History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (eBook)

Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines. 

Part I.

Of The Union And Internal Prosperity Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The Antonines.

     It is not alone by the rapidity, or extent of conquest, that we should estimate the greatness of Rome.  The sovereign of the Russian deserts commands a larger portion of the globe.  In the seventh summer after his passage of the Hellespont, Alexander erected the Macedonian trophies on the banks of the Hyphasis. ^1 Within less than a century, the irresistible Zingis, and the Mogul princes of his race, spread their cruel devastations and transient empire from the Sea of China, to the confines of Egypt and Germany. ^2 But the firm edifice of Roman power was raised and preserved by the wisdom of ages.  The obedient provinces of Trajan and the Antonines were united by laws, and adorned by arts.  They might occasionally suffer from the partial abuse of delegated authority; but the general principle of government was wise, simple, and beneficent.  They enjoyed the religion of their ancestors, whilst in civil honors and advantages they were exalted, by just degrees, to an equality with their conquerors. 

[Footnote 1: They were erected about the midway between Lahor and Delhi.  The conquests of Alexander in Hindostan were confined to the Punjab, a country watered by the five great streams of the Indus.

     Note: The Hyphasis is one of the five rivers which join the Indus or the Sind, after having traversed the province of the Pendj-ab - a name which in Persian, signifies five rivers.  * * * G.  The five rivers were, 1.  The Hydaspes, now the Chelum, Behni, or Bedusta, (Sanscrit, Vitastha, Arrow-swift.) 2. The Acesines, the Chenab, (Sanscrit, Chandrabhaga, Moon-gift.) 3. Hydraotes, the Ravey, or Iraoty, (Sanscrit, Iravati.) 4. Hyphasis, the Beyah, (Sanscrit, Vepasa, Fetterless.) 5. The Satadru, (Sanscrit, the Hundred Streamed,) the Sutledj, known first to the Greeks in the time of Ptolemy. Rennel.  Vincent, Commerce of Anc. book 2.  Lassen, Pentapotam. Ind. Wilson's Sanscrit Dict., and the valuable memoir of Lieut. Burnes, Journal of London Geogr.  Society, vol. iii. p. 2, with the travels of that very able writer.  Compare Gibbon's own note, c. lxv. note 25. - M substit. for G.]

[Footnote 2: See M. de Guignes, Histoire des Huns, l. xv. xvi. and xvii.]

     I.  The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects.  The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.  And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

     The superstition of the people was not imbittered by any mixture of theological rancor; nor was it confined by the chains of any speculative system.  The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different religions of the earth. ^3 Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey, perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief, and to enlarge the list of his protectors.  The thin texture of the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not discordant materials.  As soon as it was allowed that sages and heroes, who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was universally confessed, that they deserved, if not the adoration, at least the reverence, of all mankind.  The deities of a thousand groves and a thousand streams possessed, in peace, their local and respective influence; nor could the Romans who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers of nature, the planets, and the elements were the same throughout the universe.  The invisible governors of the moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory.  Every virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every art and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the character of their peculiar votaries.  A republic of gods of such opposite tempers and interests required, in every system, the moderating hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of knowledge and flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime perfections of an Eternal Parent, and an Omnipotent Monarch. ^4 Such was the mild spirit of antiquity, that the nations were less attentive to the difference, than to the resemblance, of their religious worship.  The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian, as they met before their respective altars, easily persuaded themselves, that under various names, and with various ceremonies, they adored the same deities. ^5 The elegant mythology of Homer gave a beautiful, and almost a regular form, to the polytheism of the ancient world. 

[Footnote 3: There is not any writer who describes in so lively a manner as Herodotus the true genius of polytheism.  The best commentary may be found in Mr. Hume's Natural History of Religion; and the best contrast in Bossuet's Universal History.  Some obscure traces of an intolerant spirit appear in the conduct of the Egyptians, (see Juvenal, Sat. xv.;) and the Christians, as well as Jews, who lived under the Roman empire, formed a very important exception; so important indeed, that the discussion will require a distinct chapter of this work.

     Note: M. Constant, in his very learned and eloquent work, "Sur la Religion," with the two additional volumes, "Du Polytheisme Romain," has considered the whole history of polytheism in a tone of philosophy, which, without subscribing to all his opinions, we may be permitted to admire.  "The boasted tolerance of polytheism did not rest upon the respect due from society to the freedom of individual opinion.  The polytheistic nations, tolerant as they were towards each other, as separate states, were not the less ignorant of the eternal principle, the only basis of enlightened toleration, that every one has a right to worship God in the manner which seems to him the best. Citizens, on the contrary, were bound to conform to the religion of the state; they had not the liberty to adopt a foreign religion, though that religion might be legally recognized in their own city, for the strangers who were its votaries." - Sur la Religion, v. 184.  Du. Polyth. Rom. ii. 308.  At this time, the growing religious indifference, and the general administration of the empire by Romans, who, being strangers, would do no more than protect, not enlist themselves in the cause of the local superstitions, had introduced great laxity.  But intolerance was clearly the theory both of the Greek and Roman law.  The subject is more fully considered in another place. - M.]

[Footnote 4: The rights, powers, and pretensions of the sovereign of Olympus are very clearly described in the xvth book of the Iliad; in the Greek original, I mean; for Mr. Pope, without perceiving it, has improved the theology of Homer.

     Note: There is a curious coincidence between Gibbon's expressions and those of the newly-recovered "De Republica" of Cicero, though the argument is rather the converse, lib. i. c. 36.  "Sive haec ad utilitatem vitae constitute sint a principibus rerum publicarum, ut rex putaretur unus esse in coelo, qui nutu, ut ait Homerus, totum Olympum converteret, idemque et rex et patos haberetur omnium." - M.]

[Footnote 5: See, for instance, Caesar de Bell.  Gall. vi. 17.  Within a century or two, the Gauls themselves applied to their gods the names of Mercury, Mars, Apollo, &c.]

     The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the nature of man, rather than from that of God.  They meditated, however, on the Divine Nature, as a very curious and important speculation; and in the profound inquiry, they displayed the strength and weakness of the human understanding. ^6 Of the four most celebrated schools, the Stoics and the Platonists endeavored to reconcile the jaring interests of reason and piety.  They have left us the most sublime proofs of the existence and perfections of the first cause; but, as it was impossible for them to conceive the creation of matter, the workman in the Stoic philosophy was not sufficiently distinguished from the work; whilst, on the contrary, the spiritual God of Plato and his disciples resembled an idea, rather than a substance.  The opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a less religious cast; but whilst the modest science of the former induced them to doubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny, the providence of a Supreme Ruler.  The spirit of inquiry, prompted by emulation, and supported by freedom, had divided the public teachers of philosophy into a variety of contending sects; but the ingenious youth, who, from every part, resorted to...