The Prefect soon resumed the thread of his discourse. The quickness, wherewith he ran over the Gallery, hardly gave me time to view the several pictures he was explaining. I had not seen him before nor did I afterwards see him speak with so much action. His face was inflamed, his eyes darted fire, and his words were too slow for his eagerness. The language, the manners, the laws of the Romans (said he) were spread over the world. The nations, conquered and settled, became members of the empire; and all the known world 117made but one family. By what fatality was Augustus’s peace, which seemed so unalterable, of so short a duration? Mankind only breathed, and were soon inflicted with new wounds. When Rome had no more kingdoms to subdue, she had rebels to reduce. Several nations, thinking it a great happiness or a great glory to be parted from the body of the empire, rebelled in Europe, in Asia, in Africa: all were repressed. Thus most of the nations, formerly attacked and defeated, now the aggressors and reduced, continued to be hurled from one misfortune to another; and the following pictures, those which represent the more celebrated times of the first Emperors, will still go on to present to thee spectacles of blood. The three reigns of Titus, Antoninus, and Marcus Aurelius, were three fine Days in a severe Winter.
118Those times, nevertheless, were times of peace, in comparison of those that had gone before and those that came after. The empire was like a body with a good constitution, but which however is attacked with some disorders, and shews that it is not far from its decline.
Whilst the Romans, at first to extend, then to support and sometimes to inrich themselves, kept the world in awe, pulled down what attempted to rise, and penetrated wherever they were allured by rich spoils; towards the North, in those frozen climates where nature seems to reach only to expire, there arose and increased, in the bosom of peace and silence, nations who were one day to humble the pride of the masters of the world. Three centuries had not yet passed since Augustus’s peace, when, 119in the reign of Valerianus, the deceitful hope of a more commodious and happy life armed these unpolished people. See where they are coming out of their huts, tumultuously gathering together, marching in disorder, and showing the way to the hideous multitudes who followed one another from age to age.
These foreign enemies, coming when the empire was rent with internal rebellions, shook the Colossus. It withstood however, for some time, the weight which pulled it down, and one while ready to fall, and another while erect, it seemed sometimes to be going to stand firm again.
Among the emperors who signalized themselves against the Barbarians, Probus contributed the most to support the 120Majesty of the Roman name. Valiant, but still more humane, he abhorred war and continually waged it. Dost thou observe, in the picture before thee, that bald old man, his air of candor, his respectable countenance, the plainness of every thing about him? It is Probus represented in the moment when, beholding Rome’s enemies humbled, full of the idea of that general peace he always desired, he said: “yet a few days and the empire will have no farther occasion for soldiers.” Words which rendered him worthy of the veneration of the whole earth, but which caused him to be murdered. Time passed, the efforts of the Barbarians redoubled, and blood continued to be shed.
Mean while, the enemies of Rome grew warlike, and her defenders degenerated. 121Of this the chief causes were pride, which increasing wants, forces the citizen to refer every thing to his private interest; the folly of most of the emperors, which bred in the people a numbness which a few years confirm, and which whole ages cannot remove; perhaps too a weariness of the spirits; for that ambition, that haughtiness, or, if you please, that Roman grandeur, was in the course of things an excessive effort, which, like an epidemical distemper come to its height, must necessarily abate by degrees.
However this may be, a century and half after their first invasions, the Barbarians began to make real progresses, and dismember the Western part of the empire. Amidst the troubles that then existed, some kingdoms were established 122which still remain to this day. Just as Earthquakes, which raising the sea drown whole regions, produce also new Islands amidst the waves.
See the Goths, who after traversing sword in hand, part of Asia and all Europe, are settling in Spain: see the Angles, a people of Germany, who are passing into Great Britain, and, under pretence of aiding, are seizing it: see the Franks, other Germans, who are coming to free the Gauls from the Roman yoke and making them to submit to theirs. In these unhappy times, Rome herself shares the same fate which she had m............