The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six Annals of Tacitus. Cornelius Tacitus
was fond of magic, and of the curious arts: it may be, that he commanded the secrets of which Mr. Stevenson has dreamed!
The readers of "The Annals" have seen enough of blood, of crime, and of Tiberius; and I would now engage their attention upon a more pleasing aspect of Imperial affairs: I wish to speak about the Empire itself; about its origin, its form, its history: and, if my powers were equal to the task, I would sketch a model Emperor; Marcus Aurelius, or the elder Antonine. Gibbon has described the limits of the Roman Empire; which "comprised the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilised portion of mankind." Its boundaries were "the Rhine and Danube, on the north; the Euphrates, on the east; towards the south, the sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa;" and upon the west, the Atlantic ocean. It was over this extensive monarchy, that Caesar reigned; by the providence of Caesar, was the whole defended and administered.
Quis Parthum paveat? Quis gelidum Scythen Quis, Germania quos horrida parturit Fetus, incolumi Caesare?
The frontiers of the Empire, and its richest provinces, had been obtained for the most part in the long wars of the Republic. The conquest of Gaul, and the establishment of the Empire, was achieved by Julius Caesar; and to him, the civilised world is indebted for that majestic "Roman Peace," under which it lived and prospered for nearly nineteen centuries: the Eastern Empire was maintained in Constantinople, until 1453; and the Empire of the West continued, though in waning splendour, until the last Caesar abdicated his throne at the order of Napoleon. The nations of modern Europe were developed out of the ruin of Caesar's Empire; and from that, the more civilised among them have obtained the politer share of their laws, their institutions, and their language: and to Caesar, we are indebted for those inestimable treasures of antiquity, which the Roman Empire and the Roman Church have preserved from the barbarians, and have handed on for the delight and the instruction of modern times. There are those, who can perceive in Caesar nothing but a demagogue, and a tyrant; and in the regeneration of the Commonwealth, nothing but a vulgar crime: among these, I am sorry to inscribe the name of Thomas Gordon. The supporters of this view are generally misled, by the specious allurements of the term "Republic." Tiberius, it may be, was not a perfect ruler, and other sovereigns were even more ferocious; but the excesses of the most reckless Emperor are hardly to be compared to the wholesale massacres and spoliations, which attended the last agonies of the expiring Commonwealth. After the Macedonian and Asiatic wars, we find a turbulent and servile crowd, instead of the old families and tribes of Roman citizens; instead of allies, oppressed and plundered provinces; instead of the heroes of the young Republic, a set of worn-out, lewd, and greedy nobles. By these, the spoils of the world were appropriated, and its government abused: Caesar gave the helpless peoples a legal sovereign, and preserved them from the lawless tyranny of a thousand masters. He narrates himself, that "he found the Romans enslaved by a faction, and he restored their liberty:" "Caesar interpellat; ut Populum Romanum, paucorum factione oppressum, in libertatem vindicat." The march of Caesar into Italy was a triumphal progress; and there can be no doubt, that the common people received him gladly. Again he says, "Nihil esse Rempublicam; appellationem modo, sine corpore et specie;" "The Republic is nothing but an empty name, a phantom and a shadow." That Caesar should have seen this, is the highest evidence of his genius: that Cicero did not see it, is to himself, and to his country, the great misfortune of his career; and to his admirers, one of the most melancholy events in Roman history. The opinions of Tacitus were not far removed from the opinions of Cicero, but they were modified by what he saw of Nerva and of Trajan: he tells us, how Agricola looked forward to the blessings of a virtuous Prince; and his own thoughts and writings would have been other, than they are, had he witnessed the blameless monarchy of Hadrian and the Antonines. The victims of a bad Emperor were taken usually from among the nobles; many of them were little better, than their destroyer; and his murders were confined, almost invariably, within the walls of Rome: but the benefits of the Imperial system were extended into all the provinces; and the judgment-seat of Caesar was the protection of innumerable citizens. Many were the mistakes, many the misfortunes, deplorable the mischiefs, of the Imperial administration; I wish neither to deny, nor to conceal them: but here I must content myself with speaking broadly, with presenting a superficial view of things; and, upon the whole, the system of the Emperors was less bad than the decayed and inadequate government, out of which it was developed. For the change from the Republic to the Empire was hardly a revolution; and the venerable names and forms of the old organisation were religiously preserved. Still, the Consuls were elected, the Senate met and legislated, Praetors and Legates went forth into the provinces, the Legions watched upon the frontiers, the lesser Magistrates performed their office; but above them was Caesar, directing all things, controlling all things; the Imperator and Universal Tribune, in whose name all was done; the "Praesens Divus," on whom the whole depended; at once the master of the Imperial Commonwealth, and the minister of the Roman People.
"The Annals," and the history of Tiberius, have detained us, for the most part, within the capital: "The Agricola" brings us into a province of the Empire; and "The Account of Germany" will take us among the savages beyond the frontier. I need scarcely mention, that our country was brought within the Roman influence by Julius Caesar; but that Caesar's enterprise was not continued by Augustus, nor by Tiberius; though Caligula celebrated a fictitious triumph over the unconquered Britons: that a war of about forty years was undertaken by Claudius, maintained by Nero, and terminated by Domitian; who were respectively "the most stupid, the most dissolute, and the most timid of all the Emperors." It was in the British wars, that Vespasian began his great career, "monstratus fatis"; but the island was not really added to the Empire, until Agricola subdued it for Domitian. "The Life of Agricola" is of general interest, because it preserves the memory of a good and noble Roman: to us, it is of special interest, because it records the state of Britain when it was a dependency of the Caesars; "adjectis Britannis imperio." Our present fashions in history will not allow us to think, that we have much in common with those natives, whom Tacitus describes: but fashions change, in history as in other things; and in a wiser time we may come to know, and be proud to acknowledge, that we have derived a part of our origin, and perhaps our fairest accomplishments, from the Celtic Britons. The narrative of Tacitus requires no explanation; and I will only bring to the memory of my readers, Cowper's good poem on Boadicea. We have been dwelling upon the glories of the Roman Empire: it may be pardonable in us, and it is not unpleasing, to turn for a moment, I will not say to "the too vast orb" of our fate, but rather to that Empire which is more extensive than the Roman; and destined to be, I hope, more enduring, more united, and more prosperous. Horace will hardly speak of the Britons, as humane beings, and he was right; in his time, they were not a portion of the Roman World, they had no part in the benefits of the Roman government: he talks of them, as beyond the confines of civility, "in ultimos orbis Britannos;" as cut off by "the estranging sea," and there jubilant in their native practices, "Visum Britannos hospitibus feros." But Cowper says, no less truly, of a despised and rebel Queen;
Regions Caesar never knew, Thy posterity shall sway; Where his Eagles never flew, None invincible as they.
The last battles of Agricola were fought in Scotland; and, in the pages of Tacitus, he achieved a splendid victory among the Grampian hills. Gibbon remarks, however, "The native Caledonians preserved in the northern extremity of the island their wild independence, for which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valour. Their incursions were frequently repelled and chastised; but their country was never subdued. The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians." The Scotch themselves are never tired of asserting, and of celebrating, their "independence"; Scotland imposed a limit to the victories of the Roman People, Scaliger says in his compliments to Buchanan:
Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia lines.
But it may be questioned, whether it were an unmixed blessing, to be excluded from the Empire; and to offer a sullen resistance to its inestimable gifts of humane life, of manners, and of civility.
To these things, the Germans also have manifested a strong dislike; and they are more censurable than the Scotch, because all their knowledge of the Romans was not derived from the intercourse of war. "The Germany" of Tacitus is