THE ROMAN EMPIRE.*
THE title of this bulky and well-printed volume is somewhat misleading. It is in reality a chronicle of the Roman Empire, supplemented by useful sections on the Saracens and the Crusades. The titular phrase "mediaeval peoples" suggests the inhabitants of European lands in the Middle Ages, if it suggests anything. The reader might expect to find in this short history a sketch of the English, French, Spanish, Teutonic, and Slavonic peoples to the middle of the fifteenth century. Such expectation would, however, be disappointed. The chapters dealing with the Crusades to some extent bring the reader into touch with the political movements of Central and Western Europe, but the value of this section lies rather in the light that it throws on the decay of the Eastern Empire than in the illumination of the Western world.
It is difficult to criticise fairly a book of this type, covering as it does a period of fifteen hundred years without any definite historical aim in view. Gibbon in dealing with the same period had as his goal the description of the disruptive forces that rent asunder, and of the external forces that com- pleted the wreck of, the greatest Empire of ancient times. Other historians in dealing with various parts of the same period have devoted themselves to the illumination of administrative, economic, or dynastic questions, and have provided the reader with a wealth of authority accumulated and registered with infinite patience and learning. Dr. Bury has taught us much that Gibbon could not know about the Byzantine period, while Mommseu devoted his great powers to many of the obscure periods of the earlier Empire. It would be hard to say that Dr. Souttar cares for none of these things ; but it is only just to say that he is not what is known • A Short History of Hediaeval Peoples from the Dawn of the Christian Era to Me MI of Constantinople. By Robinson Souttar, ALA., D.C.L. London Hodder and Stoughton. [12a.]
as a scientific historian. He stands to Gibbon in much the same position that Stephen's Commentaries stand to Black- stone. He has not given us a model of style or a work of reference. He has adopted a humbler ride. He is well read and loves history, and has produced a useful, painstaking, and, on the whole, accurate work, which forms a read- able chronicle of the first fifteen centuries of our era in Eastern Europe. It is a book, subject to certain criticisms that follow, which we can commend to the general reader, and one that in the hands of intelligent young people would be likely to create a taste for history. It is by no means colourless, and its author is not afraid to quarrel with the recognised authorities. We find him whitewashing the wicked ones of antiquity with a vigour worthy of the most recent biographer of King Richard 1II., while some whom we delight to honour, such as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, receive stern reprobation :-
" We can see little to praise in this emperor. Re was a bad financier, a feeble general, and, there is much reason to believe, a cruel man. Why, then, has posterity so belauded him ? Partly at least because he was a philosopher and left behind him an interesting book of meditations, which present him in a somewhat favourable light. With the emperor as a philosopher we are not concerned. But history has shown that good philosophers may be bad kings, and that philosophers can be as cruel as other men.
All these horrors were perpetrated during the reign of 'the wise, the virtuous, the much-suffering Aurelius,' whom an eminent historian, Dean Merivale, has ventured to compare with our great and good king Alfred. There is a common saying that the best kings are the worst persecutors. May it not rather be that the worst persecutors have been handed down to posterity as the best kings ? Until comparatively modern times the writing of history was in the hands of the official and ecclesiastical classes, who believed in the repression of all who would not con- form to the worship prescribed by the State, and who doubtless considered the attitude of Marcus Aurelius towards Christianity all that could be desired."
Edward Gibbon looks at the man differently. " But his life was the noblest commentary on the precepts of Zeus. He was severe to himself, indulgent to the imperfections of others, just and beneficent to all mankind." Perhaps we may be forgiven in preferring the estimate of Gibbon, who could hardly be included among the ecclesiastical classes, and who appreciated the weight of evidence better than most historians.
We have said that Dr. Souttar has no definite historical aim ; but his zeal for the revision of accepted estimates of famous men and women may, perhaps, in itself be taken for an aim. He is obsessed with the task. Though he admits that Messalina " was not a good woman," yet " we cannot really tell how fan• she was to blame." He regards the action of Agrippina in suppressing Britaunicus as " just what any mother possessed of common-sense would do in the present day." He has a weakness for Nero that survives a perfectly fair list of his iniquities : "The common people pitied him." On the other hand, Dr. Souttar does not appre- ciate Trajan, and thinks that there is no reason to call his reign brilliant. But Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius (of whom Gibbon declares that " the monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of the father's virtues"), is almost one of our author's heroes. The bard words cast at the philosophic father are withheld from the Imperial gladiator. It would have been more reasonable to defend Faustina, his mother, whom Gibbon pillories on quite insuffi- cient evidence. Dr. Souttar does not regard Caraealla as responsible for the murder of Geta. Yet there is evidence that " Caracalla consecrated, in the temple of Serapis, the sword, with which, as he boasted, be had slain his brother Geta." However, our author considers that he was " an able man, and a useful Emperor neither better nor worse than the rest." The defence of Heliogabalus is, perhaps, more reasonable, in view of the early age at which be died. Even Gibbon says that " it may seem probable the vice and follies of Elagabalus have been adorned by fancy and blackened by prejudice." But after all allowances have been made, this Emperor was infamous, and Dr. Souttar's whitewashing is hardly effective. Nor, again, is the rehabilitation of Theodora, wife of Justinian, as effective as we could wish. The truth of the matter is that Dr. Souttar is not sufficiently armed with authorities to reverse the judgment of history. No doubt it is true enough that legend blackens the black and whitens the white, but it requires a knowledge of the true weight of evidence and a grasp of original authorities not possessed by this author to unravel effectively the inconsistencies of historical material, and present historical characters in a new and true light. Dr. Souttar's inability to deal with the more obscure problems of history is shown by his treatment of the subject of Roman persecution of the Christians. He never seems to realise that it was not merely ignorance and hatred that lay behind the persecutions, but that the Christian ideal was in tragic conflict with the Imperial ideal, and that the Christian claim of universality brought the Church into direct antagonism with Rome as a world-Power and with the official creed of the Empire. The persecutions were the battlefields between two Powers, each claiming universal dominion in a different sense, and Christianity was, in fact, never content until it had permeated the Empire and was in a position to use it as a temporal base for the acquisi- tion of universal spiritual dominion. The struggle for that dominion still continues, and the persecutions of Christians in heathen lands to-day represent exactly the same tragic clashing of ideals that appeared in the persecutions before the days of Constantine.
If these various shortcomings shown by Dr. Souttar are discounted, his book will, as we have said, be found of use by the general reader. The narrative is continuous and interesting. Here and there sidelights are thrown on the fiscal system of Rome that will be found valuable to-day. The effort made by Nero to alter that system is noteworthy. We agree that if he had succeeded in introducing Free-trade, " the whole history of Europe might have been changed." As has been shown recently in our columns, it was the system of Protection that played a great part in the rapid break-up of the Western Empire.
Previous page
