T" ^j^ ^/jr. ^1^ -^ <\' :>.^.*v^vT^^^ t ^<$« .. $^^<«^.<^^^>^^;^j>»:>>^; TK^ trMe Vaiv crj ity of fK^e '^bc^s \s ^ g ottcctioTV Q^^ooX^" illVDIMTY ^ EDITION DELUXE imiinvitc^ to Oae flvoM^acn^ /Vunvber M€C m\h #rfat nnn$ "£fow5rj5iht> CfolkcHoij ibraralQiniinirifr JHlb^rh 6(Ucrv Bc'rglj;, ^oKoginj 6[^tbr -1 TULLIA DRIVING OVER HER EA THER'S CORPSE. Hand-colored Artist proof from the original painting by Ernst Hildebrand. TuUia was a daughter of Servius.Tullius, and the wife of Aruns, brother of larquin.' She murdered her husband; and Tarquin, having killed his miSt mar- ried her, slew Servius Tullius, and proclaimed himself King. According to the Roman legend TuUia rode to the Senate house to greet her husband as King, and on her return drove over the dead body of her father, which lay in the way. The street through which she drove thereafter bore the name of Vicus Sceleratus — Abominable Street. ; :- . . oooccxxxmuoau ;ouooapcjuuuxjucoooooof yK«ic»» iricT.«.oauououcxxxK«.ir.i.ijoooocx.moi ixxtmn ANCIENT HISTORY iSSSESnSaS^ FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE COMPRISING THE HISTORY OF CHALD^A, ASSYRIA, MEDIA, BABYLONIA, LYDIA, PHCENICIA, SYRIA, JUD/tA, EGYPT, CARTHAGE, PERSIA, GREECE, MACEDONIA, PARTHIA, AND ROME BY GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., F.R.G.S. CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY AT UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD REVISED EDITION WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY WILLIAM F. MCDOWELL, S.T.D., PH.D. CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DENVER ^ 'i^ THE to ^-loff* , feTHAV^ , PRESS. ^NEWYORKil ^SBSI&l ss ^1^ Copyright, 1900, Bv THE COLONIAL PRESS. SRLf URi THE WORLD'S GREAT CLASSICS INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES IN annotating the Biblical text, concerning the '' making of many books," a fourteenth century commentator declared most positively that the only books which might be read without harmful results are " the bokis of hooli scripture " and " other bokis that ben needful to the understanding of hooli scripture." Solomon and our mediaeval sage would scarcely have cause to reverse their opinion if they had to pass judgment on the bulk of modern publications. To-day superficiaHty and sensa- tion reign supreme, and the classics of literature are barely circulated. The classics are largely relegated to the shelves of public libraries, which are obviously only accessible to a small proportion of readers. There has been an effort, of late, to supply the reading public with various encyclopaedias of literature, which, so far as the literary selections are concerned, bring to mind the grumbler's comment on his dinner. " It's all very well as far as it goes, and there's a good deal of it, too, such as it is." These encyclo- paedias are in the nature of anthologies, and, while they may be very useful as literary scrap-books, they fail to satisfy those who wish to possess the classics in their entirety. The projectors of the present series of books have made it possible for readers to possess a carefully selected library of the world's great classics. The publishers of this series have no desire to pose as educational philanthropists. They claim, however, that the publication of these classics will certainly iii vi THE WORLD'S GREAT CLASSICS thors selected include only the master minds of ancient and. modern times. The art features comprise photogravures from famous paint- ings and classic sculpture, portraits of authors, mediaeval illu- minations of mediaeval books and paleographic manuscripts, choice examples of early printing and engraving, and various other illustrations. On the Library Committee are such competent judges of good books as Dr. Timothy Dvvight, ex-President of Yale Uni- versity ; Justin McCarthy, historian and litterateur ; Richard Henry Stoddard, poet and literary critic, and Dr. Paul van Dyke, Professor of History at Princeton. Each of the classics selected has a special introduction by a writer fully qualified to give a critical analysis of the work in question. Every avail- able device in the art of book-making has been brought into service to make these volumes attractive, and the type, paper, and binding are of excellent quality. The present library is in the nature of a " University Exten- sion," for it aims to provide a fuller and broader intellectual life rather than any technical perfection. The trend of the times is toward mental culture. In the " University Collection of Illus- trated Classics " the intellectual pleasures and luxuries of life are made accessible to every home where the love of reading prevails. The publishers have provided a feast with the " Im- mortals." The flow of soul comes from the authors of all ages. Let the toast be what Alfonso, King of Aragon, was wont to say were the four best things of life : " Old wood to burn ! Old wine to drink ! Old friends to converse with ! Old books to read ! " Sic itur ad astra. Matmging Editor. TIMOTHY mVIGHT, D.D., LL.D. {President of Yale University.) Photogravure from a photograph hv Pach. SPECIAL INTRODUCTION THE author of this volume is one of the many notable ex- amples of scholarship in the English clergy. He is best known as Canon Rawlinson. One of his most widely read papers was his " Present Day Tract " on the " Early Prevalence of Monotheistic Belief." He supplied the com- ments on numerous books of the Old Testament to " The Speaker's Commentary " and the excellence of his work made him a favorite with many students. George Rawlinson was born in 1815 in Oxfordshire, Eng- land, being five years younger than his brother, Sir Henry Cres- wicke Rawlinson, D.C.L., the Orientalist and diplomat. Both were educated at Ealing School, the former graduating from Oxford with classical honors in 1838. He became a fellow of Exeter College in 1840, Bampton Lecturer in 1859, Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford in 1861, holding that office until 1889, when he resigned. In 1872 he was appointed Canon of Canterbury Cathedral. The mere titles of his books indicate what a prodigious worker he has been. His industry is amazing and his achievements surprising even for a life un- usually long. In addition to his manual of " Ancient History," he has written the following historical works : " The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World," " The Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, or the Geography, History, and Antiquities of Parthia," " The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, or the Geography, History and Antiquities of the Sassanian or New Persian Empire," " History of Ancient Egypt," " Religions of the Ancient World," " Egypt and Babylon," a history of " Phoenicia," and in connection with his brother and Sir Gard- ner Wilkinson, a translation of Herodotus with extensive notes and illustrations. His Bampton lectures in 1859 were upon vii viii RAWLINSON "The Historical Evidence of the Truth of the Scripture Records." In addition to all this Canon Rawlinson has written much in the shape of special articles for such works as Smith's " Bible Dictionary " and the magazines. He wrote the article on Herodotus in the ninth edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britan- nica," and in 1893 he wrote the volume on " Parthia " in " The Story of the Nations " series. He held the office of Classical Examiner under the Council of Military Education from 1859 — 1870, and has been Proctor in Convocation for the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury since 1873. His manual of " Ancient History " is professedly intended to take the place of Heeren's " Handbuch." Readers of Herodotus are charmed by that garrulous and entertaining old story-teller, " the father of history." But Herodotus did not err on the critical side. He was interested in everything he heard. He was not a scientific annalist coldly sifting evidence, though he was not blindly credulous. Nevertheless he admitted many things, wisely so, on rather slender evidence. Harrison says that the reader of Herodotus needs such a manual as Heeren's, and Rawlinson's manual, on the same plan, now takes its place It covers the same ground and in much the same fashion. Raw- linson writing later, has, of course, corrected many statements, revised many judgments, and has carefully embodied the dis- coveries and researches of the present century. This adds the labor of at least three most active and fruitful generations to Heeren's great work. Rawlinson's manual is not intended to be a popular treatise for light reading. Its preparation was not the idle pastime of an idle day. Its author was a student, patiently investigating details, and bringing a perfect mass of them before the reader. This manual is most valuable for the general reader and the right kind of students. Its bibliography alone would make it a great work. There is probably no better list of authorities on the period and nations covered. And one can forgive the text for lacking the rhetorical embellishments which characterize certain histories in view of Canon Rawlinson's painstaking facts presented in such abundance. At a time when history is tend- SPECIAL INTRODUCTION. ix ing to become scientific in the larger sense, our debt to the fact- gatherer is immense. Philosophy, Literature, and Art are all dependent upon him. And at a time when men's interest in ancient history is experiencing a revival like the quickened de- votion to child study, the republication of this manual appears most timely. Ancient History is a vital part of Modern History. " The past is only the present in a less developed form." Divi- sions between Ancient and Modern History are purely arbitrary. Ancient History occurred in a part of the world far distant from us. For long ages it continued distant, but the modern Western nations have a keen and vital interest in the far Eastern world to-day. Asia and Africa, subjects of Book I. in this manual, never were so close to England and America as at pres- ent. The distant in space has been brought near. The ancient is made recent by such studies as this. Dr. Charles Kendall Adams, President of the University of Wisconsin, and a noted historical critic, says in his manual of " Historical Literature " that " as a guide to a student in the thorough study of Ancient History, Rawlinson's manual has no equal in our language." William F. McDowell. GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., F.R.GS. {Canon of Canterbury and Camden Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford.^ Photogravure from a recent photograph. RAWLINSON'S PREFACE THE work here given to the pubhc has been contem- plated by the author for several years. The " Hand- buch " of Professor Heeren, originally published in 1799, and corrected by its writer up to the year 1828, is, so far as he knows, the only modern work of reputa- tion treating in a compendious form the subject of An- cient History generally. Partial works, i.e., works embracing portions of the field, have been put forth more recently, as, particularly, the important " Manuel " of M. Lenormant (Manuel d'histoire ancienne de I'Orient jusqu'aux guerres Me- diques. Paris, 1868 — 69 ; 3 vols. i2mo.) But no work with the scope and on the scale of Professor Heeren's has, so far as the present writer is aware, made its appearance since 1828. That work itself, in its English dress, is, he believes, out of print; and it is one, so great a portion of which has become antiquated by the progress of historical criticism and discovery, that it can not now be recommended to the student, unless with large re- serves and numerous cautions. Under these circumstances, it seemed to the present writer desirable to replace the " Hand- buch " of Heeren by a manual conceived on the same scale, ex- tending over the same period, and treating (in the main) of the same nations. Heeren's Hand-book always appeared to him admirable in design, and, considering the period at which it was written, ex- cellent in execution. He has been content to adopt, generally, its scheme and divisions; merely seeking in every case to bring the history up to the level of our present advanced knowledge, and to embody in his work all the really ascertained results of modern research and discovery. He has not suffered himself to be tempted by the example of M. Lenormant to include in the XI xii RAWLINSON manual an account of the Arabians or the Indians; since he has not been able to convince himself that either the native tradi- tions of the former, as reported by Abulfeda, Ibn-Khaldoun, and others, or the epic poems of the latter (the Maha Bharata and Ramayana), are trustworthy sources of history. With more hesitation he has decided on not including in his present work the history of the Sassanidae, which is sufficiently authen- tic, and which in part runs parallel with a period that the manual embraces. But, on the whole, it appeared to him that the Sas- sanidse belonged as much to Modern as to Ancient History — to the Byzantine as to the Roman period. And, in a doubtful case, the demands of brevity, which he felt to be imperative in such a work as a manual, seemed entitled to turn the scale. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. PAGE History. — History Proper, its divisions. — Ancient History, how best distinguished from Modern. — Sources of History: i. Antiquities; 2. Written Records, including (o) Inscriptions, (b) Books. — Im- portance of Inscriptions. — Coins. — Books, ancient and modern. — Cognate sciences to History: i. Chronology; 2. Geography. — Chief eras. — Chronological Monuments. — Works on Chronology. — Works on Geography. — Modes of dividing Ancient History. — Scheme of the Work 1 BOOK I. History of the Ancient Asiatic and African States and Kingdoms from the Earliest Times to the Foundation of the Persian Monar- chy by Cyrus the Great 15 PART I. — Asiatic Nations. Preliminary Remarks on the Geography of Asia 15 Preliminary Observations on the General Character of the Early Asiatic Kingdoms 25 History of the Ancient Asiatic Kingdoms previous to Cyrus 28 I. Chaldaean Monarchy 28 II. Assyrian Monarchy 30 III. Median Monarchy 32 IV. Babylonian Monarchy 34 V. Kingdoms in Asia Minor: i. Phrygia; 2. Cilicia; 3. Lydia. 35 VI. Phoenicia S7 VII. Syria 41 VIII. Judsea 41 a. From the Exodus to the Establishment of the Mon- archy 42 b. From the Establishment of the Monarchy to the Separa- tion into two Kingdoms 43 c. From the Separation of the Kingdoms to the Captivity under Nebuchadnezzar 46 xiii xiv RAWLINSON PART II. — African Nations. p^^-g Preliminary Remarks on the Geography of Ancient Africa 49 Historical Sketch of the Ancient African States 51 I- Egypt 54 II. Carthage 65 0. From the Foundation of the City to the Commencement of the Wars with Syracuse 65 b. From the Commencement of the Wars with Syracuse to the Breaking-out of the First War with Rome 71 BOOK II. History of Persia from the Accession of Cyrus to the Destruction of the Empire by Alexander the Great yy BOOK III. History of the Grecian States from the Earliest Times to the Acces- sion of Alexander the Great 97 Geographical Outline of Greece 97 FIRST PERIOD. The Ancient Traditional History, from the Earliest Times to the Dorian Occupation of the Peloponnese 109 SECOND PERIOD. History of Greece from the Dorian Conquest of the Peloponnese to the Commencement of the Wars with Persia 114 Part I. History of the principal Hellenic States in Greece Proper. . 114 I. Sparta 117 II. Athens 120 Part II. History of the other Grecian States 123 I. In the Peloponnese: a. Achsea 123 b. Arcadia 124 c. Corinth 125 d. Elis 126 e. Sicyon 126 II. In Central Greece: a. Megaris 127 b. Boeotia 128 c. Phocis 129 d. Locris 130 e. ^toHa 130 f. Acarnania 130 CONTENTS XV III. In Northern Greece: page 0. Thessaly 131 b. Epirus 132 IV. In the Islands: • a. Corcyra 133 b. Cephallenia 133 c. Zacynthus 133 d. ^gina 133 e. Euboea 134 f. The Cyclades 134 g. Lemnos 134 h. Thasos 135 i. Crete 136 ;. Cyprus 137 V. Greek Colonies 138 THIRD PERIOD. History of Greece from the Commencement of the Wars with Persia to the Battle of Chjeroneia 140 BOOK IV. History of the Macedonian Monarchy 163 Geographical Outline of Macedonia 163 Historical Sketch of the Monarchy: FIRST PERIOD. From the Commencement of the Monarchy to the Death of Alexan- der the Great 164 SECOND PERIOD. From the Death of Alexander the Great to the Battle of Ipsus 176 THIRD PERIOD. History of the States into which the Macedonian Monarchy was broken up after the Battle of Ipsus 183 Part I. History of the Syrian Kingdom of the Seleucidoe 183 Part II. History of the Egyptian Kingdom of the Ptolemies 194 Part III. History of Macedonia, and of Greece, from the Death of Alexander to the Roman Conquest 210 Part IV. History of the Smaller States and Kingdoms formed out of the Fragments of Alexander's Monarchy 229 I. Kingdom of Pergamus 230 II. Kingdom of Bithynia 234 III. Kingdom of Paphlagonia 238 IV. Kingdom of Pontus 239 V. Kingdom of Cappadocia 245 xvi RAWLINSON PAGE VI. Kingdom of Greater Armenia 249 VII. Kingdom of Armenia Minor 251 VIII. Kingdom of Bactria 252 IX. Kingdom of Parthia 254 X. Kingdom of Judaea 255 a. From the Captivity to the Fall of the Persian Em- pire 255 b. From the Fall of the Persian Empire to the Re- establishment of an Independent Kingdom 258 c. From the Re-establishment of an Independent King- dom to the Full EstabUshment of the Power of Rome 260 d. From the Full Establishment of Roman Power to the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus 261 BOOK V. PART I. — History of Rome. Preliminary Remarks on the Geography of Ancient Italy 267 Sketch of the History of Rome: FIRST PERIOD. The Ancient Traditional History from the Earliest Times to the Commencement of the Republic 281 SECOND PERIOD. From the Foundation of the Republic to the Commencement of the Samnite Wars 296 THIRD PERIOD. From the Breaking out of the First Samnite War to the Commence- ment of the Wars with Carthage 317 FOURTH PERIOD. From the Commencement of the First War with Carthage to the Rise of the Civil Broils under the Gracchi 327 FIFTH PERIOD. From the Commencement of Internal Troubles under the Gracchi to the Establishment of the Empire under Augustus 351 SIXTH PERIOD. From the Establishment of the Empire under Augustus to the Destruction of the Roman Power in the West by Odoacer 384 Preliminary Remarks on the Geographical Extent and Principal Divisions of the Roman Empire 384 CONTENTS xvii Historical Sketch of the Roman Empire: pagb First Section. From the Battle of Actium to the Death of Corn- modus 397 Second Section. From the Death of Commodus to the Acces- sion of Diocletian 427 Third Section. From the Accession of Diocletian to the Final Division of the Empire 442 Fourth Section. History of the Western Empire from the Ac- cession of Honorius, a.d. 395, to the Deposition of Romulus Au- gustus, A.D. 476 462 PART II. — History of Parthia. Geographical Outline of the Parthian Empire 472 Sketch of the History of Parthia: FIRST PERIOD. From the Foundation of the Kingdom by Arsaces to the Estab- lishment of the Empire by Mithridates 1 476 SECOND PERIOD. From the Establishment of the Empire by Mithridates I. to the Commencement of the Wars with Rome 479 THIRD PERIOD. From the Commencement of the Wars with Rome to the De- struction of the Empire by Artaxerxes 484 CtiOiCE EX.AJAPLS OF BOOK ILLUMLXATION- tUBi Hw B te •'>' , : :.. y.r" -a>r:;p:s .i^ja ■'"•^'S~firri'' c£Ok5 of Earij DxK. *.-» r?^-¥9- ' S.M>'{M^ SIDSS Me ILLUSTRATIONS TuLLiA Driving Over Her Father's Corpse Hand-colored Artist proof from a painting Timothy Dwight, D.D., LL.D. (Portrait) . Photogravure from a photograph George Rawlinson, Canon of Canterbury Photogravure from a photograph Miniature of the Annunciation Fac-simile illumination from the Conde Livre d'Heures Helen of Troy ..... Photogravure from a painting Mental Education of a Greek Youth . Photogravure from a painting FACING PAGE Frcmtispiece vn X XVlll 96 210 ANCIENT HISTORY INTRODUCTION The word " History," which etymologically means " in- quiry " or "' research," and which has many slightly differing uses, is attached in modem parlance pre-eminently and espe- cially to accounts of the rise, progress, and affairs of Nations. The consideration of man, prior to the formation of political communities and apart from them, belongs to Natural History — and especially to that branch of it which is called Anthro- pology — but not to History Proper. Histon,' Proper is the his- tory of States or Nations, both in respect to their internal af- fairs and in regard to their dealings one with another. Under the former head, one of the most important branches is Consti- tutional History, or the history of Governments; under the latter are included not only accounts of the wars, but likewise of the friendly relations of the different States, and of their com- mercial or other intercourse. Anthropologj-, though not History Proper, is akin to it, and is a science of which the historical student should not be ignorant. It treats of man prior to the time when historj^ takes him up, and thus forms, in some sort, the basis on which history- rests. The original condition of man, his primary habitat or place of abode, the mode and time of his dispersion; the questions of the formation of races, of their differ- ences, and of their affinities: these, and similar subjects, which belong properly to anthropology, are of interest to the historian, and underlie his proper field. The most important works bearing on these matters are: " The Book of Genesis " — the only extant work which claims to give an authoritative account of the creation and dispersion of mankind, and which is universally admitted to contain most interesting notices of the primitive condition of the human race, and of important facts belonging 2 RAWLINSON to very remote times. Kalisch's " Historical and Critical Commen- tary," London, Longman, 1855, contains a mass of valuable, though not always quite sober, illustration from the best modern sources. " The Physical History of Mankind," by Dr. Prichard, London, 3d edition, 1836 — a work of great grasp and power, elaborately illustrated, and in many respects of enduring value; but in some points behind the existing state of our knowledge. Not, however, at present super- seded by any general work. " Prehistoric Man," by Sir John Lubbock. London, 1866. This book is based mainly on recent researches into the earliest vestiges of man upon the earth, as those believed to have been found under- neath the floors of caves, in ancient gravel deposits, in the soil at the bottom of lakes, in the so-called " kitchen-middings," and the like. It is well illustrated. History Proper is usually divided either into two or into three portions. If the triple division is adopted, the portions are called, respectively, " Ancient History," the " History of the Middle Ages," and " Modern History." If the twofold division is preferred, the middle portion is suppressed, and His- tory is regarded as falling under the two heads of " Ancient " and " Modern." " Ancient " History is improperly separated from " Modern " by the arbitrary assumption of a particular date. A truer, better, and more convenient division may be made by regard- ing as ancient all that belongs to a state of things which has completely passed away, and as modern all that connects itself inseparably with the present. In Western Europe the irrup- tion of the Northern Barbarians, in Eastern Europe, in Asia, and in Africa, the Mohammedan conquests form the line of demarcation between the two portions of the historic field ; since these events brought to a close the old condition of things and introduced the condition which continues to the present day. The Sources of History fall under the two heads of written records, and antiquities, or the actual extant remains of ancient times, whether buildings, excavations, sculptures, pictures, vases, or other productions of art. These antiquities exist either in the countries anciently inhabited by the several nations, where they may be seen in situ; or in museums, to which they have been removed by the moderns, partly for their better preservation, partly for the purposes of general study and com- ANCIENT HISTORY 3 parison; or, finally, in private collections, where they are for the most part inaccessible, and subserve the vanity of the collectors. No general attempt has ever been made to collect into one work a description or representation of all these various remains, and, in- deed, their multiplicity is so great that such a collection is barely con- ceivable. Works, however, on limited portions of the great field of " Antiquities " are numerous; and frequent mention will have to be made of them in speaking of the sources for the history of different states and periods. Here those only will be noticed which have some- thing of a general character. Oberlin, " Orbis antiqui monumentis suis illustrati primas lineae." Argentorati, 1790. Extremely defective, but remarkable, considering the time at which it was written. Caylus, " Recueil d'Antiquites Egyptiennes, Etrusques, Grecques et Romaines." Paris, 1752-67. Full of interest, but with engravings of a very rude and primitive character. Montfaucon, " L'Antiquite expliquee et representee en figures." Paris, 1719-24; 15 vols., folio. Smith, Dr. W., " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities." London, 2d edition, 1853. Fergusson, James, " History of Architecture in all Countries, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day." London, 1865-67. Birch, Samuel, " Ancient Pottery." London, 1858. The second source of Ancient History, written records, is at once more copious and more important than the other. It consists of two main classes of documents — (i) Inscriptions on public monuments, generally contemporary with the events re- corded in them ; and (2) Books, the works of ancient or modern writers on the subject. Whether Inscriptions were, or were not, the most ancient kind of written memorial is a point that can never be deter- mined. What is certain is, that the nations of antiquity made use to a very large extent of this mode of commemorating events. In Egypt, in Assyria, in Babylonia, in Armenia, in Persia, in Phoenicia, in Lycia, in Greece, in Italy, historical events of importance were from time to time recorded in this way — sometimes on the natural rock, which was commonly smoothed for the purpose; sometimes on obelisks or pillars; frequently upon the walls of temples, palaces, and tombs; oc- casionally upon metal plates, or upon tablets and cylinders of fine clay — hard and durable materials all of them, capable of 4 RAWLINSON lasting hundreds or even thousands of years, and in many cases continuing to the present day. The practice prevailed, as it seems, most widely in Assyria and in Egypt; it was also in considerable favor in Persia and among the Greeks and Ro- mans. The other nations used it more sparingly. It was said about half a century ago that " of the great mass of inscriptions still extant, but few comparatively are of any importance as regards history." But this statement, if true when it was made, which may be doubted, at any rate requires modification now. The histories of Egypt and Assyria have been in a great meas- ure reconstructed from the inscriptions of the two countries. The great inscription of Behistun has thrown much light upon the early history of Persia. That on the Delphic tripod has illustrated the most glorious period of Greece. It is now gen- erally felt that inscriptions are among the most important of ancient records, and that their intrinsic value makes up to a great extent for their comparative scantiness. General collections of ancient inscriptions do not as yet exist. But the following, which have more or less of a general character, may be here mentioned: Muratori, Lud. Ant., " Novus Thesaurus Veterum Inscriptionum." Mediolani, 1739, etc. Together with Donati, " Supplementa." Luccse, 1764. Gruter, " Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romani," cura J. G. Graevii. Amstel. 1707; 4 vols., folio. Pococke, R., " Inscriptionum antiquarum Grsecarum et Latinarum liber." Londini, 1752; folio. Chandler, R., " Inscriptiones antiquae pleraeque nondum editae." Ox- onii, 1774; folio. Osann, Fr., " Sylloge Inscriptionum antiquarum Graecarum et Lat- inarum." Lipsiae, 1834; folio. A large number of cuneiform inscriptions, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian, will be found in the " Expedition Scientifique en Meso- potamie " of M. Jules Oppert. Paris, 1858. The Persian, Babylonian, and Scythian or Turanian transcripts of the great Behistun Inscription are contained in the " Journal of the Asiatic Society," vols, x., xiv., and XV., to which they were contributed by Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. Norris. A small but valuable collection of inscriptions, chiefly cunei- form, is appended to Mr. Rich's " Narrative of a Journey from Bussora to Persepolis." London, 1839. Under the head of Inscribed Monuments must be included Coins, which have in most instances a legend, or legends, and ANCIENT HISTORY 5 which often throw considerable light upon obscure points of history. The importance of coins is no doubt the greatest in those portions of ancient history where the information de- rivable from authors — especially from contemporary authors — is the scantiest; their use, however, is not limited to such por- tions, but extends over as much of the historical field as admits of numismatic illustration. Collections of ancient coins exist in most museums and in many libraries. The collection of the British Museum is among the best in the world. The Bodleian Library has a good collection; and there is one in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, possessing many points of interest. In default of access to a good collection, or in further prosecution of numismatic study, the learner may consult the following comprehensive works: Spanheim, " Dissertatio de usu et praestantia Numismatum." Lon- don and Amsterdam, 1706-17; 2 vols., folio. Eckhel, " De Doctrina Nummorum Veterum." Vindebonae, 1792-98; 8 vols., 4to. Mionnet, " Description des Medailles." Paris, 1806-37; 16 vols., 8vo, copiously illustrated. Humphreys, " Ancient Coins and Medals." London, 1850. In this work, by means of embossed plates, fac-similes of the obverse and re- verse of many coins are produced. Leake, " Numismata Hellenica." London, 1854. Works upon coins, embracing comparatively narrow fields, are nu- merous, and often specially valuable. Many such works will be no- ticed among the sources for the history of particular times and nations. The " Books " from which ancient history may be learned are of two kinds — Ancient and Modern. Ancient works which treat the subject in a general way are neither numerous nor (with one exception) very valuable. The chief of those now extant are: Diodorus Siculus, " Bibliotheca Historica," in forty books, of which only books i.-v. incl. and xi.-xx. incl. have come down to us entire. The best editions are those of Wesseling (Bipont. 1793-1800; 10 vols., 8vo) and Dindorf (Parisiis, 1843-44; 2 vols., 8vo). This work was a universal history from the earliest times down to B.C. 60. Polybius, " Historic," likewise in forty books, of which the first five only are complete. Originally, a universal history of the period com- mencing B.C. 220 and terminating B.C. 146. Bad in style, but excellent in criticism and accuracy. The best edition is Schweighaeuser's (Lips. 6 RAWLINSON 1789 et seq. ; 8 vols., 8vo. Reprinted at Oxford, 1823, together with the same scholar's " Lexicon Polybianum," in 5 vols., 8vo). A good edition of the mere text has been published by Didot, Paris, 1859. Justinus, " Historise Philippic?e," in forty-four books, extracted, or rather abbreviated, from Trogus Pompeius, a writer of the Augustan age. This is a universal history from the earliest times to Augustus Cffisar. It is a short work, and consequently very slight and sketchy. Of recent editions, the best is that of Duebner (Lips. 1831). The best of the old editions is that of Strasburg, 1802, 8vo. Zonaras, " Chronicon sive Annales," in twelve books. A universal history, extending from the Creation to the death of the Emperor Maximin, a.d. 238. Greatly wanting in criticism. The best edition is that in the " Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae." Bonnae, 1841-44. Besides these, there remain fragments from the universal history of Nicolaus Damascenus (" Fragm. Hist. Grsec," Vol. IIL, ed. C. Miiller, Parisiis, 1849), which are of very considerable value. Modern works embracing the whole range of ancient his- tory are numerous and important. They may be divided into two classes: Works on Universal History, of which Ancient History forms only a part; Works exclusively devoted to An- cient History. To the first class belong: " The Universal History, Ancient and Modern," with maps and ad- ditions. London, 1736-44; 7 vols., folio. Reprinted in 8vo and 64 vols., London, 1747-66; again, in 60 vols., with omissions and additions. Raleigh, Sir W., " History of the World," in his " Works." Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1829; 8 vols., 8vo. Bossuet, " Discours sur I'Histoire Universelle." Paris, 1681; 4to. (Translated into English by Rich. Spencer. London, 1730; 8vo.) Millot, " Elemens de I'Histoire Generale." Paris, 1772 et seq. Re- printed at Edinburgh, 1823; 6 vols., 8vo. (Translated into English, 1778; 2 vols., 8vo.) Eichhorn, " Weltgeschichte." Leipsic, 1799-1820; 5 vols., 8vo. Keightley, Th., " Outlines of History," 8vo, being vol. ix. of Lard- ner's " Cabinet Cyclopaedia." London, 1835 et seq. A convenient abridgment. Tytler and Nares, " Elements of General History." London, 1825. " Owes its reputation and success to the want of a better work on the subject." Under the second head may be mentioned: Niebuhr, B. G., " Vortrage fiber alte Geschichte." Berlin, 1847; 3 vols., 8vo. Edited after his death by his son, Marcus Niebuhr. (Trans- lated into English by Dr. Leonard Schmitz, with additions and cor- ANCIENT HISTORY 7 rections. London, 1852; 3 vols., 8vo.) A work of the highest value, embodying all the results of modern discovery up to about the year 1830. Schlosser, " Universal-historische Uebersicht der Geschichte der alten Welt." Frankfort, 1826; 3 vols., 8vo. Bredow, " Handbuch der alte Geschichte." Altona, 1799; 8vo. (Translated into English. London, 1827; 8vo.) Smith, Philip, " An Ancient History from the Earliest Records to the Fall of the Western Empire." London, 1865; 3 vols., 8vo. Em- bodies the latest results of modern discovery. Heeren, " Ideen iiber die Politik, den Verkehr, und den Handel der vornehmsten Volker der alten Welt " ; 4th edition. Gottingen, 1824. (Translated into English. Oxford, 1833 et seq. ; 5 vols., 8vo.) A work which, so far as the commerce of the ancients is concerned, has not been superseded. A few modern works of a less comprehensive character than those hitherto described, but still belonging rather to general than to particular history, seem also to deserve mention here. Such are : Rollin, " Histoire Ancienne des Egyptiens, des Carthaginiens, des Assyriens, des Medes et des Perses, des Macedoniens, et des Grecs." Paris, 1824; 12 vols., 8vo, revue par Letronne. " The last and best edition." (Translated into English. London, 1768; 7 vols., 8vo.) The earlier portion of this work is now antiquated, and must be replaced by writers who have had the advantage of recent discoveries. Rawlinson, G., " The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, or the History, Geography, and Antiquities of Chaldaja, As- syria, Babylonia, Media, and Persia." London, 1862-67; 4 vols., 8vo. With numerous illustrations. The fact that all historical events must occur at a certain time and in a certain place attaches to History two branches of knowledge as indispensable auxiliaries; viz., Chronology and Geography. By the universal historian these sciences should be known completely: and a fair knowledge of them ought to be acquired by every historical student. A fixed mode of computing time, and an exact or approximate reckon- ing of the period occupied by the events narrated, is essential to every methodized history; nor can any history be regarded as complete without a more or less elaborate description of the countries which were the theatres of the events recorded in it. Exact Chronology is difficult, and a synchronistic view of 8 RAWLINSON history generally is impossible without the adoption of an era. Nations accordingly, as the desire of exactness or the wish to synchronize arose, invented eras for themselves, which gen- erally remained in use for many hundreds of years. The earliest known instance of the formal assumption of a fixed point in time from which to date events belongs to the history of Baby- lon, where the era of Nabonassar, B.C. 747, appears to have been practically in use from that year. The era of the founda- tion of Rome, B.C. 752 (according to the best authorities), was certainly not adopted by the Romans till after the expulsion of the kings; nor did that of the Olympiads, B.C. 776, become current in Greece until the time of Timaeus (about B.C. 300). The Asiatic Greeks, soon after the death of Alexander, adopted the era of the Seleucidae, B.C. 312. The era of Antioch, B.C. 49, was also commonly used in the East from that date till A.D. 600. The Armenian era, A.D. 553, and the Mohammedan, A.D. 622 (the Hegira), are likewise worthy of notice. The most important chronological monuments are the fol- lowing: The Assyrian Canon (discovered by Sir Henry Rawlinson among the antiquities in the British Museum, and published by him in the Athe- ncEum, Nos. 1812 and 2064), an account of Assyrian chronology from about B.C. 909 to B.C. 680, impressed on a number of clay tablets in the reign of Sardanapalus, the son of Esarhaddon, all now more or less broken, but supplying each other's deficiencies, and yielding by careful comparison a complete chronological scheme, covering a space of 230 years. The chronology of the whole period is verified by a recorded solar eclipse, which is evidently that of June 15, B.C. 763. The Apis Stelae (discovered by M. Mariette, close to the Pyramid of Abooseer, near Cairo), published in the " Zeitschrift fiir die Kunde des Morgenlandes " for 1864, and also by M. de Rouge in his " Recherches sur les monuments qu'on pent attribuer aux six premieres Dynasties de Manethon." Paris, 1866. Most important for Egyptian chronology. The Parian Marble (brought to England from Smyrna in the year 1627 by an agent of the Earl of Arundel, and presented to the University of Oxford by his son; preserved among the "Arundel Marbles" in the " Schola Philosophise Moralis," but in a very decayed condition), a chronological arrangement of important events in Greek history from the accession of Cecrops to the archonship of Callistratus, B.C. 355. Best editions: " Marmora Arundeliana," ed. J. Selden. Londini, 1628. " Marmora Oxoniensia," ed. R. Chandler. Oxoniis, 1763; folio. " Marmor Parium," ed. C. Miiller, in Vol. I. of the " Fragmenta His- ANCIENT HISTORY 9 toricum Grsecorum." Parisiis, 1846. The inscription is also given in Boeckli's Corpus Inscriptionum Grcecarum, Vol. II., No. 2374. The Fasti Capitolini (discovered at Rome on the site of the ancient Forum, partly in the year 1547, partly in 1817 and 1818, and still pre- served in the Museum of the Capitol), a list of the Roman magistrates and triumphs from the commencement of the Republic to the end of the reign of Augustus. Best edition of the fragments discovered in 1547, the second of Sigonius, Venet. 1556. Best edition of the frag- ments of 1817-18, that of Borghesi, Milan, 1818. These Fasti are re- produced in appendices to the first and second volumes of Dr. Arnold's " History of Rome," down to the close of the first Punic War. An excellent reprint and arrangement of the fragments will be found in Mommsen's " Inscriptiones Latinje Antiquissimae." Berlin, 1863. Ancient works on Chronology were numerous; but not many have come down to our times. The subject first began to be treated as a science by the Alexandrians in the third century before Christ. Eratosthenes, ApoUodorus, Sosicrates, and others undertook the task of arranging the events of past his- tory according to exact chronological schemes, which were no doubt sufficiently arbitrary. These writers were succeeded by Castor (about B.C. 100-50), Cephalion, Julius Africanus (A.D. 200), and Hippolytus, of whom the last two were Chris- tians. The earliest work of a purely chronological character which has come down to us is the following: Eusebius Pamphili, " Chronicorum Canonum libri duo." The Greek text is lost; but the latter book has been preserved to us in the Latin translation of Jerome; and the greater part of both books exists in an Armenian version, which has been rendered into Latin by the Armenian monk, Zohrab, assisted by Cardinal Mai. (Mediolani, 1818; folio.) Other chronological works of importance are: Georgius Syncellus, " Chronographia," in the " Corpus Hist. By- zant.," ed. Dindorf. Bonnse, 1829; 2 vols., 8vo. Johannes Malalas, " Chronographia," in the same collection, ed. Dindorf. Bonnas, 1831; Bvo. " Chronicon Paschale," in the same collection. Bonnse, 1832; 2 vols., 8vo. Scaliger, Jos., " De Emendatione Temporum." Genevse, 1629. Ideler, " Handbuch der Chronologic." Berlin, 1825-26; 2 vols., 8vo. " L'Art de Verifier les Dates." Paris, 1819-44; 36 vols., 8vo. Hales, W., " New Analysis of Chronology, explaining the History and Antiquities of the Primitive Nations of the World." London, lo RAWLINSON 1809-12; 3 vols., 4to. New edition, corrected and improved, 1830; 4 vols., 8vo. Clinton, H. R, " Fasti Hellenici; or. The Civil and Literary Chronol- ogy of Greece from the Fifty-fifth Olympiad to the Death of Augustus." Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1827-30; 3 vols., 4to. A valuable work, not confined to the chronology of Greece, but embracing that of all the Asiatic kingdoms and empires from the earliest times to Alexander's conquest of Persia. Geography, the other ancillary science to History, was recognized from a very early date as closely connected with it. The History of Herodotus is almost as much geographical as historical: and the geographical element occupies a consider- able space in the histories of many other ancient writers, as notably Polybius and Diodorus. At the same time the sepa- rability of geography, and its claims to be regarded as a distinct branch of knowledge, were perceived almost from the first; and works upon it, whereof only fragments remain, were written by Hecatseus of Miletus, Scylax of Caryanda, Charon of Lamp- sacus, Damastes, Eratosthenes, Agatharchides, Scymnus of Chios, and others. The most important of the extant classical works on the subject are: The " Periplus Maris Mediterranei," ascribed to Scylax of Caryanda, but really the work of an unknown writer belonging to the time of Philip of Macedon. Ed. D. Hoeschel, August. Vind., 1608. Printed also in Hudson's " Geographi Minores," Oxoniis, 1703; and in C. Miiller's " Geographi Grseci Minores." Paris, 1855. Strabo, " Geographica," in seventeen books, the most important an- cient work on the subject. Best editions: that of Is. Casaubon, Parisiis, 1620, folio; that of Th. Falconer, Oxoniis, 1807, 2 vols., folio; that of Siebenkees, Lipsise, 1796-1811, 6 vols., 8vo; and that of Kramer, Bero- lini, 1847-52, 3 vols., 8vo. Dionysius, " Periegesis," written in hexameter verse. Published, with the commentary of Eustathius, by H. Stephanus. Parisiis, 1577. It will be found also in the " Geographi Grseci Minores " of Bernhardy (Leipsic, 1828) and of C. Mullen Plinius, " Historia Naturalis," in thirty-seven books. Best edition, that of Sillig. Goth?e; 8 vols., 8vo. Ptolemaeus, " Geographia," in eight books. Ed. Bertius, Amstel., 1618; folio. Pomponius Mela, " Cosmographia, sive De Situ Orbis," in three books. Edited by H. Stephanus, together with the " Periegesis " of Dionysius. Parisiis, 1577. Best edition, that of Tzschucke. Lipsae, 1807; 7 vols., 8vo. ANCIENT HISTORY 1 1 And for the geography of Greece: Pausanias, " Periegesis Helladis," in ten books. Best editions: that of Siebelis, Lipsi;e, 1822-28, 5 vols., Svo; and that of Bekker, Berlin, 1826-27, 2 vols., Svo. Modern works on the subject of Ancient Geography are numerous, but only a few are of a general character. Among these may be noticed: Cellarius, " Notitia Orbis Antiqui." Lipsise, 1701-06; 2 vols., 4to. " Cum observationibus," J. C. Schwartzii. Lipsiae, 1771 and 1773. Mannert, " Geographic der Griechen und Romer." Niirnberg, 1801- 31; 10 vols., Svo. Gosselin, " Recherches sur la Geographic systematique et positive dcs Anciens." Paris, 179S-1813; 4 vols., 4to. Rcnnell, J., " Geography of Herodotus." London, 1800; 4to. And the same writer's " Treatise on the Comparative Geography of Asia Minor," vv^ith an Atlas. London, 1S31; 2 vols., Svo. Ritter, " Erdkunde." Berlin, 1832 et seq. A most copious and learned work, embracing all the results of modern discovery up to the date of the publication of each volume. Smith, Dr. W., " Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography." Lon- don, 1854; 2 vols., Svo. Among useful compendiums are — Laurent, P. E., " Introduction to Ancient Geography." Oxford, 1S13; Svo. Arrowsmith, A., " Compendium of Ancient and Modern Geography, for the use of Eton School." London, 1830; Svo. The best Atlases illustrative of Ancient Geography are the following: Kiepert, " Atlas von Hellas," with supplementary maps. Berlin, 1846-51. Also the same geographer's " Atlas Antiquus." Berlin, 1861. Miiller, C, Maps accompanying the " Geographi Graeci Minores." Paris, 1855. Johnston, A. Keith, " Atlas of Classical Geography." Edinburgh, 1866; 4to. Smith, Dr. W., " Biblical and Classical Atlas." London, 186S; small folio. The field of Ancient History may be mapped out either syn- chronistically, according to certain periods and epochs, or 12 RAWLINSON ethnographically, according to states and nations. Neither of these two methods is absolutely superior to the other, each having merits in which the other is deficient. It would be embarrassing to have to choose between them; but, fortunately, this difficulty is obviated by the possibility of combining the two into one system. This combined method, which has been already preferred as most convenient by other writers of Manuals, will be adopted in the ensuing pages, where the general division of the subject will be as follows: Book I. — History of the Ancient Asiatic and African States and Kingdoms from the Earliest Times to the Foundation of the Persian Monarchy by Cyrus the Great, B.C. 558. Book II. — History of the Persian Monarchy from the Acces- sion of Cyrus to the Death of Darius Codomannus, B.C. 558-330. Book HI. — History of the Grecian States, both in Greece Proper and elsewhere, from the Earliest Times to the Acces- sion of Alexander, B.C. 336. Book IV. — History of the Macedonian Monarchy, and the Kingdoms into which it broke up, until their absorption into the Roman Empire. Book V. — History of Rome from the Earliest Times to the Fall of the Western Empire, A.D. 476, and Parallel History of Parthia. BOOK I HISTORY OF ASIATIC AND AFRICAN NATIONS BOOK I HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT ASIATIC AND AFRICAN STATES AND KINGDOMS FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE FOUNDATION OF THE PERSIAN MONARCHY BY CYRUS THE GREAT. PART I— ASIATIC NATIONS. PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF ASIA. Asia is the largest of the three great divisions of the Eastern Hemisphere. Regarding it as separated from Africa by the Red Sea and Isthmus of Suez, and from Europe by the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, and the main chain of the Caucasus, its superficial contents will amount to 17,500,000 square miles, whereas those of Africa are less than 12,000,000, and those of Europe do not exceed 3,800,000. In climate it unites greater varieties than either of the two other divisions, extending as it does from the 78th degree of north latitude to within a hundred miles of the equator. It thus lies mainly within the northern temperate zone, but projects north- ward a distance of eleven degrees beyond the Arctic circle, while southward it throws into the region of the Tropics three long and broad peninsulas. Asia consists mainly of a great central table-land, running east and west from the neighborhood of the yEgean to the north-western frontier of China, with low plains surrounding it, which are for the most part fertile and well watered. The high table-land is generally bounded by mountain-chains, which mostly run parallel to it in latitudinal lines. In places these primary latitudinal chains give way to others, which run in an opposite or longitudinal direction. 15 i6 RAVVLINSON The Rivers of Asia may be divided into two classes — those of the central tract, and those of the circumjacent regions. The rivers of the central tract are continental or mediterranean; i.e., they begin and end without reaching the sea. Either they form after a while salt lakes in which their waters are evap- orated, or they gradually waste away and lose themselves in the sands of deserts. The rivers of the circumjacent plains are, on the contrary, oceanic ; i.e., they mingle themselves with the waters of the great deep. Asia may conveniently be divided into Northern, Central, and Southern, the Southern region being again subdivided into a Western and an Eastern portion. It is with South-western Asia that Ancient History is almost exclusively concerned. Northern Asia, or the tract lying north of the Caspian Sea, the Jaxartes, and the Altai mountain-chain, is for the most part a great grassy plain, of low elevation, destitute of trees, and unproductive, the layer of vegetable soil being thin. To- wards the north this plain merges into vast frozen wilds capable of nourishing only a few hunters. In the west the Ural and Altai, in the east the Jablonnoi, and their offshoot the Tukulan, are the only mountains. The rivers are numerous, and abound in fish. The Ural and Altai chains are rich in valuable min- erals, as gold, silver, platina, copper, and iron. This region was almost unknown to the ancients, who included it under the vague name of Scythia. Some scanty notices of it occur, however, in Herodotus. Central Asia, or the region bounded on the north by the Altai, on the west by the Caspian, on the south by the Elburz, the Hindu Kush, and the Himalaya, on the east by the Yun- ling and other Chinese ranges, consists, excepting in its more western portion, of an elevated plateau or table-land, which towards the south is not less than 10,000 feet, and towards the north is from 4,000 to 2,600 feet above the level of the sea. This plateau is intersected by the two great chains of the Thian- chan and the Kuen-liin, and otherwise diversified by impor- tant ridges. Towards the north the soil admits of pasturage, and in the west and south are some rich plains and valleys; but the greater part of the region consists of sandy deserts. Outside the western boundary of the plateau, which is formed ANCIENT HISTORY 17 by the Bolor and other " longitudinal " chains, a low plain succeeds, a continuation of the Siberian steppe, which consists also, in the main, of sandy desert, excepting along the courses of the streams. A small portion only of Central Asia — lying towards the west and the south-west — was known to the ancients. In the low region between the Elburz range and the Siberian steppe, upon the courses of the two great streams which flow down from the plateau, were three countries of some importance. These were — Chorasmia, to the extreme west, between the Caspian and the lower Oxus — a desolate region, excepting close along the river-bank, known still as Kharesm, and forming part of the Khanat of Khiva. Sogdiana, between the lower Oxus and the lower Jaxartes, resembling Chorasmia in its western portion, but towards the east traversed by spurs of the Bolor and the Thian-chan, and watered by numerous streams descending from them. The chief of these was the Polytimetus of the Greeks, on which was Maracanda (Samarkand), the capital. Bactria, on the upper Oxus, between Sogdiana and the Paropamisus (Hindu Kush). Mountainous, fertile, and well watered towards the east, but towards the west descending into the desert. Chief cities, Bactra (Balkh), the capital, a little south of the Oxus, and Margus (Merv), on a stream of its own, in the western desert. Southern Asia, according to the division of the continent which has been here preferred, comprises all the countries lying south of the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian, and the Elburz, Hindu Kush, and Himalaya ranges, together with those lying east of the Yun-ling, the Ala-chan, and the Khingan, which form the eastern boundary of the central table-land. A line drawn along the ninety-second meridian (E. from Green- wich) will separate this tract, at the point where it is narrowest, into an Eastern and Western region, the former containing Manchuria, China, and the Siamo-Burmese peninsula, the lat- ter Hindustan, Affghanistan, Beluchistan, Persia, the Russian Transcaucasian provinces, Turkey in Asia, and Arabia. With the Eastern region Ancient History has no concern at all, since i8 RAVVLINSON it was unknown to the great nations of antiquity, and whatever history it has belongs to the Modern rather than to the Ancient period. With the Western region Ancient History is, on the contrary, concerned vitally and essentially, since this region formed in the early times, if not the sole, yet at any rate the chief, stage on which the historical drama was exhibited. South-western Asia is naturally divisible into four main regions — viz., Asia Minor, or the peninsula of Anatolia; the adjoining table-land, or the tract which lies between Asia Minor and the Valley of the Indus; the lowland south of this table- land, which stretches from the base of the mountains to the shores of the Indian Ocean; and the Indian Peninsula. Asia Minor consists of a central table-land, of moderate elevation, lying between the two parallel chains of Taurus and Olympus, together with three coast-tracts, situated respectively north, west, and south of the plateau. Its chief rivers are the Iris (Yechil Irmak), the Halys (Kizil Irmak), and the Sangarius (Sakkariyeh), which all fall into the Euxine. Its loftiest moun- tain is Argaeus, near Csesarsea (Kaisariyeh), which attains an altitude of 13,000 feet. On the highest part of the plateau, which is towards the south, adjoining Taurus, are a number of salt lakes, into which the rivers of this region empty them- selves. The largest is the Palus Tattaeus (Touz Ghieul), which extends about forty-five miles in its greatest length. Asia Minor contained in the times anterior to Cyrus the following countries : — On the plateau, two : Phrygia and Cappadocia ; boundary between them, the Halys. In the northern coast- tract, two: Paphlagonia and Bithynia; boundary, the Billseus (Filiyas). In the western coast-tract, three: Mysia, Lydia, and Caria, with the ^olian, Ionian, and Dorian Greeks occupy- ing most of the sea-board. In the southern coast-tract, three : Lycia, Pamphylia, and Cilicia. The chief cities were Sardis, the capital of Lydia; Dascyleium, of Bithynia; Gordium, of Phrygia; Xanthus, of Lycia; Tarsus, of Cilicia; and Mazaca (afterwards Caesarasa), of Cappadocia; together with the Gre- cian settlements of Miletus, Phocaea, Ephesus, Smyrna, Hali- carnassus, and Cnidus on the west, and Cyzicus, Heraclea, Sinope, Amisus, Cerasus, and Trapezus upon the north. Islands. The littoral islands belonging to Asia Minor were ANCIENT HISTORY 19 important and numerous. The principal were Proconnesus in the Propontis; Tenedos, Lesbos (capital Mytilene), Chios, Samos, and Rhodes, in the yEgean ; and Cyprus in the Levant or Eastern Mediterranean. The chief towns of Cyprus were Salamis, Citium, and Paphos, on the coast; and, in the interior, Idalium. The great highland extending from Asia Minor in the west to the mountains which border the Indus Valley in the east, comprised seventeen countries — viz., Armenia, Iberia or Sape- iria, Colchis, Matiene, Media, Persia, Mycia, Sagartia, Cadusia, Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria, Arachosia, Sattagydia, Gandaria, Sarangia, and Gedrosia or the Eastern Ethiopia. As these countries were mostly of considerable size and importance, a short description will be given of each. Armenia lay east of Cappadocia. It was a lofty region, consisting almost entirely of mountains, and has been well called " the Switzerland of Western Asia." The mountain system culminates in Ararat, which has an elevation of 17,000 feet. Hence all the great rivers of this part of Asia take their rise, viz., the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Halys, the Araxes, and the Cyrus. In the highest part of the region occur two elevated lake-basins, those of Urumiyeh and Van, each having a distinct and separate water-system of its own. The only town an- ciently of much importance was one which occupied the posi- tion of the modern Van, on the east coast of the lake of th(» same name. Iberia, or Sapeiria, adjoined Armenia to the north-east. It comprised the whole of the modern Georgia, together with some parts of Russian and Turkish Armenia, as especially the region about Kars, Ispir, and Akhaltsik. Its rivers were the Cyrus (Kur) and Araxes (Aras), which flow together into the Caspian. It had one lake, Lake Goutcha or Sivan, in the mountain region north-east of Ararat. Colchis, or the valley of the Phasis, between the Caucasus and Western Iberia, corresponded to the modern districts of Imeritia, Mingrelia, and Guriel. Its chief importance lay in its commanding one of the main routes of early commerce, which passed by way of the Oxus, Caspian, Aras, and Phasis to the Euxine. (Connect with this the Argonautic expedition.) 20 RAWLINSON Chief town, Phasis, at the mouth of the Rion River, a Greek settlement. Natives of Colchis, black: believed to be Egyp- tians. Matiene was a strip of mountain land, running southward from Sapeiria, and separating between Assyria and Media Magna. It early lost its name, and was reckoned to one or other of the adjoining countries. Media, one of the largest and most important of the regions belonging to this group, extended from the Araxes on the north to the desert beyond Isfahan on the south. Eastward it reached to the Caspian Gates; westward it was bounded by Matiene, or (when Matiene disappeared) by Armenia and Assyria. Its chief rivers were the Araxes (Aras) and the Mardus (Kizil Uzen or Sefid-rud). It consisted of two re- gions, Northern Media, or Media Atropatene (Azerbijan), and Southern Media, or Media Magna. The whole territory was mountainous, except towards the south-east, where it abutted on the Sagartian desert. The soil was mostly sterile, but some tracts were fairly, and a few richly, productive. The chief cities were Ecbatana and Rhages. Persia lay south and south-east of Media, extending from the Median frontier across the Zagros mountain-chain, to the shores of the gulf whereto it gave name. It was barren and unfruitful towards the north and east, where it ran into the Sagartian desert ; mountainous and fairly fertile in the central region ; and a tract of arid sand along the coast. Its rivers were few and of small size. Two, the Oroatis (Tab) and Granis (Khisht river), flowed southward into the Persian Gulf; one, the Araxes (Bendamir), with its tributary the Cyrus (Pulwar), ran eastward, and terminated in a salt lake (Neyriz or Bakh- tigan). The principal cities were Persepolis, Pasargadae, and Carmana, which last was the capital of a district of Persia, called Carmania. Mycia was a small tract south-east of Persia, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, opposite the island of Kishm and the pro- montory of Ras Mussendum. It was ultimately absorbed into Persia Proper. Sagartia was at once the largest and the most thinly peopled of the plateau countries. It comprised the whole of the great ANCIENT HISTORY 21 desert of Iran, which reaches from Kashan and Konm on the west to Sarawan and Quettah towards the east, a distance of above 900 miles. It was bounded on the north by Media, Parthia, and Aria; on the east by Sarangia and Sattagydia; on the south by Mycia and the Eastern Ethiopia ; on the west by Media and Persia. It contained in ancient times no city of importance, the inhabitants being nomads, whose flocks found a scanty pasturage on the less barren portions of the great upland. Cadusia, or the country of the Cadusians, was a thin strip of territory along the south-eastern and southern shores of the Caspian, corresponding to the modern Ghilan and Mazande- ran. Strictly speaking, it scarcely belonged to the plateau, since it lay outside the Elburz range, on the northern slopes of the chain, and between them and the Caspian Sea. It con- tained no city of importance, but was fertile, well wooded, and well watered ; and sustained a numerous population. Hyrcania lay east of Cadusia, at the south-eastern corner of the Caspian, where the name still exists in the modern river Gurgan. The chain of the Elburz here broadens out to a width of 200 miles, and a fertile region is formed containing many rich valleys and high mountain pastures, together with some considerable plains. The chief city of Hyrcania was Zadracarta. Parthia lay south and south-east of Hyrcania, including the sunny flank of the Elburz chain, and the flat country at its base as far as the northern edge of the desert, where it bordered on Sagartia. It was a narrow but fertile territory, watered by the numerous streams which here descend from the mountains. Aria, the modern territory of Herat, adjoined Parthia on the east. It was a small but fertile tract on the river Arius (the Heri- rud), with a capital city, called Aria or Artacoana (Herat). Arachosia, east of Aria, comprised most of Western and Central Afifghanistan. Its rivers were the Etymandrus (Hel- mend) and the Arachotus (Arghand-ab). The capital was Arachotus (Kandahar?). It was an extensive country, moun- tainous and generally barren, but containing a good deal of fair pasturage, and a few fertile vales. 22 RAWLINSON Sattagydia adjoined Arachosia on the east, corresponding to South-eastern Afghanistan, or the tract between Kandahar and the Indus valley. In character it closely resembled Ara- chosia, but was on the whole wilder and more rugged. Gandaria lay above Sattagydia, comprising the modern Kabul and Kaferistan. It consisted of a mass of tangled moun- tain-chains, with fertile valleys between them, often, however, narrowing to gorges difficult to penetrate. Its principal stream was the Cophen (or river of Kabul), a tributary of the Indus, and its chief town Caspatyrus (Kabul?). Sarangia, or Zarangia, was the tract lying about the salt lake (Hamoon) into which the Etymandrus (Helmend) emp- ties itself. This tract is flat, and generally desert, except along the courses of the many streams which flow into the Hamoon from the north and east. Gedrosia corresponded to the modern Beluchistan. It lay south of Sarangia, Arachosia, and Sattagydia, and east of Sagartia and Mycia. On the east its boundary was the Indus valley; on the south it was washed by the Indian Ocean. It was a region of alternate rock and sand, very scantily watered, and almost entirely destitute of wood. The chief town was Pura (perhaps Bunpoor). The lowland to the south, or rather the south-west, of the great West- Asian plateau, comprised five countries only : viz., Syria, Arabia, Assyria, Susis or Susiana, and Babylonia. Each of these requires a short notice. Syria, bounded by Cilicia on the north, the Euphrates on the north-east, the Arabian desert on the south-east and south, and by the Levant upon the west, comprised the following regions : 1st. Syria Proper, or the tract reaching from Amanus to Her- mon and Palmyra. Chief cities in the ante-Cyrus period : Carchemish, Hamath, Damascus, Baalbek, and Tadmor or Palmyra. Chief river, the Orontes. Mountains : Casius, Bar- gylus, Libanus, and anti-Libanus. 2d. Phoenicia, the coast- tract from the thirty-fifth to the thirty-third parallel, separated from Syria Proper by the ridge of Libanus. Chief towns: Tyre, Sidon, Berytus, Byblus, Tripolis, Aradus. 3d. Pales- tine, comprising Galilee, Samaria, Judaea, and Philistia, or Palestine Proper. Chief cities : Jerusalem, Samaria, Azotus ANCIENT HISTORY 23 or Ashdod, Ascalon, and Gaza or Cadytis. Mountains : Her- mon, Carmel. River, Jordan. Northern and Western Syria are mountainous, and generally fertile. Eastern Syria is an arid desert, broken only by a few oases, of which the Palmy- rene is the principal. Arabia lay south and south-east of Syria. It was a country of enormous size, being estimated to contain a million of square miles, or more than one-fourth the area of Europe. Consisting, however, as it does, mainly of sandy or rocky deserts, its population must always have been scanty, and its productions few. In the ancient world it was never of much account, the inhabitants being mainly nomads, and only the outlying tribes coming into contact with the neighboring na- tions. The only important towns were, in the east, Gerrha, a great trading settlement ; in the west, Petra and Elath. Assyria intervened between Syria and Media. It was bounded on the north by the snowy chain of Niphates, which separated it from Armenia, and on the east by the outer ranges of Zagros. Westward its limit was the Ev-i.-hrates, while south- ward it adjoined on Babylonia and Susiana. Towards the north and east it included some mountain tracts ; but in the main it was a great rolling plain, at a low level, scantily watered towards the west, where the Euphrates has few affluents, but well supplied towards the east, where Mount Zagros sends down many large streams to join the Tigris. Its chief cities were Ninus, or Nineveh, Calah, and Asshur upon the Tigris ; Arbela in the region between the Tigris and Mount Zagros ; Nisibis, Amida, Harran or Carrhae, and Circesium in the dis- trict between the great rivers. Its streams, besides the Tigris and Euphrates, were the Bilichus (Belik) and the Chaboras (Western Khabour), affluents of the Euphrates ; the Centrites (Bitlis Chai), the Eastern Khabour, the Zabatus (or Zab Ala), the Caprus (or Zab Asfal), and the Gyndes or Physcus (Diya- leh), tributaries of the Tigris. It contained on the north the mountain range of Masius (Jebel Tur and Karajah Dagh). Its chief districts w^ere Aturia, or Assyria Proper, the tract about Nineveh ; Adiabene, the country between the Upper Zab and the Lower ; Chalonitis, the region south of the Lower Zab ; and Gozan (or Mygdonia) on the Western Khabour at 24 RAWLINSON the foot of the Mons Masius. The Greeks called the whole tract between the two great rivers Mesopotamia. Susis, Susiana or Cissia, lay south-east of Assyria, and con- sisted chiefly of the low plain between the Zagros range and the Tigris, but comprised also a portion of the mountain re- gion. Its rivers were the Choaspes (Kerkheh), the Pasitigris (Kuran), the Eulaeus (a branch stream formerly running from the Choaspes into the Pasitigris), and the Hedypnus (Jerrahi). Capital city, Susa, between the Choaspes and Eulaeus rivers. Babylonia lay due south of Assyria, in which it was some- times included. The line of demarkation between them was the limit of the alluvium. On the east Babylonia was bounded by Susiana, on the west by Arabia, and on the south by the Persian Gulf. It was a single alluvial plain of vast extent and extraordinary fertility. The chief cities, besides Babylon on the Euphrates, were Ur (now Mugheir), Erech (Warka), Cal- neh (Niffer), Cutha (Ibrahim), Sippara or Sepharvaim (Mo- saib), and Borsippa (Birs-Nimrud). The more southern part of Babylonia, bordering on Arabia and the Persian Gulf, was known as Chaldasa. The Peninsula of Hindustan, the last of the four great divis- ions of South-western Asia, contains nearly a million and a quarter of square miles. Nature has divided it into three very distinct tracts, one towards the north-west, consisting of the basin drained by the Indus ; one towards the east, or the basin drained by the Ganges ; and one towards the south, or the peninsula proper. Of these the north-western only was con- nected with the history of the ancient world. This tract, called India from the river on which it lay, was separated ofif from the rest of Hindustan by a broad belt of desert. It comprised two regions — ist, that known in mod- ern times as the Punjab, abutting immediately on the Him- alaya chain, and containing about 50,000 square miles ; a vast triangular plain, intersected by the courses of five great rivers (whence Punj-ab = Five Rivers) — the Indus, the_ Hydaspes (Jelum), the Acesines (Chenab), the Hydraotes (Ravee), and the Hyphasis (Sutlej), — fertile along their course, but other- wise barren. 2dly, the region known as Scinde, or the Indus valley below the Punjab, a tract of about the same size, ANCIENT HISTORY 25 including the rich plain of Cutchi Gandava on the west bank of the river, and the broad delta of the Indus towards the south. Chief town of the upper region, Taxila (Attok) ; of the south- ern, Pattala (Tatta?). PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE GEN- ERAL CHARACTER OF THE EARLY ASIATIC KINGDOMS. The physical conformation of Western Asia is favorable to the growth of large empires. In the vast plain which ex- tends from the foot of Niphates and Zagros to the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean, there are no natural fastnesses ; and the race which is numerically or physically superior to the other races inhabiting it readily acquires do- minion over the entire region. Similarly, only not quite to the same extent, in the upland region which succeeds to this plain upon the east, there is a deficiency of natural barriers, and the nation which once begins to excel its neighbors, rapidly ex- tends its influence over a wide stretch of territory. The upland and lowland powers are generally pretty evenly balanced, and maintain a struggle in which neither side gives way ; but occa- sionally the equality becomes deranged. Circumstances give to the one or to the other additional strength ; and the result is that its rival is overpowered. Then an empire of still greater extent is formed, both upland and lowland falling under the sway of the same people. Still more remarkable than this uniformity of size is the uniformity of governmental type observable throughout all these empires. The form of government is in every case a monarchy ; the monarchy is always hereditary ; and the hered- itary monarch is a despot. A few feeble checks are in some instances devised for the purpose of restraining within certain limits the caprice or the cruelty of the holder of power; but these barriers, where they exist, are easily overleaped ; and in most cases there is not even any such semblance of inter- ference with the will of the ruler, who is the absolute master of the lives, liberties, and property of his subjects. Despotism 2 6 RAWLINSON is the simplest, coarsest, and rudest of all the forms of civil government. It was thus naturally the first which men, pressed by a sudden need, extemporized. And in Asia the wish has never arisen to improve upon this primitive and imperfect essay. Some variety is observable in the internal organization of the empires. In the remoter times it was regarded as sufficient to receive the personal submission of the monarch whose land was conquered, to assess his tribute at a certain amount, and then to leave him in the unmolested enjoyment of his former dignity. The head of an empire was thus a " king of kings," and the empire itself was an aggregation of kingdoms. After a while an improvement was made on the simplicity of this early system. Satraps, or provincial governors, court officials belonging to the conquering nation, and holding their office only during the good pleasure of the Great King, were sub- stituted for the native monarchs ; and arrangements more or less complicated were devised for checking and controlling them in the exercise of their authority. The power of the head of the empire was thus considerably increased ; and the empire acquired a stability unknown under the previous system. Uni- formity of administration was to a certain extent secured. At the same time, a very great diversity underlay this external uniformity, since the conquered nations were generally suf- fered to retain their own language, religion, and usages. No effort was made even to interfere with their laws ; and thus the provinces continued, after the lapse of centuries, as separate and distinct in tone, feeling, ideas, and aspirations, as at the time when they were conquered. The sense of separateness was never lost ; the desire of recovering national independence, at best, slumbered; nothing was wanted but opportunity to stir up the dormant feeling, and to shatter the seeming unity of the empire into a thousand fragments. A characteristic of the Oriental monarchies, which very markedly distinguishes them from the kingdoms of the West, is the prevalence of polygamy. The polygamy of the monarch swells to excessive numbers the hangers-on of the court, neces- sitates the building of a vast palace, encourages effeminacy and luxury, causes the annual outlay of enormous sums on ANCIENT HISTORY 27 the maintenance of the royal household, introduces a degraded and unnatural class of human beings into positions of trust and dignity ; in a word, at once saps the vital force of the empire in its central citadel, and imposes heavy burdens on the mass of the population, which tend to produce exhaustion and paral- ysis of the whole body politic. The practice of polygamy among the upper classes, destroying the domestic affections by diluting them, degrades and injures the moral character of those who give its tone to the nation, lowers their physical energy, and renders them self-indulgent and indolent. Nor do the lower classes, though their poverty saves them from participating directly in the evil, escape unscathed. Yielding, as they commonly do, to the temptation of taking money for their daughters from the proprietors of harems, they lose by degrees all feeling of self-respect ; the family bond, corrupted in its holiest element, ceases to have an elevating influence ; and the traffickers in their own flesh and blood become the ready tools of tyrants, the ready applauders of crime, and the submissive victims of every kind of injustice and oppression. The Asiatic Empires were always founded upon conquest ; and conquest implies the possession of military qualities in the victors superior at any rate to those of the vanquished nations. Usually the conquering people were at first simple in their habits, brave, hardy, and, comparatively speaking, poor. The immediate consequence of their victory was the exchange of poverty for riches ; and riches usually brought in their train the evils of luxurious living and idleness. The conquerors rapidly deteriorated under such influences ; and, if it had not been for the common practice of confining the use of arms, either wholly or mainly, to their own class, they might, in a very few generations, have had to change places with their subjects. Even in spite of this practice they continually de- creased in courage and warlike spirit. The monarchs usually became faineants, and confined themselves to the precincts of the palace. The nobles left off altogether the habit of athletic exercise. Military expeditions grew to be infrequent. When they became a necessity in consequence of revolt or of border ravages, the deficiencies of the native troops had to be supplied by the employment of foreign mercenaries, who cared nothing 28 RAWLINSON for the cause in which their swords were drawn. Meanwhile, the conquerors were apt to quarrel among themselves. Great satraps would revolt and change their governments into inde- pendent sovereignties. Pretenders to the crown would start up among the monarch's nearest relatives, and the strength and resources of the state would be wasted in civil conflicts. The extortion of provincial governors exhausted the prov- inces, while the corruption of the court weakened the empire at its centre. Still, the tottering edifice would stand for years, or even for centuries, if there was no attack from abroad, by a mere vis inertice; but, sooner or later, such an attack was sure to come, and then the unsubstantial fabric gave way at once and crumbled to dust under a few blows vigorously dealt by a more warlike nation. HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT ASIATIC KING- DOMS PREVIOUS TO CYRUS. CHALDEAN MONARCHY. The earliest of the Asiatic monarchies sprang up in the alluvial plain at the head of the Persian Gulf. Here Moses places the first " kingdom " (Gen. x. lo) ; and here Berosus regarded a Chaldaean monarchy as established probably as early as B.C. 2000. The Hebrew records give Nimrod as the founder of this kingdom, and exhibit Chedorlaomer as lord- paramount in the region not very long afterwards. The names of the kings in the lists of Berosus are lost ; but we are told that he mentioned by name forty-nine Chaldaean monarchs, whose reigns covered a space of 458 years from about B.C. 2000 to about B.C. 1543. The primeval monuments of the country have yielded memorials of fifteen or sixteen kings, who probably belonged to this early period. They were at any rate the builders of the most ancient edifices now existing in the country; and their date is long anterior to the time of Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar. The phonetic reading of these monumental names is too uncertain to justify their in- sertion here. It will be sufficient to give, from Berosus, an ANCIENT HISTORY 29 outline of the dynasties which ruled in Chaldaea, from about B.C. 2000 to 747, the era of Nabonassar: Chaldaean dynasty, ruling for 458 years (Kings: Nimrod, Chedorlaomer) about B.C. 2001 to 1543 Arabian dynasty, ruling for 24s years about B.C. I543 to 1298 Dynasty of forty-five kings, ruling for 526 years about B.C. 1298 to 772 Reign of Pul (say 25 years) about B.C. 772 to 747 Berosus, it will be observed, marks during- this period two, if not three, changes of dynasty. After the Chaldaeans have borne sway for 458 years, they are succeeded by Arabs, who hold the dominion for 245 years, when they too are super- seded by a race not named, but probably Assyrian. This race bears rule for 526 years, and then Pul ascends the throne, and reigns for a term of years not stated. (Pul is called " king of Assyria " in Scripture ; but this may be an inexactness. He is not to be found among the Assyrian monumental kings.) These changes of dynasty mark changes of condition. Under the first or Chaldaean dynasty, and under the last monarch, Pul, the country was flourishing and free. The second dynasty was probably, and the third certainly, established by conquest. Chaldaea, during the 526 years of the third dynasty, was of secondary importance to Assyria, and though from time to time engaged in wars with the dominant power of Western Asia, was in the main submissive and even subject. The names of six kings belonging to this dynasty have been recovered from the Assyrian monuments. Among them is a Nebuchad- nezzar, while the majority commence with the name of the god Merodach. The Chaldaean monarchy had from the first an architectural character. Babylon, Erech or Orchoe, Accad, and Calneh, were founded by Nimrod. Ur was from an early date a city of importance. The attempt to build a tower " which should reach to heaven," made here (Gen. xi. 4), was in accordance with the general spirit of the Chaldaean people. Out of such simple and rude materials as brick and bitumen vast edifices were constructed, pyramidical in design, but built in steps or stages of considerable altitude. Other arts also flourished. Letters were in use; and the baked bricks employed by the 30 RAWLINSON royal builders had commonly a legend in their centre. Gems were cut, polished, and engraved with representations of hu- man forms, portrayed with spirit. Metals of many kinds were worked, and fashioned into arms, ornaments, and implements. Textile fabrics of a delicate tissue were manufactured. Com- merce was carried on with the neighboring nations both by land and sea: the " ships of Ur " visiting the shores of the Persian Gulf, and perhaps those of the ocean beyond it. The study of Astronomy commenced, and observations of the heav- enly bodies were made, and carefully recorded. ASSYRIAN MONARCHY. The traces which we possess of the First Period are chiefly monumental. The Assyrian inscriptions furnish two lists — one of three, and the other of four consecutive kings — which belong probably to this early time. The seat of empire is at first Asshur (now Kileh Sherghat), on the right bank of the Tigris, about sixty miles below Nineveh. Some of the kings are connected by intermarriage with the Chaldsean monarchs of the period, and take part in the struggles of pretenders to the Chaldsean crown. One of them, Shalmaneser L, wars in the mountain-chain of Niphates, and plants cities in that region (about B.C. 1270). This monarch also builds Calah (Nimrud), forty miles north of Asshur, on the left or east bank of the river. The Second Period is evidently that of which Herodotus spoke as lasting for 520 years, from about B.C. 1260 to 740. It commenced with the conquest of Babylon by Tiglathi-nin (probably the original of the Greek " Ninus "), and it termi- nated with the new dynasty established by Tiglath-pileser II. The monuments furnish for the earlier portion of this period some nine or ten discontinuous royal names, while for the later portion they supply a complete consecutive list, and an exact chronology. The exact chronology begins with the year B.C. 909. The great king of the earlier portion of the Second Period is a certain Tiglath-pileser, who has left a long historical in- scription, which shows that he carried his arms deep into Mount Zagros on the one hand, and as far as Northern Syria ANCIENT HISTORY 31 on the other. He Hkewise made an expedition into Babylonia. Date, about B.C. 1 130. His son was also a warlike prince ; but from about B.C. iioo to 900 Assyrian history is still almost a blank; and it is probable that we have here a period of depression. For the later portion of the Second Period — from B.C. 909 to 745 — the chronology is exact, and the materials for history are abundant. In this period Calah became the capital, and several of the palaces and temples were erected which have been disinterred at Nimrud. The Assyrian monarchs carried their arms beyond Zagros, and came into contact with Medes and Persians ; they deeply penetrated Armenia ; and they pressed from Northern into Southern Syria, and imposed their yoke upon the Phoenicians, the kingdom of Damascus, and the kingdom of Israel. The names of Ben-hadad, Hazael, Ahab, and Jehu are common to the Assyrian and Hebrew records. Towards the close of the period, the kings became slothful and unwarlike, military expeditions ceased, or were conducted only to short distances and against insignificant enemies. The Assyrian art of the Second shows a great advance upon that of the First Period. Magnificent palaces were built, richly embellished with bas-reliefs. Sculpture was rigid, but bold and grand. Literature was more cultivated. The history of each reign was written by contemporary annalists, and cut on stone, or impressed on cylinders of baked clay. Engraved stclce were erected in all the countries under Assyrian rule. Considerable communication took place with foreign coun- tries ; and Bactrian camels, baboons, curious antelopes, ele- phants, and rhinoceroses were imported into Assyria from the East. In the Third Period the Assyrian Empire reached the height of its greatness under the dynasty of the Sargonidae, after which it fell suddenly, owing to blows received from two pow- erful foes. The period commenced with a revival of the mili- tary spirit and vigor of the nation under Tiglath-pileser II., the king of that name mentioned in Scripture. Distant expe- ditions were resumed, and the arms of Assyria carried into new regions. Egypt was attacked and reduced ; Susiana was 32 RAWLINSON subjugated; and in Asia Minor Taurus was crossed, Cappa- docia invaded, and relations established with the Lydian mon- arch, Gyges. Naval expeditions were undertaken both in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. Cyprus submitted, and the Assyrian monarchs numbered Greeks among their sub- jects. Almost all the kings of the period came into contact with the Jews, and the names of most of them appear in the Hebrew records. Towards the close of the period the empire sustained a severe shock from the sudden invasion of vast hordes of Scythians from the North. Before it could recover from the prostration caused by this attack, its old enemy. Media, fell upon it, and, assisted by Babylon, effected its de- struction. Assyrian art attained to its greatest perfection during this last period. Palaces were built by Tiglath-pileser II. at Calah, by Sargon at Dur Sargina (Khorsabad), by Sennacherib at Nineveh, by Esarhaddon at Calah and Nineveh, by Sardanap- alus II. at Nineveh, and by Saracus at Calah. Glyptic art ad- vanced, especially under Sardanapalus, when the animal forms were executed with a naturalness and a spirit worthy of the Greeks. At the same time carving in ivory, metallurgy, model- ling, and other similar arts made much progress. An active commerce united Assyria with Phoenicia, Egypt, and Greece. Learning of various kinds — astronomic, geographic, linguis- tic, historical — was pursued ; and stores were accumulated which will long exercise the ingenuity of the moderns. MEDIAN MONARCHY. The primitive history of the Medes is enveloped in great obscurity. The mention of them as Madai in Genesis (x. 2), and the statement of Berosus that they furnished an early dy- nasty to Babylon, imply their importance in very ancient times. But scarcely any thing is known of them till the ninth century B.C., when they were attacked in their own proper country. Media Magna, by the Assyrians (about B.C. 830). At this time they were under the government of numerous petty chief- tains, and offered but a weak resistance to the arms of the ANCIENT HISTORY 33 Assyrian monarchs. No part of their country, however, was reduced to subjection until the time of Sargon, who conquered some Median territory about B.C. 710, and planted it with cities in which he placed his Israelite captives. The subse- quent Assyrian monarchs made further conquests ; and it is evident from their records that no great Median monarchy had arisen down to the middle of the seventh century B.C. The earliest date which, with our present knowledge, we can assign for the commencement of a great Median monarchy is B.C. 650. The monarchs assigned by Herodotus and Ctesias to a time anterior to this may conceivably have been chiefs of petty Median tribes, but were certainly not the heads of the whole nation. The probability is that they are fictitious per- sonages. Suspicion attaches especially to the list of Ctesias, which appears to have been formed by an intentional duplica- tion of the regnal and other periods mentioned by Herodotus. There is reason to believe that about B.C. 650, or a little later, the Medes of Media Magna were largely reinforced by fresh immigrants from the East, and that shortly afterwards they were enabled to take an aggressive attitude towards As- syria, such as had previously been quite beyond their power. In B.C. 633 — according to Herodotus — they attacked Nineveh, but were completely defeated, their leader, whom he calls Phraortes, being slain in the battle. Soon after this occurred the Scythian inroad, which threw the Medes upon the defen- sive, and hindered them from resuming their schemes of con- quest for several years. But, when this danger had passed, they once more invaded the Assyrian Empire in force. Nine- veh was invested and fell. Media upon this became the leading power of Western Asia, but was not the sole power, since the spoils of Assyria were divided between her and Babylon. Less is known of Median art and civilization than of As- syrian, Babylonian, or Persian. Their architecture appears to have possessed a barbaric magnificence, but not much of either grandeur or beauty. The great palace at Ecbatana was of wood, plated with gold and silver. After the conquest of Nineveh, luxurious habits were adopted from the Assyrians, and the court of Astyages was probably as splendid as that of Esarhaddon and Sardanapalus. The chief known peculiar- 3 34 RAWLINSON ity of the Median kingdom was the ascendency exercised in it by the Magi — a priestly caste claiming supernatural powers, which had, apparently, been adopted into the nation. BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. After the conquest of Babylonia by the Assyrians, about B.C. 1250, an Assyrian dynasty was established at Babylon, and the country was, in general, content to hold a secondary position in Western Asia, acknowledging the suzerainty of the Ninevite kings. From time to time efforts were made to shake off the yoke, but without much success till the accession of Nabonassar, B.C. 747. Under Nabonassar and several of his successors Babylonia appears to have been independent; and this condition of independence continued, with intervals of subjection, down to the accession of Esarhaddon, B.C. 680, when Assyrian supremacy was once more established. Baby- lon then continued in a subject position, till the time when Nabopolassar made alliance with Cyaxares, joined in the last siege of Nineveh, and, when Nineveh fell, became independent, B.C. 625. During the Second Period, Babylonia was not only an inde- pendent kingdom, but was at the head of an empire. Nabo- polassar and Cyaxares divided the Assyrian dominions be- tween them, the former obtaining for his share Susiana, the Euphrates valley, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine. A brilliant period followed. At first indeed the new empire was threat- ened by Egypt ; and for a few years the western provinces were actually held in subjection by Pharaoh-nechoh ; but ; Babylon now aroused herself, defeated Nechoh, recovered her territory, and carrying her arms through Palestine into Egypt, chastised the aggressor on his own soil. From this time till the invasion of Cyrus the empire continued to flourish, but became gradually less and less warlike, and offered a poor resistance to the Persians. The architectural works of the Babylonians, more especially under Nebuchadnezzar, were of surpassing grandeur. The " hanging gardens " of that prince, and the walls with which he surrounded Babylon, were reckoned among the Seven ANCIENT HISTORY 35 Wonders of the World. The materials used were the same as in the early Chaldaean times, sunburnt and baked brick; but the baked now preponderated. The ornamentation of buildings was by bricks of ditTerent hues, or sometimes by a plating of precious metal, or by enamelling. By means of the last-named process, war-scenes and hunting-scenes were represented on the walls of palaces, which are said to have been life-like and spirited. Temple-towers were still built in stages, which now sometimes reached the number of seven. Useful works of great magnitude were also constructed by some of the kings, especially by Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonadius ; such as canals, reservoirs, embankments, sluices, and piers on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Commerce flourished, and Babylon was reckoned emphatically a " city of merchants." The study of astronomy was also pursued with zeal and in- dustry. Observations were made and carefully recorded. The sky was mapped out into constellations, and the fixed stars were catalogued. Occultations of the planets by the sun and moon were noted. Time was accurately measured by means of sun-dials, and other astronomical instruments were prob- ably invented. At the same time it must be confessed that the astronomical science of the Babylonians was not pure, but was largely mixed with astrology, more especially in the later times. KINGDOMS IN ASIA MINOR. The geographical formation of Asia Minor, which separates it into a number of distinct and isolated regions, was probably the main reason why it did not in early times become the seat of a great empire. The near equality of strength that existed among several of the races by which it was inhabited — as the Phrygians, the Lydians, the Carians, the Cilicians, the Paph- lagonians, and the Cappadocians — would tend naturally in the same direction, and lead to the formation of several parallel kingdoms instead of a single and all-embracing one. Never- theless, ultimately, such a great kingdom did grow up; but it had only just been formed when it was subverted by one more powerful. 36 RAWLINSON The most powerful state in the early times seems to have been Phrygia. It had an extensive and fertile territory, espe- cially suited for pasturage, and was also rich in the possession of salt lakes, which largely furnished that necessary of life. The people were brave, but somewhat brutal. They had a lively and martial music. It is probable that they were at no time all united into a single community ; but there is no reason to doubt that a considerable monarchy grew up in the north- western portion of the country, about B.C. 750 or earlier. The capital of the kingdom was Gordiseum on the Sangarius. The monarchs bore alternately the two names of Gordias and Midas. As many as four of each name have been distinguished by some critics; but the dates of the reigns are uncertain. A Midas appears to have been contemporary with Alyattes (about B.C. 600 to 570), and a Gordias with Croesus (B.C. 570 to 560). Phrygia was conquered and became a province of Lydia about B.C. 560. Cilicia was likewise the seat of a monarchy in times anterior to Cyrus. About B.C. 711 Sargon gave the country to Am- bris, king of Tubal, as a dowry with his daughter. Senna- cherib, about B.C. 701, and Esarhaddon, about B.C. 677, in- vaded and ravaged the region. Tarsus was founded by Senna- cherib, about B.C. 685. In B.C. 666 Sardanapalus took to wife a Cilician princess. Fifty years afterwards we find a Syen- nesis seated on the throne, and from this time all the kings appear to have borne that name or title. Cilicia maintained her independence against Croesus, and (probably) against Cy- rus, but submitted to Persia soon afterwards, probably in the reign of Cambyses. Ultimately the most important of all the kingdoms of Asia Minor was Lydia. According to the accounts which Herodo- tus followed, a Lydian kingdom had existed from very ancient times, monarchs to whom he gives the name of Manes, Atys, Lydus, and Meles, having borne sway in Lydia prior to B.C. 1229. This dynasty, which has been called Atyadse, was fol- lowed by one of Heraclidse, which continued in power for 505 years — from B.C. 1229 to 724. (The last six kings of this dynasty are known from Nicholas of Damascus who follows Xanthus, the native writer. They were Adyattes I., Ardys, ANCIENT HISTORY 37 Adyattes II., Meles, Myrsus, and Sadyattes or Candaules.) On the murder of Candaules, B.C. 724, a third dynasty — that of the Mermnadae — bore rule. This continued till B.C. 554, when the last Lydian monarch, Croesus, was conquered by Cyrus. This monarch had previously succeeded in changing his kingdom into an empire, having extended his dominion over all Asia Minor, excepting Lycia, Cilicia, and Cappadocia. PHCENICIA. Phoenicia, notwithstanding the small extent of its territory, which consisted of a mere strip of land between the crest of Lebanon and the sea, was one of the most important countries of the ancient world. In her the commercial spirit first showed itself as the dominant spirit of a nation. She was the carrier between the East and the West — the link that bound them together — in times anterior to the first appearance of the Greeks as navigators. No complete history of Phoenicia has come down to us, nor can a continuous history be constructed ; but some important fragments remain, and the general con- dition of the country, alternating between subjection and in- dependence, is ascertained sufficiently. At no time did Phoenicia form either a single centralized state, or even an organized confederacy. Under ordinary cir- cumstances the states were separate and independent : only in times of danger did they occasionally unite under the leader- ship of the most powerful. The chief cities were Tyre, Sidon, Berytus, Byblus, Tripolis, and Aradus. Of these Sidon seems to have been the most ancient ; and there is reason to believe that, prior to about B.C. 1050, she was the most flourishing of all the Phoenician communities. The priority and precedency enjoyed by Sidon in the remoter times devolved upon Tyre (her colony, according to some) about B.C. 1050. The defeat of Sidon by the Philistines of Ascalon is said to have caused the transfer of power. Tyre, and indeed every Phoenician city, was under the rule of kings ; but the priestly order had considerable influence ; and an aristocracy of birth, or wealth, likewise restrained any tyran- 38 RAWLINSON nical inclinations on the part of the monarch. The Hst of the Tyrian kings from about B.C. 1050 to 830 is known to us from the fragments of Menander. The commercial spirit of Phoenicia was largely displayed during this period, which, till towards its close, was one of absolute independence. The great monarchies of Egypt and Assyria were now, comparatively speaking, weak; and the states between the Euphrates and the African border, being free from external control, were able to pursue their natural bent without interference. Her commercial leanings early in- duced Phoenicia to begin the practice of establishing colonies ; and the advantages which the system was found to secure caused it to acquire speedily a vast development. The coasts and islands of the Mediterranean were rapidly covered with settlements; the Pillars of Hercules were passed, and cities built on the shores of the ocean. At the same time factories were established in the Persian Gulf; and, conjointly with the Jews, on the Red Sea. Phoenicia had at this time no serious commercial rival, and the trade of the world was in her hands. The geographical position of the Phoenician colonies marks the chief lines of their trade, but is far from indicating its full extent ; since the most distant of these settlements served as starting-points whence voyages were made to remoter regions. Phoenician merchantmen proceeding from Gades and Tartes- sus explored the western coast of Africa, and obtained tin from Cornwall and the Scilly Islands. The traders of Tylus and Aradus extended their voyages beyond the Persian Gulf to India and Taprobane, or Ceylon. Phoenician navigators, start- ing from Elath in the Red Sea, procured gold from Ophir, on the south-eastern coast of Arabia. Thasos and the neighbor- ing islands furnished convenient stations from which the Euxine could be visited and commercial relations established with Thrace, Scythia, and Colchis. Some have supposed that the North Sea was crossed and the Baltic entered in quest of amber; but the balance of evidence is, on the whole, against this extreme hypothesis. The sea-trade of the Phoenicians was probably supplemented from a very remote date by a land traffic; but this portion of their commerce scarcely obtained its full development till ANCIENT HISTORY 39 the time of Nebuchadnezzar. A line of communication must indeed have been established early with the Persian Gulf set- tlements ; and in the time of Solomon there was no doubt a route open to Phoenician traders from Tyre or Joppa, through Jerusalem, to Elath. But the generally disturbed state of Western Asia during the Assyrian period would have rendered land traffic then so insecure, that, excepting where it was a necessity, it would have been avoided. Towards the close of the period, whereof the history has been sketched above, the military expeditions of the Assyr- ians began to reach Southern Syria, and Phoenician inde- pendence seems to have been lost. We can not be sure that the submission was continuous ; but from the middle of the ninth till past the middle of the eighth century there occur in the contemporary monuments of Assyria plain indications of Phoenician subjection, while there is no evidence of resist- ance or revolt. Native sovereigns tributary to Assyria reign in the Phoenician towns and are reckoned by the Assyrian monarchs among their dependents. The country ceases to have a history of its own ; and, with one exception, the very names of its rulers have perished. About B.C. 743 the passive submission of Phoenicia to the Assyrian yoke began to be exchanged for an impatience of it, and frequent efiforts were made, from this date till Nineveh fell, to re-establish Phoenician independence. These efforts for the most part failed; but it is not improbable that finally, amid the troubles under which the Assyrian empire succumbed, suc- cess crowned the nation's patriotic exertions, and autonomy was recovered. Scarcely, however, had Assyria fallen, when a new enemy appeared upon the scene. Nechoh of Egypt, about B.C. 608, conquered the whole tract between his own borders and the Euphrates. Phoenicia submitted or was reduced, and remained for three years an Egyptian dependency. Nebuchadnezzar, in B.C. 605, after his defeat of Nechoh at Carchemish, added Phoenicia to Babylon ; and, though Tyre revolted from him eight years later, B.C. 598, and resisted for thirteen years all his attempts to reduce her, yet at length she was compelled to submit, and the Babylo'nian yoke was firmly 40 RAWLINSON fixed on the entire Phoenician people. It is not quite certain that they did not shake it off upon the death of the great Baby- lonian king ; but, on the whole, probability is in favor of their having remained subject till the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus, B.C. 53S. As usual, the internal government of the depend- ency was left to the conquered people, who were ruled at this time either by native kings, or, occasionally, by judges. As Greece rose to power, and as Carthage increased in im- portance, the sea-trade of Phoenicia was to a certain extent checked. The commerce of the Euxine and the ^gean passed almost wholly into the hands of the alien Hellenes ; that of the Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean had to be shared with the daughter state. Meanwhile, however, in consequence of the more settled condition of Western Asia, first under the later Assyrian, and then under the Babylonian monarchs, the land trade received a considerable development. A line of traffic was established with Armenia and Cappa- docia, and Phoenician manufactures were exchanged for the horses, mules, slaves, and brazen or copper utensils of those regions. Another line passed by Tadmor, or Palmyra, to Thapsacus, whence it branched on the one hand through Up- per Mesopotamia to Assyria, on the other down the Euphrates valley to Babylon and the Persian Gulf. Whether a third line traversed the Arabian peninsula from end to end for the sake of the Yemen spices may be doubted ; but, at any rate, communication must have been kept up by land with the friendly Jerusalem, and with the Red Sea, which was certainly frequented by Phoenician fleets. The Phoenician commerce was chiefly a carrying trade ; but there were also a few productions of their own in which their traffic was considerable. The most famous of these was the purple dye, which they obtained from two shell-fish, the buc- cimtm and the murex, and by the use of which they gave a high value to their textile fabrics. Another was glass, whereof they claimed the discovery, and which they manufactured into various articles of use and ornament. They were also skilful in metallurgy ; and their bronzes, their gold and silver vessels, and other works in metal, had a high repute. Altogether, they have a claim to be considered one of the most ingenious of the ANCIENT HISTORY 41 nations of antiquity, though we must not ascribe to them the invention of letters or the possession of any remarkable artistic talent. SYRIA. Syria, prior to its formation into a Persian satrapy, had at no time any political unity. During- the Assyrian period it was divided into at least five principal states, some of which were mere loose confederacies. The five states were — i. The north- ern Hittites. Chief city, Carchemish (probably identical with the later Mabog, now Bambuch). 2. The Patena, on the lower Orontes. Chief city, Kinalua. 3. The people of Hamath, in the Coele-Syrian valley, on the upper Orontes. Chief city, Hamath (now Hamah). 4. The southern Hittites, in the tract south of Hamath. 5. The Syrians of Damascus, in the Anti- Libanus, and the fertile country between that range and the desert. Chief city, Damascus, on the Abana (Barada). Of these states the one which was, if not the most powerful, yet at any rate the most generally known, was Syria of Damas- cus. The city itself was as old as the time of Abraham. The state, which was powerful enough, about B.C. 1000, to escape absorption into the empire of Solomon, continued to enjoy independence down to the time of Tiglath-pileser H., and was a formidable neighbor to the Jewish and Israelite monarchs. After the capture by Tiglath-pileser, about B.C. 732, a time of great weakness and depression ensued. One or two feeble attempts at revolt were easily crushed ; after which, for a while, Damascus wholly disappears from history. JUD^A. The history of the Jews and Israelites is known to us in com- pleter sequence and in greater detail than that of any other people of equal antiquity, from the circumstance that there has been preserved to our day so large a portion of their literature. The Jews became familiar with writing during their sojourn in Egypt, if not even earlier; and kept records of the chief events in their national life from that time almost uninterrupt- edly. From the sacred character which attached to many of ST" '~^~-r -\-^' "r>- »'tf^ pscifer caic "was 1;^yiH 06 t^wyn ; 7— e dowB to IE fiBaz^ ii ___ . ^ _:^l»dT'0ili>^- r-rkaapoe^ n±: ii xsriiJZSJT f;Eiei e: ^._. :if^ Piclr, B.C. T.*9i irE3i>x -ur- rwt:' ir- :Dp=-975 cc th^ — .-E.?s ca ■ ■--"-,. ±it - nor ajTTETs - crrer tr*e "wrn ,^ z.-j - - *x*r , .... jinrr over A^'crENT msroBT 43 Tbe chroQOiogj or :!"_- c«:r:>;«i -= ex::eei:nr'7 T s ncgngm as is evident irz-rz ihe iif^trtnz Jkzis iiii^-i ibove tc tixe -^— ^5 "jz iheir £5>:red btDcis were De r - _ ^ ' ^ ^ - i-i -1 r: _-- -_ ^_-i~;~ ;: i_ _ : : __ ' '"^T "STiS T^'rXTtl'fC SC UC ■wai Airsin- rT*^" "-'^ ~ lii'T n^-tioc iS is «»ei5C is cvs". Tie Anrmo- -_-f^ : "' " " ^ ■ T. snc tile rbilistines z" ^'' ^ jtier. rsrsse Israelites ro f - — ^ Jssre ~o or 1 - - -'rrke^ trt ir-jtL. Urice" Ott the c-j-trarv. - _ : ~:trv of t2sis tine ot weakness, the I = ri race ia STTia. An f ■ ~ - tr:?m. the Errpcrares a: ^ ^~- ~; Egvpt. Xnm.- :-i^ -r; ~: j who rei^s it " "te" rrtrrs hi ^ into the t" , res are cj :f-j^ . triie is ; - : both with the East and wirh dse W«c : die cecrr of 7er- Ties in splencor with these of Niaev^ ami M«a- pfais : i. iixur*. his hrvanied the comtry : a sera^^o oa tiae larpest ^ _ „_^ :.,j^- j^^j.-^- - :- — - -- — ; ;--?fe- ^^^- i growth was necessarily i, ^ - nve of the Tarixm's 44 RAWLINSON strength; and the decHne of the IsraeHtes as a people dates from the division of the kingdom. Saul, divinely pointed out to Samuel, is anointed by him, and afterwards accepted by the people upon the casting of lots. He is remarkable for his comeliness and lofty stature. In his first year he defeats the Ammonites, who had overrun the land of Gilead. He then makes war on the Philistines, and gains the great victory of Michmash ; from which time till near the close of his reign the Philistines remain upon the defensive. He also attacks the Amalekites, the Moabites, the Edomites, and the Syrians of Zobah. In the Amalekite war he offends God by disobedience, and thereby forfeits his right to the king- dom. Samuel, by divine command, anoints David, who is thenceforth an object of jealousy and hatred to the reigning monarch, but is protected by Jonathan, his son. Towards the close of Saul's reign the Philistines once more assume the of- fensive, under Achish, king of Gath, and at Mount Gilboa defeat the Israelites under Saul. Saul, and all his sons but one (Ishbosheth), fall in the battle. A temporary division of the kingdom follows the death of Saul. Ishbosheth, conveyed across the Jordan by Abner, is acknowledged as ruler in Gilead, and after five years, during which his authority is extended over all the tribes except Judah, is formally crowned as King of Israel at Mahanaim. He reigns there two years, when he is murdered. Meanwhile David is made king by his own tribe, Judah, and reigns at Hebron. On the death of Ishbosheth, David became king of the whole nation. His first act was the capture of Jerusalem, which up to this time had remained in the possession of the Jebusites. Having taken it, he made it the seat of government, built him- self a palace there, and, by removing to it the Ark of the Cove- nant, constituted it the national sanctuary. At the same time a court was formed at the new capital, a moderate seraglio set up, and a royal state affected unknown hitherto in Israel. A vast aggrandizement of the state by means of foreign con- quests followed. The Philistines were chastised, Gath taken, and the Israelite dominions in this quarter pushed as far as Gaza. Moab was invaded, two-thirds of the inhabitants ex- ANCIENT HISTORY 45 terminated, and the remainder forced to pay an annual tribute to the conqueror. War followed with Amnion, and with the various Syrian states interposed between the Holy Land and the Euphrates. At least three great battles were foug-ht, with the result that the entire tract between the Jordan and the Eu- phrates was added to the Israelite territory. A campaign re- duced Edom, and extended the kingdom to the Red Sea. An empire was thus formed, which proved indeed short-lived, but was as real while it lasted as those of Assyria or Babylon. The glories of David's reign were tarnished by two re- bellions. The fatal taint of polygamy, introduced by David into the nation, gave occasion to these calamities, which arose from the mutual jealousies of his sons. First Absalom, and then Adonijah, assume the royal title in their father's lifetime ; and pay for treason, the one immediately, the other ultimately, with their lives. After the second rebellion, David secures the succession to Solomon by associating him upon the throne. The reign of Solomon is the culminating point of Jewish history. Resistance on the part of the conquered states has, with scar':ely an exception, now ceased, and the new king can afiford to be " a man of peace." The position of his kingdom among the nations of the earth is acknowledged by the neigh- boring powers, and the reigning Pharaoh does not scruple to give him his daughter in marriage. A great commercial move- ment follows. By alliance with Hiram of Tyre, Solomon is admitted to a share in the profits of Phoenician traffic, and the vast influx of the precious metals into Palestine which results from this arrangement enables the Jewish monarch to indulge freely his taste for ostentation and display. The court is recon- structed on an increased scale. A new palace of enlarged di- mensions and far greater architectural magnificence super- sedes the palace of David. The seraglio is augmented, and reaches a point which has no known parallel. A throne of extraordinary grandeur proclaims in language intelligible to all the wealth and greatness of the empire. Above all, a sanct- uary for the national worship is constructed on the rock of Moriah, on which all the mechanical and artistic resources of the time are lavished ; and the Ark of the Covenant, whose wanderings have hitherto marked the unsettled and insecure 46 RAWLINSON condition of the nation, obtains at length a fixed and perma- nent resting-place. But close upon the heels of success and glory follows decline. The trade of Solomon — a State monopoly — enriched himself but not his subjects. The taxes which he imposed on the prov- inces for the sustentation of his enormous court exhausted and impoverished them. His employment of vast masses of the people in forced labors of an unproductive character was a wrongful and uneconomical interference with industry, which crippled agriculture and aroused a strong feeling of discontent. Local jealousies were provoked by the excessive exaltation of the tribe of Judah. The enervating influence of luxury began to be felt. Finally, a subtle corruption was allowed to spread itself through all ranks by the encouragement given to false religions, religions whose licentious and cruel rites were sub- versive of the first principles of morality, and even of decency. The seeds of the disintegration which showed itself imme- diately upon the death of Solomon were sown during his life- time ; and it is only surprising that they did not come to light earlier and interfere more seriously with the prosperity of his long reign. On the death of Solomon, the disintegrating forces, already threatening the unity of the empire, received, through the folly of his successor, a sudden accession of strength, which pre- cipitated the catastrophe. Rehoboam, entreated to lighten the burdens of the Israelites, declared his intention of increasing their weight, and thus drove the bulk of his native subjects into rebellion. The disunion of the conquering people gave the conquered tribes an opportunity of throwing ofif the yoke, whereof with few exceptions they availed themselves. In lieu of the puissant State, which under David and Solomon took rank among the foremost powers of the earth, we have hence- forth to deal with two petty kingdoms of small account, the interest of whose history is religious rather than political. The kingdom of Israel, established by the revolt of Jero- boam, comprises ten out of the twelve tribes, and reaches from the borders of Damascus and Hamath to within ten miles of Jerusalem. It includes the whole of the trans- Jordanic terri- tory, and exercises lordship over the adjoining country of ANCIENT HISTORY 47 Moab. The proportion of its population to that of Juclah in the early times may be estimated as two to one. But the advantage of superior size, fertility, and population is counter- balanced by the inferiority of every Israelite capital to Jerusa- lem, and by the fundamental weakness of a government which, deserting purity of religion, adopts for expediency's sake an unauthorized and semi-idolatrous worship. In vain a succes- sion of Prophets, some of them endowed with extraordinary miraculous power, struggled against this fatal taint. Idolatry, intertwined with the nation's life, could not be rooted out. One form of the evil led on to other and worse forms. The national strength was sapped; and it scarcely required an attack from without to bring the State to dissolution. The actual fall, however, is produced B.C. 721, by the growing power of Assyria, which has even at an earlier date forced some of the monarchs to pay tribute. The separate kingdom of Judah, commencing at the same date with that of Israel, outlasted it by considerably more than a century. Composed of two entire tribes only, with refugees from the remainder, and confined to the lower and less fertile portion of the Holy Land, it compensated for these disadvan- tages by its compactness, its unity, the strong position of its capital, and the indomitable spirit of its inhabitants, who felt themselves the real " people of God," the true inheritors of the marvellous past, and the only rightful claimants of the greater marvels promised in the future. Surrounded as it was by petty enemies, Philistines, Arabians, Ammonites, Israelites, Syrians, and placed in the pathway between two mighty pow- ers, Assyria and Egypt, its existence was continually threat- ened ; but the valor of its people and the protection of Divine Providence preserved it intact during a space of nearly four centuries. In striking contrast with the sister kingdom of the North, it preserved during this long space, almost without a break, the hereditary succession of its kings, who followed one another in the direct line of descent, as long as there was no foreign intervention. Its elasticity in recovering from defeat is most remarkable. Though forced repeatedly to make ig- nominious terms of peace, though condemned to see on three occasions its capital in the occupation of an enemy, it rises 48 RAWLINSON from disaster with its strength seemingly unimpaired, defies Assyria in one reign, confronts Egypt in another, and is only crushed at last by the employment against it of the full force of the Babylonian empire. PART II.— AFRICAN NATIONS. PRELIMINARY REMARKS ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT AFRICA. The continent of Africa offers a remarkable contrast to that of Asia in every important physical characteristic. Asia ex- tends itself through all three zones, the torrid, the frigid, and the temperate, and Hes mainly in the last, or most favored of them. Africa belongs almost entirely to the torrid zone, ex- tending only a little way north and south into those portions of the two temperate zones which lie nearest to the tropics. Asia has a coast deeply indented with numerous bays and gulfs ; Africa has but one considerable indentation — the Gulf of Guinea on its western side.. Asia, again, is traversed by fre- quent and lofty mountain chains, the sources from which flow numerous rivers of first-rate magnitude. Africa has but two great rivers, the Nile and the Niger, and is deficient in moun- tains of high elevation. Finally, Asia possesses numerous lit- toral islands of a large size ; Africa has but one such island, Madagascar; and even the islets which lie off its coast are, comparatively speaking, few. Its equatorial position, its low elevation, and its want of im- portant rivers, render Africa the hottest, the dryest, and the most infertile of the four continents. In the north a sea of sand, known as the Sahara, stretches from east to west across the entire continent from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, and occupies fully one-fifth of its surface. Smaller tracts of an almost equally arid character occur towards the south. Much of the interior consists of swampy jungle, impervious, and fatal to human life. The physical characteristics of the continent render it generally unapt for civilization or for the growth of great states : it is only in a few regions that Nature wears a more benignant aspect, and offers conditions favorable to human progress. These regions are chiefly in the north and 4 49 so RAWLINSON the north-east, in the near vicinity of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. It was only the more northern part of Africa that was known to the ancients, or that had any direct bearing on the history of the ancient world. Here the geographical features were very marked and striking. First, there lay close along the sea-shore a narrow strip of generally fertile territory, watered by streams which emptied themselves into the Mediterranean. South of this was a tract of rocky mountain, less fitted for human habitation, though in places producing abundance of dates. Thirdly, came the Great Desert, interspersed with oases — islands in the sea of sand containing springs of water and a flourishing vegetation. Below the Sahara, and com- pletely separated by it from any political contact with the coun- tries of the north, but crossed occasionally by caravans for purposes of commerce, was a second fertile region — a land of large rivers and lakes, where there were cities and a numer- ous population. The western portion of North Africa stood, in some respects, in marked contrast with the eastern. Towards the east the fertile coast-tract is in general exceedingly narrow, and spar- ingly watered by a small number of insignificant streams. The range of bare rocky hills from which they flow — the continua- tion of Atlas — is of low elevation ; and the Great Desert often approaches within a very short distance of the coast. Towards the west the lofty range of Atlas, running at a considerable distance (200 miles) from the shore, allows a broad tract of fertile ground to intervene between its crest and the sea. The range itself is well wooded, and gives birth to many rivers of a fair size. Here states of importance may grow up, for the resources of the tract are great ; the soil is good ; the climate not insalubrious; but towards the east Nature has been a niggard; and, from long. 10° E. nearly to long. 30°, there is not a single position where even a second-rate state could long maintain itself. The description of North Africa, which has been here given, holds good as far as long. 30° ; but east of this line there com- mences another and very different region. From the high- lands of Abyssinia and the great reservoirs on the line of the ANCIENT HISTORY 51 equator, the Nile rolls down its vast body of waters with a course whose general direction is from south to north, and, meeting the Desert, flows across it in a mighty stream, which renders this corner of the continent the richest and most valu- able of all the tracts contained in it. The Nile valley is 3000 miles long, and, in its upper portion, of unknown width. When it enters the Desert, about lat. 16°, its width contracts; and from the sixth cataract down to Cairo, the average breadth of the cultivable soil does not exceed fifteen miles. This soil, however, is of the best possible quality; and the possession of the strip on either side of the river, and of the broader tract known as the Delta, about its mouth, naturally constitutes the power which holds it a great and important state. The proximity of this part of Africa to Western Asia and to Europe, its healthiness and comparatively temperate climate, likewise favored the development in this region of an early civilization and the formation of a monarchy which played an important part in the history of the ancient world. Above the point at w^iich the Nile enters the Desert, on the right or east bank of the stream, occurs another tract, physi- cally very remarkable, and capable of becoming politically of high consideration. Here there is interposed between the main stream of the Nile and the Red Sea an elevated table-land, 8000 feet above the ocean-level, surrounded and intersected by mountains, w^hich rise in places to the height of 15,000 feet. These lofty masses attract and condense the vapors that float in from the neighboring sea ; and the country is thus subject to violent rains, w^hich during the summer months fill the river- courses, and, flowing down them to the Nile, are the cause of that stream's periodical overflow^ and so of the rich fertility of Egypt. The abundance of moisture renders the plateau generally productive ; and the region, which may be regarded as containing from 200,000 to 250,000 square miles, is thus one well capable of nourishing and sustaining a power of the first magnitude. The nations inhabiting Northern Africa in the times an- terior to Cyrus were, according to the belief of the Greeks, five. These were the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, and the Libyans. 52 RAWLINSON EGYPT. To the Eg-yptians belonged the Nile valley from lat. 24° to the coast, together with the barren region between that valley and the Red Sea, and the fertile tract of the Faioom about Moeris, on the opposite side of the stream. Its most important portion was the Delta, which contained about 8000 square miles, and was studded with cities of note. The chief towns were, however, in the narrow valley. These were Memphis, not much above the apex of the Delta, and Thebes, about lat. 26°. Besides these, the places of importance were, in Upper Egypt, Elephantine and Chemmis, or Panopolis ; in the lower country, Heliopolis, Sais, Sebennytus, Mendes, Tanis, Bubas- tis, and Pelusium. The Nile was the only Egyptian river ; but at the distance of about ninety miles from the sea, the great stream divided itself into three distinct channels, known as the Canobic, the Sebennytic, and the Pelusiac branches, while, lower down, these channels further subdivided themselves, so that in the time of Herodotus the Nile waters reached the Mediterranean by seven distinct mouths. Egypt had one large and several smaller lakes. The large lake, known by the name of Moeris, lay on the west side of the Nile, in lat. 29° 50'. It was believed to be artificial, but was reaUy a natural de- pression. ETHIOPIA. The Ethiopians held the valley of the Nile above Egypt, and the whole of the plateau from which descend the great Nile affluents, the modern country of Abyssinia. Their chief city was Meroe. Little was known of the tract by the ancients ; but it was believed to be excessively rich in gold. A tribe called Troglodyte Ethiopians — i. e., Ethiopians who burrowed underground — is mentioned as inhabiting the Sahara where it adjoins upon Fezzan. ANCIENT HISTORY 53 GREEK SETTLEMENTS. The Greeks had colonized the portion of North Africa which approached most nearly to the Peloponnese, having settled at Cyrene about B. C. 630, and at Barca about seventy years after- wards. They had also a colony at Naucratis in Egypt, and perhaps a settlement at the greater Oasis. LIBYANS. The Libyans possessed the greater part of Northern Africa, extending, as they did, from the borders of Egypt to the At- lantic Ocean, and from the Mediterranean to the Great Desert. They were divided into a number of tribes, among which the following were the most remarkable : the Adyrmachidae, who bordered on Egypt, the Nasamonians on the greater Syrtis, the Garamantes in the modern Fezzan, and the Atlantes in the range of Atlas. Most of these races were nomadic ; but some of the more western cultivated the soil, and, consequently, had fixed abodes. Politically, all these tribes were excessively weak. CARTHAGE. The Carthaginians, or Liby-Phoenicians — immigrants into Africa, like the Greeks — had fixed themselves in the fertile region north of the Atlas chain, at the point where it approaches nearest to Sicily. Here in a cluster lay the important towns of Carthage, Utica, Hippo Zaritus, Tunis, and Zama Regia, while a little removed were Adrumetum, Leptis, and Hippo Regius. The entire tract was fertile and well watered, inter- sected by numerous ranges, spurs from the main chain of Atlas. Its principal river was the Bagrada (now Majerdah), which emptied itself into the sea a little to the north-west of Carthage. The entire coast was indented by numerous bays ; and excellent land-locked harbors were formed by salt lakes connected with the sea by narrow channels. Such was the Hipponites Palus (L. Benzart) near Hippo Zaritus, and the great harbor of Carthage, now that of Tunis. Next to the 54 RAWLINSON Nile valley, this was the portion of Northern Africa most fa- vored by Nature, and best suited for the habitation of a great power. The early establishment of monarchical government in Egypt is indicated in Scripture by the mention of a Pharaoh as contemporary with Abraham. The full account which is given of the general character of the kingdom administered by Joseph suggests as the era of its foundation a date consid- erably more ancient than that of Abraham's visit. The priests themselves claimed for the monarchy, in the time of Herodo- tus, an antiquity of above ii,ooo years. Manetho, writing after the reduction of his country by the Macedonians, was more moderate, assigning to the thirty dynasties which, ac- cording to him, preceded the Macedonian conquest, a number of years amounting in the aggregate to rather more than 5000. The several items which produce this amount may be correct, or nearly so; but, if their sum is assumed as measuring the duration of the monarchy, the calculation will be largely in excess; for the Egyptian monuments show that Manetho's dynasties were often reigning at the same time in diiTerent parts of the country. The difficulty of determining the true chronology of early Egypt arises from an uncertainty as to the extent to which Manetho's dynasties were contemporary. The monuments prove a certain amount of contemporaneity. But it is unreasonable to suppose that they exhaust the subject, or do more than indicate a practice the extent of which must be determined, partly by examination of our documents, partly by reasonable conjecture. A careful examination of the names and numbers in Mane- tho's lists, and a laborious investigation of the monuments, have led the best EngHsh Egyptologers to construct, or adopt, the subjoined scheme, as that which best expresses the real position in which Manetho's first seventeen dynasties stood to one another. It will be seen that, according to this scheme, there were in Egypt during the early period, at one time two, at another three, at another five or even six, parallel or contemporaneous kingdoms, established in different parts of the country. For example, while the first and second dynasties of Manetho were ANCIENT HISTORY 55 About B.C. 2700 2500 2400 2200 1st Dynasty, Thinite. 2d Dynasty, ^ 3d Dynasty, Memphite, 4th 1900 1800 1700 1600 Thinite. Dynasty, Memphite. 6th Dynasty, Memphite. 7th and 8th Dynasties, Memphite. 5th Dynasty, Elephan- tine. 9th I nth Dynasty, Dynasty, Heracle- opohte. loth Dynasty, Heracle- opolite. Thebans. 12th 14th Dynasty, Dynasty, Thebans. Aoites. 13th Dynasty, Thebans. iSth Dynasty, Shepherds, 17th Dynasty, Shepherds, i6th Dynasty, Shepherds. ruling at This, his third, fourth, and sixth bore sway at Mem- phis ; and, during a portion of this time, his fifth dynasty was ruHng at Elephantine, his ninth at Heracleopolis, and his elev- enth at Thebes or Diospolis. And the same general condition of things prevailed till near the close of the sixteenth century B.C., when Egypt was, probably for the first time, united into a single kingdom, ruled from the one centre, Thebes. It is doubtful how far the names and numbers in Mane- tho's first and third dynasties are historical. The correspond- ence of the name, Menes (M'na), with that of other traditional founders of nations, or first men — with the Manes of Lydia, the Phrygian Manis, the Cretan Minos, the Indian Menu, the German Mannus, and the like — raises a suspicion that here too we are dealing with a fictitious personage, an ideal and not 56 RAWLINSON a real founder. The improbably long reign assigned to M'na (sixty or sixty-two years), and his strange death — he is said to have been killed by a hippopotamus — increase the doubt which the name causes. M'na's son and successor, Athothis (Thoth), the Egyptian ^sculapius, seems to be equally myth- ical. The other names are such as may have been borne by real kings, and it is possible that in Manetho's time they existed on monuments ; but the chronology, which, in the case of the first dynasty, gives an average of thirty-two or thirty-three years to a reign, is evidently in excess, and can not be trusted. First Dynasty (Thinitk). Third Dynasty (Memphite). Kings. Years. Kings. Years. Euseb. Afric. Euseb. Afric. I. Menes 60 27 39 42 20 26 18 26 62 57 31 23 20 26 18 26 1. Necherophes 2. Tosorthrus •?. Tvreis. 28 2. Athothis (his son). . . 3. Kenkenes (his son). . 4. Uenephes (his son) . 5. Usaphffidus (his son) 6. Miebidus (his son) . . 7. Semempses (his son). 8. Bieneches (his son) . . 29 7 4. Mesochris 17 5. Suphis , . 6. Tosertasis 16 7. Aches 42 8. Sephuris 26 9. Kerpheres 258 263 298 214 With Manetho's second and fourth dynasties we reach the time of contemporary monuments, and feel ourselves on sure historical ground. The tomb of Koeechus (Ke-ke-ou), the second king of the second dynasty, has been found near the pyramids of Gizeh ; and Soris (Shure), Suphis I. (Shufu), Suphis II. (Nou-shufu), and Mencheres (Men-ka-re), the first four kings of the fourth, are known to us from several inscrip- tions. There is distinct monumental evidence that the second, fourth, and fifth dynasties were contemporary. The fourth was the principal one of the three, and bore sway at Memphis over Lower Egypt, while the second ruled Middle Egypt from This, and the fifth Upper Egypt from Elephantine. Probably the kings of the second and fifth dynasties were connected by blood with those of the fourth, and held their respective crowns by permission of the Memphite sovereigns. The tombs of ANCIENT HISTORY 57 monarchs belonging to all three dynasties exist in the neigh- borhood of Memphis ; and there is even some doubt whether a king of the fifth, Shafre, was not the true founder of the " Second Pyramid " near that city. The date of the establishment at Memphis of the fourth dynasty is given variously as B.C. 3209 (Bunsen), B.C. 2450 (Wilkinson), and B.C. 2440 (Poole). And the time during which it occupied the throne is estimated variously at 240, 210, and 155 years. The Egyptian practice of association is a fertile source of chronological confusion ; and all estimates of the duration of a dynasty, so long as the practice continued, are mainly conjectural. Still the comparatively low dates of the English Egyptologers are on every ground preferable to the higher dates of the Germans ; and the safest conclusion that can be drawn from a comparison of Manetho with the monu- ments seems to be, that a powerful monarchy was established at Memphis as early as the middle of the twenty-fifth century B.C., which was in some sort paramount over the whole country. It is evident from the monuments that the civilization of Egypt at this early date was in many respects of an advanced order. A high degree of mechanical science and skill is im- plied in the quarrying, transporting, and raising into place of the huge blocks whereof the pyramids are composed, and con- siderable mathematical knowledge in the emplacement of each pyramid so as exactly to face the cardinal points. Writing appears in no rudimentary form, but in such a shape as to imply long use. Besides the hieroglyphics, which are well and accurately cut, a cursive character is seen on some of the blocks, the precursor of the later hieratic. The reed-pen and inkstand are among the hieroglyphics employed ; and the scribe appears, pen in hand, in the paintings on the tombs, making notes on linen or papyrus. The drawing of human and animal figures is fully equal, if not superior, to that of later times ; and the trades represented are nearly the same as are found under the Ramesside kings. Altogether it is apparent that the Egyptians of the Pyramid period were not just emerging out of barbarism, but were a people who had made very considerable progress in the arts of life. 58 RAWLINSON The governmental system was not of the simple character which is found in kingdoms recently formed out of village or tribe communities, but had a complicated organization of the sort which usually grows up with time. Egypt was divided into nomes, each of which had its governor. The military and civil services were separate, and each possessed various grades and kinds of functionaries. The priest caste was as distinct as in later times, and performed much the same duties. Aggressive war had begun to be waged. The mineral treas- ures of the Sinaitic peninsula excited the cupidity of the Mem- phitic kings, and Soris, the first king of the dynasty, seems to have conquered and occupied it. The copper mines o{ Wady Maghara and Sarabit-el-Kadim were worked by the great Pyr- amid monarchs, whose operations there were evidently exten- sive. Whether there is any ground for regarding the kinds in question as especially tyrannical, may perhaps be doubted. One of them was said to have written a sacred book, and an- other (according to Herodotus) had the character of a mild and good monarch. The pyramids may have been built by the labor of captives taken in war, in which case the native popu- lation would not have suffered by their erection. CONTEMPORARY DYNASTIES FROM ABOUT B.C. 2440 TO 2830. Branch Dynasty. II. Thinite. Yrs. 1. Boethus or Bochus 38 2. Koeechus (Ke - ke - ou) 39 3. Binothris 47 4. Tlas. . . 17 5. Sethenes 41 6. Chaeres 17 7. Nephercheres 25 8. Sesochris 48 9. Cheneres 30 302 Chief or Stem Dynasty. IV. Memphite. Yrs. 1. Soris 29 2. Suphis I ^ 3. Suphis II. (broth- >66 er) ) 4. Mencheres (son of Suphis I.) 63 5. Ratoises 25 6. Bicheris 22 7. Sebercheres 7 8. Thamphthis 9 221 Branch Dynasty. V. Ele- phantine. Yrs. 1. Usercheres (Osir- kef) 28 2. Sephres (Shafre) . . 13 3. Nephercheres (Nofr-ir-ke-re) . . 20 4. Sisires (Osir-n-re). 7 5. Cheres 20 6. Rathures , 44 7. Mencheres 9 8. Tancheres 44 9. Onnus(U-nas), . . . 33 218 The fourth or " pyramid " dynasty was succeeded at Mem- phis by the sixth Manethonian dynasty, about B.C. 2220. The ANCIENT HISTORY 59 second and fifth still bore sway at This and Elephantine ; while wholly new and probably independent dynasties now started up at Heracleopolis and Thebes. The Memphitic kings lost their pre-eminence. Egypt was broken up into really separate kingdoms, among which the Theban gradually became the most powerful. CONTEMPORARY DYNASTIES FROM ABOUT B.C. 2220 TO 2080. II. Thinite. (Continuing under the last three kings. ^ VI. Memphite. Yrs. I. Othoes .... 30 [2. Phios S3 3. Methosuphis 7] 4. Phiops (Pepi) 100 5. Menthesuphis i 6. Nitocris (Neit akret) 12 143 V. Elephantine. IX. Hera- CLEO POLITE. (Continuing.) Achthoes (Muntopt I. Series of Enentefs. Muntopt II.). XI. Theban. Sixteen kings. 17. Ammenemes (Amun-m-h^). The weakness of Egypt, thus parcelled out into five king- doms, tempted foreign attack ; and, about B.C. 2080, or a little later, a powerful enemy entered Lower Egypt from the north- east, and succeeded in destroying the Memphite kingdom, and obtaining possession of almost the whole country below lat. 29° 30'. These were the so-called Hyk-sos, or Shepherd Kings, nomades from either Syria or Arabia, who exercised with ex- treme severity all the rights of conquerors, burning the cities, razing the temples to the ground, exterminating the male Egyptian population, and making slaves of the women and children. There is reason to believe that at least two Shepherd dynasties (Manetho's fifteenth and sixteenth) were established simultaneously in the conquered territory, the fifteenth reign- ing at Memphis, and the sixteenth either in the Delta, or at Avaris (Pelusium?). Native Egyptian dynasties continued, however, to hold much of the country. The ninth (Heracleop- olite) held the Faioom and the Nile valley southward as far as Hermopolis ; the twelfth bore sway at Thebes ; the fifth continued undisturbed at Elephantine. In the heart, more- over, of the Shepherd conquests, a new native kingdom sprang up ; and the fourteenth (Xoite) dynasty maintained itself throughout the whole period of Hyk-sos ascendency in the most central portion of the Delta. 6o RAWLINSON CONTEMPORARY DYNASTIES FROM ABOUT B.C. 2080 TO 1900. V. Ele- IX. Hera- phantine. CLEOPOLITE. (Continuing (Continu- till about ing.) B.C. 1850.) XII. Theban. Yrs. I. Sesonchosis, son of Ammeneraes (Se- sortasen I.) 46 a.Ammenemes II. (Amun-m-lie II.).. 38 3. Sesostris (Sesorta- sen II.) 48 4. [La]mares (Am-un- m-he III.) 8 5. Ameres 8 6. Ammenemes III. (Amun-m-helV.). 8 7. Skemiophris (his sis- ter) 4 160 XIII. Theban. XIV. XOITE. Seventy- six kings in 484 years. XV. Shepherds. XVI. Shepherds. Yrs. I. Salatis... 19 . Thirty kings in 2. Bnon .... 44 3. Apachnas 36 4. Apophis . 61 5. J annas. .. 50 6. Asses .... 49 259 518 years. Simultaneously with the irruption of the Shepherds occurred an increase of the power of Thebes, which, under the monarchs of the twelfth dynasty, the Sesortasens and Amun-m-hes ac- quired a paramount authority over all Egypt from the borders of Ethiopia to the neighborhood of Memphis. The Elephan- tine and Heracleopolite dynasties, though continuing, became subordinate. Even Heliopolis, below Memphis, ov^^ned the authority of these powerful monarchs, who held the Sinaitic peninsula, and carried their arms into Arabia and Ethiopia. Amun-m-he III., who seems to be the Maris (or Lamaris) of Manetho and the Moeris of Herodotus, constructed the remarkable work in the Faioom known as the Labyrinth. Se- sortasen I. built numerous temples, and erected an obelisk. Architecture and the arts generally flourished ; irrigation was extended ; and the oppression of Lower Egypt under the rude Shepherd kings seemed for a considerable time to have aug- mented, rather than diminished, the prosperity of the Upper country. But darker days arrived. The Theban monarchs of the thir- teenth dynasty, less warlike or less fortunate than their prede- cessors, found themselves unable to resist the terrible Shep- herds, and, quitting their capital, fled into Ethiopia, while the invaders wreaked their vengeance on the memorials of the Sesortasens. Probably, after a while, the refugees returned ANCIENT HISTORY 6i and took up the position of tributaries, a position which must also have been occupied by all the other native monarchs who still maintained themselves, excepting possibly the Xoites, who may have found the marshes of the Delta an efifectual protection. The complete establishment of the authority of the Shepherds may be dated about B.C. 1900. Their do- minion lasted till about B.C. 1525. The seventh and eighth (Memphitic) dynasties, the tenth (Heracleopolite), and the seventeenth (Shepherd) belong to this interval. This is the darkest period of Egyptian history. The Shepherds left no monuments ; and during nearly 300 years the very names of the kings are unknown to us. A new day breaks upon us with the accession to power of Manetho's eighteenth dynasty, about B.C. 1525. A great na- tional movement, headed by Amosis (Ames or Aahmes), king of the Thebaid, drove the foreign invaders, after a stout con- flict, from the soil of Egypt, and, releasing the country from the incubus which had so long lain upon it, allowed the genius of the people free play. The most flourishing period of Egyptian history followed. The Theban king, who had led the move- ment, received as his reward the supreme authority over the whole country, a right which was inherited by his successors. Egypt was henceforth, until the time of the Ethiopic conquest, a single centralized monarchy. Contemporary dynasties ceased. Egyptian art attained its highest perfection. The great temple-palaces of Thebes were built. Numerous obelisks were erected. Internal prosperity led to aggressive wars. Ethiopia, Arabia, and Syria were invaded. The Euphrates was crossed; and a portion of Mesopotamia added to the empire. The decline of Egypt under the twentieth dynasty is very marked. We can ascribe it to nothing but internal decay — a decay proceeding mainly from those natural causes which are always at work, compelling nations and races, like indi- viduals, after they have reached maturity, to sink in vital force, to become debilitated, and finally to perish. Under the nine- teenth dynasty Egypt reached her highest pitch of greatness, internal and external ; under the twentieth she rapidly sank, alike in military power, in artistic genius, and in taste. For 62 RAWLINSON a space of almost two centuries, from about B.C. 1170 to 990, she scarcely undertook a single important enterprise; her architectural efforts during the whole of this time were mean, and her art without spirit or life. Subsequently, in the space between B.C. 990 and the Persian conquest, B.C. 525, she experienced one or two " revivals ; " but the reaction on these occasions, being spasmodic and forced, exhausted rather than recruited her strength ; nor did the efforts made, great as they were, suffice to do more than check for a while the decadence which they could not avert. Among the special causes which produced this unusually rapid decline, the foremost place must be assigned to the spirit of caste, and particularly to the undue predominance of the sacerdotal order. It is true that castes, in the strict sense of the word, did not exist in Egypt, since a son was not abso- lutely compelled to follow his father's profession. But the separation of classes was so sharply and clearly defined, the hereditary descent of professions was so much the rule, that the system closely approximated to that which has been so long established in India, and which prevails there at the present day. It had, in fact, all the evils of caste. It discouraged prog- ress, advance, improvement ; it repressed personal ambition ; it produced deadness, flatness, dull and tame uniformity. The priestly influence, which pervaded all ranks from the highest to the lowest, was used to maintain a conventional standard, alike in thought, in art, and in manners. Any tendency to deviate from the set forms of the old religion, that at any time showed itself, was sternly checked. The inclination of art to become naturalistic was curbed and subdued. All intercourse with foreigners, which might have introduced changes of man- ners, was forbidden. The aim was to maintain things at a certain set level, which was fixed and unalterable. But, as " non progredi est regredi," the result of repressing all advance and improvement was to bring about a rapid and general de- terioration. The growing influence of the priests, which seems to have reduced the later monarchs of the twentieth dynasty to faineants, was shown still more markedly in the accession to power, about B.C. 1085, of the priestly dynasty of " Tanites," ANCIENT HISTORY 63 who occupy the twenty-first place in Manetho's list. These kings, who style themselves " High-priests of Amun," and who wear the priestly costume, seem to have held their court at Tanis (Zoan), in the Delta, but were acknowledged for kings equally in Upper Egypt. It must have been to one of them that Hadad lied when Joab slaughtered the Edomites, and in their ranks also must be sought the Pharaoh who gave his daughter in marriage to Solomon. According to Manetho, the dynasty held the throne for rather more than a hundred years ; but the computation is thought to be in excess. With Sheshonk, the first king of the twenty-second dynasty, a revival of Egyptian power to a certain extent occurred. Though Sheshonk himself takes the title of " High-priest of Amun," having married the daughter of Pisham 11., the last king of the sacerdotal (twenty-first) dynasty, yet beyond this no priestly character attaches to the monarchs of his house. Sheshonk resumes the practice of military expeditions, and his example is followed by one of the Osorkons. Monuments of some pretensions are erected by the kings of the line, at Thebes and at Bubastis in the Delta, which latter is the royal city of the time. The revival, however, is partial and short- lived, the later monarchs of the dynasty being as undistin- guished as any that had preceded them on the throne. The decline of the monarchy advanced now with rapid strides. On the death of Takelot H., a disintegration of the kingdom seems to have taken place. While the Bubastite line was carried on in a third Pisham (or Pishai) and a fourth Sheshonk, a rival line, Manetho's twenty-third dynasty, sprang up at Tanis, and obtained the chief power. The kings of this line, who are four in number, are wholly undistinguished. A transfer of the seat of empire to Sais, another city of the Delta, now took place. A king whom Manetho and Diodorus called Bocchoris (perhaps Pehor) ascended the throne. This monarch, after he had reigned forty-four years — either as an independent prince or as a tributary to Ethiopia — was put to death by Sabaco, an Ethiopian, who conquered Egypt and founded the twenty-fifth dynasty. Thus it appears that between B.C. 730 and 665 Egypt was conquered twice — first by the Ethiopians, and then, within 64 RAWLINSON about sixty years, by the Assyrians. The native Egyptian army had grown to be weak and contemptible, from a prac- tice, which sprang up under the Sheshonks, of employing mainly foreign troops in military expeditions. There was also (as has been observed already) a general decline of the national spirit, which made submission to a foreign yoke less galling than it would have been at an earlier date. It is difificult to say at what exact time the yoke of Assyria was thrown off. Psammetichus (Psamatik I.), who seems to have succeeded his father, Nechoh, or to have been associated by him, almost immediately after his (Nechoh's) establishment as viceroy by Asshur-bani-pal, counted his reign from the abdication of Tirhakah, as if he had from that time been inde- pendent and sole king. But there can be little doubt that in reality for several years he was merely one of many rulers, all equally subject to the great monarch of Assyria. The revolt which he headed may have happened in the reign of Asshur- bani-pal; but, more probably, it fell in that of his successor. Perhaps its true cause was the shattering of Assyrian power by the invasion of the Scyths, about B.C. 632. Psammetichus, by the aid of Greek mercenaries, and (apparently) after some opposition from his brother viceroys, made himself indepen- dent, and established his dominion over the whole of Egypt. Native rule was thus restored after nearly a century of foreign domination. The revolts of Egypt from Persia will necessarily come under consideration in the section on the Achsemenian Monarchy. Egypt was the most disaffected of all the Persian provinces, and was always striving after independence. Her antagonism to Persia seems to have been less political than polemical. It was no doubt fermented by the priests. On two occasions independence was so far achieved that native rulers were set up ; and Manetho counts three native dynasties as interrupting the regular succession of the Persians. These form the twenty- eighth, the twenty-ninth, and the thirtieth of his series. The first of these consists of one king only, Amyrtssus, who revolted in conjunction with Inarus, and reigned from B.C. 460 to 455. The other two dynasties are consecutive, and cover the space from the revolt in the reign of Darius Nothus (B.C. 405) to the re-conquest under Ochus (B.C. 346). ANCIENT HISTORY 65 CARTHAGE. The history of Carthage may be conveniently divided into three periods — the first extending from the foundation of the city to the commencement of the wars with Syracuse, B.C. 850 to 480 ; the next from the first attack on Syracuse to the breaking out of war with Rome, B.C. 480 to 264; and the third from the commencement of the Roman wars to their termination by the destruction of Carthage, B.C. 264 to 146. In the present place, only the first and second of these periods will be considered. FIRST PERIOD. From the Foundation of Carthage to the Commencement of the Wars with Syracuse, from about B.C. 850 to 480. The foundation of Carthage, which was mentioned in the Tyrian histories, belonged to the time of Pygmalion, the son of Matgen, who seems to have reigned from about B.C. 871 to 824. The colony appears to have taken its rise, not from the mere commercial spirit in which other Tyrian settlements on the same coast had originated, but from political dififer- ences. Still, its relations with the mother city were, from first to last, friendly ; though the bonds of union were under the Phoenician system of colonization even weaker and looser than under the Greek. The site chosen for the settlement was a peninsula, projecting eastward into the Gulf of Tunis, and connected with the mainland towards the west by an isthmus about three miles across. Here were some excellent land- locked harbors, a position easily defensible, and a soil which was fairly fertile. The settlement was made with the good- will of the natives, who understood the benefits of commerce, and gladly let to the new-comers a portion of their soil at a fixed rent. For many years the place must have been one of small importance, little (if at all) superior to Utica or Hadru- metum ; but by degrees an advance was made, and within a century or two from the date of her foundation, Carthage had 5 66 RAWLINSON become a considerable power, had shot ahead of all the other PhcEnician settlements in these parts, and had acquired a large and valuable dominion. The steps of the advance are somewhat difficult to trace. It would seem, however, that, unlike the other Phoenician col- onies, and unlike the Phoenician cities of the Asiatic mainland themselves, Carthage aimed from the first at uniting a land with a sea dominion. The native tribes in the neighborhood of the city, originally nomades, were early won to agricuhural occupations; Carthaginian colonies were thickly planted among them; intermarriages between the colonists and the native races were encouraged; and a mixed people grew up in the fertile territory south and south-west of Carthage, known as Liby-Phoenices, who adopted the language and habits of the immigrants, and readily took up the position of faithful and attached subjects. Beyond the range of territory thus occu- pied, Carthaginian influence was further extended over a large number of pure African tribes, of whom some applied them- selves to agriculture, while the majority preserved their old nomadic mode of life. These tribes, like the Arabs in the modern Algeria, were held in a loose and almost nominal sub- jection ; but still were reckoned as, in a certain sense, Cartha- ginian subjects, and no doubt contributed to the resources of the empire. The proper territory of Carthage was regarded as extending southward as far as the Lake Triton, and west- ward to the river Tusca, which divided Zeugitana from Nu- midia, thus nearly coinciding with the modern Beylik of Tunis. But these limits were far from contenting the ambition of the Carthaginians. From the compact and valuable territory above described, they proceeded to bring within the scope of their influence the tracts which lay beyond it eastward and westward. The authority of Carthage came gradually to be acknowledged by all the coast-tribes between the Tusca and the Pillars of Hercules, as well as by the various nomad races between Lake Triton and the territory of Cyrene. In the former tract numerous settlements were made, and a right of marching troops along the shore was claimed and exercised. From the latter only commercial advantages were derived ,* but these were probably of considerable importance. ANCIENT HISTORY 67 In considering the position of the Carthaginians in Africa, it must not be forgotten that the Phoenicians had founded nu- merous settlements on the African mainland, and that Car- thage was only the most powerful of these colonies. Utica, Hadrumetum, Leptis Magna, and other places, were at the first independent communities over which Carthage had no more right to exercise authority than they had over her. The dominion of Carthage seems to have been by degrees extended over these places ; but to the last some of them, more especially Utica, retained a certain degree of independence; and, so far as these settlements are concerned, we must view Carthage rather as the head of a confederacy than as a single centralized power. Her confederates were too weak to resist her or to exercise much check upon her policy; but she had the dis- advantage of being less than absolute mistress of many places lying within her territory. But the want of complete unity at home did not prevent her from aspiring after an extensive foreign dominion. Her influence was established in Western Sicily at an early date, and superseded in that region the still more ancient influence of Phoenicia. Sardinia was conquered, after long and bloody wars, towards the close of the sixth century B.C. The Balearic islands, Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica, seem to have been occu- pied even earlier. At a later time, settlements were made in Corsica and Spain ; while the smaller islands, both of the Medi- terranean and the Atlantic, Madeira, the Canaries, Malta, Gau- los (Gozo), and Cercina, were easily subjugated. By the close of the sixth century, Carthaginian power extended from the greater Syrtis to the Fortunate Islands, and from Corsica to the flanks of Atlas. To efifect her conquests, the great trading city had, almost of necessity, recourse to mercenaries. Mercenaries had been employed by the Egyptian monarchs as early as- the time of Psammetichus (B.C. 664), and were known to Homer about two centuries previously. Besides the nucleus of a disciplined force which Carthage obtained from her own native citizens and from the mixed race of Liby-Phoenices, and besides the irregulars which she drew from her other subjects, it was her practice to maintain large bodies of hired troops (j^ia6o(()6pov'o magistrates by the free votes of the people assembled in their centuries (couiitia ccnturiata), who should be under- stood to be appointed to their office, not for life, but only for a single year. It should be their business, before the end of the year, to hold an assembly for the election of their suc- cessors ; and thus the state would have passed, without vio- lence or revolution, under the government of popular annual magistrates. The office of chief magistrate was, it is probable, to be open to both orders. But the members of the " houses," disgusted at this prospect, frustrated the monarch's plans by anticipating them. Before Servius could effect the changes which he had designed, they broke out in open revolt, mur- dered the aged monarch in the Senate-house, and placed a Tarquin, the son of the former king of the same name, on the throne. L. Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, having gained his crown by the sole favor of the Patricians, acted no doubt in some respects oppressively towards the other order. He set aside at once the whole constitution of Ser- 294 RAWLINSON vius, and restored that which had existed under the earlier kings. But it may be questioned whether his oppression of the commonalty ever proceeded farther than this. Some writ- ers represent him as grinding down the people by task-work of a grievous and distasteful kind, and then, when they mur- mured, banishing them from Rome to distant colonies. But the works which seem to be rightfully assigned to the second Tarquin are not of such a character as to imply servile or grinding labor. Their object was most probably the con- tentation of the poorer classes, who obtained by means of them constant employment at good wages. And the planting of colonies was always a popular measure, involving, as it did of necessity, an allotment of fresh lands to needy persons. Again, the " cloacae " of Superbus, and his construction of perma- nent stone seats in the Circus Maximus, were for the advantage of the lower classes of the citizens. The real " tyranny " of Superbus was over the Patricians. It cannot have commenced very early in his reign. When however, he felt himself securely settled upon the throne, when he had made himself fairly popular with the bulk of the com- munity, when, by the vigor of his external administration, he had acquired a reputation, and perhaps an amount of military strength which made him careless of offending the " houses," he ceased to respect the rights of the privileged class, and, dis- pensing with their assistance in the government, took the com- plete direction of afTairs into his own hands. Perhaps this was not much more than earlier monarchs had done, when they felt themselves fairly established. But the spirit of the nobles was higher than it had formerly been. They had recently slain one king and set up another. They viewed Tarquin as their creat- ure, and were indignant that he should turn against them. Still, had the tyranny of the monarch been merely political ; had their persons and the honor of their families remained secure, it is quite possible that no outbreak would have oc- curred. But Tarquin, suspicious of their intentions, com- menced a series of prosecutions. He had charges brought against the most powerful Patricians, and took cognizance of them himself. Disallowing the right of appeal, he punished numbers by death or exile. Finally, the outrage upon a noble ANCIENT HISTORY 295 Patrician matron woke the smouldering discontent into a flame. Rebellion broke out ; and, the monarch having sought safety in flight, the Patrician order, with the tacit acquiescence of the Plebeians, revolutionized the government. The vigor of Tarquin's administration to the last is indicated by the " Treaty with Carthage," which he must have been negotiating at the time of his dethronement. The story of his dealings with Turnus Herdonius seems to indicate that he held a position of more authority with respect to the Latin league than had been occupied by Servius. And the terms used with respect to the Latins in the treaty above mentioned confirm this view. The conquest of Gabii in his reign is prob- ably a fact, though the circumstances of the conquest may be fictitious. The great works of Tarquin were the Capitoline Temple, the branch cloaca which drained into the Cloaca Maxima, the seats in the Circus Maximus, and perhaps the Cyclopian wall still existing at Signia. The chronology of the kingly period at Rome is extremely uncertain. Traditionally the period was reckoned at either 240 or 244 years. To Romulus were assigned 37 years ; to Numa, 39 (or 43) ; to Tullus, 32 ; to Ancus, 24 ; to Tarquin I., 38; to Servius, 44; to Tarquin IL, 25; and an "interreg- num " of a year was counted between Romulus and Numa. It has been pointed out that the average duration of the reigns (35 years nearly) is improbably long; and that the numbers bear in many points the appearance of artificial manipulation. On the earlier numbers in the list, and therefore upon the total, no dependence at all can be placed ; for neither Romulus nor Numa can be regarded as real personages. There is reason to believe that the " regifugium " took place in or about the year B.C. 508. Perhaps we may accept the traditions with re- spect to the later kings so far as to believe that the reigns of the last three monarchs covered the space of about a century, and those of the two preceding them the space of about half a century. The time that the monarchy had lasted before Tul- lus was probably unknown to the Romans at the period when history first began to be written. 296 RAWLINSON SECOND PERIOD. From the Foundation of the RepubHc to the Commencement of the Samnite Wars, B.C. 508 to 340.* The interest of the Roman history during the whole of this period belongs mainly to the internal affairs of the Republic, the struggle between the orders, the growth of the constitution and of the laws ; secondarily only, and by comparison, slightly, to the external affairs, wars, treaties, alliances, and conquests. With the three exceptions of the first Latin War, the Veientine contest, and the great attack of Gauls, the wars are unevent- ful and unimportant. The progress made is slight. It may be questioned whether at the close of the period Terminus has advanced in any direction beyond the point which it had reached under the kings. The relations of Rome to Latium are certainly less close and less to the advantage of Rome at the close of the period than at its commencement ; and thus far, the power of the Roman state is diminished rather than augmented. The internal changes during the period are, on the contrary, of the highest interest and importance. They include the es- tablishment of the Plebeian Tribunate, the Decemviral consti- tution and legislation, the institution of the Censorship, the experiments of the First and Second Military Tribunates, the re-establishment of the Consulship with the proviso that one consul should be a Plebeian, the infringement of the proviso, and the whole series of the early agrarian enactments and dis- turbances. There is no portion of the constitutional history of any ancient state which has a deeper interest than this^ .. * •^<'"'''^"- The most copious authorities are, as before, Livy (books ii.-vii.), and Dionysius (books v.-xi. and fragments of books xii.-xx.); to which may be added Plutarch, in his lives of Pophcola, Coriolanus, and Camillus; Diodorus Siculus (books xi.-xvi.); and the fragments of Appian, and Dio Cassius. Occasional notices of the period, mostly of great value, are also found in Polybius. For the chronology, the best authority is the important monument dug up on the site of the Forum, and generally known as the Fasti Capitolini, which, so far as it goes, is invaluable. ANCIENT HISTORY 297 none from which lessons of greater value can be learnt. A certain amount of obscurity rests, indeed, upon many points, on which we should be glad to have clearer and more certain knowledge; but, despite this drawback, the history is in the highest degree instructive, and will well reward the study of all those who love both order and freedom. The constitution established on the expulsion of Tarquin was, in part, the actualization of the ideal of Servius, in part an enlargement of that ideal, conceived in the same spirit. Servius had designed to intrust the government of the state to two annual magistrates elected by the free voice of the cen- turies, and had made the centuries, in which all freemen were enrolled, the recognized Assembly of the Roman people. He had given the non-burghers generally the rights of municipal self-government; of the election of their own "tribunes," " aediles," and "judges;" and of the assessment and collec- tion of their own taxes. But this, so far as appears, was all. The leaders of the revolution of B.C. 508 went farther. They restored the constitution of Servius, and they added to it. Two " praetors," or " consuls," were elected by the free voice of the centuries, according to a form of proceedings which Servius had left behind him in writing; and one of the first pair of consuls was a non-burgher or Plebeian. The Senate, which had dwindled under the later kings, partly from natural causes, partly by the deliberate policy of the tyrant, was com- pleted to its ideal number of 300, by the addition of 164 life- members (" conscript! "), chosen from the richest of the " equites," of whom a considerable number were Plebeians. The right of appeal, suspended under the last king, was re- vived, and was so enlarged as to include all freemen. Thus, at the outset, the new constitution wore the appearance, at any rate, of equality. No sharp line of demarcation was drawn between the two orders in respect of personal freedom, or ad- missibility to political privilege ; and it is not too much to say that, if the spirit which animated the Patrician body in B.C. 508 had continued to prevail, contentions and struggles be- tween the two orders would never have arisen. But this fair prospect was soon clouded over. The Patri- cians had been induced to make the concessions above enu- 298 RAWLIXSON merated to the other Order, not from any sense of justice, but through fear of Tarquin and his partisans, who were laboring to bring about a restoration. Of this there was for a time con- siderable danger. There was a royahst party among the Patri- cians themselves : and both the Etruscans and the Latins were incUned to espouse the quarrel of the deposed king. When, however, this peril was past, when the chiefs of the royalist faction were banished or executed, when the Etruscans had met a resistance which they had not counted on, and the Latins had sustained the complete defeat of the Lake Regillus. the policy of the Patricians changed. No Plebeian was allowed to enjoy the consulship after Brutus, and by degrees it grew to be forgotten that any but Patricians had ever been regarded as eligible. Xo plan was adopted by which Plebeians could obtain regular entrance into the Senate : and, as their life- members died oflF, the council of the nation was once more closed to them. The whole power of the government was en- grossed by the Patrician order : which, finding itself free from any check, naturally became overbearing and oppressive. The imminent danger of a restoration at one time is indi- cated by the story, which Livy* tells, of the origin of the Dic- tatorship. Such an office was e\-idently no part of the original idea of the constitution ; but was exactly what might naturally have been devised to meet an emergency. If the circumstances were such as Liyv- mentions, the first Dictator must have been named by the Senate. In after-times it is certain that the Sen- ate claimed the right of nomination, though practically they were generally satisfied to select the consul who should nomi- nate. The loss of political pri\"ilege would not, it is probable, by itself, have called forth any active movement on the part of the commonaltv". It required the stimulus of personal suffer- ing to stir up the law-lo\'ing Roman to offer any resistance to constituted authority. This stimulus was foimd in the harsh enforcement, not long after the commencement of the Repub- lic, of the law of debtor and creditor — a law which, under the circumstances of the time, pressed hea\41y on vast numbers of the community-, and threatened to deprive them of their personal freedom, if not even of their lives. ANCIENT HISTORY 299 The operation of the law of debt acquired poHtical impor- tance chiefly from the large number of the debtors at this period of the history ; and it is therefore necessary to inquire what were the circumstances which caused the wide prevalence of indebtedness at the time — a prevalence which threatened revo- lution. Now, in the first place, nothing is more clear than that the change from the Monarchy to the Republic was accom- panied by a diminution in the power and prestige of Rome, which sank from a position of pre-eminence among the central Italian nations to one of comparative insignificance. The Lat- ins profited by the occasion to reclaim their complete inde- pendence ; the Etruscans assumed an aggressive attitude, and an Etruscan monarch, Lars Porsenna, appears to have actually for a term of years held Rome in subjection. This yoke was indeed shaken off after a while ; but a permanent result of the subjection remained in the loss of almost all the territory on the right bank of the Tiber. The Romans whose lands lay on that side of the river thus lost them ; while at the same time the separation between Rome and Latium laid the Roman territory on the south side of the river open to incursions. The Sabines and Oscans plundered and ravaged freely; the crops were ruined, the farm buildings and implements de- stroyed, the cattle carried off. A general impoverishment was the natural consequence ; and this would of course be felt most by the poorest classes, and especially by those whose small plots of land were their sole means of sustenance. The poverty thus produced was further aggravated, i. By the exaction of taxes, which by the Roman system were as- sessed upon individuals, not for a single year, but for a term of five years, and had to be paid for that term, whether the property on which they were levied remained in the possession of the individual or not ; 2. By the high rate of interest, which, under the peculiar circumstances of the time, rose probably from the normal rate of 10 per cent, (unciarium focnus) to such rates as 30, 40, or perhaps even 50 per cent. ; 3. By the non- payment of the rents due to the treasury from the posscssorcs, the withholding of which caused the property-tax (tribufum) to become a serious burden : 4. By the cessation of the system of allotments {divisio agroriim) instituted by Servius, which w^as 300 RAWLINSON intended to compensate the Plebeians for their exclusion from the right of possessio. When the sufferings of the poorer classes had reached to a certain height from the cruel enforcements of the laws con- cerning debt, murmurs and indignant outcries began to be heard. At first, however, the opposition of the discontented took a purely legal shape. The Roman was a volunteer army, not a conscription ; and the Plebeians had been wont, at the call of the consuls, freely to ofTer their services. Now they declined to give in their names unless upon the promise of a redress of grievances. Promises to this effect were made and broken. The Plebeians then, driven to despair, " seceded " — that is to say, they withdrew from Rome in a body, and pro- ceeded to prepare for themselves new abodes across the Anio, intending to found a new city separate from the burgesses, where they might live under their own sole government. Such a step was no doubt revolutionary ; it implied the complete dis- ruption of the state ; but it was revolution of a kind which in- volved no bloodshed. The burghers, however, seeing in the step taken the ruin of both orders — for Rome divided against herself must have speedily succumbed to some one or other of her powerful neighbors — felt compelled to yield. The Plebs required as the conditions of their return that all debts of per- sons who could prove themselves insolvent should be can- celled ; that all persons in the custody of their creditors on account of debt should be set at liberty; and that certain guardians of the Plebeian order should be annually elected by the nation at large, whose persons should be sacred, who should be recognized as magistrates of the nation, and whose special business should be to defend and protect from injury all Plebe- ians appealing to them. These were the famous " Tribuni Plebis," or " Tribunes of the Commons," who played so im- portant a part in the later history of the Republic. Their original number is uncertain ; but it would seem to have been either five or two. It is evident that the economical portion of this arrangement very insufficiently met the difficulty of the existing poverty; and there can be little doubt that, besides the formal provisos above mentioned, there was an understanding that the Plebe- ANCIENT HISTORY 301 ian grievances should be redressed by an equitable system of allotments. Such a system was advocated shortly afterwards, B.C. 484, by Sp. Cassius, one of the consuls under whom the Plebs returned from their secession, but was violently opposed by the bulk of the Patrician order, and cost its advocate his life. Still, from time to time, concessions of this kind were made, to keep the Plebeians in good humor; and gradually, as the territory once more grew in size, considerable portions of it were parcelled out to small proprietors. But a new character was given to the struggle between the orders by the tribunate, which enabled the wealthier Plebeians, whose especial grievance was their exclusion from the chief offices in the state, to turn the efforts of their order to the ob- taining of equal political privileges and thus to initiate a contest which lasted for above a century. The first step taken in ad- vance was by the law of Publilius Volero (B.C. 470), the main importance of which was that it assumed the initiative in legis- lation, hitherto exclusively in the hands of the other Order. When the attempt thus made to legislate in a matter of public importance succeeded, when, by the sanction of the Senate and Patricians, the rogatio Publilia became law, the contest was vir- tually decided ; a door was opened by means of which an entrance might be effected into the very citadel of the constitu- tion ; all that was necessary was sufficient patience and perse- verance, a determination in spite of all obstacles to press steadily forward to the required end, and to consent perma- nently to no compromise that should seriously interfere with the great principle of equal rights. The Plebeians, victorious in this first struggle, did not long rest upon their oars. In B.C. 460 the tribune, C. Terentilius Harsa, brought forward a proposition, the real object of which was a complete change of the constitution. He proposed the creation of a board of commissioners, half Patrician, half Ple- beian, whose duties should be to codify the existing laws, to limit and define the authority of the consuls, and to establish a constitution just and equitable to both orders. The proposi- tion was opposed with the utmost determination and violence. Even at the last, it was not formally carried ; but, after ten years of the most vehement strife, after Rome, through the con- 302 RAW.LINSON tentions between the orders, had several times been nearly taken by the Volscians, and had once been actually occupied by a band of adventurers under a Sabine named Appius Her- donius, called in by some of the more violent of the Patrician body, the nobles virtually yielded — they agreed that that should be done which the law proposed, but required that it should be done in another way. The nation, assembled in its centuries, should freely choose the ten commissioners to whom so important a task was to be intrusted, and who would, more- over, constitute a provisional government, superseding for the time all other magistrates. The Plebeians consented ; and the natural consequence was that ten Patricians were chosen — Pa- tricians, however, mostly of known moderation, who might be expected to perform their task prudently and justly. The First Decemvirs did not disappoint the expectations formed of them. In their codification of the laws they did little but stereotype the existing practice, putting, for the most part, into a written form what had previously been matter of prece- dent and usage. In some matters, however, where the law was loose and indeterminate, they had to give it definiteness and precision by expressing for the first time its provisions in writing. The code of the Twelve Tables — " fons omnis publici privatique juris " — which dates from this time, was a most valuable digest of the early Roman law, and, even in the fragmentary state in which it has come down to us, de- serves careful study. The fragments of the code have been published by several writers, as by Haubold in his " Institutionum juris Romani privati Lineamenta," Lipsise, 1826 ; and by Dirksen in his " Uebersicht der bisherigen Versuche zur Kritik und Herstell- ung des Textes der Zwolf-Tafel-Fragmente," Leipzig, 1824. The subject has been well treated by Arnold in his " Roman History," Vol. I., Chap. XIV. The following are the Tables, as given by Dirksen, the original form of the language being only partially preserved : ANCIENT HISTORY 303 LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. FIRST TABLE. SI. IN. IVS. VOCAT. NX. IT. ANTESTATOR. IGITVK. EM, CAPITO. SI. CALVITVR. PEDEMVE. STRVIT. MANVM. ENDOIACITO. SI. MORBVS. AEVITASVE. VITIVM. ESCIT. QVI. IN. IVS. VOCABIT. IVMENTVM. DATO. SI. NOLET. ARCERAM. NE. STERNITO. ASSIDVO. VINDEX. ASSIDVVS. ESTO. PROLETARIO. QVOI. QVIS. VOLET. VINDEX. ESTO. REM. VBI. PAGVNT. ORATO. NI. PAGVNT. IN. COMITIO. AVT. IN. FORO. ANTE. MERIDIEM. CAVSAM. CONIICITO. QVOM. PERORANT. AMBO. PRAESENTES. POST. MERIDIEM. PRAESENTI. STLITEM. ADDICITO. SOL. OCCASVS. SVPREMA. TEMPESTAS. ESTO. — VADES. — SVBVADES. — SECOND TABLE. MORBVS.— SONTICVS.—STATVS. DIES, CVM. HOSTE.— QVID. HORVM. FVIT. VNVM. IVDICL ARBITROVE. REO. VE. DIES. DIFFISVS. ESTO. CV. TESTIMONIVM, DEFVERIT, IS. TERTIIS. DIEBVS. OB. PORTVM. OBVAGVLATVM. ITO. THIRD TABLE. AERIS. CONFESSL REBVSQVE. IVRE. IVDICATIS. TRIGINTA. DIES. IVSTI. SVNTO. POST. DEINDE. MANVS. INIECTIO. ESTO. IN. IVS. DVCITO. NI. IVDICATVM. FACIT. AVT. QVIPS. ENDO. EM. IVRE. VINDICIT. SECVM. DVCITO. VINCITO. AVT. NERVO. AVT. COMPEDIBVS. QVINDECIM. PONDO. NE. MAIORE. AVT. SI. VOLET. MINORE. VINCITO. SI. VOLET. SVO. VIVITO. NI. SVO. VIVIT. QVI. EM. VINCTVM. HABEBIT. LIBRAS. FARRIS. ENDO. DIES. DATO. SI. VOLET. PLVS. DATO. TERTIIS. NVNDINIS, PARTIS. SECANTO. SI. PLVS. MINVSVE. SECVERVNT. SE. FRAVDE. ESTO. ADVERSVS. HOSTEM. AETERNA. AVCTORITAS. FOURTH TABLE. SI. PATER. FILIVM. TEK. VENVM. DVIT. FILIVS. A. PATRE. LIBER. ESTO. FIFTH TABLE. VTI. LEGASSIT. SVPER. PECVNIA. TVTELAVE. SVAE. REI. ITA. IVS. ESTO. SI, INTESTATO. MORITVR. CVI. SVVS, HERES. NEC. SIT. ADGNATVS. PROXIMVS. FAMILIAM. HABETO. SI. AGNATVS. NEC. ESCIT. GENTILIS. FAMILIAM. NANCITOR. SI. FVRIOSVS. EST. AGNATORVM. GENTILIVMQVE. IN. EO. PECVNIAQVE. EIVS. POTESTAS. ESTO. — AST. EI. CVSTOS, NEC, ESCIT. EX. EA, FAMILIA IN. EAM. FAMILIAM. SIXTH TABLE. CVM. NEXVM. FACIET. MANCIPIVMQVE. VTI. LINGVA. NVNCVPASSIT. ITA. IVS. ESTO. SI. QVI. IN. IVRE. MANVM. CONSERVNT. TIGNVM. IVNCTVM. AEDIBVS. VINEAEQVE. ET, CONCAPET. NE. SOLVITO. QVANDOQVE. SARPTA. DONEC. DEMPTA. ERVNT. 304 RAWLINSON SEVENTH TABLE. — HORTVS. — HEREDIVM. — TVGVRIVM. — SI. IVRGANT. — SI. AQVA. PLVVIA. NOCET. — EIGHTH TABLE. SI. MEMBRVM. RVPIT. NI. CVM. EO. PACIT. TALIO. ESTO. SI. INIVRIAM. FAXIT. ALTERI. VIGINTI. QVINQVE. AERIS. POENAE. STNTO. — RVPITIAS. — SARCITO. — QVI. FRVGES. EXCANTASSIT. — NEVE. ALIENAM. SEGETEM. PELLEXERIS. SI. NOX. FVRTVM. FACTVM. SIT. SI. IM. OCCISIT. IVRE. CAESVS. ESTO. SI. ADORAT. FVRTO. QVOD. NEC. MANIFESTVM. ESCIT. PATRONVS. SI. CLIENTI. FRAVDEM. FECERIT. SACER. ESTO. QVI. SE. SIERIT. TESTARIER. LIBRIPENSVE. FVERIT. NI. TE3TIMONIVM. FARIATVR. IMPROBVS. INTESTABILISQVE. ESTO. QVI. MALVM. CARMEN. INCANTASSET. MALVM. VENENVM. TENTH TABLE. IIOMINEM. MORTVVM. IN. VRBE. NE. SEPELITO. NEVE. VRIl HOC. PLVS. NE. FACITO. — ROGVM. ASCIA. NE. POLITO. MVLIERES. GENAS. NE. RADVNTO. NEVE. LESSVM. FVNERIS. ERGO. HABENTO. HOMINI. MORTVO. NE. OSSA. LEGITO. QVO. POST. FVNVS. FACIAT. QVI. CORONAM. PARIT. IPSE. PECVNIAVE. EIVS. VIRTVTIS. ERGO DIVITOR. EI. NEVE. AVRVM. ADDITO. QVOI. AVRO. DENTES. VINCTI. ESCVNT. AST. IM. CUM. ILLO. SEPELIRE. VREREVE. SE. FRAVDE. ESTO. TWELFTH TABLE. SI. SERVVS. FVRTVM. FAXIT. NOXIAMVE. NOCVIT. — SI. VINDICIAM. FALSAM. TVLIT SI. VELIT. IS TOR. AR3ITROS. TRES. DATO. EORVM. ARPITRIO FRVCTVS. DVFLIONE. DAMNVM. DECIDITO. But the main work of the Decemvirs was the constitution which they devised and sought to estabHsh. In Heu of the double magistracy, half Patrician and half Plebeian, which had recently divided the state, and had threatened actual disrup- tion, the Decemvirs instituted a single governmental body — a board of ten, half Patrician and half Plebeian, which was to supersede at once the consulate and the tribunate, and to be the sole Roman executive. The centuries were to elect ; and the Patrician assembly was, probably, to confirm the election. It is suspected that the duration of the office was intended to exceed a year; but this is perhaps uncertain. Fairly as this constitution was intended, and really liberal as ANCIENT HISTORY 305 were its provisions, as a practical measure of relief it failed entirely. One member of the board, Appius Claudius, obtained a complete ascendency over his colleagues, and persuaded them, as soon as they came into office, to appear and act as tyrants. The abolition of all the other high magistracies had removed those checks which had previously restrained consuls, tribunes, and even dictators ; there was now no power in the state which could legally interfere to prevent an abuse of authority, unless it were the Senate ; and the Senate was on the whole inclined to prefer a tyranny which did not greatly afifect its own members, to the tumults and disorders of the last forty years. Rather than see the tribunate restored, the Patricians, and their representatives the senators, were pre- pared to bear much ; and thus there was small hope of redress from this quarter. It was on the Plebeians that the yoke of the Decemvirs pressed most heavily. It was supposed that, as they had now no legal mode of even making their complaints heard, since there were no tribunes to summon the tribes to meet, they at any rate might be oppressed and insulted with absolute im- punity. Accordingly, they were subjected to every kind of wrong and indignity — the Decemvirs and their partisans plun- dered them, outraged their persons, heaped contumely upon them, and finally attacked them in the tenderest of all points — the honor of their families. Then at length resistance was aroused. As the wrongs of Lucretia had armed the Patricians against Tarquin, so those of Virginia produced a rising of the Plebeians against Appius. The armies, which were in the field, revolted : the commons at home rose ; and, when the Senate still declined to take any active steps against the Decemvirs, the whole mass of the Plebeians once more occupied the Mons Sacer. The walls of a new city began to rise ; the Roman state was split in two ; its foreign enemies, seeing their opportunity, assumed a threatening attitude ; destruction was imminent ; when at last the Senate yielded. Appius and his colleagues were required by a decree (senatusconsultum) to resign their offices, and, having now no physical force on which they could fall back, they submitted, and went through the formalities of abdication. 20 3o6 RAWLINSON Forced hurriedly to extemporize a government, the state fell back upon that form which had immediately preceded the es- tablishment of the First Decemvirate. It was adopted, how- ever, with certain modifications. Prior to the Decemvirate for above thirty years, the Patricians had claimed and exercised the right of appointing by their own exclusive assembly one of the two consuls. It was impossible at the present conjuncture to maintain so manifestly unfair an usurpation. The free elec- tion of both consuls was consequently restored to the cen- turies. The tribunate of the Plebs was re-established exactly as it had existed before the Decemvirate. But the position of the other Plebeian magistrates was improved. The Plebeian " aediles " and judges were allowed the " sacrosanct " charac- ter ; and the former were made custodians of all decrees passed by the Senate, which it henceforth became impossible for the magistrates to ignore or falsify. Further, a distinct recognition was made of the right of the tribunes to consult the tribes on matters of public concern, and thus initiate legislation — a right hitherto resting merely upon grounds of reason and prescrip- tion. In relinquishing temporarily their claim to a share in the supreme magistracy for the purpose of securing at any cost the restoration of the much-valued tribunate, the Plebeians were far from intending to profess themselves satisfied with the exclusive possession of high office by the other party. They expected, perhaps, that some proposition for giving them a certain share in the government would emanate from the Patri- cians themselves, who were not universally blind to the justice of their claims. But, as time went on and no movement in this direction was made, the Plebeian leaders once more took up the question, and in B.C. 442, C. Canuleius, one of the tribunes, brought forward two separate but connected laws, one opening the consulship to the Plebeian Order, the other legalizing inter- marriage between Patricians and Plebeians, and providing that the children should follow the rank of the father. Both laws encountered a strenuous opposition ; and according to one authority, no concession was made until the Plebs once more seceded, this time across the Tiber to the Janiculan Hill, when the " Intermarriage Law " (lex de connuhio) was passed, ANCIENT HISTORY 307 and, in lieu of the other, a compromise was effected between the Orders. It was agreed to put the consulate in commission, substituting for the double rule of two equal magistrates, which had hitherto prevailed, a board of (probably) five persons* of unequal rank, among whom the consular powers were to be parcelled out. The duties with respect to the revenue, and the arrangement of the roll of the Senate, of the knights, and of the citizens generally in the centuries, which had hitherto been exercised by the consuls, were separated off and made over to two " Censors " elected by the centuries from among the nobles only. The remaining duties of the consuls were consigned to three " military tribunes," also elected by the centuries, but from the Patricians and Plebeians indifferently. The latter officers were to be annual ; the former were to hold office for a term of five years. The working of this constitution was extremely unsatisfac- tory to the Plebeians. By means of the irregular alternation of the consulate with the military tribunate, at least half the supreme magistracies were monopolized by the nobles with- out the Plebeians being able even to be candidates. With re- spect to the other half, it might have been thought that they could have avenged themselves. But practically it was found that only on rare occasions, under circumstances of peculiar excitement, could the centuries be induced to elect a Plebeian candidate. The Patricians by their own votes and those of their clients in the centuries of the first class had almost the complete control of the elections ; and during nearly forty years, at the most three Plebeians obtained a place in the college. Even then their position was insecure. The colleges of sacred lore might be called upon to inquire whether some accidental informality at the election had not rendered it in- valid. Of the three Plebeian tribunes elected under the con- stitution of B.C. 442, one was made to resign in his third month of office, because the augural tent had not been pitched rightly. Nor were the Plebeians compensated for their disappoint- * Mommsen says "eight" — two censors, and six military tribunes; but there is no instance of a board of six military tribunes till B.C. 402, forty years later; after which time there is no instance of a board con- taining less than six. 3o8 RAWLINSON ment with respect to the constitution of B.C. 442 by mild or Hberal treatment in other respects during the forty years that it lasted (B.C. 442 to 402). The dignity of the censorship was indeed lessened by the ^Emilian law, which diminished the duration of the office from five years to eighteen months ; but anv advantage which the Plebeians might seem to have gained in this respect was counterbalanced by the elevation of the prefect of the city, an exclusively Patrician officer, to the posi- tion of a colleague of the military tribunes when there were no censors in office. A demand which the Plebeians made for a share of the quaestorship was practically eluded in the way which had now come to be fashionable, by throwing the office open to both Orders. Requests for allotments of land were either wholly rejected, or answered by niggardly assignment's of two " jugera " to a man in portions of the territory very open to attack on the part of an enemy. The state-rents were generally withheld by the " possessores ; " and, to make up the deficiency in the revenue, the property-tax was unduly aug- mented. The demand of the tribunes, that the soldiers should receive pay during the time that they were on active service, was not complied with ; nor was any thing done to alleviate the pressure caused by the high rate of interest. Thus the Plebeians, though, by the letter of the constitution, they had made certain not inconsiderable gains since the abo- lition of the Decemvirate, were scarcely better contented with their position in the state than they had been when Terentilius or when Canuleius commenced their agitations. And the Pa- tricians were quite aware of their feelings. Accordingly, when, about B.C. 403, the military position of Rome among her neigh- bors had become such as to justify the nation in entering upon a more important war than any hitherto waged by the Repub- lic, and it was clear that success would depend very much upon the heartiness and unanimity with which the whole nation threw itself into the struggle, the Patricians themselves came forward with proposals for a change in the military tribunate, and probably one also in the censorship, which had for their object the better contentation of the other Order. A new con- stitution was framed ; and at the same time it was agreed that the state-rents should be carefully collected, and from the ANCIENT HISTORY 309 money thus obtained regular pay should be given to the sol- diers, who were now to be called upon to serve the whole, or nearly the whole, of the year. The wars of the Republic had hitherto been of minor impor- tance. After the yoke of Porsenna was thrown ofif a short and sharp struggle had supervened with the Latins, who were com- pelled by Sp. Cassius (B.C. 491), if not to renew their old treaty, at any rate to enter into a league, offensive and defen- sive, with the Romans. The Hernicans of the Upper Liris country were soon afterwards (B.C. 484) forced by the same general to join the alliance. The special object of the league was to resist the encroachments of the Oscan nations, partic- ularly the i^qui and Volsci, who were now at the height of their power. A long struggle with these nations, attended with very varying success, had followed. Rome had at times been reduced to great straits. Many Latin cities had been taken and occupied by the Volscians. But, after above half a century of almost perpetual contest, the power of the Oscans began to wane. The confederated Romans, Latins, and Hernicans recovered most of their lost ground. Tarracina was reoccu- pied, B.C. 403. At the same time, the pressure of the Sabines upon Rome, constant in the earlier years of the Republic, had ceased. A great victory, gained by the consul Horatius, in B.C. 446, had relieved Rome of this enemy, whose superabun- dant energies found for many years an ample scope in South- ern Italy. Under these circumstances of comparative freedom from any pressing danger, Rome felt that the time was come when she might make a fresh start in the race for power. She was cramped for room towards the north and west by the near vicinity of an important but not very formidable state, Veii. Having first tested her adversary's strength in a contest for the possession of that single post which the Etruscans still held south of the Tiber, namely, Fidense, and having after some difficulty been successful so far (B.C. 423), Rome proceeded in B.C. 402 to enter upon a fresh war with Veii, distinctly in- tending to effect, if she could, a permanent conquest. The war with the Veientines, commenced in this spirit, lasted, according to the tradition, ten years — B.C. 402 to 392. Rome now for the first time maintained in the field continu- 310 RAWLINSON ously an armed force, thus laying the foundation of that " stand- ing army " to which she ultimately owed most of her greatness. She made her attack on the powerful Etruscan state at a fortu- nate time. Almost contemporaneously with her first serious aggressions upon the southernmost city of the confederacy began that terrible inroad from the North which utterly shat- tered and broke up the Etruscan power in the plain of the Po, and first alarmed and then seriously crippled the strength of the Cis-Apennine league. Had not the Gallic invasion occu- pied the whole attention of the Northern Etruscans, it is prob- able that they would have made common cause with the threat- ened Veii, in which case the war would scarcely have terminated as it did in the capture and ruin of the city. The successful issue of the war with Veii encouraged the Romans to fresh efforts in the same direction. Capena was conquered and her territory absorbed in the year after Veii fell. Then Falerii was attacked and forced to cede some of her lands. The neighboring towns of Nepete and Sutrium submitted at the same time, and became Roman dependencies. Finally, war was declared against the Volsinians, and the Roman arms were carried beyond the Ciminian mountains. Here victory was again with the aggressors ; but the success failed to bring any increase of territory. But now the progress of Rome received a sudden and ter- rible check. The Gallic hordes, which had begun to swarm across the Alps about B.C. 400, and had conquered Northern Etruria nearly at the time when the Romans took Veii, after a brief pause crossed the Apennines, and spread like a flood over Central Italy. Whether Rome gave them any special provocation, or no, is doubtful. At any rate, they poured down the valley of the Tiber in irresistible force, utterly de- feated the entire armed strength of the Romans upon the Allia, captured the city, and burnt almost the whole of it, except the Capitol. The Capitol itself was besieged for months, but still held out, when the Gauls, weary of inaction and alarmed for the safety of their conquests in the plain of the Po, consented, on the payment of a large sum of money, to retire. It might have been expected that this fearful blow would have been fatal to the supremacy of Rome among the Italic ANCIENT HISTORY 311 nations. But the result was otherwise. At first, indeed, con- sequences followed which brought the Republic into serious danger, and seemed to menace its existence. The Latins and Hernicans, who had been united in the closest possible league with the Romans, the former for above, the latter for not much less than a century, took the opportunity of Rome's defeat to declare the league dissolved. The Oscan nations, the Volsci especially, renewed their attacks. The Etruscans took the offensive. Rome was saved from immediate destruction by the genius of Camillus, and then gradually rose again to power and preponderance by her own inherent energy. To account for the slightness of the check which the Gallic conquest gave to her external prosperity, we must bear in mind that the attack of the Gauls was not really upon Rome alone, or even upon Rome specially and peculiarly. The first burst of their fury had fallen on the Etruscans, and had permanently weakened that important people. Their later irruptions injured the Italic nations generally, not Rome in particular. The Umbrians, Sabines, Latins, ^Equi, and Volsci all suffered, perhaps about equally. Thus Rome, on the whole, succeeded in maintaining her place among the Italian states ; and, the same causes which had previously given her a preponderance continuing to work, she gradually lifted herself up once more above her neighbors. She warred successfully with the Volscians, and with several cities of the Latins, which were now leagued with them. She held her own in Etruria. After an interval of about a genera- tion she induced the Latins and compelled the Hernicans to resume their old position of confederates (B.C. 355) under her hegemony. Within five-and-thirty years of the destruction of the city, Rome had fully recovered from all the effects of the blow dealt by the Gauls ; and, if we take into account the gen- eral weakness caused by the Gallic ravages, had relatively im- proved her position. While Rome thus, on the whole, prospered externally, her internal condition was also gradually improving. The second military tribunate was not, indeed, very much more successful than the first, failing equally to content the aspirations of the Plebeian Order. Though it gave them a larger proportion of the high offices, the proportion was still so small — not so much 312 RAVVLINSON as one-twelfth — that their dissatisfaction, not unreasonably, continued. They never obtained the mihtary tribunate ex- cepting under abnormal circumstances ; and on the single oc- casion on which they gained the censorship (B.C. 376), it was wrested from them under a religious pretext. The Patricians could still, ordinarily, command the votes of the centuries ; and, if a Plebeian obtained ofhce, it was by Patrician sufferance or contrivance. Excepting under peculiar circumstances, the nobles were inclined to grasp as much power as they could; and hence the Plebeians felt that they had no firm hold on the constitution, no security for the continuance of even that small share of ofhce which had practically fallen to them. They would probably have set themselves to obtain a change in the constitution many years before the Licinio-Sextian laws were actually brought forward, had not the Gallic invasion produced such an extent of poverty and debt as effectually cramped for a time all Plebeian aspirations, changing the struggle for equal rights into a struggle for existence. The first important result of the general prevalency of dis- tress among the Plebeians was the attempt of M. Manlius. Less pure and disinterested than his prototype, Spurius Cass- ius, he made the Plebeian wrongs the stalking-horse of his own ambition. Partly tempted, partly goaded into crime, he is en- titled to our pity even though we condemn him. His intentions were probably at the first honest, and the means that he de- signed to use legal ; but the opposition which he encountered drove him to desperate measures, and he became in the end a dangerous conspirator. Well would it have been for Rome had she possessed a method, like that which Athens enjoyed in the ostracism, of securing her own liberties by the temporary banishment, rather than the death, of a great citizen ! During the Manlian struggle, and immediately after it, some slight efforts were made by the government to relieve the gen- eral destitution. In B.C. 382 two thousand Plebeians received allotments of two and a half jngera at Satricum. Two years later, colonies were sent out to Nepete in Etruria and to the Pontine marsh district. But these were mere palliatives, and in no way met or grappled with the disease. It was necessary, if the bulk of the Plebeian Order was not to be swept away from ANCIENT HISTORY 313 the state, becoming the slaves of the Patricians or of foreigners, that measures should be taken on a large scale, both to meet the present distress, and to prevent such crises from recurring. Great difficulties call for, and seem in a way to produce, great men. Fourteen years after the distress had become con- siderable owing to the Gallic inroad, two Plebeians of high rank and great ability, C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius, came forward with a scheme of legislation skillfully framed so as to cover all the various heads of Plebeian grievance, and to pro- vide at once a remedy for the actually existing evils and secur- ity against future oppression. Considering that there were two kinds of evil to remedy, political inequality and want, they framed their measures against both. For the immediate relief of the needy, they brought forward their " lex de cere alieno," which provided that whatever had been paid on any debt in the way of interest should be counted as a repayment of the principal and deducted from the amount due; and that the balance remaining, if any, should be demandable only in in- stallments, which should be spread over the space of three years. For the prevention of the poverty in future, they pro- posed their " lex agraria " — which, in the first place, threw open the right of occupying the public land to the Plebeians ; in the second, affixed a limit beyond which occupation should not be carried ; and in the third, required all occupiers to em- ploy in the cultivation of their farms a certain definite propor- tion of free labor. For the establishment of the principle of political equality, they proposed the restoration of the consul- ship, with the proviso that one of the two consuls should each year be a Plebeian (lex de consulatu) ; and the equal division of a sacred office, that of the keepers of the Sibylline books, be- tween the two Orders {lex de decemviris sacrorum). The importance of these laws was immense. They estab- lished fully the principle of the equality of the two orders, both as respected sacred and civil office — a principle which, once admitted, was sure to work itself out to the full in course of time. They greatly alleviated the existing poverty, and by the two provisions for extending the right of occupation to Ple- beians, and compelling the employment of a large amount of free labor on the pubHc lands, they made considerable provision 314 RAWLINSON against extreme poverty in the future. Above all, they se- cured to the Plebeians a succession of champions in the highest offices of the State, who would watch over their interests and protect them against unfair treatment. Naturally, therefore, being so important, the lav/s were opposed with the utmost determination by the other Order. The struggle, according to some authorities, was of eleven years' duration. It was probably not until a " secession " had begun, or at any rate was threatened, that the Patricians yielded, the laws received the sanction of both the Senate and the Assembly of the nobles, and a Plebeian consul, L. Sextius, was elected, B.C. 363. It might have seemed that the struggle between the Orders would now have come to a close — ^that when the highest civil, and one of the highest religious, offices had been once opened to the Plebeian Order, there remained nothing which the other Order could regard as worth fighting for. But the fact was otherwise. Not only were there, now as ever, among the Patri- cians those who would not yield without a struggle even the last " rag of privilege : " but there existed in the body at this time a party disinclined to view the recent defeat as decisive, or to accept it as final. During the quarter of a century which followed on the passage of the Licinio-Sextian laws, it was uncertain whether or no the Plebeian advance could be main- tained. A certain amount of reaction set in. For the space of fourteen years — from B.C. 352 to B.C. 339 — the regular operation of the Licinio-Sextian constitution was set aside. Instead of Plebeian consuls following each other in regular succession 3'^ear after year, the Fasti show during the fourteen years seven Plebeian names only, while there are twenty-one Patrician. The illegal setting aside of the Licinio-Sextian constitution could not fail to produce among the more prudent and far- seeing of the Plebeians violent discontent. If a party in the State is once allowed to begin the practice of setting the law at nought, there is no saying where it will stop. The old champions of the Plebeian cause — the Licinii, Genucii, Publilii, etc. — must have been violently angered ; and as time went on and the illegality continued, the bulk of the Order must have become more and more disgusted with their own renegades ANCIENT HISTORY 315 and with the Patrician usurpers. These last must have felt, during the whole time of the usurpation, that they walked upon a hidden volcano — that a tire might at any moment burst forth which would imperil the very existence of the community. It was probably with the view of pacifying and soothing the discontented, that the Patricians granted during this interval many boons to the poorer classes. The re-establishment of the uncial rate of interest (10 per cent.) in B.C. 351, and the subse- quent reduction of the rate by one-half in B.C. 344, were pop- ular measures, evidently designed to gratify the lower orders. The tax on the manumission of slaves (B.C. 354) would also please them, since it would fall wholly upon the wealthy. Of a still more popular character were the general liquidation of debts, in B.C. 349, by means of a Commission empowered to make advances from the treasury to all needy persons who could ofTer a fair security ; and the suspension of the property- tax, and spread of the debts over the space of three years, which were among the measures of relief adopted in B.C. 344. The practical opening to the Plebeians without a struggle of the civil offices parallel with the Consulate — the Dictatorship and the Mastership of the Knights (B.C. 353) — may also be regarded as among the politic concessions of this period, made for the sake of keeping the Plebeians in good humor, and pre- venting an outbreak. But, though these boons and blandishments effected some- thing, it was felt nevertheless that the state of affairs was unset- tled, and that, on the occurrence of any convenient opportunity, there would probably be a rising. Accordingly the govern- ment determined, so far as in it lay, to avoid furnishing an opportunity ; and hence, for almost the first time in the history of the Roman State, we find a policy of peace adopted and steadily maintained for a series of years. Between the years B.C. 355 and 347, treaties of peace were concluded with all the important powers of Central Italy; and Rome left herself no enemy against whom she could legitimately commence a war excepting the shattered remnants of the Oscan nations and perhaps the Sabines of the tract beyond the Anio. At length, in B.C. 340, twelve years after the Licinio-Sex- tian constitution had been set aside, an occasion offered which 3i6 RAWLINSON tempted the government to depart from its peace policy, and to run the risk of internal trouble which was well known to be implied in the commencement of a great and important war. The temptation, one which it was impossible to resist, was the offer of the Campanians to become Roman subject-allies, if Rome would protect them against the Samnites. To accept this offer was to more than double the Roman territory; to reject it was greatly to strengthen the Samnites, already the chief pov/er of the south of Italy. The government, which though Patrician, was still Roman, was too patriotic to hesi- tate. Campania was therefore received into alliance, and the First Samnite War was the immediate consequence. The military operations of the war will be described in the next portion of this book (Third Period) ; but its effect on the civil history is too closely connected with the period of which we are now treating to admit of separation from it. The Ro- man army, having carried on a successful campaign, wintered in Campania; and the soldier-citizens, having thus had an opportunity of consulting together, determined to mutiny. Some were for a " secession " to Capua, but the majority were for enforcing their will upon the usurping government at Rome. In vain the consuls, perceiving what was afloat, tried to disperse the army little by little before an outbreak should come. Their intention was perceived, and the mutiny took place at once. The army marched upon Rome and made its demands — the government met it with a hasty levy, but these troops refused to fight. Long negotiations followed. At length, a tribune of the Plebs, a Genucius, proposed and carried through a series of laws, which were accepted on both sides as terms of reconciliation. The Licinian constitution was prac- tically re-established ; but it was enacted, as a just penalty on the Patricians for their repeated usurpation of both consul- ships, that, though both consuls might never legally be Patri- cians, it should be allowable for both of them to be Plebeians. To prevent any future seduction of a Plebeian party by the temptation of accumulated offices, it was enacted that no Ple- beian should henceforth hold the same office twice within ten years, or two offices in the same year. To alleviate the remain- ing pressure of debt, there was an absolute abolition of all out- ANCIENT HISTORY 317 standing claims, and a law was passed making the lending of money upon interest illegal. Some military grievances were at the same time redressed, provision being made that no soldier should be dismissed the service without cause shown, and that no petty officer should be degraded to the ranks. On these conditions peace was re-established ; and domestic tranquillity being attained, Rome was once more ready to devote her whole strength to the forwarding of her interests abroad. THIRD PERIOD. History of Rome from the breaking out of the First Samnite War, B.C. 340, to the Commencement of the Wars with Carthage, B.C. 264.* The Third Period of Roman History is that of the great wars in Italy, whereby Rome succeeded in making herself mistress of the entire Peninsula proper. It comprises the four Samnite Wars, the great Latin War, the war with Pyrrhus, a war with the Gauls, and several minor wars terminating in the conquest of the other lesser Italian nations. The external history of the period is thus of the highest interest; while the internal his- tory is, comparatively speaking, scanty and unimportant. When Rome determined to accept the Campanians as sub- ject-allies, she broke her treaty with Samnium, and practically made a declaration of war. Campania was a Samnite depen- dency which had revolted, and which the Samnites were bent on subjugating. The interposition of Rome in the quarrel re- * Sources. Authors. — Livy and Diodorus are the chief authorities for the earlier portion of this period; but the latter writer fails us after B.C. 302. The fragments of Appian's " Samnitica " are of some value. For the war with Pyrrhus, Plutarch's " Life " of that hero is the main source; but his narrative must be supplemented from the fragments of Dio Cassius, Dionysius, and Appian, and from the continuous nar- ratives of Justin, Orosius, and Zonaras. For the period following the departure of Pyrrhus from Italy (B.C. 275 to 264) these latter writers are almost our sole authorities. We may consult, however, with ad- vantage the " Epitomes " of Livy and the brief abstract of Florus. Inscriptions. — The Fasti Capitolini are full and tolerably continu- ous for the greater portion of this period. 3i8 RAWLINSON sembled that of Athens in the contest between Corinth and Corcyra. Morally, it could not be justified ; but, as a matter of policy, it could not be impugned. Rome already saw that her most formidable Italian rival was Samnium, and that it was with Samnium she would have to contend for the first place in Italy. A step which at once strengthened herself and weakened her antagonist could not but be expedient ; and we can not be surprised that, despite its injustice, the step was taken. Rome, about to engage in a war for supremacy with Latium, strengthened herself by an alliance with the knot of Sabine communities known as " the Marsian League." Latium ob- tained the adhesion of the Campanians, Sidicinians, and Vol- scians. Samnium was an active ally to neither party, but took the opportunity, which the contest offered, to advance her frontier on the side of the Volscian territory. The struggle between the two main belligerents was begun and concluded within the space of three years, and, indeed, w^as virtually de- cided by the events of the first campaign. The battles of Vesu- vius and Trifanum (B.C. 337) were stoutly contested by the Latins, but nevertheless were very decided Roman victories. Their effect was to break up the confederacy. Many states at once submitted. Others continued a desultory and inef- fectual resistance; but by the end of B.C. 335 the last Latin town had made its submission ; and Rome, having effected the conquest, proceeded to the work of pacification. The conclusion of the great struggle with Latium is followed by a pause of twelve years, during which Rome undertook nothing but trivial and unimportant wars, and those chiefly wars which were forced upon her. Her action was paralyzed by two causes, one internal, the other external. Her internal danger was from the subjected Latins, who were known to be discontented with their treatment, and might be expected to revolt the moment Rome should enter upon any important contest. The external cause of alarm was the invasion of Alex- ander of Epirus, uncle of Alexander the Great, who landed in Italy, B.C. 331, at the invitation of the Tarentines. Alexan- der's quarrel was mainly with the Samnites and their depen- dent allies ; but, if he had been successful against them, he ANCIENT HISTORY 319 would probably have attempted the conquest of Italy. Rome, doubtful of the result, protected herself by a treaty with the invader, and then nursed her strength and prepared herself to resist him if he should attack her. The reverses which befell Alexander of Epirus, about B.C. 325, encouraged the Romans to resume their old policy of aggression, and to take steps which led naturally and almost necessarily to the renewal of the struggle with Samnium. By founding the colony of Fregellae on land conquered by the Samnites from the Volscians, a challenge was flung down to Samnium, which she could scarcely refuse to take up. This was followed by an attack on Palaeopolis, an independent Greek city, which had long been under Samnite protection. War ensued as a matter of course. The time had, in fact, come when Rome was prepared to contest, with the power which she recognized as her great rival, the mastery of Southern Italy. Mistress of Latium and Campania, and secured by treaties from any early Etruscan attack, she felt herself equal to a vast effort ; and she therefore determined to seize the occasion for a war which should decide whether the hegemony of the peninsula, or at any rate of its southern portion, should belong to herself or to the Samnites. The Second Samnite War — the duel between the two chief races of Italy — covered a space of twenty-one years, from B.C. 323 to 303, inclusive. It divides itself naturally into three por- tions. During the first, from B.C. 323 to 319, the war lan- guished, neither party apparently putting forth its full strength. During the second, from B.C. 319 to 312, the issue was really determined by the three great battles, of the Caudine Forks, of Lautulse, and of Cinna. The third period, from B.C. 312 to 303, was again one of languid hostilities, the war being un- duly spun out, partly by the stubborn resistance of the beaten party, partly through the desultory attacks which were made upon Rome during these years by various enemies. The Second Samnite War brought the disaffection of the Latins very rapidly to a head. In B.C. 322, the second year of the war, there was beyond a doubt a great Latin revolt. Tusculum, Velitrae, and Privernum, three of the cities which had experienced the harshest treatment, took the lead. A 320 RAWLINSON night attack seems to have been made on Rome, and great alarm caused. The Roman government, however, met the danger with its usual wisdom. While some recommended measures of extreme violence, the Senate adopted a policy of conciliation. Terms were made with the rebels, some of whom were given, others promised, full citizenship. The discon- tented part of Latium was, in fact, incorporated into Rome. To mark the completeness and reality of the union, L. Fulvius, the leader of the revolt, became consul for the year, B.C. 321. Henceforth Latium was satisfied with its position, and con- tinued faithful through all the later troubles and rebellions. An interval of five years only — B.C. 303 to 298 — separates the Second from the Third Samnite War. Rome utilized it by completely reducing the remnant of the ^quian people, by bringing the four nations forming the Marsian League into the position of her subject-allies, by making alliances with the Frentani and Picentini, and by seizing and occupying the strong position of Nequinum (Narnia) in Umbria. She also during this period sent aid to the Lucanians, who were at- tacked by Cleonymus of Sparta. Samnium probably nego- tiated, during the pause, with the Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls, taking steps towards the formation of that " League of Italy " which she brought to bear against Rome in the ensu- ing war. The Third Samnite War is the contest of confederated Italy against the terrible enemy whose greatness was now seen to threaten every power in the peninsula. Its turning-point, which well deserves its place among the ten or twelve " De- cisive Battles of the World," was the battle of Sentinum. After two years of comparatively petty warfare, Samnium, in B.C. 296, brought the projected alliance to bear. Gellius Egnatius marched, with the flower of the Samnite force, across Central Italy into Etruria. The Gauls and Umbrians joined ; and in B.C. 295, the confederate army of the four nations advanced up- on Rome, which appeared to be on the brink of destruction. But a bold step taken by the Romans saved them. Instead of stand- ing merely on the defensive, they met the invaders with one army under the consuls Fabius and Decius, while they marched another into the heart of Etruria. On hearing this, the selfish ANCIENT HISTORY 321 Etruscans, deserting their confederates, drew off to protect their own country. The Samnitcs and Gauls retired across the Apennines to Sentinum, losing the Umbrians on the way, who remained to protect their own towns. Rome followed the re- treating force, and after a desperate struggle defeated it, thus really deciding the war. The confederation was broken up. The Gauls took no further part in the contest. Rome carried it on separately with Etruria on the one side and Samnium on the other, till the exhaustion of both powers compelled them to make peace. Samnium was forced to submit uncondition- ally, was mulcted in a portion of its territory, and became a subject-ally of Rome. Ten years intervened between the close of the Third Samnite War and the commencement of the next great struggle in which Rome was engaged. Much obscurity rests upon this interval, in which we lose the guidance of Livy without obtain- ing that of Plutarch. It appears, however, that shortly after the close of the Third Samnite War troubles broke out afresh in Southern Italy in consequence of a war between the Luca- nians and the Greeks of Thurii, B.C. 288. Rome interfered to protect Thurii, whereupon the Lucanians effected a union against Rome of the Gauls (Senones), Etruscans, Umbrians, Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttians, and Tarentines, which, in the year B.C. 283, menaced the Republic with destruction. But, though brought into serious danger, Rome triumphed over her difficulties. Fabricius defeated the combined Lucanians and Bruttians, relieved Thurii, and received the submission of almost all the Greek towns of the neighborhood except Ta- rentum. Dolabella avenged on the Senonian Gauls the defeat of Metellus at Arretium, by seizing their country and driving them beyond its borders. The Etruscans, and their allies, the Boii (Gauls), were defeated with great slaughter at Lake Vadi- mon. Tarentum alone remained unpunished. It was prob- ably to inflict damage on this covert enemy, with whom as yet there had been no actual contest, that a Roman fleet was sent in B.C. 282, contrary to the terms of an existing treaty, to cruise round the heel of Italy. This fleet having been attacked and sunk by the Tarentines. who also took possession of Thu- rii, Rome in B.C. 281 declared war against Tarentum, vvhich, 322 RAWLINSON accustomed to lean on Greece for support, invited over the Epirote prince Pyrrhus, who had already made himself a name by his victory over Demetrius Poliorcetes, and his first brief reign over Macedonia. The war with Pyrrhus lasted six years, from B.C. 280 to 274. It was the first trial of strength between Macedonized Greece and Rome. Pyrrhus brought with him into Italy an army of 22,500 foot and 3000 horse, disciplined in the Macedonian fash- ion, and also 20 elephants. At the outset he obtained no troops from any Italians but the Tarentines, whose services were al- most worthless. Nevertheless, in his first battle on the Siris, though with an army inferior in number, he completely de- feated the Romans, chiefly by the help of his elephants, which disconcerted the Roman cavalry. All Lower Italy then joined him; and, in the remainder of the contest, he had the assis- tance of the Italian Greeks generally, of the Lucanians, the Bruttians, and, above all, the Samnites. But neither after his first victory, near Heracleia, nor after his second, at Ausculum (Ascoli), was he able to effect any thing. The battles which he gained were stoutly contested, and cost him, each of them, several thousands of men, whom he could not replace and could ill spare. His power necessarily waned as time went on. His allies, except the Samnites, were of little value. His Greek troops harmonized ill with the Italians. Above all, while he fought for glory, the Romans fought for their existence ; and their patriotism and patient courage proved more than a match for the gallantry and brilliant strategy of their opponent. It was as much from disgust at his ill success, so far as the general ends of the war were concerned, as from the attraction of a tempting ofifer, that Pyrrhus, in B.C. 278, quitted Italy for Sicily, accepted the Protectorate of the Greeks, and engaged in a war with the Carthaginians which threw them on the Ro- man side. Successful in this quarter to a certain extent, but, with his usual restlessness, leaving his conquest uncompleted, the Epirote prince returned to Italy with difficulty ; and, hav- ing lost Sicily almost at the moment of his departure, engaged the Romans in a third battle near Beneventum, and being there completely defeated, gave up the war, and returned with the almost entire loss of his army, but with heightened reputation, to his native country. ANCIENT HISTORY 323 The departure of Pyrrhus was followed rapidly by the com- plete subjugation of Southern Italy. Tarentum surrendered B.C. 2^2. Lucania and Bruttium submitted in the same year. Rhegium was stormed, B.C. 270. In Samnium a guerrilla war- fare was maintained till B.C. 269, when resistance finally ceased. The Sallentines and Messapians were conquered in B.C. 266. At the same time Rome extended and consolidated her power in the North. A quarrel was picked with Picenum in B.C. 268. War and subjection followed; and, to prevent future resist- ance, half the nation was torn from its native land and trans- planted to the opposite coast, where it received settlements on the Gulf of Salernum. In B.C. 266, Umbria was forced to make its submission ; and in the year following, Volsinii, the chief of the Etruscan towns, was besieged, taken, and razed to the ground. At the close of the year B.C. 265, Rome reigned supreme over the length and breadth of Italy, from the Macra to Tarentum and Rhegium. The chief means by which Rome established and secured her power was her system of colonies, with its supplement, her military roads. The foundation of colonies began, if we may believe the Roman historians, under the kings. At any rate, it is certain that early in the struggle between the combined Romans, Latins, and Hernici on the one hand and the Oscan nations on the other, the plan of establishing colonies, as gar- risons, in towns taken from the enemy, was very widely adopted. Such colonies were made up, in equal or nearly equal proportions, of citizens of the three nations, who together formed the burgher or Patrician body in the city where they took up their abode, the previous inhabitants counting only as a " Plebs." The system, thus employed by Rome in con- junction with her allies, was afterwards made use of copiously in the conquests which she effected for her own sole advantage. As Terminus advanced, either colonies of Roman citizens {colo- ni- and high spirit of the natives was especially shown from B.C. 149 to 140 under the leadership of the Lusitanian, Viriathus ; and again from B.C. 143 to 133, in the course of the desperate resistance offered to the Roman arms by the Numantians. Rome was unable to overcome either enemy without having recourse to treacherv. While the freedom-loving tribes of the West showed so much reluctance to surrender their liberties into the hands of Rome, in the East her dominion received a large extension by the voluntary act of one of her allies. Attalus III., king of Pergamus, who held under his sovereignty the greater part of Asia Minor, was found at his death CB.C. 133) to have left his Kingdom by will to the Roman people. This strange legacy ANCIENT HISTORY 349 was, as was natural, disputed by the expectant heir, Aristonicus, bastard son of Attalus, and was afterwards denied by Mithrida- tes V. ; but there is no real ground for calling it in question. Rome had no doubt intrigued to obtain the cession, and con- sequently she did not hesitate to accept it. A short war with Aristonicus (B.C. 133 to 130) gave the Romans full possession of the territory, the greater portion of which was formed into a province ; Phrygia Major being, however, detached, and ceded to Mithridates IV., king of Pontus, who had assisted Rome in the brief struggle. The internal changes in the Roman government during the period here under consideration were gentle, gradual, and for the most part informal ; but they amounted in course of time to a sensible and far from unimportant modification. The long struggle between the Patrician and Plebeian Orders was termi- nated by the Genucian revolution ; and, the chief Plebeian fam- ilies being now placed on a par with the Patricians, a united nobility stood at the head of the nation, confronting and con- fronted by a proletariate, with only a rather small and not very active middle class intervening between them. The prole- tariate, however, was in part amenable to the nobility, being composed of persons who were its Clients ; and it was not dif- ficult to keep the remaining members in good-humor by be- stowing upon them from time to time allotments of land in the conquered territories. On the whole, it may be said that the proletariate was, during this period, at the beck and call of the nobles, while the only opposition which caused them anxiety was that of the middle class — Italian farmers principally — who, supported by some of the less distinguished Plebeian " houses," formed an "' opposition,"' which was sometimes formidable. It was the object of the nobles to increase the power of the Senate as compared with the " comitia ; " and to bring the " comitia '* themselves under aristocratic influence. The ex- altation of the Senate was effected verv graduallv. The more important foreign affairs became — and everything was foreign out of Italy — the greater grew to be the power of the Senate, which settled all such matters without reference to the " co- mitia." And. with respect to home afiFairs. the more widely the franchise was extended (and it reached through the Roman 350 RAWLINSON colonies to very remote parts of Italy), the more numerous and varied the elements that were admitted to it, the less were the " comitia " possessed of any distinct and positive will, and the more easy did it become to manipulate and manage them. As a rule, the people stood and assented to all proposals made by the magistrates. They were too widely scattered over the ter- ritory to be instructed beforehand, too numerous to be ad- dressed effectively at the time of voting — besides which, no one but the presiding magistrate had the right of addressing them. To bring the " comitia " more completely under the hands of the government, the vast bodies of freedmen, who consti- tuted at this time the chief portion of the retainers (dicntes) of each noble house, were continually admitted to the franchise, either by a positive enactment, as in B.C. 240, or by the care- lessness or collusion of the censors, who every five years made out anew the roll of the citizens. The lower classes of the in- dependent voters were also systematically corrupted by the practice of largesses, especially distributions of corn, and by the exhibition of games at the private cost of the magistrates, who curried favor with the voters by the splendor and expense of their shows. It was also, perhaps, to increase the influence of the nobles over the centuries that the change was made by which each of the five classes was assigned an equal number of votes ; for the wealthier citizens not within the noble class were at this time the most independent and the most likely to thwart the will of the government. Still, no hard-and-fast line was drawn between the nobles and the rest of the community, no barrier which could not be overstepped. A family became noble through its members ob- taining any of the high offices of the State, and through its thus having " images of ancestors " to show. And legally the high- est office was open to every citizen. Practically, however, the chief offices came to be confined almost to a clique. This was owing, in the first place, to the absolute need of great wealth for certain offices, as especially the sedileship, and to the law (passed in B.C. 180) by which a regular rotation of offices was fixed, and no one could reach the higher till he had first served the lower. But, beyond this, it is evident that after a time a thoroughly exclusive spirit grew up ; and all the influence of the ANCIENT HISTORY 351 nobles over the " comitia " was exerted to keep out of high office every " new man " — every one, that is, who did not be^ long to the narrow list of some forty or fifty " houses " who considered it their right to rule the commonwealth. The attempts of the " opposition " were limited to two kinds of efforts. First, they vainly wasted their strength in noble but futile efforts to check the spread of luxury and corruption, including however under those harsh names much that modern society would regard as proper civilization and refinement. Secondly, they now and then succeeded by determined exer- tions in raising to high ofiice a " new man " — a Porcius Cato, or a C. Flaminius — who was a thorn in the side of the nobles during the remainder of his lifetime, but rarely effected any political change of importance. Altogether, the " opposition " seems fairly taxable with narrow views and an inability to grap- ple with the difficulties of the situation. The age was one of " political mediocrities." Intent on pursuing their career of conquest abroad, the Roman people cared little and thought little of affairs at home. The State drifted into difficulties, which were unperceived and unsuspected, till they suddenly declared themselves with startling violence at the epoch where- at we have now arrived. FIFTH PERIOD. From the Commencement of internal Troubles under the Gracchi to the Establishment of the Empire under Au- gustus, B.C. 133 to A.D. 30.* An epoch is now reached at which the foreign wars of Rome become few and unimportant, while the internal affairs of the State have once more a grave and absorbing interest. Civil * Sources. The continuous histories of this period, composed by- ancient writers, whether Greek or Latin, if we except mere sketches and epitomes, are all lost. For the earlier portion of it — B.C. 133 to 70 — our materials are especially scanty. Plutarch, in his " Lives " of the Gracchi, of Marius, Sylla, Lucullus, Crassus, and Sertorius, and Appian, " De Bellis Civilibus," are the chief authorities; to which may be added Sallust's " Jugurtha," a bi-illiant and valuable monograph, together with a few fragments of his " Histories." In this comparative scarcity 352 RAWLINSON troubles and commotions follow one another with great rapid- ity; and finally we come to a period when the arms of the Ro- mans are turned against themselves, and the conquerors of the world engage in civil wars of extraordinary violence. The origin of these disturbances is to be found in the gulf which had been gradually forming and widening between the poor and the rich, the nobles and the proletariat. For a long series of years, from the termination of the Second Samnite War to the final settlement of Northern Italy (B.C. 303 to 177), the press- ure of poverty had been continually kept down and alleviated, partly by the long and bloody struggles which decimated the population and so relieved the labor-market, partly by distri- butions of plunder, and, above all, by assignations of lands. But the last Italian colony was sent out in B.C. 177 ; and a new generation had now grown up which had neither received nor expected any such relief. The lands of Italy were all occu- pied ; no nation within its borders remained to be conquered ; and settlements beyond the seas possessed for the ordinary Ro- man citizen few attractions. As the wars came to be less con- stant and less sanguinary, the population increased rapidly, and no vent was provided for the newcomers. The labor-market was overcrowded ; it became difficult for a poor man to obtain a living; and those dangers arose which such a condition of things is sure to bring upon a State. The state of affairs would have been very different had the Licinian law with respect to the employment of free labor been enforced against the occupiers of the public domain. This do- of sources, even the brief compendium of the prejudiced Paterculus, and the " Epitomes " of the careless and inaccurate Livy, come to have an importance. From about B.C. 70, there is an improvement both in the amount and in the character of the extant materials. Appian con- tinues to be of service, as also does Plutarch in his " Lives " of Cicero, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Cato the younger, Brutus, and Antonius; while we obtain, in addition, abundant information of the most au- thentic kind, first, from the contemporary " Speeches " and " Letters " of Cicero, and then from the " Commentaries " of Cicsar and Hirtius. The continuous narrative of Dio Cassius begins also from the year B.C. 69; the " Catiline" of Sallust belongs to the years B.C. 66 to 62; and Suetonius's " Lives " of Julius and Octavius fall, the one entirely, the other partially, within the date which terminates the period. ANCIENT HISTORY 353 main, which had now become extremely large, had, naturally enough, been occupied by the capitalist (which was nearly identical with the governing) class, who had at the time seemed to compensate fairly the non-capitalists by extremely liberal allotments of small plots of ground in absolute property. But, while the poorer classes increased in number, the richer were stationary, or even dwindled. Old " houses " became extinct, while new " houses " only with great difficulty pushed them- selves into the ruling order. There were no means of obtain- ing much wealth at Rome except by the occupation of domain lands on a large scale, by the farming of the revenue, or by the government of the provinces. But these sources of wealth were, all of them, at the disposal of the ruling class, who as- signed them, almost without exception, to members of their own families. Thus the wealthy were continually becoming more wealthy, while the poor grew poorer. There was no ap- preciable introduction of new blood into the ranks of the aris- tocracy. The domain land was in B.C. 133 engrossed by the members of some forty or fifty Roman " houses " and by a cer- tain number of rich Italians, of whom the former had grown to be enormously wealthy by inheritance, intermarriages, and the monopoly of government employments. The " modus agrorum " established by Licinius had fallen into oblivion, or at least into disuse ; and several thousand " jugera " were prob- ably often held by a single man. Still, in all this there would have been no very great hardship, had the domain land been cul- tivated by the free labor of Roman citizens, either wholly or in any decent proportion. In that case, the noble " possessor " must have conveyed to his estate, in whatever part of Italy it was situated, a body of poor Roman freemen, who would have formed a sort of colony upon his land, and would have only differed from other colonists in working for wages instead of cultivating on their own account. The Roman labor-market would have been relieved, and no danger would have threat- ened the State from its lower orders. But it seemed to the " possessor " more economical and more convenient to culti- vate his land by means of slaves, which the numerous wars of the times, together with the regular slave-trade, had made cheap. The Licinian enactment was therefore very early set 23 354 RAWLINSON at naught ; and it was not enforced. Everywhere over Italy the public domain was cultivated by gangs of slaves. Among the more wise and patriotic of the Romans it had long been seen that this state of things was fraught with peril. At Rome a proletariate daily becoming poorer and more un- wieldy, content hitherto to be at the beck and call of the nobles, but if it once grew to be hungry and hopeless, then most dan- gerous — in Italy a vast slave population, composed largely of those who had known liberty and were not deficient in intelli- gence, harshly treated and without any attachment to its mas- ters, which might be expected on any favorable opportunity to rise and fight desperately for freedom — the government, if an outbreak occurred, dependent on the swords of the soldiers, who might largely sympathize with the poorer classes, from which they were in great measure taken — such a combination boded ill for peace, and claimed the serious consideration of all who pretended to the name of statesmen. Unhappily, at Rome, statesmen were " few and far between ; " yet, about B.C. 140, Laelius (the friend of Scipio) had recognized the peril of the situation, and had proposed some fresh agrarian enactments as a remedy, but had been frightened from his purpose by the opposition which the nobles threatened. Matters went on in the old groove till B.C. 133, when at length a tribune of the Plebs, Ti. Sempronius Gracchus by name, a member of one of the noblest Plebeian houses, came forward with a set of prop- ositions which had for their object the rehef of the existing distress among the Roman citizens, and the improvement of the general condition of Italy by the substitution of free cultiva- tors of the small yeoman class for the gangs of disaffected slaves who were now spread over the country. The exact measures which he proposed were, (i) The revival of the obsolete law of Licinius, fixing the amount of domain land which a man might legally occupy at 500 jugera, with the modification that he might hold also 250 jugera for each of his unemancipated adult sons ; (2) The appointment of a standing commission of three members to enforce the law ; (3) The division among the poorer citizens of the State lands which would by the operation of the first provision become vacant ; (4) The compensation of the possessores on account of their losses from improvements made ANCIENT HISTORY 355 on the lands which they reHnquished by the assignment to them of the portions of land which they legally retained in absolute ownership ; and (5) The proviso that the new allotments, when once made, should be inalienable. The propositions of Gracchus were intensely disagreeable to the bulk of the nobility and to a certain number of the richer Italians, who had, legally or illegally, become occupiers of the domain to an extent beyond that which it was proposed to establish as the limit. Naturally therefore his laws were op- posed. The opposition was led by one of his own colleagues, the tribune Octavius, who by his veto prevented the vote of the tribes from being taken. An unseemly contention followed, which Gracchus, unfortunately for himself and for his cause, terminated by proposing to the tribes, and carrying, the deposi- tion of his adversary. The laws were then passed, a commis- sion was appointed (Gracchus, his brother Caius, and Ap. Claudius, his father-in-law), and the work of resumption and distribution commenced. But it was more easy to initiate than to carry out a measure of such extent and complication, and one that aroused such fierce passions, as that which the bold tribune had taken in hand. As he advanced in his work his popularity waned. His adversaries took heart ; and, to secure himself and his cause, he was forced to propose fresh laws of a more and more revo- lutionary character. The propositions which he made, and his conduct in endeavoring to secure his re-election, for the pur- pose of carrying them, goaded his enemies to fury ; and the Senate itself, with Scipio Nasica at its head, took the lead in a violent attack upon him as he presided in the Tribes, and mur- dered him in open day together with 300 of his partisans. The open murder of a tribune of the Plebs engaged in the duties of his office was an unprecedented act in Roman history (for the assassination of Genucius, B.C. 471, had been secret), and sufficiently indicated the arrival of a new period, when the old respect for law and order would no longer hold its ground, and the State would become a prey to the violent and the un- scrupulous. For the moment, however, the evil deed done re- coiled upon its authors. Nasica, denounced as a murderer on all hands, though unprosecuted, was forced to quit Italy and 356 RAWLINSON go into banishment. The Agrarian Commission of Gracchus was renewed, and allowed to continue its labors. Moderation on the part of the democratic leaders who had succeeded to the position of Gracchus would have secured important results for the poor from the martyrdom of their champion ; but the ar- bitrary conduct of the new commissioners, Carbo and Flaccus, disgusted the moderate party at Rome and large numbers of the Italians ; the Senate found itself strong enough to quash the Commission and assign the execution of the Sempronian Law to the ordinary executive, the consuls ; and finally, when, by the assassination of the younger Africanus, the democrats had put themselves decidedly in the wrong, it was able to go a step farther, and suspend proceedings under the law altogether. A lull in the storm now occurred — a period of comparative tranquillity, during which only a few mutterings were heard, indications to the wise that all was not over. A claim to the franchise began to be urged by the Latins and Italians, and to find advocates among the democratic Romans, who thought that in the accession of these fresh members to the tribes they saw a means of more effectually controlling the Senate. Q. Fabius Flaccus, the consul of B.C. 125, formulated these claims into a law ; but the Senate contrived to tide over the difficulty by sending him upon foreign service. The revolt of the dis- appointed Fregellse followed ; and the bloody vengeance taken on the unhappy town frightened the Italians, for the time at any rate, into silence. Meanwhile, the younger Gracchus, who had gone as quaestor into Sardinia, B.C. 126, was detained there by the Senate's orders till B.C. 124, when he suddenly returned to Rome and announced himself as a candidate for the trib- unate. The measures of C. Gracchus were more varied and more sweeping than those of his elder brother ; but they were cast in the same mould. He had the same two objects in view — the relief of the poorer classes, and the depression of the power of the Senate. Like his brother, he fell a victim to his exertions in the popular cause ; but he effected more. His elevation of the Equestrian Order, and his system of corn-largesses — the " Roman poor-law," as it has been called — survived him, and became permanent parts of the constitution. To him is also ANCIENT HISTORY 357 attributable the extension of the Roman colonial system into the provinces. He was a great and good man ; but he had a difficult part to play ; and he was wanting in the tact and dis- cretion which the circumstances of the times required. The Senate, being far more than his match in finesse and manoeuvre, triumphed over him, though not without once more having re- course to violence, and staining the streets and prisons of Rome with the blood of above 3000 of her citizens. The death of C. Gracchus was followed within a short space by the practical repeal of his Agrarian law. First the proviso that the allotments made under it should be inalienable was abrogated, so that the rich might recover them through mort- gage or purchase. Then a law was passed forbidding any further allotments (" Lex Boria "), and imposing a quit-rent on all " possessores," the whole amount of which was to be annually distributed among the poorer classes of the people. Finally, by the " Lex Thoria," the quit-rents were abolished, and the domain land in the hands of the " possessores " was made over to them absolutely. The twenty years from B.C. 120 to 100 formed a time of comparative internal tranquillity. Rome during this period was under the government of the aristocratical party, which directed her policy and filled up most of the high offices. But the party was during the whole period losing ground. The corruption of the upper classes was gradually increasing, and — what was worse for their interests — was becoming more generally known. The circumstances of the Jugurthine War brought it prominently into notice. At the same time the democratic party was learning its strength. It found itself able by vigorous efforts to carry its candidates and its measures in the Tribes. It learnt to use the weapons which had proved so effectual in the hands of the nobles — violence and armed tumult — against them. And, towards the close of the period, it obtained leaders as bold and ruthless as those who in the time of the Gracchi had secured the victory for the opposite faction. While internally Rome remained in tolerable tranquillity, externally she was engaged in several most important and even dangerous wars. The year of the death of C. Gracchus, B.C. 358 RAWLINSON 121, saw the conquest of Southern Gaul effected by the victories of Domitius and Fabius, and the formation of that new " Prov- ince " whereto the title has ever since adhered as a proper name (Provence). Three years later, B.C. ii8, the troubles began in Africa which led to the Jugurthine War. That war was chiefly important for the revelation which it made of Roman aristocratic corruption, and for the fact that it first brought prominently into notice the two great party-leaders, Marius and Sulla. Scarcely was it ended when a real danger threat- ened Rome from the barbarians of the North, a danger from which Marius, the best general of the time, with difficulty saved her. Before the war with Jugurtha was over, that with the North- ern barbarians had begun. The Cimbri and Teutones — Celts probably and Germans — issuing, as it would seem, from the tract beyond the Rhine and Danube, appeared suddenly in vast numbers in the region between those streams and the Alps, ravaging it at their will, and from time to time threatening, and even crossing, the Roman frontier, and inflicting losses upon the Roman armies. The natives of the region especially subject to their ravages, in great part, joined them, especially the Am- brones, Tigurini, and Tectosages. As early as B.C. 113 a horde of Cimbri crossed the Alps and defeated the consul Cn. Papirius Carbo, in Istria. In B.C. 109, Cimbri appeared on the borders of Roman Gaul (Provence) and demanded lands. Opposed by the consul M. Junius Silanus, they attacked and defeated him ; and from this time till B.C. loi the war raged almost continuously, Marius finally bringing it to a close by his victory near Vercellse in that year. The victories of Aquse Sextise and Vercellse raised Marius to a dangerous eminence. Never, since the first establishment of the Republic, had a single citizen so far outshone all rivals. Had Marius possessed real statesmanship, he might have an- ticipated the work of Julius, and have imposed himself on the State as its permanent head. But, though sufficiently ambi- tious, he wanted judgment and firmness. He had no clear and definite views, either of the exact position to which he aspired, or of the means whereby he was to attain to it. His course was marked by hesitation and indecision. Endeavoring to ANCIENT HISTORY 359 please all parties, he pleased none. At first allying himself with Glaucia and Saturninus, he gave his sanction to the long series of measures by which the lattcr-^the first thorough Ro- man demagogue — sought to secure the favor of the lower or- ders. He encouraged the persecution of Metellus, and gladly saw him driven into exile, thus deeply offending the senatorial party. But when the violence and recklessness of his allies had provoked an armed resistance and civil disturbances began, he shrank from boldly casting in his lot with the innovators, and, while attempting to screen, in fact sacrificed, his friends. The fall of Saturninus was followed, B.C. 99, by the recall of Metellus from banishment, and the voluntary exile of the haughty and now generally unpopular Marius. That great general but poor statesman retired to Asia and visited the court of Mithridates. The triumph of his rival, though stained by the murder of another tribune, seemed for a time to have given peace to Rome ; but the period of tranquillity was not of long duration. In B.C. 91, M. Livius Drusus, the son of the Drusus who had opposed C. Gracchus, brought forward a set of measures which had for their object the reconcilement, at Rome, of the Senatorian with the Equestrian Order, and, in Italy, of the claims of the Italians with those of the old citizens of Rome. There had now been for thirty years a struggle at Rome between the nobles and the bourgeoisie on the ques- tion of which of the two should furnish the judices; ex- pectations had been also for about the same space of time held out to the Italians generally that they would be accepted into full citizenship. It was venturesome in Drusus to address himself at one and the same time to both these great questions. Successfully to grapple with them a man was required of first- rate powers, one who could bend opposing classes to his will, and compel or induce them to accept, however reluctantly, the compromise which he considered just or expedient. Drusus seems to have possessed mere good intentions, combined with average ability. He carried his " lex de judiciis," but was un- able to pass that extending the franchise. Once more the Roman conservatives had recourse to assassination, and de- layed a necessary reform by a bold use of the knife. Drusus was murdered before his year of office was out ; and the laws 360 RAWLINSON which he had passed were declared null and void by the gov- ernment. The murder of Drusus drove the Italians to despair. Ac- customed for many years to form an important element in the Roman armies, and long buoyed up with hopes of obtaining the advantages of citizenship — the chief of which were lands, cheap corn, and the covert bribery of largesses — the tribes of Central and Southern Italy, finding their champion murdered and their hopes dashed to the ground, flew to arms. Eight nations, chiefly of the Sabine stock, entered into close alliance, chose Corfmium in the Pelignian Apennines for their capital, and formed a federal republic, to which they gave the name of " Italia." At the outset, great success attended the effort ; and it seemed as if Rome must have succumbed. Lucius Caesar, one of the consuls, Perperna, one of his legates, and Postumius, the praetor, were defeated. The allies overran Campania, de- stroyed a consular army under Csepio, and entered into nego- tiations with the northern Italians, whose fidelity now wav- ered. But the sagacious policy of Rome changed the face of afTairs, and secured her a triumph which she could not have accomplished by arms alone. The " Julian Law " conferred full citizenship both on such of the Italians as had taken no part in the war hitherto, the Etruscans, Umbrians, Sabines proper, Hernicans, etc., and also on all such as upon the pas- sage of the law ceased to take part in it. By this proviso the revolt became disorganized ; a " peace party " was formed in the ranks of the allies ; nation after nation fell away from the league ; Rome gained successes in the field ; and at last, when only Samnium and Lucania remained in arms, the policy of concession was once more adroitly used, and the " Lex Plotia," which granted all that the allies had ever claimed, put an end to the war. The part taken by Marius in the Social War had redounded little to his credit. He had served as legate to the consul Rutilius, in the first disastrous year, and had declined battle when Pompsedius offered it. Probably his sympathies were with the revolters, and he had no desire to push them to ex- tremities. Sulla, on the other hand, had greatly increased his reputation by his campaigns of B.C. 89 and 88; and it was ANCIENT HISTORY 361 therefore natural that he should be selected by the Senate as the commander who was to undertake the war against Mithridates, which needed a first-rate general. But this se- lection deeply offended Marius, who had long regarded the conduct of that struggle as his due. Determined to displace his rival, or perhaps actuated by a less selfish motive, he suddenly undertook the open championship of the Italians, whose forced admission to the franchise the government was attempting to make a mockery by confining them, despite their large numbers, to some eight or ten tribes. At his in- stigation, the tribune Sulpicius proposed and, by means of tumult, carried a law distributing the new voters through all the tribes, and thus giving them the complete control of the Comitia. At the same time, he enrolled in the tribes a large number of freedmen. Comitia thus formed passed, as a matter of course, an enactment depriving Sulla of his post, and trans- ferring the command to Marius, B.C. 88. The insulted consul was not prepared to submit to his ad- versary. Quitting Rome, he made an appeal to his legions, and finding them ready to back his claims, he marched straight upon the capital. The step seems to have been a complete sur- prise to Marius, who had taken no precautions to meet it. In vain did the Roman people seek to defend their city from the hostile entrance of Roman troops under a Roman general. A threat of applying the torch to their houses quelled them. In vain Marius, collecting such forces as he could find, withstood his rival in the streets and at first repulsed him. The hasty levies which alone he had been able to raise were no match for the legionaries. The victory remained with Sulla ; and the defeated Marians were forced to seek safety in flight. Through a wonderful series of adventures, the late director of affairs at Rome, with his son, reached Africa an almost unattended fugitive. Meantime, at Rome, the consul, confident in his armed strength, proscribed his adversaries, repealed the Sulpician laws, put Sulpicius himself to death, and passed various meas- ures favorable to the nobility. But he could not remain per- manently at the capital. The alTairs of the East called him away ; and no sooner was he gone than the flames of civil war 362 RAWLINSON burst out afresh. Cinna, raised to the consulate by the popular party, endeavored to restore the exiled Marius and to re-enact the laws of Sulpicius. But the aristocrats took arms. Cinna, forced to fly, threw himself, like Sulla, upon the legionaries, and having obtained their support, and also that of the ItaHans generally, while at the same time he invited Marius over from Africa, marched on Rome with his partisans. Again the city was taken, and this time was treated like one conquered from an enemy. The friends of Sulla were butchered ; the houses of the rich plundered ; and the honor of noble families put at the mercy of slaves. Prosecutions of those who had escaped the massacre followed. Sulla was proscribed, and a reign of terror was inaugurated which lasted for several months. But the death of Marius, early in B.C. 86, put a stop to the worst of these horrors, though Rome remained for two years longer under a species of dictatorship, constitutional forms being sus- pended. Meanwhile, in the East, Sulla had been victorious over Mith- ridates, had recovered Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor, crushed Fimbria, the Marian partisan, who sought to deprive him of his laurels, collected vast sums of money, and, above all, brought a large Roman army to feel that devotion to his person which is easily inspired in soldiers by a successful general. It is creditable to Sulla that he at no moment allowed his private quarrels to interfere with the public interests, but postponed the rectification of his own wrongs until he had taken ample vengeance for those of his country. The peace of Dardanus was in the highest degree honorable to Rome and humiliating to Mithridates, who not only abandoned all his conquests, but consented to a fine of 2000 talents and surrendered his fleet. Having accomplished in five campaigns, conducted mainly from his private resources, all the objects of the war, Sulla could with propriety address himself to the settlement of his quarrel with the Marians, and having put down Fimbria in Asia, could make his arrangements for fighting out the civil struggle, which had long been inevitable, in Italy and at Rome itself. The determination of Sulla to return to Italy at the head of his army, and measure his strength against that of the Mar- ANCIENT HISTORY 363 ians, had been apparent from the moment when he decUned to yield his command to Valerius Flaccus, B.C. 86. The gage of battle had in fact been thrown down to him by his adver- saries, when they declared him a public enemy, and he would have been more than human if he had not accepted it. He knew that the party of the nobles, whereof he was the repre- sentative, was still strong at Rome, and he felt that he could count on the army which he had now so often led to victory. The death of Marius had made him beyond dispute the first of living generals. There was none among the leaders of the opposite faction for whom he could feel much respect, unless it were the self-restrained and far from popular Sertorius. The strength of his adversaries lay in the Roman mob and in the Italians. For the former he had all a soldier's contempt ; but the latter he knew to be formidable. He therefore, with adroit policy, prefaced his return by a declaration that he " in- tended no interference with the rights of any citizen, new or old." The Italians accepted the pledge, and stood neutral during the opening scenes of the contest. The triumph of Sulla and the nobles was stained by a mur- derous cruelty such as Rome had never yet witnessed. Not only were the leaders of the late war, and every relation of Marius that could be found, put to death, but at Rome the wealthy bourgeoisie, and in the provinces the disaffected Italians, were slaughtered by thousands. The fatal " lists " of the " proscribed " began ; and numbers of wholly innocent per- sons were executed merely on account of their wealth. Nearly 3000 are said to have perished at Rome, 12,000 at Praeneste, and numbers not much smaller at other Italian cities which had favored the Marians. The property of every victim was confiscated. Sulla remained lord of Rome, first with no title, then as " dictator," for the space of nearly three years, when he astonished the world by a voluntary abdication of power, a retirement to Puteoli, and a dedication of the remainder of his life to amusement and sensual pleasures. First, however, by his dictatorial power he entirely reformed the Roman Consti- tution, depriving it of all elements of a popular character, and concentrating all power in the hands of the Senate. It was not to be expected that the violent changes introduced 364 RAWLINSON by Sulla into the Roman constitution could long remain un- modified. The popular party might be paralyzed by terror for a time ; but it was sure to revive. The excesses of the nobles, now that their power was wholly unchecked, could not but pro- voke reaction. The very nobles themselves were scarcely likely to submit long to the restraints which the " lex annalis " placed upon their ambition. Accordingly, we find that im- mediately after Sulla's death, B.C. 78, an attempt was made by Lepidus, the consul, to rescind his laws and restore the former constitution. This attempt, it is true, failed, as being prema- ture; and so did the effort of the tribune Cn. Sicinius, in B.C. 76, to restore its powers to the tribunate. But, six years later, after the Sertorian and Gladiatorial Wars had been brought to an end and the strength of Mithridates broken, Sulla's constitution was wholly set aside, and the power of the nobles received a check from which it never subsequently recovered. The individual who had the greatest share in bringing about the reversal of Sulla's reforms rose into notice under Sulla him- self, but acquired the influence which enabled him to effect a great constitutional change in the wars which intervened be- tween the years B.C. 'jy and 70. Cn. Pompeius, whose father was a " new man " (novus homo), and who was thus only just within the pale of the nobility, secured for himself a certain consideration by the zeal with which he worked for Sulla. Having crushed the Marians in Sicily and Africa, and lent ef- fectual aid to the consul Catulus against Lepidus, he was re- warded in B.C. yy by being sent as proconsul to Spain, where Sertorius, recently one of the Marian leaders, had established an independent kingdom, and defied all the efforts of the aged Metellus to reduce him. Originally the object of Sertorius was to maintain himself in a position of antagonism to Rome by the swords of the Spaniards ; but when Perperna and the remnant of the Marian party fled to him, his views became en- larged, and he aspired to reinstate his partisans in authority at Rome itself. He would probably have succeeded in this aim, had not Perperna, thinking that he had found an opportunity of supplanting him in the affections of the Spaniards, removed him by assassination. The war was after this soon brought to ANCIENT HISTORY 365 a close, Perperna having neither Sertorius's genius for com- mand nor his power of awakening personal attachment. Before the Sertorian war was ended, that of the Gladiators had broken out. Spartacus, a Thracian chief, who had been made prisoner and then forced to become a gladiator, per- suaded those in the same condition as himself at Capua to rise against their tyrants. Joined by vast numbers of slaves and outlaws, he soon found himself at the head of 100,000 men. Four generals sent against him were defeated signally, and dur- ing two entire years he ravaged Italy at his will, and even threatened Rome itself. But intestine division showed itself in his ranks ; his lieutenants grew jealous of him ; and in B.C. 71, the war was committed to the praetor Crassus, who in six months brought it to a termination. Spartacus fell, lighting bravely, near Brundusium. His followers generally dispersed ; but a body of 5000, which kept together, forced its way through Italy and had nearly reached the Alps, when Pompey on his return from Spain fell in with it and destroyed it utterly. About the same time, Crassus crucified all those whom he had made prisoners, amounting to 6000. The successful termination of these two important strug- gles exalted in the public esteem two men especially, the rich and shrewd Crassus, and the bland, attractive, and thoroughly respectable Pompey. To them the State had in its dangers committed itself ; and they now claimed, not unnaturally, to be rewarded for their services by the consulship. But the Sullaean constitution forbade their election ; and to effect it the " lex annalis " had to be broken through. The breach thus made was rapidly enlarged. Though hitherto Sullgeans, Pompey and Crassus had now, it would seem, become convinced, either that it was impossible to maintain a strictly oligarchical con- stitution, or that such a constitution was not for their own per- sonal interest. They had determined to throw themselves up- on the support and sympathies of the Roman bourgeoisie, or upper middle class, and resting upon this basis to defy the oligarchy. The moving spirit in the matter was, no doubt, Pompey, who easily persuaded his less clever colleague. Three measures were determined upon : — the restoration of the power of the tribunes, and the consequent resuscitation of the 366 RAWLINSON tribes ; the transferrence of the jndicia to a body of which one- third only should be furnished by the Senate, the knights fur- nishing one-third, and the remaining third being drawn from the Tribuni ^rarii ; a purification of the government from its grossest scandals, partly by prosecutions, as that of Verres, partly by a revival of the office of censor, which had been sus- pended by Sulla. Despite a fierce opposition on the part of the Senate, these measures were carried. The Senate was purged by the expulsion of sixty-four of its members. Verres was driven into exile. The control of the jndicia was trans- ferred from the nobles to the upper middle class. The pa- ralysis of political life, which Sulla's legislation had produced, was terminated by the restoration of a double initiative, and the consequent rivalry between two parties and two classes for the direction of the affairs of the State. A pause now occurred in the career of Pompey, who took no province at the close of his consulship, apparently contented with his achievements, or waiting till some great occasion should recall him to the service of the State. In this interval — B.C. 69 to 67 — a new character appeared upon the scene. C. Julius Caesar, the nephew of Marius and son-in-law of Cinna, whom Sulla had spared in a moment of weariness or weakness, acting probably in concert with Crassus and Pompey, exhib- ited at the funeral of Julia, his own aunt and the widow of Marius, the bust of that hero. At the same time, he pleaded the cause of his uncle, Cornelius Cinna, and obtained his recall, together with that of other Marian partisans. His wife, Cor- nelia, dying, he connected himself with Pompey by marriage. At this time the quaestorship, and soon afterwards the sedile- ship, were conferred upon him. The Pompeians regarded him with favor as a useful, but scarcely dangerous, adherent ; the men of more advanced opinions already looked upon him as their leader, the chief who might, and probably would, give efifect to their ideas. After two years of afifected retirement, Pompey was once more, in B.C. 6y, impatient for action. A danger had long been growing up in the Eastern Mediterranean, which by this time had become an evil of the first magnitude. The creeks and valleys of Western Cilicia and Pamphylia (or Pisidia) had ANCIENT HISTORY 367 fallen into the hands of pirates, whose numerous fleets had continually increased in boldness, and who now ventured to plunder the coasts of Italy and intercept the corn-ships on which the food of Rome depended. Pompey undertook the war against this foe, and the opportunity was seized by his creatures to invest him with a species of command never be- fore enjoyed, and dangerous as a precedent. He was given by the lex Gabuiia authority over all the Mediterranean coasts, and over every city and territory within fifty miles of the sea- board, B.C. 67. These extraordinary powers were used quite unexceptionally ; Pompey applied them solely to the purposes of the war, which he began and ended in three months. The precedent set by the Gabinian law was soon followed. In B.C. 66 the tribune C. Manilius moved, and Cicero urged, that the entire command of the whole East should be intrusted to Pompey for an indefinite term, " until he had brought the Mithridatic war to an end ; " and he once more set forth to em- ploy his military talents for the advantage of his country. The Mithridatic war, conducted by Lucullus since B.C. 74, dragged on but slowly, partly in consequence of the aid given to Mithri- dates by Tigranes, partly owing to the economic measures of Lucullus himself, which alienated from him the affections of his soldiers. Pompey, by relaxing the strict rules of his prede- cessor, and by the politic device of an alliance with the Parthian king Phraates, terminated the war gloriously in the space of two years, driving Mithridates into the regions beyond the Caucasus, B.C. 65. After driving Mithridates beyond the Caucasus, Pompey proceeded to overrun and conquer the rest of Asia within the Euphrates. He made himself master of the kingdom of the Seleucidse without a blow, and reduced it into a Roman prov- ince. He proceeded through Coele-Syria to Judaea, besieged and took Jerusalem, and entered the Holy of Holies. War with the Idumaean Arabs followed, but was interrupted by the death of Mithridates ; after which the Roman general, content with his gains, applied himself to the task of regulating and ar- ranging the conquered territory — a task which occupied him for the rest of the year. He then returned home in a triumphal progress, B.C. 62, and arrived at Rome early in B.C. 61. 368 RAWLINSON Meanwhile at Rome, the State had incurred the danger of subversion at the hands of a daring profligate. L. Sergius Cati- Hna, a patrician of broken fortunes, a man representing no party unless it were that of the ruined spendthrifts and despera- does with which Rome and Italy now abounded, having failed in an attempt to better his condition, by means of the consulate, with its reversionary province, B.C. 64, combined with others in a similar position to himself, and formed a plot to murder the consuls, seize Rome, and assume the government. Sup- port was expected, not only from the class of needy adventur- ers, but from the discontented Italians, from the veterans of Sulla, eager for excitement and plunder, from the gladiatorial schools, from slaves and criminals, and from foreigners. The tacit acquiescence of the Marian party was counted on ; and Csesar, and even Crassus, were said to have been privy to the conspirators' designs. But the promptitude and address of Cicero, consul at the time, frustrated the scheme ; and, after a short civil war, the danger was removed by the defeat of the rebels in Etruria, B.C. 62, and the death of the arch-con- spirator. In the absence of Pompey, the guidance of afifairs at Rome had been assumed chiefly by three men. These were Cato, Cicero, and Csesar. Crassus, who is sometimes mentioned with them as a leader, was in reality too indolent and too weak in character to be of any real account, and could only influence afifairs by means of his enormous wealth. Cato, a descendant of the old censor, and a man of similar character, was at the head of the Senatorial party; Caesar was the acknowledged chief of the Marians ; while Cicero held an intermediate posi- tion, depending for his power almost wholly on his unrivalled eloquence, and having the confidence of neither of the two great factions. Of the three, the one whose genius was the greatest, and whose influence manifestly tended to preponder- ate, was Caesar. Though bankrupt in fortune, such was the adroitness of his conduct, and such the inherent strength of the principles with which he was identified, that at every turn of afifairs he rose higher, and tended to become more and more manifestly the first man in the Republic. Entitled to assist in the administration of justice after his aedileship, he boldly con- ANCIENT HISTORY 369 demned to death agents in the Syllaean assassinations ; he de- feated the chief of the Senate, Catulus, in a contest for the office of Pontifex Maximus ; accused of coniphcity in the conspiracy of CatiHne, he forced Cicero to admit that, on the contrary, he had given the information which led to its detection ; elected prsetor in B.C. 62, he bearded the Senate by the protection of Masintha, baffled their attempt to entangle him in a quarrel with the profligate Clodius, and finally, having obtained a loan of 830 talents (£200,000) from Crassus, he assumed in B.C. 61 the government of the Farther Spain, where he completed the conquest of Lusitania, and made himself the favorite of an im- portant army. His star was clearly in the ascendant when Pompey, after an unwise delay in the East, at length returned to Rome soon after Caesar had quitted it. During his absence Pompey had become more and more an object of suspicion to the Senate ; and his own proceedings, as the time of his return approached, were little calculated to in- spire confidence. His creature, Metellus Nepos, who arrived in Rome B.C. 62, was in constant communication with the Marian chief, Caesar, and proposed early in that year the recall of Pompey, with his army, to Italy, and the assignment to him of all the powers of the State, for the purpose of concluding the Catilinarian war. The boldness of Cato baffled this insidious attempt; and, when the proconsul returned in B.C. 61, it was with a studious appearance of moderation and respect for the law. He disbanded his troops as soon as he touched the soil of Italy, came to Rome accompanied by only a few friends, ob- tained the consent of the Senate to his triumph, claimed no extraordinary honors, and merely demanded allotments for his soldiers and the ratification of his Asiatic " acts," which were all certainly within the terms of his commission. But the Sen- ate had passed from undue alarm to undue contempt, and were pleased to thwart one whom they disliked and had so lately feared. Pompey's requests were refused — his " acts " were unconfirmed — and his veterans denied their promised allot- ments. Hereupon, Pompey accepted the overtures made to him by Caesar, who effected the private league or cabal known afterwards as the " First Triumvirate," between himself, Pom- pey, and Crassus, the basis of which was understood to be 24 370 RAWLINSON antagonism to the Senatorial party, and the maintenance against all rivals of the triumvirs' power and influence. The formation of the triumvirate was immediately followed by the election of Csesar to the consulate, and the passing, by means of tumult and violence, of a number of laws for the ad- vantage of the people. The first of these was an Agrarian Bill on an extensive scale, which provided for the veterans of Pom- pey, and at the same time gave estates in Campania to a large portion of the Roman populace. A second forced the Senate to swear to the Bill under penalty of death. A third relaxed the terms on which the knights were farming the revenues of Asia. At the close of a consulate which was almost a dictator- ship, Csesar obtained for himself the government of the two Gauls and of Illyricum for a space of five years, thus securing himself a wide field for the exercise of his military talents, and obtaining the opportunity of forming a powerful army devoted wholly to his interests. The triumvirs could not count on the firm establishment of their power, so long as the two party-leaders, Cicero and Cato, maintained unimpaired their high and dignified position. Ac- cordingly, they set themselves through their creatures at once to remove from the seat of government these two statesmen, and to cast a permanent slur upon their characters. The trib- une Clodius drove Cicero into banishment on the charge of his having acted illegally in putting to death Lentulus and Cethegus. The great orator's property was confiscated, and his houses were demolished. As against Cato no plausible charge could be made, his removal was effected by thrusting upon him an unwelcome commission which was likely to bring odium on those engaged in it. He was sent to deprive Ptolemy of his kingdom of Cyprus on pretexts utterly frivolous, and to convert that island into a Roman province. Though Cato conducted himself with skill and with unimpeachable integrity in this delicate transaction, yet the decline of his influence may be dated from his acceptance of an of^ce unsuited to his char- acter. On Cicero the blow dealt by the triumvirs fell even more heavily. Though recalled from banishment within eighteen months of his quitting Italy, he never recovered his former ANCIENT HISTORY 371 position either in the opinion of others or in his own. Con- stitutionally timid, his exile effectually cowed him. He lost all confidence in the gratitude of his countrymen, in the affec- tion of his friends, in his own firmness and prudence. Hence- forth he no longer aspired to direct the counsels of the State : his efforts were limited to moderating the violence of parties and securing his own personal safety by paying court to those in power. Towards the close of his career, indeed, he ventured once more to take a bolder attitude, but it was when the star of Antony was beginning to pale before the rise of a brighter luminary. The tribune Clodius, who had moved and carried the meas- ures by which Cicero and Cato were forced to quit Rome, was not content to be a mere tool in the hands of the triumvirs. His measures for the gratuitous distribution of corn, for the limitation of the censors' powers over the Senate, and for the re-establishment of the guilds, were probably concerted with Pompey ; but it was not long before he exhibited an indepen- dent spirit, outraged his protector, and stood forward as a sep- arate party-leader of the more violent kind. Pompey was thus forced to incline for a while towards the Senatorians, to encour- age the recall of Cicero, and to allow the prosecution of Clodius. It was the hope of the triumvir that affairs would fall into such a condition as manifestly to require a dictator, and that he would be selected for the oflfice. But the Senate's vigor was not yet exhausted ; it was content to reward Pompey by a new commissionership (the prafcctura annoncE) ; to oppose its own " bravo," Milo, to Clodius ; and to foment discord between Pompey and Crassus, who naturally tended to become more and more jealous of each other. Civil war would probably at this time have broken out, had it not been for the management of Caesar. At interviews which he held with Crassus and Pompey at Ravenna and Luc- ca, he succeeded in bringing them to an agreement, and in arranging plans for the further aggrandizement both of himself and them. He urged them to seek the consulate for the ensu- ing year, and to obtain for themselves such governments as suited them at its close. For himself he required the prolonga- tion of his proconsulship for a second term of five years. With- i^72 RAWLINSON in this period he could hope to have gained such successes as would dazzle the eyes of the Romans at home, and to have acquired unbounded influence over the veteran army, vc^hich would have then served ten years under his banner. The Second Consulate of Pompey and Crassus, B.C. 55, brought about by violence and tumult, was a further step towards the demoralization of the State, but produced a tem- porary lull in the strife of parties. The triumvirs severally obtained their immediate objects. Despite the efforts of Cato, Csesar was assigned the Gauls for an additional term of five years. Pompey received the Spains for an equal period, while the rich East was made over to the avaricious Crassus, who became proconsul of Syria and commander-in-chief of the Ro- man forces in the Oriental provinces. Pompey, moreover, managed to establish the new principle of combining the ad- ministration of a province with residence in the capital. Under the pretext that his office of " prsefectus annonse " required his presence at Rome, he administered Spain by his legates, and, in the absence of Crassus, acquired the sole direction of affairs at the seat of empire. This position was still further secured to him by the death of Crassus in his rash expedition against the Parthians, B.C. 53. The death of Crassus, by reducing the triumvirate to a du- umvirate, precipitated the struggle which had been long im- pending. The tie of relationship which united Pompey and Csesar had been dissolved by the death of Julia, B.C. 54. An- other check on Pompey's ambition was removed by the murder of Clodius in an affray with Milo, B.C. 53. After this Pompey apparently thought that the time was at length come when, if Caesar could be disgraced, the State must fall wholly into his hands. He therefore encouraged the proposals that were made by the extreme aristocrats to deprive Csesar prematurely of his proconsular office, or at any rate to prevent him from suing for the consulship until he had ceased to be the lord of legions. After himself holding the office of sole consul for the space of six months, B.C. 52, and obtaining the prolongation of his own proconsulship for a further term of five years, he sought to re- duce his partner and rival to the mere rank of an ordinary citi- zen. It was not to be supposed that Csesar would consent to ANCIENT HISTORY 373 this change, a change which would have placed his very life at his enemies' mercy. War was certain from the moment when, in spite of the veto of two tribunes, the Senate, at Pompey's instigation, appointed Caesar's successor, and required him, before standing for the consulate, to resign his proconsular command. Ca?sar would have lost all at which he had aimed for ten years, had he yielded obedience to this mandate. To expect him to do so was to look for antique self-denial and patriotism in an age when these virtues had been long out of date, and in an individual who had never shown any signs of them. On hearing of the Senatorial decrees, the resolve of Caesar was soon taken. He would appeal to the arbitrament of arms. At the head of a veteran army devoted to his person, with all the resources of Gaul to draw upon, and endeared to the Italians generally as the successor of Marius, he felt himself more than a match for Pompey and the Senate, and was ready to engage any force that they could bring against him. Ac- cordingly he " crossed the Rubicon," and began his march upon Rome. Pompey had probably expected this movement, and had determined upon the line of conduct which he would pursue. He would not attempt to defend Italy, but would retire upon the East. In that scene of his old glories he would draw together a power sufficient, not only to secure him against his rival, but to re-enter and re-conquer Italy. He would drag the Senate with him, and having carried it beyond the seas, would be its master instead of its slave. Having the command of the sea, he would coop up his rival in Italy, until the time came when his land forces were ready to swoop down upon their prey. With these views he retired as Csesar advanced, making only a show of resistance, and finally crossed from Brundisium to Epirus without lighting a battle. By the retirement of Pompey, all Italy was thrown into Caesar's arms. He acquired the immense moral advantage of holding the seat of government, and of being thus able to impart to all his acts the color of legitimacy. He secured also important material gains ; first, in the acquisition of the State- treasure, which Pompey most unaccountably neglected to carry 374 RAWLINSON off ; and, further, in the power which he obtained of drawing recruits from the Itahan nations, who still furnished their best soldiers to the Roman armies. The submission of Italy diew with it almost of necessity that of Sardinia and Sicily ; and thus the power of the proconsul was at once established over the entire middle region of the Empire, reaching from the German Ocean to the Sea of Africa, and from the Pyrenees to Mount Scardus. Pompey possessed the East, Africa, and Spain ; and, had his counsels been inspired with energy and decision, he might perhaps have advanced from three sides on his rival, and have crushed him between the masses of three converg- ing armies. But the conqueror of Mithridates was now old, and had lost the vigor and promptitude of his early years. He allowed Caesar, acting from a central position, to strike separately at the different points of his extended line. First, Spain was attacked, and, for the time, reduced to subjection ; then, the war was transferred to the East, and its issue (prac- tically) decided at Pharsalia; after this, the Pompeians were crushed in Africa; and finally, the party having rallied in Spain, was overwhelmed and blotted out at Munda. These four wars occupied the great soldier during the chief portion of five years (B.C. 49 to 45) ; in the course of which, however, he found time also to reduce Egypt, and to chastise Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, at Zela. The claim of Caesar to be considered one of the world's greatest men rests less upon his military exploits, important as these undoubtedly were, than upon his views and efforts as a statesman and social reformer. It was his great merit that he understood how the time for the Republic had gone by ; how nothing but constant anarchy at home and constant op- pression abroad could result from the continuance of that gov- ernmental form under which Rome had fllourished so wonder- fully in simpler and ruder ages. He saw distinctly that the hour had arrived for monarchy ; that, for the interests of all classes, of the provincials, of the Italians, of the Romans, of the very nobles themselves, a permanent supreme ruler was required ; and the only man fit at the time to exercise that office of supreme ruler he knew to be himself. He knew, too, though perhaps he failed to estimate aright, the Roman at- ANCIENT HISTORY 375 tachment to old forms, and he therefore assumed, in B.C. 47, the perpetual " dictatorship," whereby he reconciled the actual establishment of an absolute monarchy with the constitutional purism which had weight with so many of his contempora- ries. Having thus secured the substance of power, he pro- ceeded, even in the midst of his constant wars, to bring for- ward a series of measures, which were, in most cases, at once moderate, judicious, and popular. He enlarged the Senate to the number of 900, and filled up its ranks from the pro- vincials no less than from the class of Roman citizens. He once more confined the judicia to the senators and equites. He raised to the rank of citizens the entire population of Trans- padane Gaul, and numerous communities in Gaul beyond the Alps, in Spain, and elsewhere. He enfranchised all professors of the liberal sciences. He put down the political clubs. He gave his veterans lands, chiefly beyond the seas, planting them, among other places, at Corinth and Carthage, cities which he did not fear to rebuild. He arranged matters between the two classes of debtors and creditors on a principle which left finan- cial honesty untouched. He re-enacted the old Licinian law, which required the employment of free labor on estates in Italy in a certain fixed proportion to the number of slaves. He encouraged an increase in the free population by granting exemptions to those who had as many as three children. He proposed the codification of the laws, commenced a survey of the empire, and reformed the calendar. When it is remem- bered that Csesar only held power for the space of about five years, and that the greater portion of this period was occupied by a series of most important wars, such legislative prolific- ness, such well-planned, varied, and (in some cases) most com- prehensive schemes, cannot but provoke our admiration. But the dictator, though endued with political insight fai beyond any of his contemporaries, was, after all, only a fallible mortal. He may neither have been wholly corrupted by his passion for Cleopatra, nor so much intoxicated by the posses- sion of supreme power as to have wantonly disregarded the prejudices which stood in the way of his ambition. But at any rate he misjudged the temper of the people among whom his lot was cast, when, because his own logical mind saw that 376 RAWLINSON monarchy was inevitable, he encouraged its open proclama- tion, without making sufficient allowance for the attachment of large classes of the nation to phrases. He thus provoked the conspiracy to which he fell a victim, and cannot be ex- onerated from the charge of having contributed to his own downfall. The conspiracy against the life of J. Csesar, formed by Brutus and Cassius, found so many abettors, not from the mere blind envy of the nobles towards a superior, but because there was ingrained into the Roman mind a detestation of royalty. The event proved that this prejudice might be over- come, in course of time, by adroit management; but Csesar boldly and without disguise affronted the feeling, not aware, as it would seem, of the danger he was incurring. His death, March 15, B.C. 44, introduced another period of bloody strug- gle and civil war, which lasted until the great victory gained by Octavius at Actium, B.C. 31. The knot of enthusiasts and malcontents, who had ventured on the revolutionary measure of assassinating the chief of the State, had made no adequate provision for what was to follow. Apparently, they had hoped that both the Senate and the people would unite to applaud their deed, and would joyfully hasten to re-establish the old republican government. But the general feeling which their act aroused was not one of rejoicing, but of consternation. The noble and rich feared the recurrence of a period of lawlessness and anarchy. The poorer classes, who were indifferent as to the form of government, provided it fed and amused them, looked coldly on the men who, merely on account of a name, had plunged the State into fresh troubles. The numerous class of those who had bene- fited by Caesar's legislation trembled lest his murder should be followed by the abrogation of his laws. None knew what to expect next — whether proscription, civil war, or massacre. Had the conspirators possessed among them a commanding mind, had they had a programme prepared, and had they promptly acted on it, the Republic might perhaps have been galvanized into fresh life, and the final establishment of des- potism might have been deferred, if it could not be averted. But at the exact time when resolution and quick action were needed, they hesitated and procrastinated. Their remissness ANCIENT HISTORY 377 gave the sole consul, Antony, an opportunity of which he was not slow to avail himself. Having secured the co-operation of Lepidus, Caesar's master of the horse, who alone had an armed force on the spot, he possessed himself of the treasures and papers of the dictator, entered into negotiations with the " Liberators," and while professedly recognizing the legitimate authority of the Senate, contrived in a short time to obtain the substance of supreme power for himself. His colleague, Dola- bella, elected consul in the place of Caesar, became his tool. The " Liberators," fearful for their personal safety, despite the " amnesty " whereto all had agreed, quitted Rome and threw themselves upon the provinces. Antony was on the point of obtaining all that his heart desired, when the claims and pro- ceedings of a youth — almost a boy — who unexpectedly ap- peared upon the scene, introduced fresh complications, and, checking Antony in mid-career, rendered it doubtful for a while whether he would not fall as suddenly as he had risen. C. Octavius, the youthful rival of Antony, was the grand- nephew of J. Caesar, being the grandson of his sister, Julia. He had enjoyed for several years a large portion of the dicta- tor's favor, and in his last testament had been named as his chief heir and son by adoption. Absent from Rome at the date of Caesar's murder, he lost no time in proceeding to the capi- tal, claiming the rights and accepting the obligations which devolved on him as Caesar's heir. With consummate adroit- ness he contrived to gain the good-will of all parties. The soldiers were brought to see in him the true representative of their loved and lost commander ; the populace was won by shows, by stirring appeals, by the payment of Caesar's legacy to them out of his own private resources ; the Liber- ators, and especially Cicero, who had made common cause with them, were cajoled into believing that he had no per- sonal ambition, and only sought to defeat the selfish designs of Antony. Even with Antony there was established, we can- not say how early, an understanding, that the quarrel between the two Caesareans was not to be pushed a Voutrance, but was to be prosecuted as between enemies who might one day be friends. Thus guarded on all sides, Octavius ventured, though absolutely without office, to collect an army, which he paid 378 RAWLINSON out of his own resources, and to take up a position, from which he might either defend or threaten Rome. Encouraged by his proceedings, Cicero re-entered the poHtical arena, and took up the attitude against Antony which had been successful against CatiUne. By the series of speeches and pamphlets known as " the PhiHppics," he crushed the popularity of the proconsul, drove him from Rome, and freed the Senate from his influence. Antony retired to his province of Cisalpine Gaul, and there commenced the Third Civil War by besieging Decimus Brutus, the previous governor, in Mutina. Here- upon the Senate bade the new consuls, Hirtius and Pansa, to act against him, and, at Cicero's instance, invested the young Octavius with the prsetorship, and joined him in the command with the consuls. The short war known as the " Bellum Mutinense " followed. In two battles, one at Forum Gallorum, the other under the walls of Mutina, Antony's troops were defeated by the army of the Senate, and he himself, despairing of present success, crossed the Alps to join Lepidus in Gaul. But the two vic- tories were dearly won, at the cost of two most important lives. Hirtius and Pansa, the two honest consuls, both fell ; and Octavius, finding himself the sole commander, was encouraged to put aside his reserve and show himself in his true colors. He refused to join Decimus Brutus in the pursuit of Antony, and thus aided the latter's escape. He claimed the whole merit of the war, and boldly demanded a triumph ; finally, he sent a detachment of his soldiers to Rome, to demand the consul- ship for him ; when the Senate, alarmed at his attitude, re- fused these requests, he at once threw ofT the mask, marched with all his troops on Rome, plundering as he advanced, and at the head of his legions imposed his will on the government. Possessed of supreme power, it pleased him to assume the title of consul, and to give himself, as a nominal colleague in the office, his cousin, Q. Pedius. It was the policy of Octavius to secure for all his acts, so far as he possibly could, legal sanctions. He now, therefore, re- quired and obtained the confirmation of his adoption. De- termined to proceed to extremities against the " Liberators," he had them attainted, and, as they had all fled from Rome ANCIENT HISTORY 379 upon his entrance, condemned in their absence. A similar sentence was, at his instance, passed on Sext. Pompeius. Oc- tavius was made generalissimo of all the forces of the Republic, and was authorized to act against, or, if it pleased him better, treat with, Antony and Lepidus. It was on this latter course that he had long before decided. Only by the aid of Antony could he hope to triumph over Cassius and the Bruti, whose party in the West was in nowise contemptible, and who had all the resources of the East at their disposal. Accordingly, Antony and Lepidus were invited to confer with Octavius* on an island in the river Reno, and the result was the for- mation of the (so-called) " Second Triumvirate " — the first government which really bore the name — a self-constituted Board of Three, who were conjointly to rule the State. On the opening of negotiations between Octavian and An- tony, Decimus Brutus had been deserted by his soldiers, and, when he attempted to escape from Italy, had been seized and put to death. The West was thus pacified ; and the triumvirs could therefore concentrate their whole attention, first upon the destruction of their enemies at home, and then upon the war in the East. The proscription was relentlessly enforced. Among its victims were Cicero, the tribune Salvius, Annalis, one of the praetors, Cicero's brother Quintus, and his nephew, Quintus's son. The lists, which followed rapidly one upon the other, contained altogether the names of 300 senators and 2000 knights. The property of the proscribed was seized. The soldiers, let loose through Italy under the pretence of hunting out the proscribed, ravaged and wasted at their pleas- ure. Private malice obtained its gratification with impunity. Numbers were murdered merely because they were rich, and their property was coveted by the triumvirs or their creatures. Early in B.C. 42 military operations were commenced. Oc- tavian, whose province of Sicily had been occupied by Sextus Pompeius, made an attempt to wrest it from his hands ; but his admiral, Salvidienus, being defeated in a naval engagement near Messana, the enterprise was given up. Antony had al- ready crossed from Italy to Epirus ; Octavian now followed him. Their combined forces, which exceeded 120,000 men, marched unresisted through Epirus and Macedonia, and had * Octavius was called Octavian after he became a triumvir. 38o RAWLINSON reached Thrace before they were confronted by the " Libera- tors." These now brought up the full strength of the East against the Western legions ; their legionary infantry amount- ed to 80,000; their cavalry to 20,000; and they had Asiatic levies in addition. Still, however, their forces were outnum- bered by those of their adversaries ; whose legionaries were probably not fewer than 120,000, while their cavalry was reck- oned at 13,000. The two armies met at Philippi (the ancient Crenides) ; and the fate of the Roman world was decided in a twofold battle. In the first fight Brutus defeated Octavian, but Antony gained a decided advantage over Cassius, who, unaware of his col- league's victory, committed suicide. In the second, three weeks later, the army of Brutus was completely overcome, and he himself, escaping from the field, could only follow the example of Cassius, and kill himself. With Brutus fell the Republic. The usurpation of Caesar had suspended, but not destroyed it. It had revived after his death. The coarse brutality of An- tony, the craft of Octavian, had separately failed to put it down. Conjoined they achieved greater success. The Republic, albeit some of its forms remained, was in reality swept away at Philippi. The absolute ascendency of individuals, which is monarchy, was then established. There might afterwards be several competitors for the supreme power ; and struggles, fierce and bitter, might be carried on between them ; but no thought was entertained of resuscitating any more the dead form of the Republic ; the contest was simply one between different aspirants to the supreme authority. The immediate consequence of the victory at Philippi was a fresh arrangement of the Roman world among the triumvirs. As Antony preferred the East, Octavian consented to relin- quish it to him ; but it was necessary that he should be com- pensated for the sacrifice. His colleague therefore yielded to him Italy and Spain, which last Lepidus was required to re- linquish, obtaining instead the Roman " Africa." The facile Lepidus submitted readily to the new partition ; and while Antony received the homage of the East, and himself suc- cumbed to the charms of Cleopatra at Tarsus, Octavian under- took the direction of afifairs at the seat of government. ANCIENT HISTORY 381 But there was no real cordiality, no mutual respect, no sense even of a common interest, among the triumvirs. The Roman world was scarcely theirs before they began to quarrel over it. Octavian being in difficulties at Rome from the scarcity of provisions consequent on the attitude of Sextus Pompeius, from the despair of the Italians driven from their cities and lands to make room for the veterans, and from the discontent of many of the veterans themselves, whose rewards fell short of their hopes, Antony began to intrigue against him and to seek his downfall. The embers of discontent were fanned into a flame by the triumvir's brother, Lucius, and his wife Fulvia, who shortly put themselves at the head of an insurrectionary force, and disputed with Octavian the mastery of Italy. The hopes, however, of the insurgents were smothered in the smoke of Perusia (B.C. 40) ; and on the return of Antony to Italy, the rivals, at the instance of the soldiery, came to an accommo- dation. Octavian received the whole West, including both the Gauls and also Illyricum ; Antony was obliged to content himself with a diminished East ; Lepidus kept Africa. Fulvia having opportunely died, the " Peace of Brundusium " was sealed by a marriage, Octavian giving the hand of his widowed sister, Octavia, to his reconciled colleague. The pact of Brundusium was modified in the ensuing year, B.C. 39, by the admission of Sextus Pompeius into partnership with the triumvirs. It was agreed that he should retain Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica; and that he should further receive Achsea, on condition of his evacuating certain strongholds which he possessed in Italy. He for his part undertook to pro- vide Rome plentifully with corn. This agreement, however — known as the " Treaty of Misenum " — was never executed. Sextus did not receive Achaea, and therefore kept possession of the strongholds. Octavian, in retaliation, encouraged the defection of his lieutenants, and received from one of them, Alenodorus, a fleet and several forts in Sardinia and Corsica. Sextus, upon this, flew to arms ; and a naval war began be- tween him and Octavian, which led, after several turns of fortune, to his complete defeat and expulsion from Sicily. But Octavian had scarcely time to congratulate himself on his success, when he became aware of a new danger. The 382 RAWLINSON Pompeian land forces, which were considerable, opened com- munications with Lepidus, and having, conjointly with his troops, plundered Messana, saluted him as their imperator, and ranged themselves under his banner. The weak noble, finding himself at the head of twenty legions, was intoxicated with his good-fortune, and assuming an attitude of complete independence and even of hostility, set Octavian at defiance. A fresh and bloody struggle would have followed but for the prompt boldness of the young Caesar ; who, entering his rival's camp, unarmed and almost unattended, made an eloquent ap- peal to the soldiers, which was successful. Deserting Lepidus in a body, they declared for Octavian ; who degraded his fallen rival from the triumvirship, but spared his life, and allowed him to retain his office of chief pontiff. With the removal of Lepidus a war between Octavian and Antony became imminent. The bond of affinity by which it had been attempted to unite the interest of the rivals had failed. The wild and rough Antony soon tired of his discreet but some- what cold spouse ; and his roving fancy returned to the volupt- uous Egyptian, from whom it had strayed for a while. In B.C. 37, on setting out for the Parthian War, he left Octavia behind him in Italy ; and ere the year B.C. 36 was out, he had re- united himself to his old mistress. Henceforth until his death she retained her influence over him unimpaired ; and we must ascribe the deterioration in Antony's character to this degrad- ing connection. His great preparations against the Parthians had no commensurate result. After three campaigns, one in Media Atropatene (B.C. 36), wherein he acquired no honors, the others in Armenia (B.C. 35 to 34), where he was somewhat more successful, Antony abstained from military enterprise and devoted himself to pleasure. The autumn of B.C. 34 was given up to debauchery and dissipation. In the infatuation caused by his passion, Antony not only acknowledged Caesa- rion, and assigned crowns to his own children by Cleopatra, but actually ceded to Cleopatra, a foreigner, the Roman prov- inces of Coele-Syria and Cyprus. Such conduct was no doubt treasonable, and furnished Octavian with the decent pretext for a declaration of war, for which he had long been waiting. Meanwhile Octavian had been exercising his legions, raising ANCIENT HISTORY 383 his reputation, and adding- important tracts to the Roman Em- pire in the West. In B.C. 35 he attacked the Salassi and Tatirisci, nations of the Western Alps; and in the course of the two following years he reduced to subjection the Liburni and lapydes in Dalmatia and the Pannonians in the valley of the Save. A new province was here added to the State. Oc- tavian himself received a wound ; and his popularity, to which he artfully added by causing Agrippa as aedile to lavish vast sums on the improvement and adornment of the capital, was now at its height. His good-fortune enabled him at the same juncture to add a second province to the Empire in Maure- tania, which was annexed peaceably on the death of Bocchus. Feeling himself assured of his position and of the good-will of the Roman people, Octavian now resolved to precipitate the rupture with his rival, for which he had been preparing ever since the formation of the triumvirate. The year B.C. 32 was passed by the rivals in mutual recrim- inations, in threats, insults, and preparations for the coming struggle. Antony divorced Octavia with all the harshness allowable by Roman law ; made an alliance with the Parthians ; collected a vast fleet; levied troops throughout all the East; assembled his armaments on the coast of Epirus, and pre- pared to cross into Italy. Octavian inveighed against Antony in the Senate ; drove his partisans from Rome ; caused his will to be opened and published ; had Cleopatra declared a public enemy ; and, collecting together all the forces of the West, occupied the eastern shore of Italy with his fleets and armies. For a while the two rivals watched each other across the strait. At length, in the spring of B.C. 31, Octavian, though his forces were inferior in number, made the plunge. His fleet took Corcyra. His army was safely conveyed to Epirus. Both were rapidly directed towards the Ambracian Gulf, w'here lay the fleet and army of his adversary. The work of seduction then began. Octavian found little difficulty in drawdng over to his service one Antonian officer after another, Antony's indecision and his infatuation for Cleopatra having greatly dis- gusted his followers. These repeated defections reduced the triumvir to a state of despondency, and led him most unhappily to accept Cleopatra's fatal counsels. Under pretence of giving 384 RAWLINSON battle to his adversary's fleet, Antony, on the morning of Sep- tember 2, B.C. 31, put to sea with the dehberate intention of deserting his land force and flying with Cleopatra to Egypt. Actium was not a battle in any proper sense of the term. It was an occasion on which a commander voluntarily sacrificed the greater portion of his fleet in order to escape with the re- mainder. We can with difficulty understand how Antony was induced to yield everything to his adversary without really striking a blow. But the fact that he did so yield is plain. He left his land army without orders, to fight or make terms, as it pleased ; he left his fleet, not when it was defeated, but when it was still struggling manfully, and but for his flight might have been victorious. It was his desertion which de- cided the engagement, and, with it, the fate of the Roman world. It is with good reason that the Empire is regarded as dating from the day of Actium. Though Antony existed, and resisted, for nearly a year longer in Egypt, it was only as a desperate man, clinging to life till the last moment. From the day of Actium Octavian was sole master of the Roman world. SIXTH PERIOD. From the Establishment of the Empire under Augustus to the Destruction of the Roman Power in the West by Odoacer, from B.C. 31 to A.D. 476. Preliminary Remarks on the Geographical Extent and Principal Divisions of the Roman Empire. The boundaries of the Roman Empire, as established by Augustus, may be stated in a general way, as follows : — On the north, the British Channel, the German Ocean, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euxine ; on the east, the Euphrates and the desert of Syria ; on the south, the great African desert ; and on the west, the Atlantic. It extended from east to west a distance of fifty degrees, or about 2700 miles, between Cape Finisterre and the vicinity of Erzeroum. Its average breadth was about fifteen degrees, or above 1000 miles. It comprised the modern countries of Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, Western Hoi- ANCIENT HISTORY 385 land, Rhenish Prussia, parts of Baden and Wurtemberg, most of Bavaria, Switzerland, Italy, the Tyrol, Austria Proper, West- ern Hungary, Croatia, Slavonia, Servia, Turkey in Europe, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Idumsea, Egypt, the Cy- renaica, Tripoli, Tunis, Algeria, and most of Morocco. Its area may be roughly estimated at a million and a half of square miles. The entire Empire, exclusive of Italy, was divided into " Provinces," which may be conveniently grouped under three heads : viz., the Western, or European ; the Eastern, or Asiatic ; and the Southern, or African. The Western, or European, provinces were fourteen in number ; viz., Spain, Gaul, Ger- many, Vindelicia, Rhaetia, Noricum, Pannonia, Moesia, Illyri- cum, Macedonia, Thrace, Achsea, Sicily, and Sardinia ; the Eastern, or Asiatic, were eight, viz., Asia Proper, Bithynia, Galatia, Pamphylia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Syria, and Palestine ; the Southern or African were five, viz., Egypt, the Cyrenaica (including Crete), Africa Proper, Numidia, and Mauretania. The entire number was thus twenty-seven, Spain (Hispania, Iberia), the most western of the European provinces, included the entire peninsula, and was washed on all sides by the sea excepting towards the north-east, where it was separated from Gaul by the Pyrenees. It was subdivided into three distinct portions, generally administered by three differ- ent governors : viz., Lusitania, or the country of the Lusitani, corresponding nearly to the modern Portugal ; Baetica, the country about the Bsetis (or Guadalquivir), the modern An- dalucia ; and Tarraconensis, comprising all the rest of the pen- insula. Lusitania was inhabited by three principal races, the Gallaeci in the north (Gallicia), the Lusitani in the centre, and the Turdetani in the south. It had three great rivers, the Du- rius (Douro), the Tagus (Tajo), and the Anas (Guadiana). The chief towns were Augusta Emerita on the Anas, now Merida, and Olisipo on the Tagus, now Lisboa (Lisbon). Baetica was inhabited by the Turduli towards the north and the Bastuli towards the south. Its only important river was the Bsetis. Its chief towns were Corduba (Cordova) and Hispalis (Sevilla) in the interior, and on the coast Gades, now Cadiz. Tarraconensis, by far the largest of the three subdivisions, com- as 386 RAWLINSON prised the upper courses of the Durius, Tagus, and Anas, and the entire tract watered by the Iberus (Ebro), Turia, Sucro (Jucar), and Tader (Segura) rivers. It was inhabited, towards the north, by the Astures, Cantabri, Vaccsei, Vascones, and others ; in the central regions, by the Carpetani, CeUiberi, and Ilergetes ; and, along the east coast, by the Indigetes, Ausetani, Cosetani, Ilercavones, Suessetani, Contestani, etc. Its chief cities were Tarraco, the capital, on the east coast, now Tarra- gona ; Carthago Nova (Carthagena) ; Caesar- Augusta (Zara- goza or Saragossa), on the Iberus ; Toletum (Toledo), on the Upper Tagus ; and Ilerda (Lerida). In Tarraconensis were also included the Balearic isles. Major (Majorca) and Minor (Minorca), and the Pityusse, Ebusus (Ivica), and Ophiusa (For- mentera). Gaul (Gallia), which adjoined Spain to the north-east, cor- responded nearly with the modern France, but included also portions of Belgium and Switzerland. It was bounded on the west and north by the ocean ; on the east by Roman Germany, Rhsetia, and Gallia Cisalpina ; on the south by the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. It had five principal rivers : the Scaldis (Scheldt) and Sequana (Seine) in the north ; the Liger (Loire) and Garumna (Garonne) towards the west ; and the Rhodanus (Rhone) in the south. Augustus subdivided it into four regions : viz., Aquitania, the country of the Aquitani, towards the south-west, from the Pyrenees to the Loire ; Lugdunensis, to the north-west, reaching from Cape Finisterre to Lyons (Lugdunum), the capital ; Narbonensis, towards the south-east, between Aquitania and the maritime Alps ; and Belgica, towards the north-east, reaching from the British Channel to the lake of Geneva. Aquitania comprised the basins of the Garumna (Garonne), Duranius (Dordogne), Carantonus (Charente), and half the basin of the Liger (Loire). Its chief tribes were the Aquitani in the south, the Santones and Pic- tones towards the north-west, the Bituriges towards the north- east, in the tract about Bourges, and the Arverni to the south- east, in Auvergne. The most important cities were Climberris and Burdigala (Bourdeaux). Lugdunensis consisted of the region between the Loire and the Seine, together with a tongue of land stretching along the Saone to a little below Lyons. Its ANCIENT HISTORY 387 principal tribes were the ^dui in the south ; the Senones, Parisii, Carnutes, and Cadurci in the interior ; the Veneti, Osis- mii, CuriosoHtse, UnelH, and Lexovii upon the coast. The capital, Lugdunum, was inconveniently placed at the extreme south-east of the province. The other important towns were Lutetia Parisiorum (Paris), Genabum (Orleans), and Julioma- gus (Angers). Narbonensis extended from the Upper Ga- ronne on the west to the Var upon the east, lying along the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean. Inland it reached as far as the Cevennes, the Middle Rhone, and the lake of Geneva. The chief tribes inhabiting it were the Volcse in the west, the Allo- broges in the tract between the Rhone and the Isere (Isara), the Vocontii between the Isere and the Durance, and the Salluvii on the coast near Marseilles. Its principal cities were Narbo, the capital, now Narbonne, on the Mediterranean ; Tolosa (Toulouse), Vienna (Vienne), Nemausus (Nismes), Geneva, and Massilia (Marseilles). Belgica lay between the Seine and the Scheldt, and extended southward to the Bernese Alps and the northern shore of the lake of Geneva. It was bounded on the east by the Roman Germany and Rhsetia, on the west by Gallia Lugdunensis, and on the south by Gallia Narbonensis and Gallia Cisalpina. The principal tribes were, in the north, the Caletes, Ambiani, Bellovaci, Atrebates, Morini, and Nervii ; in the central region, the Suessiones, the Remi, the Treviri, the Leuci, and the Lingones ; towards the south, the Sequani and the Helvetii. The most important towns were Noviodunum (Soissons), Durocortorum (Reims), Augusta Trevirorum (Treves), Divodurum (Metz), Vesontio (Besan- gon), and Aventicum (Avenches, in Switzerland). Germany (which is sometimes included in Gaul) comprised two divisions, the Lower (Inferior) and the Upper (Superior). Lower Germany lay upon the sea-coast, between the mouth of the Scheldt and that of the Rhine. It comprised Eastern Bel- gium, Western Holland, and Rhenish Prussia as far south as the Ahr. Its chief tribes were the Batavi and Menapii in the north ; the Ubii on the Rhine near Cologne ; the Eburones and Condrusi on the Mosa (Meuse) ; and the Segni in the Ardennes. The principal towns were Noviomagus (Nimeguen), Colonia Agrippinensis (Cologne), and Bonna (Bonn). Upper Ger- 388 RAWLrN"SON many was a narrow strip of land along the course of the Rhine from Remagen, at the mouth of the Ahr valley, to the point at which the Rhine receives the waters of the Aar. It was in- habited by the Caracates, the Vangiones, the Nemetes, the Triboci, and the Rauraci. The principal cities were Ad Con- fluentes (Coblenz), Mogontiacum (Mayence), Borbetomagus (Worms), Argentoratum (Strasburg), and Augusta Rauraco- rum (Basle). Vindelicia, or the country of the Vindelici, lay between the Danube and the Bavarian Alps. It corresponded nearly with Bavaria south of the Danube, including however a corner be- tween the Rhine and the Upper Danube which now belongs to Wurtemberg and Baden. It was inhabited, towards the north, by the Vindelici; towards the south, by the Brigantes. The chief cities were Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg) and Brigantia on the Lake of Constance (Bregenz). Rhaetia lay south of Vindelicia and east of the country of the Helvetii. It included the modern Tyrol, the Vorarlberg, and the part of Switzerland known as the Grisons. Among its tribes were, besides the Rhaetia, the Venostes, Vennones, Brix- entes, Tridentini, Medoaci, etc. Its chief cities were Veldidena (Wilten, near Inspruck), Curia (Chur or Coire), and Tridentum (Trent). Noricum, which lay east of Vindelicia and Rhaetia, stretched along the Danube from its junction with the Inn to a point a little above Vienna. It comprised Styria, Carinthia, and the greater part of Austria Proper. The chief cities were Juvavia (Salzburg) and Boiodurum (Passau). Pannonia, one of the most important of the Roman prov- inces, lay east and partly south of Noricum. It was bounded on two sides, the north and east, by the Danube, which in this part of its course makes the remarkable bend to the south by which its lower is thrown three degrees south of its upper course. On the west an artificial line divided Pannonia from Noricum ; on the south it was separated from Illyricum by the mountains directly south of the valley of the Save. It thus comprised all Hungary south of the Danube, together with all Slavonia, and parts of Austria Proper, of Styria, Croatia, and Bosnia. It was divided, like Germany, into Upper and Lower. ANCIENT HISTORY 389 Upper Pannonia adjoined Noricum, extending along the Danube from a little above Vienna to the mouth of the Arrabo (Raab). Its chief tribes were the Boii in the north, the Latovici, Jassii, and Colapini in the south, along the course of the Save. The principal towns were Vindobona (Vienna) and Carnuntum on the Danube, Siscia (Zissek) on the Save, and ^mona (Lay- bach) between the Save and the Alpes Julise. Lower Pannonia lay along the Danube from the mouth of the Arrabo to that of the Save. Its most important cities were Acincum (Buda- Pesth) and Acimincum (Peterwardin) on the Danube, Mursa (Esseg) on the Drave, and on the Save Sirmium (Zabatz or Alt-Schabaaz) and Taurunum (Semlin). Moesia was the last of the Danubian provinces. It lay along the river from its junction with the Save to its mouth, extend- ing southward to the line of the Balkan. Its western bound- ary, which separated it from Illyria, was the course of the Dri- nus (Drina). It corresponded thus almost exactly to the modern Servia and Bulgaria. The Romans divided it, like Pan- nonia, into Superior and Inferior. Moesia Superior reached from the Drinus and the mouth of the Save to the little river Cebrus or Ciabrus (Ischia), whence a line drawn southward separated it from Moesia Inferior. It comprised thus Servia and a part of Western Bulgaria. The chief towns were Singi- dunum (Belgrade) and Naissus (Nissa). Moesia Inferior, a longer but a narrower tract, stretched from the Ciabrus to the mouth of the great river. It comprised about nine-tenths of the modern Bulgaria, together with a small portion of Roume- lia. The chief towns were Dorostolum (Silistria) and Axiopo- lis (Rassova) on the Danube, and Odessus (Varna), Tomi (Tomisvar), and Istrus (Kustendjeh), on the coast of the Euxine. Illyricum lay along the western shore of the Adriatic from the peninsula of Istria to Aulon (Avlona) in Epirus. It thus comprised the present Montenegro, the Herzegovina, and the greater part of Albania. The more northern portion of Illyri- cum was known as Dalmatia, the more southern as Illyria Proper. Among the principal tribes inhabiting it were the lapydes and Liburni in the north ; the Breuci, Mazaei, Daesi- tiatae, and Deimates in the mid-region; and the Autariatse, 390 RAWLINSON Parthini, and Taulantii in the south. Its chief towns were Scardona (which retains its name), Narona on the Naro (Na- renta), Epidaurus on the Gulf of Cattaro, Scodra (Scutari, on the Bojana), Lissus (Lesch or Allessio, on the Drin), Dyr- rhachium (Durazzo), and Appollonia (Pollina). These were all situated on or near the coast. Macedonia lay south of Illyricum and Moesia Superior, and extended across the peninsula from the Adriatic to the ^gean. On the east it was bounded by Thrace, the line of separation being- the river Nestus. On the south an artificial line, carried from the Ambracian to the Maliac Gulf, divided it from Achsea. It comprised, besides the ancient Macedon, most of Epirus and the whole of Thessaly. Its chief towns were Nicopolis, on the Gulf of Ambracia or Actium, built by Augustus to celebrate his victory ; Edessa, Pella, Beroea, Thessalonica, and Philippi. South of Moesia Inferior and east of Macedonia was Thrace, which under the first Caesars still retained a semi-independent position, being governed by kings of its own, Rhescuporis, and others ; but was reduced into the form of a province by Clau- dius. The principal tribes in Roman times were the Odrysge, the Bessi, and the Coeletse. The cities of most importance were Byzantium and Apollonia (Sizeboli) upon the coast, and Philip- polis (Filibe), and afterwards Hadrianopohs, in the interior. Achsea lay directly south of Macedonia, corresponding al- most exactly with the modern Kingdom of Greece. It includ- ed the Ionian islands and the Cyclades, but not Crete, which belonged to the Cyrenaica. The chief towns were Patrae (Patras), Corinth, and Athens. The Eastern or Asiatic provinces have now to be briefly described. As already stated, they were eight in number: viz., Asia Proper, Bithynia, Galatia, Pamphylia, Cappadocia, Ci- licia, Syria, and Palestine. Asia Proper, which included the ancient Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and a part of Phrygia, occupied the whole western coast of Asia Minor, extending from the Cianian Gulf in the Propontis to Caunus on the Sea of Rhodes. Inland it reached to about the 32d degree of east longitude, where it adjoined Galatia and Cappadocia. Bithynia bounded it on the north, Pamphylia on the south. The Roman capital of Asia Proper v/as Ephesus ; ANCIENT HISTORY 391 but the following towns were of almost equal importance: Smyrna, Pergamus, Sardis, Apameia Cibotus, and Synnada. Bithynia, which lay north, or rather north-east, of " Asia," had nearly its old dimensions, extending along the coast from the mouth of the Macestus on the west to that of the Parthenius upon the east. Inland it reached a little south of the 40th parallel, being bounded towards the south-east by the upper course of the Sangarius (Sakkariyeh), which separated it from both " Asia " and Galatia. Its Roman capital was Nicomedia (now Ismud), in the inner recess of the Gulf of Astacus. Its other important cities were Nicsea (Iznik), Chalcedon (Scutari), and Heracleia (Eregli). Galatia was situated to the east of Bithynia. It included the ancient Paphlagonia, North-eastern Phrygia, and a part of Western Cappadocia. The southern part of the province, which lay on both sides of the river Halys, was Galatia Proper, and was inhabited by the three tribes of the Tolistoboii, the Tectosages, and the Trocmi. The chief city of Galatia was Ancyra (Angora) on the Upper Sangarius. Other important towns were Pessinus on the western border, in the country of the Tolistoboii, Tavia east of the Halys, in the country of the Trocmi, and Sinope on the Euxine. Pamphylia, situated to the south of " Asia," contained the four subdivisions of Pamphylia Proper, the region originally bearing the name, Lycia, Pisidia, and Isauria. It extended along the southern coast of Asia Minor from Caunus to Cora- cesium, and reached inland to the Lakes of Bei-Shehr and Egerdir. Its chief city was Perga in Pamphylia Proper; be- sides which it contained the following towns of note : Xanthus in Lycia, Etenna and Antioch in Pisidia, Oroanda and Isaura in Isauria. Cappadocia adjoined Galatia and Pamphylia towards the east. Like Pamphylia, it comprised four regions : viz., Lyca- onia, the most western, which adjoined Isauria and " Asia ; " Cappadocia Proper, east of Lycaonia, on both sides of the river Halys ; Pontus, north of Cappadocia Proper, between it and the Euxine ; and Armenia Minor, south-east of Pontus, a rug- ged mountain tract lying along the Upper Euphrates. The chief city of Cappadocia was Caesarea Mazaca (Kaisariyeh), be- 19"^ RAWLINSON tween Mount Argseus and the Halys. It contained also the important towns of Iconium (Koniyeh) in Lycaonia; Tyana and Melitene (Malatiyeh) in Cappadocia Proper ; and Amisus, Trapezus (Trebizond), Amasia, Sebastia, and Nicopolis in Pon- tus. Cilicia lay east of Pamphylia and south of Cappadocia. It reached along the south coast of Asia Minor from Coracesium to Alexandria (Iskanderoun). The eastern portion of the prov- ince was known as Campestris, the western as Montana or Aspera. Tarsus, on the Cydnus, was its capital. Other im- portant towns were Issus in the pass of the name, Mopsuestia on the Pyramus, and Seleuceia on the Calycadnus, near its mouth. Syria, which adjoined Cappadocia and Cilicia, extended from about the 38th parallel upon the north to Mount Carmel towards the south, a distance of nearly 400 miles. It was bounded on the east by the Euphrates as far as Thapsacus and then by the waterless Syrian desert. Southward it adjoined on Palestine. The province was divided into ten principal regions: — (i) Commagene, towards the north, between Cilicia and Armenia ; chief city, Samosata (Sumeisat) on the Euphrates. (2) Cyrrhestica, south of Commagene, between Cilicia and Mesopotamia ; chief cities, Cirrhus, Zeugma (Rum-kaleh), and Bambyce or Hierapolis (Bambuk). (3) Seleucis, on the coast, south of Cilicia and south-west of Cyrrhestica ; chief city, An- tioch, with its suburb, Daphne, and its port, Seleuceia. (4) Casiotis, south of Seleucis, so called from the Mons Casius, ex- tending along the shore from the foot of that mountain to the river Eleutherus (Nahr-el-Kebir) ; chief cities, Laodiceia and Marathus. (5) Phoenicia, a thin slip of coast, due south of Casiotis, reaching from the river Eleutherus to Mount Carmel ; chief towns, Antaradus, Berytus (Beyrut), Sidon, Tyre, and Ptolemais (Acre). (6) Chalybonitis, south of Cyrrhestica, and east of Seleucis, lying between Seleucis and the Euphrates ; chief city, Chalybon (now Aleppo). (7) Chalcis or Chalcidice, south of Chalybonitis ; chief city, Chalcis, on the lake into which the river of Aleppo empties itself. (8) Apamene, south of Chalcidice, and east of Casiotis, comprising a large portion of the Orontes valley, together with the country east of it ; chief ANCIENT HISTORY 393 city, Apameia; important towns, Epiphaneia (Hamah) and Emesa (Hems). (9) Coele-Syria, south of Apamene and east of Phoenicia, consisting of the valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, together with the Anti-Lebanon itself and the fertile tract at'its eastern base towards Damascus ; chief cities, Damascus, Abila, and Heliopolis (Balbek). And (10) Palmy- rene, the desert tract south of Chalybonitis and east of Chalci- dice and Apamene, comprising some fertile oases, of which the principal contained the famous Tadmor or Palmyra, " the city of Palms." The capital of the entire Syrian province was An- tioch, on the Lower Orontes. The most important of the other cities in Roman times were Damascus and Emesa. Palestine, which adjoined Syria on the south, was, like Syria, divided up into a number of districts. The chief of these were Galilee, Samaria, Judaea, Idumaea, and Peraea, which last in- cluded Ituraea, Trachonitis, Auranitis, Batanaea, etc. Galilee was entirely an inland region, being shut out from the coast by the strip of territory belonging to Phoenicia. It reached from Hermon on the north to the plain of Esdraelon and valley of Beth-shan upon the south. The most important of its cities were Caesarea Philippi, near the site of the ancient Dan, Ti- berias, on the lake of the name, Capernaum, and Jotapata. Samaria, which lay south of Galilee, extended from the plain of Esdraelon to the hill-country of Benjamin (about lat. 32°). It reached across from the sea to the Jordan, including the rich plain of Sharon as well as the hill-country of Manasseh and Ephraim. The chief cities in Roman times were Caesarea, up- on the coast ; Sebaste (Samaria), Neapolis (Shechem), now Nablus, and Shiloh, in the interior. Judaea, which succeeded Samaria towards the south, occupied the coast line from a little to the north of Joppa (Jafifa) to Raphia (Refah). Eastward it was bounded by the Jordan and the Dead Sea, southward by Idumaea or Edom. It comprised the hill-country of Judah and Benjamin, the desert towards the Dead Sea, and the rich She- felah or plain of the Philistines. The chief towns were Jerusa- lem, Hebron, and Joppa (Jaffa). Idumaea, or " Roman Arabia," was the tract between Judaea and Egypt ; it included the Sinaitic peninsula, Idumaea Proper, and a narrow tract along the eastern coast of the Red Sea, reaching as far south 394 RAWLINSON as lat. 24°. The chief city was Petra. Pergea, or the tract across Jordan, comprised the entire habitable country between the great river of Palestine and the Syrian desert. The more northern parts were known as Itursea and Trachonitis ; below these came Auranitis (the Hauran), Galaditis (Gilead), Ammo- nitis, and Moabitis. The chief cities were Gerasa (Jerash) and Gadara. The African or Southern provinces were five in number: viz., Egypt ; the Cyrenaica, including Crete ; Africa Proper ; Nu- midia ; and Mauretania. Of these Egypt was by far the most important, being the granary of the Empire. Egypt, according to Roman notions, included, besides the Delta and the valley of the Nile, first, the entire tract between the Nile and the Red Sea ; secondly, the north coast of Africa from the western mouth of the Nile as far as Parsetonium ; and thirdly, the oases of the Libyan desert as far west as long. 28°, Southward the limit was Syene, now Assouan. In Egypt Proper, or the Nile valley and Delta, three regions were recog- nized — ^gyptus Inferior, or the Delta, which contained thirty- five nomes ; Heptanomis, the mid-region, containing seven ; and ^gyptus Superior, the Upper valley, containing fifteen. The capital of the province was Alexandria ; other important towns were, in Lower Egypt, Pelusium, Sais, and Heliopolis ; in the Heptanomis, Arsinoe, Heracleopolis, Antinoe, and Her- mopolis Magna; in ^gyptus Superior, Thebes, Panopolis, Abydus, Ombos, and Syene. The Cyrenaica adjoined Egypt upon the west, and extended along the coast from long. 2.^° to 19°. It was a tolerably broad tract, reaching so far inland as to include the oasis of Ammon, and perhaps that of Aujilah. The chief towns were Berenice (now Benghazi), Arsinoe (Teuchira), Ptolemais, near Barca (now Dolmeta), and Cyrene (now Grennah). In Crete, which belonged to this province, the most important towns were Gnossus on the north coast, and Gortyna in the interior. Africa Proper corresponded nearly to the two modern Bey- liks of Tunis and Tripoli. It extended along the shore from Automalax on the Greater Syrtis to the river Tusca (Wady-ez- zain), which divided it from Numidia. The province was made up of two very different regions, viz., a narrow strip of flat coast ANCIENT HISTORY 395 reaching from Automalax to the Gulf of Khabs or Lesser Syr- tis, and a broad, hilly, and extremely fertile region, north of the Syrtis and the salt lake known as the Shibkah, the former cor- responding to the modern Tripoli, the latter to Tunis. The chief towns were, in the western hill-tract, Hadrumetum, Car- thage, Utica, and Hippo Zaritus ; in the low eastern region, Tacape and Leptis Magna, or Neapolis. Numidia was, comparatively speaking, a small tract, its sea- board reaching only from the Tusca to the Ampsaga, a distance of about 150 miles. Inland it extended as far as the Atlas mountains. Its chief town was Hippo Regius, the modern Bona. Mauretania, the country of the Mauri or Moors, extended from the river Ampsaga on the east to about Cape Ghir (lat. 30° 35') upon the west. It corresponded in a measure to the modern Morocco and Algeria, but did not reach so far either eastward or westward. The province was subdivided into two portions, which were called respectively Tingitana and Csesari- ensis. Tingitana reached from Cape Ghir to the mouth of the Mulucha (Mulwia). It took its name from Tingis, the capital, now Tangiers. Caesariensis lay between the Mulucha and the Ampsaga. The chief cities were Caesarea and Igilgilis, both on the Mediterranean. Such was the extent, and such were the divisions and sub- divisions of the Roman Empire under Augustus. During the century, however, which followed upon his decease (A.D. 14 to 114) several large additions were made to the Roman terri- tory ; these will now require a few words of notice. The most important of them were those of the Agri Decumates, of Brit- ain, Dacia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. The Agri Decumates fell under Roman protection towards the close of the reign of Augustus, but w^ere not incorporated into the Empire till about A.D. 100. They consisted of a tract between the Upper Danube and the Middle Rhine, reaching from about Ingolstadt on the one stream to the mouth of the Lahn upon the other, and thus comprising most of Wurtem- berg and Baden, together with a portion of South-western Prussia. The most important city in this region was Sumalo- cenna on the Upper Main. 396 RAWLINSON Britain was conquered as far as the Dee and the Wash under Claudius, and was probably at once reduced to the form of a Roman province. The chief tribes of this portion of the island were the Cantii in Kent, the Trinobantes in Essex, the Iceni in Norfolk and Suffolk, the Catyeuchlani, Dobuni, and Cornavii, in the midland counties, the Regni in Sussex, Surrey and Hants, the Belgae in Somerset and Wilts, the Damnonii in Devon and Cornwall, the Silures in South Wales, and the Ordovices in North Wales. The most important cities were Camulodunum (Colchester), Londinium (London), Verulami- um (St. Alban's), Isca (Caerleon upon Usk), and Deva (Ches- ter). Under Nero and Vespasian further conquests were made ; and under Titus the frontier was advanced as far north as the Friths of Forth and Clyde, which thenceforth formed the real Hmit of " Britannia Romana." The Highlands of Scotland remained in the possession of the Caledonii, and no attempt was ever made to conquer Ireland (Hibernia or lerne). The tribes of the North were chiefly the Damnii, Selgovae, and Otadeni in the Scotch Lowlands ; the Brigantes in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham ; and the Coritani in Lincoln and Notts. The most important of the Northern cities was Eboracum (York). Dacia, which was added to the Empire by Trajan, comprised Hungary east of the Theiss, together with the modern prin- cipalities of Wallachia and Moldavia. On the west the Theiss separated it from the Jazyges Metanastse, who held the tongue of land between the Danube and Theiss rivers. The Car- pathians formed its boundary upon the north. Eastward it reached to the Hierasus, which is either the Sereth, or more probably the Pruth. Southward it was divided from Moesia by the Danube. The native capital was Zermizegethusa, which became Ulpia Trajana under the Romans. Other important towns were Tibiscum (Temesvar), Apulum (Carloburg), and Napoca (Neumarkt). Armenia, which, like Dacia, was conquered by Trajan, ad- joined upon the east the Roman province of Cappadocia, and extended thence to the Caspian. On the north it was bounded by the river Kur or Cyrus, on the south by the Mons Masius, on the south-east by the high mountain-chain between the lakes ANCIENT HISTORY 397 of Van and Urumiyeh, and by the river Araxes (Aras). Its chief cities were Artaxata on the Araxes, Amida (Diarbekr) in the upper valley of the Tigris, and Tigranocerta on the flanks of Mount Niphates. Mesopotamia, likewise one of Trajan's conquests, lay south of Armenia, extending from the crest of the Mons Masius al- most to the shore of the Persian Gulf, and comprising the whole tract between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Its chief regions were Osrhoene and Mygdonia in the north, in the south Babylonia and Mesene. In Roman times, Seleucia, on the Tigris, was its most important city. Other places of some consequence were Edessa and Carrhse (Haran) in Osrhoene, Nisibis in Mygdonia, Circesium near the mouth of the Khabur, and Hatra in the desert between the Khabur and the Tigris. Assyria, conquered by Trajan, and again by Septimius Se- verus, lay east of the Tigris, between that stream and the moun- tains. Southward it extended to the Lesser Zab, or perhaps to the Diyaleh. The only town of importance which it contained was Arbela. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. FIRST SECTION. From the Battle of Actium, B.C. 31, to the Death of Com- modus, A.D. 192.* If we regard the reign of Augustus as commencing with the victory of Actium, we must assign to his sole administration the long term of forty-five years. He was thirty-two years of * Sources. The only continuous history which we possess for this period is that of Dio Cassius (books li. to Ixii.), the lost portions of whose work may be supplied from the abridgment of Xiphilinus. For the earlier Emperors the most important authority is Tacitus, whose " Annals " and " Histories" gave a continuous account of Roman affairs from the closing years of Augustus to the death of Domitian. Unfortu- nately, large portions of both these works are lost, and no abridgment supplies their place. Much interesting information is conveyed by the biographical work of Suetonius (vitae xii. " Caesarum "), in which time has luckily made no gaps; but the scandalous stories told by this anecdote-monger are not always to be received as truth. Some light 398 RAWLINSON age when he obtained the undisputed mastery of the Roman world : he Hved to be seventy-seven. This long tenure of power, joined to his own prudence and sagacity, enabled him to settle the foundations of the Empire on so firm and solid a basis, that they were never, except for a moment, shaken afterwards. To his prudence and sagacity it was also due that the Empire took the particular shape which in point of fact it at first assumed ; that, instead of being, like the kingdoms of the East, an open and undisguised despotism, it was an absolute monarchy concealed under republican forms. Warned by the fate of Julius, the inheritor of his position resolved to cloak his assumption of supreme and unlimited authority under all possible constitutional formalities. Carefully es- chewing every illegal title, avoiding even the name " Dictator," to which unpleasant recollections attached from its having been borne by Marius and Sulla, he built up a composite power by simply obtaining for himself, in a way generally recognized as legal, all the various offices of the State which had any real political significance. These ofBces, moreover, were mostly taken not in perpetuity, but for a term of years, and were renewed from time to time at the pressing instance of the Senate. Some of them were also, to a certain extent, shared with others — a further apparent safeguard. State and gran- deur were at the same time avoided ; no new insignia of ofifice were introduced ; the manners and deportment of the ruler were citizen-like. Thus both the great parties in the State were fairly satisfied : it was not difficult for republicans to flatter themselves that the Republic still existed ; while mon- archists were with better reason convinced that it had passed away forever. The chief apparent check on the authority of Augustus was the Senate. Retaining the prestige of a great name, favorably regarded by large numbers among the people, and possessed of considerable powers in respect of taxation, of administration, is thrown upon the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius by the " History " of Velleius Paterculus. and on those of Galba and Otho by their " Lives " in Plutarch. The Oriental history of the period receives im- portant illustration from the two great works of Josephus (" Antiqui- tates Judaicae " and " De Bello Judaico "). ANCIENT HISTORY 399 and of nomination to high offices, the Senate, had it been ani- mated by a bold and courageous spirit, might have formed not merely an ornamental adjunct to the throne, but a real coun- terbalancing power in the State, a barrier against oppression and tyranny. The Senate had its own treasury (curarium), which was distinct from the privy purse (fisciis) of the Emperor ; it divided with the Emperor the government of the Roman world, having its own senatorial provinces (provincicc Scnatus), as he had his imperial ones {provincicc Cccsaris); it appointed " presidents " and " proconsuls " to administer the one, as he did his " lieutenants " (Icgati) to administer the other. It was recognized as the ultimate seat of all civil power and authority. It alone conferred the " imperium," or right to exercise rule over the provincials and the citizens. Legally and constitutionally, the Emperor derived his authority from the Senate ; and it was always the acknowledgment of the Sen- ate, by whatever means obtained, which was regarded as im- parting legitimacy to the pretensions of any new aspirant. The Senate was, however, prevented from proving any effectual check upon the " prince " by the cupidity and timidity which prevailed among its members. All the bolder spirits had per- ished in the civil wars ; and the senators of Augustus, elevated or confirmed in their seats by him, preferred courting his favor by adulation to imperilling their position by the display of an inconvenient independence. As time went on, and worse Em- perors than Augustus filled his place, the conduct which had been at first dictated by selfish hopes continued as the result of fear. Over the head of everyone who thwarted the imperial will impended, like the sword of Damocles, the " lex de maj- estate." By degrees the Senate relinquished all its powers, or suffered them to become merely nominal ; and the Roman " prince " became as absolute a despot as ever was Oriental shah or sultan. During the principate of Augustus, the " people " continued to possess some remnants of their ancient privileges. While the Emperor nominated absolutely the consuls and one-half of the other magistrates, the tribes elected, from among candi- dates whom the Emperor had approved, the remainder. Legis- lation followed its old course, and the entire series of " Leges 400 RAWLINSON Juliae " enacted under Augustus, received the sanction of both the Senate and the Centuries. The judicial rights alone of the people were at this time absolutely extinguished, the preroga- tive of pardon which the Emperor assumed taking the place of the " provocatio ad populum." But the tendency of the Empire was, naturally, to infringe more and more on the re- maining popular rights ; and, though a certain show of elec- tion, and a certain title to a share in legislation, were maintained by the great assemblies up to the time when the Empire fell, yet practically from the reign of Tiberius the people ceased to possess any real political power or privilege. The political power, of which the Senate and people were deprived, could not, in so large an empire as Rome, be all exercised by one man. It was necessary that the Emperor should either devolve upon his favorites great part of the actual work of government, or that he should be assisted in his la- borious duties by a regularly constituted Council of State. The temper and circumstances of Augustus inclined him to adopt the more liberal course ; and hence the institution in his time (B.C. 27) of a Privy Council (concilium secretum principis), in which all important affairs of State were debated and legis- lative measures were prepared and put into shape. The jeal- ousy of his successors allowed this institution to drop out of the imperial system, and substituted favorites — the mere creat- ures of the prince — for the legally constituted councillors of Augustus. As it was the object of Augustus to conceal, so far as pos- sible, the greatness of the change which his measures effected in the government, the magistrates of the Republic were in almost every instance maintained, though with powers greatly diminished. The State had still its consuls, praetors, quaestors, sediles, and tribunes ; but these magistracies conveyed dignity rather than authority, and were coveted chiefly as distinctions. The really important offices were certain new ones, which the changed condition of affairs rendered necessary ; as especially, the " praefecture of the city " (prccfectitra urbis), an office re- stored from the old regal times, and the commandership of the praetorian guard (prcsfectura cohortium prcctoriarum), which became shortly the second dignity in the State. ANCIENT HISTORY 401 It was, indeed, in the military rather than in the civil insti- tutions of the empire, that something like a real check existed upon the caprices of arbitrary power, so that misgovernment beyond a certain point was rendered dangerous. The security of the empire against both external and internal foes required the maintenance of a standing army of great magnitude ; and the necessity of conciliating the affections, or at least retaining the respect, of this armed force imposed limits, that few but madmen overstepped, on the imperial liberty of action. Not only had the praetorians and their officers to be kept in good- humor, but the five-and-twenty or thirty legions upon the frontiers — no carpet soldiers, but hardy troops, the real salt of the Roman world — had to be favorably impressed, if an emperor wished to feel himself securely seated upon his throne. This check was the more valuable, as, practically, none other existed. It sufficed, during the period with which we are here more especially concerned — that from Augustus to Commodus — to render good government the rule, and tyranny the com- paratively rare exception, only about 57 years out of the 223 having been years of suffering and oppression. The organization of the army was somewhat complicated. The entire military force may be divided under the two heads of those troops which preserved order at Rome, and those which m'aintained the terror of the Roman name in the prov- inces. The troops of the capital were of two kinds : the prae- torians, of whom an account has been given on p. 400, and the " city cohorts " (cohortes urbancu), a sort of armed police, whose number in the time of Augustus was 6000. The troops main- tained in the provinces were likewise of two kinds : those of the regular army, or the legionaries, and the irregulars, who were called " auxilia," i. e., auxiliaries. The legions consti- tuted the main strength of the system. They were " divisions," not " regiments." Each of them comprised the three ele- ments of a Roman army — horse, foot, and artillery — in certain definite proportions, and (in the time of Augustus) numbered probably a little under 7000 men. Augustus maintained twenty-five legions, who formed thus a military force, armed and trained in the best possible way, which did not fall much short of 175,000. The auxiliaries, or troops supplied by the 26 402 RAWLINSON provincials, were about equal in number. Thus the entire force maintained in the early empire may be reckoned at 350,- 000 or 360,000 men. The disposition of the legions varied from time to time, but only within somewhat narrow limits, the military strength of the empire being always massed principally upon the north- ern and eastern frontiers, or on the lines of the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates, where alone had the Romans at this date any formidable foreign enemies. Thirteen or four- teen legions usually guarded the northern, or European, fron- tier, distributed in nearly equal proportions between the Rhen- ish and the Danubian provinces. In the East, from four to seven legions sufficed to keep in check the barbarians of Asia. Three legions were commonly required by Spain, which al- ways cherished hopes of independence. The important prov- ince of Egypt required the presence of two legions, and the rest of Roman Africa was guarded by an equal number. Two legions were also usually stationed in Britain after its conquest. The older and more peaceful provinces, as Gallia Narbonensis, Sardinia, Sicily, Macedonia, Achsea, Asia, Bithynia, etc., were unoccupied by any regular force, order being maintained in them by some inconsiderable native levies. The financial system of the Empire differed but little from that of the later Republic, both the sources of revenue and the items of expenditure being, for the most part, identical. Au- gustus contented himself, in the main, with simplifying the practice which he found established, only in a very few cases adding a new impost. The revenue continued to be derived from the two great sources of the State property, and taxes ; and these last continued to be either Direct, or Indirect. The chief expenditure was on the military force, land and naval ; on the civil service ; on public works ; and on shows and lar- gesses. It is difficult to form an exact estimate of the probable amount of these several items ; but, on the whole, it seems most likely that the entire annual expenditure must have amounted to at least twenty-five millions of pounds sterling. Though it was as a civil administrator that Augustus ob- tained his chief reputation, yet much of his attention was also given to military affairs, and the wars in which he engaged, ANCIENT HISTORY 403 either in person or by his lieutenants, were numerous and im- portant. The complete subjugation of Northern and North- western Spain was effected, partly by himself, partly by Agrip- pa and Carisius, in the space of nine years, from B.C. 2^ to 19. In B.C. 24, an attempt was made by .(Elius Callus to extend the dominion of Rome into the spice region of Arabia Felix ; but this expedition was unsuccessful. Better fortune attended on the efforts of the Emperor's step-sons, Drusus and Tiberius,* in the years B.C. 16 and 15, to reduce the independent tribes of the Eastern Alps, especially the Rhsetians and Vindelicians. Two campaigns sufficed for the complete reduction of the en- tire tract between the Lombardo-Venetian plain and the course of the Upper Danube, the " fortress of modern freedom." More difficulty, however, was experienced in subduing the tribes of the Middle and Lower Danube. In Noricum, Pannonia, and Mcesia, a gallant spirit of independence showed itself; and it was only after frequent revolts that the subjugation of these tracts was effected (between B.C. 12 and A.D. 9). But the most important of all the Roman wars of this period was that with the Germans. The rapid conquest of Gaul and of the tracts south of the Danube encouraged the Romans to hope for similar success against the tribes who dwelt in Cen- tral Europe, between the Danube and the Baltic. In a military point of view, it would have been a vast gain, could they have advanced their frontier to the line of the Vistula and the Dniester. Augustus seems to have conceived such a design. Accordingly, from about the year B.C. 12, systematic efforts were made for the subjugation of the German races east of the Rhine and north of the Danube, the Usipetes, Chatti, Si- gambri, Suevi, Cherusci, Marcomanni, etc. From the year B.C. 12 to A.D. 5, a continuous series of attacks was directed against these nations, first by Drusus, and then, after his death (B.C. 9), by Tiberius. Vast armies penetrated deep into the interior; fleets coasted the northern shore and ascended the great rivers to co-operate with the land force ; forts were erect- ed ; the Roman language and laws were introduced ; and the entire tract between the Rhine and the Elbe was brought into apparent subjection. But the real spirit of the nation was * Tiberius was also the son-in-law of Augustus, having married Julia, the daughter of Augustus. 404 RAWLIXSON unsubdued. After a brief period of sullen submission (A.D. 5 to 8), revolt suddenly broke out (A.D. 9). Arminius, a prince of the Cherusci, took the lead. The Romans were attacked, three entire legions under \'arus destroyed, and German inde- pendence recovered. Henceforth, though Rome sometimes, in ostentation, or as a measure of precaution, marched her armies into the district between the Rhine and the Elbe, yet no attempt was made at conquest or permanent occupation. The Rhine and Danube became the recognized limits of the empire, and, except the Agri Decumates, Rome held no land on the right bank of the former river. The internal tranquillity of Rome was during the whole of Augustus's long reign never once interrupted. Revolutionary passions had to a great extent exhausted themselves, and the prudence and vigilance of the Emperor never relaxed. The arts of peace flourished. Augustus " found Rome of brick and left it of marble." He gave a warm encouragement to litera- ture, and with such effect that the miost briUiant period of each nation's literary history is wont to take name from him. Vir- gil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, Propertius, Varius, Li\'}', adorned his court, and formed an assemblage of talent never surpassed and rarely equalled. Commerce pursued its course securely under his rule, and, though a little checked by sumptuary laws, became continually more and more profitable. j\Iuch attention was given to agriculture ; and the productiveness of the land, both in Italy and the pro\4nces, increased. Altogether, the Augustan age must be regarded as one of much material pros- perity, elegance, and refinement ; and it can create no surprise that the mass of the population were contented with the new regime. The " good-fortune " of Augustus, which the ancients ad- mired, was limited to his public, and did not attach to his pri- vate life. He suffered greatly from ill health, more especially in his earlier years. Though thrice married — to Claudia, to Scribonia, and to Livna — he had no son ; and his only daughter, Julia, disgraced him by her excesses. His first son-in-law, Marcellus, was cut off by sickness in the flower of his age; and his second, Agrippa, died when he was but a little more than fifty. Towards his third, Tiberius, he never felt warmly ; ANCIENT HISTORY 405 and it was from necessity rather than choice that he raised him to the second place in the empire. It was no doubt among his most cherished wishes to have been succeeded by one of his own blood ; but of the three sons born to his daughter, Julia, the two elder, Caius and Lucius, died just as they reached man- hood, the latter in A.D. 2, the former in A.D. 4, while the third, Agrippa Posthumus, was of so dull and stolid a temperament, that not even the partiality of family affection could blind the Emperor to his unfitness. Deprived thus of all support from those of his own race and lineage, Augustus in his old age >vas forced to lean wholly upon his wife and the male scions of her family. These were Tiberius, the son, and Germanicus, the grandson of Livia, son of the deceased Drusus. When the aged Emperor, feeling the approach of death, resolved to make distinct arrangements for the succession, his choice fell on the former, whom he adopted, and associated with himself in some of the most important of the imperial functions. At the same time, he required Tiberius to adopt his nephew, Ger- manicus, and gave the latter the hand of his own granddaugh- ter, Agrippina. Augustus lived to see (A.D. 12) the birth of a great-grandson, the issue of this union, and thus left one male descendant, who in course of time inherited his cro\\Ti. Augustus died A.D. 14, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. There is no reason to believe that his end was hastened by Livia, or by any of those about him. His health had long been giving way, and, but for the tender care of his attached wife, he would probably have died sooner. His place was taken, after some coquetr}', by Tiberius, with the entire assent of the Senate and people of Rome, though not without opposi- tion on the part of the army. It is important to observ'e that, even at this early date, the legions had an inkling of their strength, and would have proclaimed an emperor, and drawn their swords in his cause, had not the object of their choice, Germanicus, shrunk from the treason. Tiberius was indebted to the generosity of his young kinsman, or to his want of am- bition, for his establishment in the imperial dignity without a struggle. It is perhaps not surprising that he felt more jeal- ousy than gratitude towards one who had been proclaimed his rival; but he cannot be exonerated from blame for so mani- 4o6 RAWLINSON festing his jealousy as to make it generally felt that to vex, thwart, or injure his nephew was the shortest way to his favor. The reign of Tiberius may be conveniently divided into three periods : — from his accession to his retirement from the capital (A.D. 14 to 26= 12 years); from his retirement to the death of Sejanus (A.D. 26 to 31 = 5 years); and from the death of Sejanus to his own (A.D. 31 to 37 = 6 years). The main events of the first period were the exploits and death of Ger- manicus ; the rise of Sejanus to power ; and the death of Dru- sus, Tiberius's only son. During three years Germanicus at- tempted the re-conquest of Western Germany, and ravaged with his legions the entire country between the Rhine and the Elbe. But no permanent effect was produced by his incur- sions ; and Tiberius, after a while, removed him from the West to the East, fearful perhaps of his becoming too dear to the German legions. In the management of the East he gave him as a coadjutor the ambitious and reckless Piso, who sought to bring his administration into contempt, and was believed to have removed him by poison. It is perhaps un- certain whether Germanicus did not really die a natural death, though his own conviction that he was poisoned is indubitable. The rise of Sejanus to power is to be connected with the general policy of Tiberius as a ruler, which was characterized by a curious mixture of suspiciousness with over-confidence. Distrusting his own abilities, doubtful of his right to the throne, he saw on every side of him possible rivals — aspirants who might thrust him from his high place. The noblest and wealth- iest of the Patricians, the members and connections of the Julian house, and the princes of his own family, were the es- pecial objects of his jealousy. These, therefore, he sought to depress ; he called none of them to his aid ; he formed of them no " Privy Council," as Augustus had done, but resolved to administer the entire empire by his own unassisted exer- tions. Indefatigable as he was in business, this, after a while, he found to be impossible ; and he was thus led to look out for a helper, who should be too mean in origin and position to be dangerous, while he possessed the qualities which would render him useful. Such an one he thought to have found in JEVms Sejanus, the mere son of a Roman knight, a provincial ANCIENT HISTORY 407 of Vulsinii, whom he made " Praetorian Prefect," and who gradually acquired over him the most unbounded influence. The death of Drusus was the result of the criminal ambition of Sejanus, which nothing could content short of the first place in the empire. Having seduced Livilla, the wife of Drusus and niece of Tiberius, Sejanus, with her aid, took him off by poison (A.D. 23). His crime being undiscovered, he soon afterwards (A.D. 25) requested the permission of Tiberius to marry the widow. The request took Tiberius by surprise ; it opened his eyes to his favorite's ambition, but it did not at once destroy his influence. Declining the proposal made to him, he allowed his minister to persuade him to cjuit Rome, retire to Capreae, and yield into his hands the entire conduct of affairs at the capital. The influence of Sejanus was now at its height, and was made use of in two ways — to remove the chief remaining mem- bers of the imperial family, and to obtain his own admission into it. By lies and intrigues he procured the arrest and im- prisonment of Agrippina and her two elder sons, Nero and Drusus. By pressing his claims, he obtained at last the con- sent of the Emperor to the marriage whereto he aspired, and was actually betrothed to Livilla. At the same time, he was made joint consul with his master. But at this point his good- fortune stopped. In the very act of raising his favorite so high, the Emperor had become jealous of him. Signs of his changed feelings soon appeared; and Sejanus, anxious to anticipate the blow which he felt to be impending, formed a plot to as- sassinate his master. Failing, however, to act with due prompt- ness, he was betrayed, degraded from his command, seized, and executed, A.D. 31. It might have been hoped that Tiberius, relieved from the influence of his cruel and crafty minister, would have reverted to the (comparatively) mild policy of his earlier years. But the actual result was the reverse of this. The discovery that he had been deceived in the man on whom alone he had re- posed confidence, rendered him more suspicious than ever. The knowledge, which he now acquired, that his own son had been murdered, affrighted him. Henceforth Tiberius became a monster of tyranny, because he trusted no one, because he 4o8 RAWLINSON saw in merit of whatever kind at once a reproach and a dan- ger. Hence a " Reign of Terror " followed the execution of Sejanus. In the fall of the favorite all his friends, all who had paid court to him, were implicated ; in the guilt of Livilla, the equal guilt of the other relatives of Germanicus was regarded as proved. Nero, therefore, Drusus, and Agrippina, as well as Livilla, were put to death ; hundreds of nobles, men, women, and even children, were massacred. The cruel tyrant, skulking in his island abode, issued his bloody decrees, and at the same time gave himself up to strange and unnatural forms of profli- gacy, seeking in them, perhaps a refuge from remorse. At length, when he had reached his seventy-eighth year, his strong constitution failed, and he died after a short illness, A.D. 37. The political and legal changes belonging to the reign of Tiberius were not many in number, but they were of consid- erable importance. Among his first acts was the extinction of the last vestige of popular Hberty, by the withdrawal from the " comitia tributa " of all share in the appointment of magis- trates. Their right of selection from among the Emperor's candidates was transferred to the Senate, and henceforth the tribes met merely pro forma, to confirm the choice of that body. A second, and still more vital, change was the usurpation by the Emperor of the right to condemn to death, and execute without trial, all those who were obnoxious to him, or at any rate all whom the tribunals had once committed to prison. A third innovation was, the extension of the " lex de majes- tate " to words and even thoughts, and the introduction by these means of " constructive treason " into the list of capital offences. It is scarcely necessary to observe how these changes tended in the direction of despotism, which was still further promoted by the establishment of the entire body of praetorian guards in a camp immediately outside of Rome, for the sole purpose of overawing, and, if need were, coercing the citizens. The demise of Tiberius revealed a vital defect in the imperial system, viz., the want of any regular and established law of succession. Tiberius had associated nobody, had designated nobody by his will, had left the State to shift for itself, careless whether or no there followed on his decease a deluge. Under these circumstances, the Senate, the praetorians, and the people might all conceive that the right of appointing an imperator, ANCIENT HISTORY 409 if not even that of determining whether or no any new im- perator should be appointed, rested with them. A colUsion might easily have occurred, but the circumstances were fort- unately such as to produce a complete accord between the three possible disputants.* Soldiers, Senate, and people united in putting aside any glowing dream of the Republic, and in calling to the throne Caius, the only surviving son of Ger- manicus and Agrippina, whose parentage rendered him uni- versally popular, while his age was suitable, and his character, so far as it was known, unobjectionable. The reign of Caius, or Caligula, as he is generally termed, lasted less than four years (from March, A.D. 37, to January, A.D, 41), but was long enough to fully display the disastrous efifects of the possession of arbitrary power on a weak and ill-balanced mind. At first mild, generous, and seemingly ami- able, he rapidly degenerated into a cruel and fantastic tyrant, savage, merciless, and mocking. Dissipating in a few months the vast hoards of Tiberius, who had left in the treasury a sum exceeding twenty-one millions of our money, he was driven to supply his needs, in part by an oppressive taxation, but mainly from confiscations of large estates, to procure which it was only necessary to make a free use of the law of " maj- estas." Executions, suicides, exiles followed each other throughout his reign in an unceasing succession, the Emperor becoming more and more careless of bloodshed. The most wanton extravagance exhausted the resources of the State. Not content with the ordinary forms of profligacy, Caius lived in open incest with his sister, Drusilla. After his own severe illness, and her death (A.D. 38), the violence of his feelings, which he had long ceased to control, and the strange contrast, which those events brought home to him, between his weakness and his strength, his unlimited power over the lives of others, and his impotence to avert death, seem to have shattered his reason, and to have rendered him actually insane. His self- deification, his architectural extravagances, his absurd expe- ditions and still wilder projects, which all belong to the latter half of his reign, have been justly thought to indicate that his mind was actually unhinged. The awful spectacle of a mad- * The " three disputants " referred to were Caius, Claudius, and Tiberius Semellus. 4IO RAWLINSON man absolute master of the civilized world is here presented to us ; and the peril inherent in the despotic form of government is shown in the clearest light. The human suffering com- pressed into Caligula's short reign can scarcely be calculated. What would have been the result, had he been allowed to live out his natural term of life? Fortunately for the world, tyr- anny, when it reaches a certain point, provokes resistance. Caius was struck down in the fourth year of his reign, and the thirtieth of his life, by the swords of two of his guards, whom he had insulted beyond endurance. This sudden blow, whereby the State was left wholly without a head, was an event for which the imperial constitution had made no provision ; and its occurrence produced a crisis of vast importance for its efifect on the imperial constitution itself, which suffered a modification. Two questions presented them- selves to be determined by the course of events : — " Was the Empire accidental and temporary, or was it the regular and established form of government ? " And " In the latter case, with whom did it rest, in case of a sudden vacancy for which no preparation had been made, to select a successor?" The all but entire abolition of the Comitia put the claim of the people to be heard on either point out of the question : the deter- mination necessarily rested with the Senate or the soldiers. Had the Senate been sufficiently prompt, it might not improb- ably have determined both points in its own favor; it might have restored the Republic, or it might have nominated an emperor. But it was unprepared ; it hesitated ; it occupied itself with talk ; and the opportunity, which it might have seized, passed away forever. For the praetorians, accidentally finding Claudius in the palace, and aware of the hesitation of the Senate, assumed the right of choice, proclaimed him emperor, and thereby asserted and established both the fixity of the Empire and the right of the army to nominate the im- perator. Henceforth for more than half a century the nominees of the army wore the crown, and the Senate was content with the mere ratification of the army's choice. Claudius, who succeeded Caius, was his uncle, being the younger brother of Germanicus, and thus, though connected with the Julian house, not by birth a member of it. His reign ANCIENT HISTORY 41, lasted between thirteen and fourteen years, from January, A.D. 41, to October, A.D. 54. Though mild, diligent, and well- intentioned, he was by nature and education unfitted to rule, more especially in a corrupt commonwealth. Shy, weak, and awkward, he had been considered from his birth " wanting," had been debarred from public life till he was forty-six years of age, and had acquired the temper and habits of a recluse student. Left to himself, he might have reigned respectably ; but it was his misfortune to fall under the influence of persons grievously unprincipled, whose characters he was unable to read, and who made him their tool and cat's-paw. His wives, Messalina and Agrippina, and his freedmen, Pallas and Nar- cissus, had the real direction of affairs during his reign ; and it was to them, and not to Claudius himself, that the corruption and cruelties which disgraced his principate were owing. The death of the infamous Messalina, to which he consented, can- not be charged against him as a crime, for it was thoroughly merited ; and the sway of Agrippina, though in the end it had disastrous effects, was not without counterbalancing advan- tages. The princess who recalled Seneca from exile and made him her son's tutor, who advanced to power the honest Bur- rhus, and protected many an accused noble, cannot be re- garded as wholly a malign influence. Her fear of suffering the punishment due to her infidelity, and her natural desire to see her son upon the throne, led her on at last to crime of the deepest dye. She took advantage of her position to poison the unhappy Claudius in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and the fourteenth of his reign. Claudius left behind him a son, Britannicus, who was how- ever but thirteen years old at his father's death. The crown, therefore, naturally fell to his adopted son, Nero, who had married his daughter, Octavia, and who was, moreover, a direct descendant of Augustus. Proclaimed by the przetorians as soon as the demise of his father-in-law was known, he was at once accepted by the Senate, whom the circumstances of the elevation of Claudius had made conscious of their weakness. The feelings which greeted his accession were similar to those called forth on a similar occasion by Caligula. Nothing but good could, it was thought, proceed from the 412 RAWLINSON grandson of Germaniciis, the comrade of Lucan, the pupil of Seneca. Nor were these hopes disappointed for a consid- erable time. During the first five years of his principate — the famous " quinquennium Neronis " — all went well, at any rate, outside the palace ; the " golden age " seemed to have returned; Nero forbade delation, remitted taxes, gave liberal largesses, made assignments of lands, enriched the treasury from his private stores, removed some of the burdens of the provincials. During this period Seneca and Burrhus were his advisers; and their judicious counsels produced a mild but firm government. Within the palace there were, indeed, al- ready scandals and crimes : the impatient son and the exacting mother soon quarrelled ; and the quarrel led to the first of Nero's domestic tragedies, the poisoning of Britannicus (A.D. 55). This was soon followed by the disgrace of the queen- mother, who was banished from court and made the object of cruel suspicions. The gay prince, passing his time in amuse- ments and debaucheries, fell now (A.D. 58) under the influ- ence of a fierce and ambitious woman, the infamous Poppsea Sabina, wife of Otho, who consented to be his mistress, and aspired to become his queen. At her instigation Nero assassi- nated first his mother Agrippina (A.D. 59), and then his wife Octavia (A.D. 62), whom he had previously repudiated. He now plunged into evil courses of all kinds. He murdered Burrhus, broke with Seneca, and put himself under the direc- tion of a new favorite, Tigellinus, a man of the worst character. Henceforth he was altogether a tyrant. Reckless in his ex- travagance, he encouraged delation in order to replenish his treasury; he oppressed the provincials by imposing on them forced contributions, over and above the taxes ; he shocked public opinion by performing as a singer and a charioteer be- fore his subjects ; he displayed complete indifiference to the sufferings of the Romans at the time of the great fire ; he openly encouraged prostitution and even worse vices ; and he began the cruel practice of persecuting Jews and Christians for their opinions, which disgraced the empire from his time to that of Constantine. After this tyranny had endured for five years, something of a spirit of resistance appeared ; con- spiracy ventured to raise its head, but only to be detected and ANCIENT HISTORY 413 struck down (A.D. 65). Fear now made the Emperor more cruel than ever. Executions and assassinations followed each other in more and more rapid succession. All the rich and powerful, all the descendants of Augustus, all those who were noted for virtue, lost their lives. At last he grew jealous of his own creatures, the legates who commanded legions upon the frontiers, and determined on sacrificing them. The valiant Corbulo, commander of the forces of the East, was entrapped and executed. Rufus and Proculus Scribonius, who had the chief authority in the two Germanics, were recalled and forced to kill themselves. A similar fate menaced all the chiefs of legions, who, on learning their peril, rose in arms against the tyrant. Galba and Otho in Spain, Vindex in Gaul, Claudius Macer in Africa, Virginius Rufus and Fonteius Capito in Ger- many, raised the standard of revolt almost at the same time. The multitude of pretenders to empire seemed at first to prom- ise ill for the cause of rebellion, and in one case there was actual war between the troops of two of them, terminating in the death of one (Vindex) ; but after a while, by general agree- ment, Galba was chosen to conduct the contest, and, all chance of dividing his adversaries being over, the hopes of Nero fell. Deserted on all hands, even by Tigellinus and the praetorians, he was forced to call on a slave to despatch him, that he might not fall alive into the hands of his enemies. Nero died on the 9th of June, A.D. 68, at the age of thirty, in the fourteenth year of his principate. Though the law of hereditary succession in the empire had at no time been formally established, or even asserted with any distinctness under the early Caesars, yet there can be no doubt that the extinction of the Julian family by the death of Nero paved the way for fresh civil commotions, by practically open- ing the prospect of obtaining supreme power to numerous claimants. Hitherto the Romans had not in fact looked for an imperator beyond the members, actual or adopted, of a single house. Henceforth the first place in the State was a prize at which anyone might aim, no family ever subsequently obtain- ing the same hold on power, or the same prestige in the eyes of the Romans as the Julian. S. Sulpicius Galba, who became emperor in April, A.D. 68, 414 RAWLINSON by the will of the Spanish legions, and the acquiescence of his brother-commanders in Gaul and Germany, was a Roman cast in the antique mould — severe, simple, unbending. He was thus ill fitted to bear rule in a state so corrupt as Rome had come to be ; and the disasters which followed his appointment might have been anticipated by anyone possessed of moderate foresight. His strictness and his parsimony disgusted at once the soldiers and the populace ; and when Otho, who had hoped to be nominated his successor, turned against him on account of his adopting Piso Licinianus, he found himself with scarcely a friend, and was almost instantly overpowered and slain (January 15, A.D. 69). His adopted son, Piso, shared his fate ; and the obsequious Senate at once acknowledged Otho as Emperor. M. Salvius Otho, the husband of the infamous Poppaea Sabina, was a dissolute noble, who had run through a long course of vice, and who, having exhausted all other excite- ments, determined in the spirit of a gambler to play for empire. Successful in seizing the throne, he found his right to it dis- puted by another of Galba's officers, the commander of tTie German legions, Vitellius. Nothing daunted, he resolved to appeal to the arbitrament of arms, and to bring matters to an issue as soon as possible. When in the great battle of Bedri- acum fortune declared against him, he took her at her word, gave up the struggle as carelessly as he had begun it, and by a prompt suicide made the empire over to his rival. Otho died, April 16, A.D. 69, after a reign of barely three months. In exchanging the rule of Otho for that of Vitellius, the Roman world lost rather than gained. Otho was profligate, reckless, sensual ; but he was brave. Vitellius had all Otho's vices in excess, and, in addition, was cowardly and vacillating. He gained the empire not by his own exertions, but by those of his generals, Csecina and Valens. Having gained it, he speedily lost it by weakness, laziness, and incapacity. We search his character in vain for any redeeming trait : he pos- sessed no one of the qualities, moral or mental, which fit a man to be a ruler. What was most peculiar in him was his wonder- ful gluttony, a feature of his character in which he was unri- valled. It is not surprising that the Roman world declined to ANCIENT HISTORY 415 acquiesce long in his rule ; for while, morally, he was equally detestable with the worst princes of the Julian house, intel- lectually he was far their inferior. The standard of revolt was raised against him, after he had reigned a few months, by Vespasian, commander in Judaea, who was supported by Mu- cianus, the president of Syria, and the legions of the East gen- erally. The analogy of the previous civil contests would have led us to expect the defeat of an aspirant who, with troops de- rived from this quarter, assailed the master of the West. But Vespasian had advantages at no former time possessed by any Oriental pretender. He was infinitely superior, as a general and statesman, to his antagonist. He had all the " respecta- bility " of the empire in his favor, a general disgust being felt at the degrading vices and stupid supineness of Vitellius. Above all, he did not depend upon the East solely, but was supported also by the legions of the central provinces — Mcesia, Pannonia, lUyricum — troops as brave and hardy as any in the whole empire. Hence his attack was successful. Securing in his own person Egypt, the granary of Rome, he sent his gen- erals, Antonius Primus and Mucianus, into Italy. The (sec- ond) battle of Bedriacum, which was gained by Antonius, in fact decided the contest ; but it was prolonged for several months, chiefly through the obstinacy of the Vitellian soldiery, who would not permit their leader to abdicate. In a struggle which followed between the two parties inside the city, the Capitol was assaulted and taken, the Capitoline temple burnt, and Flavins Sabinus, the brother of Vespasian, slain. Soon afterwards the Flavian army stormed and took Rome, defeated and destroyed the Vitellians, and, obtaining possession of the Emperor's person, put him to an ignominious death. Though Vitellius did not perish till December 21, A.D. 69, yet the accession of his successor, T. Flavins Vespasianus, was dated from the ist of July, nearly six months earlier. Ves- pasian reigned ten years (from A.D. 69 to 79), and did much to recover the empire from the state of depression and exhaus- tion into which the civil struggles of the two preceding years had brought it. By his general, Cerialis, he suppressed the revolt of Germany and eastern Gaul, which, under Civilis, Sa- binus, and Classicus, had threatened to deprive Rome of some 4i6 RAWLINSON of her most important provinces. By the skill and valor of his elder son, Titus, he put down the rebellion of the Jews, and destroyed the magnificent city which alone, of all the cities of the earth, was, by her beauty and her prestige, a rival to the Roman metropolis. The limits of the empire were during his reign advanced in Britain from the line of the Dee and Wash, to that of the Solway Frith and Tyne, by the generalship of Agricola. The finances, which had fallen into complete dis- order, were replaced upon a sound footing. The discipline of the army, which Otho and Vitellius had greatly relaxed, was re-established. Employment was given to the people by the construction of great works, as, particularly, the Temple of Peace, and the Flavian Amphitheatre or " Coliseum." Edu- cation and literature were encouraged by grants of money to their professors. The exceptional treatment of the Stoics, who were banished from Rome, arose from political motives, and was perhaps a state necessity. Altogether, Vespasian must be regarded as the best ruler that Rome had had since Augustus — a ruler who knew how to combine firmness with leniency, economy with liberality, and a generally pacific policy with military vigor upon proper occasion. Vespasian had taken care before his decease to associate his elder son, Titus, in the empire ; and thus the latter was, at his father's death, acknowledged without any difficulty as sove- reign. His character was mild but weak ; he cared too much for popularity ; and was so prodigal of the resources of the State, that, had his reign been prolonged, he must have had recourse to confiscations or exactions in order to replenish an empty treasury. Fortunate in his early death, he left behind him a character unstained by any worse vice than voluptuous- ness. Even the public calamities which marked his reign — the great eruption of Vesuvius, which overwhelmed Pompeii and Herculaneum, a terrible fire at Rome, and a destructive pestilence — detracted but little from the general estimation in which he was held, being regarded as judgments, not on the prince, but on the nation. Titus held the throne for the short term of two years and two months, dying Sept. 13, A.D. 81, when he was not quite forty. Domitian, the younger brother of Titus, though not asso- ANCIENT HISTORY 417 iciated by him in the empire, had been pointed out by him as his successor ; and the incipient right thus conferred met with no opposition from either Senate or army. Of a morose and jealous temper, he had sorely tried the affection of both his father and brother; but they had borne patiently with his faults, and done their best to lessen them. It might have been hoped that on attaining to a position in which he had no longer a rival, he would have become better satisfied, and more genial ; but a rooted self-distrust seems to have rendered him morbidly suspicious of merit of any kind, while an inward unhappiness made him intolerant of other men's pleasures and satisfactions. Had he succeeded in gathering real laurels on the banks of the Rhine and Danube, the gratification of his self-love would probably have improved his temper ; but, as it was, his inabil- ity to gain any brilliant success in either quarter disappointed and still further soured him. Morose and severe by nature, as time went on he became cruel ; not content with strictly enforcing obsolete laws, he revived the system of accusations, condemnations, and forfeitures, which had been discontinued since the days of Nero; having decimated the ranks of the nobles, and provoked the conspiracy of Saturninus, he became still more barbarous through fear ; and, ending by distrusting everyone and seeking to strike terror into all, he drew upon himself, just as the sixteenth year of his reign had begun, the fate which he deserved. He was murdered by the freedmen of the palace, whom his latest executions threatened, on the i8th of September, A.D. 96. The cruelties of Domitian had thrown discredit on the hereditary principle, to w^hich, though it had no legal force, his elevation to the principate was, in point of fact, due. The Sen- ate, which now for the first time since the death of Caligula found itself in a position to claim and exercise authority, pro- ceeded therefore to elect for sovereign an aged and childless man, one whose circumstances rendered it impossible that he should seek to impose upon them a dynasty. It is remarkable that the praetorians, though they felt aggrieved by the murder of Domitian, and demanded the punishment of his assassins, made no opposition to the Senate's selection, but tacitly suf- fered the Fathers to assume a prerogative which, however it 27 4i8 RAWLINSON might be viewed as legally inherent in them, they had never previously exercised. Perhaps the lesson taught by Otho's fall was still in their minds, and they feared lest, if they attempted to create an emperor, they might again provoke the hostility of the legions. At any rate, the result was that the Senate at this juncture increased its power, and by its prompt action ob- tained a position and a consideration of which it had been deprived for more than a century. M. Cocceius Nerva, on whom the choice of the Senate fell, was a man of mild and lenient temperament, of fair abilities, and of the lax morals common in his day. He was sixty-five or seventy years old at his accession, and reigned only one year and four months. For the bloody regime of Domitian he sub- stituted a government of extreme gentleness ; for his extrava- gant expenditure, economy and retrenchment ; for his attempt- ed enforcement of antique manners, an almost universal tolerance. He relieved poverty by distributions of land, and by a poor-law which threw on the State the maintenance of many destitute children. He continued the best of Domitian's laws, and made some excellent enactments of his own, as especially one against delation. When the public tranquillity was threat- ened by the violence of the praetorians, who put to death with- out trial and without his consent the murderers of Domitian, he took the wise step of securing the future of the State by publicly appointing, with the sanction of the Senate, a col- league and successor, selecting for the office the person who of all living Romans appeared to be the fittest, and adopting him with the usual ceremonies. The example thus set passed into a principle of the government. Henceforth it became recog- nized as the duty of each successive emperor to select from out of the entire population of the empire the person most fit to bear rule, and make him his adopted son and successor. M. Ulpius Trajanus, on whom the choice of Nerva had fallen, was a provincial Roman, a native of the colony of Italica in Spain. His father had been consul and proconsul ; but otherwise his family was undistinguished. He himself had been bred up in the camp, and had served with distinction un- der his father. He had obtained the consulship in A.D. 91, under Domitian, and had been commander of the Lower Ger- ANCIENT HISTORY 419 many under both Domitian and Nerva. Readily accepted by the Senate, and thoroughly popular with the legions, he as- cended the throne under favorable auspices, which the events of his reign did not belie. The Romans regarded him as the best of all their princes ; and, though tried by a Christian, or even a philosophic standard, he was far from being a good man, since he was addicted to wine and to low sensual pleasures, yet, taking the circumstances of the times into account, we can understand his surname of " Optimus." He was brave, la- borious, magnanimous, simple and unassuming in his habits, affable in his manners, genial ; he knew how to combine strict- ness with leniency, liberality with economy, and devotion to business with sociability and cheerfulness. And if we may thus consider him, in a qualified sense, " good," we may certainly without any reserve pronounce him " great." Both as a gen- eral and as an administrator he stands in the front rank of Ro- man rulers, equalling Augustus in the one respect, and nearly equalling Julius in the other. Though he could not materially improve the imperial form of government, which took its color wholly from the character of the reigning prince, yet he gave to the government while he exercised it the best aspect of which it was capable. He sternly suppressed delation, allowed the Senate perfect freedom of speech, abstained from, all interfer- ence in its appointments, and in social converse treated its mem- bers as equals. Indefatigable in business, he managed almost alone the affairs of his vast empire, carrying on a voluminous correspondence with the governors of provinces, and directing them how to proceed in all cases, hearing carefully all the ap- peals made to him, and sometimes even judging causes in the first instance. His administration of the finances was extra- ordinarily good. Without increasing taxation, without having recourse to confiscations, he contrived to have always so full an exchequer, that neither his military expeditions nor his great works (which were numerous both in Rome and the provinces), nor his measures for the relief of the necessitous among his subjects, were ever cramped or stinted for want of means. He extended and systematized the irregular poor-law of Nerva ; made loans at a low rate of interest to the proprietors of encumbered estates ; repaired the ravages of earthquakes and 420 RAWLINSON tempests, founded colonies ; constructed various military roads , bridged the Rhine and Danube ; adorned with works of utility and ornament both provincial towns and the capital. He spent little upon himself. His column and his triumphal arch may be regarded as constructed for his own glory ; but his chief works, his great Forum at Rome, his mole at Centumcell^ (Civita Vecchia), his harbor at Ancona, his roads, his bridges, his aqueducts, were for the benefit of his subjects, and justly increased the afTection wherewith they regarded him. If he had any fault as a ruler, it was an undue ambition to extend Terminus, and to be known to future ages as a conqueror. There were no doubt reasons of policy which led him to make his Dacian and Oriental expeditions, but nevertheless they were mistakes. The time for conquest was gone by ; and the truest wisdom would have been to have rested content with the limits which had been fixed by Augustus — the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates. Trajan's conquests had for the most part to be surrendered immediately after his decease ; and the prestige of Rome was more injured by their abandonment than it had been advanced by his long series of victories. Trajan, on his return from the East, found his health failing. He was sixty-five years old, and had overtaxed his constitu- tion by the fatigue and exposure which he had undergone in his recent campaigns. He had nominated no successor before quitting Rome, and it was now of the last importance to supply this omission. But regard for the constitutional rights, which it had been his policy to recognize in the Senate, induced him to postpone the formal act as long as possible, and it is uncer- tain whether he did not delay till too late. The alleged adop- tion of Hadrian by his predecessor was perhaps a contrivance of the Empress, Plotina, after the death of her husband. It was, at any rate, secret and informal ; and the new throne was consequently unstable. But the judicious conduct of Hadrian in the crisis overcame all difficulties ; and his authority was ac- knowledged without hesitation both by the army and the Sen- ate. Hadrian, who succeeded Trajan in A.D. 117, had a reign of nearly twenty-one years (from August, A.D. 117, to July, A.D. 138). He was forty-two years old at his accession, and had ANCIENT HISTORY 421 the advantage (as it was now considered) of being childless. Distantly related to Trajan, he had served under him with dis- tinction, and had been admitted to an intimacy both with him and with the Empress. In many features of his character he resembled Trajan. He had the same geniality, the same af- fable manners, the same power of uniting liberal and even mag- nificent expenditure with thrift and economy, the same moder- ation and anxiety to maintain a show of free government. Again, like Trajan, he was indefatigable in his attention to business, and ready to grapple with an infinite multiplicity of details ; he was a friend to literature, and a zealous patron of the fine arts ; though lax in his morals, he avoided scandals, and never suffered his love of pleasure to interfere with his duties as prince. He differed from Trajan, partly, in a certain jeal- ousy and irritability of temper, which towards the close of his life betrayed him into some lamentable acts of cruelty towards those about his person ; but chiefly, in the absence of any desire for military glory, and a preference for the arts of peace above the triumphs and trophies of successful warfare. Hadrian's reign was marked by two extraordinary novelties : first, the voluntary relinquishment of large portions of Roman territory (Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria), which were evacuated immediately after his accession ; and secondly, the continued visitation by the Emperor of the various provinces under his dominion, and his residence for prolonged periods at several provincial capitals. York (Eboracum), Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, were in turns honored by the presence of the Em- peror and his court. Fifteen or sixteen years out of the twenty- one years of his reign were occupied by these provincial prog- resses, which he was the first to institute. Hadrian showed himself manifestly not the chief of a municipality, but the sovereign of an empire. He made no difference between the various races which peopled his dominions. With all he as- sociated in the most friendly way ; ascertained their wishes ; made himself acquainted with their characters ; exerted himself to supply their wants. The great works which he loved to construct were distributed fairly over the different regions of the empire. If Rome could boast his mausoleum, and his grand Temple of Rome and Venus, to Tibur belonged his villa. 42 2 RAWLINSON to Athens his Olympeium, to Britain and the Rhenish prov- inces his great ramparts, to Tarraco his temple of Augustus, to Nismes (Nemausus) one of his basilicas, to Alexandria a number of his most costly buildings. Hadrian's reign has been pronounced with reason " the best of the imperial series." To have combined for twenty years unbroken peace with the main- tenance of a contented and efficient army ; liberal expenditure with a full exchequer, replenished by no oppressive or un- worthy means ; a free-speaking Senate with a firm and strong monarchy, is no mean glory. Hadrian also deserves praise for the choice which he made of a successor. His first selection was indeed far from happy. L. Ceionius Verus may not have deserved all the hard things which have been said of him ; but it seems clear that he w^as a fop and a voluptuary — one, there- fore, from whom the laborious discharge of the onerous duties of an emperor could scarcely have been expected. On his death, jn A.D. 138, Hadrian at once supplied his place by the formal adoption of T. Aurelius Antoninus, a man of eminent merit, qualified in all respects to bear rule. He would perhaps have done best, had he left to his successor the same power of free selection which he had himself exercised ; but the ties of affection induced him to require Antoninus to adopt as sons his own nephew, M. Annius Verus, together with L. Verus, the son of his first choice, L. Ceionius (or, after his adoption, L. .(^lius) Verus. T. Aurelius Antoninus, the adopted son and successor of Hadrian, ascended the throne in July, A.D. 138. He was fifty- one years old at this time, and reigned twenty-three years, dy- ing A.D. 161, when he had attained the age of seventy-four. It has been said that the people is fortunate which has no history ; and this was eminently the condition of the Romans under the first Antonine. Blameless alike in his public and his private life, he maintained the empire in a state of peace and general content, which rendered his reign peculiarly uneventful. A few troubles upon the frontiers, in Egypt, Dacia, Britain, and Mauretania employed the arms of his lieutenants, but gave rise to no war of any magnitude. Internally, Antoninus made no changes. He continued the liberal policy of his predecessors, Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian, towards the Senate ; discouraged ANCIENT HISTORY 423 delation ; was generous in gifts and largesses, yet never ex- hausted the resources of the treasury ; encouraged learning ; erected numerous important buildings ; watched over the whole of the empire with a father's care, and made the happiness of his subjects his main, if not even his sole, object. Indulgent by temperament and conviction, he extended even to the Chris- tians the leniency which was a principle of his government, and was the first emperor who actively protected them. In his domestic life Antoninus was less happy than his virtues de- served. His wife, Faustina, was noted for her irregularities ; his two boys died before his elevation to the throne ; and his daughter, Annia Faustina, whom he married to the elder of his adopted sons, M. Aurelius, was far from spotless. He enjoyed, however, in the affection, the respect, and the growing promise of this amiable and excellent prince, some compensation for his other domestic troubles. With just discernment, he drew a sharp line of distinction between the two sons assigned him by Hadrian. Towards the elder, M. Annius (or, after his adop- tion, M. Aurelius) Verus, he showed the highest favor, marry- ing him to his daughter, associating him in the government, and formally appointing him his sole successor. In the younger (L. -^lius Verus) he reposed no confidence whatever; he ad- vanced him to no public post ; and gave him no prospect, how- ever distant, of the succession. M. Aurelius, who took the name of Antoninus after the death of his adoptive father, ascended the throne, A.D. 161, at the age of forty. He reigned nineteen years, from March, A.D. 161, to March, A.D. 180. Although the embodiment of the highest Roman virtue — brave, strict, self-denying, la- borious, energetic, patient of injuries, affectionate, kind, and in mental power not much behind the greatest of previous em- perors — he had, nevertheless, a sad and unhappy reign, through a concurrence of calamities, for only one of which had he him- self to blame. His unworthy colleague, Lucius Verus, was by his own sole act associated with him in the empire ; and the anxiety and grief which this prince caused him must be regard- ed as the consequence of a foolish and undue affection. But his domestic troubles — the loose conduct of his wife Faustina, the deaths of his eldest son and of a daughter, the evil disposition of 424 RAWLINSON his second son, Commodus — arose from no fault of his own. AureHus is taxable with no unfaithfulness to his marriage-bed, with no neglect of the health or moral training of his offspring ; still less can the great calamities of his reign, the terrible plague, and the aggressive attitude assumed by the barbarians of the East and North, be ascribed to any negligence or weak- ness in the reigning monarch. He met the pretensions of the Parthians to exercise sovereignty over Armenia with firmness and vigor ; and though here he did not take the field in person, yet the success of his generals and lieutenants reflects credit upon him. When the barbarians of the North began to show themselves formidable, he put himself at the head of the legions, and during the space of fourteen years — from A.D. 167 to his death in A.D. 180 — occupied himself almost unceasingly in ef- forts to check the invaders and secure the frontier against their incursions. Successful in many battles against all his enemies, he nevertheless failed in the great object of the war, which was effectually to repel the Northern nations, and to strike such ter- ror into them as to make them desist from their attacks. From his reign the barbarians of the North became a perpetual dan- ger to Rome — a danger which increased as time went on. But the causes of this change of attitude are to be sought — mainly, at any rate — not within, but beyond the limits of the Roman dominion. A great movement of races had commenced in the lands beyond the Danube. Slavonic and Scythic (or Turanian) hordes were pressing westward, and more and more cramping the Germans in their ancient seats. The Slavs themselves were being forced to yield to the advancing Scyths ; and the wave of invasion which broke upon the Roman frontier was impelled by a rising tide of migration far in its rear, which forced it on, and would not allow it to fall back. At the same time, a decline was going on in the vigor of the Roman national life ; the race was becoming exhausted ; the discipline of the legions tended to relax ; long periods of almost unbroken peace, like the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, produced a military degeneracy ; and by the progress of natural decay the empire was becoming less and less capable of resisting attack. Under these circumstances, it is creditable to Aurelius that he succeeded in maintaining the boundaries of the empire in the ANCIENT HISTORY 425 north, while he advanced them in the east, where once more Mesopotamia was made a Roman province, and the Hne of de- marcation between Rome and Parthia became the Tigris in- stead of the Euphrates. The eighty-four consecutive years of good government which Rome had now enjoyed were due to the practical substi- tution for the hereditary principle of the power of nominating a successor. This power had been exercised in the most con- scientious and patriotic way by four successive rulers, and the result had been most beneficial to the community. But the four rulers had been all childless, or at any rate had had no male offspring ; and thus it had not been necessary for any of them to balance a sense of public duty against the feeling of parental affection. With M. Aurelius the case was different. Having a single dearly-loved son, in some respects promising, he al- lowed the tender partiality of the father to prevail over the cold prudence of the sovereign ; and, persuading himself that Corn- modus would prove a tolerable ruler, associated him in the government (A.D. 177) at the early age of fifteen. Hence Commodus necessarily succeeded him, having begun to reign three years before his father's death. Few dispositions would have borne this premature removal of restraint and admission to uncontrolled authority. Such a trial was peculiarly unfitted for the weak character of Commodus. Falling under the in- fluence of favorites, this wretched prince degenerated rapidly into a cruel, licentious, and avaricious tyrant. He began his sole reign (March, A.D. 180) by buying a peace of the Mar- comanni and Quadi ; after which he returned to Rome, and took no further part in any military expeditions. For about three years he reigned decently well, suffering the administration to retain the character which Aurelius had given it. But in A.D. 183, after the discovery of a plot to murder him, in which many senators were implicated, he commenced the career of a tyrant. Delation thinned the ranks of the Senate, while confiscation enriched the treasury. Justice was commonly bought and sold. The ministers, Perennis, praetorian prefect, and after him Cle- ander, a freedman, were suffered to enrich themselves by every nefarious art, and then successively sacrificed, A.D. 186 to 189. Passing his time in guilty pleasures and in the diversions of the 426 RAWLINSON amphitheatre, wherein " the Roman Hercules " exhibited him- self as a marksman and a gladiator, Commodus cared not how the empire was governed, so long as he could amuse himself as he pleased, and remove by his warrants all whom he suspected or feared. At length, some of those whom he had proscribed and was about to sacrifice — Marcia, one of his concubines, Ec- lectus, his chamberlain, and Laetus, prefect of the praetorians — learning his intention, anticipated their fate by strangling him in his bedroom. Commodus was murdered, A.D. 192, after he had reigned twelve years and nine months. The disorganization of the empire, which commenced as early as Galba, arrested in its natural progress by such wise and firm princes as Vespasian, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two great Antonines, made rapid strides under Commodus, who was too weak and too conscious of his demerits to venture on repress- ing disorders, or punishing those engaged in them. The nu- merous desertions, which enabled Maternus to form a band that ravaged Spain and Gaul, and gave him hopes of seizing the empire, the deputation of 1500 legionaries from Britain, which demanded and obtained the downfall of Perennis, and the open conflict between the praetorians and the city cohorts which preceded the death of Cleander, are indications of mili- tary insubordination and of the dissolution of the bonds of discipline, such as no former reign discloses to us. It is evi- dent that the army, in which lay the last hope of Roman unity and greatness, was itself becoming disorganized. No common spirit animated its different parts. The city guards, the prae- torians, and the legionaries, had different interests. The le- gionaries themselves had their own quarrels and jealousies. The soldiers were tired of the military life, and, mingling with the provincials, engaged in trade or agriculture, or else turned themselves into banditti and preyed upon the rest of the com- munity. Meanwhile, population was declining, and production consequently diminishing, while luxury and extravagance con- tinued to prevail among the upper classes, and to exhaust the resources of the State. Above all, the general morality was continually becoming worse and worse. Despite a few bright examples in high places, the tone of society grew everywhere more and more corrupt. Purity of life, except among the ANCIENT HISTORY 427 despised Christians, was almost unknown. Patriotism had ceased to exist, and was not yet replaced by loyalty. Decline and decrepitude showed themselves in almost every portion of the body politic, and a general despondency, the result of a consciousness of debility, pervaded all classes. Nevertheless, under all this apparent weakness was an extraordinary reserve of strength. The empire, which under Commodus seemed to be tottering to its fall, still stood, and resisted the most terrible attacks from without, for the further space of two full cen- turies. SECOND SECTION. From the Death of Commodus to the Accession of Diocletian, A.D. 193-284.* The special characteristic of the period on which we now enter is military tyranny — the usurpation of supreme power by the soldiers, who had at last discovered their strength, and nominated or removed emperors at their pleasure. Constant disquiet and disturbance was the result of this unhappy dis- covery — twenty-five emperors wore the purple in the space of ninety-two years, their reigns thus averaging less than four years apiece. Two reigns only during the entire period — those of the two Severi — exceeded ten years. Deducting these, the * Sources. Authors: Dio Cassius, as reported in the work of Xiphi- iinus (Lib. Ixiii.-lxxx.), is still our most trustworthy guide for the gen- eral history; but this fragmentary production must be supplemented from Herodian (see p. 552), and from the " Historic Augustce Scrip- tores," as well as from the epitomists, Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, and Sextus Rufus. The works of these last-named writers cover the entire space, whereas Dio's history stops short at his consulate, A.D. 229, and Herodian's terminates at the accession of the third Gordian, A.D. 238. Zosimus (" Historias novje libri sex; " ed. Bekker, in the " Corpus Hist. Byz." Bonnse, 1837); and Zonaras ("Annales;" ed. Pinder, in the same series. Bonnse, 1841), are also occasionally serviceable. From A.D. 226 the history of Agathias (ed. Niebuhr. Bonn, 1828) is of im- portance. To these various authors may be added the Fragments of Dexippus, whereof there are several collections. The best, probably, is that in the " Fragmenta Historicorum Grsecorum " of C. Miiller (Paris. 1841-9; vol. iii., pp. 666-687). Coins and medals, valuable for the preceding period, are still more useful for this. 428 RAWLINSON average for a reign is reduced to two years. It was of course impossible under these circumstances that any renovation of the empire or restoration of pristine vigor should be efifected. The internal administration was indeed scarcely a subject of attention. Each emperor was fully occupied by the necessity of maintaining his own power against rival pretenders, gen- erally with as good claims as his own, and resisting the attacks of the barbarians, who were continually increasing in strength and audacity. The few good princes who held the throne exerted themselves mainly to strengthen and invigorate the army by the re-establishment and strict enforcement of disci- pline. Reform in this quarter was sadly needed ; but to ac- complish it was most difficult. A strict emperor usually fell a victim to his reforming zeal, which rapidly alienated the affections of the soldiers. The assassins of Commodus, having effected their purpose, acted with decision and promptness. Lsetus and Eclectus pro- ceeded to the house of Pertinax, prefect of the city, revealed their deed, and offered him the crown. With a reluctance which may well have been unfeigned, this aged senator, a man of experience in business, and of unblemished character, one of the few remaining friends of M. Aurelius, signified his con- sent. Influenced by Lastus, the praetorians consented some- what sullenly to accept him ; the Senate, surprised and over- joyed, hailed the new reign with acclamations. But the difficulties of Pertinax began when his authority was acknowl- edged. An empty treasury required economy and retrench- ment, while a greedy soldiery and a demoralized people clamored for shows and for a donative. The donative, which had been promised, was paid ; but this necessitated a still stricter curtailment of other expenses. The courtiers and the citizens grumbled at a frugality to which they were unaccustomed ; the soldiers dreaded lest a virtuous prince should enforce on them the restraints of discipline ; the " king-maker," Lsetus, was disappointed that the ruler whom he had set up would not consent to be a mere puppet. Within three months of his acceptance of power, Pertinax found himself almost with- out a friend ; and when the praetorians, instigated by Lsetus, broke out in open mutiny, he unresistingly succumbed, and was despatched by their swords. ANCIENT HISTORY 429 The praetorians, who had murdered Pertinax, are said to have set up the office of emperor to pubHc auction, and to have sold it to M. Didius JuHanus, a rich senator, once gov- ernor of Dalmatia, whose elevation cost him more than three millions of our money.* Julianus was acknowledged by the Senate, and reigned at Rome for rather more than two months ; but his authority was never established over the provinces. In three different quarters — in Britain, in Pannonia, and in Syria — the legions, on learning the death of Pertinax and the scan- dalous circumstances of Julianus's appointment, invested their leaders, Albinus, Severus, and Niger, with the purple, and declared against the choice of the praetorians. Of the three pretenders, Severus was at once the most energetic and the nearest Rome. Taking advantage of his position, he rapidly led his army across the Alps, advanced through Italy upon the capital, se^^duced the praetorians by his emissaries, and was accepted by the Senate as emperor. The luckless Julianus was deposed, condemned to death, and executed. The first act of Severus on obtaining the empire was to disarm and disband the existing praetorians, who were for- bidden to reside thenceforth within a hundred miles of the capital. He then addressed himself to the contest with his rivals. First temporizing with Albinus, the commander in Britain, whom he promised to make his successor, he led his whole force against the Eastern emperor, Pescennius Niger, defeated his troops in two great battles, at Cyzicus and Issus, captured him, and put him to death. He then declared openly asrainst Albinus, who advanced into Gaul and tried the fortune of war in an engagement near Lyons, where he too suffered defeat and was slain. Severus was now master of the whole empire, and might safely have shown mercy to the partisans of his rivals, against whom he had no just grounds of com- plaint. But he was of a stern and cruel temper. Forty-one senators and great numbers of the rich provincials were exe- cuted for the crime of opposing him ; and his government was established on a more tyrannical footing than any former emperor had ventured on. The Senate was deprived of even the show of power, and openly oppressed and insulted. The empire became a complete military despotism. In lieu of the * English money. 430 RAWLINSON old praetorians, a body of 40,000 troops, selected from the legionaries, formed the garrison of Rome, and acted as the Emperor's body-guard. Their chief, the prsetorian prefect {Prcefectus prcetorio), became the second person in the king- dom, and a dangerous rival to the sovereign. Not only the command of the guards, but legislative and judicial power, and especially the control of the finances, were intrusted to him. Severus attempted, but without much efifect, to improve the general discipline of the legionaries ; he also showed him- self an active and good commander. His expedition against the Parthians (A.D. 197-8) was, on the whole, remarkably prosperous, the Parthian capital, Ctesiphon, falling into his hands, and Adiabene being made a dependency. In Britain his arms had no such decisive success ; but still he chastised the Caledonians, A.D. 208-9, and extended the Hmits of the empire in this quarter. His later years were saddened by the unconcealed enmity of his two sons, who were scarcely re- strained, by their common dependence upon their father, from an open and deadly quarrel. Determined that neither should be left at the mercy of the other, he associated both in the empire, and recommended both to the army as his successors. He died at York, A.D. 211, at the age of sixty-five, having reigned eighteen years. The two sons of Severus, Caracallus (wrongly called Cara- calla) and Geta, reigned conjointly for the space of a single year, mutually hating and suspecting one another. At the end of that time, after a fruitless attempt had been made to settle their quarrel by a division of the empire, Caracallus, under pretence of a reconciliation, met his brother Geta in the apartments of the Empress-mother, Julia Domna, and there had him murdered in her arms (Feb. A.D. 212). After this he reigned for five years alone, showing himself a most execrable tyrant. Twenty thousand persons were put to death under the vague title of " friends of Geta ; " among them a daughter of M. Aurelius, a son of Pertinax, a nephew of Corn- modus, and the great jurist Papinian. Caracallus then, made restless by his guilty conscience, quitted Rome never to return, and commenced a series of aimless wanderings through the provinces. He visited Gaul, Rhsetia, Dacia, Thrace, Asia Mi- ANCIENT HISTORY 431 nor, Syria, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, everywhere marking his track with blood, and grievously oppressing the provincials. Knowing himself to be generally hated, he endeavored to secure the affections of the soldiers by combining excessive rewards for service with very remiss discipline, thus doubly injuring the empire. The vigor of the army melted away under his lax rule ; and the resources of the State were exhausted by his ruinous profuseness, which led him to devise new and ingenious modes of increasing taxation. It may have been also his desire to gratify his army which induced him to plunge into his great war. In the West he had engaged in no hostilities of importance, having merely when in Gaul made an insignifi- cant expedition against the Alemanni, A.D. 214; but after he had transferred his residence to the East, he determined on an attempt to conquer Parthia. Fixing his head-quarters at Edessa in Mesopotamia, he proceeded to tread in his father's footsteps, crossed the Tigris, took Arbela, and drove the Par- thians to seek refuge in the mountains, A.D. 216. Another campaign would have followed ; but, before it could begin, Caracallus was murdered by the praetorian prefect Macrinus, who knew his own life to be in danger. Macrinus, proclaimed emperor after some hesitation by the soldiers, and acknowledged by the Senate, began his reign by attempts to undo the evil policy of Caracallus, the ruinous effects of which were manifest. He withdrew at once from the Parthian war, which threatened to be tedious and expensive, consenting to purchase peace of the enemy. Not venturing to interfere with the rewards of the existing soldiery, he en- listed recruits upon lower terms. He diminished the burdens of the citizens by restoring the " succession-tax " to its old rate of five per cent. These proceedings were no doubt salu- tary, and popular with the mass of his subjects ; but they were disagreeable to the army, and the army was now the real de- pository of supreme power. Hence Macrinus, like Pertinax, soon fell a victim to his reforming zeal. The disaffection of the soldiers was artfully fomented by Msesa, sister of Julia Domna, the late empress, who induced them to raise to the throne her grandson Avitus, or Bassianus, then high-priest of Elagabalus, in the great temple at Emesa (Hems), whom 432 RAWLINSON she declared to be a son of Caracallus. Macrinus did not yield without a struggle ; but, quitting the field while the battle was still doubtful, he ruined his own cause by his cowardice. Pur- sued by the soldiers of his rival, he was captured at Chalcedon, brought back to Antioch, and put to death. His son, Diadu- menus, on whom he had conferred the title of Caesar, shared his fate. Avitus, or Bassianus, on his accession to the throne, took the name of M. Aurelius Antoninus, and assumed as an un- doubted fact his descent from Severus and Caracallus. The name of " Elagabalus," by which he is generally known, was perhaps also used by himself occasionally, though it is not found upon his coins. His reign, which lasted four years only, is, though not the most bloody, yet beyond a doubt the most disgraceful and disgusting in the Roman annals. Elagabalus was the most effeminate and dissolute of mortals. He openly paraded his addiction to the lowest form of sensual vice. The contemptible companions of his guilty pleasures were advanced by him to the most important offices of the State. Syrian orgies replaced the grave and decent ceremonies of the Roman religion. A vestal virgin, torn from her sacred seclusion, was forced to be one of his wives. It is astonishing that the Ro- mans, degenerate as they were, could endure for nearly four years the rule of a foreign boy, who possessed no talent of any kind, and whose whole life was passed in feasting, rioting, and the most infamous species of debauchery. Yet we do not find that his gross vices provoked any popular outburst. It was not till he threatened the life of his cousin, Alexander Severus, whom he had been prevailed upon to make " Caesar," that opposition to his rule appeared, and then it came from the praetorians. These " king-makers " had, it seems, conceived a certain disgust of the effeminate monarch, who painted his face and wore the attire of a v/oman ; and they had become attached to the virtuous Alexander. When, therefore, they found that of the two one must be sacrificed, they mutinied, slew Elagabalus, and placed his cousin upon the throne. In Alexander Severus, who succeeded his cousin, A.D. 222, we come upon an emperor of a different type. Carefully edu- cated by his mother, Mammaea, the younger daughter of Maesa, ANCIENT HISTORY 433 he presents the remarkable spectacle of a prince of pure and blameless morals cast upon a corrupt age, striving, so far as his powers went, to reform the degenerate State, and falling at length a victim to his praiseworthy but somewhat feeble efforts. It is perhaps doubtful whether at this time any degree of ability could have checked effectually the downward prog- ress of the empire, and arrested the decay that was leading on to absolute ruin. But Alexander, at any rate, did not possess such ability — like his cousin, he was a Syrian, and the taint of weakness was in his blood. However well-intentioned we may consider him to have been, there can be no doubt that he was deficient in vigor of mind, in self-assertion, and in the powers generally which make the firm and good sovereign. He allowed his mother to rule him throughout his whole reign. He shrank from grappling with the mutinous spirit of the army, and from those stern and bold measures which could alone have quelled insubordination. Hence his reign, though its tendency was towards good, failed permanently to benefit the empire, and can only be regarded as a lull in the storm, a deceitful calm, ushering in a more furious burst of the tem- pest. It was in vain that Alexander by his simple life set a pat- tern of frugality ; that, by re-establishing the Council of State, he sought to impose limits on his own power ; that by defer- ence to the Senate he endeavored to raise it in public esteem, and to infuse into it a feeling of self-respect ; that by his inti- macy with learned and literary men, he aimed at elevating the gown above the sword. He had not the strength of character to leave his mark upon the world. His attempts at reform failed or died with him. Military license asserted itself the more determinedly for his efforts to repress it, forcing Dio into retirement, and taking the life of Ulpian. Constant mu- tinies disgraced his reign, and at length, in the German war, the soldiers, despising his military incapacity, drew their swords against the Emperor himself, and murdered him, to- gether with his mother. The mutinous soldiers who murdered Severus had acted at the instigation of an officer named Maximin, and this man they at once proclaimed emperor. He was by birth a Thra- cian peasant, and, though he must have shown considerable 28 434 RAWLINSON ability to have obtained the command of a legion, yet he still remained rude and coarse, fierce and brutal, more than half a savage. The cruelties of. Maximin, directed against all the noble and wealthy, and still more his constant extortions, soon made him generally detested ; and the tyranny of one of his creatures in " Africa " produced a revolt against him in his fourth year — A.D. 238. The people of the province rose up, and made Gordian, their proconsul, together with his son, emperors. With a boldness that nothing but utter despair could have prompted, the Senate ratified their choice. Hear- ing this, Maximin, who was in winter-quarters at Sirmium on the Danubian frontier, immediately commenced his march towards Italy, hoping to crush his enemies by his promptness. His original rivals, the first and second Gordian, gave him no trouble, being put down by Capellianus, governor of Maure- tania, little more than a month after their rebellion. But the Senate, with unwonted energy, supplied their place by two of their own body, Pupienus and Balbinus, and undertook the defence of Italy against Maximin. They garrisoned the towns, laid waste the country, and prepared to weary out the army which they could not venture to meet. The plan succeeded. Maximin, stopped by the resistance of Aquileia, and growing daily more savage on account of his want of success, became hateful to his own soldiers, who rose up against him and slew him, with his son, in his tent. Maximin was killed, probably, in the early part of May, A.D. 238. The triumph of the Senate, which seemed assured by the murder of Maximin, was regarded by the soldiers as fatal to their pretensions ; and they soon came to a resolution that the Senatorian emperors should not remain at the head of affairs. Already, before the death of Maximin, they had asserted their right to have a voice in the nomination of the supreme author- ity, and had forced Balbinus and Pupienus to accept at their bidding a third Gordian, grandson and nephew of the former princes of the name, as Caesar. On the downfall of Maximin, and the full establishment of Pupienus and Balbinus as em- perors, they thought it necessary for their interests to advance a step farther. The Senate's nominees were not to be tolerated on any terms; and within six weeks of their triumph over ANCIENT HISTORY 435 Maximin the praetorians murdered them, and made the third Gordian sole emperor. This unfortunate youth, who at the age of thirteen was ele- vated to the position of supreme ruler over the entire Roman world, continued to occupy the throne for the space of six years, A.D. 23S to 244, but cannot be said to have exercised any real authority over the empire. At first, he was the mere tool of the eunuchs of the palace ; after which he fell under the influence of Timesicles, or Timesitheus, whose daughter he married, and who held the office of praetorian prefect. Time- sitheus was an able minister; and the reign of Gordian was not unprosperous. He maintained the Roman frontier intact against the attacks of the Persians, A.D. 242, and suppressed an insurrection in Africa, A.D. 240. On his return from the Persian war he was murdered near Circesium by Philip " the Arabian," who had succeeded Timesitheus in the command of the guard. M. Julius Philippus, of Bostra in Arabia (probably a Roman colonist), who was made emperor by the soldiers after they had killed the young Gordian, had a reign of live years only, from A.D. 244 to 249. He concluded a peace with the Persians on tolerable terms, A.D. 244, celebrated the senelar games in commemoration of the thousandth year from the founding of the city, A.D. 248, and defeated the Carpi on the middle Dan- ube, A.D. 245. The notices which we possess of his reign are brief and confused, but sufficiently indicate the growing dis- organization of the Empire. Discontented with their governor, Priscus, Philip's brother, the Syrians revolted, and set up a rival emperor, named Jotapianus. About the same time, the troops in Moesia and Pannonia, from hatred of their officers, mutinied, and invested with the purple a certain Marinus. These two mock emperors lost their lives shortly; but the Moesian and Pannonian legions continuing disafifected, Philip sent a senator named Decius to bring them under. The rebels, however, placed Decius at their head, marched on Italy, and defeated and slew Philip at Verona, September, A.D. 249. Decius, made emperor against his will by the Moesian and Pannonian legions, was gladly accepted by the Senate, which was pleased to see the throne again occupied by one of its own 436 RAWLINSON number. His short reign of two years only is chiefly remark- able for the first appearance of a new and formidable enemy — the Goths — who invaded the empire in vast force, A.D. 250, traversed Dacia, crossed the Danube, spread devastation over Moesia, and even passed the Balkan and burst into Thrace. Decius, unsuccessful in A.D. 250, endeavored in the following year to retrieve his ill-fortune, by destroying the Gothic host on its retreat. He was defeated, however, in a great battle near Forum Trebonii, in Moesia, and, together with his eldest son, whom he had associated in the empire, lost his life. Under these unhappy circumstances, the Senate was allowed to regulate the succession to the empire ; which was determined in favor of Gallus, one of the generals of Decius, and of Decius's young son, Hostilianus. Volusianus, the son of Gallus, was also associated in the imperial dignity. The real authority rested, however, with Gallus, whose age and experience placed him far above his colleagues. He commenced his reign by purchasing a peace from the Goths, to whom he consented to pay an annual tribute, on condition of their respecting the Roman frontier, A.D. 252. He then returned to Rome, where he rapidly became unpopular, partly because of the disgraceful peace which he had made, partly on account of his inertness amid the fresh calamities which afflicted the unhappy State. Pestilence raged in Rome, and over most of the empire ; while fresh hordes of barbarians, incited by the success of the Goths, poured across the Danube, ^milianus, governor of Pannonia and Moesia, having met and defeated these marauders, was proclaimed emperor by his army, and, marching upon Rome, easily established his authority. Gallus and his son (Hostilian had died of the plague) led out an army against him, but were slain by their own soldiers at Interamna on the Nar, near Spoletium. yEmilian was then acknowledged by the Senate. The destruction of Gallus and Volusianus was soon avenged. Licinius Valerianus, a Roman of unblemished character, whom Decius had wished to invest with the office of censor, and whom Gallus had sent to bring to his aid the legions of Gaul and Germany, arrived in Italy soon after the accession of u^milian, and resolved to dispute his title to the crown. The opposing armies once more met near Spoletium, and, by a just ANCIENT HISTORY 437 retribution, ^milian suffered the fate of his predecessors, three months after he had ascended the throne. The calamities of the empire went on continually increasing. On the Lower Rhine there had been formed a confederacy of several German tribes, the Chauci, Cherusci, Chatti, and others, which, under the name of Franks (i. e.. Freemen), became one of Rome's most formidable enemies. South of these, the Ale- manni, in the tract between the Lahn and Switzerland, had broken through the Roman rampart, absorbed the Agri Decu- mates, together with a portion of Vindelicia, and assumed from this position an aggressive attitude, threatening not only Gaul but Rhsetia, and even Italy. On the Lower Danube and on the shores of the Euxine, the Goths, who had now taken to the sea, menaced with their numerous fleets Thrace, Pontus, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece. Finally, in the remote East, Persia, under its new monarchs, the Sassanidae, was grow- ing in strength, and extending itself at the expense of Rome towards the north-west. Valerian, already sixty years of age at his accession, felt his inability to grapple with these various dangers, and associated, in his second year, A.D. 254, his son Gallienus in the empire. But the young prince was no more equal to the occasion than his aged father. The entire joint reign of Valerian and his son (A.D. 254 to 260), as well as the succeeding sole reign of the latter (A.D. 260 to 268), was one uninterrupted series of disorders and disasters. The Franks harried Gaul and Spain at their will, and even passed into Africa. The Alemanni crossed the Rhgetian Alps, invaded Italy, and advanced as far on the way to Rome as Ravenna. The Goths occupied Dacia, and, issuing with their fleets from the Cimmerian Bosphorus, ravaged Northern and Western Asia Minor, destroyed Pityus, Trebizond, Chalcedon, Nico- media, Nicgea, Prusa, Cius, Cyzicus, and Ephesus, overran Greece, took Athens and Corinth, and carried off an immense booty into the regions beyond the Danube. The Persians, under Sapor, conquered Armenia, invaded Mesopotamia, de- feated Valerian and took him prisoner near Edessa, advanced into Syria, surprised and burnt Antioch, took Tarsus and Cae- sarea Mazaca, and returned triumphant into their own country. At the same time, and in consequence of the general disor- 438 RAWLINSON ganization which these various invasions produced, numerous independent sovereigns started up in different parts of the Roman empire, as Odenathus in the East, who reigned at Pal- myra over Syria and the adjacent countries, Posthumus and Victorinus in Gaul, Celsus in Africa, Ingenuus and Aureoius in Illyria, Macrianus in Asia Minor, Piso in Thessaly, yEmilianus in Egypt, etc. These sovereigns — known as the " Thirty Ty- rants " — had for the most part brief and inglorious reigns ; and their kingdoms were generally as short-lived as themselves. In two quarters, however, a tendency to a permanent splitting- up of the empire was exhibited. The kingdom of Odenathus passed from that prince to his widow Zenobia, and lasted for ten years — from A.D. 264 to 273. The Gallic monarchy of Posthumus showed still greater vitality, continuing for seven- teen years, under four successive princes, Posthumus, Vic- torinus, Marius, and Tetricus. Gallienus, quite incapable of grappling with the terrible difiliculties of the time, aimed at little more than maintaining his authority in Italy. Even there, however, he was attacked by Aureoius ; and in the war which followed, his own soldiers slew him as he lay before Milan, into which Aureoius had thrown himself, A.D. 268. From the state of extreme weakness and disorganization which Rome had now reached, a state which seemed to portend her almost immediate dissolution, she was raised by a succes- sion of able emperors, who, although their reigns were unhap- pily short, contrived at once to reunite the fragments into which the empire had begun to split, and to maintain for the most part the integrity of the frontiers against the barbarians. Claudius, Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus — five warlike princes — reigned from A.D. 268 to 283, and in this space of fifteen years, the progress that was made towards a recovery of the power and prestige of Rome is most remarkable. M. Aurelius Claudius, the successor of Gallienus, who reigned from A.D. 268 to 270, gained a great victory over the Alemanni in Northern Italy in A.D. 268, and another over the Goths at Nissa in Moesia, A.D. 269. His successor, L. Domitius Aure- lianus, routed an army of Goths in Pannonia, A.D. 270, and effectually checked the Alemanni in North Italy. Bent on reuniting the fragments of the empire, he undertook a war ANCIENT HISTORY 439 against Zenobia, A.D. 272, and brought it to a happy conclu- sion the year after. He then turned his arms against the great Western kingdom of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, which was held by Tetricus, and succeeded in re-establishing the authority of Rome over those regions, A.D. 274. He was about to proceed against the Persians, A.D. 275, when he fell a victim to the malice of his private secretary, Eros (or Mnestheus), whose misconduct he had threatened to punish. The military glories of Aurelian's reign have thrown into some obscurity his prudential measures ; yet to these Rome probably owed as much. He finally relinquished to the Goths and Vandals the outlying province of Dacia, which had proved from the time of its occupation by Trajan nothing but an in- cumbrance to the empire. The Roman inhabitants were re- moved across the Danube into Moesia, a part of which was henceforth known as " Dacia Aureliani." Aurelian also forti- fied the capital anew, thus securing it from a coup de main, which the incursions of the Alemanni had shown to be a real danger. His walls, which were restored by Honorius, con- tinue, with some small exceptions, to be those of the modern city. The assassination of Aurelian was displeasing to the army which he commanded ; and the soldiers, instead of allowing any of their officers to assume the purple, applied to the Sen- ate to appoint a new emperor. The Senate hesitated ; but, af- ter an interval of six months, complied with the request, and elected M. Claudius Tacitus, one of their body. A pleasing dream was entertained for a few weeks of restoring something like the old Republic ; but the illusion soon vanished. Tacitus was called away from Rome by an irruption of the Alani into Asia Minor, and there perished, six or seven months after his accession, either from weakness or through military violence. On learning the death of Tacitus, Florian, his brother, as- sumed the imperial dignity at Rome, while the army of the East raised to the purple their general, M. Aurelius Probus. A bloody contest for the empire seemed impending; but it was prevented by the lukewarmness of Florian's soldiers in his cause. Sacrificing their leader, who survived his brother little more than three months, they passed over to his rival, who 440 RAWLINSON thus became undisputed emperor. Probus was a warlike, and at the same time a careful and prudent prince, anxious to bene- fit his subjects, not merely by military expeditions, but by the arts of peace. He delivered Gaul from the German hordes which infested it, and carried the Roman arms once more be- yond the Rhine to the banks of the Neckar and the Elbe. The " Agri Decumates " became again a portion of the empire, and the rampart of Hadrian was restored and strengthened. On the Danube Probus chastised the Sarmatians, and by the mere terror of his arms induced the Goths to sue for peace. In Asia Minor he recovered Isauria, which had fallen into the hands of robbers. In Africa he pacified Egypt. The court of Persia sought his alliance. The troubles raised by the pretenders, Saturninus in the East, and Proculus and Bonosus in the West, he suppressed without any difficulty. Among his plans for recruiting the strength of the empire two are specially notice- able — the settlement in most of the frontier provinces of large bodies of captured or fugitive barbarians, Franks, Vandals, Bas- tarnse, Gepidae, etc., and the improvement of agriculture by the drainage of marshy tracts and the planting of suitable localities with the grape. The first of these plans was attended with a good deal of success ; the second unfortunately provoked an outbreak which cost Probus his life. He had ventured to em- ploy his soldiers in agricultural labors, which were distasteful to them, and perhaps injurious to their health. On this ac- count they mutinied, seized their arms, and, in a moment of passion, stained their hands with his blood. Probus died, A.D. 282, after a reign of six years and six months. After murdering Probus, the soldiers conferred the purple on M. Aurelius Carus, prefect of the praetorians, who proclaimed his two sons, Carinus and Numerianus, " Caesars," and associ- ated the elder, Carinus, in the cares of empire. Leaving this prince to conduct affairs in the West, Carus proceeded at the head of a large army to lUyricum, where he inflicted a severe defeat on the Sarmatians, killing 16,000, and taking 20,000 pris- oners ; after which he proceeded to Persia, where he carried all before him, overrunning Mesopotamia, and taking Seleucia and Ctesiphon. The complete conquest of Persia was antici- pated ; but the sudden death of the Emperor — whom different ANCIENT HISTORY 441 authors report to have been murdered, to have died of disease, and to have been killed by lightning — put a stop to the expedi- tion, and saved the kingdom of the Sassanidae. Cams died, A.D. 283, after he had reigned a little more than a year. On his death, his son Numerianus was acknowledged as emperor. The year following, A.D. 284, saw the death of Numerianus, who was murdered at Perinthus by his father-in-law, the prae- torian prefect, Arrius Aper. Carinus still ruled in the West ; but the army of the East, discovering the death of Numerianus, which was concealed, set up a rival emperor in the person of Diocletian, who slew Aper with his own hand, and, marching westward, defeated Carinus, who was then assassinated by one of his olificers, A.D. 285. The period of extreme military license here terminates. P'or ninety-two years, from A.D. 193 to 284, the soldiers had en- joyed almost continuously the privilege of appointing whomso- ever they pleased to the office of supreme ruler. In a few in- stances they had allowed a favorite prince — a Severus, a Valerian, a Claudius, a Carus — to nominate an associate or a successor ; and on one occasion they had put the nomination unreservedly into the hands of the Senate ; but generally they had asserted and maintained their right, at each vacancy of the throne, to choose and proclaim the imperator. They had like- wise taken upon themselves to remove by assassination even the rulers of their own choice, when they became oppressive or in any way unpopular. Ten emperors had thus perished by mili- tary violence in the space of sixty-six years (A.D. 217 to 283), among them the virtuous Alexander, the mild Gordianus, the excellent Probus — and thus every emperor knew that he held office simply during the good pleasure of the troops, and that if he ofifended them his life would be the forfeit. Such a system was tolerable in only one respect — it tended naturally to place power in the hands of able generals. But its evils far more than counterbalanced this advantage. Besides the general sense of insecurity which it produced, and the absence of anything like plan or steady system in the administration, consequent upon the rapid change of rulers, it necessarily led to the utter de- moralization of the army, which involved as a necessary result the absolute ruin of the empire. The army was, under the im- 442 RAWLINSON perial system, the ** salt " of the Roman world; to corrupt it was to sap the very life of the State. Yet how could discipline be maintained, when every general was bent on ingratiating himself with his troops, in the hope of gaining what had come to be regarded as the great prize of his profession, and every emperor was aware that to institute a searching reform would be to sign his own death-warrant ? It was fortunate for Rome that she had powerful enemies upon her frontiers. But for the pressure thus put both upon the men and the officers, her armies would have degenerated much more rapidly than they actually did, and her ruin would have been precipitated. THIRD SECTION. From the Accession of Diocletian, A.D. 284, to the final Division of the Empire, A.D. 395.* With the accession of Diocletian the declining empire ex- perienced another remarkable revival, a revival, moreover, of a new character, involving many changes, and constituting a * Sources. Besides the Epitomists, Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, Ru- fus, Zonaras, and Orosius, the most important authorities for this period are, Zosimus, whose " Historia Nova " covers the space between the accession of Macrinus, A.D. 217, and the sixteenth year of Honorius, A.D. 410; Ammianus Marcellinus, whose eighteen books of " His- tories " contain a proHx account of the events which happened between A.D. 353 and 378; and the obscure authors of the " Panegyrics," Mamertinus, Eumenius, Nazarius, etc., who must be consuUed for the entire period between Diocletian and Theodosius (A.D. 284 to 395). Of inferior importance, yet still of considerable value, are the Christian writers, Eusebius (" Historia Ecclesiastica; " ed. Burton. Oxoniis, 1856; 8vo, and "Vita Constantini Magni; " ed. Heinichen. Lipsise, 1830), Lactantius (" Opera." Biponti, 1786; 2 vols. 8vo), John of Malala (in C. Miiller's " Fragm. Hist. Grsec," vol. iv.), John of Anti- och (in the same collection), Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Evagri- us, etc. The " Armenian History " of Moses of Choren is occasionally serviceable. Another important source is the " Codex Theodosi- anus " (ed. Sismondi. Lipsiae, 1736-45; 6 vols, folio), which gives the laws passed between A.D. 313 and 438, and the " Codex Justinianus " (ed. Kriegel. Lipsiae, 1844; 3 vols. 8vo), which contains numerous laws of emperors between Hadrian and Constantine. Coins, medals, and inscriptions are also valuable for the period. ANCIENT HISTORY 443 fresh phase of imperialism, which contrasts strongly with the previous one. Power passed away from the hands of the sol- diers, and tended to become dynastic ; the principle of associa- tion, adopted on a wide scale, gave stability to the government ; the helm of the State was grasped by firm hands, and various new arrangements were made, all favorable to absolutism. Such restraint as the Senate had up to this time exercised on the despotic authority of the emperors — a restraint slightest no doubt in the cases where it was most needed, yet still in the worst case not wholly nugatory — was completely removed by the departure of the Court from Rome, and the erection of other cities — Nicomedia, Milan, Constantinople — into seats of gov- ernment. When Rome was no longer the capital, the Roman Senate became a mere municipal body, directing the afifairs of a single provincial town ; and as its lost privileges were not transferred to another assembly, the Emperor remained the sole source of law, the sole fountain of honor, the one and only principle of authority. Again, the influence of the praetorians, who, in their fortified camp, at once guarding and commanding Rome, had constituted another check on the absolute power of the princes, ceased with the reforms of Diocletian and Con- stantine, who respectively diminished their numbers and sup- pressed them. The Orientalization of the Court, the com- parative seclusion of the monarch, and the multiplication of officers and ceremonies, weakened, if it did not even destroy, such little control as public opinion had hitherto exercised over the caprices of the monarch. Above all, the multiplication of emperors and the care taken to secure the throne against such an occurrence as a vacancy, took from the legionaries the power, which they had so long exercised and so much abused, of making and destroying monarchs at their will, and placed the imperial authority almost beyond the risk of danger from military violence. While the principle of authority was thus gaining in strength, and the anarchy which had prevailed for more than half a cen- tury was giving place to the firm, if somewhat over-despotic, rule of princes who felt themselves secure in their possession of the throne, another quite separate and most important change was taking place, whereby new life was infused into the 444 RAWLINSON community. Christianity, hitherto treated as inimical to the State, contemned and ignored, or else down-trodden and op- pressed, found itself at length taken into favor by the civil power, being first tolerated by Galerius, after he had vainly endeavored to root it out, and then established by Constantine. As there can be no doubt that by this time the great mass of the intellect and virtue of the nation had passed over to the Christian side, the State cannot but have gained considerably by a change which enabled it to employ freely these persons. But scarcely any political change is without its drawbacks. The establishment of Christianity as the State religion, while it alienated those who still adhered to heathenism, tended to cor- rupt Christianity itself, which persecution had kept pure, turned the attention of the rulers from the defence and safety of the empire to minute questions of heterodoxy and orthodoxy, and engaged the civil power in new struggles with its own subjects, whom it was called upon to coerce as heretics or schismatics. Moreover, the adoption of Christianity by a state, all whose antecedents were bound up with heathenism, was like the put- ting of a " new patch on an old garment," which could not bear the alteration. All the old associations, all the old motives to self-sacrifice and patriotism, all the old watch-words and rally- ing cries were discredited ; and new ones, in harmony with the new religion, could not at once be extemporized. A change of religion, even though from false to true, cannot but shake a nation to its very core ; and the Roman body-politic was too old and too infirm not to suflfer severely from such a disturbance. The change came too late thoroughly to revive and renovate ; it may therefore, not improbably, have weakened and helped towards dissolution. Nor were the other political changes of the period wholly and altogether beneficial. The partition of the supreme power among numerous co-ordinate emperors was a fertile source of quarrel and misunderstanding, and gave rise to frequent civil wars. The local principle on which the partition was made in- creased the tendency towards a disruption of the empire into fragments, which had already manifested itself. The degra- dation of Rome and the exaltation of rival capitals worked in the same direction, and was likewise a breaking with ANCIENT HISTORY 445 the past which could not but be trying and hazardous. The completer despotism gave, no doubt, new vigor to the admin- istration ; but it was irksome and revolting to the feelings of many, more especially in the provinces of the West ; it alien- ated their affections, and prepared them to submit readily to a change of governors. But, if the remedies devised by the statesmen of the Diocle- tianic period were insufficient to restore the Empire to its pris- tine strength and vigor, at any rate they acted as stimulants, and revived the moribund State very wonderfully for a space of time not inconsiderable. From the accession of Diocletian to the death of Theodosius the Great (A.D. 284 to 395), is a period exceeding a century. During the whole of it, Rome maintained her frontiers and her unity, rolled back each wave of invasion as it broke upon her, and showed herself superior to all the surrounding peoples. For the gleam of glory which thus gilds her closing day, must we not regard her as in a great measure indebted to the reforms of Diocletian and Constan- tine? Diocletian was proclaimed emperor by the soldiers, in Sep- tember, A.D. 284. He defeated Carinus, and entered on his full sovereignty, in the following year. His first public meas- ure (A.D. 286) was to associate in the Empire, under the title of " Augustus," his comrade in arms, Maximian, a man who had risen from the ranks, and who had few merits besides that of being a good general. A few years later (A.D. 292), he com- pleted his scheme of government by the further creation of two " Caesars," who were to stand to the two " Augusti " as sons and successors. Galerius and Constantius, selected respec- tively for this important office by Diocletian and Maximian, were both of them active and able generals, younger than their patrons, and well suited to fill the position which was assigned to them. They readily accepted the offers of the two emperors, and, after repudiating their own wives, married respectively the daughter and the step-daughter of their patrons. The Im- perial College being thus complete, Diocletian proceeded to a division of the empire analogous to that which had formerly taken place under the triumvirs. Reserving to the elder " Augusti " the more settled provinces, he assigned to the 446 RAWLINSON " Caesars " those which required the care of younger and more active men. Gaul, Spain, and Britain, with the defence of the Rhine against the Germans, were intrusted to Constantius ; the Danubian provinces, Noricum, Pannonia, and Moesia, to Galerius ; Italy and Africa to Maximian ; while Diocletian him- self retained Thrace, Macedon, Egypt, and the East. It was understood, however, that the unity of the empire was to be pre- served ; the " Caesars " were to be subordinate to the " Au- gusti ; " and the younger " Augustus " was to respect the superior dignity of the elder. The four princes were to form an imperial " Board " or " College," and were to govern the whole State by their united wisdom. The complex governmental system thus established by Dio- cletian worked thoroughly well while he himself retained the superintendence of the machine which he had invented. No quarrels arose ; the " Caesars " restrained themselves within the limits set them ; and Maximian was always ready to submit his judgment to that of his benefactor. Many dangers from with- out, and some from within, threatened the State ; but they were met with energy and combated with success by the imperial rulers. In Britain, for a while (A.D. 287 to 293), a rebel chief, Carausius, a German probably, defied the Roman arms, and maintained an independent sovereignty ; but the authority of Rome was re-established in this quarter (A.D. 296) by the victories of Constantius. Maximian put down the troubles which, as early as A.D. 287, had broken out in Gaul ; while at a later date (A.D. 297), Constantius delivered the same province from a furious invasion of the Alemanni. Galerius, after main- taining for many years the honor of the Roman arms upon the Danube, engaged the Persians in the far East, and although at first signally defeated (A.D. 297), made up for his defeat by a great victory in the year following, which led to a peace very advantageous to the Romans. Finally, Diocletian and Max- imian subdued revolt in Africa, chastised the Moors and the Egyptians, and put to death the pretenders who had raised the standard of revolt in those regions. But while success attended the arms of Diocletian and his colleagues against whatever enemy they were turned, whether foreign or domestic, the results achieved by the internal admin- ANCIENT HISTORY 447 istration of the empire were less satisfactory. After long con- sideration, Diocletian determined, towards the close of A.D. 302, to compel uniformity of religion, and for this purpose is- sued an edict against the Christians (A.D. 303), which led to terrible excesses. Throughout the entire empire, except in the extreme West, where Constantius protected those of the " new religion," one-half of the community found itself proscribed ; the most relentless persecution followed ; thousands were put to death in almost every province ; the churches were demol- ished, endowments confiscated, the sacred books burnt, meet- ings for worship prohibited, the clergy declared enemies of the State. A war of extermination commenced, to which there seemed to be no end ; for, as usual, the " blood of the martyrs " proved the " seed of the Church," and the ranks of the Chris- tians were replenished as fast as they were thinned. A state of things worse than civil war prevailed, authority being engaged in a conflict in which it could not succeed, and being thus brought into disrepute, while the iiiost cruel sufferings were day by day inflicted on the citizens who were least deserving of them. Nor was suffering at this period confined to the Christians. The establishment of four Courts instead of one, and- the mul- tiplication of officials and of armies, vastly augmented the ex- penditure ; and a heavy increase of taxation was the necessary consequence. The provinces groaned under the burden of oppressive imposts ; which were wrung from the reluctant tax- payer by violence and even by torture. Industry sank beneath a system which left it without reward ; production diminished ; and the price of all commodities rose. To meet this evil, a futile attempt was made to fix by a law a maximum of prices for all the necessaries, and most of the commodities, of life, for corn, wine, and oil, salt, honey, butchers'-meat, vegetables, clothes, fish, fruit, laborers' wages, schoolmasters' and advo- cates' fees, boots and shoes, harness, timber, and beer. Such an interference with the natural course of trade could only ag- gravate the evils which it was intended to allay. The severe illness which afflicted Diocletian in A.D. 304, was probably the chief cause determining him on the most cele- brated act of his life — his abdication. His health made rest 448 RAWLINSON necessary for him ; and he may naturally have desired to preside over the steps which required to be taken in order to secure the continuance of his system after he himself should have quitted life. Accordingly, he formally abdicated his power in A.D. 305, after a reign of twenty-one years, and compelled Maximian to do the same. The two " Csesars," Galerius and Constantius, became hereupon " Augusti," and should, according to the original design of Diocletian, have respectively succeeded to the provinces of the East and of the West, and have each ap- pointed a " Caesar " to rule a portion of his dominions. But the partiality of Diocletian for his own " Caesar " and son-in- law, Galerius, or his conviction that the empire required a chief ruler to prevent it from breaking up, produced a modification of the original plan. Galerius, with Diocletian's sanction, ap- pointed both the new " C^sars," and assigned them their gov- ernments, giving to his nephew Maximin, Syria and Egypt ; to his friend Severus, Italy and Africa. Constantius simply re- tained what he already had. Galerius reserved for his own share the entire tract between Gaul and Syria, and was thus master, in his own person or by his deputies, of three-fourths of the empire. The new partition of the empire was followed shortly by the death of Constantius, who expired at York, July 24, A.D. 306. On his decease, the legions immediately proclaimed his son, Constantine, his successor. This was an infringement of the new order of things ; but Galerius felt himself obliged to con- done it, to recognize a legitimate " Caesar " in the new prince, while he raised Severus to the rank of " Augustus." The har- mony of the empire was thus still preserved, in spite of the ir- regularity which had threatened to disturb it, and the Roman world continued to be still amicably governed by four princes, two of whom were " Augusti " and two " Caesars." But it was not long before the tranquillity was interrupted. Maxentius, son of Maximian, took advantage of the discontent prevalent in Rome and Italy owing to the loss of privilege and dignity, to raise the standard of revolt, assume the imperial or- naments, and boldly proclaim himself emperor. His father, Maximian, joined him, and resumed the rank of " Augustus." In vain Severus hurried to Rome, and endeavored to crush the ANCIENT HISTORY 449 insurrection. Abandoned by his troops, he fell into his en- emy's hands, and was compelled to end his life by suicide, A.D. 307. In vain Galerius, at the head of all the forces of the cen- tral and eastern provinces, sought to impose his will on the rebellious Romans and Italians ; after a short campaign he was obliged to retreat without effecting anything. Maximian and Maxentius, who had allied themselves with Constantine, held their ground successfully against the efforts of their antago- nists ; and for a brief space the empire was administered peace- fully by six emperors, Constantine, Maximian, and Maxentius in the West ; in the East, Galerius, Maximin, and Licinius, who had received the imperial dignity from Galerius after the death of Severus. The inherent evil of the new system of government now be- gan to show itself. First, Maximian and Maxentius quar- relled, and the former was forced to take refuge with Con- stantine. Then Constantine himself had to defend his position against the intrigues of his father-in-law, and having defeated him, put him to death, A.D. 310. In the next year Galerius perished by the miserable death which has often befallen per- secutors ; and the rulers of the Roman world were thus reduced to four, Constantine in the West, Maxentius in Italy and Africa, Licinius in Illyricum and Thrace, Maximin in Egypt and Asia. But no friendly feeling now united the members of the Imperial College. War broke out between Constantine and Maxentius in A.D. 312, and between Licinius and Maximin in the year following. In each case the struggle was soon decided. Con- stantine vanquished his adversary in two battles — one near Verona, the other at the Colline gate — and became master of Rome and Italy. Maxentius perished in the Tiber. Maximin was defeated by Licinius in a single great fight, near Heracleia ; but the victory w^as decisive, being followed shortly by the de- feated emperor's suicide. It remained that the two victors, lords respectively of the East and of the West, should measure their strength against each other. This they did in A.D. 314; and after a long and bloody struggle, interrupted by an interval of peace (A.D. 315 to 322), victory declared itself in favor of the Western legions, and Constantine, who is not without rea- son given the epithet of " the Great," became sole master of 29 450 RAWLINSON the reunited Roman Empire. The defeated Licinius was, as a matter of course, put to death, A.D. 324. The reign of Constantine the Great is the turning-point of this period of the history. He completed the revolution which Diocletian had begun. By his entire abolition of the praeto- rians, and conversion of their prefects into purely civil officers, he secured the State as far as was possible from the tyranny of the sword. By the erection of his new capital, and the formal transfer of the seat of government from Rome to Byzantium, he put the finishing stroke to the degradation of the old me- tropolis, destroyed forever the power of the Senate, and freed the emperors from all those galling restrictions which old con- stitutional forms and usages imposed upon them. By his or- ganization of the Court on a thoroughly Eastern model, he stamped finally on the later empire the character of Orientalism which attaches to it. Finally, by his new division of the em- pire into Prefectures, and his assignment of different portions of his dominions to his sons and nephews, on whom he con- ferred the titles of " Caesar," or " King," he maintained in a modified form the principles of a federated as distinct from a centralized government, and of joint as distinct from sole rule, which was the most original, and at the same time the most doubtful, of Diocletian's conceptions. But the reforms of Constantine were not limited by the range of his predecessor's conceptions. He established, not merely at the Court, but throughout the empire, a graduated nobility, the archetype of the modern systems, mainly but not wholly official, composed of three ranks : the " illustrious " (illustres) ; the " respectable " (spcctabilcs) ; and the " right honorable " (clarissimi). To the " illustrious " class belonged the consuls during their term of office ; the patricians, life peers, who re- ceived the title of " patricius " at the will of the Emperor ; the praetorian prefects, six in number, four provincial and two met- ropolitan — the prefects respectively of Rome and Constanti- nople ; the masters-general of the cavalry and infantry ; and the seven chief officers of the Court, mentioned in the preced- ing section. Under the head of " respectable " were included the proconsuls of Asia, Africa, and Achaea; the heads of the thirteen dioceses, whatever their special title, whether vicar, ANCIENT HISTORY 451 count, or augustal prefect ; and the second rank of officers in the army, thirty-five in number, of whom ten were " counts " and the remainder " dukes." The subordinate governors of provinces, consulars, presidents, and correctors, together with the other members of the Roman and Constantinopohtan Sen- ates, constituted the class of " right honorables " or " claris- simi." Constantine Hkewise reorganized the Roman army. He multiphed the number and reduced the strength of the legions, which were raised from thirty or thirty-one to a hun- dred and thirty-two, while the strength of each sank from 6000 to 1000 or 1500. He divided the soldiers into the two classes of " palatines " and " borderers," the former quartered in the chief towns of the empire, the latter stationed upon the fron- tiers. The whole army he placed under two (later, under four) commanders, called respectively, " master of the horse " {mag- ister eqnitum) and " master of the foot " (magister peditum), but each practically commanding mixed armies in the field. Next in rank to them were the various " counts " and " dukes," who acted as lieutenants or divisional generals, and were stationed in the more exposed provinces. It is not certain that Constantine made any change in the nature or amount of the taxes which the imperial government exacted from its subjects. But the fact that the " era of in- dictions " dates from a year within his reign (Sept. i, A.D. 312) would seem to imply that the practice of making a new survey of the empire for financial purposes every fifteen years was com- menced by him. The land-tax (capitatio or indictio), with its supplement, the poll-tax {capitatio humana or plcbcia), the tax on trades (aurum lustrale), the indirect taxes, customs, etc., the forced contributions {aurum coronarium) were, all of them, im- posts of old standing at this time ; and it is not easy to see that Constantine added any others. He was probably rigid in his exaction of taxes, and may have been the first to require that all payments to the treasury should be made in gold ; but the charge of oppressing his subjects by the imposition of new and unheard-of burdens, which rests upon the sole testimony of the prejudiced Zosimus, is certainly " not proven." But the great change, the crowning reform, introduced and carried through by Constantine was his reformation of religion. 452 RAWLINSON Here he did not so much go beyond as directly contradict the ideal of Diocletian. Diocletian, and after him Galerius, had endeavored to destroy Christianity, root and branch, by the fire of persecution. But they had failed ; and Galerius had ac- knowledged the failure by an edict issued from his death-bed, which permitted to the Christians the free exercise of their re- ligion, and invited them to aid the suffering emperor by their prayers. Galerius, however, and the emperors of his appoint- ment, though they tolerated Christianity, had remained heath- ens, and had continued to maintain heathenism as the State religion. It remained for Constantine not merely to tolerate, but in a certain sense to establish, the new religion ; to recog- nize its bishops and clergy as privileged persons, to contribute largely towards its endowment, to allow the meetings and give efiFect to the decrees of its councils, to conform the jurispru- dence of the State to its precepts and its practices. Hence the laws against infanticide, against adultery, against pederasty, against rape and seduction passed at this period ; hence the edict for the general observance of Sunday, and the new and strong restrictions upon the facility of divorce. Constantine did not indeed, as has sometimes been supposed, proscribe heathenism ; he did not shut up the temples, neither did he for- bid the offering of sacrifice. But he completely dissociated the State from heathenism, and to a certain extent allied it with Christianity ; he stopped all magisterial offering of sacrifice ; he shut up the temples where the ritual was immoral. Though not a baptized Christian till shortly before his death, he threw the whole weight of his encouragement on the Christian side ; and the rapid increase in the number of professing Christians, which now set in, must be regarded as in great part the effect of his patronage. The character of Constantine has been variously estimated, according as his patronage of Christianity has been liked or disliked. The most impartial writers view him as a man in whom vice and virtue, weakness and strength of mind were curiously blended. His military talents and his power of or- ganization are incontestable. His activity, courage, prudence, and affectionateness cannot be questioned. But he was less clement and humane than it was to have been expected that ANCIENT HISTORY 453 the first Christian emperor would have shown himself ; he was strangely superstitious ; and his religion, so far as it can be gathered from his public acts, his coins, his medals, and his recorded speeches, was a curious medley of Christianity and paganism, which it is not pleasant to contemplate. His char- acter deteriorated as time went on. His best period is that of his administration of Gaul, A.D. 306 to 312. As he grew older, he became more suspicious, more irritable, more harsh and severe in his punishments. The darkest shadow which rests upon his reign is connected with the execution of his son, Crispus, and his nephew, Licinius, events of the year A.D. 326 ; but it is impossible to say whether these acts were, or were not, a State necessity — whether they punished a contemplated crime, or were cruelties which had their origin in a wicked and un- worthy jealousy. The harmony which subsisted between Con- stantine and his other sons, and the kindness which he showed towards his half-brothers and their offspring, may reasonably incline us to the belief that in the great tragedy of his domestic life Constantine was rather unfortunate than guilty. The later years of Constantine were troubled by the bar- barians of the North and East, who once more assumed the ag- gressive, and invaded, or threatened to invade, the Roman territory. In the vigor of his youth and middle age he had re- pelled such attacks in person, defeating the Franks and Ale- manni in Gaul, A.D. 309, and the Goths and Sarmatians upon the Danube, A.D. 322. Less active as he approached old age, he employed the arms of his eldest son, Constantine, to chastise the Goths in A.D. 332, and allowed the hostile proceedings of the Persians (A.D. 336) to pass unrebuked. At the same time he made preparations for the succession, in anticipation of his own demise, creating his third son, Constans, and his nephew, Dalmatius, " Csesars," making another nephew, Han- nibalianus, Rex, and assigning to these two nephews and his three surviving sons the administration of different portions of his dominions. Constantine died. May 22, A.D. 337, having reigned nearly thirty-one years. The designs of Constantine with respect to the succession were not allowed to take full effect. Troubles followed close upon his decease, which led to the removal of Dalmatius and 454 RAWLINSON Hannibalianus, and the murder of most of their near relations and partisans. The three sons of Constantine divided his do- minions between them, Constantine retaining the portion as- signed him by his father, viz., the Gauls, Constans receiving the share of Dalmatius besides his own, and Constantius ab- sorbing the " kingdom " of Hannibalianus. But the brothers could not long remain at peace among themselves. Con- stantine, the eldest, discontented with his share, required Constans to relinquish to him the diocese of Africa, and when the latter demurred, invaded his territories and sought to com- pel the surrender. He had, however, miscalculated his strength, and was easily defeated and slain (A.D. 340). Con- stans took possession of his government, but, ruling tyran- nically, was, ten years later (A.D. 350), conspired against by his generals and ministers, one of whom, Magnentius, assumed the purple, captured and slew Constans, and reigned in his stead. Meanwhile, Constantius was engaged in an unsuccess- ful war against the Persians under their king, Sapor, who aimed at recovering the provinces ceded to Galerius by his grand- father. Recalled by the dangerous condition of the West, where, besides Magnentius, another officer, Vetranio, general in Illyricum, had been proclaimed emperor, Constantius in the space of three years (A.D. 350 to 353) put down all opposition, forcing Vetranio to abdicate his dignity and retire into private life (A.D. 350), and driving Magnentius, after twice defeating him — at Mursa in Pannonia, A.D. 351, and at Mount Seleucus in Gaul, A.D. 353 — to take refuge in suicide. Constantius thus, in the sixteenth year after the death of his father Constantine, reunited under his sole rule the scattered fragments of the Ro- man world. The sole reign of Constantius, which lasted from A.D. 353 to 361, was a period of mixed disaster and success, exhausting to the empire, but not inglorious. His bloody contest with Magnentius had greatly weakened the Roman military force, and exposed the empire almost without defence to the attacks of the barbarians. German tribes had been actually encour- aged by Constantius to cross the Rhine, and had planted them- selves firmly on its left bank. The Quadi and Sarmatians ceased to respect the frontier of the Danube. In the East ANCIENT HISTORY 455 Sapor resumed his aggressive operations, and poured his hosts into the Roman province of Mesopotamia. But though the Roman arms sustained many reverses, especially in the East, and though the provinces suffered grievously from hostile in- roads, yet on every side the honor of the empire was upheld or vindicated, and no permanent conquest of Roman territory was effected. Constantius repulsed the Quadi and attacked them in their own abodes, A.D. 357 ; set a king devoted to his in- terests over the Sarmatse, A.D. 359 ; and prevented Sapor from occupying the regions which he overran with his army, A.D. 360. In the West, the efforts of Julian were crowned with still more decided success. The Franks and Alemanni, defeated in a number of battles (A.D. 356 to 358), evacuated their new conquests and retired to the right bank of the Rhine ; but even here the vengeance of the Romans followed them. Julian led three expeditions across the great river, ravaged Germany far and wide, and returned into Gaul with a rich booty. In his relations with the princes of his family Constantius was peculiarly unhappy. At his accession, A.D. 337, he had sanctioned, if he had not even commanded, the massacre of his two surviving uncles and seven of his cousins. Two cousins only, Gallus and Julian, boys of six and twelve respectively, he had spared. Having no male offspring, and having lost his two brothers, who died childless, it was only to these two princes that he could look, if he desired heirs of his own blood and lineage. Accordingly, when the troubles caused by Magnen- tius summoned him to the West, A.D. 350, he drew forth Gallus from the retirement in which he bred him up, conferred upon him the title of " Caesar," and intrusted to him the administra- tion of the East. But the ill-trained prince having grievously abused his trust, was in A.D. 354 summoned to appear before Constantius at Milan, and, when he obeyed, was seized while upon his journey, imprisoned and put to death. Shortly after- wards (A.D. 355) Julian was, by the influence of the Empress, Eusebia, advanced to the dignity made vacant by his half- brother's decease and invested with the government of the Gauls ; but the Emperor was from first to last jealous of his young kinsman and harsh in his treatment of him. At length, when he found himself about to be deprived of the troops who 456 RAWLINSON constituted his sole defence, Julian allowed his soldiers to pro- claim him emperor (A.D. 360), and marched eastward to main- tain his cause in arms. Another civil war would have followed had not Constantius opportunely died (A.D. 361) and left the throne open to his rival. Julian, the last prince of the house of Constantine, who suc- ceeded to the undivided empire on the death of Constantius, was a man of unquestionable ability and of nearly blameless moral character ; but his reign was a misfortune for the empire. A pagan from conviction, he not only restored Paganism to its old position as the established religion of the State, but en- deavored to destroy Christianity by depriving its professors of the advantages of wealth, knowledge, and power, and perti- naciously directing against them every weapon of petty perse- cution. The success of his enterprise, had it been possible, would have deeply injured the State, since it would have sub- stituted a degraded morality and an efifete religion for an ethical system in which even sceptics can find no fault, and a faith whose vitality is evidenced by its continuing to exist and to flourish at the present day. But success was wholly impos- sible ; even a partial success could only have been gained at the expense of a prolonged civil war; and thus the sole result of the emperor's futile attempt was to cause a large amount of actual suffering, to exasperate the two parties against each other, and to prolong a struggle which could only end in one way. The religious counter-revolution which he designed was altogether a mistake and an anachronism ; and it was well for the empire that the brevity of his reign confined the time of suffering and of struggle within narrow limits. Nor was the great military expedition which Julian under- took against the Persians more fortunate in its results than his crusade against the faith of half his subjects. The end at which he aimed — the actual destruction of the Persian empire — was grand, and the plans which he formed for the accomplishment of his object were not ill-devised ; but he had underrated the difBculty of his undertaking, and had counted too much on all his plans being carried out successfully. The allies on whose assistance he reckoned — Armenia and Liberia — failed him ; his second army, which had been directed to take the ANCIENT HISTORY 457 line of the Tigris and join him before Ctesiphon, never made its appearance ; he himself accompHshed without disaster his march along the Euphrates and the Nahr-Malcha to the Per- sian capital, but he found his forces insufficient to undertake its siege, and after an imprudent delay he was compelled, just as the heats of summer were coming on, to commence his re- treat. But the multitudinous enemy hung about his rear, cut off his stragglers, deprived him of supplies, and even ventured, where the ground was favorable, to occupy and interrupt his line of march. Like the Ten Thousand Greeks in their retreat through the same regions, the Roman army had day after day to fight its way. At length in one of these numerous combats Julian fell. The soldiers, forced to supply his place, created the Christian, Jovian, emperor ; and Jovian procured himself a safe retreat from Persia with the remnant of Julian's army by relinquishing the provinces ceded to Galerius in A.D. 248, to- gether with a poi Uon of Mesopotamia. The reign of Jovian lasted only a few months — from June, A.D. 363, to February, A.D. 364 — but it was long enough to enable him to reverse his predecessor's religious changes, and restore Christianity to its former position. He conducted the army of Julian from the eastern bank of the Tigris to Ancyra in Phrygia, religiously performed the stipulations of his treaty with Sapor, replaced Athanasius on his episcopal throne, and issued an edict of universal toleration. His death, February 17, A.D. 364, was sudden and mysterious, but is most probably to be ascribed to natural causes. An interregnum of ten days followed the death of Jovian. At its close the great officials of the empire took upon them- selves to nominate a monarch, and selected Valentinian, a Christian and a brave officer, who had served with distinction both on the Rhine and in Persia. The army ratified the choice, but required the new emperor to associate a colleague, being anxious (apparently) to prevent the recurrence of such a time of uncertainty and suspense as they had just experienced. Val- entinian conferred the purple on his younger brother, Valens, and committed to his hands the administration of the " prse- fectura Orientis," reserving the rest of the empire for himself. He fixed his court at Milan, and from this centre, or some- 45 S RAWLIXSOX times from Treves, he governed with vigor and success, though not ^^-ithout occasional crueky, the various prov- inces of the West. In person, or by his generals, he defeated the Picts and Scots in Britain, the Saxons in Xorthem Gaul, the Franks and Alemanni upon the Rhine, and the Ouadi upon the Danube, ever}"vvhere maintaining the frontier and defend- ing it by castles and ramparts. He suppressed the revolt of Firmus in Africa, and re-established the Roman authority over Xumidia and Mauretania. As early as A.D. 367, he associated his son. Gratian. in the honors of the imperial dignity, but gave him. no share in tlie government. He died at Bregetio, on the Danube. November 17, A.D. ^y^, when he had reigned between eleven and twelve years. Meanwhile, the weaker Valens in the East, cruel, timid, and governed by favorites, with difl5culty maintained himself upon the throne which he owed, not to his o^^•n merit, but to the af- fection or the jealousy of his brother. The insurrection of Procopius had nearly brought his reign to an end in the year after his accession, A.D. 365, but was suppressed by the cour- age and devotion of the brave and unselfish Sallust. War with the \'isigoths, who had embraced the cause of Procopius, fol- lowed, A.D. 367, and was concluded by a peace, A.D. 369, of which the barbarians dictated the terms. A campaign against Sapor, A.D. 371. had no result of importance. In the follow- ing year there was a conspiracy at Antioch which threatened tlie hfe of the Emperor. But the great event of the reign of \'alens was the irruption of the Huns into Europe, and the consequent precipitation on the Roman Empire of the dispossessed Goths, who, received as suppliants and fugitives, were in a httle while driven by ill-treatment to declare themselves enemies, and in the two battles of Marcianople and Adrianople proved their superiority over the Roman armies, defeating first the generals of Valens, and then Valens himself, who was slain at Adriano- ple, with two-thirds of his soldiers, A.D. 378. On the death of Valentinian, A.D. 375, he had been succeed- ed by his son Gratian, a youth of seventeen, who immediately associated in the government his brother, Valentinian II., a boy of five. Gratian, the pupil of the Christian poet, Ausonius, was amiable but weak. So long as the instructors of his youth ANCIENT HISTORY 459 maintained their authority' over him, he conducted himself with credit and seemed to be an excellent niler. Gaul was delivered from the Alemanni under his auspices by the victor>' of Ar- gentaria (A.D. 378; ; and the East, which the precipitation of his uncle had prevented him from saving, was wisely placed under the superintendence of Theodosius, whom Gratian raised from a private station to be his colleague, A.D. 379. The pre- fecture of Illyricum was voluntarily ceded by the Western to the Eastern Emperor. But as advancing manhood emanci- pated Gratian from control, the natural softness and weakness of his character displayed itself. Unworthy favorites obtained from him the direction of public affairs, and cruelly abused his confidence. Hunting became his passion ; and the hours which should have been given to business were devoted to the pleas- ures and excitement of the chase. The army was neglected and resented its treatment ; the indolent emperor was despised ; in a short time revolt broke out. Maximus, a Roman settled in Britain, was invested with the purple by the British legions, and passed over into Gaul, with the intention of engaging Gratian. But the Gallic legions refused to fight ; and Grarian, quitting Paris, where he held his court, fled to Lyons, and was there overtaken and slain. A.D. 383. Maximus, successful thus far, obtained an acknowledgment of his dignity from Theodosius, on condition of his acknowledg- ing in his turn the title of Valentinian II.. and leaving him in undisturbed possession of the Italian prefecture, which had been made over to him by his brother. But the ambition of the ustu-per induced him after a few years to break his engage- ment. In August. A.D. 387, he crossed the Alps, invaded Italy, and drove Valentinian to take refuge in the East. There the great Theodosius. after some hesitation, embraced the cause of his nephew, married his sister Galla. and. defeating Maxi- mus in Pannonia, A.D. 388, replaced the young \'alentinian upon the throne. Valentinian II., who now at the age of eighteen became for the second time emperor, was amiable and weak, like his brother. He allowed a subject. Argobastes, a Frank by race, to obtain a position in the kingdom similar to that occupied by the '■ mayors of the palace " under the Merovingian kings of 40O RAWLINSON France ; and then, becoming aware of his own want of au- thority, attempted to remove him, but in vain. Argobastes asserted his power, refused to lay down his ofHce, and after a few days murdered his master, A.D. 392, and placed a creature of his own, one Eugenius, upon the throne. The new eniperor was not acknowledged by Theodosius, whose natural indignation at the contempt shown for his ar- rangements was stimulated by the prayers and tears of his wife, Galla, the sister of the murdered monarch. After temporizing for some months, while he collected a formidable force, the Eastern emperor invaded the provinces of the West, defeating his rival by the help of his own troops near Aquileia, and caused his head to be struck from his shoulders, A.D. 394. The Frank, Argobastes, became a fugitive, and soon afterwards terminated his life by suicide. The reign of Theodosius in the East runs parallel with those of Gratian, Maximus, Valentinian II., and Eugenius in the West, commencing A.D. 379, in the fourth year of Gratian, and terminating A.D. 395, the year after the death of Eugenius. It is a reign which surprises us by its wonderful vigor. The- odosius truly deserved the name of " Great." By a combina- tion of patience and caution with vast military skill, he in the course of five years (A.D. 379 to 384) effectually reduced the hordes of the Visigoths to subjection, converted them from enemies into subjects, and was able to use their swords against his other adversaries. It was no doubt an evil that these bar- barians, and the Ostrogoths also, after their defeat in A.D. 386, were settled within the limits of the empire, in Moesia, Thrace, Illyricum, and Asia Minor ; since they were not sufficiently civilized to amalgamate with the other subjects of the State. But Theodosius had only a choice of evils. If he had not given the barbarians settlements, he would have driven them to de- spair ; and more was to be feared from their despair than even from their fickleness and turbulence. Theodosius himself kept the Goths quiet while he lived. He employed them with good efTect against Maximus and Eugenius. If his successors had had his talents, the new subjects of the empire might, very possibly, have been kept under control, and have become its strength instead of proving its weakness. ANCIENT HISTORY 461 The vigor of Theodosius, which was employed with such good effect against the Goths, and against the usurpers who troubled the repose of the West, found another and more ques- tionable vent in the regulation of the faith of his subjects and in earnest and prolonged efforts to establish uniformity of re- ligion. A qualified persecution of heathenism had been sanc- tioned by some previous emperors. Theodosius broadly for- bade all exercise of the chief rites of the old pagan religion under the extreme penalty of death ; shut up or destroyed the temples ; confiscated the old endowments ; and made every act of the worship penal. Towards heretics he acted with equal decision, but with somewhat less harshness. The Arians and other sects condemned by the Councils of Nice (A.D. 325) and Constantinople (A.D. 381) were compelled to relinquish their churches, vacate their sees, and make over their endowments to the orthodox ; they were forbidden to preach, to ordain min- isters, and even to meet for public worship ; but the penalty in case of disobedience rarely went beyond a fine or exile, and practically the penalties were very seldom enforced. The ad- ministration of Theodosius was very much less severe than his laws ; and to judge him from his code alone would give a false idea of his character. Still Theodosius cannot be w^holly absolved from the charge of violence and cruelty. His temper was capricious ; and, while upon some occasions he exhibited an extraordinary degree of clemency and gentleness under extreme provocation, as when (in A.D. 387) he pardoned the insolence of Antiochenes, yet on others he allowed the fury which opposition awoke in him to have free course, and involved the innocent and the guilty in one sweeping sentence of punishment. The most notable example of this culpable severity is to be found in the famous massacre of the Thessalonians, for which he was compelled to do penance by St. Ambrose (A.D. 390). The victory of Theodosius over the usurper, Eugenius, A.D. 394, had made him master of the West, and reunited for the last time the whole of the Roman world under the sceptre of a single monarch. But the union did not last longer than a few months. It had come to be an accepted principle of the imperial policy that the weight of the internal administration, and the defence 462 RAWLINSON of the frontiers against the barbarians, was a burden beyond the powers of any single man. From the accession of Diocletian the Roman world had been governed, excepting on rare oc- casions, by a plurality of princes ; and it had been the usual practice to partition out the provinces among them. Theo- dosius, therefore, had no sooner defeated Eugenius, than he sent for his younger son, Honorius, a boy of eleven, and pre- pared to make over to him the Western Empire. Soon after- wards, finding his end approaching, he formally divided his dominions between his two sons, leaving the East to Arcadius, the elder, and the West to Honorius, whom he placed under the guardianship of the general Stilicho. Theodosius expired at Milan in the fiftieth year of his age and the sixteenth of his reign, January 17, A.D. 395. FOURTH SECTION. History of the Western Empire from the Accession of Hono- rius, A.D. 395, to the Deposition of Romulus Augustus, A.D. 476.* Hitherto the East and West, if politically separate govern- ments, had been united by sympathy, by the mutual lending and receiving of assistance, and by the idea, at any rate, that in some sense they formed one empire. With Arcadius and Honorius this idea begins to fade and disappear ; relations of friendship between the governments are replaced by feelings of jealousy, of mutual repulsion, of suspicion, distrust, and dis- like. Hence the disruption of the empire is ordinarily dated * Sources. For the reign of Honorius Zosimus is our chief authority; but his prejudiced history must be supplemented and often corrected from the works of the poet Claudian (ed. Konig, Gottingse, 1808; 8vo), who is however too eulogistic. Both for this and for the subsequent period, the " Epitome " of Orosius, and the " Chronicles " of Prosper and Marcellinus are of service. Jornandes, the Gothic historian, rises in importance, as the history of the Goths becomes more and more closely intermixed with that of the Romans. The ecclesiastical his- torians, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, etc., and the chronologers, Idatius, Isodorus, etc., have an occasional value. Other authors will be mentioned under particular heads. ANCIENT HISTORY 463 from this time, though the separation was really so gradual that the historian acts somewhat arbitrarily in fixing on any definite point. There is, however, none better than the date commonly taken ; and, as the Eastern or Byzantine Empire belongs con- fessedly to Modern and not to Ancient History, the fortunes of the Western Empire will alone be followed in this concluding section of the history of Ancient Rome. The origin of the estrangement between the East and West appears to have been the mutual jealousy and conflicting pre- tensions of Rufinus, the minister of the Eastern, and Stilicho, the general and guardian of the Western emperor. This jeal- ousy cost Rufinus his life, and rendered the relations between the two states unsatisfactory. The ill-will was brought to a head, when the Goths of Moesia and Thrace, having revolted under Alaric, instead of being sternly repressed by the Eastern em- peror, were treated with and induced to remove to a region from which they threatened Italy. When Alaric was made by Arcadius master-general of the Eastern Illyricum, A.D. 398, it was felt at once that the West was menaced ; and the dreadful invasions which followed were ascribed, not without some show of reason, to the connivance of the Emperor of the East, who, to save his own territories, had let the Goths loose upon his brother's. The first invasion, in A.D. 402, carried devastation over the rich plains of Northern Italy, but was effectually checked by Stilicho, who completely defeated Alaric in the battle of Pollentia (March 29, A.D. 403) and forced him to retire into Illyricum. The second invasion, A.D. 408, was more disastrous. The empire had lost the services of Stilicho, who had been sacrificed to the jealousy of an ungrateful mas- ter. Alaric marched upon Rome, and formed the siege of the city, but after some months consented to spare it on the receipt of an enormous ransom, A.D. 409. He then sought to come to terms with Honorius, who had fixed his court at Ravenna ; but, being insulted during the negotiations, he broke them ofi, once more marched on Rome, starved the city into submission, and entered it as its master, A.D. 410. A puppet emperor was set up in the person of a certain Attains, who was however, after a few months, again degraded by Alaric to a private con- dition. The court of Ravenna still refusing the terms of peace 464 RAWLINSON which Alaric offered, he finally, in August, A.D. 410, resolved to push hostility to the utmost. Advancing a third time upon Rome, he took and sacked the city, overran Southern Italy, and made himself master of the whole peninsula from the walls of Ravenna to the Sicilian sea. The Roman Empire of the West would probably have now come to an end, had not death overtaken the bold Goth in the midst of his conquests. His brother-in-law, Adolphus, who succeeded him, had neither his talents nor his ambition. After exhausting Southern Italy by plunder and ravage for the space of two years, he made peace with Honorius, accepted his sister, Placidia, in marriage, and withdrew his army from Italy into Gaul, A.D. 412. Nor were the sack of Rome and the devastation of Italy by the Goths the only calamities which afflicted the empire during this miserable period. The invasion of the combined Vandals, Suevi, Burgundians, and Alani, under Rhadagaisus (A.D. 405), which carried fire and sword over the regions between the Alps and the Arno, would have been regarded as a misfortune of the first magnitude, if it had not been thrown into the shade by the more terrible visitation of the Goths. Stilicho, indeed, with consummate generalship, defeated this formidable host, slew Rhadagaisus, and forced the remainder of his army to retire. Italy, after suffering ravage through its whole extent from the wild and savage hordes of Sarmatia and Germany, was by the year A.D. 412 cleared of all its invaders, and was once more ruled in peace by the son of Theodosius. But, if no worse calamity than utter exhaustion was inflicted on the centre of the empire, a sadder fate began to overtake the extremities, from which Rome withdrew her protection, or which were torn from her by the barbarians. The remnant of the host of Rha- dagaisus, Vandals, Burgundians, and others, after quitting Italy, passed into Gaul (A.D. 406), overran the region between the Rhine and the Pyrenees, and took possession of a broad tract which became known as " Burgundy." Passing thence into Spain, they carried all before them, spreading themselves over the entire peninsula from the Pyrenees to the straits of Gibraltar. In Southern Gaul and Spain they were shortly fol- lowed by the Goths, who, under Adolphus, crossed the moun- tains, drove the Vandals into Gallicia and Baetica (thence called ANCIENT HISTORY 465 Vandalusia or Andalusia), and established in Spain and Aqui- taine the " Kingdom of the Visigoths," which, although for a time (A.D. 414 to 418) nominally subject to Rome, became under Theodoric I. (A.D. 418) completely independent. About the same time Britain was finally cut adrift from the empire. In Gaul the Franks followed the example of the Burgundians, and, crossing the Lower Rhine, established themselves in the region about Cologne and Treves. Thus almost the whole of the prcefectiira Galliarum passed out of the hands of the Romans, who retained nothing west of the Alps but the province of Gallia Lugdunensis. It is not surprising that during this troublous period Hono- rius found his right to the throne disputed by pretenders. Be- sides Attalus there arose in Africa a Moorish usurper, named Gildo, who assumed the government of the " Five Provinces," A.D. 398, but was defeated by the Romans under Mascezel, Gildo's brother. In Britain a Constantine was proclaimed emperor, A.D. 407, who associated on the throne his son, Con- stans, and extended his dominion at one time (A.D. 408 to 409) over the greater portion of Gaul and Spain ; but after the revolt of his general, Gerontius, in the last-named province, he was defeated and put to death by Constantius, one of Honorius's commanders, A.D. 411. A second revolt occurred in Africa under Count Heraclian, A.D. 413. Assuming the purple, he ventured to invade Italy, but was defeated in the neighborhood of Rome, and, on returning to his province, was put to death by his indignant subjects. After the death of Constantine, the sovereignty of Roman Gaul was assumed by Jovinus, A.D. 412, who associated on the throne his brother, Sebastian ; but these usurpers were easily put down by the Gothic leader, Adolphus, A.D. 413. The latter years of Ho- norius (A.D. 413 to 423) were free from troubles of this kind. The weak prince strengthened himself by marrying his sister, Placidia, the widow of the Gothic chief, Adolphus, to Constan- tius, his successful general, and associating the latter in the government, A.D. 421. Constantius, however, reigned only seven months, and he was soon followed to the tomb by his unhappy colleague, who died of a dropsy, August 27, A.D. 423, without making any arrangements for the succession. 30 466 RAWLINSON The vacant throne was seized by John, principal secretary of the late emperor; but Theodosius II., who had succeeded his father, Arcadius, in the Empire of the East, refused to ac- knowledge the usurper, and claimed the throne for his infant nephew, Valentinian, the son of Constantius and Placidia. A naval and military expedition, which he sent to Italy, was at first unsuccessful ; but, after a while, signs of disaffection ap- peared among the Italian soldiers, who preferred a monarch descended from the great Theodosius to an unknown upstart. Treachery opened the gates of Ravenna to the Eastern army, and John, delivered into the hands of his enemies, was be- headed at Aquileia, A.D. 425. The nephew of Honorius, who was now raised to the throne, was a child of no more than six years of age. He was therefore placed under the guardianship of his mother, Placidia, who administered the empire from A.D. 425 to 450. The govern- ment of an infant and a woman was ill suited for a kingdom placed in desperate circumstances, and precipitated the ruin which had long been visibly impending. The jealousy felt by the general Aetius towards Boniface, Count of Africa, and the unworthy treatment of the latter, drove him into rebellion, induced him to invite over the Vandals from Spain, A.D. 428, and led to the loss of the African diocese, and the establish- ment of a Vandal kingdom in that region by the renowned Genseric, A.D. 429 to 439. Family arrangements connected with the betrothment of Valentinian to Eudoxia, daughter of Theodosius II., had even before this (A.D. 425) detached from the West and made over to the East the provinces of Pannonia, Noricum, and Dalmatia. Excepting for some pre- carious possessions in Gaul and Spain, the Western Empire was now confined to the three countries of Vindelicia, Rhge- tia, and Italy. The sword of Aetius maintained with tolerable success the dimensions of Roman Gaul against the attacks, from opposite sides, of the Visigoths and the Franks, A.D. 435 to 450; but his contest with the latter brought into the field a new foe, the terrible Attila, king of the Huns, who, professing to embrace the cause of a fugitive Prankish king, crossed the Rhine into Gaul at the head of a vast army, and spread devastation far and wide over the country. The Ro- ANCIENT HISTORY 467 mans and Visigoths were forced into a temporary alliance, and united their arms against the Scyth. On the field of Chalons the question was tried and determined (A.D, 451), whether the predominance of power in Western Europe was to fall to the Tatars or to the Teutons, to a savage race, heathen, anarchical, and destructive, or to one which had embraced Christianity, which had aptitudes for organization and law, and could con- struct as well as destroy. The decision was, fortunately, in favor of the Teutons. Attila retreated beyond the Rhine ; and although in A.D. 452 he endeavored to retrieve his failure, invading Italy, and spreading desolation over the whole plain of the Po, yet it was only to retreat once more to his palace in the wilds of Hungary. The year following, A.D. 453, he burst a blood-vessel, and died suddenly ; and the West was delivered from all peril of becoming the prey of Tatar hordes. Two years later, Valentinian also lost his life, being murdered, A.D. 455, by Maximus, whose wife he had dishonored, and the retainers of Aetius, whom, on grounds of suspicion, he had executed. Maximus, the murderer of Valentinian III., succeeded him as emperor, but reigned less than three months (March 16 to June 12, A.D. 455). Anxious to strengthen his hold upon the throne by connecting himself with the royal house of Theo- dosius, he married his son, Palladius, to the daughter of Valen- tinian, and forced Eudoxia, Valentinian's widow, and daughter of Theodosius II., to become his wife. The outraged matron implored the aid of Genseric, whose fleet commanded the Med- iterranean ; and the bold Vandal, greedy after the spoil of Italy, readily responded to her call. His landing at Ostia was the signal for the Romans to rise against their sovereign, in whom they saw the author of their calamities ; but the murder of the Roman emperor failed to propitiate the Vandalic king, whose mind was intent upon plunder. Despite the intercession of Pope Leo, Genseric entered Rome with his troops, and gave it up to them to pillage for fourteen days. Whatever Attila had left was now carried off. Eudoxia and her two daughters were made prisoners and borne away to Carthage. Even the churches were not spared. All that yet remained in Rome of public or private wealth, of sacred or profane treasure, 468 RAWLINSON was transported to the vessels of Genseric, and removed to Africa. This terrible calamity so paralyzed the Romans, that they appointed no emperor in the place of Maximus. When, how- ever, the news that the throne was vacant reached Gaul, Avitus, the commander of the legions there, induced his soldiers to proclaim him ; and, as he was supported by the Visigoths of Western Gaul and Spain, Rome and Italy for a brief space acknowledged him as their sovereign. But Italian pride chafed against the imposition of a monarch from without ; and Count Ricimer, a Goth, who commanded the foreign troops in the pay of Rome, disliked the rule of an emperor in whose appoint- ment he had had no hand. Avitus was therefore required to abdicate, after he had held the throne a little more than a year ; he consented, and, laying aside the imperial office, became Bishop of Placentia, but died within a few months of his ab- dication, whether by disease or violence is uncertain. It was evidently the wish of Count Ricimer to assume the crown which he had forced Avitus to resign ; but he saw that Rome was not yet prepared to submit herself to the rule of a barbarian, and he therefore, after an interval of six months, placed an emperor on the throne in the person of Majorian, who ruled well for four years, from A.D. 457 to 461. Majorian, who was a man of talent and character, addressed himself espe- cially to the struggle with the Vandals of Africa, whose con- stant depredations deprived Italy of repose. Not content with chastising the disorderly bands which ravaged his coasts, he prepared to invade the territory of Genseric with a fleet and army. These were collected at the Spanish port of Carthagena ; but the emissaries of Genseric secretly destroyed the fleet ; and Majorian, having returned to Italy, was, like Avitus, forced to abdicate, Count Ricimer being jealous of his protege, and de- sirous of appointing an emperor of inferior ability. The imperial title and ensigns were now conferred on a puppet named Severus, who served as a convenient screen, behind which Count Ricimer concealed the authority which he himself really wielded. But Severus dying at the end oi four years, A.D. 465, Ricimer at length felt himself sufficiently strong to take openly the sole and entire direction of the affairs ANCIENT HISTORY 469 of Italy. He respected Roman prejudices, however, so far as to abstain from the assumption of the imperial name. His position was a difficult one, for the Emperor of the East looked coldly on him, while he was exposed to constant attack from the powerful fleets of Genseric and Marcellinus, the sovereigns of Africa and Dalmatia, and had further to fear the hostility of yEgidius, Roman commander in Gaul, who refused to ac- knowledge his authority. The peril of his situation compelled him, two years after the death of Severus, A.D. 467, to apply for aid to the Eastern emperor, Leo, and to accept the terms on which that prince was willing to succor him. The terms were galling to his pride. Italy was required by Leo to submit to a sovereign of his choice, which fell on Anthemius, a Byzan- tine nobleman of distinction. The establishment of Anthemius as " Emperor of the West " was followed by a serious effort against the terrible Vandals, who were now the enemy from whom Italy suffered the most. Alliance was made between Leo, Anthemius, and Marcellinus ; and while the Dalmatian fleet protected Italy and retook Sar- dinia, two great expeditions were directed by the Eastern em- peror upon Carthage, A.D. 468. One of these, starting from Egypt, attacked Tripoli, surprised the cities of that province, and proceeded along the coast westward. The other, which consisted of 11 13 ships, having on board 100,000 men, was directed upon Cape Bona, about forty miles from Carthage, and should at once have laid siege to the town. But Basiliscus, the commander, allowed himself to be amused by negotiations while the cunning Genseric made preparations for the destruc- tion of the fleet, which he accomplished by means of fire-ships, thus entirely frustrating the attack. The remnant of the expe- dition withdrev/ ; Genseric recovered Sardinia, and shortly afterwards established his pov/er over Sicily, thus obtaining a position from which he menaced Italy more than ever before. But the " Empire," as it was still called, was to be subverted, not by its external, but its internal foes. Though Ricimer had consented to the nomination of Anthemius as emperor, and had bound himself to his cause by accepting his daughter in marriage, 3'et it was not long before discord and jealousy sepa- rated the professed friends. As Anthemius had fixed his court 470 RAWLINSON at Rome, Ricimer retired to Milan, whence he could readily correspond with the barbarians of Spain, Gaul, and Pannonia. Having collected a considerable army, he marched to the gates of Rome, proclaimed Olybrius, the husband of Placidia (young- est daughter of Valentinian III.), emperor, and, forcing his way into the city, slew Anthemius, and established Olybrius upon the throne (July ii, A.D. 472). The Western Empire had now, in the space of sixteen years, experienced the rule of six different sovereigns. In the four years of continued existence which still remained to it, four other " emperors " were about to hold the sceptre. The first of these, Olybrius, retained his authority for little more than three months, ascending the throne, July 11, and dying by a natural death, October 23. The chief event of his reign was the death of Count Ricimer, who expired forty days after his capture of Rome, August 20, leaving the command of his army to his nephew, Gundobad, a Burgundian. Gundobad gave the purple, in A.D. 473, to Glycerins, an obscure soldier; but the Eastern emperor, Leo, interposed for the second time, and assigned the throne to Julius Nepos, the nephew of Marcelli- nus, and his successor in the sovereignty of Dalmatia. Nepos easily prevailed over Glycerins, who exchanged his imperial dignity, A.D. 474, for the bishopric of Salona; but the new emperor was scarcely settled upon the throne, when the bar- barian mercenaries, who were now all-powerful in Italy, re- volted under the patrician Orestes, A.D. 475, and invested with the purple his son, Romulus Augustus, called, by way of con- tempt, " Augustulus." Augustulus, the last of the Western emperors, reigned less than a year (October 31, A.D. 475 to August 23, A.D. 476). The mercenaries, shortly after his ac- cession, demanded one-third of the lands of Italy, and, when their demand was refused, took arms under the command of their German chief, Odoacer, slew Orestes, the Emperor's father, and deprived Augustulus of his sovereignty. The dig- nity of Emperor of the West was then formally abolished ; and Odoacer ascended the throne as the first barbarian " King of Italy." The history of the Western Roman Empire here terminates. The Empire had endured 507 years (B.C. 31 to A.D. 476), ANCIENT HISTORY 471 under seventy-seven princes. Attaining its greatest magnitude in the reign of Trajan, when it extended from the Pillars of Hercules and the Friths of Forth and Clyde to the Caspian and the Persian Gulf, it had gradually broken up and con- tracted its limits, until it had come to be almost confmed to Italy. Its ruin had been caused partly by internal decay, but mainly through the repeated invasions of vast hordes of bar- barians. Goths, Vandals, Huns, Burgundians, Suevi, Alani, Alemanni, Franks, Heruli had precipitated themselves in a ceaseless succession on the regions which Roman civilization had turned into gardens, and poured in a resistless torrent over province after province. The force of the attack fell mainly upon the West. After the first rush of the Goths across the Lower Danube, in the time of Valens, the tide of migration took wholly a westerly course. Pannonia, Spain, Africa, most of Gaul, were occupied by the invaders. Italy attracted each more powerful spoiler, and host after host desolated its fertile plains. Rome herself was taken repeatedly, and was sacked twice, by Alaric and by Genseric. She felt that she needed all her resources for her own defence, and was therefore obliged to relinquish such outlying provinces as no foe had captured. Hence, Britain, parts of Gaul, Vindelicia, and probably Rhgetia, were abandoned: Pannonia, Noricum, and Dalmatia were parted with ; at last, nothing remained but Italy ; and Italy could not undertake to defend herself. Her rulers had long ceased to put any trust in Italian soldiers, and had drawn their recruits from the outlying provinces rather than from the heart of the empire. Finally, they had thought it excellent strategy to take the barbarians themselves into pay, and to fight Huns with Goths, and Goths with Burgundians or Vandals. But this policy at last proved fatal. The barbarians, perceiving their strength, determined to exert it, and to have Italy for them- selves. It was more pleasant to be masters than servants. The imperial power had in fact been long existing upon sufferance ; the edifice was without due support, and it only needed the touch of a finger to make it fall. What Odoacer did, Ricimer might have done with as much ease ; but the facility of an enterprise is not always apparent beforehand. PART II.— HISTORY OF PARTHIA. GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE OF THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE. The Parthian Empire at its greatest extent comprised the countries between the Euphrates and the Indus, reaching northward as far as the Araxes, the Caspian, and the Lower Oxus, and southward to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. It thus covered, in the main, the same ground with the Persian empire of Cyrus and with the original kingdom of the Seleucidse ; but it was less extensive than either of those great monarchies. It did not include Syria, or Phoenicia, or Palestine, or Armenia, or any portion of Asia Minor, nor does it seem to have comprised the valley of the Upper Oxus, much less that of the Jaxartes. Its greatest length, between the Eu- phrates and the Indus, may be estimated at about one thousand nine hundred miles, while its greatest width, between the Lower Oxus and the Indian Ocean, may have equalled, or a little exceeded, a thousand miles. Its area cannot have fallen much short of a million square miles. But of this vast space a very large proportion was scarcely habitable. The Mesopotamian, Persian, Kharesmian, Gedro- sian, and Carmanian deserts occupy at least one-half of the region between the Euphrates and the Indus ; and, though not absolutely incapable of supporting human life, these tracts can at the best sustain a very sparse and scanty population. Such possessions add but little to the strength of the empire which comprises them, and thus may be omitted from consideration when we seek to form an estimate of its power and resources. About half a million square miles remain when we have de- ducted the deserts; an area only one-third of that of Rome, but still very much larger than that of any modern European state excepting Russia. 472 ANCIENT HISTORY 473 The Parthian Empire was, Hkc most others, divided into provinces. Of these the most important were, in the west, Mesopotamia and Babylonia ; in the mid-region, Atropatene, Media, Assyria, Susiana, and Persia; towards the east, Par- thyene or Parthia Proper, Hyrcania, Margiana, Aria, Zarangia, Carmania, Sacastane, Arachosia, and Gedrosia. Other minor divisions were Chalonitis, Cambadene, Mesene, Rhagiana, Choarene, Comisene, Artacene, Apavarcticene, etc. It wiU be observed that the main provinces were for the most part iden- tical, in name at any rate, with provinces of the old Persian Empire, already described in this work. As, however, even in provinces of this class certain changes have often to be noted in respect of boundaries, or principal towns, it seems best to run briefly through the entire list. Mesopotamia. — The name of Mesopotamia was applied by the Parthians, not to the w^hole region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but only to the upper portion of it — the tract boimded on the north by the Mons Masius, and on the south by a canal uniting the two streams a little above the 33d parallel. Its chief cities were Anthemusia, Nicephorium, Carrhae, Euro- pus, Nisibis, and Hatra. Babylonia lay below Mesopotamia, extending to the conflu- ence of the Euphrates and Tigris, and including a tract of considerable size and importance on the right bank of the former river. Its chief towns were Seleuceia on the Tigris, Babylon, Borsippa, and Vologesia. Mesene, called also Characene, was the tract below Baby- lonia, reaching to the shores of the Persian Gulf. Its capital was Charax Spasini, at the confluence, probably, of the Kuran with the Euphrates. The only other city of any importance was Teredon or Diridotis, on the Gulf, at the mouth of the Euphrates. Mesene was famous for its thick groves of palm- trees. Susiana had nearly its old boundaries and dimensions. Its chief cities were Susa and Badaca. Assyria, according to the nomenclature of the Parthian period, designated a tract which lay wholly to the east of the Tigris, extending from Armenia on the north to Susiana on the south, and interposed between Mesopotamia and Media 474 RAWLINSON Magna. It was divided into numerous districts, among which the most important were Cordyene (the country of the Kurds) in the north, Adiabene, the tract about the two Zab rivers, ArbeHtis, the region about Arbela, Chalonitis, the country about Hohvan, and Apolloniatis or Sittacene, the tract upon the lower course of the Diyaleh river. In this district was situated Ctesiphon, the capital of the whole empire. Other important towns were Arbela, the capital of Arbelitis, Apol- lonia, the old capital of Apolloniatis, and Artemita, in the same region, which became under the Parthians, Chalasar. Atropatene lay between the northern part of Assyria (Cor- dyene) and the western shore of the Caspian, thus correspond- ing nearly to the modern Azerbijan. Its chief city was Gaza or Gazaca (afterwards Canzaca), now Tahkt-i-Suleiman. Atro- patene was not so absolutely a part of the Parthian Empire as most of the other provinces. It was a fief over which the Parthian monarch claimed a sort of feudal supremacy ; but was governed by its own princes, who were sometimes not even appointed by the Parthian king. Media lay south and south-east of Atropatene, extending from the Kizil Uzen and the Caspian on the north, to about the 32d parallel towards the south, where it adjoined on Susiana and Persia. It contained several districts, of which the chief were Media Inferior, Media Superior, Cambadene, and Rha- giana. The chief towns were Ecbatana (now Hamadan), Ba- gistana (Behistun), Concobar (Kungawur), Aspadana (Isfa- han), Rhages or Europus (Kaleh Erij), and Charax. Persia, like Susiana, retained its old dimensions and boun- daries, except that it had ceased to be regarded as comprising Carmania, which was reckoned a distinct country. After the destruction of Persepolis by Alexander, Pasargadge seems to have been the chief city. Carmania adjoined Persia upon the east. It extended from the Persian Gulf to about the 33d parallel, thus including a large portion of the desert of Iran. The chief town was Car- mana (now Kerman). Parthyene, or Parthia Proper, lay north of Carmania and west of Media Magna. It comprised the old country of the name, together with most of the desert which in early times ANCIENT HISTORY 47^ was known as Sagartia. Among its subdivisions were Choa- rene, Comisene, Artacene, Tabiene, etc. The capital city was Hecatompylus. Other important towns were Apamcia iu Choarene, near the Caspian Gates, and Parthaunisa, or Nisse^ (Nishapur). Hyrcania was north of Parthia, being the tract at the south- eastern corner of the Caspian, along the course of the river Gurgan. Its chief cities were Syrinx, Tape, on the shore of the Caspian, Carta (perhaps the earUer Zadracarta), Talabroce, and Samariane. Margiana was situated east and north-east of Parthia and Hyrcania, in the low plain between the Elburz range and the Sea of Aral. It lay along the course of the river Margus (now the Murg-ab). The only city in Parthian times was Anti- ocheia (Merv?). Aria included the district which bore the same name under the Persians, but comprised also the tract between Herat and the Hamoon or Sea of Seistan. Its chief city was Artacoana (Herat). Other towns of some consequence were Phra (Fur- rah), Gari (Girisk), and Bis (Bist). Zarangia, or Drangiana, had come to be used in a narrower acceptation than the ancient one. It was now only a small tract close upon the Hamoon, the district upon the Haroot- rud and Furrah-rud being reckoned to Aria, and that on the Lower Helmend being separated off, and forming the new province of Sacastane. The chief town of Zarangia was Proph- thasia. Sacastane lay south of Zarangia, corresponding to the Seges- tan of the Arabian geographers, which is now know as Seistan. Its chief cities were Sigal and Alexandropolis. Sacastane (i. e., the land of Sacae) had probably been occupied by a colony of Scyths in the interval between Alexander's conquests and the formation of the Parthian Empire. Arachosia (or " White India," as the Parthians called it) seems to have been identical with the country known by the same name to the Persians. It lay east of Sacastane, and cor- responded nearly with the modern Kandahar. The capital was Alexandropolis, on the Arachotus (Arghand-ab). Its other chief cities were Demetrias, Pharsana, and Parabeste. 476 RAWLINSON Gedrosia retained in the main its ancient limits, which were nearly those of the modern Beluchistan. It was, however, perhaps somewhat encroached upon towards the north by Sacastane. The province lay south of this tract and of Ara- chosia and east of Carmania. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE. FIRST PERIOD. From the Foundation of the Kingdom, about B.C. 255, to the Creation of the Empire by Mithridates or Arsaces VI., about B.C. 174.* Parthia, which, in the earlier times of the Persian monarchy, formed a portion only of a large satrapy extending from the * Sources. The sources for the history of Parthia are scanty and scattered. Of native sources, we possess only a very incomplete series of coins, generally without dates and without the special name of the king; and a few mutilated inscriptions. No classical author, so far as we know, ever treated of the history of Parthia as a whole; and few ever made Parthian history, in any of its portions, even a special subject of attention. Arrian's " Parthica " was a mere account of the Parthian War of Trajan, written from a Roman point of view; and of this work there only remain about twenty short fragments. (See the fragments collected in C. Miiller's " Fragmenta Hist. Graecorum," vol. iii., pp. 586-591.) Strabo's account of the Parthian manners and cus- toms in the sixth book of his " Historical Memoirs," and the second book of his " Continuation of Polybius." would have been most inter- esting; but these works have wholly perished. The extant writer who tells us most about the Parthians is Justin; but this careless his- torian has most imperfectly reported his authority, Trogus Pompeius, and needs perpetual correction. For the earlier history we are reduced to scattered notices in Strabo, Arrian, Justin, Polybius, Lucian, and Phlegon of Tralles; for the middle portion, from the time of Phraates III. to Vonones I., we have Appian in his " Mithridatica " and " Syriaca," Justin, Plutarch in his " Lives " of Lucullus, Pompey, Crassus, and Antony, Josephus in his " Antiquitates Judaicas," and Dio Cassius (bks. xxxv., Iv.) ; for the later history, from Vonones to the de- struction of the monarchy, our authorities are Tacitus in his " Annals." Josephus, Suetonius, Herodian, the " Historiae Augustse Scriptores," and, above all, Dio (bks. Ivi.-lxxviii.). ANCIENT HISTORY 477 Iranic desert to the Jaxartes, and from the Caspian to Samar- cand, appears towards the close of the Persian period to have constituted a satrapy by itself (or with the mere addition of Hyrcania), in which condition it was continued by the suc- cessors of Alexander. Tranquillity was preserved till about B.C. 255, when the weakness of Antiochus Theus, and the success of the Bactrian rebellion, encouraged the Parthians to rise against their Greek masters, and to declare themselves an independent people. Their leader in the revolt was a certain Arsaces. This person was the commander of a body of Scy- thian Dahae from the banks of the Ochus, who migrated into Parthia, and obtaining the ascendency in the country, raised their general to the position of king. There was, probably, sufficient affinity between the immigrant Dahae and the pre- vious inhabitants of the region for the two races readily to coalesce ; both appear to have been Turanian ; and the Dahae were so completely absorbed that we hear nothing of them in the subsequent history. The names of " Parthia " and " Par- thian " prevailed ; and the whole nation presents to us one uniform type. This type is one of a low and coarse character. The man- ners of the Parthians, even at the height of their power, had a tinge of Tatar barbarism. Their mimetic art was rude, com- pared, not only with that of the Greeks, but even of the Per- sians. In their architecture they imitated the heavy and mas- sive constructions of the Babylonians. Their appearance was repulsive. They were treacherous in war, indolent and unre- fined in peace. Still they possessed qualities which fitted them to become a ruling nation. They were brave, enterprising, and fond of war ; while they had also a certain talent for organ- ization and administration. They are not ill-represented by the modern Turks, who are allied to them in race, and rule over some of the same countries. Arsaces, the first king, reigned, we are told, only two years, probably from B.C. 255 to 253. He occupied himself chiefly in consolidating his dominion over the Parthians themselves, many of whom resisted his authority. Antiochus Theus, whose rule he had subverted, seems to have made no efifort to recover his hold on Parthia, being too much engaged in his war with 478 RAWLINSON Ptolemy Philadelphus. Arsaces, however, appears to have fallen in battle. The first Arsaces was succeeded by his brother, Teridates, who had assisted him in his original revolt. He took the title of Arsaces after his brother's death; and the practice thus begun passed into a custom, which continued to the very close of the empire. Teridates, or Arsaces II., reigned thirty-seven years, from B.C. 253 to 216. He made himself master of Hyr- cania, probably about B.C. 240, thereby drawing upon himself the hostility both of Seleucus Callinicus, whom he deprived of a province, and of Diodotus I. of Bactria, who became alarmed at the increasing power of his neighbor. Callinicus and Di- odotus, accordingly, made common cause ; and the former led an expedition against Teridates, B.C. 237, which alarmed him so that at first he fled from Parthia into Scythia. Diodotus I., however, dying and being succeeded by his son, Diodotus II., Teridates found a means of breaking up the alliance, and drew over the Bactrian prince to his side. A great battle followed ; and, Callinicus being signally defeated, Parthian independence was regarded as at length fully established. Teridates was succeeded by a son, whose real name is un- known, but who reigned as Arsaces HI. Pursuing the ag- gressive policy of his father, he overran Eastern Media, and threatened to conquer the entire province, about B.C. 214. Antiochus the Great, upon this, marched against him (B.C. 213), drove his troops from Media, took his capital, Hecatom- pylus, and pursuing him into Hyrcania, there brought him to an engagement, the issue of which was doubtful. Arsaces greatly distinguished himself ; and the Syrian monarch, finding the conquest of the new kingdom impossible, came to terms with his foe, confirming him in the possession of both Parthia and Hyrcania, but probably requiring him to furnish a con- tingent to his projected Eastern expedition, B.C. 206. It is un- certain how long Arsaces HI. lived after this; but the best authorities assign him a reign of about twenty years — from B.C. 216 to 196. Priapatius (Arsaces IV.) now became king, and reigned for fifteen years— from about B.C. 196 to 181. He appears to have been an unwarlike prince, and to have been content with ANCIENT HISTORY 479 maintaining, without any attempt to extend, his dominions. The Bactrian monarchs of this period were aggressive and powerful, which may in part account for this pause in the Parthian conquests. Priapatius left two sons, Phraatcs and Mithridates, the former of whom succeeded him. Phraates I. (Arsaces V.) had a short reign, probably from about B.C. 181 to 174. Nothing is known of him excepting that he extended his dominions by the conquest of the Mardi, one of the most powerful tribes of the Elburz, and, though he had many children, left his crown to his brother, Mithridates, whom he regarded as peculiarly fitted for the kingly office. Mithridates justified this opinion by the extensive conquests of which an account will be given in the next section. He transformed the small kingdom which he received from Phraa- tes into a vast and flourishing empire, and established the gov- ernmental system on which that empire was thenceforth ad- ministered. SECOND PERIOD. From the Foundation of the Empire by Mithridates I., about B.C. 174, to the Commencement of the Wars with the Romans, B.C. 54. The Parthian dominion had hitherto been confined to a com- paratively narrow territory between the Caspian Gates on the one hand and the districts of Aria (Herat) and Margiana (Merv) upon the other. The neighboring Bactria, with its Greek princes and its semi-Greek civilization, had been a far more powerful state, and had probably acted as a constant check upon the aspirations of its weaker sister. Conscious of their weak- ness, the Parthian monarchs had cultivated good relations with the Bactrians ; and, so far as appears, no war had hitherto broken out between the conterminous powers. But with the accession of Mithridates I. (Arsaces VI.) this state of things came to an end. The Bactrian princes were about this time directing their arms towards the East, bent on establishing their authority in Afghanistan and North-western India. It would seem that while their main strength was employed in this quarter, the provinces nearer home were left without adequate defence, and 4So RAWLINSON tempted the cupidity of the Parthians. Mithndates I., who was contemporary with Eucratides of Bactria, began aggres- sions on the Bactrian kingdom, probably soon after his acces- sion. Success attended his efforts, and he deprived Eucratides of at least two provinces. A few years later, on the death of Antiochus Epiphanes, B.C. 164, he turned his arms against the West. After a protracted struggle, he succeeded in reduc- ing Media to obedience. He then conquered Susiana, Persia, and Babylonia, extending his dominion on this side as far as the lower course of the Euphrates. Nor did these gains content him. After the death of Eucratides (about B.C. 160), he re- sumed his war with the Bactrians, and completely destroyed their kingdom. In vain did these unfortunately isolated Greeks implore the help of their Syrian brethren. Demetrius Nicator, who in B.C. 140 endeavored to relieve them, was defeated and made prisoner by Mithridates, who retained him in captivity till his own death, about B.C. 136. The satrapial system, which had been introduced by the Persians, and continued by Alexander and his successors, was not that adopted by Mithridates in the organization of his empire. On the contrary, he reverted to the older and simpler plan, which prevailed in the East before the rise of the Persians to power. This was to allow each nation to have its own native king, its own laws and usages, and simply to require the subjection of all these monarchs to the chief of the ruling nation as lord paramount, or feudal head. Hence the title " King of Kings," so common on the Parthian coins from the time of Mithridates. Each " king " was bound to furnish a contingent of troops when required, and likewise an annual tribute ; but otherwise they were independent. The constitution under which the Parthians themselves were ruled was a kind of limited monarchy. The king was perma- nently advised by two councils, one consisting of the members of his own royal house, the other of the great men (fieyiaTo.ve'i), comprising both the temporal and spiritual chiefs of the nation (the ao(^ol and the fid