Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius. Dill Samuel

and determined Senate at their back. The world, and even the Senate, were convinced that the Roman Empire needed the administration of one man. How to get the one man was the problem. Hereditary succession had placed only fools or monsters on the throne. There remained the old principle of adoption. An emperor, feeling that his end was approaching, might, with all his vast experience of the government of a world, with all his knowledge of the senatorial class, with no fear of offence in the presence of death,226 designate one worthy of the enormous charge. If such an one came to the principate, with a generous desire to give the Senate a share of his burdens and his glory, that was the highest ideal of the Empire, and that was the ideal which perhaps was approached in the Antonine age. Yet, outside the circle of practical statesmen, there remained a class which was long irreconcilable. It has been recently maintained with great force that the Stoic opposition was only the opposition of a moral ideal, not the deliberate propaganda of a political creed.227 This may be true of some of the philosophers: it is certainly not true of all. Thrasea was a genial man of the world, whose severest censure expressed itself in silence and absence from the Senate,228 who could even, on occasion, speak with deference of Nero. But his son-in-law, [pg 40]Helvidius Priscus, seemed to exult in flouting and insulting a great and worthy emperor such as Vespasian.229 And the life of Apollonius by Philostratus leaves the distinct impression that philosophy, in the reign of Nero and Domitian, was a revolutionary force. Apollonius, it is true, is represented by Philostratus as supporting the cause of monarchy in a debate in the presence of Vespasian.230 But he boasted of having been privy to conspiracies against Nero,231 and he was deeply involved with Nerva and Orfitus in a plot against Domitian.232 He was summoned before the secret tribunal to answer for speeches against the emperor delivered to crowds at Ephesus.233 It may be admitted that the invective or scorn of philosophy was aimed at unworthy princes, rather than at the foundations of their power. Yet Dion Cassius evidently regards Helvidius Priscus as a turbulent agitator with dangerous democratic ideals,234 and he contrasts his violence with the studied moderation, combined with dignified reserve, displayed by Thrasea in the reign of Nero. The tolerant Vespasian, who bore so long the wanton insults of the philosophers, must have come at length to think them not only an offence but a real danger when he banished them. In the first century there can be little doubt that there were members of the philosophic class who condemned monarchy, not only as a moral danger, but as a lamentable aberration from the traditions of republican freedom. There were probably some, who, if the chance had offered itself, might even have ventured on a republican reaction.

      With a gloomy recognition of the realities of life, Domitian used to say that conspiracy against an emperor was never believed till the emperor was killed.235 Of the first twelve Caesars seven died a violent death. Every emperor from Tiberius to M. Aurelius was the mark of conspiracy. This was often provoked by the detestable character of the prince. But it sometimes sprang from other causes than moral disgust. The mild rule of Vespasian was generally popular; yet even he had to repel the conspiracy of Aelianus and Marcellus.236 The [pg 41]blameless Nerva, the emperor after the Senate’s own heart, was twice assailed by risings organised by great nobles of historic name.237 The conspiracy of Nigrinus against Hadrian received formidable support, and had to be sternly crushed.238 M. Aurelius had to endure with sad resignation the open rebellion of Avidius Cassius.239 The better emperors, strong in their character and the general justice of their administration, might afford to treat such opposition with comparative calmness. But it was different in the case of a Nero or a Domitian. The conspiracy of Piso and the conspiracy of Saturninus formed, in each case, a climax and a turning-point. Springing from real and justified impatience, they were ruthlessly crushed and followed up with a cruel and suspicious repression which only increased the danger of the despot. “Scelera sceleribus tuenda” sums up the awful tale, in the words of Tacitus, “of the wrath of God and the madness of men.”

      There were many causes which rendered the tragedy of the early Empire inevitable. Probably the most potent was the undefined position of the prince and the dreams of republican power and freedom which for ages were cherished by the Senate. Carefully disguised under ancient forms, the principate of Augustus was really omnipotent, through the possession of the proconsular imperium in the provinces, and the tribunician prerogative at home.240 In the last resort there was no legal means of challenging the man who controlled the legions, nominated the magistrates, and manipulated a vast treasury at his pleasure. The fiction of Augustus, that he had restored the Republic to the hands of the Senate and people, is unlikely to have deceived his own astute intellect.241 The hand which, of its grace could restore the simulacra libertatis, might as easily withdraw them. The Comitia lost even the shadow of constitutional power in the following reign.242 Henceforth the people is the army.243 The holders of the great republican magistracies are mere creatures of the prince and obedient ministers of his power. The Senate alone retained some vestiges of its old [pg 42]power, and still larger pretensions and antiquarian claims. In theory, during a vacancy in the principate, the Senate was the ultimate seat of authority, and the new emperor received his prerogatives by a decree of the Senate. In the work of legislation, its decisions divided the field with the edicts of the prince,244 and it claimed a parallel judicial power. But all this was really illusory. The working of such a system manifestly depends on the character and ideas of the man who for the time wields the material force of the Empire. And “the share of the Senate in the government was in fact determined by the amount of administrative activity which each emperor saw fit to allow it to exercise.”245

      The half-insane Caligula had really a clearer vision of the emperor’s position than the reactionary dreamers, when he told his grandmother Antonia, “Memento omnia mihi in omnes licere.”246 He did not need the lessons of Agrippa and Antiochus to teach him the secret of tyranny.247 Yet institutions can never be separated from the moral and social forces which lie behind and around them. The emperor had to depend on agents and advisers, many of them of social rank and family traditions equal to his own. He had by his side a Senate with a history of immemorial antiquity and glory, which cast a spell on the conservative imagination of a race which recoiled from any impiety to the past. Above all, he was surrounded by a populace which took its revenge for the loss of its free Comitia by a surprising licence of lampoon and epigram and mordant gossip and clamorous appeal in the circus and theatre.248 And even the soldiers, who were the sworn supporters of the prince, and who often represented better than any other class the tone of old Roman gravity and manly virtue, could sometimes make their Imperator feel that there was in reserve a power which he could not safely defy. Hence it was that, with the changing character of the prince, the imperial power might pass into a lawless tyranny, only to be checked by assassination, while again it might veil its forces under constitutional forms, adopt the watchwords of the Republic, exalt the Senate to a place beside the throne, and make even accomplished statesmen fancy for the time that the days of ancient liberty had returned.

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      Such a dream, not altogether visionary, floated before Pliny’s mind when he delivered his Panegyric in the presence of Trajan. That speech is at once an act of thanksgiving and a manifesto of the Senate. The tone of fulsome extravagance is excused by the joy at escaping from a treacherous tyranny, which drove virtue into remote retreat, which made friendship impossible, which poisoned the security of household life by a continual fear of espionage.249 The confidence which Pliny expresses in the majestic strength, mingled with modesty and self-restraint, which Trajan brought to the task of the principate, was amply justified. The overwhelming force of the emperor seemed, in the new age, to pass into the freely accepted rule of the great citizen.250 Pliny indeed does not conceal from himself the immense actual power of the emperor. He is the vicegerent of God, an earthly Providence.251 His power is not less than Nero’s or Domitian’s, but it is a power no longer wielded wildly by selfish or cruel self-will; it is a power inspired by benevolence, voluntarily submitting itself to the restraints of law and ancient sentiment.252 Founded on service and virtue, it can fearlessly claim the loving support of the citizens, while it recalls the freedom of the old Republic. A prince who is hedged by the devotion of his people may dispense with the horde of spies and informers, who have driven virtue into banishment and made a crowd of sneaks and cowards. Free speech has been restored. The Senate, which has so long been expected to applaud with grovelling flattery the most trivial or the most flagitious acts of the emperor, is summoned to a share in the serious work of government.253 A community of interest and feeling secures to it a free voice in his counsels, without derogating