The Caesars | Page 6

History, as
worthy of notice--that Pompey died, as it were, within sight of that very
temple which he had polluted. Let us not suppose that Paganism, or

Pagan nations, were therefore excluded from the concern and tender
interest of Heaven. They also had their place allowed. And we may be
sure that, amongst them, the Roman emperor, as the great accountant
for the happiness of more men, and men more cultivated, than ever
before were intrusted to the motions of a single will, had a special,
singular, and mysterious relation to the secret counsels of Heaven.
Even we, therefore, may lawfully attribute some sanctity to the Roman
emperor. That the Romans did so with absolute sincerity is certain. The
altars of the emperor had a twofold consecration; to violate them, was
the double crime of treason and heresy, In his appearances of state and
ceremony, the fire, the sacred fire epompeue was carried in ceremonial
solemnity before him; and every other circumstance of divine worship
attended the emperor in his lifetime. [Footnote: The fact is, that the
emperor was more of a sacred and divine creature in his lifetime than
after his death. His consecrated character as a living ruler was a truth;
his canonization, a fiction of tenderness to his memory.]
To this view of the imperial character and relations must be added one
single circumstance, which in some measure altered the whole for the
individual who happened to fill the office. The emperor de facto might
be viewed under two aspects: there was the man, and there was the
office. In his office he was immortal and sacred: but as a question
might still be raised, by means of a mercenary army, as to the claims of
the particular individual who at any time filled the office, the very
sanctity and privilege of the character with which he was clothed might
actually be turned against himself; and here it is, at this point, that the
character of Roman emperor became truly and mysteriously awful.
Gibbon has taken notice of the extraordinary situation of a subject in
the Roman empire who should attempt to fly from the wrath of the
crown. Such was the ubiquity of the emperor that this was absolutely
hopeless. Except amongst pathless deserts or barbarous nomads, it was
impossible to find even a transient sanctuary from the imperial pursuit.
If he went down to the sea, there he met the emperor: if he took the
wings of the morning, and fled to the uttermost parts of the earth, there
also was the emperor or his lieutenants. But the same omnipresence of
imperial anger and retribution which withered the hopes of the poor

humble prisoner, met and confounded the emperor himself, when
hurled from his giddy elevation by some fortunate rival. All the
kingdoms of the earth, to one in that situation, became but so many
wards of the same infinite prison. Flight, if it were even successful for
the moment, did but a little retard his inevitable doom. And so evident
was this, that hardly in one instance did the fallen prince attempt to fly;
but passively met the death which was inevitable, in the very spot
where ruin had overtaken him. Neither was it possible even for a
merciful conqueror to show mercy; for, in the presence of an army so
mercenary and factious, his own safety was but too deeply involved in
the extermination of rival pretenders to the crown.
Such, amidst the sacred security and inviolability of the office, was the
hazardous tenure of the individual. Nor did his dangers always arise
from persons in the rank of competitors and rivals. Sometimes it
menaced him in quarters which his eye had never penetrated, and from
enemies too obscure to have reached his ear. By way of illustration we
will cite a case from the life of the Emperor Commodus, which is wild
enough to have furnished the plot of a romance--though as well
authenticated as any other passage in that reign. The story is narrated
by Herodian, and the circumstances are these: A slave of noble
qualities, and of magnificent person, having liberated himself from the
degradations of bondage, determined to avenge his own wrongs by
inflicting continual terror upon the town and neighborhood which had
witnessed his humiliation. For this purpose he resorted to the woody
recesses of the province, (somewhere in the modern Transylvania,) and,
attracting to his wild encampment as many fugitives as he could, by
degrees he succeeded in forming and training a very formidable troop
of freebooters. Partly from the energy of his own nature, and partly
from the neglect and remissness of the provincial magistrates, the
robber captain rose from less to more, until he had formed a little army,
equal to the task of assaulting fortified cities.