unconvincingly euphemistic title of dictator. The Ides of March taught his nephew, who after another period of civil war succeeded to Caesar's supremacy in the Roman world, to be more cautious, and to avoid a regal or quasi-regal attitude. So Octavian (Augustus) poses as a private individual with an honorary precedence over every one else, which he denotes by the title princeps. His constitutional position ultimately becomes that of the possessor of a number of powers and privileges belonging to various republican magistracies, which are conferred on him for life, and the possession of which gives him the control of the ordinary republican magistrates who are still allowed to exist. The princeps takes the Senate into partnership in the government of the world, and so there arises that partition of functions between the two which Mommsen has called the 'Dyarchy'. But the partners were unequally yoked from the first, and however sincere the deference which the best among the principes show to the Senate, the princeps is led by force of circumstances to become more and more the predominant partner. The transformation of the Roman government from an oligarchy to a despotism was now complete. The change had been chiefly due to personal ambition in the leaders of the opposing parties, which achieved successful results because it accorded with the changed conditions resulting from the development of a City State into a World Empire. Its success was also due in large measure to the sound sense which underlay Caesar's policy, a policy which found expression, to what extent we do not know, but probably to a large extent, in the acts of Augustus, who posed as his uncle's heir in all things. It may perhaps seem strange that the Senate acquiesced as easily as it did in the diminution of its powers. But the power of the princeps ultimately rested on the army, and, as Tacitus remarks (Ann. i. 2), every one was so tired of the civil wars which had raged

almost without cessation during the first three quarters of the
first century B. C. that they were ready to accept anything for
the sake of peace and quiet. Also the wise and prudent
government of Augustus did much to consolidate the power
of the princeps, so that when the senatorial opposition arose,
as it did from time to time, the princeps had little difficulty
in suppressing it. In fact, as time went on, the institution
of the principate became so strong that the actual personality
of the princeps mattered comparatively little. It made little
difference to the world at large whether the supreme power
was held by wise and competent men like Augustus,
Vespasian, and Trajan, or by a lunatic like Caligula and a
debauchee like Nero. The personality of the princeps did
matter a great deal to the senatorial aristocracy who dwelt
beneath the shadow of the Palatine. But away from Rome
the 'pax Romana' and upright provincial administration
remain constant, except for one brief interval, in spite of the
varying scenes of atrocity in the capital. The literature of
the Early Empire, with few exceptions, focuses our attention
on the life of the metropolis. But we must not forget, and
we have the inscriptions to remind us, that outside the
tainted air of Rome there existed a larger and a healthier
life that under the Principate Roman history ceases to be
the history of a town and becomes that of an empire, and
that even under a Nero and a Domitian Rome remained true
to her ideal,

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento,
Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.

II

The difference between the Rome of the middle of the third century B. C. and that of the opening of the Christian era does not consist merely in the change of the form of government. This great political change was involved in

1

the social and economic transformation of Italy, which begins in the first half of the second century B. C. At the time of the Punic Wars the mainstay of the Roman state was the class of yeoman who cultivated the land in time of peace and formed the backbone of the legions in time of war, the stubborn brood who, a century before, had vanquished the Samnites. As long as Italian agriculture flourished, the mass of Roman citizens remained hardy and ready for war. But the conquest of Italy led to the accumulation of large public domains which fell into the hands of capitalists who either turned them into pasture or cultivated them by means of slaves. The independent class of small farmers was gradually eliminated, and capitalism, working through slave-labour, proved the ruin of Italy (Latifundia perdidere Italiam'). The result was that the yeoman class of Italy tended to drift into Rome and to swell the ranks of the city rabble. The population of Rome was also increased by the large influx of Greeks and Orientals which first set in when, at the end of the first quarter of the second century B. C., Rome had become the chief power of the Eastern Mediterranean. These immigrants in many cases no doubt found employment in medicine, education, art, the stage, among other things, and went some way also towards monopolizing the shady or vicious professions. But they must too often have added to the number of the unemployed. The political importance of this rabble in an age when political questions so often found their solution in street fights led to the pampering of the city multitude by food supplies and shows provided at the expense of the State or very frequently of individual magistrates. The corndoles were started by Gaius Gracchus (B. C. 123) and continued off and on till the time of Caesar, who, by limiting them to those who really needed them, transformed a system of political bribery into an institution of poor

relief. Under the Principate such bounties were widely extended, and at the end of the first century A. D. we find Juvenal (A. IV. iii. 80, 81 in this book), in his description. of the fall of Seianus in A. D. 31, lamenting that the people which once ruled the world is quite content if it can get two things, bread and circus-games ('panem et circenses').

Such was the state of the lower classes of the free population of the capital, which mingled with and became contaminated by the constantly increasing number of Greek and Oriental slaves and freedmen. But foreign influence was no less strongly exerted upon the wealthier classes. Here the old Roman traditions of discipline and economy were broken down by the luxury which continually increased as new conquests brought in fresh tribute of wealth and slaves. In the best period of the Republic stringent laws had restricted the amount of silver plate and the kinds of food which might be placed on a Roman dinner-table. These laws remained during the period of degeneration, but were ignored, in spite of spasmodic efforts to enforce them. Under the Principate the luxury of the table, and indeed luxury of all kinds, developed to an extent which is almost incredible, and forms a stock subject of contemporary history and satire.

In religion, no less than in manners, we see foreign influences at work. The rustic worship of the Lares and Penates, the deification of abstract qualities, and the assignment of the ordinary acts of daily life each to the patronage of its own special divinity, were despised as a creed outworn by those who had made acquaintance with Hellenic religion and theology. The abstract character of the native Roman religion of itself facilitated the amalgamation of the Roman with the Greek gods and goddesses by means of a series of equations (Jupiter Zeus, Minerva = Athena, Venus = Aphrodite, &c.). And those who sought a more sensational

=

worship than the Hellenic Olympus provided found it in the cults of the East and of Egypt, which from the end of the third century B. C. had begun to find a home in Italy. Under the Principate these religions found favour with many, owing to their sacramental mysteries and the hope which they offered of immortality.

Thus all classes at Rome, the highest and lowest alike, had adopted a cosmopolitan character, in which the oldfashioned virtues of the city-state of Italian yeomen no longer appear. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the change was pure loss. The old Roman character, with its narrow prudential virtues and its police restraint of vice, had something to gain from the wider horizons opened to it by Hellenic intellect and culture. How great this gain was may be seen from the characters and writings of the great men of the Augustan age, and from such men as Seneca and Agricola in the following century.

We have no reason to doubt either the reality of the luxury, vice, and extravagance of Rome or the fact, to which we have already referred (p. 12), that provincial life was much purer and simpler. The same thing is plainly visible in the modern world, perhaps more obviously in France than in any other nation possessing a great and wealthy capital. Novels and other literature make familiar the luxury and vice of Paris, but they leave more or less out of sight the decent domestic life which prevails in the provinces and is wide-spread, though not so conspicuous, in Paris. Both aspects of life are true alike of modern France and of imperial Rome.