Part 18

When, in A.D. 78, Agricola took over the command of Britain, it was in North Wales that he carried on his first campaign. The campaigns that followed I need not describe in detail. The last of them was finished by a great victory over the Caledonians near the Grampians, probably at Aberfoyle, in Perthshire. The Roman sway, however, did not really extend so far. Its high-water mark was, probably, reached about A.D. 200, when the Emperor Septimius Severus marched to the extreme north of the Island, and on his return added a second wall to the great rampart constructed by Antoninus Pius between the estuaries of the Forth and the Clyde. But this advanced post was not long held. The most permanent, as it was the most elaborate barrier against the northern tribes, was the Great Wall built by Hadrian, about A.D. 120, between the Solway Firth and Newcastle-on-Tyne. Britain south of this was completely Latinised. But the existence of the walls and the fact that the Island had the reputation of being to the Empire what India is to us, a nursery of captains, prove that the North was practically independent. Here then--and this is what makes Britain really important in Roman history--was the furthest limit of Roman advance. And it was here that the first overt confession of weakness had to be made. In A.D. 408 one of the many soldiers of fortune who attempted to seize the Imperial throne crossed over into Gaul with the British legions. The legions never came back, and Britain, though nominally included in the Provinces of the Empire, was actually abandoned.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 40: It was probably somewhere in Shropshire or Herefordshire.]

[Footnote 41: According to Dion, the philosopher Seneca had something to do with the disturbance by suddenly calling in money which he had lent at usurious interest. We may hope that it is a slander, but Romans of good repute were not above such conduct. The patriotic Brutus lent money to a town in Cyprus at 40 per cent., and was much annoyed with Cicero for refusing the help of the military in collecting the debt.]

VIII

BEYOND THE RHINE

In the German tribes Rome found at last the antagonist who was to vanquish her. The victories of Marius and of Cæsar had been complete, but they did not crush the race. Their numbers and the solidity of their character, moulded as it was by a tenacity and a power of resistance which neither the Spaniard nor the Gaul had shown, made them practically unconquerable. The early Empire was not without ambitions in this direction. Drusus, the step-son of Augustus, carried on several campaigns in Lower Germany, and executed besides some important engineering works, in the way of canals and embankments, which were intended to make the country more accessible. But he came, once at least, very near to a terrible disaster. In B.C. 11 he had got as far as the Weser, thanks, in part at least, to the absence of his most formidable enemies, the Sicambri, who were busy fighting with the Chatti. At the Weser he felt that it would be prudent to halt and to retrace his steps. It was well that he did, for the Sicambri had settled their quarrel with their neighbours, and were now in the opposite ranks. At a place called Arbalo, which we have no means of locating, he was almost surrounded. The allied tribes threw away, by their rashness, a victory which was almost in their hands. They divided, so to speak, the Roman wolfskin before they had captured the wolf. Each tribe chose its own share of the spoil, rushed in a headlong charge to secure it, and were driven back with heavy loss. Drusus built two forts which might be convenient centres for future operations, and returned to Rome, where he had so much of the honours of a triumph as the jealousy of the Emperor permitted a subject to enjoy. In the following year (B.C. 10) he returned to the same country, and in B.C. 9 he did the very same thing again. It was in this campaign that he reached his furthest point, making his way as far as the Elbe itself. Here indeed--so it seemed to the men of the time--was the fate-appointed limit of the Roman arms. As he was making ready to cross the Elbe, a female figure, of more than human proportions, appeared to him. "Whither goest thou, insatiable Drusus?" cried the strange apparition. "Destiny forbids thee to go further. Here is the end of thy exploits and thy life." He erected trophies on the river bank to mark the spot which he had reached, and turned back. But he never reached the Rhine. He was thrown from his horse, and received injuries from which he died. His younger brother Tiberius arrived just in time to see him alive. The last duties to the dead performed--Tiberius is said to have walked before the bier all the way from the Rhine bank to Rome--he returned to prosecute the campaign. For some years the Roman arms met no serious check, and by A.D. 9 so much had been done in subjugating the country that Augustus conceived the idea of making it into a Roman province. For this purpose he sent an officer of high rank, who had for some years administered the province of Syria--Quintilius Varus. The new-comer was totally mistaken about the real condition of the country, which was on the brink of revolt. The native chiefs, at whose head was the famous Arminius (the Latin form of _Hermann_), pretended friendship and submission, assisting at the courts which he held after the fashion of an Indian _durbah_, and promptly executing his orders. The report of an insurrection in South Germany reached him while thus employed, and he marched southward to quell it. Arminius and his fellow-countrymen left him, under a promise to return, but really with the intention of preparing an attack. His road lay through the valleys of what is now called the Teutoburgerwald, between Osnabruck and Paderborn, in Westphalia. He marched without any suspicion of danger, his army in a straggling line, encumbered with baggage and a multitude of non-combatants. Half-way through the pass they were attacked. There were three legions and a considerable force of cavalry, and for a time they successfully resisted the enemy. The camp which they pitched at the end of the first day's battle was of such a size, when it was discovered some years afterwards, as to show that the three legions were then substantially intact. The next day, after destroying his baggage, for he recognised that his position was one of extreme peril and that his only hope was to give to his army all the mobility possible, he made for the fortress of Aliso on the Lippe. All the day he was attacked, and had to struggle for every yard of road. By evening his forces had been greatly diminished, for the second camp was seen to be much smaller than the first. The third day's march brought them out of the woods, but only to encounter a fresh multitude of the enemy. Their strength was now exhausted, and they could no longer keep their ranks. Varus killed himself; his army, a very few excepted who contrived to reach Aliso, was destroyed. The effect in Germany was to throw back the frontier of Rome to the Rhine; in Rome the news produced something like a panic. The disaster embittered the remaining years of Augustus. Again and again he was known to start from his sleep and cry in tones of agony, "Quintilius Varus, give me back my legions!"

Rome could not, of course, submit to such a defeat without vindicating her honour. This was not an easy task. In A.D. 14, Germanicus, the son of Drusus, marched into the country with a powerful force. He narrowly escaped disaster. Had not the divisions between the German chiefs hindered them from following up their successes--both Germanicus and his lieutenant, Cæcina, suffered serious reverses--he might have met with the fate of Varus. In the campaign of 16 he was more fortunate, and, if the Roman narratives are not exaggerated, restored the old frontiers. Arminius himself was nearly taken, and Northern Germany, between the Rhine and the Elbe, was once again Roman. But Tiberius did not like a "forward" policy. Tacitus, who abhorred the man, tells us that his motive was a mean jealousy of Germanicus, but it is likely that he saw that the resources of the Empire might be better expended. Anyhow, Germanicus was recalled, and Germany recovered her freedom; nor was any serious attempt again made, as far as the northern part of the country was concerned, to reassert the authority of Rome. It was to the south that Rome limited her efforts for dominion.

IX

THE LAST ADVANCE

When Tacitus speaks of the _urgentia imperii fata_, the irresistible destinies of empire, he uses a phrase which every Englishman understands. A great empire cannot stand still. Its adventurous subjects are always pressing forward, and must be protected. Its neighbours are continually feeling and resenting the pressure which it exercises upon them. It has to defend boundaries which represent to those who are outside them a series of aggressions, and it has to satisfy the warlike tastes of the huge force which it has to keep under arms. Augustus had done his best to limit the growth of the Empire. His testament to his successors was an injunction, it would be better, perhaps, to say a counsel, that no new dominions should be sought. Tiberius religiously observed this advice. But the Cæsars that followed Tiberius found the circumstances of the situation too much for them. Caligula made an expedition against the nations yet unsubdued beyond the northern frontier, which might have been serious but for his own lunatic folly. Claudius began the subjugation of Britain, which was carried to a conclusion by the brilliant generalship of Agricola in the reign of Domitian. Domitian was not so fortunate in his other great enterprise. This was the invasion of Dacia. Agricola was still alive, but Domitian was too jealous of his abilities and his renown to entrust to him the management of the campaign. He found a substitute in the person of Cornelius Fuscus, Prefect of the Prætorians, who had at least the recommendation of being a subservient courtier. Juvenal includes Fuscus among the counsellors who were summoned to discuss the important question of how the gigantic turbot which a fisherman had presented to the Emperor should be cooked. He seems to have been a student of the military art, for he is described as "planning battles in his marble halls." Possibly he wrote a book on the subject. In the field he seems to have had little or no capacity. The Dacian chief, Decebalus by name, enticed the Roman general to cross the Danube, turned on him when the opportunity came, and defeated him with the loss of at least one legion and its exile. We have absolutely no record of the battle. It came within the period of events covered by the histories of Tacitus, but the book which contained the narrative is lost. Even did we possess it, we should still be ignorant of one important detail, for Orosius, who had the narrative before him, tells us that Tacitus held it to be the part of a good citizen to conceal the losses suffered by the armies of Rome. The whole story is wrapped in obscurity. It is said that the defeat of Fuscus was retrieved in the next campaign by his successor Julianus. But again we have no details. There is even to be found the statement, whether well or ill-founded we cannot say, that the Dacians exacted from Rome an annual sum of money as the price of their forbearance.

It was to Dacia then that Trajan turned his thoughts when he found himself seated on the imperial throne. Trajan had many reasons for undertaking the enterprise. It was much to his taste. He was a soldier, who had already distinguished himself in the field. And he had to justify his elevation to the throne. The Empire really rested on the swords of the soldiers, and no man who could not count on the respect of the army could feel himself safe. And there was also the cogent reason that it was easier to attack than to defend, that the barbarians, if left to themselves, would sooner or later invade the Empire, and that the wisest plan would be to assume the offensive.

Trajan was busied with protecting the German frontier of the Empire when he received the news that he had been adopted by the aged Nerva. He spent a year, after receiving the tidings, in completing the preparation for its defence. Then he went to take up his new dignity. Home affairs settled, he started for the Danube. Of the campaigns which followed we know little in one way, and much in another. We know, from the sculptures on Trajan's Column, exactly what arms and armour, and what engines of war were used by the soldiers of Rome. But as to the strategy of the campaign, and its chief incidents, we are almost wholly in the dark.

[Illustration: Trajan besieging a Dacian Fort.]

Trajan crossed the Danube at two places without molestation. At first it seemed as if the Dacians were going to give in without a struggle. An embassy arrived to beg for peace, offering surrender without conditions. But this was a palpable imposture. The envoys were men of low rank--so much Trajan knew from the habits of the country--for they were bareheaded. The next envoys were certainly nobles, but they had no real authority to treat. The Dacian king, Decebalus by name, was simply trying to gain time. Not long after he fell upon the legions as they marched. A fierce battle followed, in which the Dacians were defeated, but at a heavy cost. The Romans still advanced; when they were near his chief stronghold, Decebalus again gave battle. This time he was beaten even more decisively than before. For the time his spirit was broken. The envoys whom he now sent were nobles of the highest rank, who came into Trajan's presence with their hands bound behind their backs in token of absolute submission. Decebalus himself consented to pay his homage to Trajan in person, and to send deputies to Rome to arrange conditions of peace. This was in 102 A.D.

Scarcely had Trajan turned his back--his presence being much wanted at Rome--when the Dacians were in arms again. Decebalus's own hereditary kingdom lay far to the east, in what is now called Transylvania, but nothing could stop the march of the Roman legions. They made their way over river and mountain, and stormed stronghold after stronghold. At last Decebalus, in despair, put an end to his own life. The new province of Dacia was thoroughly organised, for Trajan was as great an administrator as a soldier. To this day the remains of the great works which his engineers and architects raised at his bidding remain to testify to the completeness with which the work was done. For more than a century and a half it remained one of the most orderly and civilised of the Roman provinces. It was not till 275 A.D. that Aurelian withdrew the legions to the southern bank of the Danube.

During the time of the Good Emperor[42] Rome kept her dominions unimpaired. Even under their weaker successors, though decay was at work within, her power for awhile was not visibly shaken. It was with the appearance of the Goths upon the scene that the end began.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 42: It began with Nerva in 96 A.D. and ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180.]

_BOOK VI_

ROME AND THE BARBARIANS THE DECLINE

I. A CENTURY OF DISGRACE

One of the strangest facts in history is the rapid decline of Roman power that set in immediately after the Empire had enjoyed such a succession of good rulers as had never before fallen to its lot. The period of eighty-four years which began with the accession of Nerva and ended with the death of Marcus Aurelius has always been regarded, and rightly regarded, as the golden age of Rome. Trajan was, it is true, a warlike Emperor by choice, and Marcus Aurelius the same by necessity, but Rome had never had since its founding any but the briefest intervals of peace. War, in short, was its natural condition, and it had seldom been carried on with more success than it was by Trajan in Dacia and by Aurelius against the Quadi and the Marcomanni. On the other hand, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius (117-161) made up together forty-four years, considerably more than what is usually reckoned as a generation, of almost unbroken peace. Yet the good effects of nearly a century of wise rule seemed to vanish almost immediately when the last of the "Good Emperors" passed away. It is true that Aurelius had a deplorably weak and vicious successor.[43] But Commodus was not more contemptible than Caligula, Nero, or Domitian, and Rome had survived their rule without much apparent injury. Some writers have found a cause in a succession of plagues which raged throughout the Empire with an almost unexampled severity, and it is true that the century which followed the year 165[44] was terribly distinguished by this visitation, but no external calamities are sufficient to account for a nation's decay. These causes are to be sought elsewhere, within rather than without, in the life of men more than in the calamities which years of famine or of pestilence inflict upon them. And it is clearly beyond my province to do more than indicate them in the very briefest way. We see signs of what was going on in days when to all appearance the Empire was most flourishing, while it was certainly still pursuing its career of conquest. Virgil writes a great poem to commend the honest healthy toil of a country life to a generation which had ceased to care for it. The cities were more and more crowded, for the luxuries which they put within the reach of even the poorest were more and more sought after, but the country was passing into a desert or a pleasure ground. The farmers or peasants who had formed the backbone of Roman armies had ceased to be; their fields, where they had not gone out of cultivation, were tilled by huge gangs of slaves. Provincial towns which in old days had been strong enough to make treaties on equal terms with Rome were now half in ruins, with a scanty population that barely contrived to exist. With every year things grew worse and worse. And the Empire aggravated the evils which at first it had done much to palliate if not to remedy. It had superseded the Republic, because this had become utterly corrupt; but in time it became as corrupt itself, and for the corruption of a despotism there is no cure. A succession of able rulers put off the end for a time, but it had to come. And when it came there came with it more vigorous races out of whom was to be formed by degrees, not without help of the old order which they swept away, a new civilisation.

Commodus, the unworthy son and successor of the good Aurelius, reigned but for a short time. He was assassinated in his thirty-second year. With his death began, it may be said, the rule of the sword. His successor, indeed, Pertinax by name, was chosen by the Senate, and well deserved his election, but he reigned for something less than ninety days, and the Prætorians, the soldiers of the capital, murdered him and sold the throne openly to the highest bidder. To this arrogance the legions in the provinces refused to submit. The principal armies put up candidates of their own. We need not follow the succession of these short-lived rulers. It will suffice to say that in the hundred and five years which intervened between the death of Aurelius and the accession of Diocletian (180-285) there were no less than twenty Emperors, not to mention innumerable Pretenders--it was said that at one time thirty[45] claimed the throne.

For a time the spectacle of the Roman armies engaged in almost incessant struggles with each other does not seem to have produced the effect which might have been expected on the tribes outside the frontiers of the Empire. No movement of any importance among the barbarians is recorded during the fifty years which followed the murder of Pertinax by the Prætorians. In 209, indeed, the Britons of the north attacked the Roman province, and were punished, without any lasting effect, by Septimius Severus. But the event was of no particular importance, for the North Britons were not powerful enough, even if they had succeeded, to seriously affect the course of events. Causes with which we are not exactly acquainted kept the far more formidable tribes of Germany inactive. We hear of a combination among them in the reign of Aurelius which might well have become dangerous, if, to use the language of Gibbon, it included all the nations from the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Danube. But it came to nothing. The tribes which first took the field were defeated. Discouragement and dissension kept the others inactive. Dissension, indeed, was the most potent influence which worked in favour of the Romans. In his remarkable treatise on Germany and its tribes Tacitus gives a description of the people which emphasises their superiority in many important respects to the degenerate sons of Rome. But he speaks with satisfaction of the internal strife which prevented them from becoming formidable, mentioning one great conflict in which one tribe had been wholly destroyed by its neighbours, and adds, "While the destinies of Empire hurry us on, fortune can give us no greater boon than discord among our foes."

But this state of things naturally would not last. It would cease when some chief of commanding ability and strong personal influence should come to the front, or when some tribe should become so powerful as to attract or compel its neighbours to unite with it. Such a tribe came upon the scene later on in the first half of the third century of our era. The _Gothi_, to use the most common of the various forms of their name, are first mentioned many centuries before the time of which I am now speaking. Pytheas, of Marseilles, who travelled in Northern Europe about the time of Alexander the Great, speaks of them as inhabiting the coasts of the Baltic, and Tacitus, writing about 90 A.D., locates them in much the same district. A hundred years or so after this date, however, they are spoken of as dwelling near the Black Sea. We need not trouble ourselves, however, with their place of abode, nor yet with the question of their race. Some writers hold that they were of the Slavonic family, not the Teutonic. That there were some Slavs in the great multitude which the Romans knew by the common name of Goths is more than probable. In just the same way there was a Celtic element in the great Teutonic swarm which had so nearly overrun Italy at the close of the second century B.C. But all that we know about them, whether as regards their habits or their appearance, would lead us to think that they were Germans.