The chief work of Rome in the world, as has often been said in this little book, was the defence of Mediterranean civilisation against external enemies. That work was of a double nature. It could not be done simply by marking out and holding lines of frontier; it was also necessary so to organise the Empire within its frontiers that the whole should contribute to the common object, with men, money and public spirit. The last two chapters will have shown that from the time of Julius and Augustus Roman rulers fully recognised this twofold nature of their task. Augustus in particular, while gradually settling the frontiers on a system well thought out, and adapted to his means and experience, also spent much time and pains on internal organisation. He found the Empire a loose collection of subject territories, each governed, well or ill as it might happen, by an officer almost independent of the central authority; he left it, at the end of his long life, in the way of becoming a well-compacted whole, in which every part felt more or less the force of a just central government; a civilised State “standing out in clear relief against the surrounding barbarism.”

In such an empire there must, of course, be differences of race and language—differences, too, of habits, feelings, modes of thought; but under just and wise rule such differences need be no hindrance to the political unity of the whole. There is a book of this period, within the reach of every one, which illustrates better than any other this unity in diversity of the Roman Empire—I mean the Acts of the Apostles. It should be studied carefully, with maps and such other helps as may be available, down to the last chapter, where it leaves St. Paul at Rome, living in his own hired house, in the centre of Mediterranean life and government.

Under the immediate successors of Augustus, Tiberius, Claudius and Nero, his policy was, on the whole, maintained with good faith and discretion; and at the close of the first century A.D. Vespasian and his two sons, Titus and Domitian, did little more than improve the working of the machinery of his government. More and more, it is true, the constitution became a real monarchy; the part played in it by the Senate of the free State was getting steadily narrowed; but this was all in the interest of efficiency, and, so far as we can see, it was necessary to the internal development of the Empire. The CÆsars of the first century must have the credit of ruling wisely, with the help of their advisers, on the Augustan principles. True, the great literary genius of the age, the historian Tacitus, by drawing brilliant and lurid portraits of some of them, has diverted our attention from their work as agents of a great system; but to tell their story as Tacitus has told it is neither possible nor necessary here. I may pass them over and go on to the second century and the age of the Antonines, which has rightly been judged by historians to be the most brilliant and the happiest in all Roman history.

That four men of what seems to us “right judgment in all things” should succeed each other in power at this critical time, is one more example of the wonderful good fortune of Rome. All were men of capacity and education, hard workers and conscientious, and they seem to have communicated their good qualities to their subordinates, for they never wanted for loyal helpers. The Senate, indeed, was now of little avail for actual work, and the greater part of the business had long been done by CÆsar[17] and his own “servants,” freedmen for the most part, often ambitious and unscrupulous Greeks; but in this period, as we shall see directly, the civil service, as we may call it, was placed on a sound and honourable basis. It would seem as if the ideas of duty and discipline were once more to prevail throughout the Roman official world.

The first of the four rulers, Ulpius Trajanus, known to us all as Trajan, was not of Roman or even Italian birth, but came from the province of further Spain: a fact which marks the growth of the idea that every part of the Empire may now be turned to account for the common good. Trajan was a soldier by breeding and disposition, and his contribution to the work of this period was mainly a military one. The frontier along the Danube, the last (as we have seen) to be settled, had always been the weakest; and yet here henceforward was to be the most dangerous point in the Empire’s line of defence. Along the whole length of the lower Danube a great mass of barbarian tribes was already pressing, pressed themselves from behind by others to north and east. And here, to the north of the river, a great kingdom had been founded by a king of the Dacian people, which corresponds roughly with the modern Roumania. A glance at a map of the Empire will show that such a kingdom would be a standing menace to Italy, to Greece, and even to the peninsula of Asia Minor, and from the Roman point of view Trajan was quite justified in his determination to conquer and annex it. He carried out this policy in two successive wars, with consummate daring and skill. Dacia became a Roman province, and lasted as such long enough (about 200 years) to be an effectual help to imperial defence in this quarter. The story of the two wars is told in the marvellous series of sculptures forming a spiral round the column of Trajan, which stood and still stands at Rome in the forum built by him and called by his name.

Towards the end of his life Trajan embarked on a new policy in the East, and failed to carry it out. The shrewd Augustus, as we saw, had trusted here to his prestige, knowing that war in this region was both perilous and expensive. Since then both peril and expense had been incurred here under Nero, and no definite results had been gained. Trajan, however, provoked by a move of the Parthian king, made up his mind to seize Armenia, the old bone of contention between Rome and Parthia, and not only did this, but added by conquest two other provinces, Mesopotamia and Assyria. Some historians have thought his judgment as good here as it was on the Danube. The best way of deciding the question is to look carefully at a map of the Empire and then to ask oneself whether these territories were really needed for the protection of Mediterranean civilisation. For myself I unhesitatingly answer in the negative; but there is no need to dispute the point here, as Trajan died before he had made his conquests secure. The Jews dispersed all over these regions, urged by their implacable hatred of Rome, stirred up rebellion in Trajan’s rear with alarming ferocity, and in the middle of this turmoil he died on his way back to Rome. His successor Hadrian at once renounced any attempt to keep the new provinces.

It would be unjust to the memory of a great man if we were to think of Trajan as a soldier only. He was a strenuous man, unsparing of himself in any part of his duty. He pursued a policy of public benefit in Italy, striving, like Augustus, to encourage agriculture and population, and carrying out a plan of his predecessor Nerva for providing a fund for the education of poor children. This last institution became an important one, and shows well how really benevolent—perhaps even to excess—how anxious for the well-being of Italy, were the CÆsars of the second century. Money was lent by the State to the Italian farmers in need of it, and the interest, at five per cent., was appropriated to the education of boys up to eighteen and girls up to fourteen years of age.

Trajan bestowed the same minute care on the provinces. In most of these there was no trouble, but in one case, Bithynia, which had been under Senatorial governors, he had to send out a special commissioner to repair neglect and mischief. Luckily for us it happened that this commissioner was Pliny the younger, nephew of the great encyclopÆdist of the same name; and Pliny was so prominent a figure of the time that his correspondence has been preserved. That part of it which contains his letters to Trajan, and Trajan’s brief and pithy answers, is one of the most precious treasures that have survived from ancient literature. Pliny consults him on a variety of details, some of them almost ludicrously petty, some of them of general importance, such as a famous one about his policy towards the Christians; and the answers show us Trajan as a shrewd and sensible man, fully aware that in such a unity as the Roman Empire there must needs be diversity, and that governors must learn to adapt themselves to such diversity without losing hold of the principles of justice and equity. Before we leave this subject it may be as well to mention that this constant interchange of letters between persons more than a thousand miles apart need astonish no one. In the interest of imperialism the public posts had been thoroughly organised by Augustus; the roads were excellent, the shipping well seen to, and travelling was at least as easy and rapid as it was in England less than a century ago.

Trajan’s strong and rather rugged features, familiar to all students of the Empire, are in striking contrast to those of his three successors. He was clean shaven, but his next successor, Hadrian, introduced the practice of wearing his beard, and this was adhered to. All the imperial portraits of this age, as preserved on coins and sculptures, are perfectly authentic, and the likenesses are consistent. In the British Museum the reader may see the features of these great CÆsars as faithfully reproduced as those of British statesmen in the National Portrait Gallery.

Trajan was succeeded by his cousin Hadrian, beyond doubt one of the most capable and efficient men who ever wielded great power. No one can study his reign without feeling that it was better in this age, if an efficient man could be found, that his hand alone should be on the helm. Probably Hadrian was only one of many who might have done as well as he did, for there was now a spirit abroad of intelligent industry directed to the good of the State; yet it is almost certain that the Empire was the better for not having the sovereignty put into commission. It has been well said of Hadrian that he desired “to see himself all that was to be seen, to know all that was to be known, to do all that was to be done”; and subsequent events proved that this intelligent industry could hardly have been carried all through the imperial work with equal effect, had it been shared with others.

Hadrian accomplished his work by two long periods of travel, each lasting some four years. Without any pomp or state he made himself acquainted with all parts of the Empire and their needs, as no ruler had done since Augustus and Agrippa shared such a task between them. The more immediate object was to inspect the frontiers and secure them, and as Hadrian was a trained soldier, with much experience under Trajan, this was to him familiar work. But he was so full of curiosity, so anxious to see all that the Empire had to show him, that while he practised his indefatigable industry he could also gratify his intelligence. In this he was more like Julius CÆsar than any other Roman we know of, though in most traits of character he was very different from that great man. It is not possible here to describe Hadrian’s frontier work in detail, but a specimen of it shall be given which should be interesting to British readers.

Britain had been invaded by Claudius in the previous century, and the southern part of the island had been made into a Roman province. Since then the frontier had been pushed farther north, and the frontier strongholds were no longer Colchester and Gloucester, but Lincoln, Chester and York. Hadrian spent several months here in the course of his first journey, and his visit had a remarkable result which we can see with our eyes at this moment. He must have noted two facts: first, the unsettled and rebellious condition of the natives of Yorkshire and Northumberland (Brigantes): and secondly, the narrow waist of the island between the Solway Firth and the mouth of the Tyne. He must have reasoned that if Roman forces could be permanently established on a fortified line between the two seas, this line would serve as a check on the Brigantes, and also as a base of operations for further advance northwards.

Thus it is that “Hadrian’s wall” remains as the most striking of all Roman works in our island. It is about seventy miles long, and consisted eventually (for we cannot be sure that it was completed by Hadrian) of a stone wall on the northern side, twenty feet high, an earthen rampart on the southern side, and a military road between them. At intervals there were fortified stations, seventeen in all, including the two which connected the lines with the sea; of these two the eastern one, near Newcastle, now famous for its collieries, is still known as Wallsend. The wall enabled the Romans to advance northwards, and soon another fortification was built on a smaller scale between the Forth and Clyde, about which a large volume has just been published by Dr. G. Macdonald, of Edinburgh. The conquest of the Highlands was never, indeed, carried out; but Hadrian’s great work had an immense moral effect on the population to the south of it, and Britain became very substantially Romanised. Towns and country houses (villÆ) sprang up in abundance along or near the military roads. As I write these lines in North Oxfordshire, I have the remains of several of these villÆ within easy reach, and can visit, each in a day, at least four considerable Roman towns, viz. Cirencester, Gloucester, Silchester (Calleva), and last, but not least, Bath (AquÆ Sulis), where the Romans found and used, as they always did in such spots, the magnificent hot springs, building noble baths about them which may be seen to this day.

Hadrian’s care for the good working of the civil government was as great as his zeal for frontier defence. Two forward steps were taken by him in this department, both of which helped on that consolidation of the Empire which was his constant aim.

First, he organised and dignified the Civil Service, on which the actual good working of the whole system depended. CÆsar’s share in this work had steadily been increasing while that of the Senate diminished; yet CÆsar had so far done his part, as we saw just now, with the help only of his own personal “servants,” who were mostly freedmen, i.e. slaves by origin, and many of them Greeks. Hadrian now established a public imperial civil service, of which the members must be Roman knights, i.e. men of a certain consequence in regard to birth and property. These new civil servants were excused all military service, and could thus be trained to the work without interruption, during their earlier years.

Secondly, we may date from Hadrian’s reign the beginning of the consolidation of Roman law, and the rise of a school of great lawyers such as the world has never known since. Apart from the defence of Mediterranean civilisation, to which, indeed, its indirect contribution was not small, this was the most valuable legacy of Rome to modern Europe. Law had originally consisted mainly of the old legal rules of the city-state of Rome, embodied in the Twelve tables, and a few statutes; but, in course of time, through the need of interpreting these, and adjusting them to the customs of other peoples in the Empire, an immense body of what we may call judge-made law had arisen in the form of edicts or public notices of magistrates, issued both in Italy and the provinces. As these customs were now well known, and as the Empire had reached its limits, it was possible to close and consolidate this huge body of official decisions and precedents; and this was done under Hadrian’s direction. The other two sources of law were still to grow largely before they could be welded into the great “Body of Law” (Corpus Juris) compiled under the orders of Justinian in the sixth century, which is still the chief European textbook of legal studies. These two sources were the delivered opinions of wise lawyers on points of law, and the decisions of the CÆsars in various forms, all of which had the force of law.

The death of Hadrian in A.D. 138 brings us to the third of the great CÆsars of this age, Titus Antoninus, a man who, at fifty-two, had already done excellent work for the Empire. He is known to history as Antoninus Pius, and this last name, given him apparently on his accession, may be a reminiscence of Virgil’s epithet for his hero, and may be due to the strong sense of duty which marked his whole life, public and private. He seems, indeed, vividly to recall the ideal of the Roman character as we traced it in the third chapter of this book; yet he was not Italian by birth. His family belonged to Nismes in southern Gaul, and that ancient city still honours him with a “Place Antonin,” in which his statue stands. His features, as they appear on portrait busts, entirely confirm the account of him left us by his nephew and successor. Grave and wise, gentle yet firm, religious in the true old Roman sense, pure in life, and simple in all his needs and pleasures, he ruled over a peaceful and contented empire, devoting himself to the work of humanising and softening the life and lot of his subjects.

Let us glance, for example, at his attitude towards slavery, which, when we last noticed it, was threatening to become a deadly poison in the Roman system. During the first century of the Empire, chiefly under the influence of the Stoic philosophy, as later on under that of Christianity, there had been growing up a feeling that a slave was, after all, a human being, and had some claim to be treated as such under the Roman law, beneficent in its dealings with all other human beings. Antoninus followed out this new idea both in legislation and in his private life, as did his successor also, who adored his memory. They limited the right of a master over his slaves in several ways; ordaining that if cruelty were proved against a master, he should be compelled to sell the slave he had ill-treated. It is noteworthy, too, that the philosopher in whom they most delighted, Epictetus, had himself originally been a slave. There is no better way of realising the spirit of humanity which actuated Antoninus and his successor than by making some acquaintance with the moral philosophy of Epictetus, and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, in the Golden Treasury Series,[18] and Dr. Rendall’s translation of the Meditations, will be of use to those who do not read Greek.

Hadrian had left the Empire well guarded, and it does not seem to have occurred to Antoninus to see for himself that Hadrian’s vigilance was maintained. This was the one weak point of his reign, and it cost his successors dear. He only once left Italy, and his mind was never occupied with wars or rumours of wars; he lived tranquilly, and died peacefully, without trouble or anxiety. But we know that even before his death clouds were beginning to gather on the northern frontier; and we cannot but feel that the beautiful tranquillity of Antoninus’s life was hardly compatible with the duty of an imperial guardian.

Marcus Aurelius, the author of the Meditations, succeeded his uncle and adoptive father in A.D. 161. Though not the greatest of the four as a ruler, he was the most remarkable as a man, and holds a higher place than the others in the world’s esteem. We may find parallels in history to Trajan, less easily, perhaps, to Hadrian and Antoninus; but there is no monarch like Marcus, not even in the history of the Jews. It is, indeed, astonishing that Rome, Rome of the hard practical temperament, should have produced a ruler who was a philosopher and almost a saint, and yet capable of government. It is the last striking manifestation of the old Roman spirit of duty and discipline, now kindled into a real ethical emotion by the teaching of the Stoics, far the most inspiring creed then available for a man of action. Without any aid from Christianity, which, indeed, he could not understand and occasionally persecuted, Marcus learnt not only how to make his own life pure, but how to live and work for the world of his day.