BOOKS.
MERIVA LE'S ROMANS UNDER THE EMPIRE..
Mn. Mnarver..E's third volume includes the period from the assas- sination of julius Ciesar to the consolidation of the Roman Empire under Oetavius, which resulted from the decisive victory of Actium. The intervening events are woven into as clear, consistent, and in- telligible a narrative, as can be expected, where the ground to be traversed is so extensive, the conduct of the subordinate actors so little referiible to principle or even settled policy, and the author- ities from which the facts have to be derived so scanty, so meagre, and untrustworthy. As in the previous volumes unity was given to the composition by making Julius the central figure, round whom all other persons and parties were grouped, and by considering the development of his policy the connecting principle of events, so in this the interest gradually centres in Octavius, re- fleeting therein most truly the contemporaneous feeling of the Roman world. Nor, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the degree in which Julius Cresar conceived and exe- cuted a deliberate scheme of political reformation, distinct from though subserved by his own aggrandizement, can there be any doubt that such a scheme was really formed by his heir, and that to its complete realization all his marvellous sagacity, firmness, and energy, were for more than thirty years mainly directed. How far he foresaw or even guessed at the actual course and final success of his fortunes, it is impossible to decide ; but, from the moment when, at the age of nineteen, he rejected the advice of his nearest relatives and claimed the glorious but perilous inheritanoe of the great julius' to that culminating point of his life when he retired from Rome to enhance the value of his presence, and there- by secured to himself from a people feeling their need of his guidance and protection the offioe of perpetual Consul, there is scarcely a recorded act which does not bear more or less directly upon the final consummation. Posterity has only done him justice in regarding him as the wise and accomplished sovereign rather than the unscrupulous usurper. The times de- manded him ; necessity urged him on his course ; the weapons of his warfare were made to his hand, not moulded by his choice. What he might have been, we know from what some of his suc- cessors were—from what many of his contemporaries actually be- came to the full extent of their power : what -he did, was to show the greatest constructive political genius the world had yet seen, and out of the crumbling edifice of a civilization that was on the point of falling to pieces, to found a magnificent system of mili- tary and civil government, which held together for nearly four hundred years the whole civilized world, and still shows its or-
ganic power in our modern political life. -
Mr. Merivale has only yet erected the portico of his building. "The History of the Romans under the Empire" does not com- mence till the completion of the Augustan system of government ; and the last three chapters of the present volume are employed in prospectively sketching the general forms of that system. Another interesting chapter is devoted to bringing up the history of the Yews, from the successful insurrection caused. by -the outrage of Antiochus Epiphanes to the reign of Herod the Great, and thus preparing the reader for oomprehending the influence of the changes in the Roman government on the internal development of jewish affairs. The rest of the volume is taken up with the party struggles and civil wars in which Ootavius was occupied, first in asserting his own position as leader of the Caisarians against Antony, next in crushing the Senatorial party in con- junction with Antony, and lastly in taking advantage of Antony's reckless folly and dissipation to wrest from him that Eastern half of the world which the partition of the so-called second triumvirate had assigned him. It is unfortunate for the historian when his way lies among wars upon a large scale, whose results arc too important to be passed over, but which cannot be exhibited in sufficient detail to interest the reader in their pro- gress. This is eminently the case with the wars of the period of which Mr. Merivale is writing in this volume. Th5 great captain is no longer there, with his pen almost as sharp and decisive OS his sword. Whatever military genius remained among his followers, trained under his eye and in his practice and principles, we can only judge it by its results ; and, divided as his legionaries and their officers were between the two rivals for his supremacy, it is probable that both sides possessed generals and soldiers worthy of their great master. But the historian cannot avail himself of this source of interest. It is the same with the political intrigues of the time. Cicero, whose voluminous correspondence has thrown an almost constant light upon the movements of parties and the motives of men, survives the formation of the second triumvirate only a very few weeks. The heroic tableaux of Plutarch and the compilations of Appian are a wretched substitute for the copious revelations of the contemporary i statesman thoroughly well in- formed, moderately honest, acutely elearsighted, and delightfully scribulous. There s scarcely any period of Roman history whioh it would be less easy to render interesting by itself to the general reader than that included between the battles of Philippi and Actium. Its whole interest for the student lies in the exhibition of the final consummation of effects long prepared, in the completed action of causes that have long been under- mining the character and institutions of the Republic, and render-
• A History of the Romans under the Empire. By Charles Merivale, RD., late Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 'Volume III. Published by Longman and Co.
ing the establishment of an absolute monarchy the sole chance of escape from dissolution. The great obvious moral pointed by Roman history, written in characters of blood upon the closing century of the Republican mra, is the incompatibility of foreign conquest,
• and the standing armies necessitated by it with the existence of con- stitutional liberties at home. The arm that wields that weapon will be master ; and if there be more than one, they will ultimately fight for the sole power. Rome reached her greatness because all her citizens were brave men and soldiers ; she lost her liberty be- cause she had no respect for the liberties of others, because in her lust of conquest she drained the strength and sapped the morality which should have been her defence against the unprincipled con- dottieri and the rapacious legionaries her own system had called into existence. That at this lamentable crisis the empire itself did not utterly fall to pieces, and was not partitioned, as that of Alexan- der had been, between dynasties founded by successful soldiefs—that centuries of material prosperity and internal peace allowed the gradual establishment of a noble system of law and administration, which even in its ruins supplied the elements of civil order in which our German ancestors were deficient—was owing to the genius and wisdom of the second of the Cinsars. How that system was de- veloped—the sort of national, social, and individual life, which was attained under it—Mr. Merivale will narrate in his future volumes. Ile has shown in this preliminary portion of his work that he is master of the requisite learning : ancient authorities are familiar to him, and have been carefully weighed as well as read; and he is equally conversant with the profoundest modern investigators of the various branches of his subject. He will, if his life be extended to complete his undertaking, produce a careful digest of what can be known to any degree of certainty of the period he proposes to illustrate. Nor, from the specimens of his manner hitherto given, do we imagine he will fail to describe ac- curately the leading characteristics of the men who carry on the ad- ministration of affairs or guide the opinions of their age. Whatever extensive reading, sound knowledge, and a cool clear judgment can effect in historical research, he is likely to give us. But he is not an historical painter, an historical dramatist, or a practical politi- cian. His events want colour ; his characters want the unity that imagination gives to the aggregate of qualities or actions from which character has to be deduced; and his whole narrative is cold, wanting the animation and the passion which enable men to live again in the past as they do in the present. Whether it be , possible to unite these qualities with a rigid impartiality, a conscien- tious adherence to truth, and a scholarlike acouracy of research, men might be divided in opinion. Had Arnold lived to complete his history, he would, we think, have approximated to this union. And , could we blend the excellences of some half-dozen of our living histo- j rians,—Thiers's lively narrative and knowledge of affairs, the pro- found erudition of Savigny, the brilliant generalizations and striking portraits of Michelet, Carlyle's wondrous power of bringing up a scene, a man, or an age, by the touches of his rapid pencil, Thirlwalrs "judicious scepticism," and Grote' e earnest sympathy with the past, —then we should have a work at which the world would be agape with delight, and the critic aghast with horror—for there would be no fault to find. But this is not likely to happen ; and meanwhile we rejoice at any addition made or promised to sound historical information. Facts are, after all, the thing wanted : the interpre- tation, the combination of them into a picture, or poem, or a phi- losophy, belong to each in a measure as he reads. The point of view from which the facts will be presented by Mr. Merivale is indicated in the dosing paragraph of the volume before us. "As we cast our eyes along the vista which opens before us, we shall have the melancholy task of tracing a steady though a slow and silent decay in many of the noblest qualities of the national intellect of Rome. Neverthe- less, some compensation will not be wanting to us, in witnessing the exten- sion of rights, the protection of property, the multiplication of enjoyments, and expansion of the natural affections. 'While we remark the decline of the military spirit which rendered the Republio illustrious, we may be led candidly to inquire whether respect for justice, gentleness, and moderation, 1 tis compatible with the rude virtues of the old Roman warriors ? While we lament the extinction of taste and invention in the torpor of two centuries of political inaction, we may console ourselves with reflecting that the fe- rocity and licentiousness of the last years of the Republic must have degraded Rome to barbarism within a much shorter period. And finally, with the conviction that the career of the human race has been providentially guided for good, we may recognize in the widespread equality of men and races which prevailed under the Empire a beneficent dispensation for the freer re- ception of Christianity, which has proved itself, in the lapse of so many ages, the friend of order, the guide of humanity, and the mistress of spiritual en- lightenment."
Among the phienomena which will pass under Mr. Merivale's notice, the rise and progress of Christianity, till it overthrew Pa- ganism and became the creed of the Emperor and the State, will be one tasking to the utmost his impartiality and his judg- ment. He is neither a sceptic nor a fanatic, but a Christian and a scholar, with the reputation of being well acquainted with patristic learning. Ile will have to show how far Christianity gained its triumph by infusing a new leaven into the dead mass of heathenism, or by assimilating itself to the corruption around it; he will have to explain how it was that the new moral life failed to reanimate the political body; how it was that doctrines of inspired truth, the purest ethics, and the loftiest hopes, seem, to say the least, not to have retarded the swift decay of the fourth and fifth centuries, while yet they had the power to win over by their beauty those rude barbarians the conquerors and con- temners of the effeminate race who held them. These are the pro- blems so profoundly interesting to us in the history of Rome's later years, those years in which our own faith took a colour and passed under influences which have permanently modified both
its teaching and its institutions. It is only in connexion with the political history of the Roman Empire that this modification can be accurately appreciated. The entire absence of exaggeration, and the moderation manifest in Mr. Merivale's temperament, will be most useful qualities to carry out such a task. His judgment upon two most opposite characters in the volume before us bears witness to the degree in which he possesses them.
CICERO.
"But while Cicero stands justly charged with many grave infirmities of temper and defects of principle—while we remark with a sigh the vanity, the inconstancy, and the ingratitude be so often manifested—while we lament his ignoble subserviences and his ferocious resentments—the high standard by which we claim to judge him is in itself the fullest acknowledg- ment of his transcendent merits. For undoubtedly, had he not placed him- self on a higher moral level than the statesmen and sages of his day, we should pass over many of his weaknesses in silence, and allow his pretensions to our esteem to pass almost unchallenged. But we demand a nearer ap- proach to the perfection of human wisdom and virtue in one who sought to approve himself the greatest of their teachers. Nor need we scruple to ad- mit that the judgment of the ancients on Cicero was for the most part unfavourable. The moralists of antiquity required in their heroes virtues with which we can more readily dispense; and they too had less sympathy with many qualities which a purer religion and a wider experience have taught us to love and admire. Nor were they capable, from their position, of estimating the slow and silent effects upon. human happiness of the lessons which Cicero enforced. After all the severe judgments we are compelled to pass on his conduct, we must acknowledge that there remains a residue of what is amiable in his character and noble in his teaching beyond all an- cient example. Cicero lived and died in faith. Be has made converts to the belief in virtue, and had disciples in the wisdom of love. There have been dark periods in the history of man when the feeble ray of religions in- struction paled before the torch of his generous philanthropy. The praise which the great critic pronounced upon his excellence in oratory may be justly extended to the qualities of his heart; and even in our enlightened days it may be held no mean advance in virtue to venerate the master of Ro- man philosophy."
CLEOPATRA.
"The loves of 'Antony and Cleopatra' form a familiar page in the ro- mance of history; but a sober analysis of such famous romances has gene- rally. revealed a dark shade of unruly passion on one side, and of vanity and self-interest on the other. Antonius was the dupe of his own wanton will. The object of his devotion was incapable of exciting any genuine sentiment of tenderness : she was the public slave of any man's passion whose political interest she required. If ever her lover flattered himself that he had found the way to her heart, he knew that her heart was not worth the possession. But the man who could so far corrupt his own inclinations as to turn from the embraces of an Octavio, beautiful, virtuous, and his own, to dolly with the false enticements of a bloodstained adulteress, could have no just appre- ciation of the woman's charms, which Cleopatra had renounced for ever. The Queen of Egypt had indeed a hard game to play ; it was a game for a man, and not for a woman. We may forgive her the loss of her innocence, but we cannot disregard the surrender of all sentiment and delicacy; and if she claims the indulgence extended sometimes to licentiousness in the other sex, she must forfeit at least the privilege of her own and her interest in our sympathies as men. As a woman she deserves neither love nor admiration, but as a queen her ambition was bold and her bearing magnanimous : she contended gallantly for the throne of her ancestors with the weapons which nature had given her. Her noblest epitaph is written, 64 in the language of amatory rhapsodies or sickly compassion, but in the ferocious sarcasms of her exulting conquerors."
It is not impossible that, as the Emperor Napoleon was fond comparing himself to Julius Ciesar, his imitative nephew may think himself bound to be Augustus. If the fancy strikes him, or is suggested to him by his obsequious entourage, it may be well for bun to remember, that Augustus never committed a useless crime, and that he surrounded himself with the most eminent men of his age, especially men of letters and statesmen ; two facts which go far to account both for the permanence of his power and the bril- liance of his renown.
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