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27 - Roman History- The Early Empire by William Wolfe Capes · Roman History- The Early Empire

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Speaker 1: Section twenty seven of Roman History The Early Empire by
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Speaker 1: William wolf Capes. This LibriVox recording is in the public
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Speaker 1: domain recording by Pamelinagami, Chapter eighteen. The moral standard of
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Speaker 1: the age. If we think only of the most familiar
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Speaker 1: of the social features of this period, we may well
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Speaker 1: form a low estimate of its moral worth, and say
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Speaker 1: with horace that the men of his day were worse
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Speaker 1: than the generation that had gone before, and were to
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Speaker 1: be followed by an age still viler. The fearful spectacles
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Speaker 1: of vice seated in high places with the caesars, The
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Speaker 1: somber pages in which Tacitus portrays this selfish, cowardly, and
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Speaker 1: luxurious nobles vying with each other in their praises of
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Speaker 1: the rulers who were slaughtering them meantime as sheep. The
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Speaker 1: passionate invectives of Juvenal, which imply that modesty and truth
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Speaker 1: and honor had winged their flight to other worlds and
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Speaker 1: left the Roman in disgust, to men without dignity and
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Speaker 1: women without shame. The epigrams of Marshal, which reveal the
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Speaker 1: gross proflicacy of the social circles, which they were written
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Speaker 1: to amuse the novels of Petronius and Apulaeus, reflecting the
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Speaker 1: lewdness and the baseness of every class in turn, and
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Speaker 1: weightiest witness of them all the terrible indictment of the
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Speaker 1: heathen world in the letters of Saint Paul. These and
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Speaker 1: other literary evidences are often thought enough to prove a
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Speaker 1: moral decline in the early ages of the Empire. They
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Speaker 1: may be also thought to show the demoralizing influence of
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Speaker 1: despotism on men who, in early days would have spent
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Speaker 1: their lives in the public service, but who, losing their
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Speaker 1: self respect when freedom failed, turned to material pleasures to
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Speaker 1: fill the void which politics had left. But before we
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Speaker 1: accept such sweeping charges, there are some pleas that may
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Speaker 1: be urged, and should be weighed in favor of a
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Speaker 1: somewhat different conclusion. Satire can never be accepted as a
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Speaker 1: fair portraiture of social manners. It dwells only on the
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Speaker 1: bad side of life and ignores the brighter and the
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Speaker 1: nobler scenes. It may be, though it rarely is accurate
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Speaker 1: and exact in what it says. But good and evil
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Speaker 1: are so blended in our motives, thoughts, and actions that
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Speaker 1: the pen which draws only the evil out to view
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Speaker 1: must needs distort and falsify all the complexities of our
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Speaker 1: human life, or if it tries, as it sometimes does,
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Speaker 1: to paint the farer scenes as a contrast to the
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Speaker 1: darker it isolates and overcolors, and so destroys the naturalness
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Speaker 1: of both alike, as when the Roman writers found a
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Speaker 1: foil for the vices of the city in the healthy
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Speaker 1: simplicity of country life, of ancient manners, or of barbarous peoples.
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Speaker 1: But satire may be taken to show a more arching
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Speaker 1: spirit of inquiry, a keener sense of the folly's and
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Speaker 1: vices of the age, a social unrest and discontent, which
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Speaker 1: point to a higher moral standard, and may be the
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Speaker 1: prelude to reform. Juvenile himself, from whom our popular estimate
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Speaker 1: is mostly taken, was too vehement to be accurate and fair,
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Speaker 1: soured seemingly by neglect and disappointment, struggling with poverty. Though
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Speaker 1: conscious of high talents, he fiercely declaims against the world
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Speaker 1: that could not recognize his merits, and he is not
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Speaker 1: very careful of justice or consistency. Each public scandal of
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Speaker 1: the times, the profligate woman, the lewde paramour, the insolent upstart,
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Speaker 1: the wealthy rogue, the pampered favorite of fortune, become at
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Speaker 1: once the types of classes, and are so generalized as
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Speaker 1: to cover almost all the society of Rome. Nor must
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Speaker 1: it be forgotten that most of the litle raverary evidences
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Speaker 1: before us satirists, historians, and moralists alike, reflect the life
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Speaker 1: of a great city, and tell us little of the
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Speaker 1: average morality of the Roman world. It was in that
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Speaker 1: city that the caesars paraded visibly, the foul examples of
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Speaker 1: their insolent license, and the temper of the court gave
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Speaker 1: the tone to the social fashions of the capital. It
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Speaker 1: was there that degradation entered into the soul of the
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Speaker 1: high born and drove them to forget the cares and
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Speaker 1: shame of public life in the refinements of mere self indulgence.
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Speaker 1: It was there that the great extremes of poverty and
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Speaker 1: wealth lived side by side with the least sense of
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Speaker 1: mutual duty and mutual respect. The great fortunes of the
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Speaker 1: world came to the center of fashion to be spent,
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Speaker 1: while the proletariat lived upon its public pittance or scrambled
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Speaker 1: for their patron's dole. It was there that the old
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Speaker 1: moral safeguards of life, local religion, public sentiment, and national
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Speaker 1: feeling had been most completely broken down in a motley
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Speaker 1: aggregative people to which every race had sent its quota.
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Speaker 1: It was there that slavery reacted with most fatal force
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Speaker 1: upon the temper of the master, and through the multitude
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Speaker 1: of freedmen, stamped upon the city populous the characteristic vices
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Speaker 1: of the slave. In such a capital, there was no
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Speaker 1: lack of material for satire, and earnest minds were justified,
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Speaker 1: perhaps in thinking that the inhabitants of Rome had never
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Speaker 1: been so idle, dissolute, and corrupt. Politics had dwindled to
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Speaker 1: the scandals of court gossip, and the sterner game of war,
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Speaker 1: with its hearty virtues and its self denial, had passed
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Speaker 1: into the hands of provincials far away. The craving for
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Speaker 1: fierce excitement might be sated by the sport with the
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Speaker 1: wild beasts, and the poor gladiators might fight and bleed
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Speaker 1: to show the Romans how their forefathers had died. But
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Speaker 1: there was much in the life of the great city
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Speaker 1: that was exceptionally morbid, and we surely must be careful
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Speaker 1: before we generalize what we read about it. The satirists
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Speaker 1: of the Empire dwell with a special force upon the
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Speaker 1: increase of luxury in their time, and the spread of
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Speaker 1: peace and of material ease caused, without doubt a larger
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Speaker 1: outlay on all sides. But the luxuries of one age
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Speaker 1: seem the necessities of the next. Civilized Progress consists largely
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Speaker 1: in changing and multiplying our common wants, the moral estimate
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Speaker 1: of which varies with the standard of the times. If
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Speaker 1: the animal nature is not pampered at the expense of
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Speaker 1: the moral character and high thought, if the few do
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Speaker 1: not unproductively consume the produce of the work of thousands,
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Speaker 1: the moralists need not quarrel with the enlargement of our
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Speaker 1: human needs, which of itself becomes a spur to quickened industry.
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Speaker 1: But some of the complaints in question deal with matters
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Speaker 1: of passing sentiment and prejudice with entirely conventional habits of
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Speaker 1: dress and food and furniture, and their strictures on these
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Speaker 1: points sound meaningless to modern ears. Even the things we
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Speaker 1: look upon as the real gains of progress, such as
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Speaker 1: the interchange of natural products, the suiting to fresh soils
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Speaker 1: and climates, the growth of widely different lands. They stigmatized
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Speaker 1: as the vanity of an insane ambition that would overleap
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Speaker 1: the bounds of nature. Much of what seemed to them
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Speaker 1: luxurious excess would be now taken as a matter of course,
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Speaker 1: and was only thought extravagant because of the simpler habits
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Speaker 1: of a Southern race which had a lower standard for
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Speaker 1: its wants. If we go into details, there is little
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Speaker 1: that exceeds or even rivals, the expenditure of later times,
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Speaker 1: unless perhaps we may accept the prices given for works
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Speaker 1: of fine art, or the passion for building, which for
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Speaker 1: a time seized the Roman nobles, or eccentricities of morbid fancy,
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Speaker 1: as rare as they were portentous. Wealth was confined, indeed
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Speaker 1: within few hands. But in the towns at least, they
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Speaker 1: spent largely for what they thought the common good, and
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Speaker 1: baths and aqueducts, roads and temples were works to benefit
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Speaker 1: the million culpable luxury. Indeed, there was selfish extravagance and
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Speaker 1: idle waste, but every age has seen the same in
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Speaker 1: all the great cities of the world. It is fair
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Speaker 1: also to remember that the first century of the Empire
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Speaker 1: had not passed away before a change is noticed. For
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Speaker 1: the better. We read in Tacitus that the Spasian's frugal
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Speaker 1: habits had a lasting influence on the tone of Roman
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Speaker 1: fashion from his days. He dates the spread of homelier ways,
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Speaker 1: in which men followed the example of the court, while
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Speaker 1: the provincials, from whom the Senate was largely recruited at
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Speaker 1: the time, brought to the capital the inexpensive forms of
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Speaker 1: simpler life. With these reserves, we may accept the statements
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Speaker 1: of the ancient writers for some at least, of the
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Speaker 1: social features of imperial Rome, for the vices and the
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Speaker 1: follies which they paint in such dark colors. But there
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Speaker 1: is another side to be considered before a conclusion can
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Speaker 1: be drawn. Philosophy had now become for the first time
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Speaker 1: in Roman history, or real power in common life, and
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Speaker 1: where Christian influences were unknown. It was the chief moral
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Speaker 1: teacher of mankind. With Cicero it had given an uncertain sound,
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Speaker 1: as if to excuse his own irresolute temper. It had
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Speaker 1: furnished questions of interest for curious scholars, but no guiding
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Speaker 1: star for earnest seekers. But in the mouths of the
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Speaker 1: great teachers of the Stoic system, it was very resolute
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Speaker 1: and stern. It pointed to a higher standard than the
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Speaker 1: will of any living Caesar. It taught men to live
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Speaker 1: with self respect and to face death with calm composure.
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Speaker 1: It had dropped its airs of paradox and the subtleties
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Speaker 1: of nice disputes, to become intensely practical and moral, to
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Speaker 1: lead men in the path of duty and give them
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Speaker 1: light in hours of darkness. It is easy enough to
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Speaker 1: point to the inconsistencies of a career like that of Seneca,
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Speaker 1: to the moralists defending the worst act of his royal pupil,
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Speaker 1: to the rich man writing specious phrases in favor of
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Speaker 1: homely poverty, to the ascetic training of the hard palette
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Speaker 1: amid all the splendors of the palace, like the hair
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Speaker 1: shirt of the Middle Ages covered by the prelates robe.
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Speaker 1: But Seneca found strength and solace in the lessons of philosophy.
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Speaker 1: The greatness of his life begins when honors and court
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Speaker 1: favor fail him, and he retires to meditate on the
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Speaker 1: real goods of life and the great principles of duty. There,
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Speaker 1: with a little company of chosen spirits, he can consult
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Speaker 1: the books of the undying dead and tranquility, reason on
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Speaker 1: the experience of the past and the problems of man's destiny.
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Speaker 1: Not content with the mere selfish object of saving his
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Speaker 1: own soul, he gives his ear and earnest thoughts to
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Speaker 1: the needs of other seekers round him, writes as the
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Speaker 1: director of their conscience while they live still in the
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Speaker 1: busy world, and tells them how to keep a brave
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Speaker 1: and quiet heart. Among the trials of those evil days,
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Speaker 1: the pages in which Tacitus describes the last hours of Seneca,
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Speaker 1: and many another death bed scene, the marked way, in
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Speaker 1: which he comments on the worldly levity of Petronius, who
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Speaker 1: had no sage near him when he died, the jealous
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Speaker 1: suspicions of the emperors. The writings of the moralists themselves
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Speaker 1: show that philosophy was a real power in the state,
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Speaker 1: and not confined to a few thinkers. Nor was it
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Speaker 1: at Rome, as in the old days of Greece, a
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Speaker 1: babble of discordant voices, distracting serious inquirers by their des
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Speaker 1: disputes and contradictions. The Stoic system ruled at Rome for
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Speaker 1: a time almost without arrival. The themes on which it
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Speaker 1: reasoned were chiefly moral and hard and cold as we
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Speaker 1: may think. Its teaching it roused enthusiasm in those who
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Speaker 1: heard it, and spread widely through the world. It had
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Speaker 1: its spiritual advisers for the closets of the great, its
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Speaker 1: public lecturers for the middle classes of the towns, its
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Speaker 1: ardent missionaries who spread the creed among the masses, and
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Speaker 1: preached in season and out of season. Two. Its popularity
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Speaker 1: was a real sign of moral progress. For all its
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Speaker 1: influence was exerted to counteract the real evils of the times.
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Speaker 1: It placed its ideals of the wise and good far
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Speaker 1: above the example of the Caesars, its thoughts of a
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Speaker 1: ruling providence, above the deified despots of an official worship.
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Speaker 1: It met the gross materialism of a luxurious age by
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Speaker 1: its lessons of hardihood and self restraint. It made light
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Speaker 1: of the accidents of nationality and rank, insisting chiefly on
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Speaker 1: the rights of conscience and the dignity of manhood, and
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Speaker 1: left us works that are of interest still in a
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Speaker 1: literature in which the two most familiar names are one
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Speaker 1: of an emperor and the other of a slave. To
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Speaker 1: correspond to influences such as these, we may trace some
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Speaker 1: changes in the tone of public thought. For foul and base,
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Speaker 1: as was so much in that old heathen world, which
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Speaker 1: seemed to Christianize, so hopelessly corrupt. Yet were there elements
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Speaker 1: of progress and earnest cries for clearer light and a
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Speaker 1: feeling after better things. For God had not left himself
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Speaker 1: without a witness in the midst of sensuality and sin.
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Speaker 1: In regard to slavery, men speak in act with far
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Speaker 1: more of real humanity. We need not insist, indeed, upon
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Speaker 1: the passionate terms in which juvenile brands the brutality of
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Speaker 1: selfish masters and pleads for the human rights of the
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Speaker 1: poor sufferers, nor on the language in which the kindly
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Speaker 1: hearted Pliny speaks of the members of his household. But
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Speaker 1: even at the beginning of the Empire, it became a
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Speaker 1: growing custom to give freedom soon to the domestic slaves,
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Speaker 1: and the fashion spread so fast as to require to
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Speaker 1: be checked and ruled by law. The wording of the
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Speaker 1: epitaphs the common literary tone shows the rapid growth of
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Speaker 1: kindlier feeling, and the enforcement of the stern old law
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Speaker 1: by which the slaves of a murdered master were all
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Speaker 1: condemned to death, caused a cry of horror through the city.
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Speaker 1: And the fear of a rescue from the crowd. Other
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Speaker 1: suffering causes found a voice also in Roman circles. Protests
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Speaker 1: were heard against the cruel sports of the arena and
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Speaker 1: the demoralizing sight of needless bloodshed. The wrongs of the
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Speaker 1: provincials were pleaded not as a matter of prudence or
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Speaker 1: of party politics, as by the or orders of the Republic,
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Speaker 1: but in the interests of humanity and order. The estimate
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Speaker 1: of women's character was changing also. They had always, indeed
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Speaker 1: been treated with high regard, and had managed their households
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Speaker 1: with dignity and self respect. They had been clothed with
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Speaker 1: public functions as priestesses and vestal virgins, and had already
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Speaker 1: gained by forms of law kind of independent status. But
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Speaker 1: the received type was somewhat severe and stern, with little
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Speaker 1: of the grace and accomplishment of finer culture. To stay
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Speaker 1: at home to spin the wool was their merit in
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Speaker 1: their husband's eyes, and in the later years of the Republic,
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Speaker 1: moralists spoke with grave alarm of the gayer moods and
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Speaker 1: freer tone imported with the latest fashions, and feared to
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Speaker 1: see their wives copy the questionable society of Greece. Without doubt,
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Speaker 1: there were many who, like the Sempronia and the Claudia
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Speaker 1: of the days of Cicero, aimed more at attractiveness than virtue,
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Speaker 1: and too wantonly paraded their freedom from old fashioned notions.
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Speaker 1: There were many in the early Empire who flung themselves
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Speaker 1: without reserve into every kind of dissipation, and linked their
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Speaker 1: names to infamy in the revels of the court of Nero.
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Speaker 1: But it was found in time that grace and art
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Speaker 1: need be no bar to chase decorum, that women could
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Speaker 1: be learned without being pedants, and study philosophy without affectation.
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Speaker 1: At no time do we read of nobler women than
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Speaker 1: in the days when satire handled them so coarsely and sad.
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Speaker 1: As are the histories of Tacitus, he has yet bright
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Speaker 1: and stirring pages, where he embalms the memory of a
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Speaker 1: band of heroines who could sympathize with their husband's highest thoughts,
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Speaker 1: and sometimes even show them how to die. In earlier
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Speaker 1: days there had been Roman matrons as dignified and chaste
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Speaker 1: and brave. But the fuller blossoming of womanhood and more
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Speaker 1: many sided grace, were the growth of an age which
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Speaker 1: we regard at the first is hopelessly corrupt and vile.
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Speaker 1: In fine, there is one witness we may cross examine
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Speaker 1: if we will gauge the moral temper of the times.
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Speaker 1: The younger Pliny lived partly in the period before us,
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Speaker 1: and partly also in the next. He was no professional
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Speaker 1: moralist and had no thesis to maintain. But his familiar
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Speaker 1: letters reflect the spirit of the circles in which he moved,
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Speaker 1: of the highest society in Rome. He owns indeed that
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Speaker 1: he takes a kindly view of things about him, that
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Speaker 1: he sees the merits rather than the foibles of his friends,
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Speaker 1: and the habit of drawing room recitals tended perhaps with
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Speaker 1: certain classes, to form a tone of mutual admiration, yet
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Speaker 1: withal it is a most impressive contrast to the pictures
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Speaker 1: of the satirist, and points to a real progress in
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Speaker 1: the temper of the age. The society that could furnish
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Speaker 1: so many worthy types of character, so many friends to
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Speaker 1: sympathize with the genial refinement. The courtesy and tenderness expressed
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Speaker 1: in Plinny's letters had many an element of nobleness and
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Speaker 1: strength to retard the process of decay, and of section
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Speaker 1: twenty seven