the life and principats of the emperor nero

THE LIFE AND PRINCIPATS OF THE
EMPEROR NERO
S T U D I
H I S T O It
55
Α
Ι C Α
STUDIA HISTORICA
BELOCH, J. - Der italische Bund unter Roms Hegemonie - 1964
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Leipzig, 1880
ΤλUΒLΕR, Ε. - Imperium Romanum
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Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Leipzig, 1913
THIELING, W. - Der Hellenismus in Kleinafrica - 1964
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Leipzig, 1911
FRANCOTTE, H. - La polis grecque - 1964
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Paderborn, 1907
FRANCOTTE, H. - Μώlanges de droit public grec - 1964
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Lige et Paris, 1910
FRANCOTTE, H. - Les finances des cites grecques - 1964
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Lige et Paris, 1909
MILLER CALHOUN, G. - Athenian Clubs in Politics and Litigation.
1964
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Austin, 1913
CANTARELLI, L. - La diocesi italiciana da Diocleziano alla fine
dell'impero occidentale - 1964
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Roma, 1903
PIPPIDI, M. D. - Autour de Τibre - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Bucarest, 1944
DE SANCTIS, G. - Atthis - Storia della repubblica ateniese - 1964
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Torino, 1912
li. BELOCH, J. - Campanien - 1964
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Breslau, 1890
BERSANETTI, G. M. - Studi sull'Imperatore Massimino il Trace 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Roma, 1940
CREES, J. H. E. - The Reign of the Emperor Probus - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione London, 1911
KESSLER, J. - ‚sokrates und die panhellenische Idee - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Paderborn,1911
CARDINALI, G. - Studi graccani - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Genova, 1912
REINHOLD, Μ. - Marcus Agrippa - A Biography - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Gen νe, New York, 1933
CLAUSING, R. - The Roman Colmate - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione New York, 1925
PLATNAUER, Μ. - The Life and Reign of the Emperor Lucius
Septimius Severus - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione London, 1918
CICCOTTI, E. - Processo di Verre - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Milano, 1895
MILLER CALHOUN, G. - The Business Life of Ancient Athens - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Chicago, 1926
CALDERINI, A. - La manomissione dei Liberti in Grecia - 1965
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Milano, 1908
COLIN, G. - Rome et la Grèce - 1965
Ristampe anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1905
THOMSEN, R. - The Italic Regions - 1966
Ristampe enastatica dell'edizione Copenhagen, 1947
PORALLA, Ρ. - Prosopographie der Lakedaimonier - 1966
Ristampe anastatica dell'edizione Breslau, 1913
HAMPL, F. - Die griechischen Staats νertrge - 1966
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Leipzig, 1938
BRECCIA, E. - Ii diritto dinastici - 1966
Ristampe anastatica dell'edizione Roma, 1903
OLIVER E. Η. - Roman Economic Conditions to the Close of the
Republic - 1966
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Toronto, 1907
WELLES, C. B. - Royal Correspondence in the Hellenistic Period .
1966
Ristampe enastatica dell'edizione New Haven, 1934
FRACCARO, Ρ. - Studi Varroniani - 1966
Ristampe anastatica dell'edizione Padova, 1907
JASHEISKI, W. F. - The Origins and History 0f the Proconsular
and the Propraetorian Imperium to 27. B.C. - 1966
Ristampa enastetica dell'edizione Chicago, 1950
HOWE, L. L. - The Pretorian Prefect from Commodus to Diocletian1966
Ristampe anastatica dell'edizione Chicago, 1942
GUIRAUD, P. - Les assemb Ι es provinciales dans l'Empire Romain.
1966
Ristampe anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1887
CHAPOT, V. - La fronti&e de l'Euphrate - 1967
Ristempa anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1907
CHAPOT, V. - La flotte de Μisne - 1967
Ristampe anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1896
CHAPOT, V. - La province romaine proconsulaire d'Asie - 1967
Ristampe anastetica dell'edizione Paris, 1904
CASTIGLIONI, L. - Studi intorno alle storie filippiche di Giustino 1967
Ristampa enastatica dell'edizione Napoli, 1925
MISPOULET, J. B. - La vie parlementaire Rome sous la RώρυbΙique
1967
Ristampe anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1899
HOMO, L. - Essai sur le règne de l'empereur Αurώlien - 1967
Ristampe enastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1904
AVIARD, A. - Les assemb Ιώes de la c οnfώdώration achaienne 1967
Ristampe enast etica dell'edizione Bordeaux, 1938
FRACCARI, Ρ. - Ii processo degli Scipioni - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Pisa, 1911
FRACCARI, Ρ. - Studi sull'età dei Gracchi - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Citi di Castello, 1914
BAKER, G. Ρ. - Sulla the Fortunate - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione London, 1927
LIVEN, A. - Recherches historiques sur les ρanώgyriques de Sidoine
Apollinaire - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1942
LIEBENAM, W. - StYidteverwaltung im riemischen Kaiserreiche 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Leipzig, 1900
GRIAG, E. - Hannibal als Politiker - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Wien, 1929
GSELL, S. - Essai sur le Règne de l'Empereur Domitien - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1894
ZEILLER, J. - Les origines chrétiennes dans la province romaine
de Dalmatie - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1906
ZEILLER, J. - Les origines chrétiennes dans les provinces danubiennes de l'Empire Romain - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1918
FABIA, P. - Sources de Tacite dans les Histoires et les Annales 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1898
RADET, G. - La Lydie et le monde grec au temps de Mermnades
(687-546) - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1893
VII SCALA, R. - Die Staats νertrige des Altertums 1 - 1968
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Leipzig, 1898
RISTIVTZEFF, Μ. - A Large Estate in Egypt in the third Century
b.C. - 1967
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Madison, 1922
LAMBRECHTS, P. - La composition du Snat Romain de Septime
Sώvre a Dioclύtien - 1968
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Budapest, 1938
CARDINALI, G. - Ii regno di Pergamo - 1968
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Roma, 1906
HENDERSON, B. W. - The Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero
1968
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione London, 1905
HENDERSON, B. W. - The Life and Principate of the Emperor Hadrian - 1968
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione London, 1923
HENDERSON, B. W. - Five Roman Emperors - 1968
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Cambridge, 1927
LACOUR-GAVET, G. - Antonin Le Pieux et son temps - 1968
Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Paris, 1888
STUDIA
HISTORICA
55
THE
LIFE AND PRINCIPATE
OF THE
EMPEROR NERO
BY
BERNARD W. HENDERSON, Μ.Α.
EDIZIONE ANASTATICA
"L'ERMA" di BRETSCHNEIDER - ROMA
1968
ΤΟ
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
. xiii
PREFACE
I
PROLoGuE
CHAPTER I
NERo's BoyHooD, A.D. 37-54
17
ι. Nero's birth and descent.
2. Nero's early years. Agrippina and Claudius.
. Nero and Seneca.
4. Nero's rise to power.
CHAPTER II
Sii AND MOTHER, A.D. 54-55
47
ι. The promise of a policy.
The struggle for rule.
Acte.
The death of Britannicus.
ς. The fall of Agrippina.
CHAPTER III
HOME AND PROvINcIAL ADMINISTRATION, A.D. 55 - 62
. 73
ι. The "Quinquennium Neronis."
Paner et Circenses.
Finance.
Nero and the Senate.
ς. The division of Jurisdiction.
Italy and the Italian colonies.
Provincial government.
Seneca and Suillius.
" ΙΙ
viii
CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV
PAGE
COURT LIFE AND PERSONAL HIsToRY, A.D. 55-63
.
III
Poppaea Sabina.
The death of Agrippina.
Games and festivals.
. Rubellius Plautus.
Burrus and Tigellinus.
Seneca's retirement.
Sulla and Plautus.
The death of Octavia.
Death of Poppaea. Statilia Messalina.
i.
CHAPTER 1
THE EASTERN FRONTIER AND TIlE WAR IN ARMENIA, A.D. 54-66 151
ι. The Eastern frontier; problems and policies.
Preparations for war.
The campaign of A.D. 58.
The campaign of triumph, A.D. 59.
. Return to the Augustan policy, A.D. 6ο-6 τ.
Annexation and its results. The campaign of Rhandeia
A.D. 62.
The last campaign, A.D. 63.
Parthian homage and Peace.
CHAPTER VI
FROM BRITAIN TO THE CAUCASUS, A.D. 54-68
ι. The conquest of Britain.
Nero's first governors of Britain.
The great rebellion, A.D. 60.
Peace in Britain.
. Germany.
6. The Danube and the Black Sea.
.
197
ix
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VII
PAGE
THE
FIRE
OF ROME
AND
ITS
CONSEQUENCES, &D. 64 .
. 229
i. Art and Revelry.
2. The Fire 0f Rome.
3. The rebuilding 0f the city.
4. The Golden House.
5. The persecution of the Christians.
CHAPTER VIII
CONSPIRACY AND RETALIATION, A.D.
65-66
•
255
•
303
x. The conspirators and their motives.
The conspiracy.
Seneca's last years.
The death of Seneca.
. The Terror.
6. Petronius.
7. The Government and the Philosophers.
CHAPTER IX
PHILOSOPHY
AND PLEASURE
ι. Scope of the chapter.
Stoicism and its failure.
Persius.
Roman pleasures.
The Romance of Petronius.
CHAPTER χ
CHRISTIANITY AND JUDAISM
I. Christianity and the Government: the causes of conllict.
The cοrι ict and its issue.
Rome and Judaism.
The growth of disaffection.
. The Jewish insurrection.
34 1
ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
NERO (FROM Α
BusT IN THE BRITISH MUsEUM) .
.
Frontirpiece
[Cf. Bernoulli, Römische Ikonographie, ii. I, pages 398, 406.]
AiTiuI, THE HARBOUR
. To/ace page 19
.
AGRIPPINA (FROM A STATUE IN THE GLYPTOTHEK, MUNICH)
NERO (FROM A BUST IN THE UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE)
[Cf Bernoulli, op. cit. ii. ι, page 395.]
POPPARA SABINA? ( Παοτκ A STATUE IN THE MUSEO
CHIARAMONTI IN THE VATICAN, ROME)
[Cf. Bernoulli, op. cit. ii. ι, pages 182, 183.]
AGRIPPINA (FROM A BusT ii THE MUSEO CHIARAMONTI
.
IN THE VATICAN, ROME)
Identifkation probable.
[Cf. Bernoulli, op. cit. ii. ι, pages 183, 379.]
.
ANTIUM, DISTANT VIEW OF THE
49
,,
,,
),
,, 75
Identi&ation probable.
[Cf. Bernoulli, ο. cit. ii. I, pages 379, 380.]
,,
113
,, 123
HARBOUR FROM THE
SOUTH
,, 148
CORBULO (FROM A Busi IN THE CAPITOLINE MUSEUM,
.
.
.
.
.
[Cf. Bernoulli, op. cit. i. page 273.]
ROME)
MODERN
PUTEOLI (POZZUOLI)
NERO (FROM THE BASALT
FLORENCE)
.
,, 170
.
192
BusT IN THE UFFIZI GALLERY,
.
.
.
, 231
Probably a modern work.
[Cf. Bernoulli, op. cit. ii. I, page 395.]
NERO (FROM A BUST IN THE LouvRE, PARIS) .
,, 257
[Cf. Bernoulli, op. cit. ii. I, pages 396, 404.]
SENECA (FROM A BUST IN THE BERLIN MUSEUM)
,, 305
[Cf. Bernoulli, op. cit. i., page 278.]
NERO (FROM A BUST IN THE LOUVRE, PARIS)
.
Of doubtful antiquity.
[Cf. Bernoulli, ο. cit. ii. I, pages 396, 397.]
" 343
xi
PREFACE
HE names of the modern authorities whom Ι have consulted for purposes of this history will be found in the
General Bibliography at the end of this book. Ι have also
used the results obtained in certain previously published
papers of my own, which also will be found described in
the Bibliography.
The Appendices and the Notes contain complete (I
believe) references to all the ancient evidence which concerns
this history, and, on occasion, discussion of its value or of
controversies which arise concerning it. To these Notes and
Appendices Ι must still venture to refer the student even at
this time when the examination craze threatens increasingly
to degrade, if not to destroy, patient learning in the University. But the geneϋaΙ reader's attention is not distracted
from the narrative, as the whole apparatus of inquiry is thus
relegated to the end of the book.
ly chief obligations are three, all owed in Oxford. Mr
Furneaux's edition of "Tacitus' Annals" has been invaluable,
for its notes and references in particular. Two series of
lectures, as yet unpublished, by Professor Pelham, on the
Constitution of the Principate and on the Principate of Nero,
have been of service and suggestiveness all the greater
because their influence has been as well an unconscious as
a conscious one, and Ι cannot measure precisely the extent
of my indebtedness. ly tutor in former days, Mr Warde
Fowler, Sub-Rector of Lincoln College, has read through
this entire book in proof for me, although Ι must relieve
him of all responsibility for any statement or opinion in it
advanced. This is but part of a debt, always accumulating from the time, fourteen years ago to-day, when my
T
Kill
PREFACE
xiv
relations with Lincoln College first began. Seneca's writings may be laid under contribution here as elsewhere in
this history. "Ex praeceptore in amicum transiit et nos
non arte quam vendit obligat sed benigna et familiari
voluntate. . . . Ingratus sum nisi ilium inter gratissimas
necessitudines diligo."
For some help besides in the correction of the proofs
Ι owe thanks to the Rev. W. C. Allen, Sub-Rector, and
to Mr A. W. F. Blunt, Fellow, of Exeter College.
The illustrations Ι have selected from the best sources,
Messrs Cogliati of Milan, Aiinari of Florence, and Reimer
of Berlin, having permitted reproductions of photographs in
works published by them. Ι also owe thanks to Professor
Percy Gardner of Oxford and Mr G. F. Hill of the British
Museum for ready help in this connection in a dimculty
arising at the last moment.
This history, Ι may state in conclusion, is an attempt,
not to "whitewash" Nero (though perhaps no man is ever
altogether black), but to present a narrative of the events
of that Emperor's life and of his Principate with due if
novel regard to the proportion of interest suggested by those
events. Therefore some personal biographical details or
Court scandals receive but a scanty notice or are omitted
as too insignifIcant for even an Imperial biography. In
their room Ι substitute topics of, in my judgment, a wider
interest, the study of which may perhaps prove of greater
service. Great events, and not in the spheres of action or
administration only, befell during the Principate of Nero.
These, as well as the Emperor's character, may help, if it
so chance, to justify this history.
BERNARD W. HENDERSON.
ΕΧΙΤΕ R COLLEGE, OXFORD,
Αρriί 26, 1903.
PROLOGUE
Ut mater iuvenem, queni f Ιtus invido
flatu Carpathii trans maris aequora
cunctantem spatio longius annuo
dulci distinet a domo,
lotis ominibusque et precibus vocat,
curvo nei (acier litore dimovet,
sic desideriis jCta ό deΙibιis
quaerit patria Caesarem,
(HORACE, Car,n. iv. .)
Α
PROLOGUE
begin from social and economic causes,
R EVOLUTIONS
but the combatants mostly strive for political forms,
thinking best to change the product, by interference with
the machinery, of government It is in virtue of this that
the political form does actually become of supreme importance. As soon as (at the end of the second century before
the Christian era) the period of Revolution in the history of
the Roman Republic was initiated by the reforming zeal of
the Gracchi, that question of the constitution of the central
Government of the Roman State came rapidly to the
front. In very truth these early democrats had at the first
challenged the existing practice of the Constitution incidentally, reluctantly, as a means to the gaining of objects
which they deemed higher and a good which they required
as indispensable. But it was the good, not of political power
for the mob, but of land for the landless, of work for the
unemployed (whom in splendid vanity of hope the statesman
expected to welcome that opportunity for labour could it be
but offered to them), of children for those in whose mouth
might have been placed the ominous complaint of the French
statesman, "Ce n'est pas la peine de faire des maihereux
comme eux." To realise distress, your own, if not another's,
is no more difficult than to discover the obvious inequalities
of wealth and comfort. It were harder to find the remedy,
whether for distress or inequality, did not the possession of
supreme political power in the State offer itself as so 'risible
4
PROLOGUE
a panacea of ills, whether agrarian, social, or economic. But
when the prince has won the golden key to enter from out
the brier-encompassed wilderness into the palace of delight
and dispossess its chieftain, he stands only upon the threshold
of greater endeavour. Perhaps his very palace, into which
he has gained entrance so hardly, is but a maze the more.
Yet there it stands in all its splendour of flashing gold,
dazzling the eyesight of all but the most detached. The
battle shall be for the obvious prize.
Thus for one hundred years men at Rome fought for the
prize 0f power, and destroyed the Republican Constitution
by their fighting. Only the wisest realised that this would
be the issue, some like Sulla, with regret; others like Caesar,
with satisfaction. The Republic was sick of a mortal disease,
selfishness. When the Sullari constitution, in truth its last
hope (for Cicero's weaker policy had long since been discounted by the failure of the greater scheme), had perished
in the new breaking out of the flames of faction, the paramount issue of the nature of the Government of the State
remained to be decided by the appeal to arms, and few
Republics may survive this in more than name. The blindness of the old Republican, the orator, the politician, was
excusable, almost necessary. Yet not even a Caesar had
the clear vision of the statesman. His solution of the
problem of government was proved of default by the conspirator's dagger and by Cicero's rejoicing at his death. It
was reserved for one, no soldier indeed, but greater perhaps
than the greatest soldier of them all, to build up anew the
fabric of the State out of a veritable chaos of broken
aims and ruined bloodstained fragments of the past, to base
it securely upon content and new-won peace, order, and
prosperity, and by his genius to secure to Imperial Rome
centuries of life and power and prestige, which had seemed
PROLOGUE
5
a vanished and a hopeless dream on the Ides of March.
The "boy " Octavius possessed that which his great predecessor Caesar lacked, the sense for the past, the appreciation
of Tradition and of others' love for tradition, the genius of
compromise. Ruthless where mercy was impolitic, merciful
and gladly merciful when pity was expedient, learning from
day to day new lessons from his ever-changing surroundings, the Emperor Augustus finally devised that constitution
for the new Empire which secured for the Empire—for
Rome, Italy, and the provinces—peace and good government, objects for which parties for one hundred years had
been striving with such ill success, and successfully barred
by their very striving. In a constitution cunningly devised
to hide a monarchy under Republican forms, the power of
the individual ruler was in practice little hampered by the
division of spheres of authority between him, as representative of the people, and the former actual ruler of the
Republic, the Senate. Scarcely an element in the new
constitution was new. But a new combination of the old
elements, a re-arrangement of the disposition and incidence
of old authority, gave birth to the Augustan Imperial
Constitution, known, not as the Monarchy, but as the
Ρrinci ρate It was indeed the Principate, rather than
Caesar's sword, which saved the State, though without
the sword of Caesar the genius of Augustus could never
have been allowed its scope. Order and Organisation
were the keynotes of the new government. In the spheres
of finance, of legislation, of jurisdiction, of provincial
administration, a division 0f powers between the Princeps
as magistrate and the Senate was instituted and so
engineered that little r i valry was possible between the
two, save that of emulation in good government. For
practice quickly showed the Princeps to be the stronger
ό
PROLOGUE
if thought of any other kind of rivalry arose, since he
alone was master of the legions. Yet none the less there
remained the body of the Republic visible to all eyes,
though animated by a different spirit, one which now paid
more care to the outlying members and the extremities
of the Body Politic, than had the Government inspired,
whether by a Gracchus or a Cicero. The Republic had
sacri&ed Good Government of its dependencies to its
exclusive ideas of Freedom. Caesar had too openly
immolated the idea which men had formed of Liberty
upon the altar of his own ambition which should prove
his Country's good. The greatest Roman of them all,
Augustus, had known how to institute the one and preserve
in some measure the appearance of the other. Thus the
Empire welcomed the Principate, and, not unjustly, in the
easy and thankful credulity of polytheism, added the
Empire-Builder to the number of its Gods.
Difficulties and discontent remained when the Emperor
handed over to his successor his Power and the new-formed
State. In truth there was a plentiful crop of tares promising
but a lugubrious harvesting, should the new husbandmen lack
their predecessor's resolute and temperate wisdom. And this
in a measure was the case. Yet partly it is that such good
husbandry as his could not be wastd; partly that those whi
followed after have for reasons quickly apparent been maligned
and depreciated beyond their due. For the tares failed to
choke the wheat. There was turbulence in the armies, but
it was quelled; open rebellion in the provinces, but for many
years it perished for very lack of fuel to feed upon; conspiracy
in the Capital, successful to the cost of an Emperor's life, but
never shaking the immobile strength of the Empire. On the
Eastern frontier fretted a rival Empire, Rome's implacable
foe; in Gaul the spirit of Nationality and Fanaticism yet
PROLOGUE
7
survived Caesar's conquests and Augustus' policy, and these
sought their stay in the yet unsubdued island across the
narrow channel which marked the frontier of the Empire.
Yet a broader Nationality and a Religion, politically, it may
be, devised but at least with certain elements of Truth in it
which were gratefully recognised, should speedily overcome
the narrower types here as elsewhere, and weld the congeries
of alien races into a united Imperial people. Still trouble
remained in Rome, the Imperial City, herself. Power perhaps
had justified itself too nakedly by force. The old sure anchorage of religious dread and Duty sanctioned by the Roman
Gods seemed lost, and the ship was now labouring in the
surf of doubt breaking over the quicksands of Greek scepticism,
now spinning in the wild and baffling currents of Eastern superstition or the cult of pleasure. The few might yet find brave
anchorage in Stoic creed or the nonchalance of indifference.
But what of the many thronging the streets of Rome and the
crowded life of the Graeco -Italian town? How should any
sanction of morality or of righteousness be imposed upon
their disbelief?
Small matter this might seem to the statesman, the
philosopher, the historian of the day. The political difficult}, in the city was more pressing. Servility baffled the
wisest Emperors' efforts to galvanise the Republican elements
of the Constitution into at least a small realisation of life.
The Senate would not accept the risk with the share of
power, the possibility of independent action pressed earnestly
upon it by more than one of the early Emperors. Proud of
its great traditions, it was too craven, too spiritless, perhaps
too clear sighted, to act independently of the Emperor's will
despite the Emperor's invitation, and therefore resented all
the more bitterly its own limitations just because they were
in part self-imposed. In this discontent, in this opposition,
8
PROLOGUE
lurked no small danger to Emperor and to Empire. The
Republican ideal was to this Senatorial class one of class
and city privilege: it was countered by the Imperial policy
of expanding equality of opportunity to every subject of the
Empire: and it resented its defeat. Privilege girt round
about itself the philosopher's cloak of high-sounding maxims
of equality, of freedom, of liberty, and never asked their
meaning or their price. It clad itself in armour of shibboleths,
time-honoured and deluding. It bowed down to idols of
the market-place, old idols, idols of heroes, austere, remote
Republican, of later Stoic warriors sacrificing their lives on
altars to obsolete time-crusted divinities, yet honoured therefore all the more—and themselves in all blind honesty
elevated to receive a like devotion. The Roman Aristocracy
of the early Empire admired and envied, philosophised and
grumbled, and because it could no longer use the State
denied the State the use of its own services. Thus
Republicanism deserved ill of the State.
Hence the successors of Augustus turned ever more and
more to new classes in the State for State services; looked
to the municipalities and provinces for civil servants and
new Senators; asked of them good work ably done and
were not disappointed. Public service of itself may offer
some basis of morality and right. If the old families of
Rome refused it, let them go. Nay, to expedite their decay
may to the more impetuous Emperor seem even desirable.
What are they at the best but useless grumblers, when they
dare, and flatterers, when they do not dare, to grumble?
The Empire is a living reality. There is work—good work
—to be done. There are new provinces to win, new wars to
wage, new dangers to overcome. The old pride of birth is
offered its share in the service. It will not take it honestly.
Then let it stand aside. Augustus' successors will carry on