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Biography.jecting ourselves to any other power than that of Reason. When our friends were in distress,* we might appear outwardly to sympathize with their sorrow, but we were by no means to grieve with them in heart; a parent should not be roused to punish his son,† for it was better that the son should turn out ill, than that the father should be diverted from the care of his own mind by his interest for another. Death was to be regarded as the common lot of all, and the frailty of our nature should accustom us to view it without surprise and alarm. In itself it must be an extinction of being, or a translation to another state, still equally under the government of a wise and good Providence; it could not then be justly an object of fear, and our only care should be to wait for its coming without anxiety, and to improve the time allotted to us before its arrival, whether it were but a day or half a century.

Its imperfections.

Such were the doctrines of the Stoic Philosophers of the Age of Trajanus; and assuredly it must be a strange blindness or uncharitableness that can refuse to admire them. He can entertain but unworthy notions of the wisdom of God, who is afraid lest the wisdom of Man should rival it. The Stoic Philosophy was unfitted for the weakness of human nature; its contempt of Physical Evil was revolting to the common sense of mankind, and was absolutely unattainable by persons of delicate bodily constitutions; and thus, generally speaking, by one-half of the human race, and particularly by that sex which under a wiser discipline has been found capable of attaining to such high excellence. Above all, it could not represent God to Man under those peculiar characters, in which every affection and faculty of our nature finds its proper object and guide. There are many passages in the works of Epictetus and M. Antoninus, in which His general Providence and our duties towards Him are forcibly declared; still He seems to be at the most no more than a part of their system, and that neither the most striking, nor the most fully developed. But in order to make us like Him, it was necessary that in all our views of life, in our motives, in our hopes, and in our affections, God should be all in all; that he should be represented to us, not as He is in Himself, but as he stands related to us,- —as our Father, and our Saviour, and the Author of all our goodness; in those characters, in short, under which the otherwise incomprehensible Deity has so revealed himself as to be known and loved, not only by the strongest and wisest of his creatures, but also by the weak and the ignorant.

One great defect in the ancient systems of Philosophy was their want of authority. It was Opinion opposed to Opinion, and thus the disputes of the several Sects seemed incapable of ever arriving at a decision. Plain men, therefore, were bewildered by the conflicting pretensions of their teachers, when they turned to seek some relief from the utter folly and worthlessness of the popular Religion. So that a large portion of mankind were likely to adopt the advice of Lucian, to regard with contempt all the high discussions of the Philosophers relating to the end and principle of our being, and to think only of the present, bestowing serious thoughts upon nothing, and endeavouring to

M. Ulpius

Trajanus

Crinitus.

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pass through life laughingly. Something, too, must be ascribed not only to the discordant opinions of the Philosophers, but to their reputed dishonesty; and the suspicion which attached to them of turning Morality into a trade. Their temptations were strong, and such as we have seen even the teachers of Christianity unable often to resist. In an Age of ignorance, just made conscious of its own deficiencies, any Moral and intellectual superiority is regarded with veneration; The and when the Sophists professed to teach men the true Sophists. business of life, they found many who were eager to listen to them. Then followed an aggravation of the evils of popular preaching under another name: the Sophists aspired to be Orators as well as Moralists; and their success would depend as much on their eloquence and impressive delivery, as on the soundness of their doctrines. In the eastern part of the Empire their ascendency was great; and if the story of Philostratus be true, the Philosophers in Egypt formed as considerable a body, and, during the stay of Vespasianus at Alexandria, claimed the right of advising Princes as boldly, as the Romish Clergy of a later period have done. With these means of influence, and the consequent temptation to abuse it, the Sophists were without that organization and discipline, which in the Christian Church preserved the purity, or checked the excesses of individual teachers; and not being responsible to any one for their conduct, they were less scrupulous in avoiding censure. The same want of organization prevented them from acting in concert in the several parts of the Empire, and from directing their attention on a regular system to all classes of the community from the highest to the lowest. The Sophists were no Missionaries, and poor or remote districts, which could tempt neither their cupidity nor their ambition, derived little advantage from their knowledge.

Under these circumstances, the Christian Religion had grown with surprising rapidity, and must have produced effects on the character and happiness of individuals, far greater than the common details of History will allow us to estimate. If our sole information were derived from Pliny's famous Letter, we must yet be struck with the first instance in Roman History of a society for the encouragement of the highest virtues, those of piety, integrity, and purity, and embracing persons of both sexes and of all conditions. Such a project was indeed a complete remedy for the prevailing faults of the times: it promised not only to teach goodness, but actively to disseminate it; and to do away those degrading distinctions between slaves and freemen, and even between men and women, which had so limited the views of the Philosophers in their plans for the improvement of mankind. Of all subjects for History none would be so profitable as the fortunes of the Christian society; to trace the various causes which impeded or corrupted its operations, and to bring at the same time fully into view, that vast amount of good which its inherent excellence enabled it still to effect, amidst all external obstacles and internal corruptions. We think that its friends have not rightly understood the several elements which have led to its partial failure, while we are certain that its enemies can never appreciate its benefits. But we must

• In vitâ Apollonii Tyanei, v. 27, et seq.

From A. D.

Biography not enter upon this most inviting field at present; and from the long, but very imperfect survey which we have attempted to give of the state of the Empire, we must at last return to the History of Trajanus, and hasten to conclude this memoir, after we have briefly noticed the character of his individual Government, and his expedition into the East.

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Of the

The highest spirit of a Sovereign is to labour to Government bring his Government, in every point of view, as nearly of Trajanus. as possible to a state of absolute perfection; his next highest praise, is to administer the system which he finds established, with the greatest purity and liberality. This glory was certainly deserved by Trajanus; and although he never thought of amending some of the greatest evils of the times, yet, as far as his people had suffered from the direct tyranny and wastefulness of former Governments, his reign was a complete relief; and we can easily account for the warm affection with which his memory was so long regarded in after ages. He pleased the Romans by observing many of the forms of a free Constitution; nor ought we to suspect that in so doing he was actuated by Policy only, for he was quite capable of feeling the superior dignity of the Magistrate of a free people to that of a Tyrant; and he most probably spoke from his heart, when on presenting the sword to the Præfect of the Prætorian guards, he desired him to use that weapon in his service so long as he governed well, but to turn it against him if ever he should abuse his power. There is the same spirit observable in his conduct during his third Consulship: as soon as he had been elected, he walked up to the chair of the Consul who presided at the Comitia; and whilst he stood before it, the Consul, without rising from his seat, † administered to him the usual Consular oath, that he would discharge his office faithfully. And when his Consulship had expired, he again took an oath, that he had done nothing, during the time that he had held it, which was contrary to Law. These professions of regard to the welfare of his People were well verified by his actions. His suppression of the informers; his discouraging prosecutions under the Leges Majestatis; his relaxation of the tax on inheritances; and the impartiality with which he suffered the law to take its course against his own Procurators, when they were guilty of any abuse of power, were all real proofs of his sincerity; and they were not belied by any subsequent measures at a later period of his reign. The causes which were brought before himself immediately, he tried with fairness and attention;§ and it was on an occasion of this kind, when Eurythmus, one of his freedmen and Procurators, was implicated in a charge of tampering with a Will, and the prosecutors seemed reluctant to press their accusation against a person so connected with the Emperor, that he observed to them, "Eurythmus is not a Polycletus," (one of the most powerful of Nero's freedmen and favourites,) nor am I a Nero." In his care of the Provinces, and in his answers to the questions to him by the younger Pliny when Proconsul of Bithynia, he manifested a love of justice, an attention to the comforts of the People, and a minute knowledge of the details of the administration, which are most highly creditable to him. It is mentioned, too,

46

Crinitus.

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that he was very careful in noticing the good conduct M. Ulpian of the officers employed in the Provinces ;* and con- Trajanus sidered the testimonials of regard given by a Province. to its Governor, as affording him a just title to higher distinctions at Rome. The materials for the History of this reign are indeed so scanty, that we know scarcely any thing of the lives and characters of the men who were most distinguished under it, nor can we enliven 117. our narrative with many of those Biographical sketches, which by bringing out individuals in a clear and strong light, illustrate most happily the general picture of the But C. Plinius Secundus, whom Trajanus made Proconsul of Bithynia, affords one memorable exception; and we gladly seize this opportunity to bestow some particular notice on one of the most distinguished persons who lived in these times.

age.

C. Plinius Cæcilius Secundus was born at or near Pliny the Comum, about the sixth year of the reign of Nero, or Younger, A. D. 61. His mother was a sister of C. Plinius, the Natural Historian; and as he lost his father at an early period, he removed with her to the house of his uncle, with whom he resided for some years, and was adopted by him, and, consequently, assumed his name in addition to his parental one, Cæcilius. He appears to have been of a delicate constitution, and even in his youth to have possessed little personal activity and enterprise; for at the time of the famous eruption of Vesuvius, when he was between seventeen and eighteen, he continued his studies at home, and allowed his uncle to set out to the mountain without him. In Literature, however, he made considerable progress, according to the estimate of those times: he composed a Greek Tragedy when he was only fourteen,† and wrote Latin verses on several occasions throughout his life; he attended the Lectures of Quinctilianus, and some other eminent Rhetoricians, and assiduously cultivated his style as an elegant writer and an Orator. In this latter capacity he acquired great credit, and to this cause he was probably indebted for his Political advancement. He went through the whole succession of public offices from that of Quaestor to the high dignities of Consul and Augur, and was so esteemed by Trajanus as to be selected by him for the Government of Bithynia, because there were many abuses in that Province, which required a man of ability and integrity to remove them.§ The trust so honourably committed to him he seems to have discharged with great fidelity; and the attention to every branch of his duties, which his Letters to Trajanus display, is peculiarly praiseworthy in a man of sedentary habits, and accustomed to the enjoyments of his villas, and the stimulants of Literary glory at Rome. His character as a husband, a master, and a friend, was affectionate, kind, and generous; he displayed also a noble liberality towards his native town Comum, by forming a public library there, and devoting a yearly sum of 300,000 sesterces for ever to the maintenance of children born of free parents who were Citizens of Comum. A man like Plinius, of considerable talents and learning, possessed of great wealth, and of an amiable and generous disposition, was sure to meet with many friends, and with still more who would gratify his vanity by their praises and apparent admiration of his abilities. But as a writer he has done nothing to entitle him to a very high

Biography, place in the judgment of posterity.

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The Eastern

His Panegyric of Trajanus belongs to a class of compositions, the whole object of which was to produce a striking effect, and it must not aspire to any greater reward. It is ingenious and eloquent, but by its very nature it gives no room for the exercise of the highest faculties of the mind, nor will its readers derive from it any more substantial benefit than the pleasure which a mere elegant composition can afford. His Letters are valuable to us, as all original Letters of other times must be, because they necessarily throw much light on the period at which they were written. But many of them are ridiculously studied, and leave the impression, so fatal to our interest in the perusal of such compositions, that they were written for the express purpose of publication. In short, the works of Plinius, compared with the reputation which he enjoyed among his contemporaries, seem to us greatly to confirm the view which we have taken of the inferiority of the Literature of this period, and of the unworthy notions which were entertained of its proper excellence.

It was in the seventeenth year of the reign of Traexpedition janus, after a peaceful period of seven or eight years, of Trajanus. that war again broke out in the East, and the Roman and Parthian Empires became involved in direct hostilities with each other. We are neither acquainted with the causes of the quarrel, nor with the precise period of its commencement; but we are merely told, that the chief operations of the first campaign consisted in the capture of Nisibis and Batne* towns of Mesopotamia, and that for these successes, the Senate bestowed on the Emperor the title of Parthicus. Nisibis is a name which often occurs in the history of the subsequent wars between Rome and Persia; and Batne was a Macedonian colony,† and the seat of a celebrated fair, held annually in the month of September, to which there was a general resort of merchants for the purchase of commodities of India, China, and other parts of the East. On the approach of winter, Trajanus returned to Antioch, and during his stay in that city it was visited by a most fatal earthquake, which lasted for several days, and destroyed a vast multitude of persons of every condition; Trajanus himself, it is said, escaping with difficulty from the ruin of the house in which he was residing. The next campaign presents us with a series of rapid and short-lived conquests, such as the East has often witnessed. It appears that the moment was happily chosen, for the Parthian Monarchy was torn by intestine contests, and was unable to offer any resistance; so that the advance of the Roman troops was a triumphant progress, and they crossed the Tigris, overran Adiabene, were gratified by visiting Babylon as conquerors, and finally took Ctesiphon, the Capital of the Parthian Empire. Trajanus, elated with these successes, and emulating the glory of Alexander while he traversed the countries which had been the scene of his exploits, descended the Tigris to its mouth, to behold the Persian Gulf; and it is said, that seeing there a vessel ready to sail for India, he exclaimed that if he were a younger man he would carry his arms against the Indians. But on his return from the sea coast to Babylon, he learned how sudden are the vicissitudes of Asiatic warfare. While he had been dream

* Dion Cassius, lxviii. 781.

+ Ammian. Marcel. xiv. 7. edit. Vales. Dion Cassius, ubi suprà.

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ing of the invasion of India, his conquests of the pre- M. Ulpius ceding year were vanishing from his grasp. As soon Trajanus Crinitus. as the immediate terror of his army was withdrawn, the countries which he had overrun shook off the yoke, and Nisibis, amongst other places, either drove out or reduced the Roman garrison, and recovered its independence. Nor were the efforts of Trajanus as successful as they had been in the preceding summer. Nisibis, indeed, was retaken, and the Emperor enjoyed the empty glory of giving away the Crown of Parthia to a Prince whom Dion Cassius calls Parthamaspates, and whose reign was likely to last no longer than whilst the Romans were at hand to protect him. But Maximus, a man of Consular rank, on whom Trajanus had bestowed the command of a separate army, was defeated and slain in Mesopotamia; and Trajanus himself closed the campaign with disgrace, after having lost a great number of men in a fruitless siege of Hatra, a small town of Mesopotamia, standing in the midst of a desert, and protected by the utter barrenness of the country around it, and the scarcity of fresh water. At the end of the season the Romans fell back into Syria, with the hope of renewing their invasion of Mesopotamia in the following Spring; but Trajanus was seized with a lingering illness, which His sickobliged him to resign all thoughts of taking the com- ness, mand in person; and he wished, therefore, to return himself to Rome, leaving the army to the care of Ælius Hadrianus, a native of the Spanish town of Italica in which he had himself been born, and who had married his niece. As he had no children, the state of his health excited great anxiety as to the person whom he would adopt as his successor, and his wife Plotina is said to have used all her influence in favour of Hadrianus; but it was generally believed that she could never persuade her husband to adopt him, and that the instrument which she produced, and sent to Hadrianus at Antioch immediately before the death of Trajanus, was, in reality, a forgery of her own. It was known, at least, that she was present with the Emperor when he died, and that she took care that no particulars of his illness should transpire, but such as she chose herself to circulate. Trajanus died at Selinus in Cilicia,† And deathin the month of August, A. D. 117, after a reign of nineteen years, and a little more than six months.

In addition to what we have said of his public character, we may add, that he was an affectionate husband and brother; and that the cordiality which subsisted between his wife Plotina and his sister Mariana‡ was thought to reflect honour, not only on themselves, but on him.

It is said by Sex. Victor, that he was addicted to intemperance in drinking; and the circumstance of his being dropsical in his last illness agrees with this imputation. But as a Sovereign, his popularity during his lifetime was equalled by the regard entertained for his memory by posterity; and his claim to the title of Optimus, which the Senate solemnly bestowed on him, was confirmed by the voice of succeeding times; inasmuch as for two hundred years after his death the Senate,§ in pouring forth their prayers for the happiness of a new Emperor, were accustomed to wish, that he might surpass the prosperity of Augustus, and the goodness of Trajanus.

Piography.

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Hadrianus's accession and letter tc

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868.

TRAJANUS left the Roman Empire at the zenith of its power. The precept of Augustus had been forgotten. Not only Britain and the extensive Province of Dacia, but vast countries in the East, had been added to it. The whole civilized world, and most of the barbarous nations at that time known, bowed beneath the Roman yoke. But after the death of the Conqueror, and indeed from the commencement of the disorder which terminated his life, this overgrown, unwieldy power began gradually to sink under its own weight. The wisdom, however, of his three immediate successors, Hadrianus and the two Antonines, arrested for a while the progress of decay; and their reigns present, with little interruption, a prospect of general peace, and a system of good government.

Hadrianus, who was Commander in Chief of the forces in Syria, received at Antioch, on the eleventh of the Senate. August, the news of the decease of his royal master, who left no heir natural or adopted.* It appears that this important event was not divulged until measures had been taken for Hadrianus's succession. The legions of Syria readily proclaimed him Emperor, and he wrote himself to the Senate to request its confirmation of their election. In this letter he apologized for having assumed the Imperial dignity without the previous consent of the Senate; pleading, in his excuse, the impatience of the army to give a head to the Republic. He professed his unwillingness that the customary honours should be decreed him, on this or any other occasion, unless he should himself first ask for them; declared that the public good should be the primary object of his administration, and pledged himself that no Senator should be put to death, unless by sentence of his peers. He concluded with the pious request (to use the language of the age) that they would rank his adoptive father among the Gods.

Forgery of the Empress Plotina.

Dion Cassiust asserts, on the authority of his father, Apronianus, who was Præfect of Cilicia, that Plotina, the widow of Trajanus, in order to ensure the imperial crown to Hadrianus, forged, with the assistance of Tatianus, who was one of his guardians, a letter of adoption from her Royal consort to the Senate. We are told, too, that she had previously concealed in the chamber of the dying Emperor a man, who counterfeited his voice, and proclaimed his adoption of Hadrianus as his successor. The fact of the forgery seems established; and yet it may be thought extraordinary that the

* Dion Cassius, Hadrian. 255.

+ Ibid. 256.

Dion Cassius, says Crevier, is positive that Plotina sacrificed her virtue to Hadrianus. Crev. 18, 2. But we cannot understand the expression ἡ Πλωτίνα ἐξ ερωτικῆς φιλίας πλησίον τε ὄντα, etc. as a positive assertion of the fact of criminal intercourse. Hadrianus had always been a favourite with her, and she had made the match between him and her niece, Sabina; whom, having no children, she may have considered as a daughter. Hadrianus, as Dion observes, was in the neighbourhood, and a man of great power; Tatianus was at her elbow; and there were sufficient reasons for her anxiety to promote Hadrianus's interests.

Hadrianus

The circumstanee of Plotina's signature* being at- The Senate tached to the letter of adoption, instead of the Empe- confirms ror's, as had in all former instances been customary, gave rise to a suspicion of its authenticity. But the Senate did not think proper to notice this informality; and, in their reply to Hadrianus's letter, it confirmed the election of the army, agreed to all he had proposed, and offered him, in spite of his injunction to the contrary, the title of Pater Patria, and the honours of a Triumph, which it had been proposed to decree to Trajanus, for the victories in the East. The former he modestly declined to assume for the present; and the latter, although as he had had considerable commands both in the Dacian and Parthian campaigns, there was some pretence for the substitution, he positively refused, and directed that they should be given to the ashes of the deceased Conqueror, who was thus the only man who triumphed after he was dead.

The approaching exaltation of Hadrianus was an- Hadrian' nounced to him, in a dream, the day before the intelli- dream gence of the death of Trajanus reached him.† A flame of fire descended from the heavens, which were beautifully serene, upon the left side of his throat, and crept innocently round to the right, without either injuring or alarming him. This was, of course, considered as a fortunate presage of his reign.

Ælianus Hadrianus was born in January, A. D. His birth 76, u. c. 827. His grandfather, Marullinus, was the and paren first Senator of his family, which came from Italica, in tage. Spain, the native country of Trajanus. His father, Elius Hadrianus Afer, dying after he had attained the rank of Prætor, appointed Trajan by his will, conjointly with the Roman Knight Cælius Tatianus, guardian to his son, who was then only ten years of age. Afer was His relation first cousin § to Trajanus. Hadrianus was therefore a ship to near kinsman of that Prince; and being, moreover, Trajanus. connected with him by marriage,|| might, with better title than most of his predecessors, aspire to the Empire; if indeed it could be, in any degree, considered as hereditary.