Rome may be said to have carried with her, from her earliest germs, the elements of decay.Her power was entirely that of force, a principle suppressing and subduing every thing, generating nothing; like flame spreading far and wide, investing whatever it catches with momentary splendor, but, like it, destroying that which feeds it, and going out at length leaving desolation behind it.The proper trade of the Romans was war.But when in agricultural countries war becomes the occupation of a community, and conquest the means by which it seeks to acquire wealth and greatness, evils arise which time, instead of mitigating, increases.When hunters go to war with hunters, or herdsmen with herdsmen, the object in view, besides overcoming their enemies, is to obtain possession of a portion of the surface of the earth, and the animals wild, or tame, nourished by it.Over such communities therefore, though war, passing like a destroying tempest, leaves ruin behind, yet time obliterates all traces of the devastation produced by it, and the same territory sees a new generation arise from the victors or vanquished, as free, happy, and prosperous, as their forefathers.But in states of society where the riches of the earth are not brought out by the.wild or tame animals which its surface nourishes, but by the husbandman who tills it, there conquest can never be a permanent gain, unless through some permanent right acquired by it over the inhabitants of the territory subdued.Hence the fact of war being successfully pursued as a gainful trade by any community, seems to imply, that the conquered submit to slavery, either personal or political, probably partly to both.Gain was always the ultimate object aimed at by the Romans.It was not to chastise an insult, or to protect their citizens in the undisturbed prosecution of industry, that they fought or conquered.These might occasionally serve for pretexts, and were sometimes perhaps the exciting causes of war, but for the real fruits of victory they always looked to the spoliation of the vanquished, and tribute, in one shape or other, imposed on them.Every people with whom they came in contact was regarded by them first as an enemy to be subdued, after.wards as a province from which they were to be enriched.
They were in truth a band of well disciplined robbers, whose virtue, law, religion, centered in their swords; courageous indeed, and keeping to their positive engagements with a fidelity common to brave men, and which, as it is for their interest, even scattered banditti observe, but whose course of rapine was still onward, relentless, merciless, unchecked by thoughts of the corporeal pains, or mental debasement it produced.
Such an empire could only have been formed by overpowering the finer and more generous and elevating feelings, and could not be maintained without having the effect of giving the preponderance to the debasing, selfish, and therefore destructive principles of our nature.It left but one great virtue, that of patriotism, with the Romans a sort of enlarged esprit de corps, and one great moral quality, that of courage, or the meeting danger undauntedly when the interest of the individual or the state required it, -- a principle of action, it may be remarked, differing considerably from the more generous and self-devoting gallantry of the modern.These were strong in Italy while Italy was the governing power; but even they gradually disappeared as the provinces were amalgamated with it, and Italians ceased to be the conquering soldiery.
It were needless to enlarge on a subject so well known as that of the general corruption of Roman manners, from the time of the first Caesar.
Venality and licentiousness may be said to have been universal.I shall confine myself to one particular, as marking sufficiently the declension of those principles on which the strength of the effective desire of accumulation mainly depends.I allude to the decay of the family affections, of which evidence every where meets us.The men did not wish to be fathers, scarcely did the women wish to be mothers.The joys of the relation were to them too small, to be a compensation for the sacrifices it demanded.The bringing up children cost the one parent too much money, and took from the other too much pleasure.If families were raised up, it was not from the natural influence of the parental affections, but in obedience to the laws, that the man might have the approbation of the magistrate, and that there might be citizens to the state.They lived, not in others, or for others, but for themselves, and sought their good in enjoyments altogether selfish.
It was their aim to expend on their own personal pleasures whatever they possibly could.It would seem as if the majority, could they have foreknown the exact limits of their lives, would have made their fortunes and them terminate together.As they could not do so, the lives of many ended before their fortunes, as the fortunes of others held out beyond their lives.
