A French Critic of Old Imperialism

THE political events of recent years have given rise to frequent comparison between the great American republic of to-day and the great Roman republic of two thousand years ago; and there is no doubt that there are marked points of resemblance, not only political, but as regards many other phases of social and spiritual life.

The Roman world, during the last years of the Republic and under the early emperors, had, in some respects, reached a high stage of civilization. It had not the advantages of printing, of rapid transportation, or of electric light. Nevertheless, those who lived chiefly to amuse themselves were able to do so with a variety and refinement of luxury which Chicago and Newport would find it difficult to surpass. What is of more importance, the few whose immense wealth enabled them to devote their lives to the endless pursuit of new and stimulating pleasures grew gradually farther and farther apart from the toiling many who lived merely from day to day. The old, simple, governmental machine, which had worked perfectly with the old, simple conditions of life, creaked dangerously under the new strains that were placed upon it. And the rich said to themselves that it was a fine thing to be free, but a far finer thing to have some power strong enough to protect capital from the anarchical greed of labor.

With idleness and luxury went the usual tendency to brutality and demoralization. The historical novel was not invented; so that Roman ladies and gentlemen could not sit by the fire of an evening and read highly-spiced narratives of murder and torture. But, after all, the incidents of the arena, though less varied, were perhaps even more piquant than Mr. Kipling or Mr. Jack London. Social morals, too, were of a quality which seems only too apt to accompany the highest civilization. Divorce was almost as easily obtained as in some of our Western states, and nearly as common. Cicero, for instance, was separated from two wives; yet he was universally regarded as of stainless character, and that he was wise is shown by his remarking, when urged to marry a third time, that " it is difficult for a man to devote himself at once to a wife and to philosophy.”

If we consider the Roman world in its religious aspects also, we shall find interesting points of resemblance to our own In the earlier days of the Republic the whole duty of man was to honor the gods and lead a simple, upright life. The Roman religion was always very formal in character; but, in the beginning, form was closely connected with spirit, and the founders of the nation believed that virtue was the highest form of worship. Later on, the subtle philosophies of Greece began to make themselves felt. Life became a vaster, more complex thing than it had at first appeared to the rugged farmers on the banks of the Tiber. The gods grew much dimmer and at the same time rather less respectable. Caesar could proclaim openly, in the Senate, his disbelief in a life after death; and it is probable that a large number of educated men — and women — were inclined to agree with him. Yet, as has happened since, under similar conditions, the general skepticism was accompanied by a vague unrest. Men said to one another bravely, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” But in their hearts they were discontented and longed for something different,—they knew not what. Thus they were ready to take up with any new superstition that offered. The East, always fertile in deity, poured out her swarm of strange gods upon them, — Isis, Osiris, the Dog Anubis, and the rest, — and every one found eager worshipers.

It will be said that it is easy to pick out resemblances and neglect everything else. Of course, no one can overlook t he marked points of difference between the Roman republic and our own. In the first place there is slavery, supplying always at the bottom of the social structure a dark stratum of ignominy and suffering, a chaos of envy and licentiousness and despair. Then, too, in the sphere of politics, the government of Rome was intensely centralized. One city held all the power, and one class in that city the greater part of it. Faction and mob violence, backed and controlled by the subtle schemes of selfish ambition, had far freer play than could ever be possible in a country with many centres of political life, all equally important and quite dissimilar in their interests. Nevertheless, the political resemblances between the greatest republics of the Old World and of the New are the most striking of all. In both cases we find a government devised to meet very simple conditions of life, and under those conditions working well. A hardy, thrifty, industrious, self-controlled people make laws for themselves, live by those laws, develop, and prosper. But internal circumstances change. The rich separate themselves from the poor and are hated by them. New elements come into the commonwealth and are assimilated with constantly increasing difficulty. The old, simple forms of government are already proving hardly equal to the burden placed upon them, when the perhaps unalterable march of events brings the nation into control of other nations, places upon those who had proved barely able to govern themselves the far greater responsibility of governing others. The result to Rome was disaster: greed, fraud, corruption, confusion, anarchy, and finally, the loss of that liberty which some bad forgotten and many had despised, bu! which had appeared to the really greatest Romans the most essential blessing that can fail to the lot of man. It is the height of folly to predict positively that events must run a similar course under conditions so different, in many respects, as prevail among ourselves to-day. But surely the careful examination of what took place in that old Roman state cannot fail to be extremely profitable as well as extremely interesting.

To any one wishing to make such an examination the abundance of books is naturally bewildering, but hardly any are more stimulating and more suggestive than those of M. Gaston Boissier. M. Boissier is the permanent secretary of the French Academy, of which celebrated society he became a member in 1876; and for the last half century he has devoted himself exclusively to the study of ancient Rome, its history, its literature, and the life and manners of its people. To attribute to M. Boissier the exhaustive erudition of a German Gelehrte, a Niebuhr, or a Mommsen, would be too much. He himself would be the first to disclaim such a pretension. But he has the peculiarly French gift of making the best possible use of the erudition of others; and having lived a long life in Paris, through all the stirring events of the Second Empire and the Third Republic, in daily contact with the most brilliant minds of the age, he has acquired that experience of the world, which, for the purposes of historical writing, at any rate, is worth more than the most encyclopædic learning.

M. Boissier’s mental attitude is, however, more important than his equipment as a scholar. He approaches the problems of the past in a thoroughly scientific spirit. I mean by this not only that he is faithful and careful in the investigation of facts, but that he studies the bearing of the facts in itself, without preconceived theories or prejudices. He does not set out to write the history of Rome because that history illustrates doctrines of his own about the advantages or disadvantages of Imperialism. Nor docs he fall into the more insidious error of Macaulay and Froude, that of exaggerating everything for the sake of literary effect, of intensifying lights and deepening shadows, merely to make sure of a telling and impressive picture. He does not think of himself at all, or of his writing, or even of his readers; he is preoccupied only with the subject before him, bent to examine it, with broad and curious interest, from every angle and every point of view.

I do not wish to imply by this that M. Boissier is one of those cold and indifferent historians, whose impartiality means a total absence of life, and who are so afraid of interesting us for one side or the other that they end by not interesting us at all. A true disciple of Sainte-Beuve, M. Boissier’s whole work is an application to Roman history of the method which that great critic constantly employed in his study of French history and literature both. That is to say, it is a subordination of all partisan ideas, even of all speculative theories, to the passion for human life as such. One is not republican, one is not monarchist, one is not Christian, one is not pagan, — at least, as a critic, one does not profess these things; but one is human, and nothing human is alien to one. The beating of the human heart, its loves, its hates, its hopes and aspirations, its failures and despairs, whether in Greek, or Roman, or Frenchman, or American, — that is what interested Sainte-Beuve, that is what interests M. Boissier, and can hardly fail, I think, to interest his readers.

To these other merits is added the charm of M. Boissier’s style. This charm is by no means a matter of rhetoric, mere brilliancy, or picturesqueness. No writer thinks less of writing for itself. In all his books there is hardly a passage which one would quote for pure literary display. The whole secret is simply a constant, faithful preoccupation with the subject in hand, coupled with the artist’s instinct for pure, lucid, rhythmical expression: in short, the transmission of ideas through a clear and perfect medium. M. Boissier’s method is that of Sainte-Beuve; but his style is that of Renan, in other words, that of George Sand: a style simple sometimes to the verge of diffuseness, but infinitely restful after the pyrotechnics of more conscious and more laborious writers. How much the reader owes to such a mode of expression is best appreciated by comparing M. Boissier’s work with that of others in the same line; for instance, with the very useful and suggestive studies of M. Constant Martha, or with the books of the late Professor Sellar, so interesting and profitable in their subject matter, but lacking the saving quality of grace.

It is, perhaps, best to make one’s first, acquaintance with M. Boissier through his Rambles of an Archœologist, which has been translated into English, though with some loss of its original brightness. In these charming essays the author describes the great localities and monuments of ancient Rome, — the Forum, the Palatine, the Catacombs, the Port of Ostia, the Villa of Horace at Tivoli. Those who have already visited Rome and those who would like to do so in the future, — the two classes include all mankind, do they not? — wall find here rich matter to stimulate either memory or hope. It is true that M. Boissier’s antiquarianism is already a little out of date. The process of excavation moves rapidly, and the Forum of twenty years ago is not the Forum of to-day. But what is really interesting in the book does not change, that is to say, the human associations, which make every pier and arch, every brick and stone, of the old ruins, instinct with enduring life.

M. Boissier places us in the Forum and with a few words recalls to us the tremendous events of the past. He brings back the throngs who gathered there on election day, the orators who hurled argument and vituperation at their opponents, the candidates who moved among the crowd, humbly soliciting votes, or had their glorious deeds painted on large screens and exhibited to the public gaze. “One of them, the Prætor Mancinus, even carried his condescension so far as to stand beside the picture which represented his mighty actions, in order to make suitable explanations to those who might request them. Such a degree of politeness enchanted the citizens, who made him consul the following year.” Just as, in our day, a politician might write a book describing his own prowess in war, and endear himself to the people thereby. Again, in the same historic spot, we are made to see the fierce convulsions which attended the downfall of the Republic, the troops of armed adherents driving their enemies from the polls and electing their own candidate by a majority of clubs instead of ballots. And, later still, we have the Forum of the Empire, rich with splendid ornament s, but become the favorite haunt of triflers and idlers, and no longer alive with the struggles and the passions of liberty.

In the same way we are guided about, the ruins of the Palatine, wandering there not among the relics and traditions of a free nation, but through, the luxurious haunts of despotic tyranny. Here were the halls where Augustus, not yet sure of his absolute empire, feasted, flattered, and overawed the discontented survivors of the old order of things. Here was the house of Livia, his widow; and we see on the walls the very pictures which met her eyes nearly two thousand years ago. Here was the Palace of Tiberius. Here the dark passage through which Caligula fled from his assassins. Here a great reception hall. There a library. At least, M. Boissier’s sympathetic suggestion enables us to see all these things, even in a formless heap of stones. It may be that his conjectures are not always accurate. Messrs. Middleton, Lanciani, and the rest might be sometimes more reliable from an archaeological point of view; but they have not the charm which makes the past alive in spite of any weight of years. Of M, Boissier’s other works, one, The Opposition under the Cœsars, is devoted to conditions which prevailed after the empire was thoroughly established. In it the author studies the different elements of society which, for one reason or another, kept up the struggle against the new order of things. The details of these matters are perhaps remote from us; but. as a whole they impress upon us most powerfully the old story of the fatal price that is paid for peace and good order when received at the hands of absolute despotism: the lack of all individual initiative, the throttling of free speech, even of free thought, the degradation of genius, the disappearance even of natural, open social life by reason of the dread which each man feels of the indiscretion or the treachery of his neighbor. It may seem, perhaps, that this is a very old story indeed; but it is one of those that need to be repeated long before there is any apparent danger of their being forgotten.

M. Boissier’s most elaborate and most important book is entitled, The Roman Religion, from Augustus to the Antonines. Tt is interesting to note that the late Lafcadio Hearn, in his last work. Japan, an Interpretation, has followed the same method as our French critic, in making Japanese religion the central point of his study and showing how largely the politics, the manners, and the whole life of the Japanese people depend upon their religious beliefs and practice. That this is a most fruitful and suggestive attitude for the historian will be appreciated, when we reflect that in Japan, and far more in Greece and Rome, we find the attainment of a very high point of civilization, quite independent of those spiritual influences which we are accustomed to regard as the basis of similar development among ourselves. The question of just how much the modern world owes to Christianity is frequently debated and is full of interest. It will probably never be settled,— or always be settled according lo the beliefs and prejudices of the individual disputant. But there can be no doubt that a dispassionate study of Greek and Roman society in religions aspects and connections will afford most valuable data for the discussion of the problem.

M. Boissier begins by establishing the fundamental idea of the Roman religion as that of duty, obligation. The Romans were a reverent and thoughtful people. They visited their gods with punctual service, with solemn step and veiled head: and their primary religious emotion was awe. They had not the Greek gayetv of imagination. They did not clothe the powers of nature with light and joy and celebrate their festivals with song and merriment. On the other hand, they had, even more than the Greeks, a sense of the presence of the gods in daily life. Like their descendants in modern Italy, they divined and solicited the intervention of supernatural power in all the commonest occupations. A god presided over the child’s birth; another, several, over the different features of his education; another over his marriage; another over his death. There was a god to be propitiated when one went a journey, another to be thanked at one’s returning home. Separate deities were gradually devised for every minutest action, till their number equaled the calendar of the saints, and only an Acta Sanctorum could contain their history.

A religion so minute in its details could not but degenerate sooner or later into pure formalism. M. Boissier makes clear to us the process of this transformation, and shows that in the later days of the Republic, although the ceremonial of worship was more technical and elaborate than ever, the spiritual meaning had passed out of it, at least for all thinking men and women. But the establishment of the Empire brought a reaction. It is in the highest degree convenient for a despot to cultivate religion among his subjects; and political absolutism has always detested intellectual anarchy, or even liberty. Augustus, therefore, set himself to bring about an evangelical revival, and M. Boissier narrates most

interestingly the Emperor’s efforts in this direction. That they were not wholly successful does not surprise us, when we learn that one of the most active evangelists was Horace, who one day perhaps writes a solemn hymn to Jupiter, the Protector of the Capitol, but, alas, on the next may describe himself as a hog of Epicurus and invite Lydia to a graceful banquet, where the wines are exquisite, but the gods appear to be of no account at all.

In a later volume M. Boissier studies the advent of the Greek philosophies, which bore something the same relation to the older religion that Unitarianism has borne to orthodoxy among ourselves. One of the most striking resemblances between the old and the modern heterodoxy is that both furnished an admirable religion to those who were comparatively little in need of it; but neither had any hold upon the masses, for whom religion, if it is to mean anything, must be almost the whole of life.

In a separate work, published many years after The Roman Religion, and entitled The End of Paganism, M. Boissier completes his task by depicting the gradual disappearance of the old worship and the various elements which Christianity was obliged to overcome before it could enter into full possession of its kingdom.

What makes the interest and charm of these religious studies of M. Boissier is that, again like Lafcadio Hearn, he does not confine himself to the dry discussion of creed and ceremonial, but sees religion constantly and only in its relation to human life. Thus, he has chapters on the social reforms of Augustus, on the religion of the upper classes, on the Roman women, on the slaves, on the popular associations, all of these being intimately connected with the main subject, and all full of matters of common interest, which bring home to us clearly the resemblances and differences between that age and our own.

Of all M. Boissier’s writings probably the best known and certainly the most likely to be interesting to the American reader is Cicero and his Friends, of which a very fair translation is fortunately obtainable. This book deals wholly with the dying struggles of the Roman Republic. We see first the misgovernment of the conquered provinces. Greed and rapacity are let loose to exploit the immense resources of Africa and Asia. Then the thieves and grafters who have stolen all they can abroad return to spend this gain in luxury and corrupt politics at home. Enormous fortunes are accumulated in a few hands and are expended to purchase votes or to overawe peaceable voters, and drive them from the polls. Capital and labor are arrayed against each other in the form of a rich, idle, vicious senatorial aristocracy, and a hungry proletariat constantly recruited by all the lawlessness and degradation which human slavery can produce. Clever politicians work on the credulity of labor. Capital becomes frenzied, cries that property must be protected, if the heavens fall. Both sides rush to arms, and, after a long nightmare of bloodshed and misery, the Roman citizen awakes to find that he is a Roman citizen no longer, but a Roman slave.

In approaching this most dramatic subject in the history of the world, M. Boissier has borne in mind the great truth, so often forgotten, that the essential element of history is character. Facts are frequently dull and in themselves meaningless. General principles are dangerous: when new, so apt to be untrue; when true, so often stale and barren. What is always new, what is always interesting, because it can never be settled, is the question of character. The human heart, the human brain, make history; they are history; it is they who are to read and feel history. If all historians could only keep this before their eyes, what a difference it would make!

M. Boissier, at any rate, never forgets it; and, in consequence, he makes his study of the critical period of Rome centre around one of the most interesting and sympathetic figures of that period, at the same time analyzing various other important personages in connection with him. M. Boissier’s portrait of Cicero is indeed admirable. Without forcing the note in the least, the critic keeps constantly before us, as the main clue to Cicero’s character, the anomaly of a born man of letters thrust into, or thrusting himself into, the conduct of practical affairs. From this point of view it is easy to understand the great orator’s failures and misadventures and to sympathize with him in spite of them. Possessed of a keen wit and a ready tongue, he was quick to see the defects of his friends as well as of his enemies, and as prompt to ridicule the former as the latter. Thoroughly upright in intention, but timid when called upon to act, he was a partisan when he should have been a patriot, and a patriot when he should have been a partisan. He thundered forth the most magnificent eloquence on one side of a question; and behold, when the vote was taken, his voice was given on the other. On the whole faithful to the old Republicans in practice, he was always impatient of their narrow stupidity, and always just, ready to throw himself into the arms of the other faction. In short, the total result of his political career was to make him respected by all parlies and trusted by none.

On one side of Cicero we see grouped, in M. Boissier’s book, the sturdy adherents of the old régime: Cato, the rude and rugged, scornful alike of Cæsar and of the rabble rout which shouted at Cæsar’s bidding; the melancholy Brutus, whose psychological attitude toward his friend, his country, and himself still remains such a curious puzzle, after twenty centuries have studied it.

But these survivals of the past are less interesting to the modern reader than the men who had been directly evolved out of the great struggle and knew how to take advantage of it for their own benefit. Can one ever tire of speculating as to the character of Cæsar ? What were his real feelings, hopes and purposes ? Having involved his own affairs to the verge of ruin, he seeks to extricate himself by success in politics. Gifted with inimitable charm in social intercourse, he wins all men, some by favors, some by flattery, some by the frank give and take of intellectual companionship. He keeps his ear to the ground, and his brain soars as high as heaven. Step by step he works his way onward, — then the assassination trammels up the consequence, and the full scope of that immense ambition remains a mystery.

The case of Antony is much simpler. Here is a man of the strenuous type which Falstaff stamped forever when he described Hotspur as “he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, ‘Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.' ‘O my sweet Harry,’ says she, ‘how many hast thou killed to-day ?’ ‘Give my roan horse a drench,’ says he; and answers ‘Some fourteen,’ an hour after; ‘a trifle, a trifle.’” No schemer this, no plotter, no long contriver of subtle conspiracies, or ambiguous statecraft. Cut, thrust, hack, hew! Let the fat and greasy citizen complain of anarchy, tumult, and disorder. These things are the very element of such as Antony.

And behind the Antonies and their kind lurks Octavius the fox. He has all the fane scorn of cultured intellect for these brutal methods; but he knows how to make use of them in others. Even in boyhood his greatest delight was to get two of his companions into a difficulty and then watch the battle from a secure hiding place. So he stirs up strife between Antony and Lepidus, and profits by it. With his close and cunning eyes he watches Antony running out his furious course to the very end, and then steps quietly into the fruit of others’ victories. Cæsar had grace, nobility, it may be even a certain shred of patriotism, Antony had at least brute courage and distinguished soldiership. Augustus had nothing but craft and greed; and he put the whole world into his pocket.

Modern America is to be congratulated on having no public men like these. The last three, at any rate, were notably immoral in private life; and not Charles the First was more distinguished for domestic virtues than the leading politicians of the United States to-day. There are many other obvious reasons why the greatest republic of the twentieth century should not follow the course of the greatest republic of the past. Nevertheless, it is well to remember that the same course has been followed by very many republics of the past, great and little alike. Liberty is a rare and beautiful blessing;but, like many other blessings, it becomes indifferent from too great familiarity. As has been well said of it, it is won with long struggle, suffering, and sacrifice; it is lost with such apathy and indifference that the transformation has taken place even before it is perceived. At any rate the stanchest believer in “manifest destiny” cannot but admit that the study of old-time mistakes is of the greatest value and interest for modern achievement. And, assuredly, any such study of ancient Rome cannot be made with a more suggestive and more thoroughly human guide than M. Boissier.