Culture and Life in the Period of the Principate

From the standpoint of variety of intellectual and artistic interests the period of the Principate outshone all other ages in the history of Rome. From 27 B. C. to about 200 A. D. Roman philosophy attained its most characteristic form. The same period also witnessed the production of outstanding literary works, the growth of a distinctive architecture and art, and the greatest triumphs of Roman engineering.

The form of philosophy that appealed most strongly to the Romans was Stoicism. With its emphasis upon duty, self-discipline, and subjection to the natural order of things, it accorded well with the ancient virtues of the Romans and with their habits of conservatism. Moreover, its insistence upon civic obligations and its doctrine of cosmopolitanism appealed to the Roman political-mindedness and pride in world empire. The Stoicism developed in the days of the Principate was somewhat different from that of Zeno and his school. The old physical theories borrowed from Heraclitus were now discarded and replaced by a broader interest in politics and ethics. Roman Stoicism also tended to assume a more distinctly religious tone than that which had characterized the original philosophy.

Three eminent apostles of Stoicism lived and taught in Rome in the two centuries that followed the rule of Augustus: Seneca; Epictetus, the slave; and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. All of them agreed that inner serenity is the ultimate goal to be sought, that true happiness can be found only in surrender to the benevolent order of the universe. They preached the ideal of virtue for virtue’s sake, deplored the sinfulness of human nature, and urged obedience to conscience as the voice of duty. Seneca and Epictetus worshiped the cosmos as divine, governed by an all-powerful Providence who ordains all that happens for ultimate good. The last of the Roman Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, was more fatalistic and less hopeful. Although he did not reject the conception of an ordered and rational universe, he shared neither the faith nor the dogmatism of the earlier Stoics. He was confident of no blessed immortality to balance the sufferings of one’s earthly career and was inclined to think of humans as creatures buffeted by evil fortune for which no distant perfection of the whole could fully atone. He urged, nevertheless, that people should continue to live nobly, that they should neither abandon themselves to gross indulgence nor break down in angry protest, but that they should derive what contentment they could from dignified resignation to suffering and tranquil submission to death.

The literary achievements of the Romans bore a definite relation to their philosophy. This was especially true of the works of the most distinguished writers of the Augustan Age. Horace (65-8 B. C.), for example, in his famous Odes drew copiously from the teachings of both Epicureans and Stoics. He confined his attention, however, to their doctrines of a way of life, for like most of the Romans he had little curiosity about the workings of the universe. He developed a philosophy which combined the Epicurean justification of pleasure with the Stoic bravery in the face of trouble. While he never reduced pleasure to the mere absence of pain, he was sophisticated enough to know that the highest enjoyment is possible only through the exercise of rational control.

Virgil (70 – 19 B. C.) likewise reflects a measure of the philosophical temper of his age. Though his Eclogues convey something of the Epicurean ideal of quiet pleasure, Virgil was much more of a Stoic. His utopian vision of an age of peace and abundance, his brooding sense of the tragedy of human fate, and his idealization of a life in harmony with nature indicate an intellectual heritage similar to that of Seneca and Epictetus. Virgil’s most noted work, the Aeneid, like several of the Odes of Horace glorifing Roman imperialism, was an epic of empire recounting the toils and triumphs of the founding of the state, its glorious traditions, and its magnificent destiny. Other major writers of the Augustan Age were Ovid (43 B. C. ? -17 A. D.) and Livy (59 B. C. – 17 A. D.). The former was the chief representative of the cynical and individualist tendencies of his day. His brilliant and witty writings often reflected the dissolute tastes of the time. The chief claim of Livy to fame rests upon his skill as a prose stylist. His main work, a history of Rome, is replete with dramatic and picturesque narrative, designed to appeal to the patriotic emotions rather than to present an accurate record of events. The literature of the period also exemplified conflicting social and intellectual tendencies.

Roman art first assumed its distinctive character during the period of the Principate. As the demand increased, hundreds of copies were made, with the result that Rome came to have by the end of the Republic a profusion of objects of art. The aura of national glory which surrounded the early Principate stimulated the growth of an art that was more indigenous. Augustus himself boasted that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. Nevertheless, much of the old Hellenistic influence remained until the talent of the Romans themselves was exhausted. The arts most truly expressive of the Roman character were architecture and sculpture. Architecture was monumental, designed to symbolize power and grandeur. It contained as its leading elements the round arch, the vault, and the dome, although at times the Corinthian column was employed, especially in the construction of temples. The materials most commonly used were brick, squared stone blocks, and concrete, the last a Roman invention. Roman architecture was devoted primarily to utilitarian purposes. The foremost examples were government buildings, amphitheaters, baths, race courses, and private houses. Nearly all were of massive proportions and solid construction. Roman sculpture included as its main forms triumphal arches and columns, narrative reliefs, altars, and portrait busts and statues. Its distinguishing characteristics were individuality and naturalism. Sometimes Roman statues and busts served only to express the vanity of the aristocracy, but the best Roman sculptured portraiture succeeded in conveying qualities of simple human dignity similar to those espoused in the philosophy of the Stoics.

Closely related to their achievements in architecture were Roman triumphs in engineering and public services. The imperial Romans built marvelous roads and bridges, many of which still survive. Water was cleverly funneled into the homes of the rich for their private gardens, fountains, and pools. Romans also established the first hospitals in the Western world and the first system of state-supported medicine.

For all their achievements in engineering, the Romans accomplished little in science. They excelled in drains, not brains. Scarcely an original discovery of fundamental importance was made by anyone of Latin nationality. This fact seems strange when we consider that the Romans had the advantage of Hellenistic science as a foundation upon which to build. Roman writers on scientific subjects were hopelessly devoid of critical intelligence. Pliny the Elder (23-79 A. D.), the most renowned and typical of them, completed about 77 A. D. a voluminous encyclopedia of “science” which he called Natural History. The subjects discussed varied from cosmology to economics. Despite the wealth of material it contains, Pliny’s work is of limited value, for he was totally unable to distinguish between fact and fable.

The only real scientific advance made during the period of the Principate was the work of Greek scientists who lived in Italy or in the provinces. One of these was the astronomer Ptolemy, who flourished in Alexandria around the middle of the second century. Another was the physician Galen. While Galen’s fame rests primarily on his medical encyclopedia, systematizing the learning of others, he deserves more credit for his own experiments which brought him close to a discovery of the circulation of the blood. He not only taught but proved that the arteries carry blood, and that severance of even a small one is sufficient to drain away all of the blood of the body in little more than half an hour.

Roman society exhibited the same general tendencies under the Principate as in the last days of the Republic. One of the least attractive of its traits was the low status it accorded to women. Roman women did not even really have their own names but were given family names with feminine endings. Women were expected to be subservient to their fathers and husbands, were valued to the degree they produced progeny, and were expected to stay at home. Less highly placed women sought outlets in the excitement of gladiatorial shows or in the ceremonies of religious cults.

Along with the confinement of women, the most serious indictment which can be brought against the age was the further growth of the passion for cruelty. Whereas the Greeks entertained themselves with theater, the Romans more and more preferred “circuses,” which were really exhibitions of human slaughter. In the period of the Principate the great games and spectacles became bloodier than ever. The most popular amusement of all was watching the gladiatorial combats in the Colosseum or in other amphitheaters capable of accommodating thousands of spectators. Not only the common people attended them, but wealthy aristocrats also, and frequently the head of the government himself. Most of the gladiators were condemned criminals or slaves, but some were volunteers even from the respectable classes.

Notwithstanding its low moral tone, the age of the Principate was characterized by an even deeper interest in Salvationist religions than that which had prevailed under the Republic. Mithraism now gained adherents by the thousands, absorbing many of the followers of the cults of the Great Mother and of Serapis. About 40 A. D. the first Christians appeared in Rome. The new sect grew steadily and eventually succeeded in displacing Mithraism as the most popular of the Salvationist faiths.

The establishment of stable government by Augustus ushered in a period of prosperity for Italy which lasted for more than two centuries. Trade was now extended to all parts of the known world, even to Arabia, India, and China. Manufacturing increased somewhat, especially in the production of pottery, textiles, and articles of metal and glass. In spite of all this, the economic order was far from healthy. Prosperity was not evenly distributed but was confined primarily to the upper classes. Perhaps worse was the fact that Italy had a decidedly unfavorable balance of trade. The meager industrial development was by no means sufficient to provide enough articles of export to meet the demand for luxuries imported from the provinces and from the outside world. As a consequence, Italy was gradually drained of its supply of precious metals. By the third century the Western Roman economy began to collapse.

With the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 A. D. the period of beneficent imperial rule came to an end. Civil war became endemic. The half-century between 235 and 284 was certainly the worst for Rome since its rise to world power. In addition to political chaos, a number of other factors combined to bring the Empire to the blink of ruin. One was that civil war had disastrous economic effects. In the wake of war and hunger, disease then became rampant. In the middle of the third century pestilence returned and struck at the population with its fearful scythe for fifteen years.

Understandably enough the culture of the third century was marked by pervasive anxiety. Suiting the spirit of the age, the Neoplatonic philosophy of otherworldlyism came to the fore. Neoplatonism (meaning “New Platonism”) drew the spiritualist tendency of Plato’s thought to extremes. The first of its basic teachings was emanationism: everything that exists proceeds from God in a continuing stream of emanations. The initial stage in the process is the emanation of the world-soul. From this come the divine Ideas or spiritual patterns, and then the souls of particular things. The final emanation is matter. But matter has no form or quality of its own; it is simply the privation of spirit, the residue which is left after the spiritual rays from God have burned themselves out. It follows that matter is to be despised as the symbol of evil and darkness. The second major doctrine was mysticism. The human soul was originally a part of God, but it has become separated from its divine source through its union with matter. The highest goal of life should be mystic reunion with the divine, which can be accomplished through contemplation and through emancipation of the soul from bondage to matter. Human beings should be ashamed of the fact that they possess a physical body and should seek to subjugate it in every way possible. Asceticism as therefore the third main teaching of this philosophy.

The real founder of Neoplatonism was Plotinus, who was born in Egypt about 204 A. D. His principal successors diluted the philosophy with more and more bizarre superstitions and Neoplatonism became so popular in Rome in the third and fourth centuries A. D. that it almost completely supplanted Stoicism.

As Rome was not built in a day, so it was not lost in one. The Roman Empire endured in the West for two hundred years more and in the East for a millennium. But the restored Roman state differed greatly from the old one – so much so that it is proper to end the story of characteristically Roman civilization here and review the reasons for Rome’s decline.

More has been written on the fall of Rome than on the death of any other civilization. The theories offered to account for the decline have been many and varied. Moralists have found the explanation for Rome’s fall in the descriptions of lechery and gluttony presented in the writings of such authors as Juvenal and Petronius. Such an approach, however, overlooks the facts that in the later centuries, when the Empire was more obviously collapsing, morality became more austere through the influence of ascetic religions. One of the simplest explanations is that Rome fell only because of the severity of German attacks. German pressures indeed mounted at certain times but German invasions would never have succeeded had they not come at moments when Rome was already weakened internally.

It is best then, to concentrate on Rome’s serious internal problems. The most political failing of the Roman constitution under the Principate was the lack of a clear law of succession. Especially when a ruler died suddenly there was no certainty about who was to follow him and the civil war was generally the result. Civil war was also nurtured by the lack of constitutional means for reform. The resort to violence always bred more violence. In addition to those problems, imperial Rome’s greatest political weakness may ultimately have been that it did not involve enough people in the work of government. The vast majority of the Empire’s inhabitants were subjects who did not participate in the government in any way. Hence they looked on the Empire at best with indifference and often with hostility. Loyalty to Rome was needed to keep the Empire going, but when the tests came such loyalty was lacking.

Even without political problems the Roman Empire would probably have been fated to extinction for economic reasons. Rome’s worst economic problems derived from its slave system and from manpower shortages. Roman civilization was based on cities, and Roman cities existed largely by virtue of an agricultural surplus produced by slaves. Roman landlords were indifferent to technology because interest in it was thought to be demeaning. There was no interest in labor-saving devices, and attention to any sort of machinery was deemed a sign of slavishness. Manpower shortages greatly aggravated Rome’s economic problems. Because of constant barbarian pressures there was also a steady need for men to serve in the army. The plagues of the second and third centuries sharply reduced the population just at the worst time. Demoralization seems also to have lowered the birthrate. The result was that there were neither sufficient forces to work the land nor men to fight Rome’s enemies.

Enormous dedication and exertion on the part of large numbers might just possibly have saved Rome, but few were willing to work hard for the public good. Most simply stated the Roman Empire of the third century could not draw upon commonly shared civic ideals. By then the old republican and senatorial traditions had been rendered manifestly obsolete. Worse, provincials could hardly be expected to fight or work hard for Roman ideals of any sort, especially when the Roman state no longer stood for beneficent peace. Regional differences, the lack of public education, and social stratification were further barriers to the development of any unifying public spirit. As the Empire foundered new ideals indeed emerged, but these were religious, otherworldly ones. Ultimately, then, the decline of Rome was accompanied by disinterest, and the Roman world slowly came to an end.

It is tempting to believe that we today have many similarities to the Romans: first of all, because Rome is nearer to us in time than any of the other civilizations of antiquity; and second, because Rome seems to bear such a close kinship to the modern temper. The resemblances between Roman history and the history of Great Britain or the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have often been noted. The Roman economic evolution progressed all the way from a simple agrarianism to a complex urban system with problems of unemployment, gross disparities of wealth, and financial crises. The Roman Empire, in common with the British, was founded upon conquest. It must not be forgotten, however, that the heritage of Rome was an ancient heritage and that consequently, the similarities between the Roman and modern civilizations are not so important as they seem. As noted already, the Romans disdained industrial activities, and they were not interested in science. Neither did they have any idea of the modern national state; the provinces were really colonies, not integral parts of a body politic. The Romans also never developed an adequate system of representative government. Finally, the Roman conception of religion was vastly different from our own. Their system of worship, like that of the Greeks, was external and mechanical, not inwards or spiritual. What Christians consider the highest ideal of piety the Romans regarded as gross superstition.

Nevertheless, the civilization of Rome exerted a great influence upon later cultures. The form, if not the spirit, of Roman architecture was preserved in the ecclesiastical architecture of the Middle Ages and survives to this day in the design of many of our government buildings. Although subjected to new interpretations, the law of the great jurists became an important part of the Code of Justinian and was thus handed down to the Middle Ages and modern times. Further, the legal systems of nearly all continental European countries today incorporate much of the Roman law. This law was one of the grandest of the Roman’s achievements and reflected their genius for governing a vast and diverse empire. It should not be forgotten either that Roman literary achievements furnished mush of the inspiration for the revival of learning that spread over Europe in the twelfth century and reached its zenith in the Renaissance. Perhaps not so well known is the fact that the organization of the Catholic Church, to say nothing of part of its ritual, was adapted from the structure of the Roman state and the complex of the Roman religion.

Most important of all Rome’s contribution to the future was the transmission of Greek civilization to the European West. The development in Italy of a culture that was highly suffused by Greek ideals from the second century B. C. onward was in itself an important counterweight to the earlier predominance of Greek-oriented civilization in the East. Then, following the path of Julius Caesar, this culture advanced still further West. Rome brought cities and Greek ideas, above all conceptions of human freedom and individual autonomy that went along with the development of highly differentiated urban life. It is true that ideals of freedom were often ignored in practice – they did not temper Roman dependence on slavery and subjugation of women, or prevent Roman rule in conquered territories from being exploitive and sometimes oppressive. Nonetheless, Roman history is the real beginning of Western history as we now know it. Greek civilization brought to the East by Alexander was not enduring, but the same civilization brought West by the work of such men as Caesar, Cicero, and Augustus was the starting point for many of the subsequent accomplishments of western Europe. As we will see, the development was not continuous, and there were many other ingredients to later European success, but the influence of Rome was no less profound.

The major cultural trend of late-antique history was the spread and triumph of Christianity throughout the Roman world. At first Christianity was just one of several varieties of otherworldlyism which appealed to increasing numbers of persons during the later empire. But in the fourth century it was adopted as the Roman state religion and thereafter became one of the greatest shaping forces in the development of the West. While Christianity was spreading, the Roman Empire was indubitably declining. Central to this decline was a contraction of the urban life on which the empire had been based. Consequently the entire period saw a steady shift in the weight of civilization and imperial government from West to East.

Christian beginnings of course go back several centuries before Constantine to the time of Jesus. Christianity was formed primarily by Jesus and St. Paul and gained converts steadily thereafter. But the new religion only became widespread during the chaos of the third century and only triumphed in the Roman Empire during the demoralization of the fourth. At the time of its humble beginnings nobody could have known that Christianity would be decreed the sole religion of the Roman Empire by the year 380.

Jesus of Nazareth was born in Judea sometime near the beginning of the Christian era (but not exactly in the “year one” – we owe this mistake in our dating system to a sixth-century monk). While Jesus was growing up Judea was under Roman overlordship. The atmosphere of the region was charged with religious emotionalism and political discontent. Most “Zealots” wished to overthrow the Romans by means of armed force. The Essenes, on the other hand, hoped for spiritual deliverance through asceticism, repentance, and mystical union with God. The ministry of Jesus was clearly more allied to this pacific orientation.

In considering the story of Jesus’s career as an historical event, the only surviving sources of information are the first four books of the New Testament, the four Gospels, the earliest of which (the Gospel of Mark) was written some thirty years after Jesus’s death. Inevitably the Gospels are full of inaccuracies and legends, because they were not eyewitness accounts but were intended as proclamations of supernatural faith. Bearing in mind that more or less anything in the Gospel record may not be true in the historical sense.

Believing he had a mission to save humanity from sin, Jesus denounced greed and licentiousness and urged love of God and neighbor. Additionally, it seems reasonably clear that he taught the following: (1) the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of humanity; (2) the Golden Rule (“do unto others as you would have others do unto you”); (3) forgiveness and love of one’s enemies; (4) repayment of evil with good; (5) shunning of hypocrisy; (6) opposition to religious ceremonialism; (7) the imminent approach of the end of the world; (8) the resurrection of the dead and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven.

The Gospel record is particularly controversial when it reaches the story of Jesus’s death. The crucifixion of Jesus certainly marked a decisive moment in Christian history. At first Jesus’s death was viewed by his followers as the end of their hopes. Yet after a few days their despair began to dissipate, for rumors began to spread that the Master was alive and had been seen by some of his faithful disciples. In short order Jesus’s followers became convinced that Jesus not only had risen from the dead but that he truly was a divine being. With their courage restored, they fanned out to preach the good news of Jesus’s divinity. Soon belief in Jesus’s godliness and resurrection became articles of faith for thousands: Jesus was the “Christ” (Greek for “the anointed one”), the divine Son of God who was sent to earth to suffer and die for the sins of humanity, and who, after three days in the tomb, had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, whence he would come again to judge the world at the end of time.

Christianity was broadened and invested with a more elaborate theology by some of the successors of Jesus, above all the Apostle Paul, originally known as Saul of Tarsus ( 10?-67? A. D.). It would be almost impossible to overestimate the significance of his work. He proclaimed Christianity to be a universal religion. Furthermore, he placed major emphasis on the idea of Jesus as the Christ. Sinners by nature, human beings can be saved only by faith and by the grace of God “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” It follows, according to Paul, that human fate in the life to come is almost entirely dependent upon the will of God. God has mercy “on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth”.

Although it may be something of a simplification, Paul laid the basis for a religion of personal salvation through Christ and the ministry of the Church. After Paul Christianity developed both ceremonies, or sacraments, to bring the believer closer to Christ and an organization of priests to administer those sacraments. And the priests who administered sacraments were endowed with supernatural powers, Christianity gradually posited a distinction between clergy and laity much sharper than that which had existed in most earlier religions. This would become the basis of subsequent Western controversies and divisions between “Church” and “State.” In the meantime, Christianity’s emphasis on otherworldly salvation ministered by a priestly organization helped it greatly to grow and ultimately to flourish.

Christianity grew steadily in the first two centuries after Christ but only really began to flourish in the third. To understand this we must recall that the third century in Roman history was an “age of anxiety.” At a time of extreme political turbulence and economic hardship people understandably began to treat life on earth as an illusion and place their hopes in the beyond. The human body and the material world were more and more regarded as either evil or basically unreal. Several religions that emphasized the dominance of spiritual forces in this world and the absolute preeminence of otherworldly salvation gained hold as never before.

At first Christianity was just another of these religions; Mithraism and the Egyptian cults of Isis and Serapis were others. Why Christianity gained converts in the third century at the expense of its rivals? One of the simplest, but not the least important, is that even though Christianity borrowed elements from older religions – above all Judaism – it was new and hence possessed a sense of dynamism lacking among the Salvationist religions which had existed for centuries. Christianity’s dynamism was also enhanced by its rigorous exclusiveness. Hitherto people had adopted religions, piling one on another in order to feel more secure. The fact that the Christian God be worshiped alone made the new religion most appealing at a time when people were searching desperately for absolutes. Similarly, Christianity alone among its rivals had an all-embracing theory to explain evil on earth.

Although Christianity’s novelty, exclusiveness, and theory of evil help greatly to explain its success, probably the greatest attractions of the religion had to do with three other traits: its view of salvations, its social dimensions, and its organizational structure. Rival religions also promised an afterlife, but Christianity’s doctrine on this subject was the most far-reaching. As the religion grew it gained a few wealthy patrons, but it continued to find its greatest strength among the lower and middle classes in the Roman Empire. Moreover, while Christianity forbade women to become priests or discuss the faith and adopted many attitudes hostile to women, it at least accorded women some rights of participation in worship and equal hope for salvation. This fact gave it an advantage over Mithraism, which excluded women from its cult entirely. A final reason for Christianity’s success lay in its organization. By the third century it had developed an organized hierarchy of priests to direct the life of the faith. More than that, Christian congregations were tightly knit communities that provided services to their members.

The adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire was initiated by Constantine and completed by Theodosius. Constantine did not yet make Christianity the official religion of the empire, but he clearly favored it. He hoped that Christianity might bring a spiritual unity to an empire that had been badly demoralized and religiously divided. The masses were easily converted to the faith once it was supported by the state. Substantial numbers, too, simply followed the lead of authority. With state support Christians quickly became an overwhelming majority.