However, after making due allowance for the language of poetic fervour or of flattery, we may believe that Augustus, in the character of an ayalòs daar had occasionally a share of reverential libations. Horat. Carm. iv. 5, 31, sqq. It may also be doubted whether Horace was so "well acquainted with the court of Augustus," as Gibbon says, and deserved the character of "poëte courtisan," which M. Guizot gives him. The scenery and repose of the country, the simplicity and quiet of rural life, the anxious cares of the rich, and the happiness of a humble station, are ever the burden of his song. He contemned and satirized the manners and pomp of the city. His invitations to patron, friend, or mistress, are always to the peaceful 92 THE TITLES OF [CH. IIL being revered by the senate and the people in his human character, and wisely left to his successor the care of his public deification. A regular custom was introduced, that on the decease of every emperor who had neither lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate by a solemn decree should place him in the number of the gods; and the ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his funeral. This legal, and, as it should seem, injudicious profanation, so abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very faint murmur,* by the easy nature of polytheism; but it was received as an institution, not of religion, but of policy. We should disgrace the virtues of the Antonines, by comparing them with the vices of Hercules or Jupiter. Even the characters of Cæsar or Augustus were far superior to to those of the popular deities. But it was the misfortune of the former to live in an enlightened age, and their actions were too faithfully recorded to admit of such a mixture of fable and mystery, as the devotion of the vulgar requires. As soon as their divinity was established by law, it sunk into oblivion, without contributing either to their own fame, or to the dignity of succeeding princes.† retreat of his Sabine cottage; and he proved the sincerity of all that he professed, by rejecting the lucrative post of private secretary, offered to him by Augustus. These are not the characteristics of a courtier.ED.] * See Cicero in Philippic. 1, 6. Julian in Cæsaribus. Inque Deum templis jurabit Roma per umbras, is the indignant expression of Lucan; but it is a patriotic, rather than a devout, indignation. [This is much too vague. The successors of Alexander were not the first deified sovereigns. Many early Egyptian kings and queens were adored as gods. The Greek Olympus was peopled by divinities translated from earthly thrones. Romulus himself had received the honours of an apotheosis, long before Alexander and his successors. (Livy, lib. i. c. 16.) The homage paid to Roman provincial governors by raising temples and altars to them, must not be confounded with the apotheosis of the emperors. It was a reverential tribute offered by grateful men to the virtues of their benefactors, not a religious worship, for it had neither priests nor sacrifices. Augustus was severely blamed, for having allowed divine honours to be paid to him in the provinces. (Tac. Ann. 1, 10.) He would not have incurred such censure had he not done more than had been done by the governors. The apotheosis of deceased emperors was, at least, as often a parade of pride as a device of policy. It was not reserved for good rulers alone; some tyrants also shared it. But the former, as for instance the Antonines, were even more devoutly worshipped than the old gods themselves. As Gibbon was so dissatisfied with Van Dale, he might have consulted In the consideration of the imperial government, we have frequently mentioned the artful founder, under his wellknown title of Augustus, which was not, however, conferred upon him till the edifice was almost completed. The obscure name of Octavianus he derived from a mean family in the little town of Aricia.* It was stained with the blood of the proscription; and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all memory of his former life. The illustrious surname of Cæsar he had assumed, as the adopted son of the dictator; but he had too much good sense either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared, with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to dignify their minister with a new appellation; and after a serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among several others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace and sanctity, which he uniformly affected.+ Augustus was therefore a personal,-Cæsar, a family distinction. The former should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was be the far better work of Schöpflin, De Consecratione Imperatorum Romanorum. (See his Commentationes historicæ et critica. Basle, 4to. 1741, p. 1-84.) Both learning and taste are there combined in his treatment of the subject.-WENCK.] [Had not the eastern practice of deification its earliest form in avatars, by which celestial beings were brought down to assume or inhabit mortal forms, or "stamp an image of themselves" on a divine progeny? This may be traced from very ancient times to later periods, and in many religions.—ED.] [* Octavian (simply C. Octavius, before his adoption by Cæsar, then C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus after it) was not of a mean family," but of one holding equestrian rank. His father, C. Octavius, was a man of large property, had been prætor, governor of Macedonia, had been saluted by the title of "Imperator," and was on the eve of the consulship when he died. The mother of Octavius was Attia, daughter of M. Attius Balbus, who had also served the office of prætor. M. Antony reproached Octavius with having been born at Aricia, which however was a municipal town of some extent, and Cicero's triumphant reply (Philip. 3, c. 6) showed that it was no disgrace to be a native there.— WENCK.] [Gibbon, by the term "mean family," meant on the paternal side, where the descent of Octavius has never been traced higher than his father. All his nobility was derived from his mother, who was the daughter of Julia, the sister of Julius Cæsar. This was the tie that connected him with the Julian race, and probably raised his father to the distinctions pointed out by M. Wenck. The flattery of Virgil found a progenitor for the Attii, in Atys, one of the youthful companions of Ascanius,-"genus unde Atii duxere Latini," (Æn. 5, 568,) but he could invent no ancestor for the Octavii.-ED.] Dion Cassius, 1. 53, p. 710, with the curious annotations of Reimar. 94 CHARACTER AND [CH. III. stowed; and however the latter was diffused by adoption and female alliance, Nero was the last prince who could allege any hereditary claim to the honours of the Julian line. But, at the time of his death, the practice of a century had inseparably connected those appellations with the imperial dignity, and they have been preserved by a long succession of emperors, Romans, Greeks, Franks, and Germans, from the fall of the republic to the present time. A distinction was, however, soon introduced. The sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the monarch, whilst the name of Cæsar was more freely communicated to his relations; and, from the reign of Hadrian at least, was appropriated to the second person in the state, who was considered as the presumptive heir of the empire.* The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted him, at the age of nineteen, to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero, and the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were artificial; and according to the various dictates of his interest, he was at first the enemy, and at last the father, of the Roman world. When he framed the * [The princes who by birth or adoption belonged to the family, took the name of Cæsar. After the death of Nero this name first designated the imperial dignity itself, and afterwards the destined successor. The period, when it was first used in the latter signification, is by no means certain. Bach (Hist. Jurisp. Rom. p. 304) affirms, on the authority of Tacitus (Hist. 1, 15) and Suetonius (Galba, 17), that Piso Licinianus received the title of Cæsar from Galba, and that this was the origin of its use; but these historians merely say, that Piso was adopted by Galba, as his successor, and make no mention of the name of Cæsar, which appears to have been unknown to them as a title. Aurelius Victor (in Traj. p. 348, ed. Arntzen) says, that Hadrian first received it at the time of his adoption; but as that event itself is doubtful, and as it is very improbable, if it did take place, that Trajan would have invented, on his death-bed, a new title for him who was to succeed him, it is most likely that Ælius Verus, when adopted by Hadrian, was the first to whom it was given. (Spartian, in Elio Vero, c. 1 and 2.)-WENCK.] + As Octavianus advanced to the banquet of the Cæsars, his colour changed like that of the cameleon; pale at first, then red, afterwards black; he at last assumed the mild livery of Venus and the Graces. (Cæsars, p. 309.) This image, employed by Julian, in his ingenious |