satisfied with preserving those dominions which had been acquired by the policy of the senate, the active emulation of the consuls, and the martial enthusiasm of the people. The seven first centuries were filled with a rapid succession of triumphs; but it was reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious design of subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation into the public councils. Inclined to peace by his temper and situation, it was easy for him to discover that Rome, in her present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote wars, the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event more doubtful, and the possession more precarious and less beneficial. The experience of Augustus added weight to these salutary reflections, and effectually convinced him that, by the prudent vigour of his counsels, it would be easy to secure every concession which the safety or the dignity of Rome might require from the most formidable barbarians. Instead of exposing his person and his legions to the arrows of the Parthians, he obtained, by an honourable treaty, the restitution of the standards and prisoners which had been taken in the defeat of Crassus.1 His generals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the reduction of Æthiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a thousand miles to the south of the tropic; but the heat of the climate soon repelled the invaders and protected the unwarlike natives of those sequestered regions.2 The northern countries of Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labour of conquest. The forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from freedom; and though, on the first attack, 1 Dion Cassius (1. liv. p. 736 [8]) with the annotations of Reimar, who has collected all that Roman vanity has left upon the subject. The marble of Ancyra, on which Augustus recorded his own exploits, asserts that he compelled the Parthians to restore the ensigns of Crassus. [For the Monumentum Ancyranum see Mommsen's splendid edition. He regards it as intended to be a summary of the Emperor's political aims. Other critics (e.g. Hirschfeld and Gardthausen) explain it as a political testament.] 2Strabo (1. xvi. p. 780), Pliny the elder (Hist. Natur. 1. vi. 32, 35 [28, 29]) and Dion Cassius (1. liii. p. 723 [29], and 1. liv. p. 734 [6] have left us very curious details concerning these wars. The Romans made themselves masters of Mariaba, or Merab, a city of Arabia Felix, well known to the Orientals (see Abulfeda and the Nubian geography, p. 52). They were arrived within three days' journey of the Spice country, the rich object of their invasion. [See Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, v. p. 608 sqq.] they seemed to yield to the weight of the Roman power, they soon, by a signal act of despair, regained their independence, and reminded Augustus of the vicissitude of fortune.3 On the death of that emperor his testament was publicly read in the senate. He bequeathed, as a valuable legacy to his successors, the advice of confining the empire within those limits which nature seemed to have placed as its permanent bulwarks and boundaries: on the west the Atlantic ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the north; the Euphrates on the east; and towards the south the sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa.1 by his suc Happily for the repose of mankind, the moderate system Imitated recommended by the wisdom of Augustus was adopted by the cessors fears and vices of his immediate successors. Engaged in the pursuit of pleasure or in the exercise of tyranny, the first Cæsars seldom showed themselves to the armies, or to the provinces; nor were they disposed to suffer that those triumphs which their indolence neglected should be usurped by the conduct and valour of their lieutenants. The military fame of a subject was considered as an insolent invasion of the Imperial prerogative; and it became the duty, as well as interest, of every Roman general, to guard the frontiers intrusted to his care, without aspiring to conquests which might have proved no less fatal to himself than to the vanquished barbarians.5 of Britain first excep The only accession which the Roman empire received during Conquest the first century of the Christian æra was the province of was the Britain. In this single instance the successors of Cæsar and tion to it Augustus were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter. The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seemed to invite their arms; the pleasing, though doubtful, intelligence of a pearl fishery attracted their avarice; and as Britain was viewed in the 6 3 By the slaughter of Varus and his three legions. See the first book of the Annals of Tacitus. Sueton. in August. c. 23, and Velleius Paterculus, 1. ii. c. 117, &c. Augustus did not receive the melancholy news with all the temper and firmness that might have been expected from his character. 4 Tacit. Annal. 1. ii. [i. 11]. Dion Cassius, 1. lvi. p. 832 [33], and the speech of Augustus himself, in Julian's Cæsars. It receives great light from the learned notes of his French translator, M. Spanheim. 5 Germanicus, Suetonius Paulinus, and Agricola were checked and recalled in the course of their victories. Corbulo was put to death. Military merit, as it is admirably expressed by Tacitus, was, in the strictest sense of the word, imperatoria virtus. 6 Cæsar himself conceals that ignoble motive; but it is mentioned by Suetonius, c. 47. The British pearls proved, however, of little value, on account of light of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any exception to the general system of continental measures. After a war of about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid,' maintained by the most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke. The various tribes of Britons possessed valour without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage fierceness, they laid them down, or turned them against each other, with wild inconstancy; and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued. Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of Boadicea, nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of their country, or resist the steady progress of the Imperial generals, who maintained the national glory, when the throne was disgraced by the weakest or the most vicious of mankind. At the very time when Domitian, confined to his palace, felt the terrors which he inspired, his legions, under the command of the virtuous Agricola, defeated the collected force of the Caledonians at the foot of the Grampian hills; and his fleets, venturing to explore an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the Roman arms round every part of the island. The conquest of Britain was considered as already achieved; and it was the design of Agricola to complete and ensure his success by the easy reduction of Ireland, for which, in his opinion, one legion and a few auxiliaries were sufficient.10 western isle might be improved into a valuable possession, and The their dark and livid colour. Tacitus observes, with reason (in Agricola, c. 12), that it was an inherent defect. 66 Ego facilius crediderim, naturam margaritis deesse quam nobis avaritiam." 7 Claudius, Nero, and Domitian. A hope is expressed by Pomponius Mela, 1. iii. c. 6 (he wrote under Claudius), that, by the success of the Roman arms, the island and its savage inhabitants would soon be better known. It is amusing enough to peruse such passages in the midst of London. 8 See the admirable abridgment, given by Tacitus, in the Life of Agricola, and copiously, though perhaps not completely, illustrated by our own antiquarians, Camden and Horsley. "[There is no good ground for the identification of mons Graupius with the Grampian hills. The date of the battle was 84 or 85 A.D.; the place is quite uncertain.] 10 The Irish writers, jealous of their national honour, are extremely provoked on this occasion, both with Tacitus and with Agricola. [Agricola's design was not carried out because Domitian refused to send the additional legion. Compare Mr. Haverfield's criticism on an attempt by Professor Gudeman to explain Tac. Agr. 24 as a record of an actual invasion of Ireland, Classical Review, 13, 302-3, and an unsuccessful reply by Professor Gudeman, ib., 14, 51-3.] the Britons would wear their chains with the less reluctance, if the prospect and example of freedom was on every side removed from before their eyes. But the superior merit of Agricola soon occasioned his removal from the government of Britain; and for ever disappointed this rational, though extensive, scheme of conquest. Before his departure the prudent general had provided for security as well as for dominion. He had observed that the island is almost divided into two unequal parts by the opposite gulfs or, as they are now called, the Friths of Scotland. Across the narrow interval of about forty miles he had drawn a line of military stations, which was afterwards fortified, in the reign of Antoninus Pius, by a turf rampart, erected on foundations of stone." This wall of Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the modern cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, was fixed as the limit of the Roman province. The native Caledonians preserved, in the northern extremity of the island, their wild independence, for which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their valour. Their incursions were frequently repelled and chastised; but their country was never subdued.12 The masters of the fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with contempt from gloomy hills assailed by the winter tempest, from lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths, over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked barbarians.13 of Dacia; exception 106] Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and such the Conquest maxims of Imperial policy, from the death of Augustus to the the second accession of Trajan. That virtuous and active prince had re- [A.D. 101ceived the education of a soldier, and possessed the talents of a general.14 The peaceful system of his predecessors was interrupted by scenes of war and conquest; and the legions, after a long interval, beheld a military emperor at their head. 11 See Horsley's Britannia Romana, l. i. c. 10. 12 The poet Buchanan celebrates, with elegance and spirit (see his Sylvæ, v.), the unviolated independence of his native country. But, if the single testimony of Richard of Cirencester was sufficient to create a Roman province of Vespasiana to the north of the wall, that independence would be reduced within very narrow limits. ["Richard of Cirencester" and his work were a fabrication of Gibbon's contemporary, Charles Bertram (1723-1765), who imposed upon the antiquarian William Stukeley.] 13 See Appian (in Prooem. [5]) and the uniform imagery of Ossian's poems, which, according to every hypothesis, were composed by a native Caledonian. 14 See Pliny's Panegyric, which seems founded on facts. [As to the question how far Britain was Romanised, see Haverfield, The Romanization of Roman Britain, 1906.] Conquests of Trajan The first exploits of Trajan were against the Dacians, the 17 Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind in the east shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters. The praises of Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians, had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan. Like him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition against the nations of the east, but he lamented with a sigh that his advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of 15 Dion Cassius, 1. lxvii. [6 et sqq.]. 16 Herodotus, l. iv. c. 94. Julian in the Cæsars, with Spanheim's observations. 17 Plin. Epist. viii. 9. 18 Dion Cassius, 1. lxviii. p. 1123, 1131 [6 and 14]. Julian. in Cæsaribus, Eutropius, viii. 2, 6. Aurelius Victor in Epitome. [See Appendix 2.] 19 See a Memoir of M. d'Anville, on the Province of Dacia, in the Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 444-468. [The region east of the Aluta, corresponding to the modern Walachia, was not included in Dacia, but went with the province of Lower Mosia. See Domaszewski, Epigr. Mittheilungen, xiii. p. 137. The limits followed the line of the Carpathians in the south-east and east, excluding Walachia and Moldavia. Cp. the map of Dacia in C. I. L. iii., Suppl. ii. (1902).] |