I. Maohiavelli notices tlie same remarkable fea- ture of the rising power of Eome which is men- tioned by Montesquieu at the close of the preced- ing chapter. He discusses the question whether the Eomans, in the acquisition of their empire, were more favored by virtue or by fortune; ' and, con- trary to the opinion of Plutarch and others, he pre- fers the former hypothesis. "But, whatever may have been the cause," he continues, "it never hap- pened that they were engaged in two very great wars at the same time. It always fell out, on the contrary, that, either at the beginning of one war another was terminated, or at the termination of one another took its rise, as may be readily seen from the succession of their wars; for— leaving aside those which they made before Eome was taken by the Gauls— it is seen that, whilst they fought against the -(Equians and the Volscians, no other nations rose against them so long as these peoples remained pow- ' Quale fu piii cagione dello iraperio che acquistorono i Romani, o la virtil, 0 la fortuna. Discorsi, lib. ii, cap. 1.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 405 erful. When they were subdued, the war against the Samnites followed; and, although before this war was finished the Latins rebelled against the Romans, yet, after such rebellion took place, the Samnites were in league with Eome, and, with their army, helped the Romans to chastise the insolence of the Latins. These subdued, the war was renewed with the Sam- nites; and, after they were beaten in many battles, the war with the Etrurians followed; and this being terminated, the Samnites were again aroused by the passage of Pyrrhus into Italy. As soon as Pyrrhus was repulsed, and had returned to Greece, the first war with the Carthaginians ensued; and no sooner was this ended than aU the G-auls on both sides of the Alps conspired against the Romans, until — be- tween Popolonia and Pisa, where the tower of St. Yincent now stands — they were overthrown with im- mense slaughter. After this the Romans had no war of much importance for the space of twenty years; for they only fought with the Ligurians, and with the remnant of the Ganls in Lombardy; and thus matters stood until the second Carthaginian war, which occupied Italy during sixteen years. This war being concluded with supreme glory, then followed the war with Macedon; and this being finished, next came that of Antiochus and of Asia; after which there remained in the world neither Mng nor re- public strong enough^ — either singly or all combined — ■ to stand against the Roman power. But, before this 406 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [baker.
final triumpli, whoever will consider the succession of these wars, and the method of conducting them, will not fail to see, mixed with fortune, a virtue and a prudence of the highest order." ' Quite in harmony with the conception of Machia- velli, it may be added that it is neither matter of astonishment nor proof of "inconceivable good for- tune" that in ancient times a conquering state like Rome was not arrested by a powerful and sustained combination of the neighboring states. Such combi- nations imply a more advanced social condition than existed among the ancient Italian peoples; and thus Home was permitted, step by step, to acquire ascend- ency in Italy. This was accomplished before she ar- rested the serious attention of the two great outlying powers — Carthage, and Greece — the one weakened in its foreign policy by faction at home, the other dis- tracted and pi'eoccupied by mutual jealousies, in- trigues, and quarrels. Taking into view the single- ness of purpose and the supreme military spirit of Home on the oiie hand, and the actual condition of the rest of the world on the other, there is nothing in Koman aggrandizement which violates historical probability.
II. The final extinction of the "Western empire marks, in the principal sense, the close of Homan history. From the time of that event, A. n. •diTG, to the like extinction of the empire of the East, we ° Discorsi, lib. ii, cap. i.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 40Y have yet the long period of 977 years, whicli, although justly reckoned as belonging in some sort to Koman history, ought to be accepted as such in a very subor- dinate and inferior sense. The Eastern empire was Greco-Koman; its ruling ethnic element was the Greek stock; its dominant speech was the Greek lan- guage; its ideas, its manners, its genius, were mainly Grecian. The provinces of the East had been con- quered, and ruled for several centuries, by the Ro- mans; but, inasmuch as these provinces, at the time the Komans acquired ascendency over them, were already occupied by an ancient and powerful civili- zation— much superior to that of Eome herself in nearly all that belongs to taste, science, and intellect — their populations were not nearly so much modified by their conquerors as were the rude and illiterate na- tions of the West which fell under the Roman sway.' The old empire of Alexander — first divided under his successors, then swallowed up and long governed by Rome, then detached from the "West, under an ad- ministration of its own, and then surviving for nearly a thousand years as the representative of the Roman name — preserves under all these changes its original Grecian aspect. It is to the survival of the Roman law in the East, and to the retention of the Latin tongue as the language of the law, that we must mainly look for the rational justification of that gen- eral conception which brings the Greek empire with- ' See Gibbon's Rome, vol. i, pp. 44-46.
408 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakek.
in the complete circle of Eoman history. As re- stricted, howe^r, to the career and the fate of the Latin stock and its Italian allies, that history virtu- ally runs out with the fall of the Western empire.
It is a curious fact that, more than five hundred years before this event took place, there was already an opinion among the augurs of Rome that the twelve vultures, which Komulus was said to have seen, signified the twelve centuries during which the Eoman power was destined to continue; and, from the founding of the city to the total extinction of the empire of the West, we count 1,229 years, the last twenty or more of which being marked by the mere shadow and semblance, rather than by the sub- stance, of power.* III. At the close of an empire of such unequalled fame we may fitly indulge some reflections upon the periods which ITature or Providence assigns to the existence of nations.
Quetelet has a chapter upon " The Average dura- tion of Nations and States,"" in which a curious application of statistics is brought to view, and one which may possibly assume a high value in the future, as a means of helping to more definite con- ceptions of some of the laws of universal history." I do not vouch for the accuracy of the periods of * Idem, vol. iii, p. 45T; and De Quinooy's Ccesars, Boston, 1854, p. 250.
' Duree moyennc des nations et des &ats.
^ Bu SysUme Social, Paris, 1848, pp. 158-164.
NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 409 duration wMch he adopts for a number of the nations, governments, and cities of the past, but will only notice in particular that he makes the Eoman period a century too short, that he abbreviates the reign of the Eoman kings to a like extent, and that, in the light of the investigations of KoseUini, Lepsius, Ma- riette, and others, his period for Egypt is very con- siderably too short. He assigns the following values as the respective life-terms of the five following nations: TEARS.
Assyria. 1_680 Egypt 1,663 The Jews 1,522 Greece 1,410 Eome 1,129 — the average of which is 1,461 years.
He observes that "Nations necessarily endure longer than States " — by which last term he means forms of government; and he assigns the following values for the respective durations of ten ancient governments: TEAE8.
Greece under kings 556 " " republics 854 Rome under kings 145 " republic 478 " " empire 506 Jews under judges 476 " " kings 920 " " republic 121 " The three empires formed of the dSbris of the ancient Assyrian empire" 211 The empire of Persia founded by Cyrus 206 — showing an average of 448 years.
18 410 GKANDEtJR AND DECADENCE [baker.
He notices also the terms of duration of tliree celebrated cities of antiquity, and giyes to them the following values: TEABS.
Tyre 680 Carthage '?01 Syracuse 601 — disclosing an average of 627 years.
This leads him to observe the considerably longer duration of the city-republics of Yenice and Genoa — the one extending through eleven, and the other through nine to ten centuries.
Here Quetelet approaches, but does not pursue, the comparison of the modem with the ancient world; nor does he attempt to infer any law which may express the general relation of the two in regard to the longevity of nations. I think, however, this may be done.
The nations of modern Europe may be distinctly traced as far back as the fall of the Western empire, and some of them, as for instance the Germans and the French, much farther. It would apparently be quite fair, therefore, to assign to these nations an average term already of 1400 years — a period very nearly equal to that which Quetelet educes for the complete average life-term of the five ancient nations to which he directs his attention. But it is obvious that our modern nations have yet a long future before them. It could be shown, I think, that not one of them has yet reached the climax of its civilization; and it NOTE.] OF THE ROMANS. 411 would seem to follow, accordingly, that tJie modem nations promise to he much longer-li/ved tho/n the ancient. Nor is it difficult to point out tlie causes wluch ouglit to give rise to such a difEerence. These causes are principally two: 1. The larger territorial extension of modern civ- ilization, and the consequently lessened store of the world's total barbaric force, combined with the rela- tively increased influence of the intellectual, moral, and industrial elements in our modem civilized so- cieties, and the consequently diminished influence of the military spirit over them — have very greatly less- ened— ^nay, virtually extinguished — ^the chance that any member of the m,odern family of nations will ever he destroyed hy force exerted from without — an agency of national destruction which was exceedingly active and efficient in ancient times.
2. The larger and more diversified mental results of civilization which are incorporated into the life of the modem nations leads to the remarkable conse- quence—full of hope for the future of humanity — that they resist, hetter than the nations of antiquity did, the corrupting infiuence of wealth and luxury — an influence which exerted itself powerfully and rap- idly in the work of running down and dissolving the ancient nations.
Both these destructive agencies were displayed upon a gigantic scale in the career of the Romans. "With ruthless hand these conquerors effaced the na- 412 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [bakeb.
tionalitieB of mamerous peoples. But, grown rich upon the spoils of a vanquished worid, they at once succumbed to the corrupting influence of their own great fortune, and then disappeared in their turn beneath the stalwart blows which were given them by the rude nations of the North.
MONTESQUIEU.] OF THE ROMANS. 413 CHAPTER XX.
CONQUESTS OF JUSTINIAN. HIS GOVEENMENT.
As all these nations entered pell-mell into the empire of the West, they mutually incommoded each other; and the whole policy of the time consisted in arming barbarians against barbarians, a policy which their ferocity and their avarice made it easy to exe- cute. They destroyed each other for the most part before they were able to establish themselves; and thus the empire of the East was left in a condition still to stand.
Moreover, the source of supply had exhausted it- seK. "We cease to see those innumerable armies is- suing from the North which at first appeared. After the first invasions by the Goths and the Huns, and especially after the death of Attila, these nations, and those that followed them, came in less force.
"When the invading nations, which had first been massed as armies, came to be dispersed as peoples, their power was much diminished. Scattered over the different countries which they had conquered, they were themselves exposed to invasion.
4.14 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [montesquxef.
It was under these circumstances that tTustinian undertook to reconquer Africa and Italy, and that he did what our Franks accomplished so successfully against the Visigoths, the Burgundians, the Lombards, and the Saracens.
At the time when the Christian religion had been carried to the barbarians, Arianism was in some sort dominant in the empire. Yalens had sent them Arian priests, and these were their first apostles. During the interval, however, which intervened between their conversion and their establishment, Arianism had been in a manner extinguished among the Komans; so that, finding the whole Koman world orthodox, the barbaric Arians could never gain the good-wUl of its inhabitants; and it was easy, therefore, for the em- perors of the East to give them trouble.
Furthermore, the art and the genius of the bar- barians being but little adapted to the attack of cities, and still less to their defence, they left the walls of fortified towns to fall into ruins. Proco- plus teUs us that Belisarius found those of Italy in this condition. The walls of the fortified cities of Africa had been dismantled by Genseric,' as those of Spain afterwards were by Vitisa,' under the idea of being thus more secure of their inhabitants.
Most of these nations from the North contracted at once the luxurious manners of the southern coun- ' Procopius, War of the Vandals, Book I.
' MAEiANi, History of Spain, Book YI, ch. xix.
CHAP. XX ] OF THE ROMANS. 415 tries in which they were established, and became in- capable of sustaining the fatigues of war.' The Van- dals languished in voluptuous pleasures. A delicate table, effeminate habits, music, gardens, baths, the dance, the theatre, were become necessaries among them. As we learn from Malchus,* they no longer gave any inquietude to the Eomans' after they had ceased to maintain those armies which Genseric held constantly in readiuess, and by means of which he was enabled to anticipate his enemies, and to aston- ish the world by the facility with which he executed his enterprises.
The cavalry of the Romans was very expert in the use of the bow; but that of the Goths and the Yandals used only the sword and the lance, and could not fight at a distance." It is to this difference that Belisarius attributes a part of his successes.
The Romans, especially under Justinian, received great assistance from the Huns — the nation from which the Parthians were derived — and whose war- riors fought in the same manner. After they had lost their power by the defeat of Attila, and from the divisions which were occasioned by the great ' PROCOPins, War of the Vandals, Book II.
* Byzantine History, in the Excerpt of the Embassies.
' In the time of Hunneric. (a) (a) Hunneric was son and successor of Genseric, so quickly did the power of the Vandals dechne. — Translator.
^ See Peocofius, War of the Vandals, Book I; and the same author, War of the Goths, Book I. The Gothic archers fought on foot, and were but little disciplined.
416 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MOuiESQiJiEn.
number of his cMldren, they entered the service of the Eomans in the character of auxiliaries, and be- came their best cavaby.
All the barbaric nations were distinguished from each other by their particular arms, and by their par- ticular manner of fighting.' The Goths and the Yan- dals were formidable for their use of the sword; the Huns were admirable archers; the Sueri were good infantry; the Alans were heavily armed, the Heruli lightly. The Eomans selected from these different nations the diverse bodies of troops which were adapted to their purposes; and thus they made war upon one alone with the advantages of all the others.
It is singular that the weakest nations were those which affected the greatest establishments. "We shall be much deceived if we judge of their forces by their conquests. In that long succession of incursions into the empire, the barbaric peoples, or rather the swarms which came from them, destroyed or were themselves destroyed. All depended upon circum- stances; and, whilst a powerful nation was being as- sailed by force of arms, or held in check, a troop of adventurers would penetrate into an unguarded coun- try and commit frightful ravages. The Goths— the disadvantage of whose arms caused them to fly be- ' A remarkable passage in Jornandes gives all these differences; it is on the occasion of the battle between the Gepidaj and the sons of Attila.
CHAP, xs.] OF THE ROMANS. 4.I7 fore 80 many nations — established themselves in Italy, in Gaul, and in Spain. The Yandals, aban- doning Spain on account of their weakness, crossed over into Africa, and there founded a great em- pire.
Against the latter nation Justinian could only equip a fleet of fifty vessels; and when Belisarius disembarked he had no more than five thousand sol- diers.' It was a very daring enterprise; and Leo, who had formerly sent an army of a hundred thou- sand men against the same enemy — ^borne upon a fleet composed of all the vessels of the East — had not only failed to conquer Africa, but had had occasion to apprehend the loss of his own em- pire.
These grand fleets, like grand armies on land, have never been very successful. Inasmuch as they ex- haust the state if the espedition is a long one, or if some disaster befalls it, they can neither be supplied nor repaired. If a part is lost, the remainder is use- less; for the vessels of war, the transports, the cav- alry, the infantry, the munitions — in short, the differ- ent parts — are dependent upon the whole. In conse- quence of the slowness with which the enterprise proceeds, the enemy is always found prepared; and, since it seldom happens that the expedition is ready to move at the proper time in the year, it falls upon the season of storms — such vast preparations being * Procopius, War of the Goths, Book IT.
418 GRANDEUK AND DECADENCE [moktesquieu.
hardly ever completed until some months later than the promised time.* Belisarius invaded Africa. He was much aided in this enterprise by the large store of provisions vrhich he drew from Sicily by means of a treaty which was made with Amalasontha, the queen of the Goths; and, when he came to be sent against Italy, seeing that the Goths derived their support from the same source, he commenced by conquering Sicily. He thus reduced his enemies to famine, whilst his own army was abundantly supplied. He took Car- thage, Home, and Ravenna, and sent the captive kings of the Goths and Yandals to Constantinople, where we see, after the lapse of so long a time, a renewal of the ancient triumphs.'"
"We may find in the qualities of this great man the principal causes of his success." Eeing a general who revived all the maxims of the early Komans, he formed an army which was like the ancient armies of Bome. In a state of servitude, great virtues are ordinarily concealed or lost; but the tyrannical gov- ernment of Justinian could not obscure that superi- ority of genius, or extinguish that grandeur of soul, which marked the character of Belisarius.
The eunuch Narses also contributed to render ' The Spanish armada and the army of Xerxes are recalled by what is here said. — Tkanslator^ '" Justinian only accorded to Belisarius a triumph for the conquest of Africa.
" See Suidas, at the article Belisarius.
CHAP. XX.] OF THE ROMANS. 419 tliis reign illustrious. Grown up in the palace, he possessed all the more completely the confidence of the emperor; for princes always regard their cour- tiers as their most faithful subjects.
But the bad conduct of Justinian — ^his prodigality, his vexations, his rapines — liis furor for building, changing, reforming — the inconstancy of his plans, and the cruelty and the wealcness of a reign which was made worse by a protracted old age — were the real evils which were mixed with his vainglory and his profitless victories. His conquests — which had for their cause, not the strength of the empire, but certain particular circumstances — ruined all. Whilst his armies were occupied in making them, new na- tions crossed the Danube and desolated Illyria, Mace- don, and Greece; and the Persians, in the course of four destructive invasions, inflicted incurable wounds upon the East.'"
The more rapidly these conquests were made, the less solidly were they established. Italy and Africa were scarcely conquered when it became necessary to conquer them again.
Justinian had elevated to the throne a woman who had long prostituted herself upon the stage." She governed him with an authority that has no ex- ample in history; and, mixing incessantly the pas- '^ The two empires ravaged each other.all the more destructively, since neither of them had any hope of preserving the conquests which it made from the other. " The empress Theodora.
420 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [MosTESQCiEtr.
siona and the fancies of lier sex with the affairs of the state, she marred the most fortunate victories and successes.
In the East polygamy has prevailed in all ages; and this custom has denied to the women of those countries that prodigious ascendant which they have over us in these climes;" but at Constantinople the law of a single wife admitted that sex to empire — and this was sometimes the occasion of weakness in the government."
The people of Constantinople were at all times divided into two factions — ^that of the hlues and that of the greens. These factions took their origin from the preference which the people in the theatre showed for certain actors rather than for others. In the games of the circus, the charioteers who were dressed in green disputed the prize with those who were dressed in blue, and the interest of the spectators amounted to a furor.
These two factions were spread through all the ''' En Orient, on a do tout tem,ps multiplU Vusage des femmes, pour leur dter Vascendant prodigieux gu'elles ont smt nous dans ces climats.
" Montesquieu probably felt the influence of the Salic law, by which women were excluded from the throne of France. It ia likely, however, that the reigns of female sovereigns will, on the whole, compare favor- ably with the rest. It is certain that a very great majority of those rulers who have merited the name of monsters have been men; and as for weakness, it would be difficult to point out in the world's history a queen or an empress who was as much so as Heliogabalus. The good sought by monarchy is order in the state, and not personal ability in the sovereign; and, in the realization of this good, experience does not ap- pear to have discriminated against women. — Translator.
CHAP. 3x.] OF THE ROMANS. 421 cities of the empire, and they were more or furious in proportion to the size of the city — that is, in proportion to the number of idle people.
But divisions — always necessary in a republican government, in order to maintain it — could only be fatal to the government of the Eoman emperors; for such divisions only led to a change of the sov- ereign, and not to the re-establishment of the laws and the correction of abuses.
Justinian, who favored the hlues, and denied all justice to the greens," embittered, the two factions, and consequently strengthened both. They went so far as to annihilate the authority of the magistrates. The Hues ceased to fear the laws, for the reason that they were protected against them by the emperor; the greens ceased to respect them, for the reason that they could no longer rely upon them for protection." All the obligations of friendship, of consangiiinity, of duty, of gratitude, ■ were thrown ofE. Families de- stroyed themselves. Every wretch who desired to commit a crime was of the faction of the hlues; all who were robbed or assassinated were of the faction of the greens."
" This malady was ancient. Suetonius says that Caligula, who was attached to the faction of the greens, hated the people because they ap- plauded the other.
" In order to form an idea of the spirit of these times, it is neces- sary to consult Theophanes, who reports a long conversation which took place in the theatre between the emperor and'the greens.
" Nothing, perhaps, can better illustrate the puerile character of the masses of the Roman people during the decline of the empire than the ^23 GRANDEUR AND DECADENCE [moktesquieu.
A government thus wanting in sense was yet more crael. The emperor was not content with in- flicting general injustice upon his subjects by impos- ing ruinous public exactions upon them; he harassed them with every species of tyranny in their private affairs. I should not be naturally inclined to believe excesses whicli are recorded in connection with these factions of the circus and the hippodrome. They are suggestive of the feuds which we sometimes observe in our modern cities between the "up town" and " down town " boys; and they belong to the same level of mental development. But, when the circumstance is added that even the chiefs of the state — as in the cases of Caligula, Nero, VitelUus, Commodus, Caracalla, Heliogabalus, and Justinian himself — were so identified with factions which involved no principle and no interest, that the administra- tion of public justice came to be corrupted by idle distinctions in the costume of charioteers, we are amazed at the possibilities of human folly. From Constantinople, Gibbon writes, " the pestilence was diffused into the provinces and cities of the East, and the sportive distinction of two colors produced two strong and irreconcilable factions, which shook the foundations of a feeble government. The popular dissensions, founded on the most serious interest, or holy pretence, have scarcely equalled the obstinacy of this wanton discord, which invaded the peace of families, divided friends and brothers, and tempted the female sex, though Seldom Been in the circus, to espouse the inclinations of their lovers, or to contradict the wishes of their husbands. Every law, either human or divine, was trampled under foot, and, as long as the party was success- ful, its deluded followers appeared careless of private distress or pubhc calamity." {Decline and Fall, vol. iv, pp. 57, 58.) Originally there were but two colors worn by the charioteers of the Roman circus — the lo/ito and the red; afterwards two others — the green and the blue — were added; and finally Domitian supplemented two additional ones — the golden and the purple. " The spectators favored one or the other color, as humor or caprice inclined them. It was not the swiftness of the horses, nor the art of the men, that attracted them; but merely the dress. In the time of Justinian no less than 30,000 men are said to have lost their lives at Constantinople in a tumult raised by contention among the par- tisans of these several colors." (Adam's Rom. Ant., Phila., 1872, p. 226; and, compare Gibbon, vol. iv, p. 66.)— Teanslatob.