Caligula succeeded Tiberius. It was said of him that there had never been a better slave, nor a more wicked master. These two things are closely connected, for the same turn of mind causing a man to be strongly impressed by the unlimited power of the person in command, causes him to be no less impressed when he is in command himself.
Caligula reestablished the comitia [1] which Tiberius had done away with and abolished the arbitrary crime of lese-majesty which he had established. From this we may judge that the beginning of the reign of bad princes is often like the end of the reign of good ones. What good princes do from virtue, bad ones can do from a desire to run counter to the conduct of their predecessor. And to this spirit of contrariety we owe many good regulations, and many bad ones as well.
What was gained thereby? Caligula did away with accusations for crimes of lese-majesty, but he used his military powers to put to death all those who displeased him. And he was not ill-disposed toward just a few senators; he held a sword suspended over the whole senate, which he threatened with complete extermination.
This frightful tyranny of the emperors derived from the general spirit of the Romans. Since the Romans fell under an arbitrary government suddenly, with almost no interval between their commanding and their serving, they were not at all prepared for the change by a moderation of their manners. Their fierce humor remained; the citizens were treated as they themselves had treated conquered enemies, and were governed according to the same plan. The Sulla who entered Rome was no different from the Sulla who entered Athens: he applied the same law of nations. As for states that have been brought under subjection only by imperceptible degrees, when the laws fail them they are still governed by their manners.
The constant sight of gladiators in combat made the Romans extremely fierce. It was observed that Claudius became more inclined to shed blood by seeing spectacles of this kind. The example of this emperor, who was of a gentle nature yet committed so many cruelties, makes it obvious that the education of his time was different from ours.
Since the Romans were accustomed to making sport of human nature in the person of their children and their slaves [2], they could scarcely know the virtue we call humanity. Can the ferocity we find in the inhabitants of our colonies come from anything but the punishments constantly inflicted on this unhappy portion of the human race? When we are cruel in the civil state [a], what can we expect from natural gentleness and justice?
It is wearying, in the history of the emperors, to see the infinite number of men they put to death for the purpose of confiscating their wealth. We find nothing similar in our modern histories. This, as we have just said, must be attributed to gentler manners, and to a more repressive religion. Moreover, we do not have for despoiling the families of senators who had ravaged the world. The advantages we draw from the moderate size of our fortunes is that they are more secure: it is not worth anyone's trouble to plunder our wealth [3].
The people of Rome, who were called plebs, did not hate the worst emperors. After they had lost their power, and were no longer occupied with war, they had become the vilest of all peoples. They regarded commerce and the arts as things fit for slaves, and the distributions of grain that they received made them neglect the land. They had been accustomed to games and spectacles. When they no longer had tribunes to listen to or magistrates to elect, these useless things became necessities, and idleness increased their taste for them. Thus Caligula, Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla were lamented by the people because of their very madness, for they wildly loved what the people loved, and contributed with all their power and even their persons to the people's pleasures. For them these rulers were prodigal of all the riches of the empire, and when these were exhausted, the people -- looking on untroubled while all the great families were being despoiled -- enjoyed the fruits of the tyranny. And their joy was pure, for they found security in their own baseness. Such princes naturally hated good men: they knew they were not approved of by them [4]. Indignant at meeting contradiction or silence from an austere citizen, intoxicated by the plaudits of the populace, they succeeded in imagining that their government produced public felicity, and that only ill-intentioned men could censure it.
Caligula was a true sophist in his cruelty. Since he was descended from both Antony and Augustus, he said he would punish the consuls both if they celebrated the day of rejoicing established in memory of the victory of Actium, and if they did not celebrate it. And when Drusilla, to whom he accorded divine honors, died, it was both a crime to mourn her, because she was a goddess, and not to mourn her, because she was his sister.
This is the place to set before ourselves the spectacle of things human. How many wars do we see undertaken in the history of Rome, how much blood shed, how many peoples destroyed, how many great actions, how many triumphs, how much statecraft, how much sobriety, prudence, constancy, and courage! But how did this project for invading all nations end -- a project so well planned, carried out and completed -- except by satiating the happiness of five or six monsters? What! This senate had brought about the extinction of so many kings only to fall into the meanest enslavement to some of its most contemptible citizens, and to exterminate itself by its own decrees! We build up our power only to see it the better overturned! Men labor to increase their power only to see it fall into more fortunate hands and turned against themselves!
After Caligula had been killed, the senate assembled to establish a form of government. While it was deliberating, some soldiers entered the palace to pillage it. In an obscure place they found a man trembling with fear. It was Claudius: they acclaimed him emperor.
Claudius completed the ruin of the old orders by giving his officers the right to dispense justice [5]. The wars of Marius and Sulla were principally waged to determine just who would have this right, the senators or the knights [6]. An imbecile's fancy took it away from both -- strange outcome of a dispute that had set the whole world aflame!
No authority is more absolute than that of a prince who succeeds a republic, for he finds himself with all the power of the people, who had not been able to impose limitations on themselves. Thus we see the kings of Denmark today exercising the most arbitrary power in Europe.
The people were no less debased than the senate and knights. We have seen that, until the time of the emperors, they had been so warlike that the armies raised in the city were disciplined on the spot and went straight to the enemy. In the civil wars of Vitellius and Vespasian, Rome became a prey to every ambitious man, and, full of timid bourgeois, trembled before the first band of soldiers to approach it.
The condition of the emperors was no better. Since the right or the daring to elect an emperor was not confined to a single army, it was enough for someone to be elected by one army for him to be displeasing to the others, who at once named a competitor.
Thus, just as the greatness of the republic was fatal to its republican government, so the greatness of the empire was fatal to the lives of the emperors. If they had had a country of only moderate size to defend, they would have had only one main army, which, having once elected them, would have respected its own handiwork.
The soldiers had been attached to the family of Caesar, who was the guarantee of all the advantages the revolution had procured for them. The time came when the great families of Rome were all exterminated by Caesar's family, and when, in the person of Nero, it too perished. The civil power, which had been steadily beaten down, was in no position to counter balance the military; each army wanted to create an emperor.
At this point let us compare different periods. When Tiberius began to reign, he made most advantageous use of the senate [7]. He learned that the Roman armies in Illyria and Germany had revolted. He granted some of their demands, maintained that it was for the senate to judge the others [8], and sent them deputies from this body. Those who no longer fear power can still respect authority. When the rebellious soldiers were shown that, within a Roman army, the lives of the emperor's children and the senate's envoys were in danger [9], they were capable of repenting and went so far as to punish themselves [10]. But when the senate was completely downtrodden, its example moved no one. Otho harangued his soldiers in vain to tell them of the senate's dignity [11]; in vain did Vitellius send the principal senators to make peace with Vespasian for him [12]. The respect which has been taken away from the orders of the state for so long cannot be restored at a moment's notice. The armies only regarded these deputies as the most cowardly slaves of a master they had already condemned.
It was an old custom of the Romans that whoever enjoyed a triumph distributed a few denarii [b] to each soldier; it was very little [13]. In the civil wars these gifts were increased [14]. Formerly they consisted of money taken from the enemy; in these unhappy times it was the money of citizens, and the soldiers wanted a share even where there had been no booty. These distributions had taken place only after war; Nero used them during peace. The soldiers grew accustomed to them; and they were enraged at Galba, who courageously told them that he knew how to choose soldiers but not how to buy them.
Galba, Otho [15], and Vitellius were only briefly in power. Like them, Vespasian was elected by the soldiers. In the course of his whole reign he thought only of reestablishing the empire, which had been successively occupied by six tyrants equally cruel, almost all wild, often imbecile, and, to make matters worse, prodigal to the point of madness.
Titus, who succeeded him, was the delight of the Roman people. Domitian revealed himself a new monster who was more cruel or at least more implacable than his predecessors because he was more timorous.
Seeing that he was as dangerous in his friendships as in his hatreds, and that he placed no limits on either his suspicions or his accusations, his favorite freedmen and -- as some have said -- his wife herself, got rid of him. Before striking the blow they looked around for a successor, and chose Nerva, a venerable old man.
Nerva adopted Trajan, the most accomplished prince in the annals of history. It was a blessing to be born in his reign; nothing was so fortunate or so glorious for the great Roman people. He was a great statesman and a great general. He had a good heart, which inclined him toward the good, an enlightened mind which taught him what was best, and a soul that was noble, great, and beautiful. He possessed all the virtues without being extreme in any, and was, in short, the man most suitable for honoring human nature and representing the divine.
He executed Caesar's project and warred against the Parthians successfully. Any other man would have succumbed in an enterprise where the dangers were immediate and the resources distant, where it was absolutely necessary to conquer, and where there was no assurance of survival after conquering.
The difficulty consisted both in the situation of the two empires and in the style of warfare of the two peoples. What if one took the road through Armenia, toward the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates? One found a mountainous and difficult country where convoys could not be led, so that the army would be half ruined before arriving in Media [16]. What if one entered at a lower point, toward the south, through Nisibis [c]? One found a dreadful desert that separated the two empires. What if one wished to pass lower still, and go through Mesopotamia? One traversed a country that was partly uncultivated, partly submerged. And with the Tigris and Euphrates going from north to south, one could not penetrate into the country without leaving the rivers, and could hardly leave the rivers without perishing.
As to the style of warfare of the two nations, the strength of the Romans consisted in their infantry -- the strongest, most steadfast and best disciplined in the world.
The Parthians had no infantry but an admirable cavalry. They fought from afar, and beyond the range of Roman arms. The javelin could rarely reach them. Their arms were bows and fearful arrows, and they rather besieged an army than engaged it in combat. They were pursued in vain because, for them, to flee was to fight. They made their peoples withdraw as the enemy approached, leaving only garrisons in the strongholds; and when these were taken, they had to be destroyed. They skillfully burned the whole countryside around the enemy army, and deprived it of the very grass. In short, they made war in much the same way it is still made today along the same frontiers.
Moreover, the legions of Illyria and Germany, which were transferred into this war, were not suitable for it [17]. Accustomed in their own country to eating heavily, the soldiers perished almost to the last man.
Thus, the Parthians did what no nation had yet done and avoided the Roman yoke -- not by being invincible, but by being inaccessible.
Hadrian abandoned Trajan's conquests [18], and set the bounds of the empire at the Euphrates. And it is admirable that after so many wars the Romans should have lost only what they had wanted to give up -- like the sea, which diminishes only when it withdraws by itself.
Hadrian's conduct caused many murmurs. In the sacred books of the Romans, people read that when Tarquin wanted to build the Capitol he found the most suitable place already occupied by the statues of many other divinities. With his knowledge of augury he inquired if they would be willing to cede their place to Jupiter. All consented, with the exception of Mars, Youth, and the god Terminus [19]. This gave rise to three religious opinions: that the people of Mars would cede the area they occupied to no one; that the Roman youth would never be overcome; and, finally, that the Roman god Terminus would never move back -- all of which did happen, however, under Hadrian.