510. Frontier Walls. - Since the attempt had failed to secure the mountain barrier of Bohemia for part of the northern frontier, Domitian wisely constructed an artificial rampart to join the upper Danube to the upper Rhine. This vast fortification was three hundred and thirty-six miles in length (map, page 493), with frequent forts and castles. Better known, however, is the similar work built shortly after in Britain, called Hadrian's wall (§ 488). Its purpose was to help shut out the wild Picts of the north. It extended from the Tyne to the Solway, and considerable remains still exist. Under Antoninus, a like structure was made farther north, just at the foot of the highlands, from the Clyde to the Forth, along the line of Agricola's earlier rampart (§ 485).

Hadrian's Wall was seventy miles long, extending almost from sea to sea. It consisted of three distinct parts, (1) a stone wall and ditch, on the north; (2) a double earthen rampart and ditch, about one hundred and twenty yards to the south; and (3) between wall and rampart, a series of fourteen fortified camps connected by a road. The northern wall was eight feet broad and twenty feet high, with turreted gates at mile intervals and with numerous large towers for guard-stations.

III SOCIETY IN THE FIRST TWO CENTURIES.1

A. PEACE AND PROSPERITY.

511. The "Good Roman Peace."-The year 69 A.D. (§ 483) is the only serious break in the quiet of the first two centuries for the revolts of Boadicea in Britain (58 A.D.) and of Hermann (§ 507) are really frontier wars. The rebellion of Civilis3 on the Gallic side of the Rhine was connected with the disorders of the year 69, and the national rebellion of the Jews (§ 484)

1 The society of the third century is treated in Division IV.

2 Besides the specific references in the text below, see Gibbon, ch. ii; Capes' Early Empire and Antonines; Freeman's "Flavian Emperors," in Second Series of Historical Essays; Watson's Aurelius; Thomas' Roman Life; Pellison's Roman Life; Dill's Roman Life from Nero to Aurelius.

8 Special report.

began at that same time. To the empire at large, moreover, both these were trivial disturbances. Even in the third century, when the legions were incessantly warring among themselves in behalf of their favorite commanders (§ 495), vast regions of the empire were uninterested and undisturbed.

All in all, an area as large as the United States, with a population of one hundred millions, rested in the "good Roman peace" for nearly four hundred years. Never, before or since, has so large a part of the world known such unbroken rest from the horrors and waste of war. Few troops were seen within the empire, and "the distant clash of arms upon the Euphrates or the Danube scarcely disturbed the tranquillity of the Mediterranean lands."

512. Good Government, even by Bad Emperors.

- The Caesars

at Rome were sometimes weak or wicked, but their follies or crimes were felt for the most part only by the nobles of the capital. The imperial system became so strong that, save in minor details, the world moved along the same lines whether a mad Caligula or a philanthropic Aurelius sat upon the throne.

"To the Roman city the Empire was political death; to the provinces it was the beginning of new life. . . . It was not without good reason that the provincials raised their altars to more than one prince for whom the citizens, also not without good reason, sharpened their daggers." FREEMAN, Chief Periods, 69.

...

"It was in no mean spirit of flattery that the provincials raised statues and altars to the Emperors, to some even of the vilest who have ever ruled. . . . The people knew next to nothing of their vices and follies, and thought of them chiefly as the symbol of the ruling Providence which, throughout the civilized world, had silenced war and faction and secured the blessings of prosperity and peace, before unknown." - CAPES, Early Empire, 202.

513. Prosperity of the First Two Centuries. The reign of the Antonines has been called the "golden age of humanity." Gibbon believed that a man, if allowed his choice, would prefer to have lived then rather than at any other period of the world's history. Mommsen adds his authority:

"In its sphere, which those who belonged to it were not far wrong in regarding as the world, the Empire fostered the peace and prosperity of the many nations united under its sway longer and more completely than any other leading power has ever succeeded in doing. . . . And if an angel of the Lord were to strike a balance whether the domain ruled by Severus Antoninus was governed with the greater intelligence and greater humanity at that time or in the present day, whether civilization and national prosperity generally have since that time advanced or retrograded, it is very doubtful whether the decision would prove in favor of the present." - MOMMSEN, Provinces, 5.

The roads were safe. Piracy ceased from the seas, and trade flourished as it was not to flourish again for a thousand years. The ports were crowded with shipping, and the Mediterranean was spread with happy sails. An immense traffic flowed ceaselessly between Europe and Central Asia along three great arteries: one in the north by the Black Sea and by caravan (along the line of the present Russian transCaspian railway); one on the south by Suez and the Red Sea; one by caravan across Arabia, where, amid the sands, arose white-walled Palmyra, Queen of the Desert.1

From frontier to frontier, communication was safe and rapid. The grand military and post roads ran in trunklines a thousand miles at a stretch-from every frontier toward the central heart of the empire, with a dense network of ramifications in every province. Guide books described routes and distances. Inns abounded. The imperial couriers that hurried along the great highways passed a hundred and fifty milestones a day; and private travel, from the Thames to the Euphrates, was swifter, safer, and more comfortable than ever again until well into the nineteenth century.

Everywhere rude stockaded villages changed into stately marts of trade, huts into palaces, footpaths into paved Roman roads. Roman irrigation made part of the African desert the

1 On trade routes to China, advanced students may see Bury's Gibbon, IV, Appendix, 534 ff.

garden of the world, where, from drifting sands,' desolate ruins. mock the traveler of to-day. In Gaul, Caesar found no real In the third century that province had one hundred and sixteen flourishing cities, with baths, temples, amphi

AQUEDUCT AT NIMES, FRANCE, built by Antoninus Pius to supply the city with water from distant mountain springs; present condition of the structure where it crosses a deep valley.

theaters, works of art, roads, aqueducts, and schools of eloquence and rhetoric.

514. Forms of Industry. It is difficult to picture the throbbing, busy life of the empire. Plainly it was a city life. Plainly, too, it rested on agriculture as the chief industry. We are to think of a few great cities, like Rome, Alexandria,

1 Under French rule North Africa, in the last of the nineteenth century, began to recover its Roman prosperity after a lapse of fifteen hundred years. 2 Particular attention was paid in cities to the water supply. That of Rome was better than that of London or Paris to-day. Most of the large cities, too, had more and better public baths than the modern capitals of Europe or the cities of America.

and Antioch, with populations varying from two million to two hundred thousand, and with their rabble fed by the state. Then we must think of the rest of the empire mapped into municipia, each a farming district with a town for its core. Within the town, modern manufacturing works were absent. For gentlemen there were the occupations of law, the army, teaching, literature, medicine, and the farming of large estates. Lower classes furnished the merchants, architects, shopkeepers, weavers, fullers, and artisans. In medicine there was considerable subdivision of labor. We hear of dentists and of specialists for the eye and for the ear. The shopkeepers and artisans were organized in companies or gilds. Unskilled manual labor in country and city was carried on by slaves, and that class rendered assistance also in many higher forms of work.

B. THE WORLD BECOMES ROMAN.

515. Political Unity by Extension of Citizenship. — Julius Caesar had begun the rapid expansion of Roman citizenship beyond Italy. Through his legislation the number of adult males with the franchise rose from some nine hundred thousand to over four million.1 Augustus was more cautious, but before his death the total reached nearly five million. This represented a population of some twenty-five million people, in an empire of nearly one hundred million, including slaves. Claudius made the next great advance, after a curious debate in his council, raising the total of adult male citizens, fit for military service, to about seven millions. Hadrian completed the enfranchisement of Gaul and Spain. The final step, as we

1 This is the increase between 70 B.C. (after the admission of the Italians) and 27 B.C. The greater part of the growth must have been due to the

reforms of Caesar.

2 Augustus is our authority for both these sets of figures. See extract in Munro's Source Book, 187.

8 Cf. § 481. Read the interesting and sensible speech by Claudius as it is reported by Tacitus, Annals, xi, 24-25.