University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

The cities of Herculaneum, Pompeii, Retina,
and Stabiæ, with many beautiful villages, were
destroyed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius,
during the first year of the reign of Titus, on
the 24th of August, seventy-nine. Buried during
more than seventeen hundred years, even
their very names were almost forgotten, when
the plough of a peasant struck upon the roof of
the loftiest and most magnificent mansion in
Pompeii; and the excavations of the last fifty
years have furnished the tourist, the antiquarian,
the novelist, and the poet, with many a subject
of picturesque and glowing description. The
cities of the dead have not wanted frequent and
often faithful historians; every disinterred temple,
theatre, statue, pillar, tomb, and painting, has
found admirers. It was expedient, therefore, to
throw action into a picture at all times impressive,

and to delineate without flattery those existing
manners, customs, and morals, which,
sanctioned as they were, not only by usage, but
by legislators and the priesthood, can leave little
regret and less astonishment at the terrible overthrow
of cities as excessive and not so venial in
their crimes as Gomorrah.

The founders of Rome, like the Pelasgi of
Greece, were outlawed fugitives from almost
every nation—the very seminoles of the world.
Their earliest laws, discipline, science, and
literature, were all created by habitual war.
Political ascendancy, acquired by remorseless
military skill, was with each the highest good;
and hence, though less capricious and somewhat
more grateful than the Athenians, there never
was a period in Rome, when the people, after
long suffering, exacted their rights without incurring
the vengeance of the patricians. The aristocracy
held the supreme power; in their esteem
the commonalty were vassals of the soil. To
resist these arrogated privileges, the tribunes instigated
factions, and the venerable Forum became
the arena of revolt, conspiracy, and blood.
The very senators ascended the rostrum spotted
with gore. Liberty was defined by philosophers,
developed by rhetorical declaimers and adored
in the fictions of poesy, but it was never enjoyed.

There were grandeur, vast dominions, empires
in bondage, triumphal processions, unrivalled
wealth, magnificent prodigality and profligacy,
but no just freedom. Roman citizenship was
national pride, not individual prerogative. The
ignorant cannot govern though they may tyrannize;
and ancient sages and priests were too
wise to instruct the multitude, though they valued
uninitiated sectaries; for communicated knowledge
would supersede the lucrative occupations
and mysterious powers of their successors.

Cæsar rose upon the ruins of the consulship
as that had risen upon the decemvirate. Authority
now became personal, concentrated and
unappealable, but otherwise there was little
change. The senate had long been the mere
market of ambition; the people were mercenaries
of serfs; the consuls were colluders of some
faction, perpetually renewed, or its obedient
slaves; and the victorious commander of the
legions, long the arbiter of the Roman destinies,
on the field of Pharsalia, merely decorated imperial
power with a diadem.

Titus was the tenth emperor, and doubtless
a just man; but the epithets of exaggerated
praise bestowed upon him, sufficiently indicate
the character of, at least, seven of his predecessors;
and his own brief reign, which was terminated

by the poison of his inhuman brother Domitian,
demonstrates the morals, humanity, and
courage of the age. Therefore, in the picture I
have attempted to draw, I have not been intimidated
by the victories, arts, literature or mythology
of the Romans, but have desired to paint with
fidelity the universal licentiousness, which, having
infected every heart, left the battlements of
the Eternal City ready to fall before the barbarian
avenger.

Every province of the vast empire rivalled the
imperial capital; and almost every proconsul
imitated—sometimes even exceeded—the despotism
and debaucheries of Caligula and Heliogabalus.
The union of civil and military power,
while it concentrated the energies of government,
conferred upon the provincial commander an
irresponsible authority, against which it was folly
to remonstrate, and madness to rebel. The fathers
of Rome were too corrupt to investigate
the sources of their revenue or the characters of
its gatherers; and too indolent in patrician profligacy
to execute any edicts except such as
suited their own haughty yet grovelling passions.
The fountain being thus contaminated, its thousand
streams distributed corruption over the
whole empire; and all, who drank its waters,
partook the character of them who watched beside

the wellspring. Few of those who wore
the Roman crown, died by the ordinance of nature;
the Prætorians, like the modern Janizaries
and Strelitzes, obeyed the decisions of their turbulent
prefects; and what a Sejanus failed to accomplish
for himself, a more politic Macro effected
for another, through whom he ruled every
thing but that imperial folly which ended in assassination.
Yet sanguinary as was the ascent,
unhappy the possession and quick the downfall
of power, the governors of the provinces were
less implicated in the royal revolutions than almost
any men in Rome. While the Quæstor of
the Palatine discovered no defalcation of the
revenue, and no rumor of sedition reached the
senate, the proconsul remained in his lucrative
government during pleasure; and none of all
the Conscript Fathers deemed it expedient to
examine the condition of the country over which
he swayed his iron rod.