ors to modify the harsh principles of the old municipal law of Rome, and render it a fitting instrument for the government of a world-wide empire. Ideas of universal equity replaced, under their patronage, the narrow selfishness of the Twelve Tables. From the time of Augustus at least the subjects of the conquering city received a long and patient training in the philosophy of jurisprudence. While the empire was tottering to its fall, they still cherished a conviction of the permanence of the principles on which its social fabric had been so long maintained. At the end of the fourth century the poet Rutilius could boldly prophesy that in her legal institutions Rome should yet be immortal. In this faith her jurists still persevered, working bravely for an unknown future. When the Theodosian Code or Digest was at last promulgated by the third Valentinian, Africa was already occupied by the Vandals, Gaul and Spain had been seized by the Visigoths and Burgundians, the Franks, the Saxons, the Ostrogoths, and the Lombards were already hovering in the rear; but preparation had thus been made for placing all these barbarians under civil restraints, and to these restraints they for the most part consented to submit. 3. The Roman law was a noble legacy, but the dying community had yet another and a nobler one to bequeath. The moral culture of Pagan antiquity issued in the general reception of the Christian religion. No result of the great Macedonian conquests had been more marked than the impulse they gave to the advancement of moral philosophy. When the ancient republics of Greece had become merged in one enormous empire the narrow ideas of patriotic duty, by which they had fostered their intense municipalism, were rapidly obliterated. The exclusive spirit which had kept every race, every tribe, almost every clan apart, gave way to wider sympathies. A more liberal morality convinced mankind of their common origin, their reciprocal duties, and equal rights. The Roman Empire laid hold upon this awakened sensibility, and established as a legal principle the equality of the Greek with the Roman, and with every other people over whom the Greek and Roman ideas predominated in common. The distinction, indeed, between bond and free still remained. This great and fatal blot on ancient society has hardly yet been effaced even throughout the modern. Slavery became, indeed, modified with the advancing humanity of Roman civilization, but as a social institution neither heathen sage nor Christian saint seems to have dreamed that it could possibly be abolished. Perhaps both Christian and heathen was equally unconscious of its iniquity, or made similar excuses for it. There still remained, however, a wide field for the teaching of the heathen moralists of the imperial era, which they cultivated with assiduity and success. The Stoics, and more particularly the CHAP. LXXX. FINAL RECEPTION OF CHRISTIANITY. 689 Stoical schools of the empire, inculcated noble lessons of virtue with a zeal almost fanatical. The treatises of Seneca may be taken as a type of Roman philosophical teaching, and these were mainly confined to the inculcation of practical morality. Marcus Aurelius not only gave lessons in morality, but practiced the lessons he prescribed. Among the Greeks and Orientals more attention was still paid to purely metaphysical speculation; but Plutarch, Dion, and Apollonius of Tyana, together doubtless with many others, distinguished themselves as teachers of ethics. With the empire, indeed, commenced an era not of teaching only, but of preaching. The Christian writers and orators may have led the way. The missionaries of the Gospel were not content to preach in their own churches or conventicles; they went about haranguing on the beauty of holiness, and converting men to virtue as well as to faith in Christ. The heathen moralists followed in their wake, and were perhaps powerfully influenced by their example. The second, and still more the third century of our era was distinguished for the earnestness of its moral and spiritual exhortations. Little as the Christian faith was openly recognized, we cannot doubt that its influence was already widely felt. The example of Christian endurance, still more perhaps of Christian charity and obedience, made a deep though silent impression upon a selfish society. The world had been strongly leavened with sympathy for the virtues of the disciples even before the time arrived when its sympathy could be confessed without incurring the penalties or disabilities which so long attached to it. Constantine found the Christians still a minority in numbers; but they plainly possessed the promise of the future. The instinct of the greatest of their converts recognized in their Church the only sure foundation for a strong and undivided empire. Tertullian and Origen had already shown that the intellectual power of the age had migrated to the camp of the new believers. Augustine and Chrysostom, Lactantius and Jerome, handed on the torch of Christian genius. We may estimate the intellectual progress of the Roman world from these genuine descendants of the greatest sages of antiquity. A temperate believer, wedded to no ecclesiastical theory, may be content to insist upon the fact that the Church did undoubtedly generate a morality more widely diffused and more highly cultivated than any Pagan system that preceded or accompanied it; but its success is still more conspicuous in the transcendent merit of its saints and martyrs, its moral and spiritual leaders. Even were the general level of Christian practice not more exalted than the Pagan, it must be confessed that more individuals have risen above it, and have risen to a much greater eminence. Such, then, is the point at which Roman society ultimately arrived. The history we have traversed culminates in the establishment of the Christian Church, and therewith of a higher standard of the noblest of human graces. In recounting a portion of mere human annals we are required to look no further. The Roman Empire has not been founded in vain, if it has, under Providential guidance, rendered this result possible. Its career has been darkened no doubt by a vast amount of crime and outrage; it has stifled some vital ideas, and trampled on many generous aspirations; sad and painful it has often been to struggle through the record of its oppressions and sensual corruptions; but the gloom has not been unrelieved by gleams of intelligence and virtue, and it leaves us at the last with a steady light of cheerful hope before us. We can discern, if we will not shut our eyes, that the germ of a truer civilization has been cast into the ground, has taken root, has actually sprung up and blossomed. Emilius Scaurus, 216, 240, Eneas, legend of, 47 8q. ANTONIUS. Albinus, Clodius, 550, 552. 104. Alexander Severus accepted 159. Ambrones propose to in- 507. 193. Aetius,"last of the Ro- Anarchy, reign of, under Sul- Mar- His Alaric, 629, 630, 635, 636, 637, Albinus, a candidate for em- 395. ib. ATHENS. His rule in the East, Appian Way, 126, 661. Arabia invaded by the Ro- Aræ Perusinæ, 393. Arbela, victory of Severus, 562. Arbogastes makes Engeni- Arins, 598. His followers, 605. Arminius, German leader, 332. Asia, after second Punic war, 182. Antoninus, Marcus Aureli- Armenia, kingdom of, 291. dom of, 193. ATTALUS. ured by Sulla, 257. At the Attalus of Pergamus, 183, 185. De- De- His Attalus made emperor by house, 669. See Octavius. CESAR. ress of Romans in, 46S, Aulus Postumus, dictator, Burrhus, 475, 476, 480. 66. Aurelian,emperor,571. Capt- B. Bagandæ, insurrection of, Barbarians, Northern, their Batavi, revolt of, 502, 503. Bibulus, consul with Cesar, Bona Dea, sacrilege of Clo- Bonifacius, consul, 648. in, 321. Caligula's expe- C. CARTHAGE. Sails from Brundisium,355 465. est, 40. Cæcina, lieutenant of Vitel- Capitol, commencement of, quarters, 168. Siege and His tension of his government, Capua, Hannibal's winter- Defeated by Metellus, 259. |