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rich, having been a successful contractor of war supplies. He soon went upon an
expedition against the Parthians and was kiled.
As for Caesar, who was by far the ablest of the three, he decided that he needed a little
more military glory to become a popular hero. He crossed the Alps and conquered that
part of the world which is now caled France. Then he hammered a solid wooden bridge
across the Rhine and invaded the land of the wild Teutons. Finaly he took ship and visited
England. Heaven knows where he might have ended if he had not been forced to return to
Italy. Pompey, so he was informed, had been appointed dictator for life. This of course
meant that Caesar was to be placed on the list of the "retired officers," and the idea did
not appeal to him. He remembered that he had begun life as a folower of Marius. He
decided to teach the Senators and their "dictator" another lesson. He crossed the Rubicon
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River which separated the province of Cis-alpine Gaul from Italy. Everywhere he was
received as the "friend of the people." Without difficulty Caesar entered Rome and
Pompey fled to Greece Caesar folowed him and defeated his folowers near Pharsalus.
Pompey sailed across the Mediterranean and escaped to Egypt. When he landed he was
murdered by order of young king Ptolemy. A few days later Caesar arrived. He found
himself caught in a trap. Both the Egyptians and the Roman garrison which had remained
faithful to Pompey, attacked his camp.
Fortune was with Caesar. He succeeded in setting fire to the Egyptian fleet. Incidentaly
the sparks of the burning vessels fel on the roof of the famous library of Alexandria (which
was just off the water front,) and destroyed it. Next he attacked the Egyptian army, drove
the soldiers into the Nile, drowned Ptolemy, and established a new government under
Cleopatra, the sister of the late king. Just then word reached him that Pharnaces, the son
and heir of Mithridates, had gone on the war-path. Caesar marched northward, defeated
Pharnaces in a war which lasted five days, sent word of his victory to Rome in the famous
sentence "veni, vidi, vici," which is Latin for "I came, I saw, I conquered," and returned to
Egypt where he fel desperately in love with Cleopatra, who folowed him to Rome when
he returned to take charge of the government, in the year 46. He marched at the head of
not less than four different victory-parades, having won four different campaigns.
Then Caesar appeared in the Senate to report upon his adventures, and the grateful
Senate made him "dictator" for ten years. It was a fatal step.
The new dictator made serious attempts to reform the Roman state. He made it possible
for freemen to become members of the Senate. He conferred the rights of citizenship upon
distant communities as had been done in the early days of Roman history. He permitted
"foreigners" to exercise influence upon the government. He reformed the administration of
the distant provinces which certain aristocratic families had come to regard as their private
possessions. In short he did many things for the good of the majority of the people but
which made him thoroughly unpopular with the most powerful men in the state. Half a
hundred young aristocrats formed a plot "to save the Republic." On the Ides of March (the
fifteenth of March according to that new calendar which Caesar had brought with him
from Egypt) Caesar was murdered when he entered the Senate. Once more Rome was
without a master.
There were two men who tried to continue the tradition of Caesar's glory. One was
Antony, his former secretary. The other was Octavian, Caesar's grand-nephew and heir to
his estate. Octavian remained in Rome, but Antony went to Egypt to be near Cleopatra
with whom he too had falen in love, as seems to have been the habit of Roman generals.
A war broke out between the two. In the battle of Actium, Octavian defeated Antony.
Antony kiled himself and Cleopatra was left alone to face the enemy. She tried very hard
to make Octavian her third Roman conquest. When she saw that she could make no
impression upon this very proud aristocrat, she kiled herself, and Egypt became a Roman
province.
As for Octavian, he was a very wise young man and he did not repeat the mistake of his
famous uncle. He knew how people wil shy at words. He was very modest in his
demands when he returned to Rome. He did not want to be a "dictator." He would be
entirely satisfied with the title of "the Honourable." But when the Senate, a few years later,
addressed him as Augustus—the Ilustrious—he did not object and a few years later the
man in the street caled him Caesar, or Kaiser, while the soldiers, accustomed to regard
Octavian as their Commander-in-chief referred to him as the Chief, the Imperator or
Emperor. The Republic had become an Empire, but the average Roman was hardly aware
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of the fact.
In 14 A.D. his position as the Absolute Ruler of the Roman people had become so wel
established that he was made an object of that divine worship which hitherto had been
reserved for the Gods. And his successors were true "Emperors"—the absolute rulers of
the greatest empire the world had ever seen.
If the truth be told, the average citizen was sick and tired of anarchy and disorder. He did
not care who ruled him provided the new master gave him a chance to live quietly and
without the noise of eternal street riots. Octavian assured his subjects forty years of peace.
He had no desire to extend the frontiers of his domains, In the year 9 A.D. he had
contem-plated an invasion of the northwestern wilderness which was inhabited by the
Teutons. But Varrus, his general, had been kiled with al his men in the Teutoburg Woods,
and after that the Romans made no further attempts to civilise these wild people.
They concentrated their efforts upon the gigantic problem of internal reform. But it was too
late to do much good. Two centuries of revolution and foreign war had repeatedly kiled
the best men among the younger generations. It had ruined the class of the free farmers. It
had introduced slave labor, against which no freeman could hope to compete. It had
turned the cities into beehives inhabited by pauperized and unhealthy mobs of runaway
peasants. It had created a large bureaucracy—petty officials who were underpaid and
who were forced to take graft in order to buy bread and clothing for their families. Worst
of al, it had accustomed people to violence, to blood-shed, to a barbarous pleasure in the
pain and suffering of others.
Outwardly, the Roman state during the first century of our era was a magnificent political
structure, so large that Alexander's empire became one of its minor provinces. Underneath
this glory there lived milions upon milions of poor and tired human beings, toiling like ants
who have built a nest underneath a heavy stone. They worked for the benefit of some one
else. They shared their food with the animals of the fields. They lived in stables. They died
without hope.
It was the seven hundred and fifty-third year since the founding of Rome. Gaius Julius
Caesar Octavianus Augustus was living in the palace of the Palatine Hil, busily engaged
upon the task of ruling his empire.
In a little vilage of distant Syria, Mary, the wife of Joseph the Carpenter, was tending her
little boy, born in a stable of Bethlehem.
This is a strange world.
Before long, the palace and the stable were to meet in open combat.
And the stable was to emerge victorious.
JOSHUA OF NAZARETH
THE STORY OF JOSHUA OF NAZARETH, WHOM THE
GREEKS CALLED JESUS
IN the autumn of the year of the city 783 (which would be 62 A.D., in our way of
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counting time) AEsculapius Cultelus, a Roman physician, wrote to his nephew who was
with the army in Syria as folows:
My dear Nephew,
A few days ago I was caled in to prescribe for a sick man named Paul. He appeared to
be a Roman citizen of Jewish parentage, wel educated and of agreeable manners. I had
been told that he was here in connection with a law-suit, an appeal from one of our
provincial courts, Caesarea or some such place in the eastern Mediterranean. He had
been described to me as a "wild and violent" felow who had been making speeches
against the People and against the Law. I found him very inteligent and of great honesty.
A friend of mine who used to be with the army in Asia Minor tels me that he heard
something about him in Ephesus where he was preaching sermons about a strange new
God. I asked my patient if this were true and whether he had told the people to rebel
against the wil of our beloved Emperor. Paul answered me that the Kingdom of which he
had spoken was not of this world and he added many strange utterances which I did not
understand, but which were probably due to his fever.
His personality made a great impression upon me and I was sorry to hear that he was
kiled on the Ostian Road a few days ago. Therefore I am writing this letter to you. When
next you visit Jerusalem, I want you to find out something about my friend Paul and the
strange Jewish prophet, who seems to have been his teacher. Our slaves are getting much
excited about this so-caled Messiah, and a few of them, who openly talked of the new
kingdom (whatever that means) have been crucified. I would like to know the truth about
al these rumours and I am
Your devoted Uncle,
AESCULAPIUS CULTELLUS.
Six weeks later, Gladius Ensa, the nephew, a captain of the VII Galic Infantry, answered
as folows:
My dear Uncle,
I received your letter and I have obeyed your instructions.
Two weeks ago our brigade was sent to Jerusalem. There have been several revolutions
during the last century and there is not much left of the old city. We have been here now
for a month and to-morrow we shal continue our march to Petra, where there has been
trouble with some of the Arab tribes. I shal use this evening to answer your questions, but
pray do not expect a detailed report.
I have talked with most of the older men in this city but few have been able to give me any
definite information. A few days ago a pedler came to the camp. I bought some of his
olives and I asked him whether he had ever heard of the famous Messiah who was kiled
when he was young. He said that he remembered it very clearly, because his father had
taken him to Golgotha (a hil just outside the city) to see the execution, and to show him
what became of the enemies of the laws of the people of Judaea. He gave me the address
of one Joseph, who had been a personal friend of the Messiah and told me that I had
better go and see him if I wanted to know more.
This morning I went to cal on Joseph. He was quite an old man. He had been a fisherman
on one of the fresh-water lakes. His memory was clear, and from him at last I got a fairly
definite account of what had happened during the troublesome days before I was born.
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Tiberius, our great and glorious emperor, was on the throne, and an officer of the name of
Pontius Pilatus was governor of Judaea and Samaria. Joseph knew little about this Pilatus.
He seemed to have been an honest enough official who left a decent reputation as
procurator of the province. In the year 755 or 756 (Joseph had forgotten when) Pilatus
was caled to Jerusalem on account of a riot. A certain young man (the son of a carpenter
of Nazareth) was said to be planning a revolution against the Roman government.
Strangely enough our own inteligence officers, who are usualy wel informed, appear to
have heard nothing about it, and when they investigated the matter they reported that the
carpenter was an excelent citizen and that there was no reason to proceed against him.
But the old-fashioned leaders of the Jewish faith, according to Joseph, were much upset.
They greatly disliked his popularity with the masses of the poorer Hebrews. The
"Nazarene" (so they told Pilatus) had publicly claimed that a Greek or a Roman or even a
Philistine, who tried to live a decent and honourable life, was quite as good as a Jew who
spent his days studying the ancient laws of Moses. Pilatus does not seem to have been
impressed by this argument, but when the crowds around the temple threatened to lynch
Jesus, and kil al his folowers, he decided to take the carpenter into custody to save his
life.
He does not appear to have understood the real nature of the quarrel. Whenever he asked
the Jewish priests to explain their grievances, they shouted "heresy" and "treason" and got
terribly excited. Finaly, so Joseph told me, Pilatus sent for Joshua (that was the name of
the Nazarene, but the Greeks who live in this part of the world always refer to him as
Jesus) to examine him personaly. He talked to him for several hours. He asked him about
the "dangerous doctrines" which he was said to have preached on the shores of the sea of
Galilee. But Jesus answered that he never referred to politics. He was not so much
interested in the bodies of men as in Man's soul. He wanted al people to regard their
neighbours as their brothers and to love one single God, who was the father of al living
beings.
Pilatus, who seems to have been wel versed in the doctrines of the Stoics and the other
Greek philosophers, does not appear to have discovered anything seditious in the talk of
Jesus. According to my informant he made another attempt to save the life of the kindly
prophet. He kept putting the execution off. Meanwhile the Jewish people, lashed into fury
by their priests, got frantic with rage. There had been many riots in Jerusalem before this
and there were only a few Roman soldiers within caling distance. Reports were being sent
to the Roman authorities in Caesarea that Pilatus had "falen a victim to the teachings of the
Nazarene." Petitions were being circulated al through the city to have Pilatus recaled,
because he was an enemy of the Emperor. You know that our governors have strict
instructions to avoid an open break with their foreign subjects. To save the country from
civil war, Pilatus finaly sacrificed his prisoner, Joshua, who behaved with great dignity and
who forgave al those who hated him. He was crucified amidst the howls and the laughter
of the Jerusalem mob.
That is what Joseph told me, with tears running down his old cheeks. I gave him a gold
piece when I left him, but he refused it and asked me to hand it to one poorer than himself.
I also asked him a few questions about your friend Paul. He had known him slightly. He
seems to have been a tent maker who gave up his profession that he might preach the
words of a loving and forgiving God, who was so very different from that Jehovah of
whom the Jewish priests are teling us al the time. Afterwards, Paul appears to have
traveled much in Asia Minor and in Greece, teling the slaves that they were al children of
one loving Father and that happiness awaits al, both rich and poor, who have tried to live
honest lives and have done good to those who were suffering and miserable.
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I hope that I have answered your questions to your satisfaction. The whole story seems
very harmless to me as far as the safety of the state is concerned. But then, we Romans
never have been able to understand the people of this province. I am sorry that they have
kiled your friend Paul. I wish that I were at home again, and I am, as ever,
Your dutiful nephew,
GLADIUS ENSA.
THE FALL OF ROME
THE TWILIGHT OF ROME
THE text-books of ancient History give the date 476 as the year in which Rome fel,
because in that year the last emperor was driven off his throne. But Rome, which was not
built in a day, took a long time faling. The process was so slow and so gradual that most
Romans did not realise how their old world was coming to an end. They complained
about the unrest of the times—they grumbled about the high prices of food and about the
low wages of the workmen—they cursed the profiteers who had a monopoly of the grain
and the wool and the gold coin. Occasionaly they rebeled against an unusualy rapacious
governor. But the majority of the people during the first four centuries of our era ate and
drank (whatever their purse alowed them to buy) and hated or loved (according to their
nature) and went to the theatre (whenever there was a free show of fighting gladiators) or
starved in the slums of the big cities, utterly ignorant of the fact that their empire had
outlived its usefulness and was doomed to perish.
How could they realise the threatened danger? Rome made a fine showing of outward
glory. Wel-paved roads connected the different provinces, the imperial police were active
and showed little tenderness for highwaymen. The frontier was closely guarded against the
savage tribes who seemed to be occupying the waste lands of northern Europe. The
whole world was paying tribute to the mighty city of Rome, and a score of able men were
working day and night to undo the mistakes of the past and bring about a return to the
happier conditions of the early Republic.
But the underlying causes of the decay of the State, of which I have told you in a former
chapter, had not been removed and reform therefore was impossible.
Rome was, first and last and al the time, a city-state as Athens and Corinth had been city-
states in ancient Helas. It had been able to dominate the Italian peninsula. But Rome as
the ruler of the entire civilised world was a political impossibility and could not endure. Her
young men were kiled in her endless wars. Her farmers were ruined by long military
service and by taxation. They either became professional beggars or hired themselves out
to rich landowners who gave them board and lodging in exchange for their services and
made them "serfs," those unfortunate human beings who are neither slaves nor freemen,
but who have become part of the soil upon which they work, like so many cows, and the
trees.
The Empire, the State, had become everything. The common citizen had dwindled down
to less than nothing. As for the slaves, they had heard the words that were spoken by
Paul. They had accepted the message of the humble carpenter of Nazareth. They did not
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rebel against their masters. On the contrary, they had been taught to be meek and they
obeyed their superiors. But they had lost al interest in the affairs of this world which had
proved such a miserable place of abode. They were wiling to fight the good fight that they
might enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. But they were not wiling to engage in warfare
for the benefit of an ambitious emperor who aspired to glory by way of a foreign campaign
in the land of the Parthians or the Numidians or the Scots.
And so conditions grew worse as the centuries went by. The first Emperors had continued
the tradition of "leadership" which had given the old tribal chieftains such a hold upon their
subjects. But the Emperors of the second and third centuries were Barrack-Emperors,
professional soldiers, who existed by the grace of their body-guards, the so-caled
Praetorians. They succeeded each other with terrifying rapidity, murdering their way into
the palace and being murdered out of it as soon as their successors had become rich
enough to bribe the guards into a new rebelion.
Meanwhile the barbarians were hammering at the gates of the northern frontier. As there
were no longer any native Roman armies to stop their progress, foreign mercenaries had
to be hired to fight the invader. As the foreign soldier happened to be of the same blood
as his supposed enemy, he was apt to be quite lenient when he engaged in battle. Finaly,
by way of experiment, a few tribes were alowed to settle within the confines of the
Empire. Others folowed. Soon these tribes complained bitterly of the greedy Roman tax-
gatherers, who took away their last penny. When they got no redress they marched to
Rome and loudly demanded that they be heard.
This made Rome very uncomfortable as an Imperial residence. Constantine (who ruled
from 323 to 337) looked for a new capital. He chose Byzantium, the gate-way for the
commerce between Europe and Asia. The city was renamed Constantinople, and the
court moved eastward. When Constantine died, his two sons, for the sake of a more
efficient administration, divided the Empire between them. The elder lived in Rome and
ruled in the west. The younger stayed in Constantinople and was master of the east.
Then came the fourth century and the terrible visitation of the Huns, those mysterious
Asiatic horsemen who for more than two centuries maintained themselves in Northern
Europe and continued their career of bloodshed until they were defeated near Chalons-
sur-Marne in France in the year 451. As soon as the Huns had reached the Danube they
had begun to press hard upon the Goths. The Goths, in order to save themselves, were
thereupon obliged to invade Rome. The Emperor Valens tried to stop them, but was kiled
near Adrianople in the year 378. Twenty-two years later, under their king, Alaric, these
same West Goths marched westward and attacked Rome. They did not plunder, and
destroyed only a few palaces. Next came the Vandals, and showed less respect for the
venerable traditions of the city. Then the Burgundians. Then the East Goths. Then the
Alemanni. Then the Franks. There was no end to the invasions. Rome at last was at the
mercy of every ambitious highway robber who could gather a few folowers.
In the year 402 the Emperor fled to Ravenna, which was a sea-port and strongly fortified,
and there, in the year 475, Odoacer, commander of a regiment of the German
mercenaries, who wanted the farms of Italy to be divided among themselves, gently but
effectively pushed Romulus Augustulus, the last of the emperors who ruled the western
division, from his throne, and proclaimed himself Patriarch or ruler of Rome. The eastern
Emperor, who was very busy with his own affairs, recognised him, and for ten years
Odoacer ruled what was left of the western provinces.
A few years later, Theodoric, King of the East Goths, invaded the newly formed Patriciat,
took Ravenna, murdered Odoacer at his own dinner table, and established a Gothic
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Kingdom amidst the ruins of the western part of the Empire. This Patriciate state did not
last long. In the sixth century a motley crowd of Longobards and Saxons and Slavs and
Avars invaded Italy, destroyed the Gothic kingdom, and established a new state of which
Pavia became the capital.
Then at last the imperial city sank into a state of utter neglect and despair. The ancient
palaces had been plundered time and again. The schools had been burned down. The
teachers had been starved to death. The rich people had been thrown out of their vilas
which were now inhabited by evil-smeling and hairy barbarians. The roads had falen into
decay. The old bridges were gone and commerce had come to a standstil. Civilisation—
the product of thousands of years of patient labor on the part of Egyptians and
Babylonians and Greeks and Romans, which