King of Rome

“ 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. ”

“ The Pope and his Cardinals, upon principle, are lavish of attentions which they would perhaps refuse them on the throne. In short, the king who has been the most battered and shaken by his fall, and the most ill-used by his ungrateful subjects, has but to take refuge in Rome, and by the double aid of a vivid imagination and a well-filled purse, he may persuade himself that he is still reigning over an absent people.
The reverses of royalty which ended the eighteenth and commenced the nineteenth centuries, sent to Rome a colony of crowned heads. ”

“ Seven hundred and thirty years of monarchy and republic had sufficed to make Rome great; and in five centuries of imperial sway the people-king was to be devoured down to its last muscles. There was the immensity of the territory, the more distant provinces gradually pillaged and exhausted; there was the fisc consuming everything, digging the pit of fatal bankruptcy; and there was the degeneration of the people, poisoned by the scenes of the circus and the arena, fallen to the sloth and debauchery of their masters, the Caesars, while mercenaries fought the foe and tilled the soil. ”

“ I have asked that Rome should cast out the Stranger Emperor, and cast down the churchman from the king's throne, and take from him the king's mask. I have asked Rome to face her high robbers whom she calls barons, her corruption, her secret weakness, as a brave man faces his sins and confesses them and steadfastly purposes to offend God no more, All this I have asked, and in part she has heard ”

“ Rome never was a republic. It was simply a faction of land and slave holders, who blinded and befooled the ignorant populace, by parading before them some of the forms of liberty, but kept the power in their own hands. They were a community of petty kings, which was better in their mind than only one king, as in the time of the Tarquins. ”

“ FROM THE DEATH OF ROMULUS TO THE DEATH OF NUMA POMPILIUS, THE SECOND KING OF ROME.—U.C. 38.
When pious Numa reigned, Bellona's voice
No longer called the Roman youth to arms;
In peaceful arts he bid her sons rejoice,
And tranquil live, secure from war's alarms.—Brooke.
1. Upon the death of Rom'ulus, the city seemed greatly divided in the choice of a successor. The Sab'ines were for having a king chosen from their body; but the Romans could not endure the thoughts of advancing a stranger to the throne. ”

“ Often he was to be seen, a solitary man, walking in the fields and groves which were consecrated to the gods. At other times he would spend long days and weeks alone in desert places.
It was to this strangely quiet, thoughtful man, who was now about forty years old, that the Romans sent ambassadors to beg him to become their king. ”

“ The story of Rome carries the founding of these guilds back to the early days of the regal period. From the investigations of Waltzing, Liebenam, and others their history can be made out in considerable detail. Roman tradition was delightfully systematic in assigning the founding of one set of institutions to one king and of another group to another king. Romulus, for instance, is the war king, and concerns himself with military and political institutions. The second king, Numa, is a man of peace, and is occupied throughout his reign with the social and religious organization of his people. ”

“ Never had the empire fallen so low. Meanwhile King Robert was again supreme in Rome, and, being re-elected senator, appointed vicars there as before. Anarchy reigned. The city was torn by factions, and the provinces rebelled against the French representatives of the pope, who, in their ignorance of Italian affairs, were at a loss how to act. ”

“ After Rome had acquired the undisputed mastery of the world, the Greeks were wont to annoy their Roman masters by the assertion that Rome was indebted for her greatness to the fever of which Alexander of Macedonia died at Babylon on the 11th of June, 431. As it was not too agreeable for them to reflect on the actual past, they were fond of allowing their thoughts to dwell on what might have happened, had the great king turned his arms—as was said to have been his intention at the time of his death—towards the west and contested the Carthaginian supremacy by sea with his fleet, and the Roman supremacy by land with his phalanxes. ”

“ Vpon what meate doth this our Caesar feede,
That he is growne so great? Age, thou art sham'd.
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of Noble Bloods.
When went there by an Age, since the great Flood,
But it was fam'd with more then with one man?
When could they say (till now) that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide Walkes incompast but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed, and Roome enough
When there is in it but one onely man.
O! you and I, haue heard our Fathers say,
There was a Brutus once, that would haue brook'd
Th' eternall Diuell to keepe his State in Rome,
As easily as a King
Bru. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The ancient emperors, with all their power, could not carry the Roman name much beyond the limits of Europe; the rulers who have succeeded them have made the majestic language of Rome familiar to two hemispheres, and have built up, by spiritual arms, the mightiest empire that the world has ever seen. For me, Rome's most enduring glories are the memories of the times when her great missionary orders civilized and evangelized the countries which her arms had won, when her martyrs sowed the seed of Christianity with their blood, and her confessors illumined the world with their virtues ”

“ The kings increase in, power and surround themselves with new splendour. Abroad, too, Rome suddenly appears as at powerful state ruling far and wide over southern Etruria and Latium. These startling changes are, moreover, ascribed to kings of alien descent, who one and all ascend the throne in the teeth of established constitutional forms. ”

“ This is the veritable beating, pulsing heart of Rome, and Rome is the world. Here is reality. Here are solidity, strength, planning made real, dreams hewn in enduring stone. Here are wealth, accomplishment, power, might. Not twenty paces across there is the Millenarium Aureum, the resplendent bronze column set up to mark the center of the Roman world, the point from which miles are counted along the highways and their joining sea lanes stretching to the ends of the known earth to bind Rome into one colossal, unconquerable, enduring Empire!... ”

“ The ignorant and servile vulgar must be blinded to attain to their proper good; they would not believe a maxim—they revere an oracle. The Emperor of Rome sways the vast and various tribes of earth, and harmonizes the conflicting and disunited elements; thence come peace, order, law, the blessings of life. Think you it is the man, the emperor, that thus sways?—no, it is the pomp, the awe, the majesty that surround him—these are his impostures, his delusions; our oracles and our divinations, our rites and our ceremonies, are the means of our sovereignty and the engines of our power. ”

“ 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 Roman governors, appointed by the emperors, ruled more wisely and beneficently than in the time of the republic. Peace, security, and law reigned, and, in consequence, the population increased, civilization advanced, and wealth was accumulated. The whole empire rejoiced in populous cities, in works of art, in literary culture, and in genial manners. Society was pagan, but attractive, and Rome herself was the resort of travelers, the centre of fashion and glory, the joy and the pride of the whole earth. There were no destructive wars, except on the frontiers ”

“ Is it the commander of a legion, or the resident governor of a dependent kingdom, or even Cæsar himself? And have you dealt with Rome when you have dealt with Balista, or Heraclianus, or Probus? Alas! no. Rome still stands omnipotent and secure. The lion has been but chafed, and is still a lion, with more than his former fury; one hair has been drawn; his teeth, his limbs, his massy weight, his untouched energies, remain. Rome has been asleep for thirteen long years. Any empire but Rome--which is immortal--would have slept the sleep of death under the dastardly, besotted Gallienus. ”

“ And when Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, began to reign, part of Europe, Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, and a large portion of Africa formed his kingdom.
Although the story was written in the quiet of your garden, little of its peace has stolen into the tale, and for that you boys may care for it the more.
As you read, fierce battle-cries will ring in your ears, andviii the clash of arms will startle you. You will hear the tramp of armies marching to new lands to conquer them and their treasures for Rome, the city of their love. ”

“ Although it seems, And so he thinks, and is no less apparent To the vulgar eye, that he bears all things fairly, And shows good husbandry for the Volscian state, Fights dragon-like, and does achieve as soon As draw his sword: yet he hath left undone That which shall break his neck or hazard mine Whene'er we come to our account.
LIEUTENANT. Sir, I beseech you, think you he'll carry Rome?
AUFIDIUS. All places yield to him ere he sits down; And the nobility of Rome are his; The senators and patricians love him too: The tribunes are no soldiers ”

“ It was a special kind of beauty, broad and ruddy, made up of nothing, sometimes simplified into a series of low, horizontal lines, but ever ennobled by the great memories it evoked: the Roman legions marching along the paved highways across the bare Campagna; the long slumber of the middle ages; and then the awakening of antique nature in the midst of Catholicism, whereby, for the second time, Rome became ruler of the world. ”

“ The Roman people, sicken'd by his sloth, Detest a weak, a lecherous, dastard prince Who yet cuts down the bravest men Rome boasts, And mocks the most heroick of her sons Abused virgins rave in wild despair; Affronted matrons weep, and beauty sighs, While groans reecho from the tomb of grief, And cry for vengeance on the emperor's head ”

“ Art has made them our contemporaries. They are as near to us as Pius VII. and Napoleon."—Story's Roba di Roma.
"Nerva est le premier des bons, et Trajan le premier des grands empereurs romains; après lui il y en eut deux autres, les deux Antonins. Trois sur soixante-dix, tel est à Rome le bilan des gloires morales de l'empire."—Ampère, Hist. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Proud throne of the world, tremble! for there is coming into thy gates a conqueror who will humble thee in the dust, who will take away all thine armor in which thou trustest, and compel thee to pay tribute to him; and, through him, constrain thee to bring the world under another Ruler, whose kingdom shall be without end, and whose principality no man shall take away. Go, O captain of many victories! Prospere procede, et regna. Rome will laugh at thy apostolic folly, but thou shalt make her weep. Rome is the world's citadel of error ”

“ 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. ”

“ Under the kingly rule Rome becomes the most important and powerful of the cities of Latium, and a foundation is laid of social, religious, and political institutions which are destined to achieve a magnificent triumph. The kings of Rome are all great men—wise and statesmanlike, patrons of civilization among a rude and primitive people. No state for more than two hundred years was ever ruled by more enlightened princes, ambitious indeed, sometimes unscrupulous, but fortunate and successful. ”

“ As for these petty towns and petty tyrants, I care not how they fall, or by whom. But the Pope must not return to Rome. Rome must be mine. The city of a new empire, the conquest of a new Attila! There, every circumstance combines in my favour!—the absence of the Pope, the weakness of the middle class, the poverty of the populace, the imbecile though ferocious barbarism of the Barons, have long concurred to render Rome the most facile, while the most glorious conquest!”
“My brother, pray Heaven your ambition do not wreck you at last; you are ever losing sight of the land. ”