CHAPTER I

THE ARISTOCRACY UNDER THE TERROR

How far the Antonine age is marked by a moral and spiritual revolution—Light which Seneca throws on the moral condition of his class in Nero’s reign—Value of his testimony—His pessimism—Human degeneracy the result of selfish greed and luxury—Picture of contemporary society—Cruel selfishness and the _taedium vitae_—The _Ardelio_—The terror under which Seneca lived—Seneca’s ideal of the principate expounded to Nero in the _De Clementia_—The character of Nero—Taint in the blood of the Domitii—Nero at first showed glimpses of some better qualities—How he was injured by the ambition to be an artist—False aestheticism and insane profusion—Feeling of Tacitus as to his time—His career—Views as to his impartiality as a historian—He was under complex influences—His chief motive as a historian—He is not a political doctrinaire—He is avenging a moral, not a political ideal—His pessimism—His prejudices and limitations—His ideal of education and character—His hesitating religious faith—His credulity and his scepticism—His view of the corrupting influence of despotic power—The influence of imperial example—Profusion of the early Caesars, leading to murder and confiscation in order to replenish their treasury—Dangers of life about the court from espionage—Causes of delation—Its temptations and its great rewards—The secret of the imperial terror—Various theories of it—Was the Senate a real danger?—Its impotence in spite of its prestige and claims—The philosophic opposition—Was it really revolutionary?—“Scelera sceleribus tuenda”—The undefined position of the principate—Its working depended greatly on the character of the Emperor for the time—Pliny’s ideal of the principate—The danger from pretenders—Evil effects of astrology—The degradation of the aristocracy under Nero and Domitian illustrated from the Pisonian conspiracy—and the Year of the Four Emperors—The reign of Domitian—Its puzzling character—Its strange contrasts—The terrors of its close—Confiscation and massacre—The funereal banquet

Pages 1-57

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