VL. HAP. office, they would revenge the insult in his blood, the nominal first magistrate of the state retired, by the emperor's advice, from the city, and spent the greatest part of his consulship at his villas in Campania.75 Tumults of the legions. Firmness of the empe .or. 76 The lenity of the emperor confirmed the insolence of the troops; the legions imitated the example of the guards, and defended their prerogative of licentiousness with the same furious obstinacy. The administration of Alexander was an unavailing struggle against the corruption of his age. In Illyricum, in Mauritania, in Armenia, in Mesopotamia, in Germany, fresh mutinies perpetually broke out; his officers were murdered, his authority was insulted, and his life at last sacrificed to the fierce discontents of the army. One particular fact well deserves to be recorded, as it illustrates the manners of the troops, and exhibits a singular instance of their return to a sense of duty and obedience. Whilst the emperor lay at Antioch, in his Persian expedition, the particulars of which we shall hereafter relate, the punishment of some soldiers who had been discovered in the baths of women, excited a sedition in the legion to which they belonged. Alexander ascended his tribunal, and with a modest firmness represented to the armed multitude the absolute necessity, as well as his inflexible resolution of correcting the vices introduced by his impure predecessor, and of maintaining the discipline, which could not be relaxed without the ruin of the Roman name and empire. Their clamours interrupted his mild expostulation. "Reserve your shouts," said the undaunted emperor, "till you take the field against the Persians, the Germans, and the Sarmatians. Be silent in the presence of your sovereign and benefactor, who bestows upon you the corn, the clothing, and the money of the provinces. Be silent, or I shall no longer style you soldiers, but citizens," if those indeed who disclaim the laws of Rome deserve to be ranked among the meanest of the people." Ilis menaces inflamed the fury of the legion, and their brandished arms already threatened his person. "Your courage," resumed the intrepid Alexander, "would be more nobly displayed in the field of battle; me you may destroy, you cannot intimidate; and the severe justice of the republic would punish your crime, and revenge my death." The legions still persisted in clamorous sedition, when the emperor pronounced, with a loud voice, the decisive sentence, "Citizens ! lay down your arms, and depart in peace to your respective habitations." The tempest was instantly appeased; the soldiers, filled with grief and shame, silently confessed the justice of their punish 75 For an account of Ulpian's fate and his own danger, see the mutilated conclusion of Dion's history, 1. lxxx. p. 1371. 76 Annot Reimar. ad Dion Cassius, 1. lxxx. p. 1369. 77 Julius Cesar had appeased a sedition with the same word Quirites; which thus opposed to Soldiers, was used in a sense of contempt, and reduced the offenders to the less honourable condition of mere citizens. Tacit. Annal. i. 43, VI. ment and the power of discipline, yielded up their arms and CHAP. military ensigns, and retired in confusion, not to their camp, but to the several inns of the city. Alexander enjoyed, during thirty days, the edifying spectacle of their repentance; nor did he restore them to their former rank in the army, till he had punished with death those tribunes whose connivance had occasioned the mutiny. The grateful legion served the emperor, whilst living, and revenged him when dead.78 his reign ter. The resolutions of the multitude generally depend on a mo- Defects of ment; and the caprice of passion might equally determine the and charac seditious legion to lay down their arms at the emperor's feet, or to plunge them into his breast. Perhaps, if the singular transaction had been investigated by the penetration of a philosopher, we should discover the secret causes which on that occasion authorized the boldness of the prince, and commanded the obedience of the troops; and perhaps, if it had been related by a judicious historian, we should find this action, worthy of Cesar himself, reduced nearer to the level of probability and the common standard of the character of Alexander Severus. The abilities of that amiable prince seem to have been inadequate to the difficulties of his situation, the firmness of his conduct inferior to the purity of his intentions. His virtues, as well as the vices of Elagabalus, contracted a tincture of weakness and effeminacy from the soft climate of Syria, of which he was a native; though he blushed at his foreign origin, and listened with a vain complacency to the flattering genealogists, who derived his race from the ancient stock of Roman nobility.79 The pride and avarice of his mother cast a shade on the glories of his reign; and by exacting from his riper years the same dutiful obedience which she had justly claimed from his unexperienced youth, Mamæa exposed to public ridicule both her son's character and her own.80 The fatigues of the Persian war irritated the military discontent; the unsuccessful event degraded the reputation of the emperor as a general, and even as a soldier. Every cause prepared, and every circumstance hastened, a revolution, which distracted the Roman empire with a long series of intestine calamities. 78 Hist. August. p. 132. 79 From the Metelli. Hist. August. p. 119. The choice was judicious. In one short period of twelve years, the Metelli could reckon seven consulships, and five triumphs. See Velleius Paterculus, ii. 11, and the Fasti. 20 The life of Alexander, in the Augustan History, is the mere idea of a perfect prince, an awkward imitation of the Cyropædia. The account of his reign, as given by Herodian, is rational and moderate, consistent with the general history of the age; and in some of the most invidious particulars, confirmed by the decisive fragments of Dion. Yet from a very paltry prejudice, the greater number of our modern writers abuse Herodian, and copy the Augustan History. See Mess. de Tillemont and Wotton. From the opposite prejudice, the emperor Julian (in Cæsarib. p. 315,) dwells with a visible satisfaction on the effeminate weakness of the Syrian, and the ridiculous avarice of his mother. CHAP. VI. on the The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars oceasioned by his death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the house of Severus, had all contributed to increase the Digression dangerous power of the army, and to obliterate the faint image finances of of laws and liberty that was still impressed on the minds of the empire. the Romans. This internal change, which undermined the foundations of the empire, we have endeavoured to explain with some degree of order and perspicuity. The personal characters of the emperors, their victories, laws, follies, and fortunes, can interest us no farther than as they are connected with the general history of the Decline and Fall of the monarchy. Our constant attention to that great object will not suffer us to overlook a most important edict of Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the free inhabitants of the empire the name and privileges of Roman citizens. His unbound. ed liberality flowed not, however, from the sentiments of a generous mind; it was the sordid result of avarice, and will naturally be illustrated by some observations on the finances of that state, from the victorious ages of the commonwealth to the reign of Alexander Severus. Establ'ah ment The siege of Veii in Tuscany, the first considerable enterprise of the Romans, was protracted to the tenth year, much less by the strength of the place than by the unskilfulness of the besiegers. The unaccustomed hardships of so many winter campaigns, at the distance of near twenty miles from home," required more than common encouragements; and the senate wisely prevented the clamours of the people, by the institution of a regular pay for the soldiers, which was levied by a general tribute, assessed according to an equitable proportion on the property of the citizens.84 During more than two hundred years after the conquest of Veii, the victories of the republic added less to the wealth than to the power of Rome. The states of Italy paid their tribute in military service only, and the vast force both by sea and land, which was exerted in the Punic wars, was maintained at the expense of the Romans themselves. That high spirited people (such is often the generous enthusiasm of freedom,) cheerfully submitted to the most excessive but voluntary burdens, in the just confidence that they should speedily enjoy the rich harvest of their labours. Their expectations were not disappointed. In the course of a few years the riches of Syracuse, of Carthage, of Macedonia, and of Asia, were brought in triumph to Rome. 81 According to the more accurate Dionysius, the city itself was only a hundred stadia, or twelve miles and a half from Rome; though some out-posts might be advanced farther on the side of Etruria. Nardini, in a professed treatise, has combated the popular opinion, and the authority of two popes, and has removed Veii from Civita Castellana, to a little spot called Isola, in the midway between Rome and the lake Bracciano. 82 See the 4th and 5th books of Livy. In the Roman Census, property, power, and taxation, were commensurate with each other. tion of the The treasures of Perseus alone amounted to near two millions CHAP. sterling, and the Roman people, the sovereign of so many na- VI. tions, were for ever delivered from the weight of taxes. 83 The increasing revenue of the provinces was found sufficient to de- and aboli fray the ordinary establishment of war and government, and tribute on the superfluous mass of gold and silver was deposited in the zens. temple of Saturn, and reserved for any unforeseen emergency of the state. $4 Roman citi the provin History has never, perhaps, suffered a greater or more irre-Tributes of parable injury, than in the loss of the curious register bequeath-ces, ed by Augustus to the senate, in which that experienced prince so accurately balanced the revenues and expenses of the Roman empire. Deprived of this clear and comprehensive estimate, we are reduced to collect a few imperfect hints from such of the ancients as have accidentally turned aside from the splendid to the more useful parts of history. We are informed that, by the conquests of Pompey, the tributes of Asia of Asia were raised from fifty to one hundred and thirty-five millions of drachms; or about four millions and a half sterling.6 Under the last and most indolent of the Ptolemies, the revenue of Egypt is said to have amounted to twelve thousand five of Egypt, hundred talents; a sum equivalent to more than two millions and a half of our money, but which was afterward considerably improved by the more exact economy of the Romans, and the increase of the trade of Ethiopia and India.7 Gaul was of Gaul, enriched by rapine, as Egypt was by commerce, and the tributes of those two great provinces have been compared as nearly equal to each other in value.88 The ten thousand Euboic or Phoenician talents, about four millions sterling,89 which of Africa, vanquished Carthage was condemned to pay within the term of fifty years, were a slight acknowledgment of the superiority of Rome,90 and cannot bear the least proportion with the taxes afterward raised both on the lands and on the persons of the inhabitants, when the fertile coast of Africa was reduced into a province.9' Spain, by a very singular fatality, was the Peru and Mexico of Spain, of the old world. The discovery of the rich western continent by the Phoenicians, and the oppression of the simple natives, 83 Plin. Hist. Natur. I. xxxiii. c. 3. Cicero de Offic. ii. 22. Plutarch in P. Emil. p. 275. 84 See a fine description of this accumulated wealth of ages, in Lucan's Phars. I. iii. v. 155, &c. 85 Tacit. in Annal. i. 11. It seems to have existed in the time of Appian. 86 Plutarch. in Pompeio, p. 642. 87 Strabo, I. xvii. p. 798. 89 Velleius Paterculus, 1. ii. c. 39. He seems to give the preference to the revenue of Gaul. 89 The Euboic, the Phoenician, and the Alexandrian talents, were double in weight to the Attic. See Hooper on ancient weights and measures, p. iv. c, 5. It is very probable, that the same talent was carried from Tyre to Carthage, 90 Polyb. I. xv. c. 2. 91 Appian, in Punicis, p. 84. VI. CHAP. who were compelled to labour in their own mines for the benefit of strangers, form an exact type of the more recent history of Spanish America. The Phoenicians were acquainted only with the sea-coast of Spain; avarice, as well as ambition, carried the arms of Rome and Carthage into the heart of the country, and almost every part of the soil was found pregnant with copper, silver, and gold. Mention is made of a mine near Carthagena, which yielded every day twenty-five thousand drachms of silver, or about three hundred thousand pounds a year.93 Twenty thousand pounds weight of gold was annually received from the provinces of Asturia, Gallicia, and Lusitania.94 Amount of the revenue. Taxes on Roman cit We want both leisure and materials to pursue this curious inquiry through the many potent states that were annihilated in the Roman empire. Some notion, however, may be formed of the revenue of the provinces, where considerable wealth had been deposited by nature, or collected by man, if we observe the severe attention that was directed to the abodes of solitude and sterility. Augustus once received a petition from the inhabitants of Gyarus, humbly praying that they might be relieved from one-third of their excessive impositions. Their whole tax amounted indeed to no more than one hundred and fifty drachms, or about five pounds: but Gyarus was a little island, or rather a rock, of the Egean Sea, destitute of fresh water and every necessary of life, and inhabited only by a few wretched fishermen.95 .96 From the faint glimmerings of such doubtful and scattered lights we should be inclined to believe, 1st. That (with every fair allowance for the difference of times and circumstances) the general income of the Roman provinces could seldom amount to less than fifteen or twenty millions of our money; and, 2dly, That so ample a revenue must have been fully adequate to all the expenses of the moderate government instituted by Augustus, whose court was the modest family of a private senator, and whose military establishment was calculated for the defence of the frontiers, without any aspiring views of conquest, or any serious apprehension of a foreign invasion. Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both these conizens, insti- clusions, the latter of them at least is positively disowned by tuted by Augustus. 92 Diodorus Siculus, 1. v. Cadiz was built by the Phoenicians a little more than a thousand years before Christ. See Vell. Paterc. i. 2. 93 Strabo, l. iii. p. 148. 94 Plin. Hist. Natur. I. xxxiii. c. 3. He mentions likewise a silver mine in Dalmatia, that yielded every day fifty pounds to the state. 95 Strabo, l. x. p. 485. Tacit. Annal. iii. 69, and iv. 30. See in Tournefort (Voyages au Levant, Lettre viii.) a very lively picture of the actual misery of Gyarus. 96 Lipsius de magnitudine Romanâ, (1. ii. c. 3,) computes the revenue at one hundred and fifty millions of gold crowns; but his whole book, though learned and ingenious, betrays a very heated imagination. |