Eugene Lawrence

“ The intrigues of foreign politicians seek to stimulate our internal dissensions; the rage of a foreign sect would check our advance in knowledge and virtue; a despairing exile may predict the ruin of the republic. But it is not unlikely that in 1876 a united people will confound all their plans, that true-hearted and honest American Republicans will rule from ocean to ocean, and that the foreign cabal who foretold the ruin of republican institutions will receive a more signal defeat than they have met with since Washington sheathed his sword in victory or Richmond fell. ”

“ Gallus proved unfit for public affairs, while Julian won the esteem of all men by his conduct and valor. He drove the Germans out of Gaul, which they had invaded, and even crossed the Rhine, in imitation of Julius Cæsar.
Constantius now became jealous of the rising fame of Julian, who was beloved by the Western legions, and commanded him to send the finest part of his army to the East. Julian prepared to obey, but the soldiers rose in revolt, proclaiming him Julian Augustus. He sent messengers to the emperor demanding the recognition of his election; but war could not long be averted. ”

“ Thus amply have the supporters of Schurz and Greeley already refuted the theories of their chiefs, and perfected in bloodshed an unnatural alliance. If any one desires to see the results of the opposition policy, he need visit only the most “liberal” of the Southern States. Surrounded on the north, east and west by enlightened communities, where elections are free, and no man is harmed, whether he vote for Democrat or Republican, Missouri, under the “liberal” rule, offers a plain example of political proscription. The men who support Greeley whiip or murder the men who would vote for Grant. ”

“ Had he possessed a more resolute intellect, he might have been less shaken by temporary reverses; had he been more unselfish, he would never have contemned the people by whom he was once trusted; or if capable of a true insight into political affairs, he would never have despaired of the republic; for the dangers that affright him are only passing clouds to more patriotic minds; the evils he anticipates are only the phantoms of misanthropy and the fumes of discontent. Happily the great majority of his countrymen do not share his forebodings. ”

“ They instantly cut off his head and hands, which were carried to Rome. Fulvia, the widow of Clodius and now the wife of Antony, gloated her eyes with the sight, and even thrust a hair-pin through his tongue. Antony ordered the head to be nailed to the Rostra, which had so often witnessed the triumphs of the orator. Thus died Cicero, in the 64th year of his age. He had not sufficient firmness of character to cope with the turbulent times in which his lot was cast, but as a man he deserves our admiration and love. ”

“ The united armies of the Consul and Proconsul crossed the Po, and hastened in search of the Cimbri, whom they found to the westward of Milan, near Vercellæ, searching for the Teutones, of whose destruction they had not yet heard. The Cimbri met with the same fate as the Teutones; the whole nation was annihilated; and the women, like those of the Tentones, put an end to their lives. Marius was hailed as the savior of the state; his name was coupled with the gods in the libations and at banquets; and he received the title of third founder of Rome. ”

“ Titus was one of the most accomplished and benevolent of men. Eloquent, warlike, moderate in his desires, he was called Amor et deliciæ humani generis, "The love and the delight of the human race." In early life he had been thought inclined to severity, and his treatment of the Jews, at the fall of their city, does not seem in accordance with his character for humanity. But no sooner had he ascended the throne than he won a general affection. Such was the mildness of his government that no one was punished at Rome for political offenses. ”

“ The school-house and the railway will be the chief factors in our future progress; our coal, iron, wheat, corn, cotton, will spread ease and plenty among the European throngs who now linger in perpetual want. Nor is the condition of our Southern States so far below that of their Western or Northern neighbors. If they can not point to a growth like that of Kansas or Ohio, they may at least assert that they have risen from a greater depression. A fierce and mad minority of their people drove them into rebellion ”

“ His ashes were carried to Rome, and placed under the magnificent column which recorded his Dacian victories.
During Trajan's reign, the empire, already too extensive, was made more unwieldy by his various conquests. He was evidently ambitious of the fame of a conqueror, and possessed many of the qualities of an able general. He was also a skillful ruler of his immense dominions, leaving no portion unprotected by his vigilance. The only stain upon his fame is his persecution of the Christians, whom he continued to treat with severity even when convinced of their perfect innocence. ”

“ All over the Free States population and wealth have advanced with ceaseless rapidity, new nations have grown up within the past ten years, the ravages of war have been repaired by a tenfold increase, and, except in some portions of the disordered South, the growth of the whole country has been unexampled in its history. Within ten years Minnesota has more than doubled its population, Iowa nearly attained the same rate of increase, Nebraska and Kansas trebled theirs. ”

“ War was now inevitable. The luxurious Tarentines sent an embassy to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, begging him, in the name of all the Italian Greeks, to cross over into Italy in order to conduct the war against the Romans. They told him that they only wanted a general, and that all the nations of Southern Italy would flock to his standard. Pyrrhus needed no persuasion to engage in an enterprise which realized the earliest dreams of his ambition. ”

“ Pompey's policy of avoiding a general engagement with Cæsar's veterans till he could place more reliance upon his own troops was undoubtedly a wise one, and had been hitherto crowned with success; but he was prevented from carrying out the prudent plan which he had formed for conducting the campaign. His camp was filled with a multitude of Roman nobles, unacquainted with war, and anxious to return to their estates in Italy and to the luxuries of the capital. His unwillingness to fight was set down to love of power and anxiety to keep the Senate in subjection. ”

“ After Antony's marriage with Octavia in B.C. 40, he seems for a time to have forgotten, or, at least, conquered the fascinations of the Egyptian queen. For the next three years he resided in Athens with his wife; but after his visit to Italy, and the renewal of the Triumvirate in B.C. 37, he left Octavia behind at Tarentum, and determined to carry out his long-projected campaign against the Parthians. As he approached Syria, "that great evil," as Plutarch calls it, his passion for Cleopatra, burst forth with more vehemence than ever. From this time she appears as his evil genius. ”

“ Still, unless something was done, matters would become worse; the poor would become poorer, and the slaves more numerous, and the state would descend more rapidly into the yawning abyss beneath it. Under these circumstances, two young men, belonging to one of the noblest families in Rome, came forward to save the Republic, but perished in the attempt. Their violent death may be regarded as the beginning of the Civil Wars, which ended in the destruction of freedom, and the establishment of the despotism of the Empire. ”

“ No foreign enemy had appeared before the gates of Rome since the invasion of Hannibal, until Alaric made his successful inroad into Italy. The city still retained all that magnificence with which it had been invested by the emperors. The Colosseum, the baths, the aqueducts, the palaces of the Senators, the public gardens, and the ancient temples, still remained; but its people were lost in luxury and vice. Learning was no longer respected among them, the gamester or the cook being more esteemed than philosophers or poets ”

“ Another measure of Drusus rendered him equally unpopular with the people. He had held out to the Latins and the Italian allies the promise of the Roman franchise. Some of the most eminent men of Rome had long been convinced of the necessity of this reform. It had been meditated by the younger Scipio Africanus, and proposed by C. Gracchus. The Roman people, however, always offered it the most violent opposition. But Drusus still had many partisans. The Italian allies looked up to him as their leader, and loudly demanded the rights which had been promised them. ”

“ Early next morning, when the Tribunes had taken their seats on the rostra, and Africanus was summoned, he proudly reminded the people that this was the anniversary of the day on which he had defeated Hannibal at Zama, and called upon them to neglect all disputes and lawsuits, and follow him to the Capitol, there to return thanks to the immortal gods, and pray that they would grant the Roman state other citizens like himself. Scipio struck a chord which vibrated in every heart ”

“ The Rhodians, who had offered their mediation during the war with Perseus, were deprived of Lycia and Caria. In Greece itself the Senate acted in the same arbitrary manner. It was evident that they meant to bring the whole country under their sway. In these views they were assisted by various despots and traitors in the Grecian cities, and especially by Callicrates, a man of great influence among the Achæans, who for many years had lent himself as the base tool of the Romans. He now denounced more than a thousand Achæans as having favored the cause of Perseus. ”

“ Here he was soon joined by large numbers of slaves, who flocked to him from all quarters. He was soon at the head of a formidable army. The desolation of the Social and Civil Wars had depopulated Italy, while the employment of slave-labor furnished Spartacus with an endless supply of soldiers. In addition to this, the war with Sertorius was not yet finished, and that with Mithridates, of which we shall speak presently, had already commenced. For upward of two years Spartacus was master of Italy, which he laid waste from the foot of the Alps to the southernmost corner of the peninsula. ”

“ He put to death the most illustrious men of the time, encouraged informers and false accusations, and filled Rome with terror. In the midst of these cruelties he often sang, danced, or played the buffoon in public, fought as a gladiator in the circus, and ordered the people to worship him as a second Hercules. ”

“ His Constitution did not last, because the aristocracy were thoroughly selfish and corrupt, and exercised the power which Sulla had intrusted to them only for their own aggrandizement. Their shameless conduct soon disgusted the provinces as well as the capital; the people again regained their power, but the consequence was an anarchy and not a government; and as neither class was fit to rule, they were obliged to submit to the dominion of a single man. Thus the empire became a necessity to the exhausted Roman world. ”

“ The Second Punic War made the Romans undisputed masters of the western shores of the Mediterranean. Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica were Roman provinces; Spain owned the Roman supremacy; Carthage was completely humbled, and her powerful neighbor Masinissa was the steadfast ally of Rome. The Roman Republic was now the most powerful state in the ancient world. Her legions had been trained to war by long struggles with Gauls, Spaniards, and Africans, and were superior to all other troops in discipline, experience, and valor. ”

“ Those who had obtained assignments of land seized upon the property of their neighbors, and those who had not were ready to rise in mutiny. The country people, who had been obliged to yield their property to the rude soldiery, filled Italy with their complaints, and flocked to Rome to implore in vain the protection of Octavian. Even if he had the wish, he had not the power to control his soldiers. Fulvia, the wife of Antony, who had remained behind in Italy, resolved to avail herself of those elements of confusion, and crush Octavian. ”

“ Cæsar was probably the greatest man of antiquity. He was at one and the same time a general, a statesman, a lawgiver, a jurist, an orator, a poet, a historian, a philologer, a mathematician, and an architect. He was equally fitted to excel in every thing, and has given proofs that he would have surpassed almost all other men in any subject to which he devoted the energies of his extraordinary mind. One fact places his genius for war in a most striking light. ”

“ He abolished the trials for high treason, judicia majestatis, which had made Rome so often a scene of terror, restored freedom of speech to the Senate, revived the Comitia for the election of magistrates, and bound himself by oath to observe the laws. He punished the principal informers, banishing many of them to the barren islands around Italy, while he at once, by severe measures, reduced the turbulent Prætorians to obedience. His wife Plotina, who was a woman of excellent character, with her sister Marcina, revived by their virtues the dignity of the Roman matron. ”

“ Meanwhile, the Dacians, led by their king Decebalus, having crossed the Danube, Domitian took the field against them, and, in A.D. 90, was defeated, and forced to conclude a humiliating peace. Yet, on his return to Rome, he celebrated a triumph, assuming the name of Dacicus. The next year an insurrection broke out among the German legions, which was, however, suppressed.
Domitian now ordered himself to be styled the "Lord and God," and was worshiped with divine honors. A ferocious jealousy of all excellence in others seemed to possess him with rage against the wise and good. ”

“ But the insurrection was confined almost exclusively to the Sabellians and their kindred races. The Etruscans and Umbrians stood aloof, while the Sabines, Volscians, and other tribes who already possessed the Roman franchise, supported the Republic, and furnished the materials of her armies. The nations which composed the formidable conspiracy against Rome were eight in number—the Marsians, Pelignians, Marrucinians, Vestinians, Picentines, Samnites, Apulians, and Lucanians. Of these the Marsians were particularly distinguished for their courage and skill in war ”