Emperor of Rome

“ The first Roman emperor whose name marks a golden era in history is said to have claimed as his greatest triumph that, having found Rome a city of sunburned brick, he should leave it a city of marble. ”

“ If such was the nominal position of the emperor, what then was the real secret of his actual power? It rested, not on the tradition of kingship, but on the simple basis of military leadership. “Imperator,” as has been said, implied “commander of the legions”; and he who controlled the legions, controlled the Roman Empire. That was the whole secret. There is nothing occult or mysterious in it all. Rome’s position as mistress of the world depended solely upon her army; therefore, the man who controlled that army was master of the world. ”

“ Giving his son, Ti'tus, the command of the army that was to lay siege to Jerusalem, he himself went forward, and was met many miles from Rome by all the senate, and the inhabitants, who gave the sincerest testimony of their joy, in having an emperor of such great and experienced virtue. 18. Nor did he in the least disappoint their expectations; as he showed himself equally assiduous in rewarding merit and pardoning his adversaries; in reforming the manners of the citizens, and setting them the best example in his own. ”

“ It is not with anger and fierce denunciation, O Emperor, that it becomes the advocate, of what he believes to be a religion from Heaven, to assail the adherents of a religion like this of Rome, descended to the present generation through so many ages, and which all who have believed it in times past, and all who believe it now, do hold to be true and woven into the very life of the state—the origin of its present greatness, and without which it must fall asunder into final ruin, the bond that held it together being gone. ”

“ All nations now to Rome obedience pay— To Rome's great Emperor, whose wide domain, In ample territory, wealth and power, Civility of manners, arts and arms, And long renown, thou justly may'st prefer Before the Parthian. ”

“ The dual government of the prince and the senate which follows develops into the empire, and the emperor in time becomes the autocratic monarch. In this period of a thousand years from the seventh century before our era to the fourth century after it, we may see in the practical experiences of the [Pg 4] Roman people the points of strength and of weakness in an aristocracy, a plutocracy, a parliamentary government, a democratic empire, and an autocracy. We may also trace in the history of Rome the development of a city-state into a world-wide empire. ”

“ Augustus, being now the emperor of Rome, sought to win the affections of his people. He lived with republican simplicity in a plain house on the Palatine Hill, and educated his family with great strictness and frugality. His public conduct was designed to conceal his unbounded power. He rejected all unworthy members from the Senate, and limited the number of the Senators to six hundred. The Comitia of the Centuries was still allowed to pass laws and elect magistrates, but gradually these powers were taken away, until, in the reign of Tiberius, they are mentioned no more. ”

“ Nothing could exceed the miserable state of things upon the return of Ve'rus. In this horrid picture were represented an emperor, unawed by example or the calamities surrounding him, giving way to unheard-of crimes; a raging pestilence spreading terror and desolation through all parts of the western world; earthquakes, famines, inundations, almost unexampled in history; the products of the earth through all Italy devoured by locusts; the barbarous nations around the empire taking advantage of its various calamities, and making their irruptions even into Italy itself. ”

“ The huge amphitheatres of Rome and her provinces were built to satisfy the public desire for pageantry and sport; and, because life was held cheap, and for all his boasted civilization the Roman was often a savage at heart, he would spend his holidays watching the despised sect of Christians thrown to the lions, or hired gladiators fall in mortal struggle. ‘We, about to die, salute thee.’ With these words the victims of an emperor’s lust of bloodshed bent the knee before the imperial throne, and at Caesar’s nod passed to slay or be slain. ”

“ Hence he is one of the favorite characters of history. No Roman emperor was so revered and loved as he, and of no one have so many monuments been preserved. Everybody had his picture or statue in his house. He was more than venerated in his day, and his fame as a wise and good man has increased with the flight of ages.
This illustrious emperor did not belong to the family of the great Caesar. That family became extinct with Nero, the sixth emperor. Like Trajan and Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius derived his remote origin from Spain, although he was born in Rome. ”

“ For a brief period, Rome now enjoyed prosperity and peace; but the young emperor soon became proud, cruel and corrupt. He caused a temple to be erected to himself, and had his own image set in the place of Jupiter and the other deities. He often amused himself by putting innocent people to death; he attempted to famish Rome, and even wished that the Romans had one head, that he might strike it off at a blow! At last, weary of his cruelties, several persons formed a conspiracy and murdered him, A. D. 41. ”

“ During his reign, Rome was three days on fire, the towns of Campania were destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius, and the empire was visited by a pestilence which carried away an infinite number of inhabitants. In this time of public calamity, the emperor’s benevolence and philanthropy were conspicuous. Titus comforted the afflicted as a father, he alleviated their distresses by his liberal bounties, and as if they were but one family, he exerted himself for the good and preservation of the whole. The Romans, however, had not long to enjoy the favours of this magnificent prince. ”

“ One day the page of the chamber spake unto him; now, although he was page of the chamber, he was king of the Romans. “Lord,” said he, “all thy people revile thee.” “Wherefore do they revile me?” asked the emperor. “Because they can get neither message nor answer from thee, as men should have from their lord. This is the cause why thou art spoken evil of.” “Youth,” said the emperor, “do thou bring unto me the wise men of Rome, and I will tell them wherefore I am sorrowful.”
Then the wise men of Rome were brought to the emperor, and he spake to them. ”

“ Under a weak, or a careless, or even an absent, Emperor Rome was governed by such men and such methods as we suppose to be peculiar to Sultanates and the East.
The honour, the property, the life of every Roman lay in the hands of eunuchs and valets, and, as these quarrelled or made friends, the fortunes of an old nobility changed with the hour. It had not been so under Augustus, nor was it so under Vespasian, nor under Trajan or his successors; but for the greater part of the first century A.D. Rome was governed by weak or vicious Emperors, and they by their servants. ”

“ The government of the late Roman empire was an autocracy, in which the emperor was the active head of the administration and at the same time the source of all legislative, judicial and military authority. For the exercise of this authority the support of the army and the bureaucracy was essential. All the sovereign rights of the Roman people were regarded as having been transferred to the imperial power. The emperor was no longer the First of the Roman citizens—the primus inter pares—but all within the empire were in equal degree his subjects. ”

“ The perfect bliss that emanates from his countenance, and breathes from his form and gait, is pleasing to behold—upon whatever founded—seeing it is a state that is reached by so few. No addition could be made to the felicity of this fortunate man. He conceives his occupation to be more honorable than the proconsulship of a province, and his name, he pleases himself with believing, is familiar to more ears than any man's, save the Emperor's, and has been known in Rome for a longer period than any other person's living, excepting only the head of the Senate, the venerable Tacitus. ”

“ SCENE IV. Rome. Before the palace Enter the EMPEROR, and the EMPRESS and her two sons, DEMETRIUS
and CHIRON;
LORDS and others. The EMPEROR brings the arrows in his hand that
TITUS
shot at him
SATURNINUS. Why, lords, what wrongs are these! Was ever seen
An emperor in Rome thus overborne,
Troubled, confronted thus; and, for the extent
Of egal justice, us'd in such contempt?
My lords, you know, as know the mightful gods,
However these disturbers of our peace
Buzz in the people's ears, there nought hath pass'd
But even with law against the wilful sons
Of old Andronicus. ”

“ One reason which led the emperor to choose this site in preference to Rome was the ungracious conduct towards him of the inhabitants of the latter city, because he had abandoned the worship of the old national deities. But there were political reasons for such a change. Through the Eastern conquests of Rome, the centre of the population, wealth, and culture of the empire had shifted eastward. The West—Gaul, Britain, Spain—was rude and barbarous; the East—Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor—was the abode of ancient civilizations from which Rome was proud to trace her origin. ”

“ Rome had been watching a crescendo that had mounted with the ages. Its culmination was in this hermaphrodite. But the tension had been too great, even for the solidarity of Imperial Rome; it was as though the mainspring had snapped, and the age of anarchy, both military and religious, did the rest: undermining the State, till the Emperors, whose sceptre had lashed both gods and sky, became little better than a procession of bandits, coloured and ornate it is true, but utterly lacking in that strength and virility which is the essential of real government throughout the world. ”

“ The republican institutions, with the partial exception of the senate, lose all semblance of authority outside Rome, and even as the municipal institutions of the chief city of the empire they retain but little actual power. The real government even of Rome passes gradually into the hands of imperial prefects and commissioners, and the old magistracies become merely decorations which the emperor bestows at his pleasure. ”

“ It is this man, drunk with blood, whom Aurelian has put in chief authority in his new temple, and made him, in effect, the head of religion in the city. He is however not only this. He possesses other traits, which with reason might commend him to the regard of the Emperor. He is an accomplished man, of an ancient family, and withal no mean scholar. He is a Roman, who for Rome's honor or greatness, as he would on the one hand sacrifice father, mother, daughter, so would he also himself. And Rome, he believes, lives but in her religion; it is the life-blood of the state. ”

“ We have raised our emperors after death, however little we may have loved them in their lifetime, to the same advanced rank. I do not say that the religion in which you are attempting to instruct me may not prove in the end the best, especially as it has been adopted by the emperor; but you must acknowledge that the worship of the immortal gods has the advantage of antiquity to recommend it, and that under it Rome became great and powerful, and conquered the world. ”

“ This, the highest and mightiest of all ambitions, one, too, that is perfectly logical, was attained by Augustus, emperor and pontiff, master of all the known world; and it is the glorious figure of Augustus, ever rising anew from among the ruins of ancient Rome, which has always haunted the popes; it is his blood which has pulsated in their veins.
But power had become divided into two parts amidst the crumbling of the Roman empire ”

“ PANEM ET CIRCENSES—FOOD AND GAMES
The sustenance of Rome with which the emperors charged themselves may be regarded in the light of compensation for the political rights of which the imperial government robbed the Romans. The emperor was not the war-lord of the Roman Empire who, as such, felt this duty incumbent upon him; he was rather the most powerful person in the capital, who exerted himself to win the favour of its populace, as the prominent personages of republican times had done. ”

“ The only alternative is the policy that you have yourself pursued, I mean of doing good to all men and imitating the divine nature on earth. To show mercy even in anger, to take away their harshness from acts of vengeance, to display kindness and toleration to your fallen enemies, this was your practice, this you always commended and enjoined on others to imitate, and thus, even while the usurper still controlled Italy, you transferred Rome to Paeonia by means of the Senate and inspired the cities with zeal for undertaking public services. ”

“ The emperor, who is resolved to have uniformity of faith, and to make all his subjects Christians if he can, will not fail to offer such bribes as are not likely to be refused by the heathen leaders. Still, though he may wish to encourage the Christians in Rome, he has no affection for Rome itself, and would gladly forget that such a city exists, for it was here that some of his darkest crimes were committed. ”

“ At Rome this bold move was naturally looked upon with pleasure, especially by the numerous enemies of Tiberius, either because boldness in politics rather than prudence always pleases those who have nothing to lose, or because it was felt that the glory which accrued to Germanicus might offend the emperor. ”